Political Discussion

Bull Shannon said:
I believe they were a single parent moving closer to family. At least as I heard it, this offer from the company was presented as a courtesy; they had no obligation to acquiesce to the relocation. As framed by my in-laws, this was the company being accommodating. From where I sit it lays bare how employees are viewed via the lens of how much they cost the company, not how much value they add to it.
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Yea capitalism forces everything to be viewed as a commodity.
 
I seriously can’t tell; urban dictionary throws some odd definitions out there, including “fake texting” nice things to “love bomb” someone, as well as “fake texting” by pretending to type to drive the other person insane thinking of the rage-filled things you’re typing and then deleting.
 
Bull Shannon said:
I seriously can’t tell; urban dictionary throws some odd definitions out there, including “fake texting” nice things to “love bomb” someone, as well as “fake texting” by pretending to type to drive the other person insane thinking of the rage-filled things you’re typing and then deleting.
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Jill Biden trying to drive Joe insane with texts. I like that interpretation.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
Yeah, I have seen a lot of "we had to suffer through going into the office so should you mentality" from Boomers.

Why can't things change over time. Why does it have to be "If I did it so should you" rather than adapt to a new normal if it's just as productive and produces a better healthier work life balance for employees.
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I'll gladly go into an office as long as you adjust home prices down to what boomers paid for their houses, and college (no student loans), and first car, and healthcare, and child care and food. So yeah, if I were paying a lot less for everything, my housing was closer to my work, my healthcare was affordable, and child care (especially after school daycare) was feasible enough to work into the budget, then sure, coming into the office wouldn't be all that bad. Oh, yeah, I would also be okay with going into an office if we weren't expected to live there just to keep our jobs.
 
www.cnn.com

Biden is considering canceling some student debt. Here's why it might not be such a great idea

Student debt cancellation could deliver financial relief to millions of Americans and help narrow the racial wealth gap. But it would also shift the cost to taxpayers and could add to inflation while doing nothing to address the root of the problem: college affordability.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

CNN opinion piece as to why student loan debt forgiveness is complicated and probably not a good idea.

Basic summary:
  • It does nothing to lower the cost of education
  • It may increase inflation
  • The cost of debt forgiveness is passed on to taxpayers including those who never went to college
  • Won't likely create an economic boost
  • May result in higher costs for all future borrowers
  • Only helps a small number of borrowers.


So essentially, it doesn't solve any problems and may make things worse.

While I agree Biden's plan for student loan forgiveness sucks and really doesn't help those most in need. I'm split on this opinion. Is there really anything that can be done to solve these problems?
 
RenegadeMonster said:
www.cnn.com

Biden is considering canceling some student debt. Here's why it might not be such a great idea

Student debt cancellation could deliver financial relief to millions of Americans and help narrow the racial wealth gap. But it would also shift the cost to taxpayers and could add to inflation while doing nothing to address the root of the problem: college affordability.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

CNN opinion piece as to why student loan debt forgiveness is complicated and probably not a good idea.

Basic summary:
  • It does nothing to lower the cost of education
  • It may increase inflation
  • The cost of debt forgiveness is passed on to taxpayers including those who never went to college
  • Won't likely create an economic boost
  • May result in higher costs for all future borrowers
  • Only helps a small number of borrowers.


So essentially, it doesn't solve any problems and may make things worse.

While I agree Biden's plan for student loan forgiveness sucks and really doesn't help those most in need. I'm split on this opinion. Is there really anything that can be done to solve these problems?
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Several of these things are wrong though. There is no cost to tax payers because the government doesn't owe it to anyone. They don't have to pay any money to cancel the debt. By not increasing the money supply it should have minimal effect on inflation as fed studies on it have shown. Also why is it inflationary when it helps people but not a concern about the defense spending or bank bailouts and PPP loans which were almost universally forgiven despite the fact that most went to large businesses who used them on stock buybacks? The cost of education has only gone up because state funding for education keeps going down and is displaced onto students in the form of loans. And states are obsessed with adding to the administrative bloat because they think they need to run schools like businesses which is why we're in this mess in the first place. I'll agree in part that if he only does 10k then the economic boost and number of those helped is limited far more than if he does total forgiveness, but fewer people burdened by debt with the costs of everything getting out of control is a good thing no matter the macro effects.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
www.cnn.com

Biden is considering canceling some student debt. Here's why it might not be such a great idea

Student debt cancellation could deliver financial relief to millions of Americans and help narrow the racial wealth gap. But it would also shift the cost to taxpayers and could add to inflation while doing nothing to address the root of the problem: college affordability.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

CNN opinion piece as to why student loan debt forgiveness is complicated and probably not a good idea.

Basic summary:
  • It does nothing to lower the cost of education
  • It may increase inflation
  • The cost of debt forgiveness is passed on to taxpayers including those who never went to college
  • Won't likely create an economic boost
  • May result in higher costs for all future borrowers
  • Only helps a small number of borrowers.


So essentially, it doesn't solve any problems and may make things worse.

While I agree Biden's plan for student loan forgiveness sucks and really doesn't help those most in need. I'm split on this opinion. Is there really anything that can be done to solve these problems?
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Sheila Blair basically said that our financial system rests on debt because debt is collateral for banks. In 2008, when the market went belly up, the Fed decided that it's goal was going to be that it would put itself in a position to be able to pay it's greatest debts, and thus smashed down the interest rates to near zero in order to buy corporate junk bonds to keep the market afloat. Lowering the interest rates also supported the mortgage market--not individuals but the market. Even if individual home owners couldn't afford to stay in their homes, someone else could capitalize on the situation and buy the house.

So what would have happened (or what would happen) if the Fed buys all the student loans (maybe instead of or in addition to buying corporate junk bonds)? It would go against future payments, but it would cost tax payers nothing at this time. We just wouldn't get any future payments on student loans (but those people would still be tax payers). As @Hemotep pointed out, many studies suggest that student loan forgiveness would have almost no downside when it came to individuals and only had minimum effect on inflation. The reason we have inflation right now is because of very real supply issues, so no amount of financial leveraging by the Fed is going to change the fact that we have a shortage on baby formula. There is no actuarial model that can create microchips.

The problem with canceling out student debt is that it would show the American populace at large that we can cancel massive amounts of debt and make people's lives better, more people will start asking for debt to be canceled. First, it will be medical debt, and then, people will start arguing that consumer debt, especially for things like food, might also need to be scrutinized. Canceling huge chunks of debt for a generation of people, would show that generation of people that you don't always actually have to pay your debts, because we have decided as a society that the level of debt the average American has in order to survive is too high, and we need to stop the rent extraction. 98% of all wealth that is created is really just debt. The reason these stores want you to open a line of credit, is because they can say that is wealth creation--because they have created a line of credit for you to pay them monthly. If you cancel all of this debt, then you are ultimately canceling this wealth. So the only people that end up losing here, are those people that hold all the debt. In the past, we have had this problem in society--where people are too indebted to live happy lives. The ancients were able to quell the rabble by having debt jubilees where they did just go and forgive everyone's debt. In recent history, all of our wealth redistribution has been violent. I guess we know which way our leaders want this to go.
 
nolalady said:
Sheila Blair basically said that our financial system rests on debt because debt is collateral for banks. In 2008, when the market went belly up, the Fed decided that it's goal was going to be that it would put itself in a position to be able to pay it's greatest debts, and thus smashed down the interest rates to near zero in order to buy corporate junk bonds to keep the market afloat. Lowering the interest rates also supported the mortgage market--not individuals but the market. Even if individual home owners couldn't afford to stay in their homes, someone else could capitalize on the situation and buy the house.

So what would have happened (or what would happen) if the Fed buys all the student loans (maybe instead of or in addition to buying corporate junk bonds)? It would go against future payments, but it would cost tax payers nothing at this time. We just wouldn't get any future payments on student loans (but those people would still be tax payers). As @Hemotep pointed out, many studies suggest that student loan forgiveness would have almost no downside when it came to individuals and only had minimum effect on inflation. The reason we have inflation right now is because of very real supply issues, so no amount of financial leveraging by the Fed is going to change the fact that we have a shortage on baby formula. There is no actuarial model that can create microchips.

The problem with canceling out student debt is that it would show the American populace at large that we can cancel massive amounts of debt and make people's lives better, more people will start asking for debt to be canceled. First, it will be medical debt, and then, people will start arguing that consumer debt, especially for things like food, might also need to be scrutinized. Canceling huge chunks of debt for a generation of people, would show that generation of people that you don't always actually have to pay your debts, because we have decided as a society that the level of debt the average American has in order to survive is too high, and we need to stop the rent extraction. 98% of all wealth that is created is really just debt. The reason these stores want you to open a line of credit, is because they can say that is wealth creation--because they have created a line of credit for you to pay them monthly. If you cancel all of this debt, then you are ultimately canceling this wealth. So the only people that end up losing here, are those people that hold all the debt. In the past, we have had this problem in society--where people are too indebted to live happy lives. The ancients were able to quell the rabble by having debt jubilees where they did just go and forgive everyone's debt. In recent history, all of our wealth redistribution has been violent. I guess we know which way our leaders want this to go.
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Is it even possible to have a coup in the modern military industrial complex? Would we need the armed forces to stand aside? Would they do that?
 
Joe Mac said:
Is it even possible to have a coup in the modern military industrial complex? Would we need the armed forces to stand aside? Would they do that?
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I'm not really sure, but people in the third world are already going hungry due to very real food shortages. I just wonder how governments are going to stop food insecurity when all they are worried about is the stock market. The baby formula shortage could have been prevented if Biden and his ilk cared about our food supply, but they don't. When I say that this is likely ending in violence, I don't necessarily think this will be a revolutionary time. I think this will be a particularly violent time because we are seeing shortages and societal dissonance are going to make things much more conflict oriented.
 
nolalady said:
I'm not really sure, but people in the third world are already going hungry due to very real food shortages. I just wonder how governments are going to stop food insecurity when all they are worried about is the stock market. The baby formula shortage could have been prevented if Biden and his ilk cared about our food supply, but they don't. When I say that this is likely ending in violence, I don't necessarily think this will be a revolutionary time. I think this will be a particularly violent time because we are seeing shortages and societal dissonance are going to make things much more conflict oriented.
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Yes I can definitely see a more dystopian time with increasingly centralised wealth and states clamping down on populaces to protect it rather than them.
 
I'm feeling especially disheartened by how blatantly fascist American politics is becoming and the Democratic party just burying their head in the sand. DeSantis banning transition care for trans youth and Medicaid recipients against the medical community's advice (except the stooges he and other fascist republicans have installed) is just cruel. They are trying to force the detransition or destruction of trans folks.

Then the idiot Ben Sasse put out a ridiculous article in The Atlantic that is so full of flawed logic and false equivalence that it never should have made it past the editor's desk. In which he disguises his opposition to student loan forgiveness as a bailout of a broken education system. A system that their policies broke. And it doesn't bail it out, it bails out students and disproportionately students of color and women who are more likely to go into serious student debt. Sonny Purdue, the new chancellor of the university system of Georgia, sent this out to all faculty in the system with a message that even if we don't agree we need to deal with the issues those who disagree with us raise. Which essentially is his way to jam things down the systems throat that actual educators know are bunk. He got the position as political bribery from Kemp, and despite having no experience in education said his goal is to bring conservative values to education. Since they don't actually care about education it is, of course, going to be disastrous and damaging to the most vulnerable in our society for whom education was one of the only available vehicles for a shot at social mobility. It wasn't until women and people of color gained entry into higher education that the financial burden was shifted onto the student, and that schools have been underfunded and shifted from a social good to a market model. They destroy and then once it is broken they force their changes upon us claiming that we broke it.

Biden wasn't lying when he said nothing would fundamentally change. We're on the same crash course since Reagan, accelerated by inept Democrats and the neo-conservativism of Bush and neo-fascism of Trump.

For years I've thought people were close to a breaking point, but when you add the economic inflation that is crushing the poor in this country, I fear we are in for some of the worst years of our lives. And that doesn't even address the shroud of death hanging over us all of climate change. Shit's going to hit the fan so hard and we're so unprepared for it.
 
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There have been signs we could be heading towards a recession for a while now. But only this week did things really start to get serious.

The CEO of JPMorgan said we are in for an "Economic Hurricane". Several large tech corporations announced hiring freezes and layoffs today. Elon Musk today said he has a "bad feeling about the economy" and with that said announced that Tesla is going to lay off 10% of its employees or roughly 10,000 people as well as institute a hiring freeze.

What do these CEO's know that we don't? And what are they seeing that makes them say know is the time to reduce staff to ensure they meet their financial goals for their shareholders.
 
Sam's Club can't even keep this in stock anymore. It sells out instantly the last couple of restocks....
www.samsclub.com

Augason Farms Emergency Food Storage Kit (1 year, 1 person) - Sam's Club

Buy Augason Farms Emergency Food Storage Kit (1 year, 1 person) : Emergency Food Kits at SamsClub.com
www.samsclub.com www.samsclub.com

Time to share our depression era recipes! Like noodles with leftover grease (my grandpa's favorite every Saturday growing up).... It's an easy one. Just boil noodles and toss in whatever leftover grease there is in the iron skillet that's accumulated from the week. I've never eaten this, but he swore he loved it :-(

Also I do not recommend those freeze dried kits I linked to. A former friend of mine bought some and we tried it on a camping trip once and it was foul. Dried beans and rice are way better.

And I don't think it's realistic to do much emergency prep. I'm not going to deny my neighbor's food if I have any and the space/expense, makes it unrealistic.
 
Hemotep said:
For years I've thought people were close to a breaking point, but when you add the economic inflation that is crushing the poor in this country, I fear we are in for some of the worst years of our lives. And that doesn't even address the shroud of death hanging over us all of climate change. Shit's going to hit the fan so hard and we're so unprepared for it.
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I've thought the same, but now I'm so disillusioned I'm not sure if there is a breaking point. After Sandy Hook I thought surely we've reached the breaking point on guns, but nope, 20+ kids didn't even move the needle. It'll be more of the same with Uvalde.

I thought with the record profits companies were reaping under the pandemic, the pure unadulterated greed, that maybe we'd reach a breaking point. Nope.

I never thought in my lifetime that I would see rights being taken away instead of expanded.

The systematic dismantling of the government and public goods and services has been happening since Reagan. It's real easy to claim that government doesn't work when you're the party actively sabotaging it at every turn. It's all about privatizing everything in this country for profit. Unless there are losses, then we'll socialize those.
 
DrainedPatience said:
I've thought the same, but now I'm so disillusioned I'm not sure if there is a breaking point. After Sandy Hook I thought surely we've reached the breaking point on guns, but nope, 20+ kids didn't even move the needle. It'll be more of the same with Uvalde.

I thought with the record profits companies were reaping under the pandemic, the pure unadulterated greed, that maybe we'd reach a breaking point. Nope.

I never thought in my lifetime that I would see rights being taken away instead of expanded.

The systematic dismantling of the government and public goods and services has been happening since Reagan. It's real easy to claim that government doesn't work when you're the party actively sabotaging it at every turn. It's all about privatizing everything in this country for profit. Unless there are losses, then we'll socialize those.
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That's an angry but in full agreement cheers
 
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