Will Trump win again???

Started by Planktonmd
Get help with your application

Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.

Browse articles Compare schools My application plan Read Interview Feedback
Practice for interviews Ask an Advisor
Status
Not open for further replies.
GravelRider said:
Interesting, but what is causing these “diseases of despair?” Clearly we need to change our thinking about how we approach addiction, and decriminalizing drugs would be a good start. However, we need to also think about why people are turning to drugs in the first place. This guy sort of implicates social media, but is that all? We are in the midst of a record bull market and unemployment is down. People should be busy, happy, and optimistic...or are the stock market and unemployment numbers not the full story?
Click to expand...

I know one family where both parents are PhD scientists and the the older sister is a physician, financially secure high achievers. The younger sister was anally raped at age 12. Despite tons upon tons of therapy and support, she struggled for years with methamphetamine and heroin addiction. It’s not always about the money.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
GravelRider said:
Interesting, but what is causing these “diseases of despair?” Clearly we need to change our thinking about how we approach addiction, and decriminalizing drugs would be a good start. However, we need to also think about why people are turning to drugs in the first place. This guy sort of implicates social media, but is that all? We are in the midst of a record bull market and unemployment is down. People should be busy, happy, and optimistic...or is the stock market and unemployment numbers not the full story?
Click to expand...
Unemployment is down, but almost all of the job growth in the last 10-20 years has been menial service-sector crap that (barely) pays the bills and offers little or nothing in terms of fulfillment or identity to the workers. A majority of people in the USA have miniscule or no retirement savings, so a 10 year bull market means nothing to them, except as a reminder that they missed out.

In the USA a nuclear family consisting of an employed wage-earning parent and a homemaking parent is now unusual, in large part because real wages haven't kept pace with inflation for decades. We can blame media and culture too, but mostly it's money.

We imprison a larger percentage of our population than almost every other nation. A huge piece of that consists of drug offenders, not just traffickers and dealers, but nonviolent users. Nearly all of them are screwed for life after their initial term in prison.

We could double the length of this thread by going into how racism and the employment ceiling that minorities bump up against keeps an entire chunk of our population angry and hopeless.

Much of the population is an injury or illness away from bankruptcy and homelessness.

Two political parties that cling to power by riling up their fringe bases to claw at each other.

I think it's pretty obvious why so many people in the USA are unhappy, or at least uneasy.
 
AMEHigh said:
For those interested in learning and being open to new ideas, here is some information about climate migrants and how climate and agricultural change affects migration:

reimaginingmigration.org

Migration, Immigration, and Climate Change

When you ask people why they or their family migrated, there is a familiar range of answers: work opportunities, educational opportunities, family reunification, escaping persecution and violence.
reimaginingmigration.org reimaginingmigration.org

www.brookings.edu

The climate crisis, migration, and refugees | Brookings

The World Bank estimates that by 2050, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia will generate 143 million more climate migrants.
www.brookings.edu www.brookings.edu

www.pbs.org

How climate change is driving emigration from Central America

The link between environmental instability and emigration from Central America became apparent in the late 1990s and early 2000s as earthquakes and hurricanes, especially Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and its aftermath, were ravaging parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
www.pbs.org www.pbs.org
Click to expand...
Thanks - many are unaware that the most affected populations of climate are at once agrarian and indigenous.
 
BoolaHI said:
Thanks - many are unaware that the most affected populations of climate are at once agrarian and indigenous.
Click to expand...
Miami condo dwellers, too. 🙂

Unfortunately, a lot of people won't even admit that climate change is real in the first place, because the next step after that admission might be that people have something to do with it, and the step after that might be admitting that we ought to do something.
 
pgg said:
Miami condo dwellers, too. 🙂

Unfortunately, a lot of people won't even admit that climate change is real in the first place, because the next step after that admission might be that people have something to do with it, and the step after that might be admitting that we ought to do something.
Click to expand...
Like giving up eating meat. 😉
 
pgg said:
Wish I could like your post more than once. He's exactly right in every way, and says in a more articulate way what I was trying to. "A core part of addiction [...] is about not being able to bear to be present in your life."

Addicts were mostly miserable, hopeless, disconnected people before they became addicts. We have built a system designed to make the problem worse, by shaming and punishing them. Then, after incarceration is up, they're branded as criminals and it's that much harder for them to reconnect with society.

The War On Drugs isn't just a terrible and counterproductive endeavor, it's actually a force of evil. Hopefully it won't take us another 100 years to stop screwing this up, and repurpose those resources toward actually helping addicts. Legalizing marijuana is a good start but all of it needs to be legal.
Click to expand...

That was an interesting TED talk. I certainly agree with parts of what he said about personal relationships being vital to recovery. I’m not so sure that an absence of relationships plays quite the role in the onset of addiction.

However, my biggest problem was with his characterization of Portugal’s drug policy. While Portugal did completely rethink their approach to drug users, they in no way ended their war on drugs; criminal penalties in Portugal for trafficking and distribution still wins you up to 15 years in prison. That simple fact has profound implications for those who want to try Portugal’s methods in America since the vast majority of people imprisoned for drug offenses are not in our prisons for first-time simple possession of personal quantities. The vast majority of Americans incarcerated for drug offenses are there for distribution or possession with aggravating factors such as possession with a weapon. The numbers of people in state or federal prison (meaning they were convicted of felonies requiring more than a year of confinement) for simple possession of personal quantities of Schedule 1 is next to nothing. For the ones where possession resulted in significant jail time (meaning less than a year) or prison, the possession charge was part of a plea deal to avoid more serous charges such as burglary or theft, or the offender has a lengthy record.

Get caught once with personal quantities of Schedule 1 in most states and you will get arrested, booked, and charged. Provided that there were no aggravating factors (ie you weren’t a felon with a gun), you will spend the night in jail and likely be given a court date. If convicted, you will almost always be given the combination of court imposed rehab, community service, and supervised release.

In other words, the notion that America’s prisons are full of potheads and heroin addicts who were nabbed for simple possession for personal use is a farce.
 
pgg said:
Unemployment is down, but almost all of the job growth in the last 10-20 years has been menial service-sector crap that (barely) pays the bills and offers little or nothing in terms of fulfillment or identity to the workers. A majority of people in the USA have miniscule or no retirement savings, so a 10 year bull market means nothing to them, except as a reminder that they missed out.

In the USA a nuclear family consisting of an employed wage-earning parent and a homemaking parent is now unusual, in large part because real wages haven't kept pace with inflation for decades. We can blame media and culture too, but mostly it's money.

We imprison a larger percentage of our population than almost every other nation. A huge piece of that consists of drug offenders, not just traffickers and dealers, but nonviolent users. Nearly all of them are screwed for life after their initial term in prison.

We could double the length of this thread by going into how racism and the employment ceiling that minorities bump up against keeps an entire chunk of our population angry and hopeless.

Much of the population is an injury or illness away from bankruptcy and homelessness.

Two political parties that cling to power by riling up their fringe bases to claw at each other.

I think it's pretty obvious why so many people in the USA are unhappy, or at least uneasy.
Click to expand...

You almost sounded like Bernie Sanders there for a moment. 😉

My question was largely rhetorical. I think we sometimes get too caught up in using the S&P 500 and monthly employment gains as a measure of how well our country is doing. Maybe it’s things like addiction and overdoses that are a better proxy for gauging how well our communities are doing?
 
  • Like
Reactions: pgg
DrGasPasser said:
That was an interesting TED talk. I certainly agree with parts of what he said about personal relationships being vital to recovery. I’m not so sure that an absence of relationships plays quite the role in the onset of addiction.

However, my biggest problem was with his characterization of Portugal’s drug policy. While Portugal did completely rethink their approach to drug users, they in no way ended their war on drugs; criminal penalties in Portugal for trafficking and distribution still wins you up to 15 years in prison. That simple fact has profound implications for those who want to try Portugal’s methods in America since the vast majority of people imprisoned for drug offenses are not in our prisons for first-time simple possession of personal quantities. The vast majority of Americans incarcerated for drug offenses are there for distribution or possession with aggravating factors such as possession with a weapon. The numbers of people in state or federal prison (meaning they were convicted of felonies requiring more than a year of confinement) for simple possession of personal quantities of Schedule 1 is next to nothing. For the ones where possession resulted in significant jail time (meaning less than a year) or prison, the possession charge was part of a plea deal to avoid more serous charges such as burglary or theft, or the offender has a lengthy record.

Get caught once with personal quantities of Schedule 1 in most states and you will get arrested, booked, and charged. Provided that there were no aggravating factors (ie you weren’t a felon with a gun), you will spend the night in jail and likely be given a court date. If convicted, you will almost always be given the combination of court imposed rehab, community service, and supervised release.

In other words, the notion that America’s prisons are full of potheads and heroin addicts who were nabbed for simple possession for personal use is a farce.
Click to expand...

Those aggravating factors that get so many Americans prison sentences wouldn't be there if there if prohibition hadn't created an expensive and violent black market.

Our drug related prison population - whether user, seller, distributor, smuggler, enforcer - is an entirely unnecessary self-inflicted wound on our country.
 
DrGasPasser said:
Those consequences already exist. We just choose to not enforce them. Truth be told, the fastest way to “fix” the entire immigration “problem” is to first enforce existing laws. That is not done because of the notion that it would be too messy or otherwise violate our progressive sense of social justice.
Click to expand...

They’re not being enforced because people from both parties view illegal immigration as more of a solution than a problem. Remember Trump himself employed illegal immigrants for years. There’s no will to fix it and all the anti-immigration talk is just a show to get votes.


Here’s the perspective of an actual employer.....

“Lynn maintains that Jaime and the rest of the staff, all of whom come from Central Mexico, are key to her restaurant's success. She says they're dependable, loyal and incredibly hard working.

"You cannot hire an American here that will show up to work. They will not be committed to their job. In America," she says, "restaurant work is not a serious profession."

President Trump, who signed the "Buy American and Hire American" executive order that led to a crackdown on visa fraud, frequently argues that unauthorized immigrants take jobs away from U.S. workers. By that logic, Jaime is taking a job away from a citizen who wants it, to which Lynn responds with a laugh.

"That is the biggest joke. I hear it all the time. We put ads on Craigslist, Facebook, in the window, in the newspaper," she says. "The people that come in and apply to take our jobs will show up for one shift. They will not be clean. They will not probably be sober. They will ask for their money at the end of the shift and then they will not be back for the second shift."


To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
GravelRider said:
You almost sounded like Bernie Sanders there for a moment. 😉
Click to expand...
He's a decent human being. I don't really agree with all of his solutions, but he's correctly identified many problems.

I'm not sure I can vote for any Democrat though, at least not until SCOTUS has shored up the Bill of Rights a bit. But that's another topic ...

GravelRider said:
My question was largely rhetorical. I think we sometimes get too caught up in using the S&P 500 and monthly employment gains as a measure of how well our country is doing. Maybe it’s things like addiction and overdoses that are a better proxy for gauging how well our communities are doing?
Click to expand...
I think you're probably right.
 
nimbus said:
"That is the biggest joke. I hear it all the time. We put ads on Craigslist, Facebook, in the window, in the newspaper," she says. "The people that come in and apply to take our jobs will show up for one shift. They will not be clean. They will not probably be sober. They will ask for their money at the end of the shift and then they will not be back for the second shift."
Click to expand...
Lynn isn't offering enough money in her want ads, because she has a pool of exploitable illegal labor she can lowball.
 
pgg said:
Lynn isn't offering enough money in her want ads, because she has a pool of exploitable illegal labor she can lowball.
Click to expand...

Apparently. I think our scrub techs start around $18/hour. Too bad she’s not in a city with a living wage ordinance. She’s probably getting rich off the backs of illegal immigrants😉


From the article...

"It's hard work," she says. "You have to be able to stand on your feet all day. It's not a good paying job."

She pays dishwashers $11.50 an hour, $16 for cooks. That's more than the federal minimum wage, but they get no insurance, vacations or sick pay.”
 
nimbus said:
Apparently. I think our scrub techs start around $18/hour. Too bad she’s not in a city with a living wage ordinance. She’s probably getting rich off the backs of illegal immigrants😉


From the article...

"It's hard work," she says. "You have to be able to stand on your feet all day. It's not a good paying job."

She pays dishwashers $11.50 an hour, $16 for cooks. That's more than the federal minimum wage, but they get no insurance, vacations or sick pay.”
Click to expand...

Anyone with half a brain can see through Lynn's ridiculous claims. The people will come if you actually pay them.
 
RadsWFA1900 said:
Anyone with half a brain can see through Lynn's ridiculous claims. The people will come if you actually pay them.
Click to expand...

But if she can’t turn a profit she’ll just shut down. Lots of restaurants fail. Maybe that is worth it to some people not to have illegal immigration. But Lynn, her employees, and the people in her community who like to eat there probably think it’s a win-win.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
pgg said:
Miami condo dwellers, too. 🙂

Unfortunately, a lot of people won't even admit that climate change is real in the first place, because the next step after that admission might be that people have something to do with it, and the step after that might be admitting that we ought to do something.
Click to expand...

Climate change does exist, and has always existed. The hysteria now and the trust in a phony consensus and (repeatedly) failed climate models to the point of wanting to undergo radical political, economic, and industrial change is the problem.

The data is altered by NASA, the data from a majority of temperature recording stations is exceedingly flawed and probably should be thrown out, but its not. Atmospheric data has not matched ground data very well and shows little warming. We've had periods in history with higher CO2 than now with lower global temps. The 1930s were warmer/just as warm as today, despite the news telling us every weekend is the warmest in history.

Have you looked into the actual science? Like seriously delved into it?

Is CO2 contributing a bit to warming, yeah, probably. Are there many other factors? Yes. Does man have as much of an impact as all the alarmist are claiming? No. Should we try to curtail CO2 emissions? Sure. I'm all for green energy, but let the market bear it out and don't force change via short sighted policies and taxation pushing the world toward tech that just doesn't exist yet, at least not in an efficient and cost effective way.

Go digging if you havent. Don't trust Bill Nye ; )
 
Last edited:
nimbus said:
But if she can’t turn a profit she’ll just shut down. Lots of restaurants fail. Maybe that is worth it to some people not to have illegal immigration. But Lynn, her employees, and the people in her community who like to eat there probably think it’s a win-win.
Click to expand...

Eh restaurants are a dime a dozen, one fails and another pops up. Restaurant/Food Service business is like the lowest common denominator of American Enterprise. I mean I get it you want the best deal but I mean how seriously can I take her?
 
RadsWFA1900 said:
Eh restaurants are a dime a dozen, one fails and another pops up. Restaurant/Food Service business is like the lowest common denominator of American Enterprise. I mean I get it you want the best deal but I mean how seriously can I take her?
Click to expand...

Not a big deal to you and I understand how you might not give a s***. You don’t need to take her seriously since it’s not your livelihood. Reminds me of people who have all kinds of opinions about how doctors and medicine should work but are actually clueless. The owner and the people who work there need that restaurant to survive.
 
Matty44 said:
Just cause you say something with conviction doesn’t make it true. What proof do you have the it won’t have a meaningful impact? And how can you say most enter illegally at a port of entry? If you’re referring to people that enter legally and overstay visas, that’s one problem and needs to be addressed too. But I highly doubt you believe people who are illegal from day one are sneaking through ports of entry and not running across an unmanned and unprotected (no wall) section of the border.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I'm inclined to advise you not to bother even arguing this point. When's the last time there was a national furor over a $20 billion federal expenditure?

Answer: Never.

The reason why the wall is so fiercely opposed is that people know that it'll work.
 
dr doze said:
good talk.

“All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.”

― Blaise Pascal
Click to expand...

I often wonder if it is a lack of purpose that drives humans to misery while alone. Relationships are a major source of purpose for many of us during parts of our lives; for other parts it’s something else.

Regardless, the talk had some good points.
 
radsisrad said:
I'm inclined to advise you not to bother even arguing this point. When's the last time there was a national furor over a $20 billion federal expenditure?

Answer: Never.

The reason why the wall is so fiercely opposed is that people know that it'll work.
Click to expand...

Don’t forget the environmental impact. Do you have any idea of the carbon offsets needed for such an undertaking?
 
Matty44 said:
Of course they wouldn’t, but given the choice, it might expose their hypocrisy about why they want to keep the illegals flooding in.

And I’m sorry PGG, it’s idiotic to say a wall (and obviously it’s not just be a monolithic structure that’d be the same across every kind of terrain) just doesn’t work. Walls do work. Increased patrol and other measures do work. Yes, it would be more expensive but it’s worth it.

I agree that it’s unreasonable to say no one will get across the border illegally, and so yeah, cracking down on employers can be part of the problem, but to say that the solution is to leave the border how it is, crack down on employers, and legalize heroin etc is a joke. Sorry.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Except the wall would cost tens of billions. But the way the GOP is running the printing press at the federal reserve, why not?
 
medgator said:
With what money? Trump gutted the treasury with the corporate tax cut/giveaway
Click to expand...

Awwww, shucks. I guess the Democrats will have to campaign on raising taxes on everyone, including middle class families, and the businesses that employ them to buy more votes from whoever doesn't pay taxes.

:laugh:
 
Mikkel said:
Awwww, shucks. I guess the Democrats will have to campaign on raising taxes on everyone, including middle class families, and the businesses that employ them to buy more votes from whoever doesn't pay taxes.

:laugh:
Click to expand...
Vs the trillion dollar annual deficits from mathematically-challenged GOP?

Putin's puppet is doing wonders to wreck the US long term
 
Last edited:
nimbus said:
Apparently. I think our scrub techs start around $18/hour. Too bad she’s not in a city with a living wage ordinance. She’s probably getting rich off the backs of illegal immigrants😉


From the article...

"It's hard work," she says. "You have to be able to stand on your feet all day. It's not a good paying job."

She pays dishwashers $11.50 an hour, $16 for cooks. That's more than the federal minimum wage, but they get no insurance, vacations or sick pay.”
Click to expand...
Obviously I didn't read the article, just your initial quotes. But it doesn't matter -

If a business can't attract labor at the wages it is offering, it is not offering enough money (or benefits). This is universally true, 100% of the time. No exceptions. Ever. It's the most fundamental, basic bit of supply and demand.

Businesses don't have some inalienable right to stay open if they can't live inside the hard lines of basic economic principles. Unless they become Too Big To Fail, I guess.

Right now unemployment is low, so lots of businesses are having trouble recruiting workers. The US Army just missed its recruitment goal for the first time in years. You know what the Army will have to do in order to meet its recruitment goal? They'll offer more money in the form of sign-on bonuses. I'l also add that they're recruiting from a pool of people with mostly no job experience and no higher education.

You know, soldiers sometimes have to be able to stand on their feet all day. E1-E3 pay is not a good paying job.

Maybe Lynn needs to start offering signing bonuses and Tricare.

If she can't raise burrito prices by $1 or $2 to cover higher wages and thereby stay open, she doesn't stay open. That's unfortunate for her. She's not entitled to be successful on the backs of desperate illegal labor.

If no Americans will work in her kitchen for less than $16/hour, maybe the real unfortunate thing about this is that her Mexican cooks really deserve $22/hour for that work, and she's screwing them. Why are you so worried about her business prospects, and not the illegal labor she's exploiting at sub-market wages, with no insurance, no sick pay, no vacations? She's a criminal. Fine her and put her to work picking up trash at the side of the road.
 
pgg said:
Obviously I didn't read the article, just your initial quotes. But it doesn't matter -

If a business can't attract labor at the wages it is offering, it is not offering enough money (or benefits). This is universally true, 100% of the time. No exceptions. Ever. It's the most fundamental, basic bit of supply and demand.

Businesses don't have some inalienable right to stay open if they can't live inside the hard lines of basic economic principles. Unless they become Too Big To Fail, I guess.

Right now unemployment is low, so lots of businesses are having trouble recruiting workers. The US Army just missed its recruitment goal for the first time in years. You know what the Army will have to do in order to meet its recruitment goal? They'll offer more money in the form of sign-on bonuses. I'l also add that they're recruiting from a pool of people with mostly no job experience and no higher education.

You know, soldiers sometimes have to be able to stand on their feet all day. E1-E3 pay is not a good paying job.

Maybe Lynn needs to start offering signing bonuses and Tricare.

If she can't raise burrito prices by $1 or $2 to cover higher wages and thereby stay open, she doesn't stay open. That's unfortunate for her. She's not entitled to be successful on the backs of desperate illegal labor.

If no Americans will work in her kitchen for less than $16/hour, maybe the real unfortunate thing about this is that her Mexican cooks really deserve $22/hour for that work, and she's screwing them. Why are you so worried about her business prospects, and not the illegal labor she's exploiting at sub-market wages, with no insurance, no sick pay, no vacations? She's a criminal. Fine her and put her to work picking up trash at the side of the road.
Click to expand...

All good points. If you want to clean house though, clean up the whole house. Don’t just pick on small business owners. As I posted awhile back, there’s no political will to do this because illegal immigrant labor is actually a net benefit to the United States. Half of all crop workers in the US are undocumented. Are Tyson, Hormel, and the farms in the Imperial Valley and Central Valley run by liberal democrats? If you want to be black and white about it and call all their employers criminals, there’s a lot of criminality on the right. We can take away half their labor and let them all shut down because “No exceptions. Ever.” It’ll just harm the local community, the local economy and our national food security. Let the market determine our fate and concede the food industry too like we did with manufacturing and put those farmers to work picking up trash. Who cares that they are experts at producing food and their knowledge and experience will be wasted. I can afford higher food costs and Mexican berries are delicious. For now, we should be thanking an undocumented worker every time we enjoy a delicious American sourced meal. Eventually we can import the bulk of our food like we import other consumer products from parts of the earth with lower labor costs.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
nimbus said:
All good points. If you want to clean house though, clean up the whole house. Don’t just pick on small business owners. As I posted awhile back, there’s no political will to do this because illegal immigrant labor is actually a net benefit to the United States. Half of all crop workers in the US are undocumented. Are Tyson, Hormel, and the farms in the Imperial Valley and Central Valley run by liberal democrats? If you want to be black and white about it and call all their employers criminals, there’s a lot of criminality on the right. We can take away half their labor and let them all shut down because “No exceptions. Ever.” It’ll just harm the local community, the local economy and our national food security. Let the market determine our fate and concede the food industry too like we did with manufacturing and put those farmers to work picking up trash. Who cares that they are experts at producing food and their knowledge and experience will be wasted. I can afford higher food costs and Mexican berries are delicious. For now, we should be thanking an undocumented worker every time we enjoy a delicious American sourced meal. Eventually we can import the bulk of our food like we import other consumer products from parts of the earth with lower labor costs.

Click to expand...
I completely agree.

I haven't defended the right. I'm an equal opportunity prosecutor.

I could probably be talked into a grace period associated with the institution of an expanded guest worker program, to give businesses large and small time to get their workers documented, get them on the books, start paying payroll taxes, keep records for W-2s, etc.

In the end however, if a business can't stay open when it is forced to pay market wages and benefits to its employees, that's OK.

I'm honestly surprised there's so much resistance to this from the left leaning people in this thread. Worker protections and higher wages for the common folk are a central plank of the Democrats' platform ... or at least their rhetoric.


And honestly, I couldn't give two ****s about the restaurant industry's handwringing lies. I don't care about Lynn's difficulty wrapping her brain around 9th grade supply-demand economics. The entire industry has made its bed by long opposing fair wages for employees, successfully lobbying for lower minimum wage laws, because of tips. They can lie in it. Profit margins are thin? Bummer. If everyone has to pay for legal labor, everyone can raise their prices. Restaurants won't vanish from North America if they suddenly all become 20% more expensive.

It's OK if the cost of goods and services reflect the cost to produce and deliver them. That's the way the world should work.



thankyoujesus.jpg
 
pgg said:
I completely agree.

I haven't defended the right. I'm an equal opportunity prosecutor.

I could probably be talked into a grace period associated with the institution of an expanded guest worker program, to give businesses large and small time to get their workers documented, get them on the books, start paying payroll taxes, keep records for W-2s, etc.

In the end however, if a business can't stay open when it is forced to pay market wages and benefits to its employees, that's OK.

I'm honestly surprised there's so much resistance to this from the left leaning people in this thread. Worker protections and higher wages for the common folk are a central plank of the Democrats' platform ... or at least their rhetoric.


And honestly, I couldn't give two ****s about the restaurant industry's handwringing lies. I don't care about Lynn's difficulty wrapping her brain around 9th grade supply-demand economics. The entire industry has made its bed by long opposing fair wages for employees, successfully lobbying for lower minimum wage laws, because of tips. They can lie in it. Profit margins are thin? Bummer. If everyone has to pay for legal labor, everyone can raise their prices. Restaurants won't vanish from North America if they suddenly all become 20% more expensive.

It's OK if the cost of goods and services reflect the cost to produce and deliver them. That's the way the world should work.



thankyoujesus.jpg
Click to expand...

Lynn needs to raise her prices and we need to learn to deal with higher prices if we don’t want illegal immigrant labor. It’ll probably be good for our over-consumption.

The problem with your plan to punish business owners for hiring illegal immigrants is that we all know the focus of such a plan would be people like Lynn. Lynn is just playing the game by the rules given to her. If she has any chance of competing with the large corporate restaurants or fast food establishments then she has to find ways to cut costs somewhere. McDonald’s and whatever company owns Applebee’s have illegal labor up and down their supply chain. If anyone needs to be arrested, it’s the McDonald’s CEO and majority shareholders. The small businesses are just playing by the rules of the game set by the major corporations if they have any chance of competing. You need to arrest and punish the CEOs, majority shareholders, and owners of resorts like Mar-a-lago if you want to fix illegal immigrant labor.

I wonder if there is a way to determine how much of the wealth in the S&P 500 is derived from illegal labor? Probably a lot.
 
GravelRider said:
The problem with your plan to punish business owners for hiring illegal immigrants is that we all know the focus of such a plan would be people like Lynn.
Click to expand...
It's easy to find fault with my plan, when you're planning to mis-implement it out of the gate. 😉

The little people don't need to be the sole focus of enforcement. They just don't get a pass.

GravelRider said:
If anyone needs to be arrested, it’s the McDonald’s CEO and majority shareholders. The small businesses are just playing by the rules of the game set by the major corporations if they have any chance of competing. You need to arrest and punish the CEOs, majority shareholders, and owners of resorts like Mar-a-lago if you want to fix illegal immigrant labor.
Click to expand...
Oh, I totally agree, and that was my plan. Not that it'll ever be implemented. Lynn is small potatoes, but she's not innocent. She can pick up some trash at the side of the road. The big offenders can stamp license plates. Punishment proportional to the crime and loot collected.

GravelRider said:
I wonder if there is a way to determine how much of the wealth in the S&P 500 is derived from illegal labor? Probably a lot.
Click to expand...
Yeah. Kinda betrays the lie that they can't afford to pay for legal labor, doesn't it?
 
The key is to punish the CEOs. Not the companies, not just HR, not just the hiring managers, but the CEOs. When they'll have to choose between freedom and profit, the choice will become easy.

Also, reward the whistleblowers, giving them part of the fines inflicted on the company. Suddenly, there won't be one illegal worker left.
 
FFP said:
The key is to punish the CEOs. Not the companies, not just HR, not just the hiring managers, but the CEOs. When they'll have to choose between freedom and profit, the choice will become easy.

Also, reward the whistleblowers, giving them part of the fines inflicted on the company. Suddenly, there won't be one illegal worker left.
Click to expand...
Well, not going to happen. Who basically runs these companies outside of their respective board are very large shareholders, e.g. private equity and hedge funds. These same entities have an outsized influence to either construct or eliminate the corresponding legislation that will be symmetrical to their own objectives. Go and look at prospectus and identify where large blocks of shares are, it’s not you or me.....
 
BoolaHI said:
Well, not going to happen. Who basically runs these companies outside of their respective board are very large shareholders, e.g. private equity and hedge funds. These same entities have an outsized influence to either construct or eliminate the corresponding legislation that will be symmetrical to their own objectives. Go and look at prospectus and identify where large blocks of shares are, it’s not you or me.....
Click to expand...
Of course it won't happen. But the reason we have illegal immigration is the lack of a wall. 🙄

It's so funny/sad to see how all these dummies keep voting for people who profit from illegal immigration, either directly or indirectly.
 
DrGasPasser said:
Again, revenues to the Treasury INCREASED after the tax cut. I know what you are going to say...

View attachment 285906
Click to expand...
Drop in the bucket. A budget doesn't just have one side btw. Maybe you so called "fiscal conservatives" can learn how to balance your own checkbook first?

I'm sure you'll give a free pass to this as well:

www.cnbc.com

Trump signs $1.3 trillion spending bill into law despite being 'unhappy' about it

The signing marked the second about-face for Trump in 24 hours. The White House had said he would sign it, then said he might veto it.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
 
Last edited:
FFP said:
Of course it won't happen. But the reason we have illegal immigration is the lack of a wall. 🙄

It's so funny/sad to see how all these dummies keep voting for people who profit from illegal immigration, either directly or indirectly.
Click to expand...
Yup. My entire point is that the wall is not just ineffective, as it’s a mere political meme created for Trump supporters. If you want change, and change that is tethered to basic conservative principles, well, you attach this issue to both the free market and capitalism. Thus, real change could actually happen if you create either incentives or penalties directly related to the structure of the marketplace. The fact that the real big boys in the corporate world, either in manufacturing and other businesses that benefit from more immigration, do no fully endorse the wall or the President tells me all I need to know on the issue. And thus, there is a huge disconnect within the same party advancing all these efforts as it becomes more theater more than substantive policy....
 
medgator said:
Drop in the bucket. A budget doesn't just have one side btw. Maybe you so called "fiscal conservatives" can learn how to balance your own checkbook first?

I'm sure you'll give a free pass to this as well:

www.cnbc.com

Trump signs $1.3 trillion spending bill into law despite being 'unhappy' about it

The signing marked the second about-face for Trump in 24 hours. The White House had said he would sign it, then said he might veto it.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
Click to expand...

You are aware that the spending package originated in the House, and the Dems would have shut down the government if it didn’t get signed, right?

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t vote for Trump, in part, because I was not convinced that he could perform basic math. I don’t plan to vote for any of the Dems because I know they can’t perform basic math.
 
DrGasPasser said:
You are aware that the spending package originated in the House, and the Dems would have shut down the government if it didn’t get signed, right?

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t vote for Trump, in part, because I was not convinced that he could perform basic math. I don’t plan to vote for any of the Dems because I know they can’t perform basic math.
Click to expand...
That budget was signed when the GOP controlled both houses. It was the second biggest spending bill on record iirc

Dems seem to be bigger fiscal conservatives these days than Republicans are. Deficit went down under Obama during his second term.

Do you bring in less income and increase spending at your household too? How does that work out for you?
 
And in a case for most interesting bedfellows- Trump and Chief Justice Roberts will now forever be linked to each other - with the main ingredient that they have a profound dislike for each other —


If President Donald Trump faces an impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate, it would mark the third time in history a U.S. Supreme Court chief justice would have to preside over the affair -- but the first time for one who has clashed openly with the very president whose fate hangs in the balance.

Trump has called Chief Justice John Roberts an "absolute disaster" and a "nightmare for conservatives."

Roberts, who is constitutionally bound to oversee impeachment trial proceedings, has publicly chided Trump for criticizing federal judges.

"We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges," he said last year in a statement.
 
medgator said:
That budget was signed when the GOP controlled both houses. It was the second biggest spending bill on record iirc

Dems seem to be bigger fiscal conservatives these days than Republicans are. Deficit went down under Obama during his second term.

Do you bring in less income and increase spending at your household too? How does that work out for you?
Click to expand...

Again, we did not bring down income with the tax cut; revenue (effectively income when discussing a government but not business) increased. Our expenses went up (mostly defense). Basic math.

My apologies for the last post, I thought you were referencing this bill:


That is the largest spending bill on record and it has Nancy’s name all over it. To be fair, I believe that the bill you referenced received bipartisan support with 111 House Dems giving it the thumbs up.

I’m not here to carry water for Republicans or Dems as I’m neither. I will absolutely defend the efficacy of target tax cut coupled with gradual spending reductions. So, I’m left without a party since neither seems to be able to get that second part correct.
 
Last edited:
DrGasPasser said:
. I will absolutely defend the efficacy of target tax cut coupled with gradual spending reductions. So, I’m left without a party since neither seems to be able to get that second part correct.
Click to expand...
What's there to defend? Didn't get the gdp boost that was promised and without spending cuts to accompany them, we have the deficit as record highs before the next recession
 
medgator said:
What's there to defend? Didn't get the gdp boost that was promised and without spending cuts to accompany them, we have the deficit as record highs before the next recession
Click to expand...
There wasn't nor will ever be any boost. Every time they sell this lie to the hoi polloi, the boost in revenues does not compensate for the loss in tax income, and the deficit increases. It's just basic economic history, and still all the geniuses keep falling for it. It's like when they tell them that exercise is the key to weight loss.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.