America - The Official Thread

[Yard_Sale]

It seems weird to me that Californians are supposed to be solely to blame for rising inflation, but only in America while everyone else seems to be facing similar problems without their input.
I remember them from a few posts before yours. Wages and spending power were higher in real terms then according to the figures in the post. Man does not live by bread alone.

Well, considering California is the 5th largest economy in the world definitely has something to do with it.

As does a rather old saying; “As California goes, so goes the nation…”

That saying dates back to the 80’s at least, I wot.

 

[FPV MIC]

I remember them from a few posts before yours. Wages and spending power were higher in real terms then according to the figures in the post. Man does not live by bread alone.

Up until 2018 it was a different story according to the link below and as I mentioned 2022 (and the Covid period) is out of the ordinary so far and could yet change... drastically. I also pointed out that his other determining factors weren't what I saw by searching either, house values in particular, which throws those calculations out a lot.

28 years since rates were at 17 per cent; are we any better off?

www.ratecity.com.au

Edit: The 20% that was mentioned in the article above as needed for an home loan is a thing of the past now too. It's currently the recommended amount but not necessary as it's possible to get in for as low as 5% by obtaining Lenders Mortgage Insurance.

Edit 2: According to the article linked below there was a fairly large pay difference on average when adjusted from 1981 to 2019 as well. These average pay rates are also higher than those previously stated for 2022 and I seriously doubt they've gone down, plateaued... maybe.

Families Then and Now: how income and employment changed for Australian households between 1980 and 2019

More working mums, a marginally narrowing gender pay gap, and increased household wealth are just a few of the economic shifts people in Australia have lived through over the last 40 years, according to new research released by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS).

aifs.gov.au

Edit 3: More info. The figure for 1980 weekly earnings was for a full time employee while the figure for 2022 is for all employees, with part timers included, which drives the average down from $1,835 seasonally adjusted to @Hayden's figure of $1,344. This would change those figures even further.

Average Weekly Earnings, Australia, May 2022

Estimates of weekly earnings classified by industry, sector, state and territory

www.abs.gov.au

 

[Scaff]

Well, considering California is the 5th largest economy in the world definitely has something to do with it.

As does a rather old saying; “As California goes, so goes the nation…”

That saying dates back to the 80’s at least, I wot.

It's not an American problem, it's a western problem (and more so for those economies that follow an American model).

The UK and Australia are not facing the self same issues because of Californians!

So far in this thread, you have blamed it on 'workshy youngsters', 'foreigners', and now 'California', at what point are you going to get to the reality being it's a system designed to operate in this way, for the advantage of a few and at the expense of the many (and one you politically support).

 

[Yard_Sale]

It's not an American problem, it's a western problem (and more so for those economies that follow an American model).

The UK and Australia are not facing the self same issues because of Californians!

So far in this thread, you have blamed it on 'workshy youngsters', 'foreigners', and now 'California', at what point are you going to get to the reality being it's a system designed to operate in this way, for the advantage of a few and at the expense of the many (and one you politically support).

All I did was agree with 2 points that that picture had and said it was sage advice. Which working hard and not spending uneccesary money is always sage advice. Maybe I took it out of context because that picture was meant to poke fun at boomers? If that's the case, I'm sorry... I guess. But literally at no point did I blame the young generation for any of this. Nor did I blame foreigners, unless you're talking about my reference to foreign money influencing California's housing market, which is definitely part of the issue. But just a small part.

As far as California goes, yes... it does have weight with how the United States goes....which then in turn has weight with how the rest of the western world goes. On a separate but kind of related note, I've always wondered how much influence the United States had over other country's own "Covid relief" packages. In other words, how much did the other western civilizations look towards how the US went about it? I'm honestly curious.

If there's one thing the United States messed up during Covid; its that we printed waaaaay too much money for Covid Relief packages, which was due to keeping businesses closed for too long, which was driven primarily by the Democrats/progressives - being that they controlled the house and Senate (and amongst the Dems, California and New York are the 800lb gorillas in that room). Then all of this was compounded by the feds tanking the interest rates to keep the economy afloat and incentivize borrowing. From a financial point of view, this all reminded me of 2008-2011 sub-prime mortgage rate crisis, and the corresponding inflation, as well as the ensuing recession that followed. Same mechanics at play. All major world economies are tied together these days, and have been for quite some time.

Where I'm going with this is I wonder how much of the rest of the Western world followed our lead....and were the results, a compounded recession of economies amongst the major producers of the world? Perhaps the people in this thread who aren't American can speak to this.




You might not like me or my opinions, but truth be told, I do put weight in your's as well as all the others that participate in this thread. While I may not agree with some of them, it does provide perspective. I genuinely do like everyone here.

Make of that as you may.


As far as Capitalism in general (if that's what you're referring to), you are never going to convince me that despite its faults, capitalism is a bad thing. If it was meant to be in regards to politicians, yeah... I might be a conservative but I generally don't think there are many politicians out there that stay good, regardless of their party affiliation. They are people that I will never have anything in common with. I have more in common with you lot, then I ever will any politician. That's how I viewed things when I was in my mid-20's and liberal. Its exactly how I view things in my late 30's and conservative.

FWIW, I can't recall me ever trying to convince anyone in this thread that their views are wrong. Sure I've had my opinions. But I've never flat out told an one that their views are wrong. If there's anything I know, its that we all view society through a different lens which is almost always being shaped and reshaped through life experiences...and therein forms our opinions. I'm no exception to that, and neither is anyone else here.

 

[Scaff]

All I did was agree with 2 points that that picture had and said it was sage advice. Which working hard and not spending uneccesary money is always sage advice. Maybe I took it out of context because that picture was meant to poke fun at boomers? If that's the case, I'm sorry... I guess. But literally at no point did I blame the young generation for any of this. Nor did I blame foreigners, unless you're talking about my reference to foreign money influencing California's housing market, which is definitely part of the issue. But just a small part.

And yet you took three small factors and turned them into a root cause, basically moving from one to the next as flaws with the argument in each has been pointed out!

As far as California goes, yes... it does have weight with how the United States goes....which then in turn has weight with how the rest of the western world goes.

Not quite, unless you're making the leap that as Regan was the governor of Cali that somehow makes California responsible for Reganomics.

On a separate but kind of related note, I've always wondered how much influence the United States had over other country's own "Covid relief" packages. In other words, how much did the other western civilizations look towards how the US went about it? I'm honestly curious.

The US was behind just about every other country in it's response to COVID, mainly because you had a lunatic in charge trying to get people to inject bleach and take horse dewormer.

If there's one thing the United States messed up during Covid; its that we printed waaaaay too much money for Covid Relief packages, which was due to keeping businesses closed for too long, which was driven primarily by the Democrats/progressives - being that they controlled the house and Senate (and amongst the Dems, California and New York are the 800lb gorillas in that room). Then all of this was compounded by the feds tanking the interest rates to keep the economy afloat and incentivize borrowing. From a financial point of view, this all reminded me of 2008-2011 sub-prime mortgage rate crisis, and the corresponding inflation, as well as the ensuing recession that followed. Same mechanics at play. All major world economies are tied together these days, and have been for quite some time.

Where I'm going with this is I wonder how much of the rest of the Western world followed our lead....and was the results a compounded recession of economies amongst the major producers of the world? Perhaps the people in this thread who aren't American can speak to this.

Yeah, no it's not the same as the 2008-2011 sub-prime issue at all. One was a reaction to an unprecedented global emergency, and the other was a result of stripping out regulations and then hoping the market would self-regulate, it didn't (what a surprise) and an entirely avoidable situation resulted (which plenty of people warned about and were told 'the market knows best'). Could the US have been better prepared for COVID? Absolutely, but 45, in his racist stripping out of all things Obama, removed many of the tools that would have allowed that.

You might not like me or my opinions, but truth be told, I do put weight in your's as well as all the others that participate in this thread. While I may not agree with some of them, it does provide perspective. I genuinely do like everyone her

None of this has anything to do with my view of you as an individual, odd to even think it does, as I've not to my knowledge commented once on you personally.

As far as Capitalism in general (if that's what you're referring to), you are never going to convince me that despite its faults, capitalism is a bad thing. If it was meant to be in regards to politicians, yeah... I might be a conservative but I generally don't think there are many politicians out there that stay good, regardless of their party affiliation. They are people that I will never have anything in common with. I have more in common with you lot, then I ever will any politician. That's how I viewed things when I was in my mid-20's and liberal. Its exactly how I view things in my late 30's and conservative.

Capitalism isn't a monolith, and the concept of the totally free market, laissez-faire capitalism, as championed by Reagan, in which 'trickle-down' would lift all boats have been shown to be an utterly broken concept that simply doesn't work for anyone but those at the very, very top.

Its failure is the biggest factor in why we are, economically, where we are in most of the western world, and yet you are consistently both defending it and looking to blame any other factor you can instead of addressing the actual root cause.

The latest idiot in charge of the UK is about to repeat it, and outside of the mouthpieces of the 1% and the ruling party, every independent economic group has said its simply going to repeat the problems of the past, while benefiting a small minority at the expense of the majority. Hell, it's already resulted in the pound crashing to a 40-year low against the dollar.

FWIW, I can't recall me ever trying to convince anyone in this thread that their views are wrong. Sure I've had my opinions. But I've never flat out told an one that their views are wrong. If there's anything I know, its that we all view society through a different lens which is almost always being shaped and reshaped through life experiences...and therein forms our opinions. I'm no exception to that, and neither is anyone else here.

Holding different views is fine, but you don't get 'alternative facts'.

 

[Danoff]

Prices have not dropped in many places because it’s still a supply and demand problem. In California’s case, there’s still many more potential buyers than there are homes. And that’s new, first time buyers. Not buyers who are looking to move up, down, in, out, or sideways within the market. And once again, foreign and domestic investors who are buying up inventory (I have a couple stories about that).

Again, price have not dropped in California (or Texas) in relation to the rest of the country due to some kind of exodus.

Foreign and domestic investors have moved in to real-estate not just in the US but around the world. And they are not californian transplants. If what you are saying is true, we should see real estate prices suffer in Texas and California, at least in a relative sense, compared to the rest of the country. I haven't seen a population decline, or even something out of place in the population trend in either of those states as well.

You're making a claim about the cause of real-estate prices in your area, I'm asking you to consider the state of the evidence for that claim.

What we're seeing is houses staying on market for longer than a week, and bidding wars are becoming rarer. Prices will drop across the board once you start seeing houses staying on the market longer than 30 days across the board with a few exceptions of course. Then you’ll see price reductions on old inventory, followed by price “corrections” for new inventory. But then of course the rest will depend on what the banks do with interest rates. A 10% market Correction won't mean a whole lot if the interest rates keep ticking up. As the case with Texas, Idaho and Arizona; its still the same basic problem but a little more complicated. Supply and demand of course, but also costs of labor and materials to build new houses. The costs of labor is directly related to the shortage of skilled and basic labor. I don't think we're going to see a 2009-2011 ever again. I don't think the banks will be stupid enough to put themselves in that position again.

All of this is completely beside my point, and honestly kinda undermines yours. I thought the problem was Californians?

It doesn't take but a handful of Californians moving into a specific zip code to affect the price per square foot moving forward for future listings. Then that price will slowly creep up in a cycle.

How many Californians does it take moving into a specific zip code to affect price per square foot as compared to the same effect someone might have from, for example, another county within the same state. And why do you think that number is "a handful"? How did you arrive at that figure?

In fact, if I was looking to move out of California, I'd leverage my house for a massive down payment then rent it out for 175% of what my current mortgage is.

Kinda suggests that the market is strong in California, and does not suggest that California is somehow responsible for prices raising everywhere else.

As far as the issues in UK and abroad, without looking into the intricacies of their economies, my only logical guess would be inflation, credit rates, labor and regulations.

Idk.... maybe I'm not understanding your observation

So your guess would be things other than California? Why does that reasoning not work in the US?

California and Texas real-estate prices have gone up a ton in the last few years, just like the rest of the country, and just like other countries.

 

[Hayden]

@yardsale I can’t really speak to Australia as I’m not familiar with their economics. You’re not going to get much argument from me that generally speaking, purchasing power is down right now, globally among first world countries due to global inflation
Out of curiosity, I googled Australia’s housing market and came up with this

Australian property bubble - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

For better or worse, all the contributing factors make sense in regards to the inflated housing market out your way.

On another note, a book I read in my 20’s was “The World Is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. Was pretty eye opening and put a lot of things into perspective in terms of how economics work. I’d recommend it to anyone who is curious about that kind of stuff. It still feels like the rules of economics are changing before our very eyes currently. The next 5 years will be interesting to see how the global markets dig themselves out of this recession

Agree that the next 5 years will be a telling time worldwide. Many economists are tipping heavy downturn, with people who have over mortgaged falling on the sword of increased interest rates and falling asset values. Time will tell.

Where do you get you're bread? It's less than $2 for us.

Also, $1.1 million is more like Sydney and Melbourne prices not Australia as a whole ($920k https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/e...nflation/total-value-dwellings/latest-release) from what I can see, and it's only about 700k - 750k here in SA.

I wouldn't be paying 6% interest either .

From my anecdotal experience that's not true. Everyone I know bought where they could afford first, and then moved about 10 years later after a period of knuckling down and hammering out their payments... just like their kids are doing now.

Bread price link:
https://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/whatitcost/groceries .

Interest rate link:

Australia Mortgage Rate

Mortgage Rate in Australia increased to 6.11 percent in November from 6.09 percent in October of 2024. This page includes a chart with historical data for Australia Mortgage Rate.

tradingeconomics.com

Apologies, that was Sydney pricing. You’re right in saying national capital city house average is $928,812. https://propertyupdate.com.au/the-latest-median-property-prices-in-australias-major-cities/

View attachment 1195347

Supermarket statistics 2024

Finder collected statistics on supermarket spending in 2023 and found that 4 in 5 Australians are signed up to a supermarket rewards program.

www.finder.com.au

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying things aren't hard now, I'm just balancing it out with it's always been hard. Edit: Anyone else remember 17% home loan interest rates in 1989?

I’m in Adelaide too, and built 5 years ago with a 5% deposit first home buyer scheme that my (now) wife and I saved up over a number of years while renting a unit. I paid $390k for the house, and since that time the median price in this suburb has gone up 55.79%, putting it’s value over $600k.

My point isn’t that you can’t find cheaper options for bread, interest rates or housing prices. Various options exist as they always did. I worked off of averages to try to demonstrate, that for the average person it is harder now than it was back then.

Let’s use your 1989 example and SA specifically. Wages are South Australia specific, adult full time ordinary hours from ‘Nov 89 & May ‘22. (Apples & apples).

Average house price 1989 SA= $92K
Average mortgage rate= 17%
Weekly mortgage payment= $305
Average weekly full time wage= $516.6
Mortgage % of income = 59.0%

Average house price today= $750k
Average mortgage rate= 6.06%
Weekly mortgage payment= $1046
Average weekly wage= $1622.9 per week
Mortgage % of income = 64.4%

It’s pretty tight, but even with your very specific example of SA and 1989, for full time workers your mortgage is still a 5% bigger chunk of your income in 2022. Also worth noting that full time employment has been decreasing as industries favour part time and gig style working.
In 1989 79.1% of workers were full time.
In Jan 2021 68.8% of workers were full time.
Those without full time employment (then and now) are pretty unlikely to get into the market.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying people in 1989 had it easy, but the mortgage rates, even in the most extreme years, do not counteract the ludicrous inflation of the property market.

Australian House Prices: Last 50-Year Retrospective

If you talk to anyone under the age of, say, 50, I don’t think you’d get much of an argument that Australian house prices are completely out of control.

www.savings.com.au

https://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/free.nsf/0/7C6B17308A6EB110CA2574FF00185702/$File/63020_NOV1989.pdf

Average Weekly Earnings, Australia, May 2024

Estimates of weekly earnings classified by industry, sector, state and territory

www.abs.gov.au

https://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/free.nsf/0/7C2C1CDAE450F0A4CA25748E001F2423/$File/61010_1989_CHAPTER3_EMPLOYMENT_AND_UNDEREMPLOYMENT.pdf

Understanding full-time and part-time work

www.abs.gov.au

 

[Danoff]

For those in the US that think their home prices are driven by Californians, Texans, or New Yorkers. Here's the explanation for what you're observing.

First
Inflation and the pandemic. House prices skyrocketed when people stayed home and started working from home. Commercial real estate did not do so hot.

Second
The popularity of real-estate trading on wall street and the new income generated by the properties due to websites like airbnb and vrbo. Houses have very recently found new ways to generate money, and it has proven quite valuable to a lot of investors. This effect is seen more dramatically in places where people vacation.

Third
You live someplace nicer than most, and people want to move there.

Ok, so why might you see people with deep pockets coming from California, Texas, and New York specifically. Partly, it's because those states have large populations, and so when you observe someone moving to where you live from out of state, it's likely to be one of those. They have a lot of people, so they have a lot of people moving out of state. The flip side of that is that they also have a disproportionate number of people moving TO those states.

Everything after this is explaining more about that third and least important point when it comes to recent price growth. The stuff I mention below has been going on for a very long time.
======================================================

Random small towns don't have opportunities for everyone that lives there. The young people growing up in your area want to do other things with their lives than work at the bar or at the local hardware store. They want to make music, invent robotics, study diseases, model, write movies, trade securities, and research the composition of snowflakes. So what do they do? They "go off to college". Where do they go off to college? In the US, that's the population centers of California, New York, or Texas. For those that don't, they graduate college skilled in some trade that they often can't find work for locally, and so they find a job in the population centers of California, New York, or Texas.

Once they get work, they establish their careers and have kids. The kids make the living conditions in big cities much more difficult to stomach, so these same people start looking for a place to live that costs less and offers more space and comfort. They don't look back at the small town they came from - it still doesn't offer much of anything. But they scan the country for a nice place to live with their family. Maybe it has a few jobs in their area, and they manage to land one. Or maybe they can work remotely now. So they move back out of California, New York, or Texas to suburban life. And the people in those suburbs complain that they're raising prices. "Go back to California" they say, not noticing that a teenager from their area just moved to California to find work and education.

The population centers of California, Texas, and New York disproportionately educate, employ, and financially establish the young people of America. But they can't house the entire country, so the same people that move there for those benefits, do eventually move out for the same reason. When they do, they don't distribute evenly within the US, they pick the nicest places and move to those places. If you live someplace nice, expect other people to notice and want to live there. Welcome them. It's part of the growth of the country.

If you want to find out if this is happening in your area, there are two characteristics you should see. One is that your local area is rising in population much more rapidly than the population center. Another is that prices in your local area are rising much more rapidly than the population center. You'd be looking for a highly disproportionate signal for your particular area as compared to the rest of the country, population centers, or other countries - which can be considered something of a control for teasing out this signal.

If you find that your small town is exploding in population and price, and you see that a big reason for that is people coming from the nation's population centers, congratulations, you live someplace desirable.

====================================================================

If there's one thing the United States messed up during Covid; its that we printed waaaaay too much money for Covid Relief packages, which was due to keeping businesses closed for too long, which was driven primarily by the Democrats/progressives - being that they controlled the house and Senate (and amongst the Dems, California and New York are the 800lb gorillas in that room).

First of all, that was bipartisan, and Trump signed off on a lot of it.

Second of all, it's great of you to use your financial genius to second-guess covid relief packages. But can you explain exactly what would have happened if those relief packages were less or eliminated? I'd like to know what the alternative was here, and you seem to think you know. You say "we printed too much money" but you do not know what the alternative was.

 

[Yard_Sale]

For those in the US that think their home prices are driven by Californians, Texans, or New Yorkers. Here's the explanation for what you're observing.

First
Inflation and the pandemic. House prices skyrocketed when people stayed home and started working from home. Commercial real estate did not do so hot.

Secondly
The popularity of real-estate trading on wall street and the new income generated by the properties due to websites like airbnb and vrbo. Houses have very recently found new ways to generate money, and it has proven quite valuable to a lot of investors. This effect is seen more dramatically in places where people vacation.

Third
You live someplace nicer than most, and people want to move there.

Ok, so why might you see people with deep pockets coming from California, Texas, and New York specifically. Partly, it's because those states have large populations, and so when you observe someone moving to where you live from out of state, it's likely to be one of those. They have a lot of people, so they have a lot of people moving out of state. The flip side of that is that they also have a disproportionate number of people moving TO those states.

Everything after this is explaining more about that third and least important point when it comes to recent price growth. The stuff I mention below has been going on for a very long time.
======================================================

Random small towns don't have opportunities for everyone that lives there. The young people growing up in your area want to do other things with their lives than work at the bar or at the local hardware store. They want to make music, invent robotics, study diseases, model, write movies, trade securities, and research the composition of snowflakes. So what do they do? They "go off to college". Where do they go off to college? In the US, that's the population centers of California, New York, or Texas. For those that don't, they graduate college skilled in some trade that they often can't find work for locally, and so they find a job in the population centers of California, New York, or Texas.

Once they get work, they establish their careers and have kids. The kids make the living conditions in big cities much more difficult to stomach, so these same people start looking for a place to live that costs less and offers more space and comfort. They don't look back at the small town they came from - it still doesn't offer much of anything. But they scan the country for a nice place to live with their family. Maybe it has a few jobs in their area, and they manage to land one. Or maybe they can work remotely now. So they move back out of California, New York, or Texas to suburban life. And the people in those suburbs complain that they're raising prices. "Go back to California" they say, not noticing that a teenager from their area just moved to California to find work and education.

The population centers of California, Texas, and New York disproportionately educate, employ, and financially establish the young people of America. But they can't house the entire country, so the same people that move there for those benefits, do eventually move out for the same reason. When they do, they don't distribute evenly within the US, they pick the nicest places and move to those places. If you live someplace nice, expect other people to notice and want to live there. Welcome them. It's part of the growth of the country.

If you want to find out if this is happening in your area, there are two characteristics you should see. One is that your local area is rising in population much more rapidly than the population center. Another is that prices in your local area are rising much more rapidly than the population center. You'd be looking for a highly disproportionate signal for your particular area as compared to the rest of the country, population centers, or other countries - which can be considered something of a control for teasing out this signal.

If you find that your small town is exploding in population and price, and you see that a big reason for that is people coming from the nation's population centers, congratulations, you live someplace desirable.

====================================================================

First of all, that was bipartisan, and Trump signed off on a lot of it.

Second of all, it's great of you to use your financial genius to second-guess covid relief packages. But can you explain exactly what would have happened if those relief packages were less or eliminated? I'd like to know what the alternative was here, and you seem to think you know. You say "we printed too much money" but you do not know what the alternative was.

I agree with everything you said in regards to the real estate portion. I'll add some amendments and other insights/opinions tomorrow(ish) when I get some more free time.


In regards to the Covid relief stuff. Yes, it WAS bipartisan. But Republican WERE fighting tooth and nail each time a new package was hitting the floor claiming it was too much money. I tend to think they were right, but that's my opinion. What could the country and individual states have done? That's easy. Open back up businesses beyond your big box stores much sooner - once we got more of a handle on what we were dealing with, and who it primarily affected. Even Democratic pundits are admitting that a lot was mishandled in hindsight with Covid relief. Lots of small businesses were lost and not coming back. Lots of lives, financially ruined. With every Covid succeeding Covid relief package, the US government in addition to printing money, was essentially bidding against the private sector for workers. Why get an entry level job in whatever field when you can stay at home. My wife works in the architectural field. They have been seeing a sharp rise in wages and benefits requests from both entry level and mid level employees in a variety of capacities. The wages and benefits aren't going to be sustainable in the field as a whole if their future projections are correct, and/or this recession gets bad. I'm sure this is the same sentiment across a variety of fields.

However, I do put a lot of the blame on Trump for one simple move that could have changed a lot of policy down river in regards to Covid and the reopening of the country much sooner. He made masks a political issue. I'll admit that I have my own opinions on the effectiveness of masks with anything that wasn't an N95. (for perspective, we've been wearing N95's at our discretion on overdoses since long before Covid, due to Carfentanil). Had Trump not been such an idiot in regards to this and other Covid-related things, I have a feeling things would have turned out much differently, and the country wouldn't financially be where it is now.

 

[Danoff]

I agree with everything you said in regards to the real estate portion. I'll add some amendments and other insights/opinions tomorrow(ish) when I get some more free time.


In regards to the Covid relief stuff. Yes, it WAS bipartisan. But Republican WERE fighting tooth and nail each time a new package was hitting the floor claiming it was too much money. I tend to think they were right, but that's my opinion. What could the country and individual states have done? That's easy. Open back up businesses beyond your big box stores much sooner - once we got more of a handle on what we were dealing with, and who it primarily affected. Even Democratic pundits are admitting that a lot was mishandled in hindsight with Covid relief. Lots of small businesses were lost and not coming back. Lots of lives, financially ruined. With every Covid succeeding Covid relief package, the US government in addition to printing money, was essentially bidding against the private sector for workers. Why get an entry level job in whatever field when you can stay at home. My wife works in the architectural field. They have been seeing a sharp rise in wages and benefits requests from both entry level and mid level employees in a variety of capacities. The wages and benefits aren't going to be sustainable in the field as a whole if their future projections are correct, and/or this recession gets bad. I'm sure this is the same sentiment across a variety of fields.

However, I do put a lot of the blame on Trump for one simple move that could have changed a lot of policy down river in regards to Covid and the reopening of the country much sooner. He made masks a political issue. I'll admit that I have my own opinions on the effectiveness of masks with anything that wasn't an N95. (for perspective, we've been wearing N95's at our discretion on overdoses since long before Covid, due to Carfentanil). Had Trump not been such an idiot in regards to this and other Covid-related things, I have a feeling things would have turned out much differently, and the country wouldn't financially be where it is now.

Politicizing masks was a terrible thing, and cost lives and livelihoods. But beyond that, it's very far from evident that what you propose is even financially better. Sure, it's far worse from a humanitarian perspective, but financially speaking, the price for printing money has not been remotely like the picture that was painted of rampant unemployment, homelessness, bankruptcy, and more widespread deaths that was a real possibility without the financial incentives to help slow the spread.

So what you propose certainly costs more lives, and more compromised health within the general population, but it also has its own, potentially devastating financial toll. Printing money to help keep people from being kicked on the street while their store closed its doors has not been devastating in the same way that what you propose might have been.

I know it's easy to throw stones and claim that too much money was printed and too much relief was offered. But I think that critical response comes from a lack of real consideration of what we were facing. I'm asking you to look honestly at simply allowing the financial collapse of all of these sectors. Today we have restructured a bit, it wouldn't look the same if we had to start tomorrow. But at that time we were facing an absolute financial emergency (in addition to the health one). And you're pretty clearly ignoring it.

 

[Imari]

I know it's easy to throw stones and claim that too much money was printed and too much relief was offered.

This is the other thing, the consequences of erring on the side of too much relief were uncertain and would be delayed. Potentially there would be more opportunities to mitigate any negative consequences later, as we're seeing now while governments try to deal with inflation. At the time, people were dying in large numbers of COVID and the health systems were stressed beyond their ability to cope. Opening up the economy and letting people circulate widely was a direct path to lots more people dying pretty much immediately, especially with the anti-mask/anti-vax sentiment rampant.

The chances of the response to this catastrophic event being perfect was practically nil. With hindsight it could always have been done better. But I'm fine with supporting people and deferring consequences instead of letting it rip and just killing a whole load of people. Last I looked the US had something on the order of a million COVID deaths. That's already wildly high without pushing it even further.

 

[TexRex]

Law and order.

 

[Populuxe]

Law and order.

He responded to that tweet while he, the top law enforcement official in Texas, fled from a lawfully served subpoena.

 

[Danoff]

This is the other thing, the consequences of erring on the side of too much relief were uncertain and would be delayed. Potentially there would be more opportunities to mitigate any negative consequences later, as we're seeing now while governments try to deal with inflation. At the time, people were dying in large numbers of COVID and the health systems were stressed beyond their ability to cope. Opening up the economy and letting people circulate widely was a direct path to lots more people dying pretty much immediately, especially with the anti-mask/anti-vax sentiment rampant.

The chances of the response to this catastrophic event being perfect was practically nil. With hindsight it could always have been done better. But I'm fine with supporting people and deferring consequences instead of letting it rip and just killing a whole load of people. Last I looked the US had something on the order of a million COVID deaths. That's already wildly high without pushing it even further.

it was even stated at the time that this was the idea. Over-doing relief packages was preferable to under-doing it. If we over-did it (and I don't know that that has been shown), then we followed our plan.

 

[Tornado]

I was going to say. I'm pretty sure Biden or someone explicitly said they would rather do too much than not enough this time (vs 2008).

 

[Pupik]

He responded to that tweet while he, the top law enforcement official in Texas, fled from a lawfully served subpoena.


View attachment 1195671

"Small, defenseless Chevy Tahoe"

This latest version of America has bugs under its skin.

 

[Yard_Sale]

Maybe I didn’t explain myself good enough (which is usually the case), but I was all for the Covid packages, and the $$$ amounts at first. Where I started having my own personal questions about the subsequent packages, wasn’t even the fact that we were doing them, but the dollar amount that was being tied to them, and where some of the money was going to….that if I remember correctly had zero to do with Covid. And this was all after Vaccines had already hit the ground.

I 100% believe that Trump severely screwed the pooch with how he decided to make masking a political issue. He dug in way to hard on that, and the result was the democrats digging in just as hard with shutdowns. People can have their opinions about the vaccine effectiveness and if the shutdowns really did do that much good, but the main issue was the messaging was “forked” from the getgo. I would even go as far to say that had Trump not made masks a political issue in the beginning, the Snowball wouldn’t have started rolling, and he would have gotten re-elected. From a strategy point alone, it was a huge miscalculation.

 

[Danoff]

Maybe I didn’t explain myself good enough (which is usually the case), but I was all for the Covid packages, and the $$$ amounts at first. Where I started having my own personal questions about the subsequent packages, wasn’t even the fact that we were doing them, but the dollar amount that was being tied to them, and where some of the money was going to….that if I remember correctly had zero to do with Covid.

So basically you started having questions when it was a Democrat President. A lot of the money early on had "zero" to do with covid if you looked at it strictly from a health perspective as well.

And this was all after Vaccines had already hit the ground.

We essentially had another pandemic from Omicron. It wasn't as bad as the first pandemic, but it was significant and it happened after the first vaccines.

I 100% believe that Trump severely screwed the pooch with how he decided to make masking a political issue. He dug in way to hard on that, and the result was the democrats digging in just as hard with shutdowns.

"Shutdowns" were a democrat thing? News to me. You think that they were a reaction to the mask crazy? Also news to me.

People can have their opinions about the vaccine effectiveness

Wait what?

and if the shutdowns really did do that much good

We stopped shutting down (early) when we got the emergency room load under control. That was always the point.

I would even go as far to say that had Trump not made masks a political issue in the beginning, the Snowball wouldn’t have started rolling, and he would have gotten re-elected. From a strategy point alone, it was a huge miscalculation.

Certainly it didn't help him. But there were number of other things that didn't help him - including being impeached twice, attacking freedom of speech, generally attacking democracy, etc. His idolization of Putin also I think really did not sit well with voters. Remember that military parade thing that was supposed to happen?

Do you lump the mask thing in with his denial that covid was real? He mismanaged the pandemic from start to finish, but let's not pretend that was his only problem.

 

[Yard_Sale]

So basically you started having questions when it was a Democrat President. A lot of the money early on had "zero" to do with covid if you looked at it strictly from a health perspective as well.

We essentially had another pandemic from Omicron. It wasn't as bad as the first pandemic, but it was significant and it happened after the first vaccines.

"Shutdowns" were a democrat thing? News to me. You think that they were a reaction to the mask crazy? Also news to me.

Wait what?

We stopped shutting down (early) when we got the emergency room load under control. That was always the point.

Certainly it didn't help him. But there were number of other things that didn't help him - including being impeached twice, attacking freedom of speech, generally attacking democracy, etc. His idolization of Putin also I think really did not sit well with voters. Remember that military parade thing that was supposed to happen?

Do you lump the mask thing in with his denial that covid was real? He mismanaged the pandemic from start to finish, but let's not pretend that was his only problem.

It didn’t matter to me who was president, wasted money is wasted money. My perspective is from California though, and our leaders went harder than anyone on all of that stuff with the exception of New York. And yes, people can have opinions on vaccines. And I say this as someone who got vaccinated and boosted as soon as I could. But admittedly, I’m taking a hook on any further boosters unless work forces me. I got Covid in the very beginning (tested positive for antibodies), Covid again during omicron (or whatever strain was the beginning of this year), and Covid again in July-august…somewhere in there.

And yes, I agree. Trump stepped on his meat at almost every corner of the pandemic, and in other ways as you pointed out. But him turning masking into a front and center campaign issue was absolutely ridiculous.


Late edit:

In regards to where the Covid money was being allocated, the democrats were in the drivers seat having control of both the house and the senate. I don’t necessarily blame them for leveraging their power as they saw fit. That’s politics for ya 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

[Danoff]

It didn’t matter to me who was president, wasted money is wasted money.

Once again, I'm asking you honestly to really consider what exactly is "wasted" and what is not. You seem to think you know, but you don't seem to have evidence to support that conviction.

My perspective is from California though, and our leaders went harder than anyone on all of that stuff with the exception of New York.

Yea, California was one of the most shut-down states. But also California had a lot of covid and some of the other more populous states were flying emergency cases many miles to hospitals that were not overcrowded. So it was pretty clear that California hospitals could (and did) end up overrun.

And yes, people can have opinions on vaccines. And I say this as someone who got vaccinated and boosted as soon as I could. But admittedly, I’m taking a hook on any further boosters unless work forces me. I got Covid in the very beginning (tested positive for antibodies), Covid again during omicron (or whatever strain was the beginning of this year), and Covid again in July-august…somewhere in there.

I'm gathering that your "opinion" on the vaccines is that a booster shot might not help you much since you got omicron? That's not really a question of opinion, that's a factual question based on biology. You can literally answer that question, so it doesn't belong in the realm of "opinion".

I will say that the booster shot was 100% for me because I never got covid.

And yes, I agree. Trump stepped on his meat at almost every corner of the pandemic, and in other ways as you pointed out. But him turning masking into a front and center campaign issue was absolutely ridiculous.

Ok, I won't argue with that. I do still argue with the idea that he would have won if not for that. Despite his protesting, the election was not particularly close - including in the electoral college. I'm glad he lost because even though he tried to "call off" the 2020 election, he was definitely going to try even harder to "call off" all future presidential elections.

 

[Pupik]

Eh, there was a part of me thinking the economy was going to hit a "reset button" by slowing down, because for a while, many businesses were lowering prices to meet the demand. But that's from the perspective that (1) I had a stable job (2) could shift to work-from-home (3) would rebound due to necessity/tied into essential work(ers). Once lots of people started losing jobs in nearly every sector, there really wasn't much else that could be done...and looking back, I might have been in really screwed had this happened to me 20 years ago.

- Unemployment was massive, and a huge portion of that was largely unrecorded before the pandemic.

- There was no way to complete the backlog of unemployment requests, let alone, verify each request.

- In an ideal world, you'd retrain the unemployed workers into training for verifying/denying/completing unemployment benefits for others' sake (never mind any possible conflicts of interest). Not sure how long that would have taken on short notice.

- The drawback was that everyone got money, whether they needed it or not (we didn't). Now, much of it was going to return to the coffers via reduced tax returns or owing taxes. But if you weren't generating any (noted) income, you obviously didn't have to pay it back.

- There was no infrastructure to verify who deserved how much, or if at all.

- Over a million people died. While there's scads of stories about those who were just flaunting their ignorance, they're the news-generating outliers out of the rest.

- The ignorance that abounded after a few months was frighteningly appalling. Everyone thinks they're the brightest one in the room and the moths fly to it, without realizing that the noisiest individual is psychologically making up for a ton of self-induced shortfalls.

- Leadership just failed to engage the backbone, use the brain, before the mouth. We knew the economy was going to tank but pumped a lot money into the economy; thinking it would just crash and rebuild itself slowly, but at an increased cost to everything. But it didn't quite work out that way; in some ways, the economy got stronger and big-price-tag sectors went full steam ahead. And everything else wasn't going to be left behind. Couple that with a labor market that was doing the right economic thing (for a while), whereby the market could start to name their price.

- Instead of acknowledging this, we got politicization. It's as if they've acknowledged the ending, thought of ways that we could improve, but halfway through the credits...society just said, "hey, what else is on TV?" and proceeds to forget every lesson learned. In a way, we had textbook examples of supply-and-demand. But we threw it away. Instead, we just get repeating history lessons. There's going to be a ton of people who overpaid for their homes who are going to lose their jobs and suddenly it's 1991 or 2008 again.

Sure, I came away from the whole ordeal extremely fortunate, but I would up losing a ton of respect for leadership and public opinion in general. I've tried to be an adult and start to respect authority to some respect, so as long as it's based on some fact and supporting information. I think society is too used to drinking and eating from the gutter that it doesn't know what food is supposed to taste like anymore. We're "socially" engaged in a raft of petty battles over which sewer manufacturer is better than another, or how municipal trash is somehow better for you than federal waste.

It's all just so mentally ****ing exhausting. Luckily, as they say, you can turn it all off (well, most of it).

 

[Scaff]

And yes, people can have opinions on vaccines. And I say this as someone who got vaccinated and boosted as soon as I could. But admittedly, I’m taking a hook on any further boosters unless work forces me. I got Covid in the very beginning (tested positive for antibodies), Covid again during omicron (or whatever strain was the beginning of this year), and Covid again in July-august…somewhere in there.

Why this is and how vaccines work has been explained to you numerous times, both @Danoff and me have done so more than once each.

Why you keep recycling the same, debunked, anti-vax lines is now stepping away from ignorance on the subject and towards deliberate misinformation.

 

[Yard_Sale]

Why this is and how vaccines work has been explained to you numerous times, both @Danoff and me have done so more than once each.

Why you keep recycling the same, debunked, anti-vax lines is now stepping away from ignorance on the subject and towards deliberate misinformation.

Ok, I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't the best educated about how vaccines worked when I posted that. Point well taken.


Since then, the science has continued to change, to the point where the fully vaccinated can get Covid (ok, that's always been the case...although ta lot of people said differently in the very beginning...but that's neither here nor there), to where fully vaccinated can transmit the virus....which has also probably always been the case. I mean, I'm living proof of all of this. My second dose of Covid, which was earlier this year, I came down with the sniffles at about 2300 hours. Had a few runs after midnight. Had sore knees (seems to be my body's version of "body aches") by 0630. Got tested at 0700. Notified at 1445ish that I was positive; then I was placed off duty for 10 days. Never had symptoms of any sort after 36 hours. Spent the next 8 days getting a lot of projects done around the house. Fast forward to this July-august. Only reason I found out I had Covid is because my captain has to get tested weekly (part of the bargaining agreement between our union and the city for the unvaxed). I decided to test just for the hell of it, came back positive.... as did my captain. He didn't get anything besides a runny nose. I didn't get any symptoms other than a slightly runny nose which is equivalent to what I get after I get out of the water after surfing. Placed off duty for 3 days, mandatory. Played a lot of Gran Turismo through the lens of rose colored glasses - admit it, that last bit is a tad funny 😉


Alright, I see the argument coming a mile away that the reason that I didn't get symptoms is because I was previously vaccinated and had previous infections. Fair enough. Not much I can argue on that.

I look back to my first bout with Covid, which was in January of 2020. I got a pretty decent cold (not my worst by any stretch...matter of fact, I worked right through it [as we've all most certainly have done], and even raced a 100 mile desert race). I even have a real good idea of where I got it, which was on a flight from Cebu to Manilla, where I sat next to a guy who was sneezing a lot - at the time (and probably still would have now) I wrote it off as allergies, because his sneezes were dry and frequent in nature. When I got home, I visited my parents and went back to work. Parents got sick with what they described as a "severe cold" and everyone at work got sick with colds. A few of us tested months later for positive antibodies.




Ok Yardsale, get to the point.

Indeed.




I feel like you have some sort of view of me, that resolves around a version of me that consumes nothing but "far-right" conservative media, and eats it all up, hook-line-and sinker. You said similar things when the discussion was migrants, last week I believe. When it comes to my opinion on Covid and the associated topics, its not coming from someone who's lens has been strictly what I see in the media, and occasionally what one might see in the wild. My opinions on Covid, are not only what I see from both sides of the media (which I do in fact take both sides rhetoric with a grain of salt), but its based on what our Fire Department doctors tell us, and the 2000+ Covid calls (a very conservative number), that I've ran since early 2020. I've taken plenty of sick people to the hospital, I've taken some that I was pretty sure weren't going to make it, I've cracked more than my fair share of ribs on scene of people who died. I've also taken a lot of people to the hospital that didn't need to go because the hospitals were overran, but its not my job to determine if they are allowed to go or not.... and to this point, these people who didn't need to go, were scared, so I get it. However, we quickly learned in the beginning of this pandemic, and the subsequent waves, who was most at risk. And that was people who were either elderly, in generally poor health, and obese. Usually the common denominator was a combination or variation of all three.... but like most health problems; people who are a combination of 2 or more of these things, generally have lots of health problems. Were there outliers? Of course. But there's always outliers in anything. Hell, one of my racing buddies got testicular cancer when he was 25.


If I was in poor health, lived with someone who was elderly or in poor health. I wouldn't hesitate the least bit to keep up with my boosters. I honestly think it would be the right thing to do, regardless of my personal opinions. But being that I'm young and in good shape, I'm going to choose not to take anymore boosters... for the same reason I'm not going to take a Monkey pox or HPV vaccine. I'm not really at risk. If some variant comes about that I determine a cause for concern, then I'll re-index and recalibrate. I have zero problem doing that. But being that all signs lead to the variants getting weaker.... yes, I think I'll take a hook on boosters until something changes...or doesn't. In terms of misinformation, come on, you don't see me posting links, or championing my cause or trying to enlist people in my stance. I'm pretty sure I have demonstrated respect for everyone's opinion on a variety of subjects in this thread. You guys are a smart bunch, and you can disagree all you want - as you most always do whenever I post in this thread. I don't take anyone's opinions or keyboard lashings personally. Differing opinions, perspective and discussion are a good thing as far as I'm concerned. FWIW, I have advocated that both my parents and inlaws get boosted - which they have - and anyone who falls into the aforementioned groups should take a very hard look in the mirror if they plan not to get vaccinated or keep up their boosters. Anyone else (or everyone in general, really), consult your doctor and do as you see fit. I'm truly not the anti-vax type conservative that gets portrayed on the various media outlets.













....since I'm kitchen-sinking a bunch of stuff here, let's talk illegal immigration for a paragraph or two. I'm not opposed to immigration at all. I'm with an immigrant for chrissakes. But I am against illegal immigration. But I will say in the same breath, that our immigration system needs to be streamlined and improved. I will also say in that same very long breath; that this is something that at the minimum, 5 presidents have had the opportunity to fix. But my estimation is that they actively choose not to. One reasonI'm guessing, is that immigration reform would probably be very time consuming to do, take up a lot of resources and floor time, score very little political points on either side, its not headline-grabbing, AND MOST OF ALL..... both sides would rather have the political issue than a solution (my opinion). Its a guaranteed fundraising issue for both Democrats and Republicans, and it will be a reliable future voting base for democrats. I will 100% say though, that this is an issue that is going to benefit the democrats, in the long term no matter what. I honestly get why the Biden administration is seemingly taking the direction they are. It's smart politics on their part. History proves that societies get more liberal with time, and I just don't see the massive deportation of a few million illegal immigrants happening (yes I'm aware of what the US government did in regards to the Bracero program).


My personal lens on this:

Took my wife 9 years to get naturalized. Mostly because the process is expensive, and not easily done (keep in mind, she's one of 5 kids). But they eventually did it. Should not have taken anywhere close to 9 years, but they did it. So have a lot of others.

Most my traveling has been 3rd world. Now that I think of it, the only 1st world country I've been to is Singapore. I've been up and down the Baja peninsula a few times, all through mainland Mexico. A few countries in the Caribbean...some twice (ok, I'm including Puerto Rico in this...which is technically a U.S. territory, but anyone who's been will tell you its pretty much a different country). I've been to a handful in Southeast Asia, a couple in South America (I'll admit that Brazil was just a party trip), and the only two countries I haven't been to in Central America, are Honduras and Belize. I've been to a few of these Central American countries twice, but all of this was highlighted by a trip I took for my 28th birthday, where I spent 23 days working my way from Costa Rica to Nicaragua and back, by myself. I know why people want be to the United States. I've seen what real poverty and lack of opportunity looks like. I truly do get it. I will say however that through my lens that I have at work, there's a lot of bad stuff that comes with the illegal immigration that the US has been subjected to over the past decade, a lot of things that I've been front and center to see. (and no, I'm not talking about the [insert here] Trump rally cries). Child trafficking, Sex trafficking, crime syndicates, the drugs coming across the border and into almost every city in the United States. The economic impact. All of that is real. But the poverty, crime, corruption (and everything that goes with it) in Central America and other parts of the world, that's real too. I have more than a few experiences down there where I've been on the receiving end of the crime....and corruption part. I do feel for these people. All 3rd world citizens, really. But I can also understand as best I can their side, have my own opinion, and wrap my head around the political side of things as well. Its all part of that whole self-proclaimed "free thinking conservative" thing I took a beating over a couple weeks back.





Ok, I promise I'll leave this thread be for a bit....or maybe ever. It feels like some disciplinary action will come my ways otherwise. At any rate, I do like you guys. And don't for a minute think I'm not going to tag you @Scaff if I have a question on the Sim-Racing side of things. You really know your stuff when it comes to that. Later dudes....time to catch the evening glass-off with a falling tide and fun swell in the water 😎

 

[Scaff]

Since then, the science has continued to change, to the point where the fully vaccinated can get Covid (ok, that's always been the case...although ta lot of people said differently in the very beginning...but that's neither here nor there), to where fully vaccinated can transmit the virus....which has also probably always been the case.

The science on vaccines has never, I repeat never said that the vaccinated can't catch and/or transmit it (regardless of what 'it' is).

This has been explained to you before, and you have ignored it before, and repeated it.

It's not how vaccines work (and never has been), but again this has been explained to you a number of times.

 

[Danoff]

Since then, the science has continued to change,

Not really. Yes there are some fancy new techniques to develop vaccines much more quickly and safely than they used to be, but it's still basically the same conceptually.

to the point where the fully vaccinated can get Covid (ok, that's always been the case...although ta lot of people said differently in the very beginning...but that's neither here nor there), to where fully vaccinated can transmit the virus....which has also probably always been the case. I mean, I'm living proof of all of this.

That's how it works when you're dealing with a vaccine that is lagging the current strain.

My second dose of Covid, which was earlier this year, I came down with the sniffles at about 2300 hours. Had a few runs after midnight. Had sore knees (seems to be my body's version of "body aches") by 0630. Got tested at 0700. Notified at 1445ish that I was positive; then I was placed off duty for 10 days. Never had symptoms of any sort after 36 hours. Spent the next 8 days getting a lot of projects done around the house. Fast forward to this July-august. Only reason I found out I had Covid is because my captain has to get tested weekly (part of the bargaining agreement between our union and the city for the unvaxed). I decided to test just for the hell of it, came back positive.... as did my captain. He didn't get anything besides a runny nose. I didn't get any symptoms other than a slightly runny nose which is equivalent to what I get after I get out of the water after surfing. Placed off duty for 3 days, mandatory. Played a lot of Gran Turismo through the lens of rose colored glasses - admit it, that last bit is a tad funny 😉


Alright, I see the argument coming a mile away that the reason that I didn't get symptoms is because I was previously vaccinated and had previous infections. Fair enough. Not much I can argue on that.

Well you did say that you did get symptoms. COVID is insidious partly in that it doesn't present that seriously in a lot of people and they spread it - thinking that they feel fine. But in reality, those people need to stay home and play Gran Turismo to make sure that they keep others safe.

If I was in poor health, lived with someone who was elderly or in poor health. I wouldn't hesitate the least bit to keep up with my boosters. I honestly think it would be the right thing to do, regardless of my personal opinions. But being that I'm young and in good shape, I'm going to choose not to take anymore boosters... for the same reason I'm not going to take a Monkey pox or HPV vaccine. I'm not really at risk.

Well that's not really true. You could make a case that you've already gotten your dose of omicron by catching omicron. But to say you're done with boosters from here forward? Presumably a new booster would be based on a new strain or waning immunity, and you definitely would be at risk of that. Maybe not a life-threatening risk, but at risk of catching and spreading it to people, some of whom might not take it well. So it's a bit odd to be swearing off boosters when they could help keep you from getting sick and keep the people around you from catching it from you...

what's the downside here?

If some variant comes about that I determine a cause for concern, then I'll re-index and recalibrate. I have zero problem doing that.

Ok great. But realize that this comes off as contradicting your previous statement. So maybe don't say "I'm going to choose not to take anymore boosters" and then a moment later say that maybe you will.

Differing opinions, perspective and discussion are a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

When the discussion isn't a matter of opinion, the only use for differing opinions is to remind us that they're wrong. It's fine to go back through what we know and why we think we know it, but let's not mistake this for a situation where we learn that everyone's right.

....since I'm kitchen-sinking a bunch of stuff here, let's talk illegal immigration for a paragraph or two. I'm not opposed to immigration at all. I'm with an immigrant for chrissakes. But I am against illegal immigration. But I will say in the same breath, that our immigration system needs to be streamlined and improved.

This is what I used to say, probably on this very site.

At some point I realized that if I lived in some of these countries, in some of these conditions, I would be an illegal immigrant trying to cross the border to the US. The problem with illegal immigration is not the immigration, it's that it's illegal. The solution to illegal immigration is to make it legal.

I will also say in that same very long breath; that this is something that at the minimum, 5 presidents have had the opportunity to fix. But my estimation is that they actively choose not to. One reasonI'm guessing, is that immigration reform would probably be very time consuming to do, take up a lot of resources and floor time, score very little political points on either side,

People misunderstand the economics of immigration. They misunderstand what immigrants offer, who they are, what they can do, and what they consume. The misunderstand what they will do if they're not allowed to come legally, and what that looks like as well. And so the political will of the people is not generally pro-immigrant. It's pro-tribe. That's mostly the case on the right, which champions the cause against immigration of all kinds.

Without the political will across the board, legal immigration is not going to become significantly easier. I suspect that it will eventually, as we ultimately figure out that immigration helps us all and strengthens the country. It may take some population decline and need to produce more goods locally before that happens, but climate change seems poised to force us to revisit our immigration policies.

 

[Sprite]

What I’ve never understood is all those people against immigration, especially in countries like the States.

You get a day off work to celebrate a guy who paved the way for mass immigration to the very place you now call home, some even champion and revel in their ancestry back to Europe (Looking at you Tump) yet kick off when someone else wants to call the same land home, bring their families to thrive and live and be safe and happy. I sometimes find it hard to find where these people get their bile and hatred for someone who is seeking refuge and safety.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not just the USA, it’s every country who has these types of people living within them. Here in the UK it’s rife with sheer nastiness bubbling away and occasionally spilling out (Looking at you Priti Patel).

The world wouldn’t be the way it is today in terms of its wonderful and beautiful diversity of the human race if it wasn’t for original human migrations and then immigration.

As a God fearing country (USA) for a good swathe of its population, its staggering that hating, and denying Gods own image and creation they still seem to think God loves them, if I was their God, I’d be bloody furious with them and their immigration via the pearly gates wouldn’t get stamped.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Since then, the science has continued to change

This is a link to a WHO page on vaccines archived from 14 July 2021.

As you can see, the science is the same now as it was then.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Some serious damage emerging from Hurricane Ian in southwest Florida




Hope all of our Florida members are doing ok.

 

[Blitz24]

That's the third hurricane to make landfall in that area of Florida in the past 18 years following Charley (2004) and Irma (2017). I am thinking total damage will be in between the two but it's way too early to speculate.

 

[Jezza819]

My sister lived down there from around 1985 to about 1991 or 1992 I think. She lived in Cape Coral. We used to go down there once a year usually around this time. I've walked those beaches on Sanibel many times. Sad to see the damage these storms bring.