Sorry for the long posts sometimes. I do tend to blither.
I don’t read a lot of long posts. I read yours.
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I don’t read a lot of long posts. I read yours.
pz1975
Active Member
I agree with this too. wdolson is one of best and most thoughtful posters on this forum.
For decades I've been irritated beyond excrement when economists would dodge responsibility by blaming politics for a problem and political scientists for blaming economics. Few specialists take a bird's eye view of problems. In my active teaching I tried to talk about what I called holistic analysis in a fumbling effort at unity.
Thomas Piketty has done it again. Uniting history, politics, economics, and society. Here is a useful review. It deserves rating as more influential (and accurate) than the best parts of Marx's Capital. Spoiler, not a Marxist analysis.
Thomas Piketty Goes Global
Enjoy.
Thomas Piketty has done it again. Uniting history, politics, economics, and society. Here is a useful review. It deserves rating as more influential (and accurate) than the best parts of Marx's Capital. Spoiler, not a Marxist analysis.
Thomas Piketty Goes Global
Enjoy.
A very funny analysis came into my head this morning as I was falling flat on my face ~ not really, just intro humor.
The people that clam to be the most RIGHT, may actually be the most LEFTY brain. Bottom line ~ the pot (smoker) calling the kettle (smoker) black.
I noticed years ago that when ideologies become too left or two right they seem to end up looking strikingly similar. They sort of meet up on the back side.
Thank you, though experience on past forums I know my long windedness can sometimes irritate some people.
Interesting stuff. Humans tend to divide up the world and put things into boxes, there are animals and plants, then animals is further divided into insects, fish, mammals, birds, arachnids, etc. The categorizing has more levels than I can keep track of. And reductionist has it's uses. However we now have lots of people studying trees and not enough are looking at forests.
It looks like an interesting read.
Norbert
TSLA will win
You can't just completely ignore someone who is likely to get more than 30% of votes, without explanation. That's probably also not what you meant to say. However you don't have to take his words as an expression of a serious, honest point of view and discuss them at length, as his supporters don't do so either. They take them as weapons in a political fight against someone who in their mind doesn't deserve better. His "I can say what I want" attitude often appears to imply a "they are ignorable" message, but the response doesn't have to be "we ignore you as well". You can care and pay attention, but exactly because of that you don't need to assume his words to be serious. They are often based on conspiracy theories, some of his own (not always successful) making, something he is proud of and gets applause for from his supporters. Although even in terms of conspiracy theories, they kinda suck.
There are a lot of Trump's positions which are untenable, wrong, and not worth responding to. Attention to alternatives to racism, sexism, etc. will not influence his supporters and just convince Trump he has inflicted a wound. What the press and many pundits get wrong is his mismanagement is deliberate. His goal is to make things worse, a deliberate motivation since he thrives on creating chaos. Disruption to make the US worse generates more unemployment (eventually). It's an old revolutionary cry, "the worse, the better." Trump has nailed this. He's a tactical genius at doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Pence the best pick as covid-19 czar? Hah! and QED. But first, cripple all of Obama's work to put in place policies and procedures to anticipate and prepare for the next pandemic. Sheer genius, and stable course to disaster.
Putin picked the right guy for this sabotage job.
adiggs
Well-Known Member
A thought I've had about Pence as the response czar -- he must have noticed that everybody around Trump gets thrown under the bus sooner or later. It sure looks to me like Trump has setup Pence to take the fall for the virus response.
The real mystery to me; I just don't get this. If it's obvious to me that Trump throws everybody under the bus, then why would anybody take a job working for him? I mean - I suppose people that know that they'll never have a chance before, or again, to do work like they're doing - than maybe.
Hell - sometimes I think he throws people under the bus for entertainment. Part of the chaos and keeping people confused about what's coming.
Why was Dr Carson not picked to lead the effort?!? This, he actually would know something about...
Dr. Ben Carson: Coronavirus 'certainly has the potential to be severe,' task force meeting every day to prevent that
Dr. Ben Carson: Coronavirus 'certainly has the potential to be severe,' task force meeting every day to prevent that
Carson is a brain surgeon. Not necessarily up to speed on epidemics and public health. Also, unskilled at HUD, except for taste in dining tables.
As mentioned, not only is he not in the loop with epidemiology by practice, he doesn’t even seem to be in the loop with the Cov task force.
That interview with Stephanopoulos....If he’s the one tasked by the WH to deal with this cruise ship in Oakland, CA, why couldn’t he tell us what the plan is? Even the CA Office of Emergency Services posted a PSA of what will happen to the passengers.
Agree with much of what you've said here, especially about Pence to take the fall.
There are serious downsides to the old system for picking presidents who had a lot of experience in previous elected office. But they have a lot of connections so know experienced people who are competent to run things. Usually a governor is the best source. Only with Kennedy have Senators been successful, and he had his Dad to help. Bush senior had been picked early on by the Reep establishment as his foreign policy experience was important in China and the CIA. The shrub was off. Jeb was the favored one except Carl Rove worked a miracle. The guv of Texas is a relatively powerless position so many, myself included, were glad the old hand Cheney was picked to run things. How wrong we were. Read the Emerald Palace to see how screwed up our occupation was after the Iraq War, mostly because Cheney check-mated State which started to plan for the occupation.
The Shrub had to reach way down the volunteer list for appointments as a result, No top line political type wanted to work for Trump except for Mattis and Tillerson. Matttis was very helpful, Tillerson less so but with Mattis kept the lid on for awhile.
Fifth or sixth tier folk will work at the White House just to bolster their resume. It will be interesting to see if things improve when Hope Hicks returns.
I really worry about the Dems this year. If the Convention is deadlocked, I think Jay Inslee with perhaps Elizabeth Warren as V.P. would be a winning team. I left out Kennedy's innovation—getting nominated through the primary system. Has that served us better than decisions, mostly by governors, in cigar smoked rooms?
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There are rumors going around that Trump is setting up Pence to fail so he can dump him from the ticket. Some are speculating it will be Nicky Haley while the more cynical think it will be Ivanka. He recently moved to Florida, which would allow him to add a New York resident as his running mate.
AP ran a story this weekend that seems to connect some of the dots about Trump's response. Trump owns stock in a pharmaceutical company that made the failed coronavirus test the CDC was pushing. A week back Gavin Newsom was pulling his hair out wondering why he wasn't allowed to buy the tests from South Korea. When Washington state bypassed the CDC and made their own test, Trump started calling governor Inslee names.
The outbreak may just appear worst in Washington state because Washington has tested the most people thus far. Canada has started testing quite a few international travelers and they have found people who visited US states with no or few cases with the virus, which is an indication it's much wider spread that any official estimates.
Information coming out of testing in Asia indicates that people who have been symptom free are still infectious for another 14 days. An MD in Australia who had visited the US had what he thought was a mild cold upon returning home. He went to work like many medical people do when they have minor illnesses. A few days later he tested himself for the coronavirus for the heck of it and found out he had it.
It seems the more I learn about this, the more it looks like the perfect storm to spread everywhere. The bulk of the world's population will only have minor cases, but that is one of the factors that makes the spread more effective. The vast majority of people will be fine, but if 20% of the population is vulnerable and gets a severe case (or even if it's only 10%) that's going to overload hospitals and other medical resources very quickly. Some people who would have survived a minor outbreak with medical intervention won't survive because the care they need isn't available.
If everyone gets it and 20% get seriously ill, that's over 1 billion people sick enough to need hospitalization worldwide and over 60 million in the US. If that's spread out over a few years, that might be somewhat manageable, but if there is a giant spike in cases at the same time, I don't know what will happen. I hope it turns out to be less spreadable than it looks right now and this gets contained soon, but I'm not optimistic.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
I live in a part of Philadelphia that considers itself quite progressive. In 2016 we had people holding parties in the voting lines celebrating the fact that it took 4hrs+ to vote. Nevermind that essentially disenfranchises about half the black population in North Philly who can't spend 4hrs in a line with their kids. And certainly not for someone who's "gonna win anyway".
I think those voters will find a way to stand in line this time. Or maybe vote by mail.
I know y'all are starved for negative news so here is more:
Subscribe to read | Financial Times
I'm uneducated about high finance, but do know there is a well-known distinction in economics between the money economy and the real economy. The referenced article to me shows the folly of growth through debt instead of investment in the real economy. So what should debt be used for? Again the Green New Deal comes to mind. Would appreciate comment on this evaluation.
Subscribe to read | Financial Times
I'm uneducated about high finance, but do know there is a well-known distinction in economics between the money economy and the real economy. The referenced article to me shows the folly of growth through debt instead of investment in the real economy. So what should debt be used for? Again the Green New Deal comes to mind. Would appreciate comment on this evaluation.
Nice example of your eloquence in a short form. I disagree. The difference is the treatment of race and scapegoating.
Oregon has been 100% vote by mail longer than any state and their voter turnout is consistently among the highest in the country. Washington is now virtually 100% vote by mail. You can still go to your county election office on election day, but it's essentially the same thing you just do it in the office instead of on your couch at home.
Washington has had optional permanent vote by mail since the late 1980s. When I moved here in 1988 I got a letter from the state Republican party telling me how to register and never went anywhere to vote in Washington except to attend the 2008 caucuses. It appears only the Republicans were telling people how to do it and they were probably targeting people with last names that have a high likelihood of being white (my surname is Scandinavian). There is no party registration in this state so they have to go by other information.
Candidates are doing the same again this year. Washington's primary is tomorrow and we've been getting literature from Bloomberg and Trump. My SO who is Hispanic got a slew of things from Bloomberg before he dropped out and I've been getting stuff for Trump and from the Republican party. A couple of times I got a fake poll with extremely skewed questions and loaded answers. I suppose if they want to waste their money on me that's money that isn't going to pandering to more fertile ground.
Each extremist regime is a bit different. The USSR was supposed to be liberal and they treated various minorities pretty bad. Israel today has a lot of Russian Jews because when the USSR opened the doors for Jewish immigration to Israel most left the country. I've known a few people who emigrated during that time and being a Jew in Russia was not very pleasant. Better than being a Jew in the Ukraine in 1943, but still not pleasant. The USSR also made capitalists the boogieman for everything bad in the world.
There are other extreme leftest regimes that haven't been as bad with scapegoating and racism while it's rare to find a right wing extremist organization that isn't.
The Bernie Sanders campaign is a very broad tent ethnically but they have been blaming Biden's sudden rise on corporate elites pumping money into the race when Biden won several states last week spending almost no money in them and underspent Bernie going into Super Tuesday by a large margin. That's a form of scapegoating.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Sanders gets a Fox News town hall audience cheering for his proposals. Think Biden could do that?
Bernie Sanders on Twitter
How Trump will come after Biden from the left:
Bernie Sanders on Twitter
How Trump will come after Biden from the left:
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
From the same Fox town hall, the audience boos the Fox host when she tries to say people "like" their health insurance:
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