It's not. You'd be foolish to dismiss it as such. The appeal of Singapore? A low tax rate. And the things you find significant about America like Freedom of expression, not myself but many people scarcely care, if they get paid well.
Dismissing it is hiding from it. But it is a thing. Unlike the head of Blizzard's Battle.Net development, who, if you don't mind me pulling rank, went to goddamn Fresno State and from folks I know at Blizzard, is something of an imbecile who got his job through kissing ass, us folks with a little bit thicker resume and more connections have opportunities. And we do take them. I am here right now because of my parents. Because they are getting older. Because my family is very important to me. But that's it. I have no kids and no desire to have kids. I have no interest in starting a family of my own. I work for one company and and and starting up another. White picket fences and going to cooking class with one spouse is for other people, like my brother.
Most of the people I went to undergrad and grad school with do not work in the United States any more. They left because they had fewer connections here, the pay is better elsewhere and the tax rate lower. Around 18 months ago my company, previously owned by Alphabet (Google), was sold to new Japanese ownership. There was significant concern at the time that our new Japanese overlords would move their entire purchase to Japan. That thankfully didn't happen, and we've had the same autonoy we've always had. But here's the thing, if they had moved us, most of my co-workers would have left. I wouldn't have, because again, family, and I put out feelers in the Boston and New York City area, and got good feedback. But they again, had generally fewer ties, and would have generally packed a bag if asked, so long as the pay was better.
This is the way things are going for people with specialized skillsets. It's as simple that. For my company I'm starting up right now, we're developing software based on what me and my lead partner in it grad school meshing decision making engines with with distributed systems. Most of the people we're recruiting to work on it are not Americans. Or Canadians, and certainly not Europeans. They live in Asia. If this actually takes off, there is a better chance I'll move there than they'll move here. After all, more money in Hong Kong than Boston. Almost as much as New York.
This is how things work now and it is not scaremongering and bullshit. The world has changed. The American Century is over and isn't coming back anytime soon. Folks who think that this is the only game in town have to get with the program. It is not the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s anymore. This is what comes next. America has less of a monopoly of talent and money than ever, and it has to work to keep it. And no that doesn't just, or even necessarily mean low taxes. It means a business friendly environment (specifically start ups and small business). It means creating conditions for teenagers and twenty somethings to be educated and then skilled in the skillsets they need for the modern global economy. It means investment in infrastructure to support innovators and young businesses. Some states do this stuff well. Some states do it miserably. But America isn't remotely the best at doing it.
if anything, in my estimation, it is basically capitalizing on it's pre-existing condition of being the center of global economy, with a vice-like grip (tighter now than ever before) on global finance to counteract the fact that it has gone from first in class to, at best average, of the things that make countries economy competitive in the modern global economy.
This is not to say "Elect Bernie and we're outtie" or anything so inane. It's to say don't take for granted something America has by accident of history, but is in no way entitled to, and to put simply, has less of a monopoly on than ever before.
Just remember. Today, in 2019, China is neck-in-neck with the US in the A.I. arms race, and 25 years ago the parents of the people making those breakthroughs in China were farmers living under straw roofs. America does not have the luxury of time and space to go on tangents anymore.
So no. Not a threat. The facts of the changing world. The chances of me actually ever leaving are extremely low. I love this country and you know me to be highly principled. But if the Titanic sinks, so to speak, I'm not going down with the ship.
Last edited by Skroe; 2019-02-23 at 03:07 PM.
Let's see, what can be done with the help of a Democratic house but no Democratic super majority in the senate.
1-NoSanders' 2020 agenda, per aides:
1- Medicare 4 All
2- Green New Deal/climate
2- $15 min wage
3- Criminal justice reform
4- Free college
5- Break up biggest banks
6- Gender pay equity
7- Paid leave
8- ⬇ Drug prices
9- Expand Social Security
10- Save unions
11- DREAM Act
Aides also mentioned:
-12 Background checks & assault weapons ban
13- Affordable housing
14- New infrastructure
15- Opposing "military industrial complex”
Criminal justice plank includes:
16- Legalize weed
17- Abolish private prisons
18- End cash bail
19- "Major" police dep't reform
2-No
3-No
4-Maybe
5-No
6-Doubtfully
7-Executive Order that does nothing?
8-Maybe
9-No
10-Doubtfully
11-Probably
12-Maybe, however Bernie himself might torpedo that.
13-Doubtfully
14-Some would probably happen. Even if "old" infrastructure is more important.
15-Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. He'd be as good at that as Obama was. Obama who wanted to cut military spending and then had to sign expanding it. Not under the perview of the POTUS. They ought to stop running on it.
16-Yes
17-Yes, however stateside GOP will shunt it to the SCOTUS
18-Probably
19-See 17
The problem is that people seem to think that the POTUS is a dictator. When these days they don't even have much of a say about what the budget looks like. They get a budget and need to execute on it.
To get shit done the POTUS is less important than the two other branches of US government.
- Lars
I am a Sanders supporter for full disclosure. Do I expect him to get his stuff? No, I do not.
What I do expect for him to do is to push for them and put pressure on the others to pass them and since these are issues that the public actually want, that works much better and pushes the envelope and encourages more like them to run for the lower offices much like his primary has since.
And even if he doesn't get any of that done, he still pushes the needle in that direction. It isn't like he is pushing for unpopular stuff.
And when he pushes for this stuff and the other politicians push back, that gets them on the record with their views which many of them seem to want to avoid. Like they will only push for stuff when they know it won't work but when they have the chance, they refuse. This would be them having the chance and being pushed to do it, this would be them either putting up or shutting up.
And I would rather a politician fight for me and fail then to sell me out and succeed.
Also, the other guy did a double 2 which makes your response harder to read since it didn't have the double 2 so lining them up gets a little off some.
Now, do I want Sanders to run? Not really, while I do support him and his policies, I don't want his mind or body to go while he is in and go senile and be exploited like Bush Jr. I would much prefer he bow out and endorse a younger candidate with his policies and a history to back it up.
Since we can't call out Trolls and Bad Faith posters and the Ignore function doesn't actually ignore it. Add
"mmo-champion.com##li.postbitignored"
to your ublock or adblock filter to actually ignore ignored posters. Now just need a way to ignore responses to them as well.
For me, if Bernie's mind goes, what are the odds that he will know it enough to step down or how hard will the administration try to cover it up? How much could he screw up before they finally admit to it or he admits it to himself? That is what worries me.
When you are older and your mind starts to go, you don't realize it many times until you are way into it as you don't want to think of yourself like that and even then, you aren't in your right mind so your ability to notice it is getting compromised as well.
I like Bernie, I really do, I supported him in 2016 and I would gladly vote for him in the general now. But I also fear him being exploited should that happen and do think they need to put age limits on public office.
Could you imagine if you boarded a plane on a long distance flight to see an 80 year old pilot? How safe would you feel and just how many people could get killed over the years due to that pilot having health or mental complications on the trip? An official can end up causing far more devastation and even if he has others around him to help prevent that, that doesn't prevent them from trying to exploit it for their gain as well or try and cover it up to protect their legacy.
THAT is what I fear with him.
I personally believe they should have age limits on all public officials and judges.
Since we can't call out Trolls and Bad Faith posters and the Ignore function doesn't actually ignore it. Add
"mmo-champion.com##li.postbitignored"
to your ublock or adblock filter to actually ignore ignored posters. Now just need a way to ignore responses to them as well.
@CryotriX
I think it's frankly cowardly for certain people to just scream "BAD FAITH POSTER" , put you on ignore, and then prance away.
I don't always agree with you, but (as the OP) I say you are welcome here. I only have 1 poster on ignore, mainly because he bores me: Machismo.
Classic heartless AnCap doctrine, courtesy of Skroe.You try and make me give up my wealth though and try to turn America into some socialist paradise? I could get a job in Singapore in about a week. We live in a global economy, and if backwards looking Americans want to cave in the American economy by turning this into some industrial workers paradise, rather than the leading hub of the modern global economy, we who have the skill set and the ability to take our business elsewhere, simply will.
As for the emphasized part? Good riddance.
Last edited by Realitytrembles; 2019-02-24 at 04:16 AM.
"Independence forever!" --- President John Adams
"America is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." --- President John Quincy Adams
"Our Federal Union! It must be preserved!" --- President Andrew Jackson
I threw the guy on ignore, but I couldn't help myself going down the Sanders Wish-list he posted and I saw in someone's quote.
1- Medicare 4 All - Won't pass the Senate without 60 votes, which it doesn't have.
2- Green New Deal/climate - There is no house majority. There is not 60 votes in the Senate.
2- $15 min wage - There is not 60 votes in the Senate.
3- Criminal justice reform - This was done last year by a bipartisan group.
4- Free college - There is not 60 votes in the Senate, nor a majority in the house.
5- Break up biggest banks - This would require new laws, not regulation. There is a not a majority in either chamber for this.
6- Gender pay equity - There is not 60 votes in the Senate for a new law.
7- Paid leave - There is not 60 votes in the Senate.
8- ⬇ Drug prices - Already pending.
9- Expand Social Security - There is no house majority. There is not 60 votes in the Senate.
10- Save unions - K? Free Willy?
11- DREAM Act - There is not 60 votes in the Senate.
Aides also mentioned:
-12 Background checks & assault weapons ban - There is no house majority. There is not 60 votes in the Senate.
13- Affordable housing - Mostly a State Level issue.
14- New infrastructure - Mostly a State-level issue.
15- Opposing "military industrial complex” - Does that include Sander's favorite F-35? In any event, there is a strong majority in the house and Senate for MORE defense spending, not less. Sorry. Remember: Massachusetts largest single employer is Raytheon, and we're a liberal state.
Criminal justice plank includes:
16- Legalize weed - There is no house majority. There is not 60 votes in the Senate.
17- Abolish private prisons - Will require new legislation. Questionable if there is 60 votes in the Senate.
18- End cash bail - Will require new legislation. Questionable if there is 60 votes in the Senate.
19- "Major" police dep't reform - State level issue, not Federal.
So yeah. Sanders' wishlist faces the same hurdles as Trump's wall. Even if - and it's a big if - he can get a majority in the House, he is extraordinarily short of 60 votes in the Senate to pass the law or fund it.
Did people completely ignore the fact that Obama got basically nothing he wanted in the budget after 2011, and Trump, despite having a unified Republican government, signed three budgets now that are nigh identical to scaled-up versions of budgets going back to 2015, that pass with hugh majorities of both parties.
Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate have broad agreement on what to spend money on. And in the post-earmarks era, post-Budget Control Act era, they really aren't all that interested in what the President - any President - wants to spend money on.
It's 2019, and how things work has changed. It is is not 1998. It is not 2005. Presidential Budget Requests not serious documents anymore and both parties, even the same party of the sitting President, doesn't take them seriously and doesn't use them as starting points.
Electing Bernie Sanders or anybody else.... far left, center left... center, center right, far right... as President, will have zero effect on what government spends its money on, because since 2011, the office of the President has effectively lost its seat at the table, a seat it enjoyed, essentially at the head of the table, since FDR and the Democrats rolled up the Republican Party and beat it half to death in 1932.
That's over and done, and it isn't coming back anytime soon.
Can it be put more obviously than the fact that Obamacare is still funded in full? Or that twice now Trump has wanted to cut the State Department budget by 25-40%, only to see Republicans raise the State Department budget? Or that Democrats voted for a $150 billion increase in defense spending a year ago?
But sure, let's go through the fantasy exercise where we pretend Presidents are kings, with power over the purse. In reality, we're all in for 4 more years of President Sanders, President Harris, President Booker, President Warren, or god help us, President Trump, signing budgets almost exactly like the one passed last year, and the year before, and the year before, and the year.
That's how budgeting works now in post-earmark, post-BCA America. Get with the program, people. You can take your Fantasy Presidential Budget Requests, and use them to clean up your dog's mess on the carpet.
Last edited by Skroe; 2019-02-24 at 03:54 PM.
The problem with this stance is that the Middle Class. Which are a fairly large part of the economy in most western nations, won't gain from most shit you mentioned. "Good jobs"? What are they and how will they be done. If it's just a wage hike? Good. For the US unions are generally a state issue that would probably need a SCOTUS overturning that makes unions toothless. What's a president to do?
Wealth Redistribution is important, more so in the US than most places because yeah. System is broken. However going "RHARG!" And killing people won't get you friends. Yelling about militant factory workers pulling down the fatcats won't win you friends.
Work with the middle class. For that you need to compromise with them.
Your Rhetoric yells in a way that you'd bulldoze them away.
- Lars
Mostly responding to the bolded.
The reason compromise won't happen is due to the lines above. The whole "class warfare" rhetoric and the like. That language is the enemy of your cause. Do we need to bust the largest corporate organizations down a few notches? Absolutely (and banks are far from the worst offenders).
However your language won't get it done. And small steps forward are better than 1848. Not to speak about the fact that very little actual good came out of the French Revolution during the actually revolutionary days. Just fancy words on paper.
If you actually want to get what you want. Drop the whole fucking class war bullshit. Work with people like you and improve all interests among there. And slowly get there. Work on several theaters (local, regional, national, federal, global etc) at once for different things.
People in America are far more likely to get the stuff you claim they ought to get through Harris than through Sanders.
- Lars
Right. So you'd rather engage in friendly fire because feelz before realz than actually work to solve the issue. You want to see change now. No matter what the reaction to that change would be or how it'd potentially cause the change to go the other way from how you want it due to optics. (Or, in the case of the French Revolution. Turning into a terror dictatorship by committee).
If you sabotage all the power structures. The only thing you do is set it up for someone like Augustus, Stalin, Mao, or lots of other authoritarian strong men who got to power through force. Used said force to enrich themselves. And then screwed most other people/kept them happy enough through bread and circuses.
The fact you go on as you do gives power to the people you want to pull down. I just hope you realize that.
- Lars
You'd rather be the one yelling "THE PROLETARIAT NEEDS TO RAISE UP TO KILL THE MIDDLE-MANAGERS AND DENTISTS!"
As that's who you are right now. And you're a huge part of why there's lots of fighting between people mostly on the same side, which the people you dislike take advantage out of.
As you sound like you're totally fine with just shooting the big scary bankers on the street. A thing most people think is insane.
- Lars
I'm sure the Jacobins believed the same thing at the time.
Breaking a system by force only accomplishes setting the precedent that it's okay to overturn a political system you disagree with. It represents a fundamental breakdown of civic order and invariably just results in a government more despotic than what preceded it.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
Thank you for giving Trump 2020.
You know, @Skroe - almost all those things you listed also apply to impeaching or removing Dumbass Dump. Does that stop you from trying to get him out of office?
Chances are if you asked people not 10+ years ago that gay marriage would be made legal across the USA, they would've said you were on some serious weed... oh, and did I mention that Weed is rapidly getting legalized? whoda thought that 10+ years ago?
I don't care what your pessimistic view is, America has always challenged the status quo - and if enough Americans start pushing for things like Medicare for all (and they will, if you see even Dump supporters are getting on board with the idea) it will happen. Will it ALL happen with the next pres? Possibly not, but we keep fighting until we make it a reality AND we'll take what we can. One step forward and three steps nowhere is still one step forward on the deal... just like we do with getting Dumbass Dump out of office.
You really think Bernie's in this to win? Hellz no - he knows he won't win. He's in this to keep things on-message, especially with Warren and Harris adopting practically his entire platform. Healthcare for all, education for all and a living minimum wage while accepting NO corporate donor money. Will we get all of it in the end? Read the previous above.
Also... lol @ your idea that Bernie is afraid of change, that's just outright laughable as people (including yourself) claim he wants too much change! That dude marched with MLK in the Civil Rights era... if you say he's changed or something from back then, than I'm going to call bollocks on your hypocrisy for your overbloated opinion of John McCain then.
As much as I like Skroe for his efforts, I will say that he is representative of a general problem with American government - namely the belief that it's institutional inertia both represents an insurmountable roadblock to reform more radical than a budget adjustment, and that the American people are happy to live with said inertia.
America the country might be an economic and military powerhouse, but America the political institution is struggling for breath. That it has facilitated the concentration of wealth in the hands of a modern aristocratic elite and the concentration of political power into the hands of ever declining rural voter base does not bode well for the near future.
Yes, Skroe, the majority of legislators and executive staffers might have a fundamental set of principles in common regarding political policy. But we are approaching a point where the average citizen is beginning to suffer in practice, and once a society reaches that point every person on the political outs is going to find fertile grounds for a public base of support.
The British recognised the need for change with the Reform Acts, and that helped the British government survive being thrown out with most of the the rest of the continent's monarchies. America needs to do the same.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
I am sure the next wave of attacks against socialized medical care will be BUT THE JOBS, i think that will be the argument against it truth be told. They will spout about how much more staff insurance companies hire along with hospital staff to deal with said insurance companies. The thing is those jobs or careers will be leaving in the near future anyway due to technology. I am shocked they have not tried that method of propaganda yet. I think Bernie is considered to old to win but he is pushing the entire nation left maybe not to same way that the evil bastard Ronald Reagan moved the overton window right but it is a start and that is what is important.
Look at the taxation polls, those have shifted in ways that no one thought possible. Thanks to social media and the internet people are able to communicate these ideas and radicalize them which is why you see such large crackdowns from various governments across the world to attempt to police it. China and Russia have no real chance yet in a military engagement but what they can have a chance in is propaganda and spreading of misinformation.
We still have dirty water in Flint for fucks sake, if America was such a wonderful place they would atleast fix that issue that has been mounting for years. WHERE IS THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY TO FIX THAT PROBLEM. I understand it is a state issue but when the state can not figure it out or attempt to fix it in a manner that it deserves what then? Telling the vast majority of the poor to relocate? People are pissed and will continue to throw bricks into the D.C window until they get what they want. This is why i think you will see Truckers having a similar situation to the Pinkerton Riots when they are made redundant.
I am sure the next operation for the Military will be in South America for obvious reasons but even that does not have alot of support. Look at how quick the news media is pumping out stories about how terrible and or bad it is to try and sway public opinion. Abby Martin has done America a great service by highlighting the bad things our nation has done. I share her content as much as possible to hopefully change just a few minds who in turn i hope use that information to change a few more etc.
So yes Bernie made me more aware of those issues because those are the issues that come up in search engines when i researched him. He has already made a difference.
Agreed
While I applaud Skroe for his detailed attacks at Dump's regime, he's clearly allowing previous Southern Strategy rhetoric to cloud his judgement via extreme cognitive bias on personal pride. Want evidence? Here's this funderful quote:
For a guy who does his homework on Dump, he clarly hasn't done any research down to even a basic google search to realize that Singapore has a fully functioning Universal Healthcare that stands alongside private healthcare. He doesn't care because cognitive bias screams SOCIALISM in his brain exactly the same way the word LIBERAL screams in a Dump Supporter's brain. >_<
EDIT: and now watch, he's going to do "research" and start cherry-picking weird stats about Singapore in response to try to lessen his fopa here - which is, again, going to be his cognitive bias searching out basic things to reinforce his pride-based belief - exactly the same way a Dump Supporter trollposter posts in response here.
Last edited by mvaliz; 2019-02-24 at 07:42 PM.