alldayeveryday

> we have freedom of association, and a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own.

Yes and no. Take the Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled in the baker's favor on the grounds that forcing him to bake the cake would violate his religious freedoms. I wonder, if the baker had refused purely as a personal preference not to do business with gay couples (freedom of association), would the court have ruled differently? As far as I know the Supreme Court has not yet weighed in on such a question.

Define "good" chunk. Or better yet, can you give one good example of where BDS is anti-semitic and another example where it is not?

For bonus points, can you explain why BDS is bad policy for the USA without calling it anti-semitic?

Did you even bother checking?

https://www.epa.gov/flint

> Since January 2016, EPA has been monitoring compliance with its emergency administrative order (as amended) to ensure that Flint’s drinking water system continues to improve. Flint’s system currently meets regulatory criteria for lead and copper. EPA will continue to oversee the City’s efforts to transition to a long-term drinking water source and also monitor its replacement of lead (and galvanized) service lines throughout Flint

The EPA famously declared the air safe following 9/11. Their credibility is, at least for me personally, negligible. The flint water crisis and the Gold King Mine are other examples.

People are rightfully worried and angered. Your dismissal of them as "losing their mind" or "hysterical" is at best tone deaf, and at worst an intentional tactic to downplay the event. Appeals to governmental authority falls flat when the trust of the people no longer exists for their governmental institutions.

From the article: U.S. EPA continues to assist Norfolk Southern and Columbiana Emergency Management Agency with voluntary residential air screening. ... To increase the rate of screening, Norfolk Southern—with U.S. EPA assistance—is bringing more teams and equipment to East Palestine.

You expect Norfolk Southern to perform honest screening which would result in millions upon millions in damages to be paid out? Why isnt the EPA in charge of this rather than following the lead of Norfolk?

I find it both odd and interesting that this topic, and so many others in our culture, boils down to whether someone/something is racist or not. Racism has become the ultimate morality test. Someone got ChatGPT to say the N-word. Queue up two dozen articles across various neoliberal publications: "we must do more to ensure AI does not harm the most vulnerable in our societies." I agree with many of the points made in the article about our own projection of morality onto the machine.

From their website:

Chief Diversity Officer - ... responsible for guiding and scaling inclusion strategy and diversity initiatives across Twilio's global workforce

Chief People Officer - .. responsible for driving the talent development and acquisition strategy, and building infrastructure to support a thriving culture of belonging, diversity and inclusion across the company

I'm seeing some optimization opportunities here.

I think your analysis is a good one given the data we have, and can be used to draw some conclusions or guide general discussion. However the analysis is indeed limited by the data available. The AAA data does not consider variability by gender, race, socioeconomics, location, etc. Further it does not normalize variability in the types of driving being done (teslas have limited range, are not towing trailers, etc), nor other technological advances (modern vs older vehicles).

> For better or worse, both major parties in US noted that you can make anything work well if you compare the other team to nazis.

Agreed, I think this serves a common purpose as other generalized propaganda on the subject. The idea is to poison the well concerning any good-faith discussion of national socialism such that people self-moderate and dismiss the idea prima facie. In this very thread, I pointed to the economic recovery in pre-WW2 Germany which was undeniably facilitated by a shift to nationalist, socialist policies. When I did, you dismissed the idea immediately due to "facism" - announcing you'd withdraw from the conversation if indeed national socialism was the topic.

> No. Because it is a bad idea. It is difficult to put in words how bad an idea it is.

Precisely, I've seen this pattern time and time again. It is prima facie a bad idea, but proof cannot be articulated. In such cases, the fallback is often (not accusing you of this) to attack the person suggesting the idea rather than the idea itself (ad hominem). I agree predictability and stability are ideal characteristics, but only in scenarios where there are other positive characteristics. Predictable and stable misery is a pretty bad state to be in. I think we can agree that the current system has many faults. One of these faults, I think, is that the system has optimized the wealth and opportunity for a very few in number. I believe the nation requires a shift in philosophy away from globalist, hyper individualism, and towards an inward looking (nationalist) stance that optimizes the wellbeing of the people (socialism). Such a shift in national philosophy, as was seen in pre-WW2 Germany, has shown an ability to correct for the excesses and decay of a globalist and individual culture, improving the outlook dramatically for the citizens. By many measures (num of children, unemployment, inflation, wealth, life expectancy) national socialism improved Germany dramatically.

> I would like to think you are not suggesting those solutions implemented.

Why not? Cause the current ruling class frowns up it?

> I am going to bow out should it happen here.

Then the system propaganda has worked fully. You police your own speech.

Eh, the US didn’t fund the German recovery. I think you seem to be confusing pre WW2 Germany (30s) and post war Germany (50s). The German state before national socialism was having hyper inflation, spiraling unemployment and a failing economy. The national socialists created one of the greatest economic recoveries of all time. It took the entire western world plus Russia to conquer it.

Post war Germany was hallowed out and the nation is a husk of what it once was, basically a US vassal state.

Wages peaked at 7.3%, not averaged that over the 12 month period.

> … is shared sacrifice similar to how a war effort is sold.

You actually posed a solution here not a disproof. Yes all this requires selling changes to the public and under a social message. One doesn’t need math to know this, it is intuitively true.

> from where to where

I already answered this.

> re-allocation is not going to happen because even the current allocation was a result of heavy compromise.

So anything that requires compromise cannot be undone? I’m not tracking your logic here.

I think you are looking for more evidence to backup my suggestion. See 1930s Germany as example where this model was followed and resulted in one of the greatest economic turnarounds of all time.

> inb4 muh nazis and Holocaust

Doesn’t disprove the economic turnaround that transpired.

Exercise: make the turtle move around the screen

To your point about services reduction, I don't agree. I think more of a re-allocation of where capitol is going is the cure. We should increase or create new social programs that incentivize native births, home ownership, making it possible for most households to have just one person in the workforce, etc - and reduce the money that goes towards foreign wars, foreign agitation, welfare for nations across the world, etc. And I agree, tax hikes but targeted at the financial system which makes money in parasitic ways. In short, the economy needs to be optimized to the benefit of the lower and middle classes, the working class, and no longer to the 1%. This all probably requires heavy nationalization of banking and major industry. I dont see this as an evil and mistrust those that tell me to fear putting the power back in the hands of the people and away from the elite.

Inflation began to spike in the U.S. in April of 2021, when it hit 4.2%. Inflation continued to climb, hitting 7% year-over-year by December 2021. Sadly, 2022 didn’t see any slowdown in inflation as the rate peaked at 9.1% in June. Starting in July, inflation began to fall slightly, though it still sat at 7.7% in November.

Your atlantafed link shows unweighted wage increase peaking at 6.7% in August 2022. In what way did wages outpace inflation?

AI is too broad a term so as to be useful for such questions. What is artificial intelligence? Let's look at an app like Apple Maps. Knowing my search history and showing it to me is a form of intelligence. Knowing I have something in my clipboard and making it easy for me to paste is a kind of intelligence. Knowing my location and the time of day, and combining that with knowledge of where I work and live in order to offer me transit times, is a kind of intelligence. Apple products utilize a ton of artificial intelligence. AI is not limited to sophisticated chatbots which many seem to think of as the only form of AI.

which says a lot if the economy is disconnected from the prosperity and economic outlook of the majority of people. In such a case, a "good economy" is just a synonym for "elite are still doing well."

> The short of it... did CEOs really make any significant mistakes? Or did they just take advantage of the market conditions in predictable ways? i.e. They did their jobs as it's currently incentivized.

Agreed with your argument, and taking it a step further, not only did they take advantage of the market conditions, they were forced to do so or face getting fired themselves. When your competitor is rapidly expanding, and/or you are not showing the revenue growth that the market is awarding, you get the boot.

Another variable to consider: the 2020 - 2022 market was rewarding growth (as opposed to profitability or being cash-flow positive). The Corporate loan interest rate was practically 0%. Companies which could show growth, even at the expense of lighting cash on fire, were rewarded as far as the stock market is concerned. CEOs are expected to bias towards shareholder value, lest they be replaced by someone who will. And so, with these variables in play, many took the decision to rapidly expand their operations (costs) in any way that produced marginal growth. They lived and died by their ability to, on each quarterly earnings call, share the message of QoQ and YoY growth. For many companies this required rapid hiring.

The market now is demanding flesh and CEOs are either expected to provide it, or else get fired. Just like in the former time period, they would get fired had they not shown growth. I personally do not think a CEO should be fired now for having to hire employees, when they would have been fired in the first place had they not rapidly hired.

Your whole argument is based on the premise that statements made in anger cannot be true. And the focus on emotional state is typical ad hominem attack. You did not refute the content in any way.

Agreed. While much criticism gets directed to the leadership for irresponsible hiring and operations, the market dynamics of today which are motivating businesses to cut costs, were at an earlier time motivating businesses to rapidly grow and expand. Company executives who do not satisfy the market are quickly exited.

I see it differently. i think the playbook is that the system generates a counterculture to control the opposition narrative. The systems greatest trick as Ted K put it.

Sure, the hippie movement was branded countercultural. But to what purpose? Note that during the period, the US government was engaged in a large scale remaking of America both domestically and internationally. Domestically, we saw the remaking of immigration policies to no longer bias towards those of European descent, and instead towards what favored macro capitalism (the import of cheaper and low skilled labor). Internationally the US was scaling up engagement in hot and cold wars and no longer considering itself bound to the constitutional provisions for war. Lo and behold, during this period, a "counterculture" arises which glorifies drug use, the dissolution of the nuclear family and pushes forward the vapid strain of hyper individualism that we see today. Suddenly the anti-war movement is associated with drug use and degeneracy, whilst the nation's racial consciousness is broken in time to welcome a new wave of immigrants to help improve the margins of big business. Note that the current "woke" counterculture follows the same pattern. Increased individualism, sublimated racial awareness, dissolution of family, and rampant degeneracy. Meanwhile the state continues its hegemonic march of constant international agitation.

I think we have a diff definition of white.

A given queer person's level of identification with the broader community is of no relevance to the question of whether the broader culture of the community is countercultural. When the culture itself is used as a political tool by a state actor, I no longer classify the culture as countercultural. Rather, I see it as a weaponized mechanism of cultural subversion.

Sure, the hippie movement was branded countercultural. But to what purpose? Note that during the period, the US government was engaged in a large scale remaking of America both domestically and internationally. Domestically, we saw the remaking of immigration policies to no longer bias towards those of European descent, and instead towards what favored macro capitalism (the import of cheaper and low skilled labor). Internationally the US was scaling up engagement in hot and cold wars and no longer considering itself bound to the constitutional provisions for war. Low and behold, during this period, a "counterculture" arises which glorifies drug use, the dissolution of the nuclear family and pushes forward the vapid strain of hyper individualism that we see today. Suddenly the anti-war movement is associated with drug use and degeneracy, whilst the nation's racial consciousness is broken in time to welcome a new wave of immigrants to help improve the margins of big business.

Note that the current "woke" counterculture follows the same pattern. Increased individualism, sublimated racial awareness, dissolution of family, and rampant degeneracy. Meanwhile the state continues its hegemonic march of constant international agitation.

> ... mean that the majority white, straight, Christian(ish) majority in America doesn't still wield most of the power.

yeah, except for finance, media, academia and politics. I do agree that straight white christian(ish) males do wield the most power in the other intuitions that matter (thought I'm drawing a blank on which those might be).

I guess I just have the view that if I am turning on the radio, the TV, watching a movie, a tv show, celebrity voices, the state department, etc - and I am seeing the counterculture, then I am actually just seeing the culture.

> First, you lump all of queer culture into one group, a false categorization without which your augment fails.

In fact, I do lump them onto one group. Many subgroups inside a group. You know who I am referring to when I say queer culture. The group exists, it isn't false. Colors keep getting added to the flag. Rather than engage with reality you prefer to have useless rhetorical debates. Let's move past that.

>Second, you assert that being in the overwhelmingly dominant racial group, the overwhelmingly dominant sexual orientation and the undeniably dominant gender should somehow be interpreted at "counterculture" even though the group that fits that definition is numerically larger, wealthier, and politically empowered than any other group.

Culture is often not aligned with majority opinions, majority positions or majority orientations. The culture of the 60s was hippies. Most people were not hippies. Your premise is false here that culture is the same as majority, or political empowerment.

I welcome a more honest response.

Disagree. I think your social status has more to do with your conformity to neoliberal values than it does money. Sure, money can buy nice things and attract friends. Just look at Kanye.

Another hard agree. I always get a good laugh when people in queer culture claim to be living a counter culture lifestyle. Meanwhile the US state department is flying the queer flag at its embassies around the world and using it to agitate foreign conservative cultures.

I nominate being an unapologetic white male as the counter culture of our current time. Just watch how many downvotes you'll get on any social media platform for having this position.

Blooomberg: Brexit is costing the UK economy £100 billion a year

Translation: The financial elite are losing £100 billion a year. Peasants, you should care too.