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On September 08 2020 22:37 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2020 16:44 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 08 2020 14:00 LegalLord wrote:On September 08 2020 11:41 iamthedave wrote:On September 08 2020 10:06 StalkerTL wrote:On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). People who think polls are bad don't understand why 2016 went the way it did. The three main factors is not weighting by education properly, hence underestimating lower education turnout/support, the extremely low approvals and high disapprovals for both candidates as well as Comey's announcement. Polling can't really accurately measure the impact of extremely late and sudden movement, that's why polling in the immediate aftermath of the DNC and RNC is worthless. Its a reasonable stance that, looking at both candidate's low support, that the Comey announcement probably cost Clinton an election that was won by like 100,000 votes across the Midwest. She wasn't popular and there were high undecideds. 538 gave Trump around 30% of winning in 2016. If I told you had a 30% chance of winning $1 million and 70% chance of dying, would you take those odds? National polls basically got the popular vote correct. Most state polls were within the margin of error anyway despite that. There were number nerds who played pundit like Sam Wang, who gave you that stupid 101% percent Clinton win chance. Obviously those people were stupid then and stupid now. Polls got the 2018 midterm elections perfectly fine and within acceptable margins of error. The only real miss would be Florida. Getting the winner wrong in extremely tight races isn't a sign that polling is wrong, they only give you a good idea of public support at a given time. There's always a margin of error and being wrong by like 10,000 votes isn't a sign that your poll methodology is flawed. The biggest difference between Biden's lead in 2020 and Clinton's lead in 2016 is Clinton's huge disapprovals and the high number of undecideds. Biden is consistently hitting high 40s and low 50s and sometimes has a positive approval rating. Clinton could never break past the low 40s and had two digit net disapproval at all times. In an early New Mexico poll, Clinton was hitting the 30s (!) because Gary Johnson had the name recognition of being governor. 538 was absolutely correct to not overrate Clinton's chances because Trump is the political representation of the Three Stooges Syndrome, unlike a lot of other number nerds. Biden could lose in November but you'd be an idiot to bet against Biden if the election was held today and you had a gun pointed to your head. You would be hoping for systematic polling errors of around 6-10 points. That's astronomical and I don't buy the shy Trump voter narrative either seeing Trump supporters are anything but quiet. Even the 2019 UK General Election, the most recent time people bring up the shy Tory voter mythology, showed a comfortable ~10 point Conservative win from every pollster. I think lefties legitimately thought youth turnout would save them (shy young voter?) but the polling got the national numbers pretty right. And yet I sense zero enthusiasm from anyone to vote for Biden. It's voting against Trump. There's zero passion or even particularly interest. Barack Obama didn't win because people hated Mitt Romney, he won because people wanted him to win. When it comes to voting day, that matters. Despite Wegandi seemingly believing that voting is easy peasy lemon squeezy, it takes physical effort, even if not much, to vote. That's where enthusiasm matters. How many people are going to wake up on election day and think 'God I can't wait to vote for Biden! The future's gonna be great!' Even HERE, where the predominant left-aligned viewpoint is 'get Trump out no matter what' there is zero actual interest in Biden or enthusiasm towards the idea of a Biden presidency. People will be enthused to vote for Trump. I think Biden's only real advantage is Trump can't hold his preferred style of election by going around and having tons of campaign rallies because of COVID, so he can't rabble rouse the way he'd like to. Honestly, even Clinton had a much more substantial fanbase than Biden does. Plenty more people who actively disliked her, certainly, but a genuine fanbase as well. Biden is just the stand-in for an unenthusiastic mix of anti-Trump and the small fragments of surviving Obama nostalgia. There are plenty of party-line Democrats, the folks who constantly sing the song of how bad Trump is, who will vote against him no matter what. But there's also a substantial contingency of folks who will ask what Biden will do to make their own lives better, who might just fail to find anything given that Biden doesn't really stand for anything. The electoral college lead is fragile and there's plenty of time for polls to edge Trumpward (as they already kind of have). Feels like just a couple of bad Biden flubs is all it would take, and knowing Biden he might just deliver. This election is not really about Biden. It's a referendum about Trump, and his systematic destruction of every norm the american democracy is built upon. There will always be people who say "I don't like fish, I am pissed off I am not offered meat so I am not going to chose between eating fish and eating dog poo". But they are a minority. Most people are quite passionate about not being served dog poo. Again, some folks will sing the song of how bad Trump is and talk about tacky things like "unprecedented" and "democratic norms." These are people solidly within the Democratic party line, plus their international sympathizers such as yourself. The voters that matter, i.e. the swing / get-out-the-vote voters, are less concerned with how unsavory Trump is to listen to, and much more concerned with how the president, whoever he may be, will reverse the terminal decline in living conditions that they have experienced over the past few decades. Obama made promises that got him elected but largely failed to deliver, as did Trump, but Biden is hardly offering any change at all. And for them, is Biden really that much better than dog poo?
It's not about singing a song, it's just what's happening. You can think that democratic institutions, democratic norms, and the fabric of american society are not being damaged and that it's just a democratic narrative, but that's how the whole world sees what is happening.
I know a lot of people hurt and that america has major, major problems, but when you write i feel like you talk about the last Mad Max rather than anything resembling America. "Terminal decline in living conditions". Here are sone number about the average incomes of americans:
https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/average-income-in-us-14852178
Now, among the things that really are disastrous you have stuff like the lack of a universal healthcare and people being uninsured. Oh wait that's exactly what the democrats have been working on fixing against immense opposition by the republicans.
Anyway. I don't know... This hyperbolic stuff of you guys doesn't help, but that's just my opinion. The idea that it literally couldn't get worse in America is a bit grotesque to my ear, and paints reality in a black and white lens that doesn't allow much thinking at all.
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No one is saying it couldn't get worse in the US? It's likely going to get much worse before it gets any better.
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Northern Ireland26771 Posts
How do people earn those incomes and what are the locked in expenditures from things like rental costs, student loan debt and healthcare costs?
Income is rather abstracted from the day-to-day living experience of many people.
The (intentional) rise of huge amounts of people in unstable employment, irregular hours, the whole gig economy etc, well it’s not good for a whole swathe of individuals.
People have lives to live. Now they might average out on the same income as someone doing a comparable job on a 9-5 basis but the daily stress and how it bleeds into every aspect of one’s life when you’re relying on overtime hours, or having to work 2 jobs with rotating schedules is much more pronounced.
I think this is a bit neglected in discourse around relative poverty.
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On September 09 2020 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:
I just have to point out there's literally millions of potential voters to the left of Bernie and right of communism. Biden could easily win promising universal healthcare amid a pandemic and decriminalizing cannabis completely. Two mainstream majority supported positions that are extremely popular with his base.
Democrat centrism isn't a matter of enlightened electoral strategy, it's ideological and in opposition of many of the people they claim to represent. When those people point it out they are shamed for not accepting that as the best they can hope for (typically by people relatively comfortable with the status quo).
Democrat centrism isn't a matter of enlightened electoral strategy, it's ideological and in opposition of many of the people they claim to represent
I dont think the centrist position is ideological per se though i guess you could see it that way,the ideology of staying away from extremes and in favor of a stable society (which then often leads to a somewhat conservative aproach)
The centrists have the least outspoken ideology in general and are often prepared to make compromises when it comes to their positions,contrary to the more extreme positions which are less willing to compromise.
Its above all pragmatic i think.
When it comes to campaigning it is 100% electoral strategy,what else would it be? Most voters they are in the centre.
What politicians say during campaigns is also very different from what they do once in office. Its 2 completely seperate things,the campaign and the politics once in office.
It is in opposition of some of the people they see as their base and who vote for them yes that is true but that is inevitable with a 2 candidate system that devides the political preferences of all people in 2. The same can be said for trump when it comes to blue colar workers and the healthcare system.
The idea that 1 candidate can fully cover all the political wishes of halve the county is wrong,its simply impossible.
I dont think things will get much worse in the usa,what is going on now is the peak and probably already past the peak. Maybe after the election there will be a final outburst if trump wins but i do think that by next year things will have calmed down considerably.
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On September 09 2020 19:05 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2020 22:37 LegalLord wrote:On September 08 2020 16:44 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 08 2020 14:00 LegalLord wrote:On September 08 2020 11:41 iamthedave wrote:On September 08 2020 10:06 StalkerTL wrote:On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). People who think polls are bad don't understand why 2016 went the way it did. The three main factors is not weighting by education properly, hence underestimating lower education turnout/support, the extremely low approvals and high disapprovals for both candidates as well as Comey's announcement. Polling can't really accurately measure the impact of extremely late and sudden movement, that's why polling in the immediate aftermath of the DNC and RNC is worthless. Its a reasonable stance that, looking at both candidate's low support, that the Comey announcement probably cost Clinton an election that was won by like 100,000 votes across the Midwest. She wasn't popular and there were high undecideds. 538 gave Trump around 30% of winning in 2016. If I told you had a 30% chance of winning $1 million and 70% chance of dying, would you take those odds? National polls basically got the popular vote correct. Most state polls were within the margin of error anyway despite that. There were number nerds who played pundit like Sam Wang, who gave you that stupid 101% percent Clinton win chance. Obviously those people were stupid then and stupid now. Polls got the 2018 midterm elections perfectly fine and within acceptable margins of error. The only real miss would be Florida. Getting the winner wrong in extremely tight races isn't a sign that polling is wrong, they only give you a good idea of public support at a given time. There's always a margin of error and being wrong by like 10,000 votes isn't a sign that your poll methodology is flawed. The biggest difference between Biden's lead in 2020 and Clinton's lead in 2016 is Clinton's huge disapprovals and the high number of undecideds. Biden is consistently hitting high 40s and low 50s and sometimes has a positive approval rating. Clinton could never break past the low 40s and had two digit net disapproval at all times. In an early New Mexico poll, Clinton was hitting the 30s (!) because Gary Johnson had the name recognition of being governor. 538 was absolutely correct to not overrate Clinton's chances because Trump is the political representation of the Three Stooges Syndrome, unlike a lot of other number nerds. Biden could lose in November but you'd be an idiot to bet against Biden if the election was held today and you had a gun pointed to your head. You would be hoping for systematic polling errors of around 6-10 points. That's astronomical and I don't buy the shy Trump voter narrative either seeing Trump supporters are anything but quiet. Even the 2019 UK General Election, the most recent time people bring up the shy Tory voter mythology, showed a comfortable ~10 point Conservative win from every pollster. I think lefties legitimately thought youth turnout would save them (shy young voter?) but the polling got the national numbers pretty right. And yet I sense zero enthusiasm from anyone to vote for Biden. It's voting against Trump. There's zero passion or even particularly interest. Barack Obama didn't win because people hated Mitt Romney, he won because people wanted him to win. When it comes to voting day, that matters. Despite Wegandi seemingly believing that voting is easy peasy lemon squeezy, it takes physical effort, even if not much, to vote. That's where enthusiasm matters. How many people are going to wake up on election day and think 'God I can't wait to vote for Biden! The future's gonna be great!' Even HERE, where the predominant left-aligned viewpoint is 'get Trump out no matter what' there is zero actual interest in Biden or enthusiasm towards the idea of a Biden presidency. People will be enthused to vote for Trump. I think Biden's only real advantage is Trump can't hold his preferred style of election by going around and having tons of campaign rallies because of COVID, so he can't rabble rouse the way he'd like to. Honestly, even Clinton had a much more substantial fanbase than Biden does. Plenty more people who actively disliked her, certainly, but a genuine fanbase as well. Biden is just the stand-in for an unenthusiastic mix of anti-Trump and the small fragments of surviving Obama nostalgia. There are plenty of party-line Democrats, the folks who constantly sing the song of how bad Trump is, who will vote against him no matter what. But there's also a substantial contingency of folks who will ask what Biden will do to make their own lives better, who might just fail to find anything given that Biden doesn't really stand for anything. The electoral college lead is fragile and there's plenty of time for polls to edge Trumpward (as they already kind of have). Feels like just a couple of bad Biden flubs is all it would take, and knowing Biden he might just deliver. This election is not really about Biden. It's a referendum about Trump, and his systematic destruction of every norm the american democracy is built upon. There will always be people who say "I don't like fish, I am pissed off I am not offered meat so I am not going to chose between eating fish and eating dog poo". But they are a minority. Most people are quite passionate about not being served dog poo. Again, some folks will sing the song of how bad Trump is and talk about tacky things like "unprecedented" and "democratic norms." These are people solidly within the Democratic party line, plus their international sympathizers such as yourself. The voters that matter, i.e. the swing / get-out-the-vote voters, are less concerned with how unsavory Trump is to listen to, and much more concerned with how the president, whoever he may be, will reverse the terminal decline in living conditions that they have experienced over the past few decades. Obama made promises that got him elected but largely failed to deliver, as did Trump, but Biden is hardly offering any change at all. And for them, is Biden really that much better than dog poo? It's not about singing a song, it's just what's happening. You can think that democratic institutions, democratic norms, and the fabric of american society are not being damaged and that it's just a democratic narrative, but that's how the whole world sees what is happening. I know a lot of people hurt and that america has major, major problems, but when you write i feel like you talk about the last Mad Max rather than anything resembling America. "Terminal decline in living conditions". Here are sone number about the average incomes of americans: https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/average-income-in-us-14852178Now, among the things that really are disastrous you have stuff like the lack of a universal healthcare and people being uninsured. Oh wait that's exactly what the democrats have been working on fixing against immense opposition by the republicans. Anyway. I don't know... This hyperbolic stuff of you guys doesn't help, but that's just my opinion. The idea that it literally couldn't get worse in America is a bit grotesque to my ear, and paints reality in a black and white lens that doesn't allow much thinking at all.
Your dislike for Trump and his ilk, while understandable in the abstract, does seem to blind you very much to the reasons why he has the popularity he does. I say that despite not being much of a fan of Trump myself, though able to sympathize with people who are.
Your article has a little more nuance than the point you make itself, which is equivalent to "Bill Gates walks into a bar; average income of bar patrons increases significantly." But a better one is probably this one: America’s Shrinking Middle Class: A Close Look at Changes Within Metropolitan Areas. It's a long study, but it's worth highlighting some of the major points made or alluded to within the study:
1. Increase in both lower-income and upper-income individuals/households/cities/etc. Stratification of income, really. Large wealth disparities is a common reality of nations that are very third-world in nature.
2. High income is most prevalent in areas where a six-figure salary is close to poverty status, i.e. overpriced cities like NY and the Bay Area. When a tiny apartment is $4k, making $100k is pretty mediocre.
3. Generally speaking, the people that do best are those that have accumulated lots of assets like real estate and stock. High-paid folks without assets, like educated individuals with high debt loads, are doing "not too bad" and are likely to insist that things just need to incrementally improve, but on the macro level it's obviously getting worse for them.
So unless you're solidly in the (3) group, and I'd wager that "educated but asset-poor" is an over-represented group here, it should be obvious that "terminal decline" is a good descriptor. Some self-awareness also makes the point obvious.
Not to say that Trumpian policies like large corporate tax cuts are a huge help, of course. But Democrats fighting for items like universal healthcare? My ass, they're in staunch opposition to items like that because they're as corporate-friendly as the Republicans and are far, far more supportive of the Trump tax cuts than of any change that will meaningfully impact the very large, profitable insurance industry in the country. The left certainly supports universal healthcare, but they're not really popular with the Democrats right now.
What Trump brings, though, isn't so much policies that help, but an acknowledgment that problems are real, which is clearly difficult to come by outside of the right/left fringe. I remember Rick Perry had a very similar "make America great again" line that was heavily panned because it's taboo to assert that things aren't already great in the US. Hillary was evidently in the same boat. But the fact that you can't see the problem says more about how observant you are of the problems than that they don't exist. And you don't have to be a fan of Trump or his policies to understand that the reasons he has popularity go much deeper than the standard feel-good ones from the "destroying democratic norms" crowd.
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Here's a proposal to help fix the US democratic system that I think is simple and effective:
Constitutional Amendment(or just a law, but I don't think that would have the power) that for any vote involved in a federal election (such as President, Senator or Representative) there must be 3 ranked preference options, or as many options as there are candidates, whichever is lower.
I think this could work because it's such a simple change that doesn't really effect the overall system, so people won't be worried about power grabs, but makes every single election in the country competitive, and changes each race from the 2 party duopoly shitting on the other party, to them having to actually prove they're a better option than other potential parties that emerge.
I'm aware it would be hard to implement since those in power are the same who would not like to see it implemented, but it's possible there would be a lot of popular support for it. As a primary candidate you would be able to pick up a lot of the policy wonk votes and probably a lot of disgruntled Bernie supporters as well as the non-automatic voters. In the general you would be able to pick up a lot of swing voters and stretch a bit farther left at the same time.
Getting the amendment actually passed would probably be very difficult because the people who hold power would need to approve of giving it away, which seems difficult. Maybe you could combine intimidation, threats and blackmail to force them to vote for the amendment? Though that seems like it would be hard to get to work for so many Representatives and Senators.
What are your thoughts on this?
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I still remember Republicans losing their shit that poor people in the US had refrigerators. There's several overlapping things at play but I think it's important to recognize the role that liberals clinging to meritocracy myths plays as a large driver.
You'll find people on the ostensible left echoing Republican talking points about how impoverished (or nearly so) people need better education and skills rather than recognize that "essential workers" like "burger flippers" and "stock boys" need remuneration that reflects the essential role in society they fill.
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Lol, so now Barr's DOJ wants to be the one to defend Trump in the E. Jean Carroll libel lawsuit after he called her a liar last year, since he answered that while holding elected office. Even though the facts predate his election by far.
They want to move the matter from state court to federal court to get involved.
This is complicating what she asks : getting a sample of Trump's DNA, which he argues is a huge time burden since he is the president (that doesn't stop him from going golfing though, I believe a DNA sample is a few seconds, top).
I guess that means the DOJ is going to defend all members of Congress accused of sexual harassment and denying it. Not ?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/08/trump-defamation-justice-department-e-jean-carroll-rape-accusation
note : I know there is a difference between a lawsuit directly about the misconduct, and a libel lawsuit since statute of limitations have expired for the main topic, no need to point that out. It's still absurd.
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Northern Ireland26771 Posts
On September 09 2020 23:43 GreenHorizons wrote:
I still remember Republicans losing their shit that poor people in the US had refrigerators. There's several overlapping things at play but I think it's important to recognize the role that liberals clinging to meritocracy myths plays as a large driver.
You'll find people on the ostensible left echoing Republican talking points about how impoverished (or nearly so) people need better education and skills rather than recognize that "essential workers" like "burger flippers" and "stock boys" need remuneration that reflects the essential role in society they fill.
Stock boys representing. I’m a little underemployed for my skillset I guess. Well, vastly, but hey mental illness can do that. Looking up the curve a little I’m not really sure what many of my friends are doing that’s particularly beneficial for society, hell one has said if it wasn’t for the 12k pay bump he got doing marketing and social media optimisation he’d be crushingly depressed with the bullshit he had to do as a job.
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NC being heavily contested in the election, this is very relevant currently : a court judged that the state cannot remove the right to vote from felons having served their sentence but still owing court fees, and advanced (not as the sole argument) that that statute was initially intended to be discriminatory, and is unconstitutional, potentially putting into question the whole statute, which also includes parole and probation.
At the time, Democrats argued that felon disenfranchisement was necessary to stop “the honest vote of a white man” from being “off-set by the vote of some negro.” Its purpose, alongside other Jim Crow measures like the literacy test, was to “secure white supremacy.”
For now, 100k additional people can now vote (42% being black), and 70k might in the future. An appeal would encouter a very liberal court.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/north-carolina-felon-disenfranchisement.html
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Hm, i had assumed the prices for food in the US to be cheaper compared to germany and had already written how this means that burgre flippers will have a hard time to have living wages. But, i was wrong. Prices for groceries are apparently by far cheaper in Germany, so, you should be able to pay your burger flippers just fine. In theory at least.
www.numbeo.com
I personally believe society needs to set prices to livable levels for everyone, not industries. Either by accepting fair prices for the consumed goods or services and implementing a minimum wage, or by directly paying everyone a minimum wage regardless of their job, aka base income. I would prefer the base income, because it would relieve pressure from workers and allow them to dctate a little more how they want to work.
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On September 10 2020 01:22 Broetchenholer wrote:Hm, i had assumed the prices for food in the US to be cheaper compared to germany and had already written how this means that burgre flippers will have a hard time to have living wages. But, i was wrong. Prices for groceries are apparently by far cheaper in Germany, so, you should be able to pay your burger flippers just fine. In theory at least. www.numbeo.comI personally believe society needs to set prices to livable levels for everyone, not industries. Either by accepting fair prices for the consumed goods or services and implementing a minimum wage, or by directly paying everyone a minimum wage regardless of their job, aka base income. I would prefer the base income, because it would relieve pressure from workers and allow them to dctate a little more how they want to work.
WTF why do I live in the US. It honestly feels like the only reason I'm here is my family.
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Trump apparently told Bob Woodward in private that he was purposely downplaying COVID, way back in Feb and March.
WHYYYYYY!? To two things : why tell Bob Woodward, of all people, and why do it? Also, there are apparently tapes of it.
President Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and "more deadly than even your strenuous flus," and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in his new book "Rage."
"This is deadly stuff," Trump told Woodward on February 7.
In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. "Pretty amazing," Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times "more deadly" than the flu.
Trump's admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time insisting that the virus was "going to disappear" and "all work out fine."
The book, using Trump's own words, depicts a President who has betrayed the public trust and the most fundamental responsibilities of his office. In "Rage," Trump says the job of a president is "to keep our country safe." But in early February, Trump told Woodward he knew how deadly the virus was, and in March, admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public.
"I wanted to always play it down," Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."
Audio of Trump saying it on CNN.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump-coronavirus/index.html
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Hm, i had assumed the prices for food in the US to be cheaper compared to germany and had already written how this means that burgre flippers will have a hard time to have living wages.
This is accepted dogma in the US and no one (including pundits/journalists) bothers to check. Where does all that surplus value go...?
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On September 10 2020 01:26 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2020 01:22 Broetchenholer wrote:Hm, i had assumed the prices for food in the US to be cheaper compared to germany and had already written how this means that burgre flippers will have a hard time to have living wages. But, i was wrong. Prices for groceries are apparently by far cheaper in Germany, so, you should be able to pay your burger flippers just fine. In theory at least. www.numbeo.comI personally believe society needs to set prices to livable levels for everyone, not industries. Either by accepting fair prices for the consumed goods or services and implementing a minimum wage, or by directly paying everyone a minimum wage regardless of their job, aka base income. I would prefer the base income, because it would relieve pressure from workers and allow them to dctate a little more how they want to work. WTF why do I live in the US. It honestly feels like the only reason I'm here is my family.
Takes a lot of money to move countries. And if you're wealthy, the US is a pretty good place to be, so you're not going to be chomping at the bit to leave.
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On September 10 2020 01:22 Broetchenholer wrote:Hm, i had assumed the prices for food in the US to be cheaper compared to germany and had already written how this means that burgre flippers will have a hard time to have living wages. But, i was wrong. Prices for groceries are apparently by far cheaper in Germany, so, you should be able to pay your burger flippers just fine. In theory at least. www.numbeo.comI personally believe society needs to set prices to livable levels for everyone, not industries. Either by accepting fair prices for the consumed goods or services and implementing a minimum wage, or by directly paying everyone a minimum wage regardless of their job, aka base income. I would prefer the base income, because it would relieve pressure from workers and allow them to dctate a little more how they want to work.
I checked this page and numbers for Poland look pretty strange. Especially the 0,33l water. Even in Warsaw it doesnt cost so much, maybe in Airport ....
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Yes, I cannot vouch for the comparison, it might be misleading or wrong. Especially because it does not reinforce my prejudice that Americans are only buying super cheap processed food in bulk.  but even if it is true median income is higher in the US as well and not all of it is due to the top being ultra rich. So, prices being higher as well would make sense.
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EPT
