U.S. Politics: Covfefe Boys

[TrueMetis]

8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Oh, it can always be much worse. Millennials are no less selfish, but in addition to that, they have expectations which are out of line with reality in the wrong direction (here's a long article about it).

If the author was going to dust of an old school racist term to deride Millennials with they could at least bring something new to the table rather than regurgitating a bunch of crap that's already been said. The "MIllennials expect to much and don't work hard enough" was dated even in 2013 when that article was written.

[The Anti-Targ]

Personally, I don't think its unreasonable to want a society where you don't have to work yourself to the point of exhaustion to meet your material needs. The thing is, it's fine to have expectations, but there also needs to be a plan for how to realise them. So the problem is there's no plan.

[Bonnot OG]

 

46 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

If the author was going to dust of an old school racist term to deride Millennials with they could at least bring something new to the table rather than regurgitating a bunch of crap that's already been said. The "MIllennials expect to much and don't work hard enough" was dated even in 2013 when that article was written.

Pretty much, and not shocked that the person you responded to loved that article and thought it was insightful.

[Altherion]

7 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Personally, I don't think its unreasonable to want a society where you don't have to work yourself to the point of exhaustion to meet your material needs. The thing is, it's fine to have expectations, but there also needs to be a plan for how to realise them. So the problem is there's no plan.

I don't think the issue is so much the lack of a plan as scarcity of positions. There exist jobs which pay a decent amount of money (enough that some is left over even after dealing with all of the bloodsuckers which tend to congregate in areas where such jobs are present) without requiring working oneself to exhaustion, but there are nowhere near enough of them for everyone. It's not enough to have a plan; one has to be good enough at something to edge out many others who want to do the same thing.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Best one I saw recently was how Hooters are closing all over the country cause "Millennials don't like boobs".

All shapes, all sizes, boobs will never go out of style.  Maybe the local titty bars have started serving chicken wings. 

1 hour ago, Bonnot OG said:

Silent Sam got torn down! More confederate monuments / statues need to be torn down and destroyed.

Taken down, yes.  Destroyed?  I'm not so sure.

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Oh, it can always be much worse. Millennials are no less selfish, but in addition to that, they have expectations which are out of line with reality in the wrong direction (here's a long article about it).

Quote:

Quote

After graduating from being insufferable hippies, Lucy’s parents embarked on their careers. As the 70s, 80s, and 90s rolled along, the world entered a time of unprecedented economic prosperity. Lucy’s parents did even better than they expected to. This left them feeling gratified and optimistic..

Yeah, If Lucy was born to median-income parents, they haven't seen shit.  Below median income, they're probably worse off.

Also, if Lucy was born in the late 70's, her earliest memories would include lines at the gas station and high inflation followed by high interest rates and then Reganomics.  If she was especially perceptive, she'd remember the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980's, then half a dozen other recessions culminating in the great recession of 2009, which was the biggest since the one her grandparents experienced when they were kids.  Lucy has probably been laid off at least once in her life.

She's also seen rising healthcare costs, financial fraud, skyrocketing tuition, reduced job benefits, and evaporating job security all on a scale like her parents or grandparents have ever seen.  And all the while Lucy's idiot Boomer parents are wagging their finger at Lucy for drinking too many latte's.  Never mind that Lucy's Latte and smartphone budget doesn't even come close to her parents spent on cigarettes every year, because Lucy is much less likely to smoke.  Lucy is also much less likely to replace her car every couple of years, like her parents did.

Then her parents voted for Donald Trump...

If Lucy wants a bit of career satisfaction in all that shit, give Lucy a break.

[Errant Bard]

1 hour ago, TrueMetis said:

The "MIllennials expect to much and don't work hard enough" was dated even in 2013 when that article was written.

The "back in my days it was uphill both ways" is a timeless old conservative people rambling.

Beyond that, "not working hard enough" is a staple of conservative discourse, which is aimed at exonerating society of its unbalanced wealth distribution, to put the blame on the victims themselves: ie "when you're poor it's your fault".

Meanwhile the rich have never been richer while the poor have never been more numerous: see 

or http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/inequality-wealth-income-us/

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

I don't think the issue is so much the lack of a plan as scarcity of positions. There exist jobs which pay a decent amount of money (enough that some is left over even after dealing with all of the bloodsuckers which tend to congregate in areas where such jobs are present) without requiring working oneself to exhaustion, but there are nowhere near enough of them for everyone. It's not enough to have a plan; one has to be good enough at something to edge out many others who want to do the same thing.

I'm not talking about each person having a plan, I'm talking about society having a collective plan. If people are having to work 60+ hr weeks, having 2 or 3 jobs in order to have a comfortable material existence then that's a social problem, not an individual problem.

[The Anti-Targ]

32 minutes ago, Triskjavikson said:

That could actually be real.  It's the endocrine disruptors in the water...same stuff Alex Jones warned us about that was turning the frogs gay.  

So the answer is to also hire male waitstaff who have big pecs and washboard abs and who wear crop top Ts. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

America's Mayor.

 

 

[OldGimletEye]

5 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

If the author was going to dust of an old school racist term to deride Millennials with they could at least bring something new to the table rather than regurgitating a bunch of crap that's already been said. The "MIllennials expect to much and don't work hard enough" was dated even in 2013 when that article was written.

Yeah, Lucy is probably pissed off because like many of her generation she was trying to enter the job market during the GFC and had a tough time finding her first job.

Lucy can likely expect to have lower lifetime earnings than say somebody that entered the job market right before the GFC.

Lucy probably should be pissed off at the situation.

I don't blame Lucy for being pissed at the situation, particularly since Lucy had nothing to do with the creating the situation.

I also don't blame Lucy for throwing a fit when she heard Newt Gingrich suggest the problem was not knowing the value of "hard work", particularly when idiots like Newt Gingrich were running around giving real bad advice and making real bad comparisons.

[OldGimletEye]

Here is what an orange idiot does:

An orange idiot considers perennial conservative clowns like Kevin Warsh, who, well was just wrong about everything, for the FED Chairman.

An orange idiot considers people like John Taylor, who has been playing team Republican for a long time, for FED chairman. 

An orange idiot then appoints several people to the FED board, who are more or less monetary hawks, when he could have picked people that are more dovish.

Then an orange idiot complains about the FED being too hawkish.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/20/trump-escalates-attacks-federal-reserve/

Quote

President Trump on Monday criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell, his appointee, for raising interest rates too quickly.

Trump is escalating his Fed-bashing ahead of the central bank’s next meeting and against the advice of many of his top economic advisers. Recent presidents have refrained from commenting on the Fed’s handling of the economy out of respect for the Fed’s independence.

“I’m not thrilled with his raising of interest rates, no. I’m not thrilled,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters. He urged the Fed to avoid doing anything that could slow economic growth.

For people that tell themselves little fairy tales that they support Trump for economic reasons, here is a tip: The Orange Idiot has no fuckin' clue to do what he is doing.

[OldGimletEye]

Conservatives being fuckin' idiots.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls herself a "democratic socialist", which of course has raised the hackles of conservative idiots.

Ocasio-Cortez is of course a Sanderite, which means, most of her ideas could be descibed as likely being Post-Keynesian and not straight up Marxist. I'm not a post Keynesian myself (though certainly a Keynesian) as I still believe basically that there still is value in using neo-classical utility and production functions.

But the post-Keynesian school of thought have certainly right about a few things. They have been pretty much right about how banking works. Joan Robinson's rants about the historical time versus logical time distinctions seems to be correct as the evidence of hysteresis effects just piles up. Plus it just seems more plausible that people update their expectations in real time as opposed to logical time. And it sure does seem like a state of high unemployment can persist for a long time.

Conservative idiots could learn a thing or two from reading the post-Keynesian literature.

The post Keynesian school of thought were certainly closer to the truth about matters than say people like Casey Mulligan who spent years writing nonsense in the Wall Street Journal because of that walrasian model he was working in.

Also there is nothing technocraticaly wrong with single payer healthcare and it is arguably the best solution to the US's over priced healthcare system (remember back in the day when conservatives were arguing the US had the "best" healthcare system in the world).

And because Ocasio-Cortez calls herself a "Democratic Socialist" conservative sorts of people have a hissy fit.

Of course when conservatives call everything that doesn't align with their "pro-growth supply side solustions" "socialist" at some point people just stop giving a fuck at being called a socialist. Probably the reason why more people are willing to be called socialist. I'm fine with being called a "socialist", particularly if it means I think the Repubican Party and conservatives are full of shit.

Perhaps before freaking out at the scary "democratic-socialist" conservatives need to examine their own record over the last four decades. Conservatives think they are all that on economic policy. But, uh, not really.

Remember the "Bush Boom"? Remember "Bullish on Bush"?

They think Trump is doing a bang up job and actually knows what he is doing.

Conservatives love to brag about how good they are on these matters, but then when they get their big chance, what do they do? They piss up a tree, basically.

Conservatives need to calm the fuck down.

https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/8/20/17674910/conservatives-republicans-ocasio-cortez-democratic-socialist-2018-midterms

Quote

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become a breakout star in the Democratic Party since June, when she pulled off a stunning upset in the New York midterm primaries, beating Rep. Joe Crowley, a top Democrat in the House.

And, not coincidentally, she has also become the white-hot epicenter of not just derision, but blistering, nonstop criticism from conservatives and Republicans.

 

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

6 hours ago, Altherion said:

I don't think the issue is so much the lack of a plan as scarcity of positions. There exist jobs which pay a decent amount of money (enough that some is left over even after dealing with all of the bloodsuckers which tend to congregate in areas where such jobs are present) without requiring working oneself to exhaustion, but there are nowhere near enough of them for everyone. It's not enough to have a plan; one has to be good enough at something to edge out many others who want to do the same thing.

What gets me most about the text you linked is how it portrays the "Boomers" as gratefully accepting the hands they were given and entering straight into building stable careers for themselves. 

I don't see how anyone familiar with modern history could make such a case. The Western world (particularly the USA) was wracked with huge student protests, riots, counterculture movements, and alarming levels of support for Communist ideologies among young people, throughout the entire period the Boomers were entering the work force. 

Young Americans of today are very calm and complacent in comparison. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Best one I saw recently was how Hooters are closing all over the country cause "Millennials don't like boobs".

Perhaps if the food at Hooters didn’t suck they wouldn’t be closing.  

[Gertrude]

When I hear people talking about millenials not wanting to work hard or whatever, I just keep hearing the shit thrown at my generation for being slackers. It's all a variant of 'kids these days' which is a tradition as old as history.

[The Anti-Targ]

3 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

When I hear people talking about millenials not wanting to work hard or whatever, I just keep hearing the shit thrown at my generation for being slackers. It's all a variant of 'kids these days' which is a tradition as old as history.

Mandatory.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Gertrude said:

When I hear people talking about millenials not wanting to work hard or whatever, I just keep hearing the shit thrown at my generation for being slackers. It's all a variant of 'kids these days' which is a tradition as old as history.

Every generation has thought the generation following has it too easy.  It's the nature of generational politics.

[Martell Spy]

6 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Here is what an orange idiot does:

An orange idiot considers perennial conservative clowns like Kevin Warsh, who, well was just wrong about everything, for the FED Chairman.

An orange idiot considers people like John Taylor, who has been playing team Republican for a long time, for FED chairman. 

An orange idiot then appoints several people to the FED board, who are more or less monetary hawks, when he could have picked people that are more dovish.

Then an orange idiot complains about the FED being too hawkish.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/20/trump-escalates-attacks-federal-reserve/

For people that tell themselves little fairy tales that they support Trump for economic reasons, here is a tip: The Orange Idiot has no fuckin' clue to do what he is doing.

Yeah, he did this before. What he is doing is trying to avoid blame.

[Maithanet]

Manafort jury asks judge what to do if they can't come to consensus on a single count.

 

Quote

 

The jury in the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has asked the judge what would happen if it can't reach consensus on one of the 18 counts it is deliberating.

Judge T.S. Ellis is preparing instructions to the jury to continue deliberations Tuesday morning, he said in court.

 

Board lawyers, what typically happens here?  Is it a hung jury if they're unanimous on 17 of the 18 counts, but they cannot agree on one?  Can the jury tell the judge/legal teams what their finding is for the other 17 charges?  Because (hypothetically) if Manafort is guilty on 17 counts, I could easily believe the prosecutors would be willing to just drop charge #18 (whichever it is). 

 

On the whole, I'm encouraged by this.  I think he's guilty, and I think it's very unlikely that the jury decided he was innocent of 17 charges but they're hung on charge #18.  It seems to me that it's a lot more likely that he's been found guilty on 10+ charges, and they're just stuck on one particular point. 

[Maithanet]

So I answered my own question with a little googling.  According to this law blog (talking about the Blagojevich case), if a jury has a unanimous decision on some counts and is hung on others, then:

Quote

prosecutors can accept the verdict on all counts the jury has returned a verdict on and the court will sentence the defendant on those counts alone, if he or she has been convicted. A retrial on charges not decided upon by a unanimous verdict is not subject to the rule against double jeopardy. Double jeopardy generally prohibits a defendant for being retried for the same crime once acquitted by a jury.

So it sounds like if the jury has reached a decision on 17 of the 18 charges, we are going to hear (eventually) their ruling on those 17.  Which is good, I feel like my least preferable scenario is if one juror just decided that Mueller needs to be stopped, and no amount of evidence would result in a conviction on any charges.  Looks like that scenario is out the window.