International Oligarchy is not just a Russian phenomenon. It exists right here in the USA.

[Jack V Savage]

I don't know if I should even bother to interject here based upon the exchange so far, but here goes; HTH.

You're arguing from a place of goodwill toward the less fortunate, I know, and I respect that. But I think the bold text suggests your reasoning needs work, if you'll forgive me for saying so. Things can get better on the whole over time while still not being good for every single individual at any particular moment, right?

If I claim the overall standard of living improved (over some defined period) for the bottom 50% of income earners (and people with no employment income for that matter), is that equal to a claim that none of them experience difficulties with affordability? Does that mean being poor no longer sucks for people?

Of course not.

Also, there is no comparison between the influence of money upon Trump and his upcoming administration and any other on the past, accept maybe his first term. You're drawing a false equivalence.

Yep.

There's a kind of echo chamber and related trapped prior situation going on here. People encounter claims that sound plausible to them and then they here so much reinforcement on social media or wherever they get their news (by other people who think the claims sound plausible) that they become convinced that the claims are true and not things that can even be doubted sincerely, which leads to an assumption of bad motives for anyone questioning them, and thus no need to actually check the views against reality.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Someone also tell me where I said that technology hasn't advanced in 50 years and then consider that longer life span isn't necessarily better QOL (the people posting the past couple threads are smart enough to know this which should lead one to ask why are the leaving out certain notable details in their rebuttals) and then note that that has nothing to do with my points anyway

Longer lifespan in isolation suggests but doesn't definitively prove improved quality of life. But the totality of the data does prove it.

Also, I don’t think you understand the objection to Trump beyond just usual bad GOP policies. It's precisely because we have a system that has been delivering good outcomes that we should fear demolishing it and replacing it with corrupt authoritarianism. Romney, for example, was proposing turning back the clock on some progress, but people could see that his policies would have bad results, become unpopular, and would lead to electoral losses for his party and a reversal of those bad policy changes (along with further improvements). That's part of how the system improves (witness how Reagan cut the top income-tax rate to 25%, but it's now 37%). But Trump is threatening to break that and prevent us from evolving.

 

[brothir]

Apply this same standard to "everything deviake said is false" and the fact that one of two posters responding to me has told me before in another thread that money in politics isn't an issue

The problem is that there's no objective definition of what "an issue" is or isn't. The fact that the Electoral College exists has far greater implications on elections in the US than how many billionaires there are, or how many billions they have. You can subjectively feel that "money in politics" (which also doesn't really have a nailed-down definition) is an issue, but there's no point in getting upset that people have doubts as to how objective that is or don't subjectively feel the same as you.

 

[brothir]

Longer lifespan in isolation suggests but doesn't definitively prove improved quality of life. But the totality of the data does prove it.

Kind of hard to imagine circumstances where lifespan improves without any societal improvements. Rapid human evolution?

 

[brothir]

Your seeing now really some of the most fervent partisan posters on Sherdog really are 95% of the way to being Republicans, shows you the whole thing for them is merely a distraction.

That's a good point, actually: abhorring Trump and dunking on Reagan at every opportunity are very solid indications of being 95% Republican.

 

[filthybliss]

The problem is that there's no objective definition of what "an issue" is or isn't. The fact that the Electoral College exists has far greater implications on elections in the US than how many billionaires there are, or how many billions they have. You can subjectively feel that "money in politics" (which also doesn't really have a nailed-down definition) is an issue, but there's no point in getting upset that people have doubts as to how objective that is or don't subjectively feel the same as you.

Bruh, money is in politics. Are we going to stuff our heads up our asses when it comes to lobbying groups? It is not a "subjective" or an opinion to have. When Elon (unelected official illegal alien) is literally screaming at the House to follow his orders and they follow through, it can't get any less disturbing. Also with the new SCOTUS rulings in place with Presidential immunity, corruption isn't anything to overlook anymore. It is spat on our faces.

 

[Jack V Savage]

The problem is that there's no objective definition of what "an issue" is or isn't. The fact that the Electoral College exists has far greater implications on elections in the US than how many billionaires there are, or how many billions they have. You can subjectively feel that "money in politics" (which also doesn't really have a nailed-down definition) is an issue, but there's no point in getting upset that people have doubts as to how objective that is or don't subjectively feel the same as you.

I think there are people who see "money in politics" as central to their theory of political hamartiology (my term for why policy isn't what you want or why people have different opinions than you). That's popular because it is simple, tells a good/evil story where you are good, and absolves the masses of any real criticism (which makes it particularly appealing to demagogic politicians).

So the question of whether it's an issue is really about how significant it is to hamartiology. My view is that it isn't at all. Republican elected officials don't have to be bribed to support regressive tax cuts, for example. They really believe that progressive taxation is unjust (and many even think it's unconstitutional). Some of their voters agree with that, but more just hate cultural changes and vote on that basis. There are also lots of people who don't care much about politics and vote for or against the incumbent based on their vibes about how good or bad things are. I don't think people are actually brainwashed or whatever. Cottage/Nostra/Holmes/Whippy/Rob types are very rare.

 

[brothir]

Bruh, money is in politics. Are we going to stuff our heads up our asses when it comes to lobbying groups? It is not a "subjective" or an opinion to have. When Elon (unelected official illegal alien) is literally screaming at the House to follow his orders and they follow through, it can't get any less disturbing. Also with the new SCOTUS rulings in place with Presidential immunity, corruption isn't anything to overlook anymore. It is spat on our faces.

Bruh, what I said was whether money in politics is an issue is debatable and subjective, not whether there is any or not. The corruption stuff is a direct consequence of Trump, which is its own thing.

 

[Deleted member 592570]

How do you explain the steady siphoning away of wealth then? It’s not a recent phenomenon it’s been happening for decades.

If someone gave you and Elon Musk each $10,000 and came back and checked on you both in 12 months, he would have grown that $10,000 and you would have spent it all.

That's how I explain it.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Bruh, money is in politics. Are we going to stuff our heads up our asses when it comes to lobbying groups? It is not a "subjective" or an opinion to have. When Elon (unelected official illegal alien) is literally screaming at the House to follow his orders and they follow through, it can't get any less disturbing. Also with the new SCOTUS rulings in place with Presidential immunity, corruption isn't anything to overlook anymore. It is spat on our faces.

No one has previously done what Musk has (literally bought control of a party), and part of the reason he's been able to do it is that he's mostly saying stuff Republicans already agree with.

Also, lobbying is different from money in politics, I think (I think of the term as referring more to the idea that policy is affected by campaign contributions). Lobbying goes both ways, and leftist lobbying is probably more influential and toxic than rightist lobbying. It can be effective if we're talking about providing research, bills, and generating media coverage to pressure lawmakers. The schmoozing stuff that people are outraged about isn't really effective.

 

[deviake]

This folks, is what we call "nuance trolling"

 

[brothir]

I think there are people who see "money in politics" as central to their theory of political hamartiology (my term for why policy isn't what you want or why people have different opinions than you). That's popular because it is simple, tells a good/evil story where you are good, and absolves the masses of any real criticism (which makes it particularly appealing to demagogic politicians).

I'd call it the political hamartiallegory instead.

 

[Jack V Savage]

This folks, is what we call "nuance trolling"

Is it possible to disagree with you without trolling?

 

[brothir]

This folks, is what we call "nuance trolling"

This, folks, is what we call "empty posting".

 

[brothir]

Is it possible to disagree with you without trolling?

Have you tried arguing the finer points of Frank Mir's career with him? It's a go-to bridge-builder topic.

 

[Andy Capp]

Yep.

There's a kind of echo chamber and related trapped prior situation going on here. People encounter claims that sound plausible to them and then they here so much reinforcement on social media or wherever they get their news (by other people who think the claims sound plausible) that they become convinced that the claims are true and not things that can even be doubted sincerely, which leads to an assumption of bad motives for anyone questioning them, and thus no need to actually check the views against reality.

Perhaps, but it looks like you could have just as easily said it as plainly as I several posts ago and that would have ended the exchange from where I sit. Just sayin'.

 

[Andy Capp]

Apply this same standard to "everything deviake said is false" and the fact that one of two posters responding to me has told me before in another thread that money in politics isn't an issue

I freely apply this standard to everything. It's a conditional statement.

 

[filthybliss]

First off, I appreciate the sincere and well-researched reply.

I'm skeptical that the Cuban regime is being honest about that data but in fairness there are other countries that are "poorer" than the US in the sense of having smaller economies and lower GDP per capita figures that nonetheless have higher life expectancies.

It is not super unbelieveable when you look at how much more seriously that they took the AIDS crisis in contrast to the Reagan Admin....

A Regime’s Tight Grip on AIDS (Published 2012)

Cuba’s success in limiting the epidemic stems partly from harsh early tactics and universal basic health care.

www.nytimes.com

HISTORY

The HISTORY Channel - Geschichte erleben! The HISTORY Channel ist der deutschsprachige Pay-TV-Sender für spannende Dokumentationen und macht die Faszination von Menschen und Ereignissen täglich greifbar!

www.history.com

If you want to argue the market isn't fair for some reason that's one thing, depending on the specific issue I might very well agree. The goal though should be to work towards a more fair market but populists, especially left wing populists, aren't in favor of fairer markets as much as they are anti-market.

So for example housing costs are rising and that is an issue. The unfairness in the system is that the excessive rules and regulations makes it hard for those who want to build housing while the current tax policy incentivizes land speculation. If your neighbors can veto your housing project and instead make money based on appreciation of land values you will have less housing.

IMO the solution is to create a fairer market by cutting some of that red tape so that its easier for all developers, whether big corporations or families looking to renovate their own homes, can more easily build while taxing land values to discourage land speculation. Left wing populists on the other hand tend to support anti-market policies like rent control which doesn't work.

Yeah, I don't disagree with much said here. I am not an anti-capitalist but I don't think everything should be monopolized. Essential things like water, food, and healthcare shouldn't be corporatized to the extent that they are imo. I think maybe to a naive extent that food and healthcare can coexist as socialized and privatized. Belgium, Netherlands and Austria has implemented such a system for healthcare. We even have such a system for education with private vs. public schools.

See I disagree and I think this gets at a widely held myth, namely that there's so much waste in government that if we merely cut it out we could fund social programs without raising taxes. The reality is there isn't a lot of invisible waste.

Now I do think there is some waste, for example I don't believe in programs like SNAP and Section 8 as I think its better to have fewer welfare programs that exist as direct cash transfers than many different ones for specific goods that create their own bureaucracies. In other words having a SNAP program and a Section 8 program is like getting someone two $50 gift cards, one for groceries and one for rent, whereas I think its better to just give that person $100 outright. At the individual scale the savings aren't obvious but when you scale these programs up to millions of people you can see that having two parallel welfare programs that transfer funds for different goods is more wasteful than one that transfers the same amount of money but with less bureaucracy.

I did a shitty job honestly with expressing my point. I think Singapore is an anomaly, its essentially a glorified Silicon Valley so they can sustain without much tax.

Nonetheless, if you take a look at the makeup of what American federal tax is spent on. It's apparent that a good portion is spent on militarization. Surely, some of that can be replaced in areas for communal well being. Our military is second to none and our lead is so apparent,I don't see a point in off-shoring so much money to bolstering our military. For example, Ukraine is managing to fight off Russian Imperialism by utilizing our retro equipment from the 90s.

Honestly, I'll have to skew through where all the healthcare spending is spread around. Belgium gets by with spending 11% of its GDP yet we are relying on nearly ~30% of our GDP for much less desireable results.

I certainly won't deny we're dealing with serious issue even today but I think in general the average American is better off today than 50 years ago. Life expectancy and average wages have both significantly increased for example

Spoiler

I don't want to overstate the importance of two stats but Americans are significantly wealthier and live longer than Americans of 50 years ago so that suggests overall improvement.

There are serious recent issues like the opioid crisis and later fentanyl which has lead to spikes in overdoses so intense that if you break life expectancy down into various age and geographic cohorts some of them have seen overall declines compared to 15-20 years. That said I think we can address these specific issues without buying into the gloom and doom narrative that we're worse off than 50 years ago. I say this as someone who is intensely pessimistic about the damage the incoming admin is going to do.

I feel like even @deviake agrees with you here. There are obviously improvements in pay and life expectancy. That is only natural when you are a first world country that makes advancements via tech. The issues stem with proportionality, I think he's being a bit hyperbolic, I don't think he thinks that America is literally a Russia tiered oligarchy. But when you look at the productivity, the rates of the top 0.01%'s growth and you compare it with the middle classes. It is clear that it didn't all "trickle down". Productivity has grown ~3x more than the amount that the average pay has.

The Productivity–Pay Gap

The huge gap between rising incomes at the top and stagnating pay for the rest of us shows that workers are no longer benefiting from their rising productivity. Before 1979, worker pay and productivity grew in tandem. But since 1979, productivity has grown eight times faster than typical worker...

www.epi.org

Also, we should chill on @kflo lol, he's out of touch on some things, I think he is genuinely well meaning and empathetic. He's one of the few Trump Voters that isn't voting out of spite towards trans-people or immigrants. I suspect that he believes that the tax cuts benefit him less than it does. The Trumpist tariffs will definetely outweight the benefit of tax cuts imo and don't get me started on the social complications....

 

[filthybliss]

No one has previously done what Musk has (literally bought control of a party), and part of the reason he's been able to do it is that he's mostly saying stuff Republicans already agree with.

Also, lobbying is different from money in politics, I think (I think of the term as referring more to the idea that policy is affected by campaign contributions). Lobbying goes both ways, and leftist lobbying is probably more influential and toxic than rightist lobbying. It can be effective if we're talking about providing research, bills, and generating media coverage to pressure lawmakers. The schmoozing stuff that people are outraged about isn't really effective.

They are pros and cons. But, I truly believe that the cons outweigh the pros atleast in the realm of foreign policy. I am reading through Woodward's War right now, it is apparent that Biden loathed Netanyahu and thought he was an incompetent charlatan but he kept caving in. I suspect that lobby groups breathing down politicians necks can make them do things that they necessarily would abstain from doing.

 

[filthybliss]

Precisely my issue with liberals, agreed. Civil rights activists like Malcom X and MLK over here described them perfectly. They're the gatekeepers so they're the biggest impediment to change. Hence my posts; since I'm apparently wrong about everything I said, then that means Republican presidents like Reagan, Bush and Trump didn't do any real damage to the average person nor the country (never mind the issues over there and in many countries in general nor the shit liberal presidents have gotten up to, but since they're liberal they get a pass) and what Elon is doing by blatantly throwing his wealth and power around is fine because as I've been told by one of these posters, money in politics isn't an issue. (As an aside, one person in here doesn't even think billionaires are an issue.) That pretty much ends the game, because they can't say, "no, things are great actually and have been improving for everyone" and also decry the Republicans at the same time and act like Trump is some great threat since apparently the system is fine, never mind that saying everything I said is false is insane and that I've seen conservatives on here make the same arguments. Like you said, 95% of the way there. It can't be both things at the same time, that's why I'm not gonna bother, they're smart enough to know better but not smart enough to not get caught in the Catch-22 of the contradictory views they're espousing.

It is hard to bat for you, man. When you start using dead activists words from years ago to generalize all liberals. For the record, Malcolm X softened a ton on liberalism, he started off as a black nationalist in his early days and he was pretty segregationist/anti-integration. That quote is even used by conservatives without context too.

To put it in further context, Malcolm X was smearing SLCL and SNCC (MLK-affiliated groups) for working with white people to gain racial equality. So yeah, its fair to say that he was a user of ID politics to the extent that some might consider him toxic. I still consider him a hero but he's a relic of the past and he lived in a lot more violent time than we did so his takes are obviously going to be more extreme. Also, MLK was fairly Pro-Israel at the time, so obviously times change.