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US Politics: Don't Manchin the war...


A Horse Named Stranger

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There's only a unwillingness or inability on employers to compensate with high enough wages to attract potential or actual employees.

right.  relations as fetters on forces.  they must be burst asunder, &c. we're accordingly looking at a pre-revolutionary situation. they can call it the 'great resignation' or 'labor shortage' whatever cappy euphemism they want, but it doesn't alter the material reality of the capitalists being unable to pay what the resigned laborers regard as their minimum in the moment of pandemic plus climate change, both of which arise out of the same system of economic integration. the question becomes whether the pre-revolutionary situation matures or fizzles out, and, if it matures, whether it results in transformation or in mutual ruin. considering how the far right has been acting, the risk of that last option is not nugatory.

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Even our dentist's office is short of the skilled professionals. He's have a very hard time recruiting new ones, since so many quit last fall with that wave of covid, despite the very stringent safety protocols the office has.  A lot of that was transportation issues; the subways were perceived as becoming increasingly unsafe from crazies, criminals and those who wouldn't wear masks. Also there evidently were a couple of 'incidents' with patients who wouldn't behave properly in the office ....

 

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8 minutes ago, sologdin said:

mutual ruin.

Be assured mutual ruin is the objective.  They become raptured martyrs in God's heaven, while the world they died to halt in its tracks is finished for good: no more satanists, abortions, feminists, taxes, rules against beating up children and women, and they can abuse and kill others to their hearts' content, because all the good old days are back.

Which is extremely clever because They know 'we' will do anything to avoid mutual ruin.

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2 hours ago, Kaligator said:

It actually did say that, Scot. I'm not sure where you're seeing otherwise. Here's the quote from the actual spokesperson:
 

From here: https://kjzz.org/content/1719314/arizona-election-audit-confirms-bidens-win-maricopa-county-also-casts-doubts

 

From what I understand 'cooperation' included handing over vast amounts of private data and going around to voters and asking them to say who they voted for.

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1 hour ago, horangi said:

I've been curious that the board hasn't been talking more about the labor issues to be honest. 

I'd say though that your statement is a bit too broad, there certainly are true labor shortages in the high skilled technical and professional sphere, at least regionally.  Here in the PNW, its really difficult to get veterinary services for example, because there simply arent enough DVMs around for all the animals adopted during the pandemic.  Similarly, master craftsmen are in short supply and so much of the new construction in the area gets 3/4 built only to sit for months to be able to get the electrical and plumbing done. 

Even with the entry level work, I've been wondering what the alternative was for folks that are eschewing $19/hour minimum (which is what it is here for grocery workers).  If folks are finding better jobs, either in pay or working conditions, more power to them.  But some of the stats released in past threads are suggesting that folks weren't finding better options en mass, but were choosing to stay unemployed.  It looks like much of this is folks choosing to retire (which would create true shortages), but I am not sure that accounts for the majority of the gap. 

Regardless, it appears that the gap is just speeding along automation.  I noticed our local co-op has converted all but two check out lanes (3/4s) into self-service machines and the big-brand grocer has closed the labor intensive offerings like the deli/prepared meal stations and has 2 out of 15 lanes working.  The customers are becoming accustomed to using the automated systems, so I'm guessing there wont be a return to the previous norm, even after the labor market softens. 

 

I have been  licensed millwright here in Canada for  just over 35 years. I have worked in automotive parts factories, food production, architectural glass manufacturing, and building systems operations and maintenance in hospitals. During all that time I have not had a single apprentice. Every manager or supervisor decided it was cheaper and simpler to hire people with the needed skills. For the last 20 years, I have been reading articles in newspapers and trade magazines about the looming skills shortage coming up as the older tradespeople retire. Did anything change?  Not a bit. All my fabrication, welding, machining, and troubleshooting skills are now lost to the world. The worst part is that there are thousands of people like me. My trade required 8000 hours of practical work experience before I was even qualified to write the exam for my license. This is not something you can pick up from a book or a Youtube video. This is not just the pandemic causing this as the problem is like global warming. It has been talked about for years, but it was always some one else's issue to fix. Unless you pay me a shitload of money to train young people how to be able to fix anything and everything, well there is no other easy solution

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3 hours ago, Kaligator said:

I think yall are missing the point quite heavily. 

They'll come out and find that while the vote tallied up close to the result, there were MASSIVE irregularities. And they will have a list of them and make these things (like moving addresses) sound sinister and part of some horrible plot. And then they will recommend far more stringent rules to avoid these kinds of irregularities in the future. 

Well, I think the point is such an outcome demonstrates their lack of credibility and the fact they just wasted $6 million.  Will that stop the Arizona GOP from pursuing voter suppression legislation?  Of course not, but the audit clearly didn't end up supporting that effort - as it's obviously not gonna convince anybody that's not already convinced. 

Honestly, GOP MCs would have been better off focusing on getting such legislation through the process the last few months rather than holding off to wait for this report.  Other than feeding Trump's ego, there's absolutely no reason to provide an illegitimate pretext for passing an illegitimate voter suppression bill.  Trump now wants a Texas audit, but those fucks didn't wait to pass their voter suppression bill.

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2 hours ago, sologdin said:

There's only a unwillingness or inability on employers to compensate with high enough wages to attract potential or actual employees.

right.  relations as fetters on forces.  they must be burst asunder, &c. we're accordingly looking at a pre-revolutionary situation. they can call it the 'great resignation' or 'labor shortage' whatever cappy euphemism they want, but it doesn't alter the material reality of the capitalists being unable to pay what the resigned laborers regard as their minimum in the moment of pandemic plus climate change, both of which arise out of the same system of economic integration. the question becomes whether the pre-revolutionary situation matures or fizzles out, and, if it matures, whether it results in transformation or in mutual ruin. considering how the far right has been acting, the risk of that last option is not nugatory.

It'll probably fizzle out. First, a non-trivial fraction of this labor shortage is just failure to match unemployed people to job offers. This matching issue is always there, but it currently exists in much larger quantities than usual simply because many people were laid off when the pandemic started.

Second, the various pandemic measures (increased unemployment benefits, eviction bans, etc.) have been lowering the incentives for people to get a job unless it was quite well paying, but many (although not all -- some state ones remain) of these have recently been rolled back. It's only been a few weeks since that happened so it's too early to see the effect, but it will show up eventually.

Third, a lot of people are still either personally hesitant to go back to work because of covid or need to take care of children or others. This is also being ameliorated to some degree with booster shots and schools going back to exclusively in-person learning.

BTW, "nugatory" is a nice word that I did not know before. Thanks.

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1 hour ago, Altherion said:

t'll probably fizzle out.

You missed Maarsen's description of what has been going on across the sectors of skilled labor for a couple of generations.  As those in the older age cohorts retired the numbers of trained and competent to take their place -- they don't exist.  My brother is seeing this throughout his aeronautics industry too.  The higher-ups are terrified that he's about to quit -- he's passed retirement age.  They have no one anywhere who can do everything he's been doing for years, even out of his specialty.  He's their trouble shooter for everything.  They just piled more and more areas of responsibility on him rather than spend the money to bring in younger, less experienced people to learn from him -- or at all.  He's been trying and trying to hire this really brilliant young electrical engineer -- but They say this young woman is asking more than They want to pay -- not more than she's worth -- but less than They are willing to pay.

 

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2 hours ago, Altherion said:

It'll probably fizzle out. First, a non-trivial fraction of this labor shortage is just failure to match unemployed people to job offers. This matching issue is always there, but it currently exists in much larger quantities than usual simply because many people were laid off when the pandemic started.

Second, the various pandemic measures (increased unemployment benefits, eviction bans, etc.) have been lowering the incentives for people to get a job unless it was quite well paying, but many (although not all -- some state ones remain) of these have recently been rolled back. It's only been a few weeks since that happened so it's too early to see the effect, but it will show up eventually.

Third, a lot of people are still either personally hesitant to go back to work because of covid or need to take care of children or others. This is also being ameliorated to some degree with booster shots and schools going back to exclusively in-person learning.

BTW, "nugatory" is a nice word that I did not know before. Thanks.

Well that's a lot of crap. 

Whether anything you said is in any way potentially true it ignores the fact that the pandemic has drawn stark attention to what a lot of people already knew. In many sectors of the job market, people are simply just not paid enough. Yes the pandemic forced massive layoffs, in my industry for example with food and beverage, but the measures taken to get people that extra money to go with unemployment showed people that they're worth more.

What makes it worse, because employers are simply not paying line employees, they're getting to abuse their managers even more.  Since August 1, I've had all of 6 days off through today, and one of those days was the first of August.  I can count on one hand the number of those days worked that w we re under 10 hours.  I'm doing my job and the jobs of the staff I should have with me.  I'm not being compensated more, but my boss had me order in a bunch of expensive wine that he intends to dole out to us as a thank you for hard work.  So, yay?

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3 hours ago, DMC said:

Well, I think the point is such an outcome demonstrates their lack of credibility and the fact they just wasted $6 million.

I don't think that it demonstrates their lack of credibility - point of fact, their finding results similar to the 'official' results likely makes them more credible in most people's eyes. 

3 hours ago, DMC said:

  Will that stop the Arizona GOP from pursuing voter suppression legislation?  Of course not, but the audit clearly didn't end up supporting that effort - as it's obviously not gonna convince anybody that's not already convinced. 

It's not about convincing. It's about giving them more of a security blanket to jerk off into. 

 

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57 minutes ago, Kaligator said:

I don't think that it demonstrates their lack of credibility - point of fact, their finding results similar to the 'official' results likely makes them more credible in most people's eyes. 

Feel pretty confident in assuming their results do not look credible in most reasonable people's eyes.  Most Trumpists' eyes?  Of course, but what the hell does that matter?

59 minutes ago, Kaligator said:

It's not about convincing. It's about giving them more of a security blanket to jerk off into. 

First, they didn't need a security blanket to pass the legislation - especially if it's not about convincing.  Second, if it's only credible among Trumpists, it doesn't provide a security blanket anyway, it just wastes time.

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2 minutes ago, DMC said:

Feel pretty confident in assuming their results do not look credible in most reasonable people's eyes.  Most Trumpists' eyes?  Of course, but what the hell does that matter?

I think that they look much more credible than originally thought to be. And that's enough. They just need to not be on the side of Alex Jones crazy. 

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

First, they didn't need a security blanket to pass the legislation - especially if it's not about convincing.  Second, if it's only credible among Trumpists, it doesn't provide a security blanket anyway, it just wastes time.

It's not just about Trumpists. It's about regular people being able to convince themselves that what Trumpists are doing is probably okay and not get too outraged at the shitty thing.

The point isn't to convince the hardcore Nazis after all. The point is to make it palatable enough to convince the more apathetic people to continue to not care. 

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5 minutes ago, Kaligator said:

The point isn't to convince the hardcore Nazis after all. The point is to make it palatable enough to convince the more apathetic people to continue to not care. 

....So, it is about convincing, then?  I'm saying this doesn't help convince anyone that isn't already a Trumpist.  The fact they claimed there was fraud and then found Biden got more votes looks absurd to any reasonable person on its face.  Moreover, what the hell does that matter in terms of moving legislation?  You think there are voters that weren't going to vote for a GOP candidate in the Arizona state legislature because they were/are gonna vote for voter supression laws that now will because they think the audit was "palatable?"

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6 minutes ago, DMC said:

....So, it is about convincing, then?  I'm saying this doesn't help convince anyone that isn't already a Trumpist.  The fact they claimed there was fraud and then found Biden got more votes looks absurd to any reasonable person on its face.

And their report indicated that there was likely a whole lot of things that they thought were bad.

Quote

  Moreover, what the hell does that matter in terms of moving legislation?  You think there are voters that weren't going to vote for a GOP candidate in the Arizona state legislature because they were/are gonna vote for voter supression laws that now will because they think the audit was "palatable?"

I didn't say it had anything to do with moving legislation. My hypothesis is that this is more ammunition to make the people protesting the kind of legislation that Arizona is going to introduce to suppress more votes look more extreme, and make the legislators look less so. Those Nazis were always going to Nazi. The trick is to make the third of the population that doesn't really want to protest about people going to gas ovens be slightly more comfortable with whatever the Nazis are doing. 

Another way to say it is that they are okay with some random voter saying 'hey, that sounds fishy'. But they don't want that random voter to say 'that sounds SUPER bad' and actually having them, ya know, vote, or care. 

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3 minutes ago, Kaligator said:

My hypothesis is that this is more ammunition to make the people protesting the kind of legislation that Arizona is going to introduce to suppress more votes look more extreme, and make the legislators look less so.

I don't get why this hypothesis matters if it doesn't effect legislation nor elections.  And I don't think it affects either - other than delaying the Arizona GOP's efforts to enact voting suppression laws.

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

I don't get why this hypothesis matters if it doesn't effect legislation nor elections. 

It would affect elections. Or more accurately the mobilization of support during elections. 

1 hour ago, DMC said:

 

And I don't think it affects either - other than delaying the Arizona GOP's efforts to enact voting suppression laws.

K, you can go back to calling ty a lying lair then

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14 minutes ago, Kaligator said:

It would affect elections. Or more accurately the mobilization of support during elections. 

I don't think it would.  I reject the premise people will be more convinced not to vote than vote for a Dem candidate because of the audit and its report.

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