2024 Presidential Election thread

[romad1]

11 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Speaking of Detroit based Germans. Charles Lindbergh's mother was a HS teacher at Detroit Cass Tech.

I'm not buying the original premise without further details on why he thinks that.  Lots of racists in Michigan in those days.  Not seeing the direct link to the Nazis. 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

3 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

The culture war is abortion and democrats have been winning it. Sanders and AOC have won nothing. I don’t think they understand anything. 

Didn't AOC beat a long time Democratic congressman in a primary election specifically by making class consciousness a big part of her messaging and campaigning? Republicans have made economics a cultural issue. Democrats can too. We can have both abortion and economics as cultural wars to fight on one day, way down the line.

I see nothing wrong with demagoguing rich people and big business. After all, that just factually is the reason for much of people's plight and misery. When your job doesn't pay you a living wage and you have to get a second one. When your employer can fire you at will, with little to no protections for the average worker. When your CEO makes 300-400x what their average worker at your company is making, that's a huge problem. When big businesses are reporting record profits and your paying more at the grocery store, more for a car, more for a house, more on rent. All those are economic issues on their face, but can be turned into cultural issues through class consciousness. Republicans have been masterful making immigration and the economics around immigration both an economic and cultural issue. Democrats should be attacking big business, CEOs, and the wealthy with as much vigor as Trump and Republicans have attacked immigrants over the last 15-20 years.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

Also, to her credit, you are starting to see some of this class conscious campaigning from Harris herself. Branding herself as the middle class candidate, saying she's taken on big business and Wall Street as an AG, showcasing that Trump only cares about wealthy people like him. More of that type of campaigning please!

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Here’s how: “We are so glad, sir, that you are president now, sir, that we will gladly cut our rates in half and make far less profit, every single one of us, because you are going to Make America Great Again™, sir.” Isn’t that how capitalism works?

I thnk it's very possible that car insurance will only go up 36.5% over the next four years instead of 73% (yes, I know that  73% is a made up number).  This of course woulkd have zero to do with Trump.  

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

What if I were to suggest that Harris is not talking about Soviet-style price controls, as much as she is about enacting surgical regulations to keep the largest companies from using their control of their markets, whether singularly or collaboratively, to extract predatory prices from customers who can’t reasonably go anywhere else? Would that make more sense? Or would you still believe in the Invisible Hand of the Market always acting in the best interests of consumers over producers?

Still won't work. The bureaucracy to support them is unwieldy, the impossibility of being surgical enough is daunting. Pricing in the real world must stay dynamic because real supply and demand changes happen all the time for valid reasons.

Let's think about what has changed here and then work back. Why is price gouging a growing issue now after 250 years of the republic? The increase in corporate pricing power we are experiencing in the US is due almost completely to the growth of market monopoly power. So don't attack the symptom, attack the cause. The way to go is to control businesses' pricing power.

The government can help keep prices down in an economy and do it effectively but not by direct controls. You do it setting the playing field - insuring competition via tax and M&A law/rules, subsidizing infrastructure, subsidizing new business formation. For commodities the Gov can maintain supply reserves like they do for oil that can moderate market shocks. Even direct investment subsidies are better than attempts at direct price control.

And I will beat the dead horse again - why is the business playing field in the US more distorted than ever? - because we have a politics distorted by business money - Citizen's United.

So along that line, what makes anyone believe that a government already bought and paid for by corporations is actually going to do any effective price regulation even if it somehow could come with a workable system to do it? Without political reform first, it would become the biggest rent seek in history.

Edited 23 hours ago by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

50 minutes ago, romad1 said:

I'm not buying the original premise without further details on why he thinks that.  Lots of racists in Michigan in those days.  Not seeing the direct link to the Nazis. 

TBF, in the 19th and early 20th century Germany didn't have any monopoly on eugenicists and racists in intellectual circles. We are still taking their names off of buildings at the "U"! Of course the cultural differences between the US and Germany were large (e.g., the US not being a nation identifying in one culture as Germany with the attendant cultural chauvinism) but at the most basic level, one difference was the US had just fought a civil war over the issue and the 15 amendment was in the Constitution so the issue was settled in terms of the national legal construct - even if it did take more than 90 years to get Jim Crow off the books in the South and we continue to find ways to effectively segregate minorities in the underclass today.

Edited 23 hours ago by gehringer_2

[romad1]

21 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

TBF, in the 19th and early 20th century Germany didn't have any monopoly on eugenicists and racists in intellectual circles. We are still taking their names off of buildings in A^2! Of course the cultural differences between the US and Germany were large but at the most basic level, the difference was the US had just fought a civil war over the issue and the 15 amendment was in the Constitution so the issue was settled in terms of the national legal construct - even if it did taken more than 90 years to get Jim Crow off the books in the South and we continue to effectively segregate minorities in the underclass today.

The idea behind Imperialism was both benign and hostile overt racism and cultural hegemony.   Manifest destiny, the British Empire, the race for Africa...the Nazis were just a generation late to that. 

Edited 23 hours ago by romad1

[oblong]

regarding insurance... shop around. When you get a good deal, or at least one you can live with the best, pay attention.  Especially if you do automatic withdrawls.  They bank on you not really noticing small increases, then they sneak a 10% in there.  It's like cable used to be 10-15 years ago. Stay on top of them.  I dropped one company 7 years ago when my insurance would have doubled, I added my son and another car, but still.... now they are after me again to come back at a rate the same as I pay now.  I've been through 4 companies throughout this time.  My employer makes it easy to switch as they have a program with a benefits provider where I just tell them I want to switch, they call everybody that participates, then come back to me with the quotes, I pick what I want, then they do the rest.  Takes me less than 30 minutes of phone time.

 

 

[gehringer_2]

23 minutes ago, romad1 said:

the Nazis were just a generation late to that. 

also a very good point. Adding the tools of the industrial revolution to Imperialism does make the more toxic mix.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Didn't AOC beat a long time Democratic congressman in a primary election specifically by making class consciousness a big part of her messaging and campaigning? Republicans have made economics a cultural issue. Democrats can too. We can have both abortion and economics as cultural wars to fight on one day, way down the line.

I see nothing wrong with demagoguing rich people and big business. After all, that just factually is the reason for much of people's plight and misery. When your job doesn't pay you a living wage and you have to get a second one. When your employer can fire you at will, with little to no protections for the average worker. When your CEO makes 300-400x what their average worker at your company is making, that's a huge problem. When big businesses are reporting record profits and your paying more at the grocery store, more for a car, more for a house, more on rent. All those are economic issues on their face, but can be turned into cultural issues through class consciousness. Republicans have been masterful making immigration and the economics around immigration both an economic and cultural issue. Democrats should be attacking big business, CEOs, and the wealthy with as much vigor as Trump and Republicans have attacked immigrants over the last 15-20 years.

but the only way Dems can do this more broadly is with successful grass roots fund raising. Neither party will undertake serious corporate governance and business reform as long as they need corporate and business money to get elected. I don't know if it will/is changing with gen X/Y/Z but the Boomers were so used to somebody doing everything for them in life that they thought it was beneath their dignity to ever make a political contribution. But as the saying goes, you don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Corporate political money is entrenched and we aren't ever going to displace it by wishing.

Edited 23 hours ago by gehringer_2

[romad1]

9 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

also a very good point. Adding the tools of the industrial revolution to Imperialism does make the more toxic mix.

The Germans in Africa were reputedly pretty barbaric even in comparison to French, German and (really bad) Belgium examples.  

[romad1]

This is interesting factoid...hinted at in the very enjoyable Deutschland 86 tv series

Quote

Currently, no country outside Europe uses German as an official language, although in Namibia, it is a recognized national language and there are numerous German placenames and architectural structures in the country. A 30,000 German ethnic minority resides in the country. In a long-term legacy of the East German Stasi's covert backing of the SWAPO guerrillas during the 1967–1989 South African Border War, a significant German-speaking minority exists among the Black population, who were brought up as children in Cold War era East Germany before the Peaceful Revolution in 1989.

 

[Motown Bombers]

1 hour ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Didn't AOC beat a long time Democratic congressman in a primary election specifically by making class consciousness a big part of her messaging and campaigning? Republicans have made economics a cultural issue. Democrats can too. We can have both abortion and economics as cultural wars to fight on one day, way down the line.

I see nothing wrong with demagoguing rich people and big business. After all, that just factually is the reason for much of people's plight and misery. When your job doesn't pay you a living wage and you have to get a second one. When your employer can fire you at will, with little to no protections for the average worker. When your CEO makes 300-400x what their average worker at your company is making, that's a huge problem. When big businesses are reporting record profits and your paying more at the grocery store, more for a car, more for a house, more on rent. All those are economic issues on their face, but can be turned into cultural issues through class consciousness. Republicans have been masterful making immigration and the economics around immigration both an economic and cultural issue. Democrats should be attacking big business, CEOs, and the wealthy with as much vigor as Trump and Republicans have attacked immigrants over the last 15-20 years.

Yes she won one of the most liberal districts in the country. Kudos to her. She also campaigned for Jamal Bowman and blamed Jews when he lost. The lefts "economic anxiety" is just a way to appeal to racist white people. Bernie Sanders even said Democrats shouldn't run on abortion and they did and won bigly. 

[Motor City Sonics]

Its's like Uncle Leo on Seinfeld -  Every thing is Antisemitic

 

 

 

[romad1]

This is a good group.  

Negroponte is as weird to me as Cheney.  One of those, we really do live in interesting times things to see him endorsing a Dem. 

[romad1]

Ugh

 

[mtutiger]

4 hours ago, oblong said:

I'm using twitter as a term for just overall political engagement and research of issues.  They're not doing that.  They get their information from Joe at the store and ads they see on TV.  I don't know Kamala's team can do to reach them.  They need ads targeted to them to peel off what they can.

Nothing is a guarantee of success, but as far as the Harris campaign is concerned, they seem to be aiming their sights at these kinds of voters much more than the other guy is at the moment.

Not much more can be asked for than that

[mtutiger]

3 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Didn't AOC beat a long time Democratic congressman in a primary election specifically by making class consciousness a big part of her messaging and campaigning? Republicans have made economics a cultural issue. Democrats can too. We can have both abortion and economics as cultural wars to fight on one day, way down the line.

I've had my issues with AOC since she has come onto the scene, but I think she's much more pragmatic and formidable than some of her detractors make her out to be. 

A lot of that is just growth in the job and the acceptance that in order to make change, you have to meet people where they are at.

[mtutiger]

Et tu Nate?

[chasfh]

5 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Still won't work. The bureaucracy to support them is unwieldy, the impossibility of being surgical enough is daunting. Pricing in the real world must stay dynamic because real supply and demand changes happen all the time for valid reasons.

Let's think about what has changed here and then work back. Why is price gouging a growing issue now after 250 years of the republic? The increase in corporate pricing power we are experiencing in the US is due almost completely to the growth of market monopoly power. So don't attack the symptom, attack the cause. The way to go is to control businesses' pricing power.

The government can help keep prices down in an economy and do it effectively but not by direct controls. You do it setting the playing field - insuring competition via tax and M&A law/rules, subsidizing infrastructure, subsidizing new business formation. For commodities the Gov can maintain supply reserves like they do for oil that can moderate market shocks. Even direct investment subsidies are better than attempts at direct price control.

And I will beat the dead horse again - why is the business playing field in the US more distorted than ever? - because we have a politics distorted by business money - Citizen's United.

So along that line, what makes anyone believe that a government already bought and paid for by corporations is actually going to do any effective price regulation even if it somehow could come with a workable system to do it? Without political reform first, it would become the biggest rent seek in history.

I think it will work. It's not impossible to apply regulations surgically and the bureaucracy can handle it.

Also, you're still arguing against price fixing. I explicitly left that behind in my post. Metaphorically, you're still campaigning against Biden but he's dropped out.

 

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, romad1 said:

Ugh

 

This will be resurrected by Trump and Vance and will gain traction as a both-sides-are-the-worst story.

[Motown Bombers]

Less than 50 days to the election and Trump is having a rally in New York. 

 

[mtutiger]

Hate to bring the family into it, but this is a legitimately fair question

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Also, you're still arguing against price fixing. I explicitly left that behind in my post.

I'd argue it's a false distinction. You can either do a windfall profits tax, which has been done in many places and times and works well enough in a way, but it doesn't give the customer any direct relief per se, or you are telling the seller what they can charge. That's establishing a price. I don't where the formulation "surgical regulation" meets the road in any way beside a price control, or an anti-trust enforcement - but I'm already on board for that! But even anti-trust action doesn't produce short term price impacts for the consumer .

Edited 16 hours ago by gehringer_2

[oblong]

39 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Hate to bring the family into it, but this is a legitimately fair question

It is. I can’t believe how bad this guy is. He knows he is bad and just doesn’t care. He’s smart enough to understand the analogies fail. And I think spouses are fair game.  Underage kids definitely are not. Adult kids are if they engage.