US Politics: Stamping out Chauvinism

[Wilbur]

3 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Which begs the question...is it an absolute bad thing the shift in those seats to traditionally red states? If it's more "liberal elites" moving into Texas and Florida...?  

Well, the Californians moving to Arizona are not exactly liberal elites.  The majority are middle-class white families looking for cheaper, larger homes than they can afford back home, including lots of Karens.  And also a significant portion are executives or full-rack PhD engineers who have been able to trade the Silicon Valley for the Silicon Desert/Valley of the Sun as a result of the work-from-home shift post Covid.  At least one semiconductor firm that previously had a relatively small R&D/sales office here has expanded it to include a lot of shared office/conference space to service these types.

And in Austin, it is just a trade of the Silicon Valley for the Silicon Hills, as the AMDs/Intels/etc. in the San Jose area shift their workforce to the much-cheaper Texas business environment.  It is very sad to see great companies like this turn their back on Silicon Valley, and anecdotally some of these ex-Cali transfers do not like Texas (hot and humid, bugs, no real trees, terrible road system, etc.) all that much.  But Austin is already very blue, so I don't think that it creates much of a political shift, either.

So the exodus from California doesn't necessarily lead to a bluer recipient location in these two cases.

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Week said:

Switching to chicken, at least, would be about a 50% reduction in carbon footprint, IIRC. Though industrial chicken farming does have it's own separate issues as well.

I wonder of the switch to Soylent Green will reduce the carbon footprint even more.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

50 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I wonder of the switch to Soylent Green will reduce the carbon footprint even more.

Soylent Green is for the masses. The librul elites will get fresh babies, not that canned shit.

[Zorral]

Friends in red states -- Faux Noose is telling their millions to confront  attack people wearing masks outdoors, to call the police on them,  because it is unscientific and makes him feel uncomfortable.

Quote

Fox News host Tucker Carlson is encouraging his viewers to confront those wearing masks in public, likening wearing a mask outside to exposing oneself in public.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2021/04/27/tucker-carlson-encourages-mask-confrontations-newday-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/business-media/

Also indoors too, that so-called health expert says.

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

The nice thing about this one is that every individual has the power to make choices that help, if only a little. 

Sure, but one person changing their lifestyle amounts to a grain of sand on a beach. Good for them, but the macro level impact would be non-existent. 

[ThinkerX]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Friends in red states -- Faux Noose is telling their millions to confront  attack people wearing masks outdoors, to call the police on them,  because it is unscientific and makes him feel uncomfortable.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2021/04/27/tucker-carlson-encourages-mask-confrontations-newday-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/business-media/

Also indoors too, that so-called health expert says.

 

 

remember...one day that will be *President Tucker Carlson*

 

[S John]

8 hours ago, Ormond said:

One has to look at exactly who is moving where in addition to the ability of Republicans in the states that are gaining to gerrymander new districts.

I think one should notice that West Virginia is actually a state that lost population. Back in the 20th century there were tens of thousands of West Virginians who moved to Ohio and Michigan to work in auto plants and other factories. The 21st century heavy outmigration from West Virginia now seems to be going south, with a very big contingent to North Carolina. I actually wonder if part of the reason North Carolina has not moved to "Blue" as quickly as Georgia, which has surprised many, is because more of NC's new residents are from places like West Virginia and Ohio and so are not "liberal elites" at all but less educated Whites.

Yep. Sometimes it feels like there are more West Virginians outside of the state than in it. My mom is one of 6, only two of her siblings still live in West Virginia. My dad is one of four and only one of them still lives in West Virginia.

My mothers other 3 siblings are the craziest ones when it comes to Q and conspiracies and that sort of bullshit and are who I am complaining about when I occasionally blast them here. Two of them now live in North Carolina and one in South Carolina. In fact one of them recently moved to a different county in North Carolina because the first county imposed mask mandates during the pandemic so, clearly far too liberal to reside in. There are tons of ex West Virginians in North and South Carolina, not all of them crazy - just the ones I know. 

[A True Kaniggit]

1 hour ago, S John said:

Yep. Sometimes it feels like there are more West Virginians outside of the state than in it. My mom is one of 6, only two of her siblings still live in West Virginia. My dad is one of four and only one of them still lives in West Virginia.

Ha. Seems that way, doesn’t it? Of my dad and his 5 living siblings from WV, only he and one other currently live there. And they only moved back recently after living elsewhere for a few decades. 
 

And yeah. 2/5 of his siblings are crazy.

[Mindwalker]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

Friends in red states -- Faux Noose is telling their millions to confront  attack people wearing masks outdoors, to call the police on them,  because it is unscientific and makes him feel uncomfortable.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2021/04/27/tucker-carlson-encourages-mask-confrontations-newday-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/business-media/

Also indoors too, that so-called health expert says.

 

 

Did he do his new maniacal laugh again? That's a new thing he's developed, I think he's close to a nervous breakdown or something.

[Fury Resurrected]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Sure, but one person changing their lifestyle amounts to a grain of sand on a beach. Good for them, but the macro level impact would be non-existent. 

What is the beach but many grains of sand together? I’m not here for this kind of defeatist laziness. It matters, and it matters so much we should all do the things that help where we can. For some it’s a carbon free commute, for some it’s reducing or forgoing meat. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

What is the beach but many grains of sand together? I’m not here for this kind of defeatist laziness. It matters, and it matters so much we should all do the things that help where we can. For some it’s a carbon free commute, for some it’s reducing or forgoing meat. 

It's not defeatist so much as realistic. We should do all that we can individually, but the goals we need to reach cannot be achieved without a collective mindset and we're so far from that. 

[Fury Resurrected]

13 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's not defeatist so much as realistic. We should do all that we can individually, but the goals we need to reach cannot be achieved without a collective mindset and we're so far from that. 

We are- but perhaps the biggest part of why is exactly the attitude you are displaying.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

21 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

We are- but perhaps the biggest part of why is exactly the attitude you are displaying.

Probably has more to do with a large section of the country being completely bad faith actors compounded by their structural control in too many areas of government.

[VigoTheCarpathian]

16 hours ago, Zorral said:

Friends in red states -- Faux Noose is telling their millions to confront  attack people wearing masks outdoors, to call the police on them,  because it is unscientific and makes him feel uncomfortable.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2021/04/27/tucker-carlson-encourages-mask-confrontations-newday-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/business-media/

Also indoors too, that so-called health expert says.

 

 

“This mask is protecting you from my germs, f*ckstick. I can see you don’t have the same level of regard for me that I do for you”

Do you think after asking someone to remove their mask for any reason is enough legal justification to do so and then sneeze-cough into their faces?  Because that seems like the appropriate response.

 

[Isalie]

5 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

We are- but perhaps the biggest part of why is exactly the attitude you are displaying.

This is in no way true, i dont eat meat nor shop/travel a lot, but its obvious that the idea that individuals should solve the climate problem through their actions is just a way for corporations to get off the hook. We need political solutions, not individual.

[Proudfeet]

19 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

In a word, no.

But let’s talk about tax policy for a moment, shall we?  Yellen (whom autocorrect insists on correcting to ‘yelled’, amusing, non?) has proposed a “global minimum tax regime”.  Basically, the idea is to remove the incentive to relocate people, IP, etc., solely for the purpose of accessing a lower tax rate to drive down a global effective rate.  While this may gain some traction in high tax jurisdictions (e.g., UK, France, Germany, etc.), I am confident that other countries that rely on this tax tourism will resist.  I was thinking specifically of Ireland (12.5%!), but Hungary (which is notorious for a lax treaty, and is often suggested but almost never used in practice) has already come out against.  If you think about it, if a company earns a dollar [I could say euro, pound, yen, rmb- just go with dollar for a sec] of normalized global profit, the various entities in the world all want to tax that global dollar based on the dollar’s relationship to that country.  These are the biggest audit fights (transfer pricing) and drive the biggest headlines.  Hungary is basically saying “I want the ability to take less than the global minimum amount of that dollar of profit, but increase my volume of dollars connected to Hungary”.  

I'm highly sceptical on this. Combating tax avoidance through transfer pricing sounds good in theory, but what rate should be set? I'm sure every country will prefer a rate that is convenient to them where countries below them can't quite use it to compete while they still have the edge over high tax jurisdictions. If it was in good faith, they'd propose a rate higher than their current rate.

Also, it is taking away a tool that countries use to drive investment. The US is basically saying "I want to take the lead I have and snowball it so others will find it even more difficult to catch up". I do think that countries should and do have other means of attracting investment, but coming from the US, this proposal just seems like their way of demonstrating their hegemony. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 4/24/2021 at 2:36 PM, Trishkin said:

Man, the conservosphere really hates California. They have declared it a failed state, a la Venezuela. Which is weird, because I live in California and it doesn’t seem to be a failed socialist state to me. They also think California has “signed its own death warrant” because Gavin Newsom wants to phase out fracking over the next few years. And for some reason they seem pretty sure that Newsom is going to start issuing “red meat passports” which will limit Californians to one hamburger per month. And if you think that’s the weirdest thing, you’d be wrong. Conservative Reddit is pretty certain that Caitlyn Jenner only transitioned because she knew she couldn’t win a gubernatorial election in California as a straight, cis, white man (never mind that literally all previous California governors have been straight, cis, white men).

Late reply but; California triggers image of it just being filled  the stereotypical liberals and a lot of Mexicans in cities.

Not real Americans—conservative white people. Especially those in sparsely populated areas.

Also for a lack of a better; I think there is a particular elitist streak in terms of how many people view real Americans in terms of geographic location and employment.Like man from rural Kansas who works at small farm better represents America than a Barista at a coffe shop.

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

3 hours ago, Proudfeet said:

I'm highly sceptical on this. Combating tax avoidance through transfer pricing sounds good in theory, but what rate should be set? I'm sure every country will prefer a rate that is convenient to them where countries below them can't quite use it to compete while they still have the edge over high tax jurisdictions. If it was in good faith, they'd propose a rate higher than their current rate.

Also, it is taking away a tool that countries use to drive investment. The US is basically saying "I want to take the lead I have and snowball it so others will find it even more difficult to catch up". I do think that countries should and do have other means of attracting investment, but coming from the US, this proposal just seems like their way of demonstrating their hegemony. 

Yellen is proposing 21% (current top US rate).  I share your skepticism.  While it is true that multinationals can and absolutely do manage their ETR through what is euphemistically called ‘supply chain optimization’, I think we sort of missed the boat.  We didn’t participate in the BEPS project (stand for base erosion profit shifting) which was, in fact, focused exactly on this sort of thing and has caused real changes in how the EU countries (and also the UK, to a limited extent) operate.  That project has meant that, for instance, Luxembourg isn’t as available as a haven play unless the taxpayer is really interested in establishing a real presence in Luxembourg (which you think would benefit Luxembourg, but actually you can get most of what Luxembourg offers in the Netherlands or Ireland, and executives prefer to travel to Amsterdam or Dublin, and honestly the UK is a pretty attractive jurisdiction); there’s some competition around the actual corporate law as well.  

The real issue the US has in this game is that we tax worldwide income on a current basis (and our credit system/high tax kick outs suck so there’s fair bit of double taxation on the same profit pool unless you are willing to wait through the backlog of the competent authority process where the two governments figure out who owes what where). This is out of step with pretty much the rest of our peers.  There are historical policy reasons supporting this, but we are Hotel California here - we’re glad to have you, but you can never leave.

[Wilbur]

5 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Late reply but; California triggers image of it just being filled  the stereotypical liberals and a lot of Mexicans in cities.

Not real Americans—conservative white people. Especially those in sparsely populated areas...

Which is a wildly inaccurate view of California demographics.

Numerically there are likely more Okies (and their descendants living in suburbia) in Cali than there are rednecks in Arkansas and Missouri combined.  Just drive through the Inland Empire and count the coal-rolling bro-dozers.

[Fury Resurrected]

6 hours ago, Isalie said:

This is in no way true, i dont eat meat nor shop/travel a lot, but its obvious that the idea that individuals should solve the climate problem through their actions is just a way for corporations to get off the hook. We need political solutions, not individual.

We need BOTH. It’s not an either or thing. And the more that people find it personally important enough to do things, the more governments and corporations will know it behooves them to do it if they want public support.