US Election 2016

[Lucifer]

I was never interested in Pantera. I technically went to one of their concerts, because Anthrax was opening for them. I left after Anthrax. Just not into Pantera. I have a similar approach to finding out when people became douchebags, which is why I'll still listen to early Megadeth and Metallica, but that's a position I've only taken up recently. I've spent a couple of decades not listening to either of those bands. There's a part of me that worries that if I identify too much with the music made by a terrible person, I'll become a terrible person.

You beat me to the innuendo studios video mostly because I didn't see it got posted. I've been working. I switched to a different food delivery service and am now making at least subsistence money. But to answer his question, honestly, if he'd posted that video two years ago, I would have said something like "threatening to invade our allies and/or mass deportations", and guess what's happening now?

[Word]

I still occasionally listen to Morrissey and his former band, even though he has a history of embracing racist political parties and making racist comments. The one singular issue on his mind is animal rights and it seems to me like he regards the world as one big South Park episode he is trapped in where everyone else says the same boring stuff and he is the same isolated genius which he was as a twentysomething. He also said stuff like Nazis originally being left-wing and the like. I think the other two Smiths members still deserve to be listened to and Morrissey's solo projects from the time before he became a narcissistic caricature of himself (there's an entire Simpsons episode about that, and a neat song parody) are still enjoyable.

Then there's Roger Waters and Pink Floyd. Sigh. I love Pink Floyd. If it weren't for Netanyahu, Waters would be nothing but a whining next-door antisemite now, but he still wields enormous influence and keeps doing "Freedom for Palestine"/"Israelis are Nazis!"-variations of The Wall and supports BDS. Same with Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel and lots of others. I still listen to all of these on occasion, because I like their music, many of these artists made Third World artists more accessible, and the Israel/Palestine conflict is complicated, so these aren't really Nazis.

As for Eric Clapton and David Bowie, I'm aware they made some racist comments in the past when they were going through some alcohol- and drug-related stuff. Doesn't make it ok, but at least they apologized decades later.

Also not a nazi, but just to add to the list, I never liked Led Zeppelin and that Jimmy Page once sort of abducted a 14-year old groupie girl in the 70s is something that would mean instant career death in our time.

[Monkey]

Incidentally, did you guys know that Trump has brought out his own version of the bible (well ok someone else brought it out but he has branded it and is endorsing it)?

Was that the one that was printed in China?

I wouldn't be surprised if they are all printed in China.

the Israel/Palestine conflict is complicated

Yeah it is. Also, a lot of Israelis hate Netanyahu; he got into power and now they can't get rid of him. It's like our Conservative government here in the UK that got in (well, stayed in) and then caused havoc. We had to wait until recently to get them out but by then it was too late, our country is ******. We (apparently) have a "black hole" of 20 Billion GBP (i won't even mention Covid or Brexit again).

[sinewav]

the Israel/Palestine conflict is complicated

Yeah it is.

I disagree the conflict is complicated, it's the solution that is complicated. This isn't the thread for that discussion so I unless there is a new thread and someone says something absolutely idiotic I'll stay quiet.

[kyle]

Just posting it here, I mean Wall Street Journal could be wrong, but apparently Friedrich Merz is claiming he's going to retaliate against Elon and his companies, because Elon supported the AfD? This sounds like suppression to me, I don't care what party you support, nor should he, and he should not retaliate against you for who you support. This sounds like the same crap the Democrats have been doing in the US, horrible morals. This to me is more like something from Hitler's playbook did first suppress the opposition. You know he will likely ban X, or force some kind of deep state moderation on there.

[Word]

It's funny you directly go to Hitler, I had the impression that Merz (a conservative) is borrowing/copying quite a lot from Trump. Surpression? Of his own opinion? In the TV debate against Scholz, the guy said there are only two genders and we should deport as many criminal immigrants as possible. Actually both guys said that, but Merz a little more emphatic. You'd surely vote for him, kyle.

Also, how are you going to stop the next pandemic/"win" the next war when you just closed USAID, left WHO, effectively legalized corporate corruption when it's in US interest (think about the implications here, kyle: Are German or Chinese company leaders and officials now encouraged to bribe American officials in return?), slapped your useless tariffs on your closest allies, already sold out Ukraine to Putin and soon shut down the department of education? Good luck on all those fronts.

[Z-Man]

You beat me to the innuendo studios video mostly because I didn't see it got posted. ... But to answer his question, honestly, if he'd posted that video two years ago, I would have said something like "threatening to invade our allies and/or mass deportations", and guess what's happening now?

Threatening allies would not even have been on my map of the continent the Rubicon is on.

Over the past weeks, I spent three and a half afternoons freezing my ass off protesting against, among others, Merz. You won't find me defending him here. He has no leg to stand on. There is a case to be made against the AfD for ACCEPTING Musk's support (in the form of the Musk/Weidel talk, which can be seen as a donation of goods that are worth money, which may be illegal) and they may be fined for that. But I don't think the relevant laws hold any penalty for the donor. And of course, there is no law that says a regular citizen of any nation cannot speak in support of whatever party they like, as long as it's not one of the banned parties. We don't have to LIKE it, but, say, banning X because of it would be challenging to get through the courts.

If you ask me, Merz' statements are a simple election campaign move. He doesn't even say what he intends to do, he just wants to catch a couple of voters who don't like Musk.

Now, banning X because they refuse to respect local laws, that would be legitimate. Remember, Trump himself wanted to ban TikTok because they are taking US citizens' data and storing them in China. Making new laws that seem tailor-made to target X, now that would get us into iffy-fashy territory.
Also legitimate: Not signing any business deals with Musk or his companies any more simply because you don't like them. Say, if he wants to build another factory, there would be zero obligation to allow that. You probably would not say out loud that's the reason, but you'd find others easily; the first factory's long list of violated regulations would fit the bill.

You realize Musk and his DOGE-Goons right now ARE the deep state? Unelected, unauthorized, grabbing ALL the data and asserting authority?

[Monkey]

Well, I've been following things in the US as best i can since last posting and it looks like things are going to be even worse than expected for most US citizens soon. The tariff/Greenland/Canada/Mexico/EU nonsense, for whatever reason Trump has done these things, is going to destroy you guys. Literally every country that did trade with the US is now going elsewhere to do trade with. Canada is selling their oil to Asia for a start, then Japan and China are forming an alliance. The shit is really hitting the fan. The EU doesn't want much to do with you guys either. Also, Russia ..what is he doing honestly....he's either completely mad and stupid or he has some tactical master plan. I'm going with the former.

@kyle You just don't realise that people like Trump and Musk don't give a shit about people like you, they are rich narcissists, only in it for themselves. When everything goes tits up for you, then you will realise. Some magas have already realised this. He's cut subisidies for farmers, education and pretty much everything else that a decent country should have. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a far lefty (well i am in my heart but not in my brain in this world) and i also agree that Biden wasn't a good president, *however*, Trump is the worst president that you guys have ever had. You will see this soon...its not if, its when. I will be saying "i told you so" when you finally realise.

[kyle]

I posted that based on a small piece of news behind a paywall, I actually did not know enough to know what party/side of the political spectrum the were from. I probably took it a bit too far, just was concerned, because attacking someone and their companies because they don't like that the supported another party is just low standards, and should not happen anywhere. but as z-man said, he's being more conservative, he is likely trying draw from the left more votes.

The Department of Education has been an insane mess, if it were working we would have some of the brightest students, that's just not the case. I think I said this before, The amount of money that made it to my school system was extremely low per student, and when you factor in conforming to all the policies, it was taking money away from teachers to add to administrators. Our whole education system needs a ton of reform, it just does not work. besides the negative money it adds, it also added policies, like Bush's No Child Left behind, This basically forced kids who were failing grades the ability to continue on uneducated, becoming a burden to the next years teacher, because they did not know the knowledge, meaning the teacher could chose to help them, or try to help the other ones over them, neither really work as that child really needed left behind, to learn the building blocks to continue on to the next grade.
^^ This has been my stance on this since high school, before I followed Musk, and well before trump was in office.

We need this massive reform to flush out the waste in our government, yes some programs got cut, but only because there was so much waste in them

You will see this soon...its not if, its when. I will be saying "i told you so" when you finally realise.

There will be a year or so of hard times for some people, when you remove a lot of bloat from the system, it's going to effect us, possibly place us in a "paper" recession or depression. Meaning that GDP will fall, but that's because of the massive cuts to the wasteful government spending. I don't think if we hit 4 quarters of decline (depression), that it will be like any great depression.

I don't think tariffs are bad, in fact it is taxes on wholesale goods, if tariffs could cover our expenses, and the IRS could be abolished (Tax on income) this would be a good thing. I've always been for a tax on spending over a tax on making money.

[Lucifer]

The Department of Education has been an insane mess, if it were working we would have some of the brightest students, that's just not the case. I think I said this before, The amount of money that made it to my school system was extremely low per student, and when you factor in conforming to all the policies, it was taking money away from teachers to add to administrators.

That's all at the district level, not the federal level. Federal money in education is on a pound for pound basis, so if your school didn't have much money, it's because you lived in a place with low property values.

You *really* need to learn how the government actually works. There's no deep state. Salaries are decided by local school boards, not Washington DC bureaucrats.

like Bush's No Child Left behind, This basically forced kids who were failing grades the ability to continue on uneducated, becoming a burden to the next years teacher, because they did not know the knowledge, meaning the teacher could chose to help them, or try to help the other ones over them, neither really work as that child really needed left behind, to learn the building blocks to continue on to the next grade.
^^ This has been my stance on this since high school, before I followed Musk, and well before trump was in office.

Weirdly, you're right about No Child Left Behind, but you're wrong about why it was so bad. It wasn't just the students getting to advance grades, it was that the money from the legislation went to hire tutors. So students who were underperforming were basically given twice the workload the following year, after failing to do the regular workload the previous year.

You may have been a high school kid at the time, I was a tutor.

We need this massive reform to flush out the waste in our government, yes some programs got cut, but only because there was so much waste in them

Basically every mom and pop farm is about to go tits up, some have already, when they lose their subsidies. The big corporate farms owned by Trump's billionaire friends? They'll do fine.

There's plenty of videos around from actual farmers talking about the mess they're in now that DOGE has paused all this funding. You know, people who voted overwhelmingly for Trump, now they're getting screwed over.

You will see this soon...its not if, its when. I will be saying "i told you so" when you finally realise.

There will be a year or so of hard times for some people, when you remove a lot of bloat from the system, it's going to effect us, possibly place us in a "paper" recession or depression. Meaning that GDP will fall, but that's because of the massive cuts to the wasteful government spending. I don't think if we hit 4 quarters of decline (depression), that it will be like any great depression.

I don't think tariffs are bad, in fact it is taxes on wholesale goods, if tariffs could cover our expenses, and the IRS could be abolished (Tax on income) this would be a good thing. I've always been for a tax on spending over a tax on making money.

Tariffs cause inflation! Directly! And we pay the tariffs. They're not a tax on China or Japan or Canada. They're a cost of doing business that gets passed on to whoever ultimately buys the stuff, and since we only tax imports, that means it's Americans who pay the tariffs. So, raise the price of imports, guess what? Prices go up! That's called "inflation".

It's not "hard times for some people". Social security isn't being paid out right now. So that's your parents/grandparents/etc. People who worked hard their whole lives and paid into the system aren't receiving benefits right now.

You want to cut bloat, fine. Ask Bill Clinton how to do it, because he's the only president who's pulled it off. Don't ask another billionaire, they don't know.

On a side note, back in 2011, my then-step daughter had a martial arts class at a local Jewish community center. We went there a few times, and they have a guard post at the front. They'd just wave us in, no problem. Today, I ran a delivery to the same place, and they've really tightened security. I had to show them my phone, they gave me directions on where I could go to deliver the food, and they watched me. Made sure to point out the cameras. The person I was delivering to had to come and meet me.

In a community center.

I guess the world isn't safe for Jewish Community Centers anymore and they've had to increase security dramatically. I wonder why that is?

[Monkey]

I don't think tariffs are bad, in fact it is taxes on wholesale goods, if tariffs could cover our expenses, and the IRS could be abolished (Tax on income) this would be a good thing. I've always been for a tax on spending over a tax on making money.

Tariffs cause inflation! Directly! And we pay the tariffs. They're not a tax on China or Japan or Canada. They're a cost of doing business that gets passed on to whoever ultimately buys the stuff, and since we only tax imports, that means it's Americans who pay the tariffs. So, raise the price of imports, guess what? Prices go up! That's called "inflation".

Tariffs are gonna **** your country up kyle, they are terrible for you. Not only do they cause inflation but they piss off the people you are doing trade with, as I explained previously. Trump was trying to put 25% tariffs or higher on things kyle. It's over, the US wont' be doing anywhere near as much trade with other countries as it was. OK so it's also because he is trying to steal every country he can. Anyway, good luck with that.

[sinewav]

...because attacking someone and their companies because they don't like that the supported another party is just low standards, and should not happen anywhere.

But why shouldn't it happen? There are companies that are larger and more influential than countries. Also, we live in age where information is a weapon which is why the US is concerned about TikTok. Anyone who is wealthy and well-connected who also has a major stake in technology and/or information services needs to be held to very high standards and there should be enforceable repercussions if they fail to meet those standards. Countries are basically made of companies and their owners, that's who gets sanctioned when we wage economic warfare on a country. You know this, right?

[Lucifer]

https://time.com/7222411/blue-states-ar ... ed-states/

How many different ways can we call it minority rule? Blue states, with their woke dei policies, put more money into the federal budget than they take. Why are we letting irresponsible and unprofitable red state politicians handle money?

[kyle]

Sorry I did not have time to fully explain my stance on tariffs last night. Yes it is a Tax, and is inflationary, Yes US companies must pay the tariffs on the goods they import, and it's not a tax on the other countries. And yes it my upset off other counties, but didn't we just say it was not a tax on them but a tax on Americans? Obviously tariffs can be used to force production to be done in a different country, and that's why it will piss off other countries. Despite that they makes a lot more sense, it's more of a consumption tax rather than an income tax, and the consumption tax mainly penalizes companies that need to import goods to make their products, if you can set-up factories in the US to make your products, the tariffs for the raw material will be minimal compared to the final price of the good. Remember what you pay in the stores for things is already an inflated price, companies have to mark up good to take their share, but also factor in losses from theft. so lets say you import something that costs $1.00 but you are already selling it for $5.00, this means that the 25% tariff would add a Quarter to the cost, there is a possibility that they just increase it by a quarter to get the tariff money back, which is only 5% inflation, or maybe they just eat that cost of the tariff and keep it at $5. In fact I think wholesalers have already shifted prices up in preparation for tariffs.

Anyway I'd support this level of taxation, if it can prove a path for us to remove the income tax, it was never meant to be such a painful process to do. I spend $100 just on the software to be able to do my taxes, think of all the people that spend money to have their taxes prepared, it's a whole lot of extra bloat that we are spending on. that is screwing over the lower income people more than the rich, swallowing the $100 fee on a $50,000 income is a lot harder than on a $100,000 income.

The Canada and Mexico tariffs are working as intended, yes the are not implemented, but it's forcing them to try to keep our borders more secure from undocumented migrants, it's all a game of politics, As long as they continue to do that, they won't have tariffs, and we won't have to spend as much policing the undocumented illegal aliens. And this is how those tariffs are actually a Tax on Canada and Mexico, even though they are 0.

That's all at the district level, not the federal level. Federal money in education is on a pound for pound basis, so if your school didn't have much money, it's because you lived in a place with low property values.

I think you mean the opposite, the way it was distributed was those in poorer areas received more, and those in more rich areas recieved less, of the federal DOE money.

Back on my point about the bureaucracy, My grandpa and I had a very lengthy conversation on this. He was able to buy a camper, put it on his property, live out of it while he was able to construct his own home. He was able to build it to better than code and save a lot of money by doing it himself and being able to work on it. Now you have to have special licensing just to be able to build a home and it's likely very hard for the average person to build their own house today. He also shares a story with me about his cousin, very knowledgeable in Tube TV's got the certifications to be able to work on them, they were going to set up a shop to repair them, but right as they did that, they disqualified his license, because he never had an apprenticeship working on them. they start of bureaucracy controlling how things could be done. It's like the other day I was going to work on a furnace, I'm skied from working on other similar heat generators, but I'm not certified in HVAC, so I can't buy the parts locally, and Amazon is multiple days out. so I'm basically forced to call in a tech, and pay insanely high prices, because it's going to be way too cold to wait the few days for parts.

The point is the laws and bureaucracy are actually protecting more bureaucracy, more inflation in prices, and the rich. Yes somehow people complain that he's doing it for him , and to screw the people over, in reality, yes it will help him, no doubt, not that he needs, nor even cares about his wealth, but it will help others to to cut out the ropes that are all over the place just to do things, and places a higher tax on heavy spenders, giving way for those who know how to spend less, to succeed much faster.

Anyone want to tell me about the healthcare industry go right ahead. I just spent the most I ever have in over a decade, already this year, for an ear infection, and what a painful process it is. I hope DOGE trims down that like crazy, I am not as opposed as I was before to Universal healthcare, but the bureaucracy in the health industry needs removed, I never realized how much of a mess this was until this year.

EDIT: man the Left really wanted DOGE under Clinton https://x.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/18 ... 8306332754

[Lucifer]

Sorry I did not have time to fully explain my stance on tariffs last night. Yes it is a Tax, and is inflationary, Yes US companies must pay the tariffs on the goods they import, and it's not a tax on the other countries. And yes it my upset off other counties, but didn't we just say it was not a tax on them but a tax on Americans? Obviously tariffs can be used to force production to be done in a different country, and that's why it will piss off other countries. Despite that they makes a lot more sense, it's more of a consumption tax rather than an income tax, and the consumption tax mainly penalizes companies that need to import goods to make their products, if you can set-up factories in the US to make your products, the tariffs for the raw material will be minimal compared to the final price of the good. Remember what you pay in the stores for things is already an inflated price, companies have to mark up good to take their share, but also factor in losses from theft. so lets say you import something that costs $1.00 but you are already selling it for $5.00, this means that the 25% tariff would add a Quarter to the cost, there is a possibility that they just increase it by a quarter to get the tariff money back, which is only 5% inflation, or maybe they just eat that cost of the tariff and keep it at $5. In fact I think wholesalers have already shifted prices up in preparation for tariffs.

You do realize that 5% inflation in a world where people are lucky to get 3% raises each year means we have less spending power year after year, right?

Also, I don't think you understand how basic trade works. They don't import something for $1 and sell it for $5. It's more like they import 10,000 items for $10,000 dollars and sell the whole lot for $11,000. Then the distributor who bought it for $11k marks it up another 10%, to $12.1k, and they're looking to sell all of it for $13.1k, usually to a retailer. So the retailer buys it for $13.1k and has to mark it up around 15-20% to be able to make a profit, so now the whole lot is going to sell for $15,065. The individual item price on that is about $1.51.

But now there's a 25% tariff. That 25% tariff just raised their import cost to $12,500, and to maintain the same profit margin, they now have to increase to $13,500. The distributor raises another thousand, just like they did before ignoring ripple effects for other costs for the distributor), so now the lot sells to retail for $14.5k. Retail has to mark it up the same 15% as before, and now the whole lot sells, at retail, for 16,675, with an individual item price of $1.66.

You might think that 16 cents is irrelevant, but it just made buying whatever the item is significantly more difficult, because wages have been stagnant for 20 years. Average inflation has been around 3% while average wage increases have been around 1.5%.

Also, that 15% retail markup is really liberal. Most retail markups are much higher, 30-50%. Source: Me, I've been working retail the last couple of years. Also, the markup when the lot is sold to a distributor can easily be more like 15-20%, too. Distributor costs tend to be lower at scale than retail, because they have lower labor costs, but transportation costs are their biggest. Transportation and warehousing. Labor costs for the distributor are pretty low, and they tend to contract the final mile stuff, you know, those trucks you see that actually drop off goods at businesses. Sysco is a really big food distributor, for example. This is just one of many ways companies like Wal-Mart can offer such low retail prices: they use their own distribution, so they buy direct from the importers, or in many cases, they are the importers. This, in case you're unfamiliar with the idea, is called "vertical integration". Complete vertical integration would include wal-mart owning the producers and the exporters in the various countries where they get their stuff.

I think we all understand the idea behind a protective tariff. The thing is, American companies, who might be struggling to compete against imports, are still managing to stay in business. So when they see import prices go up, they raise their prices, too.

It was also proven that during the pandemic companies were deliberately raising prices above their cost increases just to be greedy. A few billionaire CEOs were caught on hot mics saying so (or leaked memos, or what-have-you). And your tariff plan only helps when these billionaire CEOs are a lot more altruistic than they actually are.

Anyway I'd support this level of taxation, if it can prove a path for us to remove the income tax, it was never meant to be such a painful process to do. I spend $100 just on the software to be able to do my taxes, think of all the people that spend money to have their taxes prepared, it's a whole lot of extra bloat that we are spending on. that is screwing over the lower income people more than the rich, swallowing the $100 fee on a $50,000 income is a lot harder than on a $100,000 income.

Or, alternately, and I realize you're going to hate this idea, we could do what other countries do and pay the IRS to actually figure out our taxes for us. They have all the information. There's no technical need for all of us to have to do our taxes. For people with special cases, they can still file, but the IRS can and should just do 90% of everybody's taxes because they're just not that hard.

The Canada and Mexico tariffs are working as intended, yes the are not implemented, but it's forcing them to try to keep our borders more secure from undocumented migrants, it's all a game of politics, As long as they continue to do that, they won't have tariffs, and we won't have to spend as much policing the undocumented illegal aliens. And this is how those tariffs are actually a Tax on Canada and Mexico, even though they are 0.

Which is going to end up being useless because the vast majority of undocumented workers come in through the ports, not the land borders. It's just hard to show that on camera in a meaningful way to a group of people in this country who vote emotionally, and not rationally..

That's all at the district level, not the federal level. Federal money in education is on a pound for pound basis, so if your school didn't have much money, it's because you lived in a place with low property values.

I think you mean the opposite, the way it was distributed was those in poorer areas received more, and those in more rich areas recieved less, of the federal DOE money.

No, the federal money generally goes dollar for dollar. There are a few programs that are trying to help poor neighborhoods by increasing funding to their schools. This is how to root out racism from society, btw. You start with the schools. If you knew your history, you would know that property taxes to fund schools were always a racist policy, deliberately designed to prevent money from going to black schools in black neighborhoods where property values were deliberately kept low. But hey, you're not woke, so you can't be expected to know these things while you continue to support policies that will plunge our country back to extremely racist times when black people had to use different water fountains than white people. Because, you know, woke people know this about school funding. And DEI policies fight racism by trying to provide equal funding to schools so that people can have equal opportunities as adults. You claim that they already do, but here you are arguing that you need the equity policies revoked so that you can get a job. Because heaven forbid some black kid come along and be qualified for the job you want because we funded the school they went to at the same level as the school you went to.