U.S Politics; The Price of Steele

[Shryke]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just went back and re-read posts I only had time to skim before, and a couple of comments come to mind.

People here and in the media have talked about how quiet Democrats have been in reaction to Trump’s tariff moves and his attacks on NAFTA and, effectively, allies. I just shake my head in surprise. The Democrats have proclaimed themselves as being anti-free trade in many ways (‘fair trade, yes’). Clinton campaigned on changing NAFTA too. It’s just that when Democrats are in power they forget about those positions because trade has been really really good for the US. The official party line has been  that workers would be weaned off the assembly line and into the services areas instead. Not menial services, intellectual services, where the jobs would pay well.

What no one was willing to admit, probably because they both didn’t know but also wanted to be optimistic, was how long this transition would take. There’s a whole generation that couldn't make the shift, and with the damage being done to the US education system, members of future generations that will never make the shift either.

It's more that no one knows the solution but the people who feel they are suffering from "free trade" and "immigrants and blacks stealing our jobs" and automation and the changing economy still need to be pandered to.

Most Democrats from my observation are basically stuck between knowing stuff like free trade is good for the US, economically and politically, and also knowing that people are suffering from the lack of social safety net and the modern economy but they have no real solutions beyond retraining and such. And it seems like a big issue with retraining is that a very common reaction to this kind of situation is not to buckle down and start again from scratch and embody the real spirit of hard work but to just give up and start drinking/doing drugs.

The answer "maybe your type of work is gone forever and your little town just doesn't have a reason to exist anymore and you'll all need to adapt to that" is for obvious reasons, not one a politician is gonna say out loud.

 

[Zorral]

29 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

If the increased cost of aluminum cans is passed to consumers, it will only raise prices by a cent or two per can.  For a beer producer that sells millions of cans of beer, the aggregate cost increase can be significant, but from a consumer standpoint the cost increase should be pretty small.  

The deposit charged for the cans could likely go up too (if one's city / state charges deposit fees -- do all states do that?).  It's supposed to be cents per can and bottle here, but a lot of places like the Korean grocery-delis charge a lot more, though it's because they are pretending its a deposit -- they are just gouging.  That's on top of the price and the state's taxes, etc. 

New York State's Returnable Container Act requires every deposit initiator to collect a $.05 deposit on beverage containers containing less than one gallon of carbonated soft drinks, beer, malt beverages, wine coolers or water, sold in New York.

Which is why I still am shocked at the price of alcohol in other parts of the country -- generally.  It's so much less expensive than here, because its taxed so much less than here. New Orleans is infamous for how cheap booze is, even relatively in the nice bars and the restaurants (not talking the French Quarter here!).  I have no idea though what the general prices are in San Francisco, etc.  I've only had drinks in pricey restaurants and bars so drinks were pricey too -- and generally somebody else was picking up the tab.

 

[Ormond]

1 hour ago, dmc515 said:

Thanks for the link, that's a really cool breakdown.  I think the most interesting thing there is that Gen-Xers were R+5 (!) in 1994 when they were young.  Didn't know nor expect that.  It's also telling that the same firm shows a Republican shift among Boomers from 2014 to 2016 (47-41 to 44-44).  This is useful supportive evidence for Trump's emergence.

Yeah the Gallup link demonstrates there's a very strong - and specific - Democratic subgroup within Boomers (which is reflected in the PEW link as well):

I personally find that amusing as my parents are right in that 1950-53 group.  This link also indicates younger Gen-Xers have similar party ID patterns to Millennials; apparently it's when you get into your forties that you lose your soul.

I happen to have been born in 1951 myself. It would be interesting to have a further breakdown by education here -- but my own take on this is that those of us who are college educated in that age range ended up more Democratic than average because of Vietnam. The first draft lottery was  on December 1, 1969 and the Kent State shooting was on May 4, 1970. That's five months apart during my freshman year in college. It's also the first year of the Nixon presidency. I suspect that the people born in the late 1940s may skew less Democratic than the early 1950s cohorts because they associate Vietnam more with Lyndon Johnson than we do.  

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just went back and re-read posts I only had time to skim before, and a couple of comments come to mind.

People here and in the media have talked about how quiet Democrats have been in reaction to Trump’s tariff moves and his attacks on NAFTA and, effectively, allies. I just shake my head in surprise. The Democrats have proclaimed themselves as being anti-free trade in many ways (‘fair trade, yes’). Clinton campaigned on changing NAFTA too. It’s just that when Democrats are in power they forget about those positions because trade has been really really good for the US. The official party line has been  that workers would be weaned off the assembly line and into the services areas instead. Not menial services, intellectual services, where the jobs would pay well.

What no one was willing to admit, probably because they both didn’t know but also wanted to be optimistic, was how long this transition would take. There’s a whole generation that couldn't make the shift, and with the damage being done to the US education system, members of future generations that will never make the shift either.

You don’t make trade agreements with enemies, after all, so of course allies are being hurt. Trump, in his press conference with the Swedish PM yesterday, bizarrely talked about how the tariffs and the trade wars would be ‘lovingly, oh so lovingly’ done, and other nations would then have new found respect for the US. It reminded me of ‘how much love in his heart’ he said he had for dreamers.

Once upon a time, when I was young and the Vietnam Nam war made everyone hate Americans for a decade afterwards, Americans traveling in Europe sewed Canadian flags on their backpacks because they figured they could pass quite easily. Those times might be coming back.

Well that is a loaded phrase. Too often "fair trade" is just code for common old protectionism whether it be tariffs, subsidies or non-tariff barriers. None of these measures are fundamentally fair in their conception. Their fairest use is as a countermeasure to an existing unfair practice, which is normally a tariff, subsidy or non-tariff barrier.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

If the increased cost of aluminum cans is passed to consumers, it will only raise prices by a cent or two per can.  For a beer producer that sells millions of cans of beer, the aggregate cost increase can be significant, but from a consumer standpoint the cost increase should be pretty small.  

Well, it's a good thing for consumers that aluminium is only used for the production of beer cans and nothing else.

[IamMe90]

16 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I happen to have been born in 1951 myself. It would be interesting to have a further breakdown by education here -- but my own take on this is that those of us who are college educated in that age range ended up more Democratic than average because of Vietnam. The first draft lottery was  on December 1, 1969 and the Kent State shooting was on May 4, 1970. That's five months apart during my freshman year in college. It's also the first year of the Nixon presidency. I suspect that the people born in the late 1940s may skew less Democratic than the early 1950s cohorts because they associate Vietnam more with Lyndon Johnson than we do.  

Nothing but anecdote here, but my parents were both born in '51, grew up in Missouri, and ended up being very liberal, even now at 66.

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Would there?  That would make sense if the dividing line were 1945 and 1945.  Not a lot of veterans were home by April '44-March 1945.

It is a curious phenomenon. 

I was thinking post-V-E Day, but I guess that was too late in 1945, not until May, for it to have made a difference on births in 1945. So I'm not sure now. I don't know enough about troop deployments towards the end of the war, were troops already being pulled out of Europe by winter 44/45 in preparation for the expected eventual transfer to the Pacific? In which case they might've had some time back home. Or was it still an all-out push, racing the Russians to capture territory?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, Shryke said:

I don't see how it would help steel workers as far as their own jobs either.

Granted, this is far from my area of expertise, but I've heard a few economists who oppose the tariffs say that there will be some short term benefits (in the 1-3 year range) for older steel workers. I don't know how that would work exactly other then an increase in domestic demand, but the rest of their arguments were compelling enough to make me believe that their project had merit. 

On a related note, here is a sold podcast on NPR that makes a strong case against the tariffs in practical terms. The story in the beginning really highlights how this could be damaging to the agricultural sector. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, Zorral said:

The cost of beer will be going way up . . . .

 

5 hours ago, The Wedge said:

Aluminum cans.

http://www.grubstreet.com/2018/03/beer-industry-claims-aluminum-tariff-could-destroy-20000-jobs.html

 

5 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Fucking hell.  This prezdude needs to go

Cans are for teh noobs! 

#BottlesOrNothing! 

[lokisnow]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

That all makes sense to me. I can't imagine how anyone coming of political age in 1969 could be conservative (though clearly many did), and would likely have views quite different from those a bit older, who already had their beliefs solidified, or younger, who missed out on directly experiencing and understanding what was going on.

I'm curious about the divide between 1944 and 1945. I imagine the big difference is in the parents, most people who were born in 1944 would've had a father either ineligible to serve in the military (too old, too young, disabled, etc.) or who had an exemption to serving in the military; whereas in 1945, there'd start to be a lot of veterans as fathers. But what impact did that have on child development?

children born in 42-44 were largely the children conceived following quickie marriages and a weekend of furious fucking (before deployment). the mothers then had to do everything themselves, or with the help of their families, but this sort of mass creation of single mothers was stressful and largely survivable by resorting to extreme frugality and conservation.  That could imprint a generation, and would have held true for affecting mothers and children's behaviors and attitudes for years afterwards. Particularly if the mother had to work, she was juggling childcare and full time labor on an income that was 40% (or less) of what their husband would receive doing the same job, that can be a pretty stressful situation.

children in 45 were as well, obviously, but soldiers began returning home, and rather being the sole caregiver for years, mothers were sole caregivers for only weeks or months.  additionally, rather than having enforced frugality and conservation, they didn't have to worry about anything since the family's income was from the larger penis paychecks that men receive as their inherent and natural right.

[all swedes are racist]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

 

Cans are for teh noobs! 

@BottlesOrNothing! 

tywin, rethink this...

#cans

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, IamMe90 said:

Nothing but anecdote here, but my parents were both born in '51, grew up in Missouri, and ended up being very liberal, even now at 66.

I think the important thing here is the dividing line between those born after 1957 and those before. If you were born before that time, there was a chance you could have been drafted and sent to Vietnam. Afer '57, no chance. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

I happen to have been born in 1951 myself. It would be interesting to have a further breakdown by education here -- but my own take on this is that those of us who are college educated in that age range ended up more Democratic than average because of Vietnam. The first draft lottery was  on December 1, 1969 and the Kent State shooting was on May 4, 1970. That's five months apart during my freshman year in college. It's also the first year of the Nixon presidency. I suspect that the people born in the late 1940s may skew less Democratic than the early 1950s cohorts because they associate Vietnam more with Lyndon Johnson than we do.  

I think there's a lot of merit to this. Additionally, like IamMe, my parents were born around that same time period (49 and 53), both have advanced degrees, both are huge liberals and they point to the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the rise of feminism as major motivations for them becoming liberals. I find that a lot of people who felt the opposite about these three issues (pro-Vietnam, anti or indifferent to civil rights and feminism) went on to become Republicans. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, unpaid comintern said:

tywin, rethink this...

#cans

#GiveMeABottleOfStellaOrGiveMeDeath! 

[GAROVORKIN]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Well, it's a good thing for consumers that aluminium is only used for the production of beer cans and nothing else.

The US supplies about 39 percent of the aluminum used in domestic  manufactured of  products In the US.  

[Zorral]

19 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

#GiveMeABottleOfStellaOrGiveMeDeath! 

I have a six-pack of Stella in the fridge, gotten yesterday in prep for today's nor'easter.  Imma bout to crack one open even.  I'd share . . . .

Edited to clarify the six pack is a six pack of bottles, not cans!

[Zorral]

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think there's a lot of merit to this. Additionally, like IamMe, my parents were born around that same time period (49 and 53), both have advanced degrees, both are huge liberals and they point to the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the rise of feminism as major motivations for them becoming liberals. I find that a lot of people who felt the opposite about these three issues (pro-Vietnam, anti or indifferent to civil rights and feminism) went on to become Republicans. 

I agree -- Vietnam and the draft and so many friends killed right out of high school did a lot to radicalize the white middle class and the white blue collar class too.  But when it became a volunteer military that life and death concern went away for the following age groups.

One thinks of this a lot these days with the radicalization of high school kids and middle-school kids too, in particular, having grown up with the ever increasing chance they might be shot by some crazy person with a gun who has it just to satisfy the NRA and the gun industry -- and the obscenely wealthy Koch Bros and others  -- like Russia, who wants to destroy the nation.  Things always look very different to those who are literally in the front line for getting shot than those who think they are safe due to age, class, color, gender, etc.

[all swedes are racist]

23 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

#GiveMeABottleOfStellaOrGiveMeDeath! 

you poor lost soul

[maarsen]

14 minutes ago, Zorral said:

I agree -- Vietnam and the draft and so many friends killed right out of high school did a lot to radicalize the white middle class and the white blue collar class too.  But when it became a volunteer military that life and death concern went away for the following age groups.

One thinks of this a lot these days with the radicalization of high school kids and middle-school kids too, in particular, having grown up with the ever increasing chance they might be shot by some crazy person with a gun who has it just to satisfy the NRA and the gun industry -- and the obscenely wealthy Koch Bros and others  -- like Russia, who wants to destroy the nation.  Things always look very different to those who are literally in the front line for getting shot than those who think they are safe due to age, class, color, gender, etc.

Unless you were there, you cannot fathom what a gaping wound in the soul of the United States that the Vietnam war had become. I was born in 1956 in Canada and so I had a front row seat. Not only did the US lose its youth to the war as casualties but by some estimates 100,000 draft evaders also left and never went back with most coming up to Canada. 

The protests, the violence directed at those that dared to question the war, and that violence was supported by the government, really are not matched by anything today. I do think that many young people of that time were profoundly changed by that experience. 

[all swedes are racist]

this is pretty cool; maine to institute ranked choice voting in state primary
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/qa-maines-1st-ranked-choice-voting-work-53540597