The Politics Thread

[JaneAusten]

I'm tired of the gaslighting and tired of people spewing the GOP/alleged "Libertarian" BS when they really don't understand a darn thing.

 

I wonder if this person will come forward and ask why Walmart and Amazon encourage their employees to apply for public assistance while their shareholders and CEO's get richer and richer while the taxpayer has to foot the bill for public assistance for these people because our gvmt can't increase the minimum wage or because the benevolent CEO's and Corporations that benefit from government corporate welfare can't seem to afford to pay their workers a fair wage. People don't want regulation but then don't seem to care that the middle class is dying, unions killed, and the things that helped build a viable middle class has been ripped since the GOP/Reagan demonization of anything that forced our "benevolent" corporations to treat workers fairly. 

 

We see now after the great taxcut, wages have again dropped., yet keep hearing how great the taxcut is. None of these folks have seen a darn thing and are just spewing what their paymasters tell them to.

 

 

 

Oh so the great taxcuts have had zero impact on WORKING Americans, in fact wages have dropped. Unless people are going to claim Bloomberg is some leftist publication now.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-18/trump-s-tax-cut-hasn-t-done-anything-for-workers?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-view&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business

Edited July 24, 2018 by JaneAusten

[DramatistDreamer]

@JaneAusten has the energy that I wish had to explain things nowadays. 

 

@Khan  The first outage really had me perplexed when it happened because the outage occurred early on a Saturday morning (just a little after 6am)--hardly a time of high energy usage (like mid-afternoon).  The power company was evasive and really couldn't (or wouldn't) offer an explanation on how/why it happened. 

 

 

I wish our media outlets would ask these questions of people.

Jeff Bezos and the Walton family are some of the country's/world's wealthiest people.  Should anyone who cannot "afford" to pay a fair wage and benefits to their employees really be in business?

 

Americans should ask themselves whether it is truly acceptable for someone who works (even part-time) to be unable to afford to eat healthily or see a doctor?  

Edited July 24, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[JaneAusten]

Oh look how great the tariffs are working. Where are all the haters of big gvmt now that the tariffs are hurting farmers and the Trump administration is rolling out an FDR new deal program to bail out farmers. Our economy is so strong we need to roll out a New Deal depression era program when we had 40% unemployment to bail out farmers. I thought our economy was booming and he have record unemployment for all of us including those lily white working class and farmers. We can add farmers to big corporations as the recipients of government handouts and welfare now can't we? Or are they only handouts when it's healthcare and things that can help urban poor people. Free Market my *ss.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/white-house-readies-plan-for-12-billion-in-emergency-aid-to-farmers-caught-in-trumps-escalating-trade-war/2018/07/24/7bec9af4-8f4d-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html?utm_term=.6e1b782caa30
 

Edited July 24, 2018 by JaneAusten

[marceline]

What's worse is that they will bailout these farmers and then turn around and cut programs that help people in cities. Republicans are doing anything possible to punish cities and help rural voters.

[DRW50]

 

The worst part is these bailouts won't even do anything to deal with the real long-term trends destroying farming in America, whether it be pesticides, or exploiting undocumented workers, or our terrible and unbalanced relationships with other countries/trading partners. And the amount of farmers killing themselves will only continue to increase.

[JaneAusten]

Part of the problem is that people don't get that the days of the family farm is gone. Most are owned by big agribusiness companies, so does anyone really believe this bailout will goto farmers directly.

 

I've actually become a vegan this past year and a lot of it has to do with farm animal treatment along with the big agribusiness destroying our rural communities and people.  I've tried to stay away from buying produce items from supermarkets and have gravitated to my local CSA and now that summer is here farmers markets also. But I am only one person and it's not what the majority even knows about or has the ability to do.  And places like White Foods and Sprouts don't practice what they preach either.

[DramatistDreamer]

Resignations happen so frequently now, it should come as no surprise but this letter of resignation is worth a read.  Apparently Holtzman is not alone in resigning from the DHS.

 

 

Also,

 

[DRW50]

Elizabeth Holtzman - I haven't heard that name in a long time.

 

Oh look - more jobs lost under this wonderful economy. She was very deluded to think she would be able to keep that brand going. It will be a long time before that ever happens for her again. 

[Juliajms]

He sounds more like Putin than GO to me.  "Don't think about this anymore".

 

[DRW50]

Nothing against Missouri, which has many wonderful people, but they've been voting hardcore Republican for a number of years now, so he is probably feeling right at home.

[Juliajms]

That's for sure.

 

 

I guess it's too much to hope that she'll be at Litchfield Max?

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[DramatistDreamer]

 

In some article I recently read I learned that there is no such thing as farm insurance, just crop insurance and certain crops are more difficult to insure than others.  You can probably guess the easiest crops to get insurance for-- yes, corn and soy.

This is why there is so little bio-diversity in the U.S., farmers are dissuaded from growing a variety of crops, even though it would provide for richer, healthier soil and less of a need for pesticides.  There are at least 20 varieties of apples yet, in the U.S., only 4-5 varieties are grown. The pests have adapted to the few varieties grown here, hence the need for stronger and stronger pesticides.  

Agribusinesses like Monsanto have been trying to subvert the scientific study of certain weedkillers and pesticides (e.g. nicotinoids) and their potentially disastrous effect on the bees but there seems to be some studies' results that suggest that these nicotinoids are the main cause of colony collapse of the bees. 

It seems that there are solutions but very few in the agricultural industry appear willing to undertake these suggestions.

Edited July 24, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[Juliajms]

^ Isn't Monsanto the company that sold farmer's seeds that had to be purchased every year? I've read a ton of bad things about them. Pretty sure the company doesn't exist by that name anymore as well. Must be nice to be able to do all that evil and then just get a new name.

 

ETA: This article isn't new, but just skimming it you can see the pure evil. Monsanto merged with Beyer. I'm guessing they are still awful.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/05/monsanto200805

Edited July 24, 2018 by Juliajms

[Juliajms]

This is interesting. Even though farms are getting bigger most are still family farms.

Another peculiarity of the farming business is the degree to which it is dominated by family operations. The USDA estimates family farms accounted for nearly 90 percent of America's total agricultural production in 2015. Nearly 80 percent of all U.S. farms that generated at least $5 million in sales that year were family-owned operations.

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2018-04-04/family-farms-pushed-to-get-big-or-go-bust

 

 

Edited July 24, 2018 by Juliajms

[DRW50]

This is probably more prevalent than ever.

 

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