What's shameful is we all wind up paying for them when they have to go on food stamps, get free school lunches, etc.
This is why I'm starting to think that people who get free government benefits should also have to do certain things in order to get any help: in cases like this, the obvious answer is that these people need to fucking move. They could probably afford to live decently and raise their kids just fine if they just moved to Omaha or someplace like that. I'm all for the government giving them a little temporary assistance to relocate them to a cheaper location like Oklahoma City or El Paso, where they'll be able to afford to take care of themselves. But pouring money on people so they can continue to live in one of the most expensive places on the planet just doesn't make sense.
Or not. When in the history of the world has a society been in trouble, made "radical changes", and then righted the ship and become a stable and successful society again? I can't think of a single one.
Look at some past civilizations: where are the Hittites now? How about the ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids? The Romans? The Mongols?
You're telling me that we now have a society where we have decided that it's ok that raising the next generation is too expensive for ordinary people to do.
It's not just him telling you that; it's much of the middle class. Look at the birthrates in developed western nations. Society has indeed decided that raising children is too expensive for middle class people to do, and society has structured itself this way, so they're not doing it.
There has to be something wrong with a society that considers raising the next generation to be something ordinary people can't participate in.
Perhaps. We'll see in a few generations how that works out I guess.
There's been lots of societies on this planet in the past which made various choices collectively; some societies were successful, others not so much. In a century or two, we'll see how successful modern American society is, with policies like this and a culture like this. It is isn't, that's OK; not everyone can win; some other society will rise up and take its place.
The problem is we are equating their money that they make is equal to their value to society. A lot of people who are poor are valuable to society and are worth extra support
The amount of money you have directly indicates your worth to American society. People making that equation are correct. Poor people are NOT valuable to society, and not worth much extra support; if they were, society would be showing its support for them. It does not, hence they are not valuable.
In short, if we as a society actually believed this stuff you spout, our society would look very different.
And how many kids actually stick around to do this stuff? If a kid has their own full-time job, they sure as hell don't have time to take care of total-care elderly parents when they're middle-ages, especially if they have children of their own to raise.
This idea that your kids are going to be around to take care of you in your old age is not only ridiculous, it's unfair to the kids. You don't have kids to take care of you, it's a one-way street: their job to return the favor has always been to have kids of their own and take care of them. Parents, when they become too old and infirm to take reasonable care of themselves, are supposed to walk into the wilderness to succumb to the elements or wild animals so they aren't a burden to the tribe.
You don't need to have a high income to have a bunch of kids. You can just be poor and pop out lots of them, and receive food stamps and other aid like Section 8 housing, and raise them in a tiny apartment in poverty, without much hope of them going to college. They'll mostly grow up to be criminals since they have little hope and little opportunity.
This is how much of our kids are being raised these days. We've mostly outsourced it to poor people.
Exactly. Luckily, not *all* wives are like this, but a large fraction of American women are: it doesn't matter how much money you make, they'll find stuff to spend it all on until you're bankrupt.
At least the Trump voters had good reason to be angry: they were doing poorly economically. They didn't pick very well in their search for someone to alleviate their problems, but to be fair, the mainstream Democratic party (Hillary and friends) really offered them nothing at all. Bernie's camp was the one talking about income inequality, but Hillary's camp was clearly all in favor of it, since the mainstream Dems are so cozy with wealthy elitist donors and of course the financial sector. It wouldn't have made any sense for the rural conservative voters to vote for Hillary; at least if Bernie were on the ticket we would have spoken to them and offered them something (remember, he's quite popular in rural Vermont).
Hillary's supporters were just plain smug and condescending. Who the hell wants to hang around assholes like that? I'd rather hang around a bunch of dumb, uneducated, but well-meaning hicks than pretentious, smug assholes any time.
There's a good reason almost no one had a Hillary 2016 bumper sticker on their car, even in the very blue areas I frequent. By contrast, I saw tons of 4- and 8-year old Obama campaign stickers, but very very few Hillary ones. That really says something. I'm sure I'm not the only one totally turned off by Hillary's nasty supporters (just like the AC asshole who also replied to me here: he's a perfect example of those condescending shitheads).
Your house-burning analogy makes no sense. I'm talking about people and social dynamics here, not house colors. You can repaint an ugly house easily. You can't turn pretentious, smug dickheads into decent human beings.
You totally forgot to mention how her DNC cohorts stabbed Bernie in the back and colluded with her, which is what was shown in those DNC emails. And then when DWS stepped down, Hillary doubled-down on her and hired her to a high position in her campaign, effectively thumbing her nose at all the Bernie supporters.
As a result, Dem turnout was low, especially among the Bernie-voting demographic. Many of them who did bother to vote instead voted for a 3rd party (which both saw HUGE gains over the last presidential election), or even for Trump out of spite. According to my recollection, if Hillary had gotten most of those 3rd-party votes, she would have won.
She ran an incredibly condescending campaign, and her supporters were especially smug and condescending. Honestly, I think I'd rather be associated with moronic Trump voters than with the condescending assholes who were vocal Hillary supporters.
Personally, I voted for Stein. Hillary's supporters specifically told me that they didn't need my vote to win, so I didn't give it to her.
Actually, yes, most people do consider all non-employed able-bodied, adult people to be "unemployed", with a few exceptions (housewives most notably, full-time students, retired people who have no financial need to work). You are in the minority on this. Face it.
Ah, in that case IMO it seems like U4 is the "real" unemployment number. It's arguable of course, as some of those handyman-type people might want full-time jobs, but others are probably quite happy with that kind of work because they don't have to work regular hours (and might not be capable of it--some people just can't hack that). I'd count them in the underemployed number though.
And compared to even a high-speed cable modem, how is that insufficient?
The only way I see that being insufficient is if you're trying to get max throughput between different machines on your internal network, over the newer WiFi standards (like 802.11ac). If all or most of your WiFi traffic is going over the internet (rather than between your own machines), then this isn't an issue I think.
Overturning that boneheaded decision was prominent in the Democratic platform - a point Bernie Sanders, if not all of his supporters
Bernie wasn't a Democrat. He ran as a Democrat, which the DNC hated him for, and they did everything they could to throw a wrench into his campaign.
And that guy, whatshisname?, Al Gore... He got net neutrality (and the Internet, which he helped make public - and never said he 'invented', folks). But yes, he's a bit of a stick in the mud politically, so we got W instead.
Gore was yet another example of how shitty the DNC is at getting elected. They keep backing candidates with zero charisma (or actually negative charisma, in the case of Hillary), and then wondering why they lose. It happens over and over and over: Hillary, Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale... and when they picked someone with real charisma (Bill Clinton), they won. You'd think they would have figured out this simple formula (charisma = win) after all these decades, but apparently not, and most obviously in this most-recent election where the Dem candidate lost to the biggest joke of a candidate ever on the GOP side. And worse, they *still* haven't really figured it out and won't admit it, and instead blame "the Russians", Comey, etc.
Don't be stupid. "Unemployed" is an English word, which means the official definition comes from popular usage, not economists or any other academic authorities. If most people understand it to mean "people who aren't working", that's exactly what it means, and you're an idiot to tell them otherwise.
If you want a language where terms are defined by authorities, use French.
And WTF is with the bit about burned toast? You think you need someone staying at home all day to figure out how to use a toaster properly?
Personally, I think calling the U3 figure "unemployment" is total bullshit. If someone wants to work, and can't find work, and hasn't been able to for a while, they are still unemployed. You don't need a degree in economics to understand this. So U4-U6 are all much better figures IMO because they include these groups of people.
I'm a little unclear as to the difference between U4 and U5. Maybe it's from 93 Escort Wagon's summarization. Also, what about people who are actively looking, and haven't stopped looking, but it's been more than 4 weeks? Surely those should be included in U4. Again, it could be the summarization.
The main point of argument which is valid IMO is between U4/5 and U6: should we count underemployed people too? Personally, I think the two should be kept separate measures and reported separately (i.e., "unemployed" and "unemployed + underemployed") so that people using these figures can know them both and make proper use of them. I honestly don't see the value in U3 at all, except maybe a way to see if things are getting bad because too many people have moved into U4/5, meaning there's a real lack of available jobs for them, rather than just regular churn that you get in a healthy economy. In that case, maybe it's useful to know U3, but I completely object to calling this the "unemployment rate"; that term should be used for U4 or U5. (Again, I don't understand the difference.)
It's definitely an interesting legal question I think. It was clearly put there to handle cases of the President becoming incapacitated somehow (sickness usually, injury that doesn't kill him, like a coma), but "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" could also be argued to apply in cases in sheer incompetence or total lack of support (i.e., the President can't get anyone to work for him), which is what we're seeing now. But doing so can also be argued to be a method of carrying out a bloodless coup, just because Congress doesn't like the President.
However, I would argue that this is just what's needed, even if it really does constitute a "coup". In countries with better governmental systems (which is pretty much all of them that are democratic republics), they don't have the problem where the legislature can't get along with the executive. They have parliaments, and the executive is chosen by parliament, not by the people in a popular election. Some of our own founders even promoted this idea, and it's unfortunate it didn't get adopted. When you can a country where the voters choose some people for the legislature, and then some other person for the executive (in a different party than the majority of the legislature), you get gridlock and a government brought to a complete standstill, just as we saw during the Clinton years during his impeachment. That's a really stupid way to run a country, and a stupid way to design its system of government. Every advanced nation on the planet, like Germany, Japan, the Scandinavian countries, etc. all have parliamentary systems. In the wake of WWII when the US was helping its defeated and occupied nations (Germany and Japan) set up new governments to its liking, did it have them model their new governments on our Constitution? Nope; they were made to resemble France's government instead. The only countries that resemble ours governmentally are a few Latin American countries like El Salvador, and they're a complete mess. If our constitution is so great, then why would we not make Germany and Japan copy it? Because it's a lousy system of government, that's why.
Maybe I didn't put it that well actually. I didn't mean to imply that this will result in less net corruption at all. It might, or it might not. I'm just pointing out that it's quite possible that some corrupt interests might have a hard time under Trump which were doing well under previous administrations. But different corruption, and different corrupt interests, doesn't necessarily mean less corruption, or a better result. It might, or it might not. It's really too soon to tell.
To reiterate, just because Trump is obviously corrupt in some ways doesn't mean he'll support corrupt interest X. It's not much different from how various industries benefited under previous Rep and Dem dominated governments: when the Reps are in power, the energy and defense industries benefit, whereas when the Dems are in power, the copyright cartels and banks benefit. With Trump, I guess we'll see who benefits.
I think you're misunderstanding. Trump isn't interested in fixing *all* corruption, as he wants to serve his own particular corrupt interests. But that doesn't mean that he'll be friendly to other corrupt interests.
Um, I'm pretty sure the Constitution does say that the President can also be impeached if he fails to perform the duties of his office. He won't be tried for a crime in that case, but he can be removed.
The GOP loves Pence maybe, but the Dems don't, and the GOP doesn't have *that* large of a majority in Congress IIRC. What if the Senate Democrats refuse to vote to impeach Trump, knowing that Pence will take over? I get your comment about blue dogs, but I'm quite so cynical there yet.
I do care (I don't speak for the other guy), and I'm sure lots of other people in tech care too. But it doesn't matter: we have zero power now. Trump is President, and Pai is the FCC Director, and the GOP is in power in Congress, so there's nothing any of us can do at least until the 2018 elections, and even that's questionable as you'd need a really strong majority in Congress to pass a law overruling the FCC's leadership.
So you'd rather ban lasers and force armies to stick with bullets, so instead of the chance someone might get blinded, we'll just make sure to kill them entirely?
Since this is on a ship, the target is most likely going to fall into the water, so unless we've suddenly decided the death of sea gulls and krill is a crime against humanity,
If you do nothing and let your ship be sunk, instead of shooting down the missile, that'll probably kill way more seagulls and krill. Burning ships are ecological disasters.
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But Trump-ish candidates are winning races left and right these days, for various reasons.
I say we give the Trump voters exactly what they want, and see how things work out for the country then.
What's shameful is we all wind up paying for them when they have to go on food stamps, get free school lunches, etc.
This is why I'm starting to think that people who get free government benefits should also have to do certain things in order to get any help: in cases like this, the obvious answer is that these people need to fucking move. They could probably afford to live decently and raise their kids just fine if they just moved to Omaha or someplace like that. I'm all for the government giving them a little temporary assistance to relocate them to a cheaper location like Oklahoma City or El Paso, where they'll be able to afford to take care of themselves. But pouring money on people so they can continue to live in one of the most expensive places on the planet just doesn't make sense.
Or not. When in the history of the world has a society been in trouble, made "radical changes", and then righted the ship and become a stable and successful society again? I can't think of a single one.
Look at some past civilizations: where are the Hittites now? How about the ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids? The Romans? The Mongols?
You're telling me that we now have a society where we have decided that it's ok that raising the next generation is too expensive for ordinary people to do.
It's not just him telling you that; it's much of the middle class. Look at the birthrates in developed western nations. Society has indeed decided that raising children is too expensive for middle class people to do, and society has structured itself this way, so they're not doing it.
There has to be something wrong with a society that considers raising the next generation to be something ordinary people can't participate in.
Perhaps. We'll see in a few generations how that works out I guess.
There's been lots of societies on this planet in the past which made various choices collectively; some societies were successful, others not so much. In a century or two, we'll see how successful modern American society is, with policies like this and a culture like this. It is isn't, that's OK; not everyone can win; some other society will rise up and take its place.
The problem is we are equating their money that they make is equal to their value to society. A lot of people who are poor are valuable to society and are worth extra support
The amount of money you have directly indicates your worth to American society. People making that equation are correct. Poor people are NOT valuable to society, and not worth much extra support; if they were, society would be showing its support for them. It does not, hence they are not valuable.
In short, if we as a society actually believed this stuff you spout, our society would look very different.
And how many kids actually stick around to do this stuff? If a kid has their own full-time job, they sure as hell don't have time to take care of total-care elderly parents when they're middle-ages, especially if they have children of their own to raise.
This idea that your kids are going to be around to take care of you in your old age is not only ridiculous, it's unfair to the kids. You don't have kids to take care of you, it's a one-way street: their job to return the favor has always been to have kids of their own and take care of them. Parents, when they become too old and infirm to take reasonable care of themselves, are supposed to walk into the wilderness to succumb to the elements or wild animals so they aren't a burden to the tribe.
You don't need to have a high income to have a bunch of kids. You can just be poor and pop out lots of them, and receive food stamps and other aid like Section 8 housing, and raise them in a tiny apartment in poverty, without much hope of them going to college. They'll mostly grow up to be criminals since they have little hope and little opportunity.
This is how much of our kids are being raised these days. We've mostly outsourced it to poor people.
Exactly. Luckily, not *all* wives are like this, but a large fraction of American women are: it doesn't matter how much money you make, they'll find stuff to spend it all on until you're bankrupt.
At least the Trump voters had good reason to be angry: they were doing poorly economically. They didn't pick very well in their search for someone to alleviate their problems, but to be fair, the mainstream Democratic party (Hillary and friends) really offered them nothing at all. Bernie's camp was the one talking about income inequality, but Hillary's camp was clearly all in favor of it, since the mainstream Dems are so cozy with wealthy elitist donors and of course the financial sector. It wouldn't have made any sense for the rural conservative voters to vote for Hillary; at least if Bernie were on the ticket we would have spoken to them and offered them something (remember, he's quite popular in rural Vermont).
Hillary's supporters were just plain smug and condescending. Who the hell wants to hang around assholes like that? I'd rather hang around a bunch of dumb, uneducated, but well-meaning hicks than pretentious, smug assholes any time.
There's a good reason almost no one had a Hillary 2016 bumper sticker on their car, even in the very blue areas I frequent. By contrast, I saw tons of 4- and 8-year old Obama campaign stickers, but very very few Hillary ones. That really says something. I'm sure I'm not the only one totally turned off by Hillary's nasty supporters (just like the AC asshole who also replied to me here: he's a perfect example of those condescending shitheads).
Your house-burning analogy makes no sense. I'm talking about people and social dynamics here, not house colors. You can repaint an ugly house easily. You can't turn pretentious, smug dickheads into decent human beings.
You totally forgot to mention how her DNC cohorts stabbed Bernie in the back and colluded with her, which is what was shown in those DNC emails. And then when DWS stepped down, Hillary doubled-down on her and hired her to a high position in her campaign, effectively thumbing her nose at all the Bernie supporters.
As a result, Dem turnout was low, especially among the Bernie-voting demographic. Many of them who did bother to vote instead voted for a 3rd party (which both saw HUGE gains over the last presidential election), or even for Trump out of spite. According to my recollection, if Hillary had gotten most of those 3rd-party votes, she would have won.
She ran an incredibly condescending campaign, and her supporters were especially smug and condescending. Honestly, I think I'd rather be associated with moronic Trump voters than with the condescending assholes who were vocal Hillary supporters.
Personally, I voted for Stein. Hillary's supporters specifically told me that they didn't need my vote to win, so I didn't give it to her.
Actually, yes, most people do consider all non-employed able-bodied, adult people to be "unemployed", with a few exceptions (housewives most notably, full-time students, retired people who have no financial need to work). You are in the minority on this. Face it.
Ah, in that case IMO it seems like U4 is the "real" unemployment number. It's arguable of course, as some of those handyman-type people might want full-time jobs, but others are probably quite happy with that kind of work because they don't have to work regular hours (and might not be capable of it--some people just can't hack that). I'd count them in the underemployed number though.
Exactly. But it's OK: as a wise Frenchman (I believe) once wrote, "every nation gets the government it deserves". Apparently, we deserve Trump.
And compared to even a high-speed cable modem, how is that insufficient?
The only way I see that being insufficient is if you're trying to get max throughput between different machines on your internal network, over the newer WiFi standards (like 802.11ac). If all or most of your WiFi traffic is going over the internet (rather than between your own machines), then this isn't an issue I think.
Overturning that boneheaded decision was prominent in the Democratic platform - a point Bernie Sanders, if not all of his supporters
Bernie wasn't a Democrat. He ran as a Democrat, which the DNC hated him for, and they did everything they could to throw a wrench into his campaign.
And that guy, whatshisname?, Al Gore... He got net neutrality (and the Internet, which he helped make public - and never said he 'invented', folks). But yes, he's a bit of a stick in the mud politically, so we got W instead.
Gore was yet another example of how shitty the DNC is at getting elected. They keep backing candidates with zero charisma (or actually negative charisma, in the case of Hillary), and then wondering why they lose. It happens over and over and over: Hillary, Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale... and when they picked someone with real charisma (Bill Clinton), they won. You'd think they would have figured out this simple formula (charisma = win) after all these decades, but apparently not, and most obviously in this most-recent election where the Dem candidate lost to the biggest joke of a candidate ever on the GOP side. And worse, they *still* haven't really figured it out and won't admit it, and instead blame "the Russians", Comey, etc.
Don't be stupid. "Unemployed" is an English word, which means the official definition comes from popular usage, not economists or any other academic authorities. If most people understand it to mean "people who aren't working", that's exactly what it means, and you're an idiot to tell them otherwise.
If you want a language where terms are defined by authorities, use French.
And WTF is with the bit about burned toast? You think you need someone staying at home all day to figure out how to use a toaster properly?
It's arguable really, IMO.
Personally, I think calling the U3 figure "unemployment" is total bullshit. If someone wants to work, and can't find work, and hasn't been able to for a while, they are still unemployed. You don't need a degree in economics to understand this. So U4-U6 are all much better figures IMO because they include these groups of people.
I'm a little unclear as to the difference between U4 and U5. Maybe it's from 93 Escort Wagon's summarization. Also, what about people who are actively looking, and haven't stopped looking, but it's been more than 4 weeks? Surely those should be included in U4. Again, it could be the summarization.
The main point of argument which is valid IMO is between U4/5 and U6: should we count underemployed people too? Personally, I think the two should be kept separate measures and reported separately (i.e., "unemployed" and "unemployed + underemployed") so that people using these figures can know them both and make proper use of them. I honestly don't see the value in U3 at all, except maybe a way to see if things are getting bad because too many people have moved into U4/5, meaning there's a real lack of available jobs for them, rather than just regular churn that you get in a healthy economy. In that case, maybe it's useful to know U3, but I completely object to calling this the "unemployment rate"; that term should be used for U4 or U5. (Again, I don't understand the difference.)
Yep, that's the one.
It's definitely an interesting legal question I think. It was clearly put there to handle cases of the President becoming incapacitated somehow (sickness usually, injury that doesn't kill him, like a coma), but "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" could also be argued to apply in cases in sheer incompetence or total lack of support (i.e., the President can't get anyone to work for him), which is what we're seeing now. But doing so can also be argued to be a method of carrying out a bloodless coup, just because Congress doesn't like the President.
However, I would argue that this is just what's needed, even if it really does constitute a "coup". In countries with better governmental systems (which is pretty much all of them that are democratic republics), they don't have the problem where the legislature can't get along with the executive. They have parliaments, and the executive is chosen by parliament, not by the people in a popular election. Some of our own founders even promoted this idea, and it's unfortunate it didn't get adopted. When you can a country where the voters choose some people for the legislature, and then some other person for the executive (in a different party than the majority of the legislature), you get gridlock and a government brought to a complete standstill, just as we saw during the Clinton years during his impeachment. That's a really stupid way to run a country, and a stupid way to design its system of government. Every advanced nation on the planet, like Germany, Japan, the Scandinavian countries, etc. all have parliamentary systems. In the wake of WWII when the US was helping its defeated and occupied nations (Germany and Japan) set up new governments to its liking, did it have them model their new governments on our Constitution? Nope; they were made to resemble France's government instead. The only countries that resemble ours governmentally are a few Latin American countries like El Salvador, and they're a complete mess. If our constitution is so great, then why would we not make Germany and Japan copy it? Because it's a lousy system of government, that's why.
Maybe I didn't put it that well actually. I didn't mean to imply that this will result in less net corruption at all. It might, or it might not. I'm just pointing out that it's quite possible that some corrupt interests might have a hard time under Trump which were doing well under previous administrations. But different corruption, and different corrupt interests, doesn't necessarily mean less corruption, or a better result. It might, or it might not. It's really too soon to tell.
To reiterate, just because Trump is obviously corrupt in some ways doesn't mean he'll support corrupt interest X. It's not much different from how various industries benefited under previous Rep and Dem dominated governments: when the Reps are in power, the energy and defense industries benefit, whereas when the Dems are in power, the copyright cartels and banks benefit. With Trump, I guess we'll see who benefits.
I think you're misunderstanding. Trump isn't interested in fixing *all* corruption, as he wants to serve his own particular corrupt interests. But that doesn't mean that he'll be friendly to other corrupt interests.
Um, I'm pretty sure the Constitution does say that the President can also be impeached if he fails to perform the duties of his office. He won't be tried for a crime in that case, but he can be removed.
The GOP loves Pence maybe, but the Dems don't, and the GOP doesn't have *that* large of a majority in Congress IIRC. What if the Senate Democrats refuse to vote to impeach Trump, knowing that Pence will take over? I get your comment about blue dogs, but I'm quite so cynical there yet.
I do care (I don't speak for the other guy), and I'm sure lots of other people in tech care too. But it doesn't matter: we have zero power now. Trump is President, and Pai is the FCC Director, and the GOP is in power in Congress, so there's nothing any of us can do at least until the 2018 elections, and even that's questionable as you'd need a really strong majority in Congress to pass a law overruling the FCC's leadership.
So you'd rather ban lasers and force armies to stick with bullets, so instead of the chance someone might get blinded, we'll just make sure to kill them entirely?
How the hell does that make sense?
Since this is on a ship, the target is most likely going to fall into the water, so unless we've suddenly decided the death of sea gulls and krill is a crime against humanity,
If you do nothing and let your ship be sunk, instead of shooting down the missile, that'll probably kill way more seagulls and krill. Burning ships are ecological disasters.