Hopeful trend for GOP

Ah, it's on the internet. It must be true.

 

It is understandable why so much American labor was outsourced. Unions struck for wages and benefits that were unreal. I watched Union bricklayers sit on their butts making 5$ an hour more than myself.....but I worked 40 hrs a week and they only worked 20. Who made more money? I just did that long enough to go into business for myself. Non Union of course.

 

Isn't it in the Democratic 2020 Party Platform?

 

I disagree. He would have started a war with NK (and therefore, with China) in 2017, if government officers had not intervened. He has risked starting a war with Iran, including after he lost the election. And though we need to get out of the ME, it was dishonorable in the extreme, how he stabbed the Kurds in the back. Not to mention his humiliating kow-towing to Putin in Helsinki. His "instincts" are purely transactional; he doesn't want to get out of the intervention-business because it's good policy; he wants to get out because we can't bully countries that we are in an alliance-system with, and he has a purely mercenary attitude about who the U.S. should help (i.e., based entirely on their ability to pay, and preferably pay his family above all). That's why he's been so craven with the Saudi leadership.

 

You are uninformed.

 

China is a serious geostrategic rival, and they have certain crucial weaknesses of their own. We can and should confront them - but in the right way, and in the right places. Parking a standing army in their Gulf of Mexico (the SCS) is the stupid way to do it.

 

What are the weaknesses?

What is the right way and what are the right places?

 

China has key domestic liabilities that could lead to profound internal discord in the intermediate-term, perhaps even the short-term (this decade), particularly as regards the way that environmental degradation and the Middle Income Trap are hitting their economy. They also look set to have a finance-and-real estate sector-meltdown of the kind Japan experienced in the early 90's. Xi's Maoist style of leadership is only exacerbating the problem. IF we stay out of their way in their home region (at least, in terms of naval power-projection), we can avoid being the distraction from these problems that the CCP needs.

The right way to confront China is to go all-in on multilateral trade agreements, agreements that can benefit the US macroeconomy, while also hedging China in, making it bound to international regulations. The TPP was a fine vehicle for this, before Trump blew it up. Maybe we can craft a new agreement along those lines.

The right way to confront China is to take seriously the cyber-threat they pose; before a "space force," the US military needs a robust cyber-arm.

Though we need to back out of their home region (and the US military needs to upstake from the Old World generally), we need an expanded Monroe Doctrine and a new national security paradigm of "Hemispheric Defense," with the primary aim to keep the Chinese military, beginning with the Chinese Navy, OUT of the Western Hemisphere (and that includes the Arctic Ocean). Our Navy is incredibly vulnerable to attack in their neighborhood; the Chinese Navy will likewise find themselves vulnerable to our attack, if they try to encroach on our Hemisphere. We need to reduce the area where the US military exercises hegemony; we are currently badly overstretched, and sooner or later it will lead to a catastrophic military defeat.

 

You're not taking public opinion on this issue seriously.

"Among the public overall, 63% of U.S. adults say the government has the responsibility to provide health care coverage for all, up slightly from 59% last year. Roughly a third (37%) say this is not the responsibility of the federal government, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted July 27 to Aug. 2 among 11,001 adults."​

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/29/increasing-share-of-americans-favor-a-single-government-program-to-provide-health-care-coverage/

What do you think is going happen to private health insurance if Republicans remove protection against charging more for preexisting conditions in new policies, as they tried to do in 2017?

 

We outsourced manufacturing jobs that paid $2/hour overseas and replaced them with service sector jobs paying many times more. The economy grew faster than it does today, so even the excessive power of some unions wasn't a great problem.

From exploited to exploiter? (I later ran an auto repair business with 100 employees.)

We have a problem causing political instability...



... that can't be remedied by repatriating low-wage factory jobs. Wages flatlined starting around 1980 and have only gone up 10% over four decades.

Unions may be part of the answer, but I think the relationship to business should be rethought. German unions might be a better model.

 

Don't know, don't care. The "platform" of the party controlling the White House is what the President says it is.

 

You supported Trump and Trump is a RINO.

 

I can't think of a single war since WWII in which we should have been involved. I think the American stupidity is pretty well established. But, to be fair, it is the stupidity of the government, not the people.

 

So providing jobs for others makes you an "exploiter"? And working for others means you are "exploited"? Sounds like we need to overthrow America in a bolshevik type Revolution!!!!

Why does America 1st haters always fall back on "European Standards are superior".....they do Socialism the right way!

 

Not any more he isn't. It's Trump's party, he's redefined it into his own image as America First, working people party... just like Sanders/AOC redefined the democrat party into their image as America sucks, globalist/swamp party.

 

If you look at things through a non partisan lens like mine the only trend you see is government incompetence. One party gets in power. They screw things up. People give the other party a try. They screw things up and the process continues. People who view federal government honest, competent and effective are in denial. Hence the back and forth. The only thing non partisans can hope for is maintenance of congressional gridlock which is the only thing that protects us from partisan legislation.

 

As long as there were no treaties or agreements I would concur. I'm not sure he really can. We have tens of thousands of troops in South Korea and a bunch in Germany. Bringing them home would put a serious dent in the problem.

 

RINO (REPUBLICAN IN NAME ONLY) = Trump !!!
Nothing has changed. Lol

 

The definition of "REPUBLICAN" has changed, drastically... where have you been the last 5 years while the party underwent an incredible transformation and turned into America First, MAGA, pro-working people anti- establishment/globalism/swamp party? Trump can't be RINO because Trump has defined what it means to be Republican in 2020. 95% of Republicans who agree with Trump on issues can't all be RINO, this is utter nonsense. Duh

 

Did you miss the ""? Sheesh.

Workers have a right to approach their employer as a bloc and withdraw their services if they don't get what they want. OTOH, employers have a right to refuse to bargain. Or at least this is the way it should work.

You're the guy who was bellyaching about bricklayers who bargained for higher pay with their employer.

So, workers who want to bargain collectively with their employer are what? Commies?

So-called "right-to-work" laws don't even allow workers and employers to sign agreements for union shops. Why should workers have to work next to someone who won't cooperate with other employees? It's against the law for employees to quit en masse if they're forced to work with a nonunion worker.

You appear uninterested in anything other than a chance to spew rightwing BS. Not one comment from you about how we solve the problem of workers getting almost no pay increase for forty years.

As for your "America 1st haters" garbage... we adopted a more confrontational British union style and might consider a more cooperative model. We didn't invent unions, or don't you know that? I mentioned German unions so you could see what I'm talking about.

P.S. Socialism is collectivizing production, not government transfer payments or support for unions.

 

We have military obligations in the area, notably to Taiwan and Japan. Xi can gain much acclaim by reabsorbing Taiwan and humiliating Japan.

I think the proper course is to disengage from the Chinese economy rather than feeding the beast. The tariffs weighed much more heavily on the Chinese economy than it did on the US. The US must disengage from China to become self-sufficient rather than binding itself more closely.

I am satisfied with the US project to bolster cybersecurity. It is a never ending project and other security arrangements should not be deferred until it is fiished. Frankly I doubt there is an adequate defense

There won't be a war. MAD still applies.

 

Well you're right. Republicans use to be the party of values, fiscal responsibility and GOD first.
That definitely has changed !!!

 

Yes, they are now the party of American interests, American working people, law and order... and GOD.

 

-This right here is how we will get caught in the Thucydides Trap. Our diplomatic-military commitments should never get ahead of the national interest, and the national interest cannot come down to bragging-rights. Let's do the backward-induction: are our alliances with China's neighbors worth it, if they don't succeed in deterring China and we end up in a general war? I would say, absolutely not. China has historic relations (and animosities) with its neighbors, and those tensions are for the powers directly involved to resolve; they are not going to be settled by the meddling of a far-off Neo-imperial power. In fact, our role may only cause Taiwan and Japan to serve as hostages to fortune, making war more likely.

All I can say is that this view is as popular as it is misguided. The United States and China are locked in an economic embrace which neither side can afford to stand down from. Their economy is export-driven and we are one of their main markets; and we rely in a thousand ways on Chinese manufactures, which if they were to dry up would lead to enormous job losses overnight in the United States. Never mind also the fact that they turn around and buy US debt with their gains from trade, which keeps interest rates in the US at their comfortable low level. If they suddenly started calling in our debt to them, it would throw untold numbers of people into bankruptcy - and probably lead to spiking inflation, as well.

The US has the potential to become more "self-sufficient" in manufactures - but that will take a few decades. We have to deal with China, as part of a multi-spectrum bi-lateral relationship, for the indefinite future. Fantasies about US autarky, though popular, are supremely counterproductive. The loss of opportunity that the TPP represented is just one of the costs.

This complacency (very typical for Americans when it comes to appreciation of the threat China poses) is not going to serve us well.

Ibid. People said the very same thing before WWI.

 

They are a Fascist party.