EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 8283
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
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TheYango
United States47024 Posts
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a_flayer
Netherlands2826 Posts
On August 03 2017 02:06 IyMoon wrote: Why does he do this? All he had to do was sign, shut his mouth, and let it go away. Now we have to talk about how he acts like an ass when he does not get his way Would you look favorably on signing something that looks to curb powers that you think you deserve to have? | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On August 03 2017 02:12 a_flayer wrote: Would you sign something that looks to curb powers that you think you deserve to have? He signed it. He just decided to mouth off about it and tell congress they are stupid. The president is nothing without congress, so it isn't a great play. It is drawing attention to how weak he is. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
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TheTenthDoc
United States9561 Posts
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IyMoon
United States1249 Posts
On August 03 2017 02:12 a_flayer wrote: Would you look favorably on signing something that looks to curb powers that you think you deserve to have? No, but I also know the value of keeping my mouth shut | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45351 Posts
On August 03 2017 02:08 TheYango wrote: To be fair, I think it would have been totally ignorable up to the last sentence. Nothing up to that point is particularly outrageous. He just had to inject that little bit of his ego into it. I'm sure someone else wrote the entire statement for him up until that last sentence. He doesn't know how to use the word "encroach" correctly... let alone twice. It's like someone else creates an ice cream sundae for him, and Trump begs the sundae maker to let him put the cherry on top... and then instead of a cherry, he just shits all over the ice cream sundae. | ||
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ShoCkeyy
7815 Posts
On August 03 2017 01:40 LegalLord wrote: Our president signed the sanctions bill. Huzzah. Which also included an attack to our 4th amendment, and civil forfeitures. "Oh is that gun yours? Not anymore" - It's how Fidel did it. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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KwarK
United States43677 Posts
On August 03 2017 02:07 Nevuk wrote: They weren't being overpaid. The average american worker is being underpaid, but the only way that actually gets addressed is by unions, who have had a century long smear campaign run against them by the powerful in the country. Yes and no. On a global scale I can't see how the average American is especially underpaid. Go back a hundred years and the United States is the single greatest industrial power on earth by far. Vast quantities of coal, steel, oil, rubber, manufactured goods (such as cars) etc, all flowing out of the United States to a world filled with desperate consumers. A day's labour in America really was worth far more than that of people in other countries. It made sense that for a day of work in America you could buy the proceeds of a month of work elsewhere, the American worker's labour was magnified over and over by advantages of mechanization and advanced logistics that simply did not exist elsewhere. Americans really were that much more productive than other places, regardless of whether or not they had a college education. It didn't matter that unskilled labourers in other parts of the world could potentially learn the same skills as an American, without the steel mill, the coal mines, the railways, the ports, the shipping network, the banks, the bureaucrats, the financiers, the insurers, the brokers, the politicians and so forth, it was meaningless. These days some Americans still do have a unique competitive advantage against the rest of the world. Silicon Valley is a good example of that. But most of them, well, I'm not entirely sure they deserve to be trading an hour of their labour for sneakers that represent a hundred hours labour for people on the other side of the world. Myself included. Right now my skills mostly consist of not showing up late enough to get fired (a limit I am constantly exploring). My quality of life, when compared to my productivity, is absolutely staggering. I essentially exist as a leech. America does not trade fairly. The basis of America's trade is that American labour is worth many times more than that of people elsewhere in the world. That's what underpins the high American standard of living. It used to be true across the entire nation for all workers. These days, it's true in a few specific sectors that rely upon specific conditions to flourish that cannot be easily replicated, such as finance. The rest, well, that's just coasting off of established advantages, such as the profits of labour from around the world flowing back to American capital invested, and trickling through society due to the tax base. Historically, sure, Americans earn less now than they used to (after adjusting for inflation etc). But they also produce far less value. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On August 03 2017 02:25 ShoCkeyy wrote: Which also included an attack to our 4th amendment, and civil forfeitures. "Oh is that gun yours? Not anymore" - It's how Fidel did it. Wasn’t that super successful because there was judicial branch to challenge his actions? Because we have one of those and it still works most of the time. | ||
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
On August 03 2017 02:31 KwarK wrote: Yes and no. On a global scale I can't see how the average American is especially underpaid. Go back a hundred years and the United States is the single greatest industrial power on earth by far. Vast quantities of coal, steel, oil, rubber, manufactured goods (such as cars) etc, all flowing out of the United States to a world filled with desperate consumers. A day's labour in America really was worth far more than that of people in other countries. It made sense that for a day of work in America you could buy the proceeds of a month of work elsewhere, the American worker's labour was magnified over and over by advantages of mechanization and advanced logistics that simply did not exist elsewhere. Americans really were that much more productive than other places, regardless of whether or not they had a college education. It didn't matter that unskilled labourers in other parts of the world could potentially learn the same skills as an American, without the steel mill, the coal mines, the railways, the ports, the shipping network, the banks, the bureaucrats, the financiers, the insurers, the brokers, the politicians and so forth, it was meaningless. These days some Americans still do have a unique competitive advantage against the rest of the world. Silicon Valley is a good example of that. But most of them, well, I'm not entirely sure they deserve to be trading an hour of their labour for sneakers that represent a hundred hours labour for people on the other side of the world. Myself included. Right now my skills mostly consist of not showing up late enough to get fired (a limit I am constantly exploring). My quality of life, when compared to my productivity, is absolutely staggering. I essentially exist as a leech. America does not trade fairly. The basis of America's trade is that American labour is worth many times more than that of people elsewhere in the world. That's what underpins the high American standard of living. It used to be true across the entire nation for all workers. These days, it's true in a few specific sectors that rely upon specific conditions to flourish that cannot be easily replicated, such as finance. The rest, well, that's just coasting off of established advantages, such as the profits of labour from around the world flowing back to American capital invested, and trickling through society due to the tax base. Historically, sure, Americans earn less now than they used to (after adjusting for inflation etc). But they also produce far less value. CEO pay gap is crazy compared to how it used to be, so it's not entirely pure globalization at issue here | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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a_flayer
Netherlands2826 Posts
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/18/to-my-fellow-plutocrats-you-can-cure-trumpism-215347 Trumpism poses a threat to all Americans, but to the superrich most of all—because we have the most to lose. Sure, estate tax repeal might at first sound like win, but permanently creating a class of entitled aristocrats out of our own kids isn’t likely to improve our democracy, Meantime, if you aren’t already planning to give away the bulk of your fortune, you’re kind of a selfish jerk. That’s why, as counterintuitive as it might sound, the single best way to advance our own interests is to put more energy and money into advancing the economic interests of others. For example: by fighting to pass a $15 an hour minimum wage. $15? Crazy. I know. “That’s impossible,” one retail executive told me, “you can’t pay people that much.” “A $15 minimum wage is a job-killer,” sputtered the CEO of a large restaurant chain. “That will destroy the economy,” a manufacturing executive tut-tutted. Bullshit. It simply isn’t true that reasonable wages, decent labor protections and higher taxes on the rich would destroy the economy. Such were the norms back in the 1950s and 1960s when America’s growth rates were much higher—and there’s no empirical evidence to suggest that we couldn’t support similar norms today. The truth is that when economic elites like us say “We can’t afford to adopt these higher standards,” what we really mean is, “We’d prefer not to.” We like to frame our claims as objective truths, like the so-called “law” of supply and demand, but what we’re really asserting is a moral preference. We are simply defending the status quo. In 2014, when I last checked in with you all, my home city of Seattle had just passed a $15 minimum wage ordinance. The derision thrown my way for supporting this initiative was predictable. Pundits from the Chamber of Commerce, Forbes and AEI went crazy. “Job killer” they screamed. When wages rise, they said, employment plummets. Seattle we were told, would slide into the ocean. Restaurant closures. Epic job losses. Poverty. Economic Armageddon! Over the last three years we have implemented the policy in stages. Today, all large employers—those with more than 500 workers on their payroll—pay their workers $15 an hour (or $13.50 for those that provide medical benefits). Small employers pay between $11 and $13. Let me remind you that this minimum wage includes tipped workers, who now earn a remarkable 700 percent more than the federal tipped minimum of $2.13—as stark an experiment in whether higher wages kills jobs as has ever been attempted. So how is Seattle doing? When the ordinance passed in June of 2014, Seattle’s unemployment rate already stood at a healthy 4.5 percent; in April 2017, it hit a record low of 2.6 percent (basically a labor shortage). Seattle is now the fastest growing big city in America. Our restaurant industry is booming, second only to San Francisco in the number of eateries per capita, with food service industry job growth far outpacing the nation. Restaurateurs who once warned against raising wages are now complaining about how hard it is to fill the positions they have. Around the corner from my office, the sandwich chain Jimmy Johns is paying drivers $20 an hour plus tips, well above the mandated minimum rate. Are there many factors at play? Of course. But our city has proven that raising wages does not automatically kill jobs. In fact, of the 10 largest counties in the nation, King County, Washington had the largest year over year job growth in 2016 (3.8 percent), and was the only one of the 10 counties to see over-the-year growth in wages (3.5 percent). How can this be? Because that is how capitalism works. Because when workers earn more money, businesses have more customers and hire more workers. Because a thriving middle class is the source and cause of growth in capitalist economies. Because when restaurants pay restaurant workers enough so that even they can afford to eat in restaurants, it’s great for restaurants! | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7992 Posts
On August 03 2017 02:21 TheTenthDoc wrote: That last sentence is just hilarious. I don't think he's too happy about the fact that his polling numbers have taken at least a temporary hit post-healthcare and Trump Jr crap. Gotta praise himself as the dear leader to perk himself up! We've already noticed he thinks he can govern a nation like his crappy business, but is he planning to bankrupt the country 6 times? | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7992 Posts
On August 03 2017 02:31 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Interesting. https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/892792050898358274 It's also interesting that those numbers in GB are abysmal. Europe must have fucked up somewhere for its muslim population to be so much less tolerant on LGBT issues than its US counterpart. Or maybe simply different muslim population migrate to the US and the UK. | ||
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Doodsmack
United States7224 Posts
On August 03 2017 00:23 mozoku wrote: I also think you guys are forgetting, in the liberal rush to say "I told you so", that it wasn't a foregone conclusion in November that Trump's presidency was going to turn out like it has. Nobody was sure if he was going to act more presidential post-election, or what his policy priorities would be. The unknown Republican is better than the certainly bad Hillary, was a lot of R's perspective. If you think this is just me being an apologist (even though I didn't even vote for Trump), read the post-election news when everyone was eagerly awaiting for his Cabinet picks so they could try to get an idea of where his presidency would go. Nobody thought he was going to be firing half of them and marginalizing the other half in favor of his family. What was absolutely clear is that Trump is hopelessly feeble minded, and is never going to change. Pairing that with leadership of the country does not lead to good outcomes. It just was never conceivable that the man could run the country with any amount of smoothness. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all | ||
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a_flayer
Netherlands2826 Posts
On August 03 2017 03:05 Biff The Understudy wrote: It's also interesting that those numbers in GB are abysmal. Europe must have fucked up somewhere for its muslim population to be so much less tolerant on LGBT issues than its US counterpart. Or maybe simply different muslim population migrate to the US and the UK. IIRC UK has Muslim schools from age 4-18. Do those exist in the US? | ||
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KwarK
United States43677 Posts
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