U.S. Politics

[sne]

On a related note the Go Fund me has some way to go. Amazingly some people are willing to give their money to a supposed billionaire? Hundreds of millionaire? Rich guy? Guy with a gilded spray tan shower.

Quote

Stand with Trump; Fund the $355M Unjust Judgment

$1,360,499 USD raised of $355,000,000

https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with-trump-raise-the-settlement

[limpid]

13 minutes ago, sne said:

Him getting the loans/bonds from Saudi Arabia would make him compromised / a security threat in the eyes of the CIA right?

This particular bond would be for Trump Org, not Trump personally. He pretended the two things were different and separate during his presidency. He lied (obviously), while all meetings with foreign dignitaries has to take place it his venues and money / gifts / trade deals were given to other members of the crime family.

[sne]

1 minute ago, limpid said:

This particular bond would be for Trump Org, not Trump personally. He pretended the two things were different and separate during his presidency. He lied (obviously), while all meetings with foreign dignitaries has to take place it his venues and money / gifts / trade deals were given to other members of the crime family.

Yeah Jared Kushner made out like a bandit from their Saudi Arabia deals.

[DJBOB]

1 minute ago, sne said:

On a related note the Go Fund me has some way to go. Amazingly some people are willing to give their money to a supposed billionaire? Hundreds of millionaire? Rich guy? Guy with a gilded spray tan shower.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with-trump-raise-the-settlement

I think he can get most of the way there with the RNC - or if not - at least have enough assets to get an insurer to come close to posting the rest of the bond.

In a twisted way, we can only hope that he actually uses the RNC to pay the bonds and delay the asset forfeiture.

Because as close as the polling is, if the DNC can use their money to get out the vote and ad buys, that extra 1-2% of effort might actually win the election while the Trumps use the RNC to continue paying their legal fees instead of using it for ads, registrations, and GOTV.

[colhint]

4 minutes ago, DJBOB said:

I think he can get most of the way there with the RNC - or if not - at least have enough assets to get an insurer to come close to posting the rest of the bond.

In a twisted way, we can only hope that he actually uses the RNC to pay the bonds and delay the asset forfeiture.

Because as close as the polling is, if the DNC can use their money to get out the vote and ad buys, that extra 1-2% of effort might actually win the election while the Trumps use the RNC to continue paying their legal fees instead of using it for ads, registrations, and GOTV.

Very good point. 

[sidcow]

3 hours ago, DCJonah said:

This has nothing to do with hiring quotas. It's to do with the corner cutting and demand for profits that capitalism loves more than the safety of human life. 

Boeing sold their soul when they merged years ago and this is now the price of it. 

The fact you'd try to spin this as some right wing conspiracy about hiring less qualified people on some sort of quota is laughable. 

It does make you wonder if it needs to be broken up. 

It's pretty much unimaginable to have it go under and leave Airbus with a virtual monopoly on airliners. Probably the world's airlines fears of this happening is all that's propping it up now.  Let's face it, if they had a choice of 3 or 4 realistic suppliers to choose from who would be ordering a Boeing now.

It really is a poster boy for capitalism gone wrong. 

[DJBOB]

17 minutes ago, sidcow said:

It does make you wonder if it needs to be broken up. 

It's pretty much unimaginable to have it go under and leave Airbus with a virtual monopoly on airliners. Probably the world's airlines fears of this happening is all that's propping it up now.  Let's face it, if they had a choice of 3 or 4 realistic suppliers to choose from who would be ordering a Boeing now.

It really is a poster boy for capitalism gone wrong. 

It's not too dissimilar to telcom and ISP in that there is both a lot of regulatory capture and relationism that make it susceptible to corruption (former Boeing execs among FAA leadership is blatant conflict of interest), and have a high barrier of entry. Because the regulatory requirements are high (for obvious safety reasons), then it becomes difficult for the Embraer's and Bombardier's to invest significantly never mind any small start up trying to make planes.

Similarly - you can't just build a cell tower on your own for any reason - but the FCC regulates who telcom - and guess who is usually the head of the FCC? Former telcom employees.

Of course - there are problems with the other end of the spectrum too (all government mandated with no experience in the industry).

The buddy buddy ism of the FAA and the airline manufacturers have helped lead us down this path and it will take some heavy handedness by the regulatory bodies (that will no doubt skewer Boeing's stock) in order to get out of it.

Edited March 18 by DJBOB

[Genie]

3 hours ago, DJBOB said:

Funnily enough, his properties should be valuable enough to be able to have insurance use it as collateral to post bond

They’re more than enough if they use Trump’s own valuations  

[Genie]

6 hours ago, colhint said:

Well something's going wrong in the engineering department. And as they are a manufacturer rather than commercial airline, I'm sure the pilots are mainly test pilots, reporting issues. Now I have know knowledge of the workforce, whatever the breakdown, but there is less confidence in them now reflecting in the 30% drop in share price.

Look at the motor industry, every single car maker on the planet has a live list of recalls for engineering mistakes. It’s nothing to do with quotas. It’s just an error somewhere with a set of assumptions and their design verification didn’t pick up the failure mode. When it’s a plane door it’s big news. 

[Genie]

I wonder how tempted Musk is to bail Trump out? I’m sure with shuffling some assets around, or guaranteeing loans or bonds personally or via his businesses he could do it if he wanted.

Edited March 18 by Genie

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

I wonder how tempted Musk is to bail Trump out? 

Not very, big argument about the US motor industry the other day. Musk literally tweeted that Trump was talking bollocks

Also Musk isn’t very cash rich, his wealth is in his companies

[Genie]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

Not very, big argument about the US motor industry the other day. Musk literally tweeted that Trump was talking bollocks

That’s good news then. 

[CVByrne]

21 hours ago, bickster said:

Nonsense, this is just your perception. You have no basis for this claim. If this is true what is your solution? It will obviously need to be a solution that doesn't interfere with free speech in a liberal democracy. I'd be really curious to see which knots you tie yourself in figuring out this conundrum

Hmm interesting, from your perspective it's only the right wing people who are doing this. You are essentially proving my point about the fact everything is tribalism anything your side does is ok, but the the side are the problem.

21 hours ago, bickster said:

Nonsense, this is just your perception. You have no basis for this claim. If this is true what is your solution? It will obviously need to be a solution that doesn't interfere with free speech in a liberal democracy. I'd be really curious to see which knots you tie yourself in figuring out this conundrum

Actually, you need to be tolerant and accepting of others, whether that be their views or their characteristics. Those on the extreme right are equally or even more intolerant of others, you know how fascism works I presume? 

Extreme right are facists and extreme left are communists. It's hard to keep score of which dangerous ideology is worse. From your perspective however I assume you think Marxism is good and Capitalism is bad? and you would not consider this an extremist view?

21 hours ago, bickster said:

What you're actually saying is that black people shouldn't be allowed to organise as black people to raise issues of race discrimination. If that didn't happen. nothing would change. Same with women's issues, gay rights etc.

Ironic that your post comes across as full of right wing talking points but no actual solutions to your perceived problems. What would be your solutions that would be acceptable in a liberal democracy?

and you then resort to the old trope of making something up and applying it to my comments. I of course believe people should organise to further their own rights but like everything things can go to extremes. Take my cited example of forced DEI hiring by quotas (Amazon Prime and Disney full DEI rules available on internet). All the Reparations bills and demands. This is taking things to the extreme by labeling this all "positive" discriminating. 

ANY discrimination is wrong. It can only lead to bad things. People should be treated equally.

As Dr King Said - "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

[limpid]

39 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

ANY discrimination is wrong. It can only lead to bad things. People should be treated equally.

How would you, as a business owner, quantify that you are treating people equally?

What if when quantifying this, you discovered that your business has not been treating people equally? How would you rectify this?

[bobzy]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

Extreme right are facists and extreme left are communists. It's hard to keep score of which dangerous ideology is worse. From your perspective however I assume you think Marxism is good and Capitalism is bad? and you would not consider this an extremist view?

It probably opens up a wider societal debate, but considering you've mentioned that this is a problem on "both sides", I actually don't see much reference to a drive for communism at all - and, really, I should see it because my blinkered, left-wing view would trigger all those algorithms to give me a load of communist content.  But I just don't see any.

Fascism though?  Yeah, plenty of that is seen.

[colhint]

I think part of the problem is what people think of right wing comes from large bodies like political parties. But there are loads of people now on social media who have millions of followers who get loads more attention than perhaps is warranted. Take the trans movement. It involves less than .05% of the population. But creates  an awful lot of noise compared to the gay population which is 7 times greater.

[bickster]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

Hmm interesting, from your perspective it's only the right wing people who are doing this.

This engagement is no longer worthwhile as you appear to be inventing things I've said.

[delboy54]

I would like to change tack, I hope this is in the correct thread. This is my take on a potential future.

I work for an American faceless corporation and all they are interested in is "the bottom line", returns for shareholders I guess. They view their competitors as the enemy and will do anything to discredit and destroy them, they view it as a war without bullets and killing people.

Now expand this model to the wider picture. The EU is a competitor to the US, what better way to remove that "competitor" by allowing it to be destroyed by a non competitor I.e. by Russia both financially and materially. This will be done by the US disengaging from NATO and then stopping the supplying of Ukraine with weapons. First Ukraine will fall then the Baltic countries will get over run, Hungary will join Russia, then Poland will be absorbed again and then the dominos will fall. In my opinion Russia will not use nukes and the EU, well what is left of it, will not want to be seen as carrying out a first nuke strike. The European countries will be subsumed by Russia. It will be a blood bath and much hand wringing by the US, but they will be quietly happy as a competitor will have been removed.

After all, the US made a lot of money by sitting on the fence in the first and second world war before being forced into taking sides.

This is just my current pessimistic take on things, especially if Trump gets in again. The US will just sit back in splendid isolation and watch while Europe gets torn apart again.

I hope others on here can put a more optimistic spin on the next 25 years. Maybe the Villa might have beaten man yoo again by then or even the FA cup......

[DJBOB]

On one hand, an actual fascist might win the US election.

On the other hand, milquetoast Biden might be re-elected.

Could only dream of any candidate anywhere near a communist.

Yet somehow both sides are equal.

I'd actually be really interested where any "communist" has won leadership positions west of Dnipro.

But I know plenty of fascist examples.

[DJBOB]

1 minute ago, delboy54 said:

I would like to change tack, I hope this is in the correct thread. This is my take on a potential future.

I work for an American faceless corporation and all they are interested in is "the bottom line", returns for shareholders I guess. They view their competitors as the enemy and will do anything to discredit and destroy them, they view it as a war without bullets and killing people.

Now expand this model to the wider picture. The EU is a competitor to the US, what better way to remove that "competitor" by allowing it to be destroyed by a non competitor I.e. by Russia both financially and materially. This will be done by the US disengaging from NATO and then stopping the supplying of Ukraine with weapons. First Ukraine will fall then the Baltic countries will get over run, Hungary will join Russia, then Poland will be absorbed again and then the dominos will fall. In my opinion Russia will not use nukes and the EU, well what is left of it, will not want to be seen as carrying out a first nuke strike. The European countries will be subsumed by Russia. It will be a blood bath and much hand wringing by the US, but they will be quietly happy as a competitor will have been removed.

After all, the US made a lot of money by sitting on the fence in the first and second world war before being forced into taking sides.

This is just my current pessimistic take on things, especially if Trump gets in again. The US will just sit back in splendid isolation and watch while Europe gets torn apart again.

I hope others on here can put a more optimistic spin on the next 25 years. Maybe the Villa might have beaten man yoo again by then or even the FA cup......

There's probably the inherit difference between the nationalistic Trump side and the more world order Globalist dem side. 

I would like to say the majority of Americans are interested in maintaining our alliance with the EU but we're held by the balls by the fascist minority.