That stuff gets repeated so often that you’d think it’s true. Most people have no idea that Obama dropped more bombs and in more countries than Bush. 70k bombs for Bush and 100k for Obama.
Government spending is going to increase no matter how’s president. It’s the structural deficit due to the big 3 entitlement programs which require more and more spending every year.
Just took CA as an ex. I was addressing homeless veteran problem across USA when there is high defense budget and not about CA politics. Florida, TX even though not as high as CA has significant % of veteran homeless taken per capita. There is no defund the police or free criminals then why is it prevalent?
Because the homeless veterans are not enough in numbers to sway the voting pattern. And some people are more likely to vote for a candidate who will force a baker to make a special cake. It is a matter of priority and values.
Under Trump two regulations were sunset for every new one added. That’s limiting government regardless of where spending goes. And within a month of taking office Trump restored civil liberties to 70,000 Americans stripped of them by Obama - another example. Democratic histrionics over decisions at his EPA and his withdrawal for the disastrous Paris Accord provides further evidence. Biden, by contrast, began using his executive authority to cancel contracts and throw people out of work within his first 24 hours. This is one reason I take a cautious attitude to the markets right now. The expected 6-8% growth rate is unlikely to materialize. As with the last administration that Biden was part of growth will be regulated away faster than money printing can stimulate it.
Love him or hate him, Bill Maher is on the money…and accurate.
A very sobering message, especially to our politicians (Republicans and Democrats) in Washington.
“Real Time” liberal host, Bill Maher, closed his show Friday night by sounding the alarm on China’s growing dominance over the United States.
Why are Americans sleeping?..We aren’t sleeping, we are spending our time teaching and assisting little boys how to become little girls!!! And, if we aren’t busy doing that we have the Sec of Defense, responding to an order from the ‘commander’ in chief, designing stylish new uniforms for pregnant ‘soldiers’.
“You’re not going to win the battle for the 21st century if you are such silly people. And Americans are all silly people,” Maher began the monologue, alluding to a “Lawrence of Arabia” quote.
Do you know who doesn’t care that there’s a stereotype of a Chinese man in a Dr. Seuss book? China," he said. “All 1.4 billion of them couldn’t give a crouching tiger flying f— because they’re not silly people. If anything, they are as serious as a prison fight.”
Maher acknowledged that China does “bad stuff” from the concentration camps of Uyghur Muslims to its treatment of Hong Kong. But he stressed, “There’s got to be something between an authoritarian government that tells everyone what to do and a representative government that can’t do anything at all.”
“In two generations, China has built 500 entire cities from scratch, moved the majority of their huge population from poverty to the middle class, and mostly cornered the market in 5G and pharmaceuticals. Oh, and they bought Africa,” Maher said, pointing to China’s global Silk Road infrastructure initiative.
He continued: "In China alone, they have 40,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. America has none. … We’ve been having Infrastructure Week every week since 2009 but we never do anything. Half the country is having a never-ending woke competition deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a dick and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they’re eating babies. We are such silly people.
“Nothing ever moves in this impacted colon of a country. We see a problem and we ignore it, lie about it, fight about it with each other, endlessly litigate it, sunset clause it, kick it down the road, and then write a bill where a half-assed solution doesn’t kick in for 10 years,” Maher explained. Then the half-assed bill is forgotten.
"China sees a problem and they fix it. They
Is Bill Maher selling the 3 Trillion infrastructure bill?
Building those cities and building high speed rail go together. We build most to our cities over a century ago and the joined them with freeways. Pretty hard to undo that.
We’d have to undo the suburbs as well.
In some ways, China is 100 years behind the USA. I remember back in late 1990s on NPR listening to a speaker on his reaction to Petronos Tower in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, and host of other cities that had plan to build buildings that would be taller than highest buildings in America. He said that US went through that phase ( race of the high rise buildings - in NYC and Chicago - of 1930s) long ago and was paying attention the information infrastructure. This was just before the dot com bust.
Where is America headed next - AI, big data? While in 2000, customer service was being outsourced to the customers themselves, I get an impression that machines are fast replacing customer service in most big companies. The data automation in warehousing and logistics has changed retail. Basically, the human function of analyzing the repeat data is quickly being replaced by computers. Computers have been trading stocks for a long time.
Most of America focuses their time on how to identify their self with as many labels as possible, then they look for ways to be offended by anything said about those labels.
Many years ago someone told me that perception is reality. If you don’t like how others perceive you, then you need to change what they see. We’ve flipped that 180 now, and all the burden is on the people with the perception. We can’t even mention statistics that are unfavorable without being labeled racist. That doesn’t change reality. It just hides it, so it’ll never change. I guess most people count that as progress.
There will never be meaningful progress on massive issues without honest conversations. Just look at the war on poverty. It refuses to address the fundamental fact that single parenthood is the largest driver and makes someone 4x more likely to live in poverty. All the discussion about poverty rates among different racial groups completely ignores disparities in rates of children born out-of-wedlock by race. Instead, it’s all white people’s fault why other groups have higher poverty rates.
It’s the same with healthcare where everyone argues over who should pay the bills. No one is discussing why Americans consume so much more healthcare and have far higher rates of chronic disease than other countries.
Education has the same issue. The argument is over per student spending while ignoring the role the parents play in critical development from age 0-3. EPA spends far more per student than Monta Vista.
As a society, we are 100% unwilling to tell people they are causing their own problems and need to fix them. It’s all about finding others to blame. That’ll never lead to actual solutions. It leads to an ever growing government and non-profit complex that makes all sorts of people rich as they claim to be helping though.
Basically we can’t get anything done in America because the democratic process ends in a stalemate or with unintended consequences. CA HSR is a classic example. Millions spent and all we have is a few miles of track in the middle of nowhere.
We just had classic battle over vacation home rentals in Tahoe. Huge war between locals and second homeowners over short term rentals. Aka hotels in residential neighborhoods. A civil war with hurt feelings. Measu Basically we can’t get anything done in America because the democratic process ends in a stalemate or with unintended consequences. CA HSR is a classic example. Millions spent and all we have is a few miles of track in the middle of nowhere.
We just had classic battle over vacation home rentals in Tahoe. Huge war between locals and second homeowners over short term rentals. Aka hotels in residential neighborhoods. A civil war with hurt feelings. Measure T passed . The locals won. Or do they thought. Turns out now that permits aren’t required and enforcement isn’t funded with TOT taxes there is nothing the city can do except stop Internet advertising.
People can rent their homes to anyone and just say they are long term rentals( unregulated). They can whatever they want. The police can do nothing. Can’t even enforce parking or garbage rules. All the rancor funded by the casinos and hotels for nothing. Of course the shortage of housing was the real problem… government caused of course re T passed . The locals won. Or do they TJ hu is nothing the city can do except stop Internet advertising.
People can rent their homes to anyone and just say they are long term rentals( unregulated). They can uwhatever they want. The police can do nothing. Can’t even enforce parking or garbage rules. All the rancor funded by the casinos and hotels for nothing. Of course the shortage of housing was the real problem… government caused of course
This is Federal.
Looks like nobody including Nancy or Biden wanting to touch it and want to pass the buck by blaming either Supreme court or white house or CDC, while shouting in public that they want it yesterday.
One reason California is called a blue state is due to large number of blue tents that are rising up in public lands of the California - a sign of rising poverty, and families abandoning people to live on street.
Only a generation or two ago, a person on single salary could raise two dozen kids and elders, but now families have everyone working but still not earn enough?
Another bogus article from Bloomberg. Government target rich to collect taxes (because it is easy to do - rich are fewer in number and have much to loose with adversarial government ) but everyone else in community pays it indirectly. Rich people simply pass the adverse impact of high taxation to poor. Just as consumer pays all costs, eventually, voters pay all taxes. There is no way around.
If you bought your house a long time ago and make an income considered “middle class” on a national level CA taxes are low. Trouble is you need to rich by national standards to be middle class in CA. Everything from utilities to gas to food to home repair to a haircut costs way more in CA. Any you almost have to be rich to eat out.
Very true. In many parts of the US (such as Midwest, Southwest, and South and even some coastal states), a 1500 sq ft SFH can be purchased for $400k or so. The same 1500 sq ft SFH in RBA costs $2.5M - these neighborhoods in Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mtn View etc still have a middle class look and feel, but the price tag is absurdly high by national standards.
Like my friend in Houston says - for $500k, you can buy a very nice, new house there - much better than the 60 year old rancher in RBA for which $500k is merely a 20% down payment.
Why not cheaper and safer areas in BA with same $500k SFH instead of going all the way to Houston? Desirability comparatively is lower as well taking jobs, entertainment etc into account.