Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by WiseOne » Wed Apr 18, 2018 8:53 pm

Maybe the problem isn't that the US is spending too much on defense, but that the other NATO countries are spending too little, and we're having to pick up the slack. That's also been a pattern since WWII. (exceptions: Germany and Japan...they have low defense spending by design and it may be a long time before the world will trust them with a strong military again.)

Speaking of NATO...what happened to the campaign talk of "rethinking" it?
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by stuper1 » Thu Apr 19, 2018 2:51 am

Desert wrote: Well I agree with everything you said here. And your boy Donald is continuing the tradition, but at an even more breathtaking rate.
Haha, yeah, he stopped being my boy when he sent the first salvo of missiles to Syria, I guess that was last year. But I don't have the abhorrence of him that the virtue-signaling leftists have. He's just another schmaltzy politician. He is doing a bit to strengthen the border, which is a good thing. It's not as you suggest because I think that Mexicans are dirty. It's because a nation that doesn't have a defined border isn't much of a nation. Where does it begin and end? Mexicans and anyone else are welcome to come in, but we have a legal process in place for that. If they don't want to follow the legal process, then guess what, they are here illegally. I don't blame them for that. They are just trying to better themselves. I blame our government for not having the spine to make it tougher for them. Meanwhile, I still see plenty of Americans who appear to need jobs. If we let more immigrants into our country (whether legal or illegal), does that make it easier or harder for the American unemployed to find a job?
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by WiseOne » Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:42 am

stuper1 wrote:He is doing a bit to strengthen the border, which is a good thing. It's not as you suggest because I think that Mexicans are dirty. It's because a nation that doesn't have a defined border isn't much of a nation. Where does it begin and end? Mexicans and anyone else are welcome to come in, but we have a legal process in place for that. If they don't want to follow the legal process, then guess what, they are here illegally. I don't blame them for that. They are just trying to better themselves. I blame our government for not having the spine to make it tougher for them. Meanwhile, I still see plenty of Americans who appear to need jobs. If we let more immigrants into our country (whether legal or illegal), does that make it easier or harder for the American unemployed to find a job?
I don't think many people understand just how important this is - probably including Trump himself.

Consider the "opioid crisis" which has been getting so much press lately. Haven't any of you wondered at least a little bit why this is happening now, with little or no change in the supply of prescription or illicit opioids? And why it's disproportionately hitting lower to middle class whites, to the extent that their life expectancy has been reduced? And do you all realize just how significant a drop in life expectancy is, in a first world country? It is an extremely rare event with ominous implications.

There is a crisis all right, but it's not about opioid medications. It's about depression and hopelessness on the lower end of the economic scale. There are several causes, many of which Trump pegged in his campaign and which everyone else has been working very hard to ignore. Lax immigration policy is one of them. It is beyond frustrating to see the extent to which most of the political machine doesn't get it, even after the 2016 wake-up call that taught them nothing. Instead, they & followers insist on trying to cast hardening the immigration legal process as "racism". This is the same group that's pushing the Russia investigation, which is why I'm thoroughly suspicious that their motives are not as stated - since "interfering with elections" has indeed been business as usual around the globe for a long time.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by moda0306 » Thu Apr 19, 2018 8:08 am

"Jobs" are either a zero sum game or they're not... if they are not, and we all benefit from more workers moving to where there is more high-paying work, spending money to create more jobs while they do it, then society as a whole might well gain.

If this is all a zero-sum game, though, and there's only so much work to be done, and we have to batton down the hatches to do it, then keeping brown people out of this country is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. Our overlords have made it abuntantly easy for capital to go flying around the globe in a flash looking for the highest rate of return for the ownership-class, pitting workers and nations against each other, polluting and exploiting the living hell out of any locale they can get away with it, and we are here trying to make sure Josh's job doesn't go to Jose just before rebalancing into our Emerging Markets ETF.

Not to go all lefty on y'all, but either we have a wage/job problem and workers of the world need to unite, or it's not a problem and we can quit pretending that this is about protecting American incomes. Keeping brown people out isnt enough. In the world that we've allowed the Bush-Clinton duopoly to set up, capital will find a way to fuck "overpaid" workers and robust environmental regulations.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by moda0306 » Thu Apr 19, 2018 9:01 am

Also, WiseOne, don't you always trust the motives of any person or group in their decision-making? I know I do. Usually our motives are a mystery to even ourselves, much-less the public.

I know I concern myself far-less with ulterior motives perpetuated towards the powerful rather than the non-powerful, who are usually scapegoats.

So while I don't necessarily trust Mueller's motives, neither do I trust the myriad of Trump-excusers out there who are bending over backwards to make him out to be a threat to the deep state and anti-establishment. I especially don't trust Trump and John Bolton with the most powerful killing force in the history of the world. Nor would I have trusted Hillary, but she's not in power now. Trump is. And he just put a flatulating, unapologetic war-criminal in a top spot of foreign policy decision-making.

So while I don't trust lawyers investigating Russian meddling and domestic collusion with it, I have far more concern with war-mongers with unilateral power to direct our military and intelligence strategies.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by dualstow » Thu Apr 19, 2018 9:02 am

(Trump)'s just another schmaltzy politician.
stuper: just a trivial note here, but schmaltzy means maudlin or sentimental to a fault. O0
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by moda0306 » Thu Apr 19, 2018 9:39 am

dualstow wrote:
(Trump)'s just another schmaltzy politician.
stuper: just a trivial note here, but schmaltzy means maudlin or sentimental to a fault. O0
And by "just another," he probably should have said "also worse in every single measurable way."

Every negative trait about a politician, Trump is worse in spades. The only exception being the "polished faux-intelligencia bullshit speak," of which he attempts sometimes when he's not sputtering utterly wreckless, untintelligble garbage.

Even his private-sector bonafides are most Trust Fund Baby bullshit.

But I digress. :)
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by dualstow » Thu Apr 19, 2018 9:41 am

WiseOne: I've been seeing a lot of articles about deaths of despair lately.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by stuper1 » Thu Apr 19, 2018 10:21 am

moda0306 wrote:
dualstow wrote:
(Trump)'s just another schmaltzy politician.
stuper: just a trivial note here, but schmaltzy means maudlin or sentimental to a fault. O0
And by "just another," he probably should have said "also worse in every single measurable way."

Every negative trait about a politician, Trump is worse in spades. The only exception being the "polished faux-intelligencia bullshit speak," of which he attempts sometimes when he's not sputtering utterly wreckless, untintelligble garbage.

Even his private-sector bonafides are most Trust Fund Baby bullshit.

But I digress. :)

Sorry, it was late. My brain wasn't working very well. Plus I think I thought that schmaltzy meant something else. Anyway, I should have used another word, but even now I can't think of the right one. Maybe "buffoonish"?

Anyway, I don't see Trump as worse in every way than most politicians. What have most politicians accomplished in their lives other than just blow a lot of hot air? At least Trump has run some successful businesses (and apparently some unsuccessful ones as well). And I for one appreciate his candor and lack of sugar coating things. He just tells it like he sees it. Not many politicians do that.

I do agree with you that picking Bolton is a huge problem. If ever there was a war monger, Bolton looks like the guy.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by moda0306 » Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:19 am

stuper1 wrote:
moda0306 wrote:
dualstow wrote: stuper: just a trivial note here, but schmaltzy means maudlin or sentimental to a fault. O0
And by "just another," he probably should have said "also worse in every single measurable way."

Every negative trait about a politician, Trump is worse in spades. The only exception being the "polished faux-intelligencia bullshit speak," of which he attempts sometimes when he's not sputtering utterly wreckless, untintelligble garbage.

Even his private-sector bonafides are most Trust Fund Baby bullshit.

But I digress. :)

Sorry, it was late. My brain wasn't working very well. Plus I think I thought that schmaltzy meant something else. Anyway, I should have used another word, but even now I can't think of the right one. Maybe "buffoonish"?

Anyway, I don't see Trump as worse in every way than most politicians. What have most politicians accomplished in their lives other than just blow a lot of hot air? At least Trump has run some successful businesses (and apparently some unsuccessful ones as well). And I for one appreciate his candor and lack of sugar coating things. He just tells it like he sees it. Not many politicians do that.

I do agree with you that picking Bolton is a huge problem. If ever there was a war monger, Bolton looks like the guy.
My problem with the "tells it like he sees it" argument is twofold:

1) He's borderline incoherent.

2) He's very inconsistent.

There are about 20 comedians and commentators I can easily think of that "tell it like they see it," and I wouldn't ever put Trump in anywhere near them in terms of the value of that trait. If "they way you see it" is grossly incoherent and inconsistent, it's not of much value.

Further, to zoom in a bit, there are a lot of militant leftists that "tell it like they see it," and I have trouble believing that anything but a tiny fraction of Trump excusers that praise him for that trait would support candidates if they vociferously advocated us to "purge the plutocracy," open the borders and disarm the public of anything more than a shotgun, even if they were hugely more consistent and coherent than Trump.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by Mountaineer » Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:31 am

Welcome to the consequences of the "it's all about me, what I want, and what I think I deserve" worldview. As the common threads that held us together in the past continue to fade and fewer and fewer people want to join and become part of something bigger than they are, something else is taking its place - a worldview that expounds "what can I get from this situation to make me happy?" rather than "what does my neighbor need that I can joyfully give or do for him/her?" Our politicians are a reflection of us, sad to say, but increasingly true.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by stuper1 » Thu Apr 19, 2018 1:37 pm

Shyster. I think that's the word that my 52 year old brain couldn't find last night. Typical shyster politician.

But with at least one difference. Trump's net worth is probably at least 100 times more than your typical senator say. So, the hope of a lot of people that voted for him (I wasn't one of those, having not voted in 30 years) was that maybe he would be less influenced by special interests. Probably isn't working out that way, but that was the hope.

I've listened to a few speeches he's given. He didn't sound incoherent to me. He sounded fine in my view. Maybe that doesn't say very much for me. But when I read the media accounts of what he had supposedly said, they didn't sound anything like what I heard with my own ears. Interesting.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by WiseOne » Thu Apr 19, 2018 2:04 pm

dualstow wrote:WiseOne: I've been seeing a lot of articles about deaths of despair lately.
Thanks for that link dualstow! I've seen articles too, but this one is exceptional and even makes the same link to the opioid crisis that I did. Also see the plot showing just how much of an anomaly the US is.

For Moda and others, I see have to draw a few dots for you:

employment pool <--> middle class jobs that don't require (expensive) college degrees

US resident middle class whites --> employment pool

Unskilled immigration (legal or illegal) --> SAME employment pool

Policies encouraging outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries (especially middle class ones) --> fewer jobs available

balanced employment pool/jobs --> stable wages

employment pool > jobs --> pockets of unemployment, lack of job stability, sinking wages

high unskilled immigration --> greater demand for social services, higher state/local taxes --> more financial pressure on middle class

low wages/unstable job/unemployment --> social fabric starts to fall apart. (The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.)

Politically, unbridled unskilled immigration is a highly desirable scenario. First, they get to enjoy a feeling of moral superiority by heaping benefits on Hispanic (mostly) immigrants. Second, cheap labor means more profits for their corporate contributors, who also enjoy a labor pool that can be mistreated with no repercussions. Third, the standard assumption is that these grateful immigrants will either become citizens or have children who are automatically citizens, all of whom will be more likely to vote Democratic.

I had thought at one time that Trump realized all this and was acting on it, and that his boorish behavior would be a small price to pay for righting the ship. I admit now that this was just wishful thinking on my part, and suffer just as much as the rest of you at his tweets, inability to manage White House staff, etc.

And incidentally, this is why I'm in favor of the Citizen's Dividend as well as low cost public university tuition. However, the Citizen's Dividend is impossible in the US as long as birthright citizenship and de facto open borders is in effect. Thus, still need to fix immigration.

Sorry, this thread started out about the Russia investigation and I got us off track. But then, that's what the Russia investigation is about, after all.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by dualstow » Thu Apr 19, 2018 2:08 pm

Shyster, that works!

I don't think he sounds incoherent, either. His tweets, which I read directly, are pretty rambly. Once upon a time, he said he was firing Comey b/c of the investigation, but the other day he tweeted again and said that had nothing to do with it. There are a lot of inconsistencies like that. EDIT: or maybe it's just Dan Scavino. O0

Yeah, I think a lot of people who voted for him must be disappointed at this point. Anti-TPP'ers, (not to be confused with anti-pp'ers), farmers, non-interventionists, swamp drainers, wall builders...

WiseOne, there was a whole chart (of despair) in the WSJ the other day, but I haven't tracked it down. I'll email it if I find it over the weekend.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by moda0306 » Thu Apr 19, 2018 3:49 pm

WiseOne,

I don't want to straw man you but I think I'd like to put things in terms I can digest and then see if it's more-or-less what you are trying to say.

1) stagnant real wages for low-to-mid income Americans is one of the largest problems face.

2) one of the biggest bang-for-your-buck ways that our government can help that problem is by reducing low-skill immigration to the US.

Does that sum up your opinion pretty well?

Shying away from the "burden on social services" aspect to what you said for a moment.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by moda0306 » Thu Apr 19, 2018 5:48 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:The purpose of the "investigation" (actually, a witch hunt) is simple: to find something, ANYTHING, on Trump, or more likely one of his associates, that will allow that person to be criminally charged so they can take Trump down.
What's your evidence for this assertion?

What's your best source/sources on this topic?
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by WiseOne » Fri Apr 20, 2018 7:51 am

Desert wrote: The jobs the Mexicans are "taking" are jobs our lower class is demonstrably uninterested in doing.
That's a refrain we hear over and over again, and I think it's just plain bull-s**t. Mainly it's a handy excuse that lets you ignore the problem.

If you add the disclaimer "at the low offered wages" that might be the case. However, consider that the reason for said low wages is that the companies offering them can fill the jobs at the low wage. If that were no longer the case, they'd have to start increasing wages. Yes, that would increase some prices, but since social service costs would go down it would probably be close to zero sum. Not to mention that if you don't mind taxes going up to improve lower class quality of life, why would you object to price increases that accomplish the same thing - only better?

Case in point: meatpacker jobs. That used to be a solid middle class job with decent working conditions and competitive salaries. With the ready availability of undocumented workers with no ability to unionize or demand better wages/working conditions, salaries have plummeted and injuries are common. Do a bit of searching and you'll find plenty of documentation of this.

There are clearly multiple factors at work (automation, free trade/outsourcing etc), but to throw up our hands and do nothing about the factors under our control, like immigration, is indefensible. Especially when tackling the root of the problem is likely to be far more cost effective than trying to contain the sequelae - like the opioid crisis.

So now I'm wishing (again) that Bernie Sanders won the primary!
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Apr 20, 2018 7:58 am

Desert wrote:Also, much of "defense" spending is simply corporate welfare. Taxing the crap out of us to fund nonsense projects that fill the pockets of the "businesses" surrounding DC. I've unfortunately worked for one company that existed on the back of this nonsense. I'd estimate that half of military spending is wasted, amounting to nothing more than welfare for the wealthy. Don't fall for the tired old story.
+1. I suspect that those low budgets from China and Russia are spent much more effectively than ours. I also think that the rock to our fighter jet/battleship/etc scissors will be cheap countermeasures or sidesteps (drones, psyops, IO).
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by Mountaineer » Fri Apr 20, 2018 9:01 am

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Desert wrote:Also, much of "defense" spending is simply corporate welfare. Taxing the crap out of us to fund nonsense projects that fill the pockets of the "businesses" surrounding DC. I've unfortunately worked for one company that existed on the back of this nonsense. I'd estimate that half of military spending is wasted, amounting to nothing more than welfare for the wealthy. Don't fall for the tired old story.
+1. I suspect that those low budgets from China and Russia are spent much more effectively than ours. I also think that the rock to our fighter jet/battleship/etc scissors will be cheap countermeasures or sidesteps (drones, psyops, IO).
And that inefficient spending by the military has been going on for years. Circa 1985 I was in a large training meeting where an officer from the Philadelphia Naval Yard told me his typical day was 1/2 hour of work and 7 1/2 hours working to justify the upcoming budget. A second example was a friend of mine in the Air Force (in charge of base logistics and maintenance) was told he had to spend $1 million within the next month so they could maintain their budget for the following year; and of course the base needed only a fraction of that but they repainted pretty much everything that had just been painted in the past few months to spend the million.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by boglerdude » Sat Apr 21, 2018 11:41 pm

The meatpacking cos want the cheap labor. Business writes the laws.

Military waste is maddening, but another perspective:

"In today's world of high-dollar, high-tech weaponry, once something is developed to a useful point and put into production, the production must be kept going throughout its service life (often several decades) to assure the continuing supply of parts and replacements. The production facilities and supply chain have to be kept active, and this is done by selling enough to keep the producers busy, and making money. Governments have to keep their weapons producers going to ensure their own supply. If things were shut down, and had to be restarted, it could take years to set up new facilities, train workers, build up a supply chain, etc.

They do what they can, within the limits of practicality, to restrict sales to those who won't use them in ways that are against US interests, but not always successfully. And, countries who want to buy arms will buy them, if not from the US, then from the Russians, Chinese, French, British, Israelis, or anyone else who needs to keep their own arms industry active. Arming other countries with US weaponry also provides some measure of control over them in access to parts, etc.

Hartung whines a good bit about Yemen, but the troubles in Yemen are mostly due to the Iranians arming and supporting their surrogates to take control of the country, as they've done in Lebanon with Hezbollah. The Saudis should be fighting them if they don't want an Iranian satellite on their border."

From the comments on https://mises.org/wire/donald-trump-and-art-arms-deal
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by WiseOne » Sun Apr 22, 2018 9:00 am

Desert wrote:
WiseOne wrote:
Desert wrote: The jobs the Mexicans are "taking" are jobs our lower class is demonstrably uninterested in doing.
That's a refrain we hear over and over again, and I think it's just plain bull-s**t. Mainly it's a handy excuse that lets you ignore the problem.

If you add the disclaimer "at the low offered wages" that might be the case. However, consider that the reason for said low wages is that the companies offering them can fill the jobs at the low wage. If that were no longer the case, they'd have to start increasing wages. Yes, that would increase some prices, but since social service costs would go down it would probably be close to zero sum. Not to mention that if you don't mind taxes going up to improve lower class quality of life, why would you object to price increases that accomplish the same thing - only better?

Case in point: meatpacker jobs. That used to be a solid middle class job with decent working conditions and competitive salaries. With the ready availability of undocumented workers with no ability to unionize or demand better wages/working conditions, salaries have plummeted and injuries are common. Do a bit of searching and you'll find plenty of documentation of this.

There are clearly multiple factors at work (automation, free trade/outsourcing etc), but to throw up our hands and do nothing about the factors under our control, like immigration, is indefensible. Especially when tackling the root of the problem is likely to be far more cost effective than trying to contain the sequelae - like the opioid crisis.

So now I'm wishing (again) that Bernie Sanders won the primary!
WiseOne, I think you make a great point, and one that's opened my mind some on this issue. I don't know a lot about meatpackers, but I do know that the construction profession wages have suffered as a direct result of lower cost immigrant labor.

I'm thinking right now that the lower class situation is quite complex, and multi faceted (captain obvious, I know). I don't know if illegal immigration has had a larger or smaller effect than Walmart and Amazon, on lower class wages. And as you pointed out, there are many more factors, including automation, foreign outsourcing, etc. I do think it's time for a serious, data-driven discussion regarding these critically important topics. Sadly, this administration can't do that. Demonizing a huge swath of our population as the opening statement of a campaign simply guarantees division and obstruction. Nobody sane will give anything to this horrid administration, for obvious reasons. I do hope that we can elect a sane and sober thinker to our highest office, so we can have some serious conversations about this issue and others.
Wow, thank you Desert, and incidentally I agree with everything you've said here - especially the part about the need for serious, data-driven discussion. Sadly, this administration and the reaction to it has made such a thing next to impossible. Not only now, but also for anyone who might try to bring this up in future. And incidentally the Dems have done their own form of demonizing large swaths of the population: calling anyone who wants to fix immigration racist, referring to the long-suffering lower/middle class as "deplorables" etc.

Shifting manufacturing jobs overseas to low-wage countries is another major issue that Trump identified in his campaign, but likely won't be able to do much about. Interestingly, this topic gets discussed on "Shark Tank" frequently, and there are always comments about shoddy quality, stealing of intellectual property and other things. I'm also curious about the costs of shipping, which must be higher for international than domestic. So I'd read about that once and came across the rather startling fact that emissions from transport "super-ships" easily eclipse that from the entire world's auto fleet - and is completely uncontrolled. I wonder if establishing shipping pollution standards for US companies importing from overseas would increase the costs enough to start shifting jobs back here - and without any need for tariffs.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by boglerdude » Sun Apr 22, 2018 10:29 pm

Business wants the cheap labor. Similar to minimum wage, they threaten higher prices. Not necessarily, I think a megacorp like Starbucks with huge profits can pay more than small low-margin startups. OTOH that means less profits for shareholders, and we are shareholders...
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by WiseOne » Mon Apr 23, 2018 5:12 pm

Business absolutely wants cheap labor - because they get to not pay the associated costs of that directly. We, as taxpayers, do:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... obs-214216

Desert: one of Trump's saner platform planks was to harden E-verify and make it mandatory. It would be interesting to study its effects in states where it's been mandatory (e.g. Arizona), but so far I don't believe it's mandatory in any state with significant manufacturing or production jobs.

It would also be useful to find out what other First World countries do. Just about all of them have much stricter enforcement of worker eligibility rules than does the U.S., most notably the EU, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by boglerdude » Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:38 pm

First World countries charge higher taxes and provide better services/standard of living

But will they let anybody in for a chance to succeed? Taco trucks in Norway?

Edit for more substance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXK591Rp4BU

Recently watched "Where to invade next" Moore makes no effort to present both sides of any issue. Strange guy.
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Re: Making Sense of the Never-Ending, Never-Availing Trump Investigation

Post by boglerdude » Wed Apr 25, 2018 2:37 am

I wonder if Libertarians had overly strict parents. Might explain why the mere existence of police/authority offends them

Still, I think we would have a utopia if everyone were Libertarian. Many folks just have no interest in philosophy.
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