In The News Today...

Quote: rxwine

I laughed out loud when some lady on MSNBC just referred to Mike Pence as an "invertebrate."

What did Pence do? I tend to think he reined Trump in about as much as anyone could. I obviously don't like his social positions, but I don't hold being Trump's Veep against him.

Quote: AZDuffman

That IS what is so bad. Closing pipelines, costing jobs, setting us up for huge inflation, raising taxes, paying people so much to sit at home that they do not work, all of this is awful stuff.

Who signed the stimulus bills last year?

Quote: Mission146

Who signed the stimulus bills last year?

I was not big in favor of them, either. At the lease we can say for the first one we had an actual crisis to the extent covid actually is/was a "crisis." What we need to do now is open up. Cut off the extra unemployment as it is more than clear people are sitting at home instead of taking jobs that are going begging.

Quote: AZDuffman

I was not big in favor of them, either. At the lease we can say for the first one we had an actual crisis to the extent covid actually is/was a "crisis." What we need to do now is open up. Cut off the extra unemployment as it is more than clear people are sitting at home instead of taking jobs that are going begging.

I agree with that, but it's a little bit tough to do when you've already got the enhanced unemployment in place.

It's also difficult for me to blame someone for not going back to work if they are legitimately making more money to do nothing. I tend to think of restaurant/food service type workers as that seems to be in the industry most in need of people right now---if you're making hundreds of dollars a week more to stay at home as opposed to going and being a prep cook---it's tough for me to blame the person for not going.

The fault lies with the people who enabled such a thing in the first place---which means Congress and also Trump, because he signed the thing.

I think unemployment is usually half a person's income for some particular amount of time. At most, the length of time could have been extended and the amount subsidized to maybe something like 80% (total) of what the person was making employed. I'd still vote against it were I in Congress, but that would be more reasonable.

Either way, anyone with an ounce of sense should be able to agree that making more to stay at home than you were making working is pretty objectively ridiculous.

Quote: Mission146

Either way, anyone with an ounce of sense should be able to agree that making more to stay at home than you were making working is pretty objectively ridiculous.

Yes, and the people sitting around are showing why UBI will be a disaster.

But what we need is more governors to put an end to this. We are making a nation of layabouts.

Quote: AZDuffman

Yes, and the people sitting around are showing why UBI will be a disaster.

But what we need is more governors to put an end to this. We are making a nation of layabouts.

I think UBI may well become necessary as more processes (especially in the service industries) become automated, but that's probably at least two generations from now. We might also be able to afford it (collectively) one day if we ever start having balanced budgets and get national debt back to zero.

Maybe not even UBI, but some sort of, "Work share," by which 40/week, every week, stops being the standard.

Another thing when you look at various welfare programs, medical, public school and public housing programs---some people already have UBI in a de facto way.

It's just done by way of processes that are much less efficient and have much more overhead than simply cutting certain folks a monthly check and being done with it.

Quote: Mission146

What did Pence do? I tend to think he reined Trump in about as much as anyone could. I obviously don't like his social positions, but I don't hold being Trump's Veep against him.

Pence continues to bend the knee to Donny even after Donny sent his supporters to lynch him.

It wasn’t BLM chanting “hang Mike Pence!”

Quote: ams288

Pence continues to bend the knee to Donny even after Donny sent his supporters to lynch him.

It wasn’t BLM chanting “hang Mike Pence!”

I simply tend to think that Donny's Presidency might have been even more out of control if the VP had been someone other than Pence. Pence had to be around Trump...A LOT...because he was his VP and I think reined Trump in a bit. I still disagree with all of his social positions that I know of, but I thank him for his service to the country because it could have probably been even worse without him. I don't envy anyone that has to spend more than two seconds in Oompa-Loompa's company in the slightest.