Political Roundtable Part XXXI

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Well thanks for the opportunity for one last post Monte. I engaged in this border security/immigration conversation without ever once bringing up politics or party affiliation. It's not relevant yet almost everyone else did. Wise public policy is not a monopoly of R or D. It should be argued on merit alone. I don't live and breath politics. I've never been a Trump supporter (although I did vote for him having been forced into a choice between bad or worse). I've mentioned here before that I would have voted for Democrat Jim Webb over Trump.

Having reached the ripe old age of 66 I have learned that so much of our world is filled with nuance and context. A poster here can jot down a few paragraphs of opinion and then others mistakenly believe that they can discern the essence of the argument. It's simply not possible. We would better understand one another over a long dinner that stretches late into the evening. Then much of the nuance and context would be better understood.

I understand that I may be an outlier here in my religious beliefs but one biblical quote has always checked my perceptions and judgements of other peoples' motivations and the world in which we live and struggle.

God said,

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isaiah 55 v 8 & 9).

This quote humbles any certainty I may reach for with my own personal beliefs, opinions and judgements (on my best days at least).

Dinner.

Pick a date in 2023, before the Wizards season ends...maybe around when they get the 9th or 10th seed.

Make it a virtual IN THE LIKELIHOOD some of us will be in absence....

Isaiah 55...

Nice, popper!

At least 4 posters are my ELDERS ...



Sent from my SM-A536U using RealGM mobile app

[montestewart]

Well thanks for the opportunity for one last post Monte. I engaged in this border security/immigration conversation without ever once bringing up politics or party affiliation. It's not relevant yet almost everyone else did. Wise public policy is not a monopoly of R or D. It should be argued on merit alone. I don't live and breath politics. I've never been a Trump supporter (although I did vote for him having been forced into a choice between bad or worse). I've mentioned here before that I would have voted for Democrat Jim Webb over Trump.

Having reached the ripe old age of 66 I have learned that so much of our world is filled with nuance and context. A poster here can jot down a few paragraphs of opinion and then others mistakenly believe that they can discern the essence of the argument. It's simply not possible. We would better understand one another over a long dinner that stretches late into the evening. Then much of the nuance and context would be better understood.

I understand that I may be an outlier here in my religious beliefs but one biblical quote has always checked my perceptions and judgements of other peoples' motivations and the world in which we live and struggle.

God said,

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isaiah 55 v 8 & 9).

This quote humbles any certainty I may reach for with my own personal beliefs, opinions and judgements (on my best days at least).

Dinner.

Pick a date in 2023, before the Wizards season ends...maybe around when they get the 9th or 10th seed.

Make it a virtual IN THE LIKELIHOOD some of us will be in absence....

Isaiah 55...

Nice, popper!

At least 4 posters are my ELDERS ...



Sent from my SM-A536U using RealGM mobile app

Mind your elders.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

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[Zonkerbl]

GODDAMMIT

so embarrassing

Read on Twitter

So dumb. We do this all the time, we reallocate budget from one budget line to the other to better reflect our priorities. So if I reallocate budget from line A to line B, what is the verb that describes what has happened to line A? Not "defund," because apparently that only means to zero out the budget entirely.

#deprioritizethepolice? "Deprioritize" at least means "reduce the level of priority" which is close enough I guess. Too many syllables though.

[Zonkerbl]

Well thanks for the opportunity for one last post Monte. I engaged in this border security/immigration conversation without ever once bringing up politics or party affiliation. It's not relevant yet almost everyone else did. Wise public policy is not a monopoly of R or D. It should be argued on merit alone. I don't live and breath politics. I've never been a Trump supporter (although I did vote for him having been forced into a choice between bad or worse). I've mentioned here before that I would have voted for Democrat Jim Webb over Trump.

Having reached the ripe old age of 66 I have learned that so much of our world is filled with nuance and context. A poster here can jot down a few paragraphs of opinion and then others mistakenly believe that they can discern the essence of the argument. It's simply not possible. We would better understand one another over a long dinner that stretches late into the evening. Then much of the nuance and context would be better understood.

I understand that I may be an outlier here in my religious beliefs but one biblical quote has always checked my perceptions and judgements of other peoples' motivations and the world in which we live and struggle.

God said,

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isaiah 55 v 8 & 9).

This quote humbles any certainty I may reach for with my own personal beliefs, opinions and judgements (on my best days at least).

Dinner.

Pick a date in 2023, before the Wizards season ends...maybe around when they get the 9th or 10th seed.

Make it a virtual IN THE LIKELIHOOD some of us will be in absence....

Isaiah 55...

Nice, popper!

At least 4 posters are my ELDERS ...



Sent from my SM-A536U using RealGM mobile app

Mind your elders.

Count me in! pick a date!

[Zonkerbl]

Sorry for setting Popper off by saying "make it as difficult as possible to get here, and then integrate those who make it as seamlessly as possible," I think that ends up allowing you to focus on border security more than is really necessary. I think Republicans start with the axiom that there is already far more immigration than is optimal, so no matter how well meaning they are, they are always going to be focused on "making it difficult to get in." Well, we've already made at as difficult as possible without literally torturing people, is the point that I think people on the left are trying to say. Obama literally tortured people with ICE and Biden is doing the same, just not drawing as much attention to it as Trump did, and Trump also deliberately turned the torture know up to 11.

So the question is, do we want to reduce immigration more than we already have, or do we want to torture women and children? Or why don't we consider just legalize the production and sale of heroin and cocaine and pot and eliminate altogether the conditions that create refugees on the southern border?

[Wizardspride]

GODDAMMIT

so embarrassing

Read on Twitter

So dumb. We do this all the time, we reallocate budget from one budget line to the other to better reflect our priorities. So if I reallocate budget from line A to line B, what is the verb that describes what has happened to line A? Not "defund," because apparently that only means to zero out the budget entirely.

#deprioritizethepolice? "Deprioritize" at least means "reduce the level of priority" which is close enough I guess. Too many syllables though.

And that's why I've asked you repeatedly what you meant by "defund the police".

I've heard/seen many interpretations of that slogan.

[Wizardspride]

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[Zonkerbl]

GODDAMMIT

so embarrassing

Read on Twitter

So dumb. We do this all the time, we reallocate budget from one budget line to the other to better reflect our priorities. So if I reallocate budget from line A to line B, what is the verb that describes what has happened to line A? Not "defund," because apparently that only means to zero out the budget entirely.

#deprioritizethepolice? "Deprioritize" at least means "reduce the level of priority" which is close enough I guess. Too many syllables though.

And that's why I've asked you repeatedly what you meant by "defund the police".

I've heard/seen many interpretations of that slogan.

Well. I didn't understand what you were asking, I'm an idiot.

[Zonkerbl]

I suppose we could just decide "defund" means what we want it to mean, like the Republicans did with CRT.

[payitforward]

For the life of me, I cannot understand why people want to restrict immigration.

A disproportionate amount of economic innovation & growth comes from immigrant populations.

I suppose the idea must (somehow) be that people will leave their current lives to come here & collect... what? Food stamps? Unemployment benefits...?

This makes no sense at all. In fact, immigration selects for people who believe in themselves, people who are willing to take a chance, people who can handle change & risk... In fact immigration selects for all the qualities you most want! For godssakes why do you think America was such a huge economic & social success!

Meanwhile, judging from the usual methods used to restrict it, opposing immigration involves the idea that our current mix of national origins somehow (how?) represents a "good." That having more people of different national origins will somehow (how?) "degrade" our national character.

Please understand that this fairly ridiculous set of ideas has manifested itself repeatedly in our history. The Irish were considered sub-human. When Germans began to immigrate in large numbers they were resisted. Ditto Italians, ditto Jews, ditto you name it....

[Zonkerbl]

Sorry for setting Popper off by saying "make it as difficult as possible to get here, and then integrate those who make it as seamlessly as possible," I think that ends up allowing you to focus on border security more than is really necessary. I think Republicans start with the axiom that there is already far more immigration than is optimal, so no matter how well meaning they are, they are always going to be focused on "making it difficult to get in." Well, we've already made at as difficult as possible without literally torturing people, is the point that I think people on the left are trying to say. Obama literally tortured people with ICE and Biden is doing the same, just not drawing as much attention to it as Trump did, and Trump also deliberately turned the torture know up to 11.

So the question is, do we want to reduce immigration more than we already have, or do we want to torture women and children? Or why don't we consider just legalize the production and sale of heroin and cocaine and pot and eliminate altogether the conditions that create refugees on the southern border?

This is logically stupid, let me rephrase...

"do we want to reduce immigration more than we already have by torturing women and children, or have we done enough?"

[Zonkerbl]

For the life of me, I cannot understand why people want to restrict immigration.

A disproportionate amount of economic innovation & growth comes from immigrant populations.

I suppose the idea must (somehow) be that people will leave their current lives to come here & collect... what? Food stamps? Unemployment benefits...?

This makes no sense at all. In fact, immigration selects for people who believe in themselves, people who are willing to take a chance, people who can handle change & risk... In fact immigration selects for all the qualities you most want! For godssakes why do you think America was such a huge economic & social success!

Meanwhile, judging from the usual methods used to restrict it, opposing immigration involves the idea that our current mix of national origins somehow (how?) represents a "good." That having more people of different national origins will somehow (how?) "degrade" our national character.

Please understand that this fairly ridiculous set of ideas has manifested itself repeatedly in our history. The Irish were considered sub-human. When Germans began to immigrate in large numbers they were resisted. Ditto Italians, ditto Jews, ditto you name it....

Well, the reality is the family that gets here is the one with all the talent, and then that talent naturally returns to the mean over time. So here you are, a mediocre person, having to compete for no skilled jobs with super talented people. No disrespect intended to mediocre people, late stage capitalism sucks and our value as a human being isn't determined by what capitalists are willing to pay us.

This is why I'm so focused like a laser and making sure the super talented immigrants coming in *don't compete for those jobs.* In fact, if they're as talented as we say, they will create jobs for everyone else, once we give them the chance.

I think the empirical question is, how horrifyingly difficult is it to get to the southern border? The common wisdom is that it is definitely easier than getting here over the Atlantic. I would say the opposite - it's really easy to get a tourist visa from a high income country and then just stay when the visa expires. Getting to the southern border from a low income central american country is HARD. Arguably HARDER than coming here over the Atlantic. But I can state hypotheses all day, we have to test it somehow.

[FAH1223]

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[pancakes3]

This is why I'm so focused like a laser and making sure the super talented immigrants coming in *don't compete for those jobs.* In fact, if they're as talented as we say, they will create jobs for everyone else, once we give them the chance.

but you said it yourself, we're in late stage capitalism. talent doesn't create jobs, money creates jobs.

I'm also just generally taken aback at your (and others) position that displaced incumbent americans from qualified jobs is a bad thing, or at least a net bad.

having an influx of foreign talent supplanting incumbent americans in the talent pool floats all ships. it just takes planning/investment into broken social institutions to allow underprivileged communities to ramp up the catch-up.

[Zonkerbl]

This is why I'm so focused like a laser and making sure the super talented immigrants coming in *don't compete for those jobs.* In fact, if they're as talented as we say, they will create jobs for everyone else, once we give them the chance.

but you said it yourself, we're in late stage capitalism. talent doesn't create jobs, money creates jobs.

I'm also just generally taken aback at your (and others) position that displaced incumbent americans from qualified jobs is a bad thing, or at least a net bad.

having an influx of foreign talent supplanting incumbent americans in the talent pool floats all ships. it just takes planning/investment into broken social institutions to allow underprivileged communities to ramp up the catch-up.

Oh we used the USAGE computable general equilibrium model to game this out back in the day, let me see if I can find a link...

https://www.cato.org/publications/trade-policy-analysis/restriction-or-legalization-measuring-economic-benefits-immigration-reform

[Zonkerbl]

If memory serves that model did not account for job creation from high talent immigratns

[Zonkerbl]

Ok let me explain late stage capitalism. All commodities/products are created using some combination of land, labor, capital, and intermediate inputs.

According to Marx, the owners of land and capital would create barriers to entry so that the rest of the landless class would only own their own labor. Competing with all the other laborers, the landed capitalists would be able to create conditions where they could extract all the producer surplus from production, and the laborers only got wages equivalent to entice them out of subsistence agriculture (i.e. not much).

For much of the 20th century, this was flatly wrong - technological progress created opportunities for entrepreneurs to break into the capitalist owning class by being the first to sell a new product, earn a ton of money in excess of the value of their labor, and then buy a bunch of capital. It didn't happen very often, statistically speaking, but enough to keep the idea of the "American Dream tm" alive.

Then about when Reagan became president the rate of technological innovation exploded, and globalization also happened. Innovation was done in teams that were owned by corporations, and globalization lowered the low-skilled wage rate that everybody had to compete with. But the technological effect, of making the production "function" of commodities much more weighted towards capital at the expense of labor, drastically reduced the value of nonskilled labor.

So, although Marx was 100% wrong, the effect is essentially the same - all the wealth accrues to the owners of land and capital.

Money doesn't make jobs. Labor and capital make goods and services that people want, and the role of labor in production is getting smaller and smaller.

[dobrojim]

For the life of me, I cannot understand why people want to restrict immigration.

A disproportionate amount of economic innovation & growth comes from immigrant populations.

I suppose the idea must (somehow) be that people will leave their current lives to come here & collect... what? Food stamps? Unemployment benefits...?

This makes no sense at all. In fact, immigration selects for people who believe in themselves, people who are willing to take a chance, people who can handle change & risk... In fact immigration selects for all the qualities you most want! For godssakes why do you think America was such a huge economic & social success!

Meanwhile, judging from the usual methods used to restrict it, opposing immigration involves the idea that our current mix of national origins somehow (how?) represents a "good." That having more people of different national origins will somehow (how?) "degrade" our national character.

Please understand that this fairly ridiculous set of ideas has manifested itself repeatedly in our history. The Irish were considered sub-human. When Germans began to immigrate in large numbers they were resisted. Ditto Italians, ditto Jews, ditto you name it....

Non white, non christian voters are seen as an existential threat by the GOP base.
They know they are already a minority and (legal) immigration can only make that worse,
in their minds.

[pancakes3]

Ok let me explain late stage capitalism. All commodities/products are created using some combination of land, labor, capital, and intermediate inputs.

According to Marx, the owners of land and capital would create barriers to entry so that the rest of the landless class would only own their own labor. Competing with all the other laborers, the landed capitalists would be able to create conditions where they could extract all the producer surplus from production, and the laborers only got wages equivalent to entice them out of subsistence agriculture (i.e. not much).

For much of the 20th century, this was flatly wrong - technological progress created opportunities for entrepreneurs to break into the capitalist owning class by being the first to sell a new product, earn a ton of money in excess of the value of their labor, and then buy a bunch of capital. It didn't happen very often, statistically speaking, but enough to keep the idea of the "American Dream tm" alive.

Then about when Reagan became president the rate of technological innovation exploded, and globalization also happened. Innovation was done in teams that were owned by corporations, and globalization lowered the low-skilled wage rate that everybody had to compete with. But the technological effect, of making the production "function" of commodities much more weighted towards capital at the expense of labor, drastically reduced the value of nonskilled labor.

So, although Marx was 100% wrong, the effect is essentially the same - all the wealth accrues to the owners of land and capital.

Money doesn't make jobs. Labor and capital make goods and services that people want, and the role of labor in production is getting smaller and smaller.

... what?

you said that talent creates jobs - which means that someone talented enough can implement technological processes to break into the capitalist class. But we're in late-stage, meaning the "haves" are uncirumventable gatekeepers for market entry, thus making talent alone insufficient for market entry.

talent is now the labor, not the job creators, barring another leap forward in tech (internet was the last round).

Take Musk for example. He had an idea, as a talent, to produce electric cars, but without his Paypal money, he would never have been able to launch Tesla because the car industry is established, and no amount of entrepreneurial talent can overcome that. he needed to make headway in a unsaturated market (the internet) to get capital to launch Tesla.

You said that if immigrants were talented, they would be able to replicate what Musk does but: 1) Musk is one in a million (and I hate the guy and he's not as smart as he thinks he is) meaning that we're only letting in generational talents via immigration?; and 2) poor immigrants can never do what Musk did anyway because they don't have the money for it.