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U.S Politics; The Price of Steele

LongRider

By LongRider,
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Ice Queen Council Member

Ice Queen

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, BloodRider said:

GenXers too.  Boomers shit the bed and blame everyone else.

Gen X here. I've been following this subthread with interest. 

I couldn't agree more with your statement. Boomers need to get out of the way.

There is an interesting dynamic in my home. I have two kids, born in 1995 and 1996. I guess my younger one is still a millennial and not Gen Z. My mother, born 1946, moved in with us last year and IMO she's the poster child for everything that's messed up about the boomers. For a generation that had everything handed to them on a plate (Vietnam notwithstanding), they are the biggest bunch of whiners and spoiled brats ever. They are selfish and self-centered. And they have the nerve to complain about millennials the same way they complained about us, the most educated generation in history. Listening to my mother interact with my kids makes it clear that they have no concept of how the modern world works, or how the recession has impacted these kids. They think it's still the 1950s. Hell, they don't understand us, either, or the impact FOUR recessions in our prime earning years has had on our ability to accumulate wealth and to pass that on to our kids. The boomers accumulated wealth...and pissed it away.

I'm siding with the kids for a whole lot of reasons. With sheer numbers, they're going to give the old folks a run for their money. And good riddance. Maybe we'll actually progress as a society instead of wishing for a return to a mythical Golden Age.

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IamMe90 Council Member

IamMe90

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, Inigima said:

Welp

Mueller gathers evidence that 2016 Seychelles meeting was effort to establish back channel to Kremlin
http://wapo.st/2Iaz0t9

Even if Trump comes out of all of this unscathed, it would be fucking delicious if War Profiteering Overlord Erik Prince went to jail due to this investigation. 

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Shryke Council Member

Shryke

Posted
Posted
13 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I might be willing to buy into this interpretation of events, if it were not for the fact that the left has a bit of contentious relationship with free trade and globalization, long before Trump ever ran for president or long before anyone got one inkling of a clue that he might run. 
And it seems to me that these issues have divided the left for quite awhile before Trump ever announced his candidacy. And it probably has often been a bit confusing for many on the left as many of us have an intentional orientation while at the same time being a bit concerned about what these issues might to do working people.
So no, I don’t think it’s just simply a matter of Sanders or Brown just pandering to a bunch of knuckle dragging troglodytes with a toxic masculinity problem, as there has been a history there of some on the left being a skeptical of free trade and globalization, long before Trump. While there likely is some truth that part of the problem is that some are knuckle dragging troglodytes that refuse to do less “manly” jobs, that seems to me about as much of an oversimplification as Kevin Williamson, writing the National Review, awhile back, that these problems would largely go away, if those troglodytes would just burn their goddamned Bruce Springsteen albums and rented a U-Haul truck and just moved.
One reason that former steel workers and such might not transition to less “manly” jobs is that they may not exist. Certainly it’s not hard to imagine that the decline of a major industry in a region would depress local aggregate demand destroying other jobs the process. That people are reluctant to move in such a situation could a variety reasonable explanations, say for instance people being reluctant to leave their social support networks to move to a new region where their future may be uncertain.
Certainly globalization done badly can have disastrous effects, just like in the Great Depression when the international monetary system went haywire, resulting in many nations turning to autarky or the structural flaws in the Euro having a similar effect. And when globalization does go badly it creates space for right wing populist clowns like Trump or Marine Le Pen to sale snake oil.
Personally, I’d like to see globalization to succeed. But it may not succeed if all the left can come up with is that it failed because there were too many knuckle dragging troglodytes or lack of Uhaul truck rentals. There are a lot of issues for the left to think about, ranging to from displaced workers, to international monetary cooperation, and international tax cooperation. And certainly the left needs to come up with answer so that the process of globalization is seen as legitimate in the eyes of most people and that people are not being screwed because of it.
In my view the left, and not just the US left, has to think very carefully on these issues so people like Sanders or Brown don’t end up supporting tariffs because they feel like there is no other option or creating space for frauds like Trump to sell snake oil.

Tariffs won't actually help and aren't gonna hit the real issue with most of the communities in favour of this kind of shit, but they offer a simple story that pushes the right buttons and that's why they get support. There were manly man american jobs that supported a wife and 2.5 kids at home. And then they went away. And that's cause of dirty foreigners. So we stick it to foreigners with tariffs and such and the imaginary good times I remember return.

There are obvious more nuanced takes on the pros and cons of free trade. But they aren't coming out of like fucking Ohio and Pennsylvania politicians support Trump's blanket tariffs on steel. That's not what public support for these kind of policies is about.

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S John Council Member

S John

Posted
Posted
21 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Gen X here. I've been following this subthread with interest. 

I couldn't agree more with your statement. Boomers need to get out of the way.

There is an interesting dynamic in my home. I have two kids, born in 1995 and 1996. I guess my younger one is still a millennial and not Gen Z. My mother, born 1946, moved in with us last year and IMO she's the poster child for everything that's messed up about the boomers. For a generation that had everything handed to them on a plate (Vietnam notwithstanding), they are the biggest bunch of whiners and spoiled brats ever. They are selfish and self-centered. And they have the nerve to complain about millennials the same way they complained about us, the most educated generation in history. Listening to my mother interact with my kids makes it clear that they have no concept of how the modern world works, or how the recession has impacted these kids. They think it's still the 1950s. Hell, they don't understand us, either, or the impact FOUR recessions in our prime earning years has had on our ability to accumulate wealth and to pass that on to our kids. The boomers accumulated wealth...and pissed it away.

I'm siding with the kids for a whole lot of reasons. With sheer numbers, they're going to give the old folks a run for their money. And good riddance. Maybe we'll actually progress as a society instead of wishing for a return to a mythical Golden Age.

To me this is the most frustrating thing about the Boomer generation, and of course I understand that there are plenty of individual Boomers who are perfectly wonderful people.  

My parents are Boomers, but youngish ones and they do seem to understand that it’s harder for my sister and I than they had it, though that understanding hasn’t shaken their voting habits.  I was talking to them last weekend about home buying and found out my starter home is going to cost about 10x as much as theirs did.  My education at a state school was also many times more expensive and wages have not increased ten-fold in the meantime.  Not even close.  I could mitigate that housing cost by moving to a lower cost of living area - where it still wouldn’t be easy to buy on account of not having a job because all the jobs are in cities.  

Anyway, there are a lot of factors, wage stagnation, urbanization, drastically increased emphasis on higher education accompanied by inflated cost of higher education... it’s just a cocktail that has really hit home over the last 10 years or so  that a lot of older conservative folks do not understand.  Or if they do, but they don’t care enough to do anything other than continue to go full steam ahead on the policies that got us where we are.  

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IamMe90 Council Member

IamMe90

Posted
Posted
29 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Small spelling issue to point out, getting people's names right.

The man's name is Gary Cohn, not Cohen. I'm seeing Cohen all over the place, not just here. 

Michael Cohen is the name of Trump's attorney who was involved with the Stormy Daniels Nondisclosure Agreement, so it's easy enough to mix up the surnames. 

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Fragile Bird Council Member

Fragile Bird

Posted
Posted

With regard to the question of steel tariffs and beer, here's a good story about the impact the tariffs will have on a small manufacturer. 

The owner of the American Keg Company in Pottstown, Pennsylvania makes his kegs with American steel. Tariffs will push up the price of American steel. Kegs made with Chinese steel will still be made with cheap steel. He believes he will be priced out of the market. His employees think the tariffs will help the company. Even his congressman, and friend, Ryan Costello (R) praised the tariffs because they would help companies in his district, like AKC.

His company only has 20 employees, but the steel tariffs will hit businesses like his across the country.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/american-keg-company-workers-approve-of-tariffs-1.4566682

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The Wedge Council Member

The Wedge

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Posted
56 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

It spelled Korn.  You're thinking of the band Korn.  The bass player's sister is also a pornstar, so I can see the confusion.  Korn though.  With a K.

Don't forget the R is backward. KoЯn.

Rock and/or Яoll.

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LongRider Council Member

LongRider

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17 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I was wondering last night if this might happen.

Donnie is unhappy with Sarah 'Shuckabee' Sanders.

She mentioned his porn star troubles in the light of day, a big no no. She's supposed to lie about that like everything else.  So bye bye Huckie Boo Boo!

 

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LongRider Council Member

LongRider

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3 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

YES! FUCK YES THANK YOU THERE IS A GOD AND HER NAME IS RETRIBUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trump to go after Video Games as 'dangerous'.

I wonder if he'll move on to porn as being the next big 'dangerous' thing?

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Yukle Council Member

Yukle

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I wonder if he'll move on to porn as being the next big 'dangerous' thing?

More likely he'll begin speeches convincing his disciples that "special interest men's literature" is part of being a healthy man and only the weaklings in the fake news media lie about not giving into their normal natural and healthy impulses.

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