Dear Democrats, curb your gerontocracy.

[Lemon Merchant]

Oh god no. I'm joking.

 

[rah]

I'm gullible.
I got my hands hit so many times because I didn't hold a pen right that I decided to take piano lessons from one of the nuns.
The other nuns were instructed not to beat my hands after that

 

[Ironsided]

Anyway... Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, Kristen Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, and then there's others like Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Gavin Newsom (yes I'm still holding out for him to join the race ) ... they're all pretty young. I think there's life in the Democrats yet!

Well your last Valkyrie crashed and burned on the mighty cliff that is Donald Trump. You would do well being more careful picking your candidate this time.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Such a sweet sounding name for a nun. Ours seemed more stern sounding like Sister Gerald Claire, Sister Evangeline, or Sister Genghis Khan.

"Sweet" is the perfect word for her... she was so super sweet and kind as I remember.

The way I found out what a nun is... was that one day I asked the other kindergarten teacher (there were 2 in this particular school) why her name wasn't "Sister" whatever, like all the other teachers. All the teachers and administrators seemed to be named "Sister" or "Father" XYZ... Her reply was a frown and a gruff "because I'm not a nun"... "What's a nun?" I asked... "Ask Sissssterrrr Lorraine" she sneered, rolling her eyes.

So I did . I don't remember what she said, but I remember it made me feel really nice about nuns and thankful to have one as a teacher. Meeting the other nuns later in my schooling tempered that somewhat, but I still have a pretty positive overall gut feeling about nuns... and I attribute that primarily to Sister Lorraine. Too bad Sister Lorraine can't run for President.

 

[Hygro]

@Cutlass still waiting but here's some food for thought. I knew full well the UMKC economists went to the Bernie campaign back in 2015. So Bernie is "an MMTer". Still, I voted Clinton in the primary, even though she disastrously believes surpluses¹ are a worthy goal unto themselves. So again, what's this political agenda you I have that is your argument for why an economics-understanding mind like mine would err? You gotta tell me, you said it twice.


1. the removing of principle/hard money from households/firms, leaving increasing ratios of system-wide leverage. This is a key economic tautology.

 

[Imaus]

Not sure if sarcasm, but that’s a group of middle-aged career politicians ready to pick up where Hillary left of - doing nothing about the real issues in America; the deficit of democracy and inequalities of power to change it – the actual cause of the rot.

Bernie said it well enough in that CBS interview (I’m paraphrasing); we should not be a sexist nation, nor racist, we also need to not be ageist.

You might think Hillary wouldn't had done anything about the 'real issues' (which are what? One's issue is not the other). Those candidates vary and their careers will shape them even more.

And Bernie's just saying that so people can vote for him. He's power hungry. He just wants the Presidency for its own sake. He has barely been a blip in the last four years, still has barely any political clout where it matters in the Senate, and his Blue Wave faltered and petered off. The more I hear about Bernie the more I'm wishing he shuts up and moves back to help the new generation.

He said this stuff before, too, his Old Left view that the New Left's identity politics, while not 'bad', aren't as important as some mystical utopian view of Prole-Worker struggle and solidarity. There's a lot that can be discussed there. I'll say that the Old Left is just that: Old and Irrelevant, and needs to get in line with the New Left and march together, truly, and not just focus on their old lines in the sand that was for a Industrial Nation of the 1800s and 1900s. If the Old Left gets mad and threatens to drag its white, male, blue-collar "powerbase" out from the big tent, then that says a lot more about them than it does about the New Left.

 

[Farm Boy]

If my policies are wrong for the people, the people need to change! Usually a line of the genteel, I see no reason to upset a perfectly normal interaction, eh?

 

[Imaus]

If my policies are wrong for the people, the people need to change! Usually a line of the genteel, I see no reason to upset a perfectly normal interaction, eh?

The White, Blue-Collar worker is not THE people. It is a bunch of people, but it is one faction out of many. Why should the Left cater specifically to them?

I'm all for pumping cash, support, and projects to the Mid-west and Plains and the 'red country' of every Blue State. We rise and sink together. But it is to bring them out of the crutch of being focused and specializing on the industrial economy that we've moved past from; from modern job education, college access in general, infrastructure projects to help with urbanization and to buff up the national, and not local, system as a whole, and stuff like that.

Bernie's ideology hinges on a population that is already changing for decades now and it's not going to stop if he wins, or Trump wins again, or Pence, or whomever. We're not an Industrial Nation anymore, the Old Left is a skeleton that can't be reanimated and has no real benefit in being reanimated.

 

[Farm Boy]

We say as we have entire industries populated by low wage workers only capable of being paid so badly because they have no legal status, as we offshore our production to countries whose processes are damaging enough we would not allow on our shores. If we have truly changed so much it is parasitic and genteel change. I think they call it realignment, these days.

 

[Imaus]

We say as we have entire industries populated by low wage workers only capable of being paid so badly because they have no legal status, as we offshore our production to countries whose processes are damaging enough we would not allow on our shores. If we have truly changed so much it is parasitic and genteel change. I think they call it realignment, these days.

It is not some phantom change. We are a Post-Industrial Economy, along with most of the first world. It does not mean that there won't be factory jobs, or horsehocky manual jobs, or farming jobs, but that those sectors cannot support the tens of millions of the main workforce. We've moved on to service jobs, tech jobs, admin jobs. There are plenty of problems with the Industrial Remnant and those things will be tackled, from Corporations abusing Migrant workers to the Neoliberal dream of the 90s we saw in NAFTA I and likewise pacts (and doesn't veer into Protectionism or other such economic fossil schools, either).

 

[Farm Boy]

Wages stagnant at two workers per household. Shortages of truckers. Shortages of tool and die. Shortages of nurses. Shortages of electricians. 1 percent population high petrol agriculture. It goes on. Parasitic. Genteel.

 

[Imaus]

Wages stagnant at two workers per household. Shortages of truckers. Shortages of tool and die. Shortages of nurses. Shortages of electricians. 1 percent population high petrol agriculture. It goes on. Parasitic. Genteel.

Your point? We seem to be discussing two different things. I'm talking about Bernie trying to wave a spectre of the Old Left, based on the White Blue Collar worker, to become prominent in the age of the New Left. You keep repeating 'Parasitic' and 'Genteel'.

I know about these problems. Everyone does. Clinton did. Everyone also has a rough plan on taking our annual budget to actually getting those problems fixed, people out of the rut, and alleviate it. Rather than Trump shoving 700 bil a year to the military, we're talking about infrastructure packages, modern job education, easier access to college - the latter two helping out with Nurses and Electricians especially - and a slew of other tasks to be done.

 

[Farm Boy]

Too many people wanting somebody far away to make thier phone and grow thier grapes and somebody close to door dash them thier prepped food then appear to drive them home wasted. Compensating and regulating differently to do this less parasitically is an old left idea. Like progressive taxation used to be a necessity Republicans acquiesced to in order to preserve merit and honest work over sticky capital.

 

[Imaus]

Too many people wanting somebody far away to make thier phone and grow thier grapes and somebody close to door dash them thier prepped food then appear to drive them home wasted. Compensating and regulating differently to do this less parasitically is an old left idea. Like progressive taxation used to be a necessity Republicans acquiesced to in order to preserve merit and honest work over sticky capital.

If I'm reading this right - so? We're going in circles.

Yea, it might be a Old Left idea to be the equivalent of modern day Luddities and try to keep up the Industrial skeleton, trying to support far more people than it can, but we've seen this with Populist Republicans keeping Coal up even as they close down naturally or under slight pressure. Just because it's an Old Left Idea doesn't make it the right idea to pursue.

It's nonviable. It was in 2016 and is now. Bernie's protectionist slant comes into this as well. Unviable, untenable, and distracts from the other solution nearly everyone but the most misanthropic has supported - which is bringing those left behind onto the same, new standard as everyone else.

 

[Farm Boy]

Everything you are saying is nonviable still gets done. Somebody still does it. It's nonviable, so called, here, so called, because nobody wants to pay its cost. Be it upgrading methods or paying a first world wage or first world regulation.

 

[Hygro]

As the someone else who drove wasted people I have no guilt being the wasted person needing a ride, and neither should anyone.

Here's a wacky system idea. This one is crazy and I have no attachment to it.

We have free bachelors for everyone, but starting at age 30. Before then you get a trades education and job, union, real wages, subsidized farming etc, build your wealth no debt. Use your young body young.

And if you do it in that order you get an extra vote once degreed.

 

[Farm Boy]

The presupposition is not that one should feel guilt for arranging for a ride rather than driving drunk, but rather instead the guess that it is generally inadequately compensated to be able to reliably actualize on. I doubt that the nuviable gig economy, by introducing a tech cut to the profits and skeezing out on the tax/public utility cut, and rebranding employees as customers, further aided adequate compensation to being a ride, on beck, on call, for the find my bliss someplace else inebriated.

 

[Hygro]

At will employment is nice. The only problem with driving for Uber is the lack of good other employment for other people. The broke driving the broke. Can't raise compensation much without cutting into demand, which cuts into compensation.

The money is good-ish in SF if you do it right. Good enough I'll rent a car at 2-3x car costs (including wear and tear, which hertz covers, else it'd be 4x) and still make it worthwhile. That's only working on one platform (rental agreement). And that's where your customers have money. It's even better with your own car working both platforms. The money is bad here in SATX, so bad I won't do it. Tempted to try it via grinding Austin, worried I'm just going to lose a week of my life for a money loss.

 

[Farm Boy]

It sort of works in Elftown? It was made by elves for elves.

Wasn't really trying to be snarky. I really like that scene in Bright. Like, legit, a lot.

 

[Hygro]

People would be proud to assemble iphones in elftown if the pay was better.