Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

Well maybe it would help to draw a distinction between the economy or employment picture and "living standard". IMO it's never been easier to find work and starting pay has swelled enormously in the past 2 years. At the same time living standards have declined. Not precipitously but enough to sting for working class folks. And no wage growth hasn't kept pace with inflation.

Although I may contradict myself because I seem to recall reading a while back that wages at the bottom end were actually outpacing inflation. It was more the unionized blue collar jobs and most of the middle class that were falling behind. Will try to find that or if I'm just imagining it.

I mean, the average starting fast food salary went from around $10 to $15-18 practically overnight

That's probably all true include the implied need for nuanced analysis. It's hard not to imagine upward pressure on wages if the bottom wages are increasing, but it's certainly possible that unionized shit is less responsive to market forces.

Look, it was a great time to find work in 2019. It's a great time to find work now. The market forces on lower wages are real (and, of course, make the calls for some national minimum wage spike look a little silly).

[froot loops]

Carter really took the gas pipe for Volcker finally getting the Fed to put it's foot down. It did affect Reagan in office. It killed Bush in his re-election campaign.

[iam416]

Carter was fucked either way. There's no two ways about that. I think things peaked in terms of despare in 81 or 82. So, I was 8 or 9 then and I don't really remember it. All I really remember about Reagan was that he destroyed Fritz, but I sort of naturally associated that with a good 4 years. His first two years were full-on fucking despair.

[iam416]

Anyway, my ultimate point is that I think The Chairman has time to address inflation and take lots of credit for it if he's at all inclined to take the right steps. In the short-term he's in for an asskicking, but if navigates the waters correctly he's going to win long-term (2024). If he doesn't then the Ds are in a world of trouble.

[Mike]

But... but... TRUMP.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-ho...r-trump-logic/

Voters believe Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine under Trump. Logic agrees

“A new Harvard Center for American Political Studies (CAPS)-Harris Poll survey released Friday found that 62 percent of those polled believed Putin would not be moving against Ukraine if Trump had been president. When looking strictly at the answers of Democrats and Republicans, 85 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Democrats answered this way.”

Another poll released this week from HarrisX echoes the Harvard poll: 58 percent of voters blame Biden’s policies for the Russian invasion, while 42 percent blame Trump’s policies. Among independents, the people who ultimately decide many elections, 66 percent blame Biden while just 34 percent blame Trump.

Did Putin invade any neighboring countries when Trump was in power from January 2017 to January 2021? (Answer: No.)

Did Putin annex any neighboring countries when President Obama was in power prior to Trump? (Answer: Yes — Putin annexed Crimea in 2014.)

Yet here we are, almost 14 months since Trump was in the Oval Office, and he’s still living rent-free in the minds of those who get paid to talk about world affairs on TV. And as usual, there’s a disconnect between them and the public.

Here are some facts:

— Under Trump, ISIS went from one of our top threats during the Obama years to almost nonexistent. The ISIS “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria was destroyed. Attacks and beheadings of Westerners stopped. ISIS became an afterthought.

— Under Trump, North Korea went from carrying out regular missile tests over or near neighboring countries, including Japan, and regularly threatening to obliterate the U.S., to being relatively well-behaved beyond its borders. It stopped missile tests for 18 months, from late 2017 to mid-2019, and it dialed-down its reckless rhetoric. Not a perfect result, but an improvement from the Obama-Biden years.

It should be noted that President Obama also initiated the infamous U.S.-Russia “reset,” complete with a big red “Reset” button that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed to her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

Chuck Todd believes Putin would have invaded Ukraine even if Trump were president. But former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley sees it differently.

“What I will tell you about President Trump is, as much as everybody wants to talk about what he says, what I look at is what he did,” Haley told Todd on “Meet the Press” Sunday. “He sanctioned Russia. He expelled diplomats. He shut off Nord Stream 2, which is all Putin ever wanted. He built up our military. And he made us energy independent. All of those things countered Putin and countered Russia. This never would have happened under Trump.”

As that recent HarrisX poll asked, “In light of Russia’s attack on Ukraine and soaring gasoline prices, should the Biden administration ease its focus on climate change and allow more oil and natural gas exploration in the U.S. or not?” Sixty-nine percent of respondents said “yes,” including a majority of Democrats.

But President Biden, who shut down the Keystone XL pipeline less than 24 hours after taking office and then suspended drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, isn’t budging.

To do that would mean to admit error — something that is a foreign concept in this administration.

[iam416]

I'm personally of the mind that Putin was going to Putin. It's unknowable so it's an opinion. Whatever.

[Da Geezer]

Speaking of The Media and the Ds and their remarkably dishonest machine....love the "Don't Say Gay" message re DeSantis and Florida. And, look, I get why the Ds and The Media need to spin yet another Big Lie ("JIM CROW ON STEROIDS!!!!" "JIM EAGLE"). I get it. It's what happens when you have no substance. It's what happens when you know your argument is just awful. Indeed: We certainly know how stupid the D base is, so we know they'll swallow "Don't Say Gay" without question. We already know from voting "rights" issues that the Ds and their lackeys don't give two shits about what the law actually says. It's only a question of what they can get their simpleton lemmings to believe and, honestly, I haven't seen any limits to what they'll believe.

HOWEVER, those are just the Ds. DeSantis doesn't take their shit. DeSantis can actually go out and honestly and effectively message the bill and, as indicated by the actual polling numbers, win the approval the Florida voters who are actually willing to listen.

I presume Mrs. Talent agrees with this, particularly the statement, "We certainly know how stupid the D base is,..."

[iam416]

Well, she's a M alum and a D. That's ordinarily case of 1+1=Wizard-stupid.

[iam416]

But, mostly Mrs. Talent agrees with he likes of James Carville who wants the Ds to knock off the insane social justice shit and focus on "kitchen table issues" -- which is, IMO, at least where the Ds should try to move.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I'm personally of the mind that Putin was going to Putin. It's unknowable so it's an opinion. Whatever.

Nah, Putin was clearly terrified of Trump. It's the only explanation. Just ask objective, non-partisan observer Nikki Haley.

Actually, even if one does swallow the tripe that Trump intimidated Putin into non-action, the past 6 weeks have demonstrated that Putin is prone to significant errors in judgment.

[Da Geezer]

But I'm not making up Trump's crush on Putin.

HA! You are making it up out of whole cloth.

Trump unleashed American innovation to cause the general price levels of oil and gas to drop substantially. That cost Putin billions. As to the Russia hoax, to which you still subscribe, there is absolutely no way that Putin preferred a candidate who was going to cost him billions in revenue and was an American nationalist to boot.

One could also view Trump as believing the best interests of the US lay in Russia being more integrated with Europe than with China. When asked, Trump basically said that he trusted Putin more than he trusted the American Intelligence Community. How has the IC done under Biden, to say nothing of its attempted repeal of the 2016 election?

Trump is an egomaniacal narcissist. We all agree on that. But Trump's policy toward Russia kept Putin boxed in after the 2014 invasion of the Crimean Peninsula. That is just a fact.

[AlabamAlum]

I'm personally of the mind that Putin was going to Putin. It's unknowable so it's an opinion. Whatever.

Agreed. I think his plan all along is to reclaim the Motherland, as I said yesterday. It’s the worst kept secret this side of Wiz likes frozen wings drenched in Texas Pete and despair.

[Dr. Strangelove]

HA! You are making it up out of whole cloth.

Trump unleashed American innovation to cause the general price levels of oil and gas to drop substantially. That cost Putin billions. As to the Russia hoax, to which you still subscribe, there is absolutely no way that Putin preferred a candidate who was going to cost him billions in revenue and was an American nationalist to boot.

One could also view Trump as believing the best interests of the US lay in Russia being more integrated with Europe than with China. When asked, Trump basically said that he trusted Putin more than he trusted the American Intelligence Community. How has the IC done under Biden, to say nothing of its attempted repeal of the 2016 election?

Trump is an egomaniacal narcissist. We all agree on that. But Trump's policy toward Russia kept Putin boxed in after the 2014 invasion of the Crimean Peninsula. That is just a fact.

The IC has been pretty spot on about Putin/Russia. A lot more right about him than the Tucker Carlson/Trumper wing of the Party who had a love affair with Putin for a long time as an "ally" in THE GREAT CULTURE WAR. I think a lot of those people have gotten pretty quiet recently and they only really amount to "maybe" 5-10% of conservatives. But anyone out there who denies that there isn't a healthy swath of the Alt Right/Populist Right media that doesn't favor Russia over Ukraine, well you're just wrong.

Why would Tucker Carlson keep giving air time to Col. Douglas Macgregor.? The man openly argues that Ukraine isn't a legitimate country, is an artificial language and ethnicity, Putin has legitimate grievances, and we should let him take the whole country if he wants it. And Trump tried to make this same guy Ambassador to Germany (his nomination died and was opposed by plenty of Republicans). Trump got him a Pentagon job instead, probably to help him spy on the last Sec of Defense (Miller).

[Mike]

Nah, Putin was clearly terrified of Trump. It's the only explanation. Just ask objective, non-partisan observer Nikki Haley.

Actually, even if one does swallow the tripe that Trump intimidated Putin into non-action, the past 6 weeks have demonstrated that Putin is prone to significant errors in judgment.

I probably shouldn't have included the Haley quote as it was the polling data that caught my interest. But it's worth noting the bit about energy independence and lower energy prices having an adverse affect on the Russian economy. That much is fact regardless of who's mouth it comes from.

Now damn you people all to hell for making me defend Trump.

[Da Geezer]

Well maybe it would help to draw a distinction between the economy or employment picture and "living standard". IMO it's never been easier to find work and starting pay has swelled enormously in the past 2 years. At the same time living standards have declined. Not precipitously but enough to sting for working class folks. And no wage growth hasn't kept pace with inflation.

Although I may contradict myself because I seem to recall reading a while back that wages at the bottom end were actually outpacing inflation. It was more the unionized blue collar jobs and most of the middle class that were falling behind. Will try to find that or if I'm just imagining it.

I mean, the average starting fast food salary went from around $10 to $15-18 practically overnight

Indeed it did. You know, when you pay people $ 15.00/hr. to NOT work (that is the $ 600.00 per week additional unemployment Biden insisted upon), you might expect $ 15.00/hr. for folks who are actually working to obtain. It was a brilliant way to increase the minimum wage to $ 15. But don't delude yourself into thinking that it was a booming economy that did this. It was the flat-out payment of 15/hr to sit at home and do nothing. Further, that 15/hr was paid with no corresponding increase in the supply of goods, and that contributed to the inflation we now see.

I know of no small-business owner who easily restarted their business after the lockdown. They all had trouble hiring staff (think of restaurants) post-lockdown. It probably didn't affect people on the coasts, but $ 15/hr was a gross overpayment in the Midwest and South.