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Now that we have a new thread, 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 complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On February 18 2022 11:26 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2022 11:10 Mohdoo wrote:On February 18 2022 11:03 JimmiC wrote:On February 18 2022 10:55 Mohdoo wrote:On February 18 2022 08:47 JimmiC wrote:On February 18 2022 04:35 Mohdoo wrote:On February 18 2022 04:28 KwarK wrote:
Biden has done some good work on student loan forgiveness eligibility. Heard lots of anecdotal stories of people who weren’t previously eligible due to technicalities and spurious reasons who got forgiveness. While this is more positive than negative, the proper way to judge a person is always with respect to what they are able to do. When a billionaire donates 1 million dollars, they are not a good person because they also made a conscious decision to horde an enormous amount of other wealth. Should people who can afford their student loans and recieved the education they paid for get their loam forgiven? Why not pay off car loans? Credit card loans? Or if you wanted to impact the poor the nost why not pay day loans? Increasing forgiveness criteria, depending on the eligibilty sounds like a smarter and fairer use of the money. Forgiveness is not my minimum standard for sufficient. My minimum standard for sufficient: 1) All loans set to 0% interest 2) All loans reset to their initial value 3) All previous payments applied to initial value. If someone paid more than their initial value, they get that money refunded. 4) All universities which increase tuition/fees more than inflation lose all federal funding The government already has mechanisms in place for wage garnishing for people who don't pay their loans, so interest is not necessary to force people to pay. Interest just makes students a profit center for the government, which is totally fucked and not ethical. Money is not "free" to the government either so a low rate is not profit, their is also an adminstration cost. The costs for US schools are out of line which is making the loans to big that is where the regulation issues are. Most countries have loans available for education and most financial planners consider those loans (and mortages) as few of the personal loans that make finacial sense as they for the most part increase future earnings. Judge ruled Trump and his eldest kids have to testify in tge on going fraud case, he will likely appeal. This shit takes so long. https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/trump-must-testify-in-new-york-investigation-judge-rules-1.5784866 Roads aren't free either. We pay for them with taxes because they are an enormous net benefit to society. Education is all the same. Something does not need to be free and financially advantageous for it to be a good form of government. We can spend money on good things and use taxation to do that. It is the fundamental goal of government and collectivism. Im not sure that any country has post secondary completely free in the way it would be if the US did away with loans because it would be so ripe for abuse you would not get the value. Ideally you want it to be enough of a cost that the people taking it see value in it and only do it if they are going to take it serious, but not so much that it is a barrier to people who will take it serious and see value in it.
I am not sure what You mean by "completely free" but in Poland university level education is free provided You are good enough. There is limited quota on every faculty. That means, if Your exam results are good enough, You get in and not pay for education. You still need to pay for Your lodgings, books or if You fail the class/semester for its repetition, but otherwise it really is free. There are paid versions of most degrees for those who had worse results or cant attend classes during the day. I think it is similar in many EU countries.
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On February 19 2022 01:56 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2022 01:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 18 2022 10:55 Mohdoo wrote:On February 18 2022 08:47 JimmiC wrote:On February 18 2022 04:35 Mohdoo wrote:On February 18 2022 04:28 KwarK wrote:
Biden has done some good work on student loan forgiveness eligibility. Heard lots of anecdotal stories of people who weren’t previously eligible due to technicalities and spurious reasons who got forgiveness. While this is more positive than negative, the proper way to judge a person is always with respect to what they are able to do. When a billionaire donates 1 million dollars, they are not a good person because they also made a conscious decision to horde an enormous amount of other wealth. Should people who can afford their student loans and recieved the education they paid for get their loam forgiven? Why not pay off car loans? Credit card loans? Or if you wanted to impact the poor the nost why not pay day loans? Increasing forgiveness criteria, depending on the eligibilty sounds like a smarter and fairer use of the money. Forgiveness is not my minimum standard for sufficient. My minimum standard for sufficient: 1) All loans set to 0% interest2) All loans reset to their initial value 3) All previous payments applied to initial value. If someone paid more than their initial value, they get that money refunded. 4) All universities which increase tuition/fees more than inflation lose all federal funding The government already has mechanisms in place for wage garnishing for people who don't pay their loans, so interest is not necessary to force people to pay. Interest just makes students a profit center for the government, which is totally fucked and not ethical. If loans have 0% interest, then won't paying back the loan mean you're paying back comparatively less money, since $1000 this year is worth more than $1000 a decade from now? Or do you mean 0% additional interest after adjusting for inflation? You can do true 0% interest. Yes it means the government technically loses some money on it because of inflation, so what? Educated citizens are an investment into the future. And the fear that people won't pay now to pay 'less' in the future. Does the US government not have debt collection? How is 'what if they decide not to repay' a thing that always comes up in these discussions Oo
I guess the government losing money on this deal isn't the worst thing in the world, given how wasteful government spending may already be (certainly compared to a great investment like education), but I think it would be more persuasive to those against this idea if the cost theoretically broke even, even if in practice, people didn't pay back everything.
I assume your second paragraph is for someone else.
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While this is an interesting study, as an epidemiologist I want to point out that there's two pretty major issues here with the analysis if their goal is "what would have happened if these people hadn't had COVID" (which is kind of implicit in comparing COVID+ to COVID- people).
First and most obviously, they didn't control for any confounding characteristics like demographics, age, sex, and underlying conditions. This is a pretty baffling decision and I'm not sure why they didn't since it's not that difficult analytically.
Second and more difficult to catch, they compared test-positive with test-negative individuals, stratified by whether they were non-hospitalized, hospitalized, or ventilated in the two weeks after the initial test. This type of post-index event stratification can lead to some really nasty biases, especially when the variable you're stratifying on (hospitalization) is an effect of the cause you're trying to study (COVID) if you're interested in "what would have happened to these people if they hadn't gotten COVID. A lot of the people in the hospitalized stratum with COVID-19 probably wouldn't have been in there without it, and vice versa. The direction of the bias is a bit difficult to untangle, though, and offhand I can't say whether it would result in overestimation or underestimation.
The overall proportions of events in the COVID group are definitely interesting, though. I just wouldn't put much stock in the relative rates.
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On February 19 2022 04:09 Zambrah wrote:Hurray, child poverty up 41% since the child tax credit lapsed! Now those filthy drug addicted poors will have to work for a living instead of suckling that sweet government teat! Nearly 4 million kids under the poverty line is good news, it means parents will have to send their kids to work those jobs that people now are too LAZY to work! The inflation can stop and McDonalds can go back to paying 7.50 an hour as GOD intended! USA! USA! USA! https://thehill.com/policy/finance/594892-study-us-child-poverty-spiked-41-percent-after-end-of-child-tax-benefit?amp
It was noted that, indeed, after observing that dropping a bowling ball on one's foot would hurt quite badly, it was found that dropping the bowling ball on his foot hurt, quite badly.
I guess knowing they would let the child tax benefit end is an indicator that they will eventually resume student loan payments too. Because we know pulling the lever will help people, we're just choosing not to.
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It’s genius political strategy, do a thing that is popular and helpful and new and then undo it, thus pissing everyone off and making you look callous and out of touch!
Genius, you get to hurt kids, hurt families, and you get to do it just before a theoretically important election during a time of rising unrest and proto-facism! Historians will look back at these times and wonder how the fuck our leadership let it all happen.
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I guess they held something very popular hostage on creating leverage for approving a grab-bag of Democrat priorities, and then it turned out that the opposition was willing to just shoot the hostage.
I mean I don't think the Democrats look good here for creating this situation.
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I'm trying to make sense of the US response to the Ukraine crisis. Biden said last week that Russia was going to invade in a few days, and today he repeated it. What is the situation right now?
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On February 19 2022 07:34 plasmidghost wrote:
I'm trying to make sense of the US response to the Ukraine crisis. Biden said last week that Russia was going to invade in a few days, and today he repeated it. What is the situation right now?
The situation has some significant ambiguity to it and Biden’s administration apparently thinks that overreacting to tentative intelligence adds credibility, even after the first few reports turn out to be wrong.
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And in local (to me) news, our evil lieutenant governor inadvertently suppressed his own party's voters. I live in hell
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United States24755 Posts
On February 19 2022 07:40 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2022 07:34 plasmidghost wrote:
I'm trying to make sense of the US response to the Ukraine crisis. Biden said last week that Russia was going to invade in a few days, and today he repeated it. What is the situation right now? The situation has some significant ambiguity to it and Biden’s administration apparently thinks that overreacting to tentative intelligence adds credibility, even after the first few reports turn out to be wrong.
Not necessarily. The report could be been right but the announcement caused Russia to change its actions. I'm not saying that's necessarily what happened, but it's feasible.
Similarly, the goal here by making the announcement might not be to add credibility to the intelligence reports.
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On February 19 2022 07:49 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2022 07:40 LegalLord wrote:On February 19 2022 07:34 plasmidghost wrote:
I'm trying to make sense of the US response to the Ukraine crisis. Biden said last week that Russia was going to invade in a few days, and today he repeated it. What is the situation right now? The situation has some significant ambiguity to it and Biden’s administration apparently thinks that overreacting to tentative intelligence adds credibility, even after the first few reports turn out to be wrong. Not necessarily. The report could be been right but the announcement caused Russia to change its actions. I'm not saying that's necessarily what happened, but it's feasible. Similarly, the goal here by making the announcement might not be to add credibility to the intelligence reports.
It's also possible that US intelligence announcing that Saddam had WMDs caused him to get rid of them. The goal of that announcement may not have been to add credibility to the intelligence reports, but to cause him to change his actions.
I mean, it may sound like just a weenie excuse that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, that is made because the alternative is to admit a mistake, but it's feasible.
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On February 19 2022 08:20 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2022 07:49 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2022 07:40 LegalLord wrote:On February 19 2022 07:34 plasmidghost wrote:
I'm trying to make sense of the US response to the Ukraine crisis. Biden said last week that Russia was going to invade in a few days, and today he repeated it. What is the situation right now? The situation has some significant ambiguity to it and Biden’s administration apparently thinks that overreacting to tentative intelligence adds credibility, even after the first few reports turn out to be wrong. Not necessarily. The report could be been right but the announcement caused Russia to change its actions. I'm not saying that's necessarily what happened, but it's feasible. Similarly, the goal here by making the announcement might not be to add credibility to the intelligence reports. It's also possible that US intelligence announcing that Saddam had WMDs caused him to get rid of them. The goal of that announcement may not have been to add credibility to the intelligence reports, but to cause him to change his actions. I mean, it may sound like just a weenie excuse that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, that is made because the alternative is to admit a mistake, but it's feasible.
Hahaha, this is hilarious and I'm def stealing this one. The weapon's of mass destruction mention makes it even funnier. Well played. Saddam definitely hid the WMD's.
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United States24755 Posts
On February 19 2022 08:20 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2022 07:49 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2022 07:40 LegalLord wrote:On February 19 2022 07:34 plasmidghost wrote:
I'm trying to make sense of the US response to the Ukraine crisis. Biden said last week that Russia was going to invade in a few days, and today he repeated it. What is the situation right now? The situation has some significant ambiguity to it and Biden’s administration apparently thinks that overreacting to tentative intelligence adds credibility, even after the first few reports turn out to be wrong. Not necessarily. The report could be been right but the announcement caused Russia to change its actions. I'm not saying that's necessarily what happened, but it's feasible. Similarly, the goal here by making the announcement might not be to add credibility to the intelligence reports. It's also possible that US intelligence announcing that Saddam had WMDs caused him to get rid of them. The goal of that announcement may not have been to add credibility to the intelligence reports, but to cause him to change his actions. I mean, it may sound like just a weenie excuse that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, that is made because the alternative is to admit a mistake, but it's feasible.
I don't really have a dog in that fight, so I'm not trying to defend or attack the current administration. I'm simply pointing out that your reasoning seemed a bit reductive. You could probably clarify your point in a way that resolves my concern while still having the same general conclusion.
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On February 19 2022 08:53 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2022 08:20 LegalLord wrote:On February 19 2022 07:49 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2022 07:40 LegalLord wrote:On February 19 2022 07:34 plasmidghost wrote:
I'm trying to make sense of the US response to the Ukraine crisis. Biden said last week that Russia was going to invade in a few days, and today he repeated it. What is the situation right now? The situation has some significant ambiguity to it and Biden’s administration apparently thinks that overreacting to tentative intelligence adds credibility, even after the first few reports turn out to be wrong. Not necessarily. The report could be been right but the announcement caused Russia to change its actions. I'm not saying that's necessarily what happened, but it's feasible. Similarly, the goal here by making the announcement might not be to add credibility to the intelligence reports. It's also possible that US intelligence announcing that Saddam had WMDs caused him to get rid of them. The goal of that announcement may not have been to add credibility to the intelligence reports, but to cause him to change his actions. I mean, it may sound like just a weenie excuse that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, that is made because the alternative is to admit a mistake, but it's feasible. I don't really have a dog in that fight, so I'm not trying to defend or attack the current administration. I'm simply pointing out that your reasoning seemed a bit reductive. You could probably clarify your point in a way that resolves my concern while still having the same general conclusion.
I am being a bit reductive in that I am somewhat mocking the point; I'll attest to that. Not so much mocking you for making it, but I've seen "senior administration officials" make the same point and as I said, it seems like a real weenie excuse because it conveniently sets up a scenario where no intelligence decision can be considered to be wrong. If it seems like BS, that's just because it was actually a clever trick that caused the situation on the ground to change. When it comes with the smug "US intelligence is the gold standard" attitude that it always does, it seems doubly suspect.
Besides being an excuse, it also just doesn't add up. I don't know what will happen, neither do any of us - all we have is predictions and hopefully some evidence to support them. But let's say that the invasion is actually imminent, and February 16th at 3AM actually was the scheduled time for it to begin. What would announcing that date really do, in terms of changing the outcome? Is the window of feasible invasion suddenly closed at 3:01 AM, making the events different? Would the outcome change if it were on February 17th instead? Or is it far more likely that the intelligence was gleaned off the rumor mill and was the kind of thing that's best kept behind closed doors, knowing that rumors are sometimes fake, sometimes real, or often even real in the moment but ultimately never realized? Credibility is definitely an issue here; next time a date and time are announced it will be harder to take seriously because it proved to be wrong this time.
Hell, even people like Micro Rubio, who would definitely have good access to intelligence, are convinced war is imminent, and want in on a new war, think that these intelligence leaks make the US government look like idiots. There's no grand strategy in making obvious mistakes and playing them off as if you didn't.
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On February 19 2022 09:17 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2022 08:53 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2022 08:20 LegalLord wrote:On February 19 2022 07:49 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2022 07:40 LegalLord wrote:On February 19 2022 07:34 plasmidghost wrote:
I'm trying to make sense of the US response to the Ukraine crisis. Biden said last week that Russia was going to invade in a few days, and today he repeated it. What is the situation right now? The situation has some significant ambiguity to it and Biden’s administration apparently thinks that overreacting to tentative intelligence adds credibility, even after the first few reports turn out to be wrong. Not necessarily. The report could be been right but the announcement caused Russia to change its actions. I'm not saying that's necessarily what happened, but it's feasible. Similarly, the goal here by making the announcement might not be to add credibility to the intelligence reports. It's also possible that US intelligence announcing that Saddam had WMDs caused him to get rid of them. The goal of that announcement may not have been to add credibility to the intelligence reports, but to cause him to change his actions. I mean, it may sound like just a weenie excuse that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, that is made because the alternative is to admit a mistake, but it's feasible. I don't really have a dog in that fight, so I'm not trying to defend or attack the current administration. I'm simply pointing out that your reasoning seemed a bit reductive. You could probably clarify your point in a way that resolves my concern while still having the same general conclusion. I am being a bit reductive in that I am somewhat mocking the point; I'll attest to that. Not so much mocking you for making it, but I've seen "senior administration officials" make the same point and as I said, it seems like a real weenie excuse because it conveniently sets up a scenario where no intelligence decision can be considered to be wrong. If it seems like BS, that's just because it was actually a clever trick that caused the situation on the ground to change. When it comes with the smug "US intelligence is the gold standard" attitude that it always does, it seems doubly suspect. Besides being an excuse, it also just doesn't add up. I don't know what will happen, neither do any of us - all we have is predictions and hopefully some evidence to support them. But let's say that the invasion is actually imminent, and February 16th at 3AM actually was the scheduled time for it to begin. What would announcing that date really do, in terms of changing the outcome? Is the window of feasible invasion suddenly closed at 3:01 AM, making the events different? Would the outcome change if it were on February 17th instead? Or is it far more likely that the intelligence was gleaned off the rumor mill and was the kind of thing that's best kept behind closed doors, knowing that rumors are sometimes fake, sometimes real, or often even real in the moment but ultimately never realized? Credibility is definitely an issue here; next time a date and time are announced it will be harder to take seriously because it proved to be wrong this time. Hell, even people like Micro Rubio, who would definitely have good access to intelligence, are convinced war is imminent, and want in on a new war, think that these intelligence leaks make the US government look like idiots. There's no grand strategy in making obvious mistakes and playing them off as if you didn't.
I'm sure that was a typo, but that's far more clever of an insult than anything Trump ever called him.
I think Trump called him Little Marco.
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On February 19 2022 09:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2022 09:17 LegalLord wrote:On February 19 2022 08:53 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2022 08:20 LegalLord wrote:On February 19 2022 07:49 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2022 07:40 LegalLord wrote:On February 19 2022 07:34 plasmidghost wrote:
I'm trying to make sense of the US response to the Ukraine crisis. Biden said last week that Russia was going to invade in a few days, and today he repeated it. What is the situation right now? The situation has some significant ambiguity to it and Biden’s administration apparently thinks that overreacting to tentative intelligence adds credibility, even after the first few reports turn out to be wrong. Not necessarily. The report could be been right but the announcement caused Russia to change its actions. I'm not saying that's necessarily what happened, but it's feasible. Similarly, the goal here by making the announcement might not be to add credibility to the intelligence reports. It's also possible that US intelligence announcing that Saddam had WMDs caused him to get rid of them. The goal of that announcement may not have been to add credibility to the intelligence reports, but to cause him to change his actions. I mean, it may sound like just a weenie excuse that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, that is made because the alternative is to admit a mistake, but it's feasible. I don't really have a dog in that fight, so I'm not trying to defend or attack the current administration. I'm simply pointing out that your reasoning seemed a bit reductive. You could probably clarify your point in a way that resolves my concern while still having the same general conclusion. I am being a bit reductive in that I am somewhat mocking the point; I'll attest to that. Not so much mocking you for making it, but I've seen "senior administration officials" make the same point and as I said, it seems like a real weenie excuse because it conveniently sets up a scenario where no intelligence decision can be considered to be wrong. If it seems like BS, that's just because it was actually a clever trick that caused the situation on the ground to change. When it comes with the smug "US intelligence is the gold standard" attitude that it always does, it seems doubly suspect. Besides being an excuse, it also just doesn't add up. I don't know what will happen, neither do any of us - all we have is predictions and hopefully some evidence to support them. But let's say that the invasion is actually imminent, and February 16th at 3AM actually was the scheduled time for it to begin. What would announcing that date really do, in terms of changing the outcome? Is the window of feasible invasion suddenly closed at 3:01 AM, making the events different? Would the outcome change if it were on February 17th instead? Or is it far more likely that the intelligence was gleaned off the rumor mill and was the kind of thing that's best kept behind closed doors, knowing that rumors are sometimes fake, sometimes real, or often even real in the moment but ultimately never realized? Credibility is definitely an issue here; next time a date and time are announced it will be harder to take seriously because it proved to be wrong this time. Hell, even people like Micro Rubio, who would definitely have good access to intelligence, are convinced war is imminent, and want in on a new war, think that these intelligence leaks make the US government look like idiots. There's no grand strategy in making obvious mistakes and playing them off as if you didn't. I'm sure that was a typo, but that's far more clever of an insult than anything Trump ever called him. I think Trump called him Little Marco.
I’m certain it wasn’t a typo. I think the joy of giving snide nicknames is at least 20% of LL’s reason for posting in this thread.
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Biden could say something like, "We take the threat Russia's troops impose on the sovereignty of Ukraine very seriously and we will react accordingly based on the intelligence we gather in the coming weeks."
And then if anyone asks him about it, he can just say, "We are still monitoring the movements of Russian forces on Ukraine's border and listening for intel on the Kremlin's plans for the region."
If someone presses for a more direct answer, he can say, "I will not be sharing specifics at this time."
Any direct action, like responding to armed forces pushing into Ukraine territory, can be met with something like, "Our intelligence reported a likely strike from Russian military forces in the area days before the attack took place which allowed us to respond effectively to the Russian assault on Ukraine's sovereign land."
Biden doesn't have to say, "Hey, whole world, we discovered Russia's plans they're gonna invade Ukraine with a false flag operation. Just wait!" It would be smarter not to and the US would look a hell of a lot more competent and less war-hungry too. A composed, analytical, reserved approach plays a lot better than what Biden is currently doing.
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EPT
