US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2910

On December 24 2020 22:00 farvacola wrote:
For reasons tightly bound up with issues of licensing, professional responsibility and ethics minded folks in legal circles are watching the beginnings of sanctions proceedings against Trump's lawyers eagerly. Many are rightfully dissatisfied with how low the bar has been set.

On December 24 2020 17:25 pmh wrote:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-homelessness-i/in-pandemic-americas-tent-cities-a-grim-future-grows-darker-idUSKBN28X19Y

This,is so depressing and sad. How can a society with so much wealth allow this to happen.
These people could get somewhat decent housing,improving their chances to find a job,at virtually no cost.
They could even be given supplies and with the help and supervision of contracters build shelters and homes for themselves in a similar way as in some 3rd world countries and foreign aid but its not happening. There is something very wrong with the system.
And these people they dont complain,americans are not quick to complain in general. They take it as it comes which is a remarkable feat. They accept their situation and they dont blame anyone. Their spirit is admirable but it could be so much better.

Survival of the fittest and fierce competition,creating a better and better economy and society in theory. But is it really working that way when more and more people cant cope and fall further and further behind?

The most sadening thought about this is that it doesnt have to be this way. There is so much wealth available,the pie is so big. Helping these people wouldnt take even a small crum of the pie. These people cant do it alone,with some help they could help themselves in making their life a little bit better. But its not happening for some reason.

On December 25 2020 10:17 Belisarius wrote:
If that's actually the plan I think that's a great outcome. It makes clear that republican control of the senate is the issue and turns all the Trumplings in GA against the incumbents.

Personally I thought it was a bait-and-switch to let the reps claim credit for the exact thing they've been blocking, but if McConnell is still refusing to budge it must be something else.

I'd take $0 now and the reps out of the senate over $2k and two years of war with lord turtle, but I realise that's a terrible outcome in the short term for a lot of people.

On December 25 2020 11:21 Zambrah wrote:
They could be waiting to pass it like, a day or two before the actual runoff elections too, but in the meantime stalling it out is going to be a lot of ill will, its quite a shitty gamble.

On December 25 2020 11:42 StasisField wrote:
I wonder how many voters in Trump's base plan on never voting again after this election cycle. So many of his followers bought into the claim that the Democrats stole the election and many of the Republicans didn't support Trump's claims. How many will feel voting is pointless because they believe they live in a rigged system with 2 parties who don't support free democracy? Now those same Republicans aren't supporting a much needed relief bill. This really could do a lot of lasting damage to the GOP.

On December 25 2020 12:06 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


I think that scenario is called "the last few months". Our Congress is so insanely dysfunctional and not at all interested in helping Americans. Sigh.

On December 24 2020 05:03 Danglars wrote:

Apologies to the deficiencies of the linked graph, though all citing nations with lower inequality than the US, but not doing as good of a job showing it. I'm pressed for time this holiday season and posted the first I stumbled across.

Pardon me, but did you even read my post. North Korea? Did I cite North Korea? Do you expect me to take you seriously when you bring up countries I didn't cite as evidence against points I didn't make? Go on arguing with your fabricated image of what I wrote and I wish you success.

India is a good example of the failure of the metric. Remember, I'm the one saying it's a poor measure for anyone that wants to discuss the plight of the poor--their material well-being. It won't capture their actual problems and success or failure, because it cannot. So, with thanks for proving my point, India is a good example of the failure of that measure, since you're immediately trying to discount the example and point to other measures that need to be taken instead. I can't predict which examples of poor countries with "better" income inequality than the US that you're just going to 1) discount as a real example 2) cite the other metrics you would rather want to discuss regarding them. Like I said before, and you haven't addressed, the rich getting richer in a country faster than the poor getting richer does not mean the poor aren't improving the quality of their life or are materially worse off. Like I said before, and you haven't addressed, a country with widespread, well-distributed poverty will always trend lower on income inequality measures. I'd rather not celebrate the material worsening of the conditions of the poor, provided the rich became even worse off as compensation.

You understand that luxury goods will always exist for the rich, and the ability of the poor to afford material comforts and food has greatly increased in the last six decades you've cited. I can't justify discarding actual elements of improvement in the lives of the poor, and pointing to price-to-earning-ratio. Again, it fails to capture non-wage government benefits, EITC, non-wage work benefits, and does not give the same disparities when those things are included.

Enough of the fallacy of the fixed pie fallacy. The rich have gotten way better at growing their wealth through investment in recent years. It isn't through robbing the poor. They aren't operating in 12th century England acting like reverse robin-hoods. Their additional great investment, purchase, or loan does not cost an inner city Black family their paycheck or welfare benefits. Far from it, luxury yachts aren't built by billionaires, nor their houses, nor their staffs, accountants, vacations, or the rest.

I'm quite willing to leave you with "This man believes that the economic pie is fixed, and thus any additional money earned at the top must derive from making somebody else less well off" (the more slices the rich get, the less are available for the poor). The fallacious premises directly follow to the fallacious conclusion. It is not my job to rewrite some treatise you've already discarded to argue you out of such a deficient way of viewing the world. One does follow another within the same philosophical presuppositions, and we've arrived at the most basic one (the goods and services produced in the world is a fixed, finite quantity, and all that matters is the distribution graph of this number, and your relative percentage of the whole). You may already guess that I consider the pie to be growing, that both the poor and rich are becoming more well off, and this should be cheered even if incomes change 202% for the rich and 49% for the poor. The real question for the public and their representatives are what are the objective, material needs for the poorest percent of the population for their housing, food, and education. This is not held as some ratio to how much more luxury goods a billionaire may afford, since his increase was not made directly or indirectly from making them poorer. This is a fundamental difference in basic economics not likely to be overcome in a politics thread.