OT, but Snopes discovered GOP operatives faking “local news” websites to push right wing propaganda.
https://www.snopes.com/news…
What’s really pathetic is the way cable news goes along with the Republican messaging on the economy no matter what awful figures are put in front of us. As usual, they’re saying its still too early to tell from this one bad report. Boy, that’s some fresh bullshit.
tRump’s boneheaded trade wars have left us, the taxpayer, giving subsidies to supplement the losses in income to farmers, particularly in Big Ag, beyond what was normal following a bad year in crops. Meanwhile, the family farmer struggles to make ends meet and due to these trade wars, ends up shit out of luck making up for those losses. Where are the statistics on how many of those farms are going under?
All tRump’s done, to the horror of the rest of us, is privatize the profits and socialize the risks. Its the same with regards to emergency funding following a disaster. Moreover, these are increasing due to climate change and we’re paying increasing amounts after these disasters hit instead of through the front end through mitigation efforts to lessen their severity. What’s worse, our gov’t seems to be divvying out relief funds based on who tRump likes and doesn’t like under these circumstances these days.
And all while this is happening, Republicans are crying like babies about the evils of socialism. SMH
I just wish Dems would make the point in a more in-your-face concrete way, that we have always relied on socialism through our tax dollars, to take care of many things that the private sector will not or cannot do.
Already people are forming their perceptions and notions about socialism based on the GOP’s repetition of a narrative designed to scare off the average voter. It has already begun, and it will only increase in volume and pitch over the next two years. That’s all part of their political gameplan. Since tRump and the GOP have nothing to offer but the old, tired and warmed-over ideas left behind from failed former Rep. Paul RAyn, and which have dominated their party since time immemorial, the GOP will continue to push for privatizing everything that hasn’t been locked down by law, and let the rest of the economy magically trickle down on the rest of us. Their economic policies will be largely hushed since they have no achievements to speak of, so instead they’ll ramp up charges of Socialism coming to America on par with the Red Scare days of the last century.
Dems like Warren are good at describing how all this is nonsense is a ruse, and how we already have a great deal of socialism in this country and actually, how it works quite well for a lot of people. But as we’ve all seen, tRump and the GOP will use the label of socialism as the big boogeyman no matter who our nominee will be. We need to be prepared for the onslaught, and much better than we are now at messaging what they describe as a negative into a positive. Otherwise, with another 4 years of tRump, you can kiss your Socialism, I mean, your Social Security, good-bye.
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What I don’t understand is, how the what we used to call the “smart money” set could go along with all this nonsense.
The first year of Trump’s term he kept goosing the stock market with promises of a $1 trillion infrastructure package, middle class tax cuts, bringing factory jobs back, favorable trade deals, etc., and the market swooned with irrational exuberance.
Now, the stock market seems to be retrenching, and some are warning that the high prices to not reflect underlying value, revenues, etc. and yet, we continue to see stock prices go up over the prospect of some imminent US-China trade deal – based on what?! Trump’s fabulous negotiating skills as witnessed in Vietnam with Kim?
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Just btw, a lot of the unemployment numbers you see have to do not so much with how many people are employed or unemployed but with the size of the labor force, i.e. the number of people ostensible available for work. (Which makes sense, because the index started being measured during the depression, and was originally-ish designed for businesses who wanted to know how many workers would be available if they opened a plant in such and such a place. So the number of people actually looking for jobs was a big deal.)
Anyway, unemployment all done by a huge survey (a couple hundred thousand plus iirc) where they ask people what they were doing during the weeks of the previous month. If they were employed, then employed, if unemployed and looking for work, then unemployed. If unemployed and given up, or if in school or taking care or kids or other family members or retired or a few other things, then “not part of the labor force”. Which means that if everyone without a job simply gave up or went back to school, reported unemployment would be zero. It’s a weird number.
Oh, and unemployment claims have nada to do with the calculation, for reasons that are mostly sensible.
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For tRump is all about branding. All his friends, buddies and billionaires in his administration have first hand knowledge of what and when to trade in this lovely set up he’s created. They will stand by him even if it means flattering him when they don’t believe it because of that advantage. He’s put in regulators that do nothing to stop the corruption and insider trading that has been at least somewhat tamed in years past. The SEC is now a toothless agency, though it was already working towards that end before tRump was able to shape a lot of the markets with his insults towards companies he didn’t like, while propping up those he did want to see succeed. And he does it all on twitter at times. He goes out of his way to influence markets from the Oval Office. Who knows what he passes along with his private phone calls to people he knows or at Mar-a-Loco when he meets with private hedge fund and sovereign wealth fund CEOs. His whole administration is built on that level of corruption. We’ve never seen the kind of direct manipulation of the stock market he has tried to engage in…ever. He tries to influence which companies can merge as well based on nothing more than pique. All of it is unprecedented and probably illegal…but like all things tRump, he gets to pick the refs and ignore the rest without consequences while altering all the norms of what we used to think was just shitty capitalism meant primarily for the rich on a good day. That’s just my opinion.
Also, did you notice Big Oil is big again and he’s on his way to taking money away from Green Energy.
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“I don’t know about you but I remember when $1 million dollars sounded like a lot of money. That’s chump change now.”
Is that you, Dr. Evil?
[Senator Everett] Dirksen is noted as saying, “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.” Although there is no direct record of the remark, he is believed to have made it during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
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Trumpty Dumpty can’t blame this on Obama, but he will try.
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welp …
I don’t go out and look for work during
un-global warming polar vortexes either … you ? ? …
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Are we winning yet?
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We must be because we’re sure as hell tired of it.
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