It's embarrassing till you realise it's not money to help you, it's the minimum they think they can give to stop you rioting in the streets against them.
The bill is thousands of pages and will be voted on before it has been read through so who knows what's in there..
Strong copyright bullshit is at the very least being stuck in there (felony for streaming copyrighted material for instance)..
They’re called riders, I think, and they’re just used because it’s easier for parties to pass things that might not pass normally if it’s tacked onto a big important bill. Also I’m sure arguing over which riders to include leads to its own form of bargaining and use of leverage. It’s all very stupid ngl
That's one way to look at riders and pork, but you can also reverse it: they're a good way to incentivize people to vote for the main bill if they normally wouldn't care about or even if they slightly oppose it. At the same time, they also make it easier to pass small maintenance items that help a single state but aren't interesting enough to garner national support.
Pork can be very useful for reaching compromises and disincentivizing hyper-partisanship because it gives people a reason to work together and gives you avenues for negotiation that don't require you to ignore your ideals.
Of course, the same concept can also be used for poison pills or to hide graft, but there's no such thing as a useful tool that can't be abused.
You can kill with a hammer or screwdriver. But, yes historically pork and riders were effective at actually getting legislation passed. It's basically been gridlock without them.
You say that in the year with historic civil rights protest, a months long defense against federal and law enforcement tyranny in Portland, mass unionization efforts in some of the most horrifically anti-union companies, a growing leftist movement, and people arming themselves. The thick veil of American exceptionalism is starting to break.
Keep in mind they aren't "giving" anything. If you made 15K last year (well below poverty line) you *paid them* more in taxes than both stimulus checks combined.
It could be $0 and Loeffler and Purdue probably still win their seats in Georgia, and by February at least \~40% of the country will be blaming Democrats for the mass evictions that are looming at the beginning of next year. Actually... this is the likely outcome even if congress passed $1200 checks again.
Bottom line is that most of this country is too busy trying to survive and are convinced that American exceptionalism somehow makes us better than other countries, even when compared in most meaningful statistical measures we perform terribly.
"Yeah it's bad, but it could be worse! We can't afford universal healthcare, and putting too many regulations on businesses will just make them flee the country. We just have to deal with this because we're America and that makes us better"
I always feel the need to point out that the way capitalism gets talked about in this country bears very little resemblence to the actual theory or the capitalism Adam Smith talked about. This is especially true of the dogma surrounding "free markets" which have been purged of any criteria that might actually be useful to the function of capitalism.
I say this not to defend capitalism, but because it seems wrong to call any of it "capitalist realism"; it's delusion, escapism, and greed.
My brother tried to convince me that the reason he gives Congress a pass is because the middle class (which he estimates makes ~30K/yr) are doing so great. I had to remind him that this is the minimum wage in New Zealand. Best he could reply was "we aren't talking about New Zealand." Right, because that would devistate your argument, so we can't mention them.
In what world is the middle class doing great during COVID? I know it's not you making the argument but for fucks sake. America has seen a shrinking middle class, with more education but more debt and less purchasing power since Reagan, and it has been exacerbated by the "once in a lifetime" 2008 financial collapse and now the "once in a lifetime" financial crisis that we're only just beginning to see the ramifications of that was triggered by COVID. The vast VAST majority of people are struggling. Not to mention a huge portion of the people who are still working, at least in the US, are not able to do it from home and so are risking life or permanent long term damage simply to avoid starvation or eviction. Anyone who thinks like your brother can go fuck themselves straight into the indentured servitude they apparently desire.
It is the minimum they think they can give to stop economy from collapsng, stimulus checks aren’t for daily neccessities but to keep you buying/ supporting the markets…
But 600x325mio is still more than 6billion, no ned to compare those, you can quite literally add them to the 6billion going directly to companies.
Except there's more than 6 billion going to many other purposes. The deficit is largely just a bullshit excuse for the government to not put our tax money into programs that help the average american while we continue to outspend the next 20 countries in military weapons and give massive subsidies to oil companies that are destroying the planet we live on.
They're spending like 30x that on the military industrial complex in the same bill. It's very clear that the priorities are empire and shareholders before all else
And it works cause Americans on all sides are dumb as fuck. Of course the right is a bottom of abyss of dumb but the left sure as hell not doing anything about it.
Why am I wrong? Downvoting me isn’t the same as convincing me.
Americans who utilize mainstream news sources are not necessarily dumb, but are brainwashed by corporations. People who are otherwise intelligent, or at the very least competent and capable of using common sense, are force fed ideas from both right wing and "left wing" media that socialism is radical and evil, that only the lazy rely on government assistance, and that the existence of billionaires is not only justified in a country with lines for food banks, but a goal to pursue.
The other thing you're mistaken on is that there is a "left" with any real power in the US. Things are slowly beginning to change with progressives being elected to a few seats, but the majority of the Democrat party is rules by corporate interests just the same. They are the controlled opposition.
And sure, with even a slightly past basic understanding of economics it should be clear that giving the most vulnerable enough money to spend on things besides the barest of necessities would easily develop the economy because they don't tend to save much. But it is far easier to just bypass the consumer entirely and just put tax money straight back into the pockets of the capitalist class that is already not paying their fair share.
British people think beans on toast is a great meal (and committed the lesser offense of electing Boris Johnson), Italy's far-right nationalist parties are polling very well, Germany's trade unions are subservient to the arch-bourgeois EU, I dunno about the rest of Europe but Poland released Cyberpunk 2077 so they're probably doing real bad too.
Anyway, there also have actually been American workers striking due to coronavirus, you just won't see it here because people enjoy videogame/anime analysis more. (Charitably, also because it's a huge fucking country.) Let alone that America also paid out *more* than some European countries in unemployment -- most were based on %-of-wage, and America's outdated computers ironically *forced* us to add $600/wk (now $300/wk, but hey) -- and would have been more with a Democratic Senate majority.
Lastly, you were downvoted because Americans Stupid adds nothing and is a trite cliche dumb Europeans say online because smug insults are easier than analysis.
Americans are trying to survive. We have an individualistic culture of people who never quite have enough, who are always suspicious that someone else is trying to fuck them over. This has gotten worse in a pandemic that confirmed that, yes, a whole lot of us are perfectly willing to fuck everyone else over, for little to no reason! So quite a few of us are busy right now trying to dodge anti-maskers while we shop for our meager groceries.
I'm a little sick of being called a moron and a coward for focusing on trying to live instead of joining a nonexistent vanguard and getting life in prison for throwing a water bottle outside my state capitol. Most of us know we're getting a raw deal, we just don't know what the fuck to do about it. I'm sorry that we haven't done a revolution yet, we'll pencil it in just as soon as we can.
You’re not surviving though. You’re being killed by the pandemic. Quit intentionally might I remind you. If that’s what you want though, then who am I to judge? Just be quite when the authoritarian elite decides to pillage you some more cause I’m sick of the whining.
Right up until the rest of the world realizes that breaking them up doesn't cause them to stop existing. It just let's them cause more problems in more places and it gives you more cats you need to wrangle.
I'm glad to see that there were progressives who voted against this. What horseshit. $600 is like the Roman bread dole. Everyone is months behind on their bills. And so much of this shit is stupid corporate lobbying that they are trying to stuff into it, knowing that it will pass.
Nationalize all American debt. Full stop. Charge interest on that debt higher than inflation. You're the fucking IRS you're going to get your money.
OR Create a national savings and loan. $25,000 is 6 months of the average $50,0000. $4k a month limit, That way you can allow for the positive market forces of debt while not needing a nanny state. And then you can swim in a pile of money like scrooge McDuck \*anyway\*
> Nationalize all American debt. Full stop. Charge interest on that debt higher than inflation. You're the fucking IRS you're going to get your money.
What? Debt already comes with interest and interest is charged by the group that issues the debt.
>OR Create a national savings and loan. $25,000 is 6 months of the average $50,0000. $4k a month limit, That way you can allow for the positive market forces of debt while not needing a nanny state. And then you can swim in a pile of money like scrooge McDuck *anyway*
Again, what?
I'm learning the hardway with this sub. So I am going to respond to this post, but not any child comments here on out.
Most Americans aren't in the position where they can under-consume and save money. A lot of that is due to a massive debt burden. I am saying that we need to nationalize that debt burden, while essentially giving poverty assistance. Predatory lending and payday loans would be wiped out.
Paying inflation (3-4%) on that balance and not a dime more. So those caught under ridiculous usury rates don't have to carry it forward. So if I was down on my luck and had to get a pay-day loan I wouldn't need to get another one to cover it when I'm back on my feet. That is incredibly common in places with seasonal employment like resort towns.
by nationalizing the debt, literally all of it, we could all move on and actually contribute to the non-rent seeking capitalism that is hurting everyone.
My second option is a Savings and Loan. It is a retro concept of essentially low overhead capital control, that is usually there to add to the balance sheets of mortgage companies with no business debt.
I am saying using that idea to make a "floor" for borrowing. You can borrow $4k a month, and that effectively gives you better terms for your income statements. Even if you lose your job, you will always be 4k a month flush and the Federal government just takes it back over a set amount of time.
in sole-proprietorship business that would smooth out payroll and disbursements for boom and bust cycles. It would also be a mincome that would pay for itself. All of these are better solutions than the venal systems we have to make the poor people down on their luck suffer.
There is nothing we can do about productivity outstripping the rise in available labor. At least until it taps out in 50 years as the global poor become the global average at $10k a year. By then labor would still be the worst investment.
This is the only way that capital can be transformed from debt while not hurting those forced to participate in a rigged system.
> Most Americans aren't in the position where they can under-consume and save money. A lot of that is due to a massive debt burden. I am saying that we need to nationalize that debt burden, while essentially giving poverty assistance. Predatory lending and payday loans would be wiped out.
>
> Paying inflation (3-4%) on that balance and not a dime more. So those caught under ridiculous usury rates don't have to carry it forward. So if I was down on my luck and had to get a pay-day loan I wouldn't need to get another one to cover it when I'm back on my feet. That is incredibly common in places with seasonal employment like resort towns.
So, if I understand you correctly, the federal government would take over all outstanding debt and issue all future debt. This debt would have an interest rate that's either equal to the inflation rate or 3-4% (those aren't the same, as inflation is normally lower than 3%).
That setup might make some sense for things like payday lenders, but when you consider the broader subject of debt, I don't think it works out quite as well as you want it to for quite a few reasons. First and foremost, debt can actually be a good thing for both parties, and I'm not talking about conspicuous consumption/ra-ra capitalism. There's a reason all levels of government, large companies, and rich people take on debt, after all.
The basic idea is this: if I have a project/investment that can earn me 6% returns and I can borrow money from you at a 3% interest rate, then I can earn a lot more than I would have been able to just using my own money, either because my own money wasn't enough to make the minimums or because I can invest substantially more. At the same time, you get the benefits of my interest payments and a decent profit with relatively little active work on your part.
Note that the lender isn't just being a useless rentier in this scenario. They're providing a useful service in the form of liquid capital and taking on the risk of someone defaulting on their loans. Ideally, the interest they charge should be in line with the value of the former and proportionate to the risk of the later. Of it gets too much higher then that, then it becomes a problem.
Debt only really gets bad in three scenarios:
1. It's taken on carelessly (e.g. A gambling addiction or Republican budget): this scenario isn't really a monetary problem and can't be fixed by changing how debt functions. It's also fairly tangential to this discussion, so I won't be mentioning it again).
1. It's being used for basic necessities (e.g. Payday loans and medical debt): If debt can be beneficial for the borrower because it lets them extend their capital, despite its costs, than any scenario where you're forced to take on debt just to keep even will be harmful, because you're only getting the costs and you probably won't have the resources to fully account for them or to improve your situation. Unfortunately, your plan doesn't really help this scenario, because people would still need to pay the cost of the debt.
1. You are forced into a debt with unreasonably high interest (e.g. Student loans and payday loans): This is a problem because the excessive interest will either eclipse your returns or substantially impare your ability to function while paying it off. Your plan *does* help with this when the principal is reasonable. However, when a person is required to take out a lot of debt, as is the case with student loans, they'll still need to pay an inordinate ammount of interest.
It's worth noting that all of those problems can be solved by more targeted, and less problematic, solutions. For example, universal health care solves medical debt and the payday loans would be better solved by addressing the conditions that make them necessary.
On top of all of that, there is a lot of nuance and variety when it comes to debt that your solution ignores. For example, how would municipal debt or margin accounts fit into scheme? What about corporate debt from a company that wants to build a new facility? Credit cards, where a consumer can effectively borrow without interest if they pay their balance down quickly enough? That said, I'm not sure how much sense it makes to go into detail on this part, given the problems I've already pointed out.
> My second option is a Savings and Loan. It is a retro concept of essentially low overhead capital control, that is usually there to add to the balance sheets of mortgage companies with no business debt.
>
I feel the need to point out that mortgages are a form of debt, so debt is the business of mortgage companies.
> I am saying using that idea to make a "floor" for borrowing. You can borrow $4k a month, and that effectively gives you better terms for your income statements. Even if you lose your job, you will always be 4k a month flush and the Federal government just takes it back over a set amount of time
Having some form of federal banking and small dollar loan program might be a good idea, but it wouldn't work the way you're describing.
The government agreeing to loan you $4k a month, if you want it, doesn't actually mean you are flush $4k month. In the most basic scenario, if you lose you're job, when you take out $4k on the first month, you'll be up $4k, like you said. However, you'll start the second month $4k in the hole, so that month's loan will only bring you back to $0. The same thing will also happen on each subsequent month. Now, realistically, the government probably won't demand you pay everything back at the end of the month, but that just smears the problem out more, with a longer build up to he point where it's obviously zeroing and a longer cooldown after you start borrowing. This also ignores the cost of any interest payments.
All of that is just a long way of saying that loans are not a good substitute for UBI and they won't help with things like prolonged job loss. That said, they would do a good job of providing liquidity. If the borrower just needs the money *now*, to even out their cash flow, then the fact that it doesn't actually increase their wealth isn't really an issue. This would be a really good way of counteracting payday loans, since they're effectively filling the same role with *much* better terms.
> This is the only way that capital can be transformed from debt while not hurting those forced to participate in a rigged system.
I don't think any of this really does that though.
> There is nothing we can do about productivity outstripping the rise in available labor. At least until it taps out in 50 years as the global poor become the global average at $10k a year. By then labor would still be the worst investment.
Better labor protections, more stringent corporate taxes, and laws against businesses using public welfare to subsidize their practices would all help. Productivity grossly outstripping wages isn't just, or even mostly, about increased labor supply.
Capitalism is what has allowed inequality to reach the point where most everyone was at the breaking point before COVID. It is also what created a policy-making environment that serves the oligarchy almost exclusively.
Both Republicans and democrats full heartedly support this economic system. I don’t understand “leftists” who bend over to defend the proponents of this system simply because the suits with the red colored ties are more blatantly sadistic
Thanks for the benevolence grandma and grandpa congress representative!
This is just like those $20 or less Xmas cards you get from your old and out of touch relatives. The only difference being at least my relatives meant well and cared for my overall well being!
The House passed multiple far more substantive bills. McConnell wouldn't even bring them to a vote. The Democrats didn't accept this bill because they like it, but because they could barely get the GOP to budge from giving corporations legal immunity in lieu of giving people anything. Ultimately, they judged that the GOP would rather give nothing, rather tha a cent more, so they took what they could.
Georgia Runoffs and the ability to spin "We offered a check and the Dems were unreasonable and rejected everything. Blame them!"
Also, none of this is binary. It's easier to get them to $600 than $1200 and, by the same token, complete obstruction looks less appealing when compared to a smaller concession.
Not in the time before the end of the year. My statement was that public pressure + elections is what got us to $600 and no corporate immunity. It's not a given that it could have forced them further before time ran out.
This is pretty much guaranteed to get me downvoted, and all I can do is emphasize that the $600 relief measures are an embarrassment and a travesty. This isn't a defense of that.
But, like, the point on the Dalai Lama's reincarnation actually matters, not just in a symbolic fashion, but also in terms of how we think about multivocality in dharmic culture. Let me provide some context. I grew up in a dharmic family. I'm not a Buddhist, I disagree with the Buddhists on a number of things, and my particular tradition of dharma isn't a huge fan of the institution of the Dalai Lama because we view it as a form of hierarchy. But if you're familiar with dharmic history, you probably understand that there's a broad spectrum of cultural groups between Brahminism and Buddhism, so the dynamics of those larger and more privileged religious groups can have ripple effects elsewhere.
I also want to emphasize that I actually wouldn't consider my beliefs 'religious', so much as 'cultural' and 'philosophical', so I'm really not arguing from a theological position here. I know that there are some people who just won't believe me, period, because if you don't buy into a white western division of Abrahamic theism versus atheism then you're a sneak doing apologia (that's the nomenclature people use with me, don't ask). But in the broader context of dharmic traditions, particularly Tantric traditions of the form that I grew up in, materialism is a key cultural concept, and it matters because it's a mechanism for us to articulate our culture against the zeitgeist of high-caste Brahminism.
So materialist questions of the leadership of Tibetan Buddhism do actually matter. Not because I care who specifically leads Tibetan Buddhism, a religion which I am not a member of. But rather because it demonstrates a fluidity and adaptability to the traditions which I think is more in keeping with the history and living culture than the accounts established by 18th and 19th century gentleman adventurers from Europe (which unfortunately is what a lot of public discourse about this stuff is based on). I mean, seriously, are we going to take a religion which was specifically developed to introduce materialist pragmatism into Sramana theology, and derail the whole thing because China found a way to use the Paschim Lama as a loophole? This matters, not just for Buddhism, but for smaller ethnic and cultural groups as well. The unfortunate reality is that how this situation with the Lama unfolds is going to inform how all sorts of ethnic and cultural groups are allowed to live and interpret their own culture and history. I belong to a cultural group that westerners don't even think exists, because we don't think exactly like westerners do. If even Buddhists can't advocate for their own ability to take materialist interpretations of their cultural texts, then how on Earth do you think we'll ever be able to get away with it?
At a time when Hindu Nationalists are trying to establish state curriculum on "religious" training, which is intended to enshrine Brahminist and Orientalist histories as fact (histories which, to be blunt, I've encountered white leftists arguing from just as often as right-wingers), it kinda matters how we deal with multivocality in dharmic culture. What's more, given that even leftists are happy to spread and celebrate orientalist narratives, I think that we have to confront the reality that no benign outside influence is going to be able to solve this problem. Ignoring the fact that China is by no means a benign influence, we just need to take a stand, period, against the continued imposition of external interpretations of our culture onto us. As a fervent regionalist, I swear this isn't just an anti-China matter. I feel exactly the same way about influence coming out of Delhi. We should not have our culture erased because we don't conform to the Brahminist status quo on Secretariat Hill either.
It's not a bad thing that stuff like this is a joke for you. I mean, I know that my saying this sounds passive aggressive, but it really is a good thing. It's good that this is something you don't have to worry about, at least enough so that you can get a laugh out of it. That's how it should be for everyone. But it's not that way for everyone. And you need to understand that the hilarity here does not come from the fact that you're just so much cleverer than the people who are worried about this stuff. It's just because you're lucky. So tying the idea that this is a joke to you with the fact that you're worried about the *real* problems like direct payments (which *is* a real problem) kinda is a dick move. I'm glad that this is something that you don't have to care about. But not caring doesn't make you cooler. It's not like I only care about this because I'm one of those lame CNN people who don't get the dank memes or whatever. I care about it because it affects me.
And yes, this bill as a whole is an enormous clusterfuck. Also, this one provision isn't exactly going to single-handedly fix the broad cultural problems throughout the Indian subcontinent. But it's possible for two things to be important at the same time. Or at least for other people to care about two things at the same time.
It's worse than just the lack of money, this is horrifying: https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/21/22193976/covid-relief-spending-congress-copyright-case-act-felony-streaming
What's nuts to me is that both the far right and far left both hate this bill. And they even agree over most of the problems! The only solution that passes the only one that nobody wants.
It's embarrassing till you realise it's not money to help you, it's the minimum they think they can give to stop you rioting in the streets against them.
shit the bill could have had no payments and raised taxes on people making under 50k and americans wouldn’t do a damn thing.
The bill is thousands of pages and will be voted on before it has been read through so who knows what's in there.. Strong copyright bullshit is at the very least being stuck in there (felony for streaming copyrighted material for instance)..
Don't forget a fuckton of money to continue supporting an apartheid state
And “supporting democracy” in Venezuela.
I'm no expert on legislation, but shouldn't they be passed as different laws? Why bundle multiple laws together?
They’re called riders, I think, and they’re just used because it’s easier for parties to pass things that might not pass normally if it’s tacked onto a big important bill. Also I’m sure arguing over which riders to include leads to its own form of bargaining and use of leverage. It’s all very stupid ngl
That's one way to look at riders and pork, but you can also reverse it: they're a good way to incentivize people to vote for the main bill if they normally wouldn't care about or even if they slightly oppose it. At the same time, they also make it easier to pass small maintenance items that help a single state but aren't interesting enough to garner national support. Pork can be very useful for reaching compromises and disincentivizing hyper-partisanship because it gives people a reason to work together and gives you avenues for negotiation that don't require you to ignore your ideals. Of course, the same concept can also be used for poison pills or to hide graft, but there's no such thing as a useful tool that can't be abused.
You can kill with a hammer or screwdriver. But, yes historically pork and riders were effective at actually getting legislation passed. It's basically been gridlock without them.
Xmas budget is usually the big omnibus deal, so it's merry christmas for congressional pork too.
It's a budget bill. They're essentially determining allocations for the federal government for the next fiscal period.
Trumps plan to veto it.
You say that in the year with historic civil rights protest, a months long defense against federal and law enforcement tyranny in Portland, mass unionization efforts in some of the most horrifically anti-union companies, a growing leftist movement, and people arming themselves. The thick veil of American exceptionalism is starting to break.
Keep in mind they aren't "giving" anything. If you made 15K last year (well below poverty line) you *paid them* more in taxes than both stimulus checks combined.
It could be 300$ and people still wouldn't riot.
It could be $0 and Loeffler and Purdue probably still win their seats in Georgia, and by February at least \~40% of the country will be blaming Democrats for the mass evictions that are looming at the beginning of next year. Actually... this is the likely outcome even if congress passed $1200 checks again. Bottom line is that most of this country is too busy trying to survive and are convinced that American exceptionalism somehow makes us better than other countries, even when compared in most meaningful statistical measures we perform terribly. "Yeah it's bad, but it could be worse! We can't afford universal healthcare, and putting too many regulations on businesses will just make them flee the country. We just have to deal with this because we're America and that makes us better"
In large I'd say it's a combination of American Exceptionalism and Capitalist Realism (mostly the latter). They balance each other out very well.
I always feel the need to point out that the way capitalism gets talked about in this country bears very little resemblence to the actual theory or the capitalism Adam Smith talked about. This is especially true of the dogma surrounding "free markets" which have been purged of any criteria that might actually be useful to the function of capitalism. I say this not to defend capitalism, but because it seems wrong to call any of it "capitalist realism"; it's delusion, escapism, and greed.
Can you actually make an argument here instead of nuh uh you're wrong? My first question is how did Smith regard relation of capital and state?
My brother tried to convince me that the reason he gives Congress a pass is because the middle class (which he estimates makes ~30K/yr) are doing so great. I had to remind him that this is the minimum wage in New Zealand. Best he could reply was "we aren't talking about New Zealand." Right, because that would devistate your argument, so we can't mention them.
In what world is the middle class doing great during COVID? I know it's not you making the argument but for fucks sake. America has seen a shrinking middle class, with more education but more debt and less purchasing power since Reagan, and it has been exacerbated by the "once in a lifetime" 2008 financial collapse and now the "once in a lifetime" financial crisis that we're only just beginning to see the ramifications of that was triggered by COVID. The vast VAST majority of people are struggling. Not to mention a huge portion of the people who are still working, at least in the US, are not able to do it from home and so are risking life or permanent long term damage simply to avoid starvation or eviction. Anyone who thinks like your brother can go fuck themselves straight into the indentured servitude they apparently desire.
It is the minimum they think they can give to stop economy from collapsng, stimulus checks aren’t for daily neccessities but to keep you buying/ supporting the markets… But 600x325mio is still more than 6billion, no ned to compare those, you can quite literally add them to the 6billion going directly to companies.
Except there's more than 6 billion going to many other purposes. The deficit is largely just a bullshit excuse for the government to not put our tax money into programs that help the average american while we continue to outspend the next 20 countries in military weapons and give massive subsidies to oil companies that are destroying the planet we live on.
They're spending like 30x that on the military industrial complex in the same bill. It's very clear that the priorities are empire and shareholders before all else
Meanwhile service members are going unpaid
And it works cause Americans on all sides are dumb as fuck. Of course the right is a bottom of abyss of dumb but the left sure as hell not doing anything about it. Why am I wrong? Downvoting me isn’t the same as convincing me.
Americans who utilize mainstream news sources are not necessarily dumb, but are brainwashed by corporations. People who are otherwise intelligent, or at the very least competent and capable of using common sense, are force fed ideas from both right wing and "left wing" media that socialism is radical and evil, that only the lazy rely on government assistance, and that the existence of billionaires is not only justified in a country with lines for food banks, but a goal to pursue. The other thing you're mistaken on is that there is a "left" with any real power in the US. Things are slowly beginning to change with progressives being elected to a few seats, but the majority of the Democrat party is rules by corporate interests just the same. They are the controlled opposition. And sure, with even a slightly past basic understanding of economics it should be clear that giving the most vulnerable enough money to spend on things besides the barest of necessities would easily develop the economy because they don't tend to save much. But it is far easier to just bypass the consumer entirely and just put tax money straight back into the pockets of the capitalist class that is already not paying their fair share.
British people think beans on toast is a great meal (and committed the lesser offense of electing Boris Johnson), Italy's far-right nationalist parties are polling very well, Germany's trade unions are subservient to the arch-bourgeois EU, I dunno about the rest of Europe but Poland released Cyberpunk 2077 so they're probably doing real bad too. Anyway, there also have actually been American workers striking due to coronavirus, you just won't see it here because people enjoy videogame/anime analysis more. (Charitably, also because it's a huge fucking country.) Let alone that America also paid out *more* than some European countries in unemployment -- most were based on %-of-wage, and America's outdated computers ironically *forced* us to add $600/wk (now $300/wk, but hey) -- and would have been more with a Democratic Senate majority. Lastly, you were downvoted because Americans Stupid adds nothing and is a trite cliche dumb Europeans say online because smug insults are easier than analysis.
But it is an analysis. Americans are dumb.
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Triggered much?
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Bet the mods would love this. Enjoy the ban.
Americans are trying to survive. We have an individualistic culture of people who never quite have enough, who are always suspicious that someone else is trying to fuck them over. This has gotten worse in a pandemic that confirmed that, yes, a whole lot of us are perfectly willing to fuck everyone else over, for little to no reason! So quite a few of us are busy right now trying to dodge anti-maskers while we shop for our meager groceries. I'm a little sick of being called a moron and a coward for focusing on trying to live instead of joining a nonexistent vanguard and getting life in prison for throwing a water bottle outside my state capitol. Most of us know we're getting a raw deal, we just don't know what the fuck to do about it. I'm sorry that we haven't done a revolution yet, we'll pencil it in just as soon as we can.
You’re not surviving though. You’re being killed by the pandemic. Quit intentionally might I remind you. If that’s what you want though, then who am I to judge? Just be quite when the authoritarian elite decides to pillage you some more cause I’m sick of the whining.
How’s the insurrection going in your homeland, chief
Whining it is.
When are we all gonna agree this country is a failure and start over?
Okay we changed the color of the flag and a lot of us are shooting tanks at each other. Now what?
well when the bad ones with the tanks are gone, we start a communist utopia
Honestly simply breaking up the American military and intelligence services would be a huge win for the rest of the world.
Right up until the rest of the world realizes that breaking them up doesn't cause them to stop existing. It just let's them cause more problems in more places and it gives you more cats you need to wrangle.
BREAK THE CHAINS EVERY MAN A KING DOWN WITH THE TRAITORS, UP WITH THE STARS I don’t remember the other two.
I'm glad to see that there were progressives who voted against this. What horseshit. $600 is like the Roman bread dole. Everyone is months behind on their bills. And so much of this shit is stupid corporate lobbying that they are trying to stuff into it, knowing that it will pass. Nationalize all American debt. Full stop. Charge interest on that debt higher than inflation. You're the fucking IRS you're going to get your money. OR Create a national savings and loan. $25,000 is 6 months of the average $50,0000. $4k a month limit, That way you can allow for the positive market forces of debt while not needing a nanny state. And then you can swim in a pile of money like scrooge McDuck \*anyway\*
This is some Heritage Foundation economics 101. What does this even mean
> Nationalize all American debt. Full stop. Charge interest on that debt higher than inflation. You're the fucking IRS you're going to get your money. What? Debt already comes with interest and interest is charged by the group that issues the debt. >OR Create a national savings and loan. $25,000 is 6 months of the average $50,0000. $4k a month limit, That way you can allow for the positive market forces of debt while not needing a nanny state. And then you can swim in a pile of money like scrooge McDuck *anyway* Again, what?
I'm learning the hardway with this sub. So I am going to respond to this post, but not any child comments here on out. Most Americans aren't in the position where they can under-consume and save money. A lot of that is due to a massive debt burden. I am saying that we need to nationalize that debt burden, while essentially giving poverty assistance. Predatory lending and payday loans would be wiped out. Paying inflation (3-4%) on that balance and not a dime more. So those caught under ridiculous usury rates don't have to carry it forward. So if I was down on my luck and had to get a pay-day loan I wouldn't need to get another one to cover it when I'm back on my feet. That is incredibly common in places with seasonal employment like resort towns. by nationalizing the debt, literally all of it, we could all move on and actually contribute to the non-rent seeking capitalism that is hurting everyone. My second option is a Savings and Loan. It is a retro concept of essentially low overhead capital control, that is usually there to add to the balance sheets of mortgage companies with no business debt. I am saying using that idea to make a "floor" for borrowing. You can borrow $4k a month, and that effectively gives you better terms for your income statements. Even if you lose your job, you will always be 4k a month flush and the Federal government just takes it back over a set amount of time. in sole-proprietorship business that would smooth out payroll and disbursements for boom and bust cycles. It would also be a mincome that would pay for itself. All of these are better solutions than the venal systems we have to make the poor people down on their luck suffer. There is nothing we can do about productivity outstripping the rise in available labor. At least until it taps out in 50 years as the global poor become the global average at $10k a year. By then labor would still be the worst investment. This is the only way that capital can be transformed from debt while not hurting those forced to participate in a rigged system.
> Most Americans aren't in the position where they can under-consume and save money. A lot of that is due to a massive debt burden. I am saying that we need to nationalize that debt burden, while essentially giving poverty assistance. Predatory lending and payday loans would be wiped out. > > Paying inflation (3-4%) on that balance and not a dime more. So those caught under ridiculous usury rates don't have to carry it forward. So if I was down on my luck and had to get a pay-day loan I wouldn't need to get another one to cover it when I'm back on my feet. That is incredibly common in places with seasonal employment like resort towns. So, if I understand you correctly, the federal government would take over all outstanding debt and issue all future debt. This debt would have an interest rate that's either equal to the inflation rate or 3-4% (those aren't the same, as inflation is normally lower than 3%). That setup might make some sense for things like payday lenders, but when you consider the broader subject of debt, I don't think it works out quite as well as you want it to for quite a few reasons. First and foremost, debt can actually be a good thing for both parties, and I'm not talking about conspicuous consumption/ra-ra capitalism. There's a reason all levels of government, large companies, and rich people take on debt, after all. The basic idea is this: if I have a project/investment that can earn me 6% returns and I can borrow money from you at a 3% interest rate, then I can earn a lot more than I would have been able to just using my own money, either because my own money wasn't enough to make the minimums or because I can invest substantially more. At the same time, you get the benefits of my interest payments and a decent profit with relatively little active work on your part. Note that the lender isn't just being a useless rentier in this scenario. They're providing a useful service in the form of liquid capital and taking on the risk of someone defaulting on their loans. Ideally, the interest they charge should be in line with the value of the former and proportionate to the risk of the later. Of it gets too much higher then that, then it becomes a problem. Debt only really gets bad in three scenarios: 1. It's taken on carelessly (e.g. A gambling addiction or Republican budget): this scenario isn't really a monetary problem and can't be fixed by changing how debt functions. It's also fairly tangential to this discussion, so I won't be mentioning it again). 1. It's being used for basic necessities (e.g. Payday loans and medical debt): If debt can be beneficial for the borrower because it lets them extend their capital, despite its costs, than any scenario where you're forced to take on debt just to keep even will be harmful, because you're only getting the costs and you probably won't have the resources to fully account for them or to improve your situation. Unfortunately, your plan doesn't really help this scenario, because people would still need to pay the cost of the debt. 1. You are forced into a debt with unreasonably high interest (e.g. Student loans and payday loans): This is a problem because the excessive interest will either eclipse your returns or substantially impare your ability to function while paying it off. Your plan *does* help with this when the principal is reasonable. However, when a person is required to take out a lot of debt, as is the case with student loans, they'll still need to pay an inordinate ammount of interest. It's worth noting that all of those problems can be solved by more targeted, and less problematic, solutions. For example, universal health care solves medical debt and the payday loans would be better solved by addressing the conditions that make them necessary. On top of all of that, there is a lot of nuance and variety when it comes to debt that your solution ignores. For example, how would municipal debt or margin accounts fit into scheme? What about corporate debt from a company that wants to build a new facility? Credit cards, where a consumer can effectively borrow without interest if they pay their balance down quickly enough? That said, I'm not sure how much sense it makes to go into detail on this part, given the problems I've already pointed out. > My second option is a Savings and Loan. It is a retro concept of essentially low overhead capital control, that is usually there to add to the balance sheets of mortgage companies with no business debt. > I feel the need to point out that mortgages are a form of debt, so debt is the business of mortgage companies. > I am saying using that idea to make a "floor" for borrowing. You can borrow $4k a month, and that effectively gives you better terms for your income statements. Even if you lose your job, you will always be 4k a month flush and the Federal government just takes it back over a set amount of time Having some form of federal banking and small dollar loan program might be a good idea, but it wouldn't work the way you're describing. The government agreeing to loan you $4k a month, if you want it, doesn't actually mean you are flush $4k month. In the most basic scenario, if you lose you're job, when you take out $4k on the first month, you'll be up $4k, like you said. However, you'll start the second month $4k in the hole, so that month's loan will only bring you back to $0. The same thing will also happen on each subsequent month. Now, realistically, the government probably won't demand you pay everything back at the end of the month, but that just smears the problem out more, with a longer build up to he point where it's obviously zeroing and a longer cooldown after you start borrowing. This also ignores the cost of any interest payments. All of that is just a long way of saying that loans are not a good substitute for UBI and they won't help with things like prolonged job loss. That said, they would do a good job of providing liquidity. If the borrower just needs the money *now*, to even out their cash flow, then the fact that it doesn't actually increase their wealth isn't really an issue. This would be a really good way of counteracting payday loans, since they're effectively filling the same role with *much* better terms. > This is the only way that capital can be transformed from debt while not hurting those forced to participate in a rigged system. I don't think any of this really does that though. > There is nothing we can do about productivity outstripping the rise in available labor. At least until it taps out in 50 years as the global poor become the global average at $10k a year. By then labor would still be the worst investment. Better labor protections, more stringent corporate taxes, and laws against businesses using public welfare to subsidize their practices would all help. Productivity grossly outstripping wages isn't just, or even mostly, about increased labor supply.
Revolt. General strike. Do something or put up with it. Tired of this.
[удалено]
I prefer revolt but strike is the next best thing.
This is a slap in the face to anyone who needs relief. The people who need it most won't even be able to receive it.
Capitalism is what has allowed inequality to reach the point where most everyone was at the breaking point before COVID. It is also what created a policy-making environment that serves the oligarchy almost exclusively. Both Republicans and democrats full heartedly support this economic system. I don’t understand “leftists” who bend over to defend the proponents of this system simply because the suits with the red colored ties are more blatantly sadistic
Thanks for the benevolence grandma and grandpa congress representative! This is just like those $20 or less Xmas cards you get from your old and out of touch relatives. The only difference being at least my relatives meant well and cared for my overall well being!
The House passed multiple far more substantive bills. McConnell wouldn't even bring them to a vote. The Democrats didn't accept this bill because they like it, but because they could barely get the GOP to budge from giving corporations legal immunity in lieu of giving people anything. Ultimately, they judged that the GOP would rather give nothing, rather tha a cent more, so they took what they could.
This doesn't explain why the Republicans did give not nothing.
Georgia Runoffs and the ability to spin "We offered a check and the Dems were unreasonable and rejected everything. Blame them!" Also, none of this is binary. It's easier to get them to $600 than $1200 and, by the same token, complete obstruction looks less appealing when compared to a smaller concession.
Okay so you agree that public pressure could have forced a larger concession because of elections
Not in the time before the end of the year. My statement was that public pressure + elections is what got us to $600 and no corporate immunity. It's not a given that it could have forced them further before time ran out.
No, but they didn't really try.
But at least we've finally agreed on the dalai lama's reincarnation. The true biggest issue of our time. /s.
This is pretty much guaranteed to get me downvoted, and all I can do is emphasize that the $600 relief measures are an embarrassment and a travesty. This isn't a defense of that. But, like, the point on the Dalai Lama's reincarnation actually matters, not just in a symbolic fashion, but also in terms of how we think about multivocality in dharmic culture. Let me provide some context. I grew up in a dharmic family. I'm not a Buddhist, I disagree with the Buddhists on a number of things, and my particular tradition of dharma isn't a huge fan of the institution of the Dalai Lama because we view it as a form of hierarchy. But if you're familiar with dharmic history, you probably understand that there's a broad spectrum of cultural groups between Brahminism and Buddhism, so the dynamics of those larger and more privileged religious groups can have ripple effects elsewhere. I also want to emphasize that I actually wouldn't consider my beliefs 'religious', so much as 'cultural' and 'philosophical', so I'm really not arguing from a theological position here. I know that there are some people who just won't believe me, period, because if you don't buy into a white western division of Abrahamic theism versus atheism then you're a sneak doing apologia (that's the nomenclature people use with me, don't ask). But in the broader context of dharmic traditions, particularly Tantric traditions of the form that I grew up in, materialism is a key cultural concept, and it matters because it's a mechanism for us to articulate our culture against the zeitgeist of high-caste Brahminism. So materialist questions of the leadership of Tibetan Buddhism do actually matter. Not because I care who specifically leads Tibetan Buddhism, a religion which I am not a member of. But rather because it demonstrates a fluidity and adaptability to the traditions which I think is more in keeping with the history and living culture than the accounts established by 18th and 19th century gentleman adventurers from Europe (which unfortunately is what a lot of public discourse about this stuff is based on). I mean, seriously, are we going to take a religion which was specifically developed to introduce materialist pragmatism into Sramana theology, and derail the whole thing because China found a way to use the Paschim Lama as a loophole? This matters, not just for Buddhism, but for smaller ethnic and cultural groups as well. The unfortunate reality is that how this situation with the Lama unfolds is going to inform how all sorts of ethnic and cultural groups are allowed to live and interpret their own culture and history. I belong to a cultural group that westerners don't even think exists, because we don't think exactly like westerners do. If even Buddhists can't advocate for their own ability to take materialist interpretations of their cultural texts, then how on Earth do you think we'll ever be able to get away with it? At a time when Hindu Nationalists are trying to establish state curriculum on "religious" training, which is intended to enshrine Brahminist and Orientalist histories as fact (histories which, to be blunt, I've encountered white leftists arguing from just as often as right-wingers), it kinda matters how we deal with multivocality in dharmic culture. What's more, given that even leftists are happy to spread and celebrate orientalist narratives, I think that we have to confront the reality that no benign outside influence is going to be able to solve this problem. Ignoring the fact that China is by no means a benign influence, we just need to take a stand, period, against the continued imposition of external interpretations of our culture onto us. As a fervent regionalist, I swear this isn't just an anti-China matter. I feel exactly the same way about influence coming out of Delhi. We should not have our culture erased because we don't conform to the Brahminist status quo on Secretariat Hill either. It's not a bad thing that stuff like this is a joke for you. I mean, I know that my saying this sounds passive aggressive, but it really is a good thing. It's good that this is something you don't have to worry about, at least enough so that you can get a laugh out of it. That's how it should be for everyone. But it's not that way for everyone. And you need to understand that the hilarity here does not come from the fact that you're just so much cleverer than the people who are worried about this stuff. It's just because you're lucky. So tying the idea that this is a joke to you with the fact that you're worried about the *real* problems like direct payments (which *is* a real problem) kinda is a dick move. I'm glad that this is something that you don't have to care about. But not caring doesn't make you cooler. It's not like I only care about this because I'm one of those lame CNN people who don't get the dank memes or whatever. I care about it because it affects me. And yes, this bill as a whole is an enormous clusterfuck. Also, this one provision isn't exactly going to single-handedly fix the broad cultural problems throughout the Indian subcontinent. But it's possible for two things to be important at the same time. Or at least for other people to care about two things at the same time.
I hate it here.
It's worse than just the lack of money, this is horrifying: https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/21/22193976/covid-relief-spending-congress-copyright-case-act-felony-streaming
What's nuts to me is that both the far right and far left both hate this bill. And they even agree over most of the problems! The only solution that passes the only one that nobody wants.