Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[lineygoblue]

Dems being racist 100 years ago with no regard to the history or evolution of the parties and claim it is proof that the Dems are the racist party today.

You are the one denying the history of the parties, not me. I readily admit that there are people that call themselves conservative and Republican that are racist. You refuse to acknowledge that there are people on the left and call themselves Democrats, that are racist.

Your argument appears to be the same as BLM, who believes that they are the only race that matters. If you say "all" lives matter to them, they want to fight. They'll resort to name calling, and insults. Just like you do. They'll use the Lord's name in vain. Just like you do. Constantly, .. thinking it makes your argument more effective. Hint: it does not.

I believe racism is a human disease, and has no color barriers as to whom it infects. Do you?

[iam416]

The KKK came up, in the first instanvc, because someone likened today's Rs to the 1920s (I think) KKK.

I don't find this particularly suprising given that we have a President laughably referring to early voting rules as Jim Crow on Steroids and laughably referring to some sort of fictional present day “white supremacy.”

Meanwhile, white liberals continue to infantalize AAs by, e.g., thinking black folks can't figure out rudimentary voting rules the same way white folks can. The modern D party has, for some time, embraced the soft bigotry of low expectations.

[Jeff Buchanan]

A week ago, the NYT's wondered if the steady decline in new cases, deaths and hospitalizations in the US would be reversed by Memorial Day festivities, travel and gatherings.

Yesterday, FL reported it's lowest number of new cases and hospitalizations since the pandemic started. The state has a % positivity among new tests hovering around 2% - that number is considered reflective of regional control by most epidemiologists who offer that a 3% positivity rate is the ideal indicator of a virus not spreading and in retreat.

Not in FL anyway. I suspect similar state numbers exist.

[CGVT]

You refuse to acknowledge that there are people on the left and call themselves Democrats, that are racist.

Still looking for where I say anything of the sort...

Nope can't find it.

The point that I was trying to make, and apparently went past you completely, and was high jacked by Krapture's stupid response is that the "America First" slogan and belief is rooted in racism. It was when touted by the KKK in 1920 and is today when spouted by morons like Krapture and the Mango Mussolini.

It doesn't matter whether they were dems or repubs in 1920, even though people conveniently overlook the history of the two parties. It doesn't matter if they are from the north or south. To argue that the Dems founded the KKK is nothing more than a strawman, borne of ignorance, intended to deflect from the real issue and point. In this case the strawman was unintentional on your part but got Krapture's desired result as it directed the "discussion" away from the main point.

BTW, Jesus fucking Christ.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I write extensively on pandemic and COVID related matters on a blog for cruise enthusiasts. Yesterday, among posters at this blog, there was a lot of hand wringing over the slowing pace of vaccinations in the US and what this might mean for a restart of cruise ships sailing from US ports - there has been no cruise ships sailing from US ports since March 20th, 2020. It astounds me that most of the cruise industry has survived waiting out the HHS/CDC imposed ban on cruising from US ports. The oft cited figure of 70% vaccination rate is required to to achieve "herd immunity" appeared. I wrote this in response:

We may be thinking about vaccines the wrong way just like most, and even the experts, thought as the pandemic burst onto the scene that everything and everyone needed to be locked down. Well, that was wrong headed thinking for a number of reasons that have become more and more apparent as time passes and data gets refined....... not everyone needed to get locked down to mitigate the pandemic.

Likewise, not everyone needs to get vaccinated to control the pandemic. SARS2 will never be eradicated and it is a fools errand to try to do that by vaccinating everyone. We are not trying to obtain zero risk of getting infected. We should be trying to control it so that we can medically deal with people who will get infected reducing the risk of serious illness and death.

The data:

• Death rates and hospitalization rates have plummeted (regional exceptions pertain - I'll get to that). What that means is that the vaccines, even with a global average of around 30-40% receiving at least one jab, are more effective in preventing serious illness and death than experts thought they would be.
• Death rates in the US from COVID are very close to pre-SARS2 pandemic death rates experienced from seasonal influenza.
• New cases of COVID have decreased dramatically (regional exceptions). What this means is that vaccines slow, do not stop, transmission even at the low vaccination rates some regions, US states and countries are experiencing.
• It is important to remember that only a small portion of the word's population (3-5%) is at risk for serious illness or death. The rest may get flu like symptoms but can essentially go about life normally ...... that reality was completely lost early in the pandemic and catastrophic economic and social damage have been wrought because of that.
• As more people get vaccinated R0 (R naught) for that population trends well below 1.0. Remember that metric? It was king as a measure of "dire consequences" way back then when the virus was spreading rapidly. The media used it incessantly - above 1.0, the virus is spreading; below 1.0 it is receding and therefore controlled. I don't believe a single US state or county in the US has an R(0) > 1.0 - its not even reported any longer for that reason.
• Another less used metric these days, % positive, was also used to scare people. At it's height, some regions/states had % positives ranging from 10-20%. It's not scary anymore so the media doesn't report it. Below 5% is considered as an indicator that the virus is not spreading/is controlled; below 3% is ideal. In the US and EU, it's hard to find a sustained % positive > 5%. In fact, many US counties don't have any new cases or deaths and haven't for weeks

Regional exceptions are occurring with the impact of disease burden in those regions varying. The primary underlying cause is a lack of vaccines and poor medical infrastructure in India, and countries in Asia and Latin America. We can't do much about that individually. Collective plans to deal with that are emerging. It will take time. Meanwhile populations in poor countries are going to suffer. In the US, vaccine hesitancy plays a part in what amounts to small scale local outbreaks with little to no impact on disease burden (hospitalizations and deaths). We can live with this and that is the point.

My take is that at the point around 50-60% of any selected cohort becomes vaccinated, the virus will be controlled. Not eradicated but controlled to the extent that disease burden is nil. .

IOW, we are already at the point where a return to normalcy in the US is underway. While vaccinating more people will help keep case numbers very low and the risk of serious illness and death right along with that, not getting that final 40% probably isn't all that necessary. Keep in mid that the disease burden of seasonal influenza is low with a 35% vaccination rate. While SARS2 is more transmissible than seasonal flu, its disease burden in even a moderately vaccinated population (e.g., US is hovering around 55%) is roughly the same.

Stop the hand wringing over vaccination rates.

[Hannibal]

"The Democrats are the real racists" is a cowardly take on race relations. It does nothing but lead to a game of one-upsmanship where the goal is to see who can appease minorities the hardest. The truth about "racism" in America is that it is not perpetrated towards blacks and Hispanics. It is perpetrated towards Whites, institutionalized or not. It is one of those "hiding in plain sight" things that is patently obvious and would be called out as racism were it being perpetrated towards anyone else.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Jobs numbers fall short of predictions again, but were up a lot from last month. More than double April's number (although today April was revised upwards slightly). The UE rate itself dropped from 6.1 to 5.8%

I don't know enough about the ADP jobs number to say where it comes from but there was a big gap yet again. ADP was saying nearly a million jobs were added in May and the official govt number is 559k. Wish I could hear the difference explained somewhere.

[Mike]

The numbers won't move much in the right direction until the feds stop paying people to not work. It's really that simple.

I passed a McDonald's yesterday advertising $14/hour to start and it's not just service industry businesses that are having trouble finding workers. My golf partner couldn't make league on Tuesday because he had to cover down for short staff at a fairly large automotive manufacturing plant. Those are legit paying good jobs but he said they can't get enough people to return to work because they're making more on UE. I'm pretty sure that in Michigan the max amount from the state is $375/week but when you add the federal kicker that balloons to $975/week or the equivalent of a $50,700 annual salary. It's absolute insanity.

The economy was great before Covid. The problem was the virus itself. It isn't like the 2008 financial crisis where the banking system and financial markets were teetering. The economic downturn of the last year is 100% Covid-related. Fix Covid and you fix the economy. Well, Covid has been fixed. There is no rational reason whatsoever to be flooding the economy with public money to address a problem that doesn't exist. I hope that after Sept. 4th, all these companies that have dramatically increased their pay in a futile attempt to attract employees go right back to their usual pre-pandemic pay scale. You want $14/hour? Sign up now. Come in and apply on Sept. 5th? Minimum wage.

[iam416]

Jobs numbers fall short of predictions again, but were up a lot from last month. More than double April's number (although today April was revised upwards slightly). The UE rate itself dropped from 6.1 to 5.8%

I don't know enough about the ADP jobs number to say where it comes from but there was a big gap yet again. ADP was saying nearly a million jobs were added in May and the official govt number is 559k. Wish I could hear the difference explained somewhere.

Guess I was right. Better than April, but I certainly wasn't projecting through the roof numbers like, well...some people. Guess I don't have to post articles about...what was it...critical race theory?....

The jobs numbers will improve bigly once folks are finally disincentivized from not working. That's just the fact. Human behavior isn't some sort of mystery. I don't blame any motherfucker for taking free money from government AND more money from the government instead of finding a job. I'd laugh at them if they didn't.

Thank god Chairman Joe extended them unemployment benefits.

[CGVT]

"The Democrats are the real racists" is a cowardly take on race relations. It does nothing but lead to a game of one-upsmanship where the goal is to see who can appease minorities the hardest. The truth about "racism" in America is that it is not perpetrated towards blacks and Hispanics. It is perpetrated towards Whites, institutionalized or not. It is one of those "hiding in plain sight" things that is patently obvious and would be called out as racism were it being perpetrated towards anyone else.

Ah yes. The poor persecuted white man.

Good Lord

[iam416]

The economy was great before Covid. The problem was the virus itself. It isn't like the 2008 financial crisis where the banking system and financial markets were teetering. The economic downturn of the last year is 100% Covid-related. Fix Covid and you fix the economy. Well, Covid has been fixed. There is no rational reason whatsoever to be flooding the economy with public money to address a problem that doesn't exist

This is 100% true. And it's actually important. The jobs numbers are important. The preposterous money dump passed through reconciliation is important. The fact that Chairman Joe thinks the economy needs remade because of the Covid downturn is important. The fact that Chairman Joe will point to the jobs numbers and say we need TO DO MORE is important.

What's not meaningfully important is some trivial nonsense over the D's past association with the KKK or DJT's ludicrous belief that he will be reinstated. What really matters, what's really meaningfully important is Chairman Joe's efforts to use a discrete single-cause economic downturn to justify the NEED for an entire progressive agenda.

Keep your eye on the ball despite the best efforts of many -- including DJT -- to distract with nonsense.

[lineygoblue]

Many of the common fast food joints in our area have had to take some fairly drastic actions due to a lack of workers. One stopped serving breakfast. A couple others are closing 2 days a week, in order to give the employees they have, a couple days off. What's going on now is that the government is effectively the biggest competitor with small business for employees. As Mike stated, the government is paying people 50K per year to stay home, while most small businesses have trouble paying over $12.00 per hour. That's tough competition to overcome.

What's most disturbing to me is that the employers out here who were once thought of as "the good employers" (good pay, benefits, working conditions, etc.,) are also still begging for workers. Some have held a job fair each month, offering to hire on the spot, and even signing bonuses. Still, they lack employees.

Like Mike says this isn't going to change until the government gets out of the free money business.

[iam416]

When you talk about institutional or systemic racism you're generally talking about some defined system or institution making judgments based on race. That does happen. It certainly happens at Universities everywhere. It's usually not white folks that get shafted, but Asians. The Democrats openly and clearly support that. There is no denying that in the least.

When you talk about the lingering effects of past systemic racism, then you're talking about AAs. And there are cerainly remedies proposed that are explicitly racist and, in some cases, the remedies are at least justifiable (even if I disagree).

Me -- my position is pretty clear. I don't think the Government or State should make any decisions based on race. I'm all for Affirmative Action for "disadvantaged" folks and fully recognized AAs make up a disproportionate number of that group. So, I'm perfectly fine with programs that are designed to give people from rougher backgrounds an advantage. However, despite what folks want to tell you, the AA middle class continues to grow and find numbers in suburbs. And that's great news. And I have zero interest in giving an AA kid from a middle class suburb an advantage over a white kid from a poor/broken family in a shit school. None.

Meh, whatever. It's all soundbites and hottakes, so fuck it.

[lineygoblue]

Me -- my position is pretty clear. I don't think the Government or State should make any decisions based on race.

^^This is what it comes down to for me. ^^

If its the intent to have a country that treats all people fairly, then we cannot favor one over the other. BLM believes they matter more than anyone else. They consider "all lives matter" to be a racist statement. I do not, nor will I ever. And speaking as someone who was around during the Civil Rights movement of the 60's, I don't think MLK would consider "all lives matter" to be a racist belief. His "I Have A Dream" speech is proof of this, IMO.

And racism is a human disease, not exclusive to one skin color.

[iam416]

I'll add that I'm not unsympathetic to the viewpoint that "don't take race into account" is convenient for those that have indirectly benefitted from actual systemic racism. I've thought about that a lot, but at the end of the day I don't think "reverse racism" policies are a tenable because they are permanent/indefinite. I could maybe swallow open racial preferences *if* the advocates said "we've done the research, we've come up with the solution, the solution will take 15 years." I would then hold them to that timeframe. But that is, of course, utter leprechauns and unicorns thinking. The indefinite and permanent nature of the "solution" is the major feature.

So, given that, I advocate for race-free decision-making by state actors and programs designed to assist economically (or otherwise) disadvantaged.