TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
it could be better
Yes and that is the point of this excercise. Making things better for the average American.
denying prosperity is not honest
I think the average American is being quite honest when they say rising costs for everything combined with stagnant wages does not leave them feeling very prosperous. This recent canard of insisting that the working class disbelieve their lying eyes and consider themselves lucky is very strange to me, especially since it usually comes from those who claim to be advocates for the everyman.
13% over last year.
And theres approximately 10,000% more media hysterics now than in say, 2022 when it was down roughly 20%. This is not whatsboutism, but rather praise for the recognition then that markets get overheated and correct, and number does not always go up. I remain unmoved, and will contiue to DCA as always.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
peace
I would not call the state of the world today "peaceful".
prosperity
For whom? Real incomes have been down for a generation for the average American worker, pretty much every other challenge the working class faces is downstream of that. Also, if you are referring to the stock market a) it is not the economy, and b) as of this minute up on the day.
I like the new term "Panicans" which very succintly describes those for whom a bit of chaos and correction is a world changing event, and contrasts nicely with the Stoics, who just want to have a pint and wait for it to all blow over.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Certainly a possibility, but I think it unlikely.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Yes, because yes. 1945-1979 saw a massive expansion in the American manufacturing sector with wages that were, adjusting for inflation, median wages, and CoL, comparatively much higher than they are today. Now will a new American manufacturing boom look like that one? No, it will be much more heavily automated and high tech, but the funny thing about robots is they still need a large number of people to operate, maintain, repair, upgrade, and pioneer more uses for them. A factory I worked at actually hired more workers despite completely automating the actual assembly line and ended up passing out a lot of raises as people skilled up.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Happily, MAGA does not have to choose between just the two options you listed. There is a middle path where the globalist agenda is crushed via onshoring manufacturing which yes, will increase costs for the coastal elite who own big corporations, but will also raise wages for the working and middle class.
I think it is a serious error to assume the MAGA coalition is held together by a desire to "own the libs". Thats what some figures may cathartically tweet about, but the actual voters that matter care about their jobs, the cost of groceries and morgtages, and their kids education. On all of these the proggo left has failed misrably the past few years, which is why in 2024 the GOP, not the DNC, won the lion's share of the working class vote.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
the disaster predicted by the experts is already underway
Currently SPY is down roughly 3.9% on the day. Which is certainly a bit rough compared to the normal +/- 1% daily churn, but is a roughly 1% type event, so something you would expect to happen more than once a year, but not more than a few times. I am unmoved.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
and the Heard and McDonald islands, which are uninhabited.
But are controlled by Australia. So they get Australia's rate to avoid some enterprising schmuck setting up a nominal presence there to circumvent the tarrifs.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
That sounds like it was a mistake then, and should be addressed. But the presence of error is not justification to just give up.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Yes, that is the proper process, and they are owed due process. The "credible fear" exception that has become the standard response in recent years is so transparently abused that it should be done away with entirely.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
And verification of identification and immigration status is right and proper. That does not take very long, a couple of days at most. What we have now is "due process" that involves multiple hearings with overbooked judges, strung out over months or years, with the alien in question continuing to reside in the country with no restrictions, and if it looks like they arr going to lose they can simply stop showing up for hearings.
One mans due process is another mans gross abuse of the system. The scales of justice demand balance.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Not going for the obvious "Space Needle Safe Needle"?
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
While I am always reluctant to grant the government any additional powers, I do have to agree with this due process take. Due process only exists if the parties involved sign on to the process. If you are not going to bother to legally arrive, the government should not have to legally bother to deport you, just pack you up and ship you home.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
... its not this one. All of those IRS agents are now looking to pump up their numbers in order to keep their jobs. Busting Average Joe for some transparently obvious evasion is an easy win for them.
Next year, when the turnover is settled however...
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Cutting the Department of Education != cutting federal funding for education. The US had federal funding for schools before 1979, and will after.
The author of the OP article somehow thinks that bragging about charging higher percentages overhead that most hedge funds (3.4% apparently) while obtaining far worse results is a winning formula. I think it rather nicely highlights the issue.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
This is totally false. There is no path to immigration for the vast majority of people. If you support enforcing current immigration law, you support denying millions the chance to live and work in the U.S. for no other reason than they were born outside of it, condemning them to a much worse quality of life in countries full of poverty and violence, and you need to own that.
Yes. The average condition of humanity is indeed full of poverty and violence in an economically disadvantaged country. The fallacy in the pro-immigration-for-all argument is thinking that geographic change (transplanting people from poor countries to rich ones) will solve what is fundamentally a social problem (poor countries are poor and remain so because they have poor-quality people). One only need look at Sweden, Germany, or France to see what happens when you allow in high numbers of low potential immigrants. Current US immigration law as written (very different from what is actually enforced) recognizes this and is designed to filter for only the best, brightest (or at least richest), and highest potential immigrants who will add value to the nation. This is a wise policy that reflects the fundamental instincts of nations through the millenia. It is only recently that society has become peaceful enough for suicidal empathy not to be exterminated by Darwinistic processes, though the jury is perhaps still out on that in the long term.
I firmly believe that if you advocate for less restrictive immigration rules, you should be legally obligated to support those immigrants at your own expense, in your own house. If you cannot put your money and life where your mouth is, you have no business telling the rest of us to do so.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Sigh, thats probably the correct explanation, given the universe so often defaults to maximize boredom.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Nothing? Trump is not invalidating anything, because if the allegations are true, the pardons were never valid legal instruments to begin with. If the allegations are true, the President did not issue any such pardons, and since the President is the only person who can issue pardons per the Constitution then no such pardons exist (and also some staffer is guilty of fraud, forgery, and a large number of other crimes).
Trump has talked extensively about his pardons, and is on camera signing (and posing with!) the relevant documents.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
That is my understanding of the issue as well. As usual, Trump is using some highly "gotcha" wording that the media will pounce on (calling it now- "autopen" will word of the year 2025) and dissect the many reaspns why he's technically wrong, only to miss the larger point entirely- namely Biden was not the person issuing the orders/pardons, ergo none of them have any legal basis.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
What could possibly go in the blank such that a court would permit the prosecution to move forward? I am confident that a court is not going to permit an investigation into a President's state of mind to try and determine a pardon's validity.
The question is more basic than that- Presidential powers are only valid if they are excercised by the President. The claim at this point is straight up fraud and forgery- someone (the NY Post and a few other outlets claim to know exactly who this "senior staffer" is) in the Biden whitehouse is alleged to have issued Executive Orders, using Biden's autopen signature without any discussion of the matter with Biden exploiting his diminished capacity. So the claim has nothing to do with Biden's state of mind in signing the pardons, its that Biden did not in any legally relevant way actually sign the pardons. Given that a) it is indisputablely an autopen signature on the orders in question, and b) Biden's mental decline was such that he either didnt remember or was completely ignorant of his LNG export EO when discussing it weeks later with the Speaker of the House, there is perhaps more merit to the claim than appears on first glance.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Fourth possibility:
The files implicate one or more politically powerful figures who are not Trump or member of his administration, and negotiations (aka blackmail) are currently underway to see how much mileage can be wrung out of the files.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Why? This is a symptom of outside thinking- Zelenskyy != Ukraine, and its perfectly possible to be Ukranian, cheer on their military, want no peace deal, and hate Zelenskyy's guts for the way he has conducted the war and turned Ukraine from a somewhat shaky democracy to a military dictatorship. This is in fact the attitude shared by several of my Ukranian friends.
But since a) elections are suspended indefinitely, b) opposition parties are banned, and c) only state-run media is allowed to officially exist, we will never have reliable poll numbers.
I agree 4% is probably low, but I think the 53% number some sources have floated is laughably high as well.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
Eh, my opinion on the Fed softened a lot when I realized they are actually just a (significant) part of the national security apparatus. Like, at least 50% of what keeps the CCPs bullshit in check is the Fed holding a big club labeled "monetary policy" and grinning. Sure, a lot of what they do sucks for the common person, but thats the nature of Great Power struggles.
The DoEd just appears to be a transfer station for money that congress already allocated and could arguably be replaced by a spreadsheet. Oh, and sending "dear colleague" memos that replaced due process in colleges and universities with unaccountable kangaroo courts. What little they do I feel should be Purged With Fire.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
At first I was horrified, but then I read up on what the department of education actually does (allocate funding per the whims of beurecrats and congress critters, in that order) and now I am horrified it existed at all.
TeknOShEeP
1yr ago
For the record, the plane was a Bombardier CRJ700, developed and built in Canada, so no Boeing connection there.
Contra point on Canada. PP was never the "pro-Trump" pick. He's Trudeau lite, instrad of Carney as Trudeau 2.0. Trump supporters cheering him on are missing the point just as badly as Trump haters cheering his downfall. Frankly there is no pro-Trump option in the Laurentian elite, and there is unlikely to ever be with the current arrangement of Canadaian politics. You would need one of two things to happen- a PM from Alberta, or the current Canadian politcal class to have it hammered into their skulls that they are truly a vassal of the US, probably by a trade war that crashes their economy but leaves America unnoticably effected.
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