[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Nicodimas, on 18 August 2023 - 07:56 PM, said:

This song conveys so much of the strife America is going through ...


https://youtu.be/sqS...ZfPOgzq1OB34qAi

(Many are just suffering under the current administration, since Obama 1+)

... because of Obamacare?

Where are the death panels we were promised? They sound like fun. I imagine they'd be decided by a thumbs up / thumbs down vote by mentally impaired elderly people, like Obamacare itself in the Senate....

Or other factors that coincided with Obama's administration---the opioid epidemic in rural communities, etc.---do some people blame Obama for that?

On the song itself:

Quote

he identifies the source of the problem: "rich men north of Richmond" – federal politicians – who "want to have total control". The song laments homelessness – "folks in the street ain't got nothin' to eat" – and a national suicide crisis: "Young men are putting themselves six feet in the ground / 'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kicking them down."

[...] "the obese milking welfare", reasoning that "if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds / Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds". We can all agree that politicians have caused many of America's problems; it's harder to argue that our country is being destroyed by short, overweight chocolate enthusiasts. He also rails against taxation, which he says means "your dollar ain't shit"

[...] doesn't appear to have considered that the nefarious fudge rounds might be feeding the very people he mentioned with nothing to eat. But Anthony claims to "sit pretty dead center" when it comes to politics[...] "I remember as a kid the conservatives wanting war, and me not understanding that. And I remember a lot of the controversies when the left took office, and it seems like, you know, both sides serve the same master."

Still, a reference to politicians "looking out for minors on an island somewhere" – apparently a reference to Jeffrey Epstein's ties to elite figures – has also prompted speculation that Anthony could be nodding to QAnon,[...] Anthony claims child trafficking has become "normalized", though what he's referring to isn't clear.

Rich Men North of Richmond punches down. No surprise the right wing loves it | Music | The Guardian

'Dead center' for rural Virginia, perhaps?...

It's not clear that 'rich men north of Richmond' only means 'politicians', though the qualifier 'north' does seem to refer to the old Southern complaint about Northerners trying to control them (cruel Northerners trying to make them not enslave people---or force them not to segregate and refuse to serve LGBTQ people...). Also seems to absolve Silicon Valley, since it's 37.3875° N, whereas Richmond Virginia is 37.5407° N. #EmpiricalRationality

Ironic that many of the same people who think it's terrible that 'rich men' supposedly want 'total control' and surveillance also think it's wonderful that an omniscient, omnipotent Go* wants to tell them what to do, and punish them with torture for all eternity if they disobey. So it's not control, surveillance, and torture that they object to, but that it's being done by humans rather than Go*. Wonder how hard it will be to persuade them that GAI is Go*....

Also ironic that the way to prevent obese people from 'milking' welfare without endangering their lives would be to closely monitor their health and their food intake:

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Your body can meet the majority of your calorie requirements from stored fat, but total starvation is fatal in 8-12 weeks, regardless of initial body weight.

Who would die first of starvation – a fat or a thin person? - BBC Science

... so you probably can't just go by BMI. At present such monitoring might cost more than the current system, unless it can be partly funded by tech companies eager to test new products and improve their proprietary understanding of human psychology.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 19 August 2023 - 01:23 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

This is just a Medium post, so it might not be accurate, but it seems to make a surprisingly compelling case:

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Barack Obama & the Opioid Crisis

My President’s Worst Failure

[...] Under President Obama, a small army of executive branch “slow-walkers” served as pallbearers, knowingly or not, to the grim march of overdose deaths from commonly prescribed opioids that was already underway in years before he took office. As the body count climbed, the [...] US Attorney settlement with Purdue[...] ought to have prompted scores of decisions to reign in opioid prescribing. Instead, the opposite happened: prescribing numbers continued to grow throughout Obama’s first term, reaching a peak in 2012. Despite subsequent reductions, they remain the highest in the world [post is from 2017].

[...] During Obama’s time in office, licit opioid prescribing increased not only in number but also in potency. Most notable was expanded use of the powerful synthetic known as fentanyl, a drug approved only for opioid-tolerant cancer patients suffering from pain beyond the reach of traditional opioids, but one that drug makers marketed in a manner of ways, including in advertisements that pictured construction workers and others employed in similar, physically demanding jobs. Although a reduction in opioid supply was desperately needed, and close scrutiny of opioid manufacturers more than warranted, the Obama administration declined to do either.

[...] illicit heroin underwent an industrial transformation: market expansion, innovation, and in many places, a reconfiguration of production and distribution. Yet the path of initiation to heroin via prescription pills that fueled its resurgence went substantially unchallenged by the president. In fact, it was strengthened and fortified.

[...] Though Obama did not start the opioid crisis, it is a blunt and brutal fact that, under his administration, drug overdose became the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50, and the opioid crisis became the worst drug epidemic in American history. It is an irrevocable part of his legacy as president.

Barack Obama & the Opioid Crisis. My President’s Worst Failure | by Kathleen J. Frydl | Medium

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

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The years from the end of World War II into the 1970s were ones of substantial economic growth and broadly shared prosperity [in the US].

Incomes grew rapidly and at roughly the same rate up and down the income ladder[...]

The gap between those high up the income ladder and those on the middle and lower rungs — while substantial — did not change much during this period.

Beginning in the 1970s, [...] the income gap widened.

[...] concentration of income at the very top of the distribution rose to levels last seen nearly a century ago, during the "Roaring Twenties."

A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cbpp.org)

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share of American adults who live in middle-income households [...] decreased [...] slowly but surely since 1971, with each decade thereafter typically ending with a smaller share of adults living in middle-income households [...]



https://www.pewresea...-5.06.47-PM.png

[...] steep fall in the share of U.S. aggregate income held by the middle class. [...]

Since 1980, incomes have increased faster for the most affluent families – those in the top 5% – than for families in the income strata below them.

[...] The wealth gap among upper-income families and middle- and lower-income families is sharper than the income gap and is growing more rapidly.


https://www.pewresea...quality_1-4.png

The period from 1983 to 2001 was relatively prosperous for families in all income tiers, but one of rising inequality.

[...] The wealthiest families are [on average ...] the only ones to have experienced gains in wealth in the years after the start of the Great Recession in 2007 [study last updated in 2020].

Trends in U.S. income and wealth inequality | Pew Research Center

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The Income Gap Began To Narrow Under Obama

[...] most measures of inequality were flat or slightly down in 2015 [...] incomes rose fastest for the lowest earners. Other sources likewise indicate that earnings [were] rising fastest for low-wage workers, due in part to increases in the minimum wage at the state and local level.

The Income Gap Began To Narrow Under Obama | FiveThirtyEight

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The distance separating America's highest and lowest income brackets grew by almost 9 percent annually under Trump. That growth is faster than in previous periods.

How Trump fueled economic inequality in America | The Hill

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income inequality worsened during the pandemic and, as inflation soared under Biden's watch, it wiped out any wage gains for lower earners [article from February 2023]

However:

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Wages are finally rising faster than inflation

[...] Real average hourly earnings are up 1.2% in the 12 months ended in June

For production and nonsupervisory workers, that number was even stronger, with a 2.2% year-over-year gain in real average hourly earnings.

Wages are finally rising faster than inflation (axios.com)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 19 August 2023 - 09:05 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

So economic inequality started rising under Nixon's 'watch'. Was Nixon largely to blame? (Will we solve it all now by burning his memory in virtual effigy?) Probably not; he seems to emerge as one of the few presidential heroes:

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When I was growing up, it was assumed that America's shared prosperity was the natural endpoint of our economy's development, that capitalism had produced the workers paradise to which Communism unsuccessfully aspired. Now, with the perspective of 40 years, it's obvious that the nonstop economic expansion that lasted from the end of World War II to the Arab oil embargo of 1973 was a historical fluke, made possible by the fact that the United States was the only country to emerge from that war with its industrial capacity intact. Unfortunately, the middle class – especially the blue-collar middle class – is also starting to look like a fluke, an interlude between Gilded Ages that more closely reflect the way most societies structure themselves economically. For the majority of human history – and in the majority of countries today – there have been only two classes: aristocracy and peasantry. It's an order in which the many toil for subsistence wages to provide luxuries for the few. Twentieth century America temporarily escaped this stratification, but now, as statistics on economic inequality demonstrate[...] It's as though the New Deal and the modern labor movement never happened.

[...]

The last president who had a plan for protecting American workers from the vicissitudes of the global economy was Richard Nixon, who was in office when foreign steel and foreign cars began seriously competing with domestic products. The most farsighted politician of his generation [except for those tapes?...], Nixon realized that America's economic hegemony was coming to an end, and was determined to cushion the decline by a) preventing foreign manufacturers from overrunning our markets and teaching Americans to live within their new limits. [...]

Had Nixon survived Watergate, he might have set the nation on a course that emphasized government regulation of the economy, and trade protection as a response to globalism. We might also have preserved more of the manufacturing base necessary for a strong middle class. But his successors dismantled that vision, beginning with Jimmy Carter, an economically conservative Southern planter.

RIP, the middle class: 1946-2013 | Salon.com

Et tu, Jimmy? Turns out Carter was much more of a proto-Thatcherite than I'd realized. Seemed like such a sweet old man....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 20 August 2023 - 04:27 PM

[the broken]

I'm not sure what US President has to do with Opioid prescriptions, I mean, what's he supposed to do about that? I mean, the US President has a lot of power, but I don't think they have absolute control of either the economy or how many prescriptions are given.


Wealth disparities are up, but the standard of living is much higher. Early Industrial revolution and the first big magnates might be higher? I dunno.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

the broken, on 20 August 2023 - 09:07 PM, said:

I'm not sure what US President has to do with Opioid prescriptions, I mean, what's he supposed to do about that? I mean, the US President has a lot of power, but I don't think they have absolute control of either the economy or how many prescriptions are given.


Wealth disparities are up, but the standard of living is much higher. Early Industrial revolution and the first big magnates might be higher? I dunno.

The US president is head of the executive branch, which includes the agencies which enforce federal law and regulate drugs (FDA) and advertising (FTC). In 2007 (one year before Obama became president) the federal government successfully criminally prosecuted Purdue pharma for misleading marketing. But the Obama administration apparently let opioid manufacturers (including Purdue) get away with it; the Trump administration might deserve some credit for successfully prosecuting Purdue in 2020 for abuses that happened from 2007 to 2017:

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As part of the plea, Purdue will admit that from May 2007 through at least March 2017, Purdue conspired to defraud the United States by impeding the lawful function of the DEA by representing to the DEA that Purdue maintained an effective anti-diversion program when, in fact, Purdue continued to market its opioid products to more than 100 health care providers whom the company had good reason to believe were diverting opioids and by reporting misleading information to the DEA to boost Purdue’s manufacturing quotas. The misleading information comprised prescription data that included prescriptions written by doctors that Purdue had good reason to believe were engaged in diversion. The conspiracy also involved aiding and abetting violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by facilitating the dispensing of its opioid products, including OxyContin, without a legitimate medical purpose, and thus without lawful prescriptions.

In addition, Purdue will admit to conspiring to violate the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute. Between June 2009 and March 2017, Purdue made payments to two doctors through Purdue’s doctor speaker program to induce those doctors to write more prescriptions of Purdue’s opioid products.

Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Announces Global Resolution of Criminal and Civil Investigations with Opioid Manufacturer Purdue Pharma and Civil Settlement with Members of the Sackler Family | United States Department of Justice

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a group of national health experts issued an urgent plea in a private letter to high-level officials in the Obama administration. Thousands of people were dying from overdoses of fentanyl — the deadliest drug to ever hit U.S. streets — and the administration needed to take immediate action.

The 11 experts pressed the officials to declare fentanyl a national “public health emergency” that would put a laserlike focus on combating the emerging epidemic and warn the country about the threat[...]

The administration considered the request but did not act on it.

The decision was one in a series of missed opportunities, oversights and half-measures by federal officials who failed to grasp how quickly fentanyl was creating another — and far more fatal — wave of the opioid epidemic.

Obama officials failed to focus as fentanyl burned its way across America - Washington Post

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

the broken, on 20 August 2023 - 09:07 PM, said:

Wealth disparities are up, but the standard of living is much higher. Early Industrial revolution and the first big magnates might be higher? I dunno.

I'd agree that what should really matter most is standard of living, not how well they're doing in comparison with other people... though many humans obsess over inequality and comparing themselves to others. OTOH wealth inequality also leads---especially in the US---to wealthier people effectively exercising power (politically and otherwise) over the rest of the population....

US standard of living has almost certainly declined over the last two years, largely because of inflation.

Early industrial revolution might be higher---in terms of inequality you mean? Yes:

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economist Thomas Piketty, in his best seller "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," [...] put forth the notion that returns on capital historically outstrip economic growth (his famous r>g formula). [...] The rich get richer, while the rest of us stay stuck in the mud. Now, [... in] "A Brief History of Equality," [...] he argues that we're on a trajectory of greater, not less, equality and lays out his prescriptions for remedying our current corrosive wealth disparities. (In short: Tax the rich.) If the line from one book to the other looks slightly askew given the state of the world, then, Piketty suggests, you're looking from the wrong vantage point. "I am relatively optimistic[...] about the fact that there is a long-run movement toward more equality, which goes beyond the little details of what happens within a specific decade."

[...] We have become much more equal societies in terms of political equality, economic equality, social equality, as compared with 100 years ago, 200 years ago. This movement, which began with the French and U.S. revolutions, I think it is going to continue.

Of course there are structural factors that make it difficult: the system of political finance, the structure of media finance, the basic democratic institutions are less democratic than they should be. This makes things complicated. But it's always been complicated.

[...] maybe the best comparison between the U.S. is not so much with Russia today but with Europe and the Belle Époque before 1914: a system which is nominally democratic but where the concentration of wealth is so high and lacking proper rules about political finance, political influence, that the democratic system is not enabled to have a common-sense reaction to this excessive level of inequality that, in the long run, is not good for U.S. prosperity. Particularly because when other countries get more educated than the U.S., then its economic leadership will be gone forever. U.S. economic leadership came from mass education, not from a small elite of billionaires.

Thomas Piketty Thinks America Is Primed for Wealth Redistribution - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 20 August 2023 - 11:01 PM

[stone monkey]

With all this talk about the shrinking wealth of the middle classes (who btw brought this on themselves), the dissolution of the social contract, and the growing gap between the wealthy and everyone else, we do all realise that the Marxist dialectic actually doesn't need to be re-invented, yes? The excesses of the capitalism of the Belle Époque is exactly why Marx came up with it in the first place.

Also, the reason why the wealthy are suddenly so invested in AI and suchlike is (much like it was with automation in the 60s & 70s) because they essentially want to abolish their own need for anyone poorer than them. It's a bright future, and you absolutely can't go into it with them if they have their way. Fully Automated Luxury Communism would be great for everyone, which is why they don't want us to have it. Obviously.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 21 August 2023 - 10:10 PM

[the broken]

Okay, but the FDA is a giant organisation, right? They don't just, like, stand around doing nothing unless the President directly tells them what to do. I'm not sure that has to do with what administration is in power so much as the giant organisation doing the kind of thing it's supposed to do anyway.

[QuickTidal]

stone monkey, on 21 August 2023 - 08:44 PM, said:

With all this talk about the shrinking wealth of the middle classes (who btw brought this on themselves), the dissolution of the social contract, and the growing gap between the wealthy and everyone else, we do all realise that the Marxist dialectic actually doesn't need to be re-invented, yes? The excesses of the capitalism of the Belle Époque is exactly why Marx came up with it in the first place.

Also, the reason why the wealthy are suddenly so invested in AI and suchlike is (much like it was with automation in the 60s & 70s) because they essentially want to abolish their own need for anyone poorer than them. It's a bright future, and you absolutely can't go into it with them if they have their way. Fully Automated Luxury Communism would be great for everyone, which is why they don't want us to have it. Obviously.

This is all incredibly spot on. Well said SM!

This bit:

Quote

the shrinking wealth of the middle classes (who btw brought this on themselves)

is so true, and yet if you put it into a history book people would blink their eyes in confusion until you break it down. The Boomers (AKA the previously middle class) were the hippies of the sixties, and the anti-government/anti-establishment/anti-war stuff was their bread and butter, come out of that into the golden age where they could grow up and have all the things they wanted and the wealth dispersal began to pay dividends for them...but they all voted in lockstep with the people who erroneously CLAIMED they would help them KEEP their money/wealth/assets..the fabled "fiscal conservative"....a fiction crafted to hold onto power with the middle class and not a true one at all (any data analyst can tell you that left-leaning liberals in most Western countries are responsible for less spending than the Cons/tories/right over the last 4 decades). They believed what the newspapers told them as inarguable FACT, because journalists wouldn't lie would they? That generation's voting block (still the largest in history BTW) spent the last 50+ years voting for the people who slowly and insidiously destroyed the social safety nets that the leftists put in place (or wanted in place) piece by piece so the exit strategy for Boomers out of the workforce and into retirement disappeared because they feel they HAD to keep working otherwise they could not retire and make it to the end of their life comfortably. This ruined the whole game, and the backup in various industries of Gen X, Millennials and now Gen Z behind them is now millions of people deep. And as the powers that be serve the corporatists to drink in their money to remain in power, the middle class lifestyle that these people claimed to want started to fade and has all but disappeared making their desire to stay in the workforce EVEN longer more addictive, making the problem worse. Now into this take their anti-government/anti-establishment/anti-war from their youth and apply it to the govt they've been voting for for decades and bring in the conman of all conmen to tell them that HE is anti-government/anti-establishment/anti-war and he will mop of this mess for them...and he becomes the cultic saviour they don't just want....they NEED. Without someone to claim they will dismantle the establishment, they are stuck working til they drop as their assets get less appreciative, and their health fails them without any viable healthcare system in place to truly help them. That cultic figure is a fiction too though, and the Boomers continue to prove that they are the most gullible people on the planet. They were given a golden egg, and they fucked it and us with a constant string of terrible decisions politically.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 22 August 2023 - 04:55 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

the broken, on 21 August 2023 - 11:23 PM, said:

Okay, but the FDA is a giant organisation, right? They don't just, like, stand around doing nothing unless the President directly tells them what to do. I'm not sure that has to do with what administration is in power so much as the giant organisation doing the kind of thing it's supposed to do anyway.

The accelerating opioid epidemic was probably the most salient public health crisis during Obama's presidency (aside from people not being insured prior to Obamacare...). (Granted, one could argue that obesity was/is a 'bigger' crisis... but it doesn't kill as quickly.)

But yes, it was primarily a failure on the part of officials serving in his administration rather than president Obama himself. However, a new president typically appoints new heads for the major departments---as Obama did for the FDA, FTC, and Department of Justice. (Obama kept Mueller (of Mueller report infamy) on from the previous administration as FBI head until 2013, when he appointed James Comey (of 'Hillary's emails' election-meddling infamy).) Granted, how much of an influence department heads and other political appointees have, or should have, on the career civil servants in the various agencies is a difficult question. As is how much a president should attempt to intervene; the agency heads are supposed to be experts in the relevant fields, so the president should probably defer to their judgment most of the time. But what happens when a significant number of outside experts disagree? Priorities and best courses of action can seem much clearer in hindsight.

As I alluded to before, I don't think condemnatory 'blame' and shaming is generally as productive as an accurate assessment of how failures happened and how things could be done better in the future. (Unless the goal is to motivate people to vote against certain candidates, perhaps.) It's unfortunate that many people in 'flyover country' who already resented Obama (partly for telling the truth about them when he said in 2008:

Quote

You go into these small towns [...] and[...] the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. [...] each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Obama on small-town Pa.: Clinging to religion, guns, xenophobia - POLITICO

... and partly because of racism, either explicit or implicit:

Quote

the deep story I felt operating in Louisiana was this: Think of people waiting in a long line that stretches up a hill. And at the top of that is the American dream. And the people waiting in line felt like they'd worked extremely hard, sacrificed a lot, tried their best, and were waiting for something they deserved. And this line is increasingly not moving, or moving more slowly [...]

Then they see people cutting ahead of them in line. Immigrants, blacks, women, refugees, public sector workers. And even an oil-drenched brown pelican getting priority. [...] then in this narrative, there is Barack Obama, [...] the line supervisor who seems to be waving these people (and the pelican) ahead. [...]

[...] I asked, is this the way you feel? And they said, "Yeah, you read my mind!" or, "Yeah, I live your narrative!" And this all becomes more acute as their place in line feels more vulnerable. There's the offshoring of American jobs, automation that is now making even skilled jobs feel vulnerable. So when you add a cultural and demographic sense of loss and decline to a real economic threat, it becomes alarming. And the government doesn't seem like it's heard your distress call.

What a liberal sociologist learned from spending five years in Trump's America - Vox

What makes them feel like they should be 'ahead' of Black people whose ancestors in many cases have been in the country longer than theirs have? The simple answer is racism---the old 'social contract' that poor whites could always be 'superior' to Black people. (No doubt that attracted (at least) some white immigrants....) And the version of the 'American dream' in which immigrants work hard for several generations before achieving a more comfortable level of familial wealth was scuttled a long time ago....)) and lived in areas strongly affected by the opioid epidemic probably assumed the failure stemmed from animus or from treating them as negligible. (In contrast, Trump tells them what they want to hear and makes them feel important.)

Obama is still my favorite recent US president, though that's not saying much at all.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 22 August 2023 - 05:13 PM

[QuickTidal]

Azath Vitr (D, on 22 August 2023 - 04:48 PM, said:

You go into these small towns [...] and[...] the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. [...] each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

The interesting thing here is that it's not impossible for this to happen either. What those administrations suggest is very possible, but no one wants to take the initiative to make it so. Detroit's recent rebirth/rise from the ashes of its bankruptcy and other issues that drove it into the ground... is the evidence. Did Motor City lose its manufacturing city moniker with all those jobs? It did. What has happened since then? Well, people started to rebuild in NEW ways, and industry (different industry than its past) began to invest. I think the most recent investment there was 2.5 billion for the city centre refurbishment. So much of it is green investment as well. The lesson is that these places can't go back in time as they want to believe they can. They can't assume that the industry that LEFT them is ever returning. It's not. Ever. This is not the 1940's. It's the 2020's and the notion of industry and jobs need to change, and people need to be willing to take the reins and make those places flourish in new different ways, vote in leaders to help facilitate that, and get involved in making things better.

And adding in a bit of spice from my post, the remaining jobs in those places that still exist are likely being eaten up by unretired elderly Boomers, making those communities akin to retirement communes stagnating in whatever life that generation has left in it. Sitting fat and pretty while the town, youth and poorer people around them starve and languish. It's ALMOST a subtler Neo-feudalism of a class war. The Boomers can sit on their asses and do sweet FA to help because they know they won't be here for it to matter. They feel they earned theirs, and fuck everyone else....apparently.

I see similar problems in Alberta starting to rear its ugly head. At some point (likely in the next decade or less) the MAIN industry in Alberta...the thing they all hang their collective hats on...oil....will dry up and minimize to unheard of previous levels. The Federal laws about electric vehicles coming into play in that decade alone will cause the decline on a giant scale. Albertans will waste away without that industry...but the vast majority of them vehemently refuse to accept that oil will ever go away. The Boomers there assume it won't happen in their lifetime so they could not give a fuck, and the younger population aren't enough of a voting body to stop it all. If Albertans focused NOW on creating and importing NEW industries to supplant the eventual demise of oil, they would be in much better shape when that time finally arrives. But instead they choose to complain about the Federal govt (because the ruling Cons in AB need an enemy to set their constituents against) meddling in their business, and how dare they suggest anything but oil (and don't get me started on the amount go Albertans who erroneously think that they contribute anything but ineffectual levels of $$$ to the GDP...they do not)...and yet in 10 years time where do you think that industry-less Albertan workforce is going to hold their hand out for help to? The Feds. And frankly, we should hold up our middle finger to them, and tell them they played themselves...and to get stuffed.

Industry needs to change and update if these places are to survive, and if they don't or refuse to...woe to them when the well dries up.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Singer Rips Use of Song at Fox News Debate

“It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news trying to identify with me like I’m one of them,”

[...] “It was funny seeing it at the presidential debate because it, like, I wrote that song about those people,” [...] “So for them to sit there and have to listen to that, that cracks me up.”

[...] “That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden. It’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden. That song is written about the people on that stage. And a lot more, too—not just them, but definitely them.”

‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Singer Oliver Anthony Rips Use of Song at Fox News Debate (thedailybeast.com)

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Anthony has since clarified that he does also consider Biden part of the problem.

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Most Red states have become oligarchic white supremacist medieval-like fiefdoms with obscene levels of often multigenerational wealth at the top, extreme poverty at the bottom, and working people, women, and minorities kept in subordinate roles through explicit government and corporate policy.

In this, these Red states are following the once-classic European and later Southern US tradition of a patriarchal, hierarchical society run by male kings, nobles, plantation masters, and wealthy churchmen, with all the work done by serfs, slaves, women, or impoverished wage-slaves.

[...] Working people in Red states are kept in poverty by “Right to Work for Less” laws [...] deprived of healthcare by their governors’ refusal to expand Medicaid to cover all low-wage working people, and draconian cuts along with byzantine bureaucratic obstacles to getting state aid ranging from housing support to food stamps to subsidized daycare to unemployment insurance.

[...] Federal policy fails to equalize revenue flowing to Red states against the tax money they send Washington DC. This loophole in US tax law is driving this bizarre process where citizens in Blue states are forced by law to pay for all-white “Christian” academies, enforcement of abortion restrictions, persecution of asylum seekers and immigrants, and political attacks on queer people.

[...] When the Biden administration tried to just slightly slow down the Red state gravy train, specifying in the American Rescue Plan that the subsidies to the states for helping people who lost their jobs due to Covid could not be misappropriated and redirected to tax cuts for local billionaires, their politicians — dancing to the tune of their in-state oligarchs — went ballistic. [...]

“[...] 18 red states are plaintiffs in five separate lawsuits challenging [it ...]” [...]

Red state “welfare queen” governors and legislatures are going to happily continue this grift as long as we let them get away with it. Congress should pass legislation mandating that Red state revenues to DC must at least match 90 percent of the money they get back; 100 percent would be better, and help hugely with our nation’s budget deficit.

Why are red state 'welfare queen' oligarchs allowed to mooch off of blue states? - Alternet.org

Hmm... might seem better to mandate that what they're given only be spent on certain things; but even if the courts allow that to happen, red state governors might ultimately might just refuse it (as with Medicaid funds---they'd rather either force poor people to get healthcare through their employers, or die). Might be better to either spend through federal agencies or through responsible local governments (provided funding to local government can be prevented from being misappropriated by the state...).

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Supreme Court declined to take up the case of Missouri v. Yellen, in which Missouri challenged restrictions on the use of American Rescue Plan Act funding for state tax reductions. [...]

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s opinion that Missouri lacked standing[...]

[...] after the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the offset provision was unconstitutional as written. The 11th Circuit said its case was distinguishable from the 8th Circuit case because in the 8th Circuit, the states did not challenge the offset provision as written but rather challenged a specific potential interpretation of the provision. [...]

[...] after the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the offset provision was unconstitutional as written. The 11th Circuit said its case was distinguishable from the 8th Circuit case because in the 8th Circuit, the states did not challenge the offset provision as written but rather challenged a specific potential interpretation of the provision. [...] It held that the “offset provision’s ambiguity … continues to injure the States’ sovereign interests.” [...] 10 of the 13 states certified their compliance with the offset provision and received their ARPA funding. All 13 states did enact tax-related laws such as credits, exemptions, phaseouts or reductions during ARPA’s covered period [...] Redressability is met by not enforcing the offset provision.

Supreme Court Declines to Hear ARPA Case, Will Take Up Religious Accommodation - National Conference of State Legislatures (ncsl.org)

So if I'm reading that correctly the 13 states said they wouldn't use it for tax breaks to get the money, then did it anyway, and the 11th Circuit ruled they're in the clear. However ruling it unconstitutional because of 'vagueness' seems (if they're acting in good faith---unlikely) to leave open the possibility that more specific provisions would be constitutional---could be like Lucy and the football (yo-yo-of-the-pit-and-the-pendulum-swinging-for-the-stars-of-supernovaing-hells) though....

[Nicodimas]

Death of America

https://www.theburni...merican-empire/

Though I'm somewhat positive today so should be like this

https://market-ticke...www?post=249527

Im aiming for 10 hard years , investments..paycheck to paycheck and zero money saved for the 80%+ of society ..rolling blackouts and all that go with that ..in America.

People will be survivors and a new great generation will be made.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 29 August 2023 - 12:57 AM

[Maark Abbott]

polishgenius, on 14 August 2023 - 08:13 PM, said:

The French get it.

I hate this sentence with every fibre of my being.

I hate more that it's correct and I can't argue with it.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Canada Feels Like a House of Cards Waiting to Collapse

[...] surging house prices, the G7's highest household debt, nationwide climate-driven disasters, and punishing interest rates [...] Amid all this, the Trudeau Liberals are eyeing cuts, adding potential austerity to the mix.

[...] literally on fire and facing extraordinary and growing threats from climate change[...] rising extremism, creeping toxic polarization, and low trust. Wealth inequality is on the rise. Its federal system is showing cracks, particularly when it comes to the relationship between Alberta and the national government. Oligopolies and monopolies run wild, exploiting consumers.

[...] working people staring down lives they can't afford in the day-to-day. This hellish scenario persists, no matter how hard people work, and no matter how rigidly they follow the rules of the game — rules they were told are fair and just.

[...] caught in a brutal mortgage-inflation spiral where mortgage rates drive inflation and, to fight inflation, the bank raises interest rates, which increase mortgage costs. Even if the long-term goal is to lower inflation through reducing the supply of money and thus spending, the short-term spiral is hell.

Canada Feels Like a House of Cards Waiting to Collapse (msn.com)

[polishgenius]

https://twitter.com/...658625280704599


Fuck.

These.

People.

[Tsundoku]

polishgenius, on 13 September 2023 - 02:56 PM, said:

https://twitter.com/...658625280704599


Fuck.

These.

People.

His lot want us to go back to the workhouses or slavery. I'm ashamed he's Australian.

[Macros]

Don't forget about Murdock as well