Who would you prefer to be the master

[liberty]

What will happen if Biden wins? China will be back in charge and back on course to dominate the world. All the talk about making PPEs in this country will disappear. Obamas said it we can’t build in this country; those jobs are gone, and they are not coming back. We can’t resist the Chinese they are too powerful. It is racist to resist the Chinese. So I ask you who do you want to be your master. I prefer the Russians over the Chinese, not that the Russians are any better in terms of freedom, but at least my children can hide in the Russian herd.

[Gob]

I know I'll regret asking this, but;

1. Why will "China be back in charge"?
2. When were they in charge before this?
3. Why can you not make PPE?
4.In what way can you "not resist" the Chinese?
5. Have you ever thought of seeing a psychiatrist?

[BoSoxGal]

For anybody with an actual open mind, I would highly recommend watching Fareed Zakaria’s How the World Sees America special that just aired this weekend on CNN. I’m sure it will repeat so set up the DVR.



If Trump gets re-elected, it will be a Russia-China partnership that leads the world while America continues to retreat into isolationism and domestic decline.

[Bicycle Bill]

If Trump gets re-elected, it will be a Russia-China partnership that leads the world while America continues to retreat into isolationism and domestic decline.

That's what I'm the most worried about.  We tried isolationism back at the beginning of the 20th century and, to a lesser degree, in the era between the world wars, and you saw where that got us (example: The first successful flight of a heavier-than-air craft was in America in 1903; ten years later, the Germans, the French, and the English were capable of producing aircraft like the Fokker D-VII, the SPAD S.XIII, the Nieuport-17, or the Sopwith Camel fighters as well as the Handley-Page or Gotha bombers, while Americans were still building glorified box kites.)  It wasn't until America got into WWII and decided that "if there's going to be one big dog doing most of the barking, it might as well be us" that we saw all that post-WWII "Great American" prosperity that Trump longs for (the fact that a lot of the rest of the world was in rubble while American infrastructure, industry, and manufacturing was more-or-less undamaged didn't hurt).

But once we sold our collective soul to the concept that imported, low-priced, shoddy material items made in sweatshops in some foreign 'shithole' country were more desirable than high quality products made in America by American workers, we pissed all that away.  American companies couldn't make a smartphone or a television — at a competitive price — in this country to save their lives and they know it; same with any other electronics device, or clothing, or countless hundreds of items in our everyday life.  And if American companies actually DO make something, it is generally from bits and pieces sourced from all over the world, brought to America, and put together here like a kid assembling a Tinker-toy kit.

He also longs for the antebellum, "Gone With The Wind" period when white men ran things and wimmen and coloreds knew and stayed in their place, but that's a subject for another rant.

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

China at present is engaged in a global infrastructure project that is ten times the size of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after WWII. The goodwill and relationships they are cultivating with all the nations they are helping via these projects will go a long way toward earning them favorable trade deals and other diplomatic concessions while America under Trump is burning decades of accumulated diplomatic capital and trashing relationships with allies. Nobody will trust us anymore. We aren’t a moral example or an example of better science/technology anymore, especially after our catastrophic mismanagement of this pandemic.

Fareed Zakaria is a very smart guy; he’s one of my favorite pundits and was one of LJ’s, too. He’s on CNN but he doesn’t have a liberal bias - not left liberal anyway, but small l liberal democracy, yes. His new book on lessons for a post pandemic world is very good, from what I’ve read thus far.

I’m frightened for this country not just the horror of what is happening at home but the reality that we are losing our standing as leader of the free world, and under a second term with dear leader we will doubtless lose it entirely. The circumstances may not arise to help us regain that standing; most Americans don’t pay attention to foreign policy but this is very real. It goes way beyond trade, although trade is important.

[dales]

lib also delights in Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit".

[MajGenl.Meade]

[Burning Petard]

Who would I prefer? Me. [dear reader, make the mental jump to include yourself as 'me'] Those with other preferences IMNSHO, choose so because they recognize their own limitations, or because they want to limit their own responsibility for their actions.

snailgate.

[liberty]

He also longs for the antebellum, "Gone With The Wind" period when white men ran things and wimmen and coloreds knew and stayed in their place, but that's a subject for another rant.

-"BB"-

You think I want to go back to the time of poverty and hunger. I want the good times to continue. Under the rule of Obama our loss of manufacturing continued he did not even try to slow it. He said those factory jobs are gone and they are not coming back. If we keep losing manufacturing at the rate we did during Obama’s time we won’t be able to make our own weapons. Who will defend the US Russia?

[liberty]

lib also delights in Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit".

When have I ever expressed any desire for anyone to be abused in any way?

[Bicycle Bill]

He also longs for the antebellum, "Gone With The Wind" period when white men ran things and wimmen and coloreds knew and stayed in their place, but that's a subject for another rant.

-"BB"-

You think I want to go back to the time of poverty and hunger. I want the good times to continue. Under the rule of Obama our loss of manufacturing continued he did not even try to slow it. He said those factory jobs are gone and they are not coming back. If we keep losing manufacturing at the rate we did during Obama’s time we won’t be able to make our own weapons. Who will defend the US Russia?

It ain't always all about you, asshole.  I was talking about Trump.

And unless you are willing to put in 40 hours a week for $7.50 per hour and no benefits, those factory jobs that have gone overseas are NOT coming back because you wouldn't work for that kind of pay envelope and you know it.  Instead, you'll sit on your smug ass, file for unemployment or disability or whatever, and suck off the government's tits while whining about how tough life is nowadays.

But you'll think nothing of signing a loan for fifty large for a Toyota pickup truck, or flock with the rest of the sheeple so you can be one of the first to buy the iPhone 12Pro (at roughly a thousand bucks per copy) or the Motorola Razr Flip smartphone (which starts at $1500 or so).

We as a society have been gambling our future on the premise that things are going to continue to keep going up, up, up ... wages, benefits, etc.  So we are willing to go into hock for things we don't really need (like $50K 'sport-ute' trucks or $1500 cellphones) because we think the gravy train is never going to end.  In poker terms, we're all in and betting on the river to save us — and so far, society has been getting away with it.  Who cares if the credit cards are maxxed out, the mortgage is due, and the piggy bank has nothing but dust and spiderwebs in it?  I've got a job (for now) and there's another check coming in next month; we'll cover it then.

But since March, we are seeing just how precarious this way of living really is.  It doesn't even take a market melt-down; just something like an itty-bitty virus — COVID-19 — that interrupts that steady supply of money that we have come to depend on can bring our whole house of cards crashing down.  And if one group of people can't pay their bills, the ripple effect of this affects others, such as lenders, landlords, and small-business owners like the mom-and-pop-run restaurants or taverns, and THEIR little empires are now imperiled ... and so it goes.

It boils down to a lesson I learned early in life — LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS.
And always put something aside for those unexpected potholes, pitfalls, and speed bumps.  Sure, life may be smooth and rosy NOW, but remember — it wasn't raining when Noah started building the ark, either.

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

You are so totally full of shit.

It’s not an itty bitty virus is the biggest pandemic illness in 100+ years and it is costing the US economy 16 TRILLION DOLLARS in total estimated losses from production in industries and healthcare costs. Nobody has enough saved away to live through this kind of disruption unscathed, including plenty of major industries - forget about little guys with cell phones.

And the US economy has been a rigged game against hard working folks for several decades now, so expending all your energy into curmudgeonly old grandpa rantings about how kids these days don’t budget properly and it’s all their own fault that they are falling into poverty over this itty bitty virus that SHUT DOWN THE WHOLE FUCKING PLANET just shows you’ve got some kind of twisted Reaganism that took the place of your heart many years ago and crushed all the capacity for critical thinking, along with most of the compassion.

By the way, much of the wealth of our economy relies on a little thing called consumerism. Now if you’d like to discuss radical changes to the fundamental principles of our economic system and how we live as humans on the planet I’m all for THAT; all that other Ayn Randian shit you can keep to yourself.

[Bicycle Bill]

My reference to COVID-19 as "an itty-bitty virus" was meant to refer to its size — it's fuckin' microscopic, you bone-headed Bostonian — not to its global effects.

But the point stands.  According to The Motley Fool, 69% of Americans — that's 2 out of 3 families — have less than $1000 in savings; and 45% of all Americans have $0 - zero, zip, zilch, bupkis, nada, nuthin' — in savings.  For these people, any one unexpected incident — serious injury from a car crash, for example, that prevents them from working, or some unexpected major expense like unexpected vehicle repairs or the breakdown of a major home appliance like the furnace - is going to collapse the house of cards they are living in.

As for the rigged economy — no argument there.  Vance Packard, journalist/social critic/noted opponent of 'consumerism', pointed this out more than six decades ago with the definitive work on the psychology of advertising, "The Hidden Persuaders".  The warning signs have been there for at least three generations, but we have been blinded to them by the promise that 'there's no need to put off gratification — you CAN have it all and you CAN have it now'.  Remember the old Woodie Guthrie song, "A Dollar Down and a Dollar a Week"?

And we can fix our fascination with 'consumerism' simply, and with a single two-letter word.... "NO".  $150 a day to visit Disneyland?  NO!  $80 each for nose-bleed seats to watch a football or basketball game?  NO!  Replace my perfectly functional two-year-old cellphone with the latest model, just because it's the latest model?  NO!  And it doesn't even have to be expensive things.  $5 latte at Starsucks?  NO!  The Big Mac Value Meal at McDonalds, or have DoorDash deliver something from the Mexican restaurant across town?  NO!

See how easy that is?

And frankly, I don't know how the concept of 'living within one's means' has a single fucking thing to do with Ayn Rand and her philosophy of "Objectivism" — defined as "a comprehensive philosophical system, which revolves around living on earth and focuses on the right of human beings to life and peaceful living, as well as our enormous creative and productive potential."

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

You are so full of shit.

[Big RR]

Not entirely; as BB said, some people (including many who should know better) spend far too much and save far too less; sure, some people do it for necessities, but many, including some who have very good jobs and income, waste a lot of money on non essentials. That being said, when I had my own practice I did bankruptcy filings, and the vast majority of people I did filings for (and the statistics I saw bear this out) were for medical debt; a simple hospital visit without insurance can put one tens or hundreds of thousands in debt (and even with "good" insurance, the coinsurance charges are astronomical), a debt most people cannot emerge from at the average salary (and don't forget, many who get very sick wind up losing their jobs and their insurance). Add into this the education debt many have (and it's far more than most of us older folks ever even thought of, even when adjusted for inflation a year any institution probably costs more in tuition than the entire tuition for the 4 years when many of us went to college); this debt places people in the hole before they even start working.

Sure, some people are grasshoppers who fail to practice thrift, but the current economic structures are often just as bad on the ants; and yet the asses in the government keep ranting on and trying to remove any semblance of any safety net from healthcare (Obamacare) to social security (preferring the money is put in the stock market instead. But it's far easier to lecture people about their "bad" habits, than to make real reforms to help and benefit the population as a whole.

[Burning Petard]

A person who earns $50 thou per year, after taxes, and spends 40, is certainly better off than the person who earns 150 thou and spends 160.

But the lure of credit is based on the assumption that the one earning 150 is gonna earn 180 next year--and many do. Eventually they don't. The expectation is that by that time they will have acknowledged reality and invested. Or they just keep extending that line of credit from sources that accept the risk of serial bankruptcy. And those creditors have covered their paper with junk bonds 'til the final creditor ends up as the taxpayer.

That's why they call it capitalism and the free market system. If I am wrong, please point me to the file cabinet where all that money from the last bank bailout was lost when it fell behind the drawer.

snailgate

[Big RR]

Of course we can spend fortunes to bail out banks which gave loans indiscriminately with little care of whether they could be repaid or not, but people overspending are irresponsible. And giving tax dollars to bail out the irresponsible institutions is good capitalism, but giving even apenny to help someone entirely in need is--gasp--evil socialism. When are businesses and lending institution supposed to be held to the same standards of responsibility that we criticize individuals for not following?

[datsunaholic]

They won't, as long as they have more lawyers and politicians on their payroll.

[liberty]

Why has no one voted for their Chinese masters? You know that is racist, don’t you?

[Crackpot]

Because, unlike you, they aren’t shit-addled fuck weasels.