Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[unclevlad]

44 minutes ago, death tribble said:

So barring the legal challenges, it is over ?

 

Seriously wrong tense there.  

It *should be* over. barring the challenges.  Point of irony here:  if cases end up at the Supreme Court and Trump still loses, it's his own packed court.

 

But I'm not going to say it's over until Biden takes the oath of office.  I am perfectly content to be called paranoid, but it's not a done deal until then.  And Trump still holds the position;  he's got, what, 70-odd days to throw a tantrum.  He took the chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission away earlier this week, for promoting wind and solar, and gave it to a different member.  He's been reported as having most agencies work on regulatory rollbacks;  those are likely to be made official.  As long as he's got the office, there's a lot of damage he can do.

By the time I started becoming semi-conscious...

 

grab iPad, head to nytimes.com......

 

 

BEST 

BIRTHDAY 
PRESENT 

EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hermit]

7 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

Seriously wrong tense there.  

It *should be* over. barring the challenges.  Point of irony here:  if cases end up at the Supreme Court and Trump still loses, it's his own packed court.

 

But I'm not going to say it's over until Biden takes the oath of office.  I am perfectly content to be called paranoid, but it's not a done deal until then.  And Trump still holds the position;  he's got, what, 70-odd days to throw a tantrum.  He took the chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission away earlier this week, for promoting wind and solar, and gave it to a different member.  He's been reported as having most agencies work on regulatory rollbacks;  those are likely to be made official.  As long as he's got the office, there's a lot of damage he can do.

 

You're not alone. Trump will throw everything he can and see what sticks when it comes to legal challenges to the votes with the recounts and more, but even then, he is likely to take a scorched earth policy .  He will encourage hate and violence and we may see more shooting and car attacks. He will destroy whole departments and so on.

 

Let's hope Congress, reading the writing on the wall, decides to actually fight him on some of it. I don't hold out high hopes.

 

 

[unclevlad]

1 minute ago, Hermit said:

 

You're not alone. Trump will throw everything he can and see what sticks when it comes to legal challenges to the votes with the recounts and more, but even then, he is likely to take a scorched earth policy .  He will encourage hate and violence and we may see more shooting and car attacks. He will destroy whole departments and so on.

 

Let's hope Congress, reading the writing on the wall, decides to actually fight him on some of it. I don't hold out high hopes.

 

 

 

I think the Senate's willingness might be tied to the calculus for the next Congress...and specifically, to the *2* Georgia runoffs for Senate seats, that are now expected.  The context for those races just became much, much clearer, and there won't be other elections to distract them.  I feel seriously sorry for all Georgia residents because that state is about to see 40 days and 40 nights of unceasing ads, and those ads will probably be more negative and more strident ("keep the Senate or the socialists can't be stopped!!!" kind of stuff) than ever.

[Old Man]

26 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

 

 

BEST 

BIRTHDAY 
PRESENT 

EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy birthday!

[Starlord]

LOTS of big outdoor celebrations going on.  I get that you want to celebrate, but all I'm seeing are massive superspreader events.

[Lectryk]

37 minutes ago, Starlord said:

YOU'RE FIRED!

 

 

I agree with others about the slog we still face until the 20th, but...

 

 

[Greywind]

15 hours ago, Old Man said:

"Socialism", my ass.  A less exploitative minimum wage,

 

 

Minimum wage goes up, less people and more kiosks up front.

 

[Ranxerox]

35 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

BEST 

BIRTHDAY 
PRESENT 

EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Happy Birthday, unclevlad!  It is my brother's birthday too, and he was also thrilled with the gift.

[Greywind]

[Ragitsu]

On 11/7/2020 at 10:39 AM, Greywind said:

 

Minimum wage goes up, less people and more kiosks up front.

 

 

If it had kept up with inflation, the minimum wage would be significantly above fifteen dollars per hour.

[TrickstaPriest]

40 minutes ago, Greywind said:

 

Minimum wage goes up, less people and more kiosks up front.

 

 

I don't get this argument.  It's blatantly wrong.

 

How much do you think you need to be paid to compete with a kiosk?

 

Less than $1 an hour.

 

Minimum wage or not, less people and more kiosks up front.

[Old Man]

48 minutes ago, Greywind said:

 

Minimum wage goes up, less people and more kiosks up front.

 

 

I'd be greatly interested in seeing evidence to support this assertion.

[Greywind]

5 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

I don't get this argument.  It's blatantly wrong.

 

How much do you think you need to be paid to compete with a kiosk?

 

Less than $1 an hour.

 

Minimum wage or not, less people and more kiosks up front.

 

I used to work for a company that relied heavily on part timers. Because there wasn't as much investment in the people in the long term. What they found out was that full timers had a better grasp of the merchandise they were supposed to be selling and were more invested in their jobs.

Look at McDonalds. Used to be, depending on how busy, 2-4 cash registers taking orders in the front. Now, generally zero, and it is all a do-it-yourself kiosk. The push for higher minimum wage also pushed for the businesses to automate faster.

18 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

 

If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be significantly above fifteen dollars per hour.

 

Absolutely.

[Ternaugh]

1 minute ago, Greywind said:

 

I used to work for a company that relied heavily on part timers. Because there wasn't as much investment in the people in the long term. What they found out was that full timers had a better grasp of the merchandise they were supposed to be selling and were more invested in their jobs.

Look at McDonalds. Used to be, depending on how busy, 2-4 cash registers taking orders in the front. Now, generally zero, and it is all a do-it-yourself kiosk. The push for higher minimum wage also pushed for the businesses to automate faster.

 

Absolutely.

 

 

The local Jack-in-the-Box had a kiosk taking orders for a few years, and then took it out. And I doubt that In-N-Out will be adding a kiosk anytime soon (and they pay over minimum wage, with benefits).

[TrickstaPriest]

10 minutes ago, Greywind said:

I used to work for a company that relied heavily on part timers. Because there wasn't as much investment in the people in the long term. What they found out was that full timers had a better grasp of the merchandise they were supposed to be selling and were more invested in their jobs.

Look at McDonalds. Used to be, depending on how busy, 2-4 cash registers taking orders in the front. Now, generally zero, and it is all a do-it-yourself kiosk. The push for higher minimum wage also pushed for the businesses to automate faster.

29 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

 

I wholly agree on both of those - companies moving towards part timers are in what's called  "race to the bottom", where no one knows anything about the company.  We had that starting to happen at a previous company I was working at, and when all the skilled people left, it crippled the company.

 

The problem with using McDonalds is that they want kiosks over people.  There's so little point in having a full timer in the business.  Pushing for a higher minimum wage -did- make that automate faster, but the minimum wage is already so low you can't live on it for 40 hours a week.  It's actually impossible in many locations.

 

Blaming the minimum wage on that just doesn't track.  A kiosk does the work of a thousand humans compared to the cost.  Firing all your humans for  one or two machines is always the end goal, and minimum wage only sped that up by less than a decade.

 

Wells Fargo announced many months before the election was even talked about that everyone at the company better learn about machine learning, or they are (edit: probably) getting canned.

 

Those people definitely earn more than minimum wage.  But that's not the point.  The point is even if there was no minimum wage, your payment would be the same as a slave in China in order to compete with the trend you are talking about.

[Old Man]

Only America could turn the idea of robots doing all the work into a bad thing.

[TrickstaPriest]

1 minute ago, Old Man said:

Only America could turn the idea of robots doing all the work into a bad thing.

 

Problem has to do with the balance of power.

 

In a stable democracy, our chief resource is skilled workers.  This is because companies have to compete for skilled workers, the government has to provide amenities (like hospitals), and classes.

 

We've seen a trend cutting back all of these things.  It's just my opinion, but I believe it's because America is less interested in the benefits of having skilled workers anymore, and fewer and fewer skilled workers need to exist.

 

McDonalds is a perfect example of that.  They can easily fire and replace those people in weeks.  But cutting a salaried skill worker, on average, apparently costs the company 2.5x that persons' salary to replace.  They want to keep them.

 

This doesn't mean low-skilled workers shouldn't be treated well.  It's why I argue for such benefits.  But when the balance of power shifts too much, and workers have too little power, there's no point in maintaining any of the societal benefits needed to begin with

[TrickstaPriest]

This is the best pair of videos I can use to describe the interaction of power and automation.  Specifically about things like banana republics, and the minimum infrastructure necessary to support it:
 

 

 

 

[unclevlad]

34 minutes ago, Greywind said:

Look at McDonalds. Used to be, depending on how busy, 2-4 cash registers taking orders in the front. Now, generally zero, and it is all a do-it-yourself kiosk. The push for higher minimum wage also pushed for the businesses to automate faster.

 

Even if true, so what?  The only aspect the kiosk eliminates is the register person.  It doesn't eliminate everyone in the back.  In fact, it's quite possible that one or two of the counter people move to similar positions...just behind the scenes.  Or...the counter's been reduced because the drive-thru is much busier, so there's another simple shift.  So what was the overall impact on number of employee-hours?  Not saying it's not trending down...but not necessarily by as much as you're suggesting.

 

Finally, focusing solely on rising wages is too narrow.  Automation should, in principle, allow multiple other benefits...fewer mistakes, trading off higher initial cost for lower ongoing cost (and here, rising wages changes the break-even point a bit, but doesn't change the overall argument), lower supervision needed, that sort of thing.  (WAY back in the day when I worked at McD's...on a crush day like after a home football game, we'd have 30 crew in the store, and 3 managers.)

[Greywind]

Quote

“We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over. Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor. In Pennsylvania, for example, our legal observers were not permitted meaningful access to watch the counting process.  Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media.

 

“Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated. The American People are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots. This is the only way to ensure the public has full confidence in our election. It remains shocking that the Biden campaign refuses to agree with this basic principle and wants ballots counted even if they are fraudulent, manufactured, or cast by ineligible or deceased voters. Only a party engaged in wrongdoing would unlawfully keep observers out of the count room – and then fight in court to block their access.  

 

“So what is Biden hiding? I will not rest until the American People have the honest vote count they deserve and that Democracy demands.”

 

- President Donald J. Trump

 

[death tribble]

At the risk of being banned for going completely off topic, this one is for unclevlad

 

And from Stevie Wonder

 

And from Iceland

 

[TrickstaPriest]

14 minutes ago, Greywind said:

 

 

As I literally said a day or two ago, people are forgetting that Trump had four years to open any kind of commission or investigation he wanted to in our election process.  He refused to do so.  He didn't care to do so.

 

His entire administration he's been making up outrageous claims, from Ted Cruz's father being the assassin of JFK, to Fox News treating him unfairly in very basic interviews.  It's not as though there might not be election shenanigans, it's whether those shenanigans are significant.  The point, as we've said for over a month, isn't to try and demonstrate or improve anything, just to tear down what exists if it's in his way, personally.

 

(edited to make this less personal.  I admit my own ire)

 

My point, I guess, is that we don't improve a democratic process by tearing down the fundamental institutions that are in the way of a specific politician.  That's how we lose those things.  (edit)  The way people share this is what's frustrating me personally so much.  Like there's literally no context and he hasn't been saying and talking like this for months, trying to shut down even vote counting past midnight despite how insane that is.

[Ragitsu]

20 minutes ago, Greywind said:

 

 

Obviously, T didn't write that.

[TrickstaPriest]

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/01/930140373/fact-check-trump-falsely-claims-that-votes-shouldnt-be-counted-after-election-da

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/midnight-tonight/616970/

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/us/politics/trump-ballot-counting-election.html

 

Just part of the public record that yes, Trump did push to literally stop ballot counting on election night.

 

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/11/03/the-starkest-choice-since-1964-johnson-goldwater-battle/

[Dr. MID-Nite]

2 hours ago, Greywind said:

 

Minimum wage goes up, less people and more kiosks up front.

 

Nonsense. The minimum wage is higher in nearly every other First World country and their economies aren't collapsing. Some jobs get replaced...others are created. It's not rocket science. This is fear mongering by a Capitalist America that doesn't want to give up one penny of profit or invest in the American people.