https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/08/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-charges.html

When you're a rich white dude apparently it's just called nude photo's of underage girls, not child pornography.

When Trump's involvement comes to light, will you defend pedophilia?

No way.

But I really really REALLY doubt that Trump was involved in such shit.

Very important news

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2019/7/2/20680325/ohare-airport-african-rat-meat-ivory-coast-customs-swine-fever

I do not.
Acosta belongs in jail.

Trump was accused of raping a 13-year old girl many years ago, one who was provided by Epstein (and purportedly raped by him, too), according to witness statements. I'd guess that the likelihood of there being any involvement by Trump in this is greater than zero.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/business/2019/07/09/ross-perot-self-made-billionaire-patriot-philanthropist-dies-89

RIP Ross Perot

RIP!

Would be really interesting to jump into an alternative timeline where he won the 92 presidential election. No NAFTA and thus a slower bleeding of middle America, no Lewinsky scandal, no Newt Gingrich pushing political polarization, probably no George W. Bush presidency and perhaps a more careful response to 9/11, no war in Iraq because a Democrat would most likely have been in office at that time (could very well be Bill Clinton, who was an immense political talent and young enough), and so on and on.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 9 2019 08:44am

a lack of outsourcing speeds up the timeline of automation, protectionist trade is worse for the middle class than job losses to other countries. job losses result in piecemeal reduction of the labor force, protectionist trade makes for teeter-totter reactions once the pricepoint reaches the tipping point. whole lines get automated.

most people dont realize that 90% of automation isnt done with fancy robots, that's just for gifs on reddit. 90% is done with tech we haven't updated since the 90s. im designing a job right now that's a near copy of a machine we made in 2001. im making almost no changes.

if we tried to latch onto jobs in the 90s we would have just increase the timetable of roller conveyors, palletizers, wrappers, etc.

people think NAFTA killed middle america, and thats hyperbolic at best. it was a choice between gradual decline and a drop off a cliff.

globalization in general killed middle america, nafta was just one prominent example. in fact, job losses to china over the last 30 years far exceed those to mexico anyway.



so the real way to have stopped the bleeding would have been to slow down globalization itself, which btw did indeed pick up pace during the 90s. switching to a massive tariff regime could have slowed down globalization, but at a great loss in overall wealth and at the risk of particular countries falling behind technologically.

essentially, globalization is good for the welfare recipients in western countries because basic goods become cheaper and because the state is raking in higher taxes from higher overall economic activity, it is good for the very rich, and it is good for the high-education tech workers. and it is good for the emerging middle classes in countries like China or India. it massively sucks for the westerners in the middle of the income bracket.

you can even see these trends reflected in the current american political system: the Democrats are traditionally the party of the poor, but are increasingly becoming the party of choice for tech billionaires and college-educated people as well, while the GOP increasingly becomes the party of choice of middle america, both in a geographical and income sense. it's all a part of the shift of the main political cleavage, away from the old left-right paradigma, towards the new open-closed political scale. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open%E2%80%93closed_political_spectrum )

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 9 2019 09:26am