designed to keep businesses afloat to pay their employees
My example was a business that did not need the PPP loan to keep the business afloat but got that money anyway. It was to juxtapose the above poster arguing why aid isn't needed for these working class people because they have been able to buy cars before, while rich people allow other rich people to benefit from government subsidies even though they have been and are currently able to finance their submarines. Even if not all of rich people directly benefit from the bailout, they support their fellow rich people, and in turn will get support in the future, unlike you and I unfortunately.
to pay their employees
I think you may have skimmed over the comment too fast so I will relink it. things like mortgage interest, rent, utilities, supplier costs and expenses for operations. They payed a privately owned company, so a guy as he owns that company, for much more than his employees.
wanderer
1yr ago
I think the non-legal reasons of this post are less reflective of some of these working peoples lives.
$10-20k is exactly the range lower middle class people should be able to pay off!
60% of Americans Now Living Paycheck to Paycheck and now have to make loan payments that will accrue in interest as they don't have the money to pay down the principle upfront. I believe it would have been significant for them.
The problem area seems to be those with high debt (which this wouldn't have made much of a dent in anyway)
20k is a significant sum of money for most working Americans but especially to young people just starting out with high debt accruing interest and a mid to low income. For every year they can't pay that 20k down at 5-8% interest, it's another 1k minimum added on top. A high debt(>60k) maximum repayment period is 30 years, so 20k early could turn into 50k-68k in total relief. The average student loan debt is currently $37,338 meaning for both the average and above average borrower, it would be significantly impactful.
They pay off cars in that range just fine, all the time
I'd say multimillionaires in the 1% are better able to pay off their doomed submarines. Didn't stop the government from granting Oceangate $447,000 in PPP Loans all forgiven by the American taxpayer, and not just for payroll but for things like mortgage interest, rent, utilities, supplier costs and expenses for operations. Bailouts for the rich, pull yourself up by your bootstraps for everyone else. Because they know how to work the system for mutual benefit.
wanderer
1yr ago
your the first person I’ve come across to say that Russians nato fear was about stopping their ability to invade other countries.
are you confusing me with someone else or are you strawmaning me aswell?
If you would like to hear different analysis after a year of hearing the apparently same, this is a quote from a British political scientist working at the Institute for International Relations Prague.
As one analyst (Galeotti 2016) wrote, “In Russia, NATO is periodically portrayed as a military threat. … Realistically, this is not a military one. … To many in and close to the Kremlin, Russia faces a real threat, not borne by tanks and missiles but cultural influences, economic pressure, and political penetration. This is, in their eyes, a civilizational threat aimed at making Russia a homogenised, neutered, subaltern state.”
As for their fear of NATO in their sphere of influence, and Russian politics, here are some choosen quotes from the same paper. It would be better to read the paper itself
In the context of the conventional insecurity perception, political changes in Georgia and Ukraine were viewed by the Kremlin as a Trojan horse for getting these countries into the Atlantic alliance and push Russia in the direction of regime change.
This securitized perception of political change was at the heart of Russia-Georgia conflict. In addition to grown instability in the region, the colored revolutions added to the perception within the Kremlin that Washington’s chief objective was in fact to change regime in Russia. Although the public support for a revolution was weak, the Kremlin’s political technologists took the threat seriously knowing that influential elites in the United States maintained contacts with some radical organizations in Russia. For instance, in April 2007 the U.S. State Department issued a report highly critical of Russia’s political system pledging various assistance to “democratic organizations” inside the country.
The NATO fear is always stated as NATO invading Russia
This is both an uncharitable and untrue strawman of the Russian position.
is always stated as
why would you include this?
wanderer
1yr ago
But if everyone were bisexual, why would it not be true?
it only holds true if you believe that male-male, female-female and male-female relationships are equivalent. Not everyone defines sex or relationships in the same way.
wanderer
1yr ago
I would emphasize that she was crazy
What does this mean?
It is very unlikely that social care will allow her to start a new family with children
You are then suggesting that she spend the rest of her life in a mental institution? That doesn't seem significantly different than prison to me. Prison with better healthcare.
Deterrence is unlikely.
immune to reason or consequences.
people committing crimes do consider the possibility of themselves being caught. For example, that is why she waited until her husband left, she was aware that if her husband caught her strangling her three children to death their would be consequences to those actions, like not being able to kill her children. If people believe they can strangle their children to death and get out of it because a doctor diagnosed them with psychosis, there will be less of a deterrence to killing their children.
she will not have a similar opportunity, so rehabilitation (even if it works, which can not be slightly assumed) does not matter.
you are assuming that because she killed only children, and only her children after her pregnancy, that she is only capable or willing to kill that specific category of people after her pregnancy. If I were to commit a complete genocide of a race/ethnicity/religion you can say the same argument for me, no point in rehabilitation as they are all dead.
wanderer
1yr ago
They are reasonable for that amount of data and the author notes that the eta squared statistic is more informative. The eta squared term is used to see how much the different identity categories explain the differing scores.
If camcorder footage
how does this explain Travon Martin 2012? How does this explain Michael Brown 2014? How does this explain Freddie gray 2015? The largest cases in this time had no footage. Treyvon martin was the start of BLM, Michael Brown is where "hands up don't shoot" came from. How can your theory of "camcorder footage" explain this?
smart phone cameras and social media
Motorola Razr sold 100 million units in the first 6 months of 2006 so video cameras existed. Twitter started 2006. Either way, as shown above, footage is not required for BLM riots.
my guess is black teenagers are much more influenced by their peers sharing viral videos of police brutality and leaving "ACAB" style comments than by NPR/MSNBC talking heads.
I don't mean this as an offence but you seem a bit new to everything going on with this topic. Perhaps hearing it from the horses mouth may change your opinion. that is if you are able to read between the lines. "a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information" ..."inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital"... This is what they are willing to publish/exposes themselves. This, however is not a new phenomena.
In case you think it was just MSM, they were in talks with social media platforms to fight "disinformation" and "protect" the election
They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.
Quinn’s research gave ammunition to advocates pushing social media platforms to take a harder line.
Mark Zuckerberg invited nine civil rights leaders to dinner at his home
who attended the dinner and also met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and others
ever wonder why BLM wasn't at the capital protests?
The conversation that followed was a difficult one, led by the activists charged with the protest strategy. “We wanted to be mindful of when was the right time to call for moving masses of people into the street,”
So the word went out: stand down. Protect the Results announced that it would “not be activating the entire national mobilization network today, but remains ready to activate if necessary.”
To preserve safety and ensure they couldn’t be blamed for any mayhem, the activist left was “strenuously discouraging counter activity,”
wanderer
1yr ago
It's not so much the media doesn't care about white victims
depends on the context. Pretty white girl goes missing or gets killed, national media attention. White man killed by the police, no big deal. Vice versa for blacks. One gets clicks, the other is for political violence on the ground.
it's that the African-American community is organized in such a way that if somebody gets shot by the police, somebody in that family knows a pastor or a community organizer who knows another pastor or a local politician who knows somebody reasonably famous or a prominent journalist to get it out there.
Be honest, do you really know this, or is this just your impression of the black community from seeing so many BLM shootings/riots. I wouldn't be surprised if their higher attendance rates for a common meeting place like church influenced the ability to pull a community together, but BLM started in ~2012. If that was the deciding factor these riots would have been much more frequent prior to the coordinated media attention and endorsements.
Is it actually productive to try and understand Russian motivations?
including many people here, come at the issue of trying to understand Russia from the perspective of trying to justify war - the Russians are inherently authoritarian/imperialistic/belligerent/orcish, and therefore must be destroyed.
Then I think it is productive for you to correct these people as they can be saved from thinking with their brainstem. The site states it's mission is to provide a "place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases". It would be rather disheartening to think that not even here could wartime propaganda lose.
Though I will admit, it does get a bit boring over and over again.
Regardless of their motivations, they're trying to use force to conquer an independent nation, one that was attempting to align itself with the West. The fact that they might see this as part of a broader conflict with the West isn't news, and it doesn't change matters on the ground.
I am not sure what you are trying to say in that first sentence but as for the broader conflict with the West, it puts them in a different perspective for me, and I bet especially for those Russians and Volunteers on the ground fighting and dying for those beliefs.
wanderer
1yr ago
how many people in US actually are jailed for a possession of a less than a gram of weed?
I don't know about a gram, but for solely marijuana possession with no prior sentences, a very small amount in state prison and now none in federal prison, Biden pardoned them 3 months ago. However to my knowledge the federal law hasn't come off the books so anyone can still be charged. Overall enforcement by police is way down though.
wanderer
1yr ago
that cancel culture does not work as well as on famous, rich targets: they get more chances
I agree but I think you could expand that to really anything. The law does not work as well on famous rich targets. Two presidents and a vice president have just been found to be illegally in possession of classified documents and nothing is likely to happen. Britney grinner was rescued from jail in Russia for a crime she committed in exchange for an arms dealer so notorious that his nicknamed the merchant of death. And this was for a drug possession crime that US citizens are locked up in US jails for right now.
While the rich and famous may have more leeway they are not invulnerable, and once they are disciplined both them, and onlookers, can experience the chilling effect for whatever it is they did.
motivated by profits in the end, more so than ideology.
These are the same thing.
Rogan ,Jordan Peterson , and Fox News views being heavily promoted
none of these people stand to be a significant change to the status quo, and all of them know their place. Rogan didn't like vaccines and and trans women in womens sports. Peterson did like being FORCED to say pronouns, but would say them if asked. I am not going to address fox news.
wanderer
1yr ago
I wonder if we could make a comparison to Kanye
At any rate, there are degrees of cancellation.
Based on the degree of the crime committed. JK Rowling is fighting at the front line border of the culture war, and has held rather orthodox progressive views aside from transgenderism. Even in the trasngenderism debate she is using a different branch of progressivism, feminism, to fight it. It would likely be different is she was fighting some already past and adopted progressive tenet. Another difference with Kanye is that he criticized the ethnic group of a large number of elites rather than a group that the elites push.
wanderer
1yr ago
What I don't understand is this extreme alarmism of progressives surrounding incels, when they say the exact opposite of Islamist terrorism.
One is in their ingroup, one is in their outgroup. The actual deaths these groups cause are a casus belli against them, not the main reason for their revilement. Do you think progressives would not revile "incels" if a few didn't kill people? Do you think an ethno-nationalist would want all the Muhammad's in his nation if they never committed a terrorist attack?
But why are the "basement dwelling gamur incels" among the most reviled subgroups in the culture war?
Because they are not "basement dwelling gamur incels" nor are most who suffer from gender conflicts transgender. You are looking at the ends of the spectrum, but what is the spectrum? Both are afflicted by poor conditions, one demands a wife/sex/family, the other demands to be both physically and metaphorically neutered. It is little wonder which one those with cultural power and little to no external enemy promote and which they demonize.
wanderer
1yr ago
Are The Global Elites Coordinating to Push LGBT Acceptance And Gender Theory?
This has not been news for over a decade. People considered to be "Global Elites", are very open in coordinating to push LGBT acceptance. In 2011, Obama withheld food aid to Africans countries that had homophobic laws.
Last week @2rafa posted her comment about WEF conspiracy theories, concluding that the WEF is a mundane organization, pushing mostly boring neoliberal status quo stuff, to the extent they push anything at all.
Which is true as it is what they are always doing. There is no alt-left. Today, "neoliberal status quo stuff" includes LGBT acceptance. And when tomorrow they move forward on their next aim it will again be said to be "neoliberal status quo stuff", that is the benefit of controlling the overton window through media/ect.
Europeans and recent cognitive evolution + references
I am unconvinced this should be a source. It seems to need more evidence for it's claims.
Until the eleventh century, mean IQ was relatively low throughout Europe, perhaps hovering in the low 90s.
this is a seemingly baseless claim without use of the Flynn effect. And if it is using the Flynn effect it is using it to undermine the authors own argument as he is saying that people in eleventh century western countries had higher IQ's than the 20th century? I would like to know how this number came to be the low 90's as I haven't yet found it in the sources for the article, nor does it seem to be directly sourced. According to the authors own first source (Oesterdiekhoff 2012) used in the authors next paragraph, "In 1900, no pre-modern or early modern population had a mean IQ above 75," (Oesterdiekhoff 2012, Section 2).
Anyway the authors main idea seems to be that the farmers that took roles as artisans, craftsmen, business men etcetera were higher IQ and would have higher fertility rates and thus their higher IQ offspring would have higher IQ's. There kids would be more numerus and thus outbreed all the poor lower IQ people, a neat and tidy theory.
If this was accurate, why would northern Europe have such high IQ's, people who had been near barbarians for several millennia while say Egyptian artisans were being selected for IQ? I would like to know why he only chooses eleventh century Europe as the starting point, as opposed to any other economy in any other region. Did these jobs not exist in the middle east?
That evolution was driven by the high fertility of those people who knew how to exploit the opportunities of an expanding market economy. Their population growth was so great that they overwhelmed the niches available to them. Many had to find niches farther down the social ladder, with the eventual result that their lineages became predominant even within the lower class (Clark 2009a).
The author begins speaking about the eleventh century but cites Clark to make his argument, who only covers between 1600 to 1850 England and makes no mention of IQ but does mention genes. I think using genes is a dubious reason to explain why in a class based society, the rich upper class were able to be better off or more numerous in future generations then the poor generations. While Clarks claim that rich surnames disappeared at a lower rate than poorer surnames, I think it is important to actually add some numbers to that. From 1600 to 1850, the Poorest had 15% of names extinct, the richest had 8% of names extinct. An interesting read, though I do not like that the author does not address other reasons for poorer people not keeping their last names at the same rich people, however I will not get into that here. Clark does make some good argument that England had more social mobility than given credit for but hurts his argument elsewhere and I don't want this to turn into a review of Clark, just the article.
the very next quote is that of (Seccombe 1992, p. 182). The quote is rather unimportant however the source is as it's review seemingly conflicts with the above Clark quote.
The complex text ranges broadly over a vast stretch of historical change from the Middle Ages to the brink of the Industrial Revolution
When speaking about the transition from feudalism to capitalism
Finally, a vital revolution in family size took place, in which the poor came to have larger families than the rich, and in which patterns of intergenerational mobility reversed
so since the industrial revolution ~1750-1840 IQs have been going down? 1600 to 1750 they go up, 1750 to 2000 they go down? So is the message of the article that we are equivalent to our 1600's selves? I get this is a book synopsis so I don't want to be too harsh as perhaps something is missing, but this seems like picking and choosing when to believe an authors claims and forgetting when they would contradict one another.
wanderer
1yr ago
Calling Russia an existential threat to the US is ridiculous.
made it important to them for some (ideological) reason.
I will expand, Russia’s very existence as a hostile nuclear power is an existential threat to the United States as it currently conceives itself, the uni-polar world leader of capitalist liberal democracy and the largest influence in European culture. When they remove their nuclear arsenal, capable of causing human extinction, they will go back to just being a regular enemy. To be clear I am not acting as an advocate for all ideological reasons, but rather stating they are operating under the logic a great power operates under.
Ukraine isn't of real important to US interests,
It also basically concedes the point that Russia is an enemy of the US's own making. Although, I'm not really sure how important keeping the Europeans on tight American leash is given that the future geopolitical battle ground is primarily East and South-East Asia.
Russia being usefully used as an enemy does not mean they are secretly a friend. Europe makes up ~25% of the worlds nominal GDP. Even excluding cultural, racial and intellectual ties, that figure alone should justify the US’s interest in it. Especially given that Europe united, would have more wealth/population than the US and could ideologically drift from it. The reason that the East and Southeast of Asia are the coming battle grounds is that the USA and liberal capitalist democracy has already nearly won in Europe, these last 25 years have been a clean up operation.
but began occuring as a result of the deliberate antagonism towards Russia from the US over this period.
Even during the Sino-soviet split they were funding the same proxy-wars together. Refusing to sanction the Soviets for wars like in Afghanistan. I am sure you know most of this, the USA did not expand NATO passed Germany till 1999. Yet in 1992, a mere year after the dissolution, Yeltsin was already in China signing a "Joint Statement on the Foundation of Mutual Relations , in which the two countries pledge to establish good-neighbourly, friendly and mutually beneficial relations" among 24 other agreements. By 1996 they were shipping advanced weapons production capabilities to China, though at this point ascribed to a response to possible NATO enlargement, as some Eastern European states declined joining Russia's Commonwealth of Independent States. If the Russian’s would like to play a junior partner role to the Chinese instead the Americans/EU then that is their choice, however I doubt they will bend the knee to either unless forced. They could have formed another powerful regional block, that is aligned with NATO sometimes, but not worth the USA giving up half of Europe for, as was Russia’s desire at the end of the Cold War. Please do not link Stalin's 1954 proposal to join NATO.
What exactly are you envisioning here between the USA and Russia? The United States does not view Russia as a current or future world superpower. They are viewed as a falling regional power with an oversized military and nuclear arsenal, temporary products of a bygone era. There is not going to be an even split of what the USA considers it’s sphere of influence with a country that has a smaller GDP than Canada. Ukraine and Belarus will likely join the EU and NATO. Probably also Russia at some point, but as just an ordinary member. And we will likely see Ukrainian soldiers in Americas next foreign war akin to the Poles in Iraq.
Personally, I would have preferred any integration travel more slowly to not spill any European blood, but I don't believe the parties involved are as sentimental.
wanderer
1yr ago
Russia is the USA's second greatest geopolitical threat behind China, and are currently waging a hot war against the expanding US sphere of influence in Ukraine, and if successful will continue to chip away at said sphere. They consistently fund and supply advanced weapons to the the enemies of the United States. They have been sending troop to kill and bomb US allies even before the Ukraine war. They are an existential threat, being the only other country in the world to rival the US nuclear arsenal/capabilities.
Even if their actual economic, demographic or military value did not threaten the USA, they are invaluable as a source of fear for European countries to be integrated into the US lead military coalition NATO, and dependent on US resources. If Russia did not exist, the USA would try to create a Russia. A friendly version of Russia to the EU would see a marked decrease in American influence in Europe, hence why the French are so keen to play good cop.
As for their cooperation with China, that is already occurring, China did not participate in the US sanctions. They only way for that cooperation not to occur is for as you point out, Russia to be strong, meaning the USA will have two strong enemies that collude together with friction vs one strong and one weak that collude with less friction.
These claims are very odd. To point out a couple
This dichotomy lost its importance by 2016.
do you have some sort of empirical evidence of this other than your anecdote. I have seen many videos that would show contrary. For an empirical example this poll by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in (sep2022) states that "The poll showed that 57% of Ukraine's ethnic Russians" do not support making territorial concessions to Russia while almost 90% of Ukrainians do not as a whole. That is as significant difference in opinion to me. This poll did not include all of Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimea oblasts either.
I haven't been able to determine why he switched then - but it does echo popular opinion in the East too.
Again the poll by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology "At the same time, it is mostly supported by residents of the West and the Center (respectively, 79.4% and 66.2%), the least - residents of the East (38.8%, while 55.8% do not support)."
In spite of this, he surprising ended up not vetoing (middling) anti-Russian language laws.
I don't find this surprising in the least bit
wanderer
1yr ago
in my opinion that is not good analysis at all.
Losing hundreds of tanks - the number that Ukraine is asking for - isn't something you replenish within a year.
yes, it is. Ukraine is asking for 300 tanks. The US alone has over 6,000. The trickle of weapons extends the war.
If we assume that Russia will win this war,
you need to define what winning this war means when discussing outcomes. Rarely do I see people other very pro-UA or pro-UA thinking either side will reach all their objectives. As for the importance of this war, it is the largest European war since WW2. That is significant in and of itself.
wanderer
2yr ago
I liked this post but I think this part needs little bit of expanding.
the news propagates for viewership
I think it is a mistake to imply that it is the average viewers interests are controlling what the news is creating propaganda to appease as opposed to the media companies, and their institutional owners, imposing their views on the populace with propaganda.
wanderer
2yr ago
Perhaps, but I think this is a bit too much speculation of hypothetical events, hypothetical responses of Motte-posters and unreasonable required predictions that really don't match what I have seen here. Most of the posts I have read here have been firmly against Russia in it's current invasion. I even read a highly voted post calling what is a complex geopolitical game, morally "black and white" in terms of there siding against Russia.
People are suspicious of the US because it tried for years to influence Germany to not go through with the pipeline. The sitting US President announced in February if Russia invaded Ukraine the US would shut down the pipeline and refused to give a means of how they planned to do so. Now Russia has invaded Ukraine, the pipeline has been sabotaged with explosives and Germany has just been excluded from the investigation into who caused it. It's not unreasonable to suspect the two largest losers from the pipeline sabotage, Russia and Germany, have been denied access to the investigation for some ulterior motives. Particularly when the impact of the investigation will affect the Russian's war in Europe that the Swedes have taken a firm opposition to alongside NATO.
That said, I have doubts that the Swedes have damning evidence in their report that they are hiding as to who sabotaged the Pipeline. It was a clandestine operation and I imagine that they only thing left would be telling what type of explosives were used that is unlikely to tie it back to a country. Nor do I believe Sweden needs a ransom to join NATO or not want to aid Russia at this time.
That could be true, but that is also the least charitable interpretation of these people/families plight. As is the opinion that it is survey data thus unreliable.
More than half of Americans (58%) describe themselves as living paycheck to paycheck
Americans Rely on Credit Cards to Make Ends Meet As 64% Admit to Living Paycheck to Paycheck
two different surveys from 2023 for reproducibility, as all I see are surveys for paycheck to paycheck data. Full disclosure, on one of the surveys only about a 1/4 believe they would benefit from student debt forgiveness, 14% don't know. I actually don't doubt that they are living pay check to paycheck but perhaps the disagreement is that the phrase implies they aren't able to afford to put money away after rent,food,childcare,ect. at the most minimal level possible as opposed to where they live or currently spend? Zip codes would have been valuable to collect, as it is possible someone making 100k as a single person living in a rural area is misrepresenting themselves vs. a couple each making a 50k in a San Francisco type city where they work, struggling with rent and child care costs.
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