I am working class. I have been working class all my life. Yeah I might have been in a white collar job and then owned a small business but I have always been a working stiff. Just like all of my friends and neighbors.. Of course our neighborhood has changed. Especially in the last five years. The working class has been priced out long ago. Those of us who held on because we owned a building are also being priced out. The rich hipsters and elites have moved in and bought up everything. The place I grew up is no more.
It is the same for many working class white people in the rest of the country. Coal miners in Kentucky. Factory workers in upstate New York. Auto workers in many, many red states. These are the places that are the targets of the Conservative intelligentsia that hates Donald Trump. One of the principal authors of the National Review Kevin Williamson states that he doesn't support any policies that would help the white working class. He states that their problems are not the result of immigration or trade policy but their own fault. As reported by Brietbart.com:
Williamson, a long-time critic of The Donald, essentially agrees that he doesn’t support any policies or rhetoric directly tailored to the working-class — particularly about jobs being taken by outsourcing and immigration — because it would be wrong to do so.
“It is immoral because it perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been victimized by outside forces,” the NR roving correspondent writes. “[N]obody did this to them. They failed themselves.”
He then goes on to make the conclusion that it’s great these communities are dying out because they have a warped morality and are a dead weight on the economy.
“The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible,” the conservative writer says. “The white American under-class is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul. If you want to live, get out of Garbutt [a blue-collar town in New York.]”
So the prescription of the Conservative intelligentsia for "white" communities is that it is immoral to help or represent their needs and they should "die." Let me ask you something? These are the guys who hate Trump and champion Cruz and Rubio. This is what they think of the working class. Does that make you pause? Or are you going to tell me they are on the money and I should put my support behind Cruz and Rubio and Kasich?Trump has ripped the mask off of the Conservative punditocracy. Williamson. Goldberg. Krauthammer. FOX news. They have shown what they think. They are the same as the ultra liberal media types they pretend to be at odds with in their commentary.
I find this just unbelievable and I don't understand how this guy can still have a job there. I guess he just embodies their beliefs.
154 comments:
Hey hey, ho ho, NRO has got to go!
There is no such thing as the "conservative establishment" Name one conservative in power. Conservative is small government submission to the constitution. You don't get in power with that philosophy. It's the hardest thing to do - to get in power promising to do less.
I stopped reading this dumb ass.
What is so difficult about "non representation" that is so difficult of sinking in through skulls that are thick.? Perhaps it helps to have a hole on top such as I have. Wanna feel it? What is it about the "not being represented by their representatives" that is so impossible to process?
Every single analysis that focuses on anything other than representation is automatically idiotically distracting. Have your weeds. Go get lost in them. You're not taking me with you.
Now see, this here wisdom of mine that I'm showing right here, this unusual masterstroke of maturity, is not the usual me. It comes as bolt from elsewhere remote. It is the wisdom of the reeds. Do NOT get lost in the reeds, you'll never get out. The crocodiles or hippos or snakes get you. It's like Egyptian knowledge or something.
I always knew Williamson was an asshole. It's good that the word has caught on.
I knew he was an immoral prick when he said that innocent people, innocent U.S. citizens - wrongly executed by the U.S. government were not a serious challenge to his support of the death penalty.
There is no way you can take anything seriously stated by such a smug prick after an admission like that.
Since the Mid-90s NR has either supported or been neutral on Free Trade or Open borders. They've put up some grudging, feeble, opposition to Amnesty because they knew their readers would revolt if they didn't.
I knew before the election that a lot of conservative media weren't very conservative but I never realized how much until Trump came along. "Red State", Erik Erickson, NR, Fox news, have shown themselves to elitist Libertarians who prize cheap labor and Globalization over patriotism.
Hot Air and Right scoop have become unreadable. Nothing more than hysterical Trump bashing 24x7. I strongly suspect they'll support Hillary if Trump is nominated. So much for their "conservatism".
The masks are off. The gloves are off. They want us to die. We knew that to be the case for quite some time now. Well, guess what? The feeling is mutual.
Ask and Ye shall receive.
While the guy is an asshole about it, I think he's right in a lot of points. If your community is built on an obsolete market or technology and nobody wants to do the hard work and sacrifice it took to make it again or maintain it, then you move your ass out of there and go where they think different. Don't stay and blame others. That community was once vacant forest. It became something because ambition moved there, and it's children didn't inherent the same drive. They didn't need to, and when the time came when they did, they didn't have the training and didn't value the idea. They looked to government to take care of them, and guess what, government doesn't care if you thrive or not, in fact they prefer you stay dependent and helpless like a mother that never wants you to leave the nest.
There is no such thing as the "conservative establishment" Name one conservative in power.
Geez Bags, they really do play you. They don't want to downsize government because then their only reason for running is taken off the table. They're like Virginia Wolf. Drama queens who only want to bitch about the size of government and abortion and all the rest because if they didn't, they'd have nothing else to run on and running a permanent campaign is their sole reason for being.
You really don't get it. These are people whose job description says, "Running a campaign". Once campaign promises are fulfilled, their mission statement is complete and their job is over. You think they want to be unemployed?
They never intend to do what they set out to do. To break it down into terms someone like you might understand, they're like Russian mail-order brides who promise to be the best wives ever, so that they can dupe you into getting them citizenship and then being the springboard for them to go on to supposedly bigger and better things - without you. Like a male praying mantis whose head is bitten off by its mate after sex, your use has been fulfilled and you are no longer required.
How can you possibly be so dense as to not see this? It's amazing that you think Donald Trump and every Democrat is running a scam, but that the mainstream GOP is not. They are seriously like a ball of string and you are a cat that keeps getting fascinated by them. They are the red dot on the ground aimed by a laser pointer and you are the cat that chases it.
Be a big captain of industry and grow up so that you can see this, I implore you. Just because you bribe them doesn't mean they're not duping you. It's a two-way con game that they're winning.
A few days ago, on another site, I said the frenzy and extremism over the One True Ted, and against Trump (I don't care if you agree with, support, or like him, but the incessant name-calling, misrepresentation, projection, and general rabble-rousing have become over the top) would cause the demise of many an Internet reputation. That goes for print and broadcast outlets, as well.
On another front, looks like Michelle Fields' hissy fit really was mistaken identity.
In the interests of fair play, I can't say this is anything more than one guy's POV, but, if he is speaking for his brothers in arms, it's a logical outcome of the One True Ted's bloviating Friday night.
bagoh20 said...
There is no such thing as the "conservative establishment" Name one conservative in power. Conservative is small government submission to the constitution. You don't get in power with that philosophy. It's the hardest thing to do - to get in power promising to do less.
Baloney on 2 counts.
"Name one conservative in power" - Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker. Jeff Sessions in the Senate.
Second, the people belching their opinion as the end all and be all indicates a wish to form a "conservative establishment". Glenn Beck, jerk that he is, saying Sarah Palin isn't a Conservative is evidence of that. So are all the Cruzzers claiming anybody who supports Trump isn't a Conservative.
More to the point, certain people and institutions: the Limbaugh brothers, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, or National Review, have always been seen as standard bearers of what Conservatism means and, thus, a de facto Conservative establishment.
They looked to government to take care of them, and guess what, government doesn't care if you thrive or not, in fact they prefer you stay dependent and helpless like a mother that never wants you to leave the nest.
Better than guys like Williamson (and you?) who prefer that they "die".
I guess the pro-killing parts of America crowd just doesn't seem to have the right, winning "message" this year. Pity.
Listen, transition happens. Change happens. Hardships occur. Better to defend the job of easing those transitions than admitting that you just want people and entire communities to die off. But I guess that goes against certain people's agenda.
People have been here many times in history. No election and no leader is going to hold back changing times or the rest of the world and it's ambitious competitors. If we get angry enough we may elect those who promise to do such bullshit, but it never delivers the promised return to where we are the winners without winning the underlying fight, because the ambitious and driven don't give up and depend on politicians to save them. They keep coming at you, until suddenly you look around and your precious savior has run away and took the rations with him. What we need is to shed all the mandated safety equipment we have to carry into battle so we can fight and win the real fight that the competition is engaged in.
William Kristol never had any power. Dick Cheney never had any power. There is no conservative intelligentsia that run the party and the Washington game. All self-indulgent lies, I guess.
I see Ritmo is here to spread his usual FUD.
rcocean said...
Hot Air and Right scoop have become unreadable. Nothing more than hysterical Trump bashing 24x7. I strongly suspect they'll support Hillary if Trump is nominated. So much for their "conservatism".
HotAir (and TownHall, owned by the same out fit) has been Libertarian, at the very least, for 4 years. Allahpundit was all but gleeful Romney lost.
Newsmax is now owned by Glenn Beck. PowerLine, Insta, PJMedia, and JammieWearingFools, like the above mentioned, have become unreadable if you're not a Cruzbot.
That's what I meant when I said a lot of Internet reputations will be going down in flames as a result of this primary season.
Somebody who gives it to you straight - Don Surber. I'd say Jim Hoft and Gateway (he does back up a lot of his stuff with video), but some of the things he does come off more as wishful thinking. Still trying to make up my mind about ConservativeTreehouse.
People have been here many times in history. No election and no leader is going to hold back changing times or the rest of the world and it's ambitious competitors. If we get angry enough we may elect those who promise to do such bullshit, but it never delivers the promised return to where we are the winners without winning the underlying fight, because the ambitious and driven don't give up and depend on politicians to save them. They keep coming at you, until suddenly you look around and your precious savior has run away and took the rations with him. What we need is to shed all the mandated safety equipment we have to carry into battle so we can fight and win the real fight that the competition is engaged in.
How much did NRO pay you to write this?
Because they get paid handsomely to get people to believe it.
Of course, the market isn't in selling that belief, but in implementing it, or so you would kid yourself and everyone else into believing.
That's why so little money is paid for those who articulate it so well.
There is never a market for unreachable beliefs, so saith the Bagster. Meanwhile, millions of mega churches and New Age schemes and motivational speakers prove otherwise.
Your handle on consumer psychology is very crude.
If your community is built on an obsolete market or technology and nobody wants to do the hard work and sacrifice it took to make it again or maintain it, then you move your ass out of there and go where they think different.
So....by this rationale Detroit and the other automotive cities that no longer have the industry that they used to have should follow these rules. The blacks and others living in these decaying cities should just get their asses in gear (lol) and move out. No help for them should be allowed. No money spent on their worthless lazy butts either. Just get your ass out of town and go someplace else because you are responsible for your own demise?
If they will......we will. However, since the industries that used to support thriving communities were crushed by government regulations, importation of illegal labor and trade imbalances that disfavor the local communities, it is hardly the fault of the local population. Logging in the North West...gutted by regulations. Farming by smaller farms gutted by regulation and corporate cronyism. Small businesses squashed again by government over regulation. Manufacturing can't compete with foreign materials, imbalance of trade again....government.
It is hard to have ambition when your every chance to make something of yourself and a life for your children is ground to dust by the corporate greed supported by Government and by our very own government that could NOT care less about us.....because....we are poor white trash in their eyes and not deserving of any assistance or help because we are not the chosen few. We aren't Black. We aren't Hispanic. We aren't Muslim. We are actual LEGAL citizens who just happen to be White. Well shame on us. I suppose.
The real issue is the the Government does not want people to be free, to be uncontrolled. It is difficult to control people who can be mobile, who live in rural areas or small towns. They WANT us to be all huddled in the city, under their control, living in 300 square foot apartments piled on top of each other and dependent on Big Brother or Giant Nanny for every scrap and every hand out. Like some sort of Charles Dickens novel where we are supposed to say thank you for the gruel.
Here is the news. It ain't gonna happen.
Jindal, Walker, and Sessions are only occasionally conservative, but if they are the establishment then what's the beef with them, because in the small areas where they have power
they have mostly good results. I know the hate can make you fire wildly, but aiming carefully prevents friendly fire casualties.
Ritmo, you are unhinged. Stop. Read. Think. Then type. You say I don't get it, then say a bunch of shit that makes my case for me. Just because I think Trump is a huge mistake doesn't mean I support the status quo. Coddling our poor rust belt history, and urban sloth is the status quo and has been for too long.
I think DBQ put her finger on it. Replace "White" with "Black" and tell me what you get?
Trump has been critizied for standing up for poor white people. He has been branded as the KKK and being Hitler and all kinds of bullshit because he is addressing the real concerns of the white working class. Even with the criminal attacks of the Black Lives Matters criminal class Trump is reaching out to the Black Working Class. He is talking about jobs. Real jobs. Not make work government jobs. The duopoly can't have that. They will do anything they can to destroy him.
This election is about class. Not economics or race or abortion or gay marriage. It is about class.
Money qoute by DBQ:
"It is hard to have ambition when your every chance to make something of yourself and a life for your children is ground to dust by the corporate greed supported by Government and by our very own government that could NOT care less about us.....because....we are poor white trash in their eyes and not deserving of any assistance or help because we are not the chosen few. We aren't Black. We aren't Hispanic. We aren't Muslim. We are actual LEGAL citizens who just happen to be White. Well shame on us. I suppose."
I sign on 1000%
So....by this rationale Detroit and the other automotive cities that no longer have the industry that they used to have should follow these rules. The blacks and others living in these decaying cities should just get their asses in gear (lol) and move out. No help for them should be allowed. No money spent on their worthless lazy butts either. Just get your ass out of town and go someplace else because you are responsible for your own demise?
Yes, because moving expenses are trivial - especially when you live somewhere that has depreciated in value as much as Detroit has. But Bags has the expert solution - by saying that these people are losers. (Somehow he thinks it sounds better than when Trump says it, but oh well). I guess the solution is to live in a tent. Or Hoovervilles. Or a van.... down by the river. Bags knows that the magical solution is to tell the downtrodden and disenfranchised that they're the problem. The partisan fools who get paid by lobbyists to promote that message - they're the solution.
Bags's ideas of consumer psychology require people to be a shitload more masochistic and less rational than they really are.
He wants a fantasy electorate of masochists who buy into fantasy political tales about how every voter is a billionaire entrepreneur in waiting.
"More to the point, certain people and institutions: the Limbaugh brothers, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, or National Review, have always been seen as standard bearers of what Conservatism means and, thus, a de facto Conservative establishment."
People like Mark Steyn, Coulter, Limbaugh have remained true conservatives. As for the others, its amazing how they hate the white working class or trump more than Obama.
Bags you are certainly entitled to your opinion. We won't bum rush you like they are doing to Trump. "Coddling our poor rust belt history" sort of says it all right there.
So I understand why you would support Cruz. He is your man if you want to abandon the working class.
Ritmo, you are unhinged. Stop. Read. Think. Then type. You say I don't get it, then say a bunch of shit that makes my case for me. Just because I think Trump is a huge mistake doesn't mean I support the status quo.
You support phony motivational speeches as the only solution, which is the status quo.
Coddling our poor rust belt history, and urban sloth is the status quo and has been for too long.
You are unhinged. Stop. Read. Think. Not everyone in a bad situation is a lazy loser. You wonder why Donald Trump is winning? He's taking your message of calling everyone at the bottom a lazy loser and making it clear that the lazy losers are the politicians! Of course you resent him. He's turning your own shame-and-blame game around on you. And it's winning because his market for it totally overwhelms your market for it.
As I said, your market requires people to be more masochistic and irrational than they really are.
Bags represents the respectable establishment corporate pro immigration viewpoint very well and we should be mindful that his view is the view of many who call themselves Republicans and conservatives.
The question is if they disregard Trump and his people so cavalierly should we call ourselves Republicans.
DBQ, I bet that the people who left Detroit are generally doing much better than those who stayed, and the government has been doing nothing but propping up the ones who stayed and keeping them dependent. Many parts of the country are doing great, and we are still the most successful economy in the world thanks to them. Nothing succeeds like success. It has nothing to do with race. If I was black or white, I'd get my ass out of Detroit, as I did my home town, which is worse off today after 35 years than it was then. Everybody is on drugs, food stamps and assistance. Those of us who left found opportunity, because it's out there.
Cute.
Bernie says Trump is a liar because he called him a Commie.
If ever there was a YMMV...
Troop, what I write is what I represent - not how you bend it to cast anyone who disagrees as the the other.
Bags represents the respectable establishment corporate pro immigration viewpoint very well and we should be mindful that his view is the view of many who call themselves Republicans and conservatives.
I'm willing to be as respectful of his viewpoint as he is of the FACT that not everyone with long-term struggles is a rags-to-riches story waiting to happen and doesn't need to be shat upon and dismissed simply for not having the luck in life to have the resources for taking care of their basic needs.
Being able to get rich quick is a talent, not unlike whatever brings people fame on Broadway, Hollywood, Madison Square Garden, etc. This lie that everyone has the wherewithall to break down those ghetto walls by becoming the next Andrew Carnegie or Dale Carnegie is the most condescending crumb of stale bread I've ever heard.
Nothing succeeds like success. It has nothing to do with race. If I was black or white, I'd get my ass out of Detroit, as I did my home town, which is worse off today after 35 years than it was then.
This is called "an anecdote of one." Personal testament as the new truth for everyone and everything.
Maybe those other people have a truth that is truer than your own truth.
Everybody is on drugs, food stamps and assistance.
How easy it is to judge others, but not oneself.
Those of us who left found opportunity, because it's out there.
Ok, so if the opportunity is "out there", rather than an internal talent or knack that some of us have more of or are better at than others, then obviously you don't deserve your own success, either. It was just "out there", and you grabbed on to it.
Which gives everyone else all the permission to simply grab it back. Who said you had permission to take something just because it was "out there"?
The dominate paradigm - Trump will save us.
The squished paradigm - No he won't.
There are facts and there things we wish were true. The idea that corporations or their buddies in government are going to act in your best interests is an unfounded, counter-historical, human-nature-blind wish. The fact is they all are just like you: they care first and foremost about themselves. It's a jungle and your looking for a safe-space. Good luck with that. We were given the best, fairest, and amazingly prophetic safe space called The Constitution" We won't improve on that just by electing the guy who tells us what we want to hear. It was designed to make sure that guy is weak, as he must be to protect us all from the very power you decry.
@ Bagoh Everybody is on drugs, food stamps and assistance.
This.
And we have a political class, that includes Trump, who want to embrace foreign workers over our own. Anyone care to ask why? Beyond cheat labor. It could be that Americans have lost their drive... maybe just a little?
Americans, in many cases, (not all - ok) have lost their drive. I've talking about millenials age white boys who expect to be paid for doing nothing. Well, extrapolate that out. It's a disease in this nation. Get rich quick, video games, jerking all day long, whining all day long. Plenty of people from around the globe are happy to take our jobs while we dick around and wait for the government check to arrive in the mail. It is a problem.
The Constitution was written at a time when the population as 98% less dense and resources were up for grabs from the nearest Indian you could kill before he scalped you for encroachment. (A mentality that still prevails among the economic elite). Even in Lincoln's time there was still a lot of homesteading. People felt opportunity was everywhere because land was abundant and if nothing else, you could fall back on farming. Bags never got the memo that when the population grew 1000 per cent, supply went with it. It's not as simple in a society with infrastructure, which apparently he thinks can be made or maintained without a government.
I don't think he will save us. You do that all the time.
I do think he doesn't dismiss us the way Kevin Williamson does. The way George Will does. The way Megyn Kelly does. The way Ted Cruz does.
Trump at least acknowledges there is a problem and wants to address it in no uncertain terms.
That is one of the principal reasons for the vitriolic hatred he engenders.
There are facts and there things we wish were true.
And into which of those categories does the mantra of, "A billionaire entrepreneur in every lead-poisoned ghetto child" fall?
April will, of course, support the nominee.
PS You'll have to do better than NRO, sweetie.
BTW, did you know the One True Ted just loves H1-Bs, too?
PPS Who's saying Trump will save us - besides April?
I bet that the people who left Detroit are generally doing much better than those who stayed
No doubt. However that would be those who got out early enough. Those few are the fortunate ones. Meanwhile....we all get to support what is left of Detroit. Why the Hell should we do so, if in your estimation and that of this clown who wrote the article, it is their own fault. Oh...wait....I know...because they are Black and therefore more deserving that the rest of us White Trash losers who should die.
As R&B notes, it isn't that easy to just up and move. When the government crushes the industry in your town, your property is devalued, public services are no longer available and you are still left holding a mortgage, in debt with no new job opportunities because....again government regulations have not only squashed the existing economy and because there is no sane person who will start a new business in your cesspool of a town Detroit.....moving is not that easy. Ask the people in Flint Michigan about how easy it is to move out of their government destroyed community.
Ask the people in the North West who are still reeling from the logging industry being destroyed. They have tried to transition to other income sources. Mostly tourism which is marginal at best. Because they are forbidden from utilizing any of their own regional resources they have to try something else. EPA. BLM. government agencies that are crushing opportunity. Family farming has become onerous and financially unsustainable due to the rise of giant corporate owned farms, imported labor, ILLEGAL immigrant labor, EPA rules crippling their ability to use owned equipment, OSHA, California labor laws....the list goes on and on and on.
So..What choices do those people have? Cling to their ancestral homes. Declare bankruptcy. Live in a van by the river. Buy a tent or a camp trailer and become a modern Hobo? Just what do you want these losers to do?
Losers who deserve to die because they have the temerity to be white people and not part of the FAVORED groups who get the assistance, the money, the special help.
THIS is why Trump is resonating. People who see that their government hate them. See that the media hates them. See that they always get the short end of the stick and the favors are being doled out to others in order to harvest their votes. People that are too proud to go onto the government dole. The see someone who is giving them hope. They see someone who seems to hear their voices.
You worry that Trump may be the next Hitler? Hopefully not. Well....where the Hell do you think that the next Hilter comes from. What allows this to happen? The government did it. The elites did it. The media has done it. They think they can just roll over the people and that the people are going to take it. What choice do those loser white trash have....they think. Well....think again.
Sow the wind....reap the whirlwind.
ed- Your One Tru Trump is for H1B visas /against H1B visas/for them/against them... Impressive.
I'm sure there are a lot of lazy and whiny poor people.
I'm also sure that there are a lot of poor people worked to death by their own work ethic and with nothing decent or proud to show for it.
There are two sides to this story.
But we know where the exploitation is.
And the polo pony he rode in on.
Lol. I can't remember if he ever wore preppy shirts with polo collars "up" but I did see him in a fancy eldritch knotted tie once.
You can just tell he's a total douchebag, but of the worst sort. The sort who actually thinks he's doing the decent thing.
There are no answers to the problems being offered here other than get angry, stay angry, vote Trump. There is only blow it up and stick this guy or that guy in the eye. No plan for how to make anything better.
Over all the decades, where the Presidency swung back and forth, this appeal to the middle class and blue collar and all lost industry was always bullshit. They knew they couldn't bring it back, but it gets votes. The rust belt areas that didn't change just continued to suck up government money and stagnate and decline. Meanwhile other places in the USA started new factories and new industries and employed millions in new good jobs and trained them in how to do new things and old things better. They did what our parents and grandparents did: they built from nothing. They went and got theirs. They didn't expect the government to give it to them or make it effortless.
Does anyone in here actually think Trump will bring the people talked about in this article, whether black or white, back to productive hardworking Americans?
Does anyone in here actually think Trump will bring the people talked about in this article, whether black or white, back to productive hardworking Americans?
Who knows? What we do know is that the current system is not working.
What we also know is that Trump is not telling us to fuck off and die either.
According the the NRO/Williamson I linked, if you dare read the whole thing (scary) you will learn that Trump abused the H1B visa program with one of his own businesses. But it was just models, so, you know, lowly females. I'm sure the Hillary campaign will leave it alone.
There are no answers to the problems being offered here other than get angry, stay angry, vote Trump. There is only blow it up and stick this guy or that guy in the eye. No plan for how to make anything better.
Yeah? Well asking everyone to paste an empty smile on their faces and cover their eyes is no answer or plan either.
WHAT killed the rust belt was .... UNIONS.
"As R&B notes, it isn't that easy to just up and move."
1) It is. I left with $300, no college degree, no job, no skills, no place to live, and no plan other than not turning back no matter what.
2) Is leaving harder than staying?
3) You have a simple choice: Stay and accept what you have, or leave and take a chance. Bitching about you predicament if you stay will make the stay worse.
If as has been suggested this story was about blacks, I would not be getting any argument about this.
Hey I agree that Trump fucked models.
You say that like it is a bad thing.
That is the one thing that Bags, Ritmo and I totally agree on.
"The dominate paradigm - Trump will save us."
No, no, no. The dominant paradigm is that Trump doesn't actively hate us and want us to die. That appears to be the best deal we have on offer at the moment.
"The peasants are revolting" said Mr. Williamson.
"You can say that again" said Mr. Bags.
It is. I left with $300, no college degree, no job, no skills, no place to live, and no plan other than not turning back no matter what.
So by Bagsian economics things work if you accept that, "It's always better somewhere else." Which is wonderful. I mean, who doesn't agree that we should totally abandon "human dumps" all across America and leave those left behind to rot? But what about when there is little opportunity anywhere in America? What about when the next new hot mecca of opportunity changes year-by-year? I guess you're all just fools and losers if you can't just move every other year and in accordance with the ever-present real-time changes of economic reality.
Just move every two years, if you have to. That will solve the problem.
It worked for The Anecdote of One.
You have to take what you can get in this life. The guy that at least says he is going to try to help. That is willing to attack the sacred cows. That is not beholden to special interests like Rubio or a rigid ideology like Cruz.
It is a crap shoot for sure.
But you know what? What the rest of them are offering is just plain crap.
As soon as you say - "lazy people strung out on drugs taking gov paychecks", leftist heads explode on Q .. Stop mocking the poor!
Get off it. I see hiring signs everywhere. If you want to work in America, you can. If you want to jerky all day long with a needle in one arm and a joy stick in the other, while big nanny gov helps you sustain your below mediocrity with a check- you can. Yes we can!
Those factory workers who lost their jobs because the air conditioning factory moved to Mexico were some lazy fucking bastards. For sure.
The single moms on the cookie assembly line for Nabisco were really welfare queens in real life the lazy twats.
Trump is a bastard for bringing them up. What a bunch of losers.
I bet they never read an issue of the National Review. Not our kind. Not our kind at all.
Most people in my family for three generations were employed in union run steel manufacturing jobs until suddenly, within 5 years, they all disappeared. It was mostly unions that killed them, because at all levels executive to workers the union encouraged or demanded they sacrifice building new infrastructure, methods, equipment, skills and hard work. Everybody just wanted to skate on past glory, demanding more and giving less year after year. At the end, my parents had the best paying jobs in town, with incredible insurance, pensions, 4 weeks paid vacation every year and 13 weeks paid vacation every 4th year. Pretty sweet huh? Gone. I wonder why.
I see hiring signs everywhere.
So how is the view in Everywhere, America, April? I didn't know "Everywhere" was even a place any longer or an incorporated town. I thought Everywhere Alaska was in the dumps, but there is a new Everywhere, CO.
Unemployment is below 5% but those other numbers that people complain about (U5 or whatever) are real.
What's also real is declining standards of living.
But if someone, somewhere, is willing to pay you some thing, then life is wonderful.
Future generations will be so proud of how little we left for them.
Troop - why are these industries moving out of our nation?
It is. I left with 300 pesos in my pocket, no college degree, no job, no skills, no place to live, and no plan other than not turning back no matter what.
But you see, Sr. Bags, "open borders" lets anyone in. The Hispanic Inquisition is a powerful mob to stand up to. I doubt Rubio can do it. I doubt Cruz can do it. ¡Hillary! is all for open borders.
Balls- everywhere around my city. All over. Colorado is on fire right now economically. But please keep quet about it. It's a mixed blessing. Roads are clogged, it's like LA out there on the roads. Mostly all pot money. but you can get a job at Good Times and the pay is over 10.00/hour. Above minimum wage. why do that when a gov paycheck or pan-handling pays so much more?
Because they are undercut by trade deals that make it more profitable to manufacture in China or Mexico than in the United States.
I see it in my own industry. I try my damnest to manufacture here in Brooklyn. But I can't compete with China or Vietnam or Indonesia.
I went to the garment show last month. Many of the vendors are taking deposits which they didn't do before. Then they cut to order in Indonesia. A garment that I would have to pay $18 to make here is made for $3. Of course they don't have the regulations and taxes and fees and workers comp and everything else we have here. So what do I do?
I have things to do... gotta go. have fun ripping each other apart over Trump. :_)
"Just move every two years, if you have to. That will solve the problem."
You could wait for 30 years, but don't blame the taxpayers.
Here's a clue: It's not a place.
Troop - that is the million dollar question. Waht do we do. I'm not sure if Trumps protections is the answer.
I gotta go too, so with me and April gone, you guys can vent like a rust belt smokestack.
It was the answer for most of American History.
We aren't ripping each other apart.
We are only ripping European models apart.
And that is a lot of fun. Just sayn'
You guys hold up your end well.
I just told that to a lady that I sold some pants to.
bagoh20 said...Most people in my family for three generations were employed in union run steel manufacturing jobs until suddenly, within 5 years, they all disappeared. It was mostly unions that killed them, because at all levels executive to workers the union encouraged or demanded they sacrifice building new infrastructure, methods, equipment, skills and hard work. Everybody just wanted to skate on past glory, demanding more and giving less year after year. At the end, my parents had the best paying jobs in town, with incredible insurance, pensions, 4 weeks paid vacation every year and 13 weeks paid vacation every 4th year. Pretty sweet huh? Gone. I wonder why.
Forgive me bags, but as a trained chemist, I tend to look at many things as an equilibrium: a dynamic balance of opposing forces. In the case of unions, they plainly overdid it -- they overplayed their hand. But that doesn't take away the fundamental reason(s) for their existence. Those reasons have always been there. Now it's business's turn to overplay their hand.
Rabel, In the town where I work, they are rapidly expanding Space X, Google, and Yahoo facilities and I assure you it's not immigrant labor building rockets and connectivity infrastructure. I hire and train the unskilled people who might be robbing us otherwise, and turn them into prodcutive taxpayers. That's all how you build a new community. Not by trying to vote it into existence.
Chicklit, I guess that sending jobs overseas is kinda like the company version of closing down the factory with a strike. You'd have to ask Trump about that though. Unlike him, I make 100% of my stuff here in the U.S., even though I could save millions like he does going to China, but he's OUR douche bag, I'm told.
All right, Bags is right. He has won. Convincingly and resoundingly:
It truly is the working poor who are the biggest drain on America.
Which must be why every time I ask him which regulation he wants to get rid of, he responds with crickets.
Make no mistake - it's the pseudo-conservative corporatist establishment that doesn't want to get rid of regulations.
We need simpler regulations, not none. And not this scapegoating of the working poor as the reason for why our economy sucks and our living standards keep declining.
Well, at least April has figured out that the regulations against weed don't seem to be economic elixirs.
So, just for clarification's sake - are the working poor a curse to our economy or a blessing? I feel like I'm getting mixed messages where people are saying that the working poor are horrible people because they somehow have this magical inability to get by on ~$8.50 an hour but that it is awesome that we have so many low-paying jobs.
I think we need an executive memo to clarify the effect of so much low-paid labor as such a large sector of our economy. Is it a sign of something good or something not so great?
I never blame the working poor. I was one most of my life. I blame the nonworking or the those who whine for a living, and their enablers.
As for which regulations I want gone, well who really needs help shooting fish in a barrel?
If we assume what the working class wants are ample good well-paying jobs in a good and growing economy, the only thing government can do for the working class, white or otherwise, is get out of the way. Cut taxes and simplify the tax code and repeal or greatly reduce the oppressive network of regulations that stifle productivity. Unleash the powers of entrepreneurship. Watch the economy take off. That's the only way to help the working class. To take any other approach is not the conservative way, and whatever it is won't work anyway. Government should not ever be picking winners and losers, including the white working class, or any other group or class. When they come up with government programs to try to do that, no matter how noble their intentions might supposedly be, it only makes matters worse.
I think the message is:
"It's great that we have so many low-paying jobs, and horrible that people are complaining about how difficult it is to get by on one of them."
Is that the mixed message I'm supposed to take away from the allegedly non-existent establishment viewpoint?
If we assume what the working class wants are ample good well-paying jobs in a good and growing economy, the only thing government can do for the working class, white or otherwise, is get out of the way.
No, it's not the only thing, and I doubt it ever was.
Calvinism was!
The material growth that follows your sacrifice may never come. But then, neither might the heavenly reward that we promised to our fellow Calvinists.
But by golly, we got them believing! And working!
Dirt cheap labor is the heroin of the corporate class. Once the borders ceased to matter they have found it in Mexico and in China and in visas for foreigners willing to work for less. They've thrown the American worker overboard for their own personal benefit and have the gall to tell us to watch as the rising tide lifts us all up. But we still have the vote and as more and more people see through the lie we just may be able to climb back on the boat. Whose country is it, anyway.
Trump is a terribly flawed tool to use for that purpose, but he's all we've got.
I never blame the working poor. I was one most of my life. I blame the nonworking or the those who whine for a living, and their enablers.
Ok. So then here comes the inevitable, $64,000 question:
How large a decline in living standards of the working poor (either through remuneration or services) are we, as a post-industrialist economy and country, supposed to be happy with?
The city of Camden NJ has about 80,000 residents. The govt has probably plowed about $10 Billion into it in the last ten years. That is about $125,000 per resident. The govt should have given every resident $75,000 [man, woman and child] to leave and we would have saved money and the residents would have been better off. I think Charlie Sheen would call this Winning and I bet both DBQ and Bago could favor this kind of plan.
And what Rabel said at 3:29.
Bags I went to Macys last month. They had spring clothes on sale for $10. A dress that was originally priced at $176 was reduced to $10. A spring item. I looked at it. In China or Indonesia it would cost about $6.00 to make including fabric. How do I compete with that?
As I said a comparable dress manufactured in a factory in Sunset Park Brooklyn would cost around $18. With fabric we are talking $24. The difference in the price is related to regulations and taxes. So if Trump slaps a tariff on those goods the manufacturing would be feasible in New York. Trump talked about the garment industry. He is about my age. A little older. He remembers walking in Midtown where there were cutting services and sewers and guys pushing racks of clothes through the streets. It doesn't happen anymore.
Because of globalization and trade deals that favor other countries. It is time to change that. Jobs for everyone that wants to work. That is Trumps message. You can laugh at him. You can call him a clown and a liar and an impostor. But at least he is talking about it. At least he gives half a shit. Rubio and Cruz and Kasich are on the other side.
That is why Trump resonates with a lot of people. Once the working poor hear his message I think he will resonate with them too.
Of course we can tell the poor white people to move. Or to fuck off and die. Like Kevin Williamson and the NRO scumbags do in every issue. That was the point of this post. The utter contempt for poor white people held by the elites.
From April's NRO link to the anti-Trump article yesterday. I think this explains at least some of what's going on:
Gingrich added, more plausibly, that Trump is running perhaps the most nationalist campaign since Andrew Jackson.
This prompted a good question from Hannity: “What’s the difference between a nationalist and a conservative?”
Newt answered that a nationalist wakes up every morning asking, “What can I do to further America’s interests?” (or something along those lines). He then added that a conservative is more likely to have bought into the “post–World War II international order.” The implication being that conservatives are kind of like cookie-pushing internationalists who care more about going to Davos than fighting for America.
I think Newt put his finger on it. It is the difference between nationalists and conservatives.
Trump is not a conservative. I know bags and april keep trying to tell us this as though he was not a "True Yankee." They figure if we learn that we will run away and yell "unclean."
The best description I have heard of Trump is that he is a conservative New York City Democrat. That is pretty on the nose. An old school democrat. A John Rooney. A Ed Koch. Or ever a Rudi Giuliani who was more of a conservative Democrat than a doctrinaire conservative Repbulican.
So what does that mean? He won't give too much of a shit about social issues. He will be tough on crime. Tough on illegals. Tough on trade to protect American Jobs. He will support Israel all the way. He will say about any deal "Whats in it for me?" And by me he means America and Americans. He won't put the Muslims in the Middle East first. He won't put the trade of the Chinese communists first. He will not put nation building first. He will put our national interests first.
And that makes people lose their shit.
Saying that the white working class "failed itself" is ill-considered, especially with everyone so ready to take offense in these divisive times. Too bad, because the overall message is correct: Get those boot heels wandering out of the ghetto. Leave Harlan alive. Go to opportunity, don't wait for it to come to you. Common sense advice.
UHaul rate differentials between California-Texas versus Texas-California are quite telling. Go Midwest young man ... and everyone else.
There was an arrogance in the unions that drove companies offshore and there is an arrogance in the anointed ones who...well, an example would be New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo who "studied" fracking for four long years and then ruled against it - as everyone knew he would - for reasons that boil down to -- all the beautiful people were against it. This kind of crapping on the heads of millions to satisfy small rich inbred coteries is maddening and rightly so to the millions who get it -- the killing contempt.
The killing contempt is right on the money ric.
**all my bad grammar is belongs to my.**
@ Amartel - Go to opportunity, don't wait for it to come to you.
exactly.
Balls: Billionaires for Bernie.
"Soros, Lewis and Pritzker are accelerating that process. Whether they are overt supporters or not, they could aptly be called “Billionaires for Sanders.” The irony is palpable – I’ve got mine but none of you will ever get yours."
Interesting Troop mentions Rudy Giuliani.
I was a Rudy fan when he was US Attorney in NY when he, along with Ed Dennis in Philadelphia, broke up the mob in the wake of their war over who would control AC once the casinos got started.
I was a Rudy guy in '00 and wished he could have faced Hillary in the Senate campaign.
I was a Rudy guy in '08 and was disappointed when his run failed.
If Trump can be the President I thought Rudy would be, I would be more than happy.
PS April, that's a typical PJMedia piece, sad to say.
Peter Lewis has been dead for a few years. He controls nothing.
Rudy is one of Trump's closest advisors. In fact I think he is much more likely to be Attorney General than Chris Christie.
Or how about this to make certain Law Professors heads explode.
Rudi for the Supreme Court.
Trump is going to bring a bunch of out of the box people into government. He has already mentioned some of them.
His main advisor and alter ego will be Ivanka. She will be the most powerful person in a Trump administration. Watch and see.
doesn't matter if he's dead. The concept that leftist billionaires want to turn the US into a failed European Socialist paradise still remains. Sadly, Soros is alive and well, and he does own everything.
I am interested in labor economics. What kind of businesses will succeed in these had to hit places in the U.S.
My dad had a hunting cabin when I was young in northern Wisconsin. We would go into the town and the little towns were thriving-multiple bars, bowling alley, curling, hardward and grocery stores, restaurants, etc.
Now these towns are dead. All the businesses are boarded up and there might be one bar left. These towns have no population and the only people left there tend to be retirees.
Even the fancy supper clubs are gone. The only way these places may make some money if they have a lake and Minneapolis and Chicago people vacation there.
I would love to see small town america thrive again. I love seeing small towns that have a great Main Street. There are great small towns in New England but that is because they have colleges.
The gays are infamous for revitalizing neighborhoods-but in cities.
It would be a hard sell for fags to head to Superior, Wisconsin to spruce up the place.
Man, too much stuff flying around to try to respond to. Plus, I'm late to the party. This would be a great discussion around a few bottles of adult beverages.
Speaking of The Rust Belt.
The goal of the government? They'll turn us all into beggars, 'cause they're easier to please.
There are big government conservatives and there are small government conservatives. The term conservative is misleading, because you pick a point in time and try to maintain it, so the thing you're trying to conserve may or may not be the same as the conservative next door. Someone up above mentioned post-WWII conservatives. They are not the same as those who want to hearken back to the days of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. It's a waste of time playing semantic games, trying to define what a "true" conservative really is.
No politician, no law, no constitutional amendment is going to cure us. There is no Pied Piper of America's glory years to reset the clock of liberty. That doesn't mean we should give up, but western civilization has been eroding one piece at a time, so it's going to take more than one piece being restored to fix things.
I don't want cheap labor. I want quality labor. The minimum wage hikes have killed incentive and the work ethic.
What we are in the middle of is a vision of what economic evolution looks like and on a more global scale. It's kind of hard to fight the facts that we've transitioned in this country into an information economy, not a manufacturing base anymore. Sure, we still have a good manufacturing economy and community, but it is diminishing and crashing. The large urban areas are gaining power because the wealth that is concentrated there is no longer interested in making stuff, just selling other people stuff. You wonder why companies like ebay, amazon, wayfair, etc. are doing so well, because the american worker is being transitioned out to the automated worker and not even in America. Overseas manufacturing is even getting the hint that it's time to shed it's two legged meat sack work for in favor of the automated 24/7/365 near AI workforce instead. If you want to become a winner at this game, then you become a developer of automated goods instead.
Be that as it may, we are now festooned with the whinings of the establishment on who the winners and losers should be. These fucking people do not get it and they are acting no different than our complaints on what we've despised about government all along; picking winners and loser. Except for the GOPe, we can clearly see their true nature now, unfettered open borders to allow the lowest wage workers and god knows what else to flood into this country so they can keep their gravy train rolling from the government subsidy handouts from here into infinity. When I said it needs to be burned down, I think it's more poignant than ever before.
There is no reforming these people and having them see the light. They already made their beds so i'd like to help them take a permanent nap.
Trooper York said...
Rudy is one of Trump's closest advisors. In fact I think he is much more likely to be Attorney General than Chris Christie
I can dig it.
And I'd trust Rudy a lot more.
Bags is an establishment Republican, but he's our establishment Republican!
Lol. Ok, April.
I agree with Trooper. This election is as much about what's in America's interest as it is about ideology. Trump invests in Trump... and a campaign that is pro-American. Left-wing billionaires invest in whatever they want to invest in. But I don't see this idea that the left cares more about money or that certain billionaires control them going very far. It's as desperate and nonsensical to paint Bernie as a tool of any billionaire as it is to paint Trump as a tool of the GOP. Just kooky and incorrect.
Troop is right about NYC mayors. We have to stop making ideological contests the end-all be-all. At the end of the day, the people will need a certain amount of compromise anyway and we'll end up in the middle again. The question is whether it's an American middle or some other interest's middle. Fighting endless battles over abstract philosophy is just a way to distract from achieving what's in the best interest of this country and the people to whom it belongs.
I think a $15/hr minimum wage hike is bonkers but it doesn't matter because it won't happen but I will still vote if given a chance for a person who can see the issues that make it politically strong. A $10/hr wage is fine w/ $0.25 increases every year up to eight years because that would bring it into a reasonable standard while making sure that it isn't wasted on the teenagers and college kids who shouldn't have to rely on it anyway. It's one pragmatic thing that would have limitations to avoid abuse by kids who shouldn't need it, so that should be less objectionable to the right. But it isn't the end-all-be-all, either. There are a whole host of issues affecting life at the bottom and how it kills opportunity, and pay is only one of them. But they need to be prioritized and better to get someone that takes it seriously from any angle - trade, manufacturing, education, whatever - than a bunch of Davos types who care more about how China develops or how many iPod apps Bono can sell in Africa than about how the American working classes have been hollowed out and how to stop and reverse that trend and give our own people a break.
Rudy is SO much better than Christie. Christie is a phony and a bully and a rank opportunist. Rudy walks the walk.
I haven't read all the comments yet, but would like to interject if I may:
DBQ said:
"where the Hell do you think that the next Hilter comes from. What allows this to happen?"
Bingo. The elite and their dismissive attitude towards poor whites are responsible for the rise of Trump. And they still don't get it.
DBQ, R&B, Trooper, et al, you guys are spot on in your assessment that this is a class conflict. The establishment elite and the MSM (same bunch) want to present it as a race conflict, with racist white Trump supporters pitted against the BLM crowd. But the writing on the wall reads to me that the wealthy elite are just funding the BLM folks as their foot soldiers in a class war, and the BLM folks have not yet realized they are being used.
For the record, I am an independent voter, and am not a Trump supporter, mostly because I don't believe he will deliver anything to anyone but himself. (However I still may vote for him if he is the nominee because I do not want Hillary to win.) Bagoh2o and AprilApple, I'm with you in what you've said about Trump (I've been lurking for quite a while). But regarding the poor, in many cases the types of jobs they need are now overseas. They don't need a u-haul, they need a plane ticket.
Just my 2 cents. (I'll go back to lurking now.)
1) It is. I left with $300, no college degree, no job, no skills, no place to live, and no plan other than not turning back no matter what.
2) Is leaving harder than staying?
3) You have a simple choice: Stay and accept what you have, or leave and take a chance. Bitching about you predicament if you stay will make the stay worse.
Bags that was when you were young, didn't have a pot to piss in and had nothing to lose.
A few years ago, IIRC, with the suffocating regulatory business unfriendly state of California, you had the opportunity to move your business to a more business friendly state and you chose not to do so. What changed?
You never give me your money
You only give me your funny paper
And in the middle of negotiations
You break down
I never give you my number
I only give you my situation
And in the middle of investigation
I break down
Out of college, money spent
See no future, pay no rent
All the money's gone, nowhere to go
Penny-jobber got the sack
Monday morning, turning back
Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go
Yeah Bags, what changed?
One sweet dream
Pick up the bags and get in the limousine
Soon we'll be away from here
Step on the gas and wipe that tear away
But by getting lost in the reeds you might find Moses or Papyrus!
And Trump is always very very classy!
I support Cruz, but if the general election choice is Trump or the Hildebeast, Trump is the better choice by far.
A $10/hr wage is fine w/ $0.25 increases every year...
Says who? No, it's not fine.
The tired old comparison that shouldn't need repeating--but does--is why stop at $10 or $15? Why not raise it to $1,000,000 and everyone can be a millionaire?
Rubbish.
People are poor for many reasons. A common reason is a mixture of too little income and too much expenditures. For whatever reason, we have accepted that the government can dictate the income side of that equation. Instead of a minimum wage, why not a maximum price? Limit a gallon of milk to $.75. A shirt shouldn't cost more than $.47. Won't happen.
We have rent control in some cities, and I'm sure Trooper can provide plenty of reasons why that's a failure. The government does control prices on certain industries. Utilities, for instance. When's the last time you heard of a phone company or power company not turning a profit, let alone go bankrupt? Doesn't happen, but wage increases can erase a business' profits.
When minimum wage went from $5.15/hr. to $7.25/hr, that was over a 40% increase. How would you like your employer to suddenly have to lower his prices 40%? Think he could make payroll next week? And a move from $7.25/hr to $10.00/hr would represent another 41% increase. So, your employer has to discount his prices 40%, then the next week another 41%. Think your hours might get cut? Or your benefits? His will. And when the government decides employers have to raise their wages 40%, then 41%, companies can only survive so long before they collapse under that burden.
On top of the financial considerations, the entitlement mentality that has exploded in this country is only aggravated further with increases in minimum wage. The morale of those who can't get a raise by working hard, because you had to give the extra wages to the rock bottom performers evaporates. Why work hard? There's no benefit to it.
When minimum wage was $5.15, I paid my best people $7 or $8 an hour. Far above minimum wage. And without being forced to. It was smart business. Now? Everyone makes the same. Even my kids made minimum wage when they worked for me. Thank you, Uncle Sam.
And while the government dictates how much I have to pay employees, they don't dictate how productive those employees have to be. Again, we accept one side of the equation, but not the other. Of course, if standards of productivity were established, the cries of "slave labor...coercion...oppression...evil capitalists" would be deafening.
I grew up in a housing project. You had to be a government certified failure to live there. When you lived there, the sense of dread and futility was as pervasive as the smell of urine in the stairwells........ "Poverty is no great sin, but it might just as well be," Mr. Dooley observed. Growing up, I thought it would be my fate to work hard and die broke. I thought that was how the system worked. That's not the way it worked out, but when you're poor it's not so easy to visualize all the joys and opportunities of capitalism......The housing project always had heat and hot water. That wasn't always true of my family's previous domiciles, but it was an alienating and occasionally scary place to live........Capitalism doesn't have your best interests in mind, but if you want to really go through the grinder nothing can match the gears of a utopian social program.
The tired old comparison that shouldn't need repeating--but does--is why stop at $10 or $15? Why not raise it to $1,000,000 and everyone can be a millionaire?
It's a "tired old comparison" because it's a stupid and fallacious hasty conclusion that makes no sense and that no one proposes. It's a hyperbolic exaggeration along the lines of proposing that 2nd amendment rights should mean granting gun ownership to prisoners. OTOH, you will never get an economic consensus over the radical idea of no minimum wage any sooner than you will get them to agree that inflation makes raising it somehow unreasonable or that we should do what we can to increase poverty in this country or make it more "disincentivizng". Your awesome poverty wage is disincentivizing enough already. And I don't give a shit about your personal anecdotes because you don't give a shit about anyone else's personal anecdotes - least of all those you tell to try living off of that wage. Maybe it's a sign of how bad your business is. Other companies won't have a problem. You're the one not competing properly if you think a substandard wage should be a part of the deal. And finally, stop pretending that price is the only thing that matters in America or to Americans. Value is what matters, which depends on quality. You have demanded a poor quality of life for your country and they are sick of it and don't need it - no matter how inspired you are by your heroes in China for making that low standard good enough for them and their late-to-industrialize communist country.
The morale of those who can't get a raise by working hard, because you had to give the extra wages to the rock bottom performers evaporates. Why work hard? There's no benefit to it.
As if that's the bullshit explanation for why worker productivity has exploded over the course of the same four decades in which corporate profits boomed while wages stagnated and quality of life for labor fell through the fucking floor.
You might as well not invent computers.
Sooner or later you homos are going to have to accept that money is not the only incentive that people respond to in life - especially when it's so low. Fairness, shared outcome, and opportunity matter much more. AI will replace you guys just as easily as it will labor, and then where will you be with your view of people as nothing more than "cogs in a wheel", those "units of production?" Nowhere. You'll be rioted out of the back door. So might as well get on board sooner rather than later and admit that people require the perception of fair treatment, and no treatment is fair when CEO salary is 300 times the lowest paid. It's just a joke that you would think that any of those blokes is doing 300 times more work. The lower class will stop class warfare when the owners stop these attacks they've been making by racing them to the bottom for the last four decades, not sooner. If that's not class warfare, then you're simply blind.
Oh Meade, just fuck off already. Dying optional.
The idea that you fancy yourself a role model for all the yet to be pulled bootstraps out there is a joke to be told to lunatic asylum residents. We'll dub you a success story once your as yet still-unpublished biography is a best-seller and they make infomercials featuring your outstanding products and services on cable access at 3 AM with Kirk Cameron as the next best thing in lawn care.
Ha ha ha this was in the i words.
ibi erit fletus et stridor dentium
Man, that bible has got the best sayings. Who would even think of that? It leaves off rending of clothes. I didn't understand that and the teacher goes, oh yeah, they really did do that. When you're really crazy you rip your shirt off in pieces, like just pop all the buttons and leave the shirt hanging in shreds. Years went by, then decades, then I saw a guy actually do that. He heard something terrible and just lost it.
Troop, even Hugh Hewitt said that Ivanka would be the Valerie Jarrett to Trump's Obama and given he likes Ivanka so much he would vote for Donald in the general over Hillary Clinton.
I wish Ivanka was running.
WTF?
... What is so difficult about "non representation" that is so difficult of sinking in through skulls that are thick.? Perhaps it helps to have a hole on top such as I have ...
^ The only thing I can find here that comes even close to getting the notion of 50-45-30-25-15-5 years ago, not to mention mileage from 2 miles to 3000 and way beyond.
Also:
Oh, please. As if Trooper and so many others wouldn't prefer that the likes of me and mine got crushed into speechless oblivion. Sharp readers will get that. Sluggish readers won't. Well, why wouldn't Trooper & etc. so prefer that the likes of me and mine got crushed into speechless oblivion?
I'm with Windbag at 10:41 and William at 11:11.
Someone I know well is a food server in NE and is paid $2.13/hr plus tips which are estimated according to the size of the bill and taxed. She shows up for work at least an hour early every day and works off the clock to make sure all the silverware is rolled and everything else she'll need is in place before the customers arrive. She likes the freedom of her job in that she can switch shifts with other servers to get time off, and isn't looking for a higher paying job.
A dishwasher who has been there for 25 yrs wouldn't trade jobs with anyone and he was always paid whatever the minimum or going wage was. You wouldn't know that he has many thousands of dollars in his IRA, more than most of the managers, but he does. Very few people, excluding Asian immigrants for example, would want to make the sacrifices he did but that's about what it takes no matter what kind of system we're living under. In what other country that people are immigrating from can a dishwasher even dream of retiring with a respectable nest egg?
the entitlement mentality that has exploded in this country
--Windbag
True True True
@ windbag - "On top of the financial considerations, the entitlement mentality that has exploded in this country is only aggravated further with increases in minimum wage. The morale of those who can't get a raise by working hard, because you had to give the extra wages to the rock bottom performers evaporates. Why work hard? There's no benefit to it.
When minimum wage was $5.15, I paid my best people $7 or $8 an hour. Far above minimum wage. And without being forced to. It was smart business. Now? Everyone makes the same. Even my kids made minimum wage when they worked for me. Thank you, Uncle Sam.
(Balls and leftists will never understand economic reality.)(never)
It starts in our horrid public education system. Everyone gets an A. The kid who worked hard gets an A, the kid that screwed around gets an A. The entitlement mentality begins early.
OMG Trooper should awake by now! Clean up the garbage please.
Good thread. Agree with Windbag and Night Owl. And agree with DBQ's last post, as the Hippo is back in the pool.
"It is immoral because it perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been victimized by outside forces. It hasn’t. The white middle class may like the idea of Trump as a giant pulsing humanoid middle finger held up in the face of the Cathedral, they may sing hymns to Trump the destroyer and whisper darkly about “globalists” and — odious, stupid term — “the Establishment,” but nobody did this to them. They failed themselves."
--the dreaded hated Williamson.
Brutal. Is it true? I'd say it is at least partially true.
Wow April. So you think there is no establishment? That the importing of illegal immigrants to take the jobs of native born Americans is a myth? That trade deals that take jobs overseas so there can be higher profits is a figment of Trump's imagination? That massive immigration is not a ploy to dilute the vote of the displaced working class?
Are you that far down the rabbit hole? Are you that contempous of working class people?
I must admit I am shocked. The contempt the elitist have for regular people is really amazing.
Everyone bears personal responsibility. But to deny that there are forces at work that actively have harmed the white working class is just a lie. A lie rooted in contempt and condescension. A lie and a contemptuous demeaning stance that will put Donald Trump in the White House.
I'm massively against our incredible illegal immigrant problem and am completely against amnesty. That said, I do think the jobs problems is over-stated and that we have a generation of entitlement. That entitlement is not just a white thing, it most certainly covers all the colors... from beige to dark tan.
You have to read what I said, Troop. I said it was "brutal and partially true." Are you saying it's not true at all?
Thanks Trooper
My contempt is saved for people who take government money and screw around all day. and then pretend to whine that they cannot find a job.
There are jobs out there. My electrician cannot find people. My cabinet maker-carpenter cannot find people. My roofer cannot find people.
Work ethic in this nation has swirled down the toilet. No wants to work anymore. they want to whine, and bitch, and get a paycheck for nothing.
I'm not mocking the working poor. All work is honorable.
In a democracy, you get the government you deserve.
Are Americans--all of us, not just the white middle class--responsible for the mess we're in? Yes and no. Yes, because we voted for them. No, because they lied. We can ride that round and round all day arguing which is the root of our woes.
Would we have voted for them, had we known their agenda? Well, we voted for Obama, when he clearly expressed his intent to redistribute our wealth, and implement policies that would necessarily result in skyrocketing energy prices. All that in exchange for bread and circuses. Not everyone went for it. Certainly not several who hang out here.
But for others, Obama didn't go far enough, and so now we face a President Bernie.
And for others, enough is enough, and so now we face a President Donald.
Government manipulates the economy, including through its immigration policy. Need some canal diggers? Let in some more Irish. Need coal miners? Let in some Poles. Need agricultural workers? Look the other way while they jump the border.
There have been lots of references to the civil unrest of the late 60s, when we were quite passionately divided. How long before that division approaches the passion of the 1860s or the 1770s, when one side takes up arms against the tyranny?
It smells better in here. Did someone flush the toilet?
Yes it is not true at all that there is not an establishment. As evidenced by the recent meeting to coordinate the destruction of Donald Trump. Is that your position?
My contempt is saved for people who take government money and screw around all day. and then pretend to whine that they cannot find a job.
On this April and I are in 100% agreement. People who don't want to work or if hired are just plain incompetent fuck ups.
My husband doesn't need to hire a permanent employee because most of his jobs are seasonal, don't require more than one person and we don't have the cash flow to keep an employee on the payroll full time. Bags can attest to the high cost of employees and the stupid rules in Calif.
There have been many times however,that he needs to hire a helper. Mostly in the spring and summer. Big jobs that require more than one person. Trying to find someone is difficult because it IS just part time. However, he pays $20 to $40 an hour for the work. Cash as a subcontractor type of employee and we issue a 1099. That weeds out the welfare queens who don't want to report any income.
Some of the guys are great but unavailable because they ARE good workers and eventually get a "real" job. Good for them! Some guys have shown up hung over and useless. We had one guy who stole tools from us. THAT was an ugly confrontation.....that fortunately resulted in recovering our assets and the guy didn't get HIS asset kicked.
We see people all the time standing around on strategic street corners with signs begging for money....right in front of establishments and restaurants that say "Now Hiring". Give me a break!!!!! Get a job you lazy bum.
It is not true at all that here is not a planned attack on the white middle and working class.
President Obama talked about the bitter clingers who held n to their guns and their religion and told Joe the Plumber that he had to redistribute what little wealth they had.
The mistake people made was that they thought that people like Williamson and the NRO were against that. They are part of it. Their ricebowl is to pretend to fight against that but never to win. Failure theater.
thank you, DBQ. That's all I'm saying.
Trump or nothing isn't working for me. that's all.
there are reasonable and intelligent people making other arguments and I'm not going to shut them off because they are uncomfortable. Life is filled with discomfort.
It is not that they uncomfortable truths. They are lies. It is a direct attack on me and mine. The same attack that the protestors and criminals are making on Trumps rallies.
The establishment is counterattacking in with all of its power. You can sign on to that if you want.
Troop, if you think Trump is about yours, I disagree. But if he is your guy, fair enough. I do not get the animosity to Cruz because he is most definitely not an establishment guy. Rubio has been a huge disappointment and Kasich is a establishment freak (how did he make $22 million on a salary less than $200K--investment advice from Hillary and Harry Reid). But if Trump wins the nomination, I will support him over Hillary. Without hesitation.
Here is the thing: Trump may likely turn all crony capitalist if he wins. Hillary will do that in spades and that will be the least of her crimes.
The working class in America have been systematically squeezed by both sides. Like the guy with his head in the vice in Casino.
Trump knows me and mine. He has dealt with construction guys and casino workers and regular people as their boss in all that entails. He has dealt with unions and government regulation first hand. He at least has experience.
Cruz has none. He is a rigid ideologue who can't get anyone to follow his lead.
April is right. It is Trump or nothing.
"A few years ago, IIRC, with the suffocating regulatory business unfriendly state of California, you had the opportunity to move your business to a more business friendly state and you chose not to do so. What changed?"
A majority of my employees didn't want to move. They have family and history in California. The company exists to employ these people so stay is what we did - democracy. It's unfortunate, because they all would be effectively much wealthier living in Nevada with housing prices at 1/3 of here, plus the savings in many areas would allow us to increase wages and bonuses substantially. 13% income tax right off the top here in California would be zero there, and workers comp is less than half.
you had the opportunity to move your business to a more business friendly state and you chose not to do so.
Bago has it correct. It is not just that easy to pick up and move your business to another State. He has ethically and responsibly considered his valued employees' rights, desires and ability to move as well. Unless he wanted to just kick his guys to the curb, it is a monumental thing to move. Could you make more money by jettisoning your employees, sure. But what kind of small business owner does that make you? Not one that I would want to do business with.
In addition, it isn't like you are moving your CPA firm where you can just rent a new offic and move a few computers. When you have a small to mid manufacturing company there are many logistical issues. How do you move your equipment. Is it better to sell the old and buy new stuff? How cost effective would that be. If you are a business on the level of Boeing that is one thing. But a small/mid sized business. Forget it.
Your market is another consideration. In our case, we could move our pump and well business. Texas would be an awesome dream come true and to be able to GTFO of California. However, OUR clients are also tied to the land just like our business is. We have a cardex history of wells going back to the 1960's and a built in clientele of repeat business. If we were in our 20's or 30's ....sure....you can move and TRY to build a business from the ground up (no pun intended) and compete with other companies/local boys that have a history of business and clientele. We don't have the time or the energy. If a company can sell its product over state lines and doesn't rely on local trade, then it might be prudent to move.
R&B makes it sound simple. It is anything BUT simple. Sometimes you have to take the bad, live with the high taxes, the stupid regulations and make the best of it.
I have an easy solution to all these disgruntled unemployed white Americans. Gladiator schools.
Even if I wanted to, I could never rebuild this business without the people who make it what it is. This business is labor intensive and as much artisan skill as manufacturing. Without it's people, it's just a pile of auction equipment worth a few month's profits.
There are jobs out there. My electrician cannot find people. My cabinet maker-carpenter cannot find people. My roofer cannot find people.
FUcking DUH! Because as Mike Rowe would tell you, Americans are too good for trades or skilled labor. Why? Entitlement mentality told them that college was the only way to improve their lot. Isn't it great that we can import unskilled labor, ship skilled labor overseas, and then fill the colleges with the ranks of dunderheaded PC-enforcing zombies who can't do anything but memorize and focus most on memorizing the victimology pecking order? But Williamson is a fucking party to it. When you don't respect EVERYONE - INCLUDING people who might not make as much as a college grad but still do very important work that should be viable, respected, and incentivized, then you induce everyone into thinking they're too good for anything. Hence, college is the only way. So much so that it's value has been watered down to mud. But demand remains, and then the tuitions skyrocket - making the colleges even more powerful and perpetuating the cycle of over-educated idiocy. DUH!
Williamson doesn't like the entitlement mentality? He and his fellow goons are the primary exponents of it. By saying that life in America should be a rat race and if you're not racing to the top then you should slide through a trap door at the bottom and call yourself a loser, they're just encouraging people to not be comfortable in being something other than "THE BEST", "THE MOST WINNINGEST", richest best (superficially) educated asshole on the block. And the best way to do that is to tell those dislocated by this dysfunctional economy he cheerleads that they suck. That their concerns don't matter. That they're just not good enough.
Mark my words: Keep finding scores of Americans to accuse of being losers and you'll promote an entitlement mentality faster than any other way. Because the only way to not be a loser in that situation is to proclaim your entitled sense of superiority to everyone and everything else. It's a prerequisite for finding it.
This is Basic Life 101, you self-proclaimed armchair economic wunderkind.
Even if I wanted to, I could never rebuild this business without the people who make it what it is.
You made me pop my monocle! You refuse to move your factory to Mexico or China , what kind of patriot are you?
You refuse to move your factory to Mexico or China , what kind of patriot are you?
A convenient one.
Agree with Evi. I can and have supported Trump, but don't understand the animosity of Cruz who actually has done the things Trump has only promised to do. What Cruz has not done is financially supported his potential opponent Hillary Clinton.
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