Project Autocracy

[Tigeraholic1]

So, a Saudi doctor who is super against islam and is an extreme supporter of AfD, grabs a car and runs over people in Germany on a Christmas market?

Why would someone who is so oppose to extreme islamic terrorism will do exactly the same as they do?

[gehringer_2]

48 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

So, a Saudi doctor who is super against islam and is an extreme supporter of AfD, grabs a car and runs over people in Germany on a Christmas market?

Why would someone who is so oppose to extreme islamic terrorism will do exactly the same as they do?

Who knows?  Supposedly a 'Saudi Dissident.' That could span all the way from people who hate the Saudis because they are too fundamentalist to those who hate the Saudis because they have corrupted the true faith for profit. At least some indication he may have been stoned - but there is a Jihadi tradition of using drugs to steel oneself for that kind of act (checks  origin of the word Assassin) so that doesn't necessarily mean lack of intent either.

Or maybe he's so anti-religious Jihadi's and Christmas shoppers are all the same to him?

And do Saudi Doctors just skip the Hippocratic Oath thing?

It's mind numbing trying to keep up with all the species of crazy out there.

EDIT:

Now also seeing claims his anti-Islamic dissidence was a sham cover he adopted to fight extradition back to SA on criminal charges (this could also be Saudi agitprop). This will end up another tangled tale.

 

Edited December 21, 2024 by gehringer_2

[Tigeraholic1]

12 hours ago, romad1 said:

Is the troll pro-terrorist now?

Did they ever nail down that troll who claimed the Trump assassination attempt was staged? Or the false claim there would be RW violence leading up to the election? Last I heard he was still pulling a government paycheck. 

[Tigeraholic1]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Who knows?  Supposedly a 'Saudi Dissident.' That could span all the way from people who hate the Saudis because they are too fundamentalist to those who hate the Saudis because they have corrupted the true faith for profit. At least some indication he may have been stoned - but there is a Jihadi tradition of using drugs to steel oneself for that kind of act (checks  origin of the word Assassin) so that doesn't necessarily mean lack of intent either.

Or maybe he's so anti-religious Jihadi's and Christmas shoppers are all the same to him?

It's mind numbing trying to keep up with all the species of crazy out there.

The current mess in Germany is a self inflicted wound. We wonder why their government collapsed. 

[Screwball]

2 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

The current mess in Germany is a self inflicted wound. We wonder why their government collapsed. 

I'm not so sure. The blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline didn't help. Who was it, Vicky "warmonger" Nuland who said **** the EU. I'm sure they will find the dinghy who blew it up someday. 🙂

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

The current mess in Germany is a self inflicted wound. We wonder why their government collapsed. 

Merkel made the same mistake that American immigration progressives make, which is believing that because allowing refugees to emigrate is a moral thing to do, it is a politically/socially possible thing to do, and it simply is not. A leader may be laudable for their moral principles but they can't govern successfully by assuming their populations share their beliefs or are willing to accept the inevitable social costs of acting on those beliefs or by assuming the emigres that come will be the perfect assimilators they might be. And to be honest, it was not all moral rectitude on Merkel's part that led to Germany's open door, it was more than a little bit of old style Imperialist worry that declining birth rates might move Germany down the GDP list if they didn't start accepting large numbers of new workers.

Edited December 21, 2024 by gehringer_2

[CMRivdogs]

 

[Tigeraholic1]

4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Merkel made the same mistake that American immigration progressives make, which is believing that because allowing refugees to emigrate is a moral thing to do, it is a politically/socially possible thing to do, and it simply is not. A leader may be laudable for their moral principles but they can't govern successfully by assuming their populations share their beliefs or are willing to accept the inevitable social costs of acting on those beliefs or by assuming the emigres that come will be the perfect assimilators they might be. And to be honest, it was not all moral rectitude on Merkel's part that led to Germany's open door, it was more than a little bit of old style Imperialist worry that declining birth rates might move Germany down the GDP list if they didn't start accepting large numbers of new workers.

100% spot on. Yet now the narrative is immigration reform is dangerous.

[mtutiger]

14 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

So, a Saudi doctor who is super against islam and is an extreme supporter of AfD, grabs a car and runs over people in Germany on a Christmas market?

Why would someone who is so oppose to extreme islamic terrorism will do exactly the same as they do?

Because the AfD and their supporters are also extremists, just with different characteristics / viewpoints? Ever heard of horseshoe theory?

By the way, this is the same party who had a leader out there offering up apologia for the Waffen-SS... Last I checked, those guys were not above terrorism. 

Edited December 22, 2024 by mtutiger

[gehringer_2]

7 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

100% spot on. Yet now the narrative is immigration reform is dangerous.

Whose narrative? I try always not to care what people I shouldn't care about think!

[mtutiger]

36 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Whose narrative? I try always not to care what people I shouldn't care about think!

One of the big issues with the immigration debate in this country, and why I do not expect it to be solved any time soon, is that there is a real breakdown on what the problem actually... is.

Before getting into the actual debate, there's the enforcement piece. I agree with that, have long felt Biden dithered way too long (into 2024) to actually deal with it. Most Americans (if polls are to be believed) feel this way as well.

But with respect to the actual debate, is it limited to just border crossings and who cares about the status quo? Or is the problem that, because the process to actually get into the United States is onerous and years long, policy is *causing* this crisis to occur? Or, from more of the Stephen Miller perspective, is the problem that we have immigration at all?

My perspective comes a lot from the industry I work in and talking with contractors... The average age in labor and trades (at least in our geographic area) is somewhere in the mid to high 50s. That's really really high. And there aren't people to backfill these roles currently. It's not even that there aren't domestic kids entering the trades, there are, it's that the demand combined with the attrition just overpowers those numbers. 

So how do you fix that? I'm not sure how you do that doesn't involve streamlining immigration, even if that is uncomfortable for some

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

It's not even that there aren't domestic kids entering the trades, there are, it's that the demand combined with the attrition just overpowers those numbers. 

So how do you fix that?

well one obvious way is wages have to climb until those jobs become as desirable as the ones people are more busy chasing, or you can import labor. "I can't fill these jobs" is just whinging by employers who have grown fat and happy with low cost labor inputs and can't fill them at the price they want to pay. But every task has a price where people will start lining up to do it/learn it. Of course nothing is free. If labor costs go up, the normal business response is to off shore those jobs that can be moved. How possible that is depends on government policy. All that is basically today's status quo - how we go to where we are today. To me, importing labor just to import labor is the absolute worst justification - it's basically just the old 'manifest destiny' unbounded growth idea and on a planet with 7 billion going on 10 billion people we need to get over it. It's OK if a nation's population gets smaller and if the US makes fewer widgets for fewer people. It makes me tear at what little hair I have left when I hear people think it's some kind of strategic crisis if the population doesn't just keep growing unbounded.

If you ask me what immigration policy should be, it would be a reasonable process for true political refugees, and a reformed and probably expanded H1 program to allow people with expertise and ambition to keep entering and providing the innovation drive that they always have. I do not believe it is the US's responsibility to fix Central and South America by simply importing their populations. The good question is where are the 'reasonable' lines?  I think one useful marker is looking at the durability and growth of foreign language enclaves. If you are bringing in so many people that you are generating stable societies within a society with as many or more people entering than are assimilating, than you are at the point were you are courting public backlash and social tension, which to me are the bottom line for where the control point should be. In the end, I don't think the answer if found by what business wants or economic policy or what a particular moral stance would argue, I think it's always the more practical question of what the current population wants to tolerate because at any given time it's their country. And if a historically immigrant population want to practice the hypocricy of pulling up the ladder behind them, in a democracy they have that right and you will simply lose elections arguing the case with them.

I don't know exactly where those lines are, but when you have a public as energized around reducing immigration as the US is, you've crossed them.

[Tigermojo]

Edited December 22, 2024 by Tigermojo
Dangerous immigrant

[mtutiger]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

well one obvious way is wages have to climb until those jobs become as desirable as the ones people are more busy chasing, or you can import labor. "I can't fill these jobs" is just whinging by employers who have grown fat and happy with low cost labor inputs and can't fill them at the price they want to pay. But every task has a price where people will start lining up to do it/learn it. Of course nothing is free. If labor costs go up, the normal business response is to off shore those jobs that can be moved. How possible that is depends on government policy. All that is basically today's status quo - how we go to where we are today. To me, importing labor just to import labor is the absolute worst justification - it's basically just the old 'manifest destiny' unbounded growth idea and on a planet with 7 billion going on 10 billion people we need to get over it. It's OK if a nation's population gets smaller and if the US makes fewer widgets for fewer people. It makes me tear at what little hair I have left when I hear people think it's some kind of strategic crisis if the population doesn't just keep growing unbounded.

I think this misses the mark or, at the very least, is an overly broad characterization that might not apply in all cases...

Again, within the context of the construction industry, it isn't that companies aren't able to find domestic Americans willing to work, they do. And it isn't necessarily that they aren't paid well - where I live, they are (career earnings can far exceed mine as a Licensed PE, union healthcare as good or better, etc.). I don't think it's pay or compensation that is causing this - it's the demand for projects / infrastructure far exceeding the existing labor force.

And it's exacerbated by a larger pool of workers being in the verge of retirement (ie. boomers) and a much smaller cohort (currently Gen Z) being expected to replace their existence. That's a math problem, simply put.

As someone on the engineering side of this, I'm always up for complaining about contractors and management, and would gladly say they are wrong if I felt they were. But they aren't here IMO... 

Edited December 22, 2024 by mtutiger

[mtutiger]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

... I think it's always the more practical question of what the current population wants to tolerate because at any given time it's their country. 

The irony is that the election probably turned more than anything else on inflation (even more than immigration). 

And there's a fundamental tension in giving the people what the want on both immigration and inflation / the economy. 

[Tigeraholic1]

9 hours ago, mtutiger said:

Because the AfD and their supporters are also extremists, just with different characteristics / viewpoints? Ever heard of horseshoe theory?

By the way, this is the same party who had a leader out there offering up apologia for the Waffen-SS... Last I checked, those guys were not above terrorism. 

Not a fan of the afd but can you point to any mass murders they have committed? 

On the other hand it is ok to fund an actual U.S. terrorist designated group HTS now. They are the good guys right?

[gehringer_2]

41 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I don't think it's pay or compensation that is causing this - it's the demand for projects / infrastructure far exceeding the existing labor force.

Labor is a market. Just because the pay required to pull people in may be more than fits with peoples' preconceptions of what someone in a given field should be earning, that doesn't mean there isn't still a market price where the demand is met. And in the case of construction labor, it's is the fact that is can be so cyclical that means you will indeed have to pay more to pull in the peak marginal worker who knows he may have to go back to something else in two years.

[mtutiger]

3 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Not a fan of the afd but can you point to any mass murders they have committed? 

An AfD supporter literally just attempted one two days ago.

[mtutiger]

20 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Labor is a market. Just because the pay required to pull people in may be more than fits with peoples' preconceptions of what someone in a given field should be earning, that doesn't mean there isn't still a market price where the demand is met. And in the case of construction labor, it's is the fact that is can be so cyclical that means you will indeed have to pay more to pull in the peak marginal worker who knows he may have to go back to something else in two years.

You would agree though that more people are retiring than are currently coming into the workforce, correct?

[Tigeraholic1]

53 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

An AfD supporter literally just attempted one two days ago.

Saudi’s tried to warn Germany about him but Germans interpreted it as a misinformation campaign. How convenient.  But since he re-tweeted a afd post that’s all that matters. Try harder.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy09y32rlnxo.amp

police chief Tom-Oliver Langhans said police had previously conducted an evaluation as to whether the suspect might have posed a potential threat, "but that discussion was one year ago".

Faeser told German newspaper Bild that investigators would examine "in detail" what information authorities had on al-Abdulmohsen in the past and how he had been investigated.

The German Office for Migration and Refugees announced in a post on social media that it had fielded a complaint about the suspect, which it had "taken seriously", but as the office is not an investigative body, had referred the complainant to other authorities.

One tip-off received by authorities is believed to have come from Saudi Arabian authorities.

A source close to the Saudi government told the BBC it sent four official notifications known as "Notes Verbal" to German authorities, warning them about what they said were "the very extreme views" held by al-Abdulmohsen.

However, a counter-terrorism expert told the BBC the Saudis may have been mounting a disinformation campaign to discredit someone who tried to help young Saudi women seek asylum in Germany.

Sounds like Germany has their own version of SS Jersey.

[oblong]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

You would agree though that more people are retiring than are currently coming into the workforce, correct?

I also wonder if birth rates have anything to do with it. My kids are early 20s and it seems like there just weren’t as many kids around as when I was growing up. The economy took a hit in the 2000’s so did people stop having as many kids?  And throw in people having kids later in life than we remember.  

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

I also wonder if birth rates have anything to do with it. My kids are early 20s and it seems like there just weren’t as many kids around as when I was growing up. The economy took a hit in the 2000’s so did people stop having as many kids?  And throw in people having kids later in life than we remember.  

It's a pretty clear driver of it... G2 makes good some decent points, to be clear, but I don't think we can have an accurate conversation about this that doesn't acknowledge that there is a demographic cliff that we are facing with boomers exiting the workforce. 

In the context of this last election and what the voters signaled on inflation in particular, it seems pretty critical to maintaining an acceptable level for prices of goods for there to be enough workers to backfill those who are heading for the exits.

And to me, there's a fundamental tension between this and what this administration is signaling in how they plan to pursue immigration policy (to put it mildly)

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, mtutiger said:

You would agree though that more people are retiring than are currently coming into the workforce, correct?

yes - but that is an inevitability at some point before we are all standing shoulder to shoulder in our 1 ft sq allotment of the planet, so whether we learn to deal with a leveling or decreasing population today to in 10 or 30 yrs it's something every country is going to have to learn to handle. More workers have been retiring in Japan than joining the workforce for some time and they have figured out how to cope. The already undesirable pressure  of current populations is something the species collectively already has a strong instinctive understanding of  which is why in almost every nation where people have a choice, fertility is declining. A set of economic theory assumptions (we must have more laborers!) that fly in the face of what every 1st world population is choosing for itself is a priori a failed one.

Edited December 22, 2024 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

59 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

that there is a demographic cliff that we are facing with boomers exiting the workforce. 

I think are already past the worst of if. US fertility rate peaked in 1957 and those folks are already past the most typical retirement age. We are actually starting to enter the boomer die off, which will start reducing a huge aged services load/drag from the economy. The first post WWII babies will be turning 80 in a year.

Edited December 22, 2024 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

7 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I think are already past the worst of if. US fertility rate peaked in 1957 and those folks are already past the most typical retirement age. We are actually starting to enter the boomer die off, which will start reducing a huge aged services load/drag from the economy.

The pandemic accelerated a bit the boomer retirements in my opinion. Many thru either no choice of their own or thru realization during the shutdown that they actually didn’t need to do all of that. 
 

there is a flip side. I know of several boomer aged folks in the white collar world who would have retired but work from home changed their mind. They can stay at their house on the lake now with no 75 minute drive in.