American Politics Thread V: We're Just Biden Our Time ...

[Galloism]

There is net migration out of California, but what would be more interesting is to know the reasons. Is it because housing (and more generally life) is too expensive ? Because of climate/fires ? Too high population density ? Dislike of some policies ? Fear of earthquakes ? Something else ?

No evidence on hand because it's anecdotal but from people I've talked to about it the big two are the climate and the general cost of living in a lot of areas.

Anecdotal again, but I know a lot of retirees that moved out of California because their home was their retirement plan.

They sold their 1 or 2 million dollar home, and moved to a place where they can buy a home for 100 or 200 thousand, and the rest is their retirement plan and hope it lasts.

[Washington Resistance Army]

No evidence on hand because it's anecdotal but from people I've talked to about it the big two are the climate and the general cost of living in a lot of areas.

Anecdotal again, but I know a lot of retirees that moved out of California because their home was their retirement plan.

They sold their 1 or 2 million dollar home, and moved to a place where they can buy a home for 100 or 200 thousand, and the rest is their retirement plan and hope it lasts.

Honestly not even a bad plan actually.

[Picairn]

There is net migration out of California, but what would be more interesting is to know the reasons. Is it because housing (and more generally life) is too expensive ? Because of climate/fires ? Too high population density ? Dislike of some policies ? Fear of earthquakes ? Something else ?

Jobs, housing, and family. https://www.ppic.org/blog/whos-leaving- ... moving-in/

[Fartsniffage]

There is net migration out of California, but what would be more interesting is to know the reasons. Is it because housing (and more generally life) is too expensive ? Because of climate/fires ? Too high population density ? Dislike of some policies ? Fear of earthquakes ? Something else ?

No evidence on hand because it's anecdotal but from people I've talked to about it the big two are the climate and the general cost of living in a lot of areas.

My aunt and uncle made their money in Cali then moved to a low tax red state for their retirement. Huge house built to their plan on the shores of a lake for less than what they sold her condo in LA for.

[Picairn]

Anecdotal again, but I know a lot of retirees that moved out of California because their home was their retirement plan.

They sold their 1 or 2 million dollar home, and moved to a place where they can buy a home for 100 or 200 thousand, and the rest is their retirement plan and hope it lasts.

Not just anecdotal, there is a trend that people are leaving blue states to come to cheaper red states for retirement.

[Muboshi]

What are everyone's plans for the summer? I'm going to the beach tomorrow

[Kilobugya]

What are everyone's plans for the summer? I'm going to the beach tomorrow

This thread is about US politics, not about your personal life If you want "out of topic" chat it's TET that's made for it.

[Grave_n_idle]

Yet you refuse to acknowledge that anybody can get ahead with a decent education.

Because it's mathematically obvious why that's not true, if you do just a little reflecting on it.

[Muboshi]

@"Kilobugya i know I was just asking

[The Black Forrest]

A theory that is gaining popularity is that the true purpose of this "audit" is to destroy evidence of fraud by Trump and all the UV lights, the bamboo fiber searching and the utterly silly way they are "counting" with a flipmachine is just smoke and mirrors.

Eh? What would UV hide?

Because when you look at what they actually done, we see:
- They made certain the voting machines can no longer be used due to them being left unsupervised for prolonged periods of time
- They moved ballots offsite to "a secret facility"

Did somebody see Tom Cruise cable drop near the machines?

Guess it’s time for the MAAJ(Making America A Joke) hats.

[The Black Forrest]

There is net migration out of California, but what would be more interesting is to know the reasons. Is it because housing (and more generally life) is too expensive ? Because of climate/fires ? Too high population density ? Dislike of some policies ? Fear of earthquakes ? Something else ?

No evidence on hand because it's anecdotal but from people I've talked to about it the big two are the climate and the general cost of living in a lot of areas.

I’ve listened to California was a failing state for over 30 years. I think it started with prop 13.

Pretty much most of it is the value of land here versus the other states. They sell and buy something much cheaper. Those tend to be people with family in other states or from other states originally.

[Kowani]

Schumer to force vote on Tuesday, June 22 on the For the People Act

[The Black Forrest]

Schumer to force vote on Tuesday, June 22 on the For the People Act

Queue up the deep state comments.

[Fauzjhia]

Schumer to force vote on Tuesday, June 22 on the For the People Act

But Joe Manchin still does not understand the political game, its us vs them, now. as simple as that, and he side with them. in total delusion

[Kowani]

Also, Drama
Trump endorses Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska’s 2022 Republican primary against Sen. Lisa Murkowski

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Also, Drama
Trump endorses Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska’s 2022 Republican primary against Sen. Lisa Murkowski

Oh look, the anti-Twilight lady. Hey maybe she can deal with the real problem which isn't global warming or poverty, but vampires.

[Kilobugya]

Oh look, the anti-Twilight lady. Hey maybe she can deal with the real problem which isn't global warming or poverty, but vampires.

But how do we fight the vampires ? Perhaps we could try to steal the space lasers from the jew ? And the ghost-summoning machine used to summon Chávez to hack the voting machines, too ?

[Fauzjhia]

Also, Drama
Trump endorses Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska’s 2022 Republican primary against Sen. Lisa Murkowski

Oh look, the anti-Twilight lady. Hey maybe she can deal with the real problem which isn't global warming or poverty, but vampires.

Exodus internation
disproven gay conversion therapy approval

does this lady has any quality to be a senator other then being religious ?

this remind me that the GOP does not have kind of background check for their candidates.

[Kowani]

The disastrous rollout of a tax break tool

This week, the IRS launched its “Non-filer Sign-up Tool” for households that are eligible for the newly expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) but do not typically file taxes because their income is too low. As we have pointed out here in several pieces, there are design flaws with the CTC that will make it unnecessarily difficult—both for households and for administrators—to get these benefits to the very poor who stand to gain the most from the program.

Judging by messaging coming out of the White House, the expanded CTC is the administration’s flagship antipoverty program. Fact sheets published by the administration continue to cite estimates that the program will “[cut] child poverty by more than half”. These estimates, however, depend on the program generating a 100% participation rate which, as we have discussed previously, will be difficult to achieve under the statutory constraints as well as unfortunate administrative execution. The Non-filer Sign-up Tool is a website provided under an agreement between the IRS and the Free File Alliance, a consortium of tax preparer firms, including Intuit. The agreement provides that the IRS will not offer free filing services, and instead the firms in the Free File Alliance will provide some free filing services at the IRS’ behest over the term of the agreement.

So, apparently, this Non-filer Sign-up Tool falls in the bucket of a tax filing service, since technically the IRS is asking non-filers to “file” their taxes and simply check a box stating that their income was below the filing requirement threshold for the tax year. In that case, it would be the Free File Alliance who would have to provide this new filing tool. So let’s take a look at what they came up with.

This is the Non-filer Sign-up Tool on a laptop computer with a standard browser. It looks simple enough, if a little scammy. There do not appear to be any indications, either textual or graphical, that this is an official tool provided by, or at the behest of, the United States government. The only note at the bottom of the page states, somewhat disconcertingly, that the site is “C-Level Security Certified”.

Any webpage anticipating millions of hits from Americans in 2021 should also be mobile friendly. But here’s how the Non-filer Sign-up Tool looks on a mobile browser:

This is barely usable just from a user experience perspective, and it’s also unclear how much of the tool’s functionality remains on the mobile version. I asked Intuit (and the Free File Alliance which also has a Twitter page, though it hasn’t posted anything since 2019) on Twitter if they could help with this issue on mobile. A customer service representative named Rose, posting from Intuit’s QuickBooksCares account, replied:

“Thanks for reaching out, Paul. This website was created by the IRS. It does appear to work best on a computer. I suggest giving that a try. ^Rose” So we have the IRS claiming via its agreement with the Free File Alliance that FFA creates and manages the tools, while a member firm of the FFA is claiming here that, actually, it is the IRS who created and manages this tool. It is unclear who is correct, but it is very reminiscent of the finger-pointing between firms and the government following the Healthcare.gov fiasco during the Obamacare rollout.

On top of all of this, the tool also integrates with ID.me, a tech firm that bills itself as an identity verification platform. The firm retained contracts with states across the country during the pandemic to help prevent fraudulent claims for various new benefits, such as expanded unemployment insurance. However it has been roundly criticized by advocates for making the verification process exceedingly difficult for the poor, and blocking completely valid benefit claims.

[Fauzjhia]

Look like trump will never stop lying about the election results.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/18/politics ... index.html

and what the gop is doing
heum they do this : https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/18/politics ... index.html
criticize Biden for not condemning Russia ransomware attacks on Us infrastructure, but do not say a single words on Russian interference in USA elections. there is only one word for this. Hypocrisis


Edit : and hyper-simplification of politics, which are a reduced to this : (for the GOP) all republicans are (good and honest), and all democrats are (evil and corrupt). A republican can't be guilty, a democrat is always guilty.

USA is still deep in the wood, and unlikely to get out.

Edit 2 : Meanwhile, several GOP lawmakers who idolize Trump -- including Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia -- have amplified a baseless conspiracy theory highlighted by Fox News opinion host Tucker Carlson that the Capitol riot was a false flag conspiracy orchestrated by the FBI.

Faux news at it again.

[The Black Forrest]

I cite data and myriad analysis from industry sources, you cite personal anecdotal evidence.

Well youngling; those are hardly damning.

My “anecdotal” evidence is closer to home then your net searches.

Indeed, do a search for jobs:

C/C++

C is not as in demand anymore. It’s about C++ now. I can do both in fract. Most students do study it for their introduction to programming. Knowing it alone will not guarantee you a job.

graphic design

Not like it once was; not it’s more of a web master position. Man GD people left it as they saw in the preverbal writings on the wall. Even Mrs. Bumi was a GD person. She is now a project manager.

skill trade apprentice

If you are talking of the trades (ie electricians, etc.),they want the apprentices because they don’t want to pay a journeyman's wage. My father-in-law retired from the trade. When he started out; you had four apprentices to each journeyman. When he left you had 15-20 apprentices to each journeyman. Obviously; they are cheaper. The accidents also go up……

blockchain

That’s a new one and there aren’t as many people in it. Not really the schools fault.

digital production
CAD
additive manufacturing

The first two are not as sexy as they once were. Additives? Not my area so can’t comment.

python
java

Python I will admit I screwed up on it. I was a Perl snob and python was for when you were learning how to code. Fast foward 10 years and it’s a big deal now. That’s the tech world though.

Java I can’t stand. For the security world they have a joke name for it. Just Another Vulnerability Announcement.

Even then; the one thing you sources over look. The problem is the lack of knowledge; they want 10 years experience or the cheap college graduate. Schools can’t teach experience. Don’t matter if it’s duh ebul leftist commies whatevers or the Betsy Devoe types.

cloud computing

This is another one where you have to be lucky at the ground level or already know the topic as in experienced. If it was such a problem; people used to get training if they had experience in other ares (ie system administration). People don’t want to train; they want the new employee to enter the building in a Formula-1. And of course be 20 years old and have 30 years experience.

I am trying to break that wall. Certs are only getting a luke warm response.

data center jobs

Pay is low and they want graduates. I have more then enough experence and have applied many times. Not even a phone screening.

mobile app development

That’s been that way for awhile. I used to mod at a company called 3do. Many of their developers changed over when the cell phones became a craze. Much of the development has changed over to India and China. Cheaper labor. A friend who has had his hands in a few big games was laid off. He said his replacement was some kid from India and he had to train him to get a better then usual exit package.

energy

Can’t comment; not my area.

artificial intelligence...

I did AI in the 80s. There were companies trying to solve things. The problem? They suffered from what I know call the Howard Stark Syndrome. The ideas where there however tech was not. Computing was 16 bit and 32 where the high end machines.

This is another field where you have to be a data scientist or an AI scientist. Many companies claim to be doing development. It’s more going through the effort so they can say “yes we do AI”. You look at their staff; if you don’t see one or two of those jobs. My old company is a multibillion international. They bragged about AI usage and the group spearheading it. I had a buddy in the group and he rolled his eyes and said all our work was learning one terraform server. He tried to get me in as “I know a guy who worked in AI.”. I wasn’t young enough for the image they wanted to project.

The list goes on and on.

Yet you refuse to acknowledge that anybody can get ahead with a decent education. Yet you refuse to acknowledge that the leftist public education monopoly has failed American children despite holding them captive for 7 hours a day for 12 years. These intelligent kids, who were once energetic and motivated to learn, can't even cite the three branches of government or construct a coherent paragraph.

You are funny. Your main arguments are generalizations.

And I am always amused by leftists who attack the free market for not paying workers adequately, yet amusingly you don't see these same leftists becoming entrepreneurs and hiring these "underpaid" workers thereby stealing productive labor and undercutting and crushing "greedy" capitalist business owners and making huge profits in the process. They call that a win, win. Yet we know (I know) that reality doesn't create "win, win" from canned, leftist fantasy, anti-capitalist pablum.

Again with the generalizations.

Your free market philosophy is why the local work forces are shed for cheaper labor elsewhere. Disney a couple years ago tossed 250 people. Not for lack of skill as they were required to train their replacements.

The dirty little secret that indoctrinated leftists don't understand is in a free society, labor gets paid it's marginal value, no more, no less. If a firm pays too much, it loses market share due to higher prices, if it pays too little, it loses valuable labor to competitors or the labor becomes it's competitor and undercuts it's previous employer.

Again the generalizations. It’s amusing to hear text book defenses by people not even working.

If you take an objective, reality based look at markets -- you will see that the only distortions are those enforced at gunpoint by government in a quid pro quo of preferential regulatory regimes for votes or campaign contributions. In sum, when government uses it's iron fist to manipulate the market to get politicians reelected, it engages in rent seeking, creates unnecessary shortages of labor and/or goods, for the benefit of politically connected elites, politicians and mobs of special interest voters.

Are you a trumpist? I am hearing the deep state in all that.

[San Lumen]

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -usda-post

President Biden on Friday announced he plans to nominate former Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (D-N.M.) for a role in the Department of Agriculture (USDA) after she lost her reelection bid last November.

If confirmed, Torres Small would serve as the undersecretary of rural development at the USDA

[Cannot think of a name]

I don't think that's true either. I think you're just repeating a popular conservative talking point.

There is net migration out of California, but what would be more interesting is to know the reasons. Is it because housing (and more generally life) is too expensive ? Because of climate/fires ? Too high population density ? Dislike of some policies ? Fear of earthquakes ? Something else ?

Cost of living. I mean, people assign whatever meaning fits their soapbox when it comes to California, but the answer is just too damn simple. It's not taxes or liberal whatever, it's cost of living. We're losing people in the lower income brackets while gaining people who make over $200k a year (which is a sharp thumb in the eye of the talking point about taxes). Rich people are pricing poor people out of the state. I'd quote this break down of California's migration that puts it into context (including the fact that our in/out migration by percentage is about dead center when ranked by state, really undermining that whole 'fleeing' narrative), but people aren't interested in facts when it comes to California. Just talking points.

[Cannot think of a name]

No evidence on hand because it's anecdotal but from people I've talked to about it the big two are the climate and the general cost of living in a lot of areas.

I’ve listened to California was a failing state for over 30 years. I think it started with prop 13.

Pretty much most of it is the value of land here versus the other states. They sell and buy something much cheaper. Those tend to be people with family in other states or from other states originally.

If you came here in the 90s and bought a house you could sell it now and buy Wyoming.

[Senkaku]

These intelligent kids, who were once energetic and motivated to learn, can't even cite the three branches of government or construct a coherent paragraph.

If you’re worried about a lack of focus on math and science education, why do you care about their ability to construct a paragraph or understand political structures? Denigrate the humanities and the arts, de-prioritize them in schools, and then mock people for not understanding them?

The dirty little secret that indoctrinated leftists don't understand is in a free society, labor gets paid it's marginal value, no more, no less. If a firm pays too much, it loses market share due to higher prices, if it pays too little, it loses valuable labor to competitors or the labor becomes it's competitor and undercuts it's previous employer.

Let’s bypass the debate about whether the US is actually a free market and whether any of this theoretical framework actually applies to real world cases: apply the concept of capital paying labor exactly its marginal value, and take it to its logical conclusion, the conclusion that the world appears to actually be progressing towards technologically. In a world where globalization and mechanization have revolutionized the economy, and where AI is becoming more and more advanced and capable of filling different roles, what does that mean for the vast majority of people? You can’t expect that everyone’s skills will make whatever labor they can perform economically valuable in a world where they have to compete against other people all around the world and against constantly-improving machines. You also can’t expect everyone to found their own business— unless you aspire to a world like Resilient Acceleration’s fascinating Factbook, where capital’s triumph over labor is so complete that the capitalist class can basically let the workers die off and go on to live in a techno-utopia of AI-produced abundance. Either you can have everyone be a business owner in the sense of everyone owning some machines and AI that produce wealth for them— which doesn’t strike me as terribly different from sci-fi utopian communism, except that the entire working class gets killed off along the way— or you’re in a world where businesses still need human workers, but thanks to technology can afford to pay them less and less and less (which is really just a stage on the way to the first thing). You talk about AI as a booming field in this very post without seeming to have thought through what the implications of that are for your beloved free market— the marginal cost of labor eventually basically going to zero.

Do you want to live in that world, in that “free society,” either as a worker who’s going to be exploited for the next few decades until it’s no longer economic to use your labor and then allowed to starve, or as a capitalist who weaponizes our greatest technological accomplishments to deny most of your own species an abundant future? Wanting to eventually live in a sci-fi utopia makes sense, but why would you choose to slog through the blood of billions to get there over paths that wouldn’t necessarily involve such horror?