REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

TRUMP - Just because.....................Naw, I just can't say it!

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Monday, December 5, 2016 4:47 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

SECOND - WHO'S PRESIDENT RIGHT NOW?

SHOULDN'T YOU BE COMPLAINING THAT OBAMA IS FAILING TO CREATE MORE OF THE MINIMUM-WAGE JOBS HE CREATED IN THE PAST?



Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
And frankly, you seem off-kilter. If you were to be taken to a hospital and they did an emergency mental status exam - and asked you 'who's president of the US?' - would you be able to answer it accurately?

Trump is the one who promised to create jobs for all the losers, so they won’t have to learn anything new and they won’t have to move from where they were born. Obama and Hillary went on and on about the jobless getting new skills, an education, and maybe moving somewhere that had jobs. Do you see the difference between Trump’s promises, that don’t require his followers to expend mental energy, and the Democrats?

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Monday, December 5, 2016 4:50 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.



SECOND - WHO'S PRESIDENT
RIGHT NOW?

SHOULDN'T YOU BE COMPLAINING THAT OBAMA IS FAILING TO CREATE MORE OF THE MINIMUM-WAGE JOBS HE CREATED IN THE PAST?





How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Monday, December 5, 2016 5:08 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

SECOND - WHO'S PRESIDENT

RIGHT NOW?

SHOULDN'T YOU BE COMPLAINING THAT OBAMA IS FAILING TO CREATE MORE OF THE MINIMUM-WAGE JOBS HE CREATED IN THE PAST?

The last time Democrats promised to create min wage jobs was the Works Progress Administration. It was dissolved June 30, 1943. So it is unsurprising that Obama never started promising to create jobs. On the other hand, Trump is promising, using the power of his mighty mouth and wagging tongue ( and Pence's power to give away Indiana tax money to Carrier).

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Monday, December 5, 2016 5:33 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

Originally posted by SECOND:
So it is unsurprising that Obama never started promising to create jobs.



You could have educated your ignorance with a simple google search:

https://www.gop.com/the-top-10-broken-promises-of-the-obama-presidency/
Obama broke his promise not to raise taxes on the middle-class.
Obama failed to grow the middle-class and Americans' incomes.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/nancy-pfotenhauer/2014/05/22/obama
-fails-to-deliver-on-jobs-and-fiscal-reform-promises

On January 2009, Obama promised that government spending to the tune of $830 billion would help struggling Americans find jobs. The administration pledged that if the “stimulus” was passed, the unemployment rate would never exceed 8 percent.


"President Obama set a goal to create 1 million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016 and is working to double American exports over the next five years by promoting U.S. goods and removing trade barriers, expanding access to credit, and promoting strong growth."

"Will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by establishing a small business and micro-enterprise initiative for rural America."

"I will invest $150 billion over the next 10 years - $15 billion a year - to put America on the path of true energy security. This fund will fast-track investments in a new green energy business sector that will end our addiction to oil and create up to 5 million jobs over the next two decades."

"He set a goal to lead the world in college graduates by 2020, and cut the growth of college tuition and fees in half over the next 10 years, a goal that will save the typical student thousands of dollars a year, and proposed bringing together community colleges and businesses to train 2 million Americans for good jobs that actually exist now and are waiting to be filled."

"I want to create a veterans job corps, so we can put our returning heroes back to work as cops and firefighters in communities that need them."

Will "create 5 million 'green' jobs; will invest $150 billion over ten years to deploy clean technologies, protect our existing manufacturing base and create millions of new jobs."

"Will address the infrastructure challenge by creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments. This independent entity will be directed to invest in our nation's most challenging transportation infrastructure needs. The Bank will receive an infusion of federal money, $60 billion over 10 years, to provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation. These projects will create up to two million new direct and indirect jobs and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity."

"Protect the jobs and benefits of workers and retirees when corporations file for bankruptcy by telling companies that they cannot issue bonuses for executives during bankruptcy while their workers watch their pensions disappear."

"Will address the infrastructure challenge by creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments. This independent entity will be directed to invest in our nation's most challenging transportation infrastructure needs. The Bank will receive an infusion of federal money, $60 billion over 10 years, to provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation. These projects will create up to two million new direct and indirect jobs and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity."





How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Monday, December 5, 2016 5:35 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Given that Obama didn't make just one 'jobs' promise, he made many, when it comes to this broken minimum-wage job opportunity -

SECOND - WHO'S PRESIDENT
RIGHT NOW?

SHOULDN'T YOU BE COMPLAINING THAT OBAMA IS FAILING TO CREATE MORE OF THE MINIMUM-WAGE JOBS HE CREATED IN THE PAST?





How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?


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Monday, December 5, 2016 5:48 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Given that Obama didn't make just one 'jobs' promise, he made many, when it comes to this broken minimum-wage job opportunity -

SECOND - WHO'S PRESIDENT
RIGHT NOW
?

SHOULDN'T YOU BE COMPLAINING THAT OBAMA IS FAILING TO CREATE MORE OF THE MINIMUM-WAGE JOBS HE CREATED IN THE PAST?

Around 75,000 workers lose their jobs every working day! For Sept 2016: 1,474,000 lost a job that month. And they find another job without Obama going on TV to brag and take all the credit, unlike Trump, who will brag for a whole month about 800 Carrier jobs. And all the credit for 800 jobs should go to Pence, not Trump, because Governor Pence spent $8,000,000 of Indiana's tax money. Again, it was not Trump.
http://myf.red/g/c2mJ


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, December 5, 2016 6:50 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Yeah, I'd say Obama did really well 'growing' manufacturing jobs. And by really well, I mean not really well.









How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Monday, December 5, 2016 7:18 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


SECOND - take a deep breath. I realize that - JUST LIKE HILLARY - you find it very difficult to say you're wrong. But you're wrong.

Quote:

Originally posted by SECOND:
Around 75,000 workers lose their jobs every working day! For Sept 2016: 1,474,000 lost a job that month. And they find another job without Obama going on TV to brag and take all the credit ... blah blah blah



If you don't believe what you're posting, then you're lying.

And if you DO believe what you're posting - then honey, you don't even have one little toe dipped in reality.

In THE GREAT RECESSION millions of jobs were eliminated. And most didn't come back. In fact, not only did those jobs fail to come back - no job of ANY kind took its place. That's why the labor participation rate dropped so drastically AND NEVER CAME BACK UP (first graph). People stopped looking for work. And - just like that - they no longer counted as being unemployed. The take-away fact is, you don't have to find a job to stop being unemployed.

When it came to manufacturing jobs specifically, 2.5 MILLION manufacturing jobs were lost (net) (second graph). Yanno, you may think hocus-pocus works - maybe it even works on you, maybe you are that genuinely clueless - but the net numbers don't lie. 2.5 MILLION more manufacturing jobs were lost than were created. Or, for the arithmetically challenged - those 2.5 MILLION manufacturing jobs disappeared.






How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016 8:50 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


1kiki you did not use the correct graph. The one you want is http://myf.red/g/c2Xe which clearly shows Bush crashing the economy and Obama bringing back employment. If you go to http://myf.red/g/bZXj you can see the employee numbers all the way back to Jan 1939. You will also see every stupid jackass move that crashes the economy made by Republican Presidents. I don’t expect Trump to be any better than past Republicans. Maybe he will pleasantly surprise us, I hope.


All Employees: Total Nonfarm, commonly known as Total Nonfarm Payroll, is a measure of the number of U.S. workers in the economy that excludes proprietors, private household employees, unpaid volunteers, farm employees, and the unincorporated self-employed. This measure accounts for approximately 80 percent of the workers who contribute to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016 8:56 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

If you don't believe what you're posting, then you're lying.

And if you DO believe what you're posting - then honey, you don't even have one little toe dipped in reality.

Yanno, you may think hocus-pocus works - maybe it even works on you, maybe you are that genuinely clueless . . .

1kiki, if you look at the blue line, you see that manufacturing jobs, as a fraction of all jobs, has been on a steady decline for decades. It did not start with the election of Bill Clinton. The blue line, left scale, shows the manufacturing share of the total, which has been falling since 1945. The red line, right scale, shows absolute employment in manufacturing, which was roughly stable from 1970 to 2000, because it was a smaller share of a larger total, but began a major decline thereafter.

People want those manufacturing jobs back, not something different. And it’s snooty and disrespectful to say that this can’t be done by Trump, even though it’s the truth.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/trade-facts-and-politics/


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/12/04/trade-and-manufacturing-jo
bs-wonkish
/
www.gc.cuny.edu/CUNY_GC/media/LISCenter/pkrugman/Trade-and-Manufacturi
ng-Employment.pdf


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016 12:46 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

Obama bringing back employment
You want fries with that?
http://www.mybudget360.com/low-wage-jobs-waiters-bartenders-manufactur
ing-jobs-growth-inventories
/
Trends in low wage America: 1.4 million waiter/bartender jobs gained while 1.4 million manufacturing jobs lost since 2007. Top 4 employment sectors pay $10 an hour or less.

Meanwhile, 3.5% of the entire workforce was permanently eliminated as workers.



YAY OBAMA!

And how DARE those voters be so ungrateful!




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016 3:10 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

Trends in low wage America: 1.4 million waiter/bartender jobs gained while 1.4 million manufacturing jobs lost since 2007. Top 4 employment sectors pay $10 an hour or less.

Meanwhile, 3.5% of the entire workforce was permanently eliminated as workers.

1kiki, what is happening to manufacturing jobs has happened before to farm jobs. The USA is down to a million farmers, but they are producing far more food than when there was 5, 10, 20, or 40 million farmers.

Sure, the USA could could add millions of farm jobs, just like in the good old days after WWII, but why would farm owners want to do that to themselves? Why go back to those days of full employment?

All the farmers I’ve heard of are farming for money. They are NOT farming to create meaningful jobs for the millions of permanently eliminated workers. The exact same is true for factory owners as for farm owners.
http://myf.red/g/c3pA

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016 4:18 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"1kiki, what is happening to manufacturing jobs has happened before to farm jobs."

Cites?

Because I come from the rust belt. Entire steel mills were closed because the owners DIDN'T want to upgrade and make them more efficient. They preferred to close them down, take the money and run. In my city, steel mill employment went down from 90,000 to zero in 25 years, with all 3 mills closed.

In fact, historically, I don't see the iron and steel industry being upgraded - I see it being downsized in terms of tons of steel ...


... and imports going up
Surging Steel Imports Put Up To Half a Million U.S. Jobs at Risk
http://www.epi.org/publication/surging-steel-imports/




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016 5:20 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
"1kiki, what is happening to manufacturing jobs has happened before to farm jobs."

Cites?

Because I come from the rust belt. Entire steel mills were closed because the owners DIDN'T want to upgrade and make them more efficient. They preferred to close them down, take the money and run. In my city, steel mill employment went down from 90,000 to zero in 25 years, with all 3 mills closed.

Companies that buy steel are NOT buying to create jobs for American steelworkers. Well, there might be some company somewhere in America that deliberately buys to create steel jobs in America, but how would they stay in business? It would take steel import quotas or trade negotiations to keep such a magnanimous steel purchasing company alive. I think the USA already has that!

What do you mean by "cites"? You want charts of farm employment and food production for the last century or else you will deny that there are fewer farm-workers in 2016 than 1916, but more food?

How about this chart for factory production: employment down, production up.
www.aei.org/publication/october-2-is-manufacturing-day-so-lets-recogni
ze-americas-world-class-manufacturing-sector-and-factory-workers
/


Well, production would be even higher if no foreign manufactured goods were imported, but then you’d have to convince Americans to pay more so that other Americans who are total strangers are employed. Good luck with convincing Americans to care about other Americans having factory jobs in another state. Also, good luck convincing foreigners to continue buying American because you (or I should say Trump) just started a trade war between America and the world.

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016 5:24 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


There are many industries that decline due to non-business factors, fishing and timber for example are due to resource depletion. The same was true of the English coal industry as the easily reached seams played out. But some industries are killed by the owners in the quest for greater profit MARGINS - like steel, textile, and auto. Not that they were losing money, mind you, they weren't making ENOUGH money to satisfy the owners. And when you add competition from cheaper imports, the industry goes into steep decline, along with its jobs.




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016 5:29 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"what is happening to manufacturing jobs has happened before to farm jobs"

Your claim was that decreased farm employment IN THE US was due to increased efficiency IN THE US.

You need a cite to show that decreased iron and steel employment IN THE US is due to increased efficiency IN THE US.

Until you do that, I'll consider your argument to be totally without merit. (Which it is anyway because historical facts don't support it. But you should go through the exercise of trying to find supporting data for your POV, just so you can discover HOW wrong it is.)




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016 6:35 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


In the meantime, here is the real history of US steel, with Ronald Reagan and the DNC thrown in for good measure.
Quote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlehem_Steel

The steel industry in the U.S. prospered during and after World War II, while the steel industries in Germany and Japan lay devastated by Allied bombardment. Bethlehem Steel's high point came in the 1950s, as the company began manufacturing some 23 million tons per year. ... The U.S. advantage lasted about two decades, during which the U.S. steel industry operated with little foreign competition. But eventually, the foreign firms were rebuilt with modern techniques such as continuous casting, while profitable U.S. companies resisted modernization. Bethlehem experimented with continuous casting but never fully adopted the practice.

This is well-known history.

But I'd like to point out two things. One is that - as I've posted and linked elsewhere - US hourly wages started to decline at that point (1970), dropping a third or more over the years. It was at that point that women entered the labor market in force, not because they were bored housewives looking for personal fulfillment, but in order to maintain the household level of income. And it was at that time, as I've proposed elsewhere, that post-war buoyant optimism about a better future gave way to economic unease.

It was that festering economic anxiety that Reagan addressed in the 80's, that democrats and the DNC failed to acknowledge - a pattern that continues to this day, a mere 30 years later. (SOMEbody needs to wake up and smell the coffee! And it was during Reagan's second term that 'd' identification among the population dropped from 40-45% to 32-36%, while 'r' rose an equal amount - a reversal that never returned to its previous state.)

But the other point was the failure of the steel industry to reduce profit and reinvest in modernization, to better compete in the future.

Even when I was a teen, there was a lot of bitterness among the steelworkers over that. They could see that without reinvestment, the handwriting was already on the wall. They actually understood that they were going to be bled dry, then cut off. A foretelling that was tragically accurate over the coming years.

The steel industry specifically did NOT lose employment because it got more efficient. It was flogged forward as-is, every last possible penny of profit was squeezed out, and the mills were then closed. Whether or not the US WORKER deserved that fate, the US STEEL INDUSTRY brought it on themselves.

The same is true of the auto industry - stuck in old production facilities, with gas-guzzling old-style models, and none of the modern qc oversight used by foreign companies - Japanese autos specifically. And the fate of the US auto industry is a well-known story.



I'm also aware of how this played out during the election. And there's an aspect to it that's intrinsically unfair.

Women, minorities and older employees have been living in a great-recession economy since 1950. You got a low-wage cleaning job, waitressing, unskilled manual labor, or temp work? I'm sure you can find a woman, minority, or older worker to fill it! But those good manufacturing job opportunities just haven't been there for us the way they were for white males.

It wasn't until job losses hit WHITE WORKING-CLASS MALES and WHITE WORKING-CLASS COMMUNITIES that - magically! - it became a hot button political issue.

Really? NOW it's a problem?

Be that as it may, by failing to recognize the economic issues eating away at the country, the DNC shot itself in the foot, promising more of the same economic policies. Well, that and running a wildly unpopular candidate with net negatives, who was dragging around the rotting email issue, where the BEST that could be said about Hillary was - she wasn't indicted over it.





How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Wednesday, December 7, 2016 8:11 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
"what is happening to manufacturing jobs has happened before to farm jobs"

Your claim was that decreased farm employment IN THE US was due to increased efficiency IN THE US.

You need a cite to show that decreased iron and steel employment IN THE US is due to increased efficiency IN THE US.

Until you do that, I'll consider your argument to be totally without merit. (Which it is anyway because historical facts don't support it. But you should go through the exercise of trying to find supporting data for your POV, just so you can discover HOW wrong it is.)

Because the steel industry might prove your point, you think you've proved your point for all industries? That is not clever. And it does not prove that Trump can increase factory jobs with his all talk, all tax break strategy. Trump has to do more, like FDR, and write purchase orders for American made products like tanks, guns, bombs, ships, planes. Today is Pearl Harbor Day. Or Trump could write purchase orders for American made new houses, roads, hotels, bridges, sewers, power lines, solar power electricity. Depends on whether Trump wants to be remembered as the War President or the Peace President.

And while we are dreaming that Trump will create factory jobs by purchasing American made products with tax money, let us dream that Trump will write a purchase order for 100 new episodes of Firefly. At $10 million per episode, same as Westworld, 100 episodes only costs $1 billion. Joss Whedon will be drafted by the Pentagon to make this show as a morale booster for the troops. Nathan Fillion can't be drafted because he is Canadian, but he is available now that Castle was canceled. It would be tax money well spent, since FOX and Universal won't spend their money on Firefly.

If Trump brings back Firefly, I will vote for him in 2020. I swear on the Bible, but only if Trump pays for 100 episodes, upfront, because I would be deeply depressed if Firefly was canceled after merely 13 more episodes.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, December 7, 2016 8:12 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Fareed Zakaria — international commentator on CNN every Sunday morning — analyzes the kinship some strongmen, like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, feel toward Vladimir Putin and Trump. Four minutes.
www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/11/19/exp-gps-1120-take-trump-admirers.cnn



These foreign admirers are cheering Trump. What do they have in common?
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/these-foreign-admirers-are-cheering-tr
ump-what-do-they-have-in-common/2016/11/17/bdd48978-ad0d-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html


Much of the world has been shocked and dismayed by Donald Trump’s electoral success, but there are those who are delighted. “This was a victory for the forces which oppose globalization, are fighting illegal migration and are in favor of clean ethnic states,” declared a spokesperson for Golden Dawn, Greece’s far-right party, which is sometimes characterized as neo-Nazi. Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister who has said he wants to build an “illiberal state” in his country, hailed the results as “great news.” The deputy leader of France’s right-wing National Front Party, historically seen as ultra-nationalist and anti-Semitic, was exultant as well. “Their world is collapsing. Ours is being built,” he said.

You cannot be judged by those who approve of your actions, but it’s worth trying to understand what Trump’s admirers are celebrating. In some cases, Trump’s appeal is that he is against political correctness. Beppe Grillo, the former comedian who now leads Italy’s Five Star Movement, noted that like Trump, his party had been labeled sexist and populist but that people didn’t care. The Guardian, which has compiled many of the favorable responses, reported that Grillo applauded Trump supporters for filtering out the media and giving a big “f--k you” to the “freemasons, major banks and Chinese groups.”

For others, it is the sense of kinship among strongmen who are unconcerned with human rights. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad called Trump a “natural ally.” Rodrigo Duterte, the authoritarian leader of the Philippines, said of him, “We both like to swear .?.?. we’re the same.” Duterte has been hostile to the United States because Washington has criticized the extrajudicial killings and human rights abuses that have marked his tenure. Robert Mugabe, who has clung to power in Zimbabwe for 36 years while destroying that nation’s economy and liberties, has been similarly hopeful. A full-page editorial in a state-run paper there hailed the election of “the mighty Trump,” and the 92-year-old dictator has reportedly described Trump as a “friend.” No doubt Duterte and Mugabe hope that a Trump administration will go easy on them.

What unifies Trump’s foreign admirers is the idea that the existing global order is rotten and should be torn down. Many of Trump’s domestic supporters would agree. All of the European parties cheering Trump’s victory seek the destruction of the European Union and, more generally, the tightly knit Western community centered upon shared values and interests. They are almost all strikingly pro-Russian because they see in Vladimir Putin’s Russia a country that actively seeks to undermine the current international system. Many of these groups take covert and overt support from Russia and benefit from the Kremlin’s cyberwarfare. “We all need to use [Trump’s election] together to reshape the transatlantic relationship, and to end the big conflicts in Ukraine and Syria together with Russia,” said Frauke Petry, the leader of Germany’s ultra-nationalist party Alternative fur Deutschland, according to the Guardian.

But what is this globalism to which these people are so opposed? After 1945, after the Great Depression and two world wars, Western nations established an international system characterized by rules that honored national sovereignty, allowed for the flourishing of global commerce, and encouraged respect for human rights and liberties. This order resulted in the longest period of peace among the world’s major powers, marked by broad-based economic growth that created large middle classes in the West, the revival of Europe, growth in poor countries that lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and the spread of freedom across the globe.

The U.S. role in all this was pivotal. It set the agenda and provided security, which was about more than just deterring the Soviet Union and other aggressive powers. Radek Sikorski, Poland’s former foreign minister, said, “America’s influence and its commitments have been our security blanket. They have allowed Europe’s national rivalries to stay dormant. If you take away those guarantees, Europe could get very unstable.” And remember, the European Union is the world’s biggest market and the United States’ largest trading partner.

For the United States, “globalism” has produced enormous advantages. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States dominates the global economy, in technology, education, finance and clean energy. One in five U.S. jobs is a result of trade, and that number is growing fast. The United States maintains the world’s reserve currency, giving it a huge economic advantage.

The benefits of growth and globalization have not been shared equally, and the pace of change causes anxiety everywhere. But these are reasons to invest in people, upgrade their skills and better integrate communities. They are not reasons to destroy the most peaceful and productive international system ever devised in human history.

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Wednesday, December 7, 2016 9:07 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The Trump Era of Crony Capitalism Has Officially Started

Last week, Trump took a baby step into the world of crony capitalism by bribing/threatening United Technologies to keep a Carrier plant in Indiana so that Trump would look good. Today, he took a big ol' dive into the crony capitalism pool, tanking Boeing's stock because they had displeased him, and boosting T-Mobile and Sprint because investor Masayoshi Son had agreed to say nice things about him. (Trump may allow T-Mobile and Sprint to merge. Obama forbid that merger in 2014 because it may raise phone prices.)

Now, in both cases the effects were temporary. Still, is this going to be a regular thing? Are American equity markets now in thrall to the whims of Donald Trump? Do companies need to be fearful of what the president of the United States might do to them if he happens to take a dislike to something they do?

And while I know how annoying this question can be, can you even imagine how Republicans would react if Barack Obama pulled this kind of stunt? Fox News would practically explode and Representative Jason Chaffetz would start gearing up for a year or two of hearings. But since it's Trump doing it, there's nothing but silence. Apparently government non-interference in the free market isn't quite so sacred after all.

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/12/trump-era-crony-capitalism-has-
officially-started



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, December 7, 2016 1:29 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


He ‘lied his a– off': Carrier union leader on Trump’s big deal

Jones, president of the United Steelworkers 1999, which represents Carrier employees, felt optimistic when Trump announced last week that he’d reached a deal with the factory’s parent company, United Technologies, to preserve 1,100 of the Indianapolis jobs — until the union leader heard from Carrier that only 730 of the production jobs would stay and 550 of his members would lose their livelihoods, after all.

At the Dec. 1 meeting, where Trump was supposed to lay out the details, Jones hoped he would explain himself.

“But he got up there,” Jones said Tuesday, “and, for whatever reason, lied his a-- off.”

In front of a crowd of about 150 supervisors, production workers and reporters, Trump praised Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies. "Now they’re keeping — actually the number’s over 1,100 people,” he said, “which is so great.”

Jones wondered why the president-elect appeared to be inflating the victory. Trump and Pence, he said, could take credit for rescuing 800 of the Carrier jobs, including non-union positions.

“Trump and Pence, they pulled a dog and pony show on the numbers,” said Jones.

United Technologies still plans to send 700 factory jobs from Huntington, Ind, to Monterrey, Mexico.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/06/he-got-up-there-and-lie
d-his-a-off-carrier-union-leader-on-trumps-big-deal
/

Donald Trump has only kept half his promise to stop jobs at a Carrier plant from moving to Mexico, according to the union president who represents hourly workers at the Indianapolis factory.

"You made a promise to keep all these jobs. You half-way delivered," said Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, when asked what he would like to tell Trump. "We expect you go back and keep all the jobs."

http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/07/news/companies/trump-carrier-plant-mex
ico-union/index.html


Trump lost his cool. He smeared Chuck Jones on Twitter:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!
6:41 PM-7 Dec 2016
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/806660011904614408

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana. Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues
7:56 PM-7 Dec 2016
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/806678853305384960

Chuck Jones said he didn't have time to worry about Trump. “He needs to worry about getting his Cabinet filled and leave me the hell alone.”

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2016/12/07/donald-trump-retal
iated-against-a-union-leader-on-twitter-then-his-phone-started-to-ring
/

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Wednesday, December 7, 2016 11:48 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

Because the steel industry might prove your point, you think you've proved your point for all industries?
Except the same is true for the auto and textile industries as well. This is WELL KNOWN HISTORY - except, apparently, to the perpetually ignorant.

AT THE TIME, steel, auto and textile represented major economic areas of production. They still do, except now chips and electronics have been added in, using transistors invented by Bell Labs. And where are chips and electronics manufactured? Hmmm ... Samsung. Hitachi. Sony. Foxconn. What do YOU think? Do they sound like US manufacturers?

Steel, auto, textile, chips and electronics have left for Asia. But what the hell. All those manufacturing jobs that disappeared are trivial. Right?


Anyway, I have really, truly zero interest in educating you. Anyone who knows even a little bit of history knows these are the facts.

But go ahead. Join the global warming deniers with your righteous, indignant, certain denial of facts. I refuse to waste my time on you. I cede the field to the loudest and most ignorant.

Keep on keeping on, and remain forever perplexed by the reality of a Hillary loss. It was truly an event not part of this timeline, without cause or history, forever an inexplicable outlier in the story you mistake for reality.






How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 7:43 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Hee hee - you know ole kikstarter mimed a mic drop after typing those sentences, pleased as punch with herself


GSTRING: EPIC FAIL.



-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake


"If I could write inflammatory commentary to scorch the eye brows and lashes off Trump, Signym or 1kiki, I would.- SECOND"

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 9:01 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

Hmmm ... Samsung. Hitachi. Sony. Foxconn. What do YOU think? Do they sound like US manufacturers?

Steel, auto, textile, chips and electronics have left for Asia. But what the hell. All those manufacturing jobs that disappeared are trivial. Right?

For work that cannot be sent overseas, perhaps Trump has an alternative plan, which he has not articulated, to bring the foreigners here:

Member of Trump’s Labor Department Transition Team Specializes in Recruiting Cheap Foreign Labor

A newly-appointed member of Donald Trump’s Department of Labor “landing team” — tasked with helping set up and implement the transition to a Trump administration — is the president of a recruiting agency that specializes in connecting employers, including major hotels, with temporary laborers from Mexico, the Caribbean, and other parts of the developing world.

Veronica Birkenstock, named to the Department of Labor team on Monday, is the president of Practical Employee Solutions (PES). PES promotes itself as specializing in the use of H-2B visas, having recruited “over 40,000” workers in fields including hospitality, landscaping, welding, and construction, from 80 different countries. It is also the “preferred vendor of Marriott and Starwood Hotels.”

H-2B visas are reserved for foreign workers who are not immigrants: They come to the country to do typically seasonal, temporary work. The sole purpose of these visas is for nonagricultural employers to bring in employees to do what is basically low-income, low-skilled labor.

Donald Trump campaigned on a form of economic nationalism that puts “America First,” and in his video announcing his plan for his first 100 days, he pledged to have the Department of Labor “investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker.”

The H-2B program has come under criticism for helping suppress wages of domestic workers. The Economic Policy Institute, which Trump frequently cited on the campaign trail, believes that the program leaves “workers vulnerable to low pay and abuse.”

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/06/member-of-trumps-labor-department-
transition-team-specializes-in-recruiting-cheap-foreign-labor
/

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 9:49 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

"If I could write inflammatory commentary to scorch the eye brows and lashes off Trump, Signym or 1kiki, I would.- SECOND"

Signym, you can be all smug about Trump until his first crisis that is so dangerously hot that his bushy eyebrows are scorched. Then we'll see who he really is:

Trump’s masterful showmanship is the perfect match for good times

Trump probably fared quite a bit worse than a more conventional Republican Party nominee with less baggage would have done. But now that the election is over, Trump is back to displaying his incredible knack for publicity, having within a few short weeks mastered a problem that has bedeviled incumbent politicians for years: How do you get people to pay attention to what you’re doing?

This is a real skill, and as long as objective conditions in the world remain roughly the opposite of how Trump described them — unemployment and crime are low, incomes are rising, ISIS is on the defensive — it’s going to serve Trump very well and drive liberals batty. The problem for Trump will come where it comes for any president: when the going gets tough.

Donald Trump sells the drama

Trump’s tweets feature lots of vendettas, lies, and trivia that make it a fascinating antidote to the antiseptic, workshopped tweets of the typical politician. So people pay attention.

Every Trump live television appearance carries the tantalizing possibility that something awful will happen — maybe he’ll call for his opponent to be jailed or say something racist or simply false. Whatever happens, we can be pretty sure we won’t just get an anodyne stump speech. Unpredictability guarantees interest.

Trump rather brilliantly turned the Carrier affair into so much more than a case of dickering over a single plant and ultimately settling for half a loaf. There was drama, there was conflict, and there was mystery. A more professional handling of the matter would have garnered Trump some positive headlines in Indiana and been ignored nationally. Instead, Trump dominated the agenda for days with a rather small initiative.

Rather than offering calm in dramatic times, Trump sells drama around small stories — driving massive interest among fans and critics alike, but ultimately focusing attention on what he wants to focus attention on. It’s a masterpiece, and it’s likely that when temperatures cool down, politicians from both parties will learn that there is an upside to Trump’s looser approach and a downside to the knee-jerk gaffe aversion that has taken over so much of politics.

Against a backdrop of economic growth, climbing wages, and a quasi-stable global order, Trump’s weird, personality-driven industrial policy will be consistent with a story in which Trump is taking a decent situation and making it better.

The problem is there are going to be problems

Unfortunately, past presidents have generally learned that the problem of how to best claim credit for good times — though difficult — is not really the hardest part of the job.

The difficult problem is dealing with actual problems in a remotely satisfactory way. Whether we’re talking about a financial markets panic, a foreign crisis, or a natural disaster, the inevitable vicissitudes of life suggest that sooner or later a big scary story will dominate the landscape. Past presidents have found that when something bad happens, once-valorized personality traits become demonized. The relatable, comfortable-in-his-skin George W. Bush was viewed as passive and incompetent in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and a growing insurgency in Iraq. The calm, collected Obama was seen as cold and out of touch as ISIS stormed to power in the Middle East.

Trump’s frenetic, unpredictable personality makes him a fascinating attention magnet in a way that’s very useful in good times. But when all eyes are on the president and looking for a workable solution to a very real crisis, that same disposition is likely to seem unnerving and erratic. Maybe he’ll get lucky and nothing bad will happen while he’s in office. Or maybe he’ll surprise us and prove to be an astute crisis manager and student of public policy, who swiftly solves problems as they arise and keeps us on the path of peace and prosperity.

But most likely Trump’s publicity successes will thrill his fans and infuriate his foes (which will only thrill his fans more), right up until the moment disaster strikes — at which point we’ll all remember that showmanship isn’t really the most important part of the job.

www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/8/13863910/trump-showman-crisi
s


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 11:32 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Steel, auto, textile, chips and electronics have left for Asia. But what the hell. All those manufacturing jobs that disappeared are trivial. Right?


Anyway, I have really, truly zero interest in educating you. Anyone who knows even a little bit of history knows these are the facts.

But go ahead. Join the global warming deniers with your righteous, indignant, certain denial of facts. I refuse to waste my time on you. I cede the field to the loudest and most ignorant.

Keep on keeping on, and remain forever perplexed by the reality of a Hillary loss. It was truly an event not part of this timeline, without cause or history, forever an inexplicable outlier in the story you mistake for reality.




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 11:49 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


You'd THINK that the opposition to Trump would be headed by Hillary, as the anointed avatar of the 'democratic' party. You'd THINK that Obama would offer up some pithy observation, as senior spokesman and president, with all his achievements soon to be thrown in the trash. You'd THINK that the 'democratic' party would have learned the lesson about 'business as usual' and appointed someone OTHER than Nancy Pelosi as House Minority Leader. You THINK that the 'democratic' party as a whole would be girding its loins, and getting ready for bruising battles against the Trump agenda.

You'd be wrong.

Hillary has disappeared, Obama is pleading with democrats to be nice and give Trump a chance, and Pelosi is smugly ensconced. Apparently they received their orders from their masters.

The only one who's taken up the fight is Bernie.

https://www.bustle.com/articles/199001-bernie-sanders-statement-on-sco
tt-pruitt-points-out-why-he-is-a-terrible-choice-to-head

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA, and Bernie Sanders is making it clear that he is against that choice. The former Democratic presidential candidate released a statement Wednesday after news of the selection broke, saying he is "vigorously opposed" to Trump's "sad and dangerous" decision to put Pruitt in charge of the environmental agency.




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 12:44 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Steel, auto, textile, chips and electronics have left for Asia. But what the hell. All those manufacturing jobs that disappeared are trivial. Right?

Anyway, I have really, truly zero interest in educating you. Anyone who knows even a little bit of history knows these are the facts.

Hey genius 1kiki! How about this chart for factory production: employment down, production is going up, up, up.

The manufacturing jobs are disappearing because American-Factory-Owners are NOT in the job-creating-business. They never have been in that business.

The factory owners are making more product than ever before. If Trump or Republicans want to turn American factories into job-creating-machines, they will have to pay the factory owners extra, or else use force on the factory owners, to hire people to work inefficiently at slow speeds.
www.aei.org/publication/october-2-is-manufacturing-day-so-lets-recogni
ze-americas-world-class-manufacturing-sector-and-factory-workers
/



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 1:46 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


So I went back to your source's source, because the graph was uninformative.

http://bea.gov/scb/pdf/2016/2%20February/0216_integrated_historical_in
put_output_and_gdp_by_industry_accounts.pdf


This tells a much more complete picture. In 1947 imports made up 2% of domestic share. In 1997 they were 18%. So roughly 16% of jobs were lost to imports by 1997. But 1997 was a long time ago.

This provides a more recent picture: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/12/06/2180771/how-many-us-manufacturi
ng-jobs-were-lost-to-globalisation
/

Here are relevant quotes:

"The implication is that the share of domestic demand satisfied by imports soared from about 30 per cent in 1990 to about 50 per cent by the eve of the crisis."

"Manufacturing employment was pretty steady throughout the 1990s at around 17.5 million, but subsequently collapsed to about 12.3 million today."

"Without greater import penetration in the 1990s — before China joined the World Trade Organization — booming domestic demand should have caused US manufacturing output to rise relative to GDP. Despite the subsequent slump in the 2000s, which was likely induced by technological advancement obviating the need for certain workers, manufacturing output as a share of GDP in the more optimistic scenarios would have been about the same on the eve of the 2008 downturn as it was in the beginning of the 1990s. The bust would have been sharper but the rebound would have been much stronger.

None of this is to recommend particular policies, nor to say America would have been better off in the absence of import penetration. Hopefully, however, it is clear that a significant chunk of the manufacturing jobs lost in the past few years can be attributed to foreign competition rather than “inevitable” technological change."




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 1:47 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.



You'd THINK that the opposition to Trump would be headed by Hillary, as the anointed avatar of the 'democratic' party. You'd THINK that Obama would offer up some pithy observation, as senior spokesman and president, with all his achievements soon to be thrown in the trash. You'd THINK that the 'democratic' party would have learned the lesson about 'business as usual' and appointed someone OTHER than Nancy Pelosi as House Minority Leader. You THINK that the 'democratic' party as a whole would be girding its loins, and getting ready for bruising battles against the Trump agenda.

You'd be wrong.

Hillary has disappeared, Obama is pleading with democrats to be nice and give Trump a chance, and Pelosi is smugly ensconced. Apparently they received their orders from their masters.

The only one who's taken up the fight is Bernie.

https://www.bustle.com/articles/199001-bernie-sanders-statement-on-sco
tt-pruitt-points-out-why-he-is-a-terrible-choice-to-head

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA, and Bernie Sanders is making it clear that he is against that choice. The former Democratic presidential candidate released a statement Wednesday after news of the selection broke, saying he is "vigorously opposed" to Trump's "sad and dangerous" decision to put Pruitt in charge of the environmental agency.




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?


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Thursday, December 8, 2016 5:44 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

The only one who's taken up the fight is Bernie.

I got an email from Bernie that said, “What we are going to do is rally millions and millions of working people for whom Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are life and death. If we stand together and fight back, WE ARE GONNA WIN THIS.”

Since it is Life and Death, if I was Bernie, I’d want to know why people elected Trump and his party to thousands of local, state and national offices because the GOP wants you dead.

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 5:50 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

None of this is to recommend particular policies, nor to say America would have been better off in the absence of import penetration. Hopefully, however, it is clear that a significant chunk of the manufacturing jobs lost in the past few years can be attributed to foreign competition rather than “inevitable” technological change."

Even though you are not recommending particular policies, 1kiki, your hope or scheme or overarching wish to bring factory jobs back to America will fail because Americans want cheap goods more than they want to help American factory workers get a job.

If Americans gave a damn about other Americans, they wouldn’t act as they do. To be more particular, I’d say there is plenty of empirical proof that Americans do not give a damn about American factory workers because Americans don’t check for the country of origin of their purchases.

Americans may bitch about Chinese products, but they don't return them to the store for a refund or demand an American product as a replacement. If even only a million Americans started making loud complaints to the store owner and returning everything Chinese to stores, things would change. If twenty million Americans complain, fewer than voted for Trump, things would change very fast. The reason complaints would work, when voting in secret once every four years does not work, is because the complaints are loud, public, and about money, lots and lots of money for purchases.

The beautiful part is you aren't waiting for Trump to keep his empty promises on factory jobs.

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 6:07 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

if I was Bernie, I’d want to know why people elected Trump and his party to thousands of local, state and national offices because the GOP wants you dead
The answer is readily apparent. The 'democratic' party lost everything except the presidency in 2010 when Obama and Congress failed to walk the talk.
And then, they lost their last remaining bulwark when the 'democratic' party was stupid enough to shoehorn Hillary in.
My question is, why aren't you supporting Bernie, since at the moment he's the ONLY POLITICIAN standing between you and Trump?




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 6:13 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

And then, they lost their last remaining bulwark when the 'democratic' party was stupid enough to shoehorn Hillary in.

My question is, why aren't you supporting Bernie, since at the moment he's the ONLY POLITICIAN standing between you and Trump?

Bernie is McGovern.

If you ever heard of Nixon vs McGovern you might know that American voters are stupid. How stupid? Stupid enough to make 1972 a landslide victory for Nixon.

Americans just couldn’t accept the idea that Vietnam was a stupid war, fought with a stupid strategy, to please stupid Americans by a fool of a President.

History proved McGovern right and Nixon wrong. Did Americans learn nothing from that history? Yes to nothing. Bernie was against Nixon. Nixon won a second term. Trump will win again in 2020, same as Nixon.

Bernie is now in a valiant struggle against Trump, as was McGovern against Nixon. The results will be the same. Stupidity will win again.
www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/12/george-will-confirms-nixons-viet
nam-treason
#

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 6:14 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

If Americans gave a damn about other Americans, they wouldn’t act as they do.
Spend some of that fabulous wealth you have (ahem!) and move to California. Then you could stop generalizing about 'Americans' as if it's the only story, instead of being mired in your ass-fuck view from Texas (ahem!).




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 6:19 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:

If Americans gave a damn about other Americans, they wouldn’t act as they do.
Spend some of that fabulous wealth you have (ahem!) and move to California. Then you could stop generalizing about 'Americans' as if it's the only story, instead of being mired in your ass-fuck view from Texas (ahem!).

Are Californians buying Chinese goods than returning them to the store and complaining to the owner that he does not carry American goods? If Californians were, I would have heard on the news. One third of Californians voted for Trump. Why aren't they making a big stink in public about foreign goods? My explanation is that people who vote for Trump are chickens who don't believe they can do anything; Trump has to do it for them.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 6:33 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Bernie is McGovern.

It looks more like Hillary was McGovern - down in the polls with strong negatives.
Quote:

At the time of his announcement (1971), McGovern ranked fifth among Democrats in a presidential preference Gallup Poll.[
Most polls showed McGovern running well behind incumbent President Richard Nixon, except when McGovern was paired with Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. McGovern and his campaign brain trust lobbied Senator Kennedy heavily to accept the bid to be McGovern's running mate, but he continually refused their advances ...
Just over two weeks after his nomination, it was revealed that McGovern's running mate, Thomas Eagleton, had received electroshock therapy for clinical depression during the 1960s. Eagleton had made no mention of his earlier hospitalizations to McGovern or McGovern's staff, and in fact decided with his wife to keep them secret from McGovern while he was flying to his first meeting with the Presidential nominee.




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 6:43 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Are Californians buying Chinese goods than returning them to the store and complaining to the owner that he does not carry American goods?

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/ballot-measures/
Californians are walking the talk on jobs, infrastructure, education, and environment. I'm sorry that you're so bitter about human nature, due to your extensive time in ass-fuck TexASS:

Yes 51 K-12 and Community College Facilities
Yes 52 Medi-Cal Hospital Fee Program
Yes 54 Legislative Procedure Requirements
Yes 55 Tax Extension for Education and Healthcare
Yes 56 Cigarette Tax
Yes 58 English Proficiency. Multilingual Education.
Yes 59 Corporate Political Spending Advisory Question
Yes 67 Ban on Single-use Plastic Bags




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 6:49 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

It looks more like Hillary was McGovern - down in the polls with strong negatives.

My prewritten “Clinton wins” story explains a lot about why she lost.
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/5/13794586/why-hillary-clinton
-lost

Quote:

It’s largely forgotten now, but one of the signature moments of the 2016 campaign happened way back in March at a debate in Miami during the height of Bernie Sanders’s insurgent presidential campaign. Moderator Karen Tumulty asked Hillary Clinton a tough question. Not about her health care plans or her foreign policy — it was personal.

Tumulty brought up a poll showing that most Americans say Clinton is not trustworthy and asked, “Is there anything in your own actions and the decisions that you yourself have made that would foster this kind of mistrust?”

Clinton hemmed and hawed a little and then got right down to it.

“I am not a natural politician like my husband or President Obama,” she said. “So I have a view that I just have to do the best I can, get the results I can, make a difference in people's lives, and hope that people see that I'm fighting for them.”

In some respects, Clinton sold herself short here. It takes a certain kind of political genius to get yourself elected to a US Senate seat in a state where you’ve never lived. And it took real political skills to essentially clear the 2016 field of any rivals who’d be acceptable to the leadership of the Democratic Party. But down in the trenches with Sanders — and later in the trenches with Donald Trump, and eight years earlier in her run against Barack Obama — Clinton did show that she is genuinely not a very impressive performer on the stump. Her speeches aren’t inspiring like Obama’s or eerily intimate like Bill’s.

If Democrats wanted to pick a nominee who would give better speeches, they could have. More broadly, if Democrats wanted to pick a nominee whose biography and skills were maximized to winning the 2016 election, they could have.

The cliché is that you campaign in poetry — and Clinton is, frankly, a lousy poet.

Bernie is a great poet. The rest of the story was about how you govern in prose; building elite coalitions and thinking about political viability is very important. Bernie does not do that very well. That is why he is an "Independent".


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Thursday, December 8, 2016 7:06 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

Tumulty brought up a poll showing that most Americans say Clinton is not trustworthy and asked, “Is there anything in your own actions and the decisions that you yourself have made that would foster this kind of mistrust?”

Clinton hemmed and hawed a little and then got right down to it.

The fact that she got caught in so MANY lies apparently had nothing to do with it! At least, according to Clinton.
Quote:

It takes a certain kind of political genius to get yourself elected to a US Senate seat in a state where you’ve never lived.
Where her record of non-accomplishment speaks for her.
Quote:

And it took real political skills to essentially clear the 2016 field of any rivals who’d be acceptable to the leadership of the Democratic Party.
Let's not forget the connivance of the DNC, Obama, her operatives, and dirty tricks, as revealed by wikileaks.
Quote:

The cliché is that you campaign in poetry — and Clinton is, frankly, a lousy poet.
That and ALL that baggage she was dragging around - WHICH SHE EARNED ON HER OWN RECORD.




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 7:09 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


But Hillary is a dead issue. And she's not stumping for you as a counter to Trump. I hope you're not holding your breath waiting for Hillary to rescue you.




How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 7:23 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Are Californians buying Chinese goods than returning them to the store and complaining to the owner that he does not carry American goods?

http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/ballot-measures/
Californians are walking the talk on jobs, infrastructure, education, and environment. I'm sorry that you're so bitter about human nature, due to your extensive time in ass-fuck TexASS.

I see that Californians voted No on #62 Repeal of Death Penalty, Yes on #66 exempting prison officials from existing regulation process for developing execution methods. That sounds like Texas. But the plastic bag ban #67 passed. That would never pass in Texas, except in Austin.

You failed to understand the big picture, 1kiki. If Trump voters want American factory jobs back from China, they better not wait on Trump. Trump voters better complain at stores to the owner about the Chinese goods on the shelf.

I, on the other hand, did not vote for Trump. I am not complaining about Chinese goods. Within easy reach I have a printer from Vietnam by a Japanese company, a monitor and lights from China by a Dutch company. None of that is a problem for me, but every Trump voter should look at country of origin for everything they buy. Yet Trump voters are waiting for Trump to fix their lives for them. Instead, he will screw them, which takes no more effort for him than breathing.

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 7:49 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

You failed to understand the big picture, 1kiki. If Trump voters want American factory jobs back from China, they better not wait on Trump. Trump voters better complain at stores to the owner about the Chinese goods on the shelf.
It's not that I don't see the BIG picture - but that your thinking is far too small.
You seem to think that the 'problem' is driven at the consumer end. But not only are consumers not the only source of economic demand, consumer goods manufacture aren't the only jobs of value.
Government demand - for infrastructure for example - can be a significant source of demand and employment. And that's one place California consistently votes to pass. Not only for schools as the measures above indicate, but roads, earthquake retrofitting, and public works.
Oh ... I have to get to something.
No time left for you.





How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 7:49 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.



But Hillary is a dead issue. And she's not stumping for you as a counter to Trump. I hope you're not holding your breath waiting for Hillary to rescue you.





How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Thursday, December 8, 2016 10:22 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


So, to get back to consumer goods mfg being sent to foreign countries:

https://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-manufacturing-costs-revealed/
Dediu took two key revelations from the "Nightline" report--that each iPhone takes 24 hours to be built, including 6 to 8 hours of software and component "burn-in" and testing, and that workers on the line make $1.78 an hour.
He then ran that information through some calculations to come up with a new cost range for the labor it takes to make each iPhone, and found the following.
Those costs are likely to range between $12.5 and $30 per unit.

http://www.thebudgetfashionista.com/archive/designer-jeans-make-cost/
True Costs: How Much Does that Pair of Designer Jeans Cost to Make?
When all is said and done, jeans abroad can be created under so-called humane conditions for as little as $0.90 in Bangladesh according to Here & Now. Jeans likes these are often retailed for $20 and up and behind the scenes,

http://solecollector.com/news/2014/12/how-much-it-costs-nike-to-make-a
-100-shoe

How much does Nike actually spend on a pair of sneakers that retails for $100? About $28.50.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142405270230372540457946195367283867
2

A set of sheets that cost less than $100 to make may carry a retail price of $450 or more.



The end result is that sending mfg out of the country isn't about about them making ANY profit, it's about them making MORE profit.





How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Friday, December 9, 2016 7:58 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

It's not that I don't see the BIG picture - but that your thinking is far too small. You seem to think that the 'problem' is driven at the consumer end. But not only are consumers not the only source of economic demand, consumer goods manufacture aren't the only jobs of value. . . .

The end result is that sending mfg out of the country isn't about about them making ANY profit, it's about them making MORE profit.

Trump voters need to start with what they have control over: their purchases. I'm not doing it because Trump voters are nuts, but Trump voters need to do it to show their patriotism.

Trump voters can show their deep concern for jobless Americans by NOT buying those pants or shoes or sheets NOT made in America. Trump voters can start NOW. Why wait until next year? And why should Trump voters wait four more year when Trump fails to deliver because the GOP is really on the side of the factory owners, not the workers?

A more powerful message can be sent to the manufacturer. Trump voters can buy the foreign goods, for example every pair of pants in the store, hold the pants until the last day the pants can be returned, then bring hundreds of pants back to the store for a refund. The store owner will pass the message on to the manufacturer that Trump voters are angry at foreign made goods and are not willing to wait for Trump & the GOP to pass tariffs, quotas, whatever.

But I don't think any Trump voters will do anything new or different. They do NOT want to pay higher prices for American made goods, even to help Americans with no jobs. And Trump voters don't want to be disruptive in public at the return desk of Sears or Walmart or Kohls. Trump voters would rather be silently angry for four years then vote in secret for Trump in 2020.

In Texas, Trump voters are all talk. They won’t do a damn thing to help create more jobs in America. They are not willing to pay higher prices for American made goods. And Trump isn't really serious about helping unemployed workers get sewing jobs in American pants factories, in my opinion. It was mostly talk to get more votes, but we will soon see if Trump and the GOP will only do just enough to convince Trump voters that they care, but not enough to solve Trump's “problem” of foreign goods killing jobs for Americans.

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Friday, December 9, 2016 8:01 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The Economics of Regional Self-Esteem
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/the-economics-of-regional-
self-esteem
/

Donald Trump won the electoral college at least in part by promising to bring coal jobs back to Appalachia and manufacturing jobs back to the Rust Belt. Neither promise can be honored – for the most part we’re talking about jobs lost, not to unfair foreign competition, but to technological change. But a funny thing happens when people like me try to point that out: we get enraged responses from economists who feel an affinity for the working people of the afflicted regions – responses that assume that trying to do the numbers must reflect contempt for regional cultures, or something.

So the other day I mused about the dilemmas of dealing with regional backlash, and noted that even lavishly funded attempts to shore up declining regions don’t seem to work very well. Here’s what I said:

"The track record of regional support policies in other countries, which spend far more on such things than we are likely to, is pretty poor. For example, massive aid to the former East Germany hasn’t prevented a large decline in population, much bigger than the population decline in Appalachia over the same period."

In response, I get a long, furious piece from Lyman Stone denouncing me:

"Krugman and those who believe him want to believe that the fears of Appalachians (or Rust Belters, or what have you) are overblown, that life has not been so bad for them as it seems."

Wait; did I say that? I don’t think so. In fact, if I thought everything was OK in Appalachia, I wouldn’t have used it as a comparator for Eastern Germany. The point was precisely that Appalachia is a byword for regional decline, which makes it striking that East Germany, which has received far more aid than Appalachia can dream of, is suffering an even faster demographic decline.

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Friday, December 9, 2016 8:28 AM

REAVERFAN


Just how gullible/misinformed are Trump voters?

Shocking New Poll Shows That A Vast Majority Of Trump Voters Live In Another Reality

We've reached a dangerous point in our politics where people are divided not just by different political ideologies, but also by their belief in reality.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/12/08/trump-supporters-alternate-real
ity.html


A PPP poll out today says Trump voters believe 60% to 40% that the stock market has gone down under Obama, 75% think Unemployment has increased, 60% believe Trump won the popular vote, and 50%+ believe George Soros is paying protesters.

Trumpanzees aren't big on facts or truth. They love their fake news, though.

An earlier poll:

American Idiots: Poll Proves Trump Supporters Are The Stupidest People In The US

A new poll revealed that depth of bigoted stupidity of Republican voters who are supporting Donald Trump.

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/05/10/american-idiots-poll-proves-tru
mp-supporters-stupidest-people.html

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Friday, December 9, 2016 8:36 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Trump will still produce “The Celebrity Apprentice” while he’s in the White House

Trump, who earlier pledged he would get “completely out of all business operations,” will have an executive producer credit on the show, MGM, the show’s producer, told Variety on Dec. 8.

MGM is likely to pay Trump “in the low five-figures, at minimum,” per episode. MGM declined to comment on the financial terms of Trump’s deal.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks confirmed that Trump has maintained a financial interest in “Apprentice.”

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/donald-trump-mark-burnett-celebrity-ap
prentice-executive-producer-1201937420
/

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Friday, December 9, 2016 9:26 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by reaverfan:

Shocking New Poll Shows That A Vast Majority Of Trump Voters Live In Another Reality

We've reached a dangerous point in our politics where people are divided not just by different political ideologies, but also by their belief in reality.

My favorite Trump-voters story is about the Trump voter neighbor to the East of me hating the Trump voter to the West. And vice versa. They love me. Each neighbor has told me they want to kill the other. Both have guns, many guns. Neither of them will talk to the other. The feud started in the summer of 2015 over a driving school that stops on the street to change drivers. One neighbor is for and the other against the driving school using a public street. I can’t care about which neighbor has which opinion but both must have a brain tumor pressing on their frontal lobe.

The function of the frontal lobe involves the ability to project future consequences resulting from current actions, the choice between good and bad actions . . . Most Trump voters are poor at projecting future consequences, which explains the troubles they find wherever they go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe#Function

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