US Politics: Let's Arm All the Teachers! 30 Pieces of Silver to Shoot a Student!

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

I constantly make jokes about the Republican Party being the "Party of Business". It's been over 30 years since the so called Reagan revolution, and the deal was supposed to be, that if you'd let conservatives bust up your unions and destroy the safety net, and cut taxes for the wealthy, then you'd so growth that was so good you wouldn't mind.

But that has failed and the promised "business friendly pro growth" policies of the conservative movement hasn't amounted too much and regular workers have gotten a raw deal in the process. The era of Franklin Roosevelt from his taking office in 1933 to about 1979 was a better deal for most workers.

And from the way Republicans and conservative talk about their own economic prowess you'd think they were on the pro bowl team of economic growth, but using their own rhetoric as the standard, they are more like a some guys ridin' the bench on the local JV team. In fact, during the 20th  Century Democratic Presidents have proven to be better at producing growth than their Republican counter parts while improving the income gains for people at the bottom. There is a paper out there by Blinder and Watson that discusses this. Democratic candidates should talk about the Democratic record more.

Of course, I'd be remiss, If I did not mention, that even though, Republicans haven't proven to be better at producing growth, simply framing everything in terms of growth, to some extent, kind of gives conservatives a bit of an advantage when having economic disputes. Because ultimately what we are concerned here with is human welfare. And it doesn't necessarily follow that better growth, makes people better off. I mean you can have a lot of growth, but if the gains are mostly going to the top, while the pie shrinks for those at the bottom, then arguably, more equitable, but slower growth might be more welfare improving.

For over thirty years Republicans have relied on some myths about what went down in the 1980s. According to them, the recovery was due to the Reagen tax cuts. Pure nonsense. I have discussed this before, but everything that went down in the early 1980s was due to monetary policy. When Paul Volcker tightened monetary policy a recession occurred. When he eased up on it, a recovery occurred. But conservatives have sold the whole affair, and got many people to believe it was due to tax cuts.

Of course Republicans always talk about supply side policies. I have two points here. One is being Keynesian sort of person I believe that managing the demand side is important and that demand side policies are extremely important for restoring full employment. And in fact, most recessions are due to demand side problems, as theorized by Keynes and shown by others like Blanchard and others. And of course with hysteresis effects, demand side problems can become supply side problems. Over the last 10 years the Republican Party and conservative have shown themselves to simply incompetent when dealing with demand side failures. Says Law is bullshit. And Walrasian market clearing is bullshit, and needs to be regulated as a historical curiosity in the appendix of advanced Micro Economic textbooks, rather than taking up a central place in general equilibrium theory. Like Keynes, who was a Marshallian, I think we need work on models of Marshallian GE theory, but I suppose I'm getting too far off topic here.

Anyway,

The second point here is liberals or center lefties I think should emphasize their own version of supply side polices, which among other things promotes education  and jobs for regular people, and wise infrastructure investments. And growing wealth inequality could have very bad supply side effects if it means means under investing in human capital for most people. And then I think there is a political economy angle as growing wealth inequality can breed both mistrust and makes it easier for the wealthy to engage in rent seeking behavior, which can harm growth. I haven't read the IMF paper in detail, yet, but it would seem that these perhaps are some of the reasons why "trickle down" have bad supply side effects.

And finally I'll add, that this also ties into something I have complained about before, which is the low natural rate of interest, which is dangerous because it makes ZLB episodes more likely. If there was less wealth inequality, then the FED policies rate would be higher, meaning it would have more room to maneuver during recessions. Now this might not be particularly a problem in a sane world where we had sane macroeconomic policy making ie using fiscal stimulus and aggressive monetary policy measures to push us out of ZLB situations. But, right now we have one party, the Republican Party, that is just bat shit crazy insane and so getting a rational response is unlikely. And accordingly, it would probably be best if the policy rate were higher, given political realities at this time.

The fundamental problem is the sort of bedrock narrative in US (and also several other countries in The West) about what each side does. The Right is strong with the military and good with the economy. The Left is good with social policy and isn't as harsh on people. Shit like that.

It doesn't matter what the actual evidence is, the narrative lives on and so rhetoric that leans in to it just ends up being more effective.

Like, you could see it at the Conventions in 2016. The DNC was the most overtly pro-american thing I've seen in a long time and the RNC was basically shitting all over america and yet ... nothing. Obama can bomb the fuck out of anything that moves for 8 years and still no one even starts questioning ideas like "Are the Republicans really the party that likes the military the best?".

[Kalbear]

Philando Castile was someone who worked in a school and had a concealed carry permit. He is precisely the kind of person Trump says he wants in schools.

He was executed by police. 

Good luck with that.

[YoungGriff89]

36 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Philando Castile was someone who worked in a school and had a concealed carry permit. He is precisely the kind of person Trump says he wants in schools.

He was executed by police. 

Good luck with that.

Exactly.  He did everything right and still wound up dead.  I don’t see any evidence that arming teachers will accomplish the goal of protecting students.  In any anecdote I’ve seen, the person stopping a mass shooting with a gun is an SRO, it’s not even a teacher.  Is the inevitability of a student disarming a teacher shooting someone or a teacher shooting a student worth arming all teachers?  

[The guy from the Vale]

@Pony Queen Jace Ask away. I'm not a PoliSci major, lawyer, sociologist or economist though, so my answers might be underwhelming compared to the wisdom some others are able to offer here

The word you're looking for is "Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" (i.e. "Danube steam boat travel company's captain"). It's long, but there's no German word. For example, I can create the word "Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitänsmütze" (i.e., his cap). The real candidates for our longest words come from politics - namely from the words for some of our laws. Examples? How about the "Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischettikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz", which was an actual law in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for 14 years? It means "Cattle marking and beef labeling supervision delegation law" in English.

[Inigima]

So... What if you're a teacher and you don't fucking want to shoot anyone?

Beyond the insanity of the idea that arming teachers is a better solution than regulating guns more tightly, it's nuts to me that everyone proposing it is just assuming teachers are fine with this extra burden. Teachers go through an M.Ed. program and some state professional certifications because they want to teach, not because they want to be gunned down in a hail of bullets as a human shield for other people's children, nor to commit homicide. Neither is part of the job description and the idea that they should be added is frankly offensive.

An image I saw on Facebook really drove this home for me. After a couple of school shootings, some hero teachers did take a bullet to save students, and somehow the country has now internalized that that's what teachers are "supposed to" do.

[Jace, Extat]

1 minute ago, Inigima said:

So... What if you're a teacher and you don't fucking want to shoot anyone?

Beyond the insanity of the idea that arming teachers is a better solution than regulating guns more tightly, it's nuts to me that everyone proposing it is just assuming teachers are fine with this extra burden. Teachers go through an M.Ed. program and some state professional certifications because they want to teach, not because they want to be gunned down in a hail of bullets as a human shield for other people's children, nor to commit homicide. Neither is part of the job description and the idea that they should be added is frankly offensive.

An image I saw on Facebook really drove this home for me. After a couple of school shootings, some hero teachers did take a bullet to save students, and somehow the country has now internalized that that's what teachers are "supposed to" do.

Every time a non-crazy says "teachers don't want this added burden" the crazy says "only SOME of them! You have to listen to all of our ideas!"

Don Lemon let his guest know how fucking stupid he is for repeatedly suggesting it. And the R-hack kinda backed away. I've read before that the best way to treat idiotic ideas is as idiotic so that the progenitor is ashamed and actually looks inward.

[Jace, Extat]

3 hours ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

@Pony Queen Jace Ask away. I'm not a PoliSci major, lawyer, sociologist or economist though, so my answers might be underwhelming compared to the wisdom some others are able to offer here

The word you're looking for is "Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" (i.e. "Danube steam boat travel company's captain"). It's long, but there's no German word. For example, I can create the word "Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitänsmütze" (i.e., his cap). The real candidates for our longest words come from politics - namely from the words for some of our laws. Examples? How about the "Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischettikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz", which was an actual law in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for 14 years? It means "Cattle marking and beef labeling supervision delegation law" in English.

So first question, do the German people recognize the historically German territories of East Prussia and Konigberg as German?

I was floored to find out that Russia still occupies that area a few months back. I'd assumed it was given to Poland or Lithuania after the war.

Personally, I want to see all Russian influence everywhere curbed and a port in the North Sea that has less difficulty with Icing in the winter is not something they need.

[Martell Spy]

39 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Every time a non-crazy says "teachers don't want this added burden" the crazy says "only SOME of them! You have to listen to all of our ideas!"

Don Lemon let his guest know how fucking stupid he is for repeatedly suggesting it. And the R-hack kinda backed away. I've read before that the best way to treat idiotic ideas is as idiotic so that the progenitor is ashamed and actually looks inward.

Republicans are used to winning on this issue for decades. They weren't prepared for this and the response has been horrible. Any time you have your party's crazies in the limelight is bad for that party, and now they have their President spouting these idiotic ideas. Too far out to see if it'll help in 2018, but this is surely helpful to the project of taking down Trump.

Conversely, a lot of Dems are used to losing on this issue and that can lead to them flinching on it, at least in the past.

Who could have foreseen that sending Trump on a listening tour was a bad idea?

[Martell Spy]

Quote

 

The Trump administration is quietly dismantling the Affordable Care Act, taking a series of regulatory steps that will make it easier for insurance companies to sell plans that exclude patients with preexisting conditions or don’t cover basic services like maternity care, mental health treatment, and prescription drugs.

Republicans weren’t able to repeal Obamacare in Congress. Now the Trump administration appears to be settling for the second-best thing: weakening Obamacare’s insurance regulations, changes that will hurt Americans who are older and sicker while benefiting the young and the healthy.

 

Trump’s quiet campaign to bring back preexisting conditions
The administration is waging a quiet regulatory war against Obamacare.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/22/17033588/trump-obamacare-preexisting-conditions

[Jace, Extat]

11 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Republicans are used to winning on this issue for decades. They weren't prepared for this and the response has been horrible. Any time you have your party's crazies in the limelight is bad for that party, and now they have their President spouting these idiotic ideas. Too far out to see if it'll help in 2018, but this is surely helpful to the project of taking down Trump.

Conversely, a lot of Dems are used to losing on this issue and that can lead to them flinching on it, at least in the past.

Who could have foreseen that sending Trump on a listening tour was a bad idea?

Ted Deutch should be the next Speaker.

[OldGimletEye]

Today’s multiple choice question.

If you advocate expansionary austerity, fret about inflation being around the corner, while at the same time complaining about food stamps during a recession that makes you:

A. A Conservative clown.

B. A Sorry Ass Republican Buffoon

C. A mealy mouthed Republican shyster

D. A Sorry Ass Republican bull shit artist

E. All The Above

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/business/economy/recession-safety-net.html

Quote

What is critical to note is that each of the two programs did more to relieve extreme poverty during the depths of the Great Recession than even the earned-income tax credit, the main source of government support for low-income Americans.

Indeed, expenditures per capita from the earned-income tax credit increased only modestly after the recession hit. And spending by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the patchwork of state-run programs that emerged from welfare reform in 1996 to replace the poor’s entitlement to federal cash assistance, did not respond to the recession at all.

This is a problem for vulnerable Americans bracing for the next economic shock, because if Mr. Trump and his colleagues in Congress have their way, the only surviving bit of the social safety net when the next recession hits will probably require beneficiaries to work. The earned-income tax credit is likely to survive unscathed. Food stamps are not.

Related

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/22/the-trump-administration-takes-its-first-big-step-toward-stricter-work-requirements-for-food-stamps/

Quote

The Trump administration is taking a step toward tightening work requirements in the food stamp program, with a focus on high-unemployment areas that have been exempted from those rules since the recession.

On Friday, the Agriculture Department will begin soliciting public comment on work requirements, the first step toward changing those rules, USDA administrator Brandon Lipps said in a conference call with reporters Thursday.

 

Quote

The move, while preliminary, is likely to please many Republicans — and rankle food stamp defenders and anti-hunger advocates. For years, conservatives in Congress and at influential think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation have argued that stricter work requirements would save taxpayers money while putting low-income people on a path to independence.

We spend somewhere between 70-80 billion dollars on SNAP out of 3.8 trillion dollar budget. So yeah, it's not a real budget buster, though I'd imagine you average Republican clown probably thinks we spend several trillion dollars a year on it.

So why do Republicans complain about this so much? Could it be that Republicans just like to pick on people that can't fight back? Could it be that Republicans are just a bunch of yellow bellied cowards?

And after 10 years of spewing fucking nonsense, Republicans that proclaim now to worry about unemployment, need to go and just jump in a fuckin' lake.

............................................................

When the “libertarian” overlords, keep’ all the productivity gains to themselves.

https://voxeu.org/article/link-between-us-pay-and-productivity

Quote

Pay growth for middle class workers in the US has been abysmal over recent decades – in real terms, median hourly compensation rose only 11% between 1973 and 2016.1 At the same time, hourly labour productivity has grown steadily, rising by 75%.

 

Quote

This divergence between productivity and the typical worker’s pay is a relatively recent phenomenon. Using production/nonsupervisory compensation as a proxy for median compensation (since there are no data on the median before 1973), Bivens and Mishel (2015) show that typical compensation and productivity grew at the same rate over 1948-1973, and only began to diverge in 1973 (see Figure 1).

 

Quote

Taken together, this evidence casts doubt on the idea that more rapid technological progress alone has been the primary driver of rising inequality over recent decades, and tends to lend support to more institutional and structural explanations.

 

Quote

This does not mean that policy should ignore questions of redistribution or labour market intervention – the evidence of the past four decades demonstrates that productivity growth alone is not necessarily enough to raise real incomes substantially, particularly in the face of strong downward pressures on pay. However it does mean that policy should not focus on these issues to the exclusion of productivity growth – strategies that focus both on productivity growth and on policies to promote inclusion are likely to have the greatest impact on the living standards of middle-income Americans.

 

[The guy from the Vale]

There's a story there to be told, but I can't write it right now as I'm writing on a Tablet and this is gonna be a long one.

Anyway, as much as I share your concerns about Russia, the answer to your question is a resounding no. We accepted our territorial losses in 1970 in the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw. This hasn't been an issue since.

[OldGimletEye]

On 2/22/2018 at 11:37 PM, Shryke said:

The fundamental problem is the sort of bedrock narrative in US (and also several other countries in The West) about what each side does. The Right is strong with the military and good with the economy. The Left is good with social policy and isn't as harsh on people. Shit like that.

I'd agree that in the US in particular there is a perception in the public imagination that the Republican Party is the party of steely eyed realist while lefties and Democrats are the party of wild eyed and unrealistic "feel good" policies.

Of course that isn't reality. And at least since Dubya, the Republican Party has been the preferred party of snake oil salesman. About the only thing they are really good at is selling bullshit. Other than that  it would be amazing if your average Republican clown could walk and chew bubble gum at the same time, without falling down and hurting themselves.

[Jace, Extat]

11 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

There's a story there to be told, but I can't write it right now as I'm writing on a Tablet and this is gonna be a long one.

Anyway, as much as I share your concerns about Russia, the answer to your question is a resounding no. We accepted our territorial losses in 1970 in the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw. This hasn't been an issue since.

I am totally into reading whatever you would have to say about the issue.

That's why I like you Germans. Very perfunctory

[Martell Spy]

Quote

More and more older people are finding themselves in a similar situation as Baby Boomers reach retirement age without enough savings and as housing costs and medical expenses rise; for instance, a woman in her 80s is paying on average $8,400 in out-of-pocket medical expenses each year, even if she’s covered by Medicare. Many people reaching retirement age don’t have the pensions that lots of workers in previous generations did, and often have not put enough money into their 401(k)s to live off of; the median savings in a 401(k) plan for people between the ages of 55 and 64 is currently just $15,000, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security, a nonprofit. Other workers did not have access to a retirement plan through their employer.

This Is What Life Without Retirement Savings Looks Like
Many seniors are stuck with lives of never-ending work—a fate that could befall millions in the coming decades.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/pensions-safety-net-california/553970/
 

[Jace, Extat]

Just now, Martell Spy said:

This Is What Life Without Retirement Savings Looks Like
Many seniors are stuck with lives of never-ending work—a fate that could befall millions in the coming decades.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/pensions-safety-net-california/553970/
 

Surprise, assholes! When you keep propping up those who are promising to disenfranchise you... you get disenfranchised!

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

8 hours ago, Shryke said:

Like, you could see it at the Conventions in 2016. The DNC was the most overtly pro-american thing I've seen in a long time and the RNC was basically shitting all over america and yet ... nothing. Obama can bomb the fuck out of anything that moves for 8 years and still no one even starts questioning ideas like "Are the Republicans really the party that likes the military the best?".

And John Kerry tried taking on that narrative in 2004. It got him absolutely nowhere.

It's such a recent narrative too: the US got into both World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam under Democrats. Bob Dole even went so far as to talk about "Democratic Wars" in the 1976 VP debate.

The Republican/military thing is based off the Culture Wars of the 1960s and 1970s, Reagan's 1980s posturing, and the hatchet jobs against George McGovern and Michael Dukakis. Never mind that McGovern was a decorated Air Force veteran.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Surprise, assholes! When you keep propping up those who are promising to disenfranchise you... you get disenfranchised!

 

It's been several years, so I can no longer find the link, but I remember seeing a survey that something like 20% of adults expect to be millionaires* by the time they retire. Most of them had no plan to do so, they just took it on faith that they would be; and why bother saving when you're going to be a millionaire?

*I'm not positive, but I believe this was referring to more liquid assets, not home equity. There actually are quite a few millionaires in the US if you get to count home value, though not anywhere near 20%; its something like 3% of households.

[SeanF]

18 minutes ago, Fez said:

It's been several years, so I can no longer find the link, but I remember seeing a survey that something like 20% of adults expect to be millionaires* by the time they retire. Most of them had no plan to do so, they just took it on faith that they would be; and why bother saving when you're going to be a millionaire?

*I'm not positive, but I believe this was referring to more liquid assets, not home equity. There actually are quite a few millionaires in the US if you get to count home value, though not anywhere near 20%; its something like 3% of households.

Taking into account the value of houses and pensions, 13% of UK households have £1m + of assets.  I would have thought the proportion would be higher in the USA.

[Sivin]

Things are starting to look up. The NRA is in open warfare against... everything. There will be no progress at all on our gun problem, but if the scores of dead that will probably accrue between now and November bothers you, know that at least Democrats can become that scary gun confiscating monster by playing into the debate. 

I am not surprised that when they get to hear the unfiltered violence of combat, and witness vocal survivors, most Americans wonder why they are non-committal on whether such deadly weapons should be readily available. No one wants their kid to say what the Parkland kids have been saying. 

That clip of the young man in the listening session breaking down while asking "I turned 18 the day after, and I woke up to the news that my best friend was dead. And I just don't understand how I can walk into a store. And buy a weapon of war... I'm sitting here with a woman who lost her son." 

 

That clip could deliver fifty house seats easily. The senate is in play, folks. Missouri governor going to jail, that's fertile Union ground. There could be as many as 18 governorships in range here. If John McCain dies? Get outta here, man. This could be just what we needed. 

Not to mention the indictments and the routing of Russian forces in Syria that we've learned Putin directly ok'd to one of his buddies who had oil interests in the region. 

The increased Russian belligerence has not gone unnoticed by me, this definitive slaughter of their forces has completely scrambled the strongman's board. 

Putin might not be laughing anymore about Trump. If he has half the intelligence of a radioactive toilet in Cherynobyl then he knows that if Trump goes down there will be a reckoning. Either Pence is going to try and bounce his ball on an Anti-Russian policy or someone in 2020 will make his life a nightmare. 

The Russians cannot stand up to Americans in the field. I already could have told you that, I actually have said it here before. They don't have the tech, the training, or the tactics. They can't incorporate combined arms seamlessly like we can. One of the early reports I read last week said that it was helicopters that absolutely massacred the technicals involved in the maneuver. 

The American military has been struggling in the field since 04 because the enemy it is trying to combat does not present itself to significant engagement. It's one thing to mortar a position, or use car bombs and indirect fire to harass the occupants. But if you actually want to take ground, that requires offensive engagement in positions that by their nature will be exposed. 

Ergo, the helicopters cut the grass. 

This is big. Putin has to start recognizing that there is no military option for him going forward. His backwards nation wasted out of primacy a century ago, totalitarian leadership has kept a national profile through belligerence alone against those who had no more stomach for a fight. 

Now that our systems have grown adept enough to economically strangle a country that spans a continent and a half, Vladamir is deciding right now whether he doubles down to siphon as much as he can before the Federation collapses just as the USSR did or if he diverts some of the billions he's been stealing from his people to try and overhaul some part of his forces in an effort to present a continued threat. 

At the end of the day though, he'll end like all tyrants. Because there is no way for him out of this fight. Donald was too stupid. That's the rub. The perfect patsy was at the end of the day just too damn dumb to allow Putin to consolidate his deceptively weak position. We get to find out how much damage he's willing to do on the way to another Russian revolution. 

We'll be fine though. We can set the air on fire. We can literally fly more drones than they have surface to air missiles over every square foot of their swamps and marshes. And we don't need nuclear weapons to make cities disappear in an instant. 

It won't come to that, of course. The Russians lack the resolve and seclusion of groups like the Taliban and Isis, without a central authority to reinforce their submission they'll eat each other within a year. All of Putin's pilfered billions won't make bread appear for the hungry when the hooks really set in. 

I fucking love my country sometimes.