Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Small business owners have always been a GOP crowd. There's nothing new about that.

I’m part of the small business crowd. Harris needs to amp up how insane Trump is. It was not an option when two doddering white men were running, but now get it!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

She did not claim she will win, you're right. To the contrary. I thought the interview humanized her in the same way the Hillary interview did. But Harris did the interview BEFORE the election. His audience is huge in PA.

Howard's audience is big in Philly and the collar counties. Not so big in western, mid, or northeast. Sirius isn't cheap.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Small business owners have always been a GOP crowd. There's nothing new about that.

But the immigrants in favor of Trump is an odd thing. They aren't shy about it. I haven't the temerity to suggest to any that perhaps that's pulling up the ladder behind them. Because they're paying me.

Yes, most of my exposure is immigrant business owners. And these do trend R. But it's odd to hear folks from India favor Trump over a women of half-Indian descent.

The Jewish vote seems really split. When I hear people continue to parrot the stereotype that Jews all vote Democrat, including the Orange Shmuck himself, I have to wonder if these people know many Jews. The ones I know who are freaked out by the last year's vile displays on campuses aren't voting Democratic. And more generally, that stereotype is as dated as it is awful. I'd say roughly half the Jews I know, and a lot of my social scene is Jewish, have always been conservative and lean Republican.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I’m part of the small business crowd. Harris needs to amp up how insane Trump is. It was not an option when two doddering white men were running, but now get it!

Yeah, but you're a lawyer. Ds create more regs, laws, etc. What little you lose on the tax and compliance side is far overcome by enhanced revenue. Regulation barely moves our bottom line, and the Democrats' favorite fix for everything, "We need to pass a law!", fattens us. Same goes for CPAs and HR professionals.

Ds are a red tape shitshow, from every angle. Rs aren't much better, as they never succeed in simplifying anything for the long term. But they defund oversight while in office and hobble enforcement, so at least people can breathe while they're in charge. Which is usually just long enough to over-reach in their deregulatory zeal and cause some form of crisis.

We can't have nice things here for too long because neither party can control itself and inevitably goes too far in one extreme direction or another.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I’m part of the small business crowd. Harris needs to amp up how insane Trump is. It was not an option when two doddering white men were running, but now get it!

It has been eight years since 2016. If you're not convinced by now that Trump is insane, I'm not sure that's the button to try to push.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

It has been eight years since 2016. If you're not convinced by now that Trump is insane, I'm not sure that's the button to try to push.

Maybe so.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

"The past four years have highlighted the ways that Democrats exaggerate the political importance of racial identity. Joe Biden, after all, promised to nominate the first Black female Supreme Court justice (which he did) and chose Kamala Harris as the first Black vice president — who has now succeeded him as the Democratic nominee. Yet Harris has less support from Black voters than Hillary Clinton did in 2016.

Biden also adopted the sort of welcoming immigration policies that Democrats have long believed Hispanic voters support. He loosened border rules early in his term, which helped millions of people enter the country. In spite of that change — or maybe partly because of it — Democrats have also lost Hispanic support.
. . .

More generally, many voters have come to see the Democratic Party as the party of the establishment. That may sound vague and vibesy, but it’s real. Trump’s disdain for the establishment appeals to dissatisfied voters of all races. As my colleague Nate Cohn points out, a sizable minority of Black and Hispanic voters think 'people who are offended by Donald Trump take his words too seriously.'

The Democrats’ second big problem is that they have wrongly imagined voters of colors to be classic progressives. In reality, the most left-wing segment of the population is heavily white, the Pew Research Center has found. While white Democrats have become even more liberal in recent decades, many working-class voters of color remain moderate to conservative."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/b...tion-poll.html

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

"The past four years have highlighted the ways that Democrats exaggerate the political importance of racial identity. Joe Biden, after all, promised to nominate the first Black female Supreme Court justice (which he did) and chose Kamala Harris as the first Black vice president — who has now succeeded him as the Democratic nominee. Yet Harris has less support from Black voters than Hillary Clinton did in 2016.

Biden also adopted the sort of welcoming immigration policies that Democrats have long believed Hispanic voters support. He loosened border rules early in his term, which helped millions of people enter the country. In spite of that change — or maybe partly because of it — Democrats have also lost Hispanic support.
. . .

More generally, many voters have come to see the Democratic Party as the party of the establishment. That may sound vague and vibesy, but it’s real. Trump’s disdain for the establishment appeals to dissatisfied voters of all races. As my colleague Nate Cohn points out, a sizable minority of Black and Hispanic voters think 'people who are offended by Donald Trump take his words too seriously.'

The Democrats’ second big problem is that they have wrongly imagined voters of colors to be classic progressives. In reality, the most left-wing segment of the population is heavily white, the Pew Research Center has found. While white Democrats have become even more liberal in recent decades, many working-class voters of color remain moderate to conservative."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/b...tion-poll.html

"loosened border restrictions" is some dystopia shit.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

"loosened border restrictions" is some dystopia shit.

I don't follow immigration because I tend to benefit from and like immigrants, and the debate is, like most others, filled with unfalsifiable and dishonest claims from both sides.

But Biden's border enforcement rules were less restrictive than Obama's and Trump's, no?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

https://reason.com/2024/10/16/donald...rate-promises/

"Trump fans applauded when he said he'll eliminate taxes on tips. Then Harris proposed that, too. Her audience applauded. Trump then proposed not taxing overtime. More applause.

. . .

"No one likes tipping," says Schrager, "but all of a sudden, you'll have to pay tips for everything.…More people will be paid in tips."

I want lower taxes, but awarding specific exemptions to certain people doesn't just let some of us keep more of our money, it tells workers and employers to change their behavior.

"If you're a restaurant owner, you need chefs, hostesses, managers," says Schrager. "All of a sudden, one group of your employees isn't paying taxes, and the rest are. Suddenly, it would be very hard to hire anyone who's not a server."
. . .

"Why such economic ignorance?

"Look at Kamala's team," says Schrager. "Most of her core advisers are lawyers, not economists."

That last point is a bit unfair. Economists are often just as simultaneously dumb but certain they're right as lawyers. They're only slightly more respectable because, unlike lawyers, they're aware of the law of unintended consequences and don't propose as the solution to every problem, "We need to pass a law!"

BUT, in defense of Harris and Trump, aren't they only doing as shrewd Romans would? Biden kicked this can of jubilee open in the worst way a few years ago with his vote-purchasing student loan forgiveness promise.*

If one gifts debt discharge to the kid who amassed debt he or she cannot repay, how can one not give a similar benefit to those who did not take such a chance? (An often ill-informed risk, BTW, to major in a subject no employers value.) Harris and Trump are handcuffed here. Once one gets into the game of buying votes, and starts picking who gets economic benefits, well, sooner or later, everyone must get a benefit.

But let's not stop there. Wall Street didn't like high rates very much. And those poor buggers were suffering, what with the market only up over 40k and all. So the Fed prematurely cut rates a fat 50 points.

That's not Greenspan GWB-era recklessness, of course, as Powell has been measured and incredibly conservative in his moves thus far. No, to get back to dumb W-era policies, Harris decided to dust off this classic: "Everyone needs to buy a home!"

Never mind that Trump's doubling of the standard deduction already helped the middle classes to save money to buy a home. Never mind that one of the biggest lessons of 2008 was that having people tied to homes hobbled labor flexibility by making it impossible for millions to move to other areas with better opportunities. And never mind that we are entering a time where labor's ability to move is becoming increasingly important.

Forget all this and let's go back to 1950, MAGA's mythical Camelot, and sing that same tired song: The best way to encourage wealth creation is for people to buy homes.

What will giving $25k loans to everybody to buy homes do? Well, it'll make all of us homeowners $25k wealthier on paper overnight by driving up house prices. It'll incentivize private equity to grab the motherlode of that money building shit quality multi-units all over the place. And when the cascade of defaults that always follows loose lending inevitably comes, Schwarzman, Fink, Mnuchin, and the rest of the parasites will form vulture funds to buy the loans and/or properties and turn them into giant rental revenue streams. Just like they did after 2008.

Everybody gets a pony! With Stage Four cancer. Ride it as much as you can before its legs fall off!
______
*He probably regretted it immediately the morning after the election, where it was apparent he had won by such a margin he didn't need to have made such a promise... particularly given it only helped him in blue areas where he already had the race in the bag.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don't follow immigration because I tend to benefit from and like immigrants, and the debate is, like most others, filled with unfalsifiable and dishonest claims from both sides.

But Biden's border enforcement rules were less restrictive than Obama's and Trump's, no?

Same re immigration, but my impression was that Biden rolled back some, but not all, of Trump's oppressive immigration policies, leaving him more restrictive than Obama. Immigration advocates have not been happy with him from the jump.

Not sure that any of that had anything to do with appealing to latino voters, though. Gets framed that why by Washington types.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Same re immigration, but my impression was that Biden rolled back some, but not all, of Trump's oppressive immigration policies, leaving him more restrictive than Obama. Immigration advocates have not been happy with him from the jump.

Not sure that any of that had anything to do with appealing to latino voters, though. Gets framed that why by Washington types.

I think the Washington types hear or see the same "anecdata" (I hate it, too, but what else can one call it?) people around here relate to one another. That is, for reasons I don't understand, legal immigrants and children of immigrants seem to be most exercised about unlawful immigration.

Upper middle class white folks like yours truly don't seem to care a lot. Hence, I don't follow it.

I also happen to really like immigrants, lawful and unlawful. This stuff about many of them being violent welfare moochers has never been anywhere close to my experience in the more than 30 years I've been interacting with them. I've worked for a few. Maybe I wasn't supposed to do so... But clearly, I don't care about that. If a guy wants to set himself up in business and has worked hard enough to put himself into a position to do so, he's exactly the kind of person who ought to be incentivized to stay.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Not sure that any of that had anything to do with appealing to latino voters, though. Gets framed that why by Washington types.

Apart from business news, national media is not interested in covering policy disputes as policy disputes, so they get covered as if they were entirely political. Hence the assumption that Democratic policies should be understood as efforts to win votes. The political journalists see issues in that light, and can only portray them in that light.

That article, in particular, makes a bunch of good points but also oversimplifies. Black voters are an absolutely core part of the Democratic coalition, and they often feels taken for granted by the party. I wasn't a fan of Biden's commitment re the Supreme Court appointment, but I don't think it was an effort to win over black voters on the margins -- it was aimed at the black voters who were already solidly in the camp.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

But his spirit animal is. Holy lord is this epic.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi...n_history.html

He's not the greatest orator, so the text below:

"We ignore laws. It’s what America does. With this in mind, our government has moved past censorship to the larger project of changing the American personality. They want a more obedient, timorous, fearful citizen. Their tool is the internet, a vast machine for doling out reward and punishment through likes and views, shaming or deamplification. The mechanics are complicated, but the core concept is simple: You’re upranked for accepting authority, downranked for questioning it, with questions of any kind increasingly viewed as a form of disinformation.
. . .

America has the most useless aristocrats in history. Even the French dandies marched to the razor by the Jacobins were towering specimens of humanity compared to the Michael Haydens, John Brennans, James Clappers, Mike McFauls, and Rick Stengels who make up America’s self-appointed behavior police.

In prerevolutionary France, even the most drunken, depraved, debauched libertine had to be prepared to back up an insolent act with a sword duel to the death. Our aristocrats pee themselves at the sight of mean tweets. They have no honor, no belief, no poetry, art, or humor, no patriotism, no loyalty, no dreams, and no accomplishments. They’re simultaneously illiterate and pretentious, which is very hard to pull off.
. . .

To small thinkers, free speech is a wilderness of potential threats. The people who built this country, whatever else you can say about them, weren’t small thinkers. They were big, big thinkers, and I mean that not just in terms of intellect but arrogance, gall, brass, audacity, cheek.
. . .

To the people who are suggesting that there are voices who should be ignored because they’re encouraging mistrust or skepticism of authority, or obstructing consensus: I’m not encouraging you to be skeptical of authority. I’m encouraging you to defy authority. That is the right word for this time.

To all those snoops and nosy parkers sitting in their Homeland Security–funded “Centers of Excellence,” telling us day after day we must think as they say and vote as they say or else we’re traitorous Putin-loving fascists and enablers of “dangerous” disinformation: Motherfucker, I’m an American. That shit does not work on me. And how can you impugn my patriotism, when you’re sitting in Klaus Schwab’s lap, apologizing for the First Amendment to a crowd of Europeans? Look in the mirror.

I’m not the problem. We’re not the problem.

You’re the problem.

You suck."

https://www.thefp.com/p/matt-taibbi-...e-the-republic

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think the Washington types hear or see the same "anecdata" (I hate it, too, but what else can one call it?) people around here relate to one another. That is, for reasons I don't understand, legal immigrants and children of immigrants seem to be most exercised about unlawful immigration.

Upper middle class white folks like yours truly don't seem to care a lot. Hence, I don't follow it.

I also happen to really like immigrants, lawful and unlawful. This stuff about many of them being violent welfare moochers has never been anywhere close to my experience in the more than 30 years I've been interacting with them. I've worked for a few. Maybe I wasn't supposed to do so... But clearly, I don't care about that. If a guy wants to set himself up in business and has worked hard enough to put himself into a position to do so, he's exactly the kind of person who ought to be incentivized to stay.

Yes, that is a big part of what is so annoying about the rhetoric. Who do you think is doing all the thankless hard work??