Walker88

To start out, I am no fan of the President Elect. Let me politely and with feigned respect call him PE, for brevity’s sake, plus so that my ears and eyes do not hurt hearing or seeing his name, and my tongue does not catch fire by saying it. Yes, all are welcome to call my feeling by some fictitious syndrome, if that gives people orgasmic bliss (especially the Incels, as that’s the best they can get orgasmically, unless they opt for onanism or pay for a tryst). All are welcome to wallow in their own ignorance, like dinosaurs ignoring the coming asteroid. While I could probably top "War and Peace" in terms of how long a tome I could write on why I have nothing but contempt for the guy, I will keep it as simple as possible: it is his willful ignorance that disturbs me the most. Case in point: the guy has no clue what government does, nor does he care. I guess he’s also the Poster Child for the Dunning Kreuger Effect, because he thinks he knows everything he needs to know, plus how to make it better. We’ve all heard him say a hundred times, “Nobody knows more about [XXX] than I do”. I don’t know who this “Nobody” character is, but there must be billions of them, because even grade school kids know more than the PE about most everything. The best illustrative example of where willful ignorance can bite you on the arse was written in a book and article by author and former Wall Street bond trader Michael Lewis. Back when 47 was merely 45, and much less dangerous than today, 45 fired the transition team set up by Chris Christie to introduce 45 and his Administration to the government behemoth they would soon be running. 45 thought---and actually stated---I can figure out how to run the government in an hour and a half. Funny he thought he could do that to a multi-trillion dollar entity employing millions and running everything from highways to the military to power generation to transportation, but he could never figure out how to run a profitable casino, where people literally stand in line to give you their money. Coincidentally, I began writing this post just thinking about mistakes that might be made by aggressively shutting down agencies and firing people willy nilly, and the term ‘willful ignorance’ popped into my head. I then remembered articles written by Michael Lewis about PE Transition 1.0 in 2016 and searched them out. In the article to which I link at the end, there is this quote from Lewis: “Here is where [the PE’s] willful ignorance plays a role. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gains without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing those costs. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it’s better never to really understand those problems. There is a downside to knowledge. It makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview.” (We subsequently saw this in action when 45 downplayed and mishandled Covid......from February 26, 2020, then 45 said: "And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done." That's like congratulating yourself now for winning the next Super Bowl or World Cup.) Lewis notes many seemingly necessary programs slashed in the 45 Administration, such as measures to enhance the electricity grid and protect it from cyber attack or national disaster, and cut all funding for research on climate change. Such things are when actions are driven not by knowledge or science, but merely by ideology or worldview. Lewis ends his Vanity Fair article with this: “Indeed, if you are seeking to preserve a certain worldview, it actually helps to gut science. [45’s] budget, like the social forces behind it, is powered by a perverse desire—to remain ignorant. [45] didn’t invent this desire. He is just its ultimate expression.” Let me rifle down to one example of just how willfully ignorant PE is and what effect it might have. 45 appointed Rick Perry, a guy I would guess has the IQ of a turnip, to run the Department of Energy in 2016. Recall that during the Republican primary of 2016, Perry had stated in a debate 3 government agencies he would close if he was elected President, although he couldn’t remember one he said should be closed, revealing himself to be the turnip he is. The one he could not remember in the debate was the Dept of Energy, an entity he was later appointed to run. Now the mandate of the DoE is huge…unbeknownst to both Perry and the PE. They are in charge of everything from the electric grid to the US’ nuclear stockpile, A rational person would think it might be a good idea to keep an entity in charge of the nation’s power grid and its then-7800 nukes, but since “Nobody knows more about nukes than I do” (Yes, PE said that.), maybe rational people are not up to speed and should bow to PE’s 'encyclopedic knowledge'. Now for a little history….back during WWII and the Manhattan Project, a facility was set up in Hanford, Washington to produce weapons grade plutonium, which was used in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The facility subsequently produced plutonium for upwards of 70,000 other nukes, most of which have been dismantled because of the various START treaties. That production generated a lot of dangerous radioactive and toxic chemical waste, some 56,000,000 gallons. It’s all still there, and there is a program costing $3 billion per year, both to keep it safe and clean it up. If this waste…which like the Hanford facility itself is on the banks of the Columbia River…made it into the wider environment, millions of people would get sick or die. If it made its way into the Pacific Ocean, forgetaboutit. Really dangerous, so it’s critical that the waste be monitored and cleaned up. Guess which government agency is in charge of the Hanford waste? Yes, the very same Department of Energy PE’s Secretary Rick Perry wanted to close, with the approval of 45 himself. Just the Hanford program is 10% of the DoE’s yearly budget. Also note that Perry fell somewhat short of the credentials Obama’s SecEnergy---Ernest Moniz---brought to the table. Moniz has a Masters and PhD in theoretical physics from Stanford, and served as head of the Dept of Physics at MIT. He beats the turnip by a peck and a bushel. Moniz likely understood the risk much better than Perry or the PE. Are even cult members beginning to see the danger of willful ignorance? That is just one part of one department in a sprawling government. How many other time bombs like Hanford exist in other departments and agencies? Now we have the Elon and Vivek Show called DOGE, which is going to streamline government. Anybody think they will take the time to learn about Hanford waste-type issues hidden in other departments and agencies? Anybody? (Aside: Tesla released a beta version of its self-driving cars, but did not exactly get everything right. Musk said something on the order of “Well, you have to expect a few dishes to get broken along the way”. If your child gets killed because a Tesla ran a red light while the driver was munching Doritos in the back seat, I’m not sure that isn’t worse than a few broken dishes.) Another part of PE’s plan is to make 50,000 Federal jobs political appointments, so that people can be fired at anytime for any reason. Anybody think each of those political appointments will be expert in things like handling 56,000,000 gallons of dangerous nuclear waste? Anybody? Or will they just be Friends of PE, such as major contributors or Fox Talking Heads or people who have said nice things about PE or bought a membership to Mar-a-Lago? I have no doubt there is waste in government, and if a thoughtful and informed approach is taken, $billions could be saved. Unfortunately, “thoughtful and informed” and PE do not go together. An analogy can be taken from the first Ghostbusters movie, when the EPA guy ordered the Ghostbuster’s containment system to have its power shut down. All hell broke loose. Let’s hope life doesn’t imitate art. The pressure is going to be there to do big things quickly. For the PE, everything is about the show, so he’ll want to produce one with great ratings early on, such as his plan for mass deportations and massive tariffs. Does anybody think a truly thorough analysis of all critical government departments and agencies will be carried out before people and monies such as those that keep the northwest safe from Hanford are slashed? Anybody? With PE, his Dunning-Kreuger Effect Administration, Project 2025, etc., the odds are extremely high that there will be Hanfords that escape the cursory scrutiny of the bulls in the china shop, who will be PE’s team. We’re all going to pay a price for that, but as yet we don’t even know what that price might be. In Admin 2.0, there are no guardrails, but there is a certainty the PE knows everything. Dangerous. Now go back to the willful ignorance that is the hallmark of everything PE and his cult. Addendum: Michael Lewis wrote about the 2016 transition for Vanity Fair. It is written in Lewis’ usual entertaining style, and can be accessed here: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis

As Bill Maher quipped last night, "Gaetz resigned in order to spend more time with your children."

Like some of the other posters, I have a lot of experience with the country. Burmese is one of the languages I speak, as well as read and write. I had funded the building of a few rural schools years ago with my earnings from my Wall Street days, and I did a few other things such as try to enhance medical care, which has always been abysmal. Back then it was SLORC/SPDC in charge, but a few of the generals were not only aware of what I was doing, they also gave me a 'pass' and stood ready to assist me if any lower level mil types tried to extract 'tributes' from me. Some of those generals had the foresight, or maybe naive hope, that their own days were numbered and that democracy was inevitable. A few of them eventually ran afoul of their fascist colleagues and were jailed, so my 'get out of jail free' card evaporated, and I had to be more cautious. For a while I had free rein of the entire country, even areas where foreigners were not permitted to go. I used to have to take a few soldiers as 'security', as I was told some areas were full of 'dacoits' or bandits. I never had any problem, and though in some places I was a fascination (owing to my height and blue eyes), I was never in any danger. I was there for some of the country's previous major events, such as the 2007 Saffron Revolution and the 2008 devastation by the cyclone Nargis, that killed 180,000, mostly in the lower Ayewaddy Delta areas. I remember during the Saffron Revolution, folks gunned down in front of my hotel, where there were only two guests, the other being Magnum photographer James Natchwey. As the OP may know, even when the military decided to take their ill-gotten gains and step down, they wrote a new Constitution that had a provision where the Tatmadaw could retake power "at any time for any reason". That was supposedly the justification used in the coup from a few years ago. Like in Thailand, the powers that be had also stacked the deck in the nascent Parliament, with most members being appointed by the army rather than facing a popular vote. Those things set the stage for what has happened, as many mid-level military officers, seeing the wealth accumulated by previous leaders like Than Shwe and Maung Aye, had been waiting their chance to move up the ranks and steal from the national trough. The short period of democracy derailed their plans, but not their ambitions, and it was just a few short years before they made their move. Junta rule is different this time, because the people have chosen to rise up, especially in the ethnic majority areas such as Kachin State, Karen State and a few others. Absent junta support from China, Russia and Singapore, plus natural gas sales to Thailand, the junta might already have fallen. As is, it controls just the major urban areas and their surroundings. The Burmese people are astonishingly brave. One can only hope this junta has an expiration date, and the lovely people of the country will once again get to enjoy freedom and some degree of prosperity. I suspect its future is something like the nations of the former Yugoslavia or maybe as associated as the UAE, where individual ethnic areas have a good deal of autonomy, but maybe there is a common central government.

Oh my! That's a new level of idolatry and sycophancy! He's at best the Pillsbury Dough Boy, or tough as nails of solder. He's a whinging petulant child crybaby, a pathological liar, and has on his resume everything from a convicted bank and insurance fraudster, convicted charity fraudster, civilly convicted sexual offender, a guy convicted of defamation, and a guy who has spent his life stiffing everyone from small subcontractors to city governments who had to pay to handle his security and clean up after the goobers who attend his rallies. Pray tell when was this golden time when America was greater than today? Is it just the 'woke' thing that has a hair across your arse, because if one measures greatness in economic growth and employment, especially relative to other major industrialized nations, these are the good old days right now. Or maybe the stock market since 2020. Or US Growth being three times the average of the G7. If that had happened under 45, he would crow longer than a horny rooster, since back during Term 1.0 he never stopped saying 'best ever', when his growth wasn't even in the top 70% BEFORE Covid made it even worse. Sorry if you missed the Biden Boom, but some of us have never done better. It isn't just Elon and Jeff and Ken Griffin and Bill Ackman who have seen their fortunes soar since 2020. As for 'warrior'...or is that WARRIOR?....I'm going to guess you have never been in battle nor gone into harm's way for the US. Bone spurs? Anyway, if that bloated butterball is a WARRIOR, we might as well surrender, because we'd fall to a girls' high school football team. He is a coward. I have no doubt he will preside over the collapse of the US. A Recession in the next 2 years is a certainty, & he has no clue how to handle it, much less get the 'price of bacon' down. I also place the odds of secession by States like CA, OR & WA, plus NY, NJ, western PA and all of New England, at about 30% and drifting higher by the day. If my views seem over the top, go back ten years and imagine a Game Show host as POTUS who chooses incompetents and miscreants like Gaetz for AG, a TV Talking head for SecDef, a champion of Putin and Assad as DNI, and a guy who schlepps deep water toilets for well-hung men and sells time shares in a time travel machine as NATO Ambassador. Ten years ago such talk would have even been dismissed by The Onion as too weird. As Lewis Carroll said, "It gets curiouser and curiouser". Bark now if it makes you feel good, but in two years you will pine for the golden days of Joe Biden.

I see analogous behavior with the fans of 47 and jihadis who get outraged over Danish cartoon artists. A cult is a cult is a cult.

Is that Kamala Harris you're describing? I don't seem to remember you being so effusive in your championing of Harris' qualifications. Harris also has on her resume Senator and VP. FL might be a large State, but CA is the world's 5th largest economy and home to 40,000,000 people.

Looks like Gaetz has been replaced by former FL AG Pam Bondi, a woman with an interesting history. Perhaps her main 'qualification' is that she once led chants of "Lock her up!" re Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Republican National Convention, indicating that she isn't hampered by that 'silly' "innocent until proven guilty" thing enshrined in the US Constitution.

Goodness...he was such the perfect candidate! He gave new meaning to the term sycophancy...he was so far up 47's backside that he got the first bite of cheeseburger! And if he really is a kiddie diddler, as witnesses in his investigation allege, that behavior had to win him the respect of the guy known to enter teens' dressing rooms during beauty pageants. And talk about qualified! King Solomon is jealous! Gaetz made that Matthew Whitaker guy from 45 1.0---the guy who schlepped deep water toilets for the well-hung man and who sold time shares in time travel machines---look like a mere posseur (although 47 has now nominated Whitaker, with those impressive credentials, as NATO Ambassador). One wonders just how egregious the allegations---with witness testimony and photographs and Venmo receipts---must be against him. While he is unlikely to be named anything other than a public nuisance by FL Gov De Santis, I'm going to guess he ends up with a Prime Time show on Fox or Newsmax. Fox, in particular, has a way of hiring alleged rapists like Pete Hegseth (who paid a financial settlement to his accuser) and guys who engage in inappropriate sexual advances in the workplace like Bill O'Reilly, Ed Henry, Roger Ailes. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pete-hegseth-sexual-assault-allegation-payment/

So if I understand correctly, when an aggressor invades, you bend over and give him what he wants? Maybe that's a policy for candy-arse wussy girly men, but real men and women are willing to fight for their independence and not to be subjugated by a miscreant little dictator. If up to you, I guess we'd just have handed Hawaii to the Japanese, Europe would have given in to Hitler and handed over all the Jews, and maybe the US should just cede southern California, southern Texas and Arizona to Mexico. Sorry,, but real men fight for liberty and freedom. Wusses and bend over and take it up the backside. Better to die standing than serve on one's knees with a dictator's junk in his mouth.

LOL! I seem to remember 45 bombing airports in Syria, even announcing to members in his club that he had to go bomb someone. I also seem to remember he called for the assassination of Gen Soleimani, which resulted in Iranian retribution in Irbil and Jordan, where 45 then downplayed any injuries of US soldiers. 45 wanted to attack Iran before the 2020 election, as he thought that might help him win. Fortunately Gen Milley and the SecDef stopped him. After he lost, according to Gen Milley, 45 wanted to start a nuclear war with China, thinking he could then declare a national emergency and stay in power. When Gen Milley did the responsible thing and contacted his counterpart in China to calm things, 45 said Gen Milley should be executed. And for some humor, let's not forget he wanted to nuke hurricanes. I guess we can also attribute the terrorist attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 (terrorism is the word used by 45-appointed DirFBI Wray), as it was 45 who called his goobers to DC for the 6th, Tweeting "It'll be WILD!" and then telling them to march to the Capitol and fight like hell. Biden started no wars, but supported the freedom of Ukraine, invaded by Russia. As for the Middle East, perhaps you missed it, but there have been numerous wars and battles in that area going back 80 years. Maybe you can blame Biden for 1967, 1973, the Intifada, Black September, the PLO, George Habash, Munich........ Biden is no more responsible for October 2023 than he is for the eruption of Krakatoa or Mt St Helens.

Growth under Biden exceeded growth under 45, even BEFORE Covid, so you are hoping 47 can do something he failed to do as 45. In the cult, fantasy springs eternal. I would have said 'hope' instead of 'fantasy', but all MAGA has is false hopes.

If you know of any mongers who dallied with underage females like Gaetz allegedly did, you can contact local Thailand police and report them.

No. They did not have checks. So 47 doesn't trust the man he appointed as DirFbi, Christopher Wray? If you toss Wray into the same bucket as other previous "Best People", like Mattis, Kelly, Coats, Tillerson, Bolton, Esper, Pence, etc., it certainly doesn't say much about 47's assessment abilities. All of those guys became "losers" once they stopped sniffer the4 vapors of 47.

Actually, those 'most voters' are hoping for a miracle and were susceptible to the pie-in-the-sky fantasy 47 tossed them. I'm still waiting for the cult to explain what exact plans and policies 47 has to lower prices and juice the economy (which has been gangbusters since he was voted out in 2020, but which requires those who wish to participate to have marketable skills and talents). I'd even be willing to listen to a 'concept of a plan'. When I was earning my MBA, I do not remember my professors noting any link between mass deportations or high tariffs and economic growth/low inflation. Maybe if I had attended 47's eponymous "university"....... I do know Misters Smoot and Hawley tried big tariffs almost a hundred years ago, and after that the US suffered from the Great Depression and upwards of 25% UE. Shall I put the famous George Santayana quote here? My guess is 47 would confuse George with Carlos Santana, and then say, "with a name like that, he must be a rapist or murderer who sneaked across Biden's open border".

So you're a scientist and expert of GLP-1 agonists? Do tell. I seem to remember you have admitted to being fat. If your abhorrence of GLP-1 agonists is because you intend to alter your diet and hit the gym, I applaud that sentiment. Being fit and slim is a wonderful thing. Personally, I've never been overweight or out of shape, but if it takes GLP-1 agonists to get other people into a state of health, that seems to be a good thing. I certainly prefer that to the anabolic steroids RFK, Jr reportedly has taken, and certainly it is preferable to the heroin he admits to having used when he chose to become addicted.

Recess appointments The Founders who wrote the US Constitution (Madison and Jefferson), with a goal toward a functioning government in a time when there were no airplanes or railroads, and calling Congress to session could take considerable time, allowed for a President to make recess appointments to heads of Departments and agencies. The rules---geared toward a world with the travel inconveniences and communication difficulties of 1700s---were never changed. Many Presidents have used recess appointments to fill positions, but generally these were for less than critical jobs. To stop such appointments, all that is needed is for Congress to call a pro forma session, and then it becomes a partisan game of recess or pro forma. Both the House and Senate must agree on adjournment, and note the specific date of such. When one Party controls the House and the other the Senate, agreement is unlikely. When one Party controls the White House, Senate and House, there is nothing to stop recess appointments except common sense and courage, neither of which currently exist in the Party that used to be known as Republican, but which is now clearly a cult of personality, controlled by cowardice and the fear of a mean Tweet or an elected official being 'primaried'. Toward the end of the campaign, 47 spoke of a 'little surprise' he and Speaker Johnson had planned. I suggest the plan is this: Shortly after the Inauguration, the Speaker will call a House recess. This could come as early as January 21, 2025. The Senate must conquer to make a total Congressional recess official, and given the spineless people who are the Republican Senators, it is likely the Senate will conquer. The sitting President can then appoint, without anyone's approval, people like Gaetz, Hegseth, Gabbard and RFK,Jr to official positions. Recess appointments last until the current session of Congress ends, which would mean the end of the year in 2026, and in actuality until the new Congress is sworn in the first week of January 2027. 47 could get his people in their position for nearly two years. Only if Dems retake the House and Senate could these appointments then be forced to come before the Senate for official confirmation. It Republicans maintain control of both houses, the Speaker can do a rinse and repe4at, allowing the recess appointments to last until the early days of 2029. The Founders established the system of checks and balances specifically so that no one person, not even the President, could have such power. Recess appointments were put into the Constitution in view of the fact even sending communications to various States took time (think of riding a horse from DC to Maine in 1776), and the subsequent travel back to DC by horse or horse-drawn carriage took time. The Founders' intent was not to grant a President such broad and overwhelming power, but rather efficiency. In 2025, the abuse of an article and clause written 250 years ago creates a de facto dictator with near absolute power, something that slaps in the face the intent of Madison and Jefferson when they established the United States of America and its system of checks and balances via three branches of government. The US was founded by incredible wise people, so wise they were willing to admit their own human faults and aim the new nation toward a land of total legal equality and with limits on the power of any one branch of government. The 'little surprise', if my suspicions are correct, destroys the system much smarter men than 47 and Speaker Johnson created. We shall see, in my opinion, in the first week or two of the new Administration. We shall also confirm the totally spineless nature of Republican Senators if they go along with Speaker Johnson and also declare the Senate in recess. If that is the country you want, then you do not deserve to be American and have no clue what the United States was intended to be. Madison and Jefferson would agree.

So far, the POTUS-elect has refused to submit any names of his nominees for the requisite background check before they are granted a security clearance. Before I was granted my TS/SCI clearance for the CIA, a 9 month long security check was done on me by the FBI. My high school teachers and university professors were interviewed, as were friends and employers. There was no social media back then, but today the bureau even checks social media and web browsing habits of anyone seeking a high level clearance. When people like Hegseth and Gabbard are being put up as heads of extremely sensitive and critical agencies and departments, the American people have a right to know if these people passed a security check. 'Good enough for 47' is insufficient. Lack of a check not only makes them suspect, it will discourage any liaison cooperation with allied nations and intel services, so the chiefs themselves will not be able to do the complete job. The US relies heavily on intel sharing with allied nations for critical things such as terrorism, the intents of hostile nations, and the movement of dangerous materials such as U-235 or plutonium or viruses. With no intel sharing, the US will be blind, and much less secure. Repubs have long been hesitant to play by the rules, so while 47 is the worst, other Administrations have been bad. As a CIA operative, I once uncovered a huge scandal where a foreign govt had recruited a very senior cabinet official as a clandestine asset, paying the cabinet official for secrets and to do the foreign govt's bidding. A second case officer corroborated my intel from another source. Before it could become the scandal it should have been, I received a direct message from the then-Attorney General of that Republican Administration ordering me to 'stand down' and to destroy any reports and cables I had related to the matter. I was threatened, and then given a kind of 'good cop' excuse that "the country cannot afford such a scandal right now; surely you can understand that." The individual's name never became public and the scandal never made the news.

So you think a morbidly obese guy with spare tires Airbus could use on the A380, who dines on either Macs or KFC, and who probably thinks ketchup is a food group, is going to fix the US' weight problem? Oh my! You may not have noticed, but Biden isn't a chubbo like 47. 41% of Americans are obese because they lack discipline and self-respect. None of them went to bed svelte and woke up with the kind of guts I see on 47's faithful waddling around Bangkok.

The maga cult is going to look back on Biden as 'the good ole days'. When the asteroid was heading to Earth 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs of that time had a better chance of survival than the maga dinosaurs of today. Any of you really think he has a plan, or even the 'concept of a plan', to improve on the economic performance of Biden? How exactly is he going to juice employment? GDP? Get inflation down? If any of you have heard any details of his concept of a plan, please post them. Other than massive tariffs and deporting 11 million people, what are his policies and how will they improve the economy and prices? Come on. You all worship the guy, so you must be intimately familiar with what he plans to do. Retribution does not bring down the price of bacon, nor does deporting 11 million or raising tariffs on Chinese goods. If we're lucky, we'll just have stagflation. We will be at war with Iran, with US boots on the ground, not proxies. We'll see UE double, maybe even to double digits. Either the Dow will crash, or else go to 60,000 while the dollar collapses. Keep whistling past the graveyard, if you like the tune.

That's one solution, I guess. Neutering them so they don't pass on their gene pool is another. Seriously, what I write is a harsh reality for which there is unlikely to be any solution, and I know 47 does not have one. The human race has entered an era where Darwinian Capitalism rules: the fittest survive and prosper. There have been a few periods like this in human history, with varying 'solutions'. The age of serfdom ended when the Bubonic Plague wiped out 25%+ of Europe, putting labor in short supply. Sometimes the 'solution' is war, because governments try to divert attention from domestic problems by manufacturing an external enemy. WWI was kind of like that. One type of labor was obviated when the McCormick Combine was invented, a device that could do in a day what it took 50 farm workers two weeks to do. Fortunately, displaced agricultural labor had the factories of the Industrial Revolution to absorb them. Tell me where unskilled labor goes today, when technology and AI continue to replace human labor? I have no idea. Neither does 47. Maybe we're all just going to paint each other's fingernails and cut each other's hair? Others see this harsh and intractable reality, and have proposed measures like a guaranteed income. Two problems with that: one is every nation is already wildly indebted, so where is this money going to come from to provide obviated labor with income? The second problem is that work gives many people their major source of personal "meaning". If an increasing percentage of folks have nothing to do but sit around collecting their guaranteed income, what effect will that have on their mental well-being? Let me add one more problem: the world is awash in capacity. China added more steel production capability in the last fifteen years than existed until 15 years ago. Where is the market for all that steel? Since much of these new factories use lots of automation, what is the labor component relative to steel factories of a hundred years ago? The world also has excess capacity in cars, TV and electronics, aircraft....almost everything. We also have excess capacity in weapons of war, but we have the occasional war as a 'solution' to that problem. I am of the view the reason people like 47 get elected is because they offer false hope to people who have lost hope. The trouble is, NOBODY has a solution. 47 is both cynical and transactional, as well as totally self-centered; he offered pie-in-the-sky fantasy to the forlorn, while lacking even the 'concept of a plan', and did that solely to get their votes. He got what he wanted. Now he wants to do what...enact massive tariffs? That will just add more pain to those already hurting. My view is not elitist. It is simply the reality the world faces. AI is just going to exacerbate the problem. Adding massively to debt has been the solution for the last few decades, and that worked as long as everybody suspended their disbelief and pretends sovereign debt will at least be serviced. Nobody thinks sovereign debt will ever be repaid, but so long as it can be serviced, we can continue to suspend our disbelief. Greece ran into trouble a decade ago when it couldn't even service its debt. As rates rise, more nations will suffer the same problem. In the US, each 1% upward shift in the Yield Curve adds another $350 billion to each year's deficit. What happens when the 'guaranteed income' scheme adds even more to the deficit? Money printing and wild inflation, or a sharp rise in rates, neither of which have pleasant outcomes. 47's new sidekick Elon Musk has stated that Americans are going to have to suffer. That's some tough love, but I cannot think of an alternative. Obviously you don't like my take on reality. Perhaps you have a solution? If you do, get 47 on the phone, because he certainly doesn't have a solution. Tech and AI have given birth to an unprecedented time in human history, worse than the age of serfdom. Maybe one reason why birth and fertility rates are falling everywhere (this year it's .69 in South Korea, and even in Thailand it's below 1.5) is that is a natural way of doing something about the problem of redundancy and obviated labor. Again, if you have one, please let us all know your solution.

As I have written many times, the Biden economy has been the best since the late 1990s. Incredible growth, especially relative to the rest of the developed world. Wealth has never accumulated faster in those with the ability to participate. The whole world also suffered inflation, but only the US has knocked it back down to 2.8%....and that without causing a Recession. Amazing! The caveat is that to enjoy the booming Biden economy, one had to have marketable skills and talents. Not everyone has those, and most of 47's cult is both poorly educated and has no marketable talents. The world has left them behind. I wonder what his supporters here think he can do to make silk purses out of sow's ears? What are his specific plans to bring prosperity to those the world no longer needs? Maybe he doesn't even have the 'concept of a plan'. How disappointed will his cult be when nothing changes for them? Maybe he will blame it all on Biden, as accepting personal responsibility for anything has never been part of his character. The problem of obviated labor in a technological modern word isn't going to go away with a vote. Useless is useless. Redundant is redundant. Actually, I doubt 47 cares in the least. He got all he needed from his loser cult, and that is their vote. They are no longer of any use to him, so even if he could do something for them (he cannot), he won't.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess none of those guys voted for Kamala Harris. They are some of those "very fine people", like the tikitorchers chanting "Jews will not replace us" in Charlottesville.. I stated this right after Harris lost, and I will repeat: When the mass deportations get going in earnest, hate crimes against anyone who 'looks different', especially Hispanic and maybe East Asian and South Asian, are going to skyrocket. It will not matter if they are legal residents or not....they will be the objects of hate and violence. 45/47 has given the racists and white supremacists the 'all clear'.

I come to threads like this for the oozing and unctuous sanctimony. Luscious! I'm late to the game here, but what the heck....I'll post. I'm going to guess that the "bargirls" who marry foreigners do so for the exact same reasons any Thai woman marries a foreigner....some combination of money, security, familiarity and affection. Zero difference between so-called "good girls" and bargirls, despite the table pounding to the contrary. Unless one is a celebrity or centi-millionaire, few if any top tier, creme de la creme, hi-so Thai women with a good education are going to pair up with a foreigner. What's left in the marriage pool for foreigners---from what I read here and know from chatting with expats in Thailand, the foreigners here come from failed 'back home' marriages---are women who absolutely were in the trade, probably were in the trade, might have been in the trade, or those who dallied out of horny-ness. The self-claimed morally superior foreigners make some distinction between women who had sex for money and women who had sex because they were horny. The difference escapes me. I'm sure some will claim they married a Thai virgin. Good luck to you, is what I say, as my times with virgins were back in my own teens, and I do not remember those trysts as being noteworthy. The last thing I would seek in a spouse or partner is virginity, something wildly overrated and best left to religious fantasies about deities. I am not a virgin, so I would never be so hypocritical as to demand virginity in a spouse. I'm also confident enough in my own masculinity that I think I can provide what she needs between the sheets. I smile when I read about "uneducated", when referring to bargirls. Is the Thai education system so powerful that one can spot the difference between a woman who completed 8 years of school and one who completed even a Thai university degree program? I haven't seen that. A few years ago I read an article that the top Thai university was rated the #418 university....in ASIA. That leads me to conclude, perhaps in error, that few outsiders could tell the difference in education between any bargirl and a local uni grad. The Thai women educated in a foreign country might have better chops, but they likely also come from hi-so families, and thus tend to marry other hi-so, well-educated Thai men. As a bit of an aside, I employ in my business many Thai women with university degrees. They have told me that among their friends---the attractive ones in particular---most all did 'sideline' work while in university, generally with a Thai businessman or politician. Some did it for money, some for the excitement, some just to get a little extra cash to buy something Mom and Dad would not buy for them. Not all attractive Thai women dallied, of course, but a surprising number have. I know "yours" never did, so don't think I'm implying otherwise. Before anyone asks, no, I do not have a bargirl spouse or girlfriend. Admittedly I have entered agogos from time to time and have met and spoken with women in those establishments (some of whom are paying for university with their earnings, by the way). One thing I have concluded is that they seem to have better social skills than women who never entered the trade. These women have had to develop ways to appeal to a wide range of men from a wide range of cultures. The women have 'people skills'. Also, a bargirl is as likely to have an above average IQ (brains are the sexiest part of a woman) as a "normy". I have met women in bars who are absolute kicks in terms of personality, so fun to be around they have become friends without benefits. Since I never walked in the bargirl's flip flops, I cannot make a value judgement on what path she decided to take to earn a living. There but for the grace of Zeus....... Marriages fail all the time. As I noted above, the average expat in Thailand came from a failed marriage or two back home, and let's be honest...it wasn't always the woman's fault. He is just as likely to fail again, whether he ties up with a bargirl or "normy". All that matters is what both parties do when they agree to be together. What they did yesterday, no matter how many sex partners they had for whatever reason, is irrelevant. Only what both do from today matters. I really doubt the bargirl is more likely to cheat than the normy, nor more likely to cheat than her foreigner hubby. Others will disagree. Unless a man is a total failure back home, it's still likely he is in a much better financial position than any Thai woman with whom he develops a relationship, so whether bargirl or normy, money and financial security is one of the incentives for the woman. Also, sometimes people just hit it off; they get along enough to have a desire to try to make something more permanent. Now the OP did not ask this, but I will answer: Would I ever consider marrying a bargirl? Yes, if I fell in love and believed she loved me in return....kind of like any relationship anywhere. Imagine that! Would that make me a lo-so? As Oscar Wilde once said, "People may boo me, but when I go home and think of my money, I applaud myself." If someone judges the woman I love because of her past, then I do not want to associate with that 'morally superior' person. If I'm happy, then eff those who look down on me and my chosen partner. I'm not into 'face'; I live my life for my own enjoyment, not the approval of others. For those who insist on wearing their moral superiority on their sleeve, collect your bonus points and try to cash them in when you're on your death bed. Both you and I will just be wormfood, whether you've followed some fake and sanctimonious moral code or just loved whom you loved.

Weak men who have failed at relationships with women for their entire life (you know who you are) always seem to end up with negative views of women and fail to believe a minor would not stop a large adult male from a wealthy and well-connected family from engaging in sex with another minor. Yes, the scars run deep, as can be seen on this Forum whenever a discussion of women arises.

Let's see....45 2.0 or nuclear holocaust ??????? Hobson's Choice, it is. Or as they say in Thailand, "Same same...but different".