20% Tax on Items from Mexico to pay for wall...

[KEW]

As for Obama having an even hand on the wheel on supporting economic growth, he's done no such thing.

To be clear, my interpretation of the "even hand" was that Obama did not do anything unexpected or sudden to pull the rug out from under current corporate business strategies...going back to my comments about phasing things in over time.
Trump does not seem to get this, although the republicans do, so I don't know if "effective immediately" type laws will pass congress without being fixed!

 

[rnatalli]

And Mexican Coke.

Funny, I don't see him building a wall between us and Canada.

The Canadians will take care of that to keep us out when everything goes to hell.

 

[shadyJ]

I know a lot about random number generators, and bad ones are not random enough. Trump is like that; frustratingly semi-random, and consistent when you don't want him to be.

NASA is lost. No strategy or vision or compelling mission.

Military spending has been incredibly wasteful. No vision or leadership or focus on efficiency here. At least Trump is taking a crude, silly whack at it.

Government R&D is screwed up too. We lost our lead in supercomputing, we do too little with physics, advanced power generation, power distribution, weather forecasting, and astronomy. I haven't been proud of us in a long time, with both parties. I hoping President Twitter comes to his senses, because he shows some potential.

Disagree about NASA. There has been a lot of research on Earth's climate coming from NASA. That might not be as fanciful as a mission to mars, but it is a lot more pragmatic. Also, there has been a lot of funding going to the James Webb Observatory. It won't be long now before that is sent up. That has been an extremely costly and time-consuming project, but I think it will be worth it.

I don't keep up with military spending, so I can't argue here. However I doubt very much Trump will be an improvement. His ethos looks to be the very opposite of 'speaking quietly and carrying a big stick'.

As for the sciences like physics, power generation research, climate research, astronomy, how do you get this so wrong? The president can not make that funding come out of thin air. Republicans in congress oppose funding of a lot of scientific research, and the president has to work with them on budget matters. Who do you think killed the superconducting super collider? Look at republican vs democrat funding and policies regarding the NSF. The republicans have previously made attempts to kill the James Webb Observatory. I agree that the government should do more to fund pure research, but that is only possible with a democratic congress and democratic president. I am not crazy about the democrats but I am practical about the situation, because the opposing party is vastly inferior, especially when it comes to science funding and research.

 

[MrBoat]

People here want cheaper things, and that's exactly what they get. Disposable trinkets from the box store, just lots of them that still don't amount to a better value over time. All it does is appease the spend thrifts from the "gotta have it now" club. It's resulted in enormous waste and fodder for the already overfilled landfills.

I come from lesser financial means and I always save for the best products. What this country needs more than anything is to get all the feel goody crap out of our education system and instead, include financial training from elementary school on.

This forum, and others like it are a perfect example of the need for financial training. A poster will often join, looking for the answers to all, or most of their prayers and 99% of the time, the requirement of "budget" limitations will be the prerequisite. I want the best speakers I can get for $500 maximum.

How did they get that $500? It dropped from the sky as a once in a lifetime opportunity and will never happen again? How about, instead of compromising now and hoping for the best and then selling your cheap crap you are not satisfied with for pennies on the dollar a year from now, you wait for a month, or 6 months, and save another 500, or 1000, or even 2000 and buy something that you can be happy with for decades? I know why. It's because the latter does not offer that ever so addictive, instant gratification and likely gets in the way of a starbucks addiction and they may have to let the clutch out on their wally world fixations.

"There's no such thing as a bargain," and "You get what you pay for." The last few decades has done nothing other than to perpetuate the advertisement agencies to convince us this is no longer true. They hate people like me who, save their money, live without credit ahead, and buys quality and keeps it forever.

 

[Irvrobinson]

how do you get this so wrong?

I'm just looking at DoD, DoE, and DoC strategies and policies, which are controlled by the Executive Branch, and drawing conclusions. My methodology is simple-minded.

 

[shadyJ]

I just don't see anything that wrong with various department policies under Obama, at least from what I have read. You also have to keep in mind who holds the purse strings for the federal budget, at least for discretionary spending.

 

[killdozzer]

Not taking your meds recently, Killdozzer? ;-)

I'm just curious... have you ever worked for a manufacturing company, and actually seen how the decision-making processes work for where to do manufacturing and R&D? Even at just one company?

OK, I see it might escalate, so this will be my last post on this topic.

It wasn't emotion and rhetoric. It is something else. When it comes to politics I have this particular "wake up call" type of discourse. Same as with alarm clocks, I guess, no matter how much you may need one, you'll always hate it in the morning. This type of discourse often fails at conveying one aspect and that is the fact that I am not emotional at all, I'm entirely about content. I don't know why would anyone think that if your ways worked I wouldn't say so.

Look around you. Are they working? So, why would you defend them? As I said; I don't have a horse in your race, but having the comfort of looking at it from aside, it just appears silly.

Rather than preoccupying yourself with demarcating what 'rhetoric' is, try and remember who taught you the definition. When and if you do, try and ask yourself is it biased? Does this definition help you or the one who is explaining you why you can't have a better life? Is he still your friend? Are his explanations really yours?

And try not to hate me for these questions. Here I am trying to motivate you for something I believe will make YOUR world a better place... I'm not trying to trick you or fool you. That's why I asked: why correct me and have it as it is? If you think you have all the apologies for the way things are and all the apologies not to change, best of luck to you.

You all seem to think it's little tweaks, it's all fine tuning. It is not. It doesn't matter is it 20% or 15%, whether it'll hit the poor or the rich. There's something more fundamental at play. And it is ideology.

I'll try to explain if you have some time. I'll imagine a story...

I'm walking through the woods and I hear someone crying for help. I run to see what it is and I find irvrobinson being choked by a python. I jump at the snake and start trying to get it off him. Then he yells at me and say; what the f... are you off your medication?? I'm startled, but I ask him what does he mean, he was crying for help? He says leave the snake, the snake is good. He says: me being choked by this snake is the only possible way of today and yes I was crying for help, I wonder could you help me tie this polka-dot ribbon on the snake as this is suuuure to help. I tell him; no, the problem is that the snake is choking you and not that it's not pretty enough. He says; no, the fact that it is choking me is not to be discussed, you can only help me choose the ribbon. Finally I ask; well who told you that the fact it is choking you is NOT the problem? And much to my amazement, he says; the snake did.

I did work in all types of companies; small private business to state owned companies. I guess since this was your question (well, actually an effort at means of my exclusion from the debate) I take it now you'll believe me? (of course not, see - ideology)

have you ever seen those silly Star Trek episodes where some crew member gets a parasite attached to the back of his neck? Other members try to take it of, but the member with the parasite fights back. We the audience understand this clearly - it is the parasite controlling his host making the host protect the parasite. Imagine this same scene without the parasite. Imagine that the parasite is just a metaphor for a set of ideas. Someone comes and shakes them and you jump at him. This is how in real world people react to anyone going against their ideology. It is never as usually shown - people suffer under a burden until a liberator comes and can hardly wait until they're liberated and then they celebrate the liberator and build him a monument. No. They hate him, insult him, despise him, try to protect their 'parasite' on the back of their necks and if they actually build him a monument it is obvious he didn't do diddly squat.

 

[killdozzer]

The first thing I did was look at the date you joined AH.
I thought to myself, He must be new here.

Be it as it may, why would you quote that particular line? It seems to be just fine; nursing the path of your doom doesn't seem to be rational at all. It would be as connecting the mismatched speakers to an amp over and over again and wondering why doesn't it sound good. Wouldn't buying a different component be more rational.

 

[killdozzer]

I'm not saying you're wrong and things are easy. I’m also not saying this happened yesterday. However these two things are really depressive to read:

In light of the fact that economists can never agree on anything, what should we replace them with?

People conflate "better" with 'more'- at what point, does someone have 'enough'? Wages can't keep rising without cost of goods hitting unaffordable prices.

First is saying that it is either this or nothing. There is a huge problem today of people not being able to imagine a different future or a different now for that matter.

In the other you, coming from a country of ‘religion’ of constant growth of companies/economy, understand perfectly wages cannot grow constantly. I wouldn’t trust you to point out hypocrisy with such basic flaws in logic. (in fact I don’t think you have a flawed logic in general, this is a cognitive dissonance which is being perfectly used by the system to teach you to behave nicely)

 

[herbu]

OK, I see it might escalate, so this will be my last post on this topic.

It wasn't emotion and rhetoric. It is something else. When it comes to politics I have this particular "wake up call" type of discourse. Same as with alarm clocks, I guess, no matter how much you may need one, you'll always hate it in the morning. This type of discourse often fails at conveying one aspect and that is the fact that I am not emotional at all, I'm entirely about content. I don't know why would anyone think that if your ways worked I wouldn't say so.

Look around you. Are they working? So, why would you defend them? As I said; I don't have a horse in your race, but having the comfort of looking at it from aside, it just appears silly.

Rather than preoccupying yourself with demarcating what 'rhetoric' is, try and remember who taught you the definition. When and if you do, try and ask yourself is it biased? Does this definition help you or the one who is explaining you why you can't have a better life? Is he still your friend? Are his explanations really yours?

And try not to hate me for these questions. Here I am trying to motivate you for something I believe will make YOUR world a better place... I'm not trying to trick you or fool you. That's why I asked: why correct me and have it as it is? If you think you have all the apologies for the way things are and all the apologies not to change, best of luck to you.

You all seem to think it's little tweaks, it's all fine tuning. It is not. It doesn't matter is it 20% or 15%, whether it'll hit the poor or the rich. There's something more fundamental at play. And it is ideology.

I'll try to explain if you have some time. I'll imagine a story...

I'm walking through the woods and I hear someone crying for help. I run to see what it is and I find irvrobinson being choked by a python. I jump at the snake and start trying to get it off him. Then he yells at me and say; what the f... are you off your medication?? I'm startled, but I ask him what does he mean, he was crying for help? He says leave the snake, the snake is good. He says: me being choked by this snake is the only possible way of today and yes I was crying for help, I wonder could you help me tie this polka-dot ribbon on the snake as this is suuuure to help. I tell him; no, the problem is that the snake is choking you and not that it's not pretty enough. He says; no, the fact that it is choking me is not to be discussed, you can only help me choose the ribbon. Finally I ask; well who told you that the fact it is choking you is NOT the problem? And much to my amazement, he says; the snake did.

I did work in all types of companies; small private business to state owned companies. I guess since this was your question (well, actually an effort at means of my exclusion from the debate) I take it now you'll believe me? (of course not, see - ideology)

have you ever seen those silly Star Trek episodes where some crew member gets a parasite attached to the back of his neck? Other members try to take it of, but the member with the parasite fights back. We the audience understand this clearly - it is the parasite controlling his host making the host protect the parasite. Imagine this same scene without the parasite. Imagine that the parasite is just a metaphor for a set of ideas. Someone comes and shakes them and you jump at him. This is how in real world people react to anyone going against their ideology. It is never as usually shown - people suffer under a burden until a liberator comes and can hardly wait until they're liberated and then they celebrate the liberator and build him a monument. No. They hate him, insult him, despise him, try to protect their 'parasite' on the back of their necks and if they actually build him a monument it is obvious he didn't do diddly squat.

killdozer,
My complements to your gift for analogy and metaphor. You write pretty good.

 

[herbu]

OK, I see it might escalate, so this will be my last post on this topic.

I see you're also quite a kidder.

 

[killdozzer]

I see you're also quite a kidder.

Why a kidder? I really meant to stop debating this. It isn't necessarily in this thread all together, but I will stop trying to convince anyone of anything.

Also, I think that, for one reason or the other, the two of us fail to communicate. It already happened and this further proves it. As much as I hate admitting defeat, especially when it comes to communicating, you can't win them all.

So don't get this wrong, but I'm mostly avoiding talking to you. I remember you as a guy writing three 'broadsheet' long posts on why he doesn't want to explain something, which I find to be either odd or motivated by something else.

 

[herbu]

for one reason or the other, the two of us fail to communicate.

Whaaat? Are you sure you're talking to the right guy?
1. I complemented you on your writing skills.
2. I kidded you in good nature, (notice the ), about saying this would be your last post then immediately following it with 2 more posts.

So unless you confused me with someone else, I'm at a loss to understand what I did to get your hackles up. But hey... like I said in the beginning, this is gonna be interesting.

 

[highfigh]

I'm not saying you're wrong and things are easy. I’m also not saying this happened yesterday. However these two things are really depressive to read:



First is saying that it is either this or nothing. There is a huge problem today of people not being able to imagine a different future or a different now for that matter.

In the other you, coming from a country of ‘religion’ of constant growth of companies/economy, understand perfectly wages cannot grow constantly. I wouldn’t trust you to point out hypocrisy with such basic flaws in logic. (in fact I don’t think you have a flawed logic in general, this is a cognitive dissonance which is being perfectly used by the system to teach you to behave nicely)

I can definitely imagine a different reality and it involves people not screwing others to get what they want, not trying to be the one with the most money and things and more people realizing that what they have is more than most of the World's population can even imagine. Religion doesn't enter my reasoning for this and I don't practice any religion. I was raised Catholic, but I'm definitely not a fan of that denomination and its history of greed & corruption.

Where did I post anything about "all or nothing"?

 

[herbu]

I can definitely imagine a different reality and it involves people... not trying to be the one with the most money and things...

highfigh,
Sadly, our imagination is the only world in which this reality exists. But it does sound like it would make a good song.

 

[highfigh]

George W Bush had quite a list of pardons, too, so have others. Obama had a lot of drug offenders but did nothing really to stop the silly war on drugs, a true waste of American resources. Obama made what huge changes? Your taxes went up how much?

I know people whose health insurance costs more than their mortgage, now that the ACA is in effect. It's not my taxes that are causing problems, it's the cost of everything- food prices have increased and the package size has decreased in order to not cost more per package, which makes people think the price is affordable. Ethanol is still mandated for our gasoline, even though ALL small engine & marine manufacturers write that it shouldn't be used in their products and it kills the fuel system in anything that wasn't made to use it. Its energy density causes worse fuel economy and that causes people to buy more, at a higher price. It would be higher if the government didn't subsidize production, so yes- it does end up raising taxes.

Obama says he did a lot of things- just listen to his speeches. HE did this, HE did that- remember him saying that if someone owns a business, "you didn't do that"? The guy has never had a private sector job in his GD life! He has absolutely no idea what it's like to deal with the crap we do- he's a prime example of someone who peed on our backs and told us it was raining.

 

[killdozzer]

I can definitely imagine a different reality and it involves people not screwing others to get what they want, not trying to be the one with the most money and things and more people realizing that what they have is more than most of the World's population can even imagine. Religion doesn't enter my reasoning for this and I don't practice any religion. I was raised Catholic, but I'm definitely not a fan of that denomination and its history of greed & corruption.

Where did I post anything about "all or nothing"?

Just a sec, religion was in quotes. I had no intention of saying anything about your personal beliefs. It was supposed to mean that US almost religiously takes the constant growth of economy. Yet people seem to understand perfectly that it is not possible BUT only when it comes to wages.

"Let's all be nice" is not really an ability to imagine a different way of the world. Imagine one that involves people as they are. Otherwise it is wishful thinking. A lot of systems might have worked if one gets to change people. Even feudalism.

 

[highfigh]

I know a lot about random number generators, and bad ones are not random enough. Trump is like that; frustratingly semi-random, and consistent when you don't want him to be.

NASA is lost. No strategy or vision or compelling mission.

Military spending has been incredibly wasteful. No vision or leadership or focus on efficiency here. At least Trump is taking a crude, silly whack at it.

Government R&D is screwed up too. We lost our lead in supercomputing, we do too little with physics, advanced power generation, power distribution, weather forecasting, and astronomy. I haven't been proud of us in a long time, with both parties. I hoping President Twitter comes to his senses, because he shows some potential.

We have Congress to thank/blame for a lot of this- if Kennedy had been elected in November and made his "Ask not..." speech today, he'd be booed off of the stage. If he said he wanted to start a physical fitness program, people would tell him that it makes people sad because they don't have the ability.

Our education system has been transformed from something that valued achievement into something that wants everyone to participate. They want people to be docile little animals that don't question what they're fed, who feeds it to them or how bad it is for them.

There's always a place for the best and brightest, but the rest aren't going to reach their potential. Look at the people who come here from other countries- many don't have much of anything and some can't speak English, but that doesn't stop them from getting a job, saving their money and sometimes, having a house and business of their own. Locally, the MKE public schools are pumping out kids who can't read, almost half won't graduate high school and many will never make much more than minimum wage because, in their words, "I can't".

 

[herbu]

if Kennedy had been elected in November and made his "Ask not..." speech today, he'd be booed off of the stage

So true. Today's democrats are not your father's democrats. And it tickles me no end when libs hold up JFK as a great example.

 

[highfigh]

Just a sec, religion was in quotes. I had no intention of saying anything about your personal beliefs. It was supposed to mean that US almost religiously takes the constant growth of economy. Yet people seem to understand perfectly that it is not possible BUT only when it comes to wages.

"Let's all be nice" is not really an ability to imagine a different way of the world. Imagine one that involves people as they are. Otherwise it is wishful thinking. A lot of systems might have worked if one gets to change people. Even feudalism.

Probably shouldn't have used ' ', which isn't "quotes" and the meaning is different. Personally, I think a lot of the problems we have come from the glut of MBA students that started in the '70s. The minute amounts they deal with and the lack of concern with anything outside of the company's bottom line is all they care about. Well, their compensation is part of it, too. Money and possessions are the golden calf. Again.

I wrote about 'more' vs 'better'. I stand by that as the cause of a lot of the problems in the World- some only want more and can make it happen, some want more and when they realize they'll never have that, their envy causes them to try to prevent others from realizing the goals they have set. Others look at the disparity in the World and decide that they want to get others to balance what everyone has. When government decides what people will have, how much and the level of quality, well, you know about that better than I.

I didn't write about "let's all be nice", but if you watch/listen to/read the news from the US, we have a lot of bad people here. If a small number of those people would take a second to think about what they're about to do, I think life would be better. I'm not asking for people to hug everyone they meet, but at some point, people need to think about who is causing the problems and when they realize it's them, something needs to change. Call it wishful thinking, call it being disappointed in people who could have led a life without crime and conflict- it doesn't matter because neither will occur without people changing.