Let the healing begin.

The 'left' does - and all has had- a goal of an economy that works for all. But the Left has been waylaid by neoliberalism, since the 70's.

New coal-mine development is dead for the simple reason new solar/wind+ batteries/punped hydro storage will be cheaper than electricity generation by coal within the decade.

So let the competition with China begin; China has officially eradicated poverty this year, and subsidizes health, education and transport - and has built the world's largest high speed rail network.

The American Dream Is Alive and Well—in China | WEB OF DEBT BLOG (ellenbrown.com)

"Over the last decade, American wages have stagnated and U.S. productivity has consistently been outpaced by China’s. The U.S. government has responded by engaging in a trade war and imposing stiff tariffs in order to penalize China for what the White House deems unfair trade practices. China’s industries are said to be propped up by the state and to have significantly lower labor costs, allowing them to dump cheap products on the U.S. market, causing prices to fall and forcing U.S. companies out of business. The message to middle America is that Chinese labor costs are low because their workers are being exploited in slave-like conditions at poverty-level wages.
But if that’s true, how is it that the great majority of Chinese families (have long-term leases over) their own homes?

Meanwhile 100 nations have signed up to the 'belt and road' initiative, and there are now regular train'airservices services to Europe, so China can probably prosper without the US.

The Repubs don't make empty promises because they think poverty is 'natural'....so both sides are at fault. And you're dreamin' if you think those ghettos will go away in a neoliberal system, whether under Trump or not.

Exactly. So tax cuts should ONLY apply to incomes less than, say $400,000. Above should pay higher tax.

You may be correct, there...

How should the Dems have cooperated with Trump?

Nevertheless, the neoliberal system itself is evil, because it denies the capacity of the currency-issuer (government) to create money alongside money creation in the private sector (when private banks write loans for (hopefully) credit-worthy customers, resulting in the well known public squalor - private affluence effect....and soaring inequality as citizens with widely differing abilities are forced to compete in "invisible hand" markets alone.

 

Still think of all that nice clean air in European cities when they phase out petrol/diesel cars beginning in a mere decade.

Boris Johnson’s green plan brings ban on petrol cars forward to 2030 and promises UK’s first hydrogen-powered town (msn.com)

Los Angeles had a brief experience of clean air at the height of the lock-down in April, when the streets were empty. (google)

Just heard Trumpy claim "the Paris accord was designed to ruin the American economy..."

Geez, I see he is still.....well....Trump....

 

The rich have an army of CPA's to make sure they don't have to pay more taxes. The Congress are all rich so they won't close the loopholes on themselves. The taxing the rich idea has been around since the 1960's, how has that worked out?

Who was President and Vice President in 2011?

 

I believe he handed it over to Pence months ago. The federal government has done what it can do. It has sped up the vaccine development process. It sped up development of PPE in the early months of the outbreak. The rest is up to the people. If what you want is for federal government to become authoritarian then I would consider that stupid for a virus that kills less than 1% of those infected. I think you are barking up the wrong tree.

 

So if Biden re-joins the paris accord..the environment will be saved? wow, who would have thought it'd be so easy...Biden is a genius! What's his genius plan for Corona? I hear you guys talking smack but not offering up any substance with what he will do
All talk no action....very typical of the left

 

There has been no spike in inflation since Trump imposed his tariffs on China, which completely destroys your entire tired and baseless claim. No spike in inflation means that China has not in fact passed these tariffs on the consumer, it couldn't as it would have priced itself out of the market, China has completely absorbed them.

What do libs do when Trump hate meets reality again? LOL According to the logic of this latest absurd liberal dogma, when France imposes tariffs (or VAT taxes) on US goods and services, the Frogs are paying for them, not American producers. Duh.

Good of you to acknowledge that since the 70's the left has not offered any worthwhile reason to vote for them. It's Trump who's been fighting for American jobs, American middle class, American values, not the left.

 

And how many people work there and at what cost? While zero g science produces some interesting ideas and experiments and it's very much worth doing would you rather travel there in dragon or soyuz? There is not infinite work that's worth paying money for nor should there be and we don't have infinite people so it isn't needed anyway. All a high minimum wage does is devalue all work other than minimum wage which it grossly over values. You can try wage and price controls if you want, Nixon did, so did Britain back in the sixties. Nixon discovered fairly quickly that it did little more than create shortages and black markets.

 

Explainer: Who pays Trump's tariffs - China and other exporters or U.S. customers? | Reuters

DO U.S. IMPORTERS PASS ON THE COSTS OF TARIFFS TO THEIR SUPPLIERS IN CHINA?

Some of them do, yes. So Chinese companies pay some of the cost. An importing company paying tariffs can manage the cost in several ways:

1. Pay the full cost and live with a lower profit margin.

2. Cut costs to offset higher tariffs.

3. Ask suppliers in China for a discount to help offset the higher tariffs.

4. Seek to source supplies from outside China. So some Chinese companies are losing business.

5. Pass the tariff costs on to customers by increasing retail prices.

Most importers could use a mix of those options to spread the cost between suppliers, themselves, and consumers or buyers.

Yes but we still have to get rid of the evil neoliberal system, to correct spiraling inequality alongside entrenched poverty, the existence of which I presume is not a necessary part of "American values".

 

I refer you to rule 2

 

so we know that #5 is NOT the case as there's been no spike in inflation whatsoever, the cost was not passed on to the consumer.

The rest is perfectly fine with me, at the end of the day these importing companies and China are equally responsible for stealing millions of well paying american jobs. However they manage the tariffs, whoever absorbs the bigger share, I could not care less. Your point that Trump paid $50 billion to the farmers out of taxpayers' money has been debunked though

No sh&t, buddy? LOL So we do that by electing the swampiest creature of all, fully responsible for the existence of this neoliberal (or whatever) swamp that you want to dismantle?
Or perhaps we need a disruptor, an outsider, a no holds barred fighter.... like [ahem]... oh gee, somehow the name Donald J Trump leaps to mind. Crude, obnoxious and imperfect as he might be, he did come with pro-America's middle class agenda, he did manage to implement a big chunk of it and he did disrupt the sh&t out of the swamp.

 

and yet Biden won the middle class vote.

but Trump, did win the wealthy vote.

 

There will be no healing as long as both major parties puts their own agenda over the rest of America's. Each party governs as if their base, which make up around a third of all of America is the whole of America. Trying to and sometimes succeeding in forcing their agenda on the other 2/3rds of the rest of us. This is why in the first mid term after a new president is elected, they usually have huge House of representative loses. The history.

Trump lost 42 seats from 241 down to 199 in 2018, lost control of the house.

Obama lost 63 seats from 256 down to 193 in 2010 lost control of the house
*Bush gained 8 seats from 221 up to 229 in 2002
Clinton lost 54 seats from 258 down to 204 in 1994 lost control of the house
Bush lost 8 seats from 175 down to 167 in 1990
Reagan lost 26 seats from 192 down to 166 in 1982
Carter lost 15 seats from 292 down to 277 in 1978
Nixon lost 12 seats from 192 down to 180 in 1970
LBJ lost 47 seats from 295 down to 248 in 1966
JFK lost 4 seats from 262 down to 258 in 1962
Eisenhower lost 18 seats from 221 down to 203 in 1954 lost control of the house
Truman lost 29 seats from 263 down to 234 in 1950
FDR gained 11 seats from 313 to 322 in 1934


*Bush lost 33 seats in the 2006 house elections. If not for 9-11, Bush probably would have lost seats in the 2002 midterms. 9-11 united the country around him in a way we haven’t seen since.

If either party could come up with an American agenda, for America as a whole instead of just their party's base, then we'd be on to something. But healing won't happen as long as each party places their R and or D above the big A, America.

as for Paris, it's just a feel good agreement with no enforcement controls in which the U.S. bears the brunt of making most of the changes while the other make changes at their discretion. China doesn't and doesn't plan to until 2030. So either being a member or not being a member is basically irrelevant. But some folks feel real good about it. So I don't care neither way.

 

Presumably the cost of the ISS was shared between the participating governments, enabling a more developed and productive project.

But certainly Bezos or Musk selling joy rides in space to rich people is a waste of resources.

There are sufficient resources and productive capacity to implement above-poverty participation by all people of working age, whether in the private sector or public sector, eliminating the need for poverty level, demoralizing welfare. Full stop.

Or you can try MMT.

btw, cooperative development can enable more efficient use of resources. And an unregulated competitive free market can be very inefficient in some cases eg natural monopolies like electricity production (recall the Enron disaster):

These 5 Things Could Have Prevented the Enron Disaster (hoffman-info.com)

1. Fewer Perverse Incentives

One of Enron’s fundamental problems: a perverse bonus structure that strongly incentivized executives to pursue short-term profits (or the appearance thereof) at the expense of sustainable, long-term growth. An insatiable thirst for ever-larger bonuses is arguably what set Enron’s executive team on the road to ruin. A more sensible compensation scheme may have been enough to turn them down a brighter path.

.....etc

Interesting debate, we can see what people consider to be valuable eg money or knowledge, junk-consumerism or caring for people and the environment, profits before customer service.

Production of vital, truly valuable resources and services involves a relatively small part of a nation's economic output, so there is much room for choice.

 

LOL! GloBULL warming is a myth.

 

Dark, a time to heal? I see you also got the memos from the DNC. Global warming wasn't a concern for 4 years because hating on Trump had priority. Now you're back to the global warming thing. What is China doing about global warming? or Mexico, or India?

 

Also no inflation because there has been minimal increase in median wages?

You didn't read the article. Importers and exporters in both countries paid tariffs...it's lose-lose for both countries, that's why countries enter into free-trade agreements, to REDUCE tariffs.

Actually if Sanders had been the Dem candidate and had won the election, with prof. Stephanie Kelton (Bernie's economic adviser) as treasury secretary, then the junking of obsolete neoliberal orthodoxy would have been very achievable indeed.

But apparently the US is still paranoid about the word "socialism", which barred democratic socialist Sanders from winning the Dem primaries, despite a very promising start..

But money creation is connected to power...IS power...and I think Trump, though being the disruptor and outsider, is still very much wedded to a survival of the fittest world view, so I don't see him accessing the capacity of the sovereign currency issuer on behalf of the people (as with MMT).

 

But polluted, smog-filled air in large cities eg Los Angeles, is not a myth.

"By some estimates, the pandemic lockdown has taken about 80% of passenger cars off local roads. IQAir's data show a resulting 31% reduction in air pollution compared to the same time frame last year. And it's not just Los Angeles".

 

MAMA - Make America Mediocre Again

 

1. $6,000+ median income growth under Trump, the highest growth rate in decades... no inflation means China has ended up paying the tariffs, perhaps importers contributed too. Too f*ing bad LOL

2. China does not practice free trade, nor does Europe or Canada.... When your partner is cheating, only a total sucker and loser would keep playing by the rules, dooming oneself to financial ruin.

3. The US is fully justified to be paranoid about "socialism". You have not lived under socialism and I spent half of my life in a socialist country. Ask Cubans, Venezuelans, former soviet citizens, the Vietnamese what they think about your disastrous and failed marxist theories.

 

socialism, you mean like publicly funded and controlled police, fire department, ems, bridges and tunnels, sewers, highways, sanitation, social security, medicare and medicaid??

seems like americans like all that stuff

 

No. socialism means government owned means of production... in other words nationalized industries and workers turned into government employees, fully dependent on government handouts. Study Karl Marx before you embarrass yourself publicly... or talk to immigrants from socialist countries, there is plenty of them in NYC.

 

No one will. The last four years, hopefully, were a horrible aberration. One we barely survived. Resulting in a landslide election of Biden.

Now let's see if the cult of Trumpery can withstand its cult leader being reduced to a disaffected crank trying to cling to his megaphone. Because if there is hope for the future it lies in the return to sanity by the GOP.

BTW, you act as though the 8 years of obstruction by Repubs during Obama's admin, despite him winning overwhelmingly and thus being given a mandate to lead....twice....never happened.

 

I'm certainly ready to stop discussing Trump. I'm ready to see what a Biden administration looks like and what their priorities are. I don't know if that's healing, but it is looking forward - not backward.

 

I'd suggest moving there if you think that's a winning policy. Internal combustion engines are probably not going to be "phased out" in America in our lifetimes.

This is a good example of how to cite a source to support an argument.

This is a good example of how NOT to cite a source to support an argument.

 

I have asked many times how government spending can control the planetary temperature and have never had an answer. Not even a stupid one. The one thing we know is that joining the Paris accord will be expensive and ineffective.