Biden / Harris Focused Discussion

[Kaleredar]

I wonder if The Tick will come back on television. See, I can say random stuff too.

Man don’t get my hopes up like that. Left on a total cliffhanger, too.

[Theodarzna]

Alchemy economic principles according to you, when in reality adults who exist within a society will spend money. You seem to only believe in one side of your economic equation, which seems to be "More immigrants means higher demand for housing, as well as higher supply of labor, which means less wages!" It completely ignores all the other numerous factors involved here, which means you seem to be the mistaken one here.

They'll spend money they don't have and aren't paid as much and simply grow the economy eternally? I see, so if we bring in 9 billion people its like double plus good right? And yet, you completely hand wave away the most basic economic principle, supply and demand. And don't really name the one that cheats that, You do name drop "AUTOMATION" previously so .... there are less jobs, but we should import more people despite being unable to fully employ our own current population. Brilliant! Tell me again how much of America's population are incapable of floating a 500 dollar emergency and what the unemployment rate is? Please get back to me when we've covered that bit. If this mechanic of "More people = More spending = more jobs!" worked wouldn't we have full employment? Something is amiss here, it just doesn't add up. If we presently don't have enough jobs for 350 million? 400 million? And we don't have enough that pay people enough to lead any kind of life? Why would billions more change that math?

As far as housing, welcome to an issue that basically solely affects SoCal and New York, and New York isn't even because of migration. Most migrants these days tend to avoid SoCal for this very reason in fact. SoCal's housing issues might be affected by migration, but it's not the only or even majority factor in the issues with SoCal housing. A heavy concentration of high paying jobs is what basically makes housing unaffordable in SoCal cities. The fact that housing is a massive issue in major cities around the world is one of the prime things we can point to as the reason the housing issues aren't majorly created by the migration issue in the US.

Right, so everywhere else in the United States, equally employable as *checks notes* major city with a port harbor. I am sure .... Montana could use about 50 million more people..... to do.... something? But stuff? Great all those retail robots will make BIG MONEY for Jeff Bezos. See you are a good Democrat, you look out for Silicon Valley.

Also, let us consider that migration from Mexico has massively decreased in the past few years, and yet the housing problem is worsening at a rate even faster than at any point in the last few decades. Why would less migration lead to even worse housing prices, if immigrants were the major reason for housing prices? The answer is simple, because they weren't the major reason for it.

Ask Saint Obama, he did after all give away all the Housing to Blackrock back in 2008.

Also, let's also consider that children are a drain on both the parents and the economy as the US is currently set up, more money is spent on children than is received from them. This is of course because the US views its children as an investment, hoping that they will be contributing members of society. But the US and businesses both sacrifice a lot to pay for the raising of children. This itself is not a bad thing, it should be encouraged, but if you get a healthy working adult right out of the gate, you skip that initial investment cost.

What is it with Democrats and a deep hatred of babies? "Hey, doing that biologically normal thing hurts Capital, so we will just import a gazillion people so our beloved Jeff Bezos doesn't miss a single dime!" I love it, that is pure Neo-Liberalism right there. An Idea Elizabeth Warren could love, Families? Hell to that feed that baby to the Moloch so the Market line goes up! "Look for our system of wealth extraction and capital accumulation to work we need a legal framework so everyone is sterile and replaced with fresh cattle, its more economically efficient! Families? pfffft The state exists to grease the wheels of BUSINESS!" As I said, scratch a Democrat and you find Ayn Rand and Reaganomics simmering beneath that facade. AH! Is this the plan? So everyone will be an atomized impoverished person with no family, no kids and we will just harvest new people from people farms overseas! Ahhhh a Country that basically subsists like a vampire eating everything that falls in. What a country! I guess if everyone exists just to go to work, pay taxes and then die at in their wage cage maybe that is how you hope to get around the math problem from the start.

It really does seem that half of your anti migrant sentiments are based on false ideas of "negative" effects of migration. The other half seems to be emotional. I'm not going to sit here and say that migration has zero influence on these things, but overall we've found their effects to be minor. Arguing in absolutes is rather silly, and is what leads to silly declarations often made by conservatives, such as a glut of low skill laborers is what is destroying middle class wages. A glut of low skill labor may affect the overall unemployment rate of those making $7-10 an hour, but is ultimately not going to be the reason that mid tier wages have gone down over the last several decades.

"Mid Tier" jobs don't exist, there is Labor and Capital, and by the way, I care a lot about those at the bottom rung. What? Their lives don't matter? AH! I get it because they are usually bigoted chuds or something right? You so far haven't explained how anything I've said is false, except to say "Ummm there are some unnamed economic factors and also having kids hurts business and ummmm supply and demand isn't everything and besides only the poor will really suffer!" like damn dude, you sound like a complete ghoul. As for arguing in absolutes, "Ummm Immigration has no negatives, it is radiantly good and how we uplift people!!!!111!!eleven!!11" is I guess what you consider to be nuance?

Again, people seem to be wonderfully useful idiots for the propaganda spread by big corporations. Keeping migrants in citizenship limbo allows them to exploit them for cheap labor. It's why conservatives never actually do much in the way of making any kind of "final" move as far as mass deporting migrants. They get free/cheap labor by keeping them here. And of course every schmuck out there justifies their existence in this citizenship limbo for various reasons, but the most telling thing is that none of these people ever seem to concretely agree on why immigration is a bad thing. There are a plethora of reasons but there never seems to be any real consensus other than "It's illegal" which is incredibly vague for reasoning once you REALLY think hard about it - Imagine if you made their status in the US not illegal. Would people suddenly have issue with it? Or is it really that they're just hiding their underlying xenophobia with some paper thin reasoning?

Dude, so far your core case is purely propaganda for big corporations, whom guess what, ALL BACK you. They all want Open Borders, that is their position. Why would the Kochs and the Libertarians and AnCaps be for this? You admit its for cheap labor here, FINALLY an acknowledgement of the real game here.

So lets return, Supply and Demand exists, Your entire position is contingent on a view of Democrats as purest of angels, Only poor people suffer so it doesn't matter? (Yikes from me on that), and ummmm big corporations have spread propaganda, which only YOU actually repeat. You haven't answered the Supply and Demand point, you haven't explained why a party that won't provide Health Care and instead funds Health Insurance ghouls is going to spend trillions on.... free? cheap? housing? Where billions will live? Where the jobs will come from and even admit that the losses and pain will be felt by the poorest and this is a big win mainly for corporations who don't want to deal with the troublesome problem of .... families existing. A strong case for a return to the gilded age, which we already live in but I guess you want to make sure capital can break any strike or unionization effort under the sun, OR you have some rather insane trust that a benevolent cast of technocratic managers will set things straight we just need them in power and everything will be wonderful.... in our pod world were nobody can have a family and everyone lives to work and works to live.... sounds dystopian but hey, you do you King.

Still curious about the foreign policy bit since this is all out of left field.

[PC2]

simply grow the economy eternally?

Yes because there is no cap. Growth is better than stagnation.

I see, so if we bring in 9 billion people its like double plus good right? And yet, you completely hand wave away the most basic economic principle, supply and demand. And don't really name the one that cheats that, You do name drop "AUTOMATION" previously so .... there are less jobs, but we should import more people despite being unable to fully employ our own current population. Brilliant! Tell me again how much of America's population are incapable of floating a 500 dollar emergency and what the unemployment rate is? Please get back to me when we've covered that bit. If this mechanic of "More people = More spending = more jobs!" worked wouldn't we have full employment? Something is amiss here, it just doesn't add up. If we presently don't have enough jobs for 350 million? 400 million? And we don't have enough that pay people enough to lead any kind of life? Why would billions more change that math?
about the foreign policy bit since this is all out of left field.

Having plenty of jobs has nothing to do with automation and the population. They're irrelevant. It pretty much all comes to down to increasing people's education and adopting a culture of innovation.

[Theodarzna]

Yes because there is no cap. Growth is better than stagnation.

Well Cthulhu 2020 has built up some interesting allies. Growth eternally is functionally impossible, there are not infinite resources nor infinite planets.

Having plenty of jobs has nothing to do with automation and the population. They're irrelevant. It pretty much all comes to down to increasing people's education and adopting a culture of innovation.

Ah, some free market nostrums, bootstraps! Entrepreneurship! ummmm Gumption! Grit! uhhhhh idk what else to say here because this isn't much to go off of.

[PC2]

Well Cthulhu 2020 has built up some interesting allies. Growth eternally is functionally impossible, there are not infinite resources nor infinite planets.

Natural resources are effectively infinite. Back when man first evolved 100k years ago only a microscopic amount of matter on Earth was a natural resource that was usable by humans. As people gained knowledge over time the amount of matter that is considered a natural resource(usable by people) grew by 10-fold then it grew by 100-fold and so on. The amount of natural resources in existence is not constant nor decreasing because it grows as human knowledge grows. There's no cap to knowledge which means there can't be a cap to natural resources either.

Ah, some free market nostrums, bootstraps! Entrepreneurship! ummmm Gumption! Grit!

Yeah but that's only if you want to maximize the speed of progress.

[dwarven]

https://news.gallup.com/poll/330194/...t-decline.aspx



And the sentiment in the US is improving after a pretty abysmal 2020 due to covid. It's almost back up to the November spike (WONDER WHY IT SPIKED), so hopefully it'll continue to trend upwards as we get through covid and don't have a basket of deplorables running the country.

We do currently have a basket of deplorables running the country.

[Elegiac]

They'll spend money they don't have

Because as we all know, people don't consume anything until they become a citizen and native born children automatically come with a full savings account. /s Insisting that X kind of population growth is fine but Y is not when the only thing really distinguishing the two is that X is primarily Anglophone and melanin deficient continues to be logically inconsistent and a massive dogwhistle.

And you can keep screeching about supply and demand all you like, but your position is still based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how an economy works because you automatically associate the ability to consume (i.e. demand, the driver of economic activity) with a particular paradigm of employment specific to the last century. Which is ironic coming as it does alongside accusing others of being corporate shills since that misunderstanding is what underpins supply side economics, rofl.

"If immigration is so good why don't we just invite the entire population of the world" Gee, I dunno Deborah why don't we all chug sixty gallons of water since a few glasses a day is so good for you, too?

[Shalcker]

Because as we all know, people don't consume anything until they become a citizen and native born children automatically come with a full savings account. /s Insisting that X kind of population growth is fine but Y is not when the only thing really distinguishing the two is that X is primarily Anglophone and melanin deficient continues to be logically inconsistent and a massive dogwhistle.

Why would you defend people essentially gambling with their lives for chance of doing better elsewhere? Sometimes dropping even relatively safe lifestyles in their home countries and selling their own houses to rent one-room apartment in US and drive Uber for subsistence wages?

Move from pretty much any country that could consider US life to be significant improvement means wiping out savings and dropping down on social and earning ladders (outside of a few very narrow options).

And you can keep screeching about supply and demand all you like, but your position is still based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how an economy works because you automatically associate the ability to consume (i.e. demand, the driver of economic activity) with a particular paradigm of employment specific to the last century. Which is ironic coming as it does alongside accusing others of being corporate shills since that misunderstanding is what underpins supply side economics, rofl.

What do you see as right understanding of it? Are there different paradigms on the rise that would do better? Gig employment types certainly only exacerbate those problems.

[Shadowferal]

Natural resources are effectively infinite. Back when man first evolved 100k years ago only a microscopic amount of matter on Earth was a natural resource that was usable by humans. As people gained knowledge over time the amount of matter that is considered a natural resource(usable by people) grew by 10-fold then it grew by 100-fold and so on. The amount of natural resources in existence is not constant nor decreasing because it grows as human knowledge grows. There's no cap to knowledge which means there can't be a cap to natural resources either.

Science is jeering at you. Just stop. You're embarrassing yourself.

[Felya]

Natural resources are effectively infinite. Back when man first evolved 100k years ago only a microscopic amount of matter on Earth was a natural resource that was usable by humans. As people gained knowledge over time the amount of matter that is considered a natural resource(usable by people) grew by 10-fold then it grew by 100-fold and so on. The amount of natural resources in existence is not constant nor decreasing because it grows as human knowledge grows. There's no cap to knowledge which means there can't be a cap to natural resources either.

Where did you get this information? What is this based on? Please tell me you are not a young earth creationist...

[Shadowferal]

Where did you get this information? What is this based on? Please tell me you are not a young earth creationist...

Marjorie Taylor Greene perhaps?

Because we have to trust the science."

"You know me, I'm a science person. I love science. I'm always talking science, unless that science is about climate change, coronavirus, space lasers, evolution, the metric system ... living on Mars, Jesus' skin color or Santa's skin color, by the way, which is white," she says while wearing a shirt that reads "TRUST THE SIENCE."

[Elegiac]

Why would you defend people essentially gambling with their lives for chance of doing better elsewhere?

Fairly simple reason:



"Gambling with their lives for a chance of doing better elsewhere" is one of the defining features of the human condition, sweaty. Pretending that it's a reason to judge someone is a little gauche.

[Ivanstone]

Keeping migrants in citizenship limbo allows them to exploit them for cheap labor.

That's not quite correct. While illegals are sometimes paid less, that's not the reason they're desired. An illegal has no work place protections at all. Its the ultimate expression of anti-union sentiment. I'm sure the usual suspects would love to deport a US citizen if they could.

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I care a lot about those at the bottom rung.

If you actually gave a shit about those at the bottom rung, you would be a fuck ton more friendly to illegal immigrants.

[PC2]

Science is jeering at you. Just stop. You're embarrassing yourself.

Where did you get this information? What is this based on? Please tell me you are not a young earth creationist...

I guess you think we have a fixed amount of resources where we can't generate more resources. That's simply not how it works.

The idea that humanity is facing a resource scarcity problem is not true, it is nothing more than a myth.

[gondrin]

Natural resources are effectively infinite. Back when man first evolved 100k years ago only a microscopic amount of matter on Earth was a natural resource that was usable by humans. As people gained knowledge over time the amount of matter that is considered a natural resource(usable by people) grew by 10-fold then it grew by 100-fold and so on. The amount of natural resources in existence is not constant nor decreasing because it grows as human knowledge grows. There's no cap to knowledge which means there can't be a cap to natural resources either.


Yeah but that's only if you want to maximize the speed of progress.

If you can show where these infinite resources are, I'm pretty sure you'll get a Nobel prize for it. The only thing infinite in this universe is entropy.

[Dontrike]

How do we make more copper?

Alchemy of course, it just costs you an arm and a leg....and a brother to do.

[Ivanstone]

How do we make more copper?

Its pretty easy. All we gotta do is drill a big giant tunnel 5 km into the Earth's crust and we'll have a literal mineralpalooza of riches to extract.

It'll be cheep and risk free to accomplish.

[Orange Joe]

I wasn't aware the US had some right to overlordship on a continent the United States isn't even physically on? And bombing and slaughtering people and building a world spanning Empire seems, you know, evil.

I mean if we just acknowledge that is what is being done, I can at least respect the honesty of it, but pretending "Our shenanigans are cheeky and fun, their shenanigans are cruel!" is just ridiculous.

So did you have an issue when Trump was bombing areas? Do you still not know what a hypocrite is or are you just proudly wearing the title now?

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Hey, Biden took time out of his busy schedule of not raising the minimum wage, and not getting those 2k checks to bomb part of Syria. I know you want to have a gotcha to defend your treasured voteball team but come on, this is pretty weak. I know, we are allegedly on the "Same page" except for you know actually not wanting an American presence over there at all and to stop meddling in that region. Why are US forces in a country not in the United States? A country that didn't invite us, whose government doesn't want us there, and for whom itself and its invited allies are trying to repel a hostile foreign invasion.

As for me, Idk, when Trump was in office all you guys seemed keen on was "Decorum" and a delusional fanfiction spy novel about the Russians. Wasn't much room to talk given the consensus was "Pulling out of Syria would have been doing PUTINS BIDDING" or some such claptrap.

Funny how you only care about these things now that there is someone it a D in office

[Ivanstone]

Hmmm, that sounds suspiciously like obtaining more copper as opposed to making it.

Fantastical feats of geological engineering feels more truthy than alchemy.

[Orange Joe]

I guess you think we have a fixed amount of resources where we can't generate more resources. That's simply not how it works.

The idea that humanity is facing a resource scarcity problem is not true, it is nothing more than a myth.

You think we can just make rare metals used in electronics once we mine all the available metal?? lmfao.....