General Politics Discussion (XI) [ARCHIVED] World • Page 929

I've bought a few of Brandon's prints years ago but it sucks to hear he's had a pretty bad financial situation over the last few years. Pandemic did not help.

 

New York post-Biden debate:

 

They should do the actual interview at 9PM

 

Could the dems that are not behind Biden nominate someone at the convention or no? No idea how any of that works.

 

@David87

 

the thing is this has never been the norm for people—no one’s (hyperbole of course, very very very few) have ever been able to afford to live in expensive cities on their own. That’s why roommates have been a thing and why so much pop culture about young people living in cities has been them living with roommates haha. That’s more of a comment on the capitalist system and how/what it prioritizes though. It’s part of the long story why so many people think capitalism maybe isn’t so great, to say it nicely. That’s a lot different than how the economy itself is growing/wages/labor force/UE though. The economy can be good while the economic system sucks and is unfair. Idk if there’s a country that has figured out that balance yet. I guess the social democracies of Western Europe come close, but the trade off there is smaller living spaces and less amenities. I think a lot of Americans are way too materialistic to get us there, at least right now. And right now anyway some of their economies are in shambles and/or dealing with worse conditions than ours is.

 

Love to watch the party go down in flames while their only recourse is to trot Biden out for another unconvincing tv interview which inevitably repeats the same news cycle for yet another week. We tried! Didn’t you see the interviews? Many news anchors! One network a week! Didn’t you see those? You did? And they didn’t change your minds, right? It actually made it worse every time, right? And you’re wondering what we’re going to do about it, right? We hear your concerns and that’s why next Thursday President Biden will be sitting down for an exclusive one on one interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper where he will wet himself live. Stay tuned.

 

He’s supposed to be doing a PC tomorrow too right?

 

lmfao

 

If you want to highlight that the economic system is bad - like if that’s truly a priority of yours as a way of hoping to see it changed - then pointing to the fact that the metrics used to signify when that system is doing “good” and “bad” don’t match up to people’s experiences is a good and smart thing to do.

It sounds insane to say “well sure the system sucks, but the numbers reported to justify the system look great.”

 

it’s true. An economy can churn out employment and growth and still be a system that doesn’t allocate that growth fairly. That’s kind of capitalism’s whole thing lol. It can employ a lot of people for higher wages and can grow a ton, but lacks equity and security. This is where govt should step in and better allocate! But a lot of the best ideas to try to do that would require SCOTUS to not be in the hands of conservatives so even the shambling corpse of Joe Biden controlling the White House would be important there. But hopefully someone else falls out of the coconut tree here pretty soon.

this thread hates to hear it but the growth in wages and real income the last few years has benefitted the bottom 10% of people the most, meaning the economy of the last couple of years has been one of the only times (the only time?) post-New Deal that the growth didn’t disproportionately benefit the wealthy over the poor. They’re I think the only group of people whose wages outpaced inflation almost the entire time? With the exception of I think a 4-5ish month part of 2022. But theyre starting from such a low number as it is that we need years more of that to keep up to really get them on solid footing

also to be fair that trend technically started in 2014/15ish, but at that point it was only a few decimals above the other levels, whereas in 2022 it was like 2%+ higher than the upper income levels lol

 

tbf, what folks around here think of the positives of socialism and communism don’t match up to peoples experiences living in those systems either. People just pick and choose which aspects of those different systems to ignore/brush off/etc. It’s okay to admit the good and bad of every system, and then put policy ideas forward to fix the flaws or make it work better or etc.

I don’t think we’re ever going to live in a socialist or communist system here, so I think highlighting and supporting so called “socialist” ideas that could make the so called “capitalist” system here benefit more people is the way to go. Really it’s all just a mixed economy and we’re all arguing over which way the mix leans.

 

wait a minute...you're telling me that the things that make a "good economy" don't necessarily make people's lives good? where do you come up with this stuff!

 

“Sure imperialist capitalism has been bad for hundreds of years, but have you stopped to consider that the handful of countries that have tried communism or socialism in the past 100 years aren’t perfect either” weird deflection, man.

Like, I’m not trying to say that they’ve been wonderful perfect systems as implemented in the past century (although in a number of ways they have furthered societal advancement against incredible odds with the west completely trying to choke the life out of them). But they’re also systems that have been tried very few times, in places behind the geopolitical 8 ball, during a very short period of history, and with nigh insurmountable Western interference. Treating that as if they somehow failed due to merit is too dense for me to believe that it’s your actual take.

And again, I think you confuse socialism and communism for policy decisions you think are good, rather than transforming who society is organized around and who it is ran by. Who is in charge of the economy, who makes decisions, how social life is structured, etc. It’s how you wind up seeing that some money is being given to private corporations who will funnel some of it into market-driven environmentalism and think “that’s leftism, baby!”. Never mind that we are left at the mercy of a handful of people making business decisions that you and I have no means of holding to account, even if those business decisions may imperil millions of lives.

As far as the whole “America will never be socialist” point - maybe not, because this is a country that owes its existence to capitalism and global exploitation of people and resources and imperialism. Many Americans owe their relative comfort to those things, while they perpetuate human horror around the world. It’s easier to imagine the end of America than it is to imagine it becoming a socialist country. But still, while I’d personally welcome the fall of our country, you again display an incredibly limited view of history. Who the fuck knows what America looks like in 50, or 100 years. Whether it exists, and whether the horrific conditions we seem set to come up against change it for the better or worse, depend in part on the future we’re articulating now. Saying “actually this economy is good and it’s helping you” when it’s evident that A) it’s not and B) people don’t generally feel that way is setting yourself up to be ignored by the future. Wasting time trying to justify the unjustifiable when you could be articulating a vision for the way things can and will need to be to address the very serious obstacles created by this system.

 

see what I mean? there’s no way this should count towards his post total

 

I really want to stop making such long posts, it’s so deeply uncool

 

You guys are surprised when he takes your bait, what is this?

 

See, i feel like im the one taking the bait but either way its on me lol

 

I almost said something about even tagging him to respond lol

 

I’m just jesting anyway David was extremely kind to me recently when i was having a rough time so he can say whatever he wants about the economy i still have love for him but im also gonna break his balls about it