[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2020-November-16, 20:33, said:

I'm not clear if you - or we, all of us - understand just how big of question this is. How do you unwind the results of the educational morass where the sciences are only suggestions no more valid than the book of Genesis, generational racism, voter apathy, and a concerted effort to rule as the minority regardless of what happens to the country?

The problems are so huge by now that they may well be unsolvable.

I am still not getting my main point across to you. Perhaps a story, I swear it is a true story, would help. A couple went to a marriage counselor and I later asked the husband how it went. Pretty well, he said., The counselor suggested that they each take some time to think through what they might change in their own behavior to improve the marriage. He took this advice, thought it through carefully, and concluded that there was nothing he could do, everything he was doing was already for the best, but he thought of several ways in which his wife could change for the better.

This probably helped the counselor identify part of the problem.

[Winstonm]

y66, on 2020-November-17, 08:14, said:

WaPo's version of what's happening in Georgia provides more detail than the WSJ version.

When I first read this story my immediate thought was: What the hell is a senator from South Carolina doing talking to the secretary of state of Georgia about their election?

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2020-November-17, 08:16, said:

I am still not getting my main point across to you. Perhaps a story, I swear it is a true story, would help. A couple went to a marriage counselor and I later asked the husband how it went. Pretty well, he said., The counselor suggested that they each take some time to think through what they might change in their own behavior to improve the marriage. He took this advice, thought it through carefully, and concluded that there was nothing he could do, everything he was doing was already for the best, but he thought of several ways in which his wife could change for the better.

This probably helped the counselor identify part of the problem.

Ken, I don't think your example story fits the circumstances. To make your story work, the husband and wife could still visit the marriage counselor but the problem would be that the wife has announced that she is moving to Guyana with Jim Jones because he is the true messenger of god and her husband is the enemy of Jim Jones and the only possible solution is for her husband to abandon his own views and join her.

Unless her husband is a trained deprogrammer, there is not much for him to accomplish, regardless of how much self-examination he does.

PS: I agree in principle with conversation and willingness to change - but there comes a time when that is ineffective - like when dealing with a schizophrenic in full-blown crisis.

[helene_t]

kenberg, on 2020-November-17, 08:16, said:

He took this advice, thought it through carefully, and concluded that there was nothing he could do, everything he was doing was already for the best, but he thought of several ways in which his wife could change for the better.

Were they bridge partners?

[y66]

Our Political System Is Unfair. Liberals Need to Just Deal With It. by Steven Teles

Mr. Teles is a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center.

Quote

The American voters chose to give the Democrats the White House, but denied them a mandate. Even if Democrats somehow squeak out wins in both Georgia Senate races, the Senate will then pivot on Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Not only does this take much of the liberal wish list off the table, it also makes deep structural reform of federal institutions impossible. There will be no new voting rights act in honor of the late Representative John Lewis, no statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and no Supreme Court packing. For that matter, the filibuster will not be eliminated, which would have been the essential predicate for all of those other changes as well as expansive climate or health care legislation. Anything that Democrats want to do that requires a party-line vote is forlorn.

In response to this disappointment, a number of left-of-center commentators have concluded that “democracy lost” in 2020. Our constitutional order, they argue, is rotten and an obstacle to majority rule. The Electoral College and the overrepresentation of small, mostly conservative states in the Senate is an outrage. As Ezra Klein has argued, our constitution “forces Democrats to win voters ranging from the far left to the center right, but Republicans can win with only right-of-center votes.” As a consequence, liberals can’t have nice things.

The argument is logical, but it is also a strategic dead end. The United States is and in almost any plausible scenario will continue to be a federal republic. We are constituted as a nation of states, not as a single unitary community, a fact that is hard-wired into our constitutional structure. Liberals may not like this, just as a man standing outside in a rainstorm does not like the fact he is getting soaked. But instead of cursing the rain, it makes a lot more sense for him to find an umbrella.

Liberals need to adjust their political strategy and ideological ambitions to the country and political system we actually have, and make the most of it, rather than cursing that which they cannot change.

There are certainly some profound democratic deficits built into our federal constitution. Even federal systems like Germany, Australia and Canada do not have the same degree of representative inequality that the Electoral College and Senate generate between a citizen living in California versus one living in Wyoming.

There is also next to nothing we can do about it. The same system that generates this pattern of representative inequality also means that — short of violent revolution — the beneficiaries of our federal system will not allow for it to be changed, except at the margins. If Democrats at some point get a chance to get full representation for Washington, D.C., they should take it. But beyond that, there are few if any pathways to changing either the Electoral College or the structure of the Senate. So any near-term strategy for Democrats must accept these structures as fixed.

The initial step in accepting our federal system is for Democrats to commit to organizing everywhere — even places where we are not currently competitive. Led by Stacey Abrams, Democrats have organized and hustled in Georgia over the last couple of years, and the results are hard to argue with. Joe Biden should beg Ms. Abrams (or another proven organizer like Ben Wikler, the head of the party in Wisconsin) to take over the Democratic National Committee, dust off Howard Dean’s planning memos for a “50 state strategy” from the mid-2000s and commit to building the formal apparatus of the Democratic Party everywhere.

This party-building needs to happen across the country, even where the odds seem slim, in order to help Democrats prospect for attractive issues in red states (and red places in purple states), to identify attractive candidates and groom them for higher office and to build networks of citizens who can work together to rebuild the party at the local level.

A necessary corollary of a 50 state strategy is accepting that creating a serious governing majority means putting together a policy agenda that recognizes where voters are, not where they would be if we had a fairer system of representation. That starts with an economics that addresses the radically uneven patterns of economic growth in the country, even if doing so means attending disproportionately to the interests of voters outside of the Democrats’ urban base. That is not a matter of justice, necessarily, but brute electoral arithmetic.

That does not mean being moderate, in the sense of incremental and toothless. From the financialization of our economy to our constrictive intellectual property laws to our unjust tax competition between states for firms, the economic deck really is stacked for the concentration of economic power on the coasts. Democrats in the places where the party is less competitive should be far more populist on these and other related issues, even if it puts them in tension with the party’s megadonors.

We also need to recognize that the cultural values and rituals of Democrats in cosmopolitan cities and liberal institutional bastions like universities do not seem to travel well. Slogans like “defund the police” and “abolish ICE” may be mobilizing in places where three-quarters of voters pull the lever for Democrats. But it is madness to imagine that they could be the platform of a competitive party nationwide.

That doesn’t mean that we should expect members of the Squad not to speak out for fear of freaking out the small town voters that Democrats like Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia represent. But it does mean recognizing that, unlike the more homogeneous Republicans, the Democrats have no choice but to be a confederation of subcultures. We need to develop internal norms of pluralism and coexistence appropriate to a loose band of affiliated politicians and groups, rather than those of a party that is the arm of a cohesive social movement.

The Democratic Party has a future within the constitution the country has. The question for the next decade is, will we withdraw into pointless dreams of sweeping constitutional change or make our peace with our country and its constitution, seeking allies in unlikely places and squeezing out what progress we can get by organizing everywhere, even when the odds of success seem slim.

Ground control to Dems: Can you hear what this guy is saying? Take your protein pills, put your helmets on, start organizing and may God's love be with you.

[awm]

One thing we've learned over the past nine months of Covid is the number of white collar jobs that can be effectively done remotely. Many businesses have actually found that "work from home" has increased productivity!

If we double-down on this by having the government provide tax incentives for firms to allow working remotely, we might find that a lot of city dwellers actually prefer to move out into small towns or rural areas. The same 100k/year salary that seems meager in Manhattan or San Francisco goes a long way in the mid-west!

Such movement could help improve our democracy by reducing the concentration of Democratic voters in the coastal cities, and the influx of spending from new, more affluent residents in some parts of the country could revitalize their economies as well. At the same time, this could reduce pressure on the sky-high housing prices in major cities, allowing the people who really want/need to live there a little breathing room.

[y66]

awm, on 2020-November-17, 12:15, said:

One thing we've learned over the past nine months of Covid is the number of white collar jobs that can be effectively done remotely. Many businesses have actually found that "work from home" has increased productivity!

If we double-down on this by having the government provide tax incentives for firms to allow working remotely, we might find that a lot of city dwellers actually prefer to move out into small towns or rural areas. The same 100k/year salary that seems meager in Manhattan or San Francisco goes a long way in the mid-west!

Such movement could help improve our democracy by reducing the concentration of Democratic voters in the coastal cities, and the influx of spending from new, more affluent residents in some parts of the country could revitalize their economies as well. At the same time, this could reduce pressure on the sky-high housing prices in major cities, allowing the people who really want/need to live there a little breathing room.

I think more of this type of emigration will happen for the reasons you gave. Other advantages include increased retention of investments in valuable employees and the spillover effect on schools in places where remote workers relocate. I wonder where these people are moving to.

[Winstonm]

y66, on 2020-November-17, 12:00, said:

Our Political System Is Unfair. Liberals Need to Just Deal With It. by Steven Teles

Mr. Teles is a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center.


Ground control to Dems: Can you hear what this guy is saying? Take your protein pills, put your helmets on, start organizing and may God's love be with you.

Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do.

[pilowsky]

Winstonm, on 2020-November-17, 13:26, said:

Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do.

It's not going to be blue for much longer if 1/3 can't be bothered voting and another 1/3 still vote for Trump, McConnell and Lindsay ***** Graham.

[akwoo]

y66, on 2020-November-17, 13:13, said:

I think more of this type of emigration will happen for the reasons you gave. Other advantages include increased retention of investments in valuable employees and the spillover effect on schools in places where remote workers relocate. I wonder where these people are moving to.

I live in a university town that is about 60% of an otherwise very rural county.

I can imagine remote workers moving to here. (Actually we have some who have been here for 15-20 years.)

I can't imagine a remote worker moving to any of the towns of 500 that are 40 miles from here over not very good roads. Keep in mind that the closest hospital is here, the closest large supermarket is here, the nearest registered childcare providers are here, the Internet connections out there are unreliable, and the high schools out there are small and poor.

It's the same with the Green New Deal. It can create many good jobs here. It won't create jobs in the hamlets across the county.

My state senator (whom I know from the bridge club!) got 50.5% of the vote. I looked at the precinct level data - he got 20% of the election day in-person vote outside of town. (Mail-in absentee votes are counted centrally by the county; in-person early voting is only available in town at the county courthouse.)

[johnu]

awm, on 2020-November-17, 12:15, said:

One thing we've learned over the past nine months of Covid is the number of white collar jobs that can be effectively done remotely. Many businesses have actually found that "work from home" has increased productivity!

If we double-down on this by having the government provide tax incentives for firms to allow working remotely, we might find that a lot of city dwellers actually prefer to move out into small towns or rural areas. The same 100k/year salary that seems meager in Manhattan or San Francisco goes a long way in the mid-west!

Such movement could help improve our democracy by reducing the concentration of Democratic voters in the coastal cities, and the influx of spending from new, more affluent residents in some parts of the country could revitalize their economies as well. At the same time, this could reduce pressure on the sky-high housing prices in major cities, allowing the people who really want/need to live there a little breathing room.

These Tech Companies Want Pay Cuts for Remote Workers

For companies in high cost areas with fierce competition for workers, reduced pay for those moving to, or already in, low cost areas seems like sound business sense to me.

[Zelandakh]

awm, on 2020-November-17, 12:15, said:

One thing we've learned over the past nine months of Covid is the number of white collar jobs that can be effectively done remotely. Many businesses have actually found that "work from home" has increased productivity!

If I were a CEO, it would occur to me how easy this makes outsourcing. I can employ people in Eastern Europe, SE Asia and South America and have them integrate seamlessly with a core local force with a massive reduction in costs. Those remote job are almost certainly not going to American towns and rural communities.

[pilowsky]

Zelandakh, on 2020-November-17, 16:38, said:

If I were a CEO, it would occur to me how easy this makes outsourcing. I can employ people in Eastern Europe, SE Asia and South America and have them integrate seamlessly with a core local force with a massive reduction in costs. Those remote job are almost certainly not going to American towns and rural communities.

And what would you be a CEO of? Exactly? .

[johnu]

barmar, on 2020-November-15, 18:41, said:

The problem is that he still has a base of followers that believe everything he says, and the GOP depends on their votes and activism.

Today it is the Manchurian President, before is was McConnell obstructing Obama, a few years ago it was the Tea Bag party. As Roseannadanna once said, "it just goes to show you, it's always something - if it ain't one thing, it's another."

[johnu]

Zelandakh, on 2020-November-14, 17:51, said:

The only embarrassment I see here is someone seriously equating the phrase "major world leader" with how dangerous the country is for the USA and spending 3 posts on backing that up.

Sounds like you are having a Manchurian President level tantrum because by implication, the USA is a world power. Feel free to look up where the US GDP stands in worldwide rankings, or where the US military stands worldwide. It is very convenient for you to ignore that I equated leaders of the G7 as world leaders. The G7 countries are all strong allies (or were strong allies before the Grifter in Chief) of the US. I don't consider those countries at all "dangerous" to the US.

If you want to consider Brazil, Mexico, Slovenia, and N Korea to be world powers, be my guest. Everybody is entitled to their opinion.

[pilowsky]

johnu, on 2020-November-17, 16:56, said:

If you want to consider Brazil, Mexico, Slovenia, and N Korea to be world powers, be my guest. Everybody is entitled to their opinion.

No, everyone is not 'entitled to their opinion'. That's the whole problem. Some 'opinions' are getting passed off as reality. Some 'opinions' are called facts.
Lyndon Johnson (I'm informed) famously told his advisors to say that his opponent f$$#@ks pigs. When they objected he replied that he would have to deny it. Trumpists have lifted the big lie straight from Mein Kampf and turned it into a fresh-faced art form.

That's the problem with the 'Bill of rights' some of the rights are neither self nor evident. they're just silly.

Too much self-entitlement is what has led America to where it is now.

The fact is that 30% of the population will think absolutely anything at all. Because, well 30% of the population think that the world is flat, aliens live on earth etc etc etc etc etc. These people should not have the right to bear arms or decide whether or not someone should be put to death after carefully weighing up the evidence.
That's my opinion. I'm expressing it and that's a fact.

[Winstonm]

johnu, on 2020-November-17, 16:34, said:

These Tech Companies Want Pay Cuts for Remote Workers

For companies in high cost areas with fierce competition for workers, reduced pay for those moving to, or already in, low cost areas seems like sound business sense to me.

UNION!

[Cyberyeti]

pilowsky, on 2020-November-17, 16:39, said:

And what would you be a CEO of? Exactly? .

Pilowsky - this has already been happening for years, a back office insurance company job I used to do disappeared, the department was moved to India. Some of the IT function for that insurance company is also already done in India and has been for years. Covid will merely accelerate this.

[pilowsky]

America declares independence from Britain because the British were taxing them
The South fights the war of Northern aggression because they want free labour. They lose. The North takes away their slaves.
American industry becomes very technical but they have no slaves.
What to do? Wait, we'll use cheap labour in other countries and cheap labour from other countries in America, but we won't let them become citizens so we don't have to pay them and if they complain we can say that they are taking our jobs and send them back. YAY, problem solved.

The other countries start to copy the technology...

[kenberg]

helene_t, on 2020-November-17, 11:59, said:

Were they bridge partners?

No, but it's a good point. I have a long standing opinion that when the defense fails to set a contract that should have gone down, the first person who starts yelling is the person who made the error.