COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Jovan Dragisic]

I think there's a lot more shock value in the corruption in the US because it goes so contrary to the loudly stated ideals here, but the corruption in other places is at least as bad. Nothing happens in Italy without a bribe according to what I've heard and the UK has some serious scumbaggary in their Parliament.

The general level of corruption in the US is maybe somewhere in the lower half on a worldwide scale. The problem is that the big level corruption in the US commands a disproportionate influence over money and power that reaches almost all corners of the globe. This is especially true for everything having to do with money creation, both public and private, as the dollar is the world’s money.

The Democratic Party is worse here. If it hadn’t been for Obama, the 2008 recession wouldn’t have lasted until Covid.

[coldfire]

I would be very happy to reply to you if you can manage to say something coherent.

Minimal wage is the equivalent of outlawing jobs. People like you are fine with it, since they feel they are doing something to help the poor. The real consequences don't matter much. I don't think you can reply anything useful, so there is no need, really.

[Yngvi]

Very interesting remarks!
...democracy, which is one of the pillars of western civilization...

No, it isn't. And it never has been. Democracy is a lot like communism or socialism; It has failed every time it has been tried.

We need the best leaders; not the most popular.

If you recognize the abject failure of globalization, then you must also recognize the abject failure of democracy. Democracy begets globalization.

[ForbiddenDonut]

Fauci gets Rolled

[George Christiansen]

You're absolutely right. Frederic Bastiat, a French legislator (among other things), wrote about this very thing and the socialists in his 1850 pamphlet The Law. The discouraging thing is he was fighting the same issues 170 years ago. On the positive side, we have his wisdom and rebuttals at our finger tips. Just a few nuggets:

I'm familiar with him from others quoting him, but have never read any of his writing myself.

But yes: Same species. Same problems. The only thing that has changed is technology.

And as it turns out, those state and local officials are the ones truly fucking us right now with this COVID stuff, and the permission and even encouragement of violent unrest and other crime. They're also (ironically) the ones who presided over the police departments whose policies people say they're protesting. These people have enjoyed a free pass from scrutiny for far too long indeed.

I'm actually rather impressed with the Federal restraint in this regard.

Yup. And besides their governor and mayor, who can the average man on the street, who, if he voted probably just checked all the D's or R's, can name anyone in a legislative position or a judge or a county board member?

The general level of corruption in the US is maybe somewhere in the lower half on a worldwide scale. The problem is that the big level corruption in the US commands a disproportionate influence over money and power that reaches almost all corners of the globe. This is especially true for everything having to do with money creation, both public and private, as the dollar is the world’s money.

The Democratic Party is worse here. If it hadn’t been for Obama, the 2008 recession wouldn’t have lasted until Covid.

I'd agree that US influence worldwide definitely makes our corruption more widely known and effective.

[bikesandcars]

I honestly never thought I'd see Bastiat's The Law quoted here.

If you really want your mind blown read Bastiat's What is Money. He talked about the evils of Central Banks (Federal Reserve) 100 years before they pulled it off. One of my favorite lines,

"I will tell you. The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education."

Notice here that Bastiat says, "All monopolies are detestable." Google, Facebook, Twitter anyone? The great Capitalist minds are decidedly NOT in favor of monopolies. Monopolies do not play on a level field. They twist everything to their favor--and against the rest of us. For example, when I typed in "What is Money Bastia" I didn't get Bastiat's What is Money. I had to finish typing Bastiat's name to find it.

The field is not level with Google--or with Fauci.

Yes!

And healthcare... as in every area has basically one huge healthcare monopoly chain, and no government officials (Democrat or Republican) do anything to encourage or enforce anti-trust or anti-monopoly rules that are either on the books or should be. Don't you think your healthcare would be better if there were several independent hospitals / providers with overlapping coverage in the same area? There are 2 main ones in our area, you can choose either (or other minor options) and I think we are better for it.

Capitalism is competition in the free market. It is not a free market with a monopoly.

[abduality]

The globalists, thanks to the useful idiots who think that repealing legislation that checks the influence of transnational corporations makes us more free.

Are you starting to get the picture?

Why is the influence of transnational corporations worse than the influence of large governments? Why do you assume that the former will be evil, and the latter will be benevolent?

[Haghstull]

Barring your providing a specific example...

Much like the mask mandate, the masses will cling to the teat of the government when uncertainty and fear raise their ugly heads. These people don’t understand that economies cycle through highs and lows, much like how novel viruses will spread rapidly at first and then much more slowly. Things of this nature are self-regulating, and most people do not understand or appreciate that.

But much like a massage therapist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, energy healer, or any other pseudoscientific field of medicine, the government is there to give you a small push up the hill to make you feel like things will be okay, that someone is doing something, and everything will be okay. Never mind that things will get better despite this push, there must be a push to feel like something is happening.

How do we distinguish their intervention from the actual cause? We can’t, and that’s the way it just remain for those in power to remain in power. I refer you to my previous post about Governor Abbott’s “mandate” for masks, in which he basically did something by doing nothing. It’s mandatory to wear a mask in Texas, but nothing will actually happen if you don’t (maybe a slap on the wrist).

So to be clear, you believe that the 8.5 million Americans given stable jobs in the wake of the Great Depression by FDR’s Works Progress Administration were actually just a bunch or rubes who lacked your sophisticated understanding of markets, and didn’t realize that they didn’t actually need the New Deal, because “markets are self-regulating” and “economies cycle through highs and lows”?

…how old are you?

The useful idiots do what by thinking what? This making the picture more confusing, not less.

The useful idiots who continue to elect republicans and corporate democrats are inadvertently creating a world without nations, cultures, or peoples—only shekels. This is because the corporate media imposes on them quasi-religious beliefs about efficient markets that lack both empirical and theoretical support.

Because the average IQ is 100, and the media are socialists. English major?

In undergrad? Public Policy. You, obviously, studied something different. I'm curious about what it was?

If the media are socialists, then why did they successfully carry out a campaign of misrepresentation and erasure that defeated the only remotely socialist candidate vying for the presidency in 2020?

... well, okay. I get that you don't agree with that last statement. But SURELY you acknowledge that the wealthy-first cronyism championed by the Clinton's has received very uncritical treatment by the media compared with Sanders' policy platform. How, then, can you claim that the media is pro-socialism?

[Mark Rippetoe]

No, it isn't. And it never has been. Democracy is a lot like communism or socialism; It has failed every time it has been tried.

We need the best leaders; not the most popular.

If you recognize the abject failure of globalization, then you must also recognize the abject failure of democracy. Democracy begets globalization.

Democracy is, quite literally, 3 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for lunch.

So to be clear, you believe that the 8.5 million Americans given stable jobs in the wake of the Great Depression by FDR’s Works Progress Administration were actually just a bunch or rubes who lacked your sophisticated understanding of markets, and didn’t realize that they didn’t actually need the New Deal, because “markets are self-regulating” and “economies cycle through highs and lows”?

…how old are you?

Probably old enough to have read more about it than your Public Policy texts provided: The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression

In undergrad? Public Policy. You, obviously, studied something different. I'm curious about what it was?

Geology and anthropology, as most here already know. Do you train with weights?

How, then, can you claim that the media is pro-socialism?

Because they didn't laugh The Green New Deal out of the news, while at the same time agreeing that tax cuts increase the national debt.

[Haghstull]

No, it isn't. And it never has been. Democracy is a lot like communism or socialism; It has failed every time it has been tried.

We need the best leaders; not the most popular.

If you recognize the abject failure of globalization, then you must also recognize the abject failure of democracy. Democracy begets globalization.

Words can hardly express how wrong you are about basically every single claim in this post, my friend. Democracy, invented by the White Greeks and practiced on a large scale by no other civilization throughout world history, is the best of western culture and the only antidote to globalism. You seem to be forgetting about Trump 2016 and Brexit, wherein the voice of the people rose up above the din of internecine elite squabbles and demanded the preservation of borders, language and culture.

Everyone agrees we need the best leaders. The disagreement is about who those leaders are. If you believe that your personal ideas about the form our society should take ought to supersede the will of the majority, then you have plenty of company. Maybe you can help them through a squat workout sometime: Left Hook: Anti-Fascist Self Defense - YouTube

Why is the influence of transnational corporations worse than the influence of large governments? Why do you assume that the former will be evil, and the latter will be benevolent?

… maybe read the post again.

Democracy is, quite literally, 3 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for lunch.



Probably old enough to have read more about it than your Public Policy texts provided: The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression



Geology and anthropology, as most here already know. Do you train with weights?



Because they didn't laugh The Green New Deal out of the news, while at the same time agreeing that tax cuts increase the national debt.

I recognized this author’s name, and I was struggling to recall exactly where I had heard it. Lo, it was in connection with this very tome, and this very question of new deal unemployment. Shlaes is most famous for lying about unemployment figures under Roosevelt by claiming, without any explanation, that the jobs created by the WPA didn’t count as “real” employment. Generally, the argument is… lacking perspective. I can’t really blame her, though. Defending unalloyed capitalism is an impossible job, unless you’re willing to bend the truth.

Were you always this right-wing? Or did the experience of studying anthropology alongside those mean SDS types radicalize you?

and yah, i train