Democrats’ ability to block Trump’s selections is limited due to Minority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) move in 2013 to change the filibuster rules when his party controlled the Senate so that certain executive branch nominees only required a majority vote.
Remember when a bunch of people were calling Harry Reid a feckless, useless, wimp because he took his time in reforming the filibuster? Folks, this is why he took his time. This is why he was in no hurry to change things too drastically.
A poster yesterday, @khaaannn, I think, said “the hits just keep coming,” and here’s today’s chart-topper: Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr. CEO Andy Puzder will be the Secretary of Labor. A fast-food CEO for Secretary of Labor. One after the other, these selections are a calculated affront to everyone who ever worked for a living and relied on the social contract to ensure they were compensated fairly for that work. If people don’t wake the hell up the reinstatement of the Gilded Age will be complete in short order.
It kinda makes sense in a Trump view of the world.
The only jobs that will be available after the Fascists destroy our Liberal Democracy will be fast-food and Walmart-greeter jobs anyway so why not? (and that way Trump gets free Hardees whenever he wants it.)
All manufacturing will move to 3rd world countries or be done solely by robots within 10 years anyway.
What once took 500 people to build will be done by 5 people, who only are there to maintain the robots, and they will be H1B contractors from the robot manufacturer who is based in China.
Agriculture is already swinging away from people to machines (it’s been going that way for 100 years now) so once manufacturing goes, what is left? We can’t all be baristas and burger-slingers (and even THAT JOB is going away to robotics if the head of McDonalds has anything to say about it.)
You are hitting on the second biggest problem that is confronting America and the rest of the world. Do you want to hear the rest of the problem. The 1st world economy is entirely consumer driven. Without consumers there is no need for the robots to work. The consumer economy requires there be consumers with real jingle in their pockets. If robots are going to do all the jobs, how do we get money in the hands of human beings who will purchase what the robots build? You figure that one out and you will win a prize.
The .01% who control the country after Jan 20th DON’T CARE.
They have enough money/power to ride out 3 generations of family (and with Ryan promising to kill the Inheritance Tax, Corporate Tax, and lower the Income Tax for them by 75% they will have even more) and are now pivoting to feeding at the Government Trough which will add enough to last ANOTHER 3 generations at least. Soon they won’t even need consumers any more. They have trillions of dollars of government money to consume from Social Security, Medicare, and Defense Contracts.
We are rapidly sliding into “Banana Republic” territory with the looming possibility of an actual FEUDAL SYSTEM staring us in the face. Expect to see the .01% begin purchasing family titles (Dukedoms, Lordships, etc.) and building their private “security forces” in preparation for it in the coming years.
When the riots begin as the populace can’t take it any more, they will be prepared with their private “Pinkertons” to defend their gated-castles without any help required from the impoverished/corporatised local police forces (think Robo-cop here.) Welcome to the new “Gilded Age” when Robber-Barons and private armies will rule the land and businessmen bid outright for their chance to become the next “President of the Former United States of America” (think the Fall of the Roman Empire when their Generals bid against each other in the Senate for the position.)
While you Dystopian future is possible and it is one I fear, I don’t think you realize that without consumers the wealth of the upper .01% will diminish rapidly. Even within their gated fortresses the elite .01% will be at great risk. When the Roman empire died the Roman elites were the first to die. Private armies have a way of falling apart. “Banana Republics” are notoriously unstable. Rich people want to live the high life in stable countries. It is actually easier to develop and maintain a stable country when everybody has opportunity and a dream of a future.
What we need is a soft landing and that will require a commitment from all involved. If that commitment isn’t possible we are all going to be screwed, even the .01% who might not care.
It’s not the Iron Age any more.
Capital is fluid and highly mobile, just like it’s owners. The US is in decline and will continue to do so and the .01% will just move to other countries while extracting as much wealth as they can from the rotting carcass of the USA.
They are not “American Citizens” they are “Owners of Capital”. They can live anywhere they want (and do.) They already have multiple residences all over the planet and the ability to go there on a whim. They have no need of a stable USA nor do they care about it being that way. Most are “Disaster Capitalists” and actually hope for more disruption during which they can extract even more capital from the country for deposit overseas where THOSE countries compete for their affections.
Sure the price of condo’s in Dubai and Switzerland will skyrocket, but they don’t care.
What is your solution? Closing down the business colleges? Leading people to the ramparts? Quiet suicide?
As the pile of rubble gets larger and larger and the money to be made smaller and smaller, they will squabble among themselves. The death of civilization will be the winner.
Neither of us has the vision to see the next steps, but I suspect they will involve human evolution beyond the self-centered greed at the core of modern capitalism. The Japanese are ahead of us in this respect. Not far ahead, but ahead.
Oh, money if fluid, but that isn’t exactly the same as capital.
I’m not sure there is a solution.
The 1950’s and 60’s are gone forever and we cannot look to that time for any solutions.
Globalization and technology have combined to destroy the “Middle Class American Dream” and it is NEVER coming back. I see no end to the increasing speed of either Globalization or Technology and the advent of AI-guided Robotics signals an END to all Manufacturing jobs (even in 3rd world countries) with the exception of a few “Craft” skills that will remain in demand by the Masters of the Universe. All I predict is a rapid descent into Technological Feudalism (think Hunger Games.)
The only thing that might save us is the inevitable overreach by the smug Fascists and a massive backlash by the oppressed populace in the 2018 election. That assumes that they will even find out (or care with all the “Bread and Circuses” being thrown at them by the MSM) about the destruction of Liberal Democracy before it is too late to do anything about it, and that depends (Oh. Your. God) on the feckless and cowardly MSM to do their jobs as the 4th Estate. Don’t hold your breath for that.
We all may have to be “Spartacus” in the coming years, and he and ALL his supporters got crucified for their trouble.
Yes. It really is that bad. Slavery via “indentured servitude” awaits us all (assuming we don’t all die in a nuclear holocaust first because the Orange Shitgibbon felt he was “dissed” by someone in a tweet.)
“House Progressives Rail Against Trump’s Cabinet Picks”
Then House “progressives” should vote against their confirmation. Wait. What? Oh …