President Trump & the USA

[Guest MattP]

8 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/21/18144138/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez

 

This covers it pretty well.

There is naivety and there is naivety though, she generally didn't seem to think there was a difference between billion an trillion, if Trump had done that you can imagine the abuse he would (rightly) get, Cortez just seems to automatically take the hard left position on everything before then trying and failing to explain why she arrives there, see the interview she gives on Palestine where she eventually just stops and admits she doesn't actually know much about global affairs.

On the subject that's an interesting read and the goals of it are probably something virtually everyone could get behind, but it looks more like a greenpeace wishlist than a serious policy attempt at the minute.

Before you can really make a judgement you would need to know far more detail about the cost (which would appear to be astronomical), the effect on society in terms of growth and jobs and how effective it's even going to be, as I've said before, the whole thing is totally pointless in the West if the Chinese, Russians and Indians still keep building nuclear power stations and burning fossil fuels at the rate they are,

Climate change is real and it needs to be tackled, but I'm already quite concerned at where the solutions are heading, less flights, meat taxes etc - directly onto the heads of the poorest in society, the middle classes and the rich wil still be able to eat and fly wherever they want but they'll stop everyone else doing it.

How are we going to go to places like Bangladesh and deny them the economic growth they'll need to build things like flood barriers that the Dutch were allowed to achieve to build theirs?

[leicsmac]

22 minutes ago, MattP said:

There is naivety and there is naivety though, she generally didn't seem to think there was a difference between billion an trillion, if Trump had done that you can imagine the abuse he would (rightly) get, Cortez just seems to automatically take the hard left position on everything before then trying and failing to explain why she arrives there, see the interview she gives on Palestine where she eventually just stops and admits she doesn't actually know much about global affairs.

On the subject that's an interesting read and the goals of it are probably something virtually everyone could get behind, but it looks more like a greenpeace wishlist than a serious policy attempt at the minute.

Before you can really make a judgement you would need to know far more detail about the cost (which would appear to be astronomical), the effect on society in terms of growth and jobs and how effective it's even going to be, as I've said before, the whole thing is totally pointless in the West if the Chinese, Russians and Indians still keep building nuclear power stations and burning fossil fuels at the rate they are,

Climate change is real and it needs to be tackled, but I'm already quite concerned at where the solutions are heading, less flights, meat taxes etc - directly onto the heads of the poorest in society, the middle classes and the rich wil still be able to eat and fly wherever they want but they'll stop everyone else doing it.

How are we going to go to places like Bangladesh and deny them the economic growth they'll need to build things like flood barriers that the Dutch were allowed to achieve to build theirs?

Oh, there's no doubt that it's very much in its infancy as an structured campaign, but then all political ideas started like that and it's certainly gained at least some momentum with some of the bigger Dem hitters supporting it, even if the main leadership are leery right now (possibly out of self-interest).

 

WRT cost I'll say the same thing I say when anyone brings that up - IMO it's either pay some to sort this out now or pay everything later to a much, much less forgiving (in fact completely so) entity later on. It's not like the Earth can be negotiated with or paid off and you can't have an economy or growth or jobs or anything without a functional civilisation. The responsibility of humans for what's going on is actually a moot point for me - it's the response that matters. The response of other countries is a more salient point but I've answered that in the past too - it might slow things down long enough to make a difference and the alternative (doing nothing) is only going to end badly - even if what we do is totally ineffective, we can't not try.

 

I don't think that reducing carbon footprints through less flights and meat consumption etc is going to be effective either and it does disadvantage nations looking to develop, what might be better is developing better methods of carbon capture and other decarbonisation methods as well as encouraging those nations to build their economies on renewable energy generation using whatever incentives we can - something I hope the GND will touch on as it develops.

Edited 4 January 2019 by leicsmac

[Guest MattP]

28 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Oh, there's no doubt that it's very much in its infancy as an structured campaign, but then all political ideas started like that and it's certainly gained at least some momentum with some of the bigger Dem hitters supporting it, even if the main leadership are leery right now (possibly out of self-interest).

You can't blame them, I mean they'll obviously love this policy in Malibu and Westchester but imagine how it's going to go down in Michigan, Ohio and Montana.

If you are going to get this through New Yorkers and Californians are going to have to realise they are going to have to start sharing the jobs, wealth and everything else they have with the rest of the country and I'd imagine as per usual when it comes to that choice, they won't be so keen.

[Guest MattP]

Back onto US politics - the standard of politician being elected across the board seems to be falling to the lowest standards. This is awful. 

 

It appears worse than over here. 

 

 

[Buce]

1 hour ago, MattP said:

Back onto US politics - the standard of politician being elected across the board seems to be falling to the lowest standards. This is awful. 

 

It appears worse than over here. 

 

 

 

Yeah, too right.

 

With the comments he made about Ivanka, surely it should be daughterfvcker?

Edited 4 January 2019 by Buce

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, MattP said:

You can't blame them, I mean they'll obviously love this policy in Malibu and Westchester but imagine how it's going to go down in Michigan, Ohio and Montana.

If you are going to get this through New Yorkers and Californians are going to have to realise they are going to have to start sharing the jobs, wealth and everything else they have with the rest of the country and I'd imagine as per usual when it comes to that choice, they won't be so keen.

FWIW I think the GND would get jobs going across all of the US - not just the areas that vote blue - as it mentions in that article, but yes, it's going to be difficult to make that into something seriously tangible. Coal, oil and gas as a means of energy generation are the past, not the future, and economics should be adapting to that.

[Guest MattP]

34 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

FWIW I think the GND would get jobs going across all of the US - not just the areas that vote blue - as it mentions in that article, but yes, it's going to be difficult to make that into something seriously tangible. Coal, oil and gas as a means of energy generation are the past, not the future, and economics should be adapting to that.

Economics doesn't adapt, things adapt to economics. Either something is affordable or it isn't.

 

If we all get our energy cheaper and greener then great, but the amount of government subsidy going into it already gives serious doubt. If it's going to get job growth throughout America then brilliant, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

I just can't see such a complex problem being solved by people like Cortez, it's going to be solved by brilliant minds if it is, not by people elected through identity politics. 

[leicsmac]

5 minutes ago, MattP said:

Economics doesn't adapt, things adapt to economics. Either something is affordable or it isn't.

 

If we all get our energy cheaper and greener then great, but the amount of government subsidy going into it already gives serious doubt. If it's going to get job growth throughout America then brilliant, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

I just can't see such a complex problem being solved by people like Cortez, it's going to be solved by brilliant minds if it is, not by people elected through identity politics. 

I see what you mean, allow me to rephrase - hopefully economics will ensure adaptation of this in the right way, then.

 

And with respect, the brilliant minds have been saying which way the wind has been blowing for years and have suggested all manner of solutions that have been ignored through short-sighted self-interest, so while the problem has been essentially solved IMO actually implementing the solution in the morass of different interests is the real task. And aclean

 

At the risk of repeating myself, this is about much more than just jobs, economics or whatever else anyway - this is about safeguarding the very temperate circumstances that allows all of that to happen. Without clean air, water, space for growing and a reasonable average global temperature, do you really believe anything politics-related actually matters?

[Guest MattP]

7 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I see what you mean, allow me to rephrase - hopefully economics will ensure adaptation of this in the right way, then.

 

And with respect, the brilliant minds have been saying which way the wind has been blowing for years and have suggested all manner of solutions that have been ignored through short-sighted self-interest, so while the problem has been essentially solved IMO actually implementing the solution in the morass of different interests is the real task. And aclean

 

At the risk of repeating myself, this is about much more than just jobs, economics or whatever else anyway - this is about safeguarding the very temperate circumstances that allows all of that to happen. Without clean air, water, space for growing and a reasonable average global temperature, do you really believe anything politics-related actually matters?

Of course, it matters greatly whatever happens - people have thought the World was about to end on many occasions, a nuclear war could break out if we elect the wrong people, the West and its values could be wiped out if we elect the wrong people. All of that would render climate change irrelevant to us so I'd still argue it's not the most important thing to vote on.

 

To be honest I'm not sure we'll achieve any solution to this without population reduction anyway - natural energy is surely never going to be enough to satisfy the demands of 10-100 billion people.

 

The worst situation of all would be us weakening ourselves to the point we were subservient to others and under people like Sanders, Corbyn etc that could very easily happen in a very short space of time.

[leicsmac]

13 minutes ago, MattP said:

Of course, it matters greatly whatever happens - people have thought the World was about to end on many occasions, a nuclear war could break out if we elect the wrong people, the West and its values could be wiped out if we elect the wrong people. All of that would render climate change irrelevant to us so I'd still argue it's not the most important thing to vote on.

 

To be honest I'm not sure we'll achieve any solution to this without population reduction anyway - natural energy is surely never going to be enough to satisfy the demands of 10-100 billion people.

 

The worst situation of all would be us weakening ourselves to the point we were subservient to others and under people like Sanders, Corbyn etc that could very easily happen in a very short space of time.

I disagree - as death is for me by definition the worst-case scenario I would say that on a civilisational level is worse, but of course your mileage may vary.

 

Nuclear war is quite possibly the one factor driven largely by politics that could rival climate change in terms of its scope for change - I can't see any others that willfully cause the downfall of all civilisations (not just the West, important as most people seem to hold it) in a way that will take not decades, but millennia, possibly tens of millennia, to recover from. So yeah, I would say that is possibly an issue as important - that and no other that I can think of. In any case, the point is that all of the machinery of civilisation relies on a very, very delicate equilibrium. We think it's shifting, in fact we're pretty sure it's shifting, and we either adapt or live with the consequences - and that means every single human being. At its most fundamental, politics is the art of one human or group of humans looking to get a leg up on another (without the blood of earlier methods of doing so) and that doesn't apply with issues that are entirely global IMO. 

 

I'm a believer that scientific advancement will allow us to meet the energy and other demands of a 10 billion human population (projections vary but it may well not top out at much more than that) but not if people with influence continue to not look beyond the end of their own lives.

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46763940

 

Declaring a national emergency to circumvent the political process sounds...rather autocratic to me.

[Guest MattP]

 

[Mr Mister]

Does America really have an immigration crisis, or is this another thing that Trump has made up?

[Buce]

8 minutes ago, Mr Mister said:

Does America really have an immigration crisis, or is this another thing that Trump has made up?

 

America is barely 200 years old - it was, and is, built on immigration. 

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, Mr Mister said:

Does America really have an immigration crisis, or is this another thing that Trump has made up?

 

53 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

America is barely 200 years old - it was, and is, built on immigration. 

Yep.

 

And even if it did, they have bigger crises to face right now and in the future anyhow.

[The Doctor]

So, in addition to republicans apparently being the villain from footloose and attacking AOC over dancing as a student, now it's fake nudes:  https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gy774j/a-fake-nude-of-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-was-debunked-by-foot-fetishists

 

"I’ve sucked enough toes in my life to recognize when something doesn’t look right"

 

Is the best comment on an attempted scandal I've ever seen

 

[leicsmac]

11 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

So, in addition to republicans apparently being the villain from footloose and attacking AOC over dancing as a student, now it's fake nudes:  https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gy774j/a-fake-nude-of-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-was-debunked-by-foot-fetishists

 

 

 

 

Is the best comment on an attempted scandal I've ever seen

 

Is it amusing or sad that the incels (and let's face it, it probably was them) who thought up this idea actually thought the idea of nudes would actually be detrimental to AOC's political career right now anyway - as if anyone who would be offended by such things isn't already a Puritan who wouldn't note for her for other reasons anyhow.

 

Or that such an attempt would invariably be revealed as fake anyway.

 

But then, the neckbeards have never had much brain where the opposite sex is involved.

[Guest MattP]

20 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

So, in addition to republicans apparently being the villain from footloose and attacking AOC over dancing as a student, now it's fake nudes:  https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gy774j/a-fake-nude-of-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-was-debunked-by-foot-fetishists

 

Is the best comment on an attempted scandal I've ever seen

 

5 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Is it amusing or sad that the incels (and let's face it, it probably was them) who thought up this idea actually thought the idea of nudes would actually be detrimental to AOC's political career right now anyway.

More to the point why on earth would they want to? Judging from her comments and IQ level so far she's going to be a huge asset for the Republicans.

[leicsmac]

6 minutes ago, MattP said:

 

 

More to the point why on earth would they want to? Judging from her comments and IQ level so far she's going to be a huge asset for the Republicans.

Evidently there's someone in that camp whom she worries, exactly how much of that worry is justified or not seems to be up to the individual.

 

Again though, the kind of guy (and it will be) that makes up fake nudes isn't the kind of guy who probably tends to think things through politically beyond some woman being a threat to him.

Edited 8 January 2019 by leicsmac

[Jon the Hat]

I rather like AOC, she is young, plucky and has lots of ideas.  I am sure over time she will focus them and achieve some good, and in the meantime she will shake things up a bit in Congress, which is not a bad thing at all.

[Guest MattP]

11 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

I rather like AOC, she is young, plucky and has lots of ideas.  I am sure over time she will focus them and achieve some good, and in the meantime she will shake things up a bit in Congress, which is not a bad thing at all.

Macron was young, plucky, full of ideas and ready to shake up politics.

 

He's also far brighter than her.

 

Politics needs competent people on all sides more than ever.

[LiberalFox]

I had a look at AOC and she was advocating for a top rate of income tax of 70%!

[Buce]

31 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

I had a look at AOC and she was advocating for a top rate of income tax of 70%!

 

That’s ok, it would only affect @Jon the Hat if it happened here.

Edited 8 January 2019 by Buce

[bovril]

8 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

I had a look at AOC and she was advocating for a top rate of income tax of 70%!

It was 70% until the Reagan era. 

Edited 8 January 2019 by bovril

[SMX11]

2 hours ago, bovril said:

It was 70% until the Reagan era. 

Yeah and the only thing it encouraged was tax evasion. The effectiveness of tax authorities then is no where near it is now. If you introduced that sort of a rate you would cause huge capital flight. 'AOC' is full of failed ideas that her teachers probably filled her with, she doesn't appear to have the capacity to articulate her ideas under any scrutiny.