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On October 29 2020 22:50 GreenHorizons wrote:
fwiw Almost 200 years after his death Joseph Smith has more than half a dozen devout followers sitting in the House/Senate. One of em even won a presidential nomination. Harry Reid (former Democrat Senate leader) was also a follower of Joseph Smith.
I mean, the majority of them are devout followers of Jesus Christ (or at least they say they are). Can't wait for the day when that's not true anymore.
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On October 29 2020 22:33 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2020 22:11 Starlightsun wrote:
He needs to hire better writers. There is a bit of book of Mormon feel to the story, Joseph Smith find the golden tablets with all info from god on them, then he some how loses them and has to do his best to recite them from memory. This allows it to be super hard to disprove (but hard for most to believe) and he can change it as needed since he is just reciting it from memory. If Tucker starts reciting parts of them from his memory we will know where his writers got it from!
lol yeah. Trump seems well on his way to founding a religion, Tucker can be his apostle. If Jospeh Smith and L Ron Hubbard can do it I don't see why DJT can't. It's a good transition for washed up conmen and it seems America is fertile ground.
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On October 30 2020 03:51 plasmidghost wrote:
Harris County is doing something new this year and having eight 24-hour voting locations tonight only. It'll be great for a lot of our night shift workers and I'm hoping that it drives up our already historically high turnout
Also, I still can't believe that people think Trump would be good for oil when this is an extremely common occurrence here and has been since he took office
Wow-- that's awesome. 24h polling is a really cool idea, and pretty simple to execute.
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So we got an "annualized" growth of 33.1% this last quarter - an amazing recovery or something. Admittedly the entire concept of annualized growth seems downright fraudulent, so it's better to actually mention the quarterly growth rates: 7.4% up this quarter after a 9.0% drop last quarter. I saw this Twitter chain that seemed to be a nice take:
On top of all the things mentioned here... it's unsettling to think about how much of GDP right now is directly the result of stimulus spending that can't last forever, even if we do get a sixth tranche of government handouts.
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I don't think Biden's statement about transitioning away from oil will hurt him as much as some people theorized.
Even oil workers have to know that in 20 years we'll be using oil less than we are now, and that even with no governmental changes that their jobs are probably going to be taken by machines (which is what happened to coal).
If Hillary hadn't made her gaffe about coal miners, I'm pretty sure no one would be thinking of it in the same way, and I think that's a bad analogy.
It's nothing like Hillary's statement where she literally said she was going to take jobs from coal miners and put coal mines out of business.
Even she still thinks that was her worst mistake, though the context makes it nowhere near as bad (she meant market forces were going to be doing it when she said "we". Which is true. What's put coal miners out of work are machines and renewable energy/gas prices dropping).
Oil workers are also a lot more varied than coal miners - there are a lot more positions in oil rigs and companies than in mines, which leads to a larger diversity of education (the requirements for entry into both fields are similar, but there are a lot more uses for a 4 year degree in oil than there in coal).
It's also not generational in the same way : most coal miners are doing it because their family before them did it, and it's the only job in the area. A lot of oil people came into their areas in the last 10-15 years when the US oil business started booming after fracking.
On top of all the things mentioned here... it's unsettling to think about how much of GDP right now is directly the result of stimulus spending that can't last forever, even if we do get a sixth tranche of government handouts.
There's no real other way to deal with a pandemic in a modern economy, unfortunately.
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On October 30 2020 04:43 LegalLord wrote:On top of all the things mentioned here... it's unsettling to think about how much of GDP right now is directly the result of stimulus spending that can't last forever, even if we do get a sixth tranche of government handouts. Surely this is the best kind of situation for stimulus spending tho.
A 'temporary' unnatural effect on markets being counteracted by pumping money into the economy to manage and mitigate the impact.
Once Covid is over, which sadly will take longer then anyone would like, the economy ideally continues on as if nothing happened.
It makes a lot more sense for dealing with a pandemic then an economic crash because of underlying issues in the market that get hidden and then ignored until the next crash.
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On October 30 2020 04:51 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +
On top of all the things mentioned here... it's unsettling to think about how much of GDP right now is directly the result of stimulus spending that can't last forever, even if we do get a sixth tranche of government handouts.
There's no real other way to deal with a pandemic in a modern economy, unfortunately.
At any rate, the rate of GDP decline would be doubled in Q2 without stimulus, and would potentially be a flat zero in Q3 without stimulus. Maybe it juices the numbers, but it hides a fundamental decay in the productive economy.
The 2008 stimulus also made the critical mistake of not being followed by an unprecedented multi-decade economic expansion, so out here in 2020 we're in serious trouble dealing with both a greatly expanded debt and an economy still reeling from stimulus-driven dysfunction. Looking at anything other than the "annualized" GDP quickly shows that.
On October 30 2020 04:58 Gorsameth wrote:
Once Covid is over, which sadly will take longer then anyone would like, the economy ideally continues on as if nothing happened.
It hasn't been made public yet, but this option is very much off the table by now.
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Pandemic stimulus and the federal response to the '08 financial crisis have in common that both put asset value inflation ahead of everything else (even if only collaterally), and while that looks nice when the economy is understood using certain metrics like GDP, the funneling of wealth into the pockets of only certain people and entities that occurs is clearly a huge problem.
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On October 30 2020 04:55 plasmidghost wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2020 04:51 Nevuk wrote:I don't think Biden's statement about transitioning away from oil will hurt him as much as some people theorized. Even oil workers have to know that in 20 years we'll be using oil less than we are now, and that even with no governmental changes that their jobs are probably going to be taken by machines (which is what happened to coal). If Hillary hadn't made her gaffe about coal miners, I'm pretty sure no one would be thinking of it in the same way, and I think that's a bad analogy. It's nothing like Hillary's statement where she literally said she was going to take jobs from coal miners and put coal mines out of business. Even she still thinks that was her worst mistake, though the context makes it nowhere near as bad (she meant market forces were going to be doing it when she said "we". Which is true. What's put coal miners out of work are machines and renewable energy/gas prices dropping). Oil workers are also a lot more varied than coal miners - there are a lot more positions in oil rigs and companies than in mines, which leads to a larger diversity of education (the requirements for entry into both fields are similar, but there are a lot more uses for a 4 year degree in oil than there in coal). It's also not generational in the same way : most coal miners are doing it because their family before them did it, and it's the only job in the area. A lot of oil people came into their areas in the last 10-15 years when the US oil business started booming after fracking.
On top of all the things mentioned here... it's unsettling to think about how much of GDP right now is directly the result of stimulus spending that can't last forever, even if we do get a sixth tranche of government handouts.
There's no real other way to deal with a pandemic in a modern economy, unfortunately. It seems like that's barely made a dent in Texas and in PA. I was pretty nervous when he dropped that line that it was going to cause some damage but it appears those anxieties were unfounded
Green renewables are catching on with a majority of the American populace from opinion polling I've seen. Even oil companies are acknowledging that they must transition out now and are taking some baby steps into clean renewables (though their actual investments and lobbying say something else). Besides, if you were the kind of person who tipped based on Biden's statements on oil and fracking from the last debate when he was already vocal on energy and fossil fuels, you were always going to be a Trump voter.
I think people are letting Trump and Republican talking points dominate far more than they deserve. Biden's platform and image have been very resilient throughout the campaign. Things that were said to sink his chances like rioting and violence during the Floyd protests, Kenosha, his verbal flubs, "he's a socialist Trojan horse with dementia!", Tara Reade, Hunter Biden - none of them stuck.
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On October 30 2020 05:08 farvacola wrote:
Pandemic stimulus and the federal response to the '08 financial crisis have in common that both put asset value inflation ahead of everything else (even if only collaterally), and while that looks nice when the economy is understood using certain metrics like GDP, the funneling of wealth into the pockets of only certain people and entities that occurs is clearly a huge problem.
The really strange this is, the economy really would fail if there's even a moderate pullback in asset prices. But instead of deleveraging, the approach of choice appears to be simply to prop those prices up by continuing to reduce the cost of money with stimulus and QE. The sum of the events of 2020 may finally be the logical conclusion of many years of bad policy being conducted globally.
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On October 30 2020 05:08 farvacola wrote:
Pandemic stimulus and the federal response to the '08 financial crisis have in common that both put asset value inflation ahead of everything else (even if only collaterally), and while that looks nice when the economy is understood using certain metrics like GDP, the funneling of wealth into the pockets of only certain people and entities that occurs is clearly a huge problem.
Don't think most people appreciate the the scale of the massive wealth transfer to a handful of wealthy people that's happened through covid and the "relief" bills.
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On October 30 2020 06:23 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2020 05:08 farvacola wrote:
Pandemic stimulus and the federal response to the '08 financial crisis have in common that both put asset value inflation ahead of everything else (even if only collaterally), and while that looks nice when the economy is understood using certain metrics like GDP, the funneling of wealth into the pockets of only certain people and entities that occurs is clearly a huge problem. Don't think most people appreciate the the scale of the massive wealth transfer to a handful of wealthy people that's happened through covid and the "relief" bills.
The transfer of wealth issue in general seems to me so often meant with a blase, "thats just how it is, don't like it leave."
Frustrating beyond words.
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While the covid relief bill certainly didn't help, it's not exactly anything different than a continuation of a trend. Any financial aid for the past forty years has always disproportionately benefited the wealthy.
The only unique thing was that we put Trump in charge of distributing it and I think something like 400 billion? (I think it was at least 100 billion of it) went missing.
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On October 30 2020 06:28 Nevuk wrote:
While the covid relief bill certainly didn't help, it's not exactly anything different than a continuation of a trend. Any financial aid for the past forty years has always disproportionately benefited the wealthy.
The only unique thing was that we put Trump in charge of distributing it and I think something like 400 billion? (I think it was at least 100 billion of it) went missing.
I guess one luxury of them passing unanimously is we get to blame both parties for how trash they were.
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sure, we do, but the majority (ok playing a little loosely,) swallows the pill that this is what it takes to give what minuscule is left over to the people that actually need it. i mean, after all, businesses are people too.
this is the crap that really leaves me the most cynical.
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On October 30 2020 07:04 brian wrote:
sure, we do, but the majority (ok playing a little loosely,) swallows the pill that this is what it takes to give what minuscule is left over to the people that actually need it. i mean, after all, businesses are people too.
this is the crap that really leaves me the most cynical.
Its kind of like the caste system in the island Aumaua societies in Pillars of Eternity, lol.
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EPT
