What are the indefinite detentions accomplishing?? Again, the cruelty isn't a bug, it's a feature. It's not an accident or incidental side-effect. It's the main purpose of the policy.
I agree. It's the same thinking as with family separations - if you make things miserable enough for those wanting to come to the US, then other people will be put off coming. I don't think that immigration should be unrestricted. However, I don't accept that policies that inflict cruel punishment, deliberately not incidentally, can ever be a justifiable response to a problem.
What are the indefinite detentions accomplishing?? Again, the cruelty isn't a bug, it's a feature. It's not an accident or incidental side-effect. It's the main purpose of the policy.
I agree. It's the same thinking as with family separations - if you make things miserable enough for those wanting to come to the US, then other people will be put off coming. I don't think that immigration should be unrestricted. However, I don't accept that policies that inflict cruel punishment, deliberately not incidentally, can ever be a justifiable response to a problem.
I don't think it has anything to do with decreasing the number of people who want to try. I believe it is just pure malice. They enjoy it in the same way a burgeoning psychopath enjoys frying ants with a magnifying glass or torturing animals as a kid.
What do you guys think of this method of "Gun control? I don't know. At least one gun owner I knew made his own loads. Is there a way you could prevent that or very much limit that? Is there a way to deal with people who have already stocked up on ammo? Prevent people from buying ammo online/from other gun owners. How can we prevent someone from making their own ammoand thus getting around this way of limiting the damage of mass gun shootings?
Make no mistake, I think this wouldn't be enough on its own, but as part of things like banning bump stocks, do you think this could be an effective way of limiting shootings?
There was a situation on Twitter tonight that I just have to comment on. In response to a tweet by Glenn Greenwald about the massively out-sized influence of the pro-Israel lobby in this country (namely AIPAC), Representative Ilhan Omar responded "It's all about the Benjamins", which is (for anyone who wasn't in a coma for all of the late '90s) a reference to the Puff Daddy song, which translates to, "it's all about the money". Which, of course, led to a chorus of anti-Semitism charges.
Now, AIPAC has designed quite a wonderful Catch-22 for everyone to make sure they are essentially IMMUNE from criticism, and I'll explain it in detail now. AIPAC has been running around Washington as a massively powerful lobbying group for DECADES spreading money around like chicken feed. And it has worked. You can't even breath a negative word in the general direction of Israel when talking about American politics without being called an anti-Semite. Indeed, at this point in our history, it seems the prevailing wisdom is that it is more patriotic to support Israel than the United States itself. You would catch less flack for taking a dump on the American flag while pushing a disabled war vet down a flight of stairs than you will for even SUGGESTING that maybe we shouldn't be spending 38 billion dollars funding an Israeli war machine (most of that money, of course, ends up right in the pockets of American defense contractors). While Israel has a universal healthcare system and we have people who die from lack of insulin, we are funding THEIR defense department instead. And it is viewed as sacrosanct. Hell, there is a bill going though Congress right now that nearly all Republicans and way, WAY too many Democrats are signing onto that basically makes it illegal for companies to boycott Israel.
And this is because, much to the efforts of AIPAC, criticism of Israel has somehow become synonymous with hating the Jewish people. Think about it. The kind of lobbying effort they have undertaken over the last 50 years has involved hundreds of millions of dollars. In other words, dark money flowing all around Washington for as long as anyone can remember. Of course, we all know about the stereotype revolving around Jews and money. Since AIPAC's entire apparatus is built around buying influence, it is IMPOSSIBLE to criticize them without mentioning money. But (as AIPAC is well aware) the moment anyone DOES mention money (because how can you talk about lobbying without doing so), they are immediately condemned as an anti-Semite sight unseen. Thus, there IS no way to criticize them, which is why they are essentially an official arm of the Likud Party that has most members of both political parties by the balls. For a deep rundown of how this has happened, I suggest this article:
I posted about this in my news thread, but this still really makes me burn with anger. My belly is churning.
A group of Sikh men from Punjab, India, have been imprisoned in the El Paso detention center. Since no one there speaks Punjabi, these men can't be told about their immigration status. So, after being there for months, they went on a hunger strike. Now, they are so weak and frail that they can't be sent back to India because they could die in transit, but they still refuse to eat. So a judge mandated that they be force fed, sometimes multiple times per day, through nasal hoses.
Because the men don't want to eat, they struggle, so to feed them, they are tied down to a bed. When they resist force-feeding, they are threatened with immediate deportation- even though they are too weak, medically, to be sent home. The pressure of the force feeding is so intense that the men end up vomiting it out. Some vomit blood as well as the liquid diet they are being force-fed. Nasal bleeding is common. And because the men resist being force-fed, they were put into solitary confinement as well. The attorney who is trying to get them free was not allowed to see them.
Ruby Kaur, is one of their attorneys, and represents two of the men. Kaur also claims ICE officials told the men earlier this week that they would be deported Friday morning, a threat she says was repeated again after the Thursday confrontation. She says the men were examined by a doctor, who cleared them for travel to India. Kaur disagreed that they were in any condition to fly: “They are experiencing rectal bleeding, nasal bleeding, wounds in their throats; they cannot talk, they feel weak, and they are really stressed out and depressed,” she notes, adding that many of them have lost 40 or 50 pounds, have scars on their arms from the IVs, and have experienced blood in their vomit.
This violates the UN conventions against torture, and the US could be in tons of trouble for this.
As of Saturday, they were still detained in El Paso, Kaul says. ICE did not respond to a question about whether it had threatened them with deportation.
Judges in the past have allowed ICE to force-feed detainees on hunger strike, though the International Committee of the Red Cross and the American Medical Association have expressed ethical concerns about the practice. A spokesman for the United Nations human rights office said Thursday the treatment of the asylum-seekers in El Paso could violate the UN Convention Against Torture.
This isn’t the first time South Asians have gone on hunger strike at the El Paso facility. In 2014, a group of 37 Sikh Indian men stopped eating to protest their detention. The next year, more than 50 Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Afghan asylum-seekers did the same and reportedly ended up in isolation. Many of those detainees were deported to Bangladesh, where some of them were killed after their arrival, claims Sridaran, citing a New York-based group called DRUM that was in touch with their family members. DRUM did not reply to a request for comment.
One reason for these protests is that South Asians are denied bond hearings at higher rates than other asylum-seekers, according to Sridaran. In 2016, BuzzFeed obtained documents in a Freedom of Information Act request that highlighted this trend: The documents showed that 83 percent of Indians facing deportation from the country were incarcerated in 2013—a rate much greater than for people from other countries, including Mexico. “Because they are languishing in the facility for months at a time, and in some previous cases for more than a year, they will launch a hunger strike to draw attention to their situation,” Sridaran says, noting that many of them have been denied language interpreters and religious accommodations during their detention.
Outside Texas, four immigration detainees are on hunger strike at facilities in or near Miami, Phoenix, San Diego, and San Francisco, an agency spokeswoman confirmed to the Associated Press in late January. Since May 2015, nearly 1,400 people have gone on hunger strike at 18 immigrant detention facilities, according to the advocacy group Freedom for Immigrants.
Honestly, this makes me sick, that our government is doing this.
Our government didn't force them to stop eating. They chose to...
Our government put holes in their arms and tubes down their noses, necks, and buttholes it sounds like. They didn't provide translation or attempt to help these guys so they went on a hunger strike.
They should have helped them not by force feeding them but by processing their case. Nobody should have wanted them to let them starve themselves to death so they should have helped them.
What do you guys think of this method of "Gun control? I don't know. At least one gun owner I knew made his own loads. Is there a way you could prevent that or very much limit that? Is there a way to deal with people who have already stocked up on ammo? Prevent people from buying ammo online/from other gun owners. How can we prevent someone from making their own ammoand thus getting around this way of limiting the damage of mass gun shootings?
Make no mistake, I think this wouldn't be enough on its own, but as part of things like banning bump stocks, do you think this could be an effective way of limiting shootings?
It won't do much on the domestic violence and suicide front, you don't need much ammo for that. Regarding the effects on amok type shootings & organized crime,
I feel the same as about gun control in general (I have a longer post on that somewhere in this thread). My expectation is that it would help reduce the problem, with a time lag of a few years due to the existing ammo around. In short: criminals will still get ammo and guns, but a noticeable fraction will get caught doing so or in actual possession.
I despise the organized crime answer whenever gun control is brought up.
Dylan Roof was not part of organized crime.
Adam Lanza was not part of organized crime.
Robert Gregory Bowers was not part of organized crime.
Stephen Paddock Was not part of organized crime.
Zephen Xaver Was not part of organized crime.
Dakota Theriot Was not part of organized crime.
Daylon Gamble Was not part of organized crime.
Jordan Witmer Was not part of organized crime.
Jason Owen Davis Was not part of organized crime.
Should I keep listing them? The last five were this year (or a month and a half, and hardly the only ones) only.
Organized crime is not a part of the gun violence problem. Yes career criminals will find ways to get their hands on guns. But guess what? That is just another charge the police can throw at them if and when they are arrested.
Organized criminals are not the ones Shooting up schools, hospitals and work places.
Think of a thief robbing a jewelry store. To not get caught: He needs to break into the locked store, disable an alarm, break into a locked room, crack open a safe while probably having to disable another alarm before he can even get his hands on anything valuable. Gun violence in America is like leaving that safe wide open with no alarms set with a note telling the thief where they can find a good fence. Anyone can do it if they want. Just because a majority of people won’t doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attempt to hinder the people who will.
Making it more difficult to obtain ammunition I have been advocating since I was in high school. There is nowhere in the constitution stating that you get to have the bullets. Start applying restrictions such as being part a well regulated Militia and go from there.
Now is also the time to act since the largest lobby the NRA is blemished and black eyed being wrapped up with the Russians.
If Dems start bringing up gun control (they won’t), they have the perfect response to shut up Trump about the violence pouring in through the southern border and change the conversation to something a lot of Americans think is an issue that needs to be discussed.
The "results are in" for a one-year universal basic income plan for Finland, which distributed sums of money to a randomly selected group of 2,000 people. The full results won't be available until 2020; we're only seeing the preliminary results, which found an improvement in the recipients' health, stress, mood, concentration, and trust in the future, to paraphrase the article, but no significant change in employment.
I'm undecided. It's not that hard to believe that the solution to too many people having too little money is to give people more money, but I'm not sure this is the best way to do it. Apparently one of the conservative arguments is that it can simplify social programs by uniting them into a single system of distribution where everyone just gets a sum of money, which would obviate the need for a certain amount of bureaucracy. However, it seems inefficient to make this universal, because you'd be spending a lot of money on the non-poor majority, who would not need the assistance. It would make more sense to me to make the funds only accessible to the poorer citizens, and to make it scale gradually with income.
The cost also seems kind of heavy. I understand that the money isn't lost; the people who receive it are pouring it right back into the economy, but I'd want to pair it with revenue increases or spending cuts elsewhere so the government's budget would remain balanced. Normally I'd prefer revenue increases over spending cuts since I live in the U.S., but this is Finland, where taxes and spending would both be much higher.
The other problem I can foresee is that, if this program were truly universal, or at least very large in scale, it would reduce the incentive for employers to provide higher salaries. Some employers could cut salaries, knowing that their employees could instead just rely on their government income to stay afloat. Some of this program would be funneling money not into the pockets of ordinary citizens, but into the coffers of corporations. My cousin-in-law has pointed out that one of the reasons Walmart can get away with paying such low wages is that they can get their workers to apply for government benefits. In his words, "Who is that money really going to?"
I've said before that corporate taxes should depend on how much money they spend on their workers. I think the best way to improve income inequality and raise wages is to increase taxes on employers who hire few people, for fewer hours, and pay their employees less, and lower taxes on employers who hire lots of people, for full-time hours, and pay their employees well. For the unemployed or disabled, we'd have a separate program to provide support. That would keep the spending level low while still pushing employers to increase wages and increase hiring.
I've said before that corporate taxes should depend on how much money they spend on their workers. I think the best way to improve income inequality and raise wages is to increase taxes on employers who hire few people, for fewer hours, and pay their employees less, and lower taxes on employers who hire lots of people, for full-time hours, and pay their employees well. For the unemployed or disabled, we'd have a separate program to provide support. That would keep the spending level low while still pushing employers to increase wages and increase hiring.
I think that would just punish labour intensive industries while benefiting others.
@FinneousPJ: For a moment I thought made a typo, but you misread my post; it's the other way around. Labor-intensive industries--those which depend on a great deal of labor--would be taxed at a lower rate in my plan; industries which hire few workers would be taxed at the higher rates. I have no idea why anyone would increase taxes on corporations who hired more people.
increase taxes on employers who hire few people, for fewer hours, and pay their employees less, and lower taxes on employers who hire lots of people, for full-time hours, and pay their employees well.
The idea is to reward companies who actually create jobs, especially those which create higher-paying jobs and hire workers full-time instead of part time. One of the big problems we have today is that (1) wages are stagnant, (2) a lot of people are working fewer hours than they want to, and (3) a lot of jobs are being outsourced to non-citizens. So, you'd make taxes lower for corporations that (1) paid higher wages, (2) paid for more hours of labor, and (3) who hired citizens instead of illegal immigrants or subcontracting to foreign countries. The second and third components of that plan are there to discourage companies from avoiding paying higher wages by automatic jobs or replacing them with lower-cost foreign alternatives.
Now Pelosi and Dems are telling Omar to apologize.
This is totally stupid. Omar pointed out the corruption of Republican officials and their blind love for Israel is due to the massive amounts of cash that their lobbyists dump into the cesspool that is the Republican party. And Omar is supposed to apologize for pointing that out. Spare us your fake tears Republicans. And I can't believe the Dems fell for this one. So stupid.
@FinneousPJ: For a moment I thought made a typo, but you misread my post; it's the other way around. Labor-intensive industries--those which depend on a great deal of labor--would be taxed at a lower rate in my plan; industries which hire few workers would be taxed at the higher rates. I have no idea why anyone would increase taxes on corporations who hired more people.
increase taxes on employers who hire few people, for fewer hours, and pay their employees less, and lower taxes on employers who hire lots of people, for full-time hours, and pay their employees well.
The idea is to reward companies who actually create jobs, especially those which create higher-paying jobs and hire workers full-time instead of part time. One of the big problems we have today is that (1) wages are stagnant, (2) a lot of people are working fewer hours than they want to, and (3) a lot of jobs are being outsourced to non-citizens. So, you'd make taxes lower for corporations that (1) paid higher wages, (2) paid for more hours of labor, and (3) who hired citizens instead of illegal immigrants or subcontracting to foreign countries. The second and third components of that plan are there to discourage companies from avoiding paying higher wages by automatic jobs or replacing them with lower-cost foreign alternatives.
Hmmm, I thought he meant labor-intensive as being tough jobs, not 'employing many people'. There are many really hard jobs that don't require multiple people (I'm thinking plumbers, electricians, landscapers, etc...). Many of those types of jobs are done by one handy-man or maybe a family. Should some corporate entity start buying them up for the tax benefits? Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Rewarding mega-companies doesn't sound like a very liberal idea to me either...
Now Pelosi and Dems are telling Omar to apologize.
This is totally stupid. Omar pointed out the corruption of Republican officials and their blind love for Israel is due to the massive amounts of cash that their lobbyists dump into the cesspool that is the Republican party. And Omar is supposed to apologize for pointing that out. Spare us your fake tears Republicans. And I can't believe the Dems fell for this one. So stupid.
She isn't just pointing it out about Republicans. In this particular case, Democrats are JUST as guilty, and some of them (for instance Chuck Schumer) are even MORE guilty of it. In this instance, it really is "both sides". I rarely believe this is actually the case, but this is one of the issues where it absolutely is.
@semiticgod It's my intuition that it wouldn't work as you imagine. Perhaps make some rudimentary calculations to demonstrate how it would affect different types of businesses?
The "results are in" for a one-year universal basic income plan for Finland, which distributed sums of money to a randomly selected group of 2,000 people. The full results won't be available until 2020; we're only seeing the preliminary results, which found an improvement in the recipients' health, stress, mood, concentration, and trust in the future, to paraphrase the article, but no significant change in employment.
I'm undecided. It's not that hard to believe that the solution to too many people having too little money is to give people more money, but I'm not sure this is the best way to do it. Apparently one of the conservative arguments is that it can simplify social programs by uniting them into a single system of distribution where everyone just gets a sum of money, which would obviate the need for a certain amount of bureaucracy. However, it seems inefficient to make this universal, because you'd be spending a lot of money on the non-poor majority, who would not need the assistance. It would make more sense to me to make the funds only accessible to the poorer citizens, and to make it scale gradually with income.
The cost also seems kind of heavy. I understand that the money isn't lost; the people who receive it are pouring it right back into the economy, but I'd want to pair it with revenue increases or spending cuts elsewhere so the government's budget would remain balanced. Normally I'd prefer revenue increases over spending cuts since I live in the U.S., but this is Finland, where taxes and spending would both be much higher.
The other problem I can foresee is that, if this program were truly universal, or at least very large in scale, it would reduce the incentive for employers to provide higher salaries. Some employers could cut salaries, knowing that their employees could instead just rely on their government income to stay afloat. Some of this program would be funneling money not into the pockets of ordinary citizens, but into the coffers of corporations. My cousin-in-law has pointed out that one of the reasons Walmart can get away with paying such low wages is that they can get their workers to apply for government benefits. In his words, "Who is that money really going to?"
I've said before that corporate taxes should depend on how much money they spend on their workers. I think the best way to improve income inequality and raise wages is to increase taxes on employers who hire few people, for fewer hours, and pay their employees less, and lower taxes on employers who hire lots of people, for full-time hours, and pay their employees well. For the unemployed or disabled, we'd have a separate program to provide support. That would keep the spending level low while still pushing employers to increase wages and increase hiring.
I think people would take more risks when it comes to business ideas if they're guaranteed a basic income.
Creativity, research and development and small businesses would surge, while companies like Walmart would have to offer more of an incentive (such as not being treated like trash) to keep employees working there.
More niche markets would also open up as capitalism would not be the full driving force for something to be successful.
HOWEVER, someone will have to pay everyone this amount so how. If the government gave everyone a basic income, the government needs to get its money from somewhere else besides it population (IE companies or rich individuals) to pay for this. They would need to have an incentive themselves to actually pay into it, or businesses (and rich individuals) would just up and leave to more tax friendly places. This needs to be addressed before basic income actually becomes viable.
The thing is spending on "Social protection" was 55.6 billion euros in 2017*. That money divided by 5.6 million people and adding a generous 50% bureaucratic overhead would still leave us 9.9 k€ per person per year, or over 800 € per month. Consolidating all social protection under a universal income would thus seem cheaper.
@semiticgod It's my intuition that it wouldn't work as you imagine. Perhaps make some rudimentary calculations to demonstrate how it would affect different types of businesses?
What is your intuition telling you, then? @FinneousPJ, you said that it would "punish labor-intensive industries." If by "labor-intensive," you mean companies that employ large numbers of people for long hours per person, those are the industries that would be taxed less. I do not see how giving a company a tax break could possibly punish them.
I don't have a proposed set of figures. Let's make it as conservative as possible: if your company employs 10% more workers as a percentage of your company's net worth, pays them for 10% more hours, and pays them 10% higher wages than the average company, it has to pay 1% less on the corporate tax rate. If your company employs 10% fewer workers as a percentage of your company's net worth, pays them for 10% fewer hours, and pays them 10% lower wages than the average company, it has to pay 1% more on the corporate tax rate.
Which "labor-intensive" industries would be "punished" by the above system?
She said:"Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes," Omar said. "My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize."
She continued, "At the same time, I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry. It's gone on too long and we must be willing to address it."
She wasn't being anti-semitic. She was talking about the corruption of the Republican party. And they clutched their pearls "oh I do declare, that is so shocking!" then they turned around and laughed when Trump tweets out native american genocide jokes. So disgusting, the Republican party and their fake outrage.
They just don't like her because she's muslim. They also don't like that she is against the corruption of lobbyists and money in politics when they are for that. They are pro-corruption.
@semiticgod, you mention three variables but present two outcomes: AAA vs BBB. I think you'll also find say ABA, BAB, or presumably in the case of the Walmarts in this world, AAB (more workers, more hours, lower wages).
I really like your idea (or any idea that aims to make universal basic income work, as I'm a proponent), but I think such a system of taxes should revolve around wages paid. Efficiency, i.e. being more productive with fewer people and/or in less time, shouldn't be punished in my opinion. But exploitation, e.g. generating higher profit by underpaying staff or passing non-internalized environmental costs onto society, should. And vice versa, generosity and good ethics merit rewards.
@semiticgod It's my intuition that it wouldn't work as you imagine. Perhaps make some rudimentary calculations to demonstrate how it would affect different types of businesses?
What is your intuition telling you, then? @FinneousPJ, you said that it would "punish labor-intensive industries." If by "labor-intensive," you mean companies that employ large numbers of people for long hours per person, those are the industries that would be taxed less. I do not see how giving a company a tax break could possibly punish them.
I don't have a proposed set of figures. Let's make it as conservative as possible: if your company employs 10% more workers as a percentage of your company's net worth, pays them for 10% more hours, and pays them 10% higher wages than the average company, it has to pay 1% less on the corporate tax rate. If your company employs 10% fewer workers as a percentage of your company's net worth, pays them for 10% fewer hours, and pays them 10% lower wages than the average company, it has to pay 1% more on the corporate tax rate.
Which "labor-intensive" industries would be "punished" by the above system?
It isn't obvious to me that a 33% increase in labour costs for 1% gain in taxes would be a win for labour intensive industries. You're proposing the system; the devil is in the detail, it would be cool to some examples how it might work.
If I were to actually write such a law, I would be much less conservative with the figures. I would prefer to tweak the numbers such that the average corporate tax rate would not change if employment and wages did not change (I wouldn't want this law to have an impact on overall tax revenue). If I were a policymaker, I'd have to work with a think tank to figure out what kind of tax hikes and tax breaks would be enough to incentivize which companies to hire how many people.
@Blackraven: I'd also prefer to work with some sort of formula, to account for companies that, for example, increased the number of employees by X%, decreased hours per employee by Y%, and decreased wages by Z%. Later on, you'd tweak the numbers further to keep the policy more or less revenue neutral, since some companies would change hiring practices and you wouldn't want all companies to get a huge tax break because they jumped on those tax incentives more than you expected.
The numbers would also have to be adjusted by company size, measured by net worth, or otherwise a company might get a tax break simply because it was large in general, and could hire 1,000 people to get the same percentage tax break as a smaller company that would have to shoulder a much larger burden to hire 1,000 people. A percentage-based tax break should be determined by a percentage-based hiring change.
Part of the problem is that automation is necessary and inevitable to some extent. We don't want to reward companies for supporting inefficient jobs if robots can do it better. We do want to discourage outsourcing and encourage domestic hiring, though, and unless it's cost-effective for the government to invest in monitoring so it knows which hiring changes are due to automation (and therefore should not incur a tax penalty) and which ones are due to outsourcing (and therefore should incur a penalty), I would consider it worthwhile to discourage outsourcing at the cost of also discouraging automation.
Mostly, I just want existing wages to rise. But if we based tax policy only on the average wage of a company's employees, then companies would probably try to game the system by laying off lower-paid employees or decreasing the hours for lower-paid employees so their average wage would be higher. That's why we'd need to factor in the number of employees, the hours worked, and the company's net worth: to minimize the unintended side effects.
This is why laws tend to be very long, and are usually the product of lots of experts working in concert. A bill like this would have to be very complicated to make sure it had only the intended effect.
@Balrog99: The first part is true, but I'll dispute the second. Prices don't always rise by the same amount as wages. If they were perfectly in sync, the average population would never be better or worse off!
@Balrog99: The first part is true, but I'll dispute the second. Prices don't always rise by the same amount as wages. If they were perfectly in sync, the average population would never be better or worse off!
Unless you get a promotion or upgrade your job situation you never will get any better off. Cost of living increases alone don't seem to keep up. Luckily, globalizing has increased the buying power of most Americans or we'd be pretty pissed off by the shell game that has been pulled on us. The days of owning two cars, a truck, a boat and a cabin up north on one UAW salary are long gone and not coming back.
Interesting article about Maria Butina. Perhaps another rush to judgment? You decide. The New Republic is a fairly liberal source so this isn't some NRA rag...
And now Rand Paul has introduced legislation to enable the US to sell off land belonging to the Daniel Boone National Forst land. Thanks ever so much, Rand Paul! I hope someone names National Lands for you and prompty sells them off.
And now Rand Paul has introduced legislation to enable the US to sell off land belonging to the Daniel Boone National Forst land. Thanks ever so much, Rand Paul! I hope someone names National Lands for you and prompty sells them off.
Promptly? I think Daniel Boone has been dead for quite some time now...
And now Rand Paul has introduced legislation to enable the US to sell off land belonging to the Daniel Boone National Forst land. Thanks ever so much, Rand Paul! I hope someone names National Lands for you and prompty sells them off.
Promptly? I think Daniel Boone has been dead for quite some time now...
But Daniel Boone is an actual, you know, hero. Why sell off lands named after him?
And now Rand Paul has introduced legislation to enable the US to sell off land belonging to the Daniel Boone National Forst land. Thanks ever so much, Rand Paul! I hope someone names National Lands for you and prompty sells them off.
Promptly? I think Daniel Boone has been dead for quite some time now...
But Daniel Boone is an actual, you know, hero. Why sell off lands named after him?
You could always change the name of the forest or name some other forest for him. I really don't think the name of the forest has a whole lot of relevance. Would it somehow be better if it was named Cloakwood?
I'm quite sure Daniel Boone wasn't an environmentalist considering how many critters he and his fellow frontiersmen took out and how much land they clear-cut for their homesteads...
I thought it was from where Daniel Boone was born/raised. Apparently not, but selling off national lands leaves a funny taste in my mouth. A bad funny taste.
Comments
I agree. It's the same thinking as with family separations - if you make things miserable enough for those wanting to come to the US, then other people will be put off coming. I don't think that immigration should be unrestricted. However, I don't accept that policies that inflict cruel punishment, deliberately not incidentally, can ever be a justifiable response to a problem.
I don't think it has anything to do with decreasing the number of people who want to try. I believe it is just pure malice. They enjoy it in the same way a burgeoning psychopath enjoys frying ants with a magnifying glass or torturing animals as a kid.
What do you guys think of this method of "Gun control? I don't know. At least one gun owner I knew made his own loads. Is there a way you could prevent that or very much limit that? Is there a way to deal with people who have already stocked up on ammo? Prevent people from buying ammo online/from other gun owners. How can we prevent someone from making their own ammoand thus getting around this way of limiting the damage of mass gun shootings?
Make no mistake, I think this wouldn't be enough on its own, but as part of things like banning bump stocks, do you think this could be an effective way of limiting shootings?
Now, AIPAC has designed quite a wonderful Catch-22 for everyone to make sure they are essentially IMMUNE from criticism, and I'll explain it in detail now. AIPAC has been running around Washington as a massively powerful lobbying group for DECADES spreading money around like chicken feed. And it has worked. You can't even breath a negative word in the general direction of Israel when talking about American politics without being called an anti-Semite. Indeed, at this point in our history, it seems the prevailing wisdom is that it is more patriotic to support Israel than the United States itself. You would catch less flack for taking a dump on the American flag while pushing a disabled war vet down a flight of stairs than you will for even SUGGESTING that maybe we shouldn't be spending 38 billion dollars funding an Israeli war machine (most of that money, of course, ends up right in the pockets of American defense contractors). While Israel has a universal healthcare system and we have people who die from lack of insulin, we are funding THEIR defense department instead. And it is viewed as sacrosanct. Hell, there is a bill going though Congress right now that nearly all Republicans and way, WAY too many Democrats are signing onto that basically makes it illegal for companies to boycott Israel.
And this is because, much to the efforts of AIPAC, criticism of Israel has somehow become synonymous with hating the Jewish people. Think about it. The kind of lobbying effort they have undertaken over the last 50 years has involved hundreds of millions of dollars. In other words, dark money flowing all around Washington for as long as anyone can remember. Of course, we all know about the stereotype revolving around Jews and money. Since AIPAC's entire apparatus is built around buying influence, it is IMPOSSIBLE to criticize them without mentioning money. But (as AIPAC is well aware) the moment anyone DOES mention money (because how can you talk about lobbying without doing so), they are immediately condemned as an anti-Semite sight unseen. Thus, there IS no way to criticize them, which is why they are essentially an official arm of the Likud Party that has most members of both political parties by the balls. For a deep rundown of how this has happened, I suggest this article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/03/06/the-dark-roots-of-aipac-americas-pro-israel-lobby/?utm_term=.ef308d782eba
Our government put holes in their arms and tubes down their noses, necks, and buttholes it sounds like. They didn't provide translation or attempt to help these guys so they went on a hunger strike.
They should have helped them not by force feeding them but by processing their case. Nobody should have wanted them to let them starve themselves to death so they should have helped them.
It won't do much on the domestic violence and suicide front, you don't need much ammo for that. Regarding the effects on amok type shootings & organized crime,
I feel the same as about gun control in general (I have a longer post on that somewhere in this thread). My expectation is that it would help reduce the problem, with a time lag of a few years due to the existing ammo around. In short: criminals will still get ammo and guns, but a noticeable fraction will get caught doing so or in actual possession.
Dylan Roof was not part of organized crime.
Adam Lanza was not part of organized crime.
Robert Gregory Bowers was not part of organized crime.
Stephen Paddock Was not part of organized crime.
Zephen Xaver Was not part of organized crime.
Dakota Theriot Was not part of organized crime.
Daylon Gamble Was not part of organized crime.
Jordan Witmer Was not part of organized crime.
Jason Owen Davis Was not part of organized crime.
Should I keep listing them? The last five were this year (or a month and a half, and hardly the only ones) only.
Organized crime is not a part of the gun violence problem. Yes career criminals will find ways to get their hands on guns. But guess what? That is just another charge the police can throw at them if and when they are arrested.
Organized criminals are not the ones Shooting up schools, hospitals and work places.
Think of a thief robbing a jewelry store. To not get caught: He needs to break into the locked store, disable an alarm, break into a locked room, crack open a safe while probably having to disable another alarm before he can even get his hands on anything valuable. Gun violence in America is like leaving that safe wide open with no alarms set with a note telling the thief where they can find a good fence. Anyone can do it if they want. Just because a majority of people won’t doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attempt to hinder the people who will.
Making it more difficult to obtain ammunition I have been advocating since I was in high school. There is nowhere in the constitution stating that you get to have the bullets. Start applying restrictions such as being part a well regulated Militia and go from there.
Now is also the time to act since the largest lobby the NRA is blemished and black eyed being wrapped up with the Russians.
If Dems start bringing up gun control (they won’t), they have the perfect response to shut up Trump about the violence pouring in through the southern border and change the conversation to something a lot of Americans think is an issue that needs to be discussed.
I'm undecided. It's not that hard to believe that the solution to too many people having too little money is to give people more money, but I'm not sure this is the best way to do it. Apparently one of the conservative arguments is that it can simplify social programs by uniting them into a single system of distribution where everyone just gets a sum of money, which would obviate the need for a certain amount of bureaucracy. However, it seems inefficient to make this universal, because you'd be spending a lot of money on the non-poor majority, who would not need the assistance. It would make more sense to me to make the funds only accessible to the poorer citizens, and to make it scale gradually with income.
The cost also seems kind of heavy. I understand that the money isn't lost; the people who receive it are pouring it right back into the economy, but I'd want to pair it with revenue increases or spending cuts elsewhere so the government's budget would remain balanced. Normally I'd prefer revenue increases over spending cuts since I live in the U.S., but this is Finland, where taxes and spending would both be much higher.
The other problem I can foresee is that, if this program were truly universal, or at least very large in scale, it would reduce the incentive for employers to provide higher salaries. Some employers could cut salaries, knowing that their employees could instead just rely on their government income to stay afloat. Some of this program would be funneling money not into the pockets of ordinary citizens, but into the coffers of corporations. My cousin-in-law has pointed out that one of the reasons Walmart can get away with paying such low wages is that they can get their workers to apply for government benefits. In his words, "Who is that money really going to?"
I've said before that corporate taxes should depend on how much money they spend on their workers. I think the best way to improve income inequality and raise wages is to increase taxes on employers who hire few people, for fewer hours, and pay their employees less, and lower taxes on employers who hire lots of people, for full-time hours, and pay their employees well. For the unemployed or disabled, we'd have a separate program to provide support. That would keep the spending level low while still pushing employers to increase wages and increase hiring.
I think that would just punish labour intensive industries while benefiting others.
This is totally stupid. Omar pointed out the corruption of Republican officials and their blind love for Israel is due to the massive amounts of cash that their lobbyists dump into the cesspool that is the Republican party. And Omar is supposed to apologize for pointing that out. Spare us your fake tears Republicans. And I can't believe the Dems fell for this one. So stupid.
Hmmm, I thought he meant labor-intensive as being tough jobs, not 'employing many people'. There are many really hard jobs that don't require multiple people (I'm thinking plumbers, electricians, landscapers, etc...). Many of those types of jobs are done by one handy-man or maybe a family. Should some corporate entity start buying them up for the tax benefits? Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Rewarding mega-companies doesn't sound like a very liberal idea to me either...
She isn't just pointing it out about Republicans. In this particular case, Democrats are JUST as guilty, and some of them (for instance Chuck Schumer) are even MORE guilty of it. In this instance, it really is "both sides". I rarely believe this is actually the case, but this is one of the issues where it absolutely is.
I think people would take more risks when it comes to business ideas if they're guaranteed a basic income.
Creativity, research and development and small businesses would surge, while companies like Walmart would have to offer more of an incentive (such as not being treated like trash) to keep employees working there.
More niche markets would also open up as capitalism would not be the full driving force for something to be successful.
HOWEVER, someone will have to pay everyone this amount so how. If the government gave everyone a basic income, the government needs to get its money from somewhere else besides it population (IE companies or rich individuals) to pay for this. They would need to have an incentive themselves to actually pay into it, or businesses (and rich individuals) would just up and leave to more tax friendly places. This needs to be addressed before basic income actually becomes viable.
* https://www.stat.fi/til/jmete/2017/jmete_2017_2019-01-31_tau_001_en.html
I don't have a proposed set of figures. Let's make it as conservative as possible: if your company employs 10% more workers as a percentage of your company's net worth, pays them for 10% more hours, and pays them 10% higher wages than the average company, it has to pay 1% less on the corporate tax rate. If your company employs 10% fewer workers as a percentage of your company's net worth, pays them for 10% fewer hours, and pays them 10% lower wages than the average company, it has to pay 1% more on the corporate tax rate.
Which "labor-intensive" industries would be "punished" by the above system?
She said:"Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes," Omar said. "My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize."
She continued, "At the same time, I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry. It's gone on too long and we must be willing to address it."
She wasn't being anti-semitic. She was talking about the corruption of the Republican party. And they clutched their pearls "oh I do declare, that is so shocking!" then they turned around and laughed when Trump tweets out native american genocide jokes. So disgusting, the Republican party and their fake outrage.
They just don't like her because she's muslim. They also don't like that she is against the corruption of lobbyists and money in politics when they are for that. They are pro-corruption.
I really like your idea (or any idea that aims to make universal basic income work, as I'm a proponent), but I think such a system of taxes should revolve around wages paid. Efficiency, i.e. being more productive with fewer people and/or in less time, shouldn't be punished in my opinion. But exploitation, e.g. generating higher profit by underpaying staff or passing non-internalized environmental costs onto society, should. And vice versa, generosity and good ethics merit rewards.
It isn't obvious to me that a 33% increase in labour costs for 1% gain in taxes would be a win for labour intensive industries. You're proposing the system; the devil is in the detail, it would be cool to some examples how it might work.
@Blackraven: I'd also prefer to work with some sort of formula, to account for companies that, for example, increased the number of employees by X%, decreased hours per employee by Y%, and decreased wages by Z%. Later on, you'd tweak the numbers further to keep the policy more or less revenue neutral, since some companies would change hiring practices and you wouldn't want all companies to get a huge tax break because they jumped on those tax incentives more than you expected.
The numbers would also have to be adjusted by company size, measured by net worth, or otherwise a company might get a tax break simply because it was large in general, and could hire 1,000 people to get the same percentage tax break as a smaller company that would have to shoulder a much larger burden to hire 1,000 people. A percentage-based tax break should be determined by a percentage-based hiring change.
Part of the problem is that automation is necessary and inevitable to some extent. We don't want to reward companies for supporting inefficient jobs if robots can do it better. We do want to discourage outsourcing and encourage domestic hiring, though, and unless it's cost-effective for the government to invest in monitoring so it knows which hiring changes are due to automation (and therefore should not incur a tax penalty) and which ones are due to outsourcing (and therefore should incur a penalty), I would consider it worthwhile to discourage outsourcing at the cost of also discouraging automation.
Mostly, I just want existing wages to rise. But if we based tax policy only on the average wage of a company's employees, then companies would probably try to game the system by laying off lower-paid employees or decreasing the hours for lower-paid employees so their average wage would be higher. That's why we'd need to factor in the number of employees, the hours worked, and the company's net worth: to minimize the unintended side effects.
This is why laws tend to be very long, and are usually the product of lots of experts working in concert. A bill like this would have to be very complicated to make sure it had only the intended effect.
Unless you get a promotion or upgrade your job situation you never will get any better off. Cost of living increases alone don't seem to keep up. Luckily, globalizing has increased the buying power of most Americans or we'd be pretty pissed off by the shell game that has been pulled on us. The days of owning two cars, a truck, a boat and a cabin up north on one UAW salary are long gone and not coming back.
https://newrepublic.com/article/153036/maria-butina-profile-wasnt-russian-spy
https://news.yahoo.com/u-senator-shelby-says-agreement-principle-reached-border-014139754--business.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews
Also, Matt Powell, the preacher on You Tube who advocated the death penalty for gay people based on the Bible, now says that gays should be "humanely executed" as if this is somehow better than what he said previously. It's like the difference between being stabbed with a sharp knife and smothered with a pillow; in the end, you're still dead. Also, how does someone get to be a pastor at 22? http://deadstate.org/22-year-old-christian-preacher-clarifies-that-he-wants-gays-executed-humanely/?fbclid=IwAR3JeN68v05UO-qNl9-HPuc228FnXPpXIkUMT7xSJoXPaHRJZD0ko0zhGC8
And in Arizona, another pastor thinks women should just sit at home and shut up, not work or have their own money or anything. Hey, idiot pastor, most families need women to work! They don't have a choice!
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2016/02/arizona-pastor-explains-why-women-should-have-no-rights/?fbclid=IwAR05KhEuEJRUr4wwygsKATh2f1XrnbSnMgtzdmXX1jWlpjzV_sVathMqDdk
And now Rand Paul has introduced legislation to enable the US to sell off land belonging to the Daniel Boone National Forst land. Thanks ever so much, Rand Paul! I hope someone names National Lands for you and prompty sells them off.
Promptly? I think Daniel Boone has been dead for quite some time now...
But Daniel Boone is an actual, you know, hero. Why sell off lands named after him?
You could always change the name of the forest or name some other forest for him. I really don't think the name of the forest has a whole lot of relevance. Would it somehow be better if it was named Cloakwood?
I'm quite sure Daniel Boone wasn't an environmentalist considering how many critters he and his fellow frontiersmen took out and how much land they clear-cut for their homesteads...