General Current Events/Political Discussion

[ICrappedMyPants | 302]

@Link Regardless of these protests having political ties, there are legitimate concerns for people to protest who can’t work and support their families because of the shutdowns. Yeah, it’s easy for us to say they should have saved for a rainy day, but that’s water under the bridge. People do need to work to survive. Do I think it’s a good idea to protest? No, but I have the luxury of working from home and don’t have my back against the wall. I might feel differently if I was going to loose my residence or not be able to feed my children.
 

Good grief, Biden puts his foot in his mouth as much as the president. He’s being accused of rape and using the phrase economic intercourse in talking to the media. Can the Democratic Party please remove this senile old man and put out a real candidate? His locked in nomination is as embarrassing as Trump’s was.

To me, both parties are way off base. Leaning on fringes on both ends is wrong and is leading to our dysfunctional situation. We need a balanced and civil leader. I work in accounting and we have internal controls to keep us in check.
 

I’m socially and fiscally conservative, but I think that we do need to take care of the more vulnerable in society. I’m for a minimum level of healthcare for all, even those who cannot afford it, given certain requirements to help reduce abuse of the system. The current funding of Medicare and Medicaid is not sufficient. This needs to be re-examined. I actually think super wealthy people and people who make most of their money in passive income, especially capital gains should pay higher taxes for the betterment of the population. However, the government should also not be wasteful in spending and should treat budgets like their own family budget, with real consequences when they falter. 

Edited April 28, 2020 by ICrappedMyPants

[Link | 2,715]

28 minutes ago, ICrappedMyPants said:

 

I am curious how many of the protestors themselves are out of work. And if this is a concern of the workers, why are these high-up people in the background orchestrating things?

The governor of Georgia plans to first re-open gyms, barber shops, tattoo parlors, bowling alleys, movie theaters, and dine-in restaurants. Half of those aren’t very conducive to distancing. I think that is a strange combination; how were they chosen?

I agree with most in your 2nd-4th paragraphs.

[Estil | 1,265]

4 hours ago, ICrappedMyPants said:

@Link
Good grief, Biden puts his foot in his mouth as much as the president. He’s being accused of rape and using the phrase economic intercourse in talking to the media. 

Butt-head: Uh huh huh huh huh...he said intercourse...  

(sorry I couldn't resist)

But in all seriousness I'm gonna answer this article's headline straight up...THERE IS NO COMPARISON.  As for those who are in the so-called "#metoo" alliance who insist on sticking up for Biden (I don't mean all the #metoo'ers are, I mean the ones that are still supporting Biden) even after all this has come up about him so far...I just hope for their sakes we don't later get any really smoking gun evidence on Biden, like Al Franken (when I first heard that name years ago I often got him confused with Al Michaels) getting caught in that pic grabbing a military girl's boobs!!

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/then-and-now-how-evidence-in-kavanaugh-case-compares-with-biden-accusation

Edited April 29, 2020 by Estil

[Link | 2,715]

If people are desperate to go back to work, they can always get a job in one of the things that’s considered “essential.” What they’re actually protesting for is to force other people back to work. 

[Tabonga | 2,325]

6 hours ago, Link said:

If people are desperate to go back to work, they can always get a job in one of the things that’s considered “essential.” What they’re actually protesting for is to force other people back to work. 

If you want to go down that rabbit hole (I think that that reasoning is more than a bit suspect for a variety of reasons - but since you dug it we can descend into it a bit eh?) then one could argue that if people don't want to go back to work at a particular job they don't have to. There are no slaves or indentured servants in our society and haven't been for quite awhile. 

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Tabonga

[Link | 2,715]

7 hours ago, Tabonga said:

if people don't want to go back to work at a particular job they don't have to.

Yes. 

Why are people protesting in favor of re-opening? ICrappedMyPants said it’s because they need to work to survive. I don’t buy it. 

[Tabonga | 2,325]

20 minutes ago, Link said:

Yes

Why are people protesting in favor of re-opening? ICrappedMyPants said it’s because they need to work to survive. I don’t buy it. 

So how can the protesters force other people to go back to work then?  

I can't really speak to what ICrappedMyPants said (in terms of why he believes it)  - but more than a few people actually do need to have an income of some sort in order to survive.  And the Federal government can only create a finite* (albeit really large) amount of fiat currency. And not everyone is going to be significantly helped (if at all) by the money hand outs. 

There can be other reasons why people want to have things reopen:

1. Maybe they miss their family and other people important to them.
2. They reject the governments' authority to impose some (or many) of the restrictions that have been put in place,
3. They may think that the best way to deal with the virus is to let it run its course.  (IMHO what is in place now is merely at best a temporary palliative.)
4. They believe that the long term economic damage to the country is more problematic than the consequences of the virus (which becomes IMHO more plausible since the estimates of what a potential death rate actually would be as more about the virus is known and analysis of what has happened so far) running its course.

There are probably others - and a person could believe in more than one of these as being important,

*Which is admittedly more than the states seem to be doing to ameliorate the economic tsunami that has been created.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Tabonga

[Link | 2,715]

If it is possible for you to go back to work because your employer resumes normal operation, you no longer qualify for unemployment. 

[Tabonga | 2,325]

38 minutes ago, Link said:

If it is possible for you to go back to work because your employer resumes normal operation, you no longer qualify for unemployment. 

Yeah -  but you can just quit.  There is no one holding a gun to your head.

[Link | 2,715]

Not at all what I’m talking about, but hardly a surprising response.

[Tabonga | 2,325]

1 hour ago, Link said:

Not at all what I’m talking about, but hardly a surprising response.

You stated that people would be forced to go to work.   I thought that was mainly what we were talking about. You haven't shown me where that is the case.  People may not  want to go to work - god knows I spent more than 25 years working at my last job - quite a bit of that time I hated it immensely (the fact that some of my supervisors literally tried to  kill me was a big influence on my feelings) - but it was my choice to stay in the final analysis - as would leaving have been

And how much sympathy did the leaders on the left feel for the coal miners who they forced out of work?*  Other than a few glib things about somebody would maybe retrain them they didn't seem to give a rat's ass.  I wonder how many of those "retrained" workers found jobs that paid as well with equal benefits (yeah coal mining is dangerous dirty work - but it pays pretty well)?   All for the sake of pursuing what is at best a very weak chimera of a placebo.

And AOC recently pretty much peed her unders in joy over the recent apparent collapse of the world oil market** (including the us based one),  I didn't see much sympathy for any jobs displacement because of this - indeed she sounded gleeful since she mistakenly (from what I could tell)  thought this would be a big spur in the progress towards her quixotic green movement.**

*In 1980 there were a bit under 250k coal miners - by 2016 that number had been reduced to just a bit over 50k.
**Not being sharp enough (apparently)  to understand that this perforce was only a temporary situation.
**Despite having a much vaunted  economics degree she (apparently) couldn't snap to the fact that the less expensive fossil fuels are, the less possible  sorta renewable energies become.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Tabonga

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

12 minutes ago, Tabonga said:

You stated that people would be forced to go to work.   I thought that was mainly what we were talking about. You haven't shown me where that is the case.  People may not  want to go to work - god knows I spent more than 25 years working at my last job - quite a bit of that time I hated it immensely (the fact that some of my supervisors literally tried to  kill me was a big influence on my feelings) - but it was my choice to stay in the final analysis - as would leaving have been

And how much sympathy did the leaders on the left feel for the coal miners who they forced out of work?*  Other than a few glib things about somebody would maybe retrain them they didn't seem to give a rat's ass.  I wonder how many of those "retrained" workers found jobs that paid as well with equal benefits (yeah coal mining is dangerous dirty work - but it pays pretty well)?   All for the sake of pursuing what is at best a very weak chimera of a placebo.

And AOC recently pretty much peed her unders in joy over the recent apparent collapse of the world oil market** (including the us based one),  I didn't see much sympathy for any jobs displacement because of this - indeed she sounded gleeful since she mistakenly (from what I could tell)  thought this would be a big spur in the progress towards her quixotic green movement.**

*In 1980 there were a bit under 250k coal miners - by 2016 that number had been reduced to just a bit over 50k.
**Not being sharp enough (apparently)  to understand that this perforce was only a temporary situation.
**Despite having a much vaunted  economics degree she (apparently) couldn't snap to the fact that the less expensive fossil fuels are, the less possible  sorta renewable energies become.

Coal is a bad example for making a point about "the left" killing their jobs, since coal mining jobs were in considerable decline for a long time, purely due to economic forces and changes in the industry.

https://siepr.stanford.edu/research/publications/what-killing-us-coal-industry

Coal jobs mostly went away because of productivity gains making them unnecessary to meet demand, coupled with a surge in natural gas production.

Edited April 30, 2020 by arch_8ngel

[Tabonga | 2,325]

@arch_8ngel

The twisting of EPA standards in somewhat recent years is what led to more than a bit of the decline in coal production.  And it certainly was a goal in at least some of the left leaning politicians. 

"We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."  -Hillary Clinton, March 2016.  

“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said, responding to a question about his cap-and-trade plan. He later added, “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”  - Barack Obama - January 2008

Fortunately the cap and trade plan died the ignominious death it deserved.^

*Much to the chagrin of Saint Gore  - who (like Ukypa Heep)  had somehow  poised himself to make a bundle.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Tabonga

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

6 minutes ago, Tabonga said:

@arch_8ngel

The twisting of EPA standards in somewhat recent years is what led to more than a bit of the decline in coal production.  And it certainly was a goal in at least some of the left leaning politicians. 

"We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."  -Hillary Clinton, March 2016.  

 

You're missing the point of the post.

You referenced the massive job declines over the last 40 years in the coal industry.

They didn't go away because of the EPA or green initiatives.  They went away because they weren't needed due to productivity gains.

The vast majority of jobs in that industry were long gone by the time Hillary Clinton made that statement.

[Tabonga | 2,325]

1 minute ago, arch_8ngel said:

You're missing the point of the post.

You referenced the massive job declines over the last 40 years in the coal industry.

They didn't go away because of the EPA or green initiatives.  They went away still because they weren't needed due to productivity gains.

The vast majority of jobs in that industry were long gone by the time Hillary Clinton made that statement.

Not all of the job losses were due to those other causes - many of the remaining ones were forced out by administrative policies via EPA . mandates/fiats.  (Mrs. Tobanga spent most of her working career dealing with the EPA and their often ludicrous (to the point of being non-sensical) rules,)

Apparently not enough were lost  for her (and Obama* - see my edit) they still thought it necessary specifically target coal.  

*Who went on to target coal despite the failure of cap and trade by using EPA as his running dog,  The only thing that save us from the rapidly escalating energy prices he wanted (apparently gleefully IMHO) was the unexpected access to large quantities of natural gas in the good old USA. 

 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

1 hour ago, Tabonga said:

Not all of the job losses were due to those other causes - many of the remaining ones were forced out by administrative policies via EPA . mandates/fiats.  (Mrs. Tobanga spent most of her working career dealing with the EPA and their often ludicrous (to the point of being non-sensical) rules,)

Apparently not enough were lost  for her (and Obama* - see my edit) they still thought it necessary specifically target coal.  

*Who went on to target coal despite the failure of cap and trade by using EPA as his running dog,  The only thing that save us from the rapidly escalating energy prices he wanted (apparently gleefully IMHO) was the unexpected access to large quantities of natural gas in the good old USA. 

 

The VAST majority were due to other causes over the preceding decades.

Dems might have used coal as a talking point, but process improvements eliminated way more coal jobs than they ever did.

[Tabonga | 2,325]

6 hours ago, arch_8ngel said:

The VAST majority were due to other causes over the preceding decades.

Dems might have used coal as a talking point, but process improvements eliminated way more coal jobs than they ever did.al

So the artificial suppression of coal fired power plants that Obama pursued via the EPA after his failure to get the cap and trade through (the Democratically controlled) congress in no way contributed to the decline of the numbers of coal miners?

Seems to be pretty straight forward - drastically decreased production (due to artificial limitations) leads to fewer jobs.

And it was clear from those statements that the coal industry was being specifically targeted by both Obama and Clinton. Obama actually pursued it with a piece of bureaucratic legerdemain.  Clinton didn't only because Trump out maneuvered her at the ballot box in 2016. 

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Tabonga

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

I get a sense that you have a very specific bias that is causing you to ignore alternate explanations that are far less political in nature and purely economic...you do you, I guess.

[Tabonga | 2,325]

15 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

I get a sense that you have a very specific bias that is causing you to ignore alternate explanations that are far less political in nature and purely economic...you do you, I guess.

And let me guess - you don't have a bias of any sort.  I don't ignore alternate explanations but I can also clearly see that Clinton and Obama had no qualms about further badgering an industry in (apparent) decline - in fact they were quite clear about their intentions. (The fact that Clinton couldn't deliver doesn't mitigate her clearly annunciated intentions.) You can them a pass if you like - but their statements (and Obama's subsequent actions) are pretty damning. Not an innocuous faux pas like Obama saying there were 57 states, 

And is it a coincidence that the sharp decline in coal production coincided with Obama's reign (and his war on coal fired power plants via misuse of the EPA)? 

Politics and economics are always inextricably intertwined - they drive each other fairly constantly.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

1 hour ago, Tabonga said:

And let me guess - you don't have a bias of any sort.  I don't ignore alternate explanations but I can also clearly see that Clinton and Obama had no qualms about further badgering an industry in (apparent) decline - in fact they were quite clear about their intentions. (The fact that Clinton couldn't deliver doesn't mitigate her clearly annunciated intentions.) You can them a pass if you like - but their statements (and Obama's subsequent actions) are pretty damning. Not an innocuous faux pas like Obama saying there were 57 states, 

And is it a coincidence that the sharp decline in coal production coincided with Obama's reign (and his war on coal fired power plants via misuse of the EPA)? 

Politics and economics are always inextricably intertwined - they drive each other fairly constantly.

You are making a lot of assumptions.

I don't care for either Clinton, so I have no interest in defending them.

You could at least read the link I provided earlier, along with doing a similar search for the predominantly economic reasons for coal's decline.  

 

There were strong (apolitical) economic forces (both from efficiency gains reducing the job count, and more recently from the rise of cheap and plentiful natural gas being favored for power generation over coal both for cost and technical/efficiency reasons).

Coal isn't some magical awesome thing compared to other power sources that was only on the way out because greenies hate it

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by arch_8ngel

[Tabonga | 2,325]

2 hours ago, arch_8ngel said:

You are making a lot of assumptions.

I don't care for either Clinton, so I have no interest in defending them.

You could at least read the link I provided earlier, along with doing a similar search for the predominantly economic reasons for coal's decline.  

 

There were strong (apolitical) economic forces (both from efficiency gains reducing the job count, and more recently from the rise of cheap and plentiful natural gas being favored for power generation over coal both for cost and technical/efficiency reasons).

Coal isn't some magical awesome thing compared to other power sources that was only on the way out because greenies hate it

 

Heh - how often do people make assumptions about my positions or about me?   ^___^  Kinda goes with the territory here.

I did read the link.   I have acknowledged that coal has been in a slow but steady decline for awhile,

You may not be a fan of either Clinton but stating that she didn't actually do anything vis a vis coal (taking into consideration she lost the election) sounded like a dodge to me - the intent was there on her part  was it not? 

 And while we may disagree as to what degree Obama's attacks on the coal industry reduced jobs it certainly added to whatever was going  on - both the graphs I provided and in your link show a reversal of things starting in 2008 and ending in 2016.   Then a slight uptick in Obama's successful attack has ramifications  that have spilled over into Trump's administration.  The closure of coal fired plants continues - mainly because planning and establishing new plants is a fairly long process - if you are in mid stream there is little incentive to halt. And it has to be in the back of people tunning power plants that a change in administrations (however far down the road) the assault will continue - so just switch over (until someone decides that natural gas is now a problem.......).

And riddle me this Batman - if coal was in the great decline you described, why the necessity for Clinton and Obama to declare jihad on it? It apparently was achieving that goal all on its own.

Do you think the greenies are going to stop with coal*???  They would much rather continue their mystical (and impossible) quest to replace everything with renewable energy.**  

*Coal is not any great magical thing - but is one resource among many that should be an option as needed.

**Unless of course you are China or India - then go ahead and build as many coal fired plants as you want - even if those plants pollute far more than the ones going off line elsewhere (scrubbers? We don't need no stinkin' scrubbers - and coals softer than anthracite are nifty too - even though they pollute even more than anthracite).

 

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Tabonga

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

1 hour ago, Tabonga said:

 And while we may disagree as to what degree Obama's attacks on the coal industry reduced jobs it certainly added to whatever was going  on - both the graphs I provided and in your link show a reversal of things starting in 2008 and ending in 2016.   

...

And riddle me this Batman - if coal was in the great decline you described, why the necessity for Clinton and Obama to declare jihad on it? It apparently was achieving that goal all on its own.

I would say that their "jihad" against it was largely irrelevant in the face of other market forces, as has been pointed out by a number of analysts.

The specific time period you're referring to was a MASSIVE boom in cheap domestic natural gas production, which is far more "flexible" to produce power with than coal (i.e. generators can come on and off line to meet demand much more readily) coupled with a number of other economic advantages.

Obama harping on it was practically just riding coat tails of a situation that already had considerable momentum against the coal industry.

 

It's not particularly different than the kind of stuff any president says about any number of economic trends or events that were already underway when they took office.

[Tabonga | 2,325]

27 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

The specific time period you're referring to was a MASSIVE boom in cheap domestic natural gas production, which is far more "flexible" to produce power with than coal (i.e. generators can come on and off line to meet demand much more readily) coupled with a number of other economic advantages.

Obama harping on it was practically just riding coat tails of a situation that already had considerable momentum against the coal industry.

I am going to make one more statement - I think we have chased the rabbits as far as they will go.  (Go ahead and make one more if you like - not trying to play gotcha here. ) 

  It was also the period though where the EPA had declared CO2 to be a pollutant allowing the agenda against coal fired plants to proceed.  

And Obama's statement was part of a much larger agenda of shooting energy prices not only through the roof but up through the next two stories to be built via that rake off laden cap and trade.  (His statement is available on youtube - IMHO he seems almost giddy about sticking it to us. He  might have succeeded at least partially with his stated goal by making coal fired plants essentially impossible to build (by doing an end run around the failure of cap and trade) - but as we both noted the larger available supply of natural gas made sure that didn't happen in regards to the prices,

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

Are you genuinely trying to argue that Obama policies are responsible for more job reductions in coal than other economic forces?  And if so, over which cherry picked time period? (Since your original time period had the vast majority of those jobs lost before he was ever in office)

 

I certainly wouldn't say that his or the EPAs policies resulted in zero coal jobs lost, but the point is they weren't the biggest driver of those losses.

 

And it is kind of amusing that you'd reference Don Quixote and then be the guy going on about Obama and Hillary...

[Strange | 1,700]

“Alright Cletus, let’s show them guberments we mean business!”

“Uh huh huh, let’s get em’ Skeeter!”

My rant here isn’t intended to lampoon any one political side (I’d be just as pissed if it were the other side doing this) but the topic is inherently political so it goes in this thread.

How the fuck do guns help your cause here? Are you going to shoot the virus? No? So their purpose is to instill fear to get their political agenda passed. So it’s terrorism. We don’t negotiate with terrorists. It’s such horseshit. I’m not mad that they own guns. I own guns. I’m not mad that they’re demonstrating (well, I’m mad in the sense that it’s stupid to do during this pandemic, but I respect their constitutional right to do so overall). I just hate that we’re not calling them what they are. Extremists. Assholes. Fragile little people who were unpopular in school/growing up and are treating their trauma with an unhealthy obsession with weapons and the urge to fight something. We’re being told the governor needs to work with them. No, fuck that. We. Don’t. Negotiate. With. Terrorists.

My dad is a huge gun nut. I grew up shooting. One of the things he told me when I was a kid was that everyone has a constitutional right to own guns, but there are a shit-ton of assholes that don’t need them and ruin it for the rest of us.

Edited May 1, 2020 by The Strangest