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What stupid shit has Trump done today?

Musk is cool in my book, he is the ultimate on snake oil salesmanship transferred to technology, he is forcing everyone else to invest into the future, Technology is there with Au/C battery technology but that is next generation, too much money invested in the lightweight lithium s( rare metal) soon to become cost prohibited.
 
CrabbedOne said:
On Bloomberg These U.S. States Still Haven’t Fully Recovered From Recession
Note the mining and other "commodity-based activities" a big thing for Trump.

Of course cities thriving off a knowledge economy isn't going to make left behind rural areas feel any better. Rather the reverse as a lot of the young folk are going to flit to where there are better prospects as highly mobile Americans always have across their open state borders.
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Maybe blame old Hollywood films, or that song by Journey, but I think it's a bit of a myth that young people from rural areas head for the bright lights of the big cities to chase their dreams. Although the population of the county I come from has declined fairly steadily over the past 40 odd years, you still have a pretty even spread across the age spectrum. The proportion of young people going to university (possible route out of rural poverty) has remained quite low. Just because people can move doesn't mean they will move. Rural American roots go quite deep, as does fear and suspicion of big cities and all that goes with them.

The thing about the knowledge economy though is that it need not be restricted to cities. There's nothing to stop fast broadband being rolled out to rural areas and "knowledge" companies setting up in small towns like the car components factories and printing presses did in the 50's and 60's. Weird thing is, local councillors and state legislators seem to have an appetite for tax breaks for firms wanting to dig landfills or frack, but not for digital industries, which potentially would employ loads more people without fucking up the environment.
 
CRI said:
Maybe blame old Hollywood films, or that song by Journey, but I think it's a bit of a myth that young people from rural areas head for the bright lights of the big cities to chase their dreams. Although the population of the county I come from has declined fairly steadily over the past 40 odd years, you still have a pretty even spread across the age spectrum. The proportion of young people going to university (possible route out of rural poverty) has remained quite low. Just because people can move doesn't mean they will move. Rural American roots go quite deep, as does fear and suspicion of big cities and all that goes with them.

The thing about the knowledge economy though is that it need not be restricted to cities. There's nothing to stop fast broadband being rolled out to rural areas and "knowledge" companies setting up in small towns like the car components factories and printing presses did in the 50's and 60's. Weird thing is, local councillors and state legislators seem to have an appetite for tax breaks for firms wanting to dig landfills or frack, but not for digital industries, which potentially would employ loads more people without fucking up the environment.
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LOL...

Digtal industries are designed to reduce meat puppet reliance, when they do need human involvement, it is on the basest level, cue amazon warehouses etc, extremely low skilled, soon to be replaced by digital automatons.
 
snadge said:
LOL...

Digtal industries are designed to reduce meat puppet reliance, when they do need human involvement, it is on the basest level, cue amazon warehouses etc, extremely low skilled, soon to be replaced by digital automatons.
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Well yes, and call centres and the like. The factories that made car parts and the printing presses closed in part because technology reduced the need for so many "meat puppets," and they could buy better and often cheaper ones in other countries. The two factories that were part of the same firm that made car air filters in my home town moved abroad . . . to New Zealand.

So, do you think fracking and burying toxic waste (neither of which require much in the way of labour) are the best options for "regenerating" rural communities and economies?
 
CRI said:
Well yes, and call centres and the like. The factories that made car parts and the printing presses closed in part because technology reduced the need for so many "meat puppets," and they could buy better and often cheaper ones in other countries. The two factories that were part of the same firm that made car air filters in my home town moved abroad . . . to New Zealand.

So, do you think fracking and burying toxic waste (neither of which require much in the way of labour) are the best options for "regenerating" rural communities and economies?
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No but then again, how would you do that digitally?
 
CRI said:
Maybe blame old Hollywood films, or that song by Journey, but I think it's a bit of a myth that young people from rural areas head for the bright lights of the big cities to chase their dreams. Although the population of the county I come from has declined fairly steadily over the past 40 odd years, you still have a pretty even spread across the age spectrum. The proportion of young people going to university (possible route out of rural poverty) has remained quite low. Just because people can move doesn't mean they will move. Rural American roots go quite deep, as does fear and suspicion of big cities and all that goes with them.

The thing about the knowledge economy though is that it need not be restricted to cities. There's nothing to stop fast broadband being rolled out to rural areas and "knowledge" companies setting up in small towns like the car components factories and printing presses did in the 50's and 60's. Weird thing is, local councillors and state legislators seem to have an appetite for tax breaks for firms wanting to dig landfills or frack, but not for digital industries, which potentially would employ loads more people without fucking up the environment.
Click to expand...
These things are relative.

From The World Bank Internal mobility: The United States
Abstract

Labor mobility is much higher in the United States than in other developed countries. Over the past decade, three times as many Americans moved to find jobs and better lives than Europeans. On average, an American moves 11 times during his or her life. The reasons span culture and policy. This higher level of labor mobility partly reflects the culture of a country built through immigration. Americans consider mobility an essential ingredient to the pursuit of a better life. It also reflects policy, as housing and labor market regulations make housing turnover easier than other countries, allowing workers and employers flexibility. This mobility has direct and indirect costs: young Americans often live far from their families, and workers enjoy fewer protections than those in other developed countries. But they also benefit from the ability to negotiate wages, change employers quickly, and start businesses. Countries seeking to create jobs, nudge people back to work, increase earnings and economic growth, and make their economic structures more flexible should look how the U. S. policy environment has supported labor mobility
...
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Adventurous Americans do flit a lot however:

On WCEG Declining U.S. labor mobility is about more than geography
...
A new piece in Democracy by Yale Law School professor David Schleicher looks at how labor mobility, or more specifically geographic labor mobility, is on the decline in the United States as well as at policies that might be able to help workers move more often. Schleicher’s diagnosis of the labor mobility problem is that it is fundamentally a matter of workers being hindered from moving to or leaving certain regions of the United States. In Schleicher’s telling, policies that reduce the “entry limits,” such as reducing the supply of housing in dynamic regions, or that increase “exit limits,” such as public benefits that aren’t portable across state lines, prevent some less economically dynamic regions from “shrinking.” Policies such as these are the culprits behind the decline in geographic mobility, according to Schleicher.

But some research on the topic of labor mobility is skeptical of this diagnosis of increased moving costs. Why? Because geographic mobility on the decline alongside all other kinds of labor market mobility. Research by economists Raven Molloy and Christopher Smith—both of the Federal Reserve Board—and Abigail Wozniak of the University of Notre Dame points to the importance of the labor market in driving geographic mobility down. Their research shows that the gains from making a job switch, regardless of a geographic move, has been declining since the 1980s. In other words, the costs of moving aren’t the main factor. Rather, it’s the decline in the gain. Further research by these three economists and Riccardo Trezzi of the Federal Reserve Board rules finds very little evidence that increased regulation or restriction of housing has played a role in declining labor market fluidity.
...
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But when you face a situation like I did as a kid, 30%+ youth unemployment, if you've got any sense you try to flit. The other reality in the US is Americans being frantic consumers are frequently heavily indebted: I owe, I owe, so out to work I go. I've met more than one bloke who was working on the other side of the country to keep the family home from being repossessed.

From what I've seen the Bay Area attracts rather a lot of flyover state hicks. Though a lot of them aren't working on tech (rather dominated by Asians) but as lawyers, accountants, security, cabbies, baristas etc. It's all the spin off work that generates the employment. That's why the place is such a hotbed. As for the start up people there's still no substitute for physical proximity. This is especially true in the multi-cultural teams I worked in. I'd always try to get a project team colocated so they could smell each other sweating. If CA accommodation costs weren't so high there'd be even more folk attracted. I read an awful lot of people went to Texas during the last recession and Sacremento was really worried about losing out.

Making it easier for people to escape from economic disasters has a lot going for it as a policy choice. Whole industries will fail. There are always going to be periodically messed up counties/states. Some will recover in time some won't. A town that existed for coal mining is probably going to go the way of one that mainly thrived on whaling.
 
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snadge said:
No but then again, how would you do that digitally?
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Neither fracking (as far as I understand) nor filling landfills requires many human beings to do it, as much of the process is automated. In that respect, yes, quite a bit of it is "done digitally."
 
CrabbedOne said:
These things are relative.

From The World Bank Internal mobility: The United States
Adventurous Americans do flit a lot however:

On WCEG Declining U.S. labor mobility is about more than geography
But when you face a situation like I did as a kid, 30%+ youth unemployment, if you've got any sense you try to flit. The other reality in the US is Americans being frantic consumers are frequently heavily indebted: I owe, I owe, so out to work I go. I've met more than one bloke who was working on the other side of the country to keep the family home from being repossessed.

From what I've seen the Bay Area attracts rather a lot of flyover state hicks. Though a lot of them aren't working on tech (rather dominated by Asians) but as lawyers, accountants, security, cabbies, baristas etc. It's all the spin off work that generates the employment. That's why the place is such a hotbed. As for the start up people there's still no substitute for physical proximity. This is especially true in the multi-cultural teams I worked in. I'd always try to get a project team colocated so they could smell each other sweating. If CA accommodation costs weren't so high there'd be even more folk attracted. I read an awful lot of people went to Texas during the last recession and Sacremento was really worried about losing out.

Making it easier for people to escape from economic disasters has a lot going for it as a policy choice. Whole industries will fail. There are always going to be periodically messed up counties/states. Some will recover in time some won't. A town that existed for coal mining is probably going to go the way of one that mainly thrived on whaling.
Click to expand...
I take your point - the more ambitious young people will take the opportunity to move where the jobs and opportunities are. I suspect though they will come from less deeply rural and slightly better off families - or at least families that encourage education and ambition in their children, even if they are in difficult financial straits. I think those from more modest backgrounds and/or where families didn't encourage them, often decide to go into the military, as 4 of my 9 nieces and nephews did. All of the 9 bar one returned after being demobbed or never left the area they grew up in. The odd one out probably fits the "Adventurous American" description now, living on the West Coast, but started out with an early, bad marriage to a very messed up young Marine, but thankfully getting out after a couple years.

I don't know if the time will come that people in the mining towns, or the small rural villages previously dependent on "the factory" that employed most of the population, will give up and venture out of their comfort zones. I'm sure some are already doing that, but I think there are still plenty who have faith in what Trump says about "good jobs" coming back. Religious faith is a massive influence on their lives, so having faith in other unbelievable things isn't that much of a stretch.
 
CRI said:
I take your point - the more ambitious young people will take the opportunity to move where the jobs and opportunities are. I suspect though they will come from less deeply rural and slightly better off families - or at least families that encourage education and ambition in their children, even if they are in difficult financial straits. I think those from more modest backgrounds and/or where families didn't encourage them, often decide to go into the military, as 4 of my 9 nieces and nephews did. All of the 9 bar one returned after being demobbed or never left the area they grew up in. The odd one out probably fits the "Adventurous American" description now, living on the West Coast, but started out with an early, bad marriage to a very messed up young Marine, but thankfully getting out after a couple years.

I don't know if the time will come that people in the mining towns, or the small rural villages previously dependent on "the factory" that employed most of the population, will give up and venture out of their comfort zones. I'm sure some are already doing that, but I think there are still plenty who have faith in what Trump says about "good jobs" coming back. Religious faith is a massive influence on their lives, so having faith in other unbelievable things isn't that much of a stretch.
Click to expand...
I recall from Fukuyama's Trust a proliferation of religious institutions played a part in Americans embracing strangers from distant communities and so to mobility both social and geographic. One of things I noticed about Trump's rise was even Evangelicals were increasingly alienated from their Churches and getting God off the TV from chaps who have a schtick rather like Trump's. Reading around Americans are still much more mobile than Europeans but poorer communities do seem to be becoming stuck in the mud for a variety of reasons. If you are not benefiting from moving about yourself you are much less likely to feel some sympathy with hard scrabble migrants as Americans for all their flaws traditionally have had. I think what you're reporting is a collapse in credulous American optimism a lot of which was faith based in a broad sense even in far harder times. Still going strong in California from what I've seen. Has been since your man Sutter started the Gold Rush despite continuous disappointments in the pursuit of happiness.
 
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CrabbedOne said:
I recall from Fukuyama's Trust a proliferation of religious institutions played a part in Americans embracing strangers from distant communities and so to mobility both social and geographic. One of things I noticed about Trump's rise was even Evangelicals were increasingly alienated from their Churches and getting God off the TV from chaps who have a schtick rather like Trump's. Reading around Americans are still much more mobile than Europeans but poorer communities do seem to be becoming stuck in the mud for a variety of reasons. If you are not benefiting from moving about yourself you are much less likely to feel some sympathy with hard scrabble migrants as Americans for all their flaws traditionally have had. I think what you're reporting is a collapse in credulous American optimism a lot of which was faith based in a broad sense even in far harder times. Still going strong in California from what I've seen. Has been since your man Sutter started the Gold Rush despite continuous disappointments in the pursuit of happiness.
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Good point. Perhaps the lack of optimism, and compassion for fellow human beings is linked to the influence of the prosperity gospel movement.
 
J Ed said:
What, I wonder, explains the lack of optimism and compassion for fellow human beings amongst Clinton voters?
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The ex-Marxist Christopher Lasch went some way to explaining it in his books from The Culture of Narcissism onwards. The alternative politics he suggests are pretty much a non-starter, but he definitely nailed the elitism and snobbery of US 'progressives.'
 
Notice how it's all individual choices, individual morality and individual blame but nothing about wider economic trends or structural issues.
 
J Ed said:
Notice how it's all individual choices, individual morality and individual blame but nothing about wider economic trends or structural issues.
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That is liberalism for you, the very essence of it. Regardless of what some fools say, socialism has nothing to do with liberalism, in fact it is the very antithesis of it. I may sound like broken record player as I keep pressing this point but until sections of the left detach themselves from liberalism (politically and ideologically) and begin to oppose them with the same degree of passion as they do the conservatives and far-right, then it is a point we must keep on pressing.
 
CRI said:
I take your point - the more ambitious young people will take the opportunity to move where the jobs and opportunities are. I suspect though they will come from less deeply rural and slightly better off families - or at least families that encourage education and ambition in their children, even if they are in difficult financial straits. I think those from more modest backgrounds and/or where families didn't encourage them, often decide to go into the military, as 4 of my 9 nieces and nephews did. All of the 9 bar one returned after being demobbed or never left the area they grew up in. The odd one out probably fits the "Adventurous American" description now, living on the West Coast, but started out with an early, bad marriage to a very messed up young Marine, but thankfully getting out after a couple years.

I don't know if the time will come that people in the mining towns, or the small rural villages previously dependent on "the factory" that employed most of the population, will give up and venture out of their comfort zones. I'm sure some are already doing that, but I think there are still plenty who have faith in what Trump says about "good jobs" coming back. Religious faith is a massive influence on their lives, so having faith in other unbelievable things isn't that much of a stretch.
Click to expand...

The American version of "Get on your bike". Is your first name Norman perchance?
 
I mentioned this documentary about mining in West Virginia previously and saw it tonight. Highly recommended. Amongst the genuine dontgiveafuck bosses, crooked politicians and disasters, the bit about UMWA leader Boyle stuck out as being decidedly mad.

Blood on the Mountain (2016) - IMDb

Review on rogerebert.com

The plot of "Blood on the Mountain" is that it's a heartbreaking history lesson about a land of opportunity where Americans take up livelihoods that kill them. The main character is West Virginia's coal mining community, as they are in a state of constant struggle, whether at the beginning of the industry when towns were built to service the newfound natural resource, or later when they formed unions, or battling non-union workers who wanted to take their jobs in the middle of protests. Throughout these chapters, of course, is coal's toxic nature, destroying the lungs of workers, or creating mountains of waste controlled by dams that have been known to break (as with the Buffalo Creek flood in 1972, which killed 125 people).
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Wasting my time posting this I know.
 
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Cloo said:
Pretty blistering critique of Trump from ABC ‘Uneasy, lonely, awkward figure’: Brutal Trump take-down

Makes a good point that he goes on about defending Western values/institutions but spends his time fighting the US judiciary, free press, government bodies etc.
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Seems the Australian journo in that piece is quite right wing, so he'll be coming at the situ from that perspective, but at least his observations of Trump are pretty accurate. Maybe he's blunt, but not brutal unless you are used to the media reserving the softest and supplest of kid gloves for handing anything even vaguely critical of the Trump administration and GOP congress, which of course has been the case in the US. :(
 
donkyboy said:
Trump wants to establish with Vlad



:cool:

One senator said:

:D

Trump suggested a cybersecurity pact with Russia. Lawmakers say they were ‘dumbfounded.’
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Well, it's pretty clear that the Trump team have been more than happy for the Putin government to get their fingers into the techy pies of the US.

The "cybersecurity pact," would just formalise the arrangement and give it official Presidential approval.

Just another example of the, "We know this isn't in the interests of the American people, but it's good for me and mine, so we don't care and you can't do anything about it, chumps."
 
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