[late]

Most slow learners learn, they just do it slowly.

There are indications that the passion for Trump is cooling. But the Truth Social stock? That is going to do actual damage to his supporters, and that will change some minds.

Trump is bleeding his supporters dry, bleeding the Republican party dry (that will be the end result) and alienate the electorate. You will see the bulk of America turn on him, at the same time many of his supporters will leave the MAGA train, this year.

The ultimate snowflake is about to melt.

[Rancid]

This is another one:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pUELp-nhC7I

[Puffer Fish]

The Truth Social platform seems to have very little chance of becoming important. The main reason, I think, is a limitation or defect in its design. The allowable length of posts is very limited. This does not open much possibility of any legitimate intelligent discussion.

Instead it just seems like a place set up to be taken over by a certain type of people who are not looking for intelligent discussion.
And as a place to just post links to other videos.

[paeng]

The current admin promotes MAGA:

[skinster]

Trump Derangement Syndrome lives.

[late]

The current admin promotes MAGA:

Zeihan says something similar. It's one of the places where I disagree with him.

Basically, we went too far, and China took full advantage of it.

So what's different from Trump is that we are doing more than tariffs. We are reshoring, which people used to say wasn't going to happen.

But a lot of it has to do with the hostility coming from China. Cutting a deal is something Biden is good at. If China stopped looking at us like an enemy, Biden loves cutting a deal.

Interestingly, it looks like Xi may have gotten the message.

Lastly, China is recovering from Covid:

"China’s car shipments to foreign markets have quintupled in the past four years. Its solar panels dominate global markets. Even exports in labor-intensive industries like furniture making, which China was once expected to lose to lower-wage countries, are surging.

At the same time, Chinese companies are finding ways to bypass trade barriers in the West. They are breaking shipments into small parcels each worth little enough that they are exempt from tariffs. Chinese companies have increased exports to the West through indirect routes in Southeast Asia and Mexico, sidestepping tariffs on goods that come directly from China.

The export boom comes as China already produces almost a third of the world’s manufactured goods — more than the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea and Britain combined, according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

Chinese companies like Shein have also become adept at sending packages directly to homes in the United States, avoiding tariffs. The United States allows residents to import up to $800 a day worth of goods without paying tariffs, or nearly $300,000 a year."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/business/china-exports.html

[JohnRawls]

Most slow learners learn, they just do it slowly.

There are indications that the passion for Trump is cooling. But the Truth Social stock? That is going to do actual damage to his supporters, and that will change some minds.

Trump is bleeding his supporters dry, bleeding the Republican party dry (that will be the end result) and alienate the electorate. You will see the bulk of America turn on him, at the same time many of his supporters will leave the MAGA train, this year.

The ultimate snowflake is about to melt.

You criticize Trump for a good reason obviously but Trump is merely a symptom of a very larger problem. He is not the cause, he is just the affect that we get. Obviously he is also not the answer to the problem and has long derailed himself from his early days when he was able to articulate the problem.

So what is the problem then? Well the problem has obviously been for the last 15-10 years(Actually longer but 10-15 years is when we started caring) the overoptimization of the economy at the expense of the common person in the developed world. Mostly in Europe, US and other places. Optimisations of business and economy are not inherently something bad or in general bad because they allow you to produce products more efficiently in larger quantities will getting more profit which all are good things by themselves. The problems come when this starts to make the lives of ordinary people both workers and non workers of those companies worse and then has a bad affect on their wellbeing.

So this process sort of is widening the gap between the have nots and haves a lot. And I am not talking about just 0.1% rich and others. I am talking in general the gap between the highly educated professional class that specialise their work and then everybody else. So lets say for arguments sake 10% vs 90% or like 20% vs 80%. Its hard to define it. This overoptimization allows the most productive, educated, specialised and creative members of society reap the most amount of material gains from the rest in the most efficient manor hence the growing inequality.

Now some would say that this is possible to address using distribution aka "socialist policies" but I am kinda sceptical. It doesn't prevent the model from continuing its behaviour and will still remain the same. Its like taking more money from everyone to give it to the ones that benefit less from the model by still keeping the model itself running for some reason. At best this is a band aid and at worst this will be circumvented by further optimisation or if taxes are extremely high then crash the model itself so all will suffer. Note, I am not saying that they shouldn't exist I am just saying that fixing the problem fully with them is not possible so its needs to be a tiered solution. Distribution should definitely be used along with below:

The ideal solution is to tweak the model itself to give a sort of level playing field to everyone in my opinion and increase benefits for all without resorting to the government for it. For example instead of taking profit taxes on stock sales or company sales then make it so that those sales will go to all the workers of that company equally divided lets say that 20% that should have been taxed. This will encourage several behaviours within the companies:
1) Not to optimize against taxation, since the company would be doing and the worker who is doing it has clear negative interest to do so. And if it happens then all of the company will be simultaneously unhappy and probably reported.
2) It creates participation in the financial market from a standpoint of company success for a common worker which otherwise wouldn't be getting it unless you are a "heavily specialised person" within the company that gets his rewards as stock already.
3) It will encourage small and medium sized businesses to participate in the financial market also compared to usually mostly larger and successful businesses since it would be reasonable to expect for workers to demand this from their employer and he would have that interest to be more competitive. Although some legal changes would be need to be done to account for this properly.
4) It will overall increase the size of the financial market in any given place that will create such kind of system. Hence increasing the pool of possible investment and growth.

I don't know, here are my two cents that I thought about like 2-3 months ago on the topic. Wanted to vent somewhere but there were no reasonable topic so here it guess. The solution is in no way, shape or form final and is just a suggestion sort of. I think that it pleases all of the stakeholders that truly matter(People, Companies, Financial Market) and the only one who gets wrong in the solution is the state getting a bit less taxes but on the other hand doing its work so solving the problem.

[Rancid]

You criticize Trump for a good reason obviously but Trump is merely a symptom of a very larger problem. He is not the cause, he is just the affect that we get. Obviously he is also not the answer to the problem and has long derailed himself from his early days when he was able to articulate the problem.

So what is the problem then? Well the problem has obviously been for the last 15-10 years(Actually longer but 10-15 years is when we started caring) the overoptimization of the economy at the expense of the common person in the developed world. Mostly in Europe, US and other places. Optimisations of business and economy are not inherently something bad or in general bad because they allow you to produce products more efficiently in larger quantities will getting more profit which all are good things by themselves. The problems come when this starts to make the lives of ordinary people both workers and non workers of those companies worse and then has a bad affect on their wellbeing.

So this process sort of is widening the gap between the have nots and haves a lot. And I am not talking about just 0.1% rich and others. I am talking in general the gap between the highly educated professional class that specialise their work and then everybody else. So lets say for arguments sake 10% vs 90% or like 20% vs 80%. Its hard to define it. This overoptimization allows the most productive, educated, specialised and creative members of society reap the most amount of material gains from the rest in the most efficient manor hence the growing inequality.

Now some would say that this is possible to address using distribution aka "socialist policies" but I am kinda sceptical. It doesn't prevent the model from continuing its behaviour and will still remain the same. Its like taking more money from everyone to give it to the ones that benefit less from the model by still keeping the model itself running for some reason. At best this is a band aid and at worst this will be circumvented by further optimisation or if taxes are extremely high then crash the model itself so all will suffer. Note, I am not saying that they shouldn't exist I am just saying that fixing the problem fully with them is not possible so its needs to be a tiered solution. Distribution should definitely be used along with below:

The ideal solution is to tweak the model itself to give a sort of level playing field to everyone in my opinion and increase benefits for all without resorting to the government for it. For example instead of taking profit taxes on stock sales or company sales then make it so that those sales will go to all the workers of that company equally divided lets say that 20% that should have been taxed. This will encourage several behaviours within the companies:
1) Not to optimize against taxation, since the company would be doing and the worker who is doing it has clear negative interest to do so. And if it happens then all of the company will be simultaneously unhappy and probably reported.
2) It creates participation in the financial market from a standpoint of company success for a common worker which otherwise wouldn't be getting it unless you are a "heavily specialised person" within the company that gets his rewards as stock already.
3) It will encourage small and medium sized businesses to participate in the financial market also compared to usually mostly larger and successful businesses since it would be reasonable to expect for workers to demand this from their employer and he would have that interest to be more competitive. Although some legal changes would be need to be done to account for this properly.
4) It will overall increase the size of the financial market in any given place that will create such kind of system. Hence increasing the pool of possible investment and growth.

I don't know, here are my two cents that I thought about like 2-3 months ago on the topic. Wanted to vent somewhere but there were no reasonable topic so here it guess. The solution is in no way, shape or form final and is just a suggestion sort of. I think that it pleases all of the stakeholders that truly matter(People, Companies, Financial Market) and the only one who gets wrong in the solution is the state getting a bit less taxes but on the other hand doing its work so solving the problem.

Agree. However, those that are optimizing the system for profit over people, are pitting all of us against each other with distractions like cultures wars and other shit.

[late]

You criticize Trump for a good reason obviously but Trump is merely a symptom of a very larger problem. He is not the cause, he is just the affect that we get. Obviously he is also not the answer to the problem and has long derailed himself from his early days when he was able to articulate the problem.

So what is the problem then? Well the problem has obviously been for the last 15-10 years(Actually longer but 10-15 years is when we started caring) the overoptimization of the economy at the expense of the common person in the developed world. Mostly in Europe, US and other places. Optimisations of business and economy are not inherently something bad or in general bad because they allow you to produce products more efficiently in larger quantities will getting more profit which all are good things by themselves. The problems come when this starts to make the lives of ordinary people both workers and non workers of those companies worse and then has a bad affect on their wellbeing.

So this process sort of is widening the gap between the have nots and haves a lot. And I am not talking about just 0.1% rich and others. I am talking in general the gap between the highly educated professional class that specialise their work and then everybody else. So lets say for arguments sake 10% vs 90% or like 20% vs 80%. Its hard to define it. This overoptimization allows the most productive, educated, specialised and creative members of society reap the most amount of material gains from the rest in the most efficient manor hence the growing inequality.

Now some would say that this is possible to address using distribution aka "socialist policies" but I am kinda sceptical. It doesn't prevent the model from continuing its behaviour and will still remain the same. Its like taking more money from everyone to give it to the ones that benefit less from the model by still keeping the model itself running for some reason. At best this is a band aid and at worst this will be circumvented by further optimisation or if taxes are extremely high then crash the model itself so all will suffer. Note, I am not saying that they shouldn't exist I am just saying that fixing the problem fully with them is not possible so its needs to be a tiered solution. Distribution should definitely be used along with below:

The ideal solution is to tweak the model itself to give a sort of level playing field to everyone in my opinion and increase benefits for all without resorting to the government for it. For example instead of taking profit taxes on stock sales or company sales then make it so that those sales will go to all the workers of that company equally divided lets say that 20% that should have been taxed. This will encourage several behaviours within the companies:
1) Not to optimize against taxation, since the company would be doing and the worker who is doing it has clear negative interest to do so. And if it happens then all of the company will be simultaneously unhappy and probably reported.
2) It creates participation in the financial market from a standpoint of company success for a common worker which otherwise wouldn't be getting it unless you are a "heavily specialised person" within the company that gets his rewards as stock already.
3) It will encourage small and medium sized businesses to participate in the financial market also compared to usually mostly larger and successful businesses since it would be reasonable to expect for workers to demand this from their employer and he would have that interest to be more competitive. Although some legal changes would be need to be done to account for this properly.
4) It will overall increase the size of the financial market in any given place that will create such kind of system. Hence increasing the pool of possible investment and growth.

I don't know, here are my two cents that I thought about like 2-3 months ago on the topic. Wanted to vent somewhere but there were no reasonable topic so here it guess. The solution is in no way, shape or form final and is just a suggestion sort of. I think that it pleases all of the stakeholders that truly matter(People, Companies, Financial Market) and the only one who gets wrong in the solution is the state getting a bit less taxes but on the other hand doing its work so solving the problem.

Economists call that income inequality, for starters. The rich pay far too little in taxes.

But there is also the problem with having monopolies. If 4 businesses have 40% or more of the market, that will reduce competition, among other things. Remember the problem with baby formula? Most of the market is served by 2 companies. When one has a problem, it's immediately a crisis, one that can kill babies.

That is bad economics, but morally it's beyond reprehensible.

Republicans started undermining workers 40 years ago. All that needs to be reversed, indeed, some of it has been reversed. While the current demand for workers is pushing employers to treat them decently, history suggests they still need protection.

[JohnRawls]

Agree. However, those that are optimizing the system for profit over people, are pitting all of us against each other with distractions like cultures wars and other shit.

I disagree actually with this, the people optimising are not the same people as pitting, that it is a self-inflicted wound, sort of a self-coping mehanism more I think but it has always been humanities escape from problems over the thousands of years. Its nothing new.

And its not like people optimizing the system or more proper example would be the companies themselves are evil. They are doing their work according to the rules of the "game" that exist right now in year 2024 etc. Same thing for the people pitting, its their way to get elected in a simpler way while addressing grievances and nothing new.

While I do not feel much sandness for this but the people optimising(CEO/Management of XXX corporation) and pitting(Trump for example) are also hostages of the system they live in. Doesn't make it right in a lot of cases but it can be said that they are basically agents of the system and they don't have any independent decision making right now. They are exploiting the possibilities in a way they know how to do their job or to get what they want.

[JohnRawls]

Economists call that income inequality, for starters. The rich pay far too little in taxes.

But there is also the problem with having monopolies. If 4 businesses have 40% or more of the market, that will reduce competition, among other things. Remember the problem with baby formula? Most of the market is served by 2 companies. When one has a problem, it's immediately a crisis, one that can kill babies.

That is bad economics, but morally it's beyond reprehensible.

Republicans started undermining workers 40 years ago. All that needs to be reversed, indeed, some of it has been reversed. While the current demand for workers is pushing employers to treat them decently, history suggests they still need protection.

There are many tiers to this and although as simplistic as this is, this is a valid argument. The problem is, how are you going to address it or what is your solution? And when I say a solution then how do you please the stakeholders on all sides preferably or how do you force the stakeholders to comply if there are no upsides? If there are too many negatives then can you even force stakeholders to comply without them overpowering you?

[late]

There are many tiers to this and although as simplistic as this is, this is a valid argument. The problem is, how are you going to address it or what is your solution? And when I say a solution then how do you please the stakeholders on all sides preferably or how do you force the stakeholders to comply if there are no upsides? If there are too many negatives then can you even force stakeholders to comply without them overpowering you?

Stiglitz handles this much better than I do, read The Price of Inequality.

Sen Warren also does a better job, and some ideas about how to handle it.

We already have laws to break up monopolies, we just need to use them. There is a bunch of simple stuff we should be doing to help the little guy. We just need to do them.

One of the things that needs doing is haveing the Feds regulate zoning so that landlords can't rig the system so they can't screw everyone that can't afford a house.

You can sum it all up in one word: Progressive.

[JohnRawls]

Stiglitz handles this much better than I do, read The Price of Inequality.

Sen Warren also does a better job, and some ideas about how to handle it.

We already have laws to break up monopolies, we just need to use them. There is a bunch of simple stuff we should be doing to help the little guy. We just need to do them.

One of the things that needs doing is haveing the Feds regulate zoning so that landlords can't rig the system so they can't screw everyone that can't afford a house.

You can sum it all up in one word: Progressive.

May be, I had planned to read it but never got to it.

The problem that I see it is that the problem is much wider. Financial market non-partisipation by the majority of people is one of such problems and perhaps the largest one in my opinion. My idea is to sort of COOPt everyone to participate whanever you are any class. This will break the "monopoly" of the rich in this source of income. Sort of like how Musk or Bill Gates etc keep their "money" in stock and take loans to avoid taxes for the stock means that every time they sell or company sells the stock then the workers are obliged to a percentage of that "income". And since the optimisation is done with a large thanks and with a large participation of the financial market then its a checkmate of sorts. Now the market will work for the vast majority.

This approach also circumvents the problem of risk and uncertainty that otherwise people would need to manage participating in it. People won't be able to manage it on mass.

If you consider the banking and financial system to be the main culprits and reasons why this inequality is increasing then the solution should be something that people should like.

[late]

May be, I had planned to read it but never got to it.

The problem that I see it is that the problem is much wider. Financial market non-participation by the majority of people is one of such problems and perhaps the largest one in my opinion. My idea is to sort of Co-opt everyone to participate regardless of class. This will break the "monopoly" of the rich in this source of income. Sort of like how Musk or Bill Gates etc keep their "money" in stock and take loans to avoid taxes for the stock means that every time they sell or company sells the stock then the workers are obliged to a percentage of that "income". And since the optimisation is done with a large thanks and with a large participation of the financial market then its a checkmate of sorts. Now the market will work for the vast majority.

This approach also circumvents the problem of risk and uncertainty that otherwise people would need to manage participating in it. People won't be able to manage it en masse.

If you consider the banking and financial system to be the main culprits and reasons why this inequality is increasing then the solution should be something that people should like.

You cure income inequality by increasing income.

Raising the min wage is the place to start. But social programs that benefit the lower half will also be needed. A good place to start is pre-K. Mass transit needs to be a priority (for when we finally do a Carbon Tax, or something like it. It's not something we can dodge for much longer).

I'm not clear how you plan to implement your stock scheme.

[Rich]

When I saw the title of the thread, I thought, oh no not another thread about Joe Biden.