Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby Tarkan » Fri Jun 24, 2022 1:12 pm

Kurt wrote:The thing I always go back to whenever I hear the "Everyplace else is fucked but the USA" is that in 1988 The Warsaw Pact got together and discussed how to divide up the West to prevent mass riots and starvation since their own intellectuals predicted Western Collapse by 1995.


Yeah, those stupid egg heads.

Here's the thing that's hard to argue with: the demographics are baked in.

Image

Take a look at that bulge at 50-54. Almost 7 million people. Vs. 3.3 million people aged 5-9. When that 5-9 age cohort is 50-54 years old, Germany's population won't be 83 million anymore. It'll be 40-50 million. Meanwhile, that 5-9 group - which is half the size of the 50-54 group will, in 15 years, have to pay for the retirement benefits of that older cohort. And they won't be able to out-vote the larger cohort, because there aren't enough of them. While at the same time, that older cohort will stop making money (and right now, they are making the most money they will make in their lives), they'll move their savings from equity investments to "safe" harbors, and so capital will dry up at the exact same moment you need economic growth to fund your welfare state because your labor market isn't up to the task.

That demographic picture is just as dire across the developed world (except the US and France). It's actually even worse in China.

Then take a look at Germany's trade to GDP ratio. It's 88%. The US is 26.50% (and most of that is with Canada and Mexico, who aren't going anywhere...Mexico has a very healthy demographic profile). As Germany's trading partners' collective populations age, their consumption will drop. Which will, uh, force a "transformation" on the German economy.

Sure, there's enough technical talent in Germany to muddle through, and maybe having 25% of their normal economic activity will finally make their green energy strategy feasible, so it's not all doom and gloom.

Nonetheless, as the US disengages from being the global guarantor of...everything, the rest of the world is entering in a structural and demographic phase that limits the collective ability to respond to crises. And, unfortunately, the world is already in the middle of a crisis with the Ukraine-Russia war. Most of us just don't know it yet.
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Re: Re:

Postby Tarkan » Fri Jun 24, 2022 1:21 pm

el3so wrote:
Tarkan wrote:As long as we let you.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistic ... a-EU_trade

The EU trade surplus with the United States grew from €67 billion in 2011 to a record high of €167 billion in 2021. Keep smoking that copium.


Oh know, what will we ever do without Mercedes and BMWs?

Said another way, the EU economy is more dependent on exports to the US than US is dependent on imports from the EU. Who imports the most stuff from the EU? Oh yeah, the US.

Export driven economies only run when exports can happen.

Don't get me wrong. I like Europe. I'm not saying we should bully Europe. But Europe needs the US more than the US needs Europe. If everything but North America disappeared tomorrow, we'd muddle through. If everything but Europe disappeared tomorrow, Europeans would be starving and at each other's throats in a couple of weeks (in the dark to boot).
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Postby el3so » Fri Jun 24, 2022 1:56 pm

Tarkan wrote: Oh know, what will we ever do without Mercedes and BMWs?
Drive those high-end American cars I keep hearing about.
If everything but Europe disappeared tomorrow, Europeans would be starving and at each other's throats in a couple of weeks
That's nothing new though, we've had centuries worth of that before the EU (and synthetic fertilizer) came along. We'll eat the poor before Germany and France will go at it again.
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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby Tarkan » Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:12 pm

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/16 ... nctions-vn

'All our hope is in the famine' Putin puppet gloats over Russian tactic to end sanctions
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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby Kurt » Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:58 pm

Market economies are designed to adapt to change. One thing about Europe is it is more market oriented than the USA, being that they let stuff fail and die there and then they adapt.

I find it funny that Europe keeps getting better and America keeps getting shittier but the news in America by Americans is that Europe is dying.

Here is a plan...especially on a travel board. Pick a place in Europe that you think is on the verge of collapse and go there.
While there try to:
1. Travel using public transportation. (How far can you go before not being able to proceed?)
2. Travel via car? How are the roads?
3. If you get sick, seek medical care even for something minor.
4. Ask people how much debt they are in for education?
5. Ask people how easy it is to start a business
6. Ask people how long they can survive if they lose their job

Return to the US and repeat the steps.
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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby Tarkan » Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:20 pm

Kurt wrote:Market economies are designed to adapt to change. One thing about Europe is it is more market oriented than the USA, being that they let stuff fail and die there and then they adapt.

I find it funny that Europe keeps getting better and America keeps getting shittier but the news in America by Americans is that Europe is dying.

Here is a plan...especially on a travel board. Pick a place in Europe that you think is on the verge of collapse and go there.
While there try to:
1. Travel using public transportation. (How far can you go before not being able to proceed?)
2. Travel via car? How are the roads?
3. If you get sick, seek medical care even for something minor.
4. Ask people how much debt they are in for education?
5. Ask people how easy it is to start a business
6. Ask people how long they can survive if they lose their job

Return to the US and repeat the steps.


I'm not saying Europe is dying. They are just aging out. Peak European population is now. There will never (at least, not in our lifetimes or our kid's lifetimes) be as many Europeans alive as are alive today.

The UN expects there to be about 120 million less Europeans by 2100. And that's without globalism shitting the bed and the rise of famine and food and energy insecurity.

With regards to your questions, none of those are nearly as relevant as...7) how many kids are you going to have? For a whole lot of Europeans for the last 50 years, that answer has been 0 or 1.

When you have 5 workers for every retiree, then social welfare system works.

When you have 1 worker for every retiree, it gets to be a bit burdensome, and will put some strain on those things you think Europe is doing so much better than us. Most likely it won't be an overnight shift, but it's not like you can't see it coming.
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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby Tarkan » Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:25 pm

Now that Roe v Wade is overturned, I wonder how many cities the left will burn down this week.
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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby vagabond » Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:35 pm

Tarkan wrote:Now that Roe v Wade is overturned, I wonder how many cities the left will burn down this week.


The war the accelerationists have wanted. The gloves have been coming off for a while on the right while the establishment Dems enjoy their PAC money and 'nothing will fundamentally change'.

And, if things do kick off, is it really 'the left' or people that want to stand up against a near-future fundamentalist Christian authoritarian state with rule by the minority?

I don't see it really 'kicking off' until there are some late term abortions on the Justices. Then things will be truly spicy and we'll be in even worse territory than we were on Jan 6th.
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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby Tarkan » Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:53 pm

vagabond wrote:
Tarkan wrote:Now that Roe v Wade is overturned, I wonder how many cities the left will burn down this week.


The war the accelerationists have wanted. The gloves have been coming off for a while on the right while the establishment Dems enjoy their PAC money and 'nothing will fundamentally change'.

And, if things do kick off, is it really 'the left' or people that want to stand up against a near-future fundamentalist Christian authoritarian state with rule by the minority?

I don't see it really 'kicking off' until there are some late term abortions on the Justices. Then things will be truly spicy and we'll be in even worse territory than we were on Jan 6th.


https://nypost.com/2022/06/24/roe-v-wad ... -protests/

"The pro-abortion radical group Jane’s Revenge, which has already claimed responsibility for arson attacks and vandalism since the leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, published a letter last week declaring “open season” on pro-life pregnancy crisis centers."

Yeah, it's really the right being accelerationists on this one.
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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby vagabond » Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:22 pm

Tarkan wrote:
vagabond wrote:
Tarkan wrote:Now that Roe v Wade is overturned, I wonder how many cities the left will burn down this week.


The war the accelerationists have wanted. The gloves have been coming off for a while on the right while the establishment Dems enjoy their PAC money and 'nothing will fundamentally change'.

And, if things do kick off, is it really 'the left' or people that want to stand up against a near-future fundamentalist Christian authoritarian state with rule by the minority?

I don't see it really 'kicking off' until there are some late term abortions on the Justices. Then things will be truly spicy and we'll be in even worse territory than we were on Jan 6th.


https://nypost.com/2022/06/24/roe-v-wad ... -protests/

"The pro-abortion radical group Jane’s Revenge, which has already claimed responsibility for arson attacks and vandalism since the leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, published a letter last week declaring “open season” on pro-life pregnancy crisis centers."

Yeah, it's really the right being accelerationists on this one.


My b. Forgot right-wing accelerationism is more of a white ethno-state thing, though that's still mixed with evangelical Christianity.

My point was that things are shitty and will get shittier as people are backed into a corner with no valid political means as a release valve. Voting in a corporate-owned gerontocracy isn't working. My general hypothesis is this is why the right has become more extreme and efforts for people to out extreme each other as a rearguard action against general economic and social decline in their communities as they see and fear the demographic and social changes that have swept across the country (not to mention their imminent death - but hey, don't touch Social Security!). For the left (center/center-right in most modern developed nations), it's mainly taking it on the chin or trying incrementalist, technocratic BS while the other party keeps pushing and pushing, with no real accountability or consequences. Push something far enough and it will break. It's all out there on the display, like how the 2020 protests were dealt with vs Jan 6th insurrection.

I could be wrong. Hopefully, I'm wrong and there's some way to radically change things in a short period of time without violence.
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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby Tarkan » Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:16 pm

vagabond wrote:
Tarkan wrote:
vagabond wrote:
Tarkan wrote:Now that Roe v Wade is overturned, I wonder how many cities the left will burn down this week.


The war the accelerationists have wanted. The gloves have been coming off for a while on the right while the establishment Dems enjoy their PAC money and 'nothing will fundamentally change'.

And, if things do kick off, is it really 'the left' or people that want to stand up against a near-future fundamentalist Christian authoritarian state with rule by the minority?

I don't see it really 'kicking off' until there are some late term abortions on the Justices. Then things will be truly spicy and we'll be in even worse territory than we were on Jan 6th.


https://nypost.com/2022/06/24/roe-v-wad ... -protests/

"The pro-abortion radical group Jane’s Revenge, which has already claimed responsibility for arson attacks and vandalism since the leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, published a letter last week declaring “open season” on pro-life pregnancy crisis centers."

Yeah, it's really the right being accelerationists on this one.


My b. Forgot right-wing accelerationism is more of a white ethno-state thing, though that's still mixed with evangelical Christianity.

My point was that things are shitty and will get shittier as people are backed into a corner with no valid political means as a release valve. Voting in a corporate-owned gerontocracy isn't working. My general hypothesis is this is why the right has become more extreme and efforts for people to out extreme each other as a rearguard action against general economic and social decline in their communities as they see and fear the demographic and social changes that have swept across the country (not to mention their imminent death - but hey, don't touch Social Security!). For the left (center/center-right in most modern developed nations), it's mainly taking it on the chin or trying incrementalist, technocratic BS while the other party keeps pushing and pushing, with no real accountability or consequences. Push something far enough and it will break. It's all out there on the display, like how the 2020 protests were dealt with vs Jan 6th insurrection.

I could be wrong. Hopefully, I'm wrong and there's some way to radically change things in a short period of time without violence.


I think the white ethno-state crypto white-fascism dog whistle is hugely (and intentionally) overblown by the left (and in turn, echoed and amplified by the media). Under Obama, if you disagreed with an Obama admin policy, the only possible reason why was because you were racist. And now under Biden, racism is equivalent to white supremacy, and white supremacy means you are a simply a terrorist waiting to explode. So, dissent = terrorism, thus the left-wing State is justified in using all of the mechanisms of the State to go after you. Which is how we find ourselves in the position of where parents are being investigated by the FBI for simply voicing their objection over bathroom policy that allowed a gender fluid boy to use the girl's bathroom where he then raped a girl in the bathroom which was then *covered up by the school*. Even if no one ends up going to jail on trumped up bullshit charges, the process is the punishment.

Similarly, you see this with the foot soldiers of the left. Speech by people they disagree with = violence, and violence against those people to silence them is then justified "self defense".

30 years ago, the left was almost universally in favor of freedom of speech. Now, not so much. Now, they are the champions of censorship, and - AFAIK, the pro-censorship people, historically, have never been the good guys.

Trump and Bernie are fundamentally manifestations of the same general angst among the left and the right - which is the idea that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are actually working for the common good. As I've said before, Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party actually had pretty fucking similar complaints. They just had disagreements on the proper policy fixes. The old school GOP and Democrat parties don't really disagree all that much on policy. That's why someone like Mueller or Comey or Wray are equally at home serving Democratic or Republican administrations. In event event, win or lose, both parties get paid. There really aren't any poor people in the House and Senate, and if they aren't rich when they arrive, it doesn't take them long to get there (look at AOC's net worth after being a Congresswoman for 3 years).

The US can get away with it for a long time because we don't border any hostile states and we are effectively resource independent (at least with respect to food and energy and high tech manufactured goods).
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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby vagabond » Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:55 pm

Tarkan wrote:Trump and Bernie are fundamentally manifestations of the same general angst among the left and the right - which is the idea that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are actually working for the common good. As I've said before, Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party actually had pretty fucking similar complaints. They just had disagreements on the proper policy fixes. The old school GOP and Democrat parties don't really disagree all that much on policy. That's why someone like Mueller or Comey or Wray are equally at home serving Democratic or Republican administrations. In event event, win or lose, both parties get paid. There really aren't any poor people in the House and Senate, and if they aren't rich when they arrive, it doesn't take them long to get there (look at AOC's net worth after being a Congresswoman for 3 years).


And that's something that it seems you and I agree on, to some degree. Unfortunately, the policy 'fixes' the right went to was xenophobia, racism, and violence. In the face on societal uncertainty, national depression expressed in opioid abuse, and a lack of accountability and consequences for all these fools and their corporate backers, they chose to back the people that would strip rights from everyone in a desperate hope to go back to some 'normal', idealized past that never existed except that they felt more in power and had control.


Tarkan wrote:The US can get away with it for a long time because we don't border any hostile states and we are effectively resource independent (at least with respect to food and energy and high tech manufactured goods).


*lol* As someone that had to deal with supply chain delays on high tech equipment most of last year and this year, not true. It's an interconnected world and we saw during COVID and now the lack of resiliency in the system as we've monopolized and just-in-timed our way to a point where it could fall apart. We tout the free market but there's an utter lack of competition in our system. Check out David Dayen's book Monopolized or Matt Stoller's substack for plenty of examples. And now we have douchebags like Larry Summers saying that we need to have at least 5% unemployment to fight inflation - basically, plebs, stop asking for more money and a competitive labor market, we need you to be unemployed so your overseers can have more profit.
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Postby el3so » Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:14 pm

Kurt wrote: I find it funny that Europe keeps getting better and America keeps getting shittier but the news in America by Americans is that Europe is dying.
Think it's a matter of perspective. Pretty gloomy media over here as well. It'll pass.
Tarkan wrote: how many kids are you going to have? For a whole lot of Europeans for the last 50 years, that answer has been 0 or 1.
Actual number is of course a bit higher and it's pretty much the same in other places once birth control and basic health care become available and women economically active.

worldbank says USA fertility rate has been under 2.0 since 2010.
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Postby el3so » Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:17 pm

Tarkan wrote:arson attacks

Yeah, it's really the right being accelerationists on this one.
Okay, that is funny.
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Re: Shitty America Is Getting Shittier

Postby Kurt » Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:23 pm

Tarkan wrote:Now that Roe v Wade is overturned, I wonder how many cities the left will burn down this week.


None.

How many fires will there be? Maybe a few.

Thomas wants to go after gay marriage and birth control now. Something a majority of Americans support (as they do Roe V. Wade)

The problem is the Democrats actually believed Republicans when they claimed they were not going to over-turn it. and said "ok, you don't over-turn it and we we legislate it into permanence on the Federal level.

The Republicans have been fighting to over-turn "Liberal" things and the Liberals have been fighting to get the Republicans to go back to Republicrat "Bi-Partisanship".

It's been planned for 40 years and yet we did not see it coming, even when it was leaked.
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