Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Don't know what Ocasio-Cortez is complaining about. She's living rent-free in Kapture's head.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Quality piece in National Review about the Amazon "Sweepstakes" and how corporate welfare in general is cronyism more than anything else.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-is-right-about-amazons-corporate-welfare/

[iam416]

I don't like Strangelove linking NRO. Not one iota. That's my bit, son. Step the fuck off.

[Hannibal]

Don't know what Ocasio-Cortez is complaining about. She's living rent-free in Kapture's head.

Heh. Give DSL some props for that one.

[AlabamAlum]

I don't like Strangelove linking NRO. Not one iota. That's my bit, son. Step the fuck off.

Yeah, it was like you linking chess sites a while back. Glad you now know your role.

[iam416]

There was another article on NRO from Shapiro that essentially made the same point -- government interventionalism doesn't affect core behavior. Tax incentives don't make people marry or go to church or have children. You may, MAY, be able to disincentivize behavior if the cost is high enough, but mostly the disincentives are pain in the ass costs. On the business side, she's right that Amazon probably had 3 or 4 realistic locations. At that point, maybe the 3 or 4 can compete against each other, but who knows.

In what I do, I see it all the time. We think about policies and incentives, but at the end of the day we're not Silicon Valley. So, whatever happens here has to be organic and primarily driven by the personal motivations of the folks involved, not government policy.

As Shapiro notes, conservatives do much better when they are promising to strip away trifling disincentives and let people be rather than promising to fix a ton of shit with government (Trump). Then they're just Ds with different policy priorities.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Heh. Give DSL some props for that one.

Can't claim that as my own to be honest. Saw it somewhere and stole it. Heh

[froot loops]

I'm sure a lot of the cities that bid on that Amazon feel a little misled. It seems like it was a case to use various cities proposal to try and extract as much concessions as possible from New York and Virginia.

[iam416]

Yeah, so what. This can't be their first rodeo.

[Dr. Strangelove]

229 D, 199 R
7 races yet to be called

UT-4 (Mia Love race)
CA-39
CA-45
TX-23
GA-7
NJ-3 (Tom MacArthur)
ME-2

Most of the guru accounts I follow expect the Dems to eventually win both CA districts, NJ-3, and ME-2 (after the 'ranked choices" process). Mia Love may incredibly survive based on recent absentee counting.

[hack]

I'm sure a lot of the cities that bid on that Amazon feel a little misled. It seems like it was a case to use various cities proposal to try and extract as much concessions as possible from New York and Virginia.

And data.

[hack]

I agree that tax incentives don't work on a personal level, or on a local one. Once you have the legitimate threat of taking your business to some other jurisdiction, though, that's a different game. States know that beggar-thy-neighbor tax policies aren't good for states, but they are having a whole lot of trouble resisting them. We have nobody to blame but ourselves, and the legislators we elect, for continuing to fall for the theory that some amount of down-the-road benefits will accrue even if we can't see them in a forecast in the precise way that Amazon can predict its profits based on locating here or there. It's another cross-border problem for which there are limited cross-border tools. It'll be interesting to see what comes of HQ2, though. Maybe it becomes the anecdote that focuses attention on the problem. Certainly in other places people are fed up with the ``let us pay no/less tax and you'll be better off in the future'' argument. The IMF is telling countries to quit offering incentives and creating free zones as well, though after spending a generation saying the opposite it has shot its credibility in many places and so this advice is too little/too late. But, just like talent describes, you have to shoot for "organic" conditions. A truly level playing field with a clear and consistent and stable rulebook would be far better than pretending we have the ability to spot the right interventions and execute those plans properly. One of the things that makes a playing field level is the elimination of the inorganic advantages of being big. Small-scale entrepreneurs with good ideas don't have the ability to play beggar-they-neighbor with tax policy, so there's a cap on how lucrative a big idea is for a small company.

[Kapture1]

Don't know what Ocasio-Cortez is complaining about. She's living rent-free in Kapture's head.

she's the gift that keeps on giving

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[crashcourse]

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/416189-most-dems-view-republicans-racist-and-sexist-poll

always find it interested that you cant disagree with anybody on the other side of the aisle without being labeled

Just because you agree with the economic, foreign policy, energy, domestic etc etc etc of one candidate over another the left claims that's not why we voted we voted because were bigoted or sexist or have some phobia.

georgia govenors race both florida races and defeated candidate after defeated candidate whips out the same excuse over and over

a racist sexist country voted an African American in for 8 years myself included in 2012

a sexist country has voted 100 plus reps into the congress this year and came a smidgen from voting a woman as president in 2016

but if you pull the lever for the red side automatically your one of 61%

welcome to the dark side I guess

the vast majority of us just go to work pay taxes and try to make sense of a revolving world that seems hysterically overreact to anything anybody republican does

[Jeff Buchanan]

That was sort of a tongue in cheek question that arose from these two posts, the first mine, the second your response to it:

Me: Let's say there is a youth movement - a new generation of Dems and the House make-up reflects a more centrist or moderate political position of the left nationally

You: Let's not say that. The new generation of Dems ain't fucking centrist by a longshot

Your response implies you see the new generation of Democrats - the ones emerging as a part of the majority in the House - as far left of center. The ideals they might embrace, in your view, would be aligned with those of the Bernie Sanders socialist Ds. They'd also be the ones vigorously shouting down the ideals of our hard right members here...... and I do read your posts and I find the ones where you express a political view to reflect a considered and well reasoned conservative one.

I can see why you left the Democratic party and disagree with family members who remain committed to the Democratic parties ideals - and I mean the current version of them. I have never been a member of the Democratic party, embrace conservatism but find it hard to find a place within the current Republican party that I am completely comfortable with. That is because of the far right element, esp. the religious right and nationalist right, within it. Accordingly, I will vote a split ticket when I find a particular Democrat on the ballot whom I agree with and a Republican whom I don't.

The interview with a political commentator on the PBS News Hour I mentioned in my post observed that the new generation democrats were not far left of the liberal center. Rather he saw a more centrist liberalism emerging in this group of new generation Democrats. He saw them as a group that could reach across the isle to moderate R's in the House.

I mentioned in my post that I don't follow politics on a national level closely enough, like some here do, to either agree or disagree with this commentator's viewpoint. I'd like it to be accurate and the reason for that is to mitigate the polarization of political parties that has (1) produced identity politics and the immobilization of important legislative action that brings along with it ......(e.g., immigration, trade, the cost of social programs, the national debt/spending etc.) and (2) news and social media coverage of fringe elements on both sides that probably distorts what the ideals of the national electorate actually are. I'd offer that there is probably a lot less polarization and lot more agreement than the information we have available to us, in all it's various forms, would lead us to believe.

Anyway, no criticism of your views intended ...... except those expressing your unwavering support of osu football. Fuck those.