CDZ Has it ever been that people want things that aren't in their best interests to want?

[JimBowie1958]

Who gets to define "stupid" in the context of stupid voters? What makes a voter stupid? Because they don't agree with you? What about stupid people who vote as you do, but for the "wrong" reasons? Do you want to disallow their vote because they don't pass your criterion for intelligence?
We aren't proving a mathematical theorem here. This is a vote and since we have gone away from the land owner requirement, every American citizen gets a vote. What is the alternative? We already have Liberals squealing about "voter suppression" because people are actually required to provide proof of who the hell they are. Would you add a voter IQ test? Oh man that would be priceless!

The term 'stupid' has long been defined already.

Stupidity is a quality or state of being stupid, or an act or idea that exhibits properties of being stupid.[6] In a character study of "The Stupid Man" attributed to the Greek philosopher Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287 BC), stupidity was defined as "mental slowness in speech or action". The modern English word "stupid" has a broad range of application, from being slow of mind (indicating a lack of intelligence, care or reason), dullness of feeling or sensation (torpidity, senseless, insensitivity), or lacking interest or point (vexing, exasperating). It can either imply a congenital lack of capacity for reasoning, or a temporary state of daze or slow-mindedness.

In Understanding Stupidity, James F. Welles defines stupidity this way: "The term may be used to designate a mentality which is considered to be informed, deliberate and maladaptive." Welles distinguishes stupidity from ignorance; one must know they are acting in their own worst interest. Secondly, it must be a choice, not a forced act or accident. Lastly, it requires the activity to be maladaptive, in that it is in the worst interest of the actor, and specifically done to prevent adaption to new data or existing circumstances."

So when we have liberals who vote to allow for more illegal immigration despite the data that show how badly this affects the tax base and government services that they promise to the constituents, or in the case of Republican Middle Class voters who know that the Middle Class is being gutted by idiotic free trade agreements but still support those policies because they are told it is 'conservative' to do so, or when we have the members of both parties continuing to support the existing leadership that they know to be corrupt, bought by the Big Banks and multinational Corporations, or so-called 'conservatives' who would rather see Hillary Clinton appoint 4 SCOTUS judges rather than hold their nose and vote for Trump, yeah, we have plenty of examples of stupid voters.

 

[Damaged Eagle]

I think some people just want to get rid of the "status quo" and they see Trump as the ticket. I've actually talked to several people who are not 100% satisfied with Trump, but they see him as less "establishment" and not part of the cronyism of party politics.

"This is the shortened form of the full idiom, 'better the devil you know than the devil you don't', and means that it is often better to deal with someone or something you are familiar with and know, even if they are not ideal, than take a risk with an unknown person or thing"

HRC is the better choice, over Bernie or Trump. Lies, half-truths, rumors, innuendos aside, the experience she brings to the table, including mistakes, makes her the most viable person alive to lead our nation at this time in our history.

My one misgiving, based on recent evidence is that when we elected a man of color, the racists came out in force; if we elect a woman, will the misogynists do the same.

I wonder if you felt that way with Obama versus McCain (the unknown versus the known)???

Which John McCain? In all due respect to his service, McCain flips and flops more than a trout tossed on the beach. However, the devil we knew was George W. Bush and I could have voted for Sen. McCain if there was not another choice. Obama wanted to end a war which had become a burden on our economy and of benefit only to grave diggers and casket makers.

But didn't. Lol. The war was not ended, and Gitmo is still open.

The number of service personnel killed or seriously wounded has been vastly reduced, we no longer are spending a billion dollars a week, and keeping Gitmo open is the desire of the Republicans in Congress. They refuse to do what is in the best interest of America, solely for political reasons. They do so by playing the fear card, and continue to violate not only COTUS but the nearly thousand year old Magna Carta. Not only is that evil, it is also a recruiting tool for all of our foes and an embarrassment to all of our friends.

What was the price in civilian casualties when the current president expanded his 'War That Is Not A War' to include several sovereign countries/governments that he destroyed?

At least 26,000 dead in Libya during the six months of bombing preformed by the United States without Congressional approval.

Then there's the fact that military expenditures have not gone down significantly even though we are not officially at war.

But we can be proud that fewer soldiers are not coming home in body bags and the fact that the Middle East is becoming an uninhabitable wasteland of people that want the United States destroyed.

*****SMILE*****

 

[320 Years of History]

I think that a voluntary democratic process tends to draw the participation of those interested in a subject and that tends to factor out the uninformed voter on most issues

Based on what I've read here on USMB, and assuming those posters vote, I don't believe that's so at all, but then again, maybe the "morons" who've made what are clearly uninformed/under-informed/misinformed remarks here on USMB don't actually vote. I don't know.

I think that a voluntary democratic process tends to draw the participation of those interested in a subject and that tends to factor out the uninformed voter on most issues,

Yes, well, I think quantum physics with its several ideas that defy common sense is interesting, and I'm interested init, but I don't have opinions about those theories that I'd vehemently share and stand by. I don't because I know I'm under-informed about them, and I know I'm not willing to take the time to become well informed about them. In other words, I can tell when I should be seen and not heard.

There are also political topics that have the same characteristics for many people, yet those very same people refuse to recognize that and thus exercise the degree of restraint and intellectual integrity that calls for them to be seen and not heard. Yet folks will indeed walk their ignorant assess into a voting booth and make choices (i.e., making themselves heard), largely because they can, when were they to have any intellectual integrity and respect for others, they would refrain from doing so.

the democratic process as a whole brings in more than enough people to get a multi-dimensional set of perspectives on these issues

It does, but some of those dimensions are irrelevant, yet we see them surfaced from all sorts of folks in the "peanut gallery."

as a policy fails to adapt to the changing circumstances and negatively impacts more people, the democratic process self corrects by bringing in more people who have ideas to correct it.

LOL. Well, the democratic process isn't exactly an efficient one, especially not the U.S.' form and practice of it.

Red:
Yes, when negative impacts occur, the thing to do is to determine what it be the actual cause of them, not the circumstantial and conveniently identifiable causes of them. Of course, doing that takes effort, and exposes one to the possibility of finding causes one doesn't like, and that in turn call one to invest even more effort into adjusting for them.

The matter of job losses accruing from free trade is one such example that's widely discussed today. In one of your threads, you touch upon what is precisely the driving cause of those job losses: productivity growth resulting from technology advances. How does one know that the central determinant of manufacturing job losses accrue predominantly from technology advances and not from free trade?

• By looking at what things shift supply and demand curves and recognizing the differences between shifts in supply and demand versus changes in the quantity demanded and/or changes in the quantity supplied (aka movement along a given curve rather than moving the curve itself).
• By looking at what free trade actually does directly and indirectly.
  • Benefits of free trade | Economics Help
  • Economists disagree about a host of things, but the merits of free trade outweighing the downsides of it isn't among them.
• By looking at what are the consequences of tariffs and quotas (the restrainers of/obstacles to free trade)
  • Short video explaining tariffs and quota and their impacts
  • Short paper explaining them in a bit more detail
  • Short paper explaining when it's appropriate to use a tariff vs. use a quota
  • Short paper explaining when nascent industries should be protected
    

Yes, in the wake of free trade jobs have ceased to exist, but that is a consequence of timing, not free trade. The thing is that upon the tech coming about that made it more cost effective to replace labor with capital made the existence of those jobs become economically/financially inefficient for producers. Look at when the Information Age came about and when it became financially feasible for producers to replace labor with capital (machines). You'll find that roughly the free trade agreements and "tech revolution" happened about the same time.

So when one considers the actual economics found at the links in the bulleted list above, one observes that it's the tech not the trade that drives the shift in manufacturers' demand for labor. That the tech came available at the same time free trade agreements did is just a matter of the two happening more or less concurrently. As a result of that overlap in timing, free trade has become the "whipping boy" of sorts, most likely because it's the easier thing to understand because:

• one need not consider multiple factors and isolate which one predominates,
• one can "happily" assume that the manufacturer has moved its facility abroad to access less costly labor and that the manufacturer produces its goods abroad in the same way it did before it moved.

A closer look at the matter reveals that, yes, the manufacturer does use less costly labor, but in addition the producer also implemented production technologies that even if the maker were to return its production operations to the U.S., all those jobs that folks lost would not return, but some of them would. Which ones? The jobs that haven't been replaced by technology, but many of those jobs aren't production floor jobs, even though some of them are.

Food Production Facility -- 21st Century

Automobile Production Facility -- 21st Century

General Motors Oldsmobile Facility -- 1973

And therein lies the problem with all the anti-free trade hoopla we hear bandied about by some of our would be or existing political leaders. Let's say that the U.S. imposes tariffs that drive manufacturers to reestablish production facilities in the U.S. When producers do so, there will be a boost in jobs, no doubt about that, but look at the photos above. How many people do you see in modern plants? How many jobs do you imagine will return, so to speak? Not nearly enough to satisfy people's demand for jobs.

So where will imposing the tariffs that may inspire (if the costs of returning surpass the costs of not returning, makers still won't return) the return of manufacturing that leave us? Well, we'll have employed about one to three hundred thousand people, and that's good, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the ~4M who lost their jobs. So what's the impact?

1. Producers return, they implement even newer tech, thereby lowering the quantity of laborers they need (white and blue collar).
2. Producers then incorporate the higher U.S. labor cost into their cost of goods/MSRP/selling price.
3. Consumers/buyers pay higher prices for those goods than they would have paid for them absent the tariffs, thereby making smaller the bundle of goods their income can buy, assuming the buyers don't have effectively unlimited ability to spend, which is substantively what wealthy folks have now and will have then too. So the impact while noticeable to the wealthy won't alter their buying behavior, but it will without question affect the spending of people who have "typical" means.

So at that point, we have everyone paying higher prices and the vast majority of folks who lost their "good jobs" still not having found a new "good job." Where is the sense in that?

Let's now look at the quantity of folks who lost their "good jobs." As noted before, the quantity of people who lost those manufacturing jobs is about four million. The U.S. workforce is about 160 million. Do you honestly think the whole of the U.S. *(~250M folks over 16 years old) should pay higher prices for "stuff" just to put some several hundred thousand folks back to work at their "good jobs?" Just to illustrate the monetary effect of what the anti-free traders are proposing lets assume that each of those 250M people buys just one item (it doesn't matter which item of the many that would cost more) that costs fifty cents more because it's made domestically instead of abroad. That would be a total of $125M of additional spending. But of course the price differential won't be merely fifty cents because it's not just labor that costs more in the U.S., it's also land, insurance, and a host of other business costs.

Now I haven't precisely quantified the impact of the price increases, and more importantly, neither have any of the anti-free traders done so. But there are economists who have with regard to some industries and with regard to NAFTA, and without exception, they all find the same thing. The cost to the American people in higher prices paid as a result of not having free trade is higher than the cost to the American people of having those four million folks employed in jobs other than their now gone "good jobs."

• Sugar industry
• Dialectically objective analysis of the impact of NAFTA
• The Effects of Protection on Domestic Output
  "Evidence from the ITC and our econometric analysis of the relationship between trade barriers and domestic output in five industries lend support to the proposition that protection is not an effective means of stimulating domestic output."

I realize that's of little comfort to those four million people, but the macroeconomic reality is what it is, and, yes, those four million folks are the ones "caught in the crossfire," so to speak. I get that, but there is a solution to their problem and that solution is retraining them so they can perform and obtain the jobs that are available, the jobs that domestic employers have to go overseas to find folks to perform them, and the jobs that exist in what are now America's growth industries. And frankly, for all that folks don't like about Mr. Sanders, the one thing he's proposing that will make it possible for folks to do just that -- free (or nearly so) higher education -- is precisely that solution to the problem; moreover, it's a long term solution.

And yet monkeys have outperformed seasoned professional brokers in predicting stock market performance.

Well, come now. You've misrepresented the article you cited.

• Monkeys didn't make those choices.
• The point of comparison was index funds vs. randomly selected single stocks, not randomly ("monkey") selected specific stock choices vs. specific stock choices made by seasoned professionals.

Depends on how qualified they are and what profession. An evangelical physicist that believes in Theistic Evolution is just as good as any other physicist.

You've gotten yourself on a roll of making lame inferences, now, haven't you? LOL You know as well as I do that the point of my comment you've rebutted is that theistic teachings aren't appropriate to arriving at solutions for objectively observable dilemmas. And we both know you know that because you specifically focused in your reply on the physicist's being a physicist and you inferred that his/her evangelical leanings would (or rightly should) be secondary to their scientifically informed thinking re: physics.

And, just so you know, I giving you crap for that remark because you and I both know the "peanut gallery" here on USMB is large enough that some loon in it will seize on your comment and drive the the conversation off point. In an interpersonal conversation, I'd just chuckle when they did so and ignore them. Here, however, those people force one to deal with their "Tom foolery" to keep a discussion either legit or on topic, or worse, both.

We have watched American jobs get exported and undermined with bullshit free trade agreements that are not in any way actually 'free trade' at all....
we have hundreds of billions of US dollars in trade deficits, stagnant workers wages since 1970 and a vastly underperforming economy to show for it all....the successes were while we had huge tariffs and free homestead laws. Those last two we need to return to in a more modern form.

[See my discussion from the "red" comments above.]

Yes, we need to edumakate our voters much more better.

Agree. But the lion's share of the onus falls on the voter to accept the education offered. What do I mean by that? I mean that when one fails to master the concepts that are taught in schools and colleges, it really doesn't matter what amount or quality of teaching one is given. That is easily illustrated by every individual who one year in school (pick the grade level) are "C" students, and merely by shifting their focus, learning process and studying effort in the very next year become "A" students. I mean that for most folks, mastering "whatever" is a matter of will.

There are, of course, individuals who are exceptions to that, but those folks don't form or cause the bulk of the problems that can be corrected by "edumakation" and that we observe in our society. Those exceptional individuals rightly need and deserve one-off solutions/approaches.

the beauty of democracy is that it is a vast feed-back machine that helps the leadership elite to do their jobs and lead, IF they listen

Not all that feedback is worth listening to. That goes directly to this thread's topic. Part of what leaders in a republic, which is what the U.S. is, are paid to do is discern what is worth listening to and what is not and act accordingly. That there may be many people "griping" about "whatever" and wanting XYZ solution sometimes must be ignored by folks who truly are well informed enough to know that. By the same token, those well informed folks have an obligation to show the "hoi polloi" why and how what they want/propose is the wrong thing.

The "hoi polloi" have the responsibility, as noted just above, to actually listen and receive the enlightenment given and they have the responsibility for being intellectually honest with themselves when they in fact might not know as much as the experts who are trying to communicate to them why their thinking is amiss.

Unfortunately, our "edumakation" methods, to the extent that they are not Socratically performed, tacitly inspire a sense of intellectual infallibility by catechismally presenting answers rather than instilling intellectual integrity by teaching folks how to examine questions and critically find and evaluate the possible answers.

I think some people just want to get rid of the "status quo" and they see Trump as the ticket. I've actually talked to several people who are not 100% satisfied with Trump, but they see him as less "establishment" and not part of the cronyism of party politics.

There's plenty about the status quo that should be dispensed with. The problem I have with Trump is that he's not detailed much about how he'd do so and why we think he will in fact do as he suggests. I have no issue with his wanting to alter the status quo, it's the ways and means he'd use to do so that I need to understand so I can tell whether I agree with them.

As a specific example of what I mean, I want to understand why with his B.S. in economics he has come to think that every professional economist on the planet is wrong about the merits of free trade.

FWIW, I don't formally have a B.S. in econ, but I have a minor in it as a result of a interdisciplinary study program I pursued as an undergrad, and combined with the economics taken to obtain my MBA, I ended up with the equivalent of an undeclared major in econ. The consequence being I know quite well what Trump was taught in the course of getting his B.S. in economics and I know quite well what economics professionals, both in and out of academia, think on the matter. Donald Trump, myriad voters, and other politicians, not one of whom AFAIK is an economist, are the only folks who think free trade is a bad thing. Why the pols think that is obvious: enough voters -- the vast majority of whom also have zero training in economics -- think it so to get their votes, opposing free trade works or at least helps.

The instances of being economically ignorant are fewer now than than in the past, but the quantity still hasn't reached the critical mass it needs to in order to say most folks understand it.

(See also: The Hot Major For Undergrads Is Economics)

I think some people just want to get rid of the "status quo" and they see Trump as the ticket. I've actually talked to several people who are not 100% satisfied with Trump, but they see him as less "establishment" and not part of the cronyism of party politics.

1. I think seeking 100% satisfaction with a politician or policy option is an unrealistic thing to seek or expect.
2. Being "establishment" or not isn't the thing that matters. What matters is the merit, based on the body of information available, of the person's positions, be the person "establishment," Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Communist, Socialist, etc. or not or some combo of those things.

'better the devil you know than the devil you don't'

I'm not totally sure of that, but to a point, sure. My take on that axiom is a bit more nuanced than is apparent on the fact of merely uttering it. I suspect that is so for you too.

 

[Wry Catcher]

The number of service personnel killed or seriously wounded has been vastly reduced, we no longer are spending a billion dollars a week, ...

Of course, that what happens when you abandon your allies and walk away from a conflict you started.

I didn't start it, nor did Obama or HRC. It was Bush&Co who decided to invade Iraq and then to occupy it.; it was they who assassinated Saddam, were responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of Iraqi civilians, sent over 4,500 service personnel home in bodybags, spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a war of choice, which has devolved into a albatross which is still hung around our nation's neck.

Let's not pretend any of this was Obama's or Clinton's fault - nor pretend getting that bird off of our nation's neck is easily done, especially when there is no honorable opposition working toward similar goals and using different strategies.

 

[Wry Catcher]

I think that a voluntary democratic process tends to draw the participation of those interested in a subject and that tends to factor out the uninformed voter on most issues

Based on what I've read here on USMB, and assuming those posters vote, I don't believe that's so at all, but then again, maybe the "morons" who've made what are clearly uninformed/under-informed/misinformed remarks here on USMB don't actually vote. I don't know.

I think that a voluntary democratic process tends to draw the participation of those interested in a subject and that tends to factor out the uninformed voter on most issues,

Yes, well, I think quantum physics with its several ideas that defy common sense is interesting, and I'm interested init, but I don't have opinions about those theories that I'd vehemently share and stand by. I don't because I know I'm under-informed about them, and I know I'm not willing to take the time to become well informed about them. In other words, I can tell when I should be seen and not heard.

There are also political topics that have the same characteristics for many people, yet those very same people refuse to recognize that and thus exercise the degree of restraint and intellectual integrity that calls for them to be seen and not heard. Yet folks will indeed walk their ignorant assess into a voting booth and make choices (i.e., making themselves heard), largely because they can, when were they to have any intellectual integrity and respect for others, they would refrain from doing so.

the democratic process as a whole brings in more than enough people to get a multi-dimensional set of perspectives on these issues

It does, but some of those dimensions are irrelevant, yet we see them surfaced from all sorts of folks in the "peanut gallery."

as a policy fails to adapt to the changing circumstances and negatively impacts more people, the democratic process self corrects by bringing in more people who have ideas to correct it.

LOL. Well, the democratic process isn't exactly an efficient one, especially not the U.S.' form and practice of it.

Red:
Yes, when negative impacts occur, the thing to do is to determine what it be the actual cause of them, not the circumstantial and conveniently identifiable causes of them. Of course, doing that takes effort, and exposes one to the possibility of finding causes one doesn't like, and that in turn call one to invest even more effort into adjusting for them.

The matter of job losses accruing from free trade is one such example that's widely discussed today. In one of your threads, you touch upon what is precisely the driving cause of those job losses: productivity growth resulting from technology advances. How does one know that the central determinant of manufacturing job losses accrue predominantly from technology advances and not from free trade?

• By looking at what things shift supply and demand curves and recognizing the differences between shifts in supply and demand versus changes in the quantity demanded and/or changes in the quantity supplied (aka movement along a given curve rather than moving the curve itself).
• By looking at what free trade actually does directly and indirectly.
  • Benefits of free trade | Economics Help
  • Economists disagree about a host of things, but the merits of free trade outweighing the downsides of it isn't among them.
• By looking at what are the consequences of tariffs and quotas (the restrainers of/obstacles to free trade)
  • Short video explaining tariffs and quota and their impacts
  • Short paper explaining them in a bit more detail
  • Short paper explaining when it's appropriate to use a tariff vs. use a quota
  • Short paper explaining when nascent industries should be protected

Yes, in the wake of free trade jobs have ceased to exist, but that is a consequence of timing, not free trade. The thing is that upon the tech coming about that made it more cost effective to replace labor with capital made the existence of those jobs become economically/financially inefficient for producers. Look at when the Information Age came about and when it became financially feasible for producers to replace labor with capital (machines). You'll find that roughly the free trade agreements and "tech revolution" happened about the same time.

So when one considers the actual economics found at the links in the bulleted list above, one observes that it's the tech not the trade that drives the shift in manufacturers' demand for labor. That the tech came available at the same time free trade agreements did is just a matter of the two happening more or less concurrently. As a result of that overlap in timing, free trade has become the "whipping boy" of sorts, most likely because it's the easier thing to understand because:

• one need not consider multiple factors and isolate which one predominates,
• one can "happily" assume that the manufacturer has moved its facility abroad to access less costly labor and that the manufacturer produces its goods abroad in the same way it did before it moved.

A closer look at the matter reveals that, yes, the manufacturer does use less costly labor, but in addition the producer also implemented production technologies that even if the maker were to return its production operations to the U.S., all those jobs that folks lost would not return, but some of them would. Which ones? The jobs that haven't been replaced by technology, but many of those jobs aren't production floor jobs, even though some of them are.

Food Production Facility -- 21st Century

Automobile Production Facility -- 21st Century

General Motors Oldsmobile Facility -- 1973

And therein lies the problem with all the anti-free trade hoopla we hear bandied about by some of our would be or existing political leaders. Let's say that the U.S. imposes tariffs that drive manufacturers to reestablish production facilities in the U.S. When producers do so, there will be a boost in jobs, no doubt about that, but look at the photos above. How many people do you see in modern plants? How many jobs do you imagine will return, so to speak? Not nearly enough to satisfy people's demand for jobs.

So where will imposing the tariffs that may inspire (if the costs of returning surpass the costs of not returning, makers still won't return) the return of manufacturing that leave us? Well, we'll have employed about one to three hundred thousand people, and that's good, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the ~4M who lost their jobs. So what's the impact?

1. Producers return, they implement even newer tech, thereby lowering the quantity of laborers they need (white and blue collar).
2. Producers then incorporate the higher U.S. labor cost into their cost of goods/MSRP/selling price.
3. Consumers/buyers pay higher prices for those goods than they would have paid for them absent the tariffs, thereby making smaller the bundle of goods their income can buy, assuming the buyers don't have effectively unlimited ability to spend, which is substantively what wealthy folks have now and will have then too. So the impact while noticeable to the wealthy won't alter their buying behavior, but it will without question affect the spending of people who have "typical" means.

So at that point, we have everyone paying higher prices and the vast majority of folks who lost their "good jobs" still not having found a new "good job." Where is the sense in that?

Let's now look at the quantity of folks who lost their "good jobs." As noted before, the quantity of people who lost those manufacturing jobs is about four million. The U.S. workforce is about 160 million. Do you honestly think the whole of the U.S. *(~250M folks over 16 years old) should pay higher prices for "stuff" just to put some several hundred thousand folks back to work at their "good jobs?" Just to illustrate the monetary effect of what the anti-free traders are proposing lets assume that each of those 250M people buys just one item (it doesn't matter which item of the many that would cost more) that costs fifty cents more because it's made domestically instead of abroad. That would be a total of $125M of additional spending. But of course the price differential won't be merely fifty cents because it's not just labor that costs more in the U.S., it's also land, insurance, and a host of other business costs.

Now I haven't precisely quantified the impact of the price increases, and more importantly, neither have any of the anti-free traders done so. But there are economists who have with regard to some industries and with regard to NAFTA, and without exception, they all find the same thing. The cost to the American people in higher prices paid as a result of not having free trade is higher than the cost to the American people of having those four million folks employed in jobs other than their now gone "good jobs."

• Sugar industry
• Dialectically objective analysis of the impact of NAFTA
• The Effects of Protection on Domestic Output
  "Evidence from the ITC and our econometric analysis of the relationship between trade barriers and domestic output in five industries lend support to the proposition that protection is not an effective means of stimulating domestic output."

I realize that's of little comfort to those four million people, but the macroeconomic reality is what it is, and, yes, those four million folks are the ones "caught in the crossfire," so to speak. I get that, but there is a solution to their problem and that solution is retraining them so they can perform and obtain the jobs that are available, the jobs that domestic employers have to go overseas to find folks to perform them, and the jobs that exist in what are now America's growth industries. And frankly, for all that folks don't like about Mr. Sanders, the one thing he's proposing that will make it possible for folks to do just that -- free (or nearly so) higher education -- is precisely that solution to the problem; moreover, it's a long term solution.

And yet monkeys have outperformed seasoned professional brokers in predicting stock market performance.

Well, come now. You've misrepresented the article you cited.

• Monkeys didn't make those choices.
• The point of comparison was index funds vs. randomly selected single stocks, not randomly ("monkey") selected specific stock choices vs. specific stock choices made by seasoned professionals.

Depends on how qualified they are and what profession. An evangelical physicist that believes in Theistic Evolution is just as good as any other physicist.

You've gotten yourself on a roll of making lame inferences, now, haven't you? LOL You know as well as I do that the point of my comment you've rebutted is that theistic teachings aren't appropriate to arriving at solutions for objectively observable dilemmas. And we both know you know that because you specifically focused in your reply on the physicist's being a physicist and you inferred that his/her evangelical leanings would (or rightly should) be secondary to their scientifically informed thinking re: physics.

And, just so you know, I giving you crap for that remark because you and I both know the "peanut gallery" here on USMB is large enough that some loon in it will seize on your comment and drive the the conversation off point. In an interpersonal conversation, I'd just chuckle when they did so and ignore them. Here, however, those people force one to deal with their "Tom foolery" to keep a discussion either legit or on topic, or worse, both.

We have watched American jobs get exported and undermined with bullshit free trade agreements that are not in any way actually 'free trade' at all....
we have hundreds of billions of US dollars in trade deficits, stagnant workers wages since 1970 and a vastly underperforming economy to show for it all....the successes were while we had huge tariffs and free homestead laws. Those last two we need to return to in a more modern form.

[See my discussion from the "red" comments above.]

Yes, we need to edumakate our voters much more better.

Agree. But the lion's share of the onus falls on the voter to accept the education offered. What do I mean by that? I mean that when one fails to master the concepts that are taught in schools and colleges, it really doesn't matter what amount or quality of teaching one is given. That is easily illustrated by every individual who one year in school (pick the grade level) are "C" students, and merely by shifting their focus, learning process and studying effort in the very next year become "A" students. I mean that for most folks, mastering "whatever" is a matter of will.

There are, of course, individuals who are exceptions to that, but those folks don't form or cause the bulk of the problems that can be corrected by "edumakation" and that we observe in our society. Those exceptional individuals rightly need and deserve one-off solutions/approaches.

the beauty of democracy is that it is a vast feed-back machine that helps the leadership elite to do their jobs and lead, IF they listen

Not all that feedback is worth listening to. That goes directly to this thread's topic. Part of what leaders in a republic, which is what the U.S. is, are paid to do is discern what is worth listening to and what is not and act accordingly. That there may be many people "griping" about "whatever" and wanting XYZ solution sometimes must be ignored by folks who truly are well informed enough to know that. By the same token, those well informed folks have an obligation to show the "hoi polloi" why and how what they want/propose is the wrong thing.

The "hoi polloi" have the responsibility, as noted just above, to actually listen and receive the enlightenment given and they have the responsibility for being intellectually honest with themselves when they in fact might not know as much as the experts who are trying to communicate to them why their thinking is amiss.

Unfortunately, our "edumakation" methods, to the extent that they are not Socratically performed, tacitly inspire a sense of intellectual infallibility by catechismally presenting answers rather than instilling intellectual integrity by teaching folks how to examine questions and critically find and evaluate the possible answers.

I think some people just want to get rid of the "status quo" and they see Trump as the ticket. I've actually talked to several people who are not 100% satisfied with Trump, but they see him as less "establishment" and not part of the cronyism of party politics.

There's plenty about the status quo that should be dispensed with. The problem I have with Trump is that he's not detailed much about how he'd do so and why we think he will in fact do as he suggests. I have no issue with his wanting to alter the status quo, it's the ways and means he'd use to do so that I need to understand so I can tell whether I agree with them.

As a specific example of what I mean, I want to understand why with his B.S. in economics he has come to think that every professional economist on the planet is wrong about the merits of free trade.

FWIW, I don't formally have a B.S. in econ, but I have a minor in it as a result of a interdisciplinary study program I pursued as an undergrad, and combined with the economics taken to obtain my MBA, I ended up with the equivalent of an undeclared major in econ. The consequence being I know quite well what Trump was taught in the course of getting his B.S. in economics and I know quite well what economics professionals, both in and out of academia, think on the matter. Donald Trump, myriad voters, and other politicians, not one of whom AFAIK is an economist, are the only folks who think free trade is a bad thing. Why the pols think that is obvious: enough voters -- the vast majority of whom also have zero training in economics -- think it so to get their votes, opposing free trade works or at least helps.

The instances of being economically ignorant are fewer now than than in the past, but the quantity still hasn't reached the critical mass it needs to in order to say most folks understand it.

(See also: The Hot Major For Undergrads Is Economics)

I think some people just want to get rid of the "status quo" and they see Trump as the ticket. I've actually talked to several people who are not 100% satisfied with Trump, but they see him as less "establishment" and not part of the cronyism of party politics.

1. I think seeking 100% satisfaction with a politician or policy option is an unrealistic thing to seek or expect.
2. Being "establishment" or not isn't the thing that matters. What matters is the merit, based on the body of information available, of the person's positions, be the person "establishment," Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Communist, Socialist, etc. or not or some combo of those things.

'better the devil you know than the devil you don't'

I'm not totally sure of that, but to a point, sure. My take on that axiom is a bit more nuanced than is apparent on the fact of merely uttering it. I suspect that is so for you too.

Thank you.

 

[Damaged Eagle]

The number of service personnel killed or seriously wounded has been vastly reduced, we no longer are spending a billion dollars a week, ...

Of course, that what happens when you abandon your allies and walk away from a conflict you started.

I didn't start it, nor did Obama or HRC. It was Bush&Co who decided to invade Iraq and then to occupy it.; it was they who assassinated Saddam, were responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of Iraqi civilians, sent over 4,500 service personnel home in bodybags, spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a war of choice, which has devolved into a albatross which is still hung around our nation's neck.

Let's not pretend any of this was Obama's or Clinton's fault - nor pretend getting that bird off of our nation's neck is easily done, especially when there is no honorable opposition working toward similar goals and using different strategies.

Bush had Congressional approval and a Declaration Of War.

How about the 'War That Is Not A War' that our current Nobel Champion Of Peace is waging?

Additionally Clinton was one of the ones who voted 'yes' for the Iraq war since she was a US senator at that time which means she had just as much a hand in it as anyone otherwise she wasn't doing her job.

*****SMILE*****

 

[JimBowie1958]

The number of service personnel killed or seriously wounded has been vastly reduced, we no longer are spending a billion dollars a week, ...

Of course, that what happens when you abandon your allies and walk away from a conflict you started.

I didn't start it, nor did Obama or HRC. It was Bush&Co who decided to invade Iraq and then to occupy it.; it was they who assassinated Saddam, were responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of Iraqi civilians, sent over 4,500 service personnel home in bodybags, spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a war of choice, which has devolved into a albatross which is still hung around our nation's neck.

Let's not pretend any of this was Obama's or Clinton's fault - nor pretend getting that bird off of our nation's neck is easily done, especially when there is no honorable opposition working toward similar goals and using different strategies.

Our nation entered war in Iraq and Afghanistan in response to various provocations and cease fire violations.

The President of the USA doe snot get to walk away from conflicts that our nation has been already engaged in simply because they do not agree with the war.

 

[Wry Catcher]

The number of service personnel killed or seriously wounded has been vastly reduced, we no longer are spending a billion dollars a week, ...

Of course, that what happens when you abandon your allies and walk away from a conflict you started.

I didn't start it, nor did Obama or HRC. It was Bush&Co who decided to invade Iraq and then to occupy it.; it was they who assassinated Saddam, were responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of Iraqi civilians, sent over 4,500 service personnel home in bodybags, spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a war of choice, which has devolved into a albatross which is still hung around our nation's neck.

Let's not pretend any of this was Obama's or Clinton's fault - nor pretend getting that bird off of our nation's neck is easily done, especially when there is no honorable opposition working toward similar goals and using different strategies.

View attachment 74207

Bush had Congressional approval and a Declaration Of War.

How about the 'War That Is Not A War' that our current Nobel Champion Of Peace is waging?

Additionally Clinton was one of the ones who voted 'yes' for the Iraq war since she was a US senator at that time which means she had just as much a hand in it as anyone otherwise she wasn't doing her job.

*****SMILE*****

Bullshit

George W. Bush was Commander-in-Chief! He gave the order to invade and later occupy Iraq!

 

[Wry Catcher]

The number of service personnel killed or seriously wounded has been vastly reduced, we no longer are spending a billion dollars a week, ...

Of course, that what happens when you abandon your allies and walk away from a conflict you started.

I didn't start it, nor did Obama or HRC. It was Bush&Co who decided to invade Iraq and then to occupy it.; it was they who assassinated Saddam, were responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of Iraqi civilians, sent over 4,500 service personnel home in bodybags, spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a war of choice, which has devolved into a albatross which is still hung around our nation's neck.

Let's not pretend any of this was Obama's or Clinton's fault - nor pretend getting that bird off of our nation's neck is easily done, especially when there is no honorable opposition working toward similar goals and using different strategies.

Our nation entered war in Iraq and Afghanistan in response to various provocations and cease fire violations.

The President of the USA doe snot get to walk away from conflicts that our nation has been already engaged in simply because they do not agree with the war.

Nixon ran on this talking point: I have a plan (to end the war in Vietnam). The war ended six years later when the ARVN was run over by the VC and the North and stormed our Embassy in Saigon. Keep in mind the IED's used to kill and wound are soldiers existed in Vietnam too, then we called them satchel bombs or satchel charges. One would think Rumsfeld and Cheney would have remembered this bit of war history when they decided to occupy Iraq.

 

[Wry Catcher]

The number of service personnel killed or seriously wounded has been vastly reduced, we no longer are spending a billion dollars a week, ...

Of course, that what happens when you abandon your allies and walk away from a conflict you started.

I didn't start it, nor did Obama or HRC. It was Bush&Co who decided to invade Iraq and then to occupy it.; it was they who assassinated Saddam, were responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of Iraqi civilians, sent over 4,500 service personnel home in bodybags, spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a war of choice, which has devolved into a albatross which is still hung around our nation's neck.

Let's not pretend any of this was Obama's or Clinton's fault - nor pretend getting that bird off of our nation's neck is easily done, especially when there is no honorable opposition working toward similar goals and using different strategies.

View attachment 74207

Bush had Congressional approval and a Declaration Of War.

How about the 'War That Is Not A War' that our current Nobel Champion Of Peace is waging?

Additionally Clinton was one of the ones who voted 'yes' for the Iraq war since she was a US senator at that time which means she had just as much a hand in it as anyone otherwise she wasn't doing her job.

*****SMILE*****

Bullshit

George W. Bush was Commander-in-Chief! He gave the order to invade and later occupy Iraq!

There was NO declaration of war! See the Iraq Resolution,

Iraq Resolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[xband]

Nixon opened the door to Red China which Wal-Mart exploits.

 

[320 Years of History]

Nixon opened the door to Red China which Wal-Mart exploits.

Yes. Walmart is very popular in the PRC and they are just huge, bigger than any "Super Walmart" I've seen in the U.S....roughly the same land area coverage, but usually on three to six floors. There are 26 of them in Shenzhen alone and like Walmarts everywhere, except the U.S., they sell all the stuff folks want to buy, from the mundane to the esoteric, just so long as it's at least moderately or lower priced.

And some of them are even below ground.

This is how fresh fish are sold in the PRC at most places, including Walmart and restaurants. The Chinese generally don't buy fish that's already dead before they get it. In upscale restaurants, the chickens, ducks and rabbits will be alive in the kitchen when you order them from the menu. Fish is generally sold from a somewhat decorative fish tank at the front of the restaurant.

Restaurant fish tanks

I'm telling you, if you've never been to the PRC, you really just don't have any idea of what it means for a retailer, or seller of any sort, to do business in a growing market comprised of nearly 2B people.

 

[D Truth]

Nixon opened the door to Red China which Wal-Mart exploits.

Yes. Walmart is very popular in the PRC and they are just huge, bigger than any "Super Walmart" I've seen in the U.S....roughly the same land area coverage, but usually on three to six floors. There are 26 of them in Shenzhen alone and like Walmarts everywhere, except the U.S., they sell all the stuff folks want to buy, from the mundane to the esoteric, just so long as it's at least moderately or lower priced.

And some of them are even below ground.

This is how fresh fish are sold in the PRC at most places, including Walmart and restaurants. The Chinese generally don't buy fish that's already dead before they get it. In upscale restaurants, the chickens, ducks and rabbits will be alive in the kitchen when you order them from the menu. Fish is generally sold from a somewhat decorative fish tank at the front of the restaurant.

Restaurant fish tanks

I'm telling you, if you've never been to the PRC, you really just don't have any idea of what it means for a retailer, or seller of any sort, to do business in a growing market comprised of nearly 2B people.

Wonderful. Now we know where your particular allegiance is. This is useful for further debate.

Apparently, this is now a China vs. USA debate... over who has the best walmart?

Debate point 1 FUCK WALMART - Traitors to the US of A.
Debate point 2 FUCK WALMART

 

[Damaged Eagle]

The number of service personnel killed or seriously wounded has been vastly reduced, we no longer are spending a billion dollars a week, ...

Of course, that what happens when you abandon your allies and walk away from a conflict you started.

I didn't start it, nor did Obama or HRC. It was Bush&Co who decided to invade Iraq and then to occupy it.; it was they who assassinated Saddam, were responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of Iraqi civilians, sent over 4,500 service personnel home in bodybags, spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a war of choice, which has devolved into a albatross which is still hung around our nation's neck.

Let's not pretend any of this was Obama's or Clinton's fault - nor pretend getting that bird off of our nation's neck is easily done, especially when there is no honorable opposition working toward similar goals and using different strategies.

View attachment 74207

Bush had Congressional approval and a Declaration Of War.

How about the 'War That Is Not A War' that our current Nobel Champion Of Peace is waging?

Additionally Clinton was one of the ones who voted 'yes' for the Iraq war since she was a US senator at that time which means she had just as much a hand in it as anyone otherwise she wasn't doing her job.

*****SMILE*****

Bullshit

George W. Bush was Commander-in-Chief! He gave the order to invade and later occupy Iraq!

There was NO declaration of war! See the Iraq Resolution,

Iraq Resolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Best read up on what constitutes a declaration of war in the United States. A vote of Congressional approval constitutes a declaration of war in the United States. Bush had that.

How many sovereign governments has the Nobel War Criminal decimated in his War That's Not A War in the nearly eight years that he's been in office without congressional approval? Five? Six? Seven?

While we're at it how much has your Nobel War Hero spent on his wars?

Looks like it's at least 5-6 trillion dollars in the last eight years on his war that's not a war.

How many millions of civilians have died in in the Nobel Champion Of Peace's "War That's Not A War" as he builds bridges of understanding out of their mutilated bodies?

*****SMILE*****

 

[ChrisL]

The Iraq war was a terrible waste of money and blood. We got absolutely nada out of it. However, congress most certainly did give approval for the war, including Mrs. Clinton.

 

[320 Years of History]

Nixon opened the door to Red China which Wal-Mart exploits.

Yes. Walmart is very popular in the PRC and they are just huge, bigger than any "Super Walmart" I've seen in the U.S....roughly the same land area coverage, but usually on three to six floors. There are 26 of them in Shenzhen alone and like Walmarts everywhere, except the U.S., they sell all the stuff folks want to buy, from the mundane to the esoteric, just so long as it's at least moderately or lower priced.

And some of them are even below ground.

This is how fresh fish are sold in the PRC at most places, including Walmart and restaurants. The Chinese generally don't buy fish that's already dead before they get it. In upscale restaurants, the chickens, ducks and rabbits will be alive in the kitchen when you order them from the menu. Fish is generally sold from a somewhat decorative fish tank at the front of the restaurant.

Restaurant fish tanks

I'm telling you, if you've never been to the PRC, you really just don't have any idea of what it means for a retailer, or seller of any sort, to do business in a growing market comprised of nearly 2B people.

Wonderful. Now we know where your particular allegiance is. This is useful for further debate.

Apparently, this is now a China vs. USA debate... over who has the best walmart?

Debate point 1 FUCK WALMART - Traitors to the US of A.
Debate point 2 FUCK WALMART

Red:
If you actually believe that you can accurately infer where my allegiances fall based on that post, you are a bigger fool than I'd previously presumed you are. That you actually perceive that the remarks in the quotes above in this post may be (1) a debate and (2) a "China vs. USA debate over who has the best walmart [sic]," I shall take even greater confidence in my assessment stated in this paragraph that you are indeed every bit the bigger fool than I'd initially suspected.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Bullshit
George W. Bush was Commander-in-Chief! He gave the order to invade and later occupy Iraq!

Lol, so W Bush was able to declare war without Congressional approval in your view? No, Congressional approval for the military action was necessary and Bush got that permission.

2003 invasion of Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 was passed by congress with Republicans voting 98% in favor in the Senate, and 97% in favor in the House. Democrats supported the joint resolution 58% and 39% in the Senate and House respectively.[94][95] The resolution asserts the authorization by the Constitution of the United States and the Congress for the President to fight anti-United States terrorism. Citing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the resolution reiterated that it should be the policy of the United States to remove the Saddam Hussein regime and promote a democratic replacement.

The resolution "supported" and "encouraged" diplomatic efforts by President George W. Bush to "strictly enforce through the U.N. Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq" and "obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion, and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." The resolution authorized President Bush to use the Armed Forces of the United States "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq."


I have no idea what you expect to gain by misrepresenting easily obtainable facts.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Nixon ran on this talking point: I have a plan (to end the war in Vietnam). The war ended six years later when the ARVN was run over by the VC and the North and stormed our Embassy in Saigon.

Nixon did end the war legally with the Paris Peace Treaty, which wasnt worth the paper it was printed on because Marxists are amoral liars for whom such treaties are merely a pause until they can get the upper hand again and restart their war. At any rate the war was over for everyone, we withdrew and the commies started the war all over again and Democrats blocked our obligated aid to the free democratic South Vietnamese Republic, aid we obligated ourselves to provide to the South to which they agreed to the said treaty.

Nixon kept his promise as well as he could, and your distortion of the historical facts are noted.

Keep in mind the IED's used to kill and wound are soldiers existed in Vietnam too, then we called them satchel bombs or satchel charges.

An IED is not a satchel charge, lol. An IED can be anything explosive rigged to blow up at a stationary point like a mine to wound and kill enemy forces. A satchel charge is a very specific kind of explosive designed to be mobile,carried by one man and to blow up obstacles and was also useful for tanks.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Best read up on what constitutes a declaration of war in the United States. A vote of Congressional approval constitutes a declaration of war in the United States. Bush had that.

While I agree with the gist of your post, I have to dissent on this point.

There is a big difference between a formally declared state of war between the USA and foreign governments, and we have only had five of them in our entire history. Four of those five formal declarations were made after hostilities had already been initiated by the foreign governments in question. The War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and World War 1 and World War 2 were formal wars declared after hostilities had already been initiated by the other country, and the Spanish-American War was just a stupid war caused by a jingoist press and a trigger happy elite. These War Powers are rarely used as they give the President martial law authority, i.e. he is virtually an elected dictator, and the Presidency of FDR in WW2, Lincoln in the Civil War and Wilson in the First World War had enormous power that no President since FDR has held until Obama gave himself war time power in peacetime nonemergency conditions a few years ago, but Obama has not used these powers to my knowledge.

But Congressional authorization for military engagement may seem like a declaration of war, but they are much more constrained in the actions that they authorize and the duration of them as well.

 

[320 Years of History]

Congressional authorization for military engagement may seem like a declaration of war, but they are much more constrained in the actions that they authorize and the duration of them as well.

The Vietnam War certainly is an example of people wanting something that wasn't in their or the nation's best interest. The Iraq War II is another, albeit for entirely different reasons.

I think those limitations placed on Commanders in Chief in the prosecution of military actions abroad are just absurd, although with the prospect of a Trump Presidency, I may minimally have to rethink my stance in that regard. That said, no matter the nature and extent of power a CoC should or does have, I nonetheless think that Congress should either declare the war or get over the matter that's ticking off the nation, or at least its political leaders. I just don't cotton to that namby-pamby approach that presumes suited men in the Capitol, and who are generally unwilling to send their own children to fight in the conflict but who will send yours, can accurately judge what generals should or should not be permitted to do in the theater of hostilities and based on that presumption pass laws that impose any limitations on how the Executive Branch leaders prosecute the war.

That "limited warfare" concept is largely why we lost the Vietnam War, which too was not really a war as we didn't declare war, yet the website for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial explicitly refers to it as the Vietnam War.

...And I got distracted in the midst of responding to your post and no longer know what the hell be the point I was going to develop with the remarks above....sorry...maybe they'll trigger something useful, so I'll go ahead and post them....