Market politics

[Heart Land]

Fascinating reading all this. Heartland I will take you up on your bet for sure.
Will you then admit that trump is a serial womanizer who had sex with a porn start right after his son was born?
Will you admit that his pandering to the base about Obama not being a US citizen was a blatant lie?

On the point of legal drugs...why can't everyone agree this is by far the best way forward.

Please read "Chasing the scream"

Yes, Trump was a womanizer.

He also forced Obama’s hand to show his birth certificate. It backfired on Trump too. It did not score him any points. Note: he also forced Elizabeth Warren’s hand to take a DNA test. That did not work out so well for her.

I think the biggest bone I have to pick is when I hear the dismissal of people that are supporters. I do not hear people admitting he is a perfect person and I sure as heck do not think he is. When I hear people in befuddlement how anyone can support him and dismiss them as being stupid, racist, or greedy it makes me think that the supporters are not represented in the media. The career politicians are out of touch. Look at what is happening in Paris. People are tired of politics as usual. Trump is a result of that. He is now being slandered in the media 24/7 because he is fighting against the status quo. We do not trust the media. Elon Musk just got bit by it again this week, when 60 Minutes did some dishonest editing. I am not expecting to turn anyone into a Trump supporter, I just want people to know that Trump is better than what is depicted in the media and his supporters see it but that does not make them lesser people.

 

[wdolson]

Speaking of presidential competence, we really had a doozy of an example with the tv spectacle today among the prez, Pelosi and Schumer. Two of the three showed presidential cred. Trump keeps handing the dems so many gifts. He must want to destroy the Republican Party. (I don't have a link handy but I don't think you will miss it on the evening news.)

But then who are we compared to the prez's superior intellect? The deal is already cast, Pence will pull a Ford within ten minutes of Trump's resignation. You heard it here first (although someone else whispered it into my telly.) What genius planning, parlaying a lie about a birth certificate into the presidency in order to get a pardon for all previous criminal activity. Brilliant!

Stephen Mnuchin will make a great movie about this. Title suggestion: The Outsider Turns Everything Inside Out from the Inside to Stay Outside. Alternative, The Worm Turns After a Wiggle or So.

(This could go on forever, but poetry is verboten here. Besides, an unpilot I am not.)

I'm not sure Pence will pardon Trump, and it wouldn't do much good anyway. There are several states circling Trump like sharks and if Pence pardons him, the state of New York (or someone else) will take him. I have also heard some rumors that the EU is about to file money laundering charges against Trump.

I've read that's also the catch 22 in the Manafort plea deal. In it he also plead to several state crimes which means if Trump pardons him, the states will be lining up at the prison gates to take him into custody.

This a million times. This actually is a simple solution...

Sometimes politicians avoid the simple, effective solution, and turn to something ineffective and destructive, because they want to express their displeasure with people who use recreational drugs. Or express their displeasure with women who have sex. Or with people who worship different gods, or no gods. Or whatever. This is what I consider evil political activity: hurting everyone in an ineffective attempt at "virtue signalling". Right-wingers seem to looooove pointless, meaningless virtue signalling.

I support legalization of all drugs. And I actually oppose the recreational use of drugs. It's just blatantly obvious that prohibition is counterproductive. So let's cut it out.

Yup, personally I don't like being intoxicated and I'm allergic to THC. But I voted for the recreational marijuana initiative. Personally I'm not interested, but I consider it a personal choice and each person should make up their own mind about what kind of drugs they want to take. As long as they don't put others in danger (like driving) while high.

Likewise, it's well past time to legalize prostitution; making it illegal has only hurt the sex workers by putting them at threat from the police. They want it brought out in the open so abusive clients and abusive pimps can be arrested. Why not? Prohibition certainly hasn't reduced prostitution, but prohibition has increased kidnapping and sex trafficking. This doesn't mean I think prostitution is a good *idea*.

I've said this for years too. Personally I've never even had an interest in one night stands (I've turned down offers), but there are so many secondary problems that stem from making prostitution illegal. Rural Nevada has legal brothels and everyone involved is protected by law. If a john has a problem he (or sometimes she) can go to the cops. If a prostitute has a problem with a john, she (or sometimes he) can end things no harm no foul. She also has legal recourse if anyone abuses her. With mandatory health checks everyone also stays clean of disease. Another major protection is if any prostitute decides this isn't for them, they can quit and walk away from it.

After looking at the history of communism, I also think we should legalize private for-profit business. It seems to be impossible to stamp it out, and trying to prohibit it seems to cause lots of trouble and very little benefit. And that doesn't mean that I think private for-profit business is a *good* idea -- I don't think that "greed is good". Greed is bad, and we can see the problems with it in the greedy monopolistic international megacorporations. which have resulted -- but we should regulate and tax for-profit business, rather than prohibiting it, since prohibition doesn't work.

I'm not sure what you mean by private for-profit businesses. Arne't those sole proprietor businesses? Or are you meaning something else?

What I'm saying is, I'm practical. And a lot of people aren't: they're virtue-signalling with no attention to practicality.

I agree, I'm pragmatic about these things too. People are going to be people. You might be able to channel them a bit, but you can't stop them.

That's because the *actual* problem, as many people in the tech industry and creative industries will tell you, is the US's brazen and ridiculous invention of "intellectual property". There is no such thing, and copyrights and patents have been extended well past any reasonable level. China's been doing this *right* and the US has been doing it *wrong*.... recently. China is actually following the same approach to "intellectual property" that the US followed in the 19th century, *and China knows that*, even if people in the US have forgotten this.

Simple solution: say no to Disney, slash copyright terms, get rid of "patents" on mathematics (which were never supposed to be legal), and leave trade secrets as the wild west (they're secret until someone finds them out, and then you're Sorry, Out of Luck).

No points for explaining why we haven't adopted the simple solution. (*cough* Disney)

I have a mixed feeling about intellectual property rights. I do think it's a good idea somebody who comes up with something new and innovative should be able to be rewarded for it. However, t's been badly abused and organizations like the DCMA are going after individuals who do something like illegally copy a movie for their own private use. I can understand wanting to shut down someone who is copying movies and selling them, but going after end users is like trying to stop a flood with a kitchen sponge.

And as far as China goes, there is a massive industry there copying IP from other countries. The government is involved in industrial espionage, but the bulk of IP theft is done outside the government. Cracking down on it will just shove it from the shadows (where it is now) to underground. It won't stop it and just like drugs and prostitution, will just create a lot of secondary evils.

I also have a problem with large corporations buying up IP right and left. In some cases corporations have bought IP rights simply to sue someone else about them. I'm kind of a radical, but I think IP rights should only be holdable by individuals who either got the rights in the first place, or inherited them. Other entities can lease the rights, but can't own them.

So I know this for a fact: the problem is not "overprescription" of opioids per se. The problem is ignorant doctors who don't know HOW to prescribe opioids, and have been giving the patients wrong instructions.

You can take opioids forever -- from youth until your death from natural causes -- without developing tolerance or addiction, and without any long-term side effects. This is the only family of painkillers known to work this way. They're very valuable for those with chronic pain.

But you have to know how to use them. And the doctors don't know.

Rule #1: never take enough to be out of pain. You want to cut the pain down from an intolerable 6-10 level to a 1-3 level on the 1-10 pain scale. Period. Never go to 0. It's when you're out of pain that the risk of addiction starts to appear.

Rule #2: they are slow acting. So after you take an opioid, you have to wait an hour before the painkiller effect kicks in. Just suffer through it. If you take more during that hour, it's pointless, and you run the risk of taking too much and ending up with no pain (which is bad).

Simple. But practically no doctors understand this.

I learned it 10 years ago from a network of multiple sclerosis patient blogs in England. They were bitching about how their doctors didn't understand it and were telling them to take more than they should.

I do not know how to educate people about this. Because it's a simple education problem. A flat-out, straightforward information campaign would work wonders. But I don't know how to start or run one.

My mother was a nurse and my SO is quite good at medical research, but even I didn't know this. Though I've never taken an opiod.

I have a weird mutation that I don't feel chronic pain (though I do feel acute pain). I appear to have inherited it from my father. It's a mixed blessing. When injured I don't sit around feeling pain, but on the other hand I sometimes re-injure myself when I forget I have an injury and overdo it.

I smell Congress overriding a shutdown attempt. All Trump can do to attempt a shutdown is to veto a budget bill, and vetoes can be overridden.

Do you think Paul Ryan wants to retire on a government shutdown? I don't... he has nothing to lose by telling his caucus to override it.

I may be wrong, but I'm getting the whiff of dissension in the Republican ranks...

I suspect Paul Ryan doesn't think his political career is through. His plan may be to sit on the sidelines until the whole Trump thing blows over and jump back into politics running for the Senate, governor, or president. I agree with you, he's going to want to keep his record relatively clean on the way out.

Sorry, didn't notice Pence was there as mannequin.

That was weird. Pence is trying to hard to stay under Trump's radar and then swoop in when Trump is politically unviable, or impeached, or indicted and "save" things.

I don't think Pence would pardon Trump though. He knows it sealed Ford's fate and I doubt he thinks very highly of Trump at this point. From what I've heard just about all elected Republicans loath Trump, they just are too scared of his base to stand up to him.

 

[wdolson]

Yes, Trump was a womanizer.

He also forced Obama’s hand to show his birth certificate. It backfired on Trump too. It did not score him any points. Note: he also forced Elizabeth Warren’s hand to take a DNA test. That did not work out so well for her.

I think the biggest bone I have to pick is when I hear the dismissal of people that are supporters. I do not hear people admitting he is a perfect person and I sure as heck do not think he is. When I hear people in befuddlement how anyone can support him and dismiss them as being stupid, racist, or greedy it makes me think that the supporters are not represented in the media. The career politicians are out of touch. Look at what is happening in Paris. People are tired of politics as usual. Trump is a result of that. He is now being slandered in the media 24/7 because he is fighting against the status quo. We do not trust the media. Elon Musk just got bit by it again this week, when 60 Minutes did some dishonest editing. I am not expecting to turn anyone into a Trump supporter, I just want people to know that Trump is better than what is depicted in the media and his supporters see it but that does not make them lesser people.

In 2016 Michael Moore warned about Trump. He said then that there were a lot of non-college educated white who were very angry at the system that destroyed their way of life and they wanted to throw a bomb in the works.

I would disagree with you that Trump is better than depicted in the media. A malignant narcissist is about the worst possible leader for a constitutional democracy.

However I do agree that his supporters feel they will get something from Trump and support him because of it. In the end I think most of them will be disappointed for the most part. Though Evangelical Christians seem to be sticking to him better than anyone else. Part of it is his judicial picks and part is at least some think he's going to bring about the end times. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem was apparently some kind of prophecy about the beginning of end times.

 

[adiggs]

I'm not sure what you mean by private for-profit businesses. Arne't those sole proprietor businesses? Or are you meaning something else?

He was being sarcastic @wdolson, by listing capitalism alongside of prostitution and illegal drugs, as things that are bad for you (at least in some points of view), but are also personal choice and shouldn't be outlawed, because outlawing them is remarkably ineffective at getting them to not happen.

Or at least, that's how I read it And I liked the juxtaposition - very nice!

 

[adiggs]

That's because the *actual* problem, as many people in the tech industry and creative industries will tell you, is the US's brazen and ridiculous invention of "intellectual property". There is no such thing, and copyrights and patents have been extended well past any reasonable level. China's been doing this *right* and the US has been doing it *wrong*.... recently. China is actually following the same approach to "intellectual property" that the US followed in the 19th century, *and China knows that*, even if people in the US have forgotten this.

Simple solution: say no to Disney, slash copyright terms, get rid of "patents" on mathematics (which were never supposed to be legal), and leave trade secrets as the wild west (they're secret until someone finds them out, and then you're Sorry, Out of Luck).

No points for explaining why we haven't adopted the simple solution. (*cough* Disney)

I find myself increasingly of the same opinion - that intellectual property rights should be disbanded worldwide (patent), and companies that want to keep things secret protect what they have as a trade secret. The latter is already happening - it's a conscious choice companies make whether to protect their IP via patent or trade secret.

Maybe the bio / chem fields still make sense.


The historical purpose of patent protection makes sense to me - you go back far enough and you have situations where somebody improves on the state-of-the-art for shoeing a horse or something, but then they die before their apprentice learns it from them, and without the new technique spreading and becoming the new state-of-the-art. Ideas spread more slowly anyway, and less systematically, so a system to systematically "learn" people's inventions and spread them around was / is beneficial to society.

In exchange, society agrees to a 20 year monopoly on the invention for the inventor (the carrot to get people to teach everybody else how to perform their invention).

I'm increasingly of the belief that patent protection, at least in the tech and methods spaces, is no longer all that beneficial to society. The internet serves for widespread teaching and idea dissemination, far faster than the patent office has ever been able to get ideas out.

So we get the benefit that patents are intended to produce either way - we can save the societal expense.

And as many mechanisms for invalidating patents as exists today, its becoming less beneficial to patent owners to file in the first place. You just about can't exclude others from doing your invention (tech, methods).

Of course, you can keep others from doing your invention by not teaching anybody, but technology is moving so fast that even in something really hard, a decade or two and today's hot new tech will be ancient history. So protect relevant technology via trade secret and call it a day (and shrink the size of the patent industry dramatically).

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

The opioid crisis isn't helped by the economic conditions among whites with poor educations, but over prescription of opioids is fueling it too. A lot of illegal opioid users started with a prescription after an injury.

Immigrants from 3rd world countries are doing the work native born Americans don't want to do. How many unemployed white people are willing to pick lettuce? When Georgia passed a law tough on illegal immigrants, they had big losses in the agricultural sector because of a labor shortage:
The Law Of Unintended Consequences: Georgia's Immigration Law Backfires

Get the unemployed to pick crops, clean hotel rooms, and mow lawns and there would be little room for illegals in the economy. Illegals can only get work because there are jobs those born here are unwilling to do.

OK, can we stop with the "nobody else is willing to do it, what else can we do?" crap.
Maybe, just maybe, customers need to accept that hard work has value the same way they're willing to accept that hard study has value.
Maybe, just maybe, employers need to improve wages and conditions to be more than just better-than-Mexico.
Maybe, just maybe, employers need to try harder the same way we keep telling the unemployed to try harder.
Maybe, just maybe, if there wasn't a get-out clause that there's always somebody desperate enough in another country, we'd actually come up proper solutions to labor problems.

 

[Heart Land]

In 2016 Michael Moore warned about Trump. He said then that there were a lot of non-college educated white who were very angry at the system that destroyed their way of life and they wanted to throw a bomb in the works.

I would disagree with you that Trump is better than depicted in the media. A malignant narcissist is about the worst possible leader for a constitutional democracy.

However I do agree that his supporters feel they will get something from Trump and support him because of it. In the end I think most of them will be disappointed for the most part. Though Evangelical Christians seem to be sticking to him better than anyone else. Part of it is his judicial picks and part is at least some think he's going to bring about the end times. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem was apparently some kind of prophecy about the beginning of end times.

This is what I keep opining about. Dismissing people as being stupid or not as informed.

 

[Intl Professor]

However I do agree that his supporters feel they will get something from Trump and support him because of it. In the end I think most of them will be disappointed for the most part. Though Evangelical Christians seem to be sticking to him better than anyone else. Part of it is his judicial picks and part is at least some think he's going to bring about the end times. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem was apparently some kind of prophecy about the beginning of end times.

The people who will get the most from Trump, have already, in the tax breaks, esp. for corporations and the super wealthy most progressives agree. Also agreed, the little-fry of supporters will be hurt, not just by Trump but in Red states by local governments. I suggest the last fry do get a psychological kick watching, hoping, government will be hurt. I read or heard an explanation of some antipathy in Louisiana, for example, that poor whites hate the EPA so much because their own government regulators are such corrupt examples.

I think we are in end times. Climate change and migration caused by it even the Pentagon has warned years ago is our main threat. Not an investment advice, but I fear a massive global response from people is required along with every known fix and more to end these times since normal politics will not stand the challenge. Polluters and enablers should be pilloried and publicly shamed for me to have hope people are becoming serious.

The words of Joseph Welch rattle in my skull, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Shame and sic'em.

 

[wdolson]

He was being sarcastic @wdolson, by listing capitalism alongside of prostitution and illegal drugs, as things that are bad for you (at least in some points of view), but are also personal choice and shouldn't be outlawed, because outlawing them is remarkably ineffective at getting them to not happen.

Or at least, that's how I read it And I liked the juxtaposition - very nice!

Sorry, I missed the joke.

OK, can we stop with the "nobody else is willing to do it, what else can we do?" crap.
Maybe, just maybe, customers need to accept that hard work has value the same way they're willing to accept that hard study has value.
Maybe, just maybe, employers need to improve wages and conditions to be more than just better-than-Mexico.
Maybe, just maybe, employers need to try harder the same way we keep telling the unemployed to try harder.
Maybe, just maybe, if there wasn't a get-out clause that there's always somebody desperate enough in another country, we'd actually come up proper solutions to labor problems.

There are jobs very few people will do regardless of how much you pay them. When Elon Musk first moved to Canada he wanted to make as much money as he could for school as fast as he could. He got a job shoveling out ash from an industrial furnace. It paid well because they had a hard time finding anyone willing to do the job at any wage. He's the only one who stuck with it more than a week.

Getting native born Americans to pick crops has proven virtually impossible, no matter how much farmers are willing to pay. And while conditions for farm workers can be improved some, you can't reduce temps below 100F in the San Joaquin Valley when it's time to pick grapes or apricots.

 

[dc_h]

Speaking of presidential competence, we really had a doozy of an example with the tv spectacle today among the prez, Pelosi and Schumer. Two of the three showed presidential cred. Trump keeps handing the dems so many gifts. He must want to destroy the Republican Party. (I don't have a link handy but I don't think you will miss it on the evening news.)

But then who are we compared to the prez's superior intellect? The deal is already cast, Pence will pull a Ford within ten minutes of Trump's resignation. You heard it here first (although someone else whispered it into my telly.) What genius planning, parlaying a lie about a birth certificate into the presidency in order to get a pardon for all previous criminal activity. Brilliant!

Stephen Mnuchin will make a great movie about this. Title suggestion: The Outsider Turns Everything Inside Out from the Inside to Stay Outside. Alternative, The Worm Turns After a Wiggle or So.

(This could go on forever, but poetry is verboten here. Besides, an unpilot I am not.)

Cofvefe. Got you talking about not felonies and no chief of staff. This dissipated the Mueller closing in story and the hot water has time to cool off, again. Cofvefe, indictment. Indictment covfrfe, rinse repeat.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Sorry, I missed the joke.



There are jobs very few people will do regardless of how much you pay them. When Elon Musk first moved to Canada he wanted to make as much money as he could for school as fast as he could. He got a job shoveling out ash from an industrial furnace. It paid well because they had a hard time finding anyone willing to do the job at any wage. He's the only one who stuck with it more than a week.

Getting native born Americans to pick crops has proven virtually impossible, no matter how much farmers are willing to pay. And while conditions for farm workers can be improved some, you can't reduce temps below 100F in the San Joaquin Valley when it's time to pick grapes or apricots.

The temperatures are above 100F at night?

 

[AudubonB]

Sorry, I missed the joke.



There are jobs very few people will do regardless of how much you pay them. When Elon Musk first moved to Canada he wanted to make as much money as he could for school as fast as he could. He got a job shoveling out ash from an industrial furnace. It paid well because they had a hard time finding anyone willing to do the job at any wage. He's the only one who stuck with it more than a week.

Getting native born Americans to pick crops has proven virtually impossible, no matter how much farmers are willing to pay. And while conditions for farm workers can be improved some, you can't reduce temps below 100F in the San Joaquin Valley when it's time to pick grapes or apricots.

I suspect your statement is incorrect BUT if you're right it is incontrovertible proof that there is indeed a problem within this society - and probably one fatal in the medium- or long-term. But I personally believe you're wrong - as follows.

As those of you who have read between the lines know, I was lucky to enjoy an extremely privileged upbringing, with opportunities and developments beyond the ken of most mortals. As some of you know, for intellectual, moral and philosophical reasons, I abandoned same, gave away my first fortune, and spent almost two decades living real hardship far removed from the nearest settlement in Alaska. Much of my perseverance there was highlighted - perhaps an ironic choice of word - by tasks that make picking grapes at 100º seem like a lark.

The reason is that when a guest's cabin fouls up - literally, there is no one else who is going to crawl, on his belly, under that cabin at -20 or -25º (-35ºC) with a warm water hose and open up a septic line and clean out - by hand - the many feet of frozen sewage - most of which sprays back on your clothes and face. The. Job. Has. To. Get. Done.

So don't tell me there are jobs people won't do. People like us do them.

Yes, I've enjoyed and am enjoying a second halcyonic life and lifestyle. And I owe it to the hard work of Mr Musk and his crew, and the great good luck of taking the nest egg I laboriously re-created during those hard years and putting it into TSLA at the right time. I forego the worst of the real hardships such as what I just described by bypassing winters back home - but I also know that I'm a lucky one. NOT, however, a unique one. Real workers still exist in these United States, and mollycoddling the rest is not the way to improve society.

 

[Intl Professor]

This is what I keep opining about. Dismissing people as being stupid or not as informed.

I don't see that in what wdolson said. Why do you? Upthread someone has admitted to being intellectually shamed in the past. I don't think that is welcome here, and both wdolson and Michael Moore would agree. I did that to my sister once in high school. Because of the rigor of a 12 step program I was able to reconcile the issue with her before her death because the incident caused a lot of resistance in her progress up the ladder of promotion.

In my very first full time teaching appointment at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I was so impressed with one student I told him he should go on to get a Ph.D. His response, "what do think I am, stupid?" My dad objected to my effort to become a prof. "there's no money in it." I thought at the time, o.k. but my wife is rich. Turned out he was right because we eventually divorced.

Bill Gates dropped out of college, Peter Thiel or someone of that ilk, gives money to folks not to go to college, but just get on with it.

These pages are also littered with the need to refocus of community college training programs and interests so that we have an appropriately educated work force.

I have always felt getting a mechanical engineering degree was worthwhile despite never having used it, or, used constantly in thinking about things like applying the second law to investing. It's the battery, baby. It's about the range. When I first heard, erroneously, the Tesla Roadster got 300 mile range, I bought the stock in 2010. Useless education is sometimes useful. And, education may not be useful.

Fear and worry are useful. Anger is not and sometimes, sometimes comes from ignorance with or without education. I got a lot of crap in high school for having good grades. When I left for MIT I thought "they will treat me like a man" which they did, students, faculty, administration. Next to birth, family, and my current wife, the best thing that ever happened to me was college. Not everyone is well prepared, so ready, so needful.

It's ok to be a man. No opioid is necessary of whatever kind, whether a trust in a certificate or a lie. The best defense is enlightenment for oneself, as Buddha says but not because Buddha says it. What god wants only flatterers? Sounds like idolatry to me.

But the poor and the desperate can use the strength of others, I know, weak and unmanly to say "suffer the little children to come to me," or "that man in the street is not your brother, he is you."*

*Courtesy Stephen Becker, A Covenant with Death.

 

[JRP3]

He is now being slandered in the media 24/7 because he is fighting against the status quo.

You must be kidding. He's actually trying to keep the status quo in place, i.e. outdated fossil fuel industry, and outdated ideas of "trickle down" economics. He's a rich privileged insider intent on supporting others like him while fooling "some" people that he's actually an outsider fighting for them.

 

[wdolson]

The temperatures are above 100F at night?

It can still be in the 80s at midnight in the summer. Putting artificial lights in the fields would be both an extra expense and possibly dangerous. With all the foliage there would be a lot of deep shadows and workers would probably cut themselves more often and fall off ladders more often. Without lights it gets very, very dark out in those fields at night. I've been out in California farm country in the middle of the night, seeing the Milky Way is pretty easy. The sky is sublime, but I wouldn't want to work in those conditions.

I suspect your statement is incorrect BUT if you're right it is incontrovertible proof that there is indeed a problem within this society - and probably one fatal in the medium- or long-term. But I personally believe you're wrong - as follows.

As those of you who have read between the lines know, I was lucky to enjoy an extremely privileged upbringing, with opportunities and developments beyond the ken of most mortals. As some of you know, for intellectual, moral and philosophical reasons, I abandoned same, gave away my first fortune, and spent almost two decades living real hardship far removed from the nearest settlement in Alaska. Much of my perseverance there was highlighted - perhaps an ironic choice of word - by tasks that make picking grapes at 100º seem like a lark.

The reason is that when a guest's cabin fouls up - literally, there is no one else who is going to crawl, on his belly, under that cabin at -20 or -25º (-35ºC) with a warm water hose and open up a septic line and clean out - by hand - the many feet of frozen sewage - most of which sprays back on your clothes and face. The. Job. Has. To. Get. Done.

So don't tell me there are jobs people won't do. People like us do them.

Yes, I've enjoyed and am enjoying a second halcyonic life and lifestyle. And I owe it to the hard work of Mr Musk and his crew, and the great good luck of taking the nest egg I laboriously re-created during those hard years and putting it into TSLA at the right time. I forego the worst of the real hardships such as what I just described by bypassing winters back home - but I also know that I'm a lucky one. NOT, however, a unique one. Real workers still exist in these United States, and mollycoddling the rest is not the way to improve society.

There are people who have ambition and those who don't. People willing to pick up and move somewhere in search of a better life are usually more ambitious than those who stay behind. It's what fueled the European migration to the US, it's what fueled the westward expansion within the US, and it's what fuels immigration today.

You and Elon were both willing to do horrible jobs when you had to, but both moved onto to something both more lucrative and better fitted to your talents. Last year I read Hillbilly Eulogy by JD Vance. He grew up in the Appalachian part of Ohio in the typical chaos of a broken home with an addict mother, though he ha a grandmother who was there for him. He did a lot of scut work to get to college and get through college and eventually went to Yale Law. He talks about how some jobs he had he was one of the few who lasted more than a few days.

Maybe we can instill an attitude of doing anything to make a paycheck back into the population, but today most of the people who do have that attitude are also just doing a way stop before going on to something more lucrative and less of a strain on their bodies. In much of America today the bulk of people who don't have a college education and aren't headed towards some white collar profession are largely unwilling to do certain types of work immigrants are willing to do. I'm not saying they are unwilling to do any work, but most consider some jobs below them.

 

[Unpilot]

Yes, Trump was a womanizer.

He also forced Obama’s hand to show his birth certificate. It backfired on Trump too. It did not score him any points. Note: he also forced Elizabeth Warren’s hand to take a DNA test. That did not work out so well for her.

I think the biggest bone I have to pick is when I hear the dismissal of people that are supporters. I do not hear people admitting he is a perfect person and I sure as heck do not think he is. When I hear people in befuddlement how anyone can support him and dismiss them as being stupid, racist, or greedy it makes me think that the supporters are not represented in the media. The career politicians are out of touch. Look at what is happening in Paris. People are tired of politics as usual. Trump is a result of that. He is now being slandered in the media 24/7 because he is fighting against the status quo. We do not trust the media. Elon Musk just got bit by it again this week, when 60 Minutes did some dishonest editing. I am not expecting to turn anyone into a Trump supporter, I just want people to know that Trump is better than what is depicted in the media and his supporters see it but that does not make them lesser people.

What do you mean "forced Obama's hand to show his birth certificate? How is that statement not rattling around in your brain as crazy and wrong. Ask yourself this if Obama was white would this even have been an issue?

This idea that he somehow has your interest's in mind is what I find so strange. I do not dismiss people that might have voted for him in 2016 (my brother did) I do dismiss people who support him now. The train wreck we see happening now was something some of us saw coming. If you did not because the 20 year effort to portray Hillary as a evil witch made the choice in 2016 "anyone but her" that I kinda understand. But now 2 years in with 3 chief of staffs, 2 attorney generals soon to be 3 US Ambassadors to the UN 3rd EPA chief, how many communications directors?. Does this not seem like someone who can "hire the best"?

Hoe does his appointment of Andrew Wheeler as EPA chief sit with you? Here is a little info about this great pick for the EPA

Andrew R. Wheeler - Wikipedia

At the last conference on climate change in Poland the US delegate was pushing coal!?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...9718a256cbd_story.html?utm_term=.e76a71a41ec1

If I thought trump had the interests of the "little guy" at heart I would give him and his supporters a chance. I see non of that in any of his actions at all.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Yes, Trump was a womanizer.

He also forced Obama’s hand to show his birth certificate. It backfired on Trump too. It did not score him any points. Note: he also forced Elizabeth Warren’s hand to take a DNA test. That did not work out so well for her.

I think the biggest bone I have to pick is when I hear the dismissal of people that are supporters. I do not hear people admitting he is a perfect person and I sure as heck do not think he is. When I hear people in befuddlement how anyone can support him and dismiss them as being stupid, racist, or greedy it makes me think that the supporters are not represented in the media. The career politicians are out of touch. Look at what is happening in Paris. People are tired of politics as usual. Trump is a result of that. He is now being slandered in the media 24/7 because he is fighting against the status quo. We do not trust the media. Elon Musk just got bit by it again this week, when 60 Minutes did some dishonest editing. I am not expecting to turn anyone into a Trump supporter, I just want people to know that Trump is better than what is depicted in the media and his supporters see it but that does not make them lesser people.

What possible good came from Obama's showing of his birth certificate? Or Elizabeth Warren's DNA test?

Those were clearly racist acts that had no place in a leadership role. And you admit to him being a womanizer and misogynist!

Your support of Trump is a support of everything that he stands for - climate change denial, bullying, and lying for self-aggrandizement. Might does NOT make right. Every grade-school child has already learned this.

The ends (a "possible trade benefit" of which there doesn't seem to be any, since even a return to the original 15% tariff is net negative for Tesla since there's been a few months where Tesla had to absorb the 40% tariff difference) does NOT justify the uncivilized means that Trump is using to achieve them.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Yes, Trump was a womanizer.

He also forced Obama’s hand to show his birth certificate. It backfired on Trump too. It did not score him any points. Note: he also forced Elizabeth Warren’s hand to take a DNA test. That did not work out so well for her.

I think the biggest bone I have to pick is when I hear the dismissal of people that are supporters. I do not hear people admitting he is a perfect person and I sure as heck do not think he is. When I hear people in befuddlement how anyone can support him and dismiss them as being stupid, racist, or greedy it makes me think that the supporters are not represented in the media. The career politicians are out of touch. Look at what is happening in Paris. People are tired of politics as usual. Trump is a result of that. He is now being slandered in the media 24/7 because he is fighting against the status quo. We do not trust the media. Elon Musk just got bit by it again this week, when 60 Minutes did some dishonest editing. I am not expecting to turn anyone into a Trump supporter, I just want people to know that Trump is better than what is depicted in the media and his supporters see it but that does not make them lesser people.

This is what I keep opining about. Dismissing people as being stupid or not as informed.

The media is frequently biased in various directions (mostly in favor of the status quo, against both ends of the political spectrum).

That doesn't make Trump better than depicted just because the media biased reporting elsewhere.

The media still doesn't call out Trump as much as they can and should if they only focused on the truth, and not angling for the status quo.

You want some coverage of Trump supporters?

The Delusion of Trump Supporters

Trump Voters go UNHINGED When Given Facts

CNN Reporter Can't Handle Trump Supporters' Stupidity

Hopefully they'll all eventually realize that they're supporting the wrong candidates / party.

And yes, most of Trump's supporters are not informed. They tend to not have good access to truth, often because they've been getting their news from the same biased sources for a long time and have fallen for the distortions and lies that have over the years lead them away from the actual truth. Some of them choose to be ignorant, but most are simply uninformed because they don't know any better.

So what they "know" is wrong or lacking, not because they choose it, but because they believe their sources of information and trust them. And sure some are just stupid, but that goes for the entire political spectrum - Trump supporters do not have a monopoly on it. Most Trump supporters who are believers (and not just supporting him for their own political or financial gain i.e., the rich and powerful) are low information voters. They don't know any better. And the right wing actively works to keep it that way.

So start asking questions, and looking for supporting evidence. And in as many places as you can, not just one to satisfy your preconceived ideas of what is true. Test the opposite theory - is there any merit to it? The media may be biased, but you can investigate each of the various claims against Trump easily online and fine the actual facts, you just have to put in the time. And hopefully while doing so, you'll find trustworthy (or at least, more so than previous) sources of information. But never take anything at face value, always verify. When all else fails, resort to science and the scientific method.

An informed society is a better equipped to face the future, and to make decisions such as electing polticians. So we should encourage better education, and we should encourage real journalism and news reporting, and discourage using the first amendment and "satire" as an excuse to lie and mislead people, as well as the lazy and sometimes false "journalism" that has been more and more rotting away at the ability of real journalists to actually inform (as the distortions and lies by a few can cast doubt on those who speak truth). That's not to say that the first amendment should be infringed in any way - that would be dangerous. Instead, we as a society need to get better at discerning truth from entertainment and entertainment from "entertainment" and outright lies.

 

[neroden]

I'm not sure what you mean by private for-profit businesses.

Ah, I was taking a big historical view here.

Private for-profit businesses were banned by Lenin during the first round of establishing the USSR, causing an economic collapse; restored by the New Economic Program, reviving the economy; and banned again, causing another economic collapse; then revived under Gorbachev. They were banned by the Chinese Communist Party, causing an economic mess; re-legalized under Deng Xiaoping, causing an economic boom, etc.

Unfortunately, due to lack of regulation, for-profit businesses have metastatized into corrupt monopolistic cartels in Russia and into worker-abusing toxic-waste-dumping poisonous-product scammers in China, just as they did in the US in the 19th century age of "unfettered capitalism". But despite the blatant evils to which for-profit businesses can lead, I don't think banning them outright is a good idea.

Many communists do think so, however. They make *totally correct* arguments about why running an economy based on greed leads to a lot of terrible things. And it does; rewarding people for greed via the for-profit business system is actually very problematic, and leads to everything from Love Canal to robosigned foreclosure fraud. It incentivizes fraud (profitable!), theft (profitable!), worker abuse (profitable!) and pollution (profitable!).

But outright bans on for-profit businesses, as suggested by Karl Marx and actually implemented in the past in China and Russia, aren't the answer; such bans have been tried and have failed. Instead, we need to apply a lighter regulatory touch.

I agree, I'm pragmatic about these things too. People are going to be people. You might be able to channel them a bit, but you can't stop them.

Yep.

 

[neroden]

This is what I keep opining about. Dismissing people as being stupid or not as informed.

When you're uninformed, it's not "dismissing" you to point out that you are in fact uninformed. It is informing you of a problem you have and giving you an opportunity to fix it. Most people start out uninformed, for obvious reasons (nobody's born knowing much of anything), and while becoming informed about any given thing is easier than ever thanks to the Internet, it's still *actually significant work* to become informed -- you have to learn and apply critical thinking, do research, etc.

If you choose not to fix that problem, it says something bad about you. Your emotional reaction to being told that you're uninformed doesn't change that.