Biden / Harris Focused Discussion

[Theodarzna]

I'm unfamiliar with the initiative and its results so I couldn't say, but generally when there's no local industry the response is to figure out a new one to keep the local economy humming rather than throwing your arms in the air and saying, "There's nothing to be done."

We live in "markets" right now, so those are the rules we gotta play by.

The coal industry, which is itself severely damaging to the environment on the front and back end of the process, was killed by market realities of cheaper and less damaging energy alternatives.

I never figured you for one to stick up for Big Coal, but oddly enough you appear to be doing just that.

Then let's find something else. Maybe a different type of retraining program. Maybe a different type of program altogether. Maybe offer subsidies and move to where jobs are and carry over equity somehow? I don't know, but the options are few and unfortunately these voters often seem to vote for folks that will promise them the "RETURN OF COAL!" rather than anyone interested in actually trying to find solutions to the local economic problems there.

Okay, Lets change the face of the people. Let us say we enact a policy that utterly destroys a native tribe living in the heart of the Amazon. Is the answer for those displaced people that OUR policy displaced to say "Well find a way to serve us, that's just how it is?"

Maybe if the face of the people were someone you find more sympathetic you might get why that logic is first extremely unethical and cruel, but also given hat it literally doesn't work and hasn't been shown to work. And I stick up for the people who live in those places.

[DKjaigen]

Haven't spent a lot of time checking my "Location" entry, have you?

Besides that, the point is that it's the Democrats who supported helping the working class. Republicans prefer tax breaks and subsidies for those "corporate upperclass" you claim I'm somehow supporting. That is, for instance, what's holding up the stimulus package for COVID-19 in the USA; the Democrats won't support it while it retains language that provides a legal exemption of responsibility for corporate employers who forced employees back to work in a pandemic, leading to those employees contracting the illness.

I know it's convenient to project the ills of those you support onto your enemies, but it's just horseshit that anyone who hasn't drunk the kool-aid can see.

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With energy industry employees, for instance, they don't even need to leave the industry. Just shift from declining sectors (coal, oil) to growing sectors (hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear, etc). Their specific skills in, say, mining won't be much help, but that's why they need the retraining. But there's plenty of work-with-your-hands salt-of-the-earth type work in those fields, it's not all electronics manufacturing and R&D. Installation, maintenance, construction, etc.



There is no concrete divide between the markets and politics. Politics has always affected the markets, and vice versa. And if you want to discuss socialist reformations, while the Democrats aren't exactly supportive, they're way more open to such discussions than the Republicans, who will knee-jerk shout "COMMIE" at you while making hex signs in the air to ward off the evil Socialism.



Citation needed.

Here is the real situation not your fantasies. America is sitting on a timebomb of debt of nearly 10 trillion in morgtages. And thx to the Coronavirus this bomb is about to blow. If the rustbelt does not get their middle class jobs back soon to pay of those debts america will face an economic recession that will make the stock market crash of 1929 look like a picknick. But hey keep pretending that your policies are actually useful.

[Felya]

Okay, Lets change the face of the people. Let us say we enact a policy that utterly destroys a native tribe living in the heart of the Amazon. Is the answer for those displaced people that OUR policy displaced to say "Well find a way to serve us, that's just how it is?"

Why are you making shit up, to make your point?

Maybe if the face of the people were someone you find more sympathetic you might get why that logic is first extremely unethical and cruel, but also given hat it literally doesn't work and hasn't been shown to work. And I stick up for the people who live in those places.

Why do you need to change the face? Why wouldn’t the real face of coal garner the same support? What about this is unlikable?



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Here is the real situation not your fantasies. America is sitting on a timebomb of debt of nearly 10 trillion in morgtages. And thx to the Coronavirus this bomb is about to blow. If the rustbelt does not get their middle class jobs back soon to pay of those debts america will face an economic recession that will make the stock market crash of 1929 look like a picknick. But hey keep pretending that your policies are actually useful.

Why did debt skyrocket under Trump?

[Edge-]

Let us say we enact a policy that utterly destroys a native tribe living in the heart of the Amazon.

Was the native tribe at the heart of the Amazon already a part of the national economy? Were they integrated into broader society? Or were the isolated natives in the heart of the Amazon that existed outside of the broader Brazilian society?

Is the answer for those displaced people that OUR policy displaced to say "Well find a way to serve us, that's just how it is?"

If they were never a part of the economy in the first place, then they shouldn't be displaced to begin with.

Coal miners were part of a national economy in the US. Isolated native tribes in the middle of the jungle in Brazil, not so much.

Maybe if the face of the people were someone you find more sympathetic you might get why that logic is first extremely unethical and cruel

Why do you think my views would change if these were other groups? I don't care that these are Republican voting conservatives. They're also people who are struggling, and since we don't live in a system where we can pay people whose industries have died we gotta play by the existing rules. I didn't make up the rules, I'm not even a big fan of them, but they're the current rules.

If a ton of tech-bros in CA start losing work, my position would be the same. They should train and look for opportunities in other industries if the tech jobs disappear.

but also given hat it literally doesn't work and hasn't been shown to work. And I stick up for the people who live in those places.

Then figure out another solution. I stick up for them too, which is why I want people far smarter than I to try to find ways to reinvigorate those struggling parts of the country and find ways to make them sustainable and thriving once again. Which also includes more focus on the largely ignored opioid epidemic that continues and disproportionately impacts a lot of the very folks we're talking about.

I did poke around and it seemed the last initiative didn't end up panning out, which is a shame and beyond frustrating for the folks that participated in good faith. I don't think that implicitly means the strategy is a failure, maybe it needs to be reworked and better funded while getting industry partners to create programs to help onboard these folks once they've completed their training, or something. And unless someone else comes up with better ideas, this seems to be the best bet.

Short of simply using these folks as a test-case for UBI, which like, I'm down with but ain't never gonna get anywhere.

[Felya]

Short of simply using these folks as a test-case for UBI, which like, I'm down with but ain't never gonna get anywhere.

We already have welfare for people going to retrain.

[DKjaigen]

Okay, Lets change the face of the people. Let us say we enact a policy that utterly destroys a native tribe living in the heart of the Amazon. Is the answer for those displaced people that OUR policy displaced to say "Well find a way to serve us, that's just how it is?"

Maybe if the face of the people were someone you find more sympathetic you might get why that logic is first extremely unethical and cruel, but also given hat it literally doesn't work and hasn't been shown to work. And I stick up for the people who live in those places.

You know that these people will not learn unless they experienced this hardship themselves. The learn2code became a meme when progressive journalists from buzzfeed , vice and huffington post where fired enmass because these media outlets where in decline. Rustbelters who have been told by these very same people that they needed to learn2code repaid the favor. They were very indignant about it.

[Theodarzna]

Was the native tribe at the heart of the Amazon already a part of the national economy? Were they integrated into broader society? Or were the isolated natives in the heart of the Amazon that existed outside of the broader Brazilian society?

If they were never a part of the economy in the first place, then they shouldn't be displaced to begin with.

Coal miners were part of a national economy in the US. Isolated native tribes in the middle of the jungle in Brazil, not so much.

Why do you think my views would change if these were other groups? I don't care that these are Republican voting conservatives. They're also people who are struggling, and since we don't live in a system where we can pay people whose industries have died we gotta play by the existing rules. I didn't make up the rules, I'm not even a big fan of them, but they're the current rules.

If a ton of tech-bros in CA start losing work, my position would be the same. They should train and look for opportunities in other industries if the tech jobs disappear.

Then figure out another solution. I stick up for them too, which is why I want people far smarter than I to try to find ways to reinvigorate those struggling parts of the country and find ways to make them sustainable and thriving once again. Which also includes more focus on the largely ignored opioid epidemic that continues and disproportionately impacts a lot of the very folks we're talking about.

I did poke around and it seemed the last initiative didn't end up panning out, which is a shame and beyond frustrating for the folks that participated in good faith. I don't think that implicitly means the strategy is a failure, maybe it needs to be reworked and better funded while getting industry partners to create programs to help onboard these folks once they've completed their training, or something. And unless someone else comes up with better ideas, this seems to be the best bet.

Short of simply using these folks as a test-case for UBI, which like, I'm down with but ain't never gonna get anywhere.

You are again straining to miss the point.

First, let us acknowledge the hilarious irony of the people who would hotly deny being right-wing falling back on a very Libertarian "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" personal responsibility solution. Funny that the Democratic Parties answer is one such as that? But, hey, thinking too much on that part might make you uncomfortable.

Second, you are ignoring the important point. Destroying a community for your own profit and then demanding those people find some way to be useful, and then hiding behind "Well that's the Market" is insane and reveals the black heart of evil of people who think like that.

You of-course missed the entire point of the example because? Well I don't know why.

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You know that these people will not learn unless they experienced this hardship themselves. The learn2code became a meme when progressive journalists from buzzfeed , vice and huffington post where fired enmass because these media outlets where in decline. Rustbelters who have been told by these very same people that they needed to learn2code repaid the favor. They were very indignant about it.

Yes, well to aspirant taste makers, people who LARP like big important elites, finding out they are being made obsolete was a bitter one to swallow after eagerly doing Capital/Power's bidding their whole lives.

[Felya]

You know that these people will not learn unless they experienced this hardship themselves. The learn2code became a meme when progressive journalists from buzzfeed , vice and huffington post where fired enmass because these media outlets where in decline. Rustbelters who have been told by these very same people that they needed to learn2code repaid the favor. They were very indignant about it.

How did they repay the favor of not receiving any support, while their bosses made record breaking profits? Can you tell me how it’s possible for manufacturing to be returning under Trump, without jobs?

Edit: What’s a good salary when competing with a robot, because you don’t want to be the one developing the robot?

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Yes, well to aspirant taste makers, people who LARP like big important elites, finding out they are being made obsolete was a bitter one to swallow after eagerly doing Capital/Power's bidding their whole lives.

Uhm... Exxon CEO was the Secretary of State and Coal owners saw record breaking subsidies, as well as Trump placing 2k US troops to protect Saudi oil. Like... what? The last four years energy and real estate moguls have seen record breaking influx of tax payer dollars. There is hardly any bitterness to swallow, while swimming in all the moneys.

[Edge-]

You are again straining to miss the point.

No, I get the point you were trying to get at. I just reject it because it's nonsense. That you had to resort to an isolated tribe in the middle of a rainforest for your comparison speaks to that.

First, let us acknowledge the hilarious irony of the people who would hotly deny being right-wing falling back on a very Libertarian "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" personal responsibility solution.

Supporting government funded programs to train people in new industries when the local industries fail and there are not other options is..."pull yourself up by your bootstraps"? That there's a specific and necessary role for the federal government, and taxpayer dollars, for this to happen leads me to believe that it's very much not that.

Funny that the Democratic Parties answer is one such as that? But, hey, thinking too much on that part might make you uncomfortable.

No, that response would be, "Your industry died, sucks. Figure it out, you lazy shits. You'll get no help from the federal government."

Which, again, is specifically not what the program in discussion is.

Second, you are ignoring the important point. Destroying a community for your own profit and then demanding those people find some way to be useful, and then hiding behind "Well that's the Market" is insane and reveals the black heart of evil of people who think like that.

Destroying a community? A community already ravaged by poverty and drugs due to a dead local industry that died? I mean...what's to destroy there other than some self-identification as coal miners? They can still dress up like coal miners and say they're "working the mines" whatever their job may be, but you can't preserve a "culture" from the outside. The Amish are a good example - they'd never be able to function as a core part of broader society, so they live in isolation for the most part. The quilt and barn market ain't the biggest around, but it's big enough to sustain their needs.

That's what "preserving a community" would look like for the people we're talking about. They'd need to turn insular and largely self-sustaining for it to work.

You of-course missed the entire point of the example because? Well I don't know why.

I'm still waiting for you to say what alternatives there are here. Because thus far you've just said, "retraining doesn't work and anyone who supports it is apparently a secret Republican!" which...is pretty absurd. Training hasn't worked so far, that much is largely fact, but the efforts are early and we have yet to see more mature and serious investments in this that would have a higher chance of yielding improved results for the retrained employees.

[Theodarzna]

No, I get the point you were trying to get at. I just reject it because it's nonsense. That you had to resort to an isolated tribe in the middle of a rainforest for your comparison speaks to that.

I resorted to someone I guessed you'd care more about to express the point.

Supporting government funded programs to train people in new industries when the local industries fail and there are not other options is....

You aren't offering anyone a job, you are maybe offering them a credential that could plausibly lead to a job.... maybe? The programs don't actually do any of that. It is a policy of destroy and them offer a voucher for schooling and then idk fingers crossed and hope things work out for them.

Which, again, is specifically not what the program in discussion is.

The only substantive difference between what you describe and Job Retraining schemes are the relatively free community college class, other than that, there is zero difference between the two except I guess you created some employment opportunity for an adjunct computer science teacher.

Destroying a community?

Last I checked, things like NAFTA were policy decisions, not dictates handed down from heaven.

[Edge-]

I resorted to someone I guessed you'd care more about to express the point.

I do care about them, they're humans. But what you proposed is absolute nonsense of the highest order.

You aren't offering anyone a job, you are maybe offering them a credential that could plausibly lead to a job.... maybe? The programs don't actually do any of that. It is a policy of destroy and them offer a voucher for schooling and then idk fingers crossed and hope things work out for them.

Hence why I said that the program needs to have business partners participating with programs to hire retrained employees. Training alone isn't enough, the government needs to help bring the jobs there as well as the training.

The only substantive difference between what you describe and Job Retraining schemes are the relatively free community college class, other than that, there is zero difference between the two except I guess you created some employment opportunity for an adjunct computer science teacher.

Except for what I wrote about above with the partnerships to actually provide jobs.

Last I checked, things like NAFTA were policy decisions, not dictates handed down from heaven.

And having huge tariffs on coal wouldn't make coal any more viable than it is now. It would just mean that Americans pay more for it, or pay to offset the uncompetitive costs via taxes. And short of a revision of the whole US economic system, that's just asking broader America to prop up dying industries. May as well do the same for wheelmakers who lost their jobs to automation. To assembly line manufacturing workers who lost their jobs to automation. To coal miners who lost their jobs to automation before coal became economically unviable.

[DKjaigen]

Supporting government funded programs to train people in new industries when the local industries fail and there are not other options is..."pull yourself up by your bootstraps"? That there's a specific and necessary role for the federal government, and taxpayer dollars, for this to happen leads me to believe that it's very much not that.

You seem to pretty sure these jobs exists. I got the feeling you think can shove your entire industrial sector into the commercial sector. That can work on a limited scale of 10 thousands but not in millions. So your propositions are absurd.

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And having huge tariffs on coal wouldn't make coal any more viable than it is now. It would just mean that Americans pay more for it, or pay to offset the uncompetitive costs via taxes. And short of a revision of the whole US economic system, that's just asking broader America to prop up dying industries. May as well do the same for wheelmakers who lost their jobs to automation. To assembly line manufacturing workers who lost their jobs to automation. To coal miners who lost their jobs to automation before coal became economically unviable.

And here it is. You are basically saying that the rustbelters can fuck off and die to make your live a bit cheaper.

[Rasulis]

Last I checked, things like NAFTA were policy decisions, not dictates handed down from heaven.

There is good and bad to everything. NAFTA was a disaster for Midwest manufacturing. Around 800,000 jobs may have moved south of the border to Mexico.

However, NAFTA also created jobs in the United States—anywhere between two and four million jobs depend on trade with Mexico. Indeed, what most politicians, analysts, and commentators forget is that the NAFTA has created tens of thousands of jobs in the US at the expense of countries like Germany, Japan, and South Korea that used to ship their goods to us but now make them here. While this much-maligned trade agreement provides free trade among its three signatories, it is actually a protectionist trade pact relative to the rest of the world.

Here is an example. Before NAFTA came into effect at the beginning of 1994, exports of automobiles from Germany, Japan and South Korea were flooding the US market. But NAFTA made it more expensive for European and East Asian automobile companies to export because the North American local content requirement was raised from 50% to 62.5%.

This meant that in order to avoid tariffs, a vehicle sold in the US (or Canada or Mexico for that matter) had to incorporate more value in its components originating from within the NAFTA zone. At the same time, the rules under NAFTA as to how that local content requirement is calculated became more stringent.

The companies’ response to NAFTA’s protectionist stance was swift. Within months, the Japanese, South Korean, and German automobile firms were making plans to shift production away from their respective home countries and establish assembly facilities in the United States. Toyota established new manufacturing capacity in Indiana (starting production in 1990), BMW in South Carolina (1994), Mercedes-Benz in Alabama (1997), Honda in Alabama (2001), Hyundai in Alabama (2005), KIA in Georgia (2008), and Volkswagen in Tennessee (2011).

Each of these assembly plants required the co-location of hundreds of suppliers. More than a third of US autoworkers work for foreign-owned companies. Many of those jobs would, without NAFTA, be located in Europe or East Asia.

[Edge-]

You seem to pretty sure these jobs exists. I got the feeling you think can shove your entire industrial sector into the commercial sector. That can work on a limited scale of 10 thousands but not in millions. So your propositions are absurd.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice...demand-careers

Top 15 most in-demand careers in the US right now. A lot are healthcare/nursing related and would be local, so those are no-go for many of these folks.

#10 - Web developer - Yep, this training could cover that!
#13 - Information security analyst - Yep, this training could cover that!
#15 - Sofware developer - Yep, this training could cover that, too!

So three of the top 15 most demanded jobs, that can be done remotely in the US, are covered by this type of retraining. I've never argued that jobs are infinite, nor that these jobs would fully employ local cities and towns that lost mining jobs etc. But it's better than simply letting them continue to languish in poverty with false promises of "bringing coal back!"

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And here it is. You are basically saying that the rustbelters can fuck off and die to make your live a bit cheaper.

No, you said that. I never said that. I was pointing out that the uncompetitive prices would make it harder for their industry to compete with global coal given the taxes added via tariffs. That an insular, non-free-trade approach would have no different result than what we're seeing now.

[Edge-]

In fairness, getting a remote developer job is preeeeetty damn competitive and doesn't have nearly the number of openings that people seem to want you to believe. At least not relative to the number of applicants.

But yeah, these people need something. We can't just keep pretending that they can keep mining coal for the next ten generations just because.

Absolutely, it's a super competitive environment and they're competing against folks at tech hubs who are participating in boot camps etc. But that's, again, why I'm an advocate of working with some of these bigger companies to create programs to onboard these folks. I'm of the opinion that once the foot is in the door, so to speak, that it will provide a better foundation for local (remote) tech scenes to form. I don't imagine they'll look anything like they do on the coasts, and that could be pretty rad to boot. A new way to express their culture, which they can now share with even more people via their work online.

[Theodarzna]

I do care about them, they're humans. But what you proposed is absolute nonsense of the highest order.

Hence why I said that the program needs to have business partners participating with programs to hire retrained employees. Training alone isn't enough, the government needs to help bring the jobs there as well as the training.

Except for what I wrote about above with the partnerships to actually provide jobs.

And having huge tariffs on coal wouldn't make coal any more viable than it is now. It would just mean that Americans pay more for it, or pay to offset the uncompetitive costs via taxes. And short of a revision of the whole US economic system, that's just asking broader America to prop up dying industries. May as well do the same for wheelmakers who lost their jobs to automation. To assembly line manufacturing workers who lost their jobs to automation. To coal miners who lost their jobs to automation before coal became economically unviable.

Over and over the point go over your head. And irony of irony, you fall back to free market fundamentalism. The programs functionally aren't going to work, they never have so far, and they are not going to suddenly start working with some Public-Private partnerships. There simply are not enough programming jobs, nor programming jobs with benefits that are going to pick a 40 year old former coal miner over an H1B they can pay even less and treat as a borderline slave. At the end of the day you are through policy depriving people of jobs that sustained whole communities and family structures. Sure in the atomized world where family and friends exist on Zoom that might, to the Silicon Valley ghoul seem trivial but it isn't to normal people. Though all of that assumes a one to one replacement. The programs I described guaranteed nothing, not even long term employment. Ignoring the fact that people also have to move usually as well, though now that might subside. Still, there is zero good track records for these programs.

[DKjaigen]

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice...demand-careers

Top 15 most in-demand careers in the US right now. A lot are healthcare/nursing related and would be local, so those are no-go for many of these folks.

#10 - Web developer - Yep, this training could cover that!
#13 - Information security analyst - Yep, this training could cover that!
#15 - Sofware developer - Yep, this training could cover that, too!

So three of the top 15 most demanded jobs, that can be done remotely in the US, are covered by this type of retraining. I've never argued that jobs are infinite, nor that these jobs would fully employ local cities and towns that lost mining jobs etc. But it's better than simply letting them continue to languish in poverty with false promises of "bringing coal back!"

Last time i checked you dont need a million software developers. I will say once again: you trying to shove your industrial sector into the commercial sector which is insane. you dont enough jobs.

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No, you said that. I never said that. I was pointing out that the uncompetitive prices would make it harder for their industry to compete with global coal given the taxes added via tariffs. That an insular, non-free-trade approach would have no different result than what we're seeing now.

Of course i said that because your motivation is blatantly obvious at this point. That is the reason why you keep talking about coal. Not about phones , tv´s or cars. Things that the american people living in cities need who are for the most part democrat. But it is no secret that these products have been made cheaper under the globalist economy. Many democrats are not aware that there comfortable live is at the expense of the rustbelt. You however are.

[Machismo]

Last time i checked you dont need a million software developers. I will say once again: you trying to shove your industrial sector into the commercial sector which is insane. you dont enough jobs.

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Of course i said that because your motivation is blatantly obvious at this point. That is the reason why you keep talking about coal. Not about phones , tv´s or cars. Things that the american people living in cities need who are for the most part democrat. But it is no secret that these products have been made cheaper under the globalist economy. Many democrats are not aware that there comfortable live is at the expense of the rustbelt. You however are.

Last time I checked, you don't need a million coal miners.

I loved the self own.

For the record, there's 50-60k coal miners, and 1-2 million software developers in the United States. Imagine arguing in favor of national socialism... and being a German.

[JohnBrown1917]

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice...demand-careers

Top 15 most in-demand careers in the US right now. A lot are healthcare/nursing related and would be local, so those are no-go for many of these folks.

#10 - Web developer - Yep, this training could cover that!
#13 - Information security analyst - Yep, this training could cover that!
#15 - Sofware developer - Yep, this training could cover that, too!

So three of the top 15 most demanded jobs, that can be done remotely in the US, are covered by this type of retraining. I've never argued that jobs are infinite, nor that these jobs would fully employ local cities and towns that lost mining jobs etc. But it's better than simply letting them continue to languish in poverty with false promises of "bringing coal back!"

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No, you said that. I never said that. I was pointing out that the uncompetitive prices would make it harder for their industry to compete with global coal given the taxes added via tariffs. That an insular, non-free-trade approach would have no different result than what we're seeing now.

Its unrealstic to put entire industries into another that requires a very different skill and talentset, tech and menial labour jobs are worlds apart. And what do you think would happen to these jobs being the most in demand if a ton of people suddenly entered the market? Like its something anybody can just do.

This is why retraining all menial labour worker that work in obsolute sectors to anything tech related industries is a terrible idea.

[Paranoid Android]

Not going to get in the discussion about the last two pages about job placement.

But hey! We are discussing policy! Yeah real effin policy, good or bad. Much more than the Trump shitshow thread.