|
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 May 30 2022 23:29 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 21:37 gobbledydook wrote:On May 30 2022 02:43 JimmiC wrote:On May 29 2022 15:06 Clear World wrote:On May 29 2022 06:45 JimmiC wrote:
In the US there are far too many bad cops for the few bad apples theory to make any sense, there is clearly a lot of law enforcement that should not be there and likely as you say in jail is where some belong more than those they put there.
But the other side of the coin is what an awful and hard job it is in the US where you have an armed, angry populace many who hate cops and cheer their deaths. Compound that with the war on drugs and extreme wealth disparities even in school funding and you have a recipe for disaster.
Abolishing the police is not going to solve anything because they are a symptom of a deeper problem. Having better trained braver cops or teachers with their own guns is also not going to solve anything.
People need to stop pretending that the NRA cares about the constitution or gun freedom, they do not. If they did they would love 3d printed guns but they hate them because they hurt gun sales. And other people need to stop pretending like you can get rid of the police and crime will go away, it wont. Every developed country has some sort of law enforcement, it just works way better and people do not hate them because of how it is designed. They are not perfect but they keep making progress to better.
Until people figure out they need to come together instead of blaming the "other side" and impliment the already existing, well tested and working solutions. Nothing is going to change.
It annoys me to keep seeing how the "Defund the Police" got hijacked by the right-wing talking point into being about Abolished the Police. That's not what the main push was for. It was about shifting police budgets into other public/social services such as education, social works, health care, mental health care, drug treatments, etc. ![[image loading]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7f/c2/d6/7fc2d62e8113dc76c71022db19fe2c84.png) EDIT: If the image doesn't load, here's a reddit link, a drawing by Neal Skorpen. Yes, defund the police made a bunch more sense, when you read the whole strategy. It is basically like police and social reform. Regulating guns and ending the war on drugs moving to harm reduction and thrn hopfully decriminalization and eventually regulation and regulation would hekp lots. The idea is sound. The marketing was godawful. To ordinary people who are not constantly being oppressed by the police, the police perform an important purpose of maintaining law and order. The word 'defund' might have been the worst own goal in political history - it suggests that the police serve no purpose and should be removed, which is so far from the perception of ordinary people that predictably it became a very useful point of attack for Republicans. It was bad marketing, I think that’s a bit overstated. Even presented in the most palatable framing I don’t think it’s popular. Plenty of people want police to stop the bad guys, and for the bad guys to go to jail, it’s really as simple as that. They don’t particularly care about the wider societal factors that pertain to crime. Criminals are bad people, they should either be stopped before offending, or go to jail if they offend and that’s how the criminal justice system should work. We’ve got a lot of people like that over here, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s more pronounced again in the States The States having a more punitive, militaristic approach to criminal justice isn’t coincidence, nor down to the proclivities of some shadowy elite, they’re pretty reflective of the culture they exist in too in a wider sense.
What we really need is not a police force, but some sort of People's Militia that deals with law enforcement and the like. That'd solve both our problems.
|
On May 31 2022 03:58 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 23:29 WombaT wrote:On May 30 2022 21:37 gobbledydook wrote:On May 30 2022 02:43 JimmiC wrote:On May 29 2022 15:06 Clear World wrote:On May 29 2022 06:45 JimmiC wrote:
In the US there are far too many bad cops for the few bad apples theory to make any sense, there is clearly a lot of law enforcement that should not be there and likely as you say in jail is where some belong more than those they put there.
But the other side of the coin is what an awful and hard job it is in the US where you have an armed, angry populace many who hate cops and cheer their deaths. Compound that with the war on drugs and extreme wealth disparities even in school funding and you have a recipe for disaster.
Abolishing the police is not going to solve anything because they are a symptom of a deeper problem. Having better trained braver cops or teachers with their own guns is also not going to solve anything.
People need to stop pretending that the NRA cares about the constitution or gun freedom, they do not. If they did they would love 3d printed guns but they hate them because they hurt gun sales. And other people need to stop pretending like you can get rid of the police and crime will go away, it wont. Every developed country has some sort of law enforcement, it just works way better and people do not hate them because of how it is designed. They are not perfect but they keep making progress to better.
Until people figure out they need to come together instead of blaming the "other side" and impliment the already existing, well tested and working solutions. Nothing is going to change.
It annoys me to keep seeing how the "Defund the Police" got hijacked by the right-wing talking point into being about Abolished the Police. That's not what the main push was for. It was about shifting police budgets into other public/social services such as education, social works, health care, mental health care, drug treatments, etc. EDIT: If the image doesn't load, here's a reddit link, a drawing by Neal Skorpen. Yes, defund the police made a bunch more sense, when you read the whole strategy. It is basically like police and social reform. Regulating guns and ending the war on drugs moving to harm reduction and thrn hopfully decriminalization and eventually regulation and regulation would hekp lots. The idea is sound. The marketing was godawful. To ordinary people who are not constantly being oppressed by the police, the police perform an important purpose of maintaining law and order. The word 'defund' might have been the worst own goal in political history - it suggests that the police serve no purpose and should be removed, which is so far from the perception of ordinary people that predictably it became a very useful point of attack for Republicans. It was bad marketing, I think that’s a bit overstated. Even presented in the most palatable framing I don’t think it’s popular. Plenty of people want police to stop the bad guys, and for the bad guys to go to jail, it’s really as simple as that. They don’t particularly care about the wider societal factors that pertain to crime. Criminals are bad people, they should either be stopped before offending, or go to jail if they offend and that’s how the criminal justice system should work. We’ve got a lot of people like that over here, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s more pronounced again in the States The States having a more punitive, militaristic approach to criminal justice isn’t coincidence, nor down to the proclivities of some shadowy elite, they’re pretty reflective of the culture they exist in too in a wider sense. What we really need is not a police force, but some sort of People's Militia that deals with law enforcement and the like. That'd solve both our problems.
I lol'd. Doomed to repeat and so on.
|
On May 31 2022 03:58 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 23:29 WombaT wrote:On May 30 2022 21:37 gobbledydook wrote:On May 30 2022 02:43 JimmiC wrote:On May 29 2022 15:06 Clear World wrote:On May 29 2022 06:45 JimmiC wrote:
In the US there are far too many bad cops for the few bad apples theory to make any sense, there is clearly a lot of law enforcement that should not be there and likely as you say in jail is where some belong more than those they put there.
But the other side of the coin is what an awful and hard job it is in the US where you have an armed, angry populace many who hate cops and cheer their deaths. Compound that with the war on drugs and extreme wealth disparities even in school funding and you have a recipe for disaster.
Abolishing the police is not going to solve anything because they are a symptom of a deeper problem. Having better trained braver cops or teachers with their own guns is also not going to solve anything.
People need to stop pretending that the NRA cares about the constitution or gun freedom, they do not. If they did they would love 3d printed guns but they hate them because they hurt gun sales. And other people need to stop pretending like you can get rid of the police and crime will go away, it wont. Every developed country has some sort of law enforcement, it just works way better and people do not hate them because of how it is designed. They are not perfect but they keep making progress to better.
Until people figure out they need to come together instead of blaming the "other side" and impliment the already existing, well tested and working solutions. Nothing is going to change.
It annoys me to keep seeing how the "Defund the Police" got hijacked by the right-wing talking point into being about Abolished the Police. That's not what the main push was for. It was about shifting police budgets into other public/social services such as education, social works, health care, mental health care, drug treatments, etc. EDIT: If the image doesn't load, here's a reddit link, a drawing by Neal Skorpen. Yes, defund the police made a bunch more sense, when you read the whole strategy. It is basically like police and social reform. Regulating guns and ending the war on drugs moving to harm reduction and thrn hopfully decriminalization and eventually regulation and regulation would hekp lots. The idea is sound. The marketing was godawful. To ordinary people who are not constantly being oppressed by the police, the police perform an important purpose of maintaining law and order. The word 'defund' might have been the worst own goal in political history - it suggests that the police serve no purpose and should be removed, which is so far from the perception of ordinary people that predictably it became a very useful point of attack for Republicans. It was bad marketing, I think that’s a bit overstated. Even presented in the most palatable framing I don’t think it’s popular. Plenty of people want police to stop the bad guys, and for the bad guys to go to jail, it’s really as simple as that. They don’t particularly care about the wider societal factors that pertain to crime. Criminals are bad people, they should either be stopped before offending, or go to jail if they offend and that’s how the criminal justice system should work. We’ve got a lot of people like that over here, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s more pronounced again in the States The States having a more punitive, militaristic approach to criminal justice isn’t coincidence, nor down to the proclivities of some shadowy elite, they’re pretty reflective of the culture they exist in too in a wider sense. What we really need is not a police force, but some sort of People's Militia that deals with law enforcement and the like. That'd solve both our problems.
That's exactly what a police force is.
|
On May 31 2022 13:25 gobbledydook wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2022 03:58 LegalLord wrote:On May 30 2022 23:29 WombaT wrote:On May 30 2022 21:37 gobbledydook wrote:On May 30 2022 02:43 JimmiC wrote:On May 29 2022 15:06 Clear World wrote:On May 29 2022 06:45 JimmiC wrote:
In the US there are far too many bad cops for the few bad apples theory to make any sense, there is clearly a lot of law enforcement that should not be there and likely as you say in jail is where some belong more than those they put there.
But the other side of the coin is what an awful and hard job it is in the US where you have an armed, angry populace many who hate cops and cheer their deaths. Compound that with the war on drugs and extreme wealth disparities even in school funding and you have a recipe for disaster.
Abolishing the police is not going to solve anything because they are a symptom of a deeper problem. Having better trained braver cops or teachers with their own guns is also not going to solve anything.
People need to stop pretending that the NRA cares about the constitution or gun freedom, they do not. If they did they would love 3d printed guns but they hate them because they hurt gun sales. And other people need to stop pretending like you can get rid of the police and crime will go away, it wont. Every developed country has some sort of law enforcement, it just works way better and people do not hate them because of how it is designed. They are not perfect but they keep making progress to better.
Until people figure out they need to come together instead of blaming the "other side" and impliment the already existing, well tested and working solutions. Nothing is going to change.
It annoys me to keep seeing how the "Defund the Police" got hijacked by the right-wing talking point into being about Abolished the Police. That's not what the main push was for. It was about shifting police budgets into other public/social services such as education, social works, health care, mental health care, drug treatments, etc. EDIT: If the image doesn't load, here's a reddit link, a drawing by Neal Skorpen. Yes, defund the police made a bunch more sense, when you read the whole strategy. It is basically like police and social reform. Regulating guns and ending the war on drugs moving to harm reduction and thrn hopfully decriminalization and eventually regulation and regulation would hekp lots. The idea is sound. The marketing was godawful. To ordinary people who are not constantly being oppressed by the police, the police perform an important purpose of maintaining law and order. The word 'defund' might have been the worst own goal in political history - it suggests that the police serve no purpose and should be removed, which is so far from the perception of ordinary people that predictably it became a very useful point of attack for Republicans. It was bad marketing, I think that’s a bit overstated. Even presented in the most palatable framing I don’t think it’s popular. Plenty of people want police to stop the bad guys, and for the bad guys to go to jail, it’s really as simple as that. They don’t particularly care about the wider societal factors that pertain to crime. Criminals are bad people, they should either be stopped before offending, or go to jail if they offend and that’s how the criminal justice system should work. We’ve got a lot of people like that over here, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s more pronounced again in the States The States having a more punitive, militaristic approach to criminal justice isn’t coincidence, nor down to the proclivities of some shadowy elite, they’re pretty reflective of the culture they exist in too in a wider sense. What we really need is not a police force, but some sort of People's Militia that deals with law enforcement and the like. That'd solve both our problems. That's exactly what a police force is.
That was the joke he was making
|
Anyone fly lately? Something weird seems to be going on in the air travel business:
1. Half the airlines seem like they just straight up don't offer my route anymore, or at least don't sell tickets at a reasonable price. And these aren't some remote destinations; it's largely domestic large city -> large city, where there's more than enough demand to go around.
2. The price spread between different options is pretty insane. What was a $150 ticket in 2019 is a $250 ticket for an overnight or 3AM flight and a $450 ticket if you want to fly at any even remotely reasonable hour of the day. Similar massive variance for differentiating between any two airlines.
3. Absurd layovers being offered as if it were a reasonable choice. One of the oddest ones I saw was a twice-across-the-country flight. These aren't the cities I was looking at, but it's like if a trip from Houston to Los Angeles had a layover in New York City. And yet these are sometimes comparable in price to just a direct flight.
4. Obviously tickets cost a lot more than they did before, but that's not surprising to anyone. That's been true since 2021.
Everything else travel-related is pretty expensive too - gasoline & diesel, hotels, anything to do with cars - but air travel seems like it's going through a particularly head-scratching moment in time.
|
I'd also mention the incredible amount of delays and cancelations on flights.
The answer isn't really anything to explain however. The entire industry has been run-by-algorithm for a very long time now and what you see out there is what the computer thinks is the most profitable way to run an airline. The problem with running a business like this is that the industry itself will start warping in response and all of the abstract things like the humans involved don't get consideration at all.
|
Northern Ireland26975 Posts
Can only speak to what snippets I’ve been hearing lately but it appears the airlines/airports didn’t fully replenish the staffing levels they had prior to Covid layoffs, and misjudged the subsequent demand or what they could manage with current staffing levels.
|
Yeah flights have been ridiculous for a few months now, especially domestic. Seems like United dropped their San Francisco - Fort Lauderdale non-stop flight although I can't find any news about it. Have to imagine staffing is a huge part of the problem, COVID layoffs/early retirement, flight schools probably being closed down, people out sick, etc.
|
On June 01 2022 05:34 WombaT wrote:
Can only speak to what snippets I’ve been hearing lately but it appears the airlines/airports didn’t fully replenish the staffing levels they had prior to Covid layoffs, and misjudged the subsequent demand or what they could manage with current staffing levels.
They fucked around with the "have fewer employees make them worker harder we save wage money huehuehuehue" paradigm and are/will be finding out, it sounds like
|
United States24777 Posts
There is a lot of debate in various circles right now about the cause or existence of a "pilot shortage" for airlines. Contributing, congress tightened up the eligibility requirements for airline pilots which reduced the pool of available candidates as well as interest in hopefuls. They then kicked the can down the road by extending the mandatory airline pilot retirement age from 60 to 65 (although older pilots can still work in other smaller flying jobs). Just as the procrastination in addressing the pending crisis was coming home to roost, COVID happened and demand for flights plummeted. Lots of pilots got laid off, and many voluntarily retired earlier than 65 even though they might have been willing to continue working. Now the demand is back with a vengeance and the supply of new pilots can't quite keep up.
Think of the airline pilot career as basically being the same as the doctor career except for two main differences: 1) You don't need to be quite as book smart (although it helps), and 2) Your financial security is more at the whims of the very cyclic market in the first half of your career.
This is just the pilot side of things though... I'm sure there are other major influences in aviation beyond just the flight crew that are at work.
|
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/31/white-house-biden-gas-prices-00036206
This article does a good job at highlighting why Biden is a failure of a president and why Democrats will be tossed in the trash in 2022:
1) Biden is almost entirely absent from messaging and controlling the narrative around gas prices
2) Biden is focused purely on deflection and not offering any positive ambitions
3) Biden's team is focused on solving the problem in some sort of permanent, complete manner rather than racking up wins wherever they can
4) Biden's team is choosing not to explore avenues because they have disadvantages or may cause other issues
Just a tragedy of leadership. No messaging, no vision, no action, just useless.
|
Sounds like an administration using complexity as an excuse for inaction, which is pretty consistent with what I've seen from him elsewhere as well. Real leaders get results, Bidens make excuses.
Incidentally, jet fuel prices are a problem as well, and likely a contributing factor to the air travel problem. Prices "at the pump" are a big deal rolled up into one easy metric.
|
On June 01 2022 13:32 LegalLord wrote:
Sounds like an administration using complexity as an excuse for inaction, which is pretty consistent with what I've seen from him elsewhere as well. Real leaders get results, Bidens make excuses.
Incidentally, jet fuel prices are a problem as well, and likely a contributing factor to the air travel problem. Prices "at the pump" are a big deal rolled up into one easy metric.
I don't think its an excuse. They are highly incentivized to take action. The issue is that Biden and the people in his circle are not effective at solving problems and leading.
|
Brandon is definitely in the business of making excuses, however inappropriate to the situation it may be. Certainly, there's an element of incompetence, which you can see in their apparent analysis paralysis and subsequent inaction in the face of an obvious need to act. But you also see scatterbrained speeches like this one where he goes on lengthy tangents blaming global supply chains, war, Trump, anyone and everyone else really, but hardly ever broaching the topic of the president's responsibility to solve it. And the only "how" involves vague, fluffy ideas about "my plans will solve this in the long term" that say nothing in a lot of words.
Personally, I think it's time for some serious export quotas/bans on key products - oil of course, but also refined oil products, natural gas, food, and the like. US produces enough of all of this stuff for itself, and we shouldn't let the interests of foreigners and corporations take precedent over the well-being of the average American citizen. Why not secure our own supplies and keep prices in check for a change?
|
Northern Ireland26975 Posts
Complexity is a real impediment with many a thing on this scale.
As I make a point in noting, economics is not me strong suit so, perhaps there are options in this domain without significant drawbacks that are open.
Messaging 100%, a lack of movement, or at least the perception of trying to move on other policy ambitions has been notable by its absence.
It would still be a rough ride, but Biden and by association the Dems could conceivably weather this storm if they had a bunch of other wins to their name.
They largely don’t, at all. I can’t see the midterms being anything other than a massacre for them. While his spectre does still loom, the prospect of candidate Donald is too far out for the ‘not Trump’ shtick to really land. And that’s basically all they’ve got far as I can tell
|
There's little he can do. Monetary policy is in the hands of the fed and while tighter fiscal policy would help reduce demand there's little political will in his party for that. Long term the best fix for high prices are high prices. Since it reduces demand and increases supply but that's not very useful in the short run.
|
I'd wager that flights consume a lot more energy than households. It's only consequential that you can't have a 24/7 supply of flights while claiming you want to do something about the climate. Would you rather be able to afford driving a car or have a flight ready whenever you want?
|
On June 01 2022 04:01 LegalLord wrote:
Anyone fly lately? Something weird seems to be going on in the air travel business:
1. Half the airlines seem like they just straight up don't offer my route anymore, or at least don't sell tickets at a reasonable price. And these aren't some remote destinations; it's largely domestic large city -> large city, where there's more than enough demand to go around.
2. The price spread between different options is pretty insane. What was a $150 ticket in 2019 is a $250 ticket for an overnight or 3AM flight and a $450 ticket if you want to fly at any even remotely reasonable hour of the day. Similar massive variance for differentiating between any two airlines.
3. Absurd layovers being offered as if it were a reasonable choice. One of the oddest ones I saw was a twice-across-the-country flight. These aren't the cities I was looking at, but it's like if a trip from Houston to Los Angeles had a layover in New York City. And yet these are sometimes comparable in price to just a direct flight.
4. Obviously tickets cost a lot more than they did before, but that's not surprising to anyone. That's been true since 2021.
Everything else travel-related is pretty expensive too - gasoline & diesel, hotels, anything to do with cars - but air travel seems like it's going through a particularly head-scratching moment in time.
I haven't seen that problem. But then again, the US market is very different from the EU market, which I know far more about. For starters, it's dominated by 3 major airlines rather than having a couple of dozen.
That said, I do work in the industry and can hazard some guesses: without hearing details, my guess with the weird hub thing is that you are using a third party website, and are seeing something called virtual interlining. It's a service offered by many online travel agencies, and what happens is that they try to combine flights from different airlines to get a better price or a more convenient route than any single airline (or more specifically, flight provider) will offer you. Obviously, it depends on what they're trying to optimise and in this case you make it sound like price, and convenience is ignored in favor of a lower price from using NYC as a hub. I don't follow the business side of things too closely, but I do know VIN is particularly popular in the US as a way of building products, probably because there are many routes where flight providers don't offer many good options, so we need to combine them. This was partially true already pre-Covid, but VIN has steadily gained market share (worldwide) since, maybe because some direct routes were scrapped during the pandemic and simply never returned. This would be especially apparent in the US, where VIN was already more important for offering varied products.
Flights in general have gotten a bit more expensive, but mostly the market has changed and people are flying shorter distances for leisure, and just plain less for business. This also means that airlines are shifting their focus on where to use their fleet/resources to shorter hauls. The market share of intercontinental flights all but disappeared during the pandemic and hasn't really recovered yet. Whereas travel inside Europe is absolutely booming. I don't know if there's a similar effect in the US, and flying coast-to-coast collapsed in favor of more trips to nearby states? That would explain more limited availability and generally higher prices on longer routes: airlines need to cover the risk of the flight not filling up, combined with reduced competition on such "risky" routes.
|
Northern Ireland26975 Posts
The airline market is a complete mess, at least in any consumer friendly/ecological sense.
Granted I am a poor, poor man but I recall in my youth going to visit my then girlfriend via a flight path she’d worked out due to my laziness/incompetence whereupon I bused to Dublin, out to London Stanstead iirc, then to Oslo for an overnight layover where I was browsing Team Liquid on this weird terminal with a tracking ball, then to Helsinki
And like direct flights to Helsinki from Dublin were a thing, it was that much cheaper.
I mean perhaps it’s improved, I haven’t travelled in years but i once had to cancel a travel plan due to a family bereavement, no refund. But another time I had to wait 2 hours because they’d overbooked a flight?
It just seems a rather poorly regulated industry in general, but hey it’s not one I’ve been exposed to In quite some time so perhaps it’s improved in certain aspects.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
