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Serious The Politics Thread
- Thread starter Oglemi
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r/im14andthisisdeep is that way brother.
I was 100% in agreement with you until…
Like, my dude, the numbers are actually likely to be higher.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext
And yes, they are real human beings. What is this nonsense? Are you seriously saying Palestinians that have died either don’t exist or they’re somehow less human than the rest of us?
Okay, I agree with this, I think there IS a lot of this going on (see: Zionism).
But then, what is this…!
Please tell me you are not serious with this sentence?
Like - this is a seriously chilling post. Are you actually calling for finishing a genocide here?
USS Liberty.
Multiple dead American protestors over a forty year period, killed by the IDF.
And no, it’s not historically been a “strong ally” of the USA, at all:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/16/why-israel-allies-explainer
It only appears that way because the USA funds it and provides weapons.
Now, CAIR obviously have their own reasons for their criticisms of the USA, but this chart from here: https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts is a really good indication that Israel is both not a puppet state and a hufge drain on the USA’s finances.
Note that the graph doesn’t take into account the insane amount of military aid and cash sent in 2023 and 2024 to protect Israel from a virtually unarmed nation.
These stats are backed up elsewhere:
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-military-aid-does-the-us-give-to-israel/
https://www.ajc.org/news/what-every-american-should-know-about-us-aid-to-israel
And more besides.
Not speaking for them, but they've pretty consistently advocated for Palestine and against American imperialism in general in this thread. I'm almost certain the latter part of this post is supposed to be interpreted satirically, as in "this is what American democrats actually believe if they said the quiet part out loud".
Thank you for this, and I hope it is so.
Also my apologies, I am only just getting my coffee intake for the day!
"The polls show I clearly won the debate" -Trump
This literally made me laugh out loud when I heard it.
This literally made me laugh out loud when I heard it.
Also, I saw an antique Kamala Harris ad, and one of the reasons why you shouldn't vote for her is that she supported peaceful protests.
Like, excuse me????
Like, excuse me????
super serious candidate who deserves anyone's vote
Jill Stein doesn't support nuclear power and also believes wifi in schools is physically harmful to children, lol.
Yeah, the latter part is about how politicians in general view the whole subject. (though focused on dems because it's not like republicans care about burying the lead lol and are pretty explicit in their politics).
Palestinians, the global south in general and many minorities inside the empire itself, are numbers, statistics, and PR handling nightmares at most. It's much easier to make decisions about things with disregard to anyones humanity if you've dehumanized your target group. Even if the decisions are nice, it often comes from a desire to (at best) maintain the status quo of their voter numbers, never to advance.
I'm not sure what's more depressing... that she's this ridiculously unserious, or that she's beating Kamala with Muslim Voters in several of the swing states...
All modern US elections are razor-thin. There is no evidence that the Comey letter changed votes. People make up their minds on voting far sooner than a couple weeks before the election.
“I was going to vote for Hillary, but this letter from Republican James Comey convinced me otherwise”
…..yeah uh huh.
Divorcing the Trump administration from the pandemic is as disingenuous as comparing pre-covid economy and prices to post-covid economy and prices. People seem to want to have it both ways on this. Democrats for some reason never publicly blame Republican presidents for their destruction of the economy. Big mistake.
Convicted felon Trump did such a great job as President that 81 million Americans fired him.
Just FYI wages are in fact up about 21% vs cumulative inflation since 2019 of 19%, so about ~2% more increase in wages than in inflation since the pandemic. That's not much of course and many other macro level numbers on the economy may not be as good as this one, but wages are in fact up overall. This likely in combination with the Trump era policy increasing the standard deduction really should mean the large majority of people are better off economically.
https://www.businessinsider.com/just-the-facts-the-u-s-economy-and-your-pocketbook
That said, I get it may not feel that way. People are notoriously bad at sensing these things because negative things like sticker shock at the gas pump or grocery store always are more salient. If you poll americans and ask them, rather than use objective metrics, we're basically always in a recession and a crime wave. But facts do matter!
The US has been at full employment for about three years. By economic metrics it has on paper been the best economy in a generation. But you know… vibes. Most Americans think the polar opposite; that we are in a recession.
Media bears much of the blame.
“Full employment” in a capitalist system still leaves a significant number of people unemployed and even more underemployed in jobs where they can’t even make enough money to survive, and the safety nets barely exist and are only getting stripped away further; over 40 million people in the USA are food-insecure but go off king
“Best economy” does not mean shit for anyone but the rich leeches who are sucking up nearly the entirety of that economic growth
“Best economy” does not mean shit for anyone but the rich leeches who are sucking up nearly the entirety of that economic growth
Most people who specialise in finance seem to think you’re on an even footing but heading into a recession.
https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/recession-2024-what-to-watch-how-to-prepare
It’s the economy, stupid…
As do individuals brushing off legitimate concerns.
Unemployed no. Full employment is ~4% unemployment.
Underemployment is a separate but valid issue, which taps into wages not reflecting productivity. Shoutout to all the Republicans that are destroying unions, passing right to work (for less) laws, and blocking the Federal minimum wage. Clinton ran on raising the minimum wage as one of her primary policies but we just couldn’t “trust” her!
Historically, only one party has proposed budgets that cut (or raise the age) of social security and Medicare- Republicans.
Who is refusing to expand Medicaid, even as the Federal government fully pays it for the states? Republicans.
Who is refusing to feed children, even as the Federal government fully pays it for the states?
Republicans.
“Concern” is not evidence. If one feels like the economy is shit, doesn’t make it so. The US is not in a recession and has not been during the current administration. Facts and feelings are not the same.
Fair, and agreed. It’s about housing. Which as we’ve discussed further back is because there is limited stock and too many people trying to live in these areas.
Supply and demand has nothing to do with capitalism?
Sorry, are we saying 4% of the population is insignificant, or what is your point in saying “full employment is when 4% of people are unemployed?” I know what “full employment” means, it means most people are employed but roughly 4% of people are not employed so as to keep wages down and ensure workers can’t actually organize for their rights without there being a desperate group of unemployed people that can be used to undercut them. This is a bad thing, actually.
I don’t know why whenever someone points something out like this, you go “but republicans! but republicans!” I’m not saying people should support them, they’re a bunch of fascist bigots. That doesn’t mean your precious democrats are immune to criticism on their ineffectiveness, bad policy, and being just a bit less genocidal and imperialistic than the literal fascist party.
I don’t know why whenever someone points something out like this, you go “but republicans! but republicans!” I’m not saying people should support them, they’re a bunch of fascist bigots. That doesn’t mean your precious democrats are immune to criticism on their ineffectiveness, bad policy, and being just a bit less genocidal and imperialistic than the literal fascist party.
Ant’s saying that in general our system depending on markets is very bad at aligning societal productive capacity with human need when it comes to goods with inelastic demand curves.
If it’s something you need to survive, you’re always going to be at a disadvantage in real world negotiation.
But I’m sure you actually understand what they’re saying despite the snark and without the above comments— that on the left we believe that these market dynamics suggest strongly that many essential goods should be decommodified; like policing, firefighting, Elementary school already are, or what Medicare for All would do to Healthcare.
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There are far more than enough places to live, the problem has always been the greed of the rich in snapping up property and colluding to keep enough property off market to significantly drive up the prices of the remaining property (and the places that aren’t used as housing can be used for things like airbnb to still make money without driving down the housing market).
Deciding what % of unemployment would equate to an economy having "full employment" is an amply-debated issue. What every economist will tell you though is that 0% unemployment is not the correct number to judge a country against. Some amount of short term unemployment is always going to naturally occur. A company goes out of business, a factory closes, a worker who is performing poorly or violated workplace policies gets fired, a worker who hates their job quits without having a replacement lined up immediately, etc. This is all "frictional" unemployment. Short term unemployment will always exist. Anything beyond that though where temporarily unemployed people become more permanently unemployed represents structural unemployment and that's most of what any economy is trying to avoid having any of.
Whether or not this would be any particular number is up for debate. The long term average for the US is about 4% and therefore that's more or less what the Fed uses as its target when it's seeking to evaluate whether or not the US has "full" employment. Personally, I think 4% is slightly too high to say the US is at "full" employment, though it's reasonably close (probably closer to 3% imo). But it's certainly not 0%.
Now regardless of those numbers at a macro level, you will get no argument from me on the insufficiency of governmental safety nets for the people who are impacted, especially that state unemployment agencies are usually particularly bad.
Whether or not this would be any particular number is up for debate. The long term average for the US is about 4% and therefore that's more or less what the Fed uses as its target when it's seeking to evaluate whether or not the US has "full" employment. Personally, I think 4% is slightly too high to say the US is at "full" employment, though it's reasonably close (probably closer to 3% imo). But it's certainly not 0%.
Now regardless of those numbers at a macro level, you will get no argument from me on the insufficiency of governmental safety nets for the people who are impacted, especially that state unemployment agencies are usually particularly bad.
4% are unemployed.
If Republicans are causing the problem, blocking any and all attempts to fix the problem, and offering no alternative solutions, why should that not be pointed out? Why is the onus squarely on the Democrats to fix everything that ails the country?
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