Also, given the track record of North Korea and Trump to "dissemble," Rothkopf said that "it is a minimum best practice to have a witness to the conversation."But if Trump brings in his witness, Kim will have his witness. And doesn't Trump know far more than Kim about how to deal one-on-one with another man? Trump has spent a lifetime doing that, but what has Kim had to do, given the adulation he's received and his propensity to resort to killing anyone who could challenge him? And, by the way, Kim is only 34 years old. In years alone, Trump has far more experience.
And yet the Peace scholar thinks Trump is "simply not experienced enough." Depends on what you mean by experience, but clearly Kim is far less experienced. Isn't it smart to put Kim at this immense disadvantage? Trump means to pull him in, to give him a big American hug and to warm up this young fan of America.
ADDED: I see in the comments, my phrase "this young fan of America" is being questioned. My source is Dennis Rodman:
Rodman, who brands Mr Kim a “friend of for life”, said... Mr Kim, who he dubs the “little guy”, was a massive fan of American music from the 1980's. “When he’s around his people, he’s just like anybody else. He jokes and loves playing basketball, table tennis, pool,” he told DuJour magazine. ...They love American ’80s music. They do karaoke to it. He has this 13-piece girls band with violins. He gets a mic and they play the whole time. He loves the Doors and Jimi Hendrix. Oldies. When I first went, the live band only played two songs for four hours: the theme songs from Rocky and Dallas.... He can’t say it enough. He wants to talk to him to try to open that door a little bit. He’s saying that he doesn’t want to bomb anybody. He said, ‘I don’t want to kill Americans.’ He loves Americans.”
ALSO: Look at where Trump and Kim are meeting, on a resort island, Sentosa, next to Singapore. One reason to choose that place is that it can be closed off for security, but it also vividly tantalizes with American-style attractions:
The island, which is nearly two square miles in size... features 17 hotels and luxury resorts, private beaches, two golf courses, a casino, a Madame Tussauds museum, a water theme park, Universal Studios Singapore, and the largest Merlion statue....More about Sentosa at Wikipedia, with lots of pictures, a longer list of attractions. Here's the aerial view of the fun-packed place:
CC by Chensiyuan.
When I look at that picture, what I hear in my head is "Optimistic Voices" (from "The Wizard of Oz"), you know that song, perhaps not by its title. It's: “You're out of the woods/You're out of the dark/You're out of the night/Step into the sun/Step into the light/Keep straight ahead for the most glorious place/On the face of the earth or the sky/Hold onto your breath/Hold onto your heart/Hold onto your hope/March up to the gate and bid it open... OPEN."
Posts
424 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 424 Newer› Newest»Yep, extremism is a scourge on society. I’d be your friend offline, I respect you and agree with some of your commentary. And I love your sense of humor, thinking back to the penis size brouhaha. I appreciate your support when Francisco was bashing nurses/ me as mere “bedpan experts”.
Thank you, Inga. While we disagree on most things we don't hate each other. But there are people--like my siblings--whose politics drive their entire worldview and personal lives and anyone who doesn't fall into line is anathema. They are haters.
Inga, I am sympathetic to teachers.
My ex-wife was a teacher with a life time credential. About 20 years ago, she got laid off in a bank merger. She was a bank VP.
That was the time when Pete Wilson was trying to reduce classroom size by hiring teachers.
She signed up as a long term sub. She was appalled at what she found. She was teaching in a lower middle class area east of LA.
The teachers made fun of the students. They spent their breaks in the "teachers' room" talking and smoking and ridiculing the kids.
She complimented on second grade teacher on how well she was preparing kids for reading. The woman burst into tears.
No one had ever complimented her. That is union schools today.
Her previous experience was before unions.
The president of the AFT said, "When kids lay union dues, I'll care about kids."
Oh, and Inga. She said "If I had it to do over. I would homeschool the kids."
She was a big public school advocate. After the divorce all the kids went to private schools.
Like mockturtle, I have had some delightful conversations (via these threads) with Inga on our German-speaking heritage and religion more recently, and a number of others several years ago.
On politics, I doubt we agree on anything, but I do not in any way hate her.
Inga: “For teachers and nurses a union is a must.“
I think Inga is probably right about nurses, provided they don’t select partisan ideologues as leaders. Teachers? Not so much.
My daughter-in-law was a communications official for the largest teachers union in Oregon. They were all about gay rights (in schools and elsewhere), opposing mandatory sentences for felons, pro-abortion and, of course, higher pay for teachers. In short, not much about kids - unless they were gay kids.
Teachers are fungible. Nurses are not.
“On politics, I doubt we agree on anything, but I do not in any way hate her.”
Thanks Danno! Give your Oma a big hug for me.
Nurses depend a lot on the hospital administration.
Our hospital went from for-profit to non-profit and the administration ballooned.
The supervisors became arbitrary and non-communicative. The nurses I knew hated the new bunch. That's how you get unions.
When I organized the trauma center in 1979, we had lots of volunteers and the nurses loved it. The hospital pharmacist wanted a clinical job and we found one for them.
It was a great bunch. I would not be admitted there now.
What was the drop in teacher dues payment in Wisconsin? 80%? The idea that the people most involved and most interested in their own affairs are wrong about what is best for them is laughable. The idea that union leaders know better than the union members what is best for the union members is laughable. It's that sort of combination of terminal stupidity and lust for power that makes every institution the Leftist Collectivists infect fail dramatically.
Fewer than 30% of California and New York high school graduates can read, write, and do math as they are supposed to be able. There's the value of unions.
MPS?
Is that Milwaukee?
Didn’t Milwaukee rush to pass a teacher contract before Act 10 passed?
Nearly every person I know that could afford to retire in their mid to late 50's was a union member. They get a high percentage of their final years salary as a annual pension. Not eligible for SS but have a much better deal. They live a good life, very much in the style to which they had become accustomed - without the whole work thing. The treacherous parts must have happened to other folks.
-sw
Illinois requires all students to take the ACT. Then they changed to SAT. I think it’s one of the few states that requires all students to take it.
New York doesn’t. Can you imagine their scores if they did? Which is why they don’t....
They live the good life especially down south in Florida with no personal income tax.
Isn’t it true that the NY teachers union has at least 1 office in Florida?
Many run-ins with US unions in my time.
Once at the Olathe Kansas Allied Signal plant I was adding DAQ metrology instruments to machine tools (showing the plant machinists), when the local union rep walked up and announced that this must stop, that machinists were not allowed to do metrology. And moreover any electrical setup work much be by electricians.
This is NOT something you would see in, say, a German factory, nor by a German union.
Since Act 10...
Median salaries for teachers in the state have fallen by 2.6% and median benefits declined 18.6%.
10.5% left the profession. The exit rate is still elevated at 8.8%.
Teachers are moving out of state.
In order to get raises in pay teachers are moving out of district, leaving some districts short of teachers and with larger class sizes.
New teachers are starting off in rural schools, teaching for a few years, then moving to other districts that pay more.
Who also suffers here? Students. In hospitals with no nurses union, it’s the patients who suffer from overworked nurses.
Right, Royal ass Inga, I do agree that teachers were previously overpaid.
That was a nice moment.
When progressives argue for the status quo it makes me question their understanding of definitions of words.
Teachers should be paid more, a lot more. And shitty teachers, lazy teachers, stupid teachers should be fired. Unfortunately since it is so difficult to get rid of crappy teachers it is very hard to justify paying more, especially on a seniority basis.
Retired professionals should be allowed to teach in their areas of expertise without having to take the qualifying "education" courses. In the current system a math savant retiring from a hedge fund cannot in most districts teach third grade, or high school math.
The system is corrupt. The per student expenditures are over the roof with most of the money going to administration, maintenance staff, bus drivers, etc.
" And moreover any electrical setup work much be by electricians. "
LA Harbor was shut down for weeks in a strike by union clerks. The shipping companies had begun putting GPS on all containers to identify and locate them. The clerks had been climbing over thousands of containers to do the same thing and went on strike to try to stop the practice.
Of course, all the truckers who owned their own trucks and had no union starved.
I used to do med-mal expert witness work. One case was at Kaiser where the ORs are all unionized. Inga would be proud.
The case was a guy with a pilonidal cyst, which would be a 15 minute surgery.
It was done under spinal but the case began just at lunchtime. The nurses' union had rules that the nurse anesthetist (all Kaiser anesthesia is by nurse anesthetists) had to take his lunch exactly at the scheduled time. It didn't matter if he had just begun a case.
So, he left and another NA took over. 30 minutes later the first one came back.
In the meantime, the spinal had gone too high and the patient stopped breathing.
A death from a 15 minute surgery in a healthy man.
Union rules were triumphant.
An uncle is a retired HS principal and admits he was overpaid.
The per student expenditures are over the roof with most of the money going to administration, maintenance staff, bus drivers, etc.
Yup and we should go back to the "normal school" training for teachers. It should be free, as it once was and student loans should not exist
Much the same thing happened with nurses. Years ago, nurses mostly trained in hospital schools and got good training.
The Nurses associations decided that all nurses should have a BSN. They got the hospital schools closed. The one at LA County and several other big hospitals in LA had room and board provided. It was a free education into a pretty good profession.
After the changes, most nurses went to junior colleges and got an AA and an RN. The clinical training was much worse.
Mission Accomplished.
“Nearly every person I know that could afford to retire in their mid to late 50's was a union member. They get a high percentage of their final years salary as a annual pension. Not eligible for SS but have a much better deal. They live a good life, very much in the style to which they had become accustomed - without the whole work thing. The treacherous parts must have happened to other folks.”
Now that’s a good reason to get unions back to what they once were. I recall factory workers in Milwaukee working for unionized factories and making a very good living. As far as a treachery goes, it’s the nature of the profession itself that can be treacherous, therefore a union makes it less so. Nurses working without unions have had the hospital administration go after their licenses after nurses have refused to falsify documents to keep the state from investigation incidents of patient abuse/ neglect and after nurses have complained about work conditions or other patient/ nurse safety issues. In my 35 plus years of nursing I’ve seen a lot that might want you to rethink your disdain for hospital unions.
No, my disdain for hospital unions would be the same.
My disdain for hospital management would also stay the same.
My disdain for federal government regulation of medical practice would also stay the same.
Gosh!
David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
Wow, that's serious. A visiting scholar who no one has ever heard says Trump can't handle negotiations!
Question 1: Who the hell ks David Rothkopf and why should I care?
Question 2: How many international treaties has David Rothkopf negotiated?
Question 3: How many buildings and resorts has David Rothkopf built?
Question 4: How many financial deals has David Rothkopf put together?
Question 5: How many winning political campaigns has David Rothkopf run?
Question 6: What concrete accomplishments does David Rothkopf have that have changed anything anywhere?
He's a man of no accomplishments criticizing a man of many accomplishments.
In my 35 plus years of nursing I’ve seen a lot that might want you to rethink your disdain for hospital unions.
What's a few deaths of 35 year old men from 15 minute operations when early retirement is the issue.
Earth to Inga, the only chance for manufacturing jobs coming back, unionized or not, is Trump.
ARM: I don't like Trump, but I understand his appeal by people who buy his con game. Working folks got screwed over by the left and the right since the move to globalization. Maybe Trump will do much of what he promised. His last campaign add was nearly equal to a Bernie Sanders ad. Trump is divisive, especially his over the top assault on Latin Americans. I fucking hate that.
No matter what I think about Trump, I want him to be objectively successful, especially the Nork problem. The Pavlovian hysterical eruptions to his obvious trolling of democrats is making him more powerful and has likely cost them the house and senate in 2018 and the WH in 2020.
"I recall factory workers in Milwaukee working for unionized factories and making a very good living.
The reason those jobs are now in China or done by robots is because those factory workers were not adding enough value to the product and were thus, overpaid. IT folks who program and manage the robots make good money, but they have special expertise and add value commensurate with their salaries.
It's not that difficult to grasp when you are talking about private enterprise. Public employees are a whole different ballgame. FDR (not my favorite) had it right there.
If we had fair trade, union wages would be more possible. By fair trade, hold import manufacturers to US standards for health and safety, environmental controls, and anti-trust. The problem is people are addicted to pathological throw-away consumption and love cheap china crap.
“Earth to Inga, the only chance for manufacturing jobs coming back, unionized or not, is Trump.“
Earth to Michael K, your faith in Trump is touching.
“The reason those jobs are now in China or done by robots...”
Another reason that Michael K’s thinking that Trump can bring back manufacturing is touching.
How many mining jobs did Trump save?
@Mockturtle - Sorry to hear about your family. I have no communication with one brother-in-law for the same reasons. I have lost a pair of dear 40-year-plus friends, one because she couldn't be friends with anyone who didn't "want change" and the second because I was not outraged that Trump won the election - even though I didn't vote for Trump. The break in communication is uniformly from the progressive side. It must have become a thing with them somewhere along the way.
I am not necessarily anti-union. I have worked in management and against management in my career.
I tried to organize a union for rehab counselors in 1980 and met with Gene Moats who was head of the SEIU. He was just back from a meeting with President Carter. Moats screwed us over because they had a sweetheart deal with the Nurses Aide union. Most of the CNAs were barely literate and wrote like third graders. We were a threat because all of us had advanced degrees.
Basically, I think that poorly managed companies deserve unions. Well managed companies (e.g., Japanese automakers in the US) don't need them nor do the workers want them.
Howard said...
Working folks got screwed over by the left and the right since the move to globalization.
No one much argues this any more. But, if you look at how the socialists in Europe handled globalization, they did a much better job for their people (not the Italians under Berlusconi). Globalization was part of the problem in the US but so was anti-union hysteria, and a general disdain for workers in the US, an unfortunate part of our Anglo heritage.
The problems that the working class have had to endure for the last forty years are now encroaching on the middle class, which is howling like a stuck pig. They have responded not with strategy but an unfocused primal howl in the form of Trump, who is now making their problems worse with his trivial responses. Blame Canada.
"I have never seen a single episode of DALLAS."
I recall how popular it was in the late 70's and early 80's. Like mockturtle, I was in England, in the Lake District, for a couple of months working at one of our plant sites in 1980. Whenever I went anywhere - the hotel restaurant, a pub, the office - as soon as someone heard my American accent they would walk over to me, look me straight in the eye, and say "Who shot JR?"
"They have responded not with strategy but an unfocused primal howl in the form of Trump, who is now making their problems worse with his trivial responses."
Crumbs.
Union membership is declining because state, local and federal government have taken over much of their function.
Safety. Retirement. Disability. Labor issues.
However, unions will always exist because of the inherent friction between labor and management.
Howard said...
If we had fair trade, union wages would be more possible. By fair trade, hold import manufacturers to US standards for health and safety, environmental controls, and anti-trust.
The EU generally has higher standards on all these issues. Yet, they still out compete us. There are two possible interpretations for this. They have superior management. They have superior workers. No one in Europe is clamoring for US managers or financiers to move there.
China and Mexico are fundamentally different cases, but if we can't compete with the EU, Canada, etc. then we are really screwed. We have been cursed with the management and financial castes from hell - greedy, corrupt and disdainful of any value than the value of their own bank account.
I seem to recall at the time of Act 10 the union provided insurance cut their premiums to be competitive.
I think it’s good rural areas are getting teachers.
Now let’s discuss benefits. Did they really need all the insurance they were getting? I don’t need birth control but I have to pay for it.
Unless it’s a line by line discussion, so we have a baseline, it’s a non starter. Perhaps it’s falling to the mean instead if inflated?
IT folks who program and manage the robots make good money, but they have special expertise and add value commensurate with their salaries.
Many of them are from India on H1B visas and their Democrat supporting bosses are keeping them as serfs.
They have responded not with strategy but an unfocused primal howl in the form of Trump, who is now making their problems worse with his trivial responses. Blame Canada.
I'd be willing to talk to ATM and Inga if their responses were not so predictable.
Making problems worse was Obama's specialty. He and Bill Ayres who sent teaching in the direction of uselessness.
Blogger Inga said...
How many mining jobs did Trump save?
All of them. It's just amazing that you can't see this. The WaPoo isn't sure but it might be 77,000
This is why I think the Democrats are going down big time in November.
The EU can’t compete with the EU.
No need for unions or regulations, huh?
“The next victims of Donald Trump’s war on regulations could be coal miners.At a press event to tout his deregulatory agenda on Thursday, the president promised to bring American regulations back to the levels they were at in the 1960s—a time when there was no Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, or even an Environmental Protection Agency.
It’s no secret Trump doesn’t like environmental regulation, but the main reason he doesn’t is supposed to be coal miners, whose livelihoods Trump says he’s trying to protect. And yet, the Charleston Gazette reports on Friday that Trump’s deregulatory agenda includes reevaluating a regulation that protects miners from black lung. “As part of a government-wide effort to eliminate regulations, the Trump administration indicated Thursday that the Labor Department would revisit a 3-year-old rule meant to reduce exposure to coal dust that causes deadly black lung disease,” the paper reports. The move comes “as researchers are increasingly concerned about a resurgence in lung disease among coal miners, especially in West Virginia and other Appalachian coal states.””
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/146316/next-victims-donald-trumps-war-regulations-coal-miners
inga you can’t work 35 years and be retired for 40-50.
This generation is different. They’re going to live longer and have healthier.
Can’t have high retirement and all the health goodies. Choices have to be made.
Greece France and other countries and Illinois are not roadmaps they’re disaster.
when the local union rep walked up and announced that this must stop, that machinists were not allowed to do metrology. And moreover any electrical setup work much be by electricians.
That's nothing.
Try moving your own boxes across a threshold at a trade show in Las Vegas.
Your. Own. Stuff.
“Coal employment has barely budged under Trump. Roughly 2,000 new coal jobs were created during Trump’s first eight months in office, but those numbers started to level off last October. By the end of 2017, the total number of coal jobs gained over the previous year was just 900, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Preliminary figures for 2018 show a slight increase, with a net gain of 1,300 coal mining jobs during Trump’s presidency.”
Coal consumption last year fell to 717 million tons, slightly lower than the year before. Even more alarming for the industry: Almost all domestic coal consumption is in the power sector, yet despite an increase in natural gas prices in 2017, coal’s share of power generation for the year was just 30%, the lowest on record and lower than natural gas for the second year in a row.
In promising to end the “war on coal,” Trump may not have had a firm understanding of the extent of the industry’s problems, said Rob Rappold, mayor of Beckley, W.Va.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/04/04/president-trump-has-yet-save-struggling-coal-industry-numbers-show/479587002/
We have an excellent public school system where I live in TN, one of the best in the state. It has always been non-union. About 10 years ago the local chapter of the NEA/TEA managed to get enough cards signed to have a representation election. When it was finally held the teachers voted "NO" by an almost 4-1 margin. Good example of why we should never have card check.
My employer where I worked is also non-union and has been since it was founded nearly 100 years ago. All our unionized industries here are either greatly diminished or gone altogether. I worked co-op jobs and summer jobs in college in the late 60's-early 70's for both union and non-union companies. Those work experiences convinced me I never wanted to work for a company wit a union and those were the only companies I considered for employment when I left school.
@Michael K: That’s what I gather from my wife. Unionization is incompatible with jobs where people’s lives are on the line.
“I'd be willing to talk to ATM and Inga if their responses were not so predictable.”
That’s OK Michael, I’m fine with you not responding. I doubt ARM cares, neither do I.
“Unionization is incompatible with jobs where people’s lives are on the line.”
This is extremely short sighted. That means you are putting your trust in for-profit healthcare facilities to care more for it’s patients than it’s profit.
Shaking my head here at the naïveté and uninformed adherence to conservative ideology.
Police unions, fire fighters unions, against those too OM?
A remarkably realistic opinion piece in the Guardian -
Trump World Order
"Trump then takes a look at the trade flows with the rest of the G7 and comes to an inescapable conclusion: he cannot possibly lose a trade war against countries that have such high surpluses with the US (eg Germany, Italy, China), or which (like Canada) will catch pneumonia the moment the American economy catches the common cold."
"First, since the 2008 collapse of Wall Street, and despite the subsequent re-floating of the financial sector, Wall Street and the US domestic economy can no longer do what they were doing before 2008: that is, absorb the net exports of European and Asian factories through a trade surplus financed by an equivalent influx of US-bound foreign profits. This failure is the underlying cause of the current global economic and political instability."
" Can the EU create a “Europe First” anti-Trump alliance, perhaps involving China? The answer has been given already, following Trump’s annulment of the Iran nuclear deal. Within minutes of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement that European companies would stay in Iran, every single German corporation announced it was pulling out, prioritising the fat tax cuts Trump was offering them within the United States."
The fellow assumes that all this is leading to "appalling developments", but that is putting the conclusion ahead of the argument, as is usual for someone starting from what amounts to theology. Or he is adding sugar to pass some medicine through recalcitrant lips.
Inga: "This is extremely short sighted. That means you are putting your trust in for-profit healthcare facilities to care more for it’s patients than it’s profit."
Well, that certainly explains the VA.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/02/politics/va-inspector-general-report/index.html
"307,000 veterans may have died awaiting Veterans Affairs health care, report says"
But since most of those members vote republican, its totally cool.
”That means you are putting your trust in for-profit healthcare facilities to care more for it’s patients than it’s profit.”
She works at a nonprofit hospital.
“That means you are putting your trust in for-profit healthcare facilities to care more for it’s patients than it’s profit."
Well, that certainly explains the VA.”
No it does not. You say you were in the US Navy. You are saying here that the VA is for-profit? This is why I have doubts you are even American.
Inga: "No it does not. You say you were in the US Navy. You are saying here that the VA is for-profit? This is why I have doubts you are even American."
LOL
I guess you are incapable of recognizing sarcasm.
Let's try this: Hey, its a good thing the VA IS NOT for profit, otherwise lots of veterans might not have received the care they needed while the VA pursues profit!!
BTW, for Inga's sake, my 3:42 comment is also sarcasm.
LOL
I guess the only way to get the lefties concerned about the VA would be for all US military retirees to join MS-13. Then the lefties would care...
“I guess you are incapable of recognizing sarcasm.”
What I’m guessing is that you are probably not American. My guess is that you’re paid professional propagandist. First the huge mistake about Navy uniforms, now this, not knowing the VA is not for-profit.
LOL
We'll file your latest "hot take" with all the other ones that are hilariously wrong.
Inga: "My guess is that you’re paid professional propagandist."
Wow. Check your syntax comrade.
Are you even American?
I thought Inga would learn her lesson with the lobbyist mistake she made the other day.
Alas.
BTW, Trump's strong stand on improving the VA has already garnered him increasing support amongst a military active duty and retiree base that was already going to vote for him with a large majority over whichever commie dem is put up against him.
“I'd be willing to talk to ATM and Inga if their responses were not so predictable.”
That’s OK Michael, I’m fine with you not responding. I doubt ARM cares, neither do I.
I know and that is why Democrats are on a losing streak. It's just amazing that they are betting the future of the party on the hatred of one man. The last time they did that the president was Lincoln. They did it with Bush but Bush was part of the old GOP loser side.
There is just no communication across that divide.
Earlier, I suggested that ARM read, "Crash Course," a book about the auto industry and its failure.
When the Japanese built their plants in Tennessee and other southern states, they expected them to be unionized.
Volkswagen even tried to fix the election and the UAW still lost.
Inga and ARM cannot see that.
Fortunately there are interesting people here to have conversations with.
What I’m guessing is that you are probably not American.
Has anyone else noticed Inga's dislike of anyone she thinks is "not American ?"
She keeps referring to Buwaya as Philippine and asking him to leave.
The Propagandist is pretty slick, but there are times he trips up. Then he furiously tries to downplay his mistakes. Pay attention to this guy and the way he operates.
How is it that he can spend so many hours here responding to every liberal or anti Trump person that comments, without fail? What sort of job allows someone to do this? Even a self employed person couldn’t spend the amount of time here that Drago does. I’m retired and have many free hours in my day, what’s his excuse?
Inga,
I have no problem with Teachers having a union. All it takes is one pupil to say that they were touched inappropriately for all kinds of lawsuits, and making sure that the teachers are given full due process is a great thing for a teacher's union to do.
So far so good.
Can you answer me two questions:
A)why should the teacher's union have a position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict?
B)why should a teacher's union require that the local school board buy the health insurance for the teachers through the teacher's union (at a markup)?
And lastly, can you understand why A and B might be reason enough for the people at large to say "no more teacher's union?"
Michael K: "When the Japanese built their plants in Tennessee and other southern states, they expected them to be unionized."
It is not an accident that all the large foreign auto makers built their production and assembly plants in red states, primarily the south.
Simply building the plants in those locations gave them an advantage over domestic producers in previously blue locations.
A very interesting factoid is that the BMW and Daimler (Mercedes) Group plants in the US are so amazingly competitive that Mercedes and BMW cars can be built here and then shipped INTO Germany (despite the massive tariffs) and still be sold!!
Think about that one for a moment.
Amazing.
Inga is funny.
“She keeps referring to Buwaya as Philippine and asking him to leave.”
I like Buwaya when he’s not bashing the US. Maybe you should try to defend your country once in a while, when Buwaya is on a roll. I ask him why the hell is has lived in a country for over 30 years and doesn’t have a good word to say for the country that has given him his living.
And more - via Richard Fernandez (Belmont Club) - Even in Salon there is understanding -
World Economy as a con game
A fascinating interview with Yanis Varouflakis, the Greek Ex-Finance Minister of the short lived Syriza leftist government. An unusual coherence with the views of the alt-right.
"Varoufakis argues that the entire Western economy has become a massive con game, on a scale thousands or millions of times larger than anything Bernie Madoff could have imagined. Furthermore, in his telling, it’s a con game run by intelligent and not necessarily malevolent people who understand perfectly well that the whole enterprise is a fraud that’s bound to come crashing down eventually. He says he knows that to be true because those people told him so, in the kinds of closed-door meetings where the uppermost level of the managerial caste discuss such things. That’s where the “Greek tragedy” enters the Greek tragedy: Those who supposedly control the system have instead become its prisoners. Or to put it another way, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. "
"Democracy has been undermined by the “financialization” of both the economy and politics
What Varoufakis means here is that during the development of capitalism, first economic power became more important than political power, and then bankers and venture capitalists became more important than old-style business tycoons. “It became more profitable, and a greater source of power, to be a financier than to be Henry Ford,” as he put it."
"Varoufakis calls it “bankrupt-ocracy,” in which enormous but endangered or bankrupt financial institutions wield enormous power over the rest of society. “That’s not capitalism.”
"Establishment parties then "wondered why it was that the discarded people from our neighborhoods and villages and towns turned against them and decided to vote for somebody that peeved them, annoyed them, just in order to get back at the establishment that had discarded them. Great wonder, isn’t it?”
In other words, the old order is stuck, and dying, and corrupted beyond utility. And this is well understood even by those that pretend to run the system.
Inga also spent alot of time trashing those little brown nurses from the Phillipines. Similar to how LLR Chuck, in a racist way, attacks black republicans and conservatives.
There's something not quite kosher with that crew.
buwaya: "In other words, the old order is stuck, and dying, and corrupted beyond utility. And this is well understood even by those that pretend to run the system."
That would explain the panic by the 98% of the ruling class and ruling class junior wannabes who have done all the right things (schools/contacts) and are in line via their relationships and regardless of competence to pinnacles of power.....until that darn Trump and the Brexiteers and the Eastern Europeans and now the Italians messed up everything.
And now there aren't enough years remaining on the Elitists Career Calendar to allow them to reach the levels they thought were already programmed in.
he does he defends duterte, who does what needs to be done, perhaps not in the most tactful sense, but then again drug dealers aren't about tact,
narciso: "he does he defends duterte, who does what needs to be done, perhaps not in the most tactful sense, but then again drug dealers aren't about tact,"
Neither are islamic terrorists. A bigger problem than one might think in the Philippines.
“Inga also spent alot of time trashing those little brown nurses from the Phillipines. Similar to how LLR Chuck, in a racist way, attacks black republicans and conservatives.”
You see this is how a professional propagandist operates. They mischaracterize comments or even outright lie about comments others have made. What I said was the the medical personal that I’ve worked with over 35 years that were EDUCATED in the Phillipines were sub par to American educated staff. Again, to be clear, I stated that Phillipine healthcare professionals that have been EDUCATED here in the States were just fine.
Propagandists are slick, but not infallible.
BTW, did you happen to catch Jeff Sessionszzzzzz latest change to immigration policy regarding use of possible domestic violence as a basis for asylum?
It's long past due and its a great step in the right direction.
Shaking my head here at the naïveté and uninformed adherence to collectivist ideology.
Yeah Inga, we get it.
Little Brown nurses should just get out.
Thanks for your clarification.
The US MSM is, btw, an instrument owned by that financial system that is floundering, choked with debt and surviving through government support, whether it is the US or China or the EU.
That financial system is the opposition to Trump. It is the source of support for all the rest of it, from the NYT or academia to every ethnic politician. These things all run on money, and it does not take much to own the lot.
Part of the collapse of capitalism, as Varouflakis puts it very well, is that effectively capitalism split, finance becoming completely divorced from "Henry Ford" capitalism. This has had global consequences.
This level of analysis matters.
“Yeah Inga, we get it.
Little Brown nurses should just get out.
Thanks for your clarification.”
Propagandists gotta propagandize. Do bears shit in the woods?
Buwaya, the divorce that has occurred between finance and capitalism, when married up to (see what I did there?) a sense of infallibility and desire to design the lives of all people, has brought us to this point.
Extraordinary and unearned arrogance and sense of ability with extraordinary financial control has brought us to a broad western "deplorables" revolt.
" Do bears shit in the woods?"
Not the ones in zoo's.
Obviously.
And don't get me started on polar bears....
The US is in deep, deep trouble.
Many of its institutions are decadent beyond utility. Some, like its higher education, can be accurately described as insane.
In many ways it is too intensely parochial to learn lessons from the rest of the world. It is too haughty to take lessons even from its own past.
And there are piles of fuel for conflict piled up and drying in the sun, just like California brushlands after a wet winter and a luxuriant spring. And there are hordes of characters wandering around with lighters and matches.
I call it as I see it.
My wife is at an interesting point to see both sides. Approaching 50 years in the same unit she has dealt with both hospital administration and the union. She’s (obviously, at this point) the lead worker in her unit (the hospital at one point put on the full court press to get her to join management; something I talked her out of for which she is now extremely grateful). The hospital can be difficult to deal with and, sure, they have their eye on a budget, but it just is not accurate to paint them as not caring about patients. Of the two, the union was far and away the more intransigent of the two. She was happy to see them go.
“And there are hordes of characters wandering around with lighters and matches.”
Are you one of them?
Old lawyer joke(s) about "experts"; 1. Experts are like farmers, they are always out standing in their field' 2. An "expert witness" is simply anyone who is 20 miles away from home.
I suspect that Mr. Rothkopf fits both definitions. There is a third more current one, established by the main stream media. An expert is anyone who disagrees with Trump and who is willing to be qouted, at least on background if not directly.
Not that I care one way or the other--but Trump has an Ivy League education--which normally would mean that the press is expressing wonder over his supposed brains and ability. Trump also survived for a long and mostly successful career in the cutthroat world of New York City real estate development. That takes some negotiating skills.
“Of the two, the union was far and away the more intransigent of the two.”
Depends on the Union. Long Term Care facilities tend to have awful, useless unions.
National Nurses United is the best in the country, but represent RNs in hospitals only, last I heard. Maybe they’ve expanded since I’ve retired.
"Are you one of them?"
Am I one who repeatedly threatens the people, and creates the urge to buy guns, like the US MSM?
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf/view
Why has this happened, why are people scared and uncertain and arming themselves - me? I tell you this is a problem, but your ears are stuffed up. You will not listen.
I think Kim would need something like a non-aggression treaty ratified by the Senate, a Qaddafi clause, if you will.
Not like the UK/US "agreement" to guarantee Ukraine's sovereignty if they gave up the nukes they inherited from the Soviet Union, either.
I ask him why the hell is has lived in a country for over 30 years and doesn’t have a good word to say for the country that has given him his living.
That is so revealing. It does not occur to Inga that he might have contributed more than he took away in income.
I can hear Obama, "You didn't build that."
"Democracy has been undermined by the “financialization” of both the economy and politics
What Varoufakis means here is that during the development of capitalism, first economic power became more important than political power, and then bankers and venture capitalists became more important than old-style business tycoons. “It became more profitable, and a greater source of power, to be a financier than to be Henry Ford,” as he put it."
There is an interesting book, called "Once an Eagle," that was written in the 60s but is still in print and is recommended reading in the Army War College.
It is about a career Army officer but there is a scene in which he goes to work one summer in the 1920s, when his career is in the doldrums, for a relative. He does so well at organizing the business that the owner offers him a job and says he has a real opportunity.
He rejects it because he sees that they are more concerned with the stock market than the business.
Ford took a tumble when they had accountants and financial people running the business instead of engineers.
We are seeing much of this in Medicine now.
Our only hope is a guy like Trump who has a background in operations, not finance.
I don't know if he can do it but it is our only hope.
It's one of the rare benefits of growing old. I won't have to live with the consequences of the people Inga and ARM vote for.
But my kids and grandkids will. And then, my mother lived to 103 so there is that.
I am a prophet.
Prophecy is a curse.
Just like the Greek Princess Cassandra, they can see the future, but they will not be believed.
“I am a prophet.
Prophecy is a curse.
Just like the Greek Princess Cassandra, they can see the future, but they will not be believed.”
You and Hon-Ming Chen.
Ha! Our 'intellectual elites' have been wrong about just about everything Trump-related but I'm sure he's right this time.
Has there ever been a denser group of 'intellectual elites' than the crop tue West is sporting these days? There is more erudte and reality-based political analysis in the Althouse comment section every day than you'll find in NYT WAPO MSNBC FOX etc.
These people have no idea what they're talking about and refuse to learn.
Inga: What I’m guessing is that you are probably not American. My guess is that you’re paid professional propagandist. First the huge mistake about Navy uniforms, now this, not knowing the VA is not for-profit.
[facepalm]
Our Ing. A Roseanne Roseannadanna for whom the "never mind!" light bulb never goes on.
“Our Ing. A Roseanne Roseannadanna for whom the "never mind!" light bulb never goes on.”
My dear Buzzard. I knew this would have you dropping down your big bird body in this thread to comment. My first reaction was “he’s being sarcastic”, but you know what genius, I thought, no don’t let him get away with it. I thought great time to give him a bit of his own medicine. Now go kick yourself in your big buzzard ass for taking me literally.
buwaya, I think there is a chance but it must involve getting manufacturing back into this country.
The middle class must be able to see a possible future that is not the dysphoric one offered by the political left.
Kids, including my youngest daughter, read and watch TV shows based on "Hunger Games." That's pretty dysphoric.
The Ingas and ARMs are hopeless as they cannot see beyond their hates. There is no communication about anything other than Thanksgiving dinner or a vacation.
My middle daughter, who was recruited by Apple and has a good job working in the art world in "Silicon Beach," is working on building a cabin in the mountains of northern Idaho and she and her sculptor boyfriend are taking about opening a gallery in Sandpoint Idaho.
That gives me a sense that they, at least subconsciously, see what is coming. Even the leftist media is talking about how millennials are not moving into cities like they thought they would.
Dispersed populations have better survival chances.
Howard said Trump is divisive, especially his over the top assault on Latin Americans. I fucking hate that.
You know what I fucking hate? Liars. Trump has targeted criminals. Illegal Aliens are criminals. That many of them come from Latin America is undeniable and obvious because....DUH....they are closer and easier to break the laws.
However, ILLEGAL immigration is not just Latin America. Illegals breaking the laws from all over the world.
If you want to bash Trump, at least be honest about it. Otherwise everything else you say is likely to be considered more lies.
Ref mention of Duterte -
This is a superb "deep background" article, that gets that society right. This is rare in foreign analyses of the Philippines. And for all I know of anywhere else.
Popularity of Duterte
"To use the term “1 percent” to describe the four dozen families who have dominated the Filipino economy and politics for the past century would grossly overestimate the degree to which money and power is spread."
"Dutertism is the claim, usually implicit, that that democracy was a sham, more procedural than real, and that it did nothing to make the lives of the poor better."
This is the case. We were, in Philippine terms, not just rather foreign (we did hold foreign passports after all), but even as, relatively, poor relations, we were in the top 1% of that country, just not in the upper few dozen. But it does not take much to perceive accurately.
There are no simple good guys and bad guys in this situation.
“The Ingas and ARMs are hopeless as they cannot see beyond their hates. There is no communication about anything other than Thanksgiving dinner or a vacation.”
Speak for yourself Michael. I don’t let politics ever get in the way of my personal relationships and friendships. Read my 12:17 PM comment to Mockturtle, or did you already forget what I said to her?
From that Weekly Standard article on Duterte -
"The tool at hand to reform a corrupt state is a corrupt state."
A conundrum.
This is your problem as well. As we have seen for two-three years now, re the FBI, the Justice Department, the Senate, and not least your MSM.
Original Mike reminds us: Unionization is incompatible with jobs where people’s lives are on the line.
I am reminded of the air traffic controller strike.
but even as, relatively, poor relations, we were in the top 1% of that country, just not in the upper few dozen.
When Lansdale finally married Pat Kelly and brought her to the states after his first wife died, she had a hard time dealing without servants. She did learn to drive, as his first wife never did, but it was a shock and she was not rich in the Philippines.
Inga, I have nothing against you personally and you may have been a good nurse but you are constantly insinuating yourself in discussions with ignorant opinions.
You do get rather nasty sometimes and it would look better of you avoided that. You really do not want to get into Ritmo territory.
ARM also seems to be getting more angry. I don't enjoy seeing leftists like you being proven wrong over and over.
It's just that we are talking about how to save the country from an angry left that would prefer the talks with the Norks fail.
Bill Maher wants to economy to crash to spite Trump.
Here's another example where I can side with Inga: People who are guests in our country should have at least some minimal respect for it. I have never bashed a foreign country while visiting it [maybe after I got home] and always respected the customs and people. The fact that they differ from mine is one reason I enjoy traveling.
My husband and I used to winter at a golf resort here in AZ that was full of Canadians who thought nothing of criticizing our country's economy, leaders [Bush at the time], our behavior, language and even our clothing. [OK, not all Canadians. I have several good--and close--Canadian friends and they don't bash the US. But it was an annoying habit that rankled with a lot of us Yanks].
Buwaya is a brilliant commenter and I thoroughly enjoy his posts but I admit he is both critical and contemptuous of the US and I don't like it. He does have the right to say what he says but we don't have to silently acquiesce.
“Buwaya is a brilliant commenter and I thoroughly enjoy his posts but I admit he is both critical and contemptuous of the US and I don't like it. He does have the right to say what he says but we don't have to silently acquiesce.
Mockturtle, I appreciate Buwaya’s humor. And yes, he is brilliant, without being pretentious about it. There were several times he was darn funny and lighthearted, that’s when I liked him the most.
“Inga, I have nothing against you personally and you may have been a good nurse but you are constantly insinuating yourself in discussions with ignorant opinions.”
WTF? Could you possibly be a more pretentious prick than the other Michael? I could call you senile, but that would be rude. I “insinuate” my self into a conversation? Listen you asshole, it is you who most often addresses my comments, not the other way around. I have as much right to express myself here as you do. My opinions may be “ignorant” to you, but guess what, you are not the arbiter of informed commentary here, or else you wouldn’t make as many idiotic comments as you often do, just as you just have done
" Listen you asshole,"
OK Inga, I will ignore you and your nasty comments just as I ignore Ritmo. You seem to be competing for the worst commenter award. Go for it !
Buwaya, that was a very interesting article. Do you think if Magsaysay had not been killed things would be any different. ? I wonder.
I had no idea that the population growth had been that high.
"Do you think if Magsaysay had not been killed things would be any different. ? "
No. Its not a man, its a system. The only way things could have been different would have been continued US occupation, as a check on the oligarchs, if the US policy had gone in that direction.
People who are guests in our country should have at least some minimal respect for it. I have never bashed a foreign country while visiting it
I agree that when you are a "guest", a tourist, temporarily on a legal visa, you should be circumspect in bitching about the country or its people. When I was in Ireland, England, Scotland, Mexico, Costa Rica, Canada, Argentina....I just went with the flow and kept my mouth shut about things that offended me or about politics of another country.
However, when you are a permanent resident and have taken the difficult steps to become a legal citizen you have the same rights to bitch about the country as Barbara Streisand, Matt Damon, or any other person, righty or lefty. Doesn't matter where you originated. IF you are a legal citizen you are granted the right to bellyache just like the rest of us.
Now. Illegals can just STFU. They are criminals who are illegally in this country and have no right to complain.
Listen you pretentious prick. You asshole.
I'm not going to call you senile because that would be rude.
BTW: Presenting thoughts from the perspective of one who has not been born and raised in the country can be a valuable thing. Opens your eyes to a different way of seeing the same thing.
Pointing out something that is perceived as a negative that may not have occurred to the native person in the country is not always bitching or complaining.
You also have the ability to ignore commentators and their posts. I do it all the time. I'm sure people do the same to me.
“Listen you pretentious prick. You asshole.
I'm not going to call you senile because that would be rude.”
I won’t bother calling you a retarded gnat. Too repetitive.
I've hated to conforming, but it's Cburchill and I'm only half German.
That half is at Althouse foot.
My Irish never goes throat neither, not ever. Just words. Cunt-words.
Fooking Sha Ite.
DBQ, I am sure you are correct in this matter and I am being, well, emotional and subjective about it. My husband, who, as a British citizen, lived in this country as a permanent resident for many years before finally getting his citizenship [and that for economic advantage] and was quite contemptuous of the US which annoyed me for 40+ years. I guess it's a lot like my criticizing my own sister. I can do that, but don't you dare. ;-)
“OK Inga, I will ignore you...”
Please do! But you’ve said this before and then “insinuated” yourself into my conversations with other commenters, lol. Michael, I’ve told you this before, I hate being mean to you, but honey, we’re not back in your glory days as a surgeon, insulting nurses who had to work with you. I never tolerated abuse from docs back in my nursing days and I’m not about to let you get away with it now. You want you insult me? Expect to be insulted back. I’ve told you this before too.
Everyone here brings something unique to the table. Not always good but always unique.
@ Mockturtle
I think there is a difference between being critical in a dispassionate or even helpful way as opposed to just bitching and griping about your surroundings and the people in it. Like constantly complaining that the house is a mess or the cooking sucks without attempting to correct the situation yourself or pitch in and help.
We see this in our own American citizens who move or are visiting our beautiful, small and somewhat isolated area. They complain and constantly belittle the area and the people. What no Starbucks?!?! The inhumanity. Yes. and we like it that way. The grocery store is horrible Yah...we know. But it is better than NO grocery store.
Others from out of the area can make criticisms that come off as being objective and make helpful suggestions. Even pitch in and help.
I guess it is all about the attitude and the frequency.
Buwaya, this article suggests Duterte might have second thoughts about China.
President Duterte has backed off on his “China is our friend and too powerful to fight” attitude after he found that he was losing vital political and popular support because of perceived over-dependence on Chinese benevolence. Also, a new government in the United States provided more support for resistance to Chinese aggression. So Duterte adapted and took better care of defense agreements with the Americans and other local allies.
And:
Japan has taken advantage of this and formed a growing alliance to oppose China. Japan has been establishing links with Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and other countries threatened by Chinese aggression. While China sees Japan as a fading economic and military power, Japan still has the second largest economy in the region, as well as more powerful allies than China. The Japanese military is still a formidable force, especially at sea. While memories of Japanese brutality throughout East Asia during World War II still survive the fear of similar treatment from China are turning Japan into a sought-after ally for most nations in the region.
“Nearly every person I know that could afford to retire in their mid to late 50's was a union member. They get a high percentage of their final years salary as a annual pension."
In the private sector, where i worked for over 40 years, no one got a deal like that. At most, a pension would pay about 35-40% of your final average salary, and that was for a 100% straight life annuity. If you chose a joint and survivor annuity, so that you spouse would continue to receive something after your death, that amount was significantly reduced. All of us were made very aware upon coming to work that retirement was a 'three-legged stool": one-third pension; one-third Social Security; and one third personal savings. The few people I know that retired when first eligible in their mid-50s, without waiting for full benefits at 65, could only afford it if they had other income, like a farm or small business on the side or an inheritance. I run into some of these early retirees occasionally around town and every one regrets having retired early.
The only union members I am aware of that get pensions approaching their final years' earnings are public employee union members.
Yes. Duterte is really, really good about public opinion.
Marcos had that skill to almost the same level but lost it when he let his wife and courtiers cut him off. He was also a terrific weasel.
Philippine public opinion is intensely anti-Chinese. Last year we drove along the entire East coast of Luzon, stopping for a night or so at various beaches. Everywhere we were corrected, no matter the ethnicity of the locals, Tagalogs or Pangasinanons or Ilocanos, for or against Duterte, rich or poor, about the name of that sea - It was the "West Philippine Sea" now, as far as all the residents were concerned, no longer the South China Sea.
I’ve been a citizen of this country since the age of 9. My parents became citizens 6 years after emigrating here, which was the soonest that laws allowed. My parents never said a bad word about this country. They/we loved/ love it and my mom said she could’ve kissed the ground when they disembarked in New York. My older sister recalls seeing the Statue of Liberty from the deck, I have no memory, I was only 3.
They came from Austrian DP camps, as displaced Eastern Europeans ( the Austrians hated the DPs from Eastern Europe) and saying that after WW2 things were horrendous, would be an understatement. Any immigrants legal or otherwise should remember why they came here. The right to criticize is there under the Constitutional right to free speech, but yes the right to push back is also there.
God Bless America!
"Buwaya is a brilliant commenter and I thoroughly enjoy his posts but I admit he is both critical and contemptuous of the US and I don't like it."
Contemptuous? Really? Got any examples? That strikes me as a remarkably wrong-headed reading of his attitude.
Ladies and Men Gentle I've got to create not pontificate.
George Gilder on the economy.
Pretty good video. Has some suggestions on how to cope with the present issues.
When world war II ended, the GOP Congress cut government spending 61%. Laid off a million government workers other than the military demobilization.
Paul Samuelson said it would cause a Depression worse the the Great Depression.
Instead we got the 1950s "Golden Age."
I usually don't watch videos but this is good.
Also referred to the turnaround of Israel in 1985.
Another quote from that video.
'Men and marriage.....if families collapse, the way it seems to be in the inner cities, it will take a welfare state to care for the women and children, and a police state to care for the boys'.
mockturtle: Buwaya is a brilliant commenter and I thoroughly enjoy his posts but I admit he is both critical and contemptuous of the US and I don't like it.
I'm not seeing this "contemptuousness". On the contrary, he strikes me as having a great deal of admiration for what was truly unique and great about Americans, and the sensibility to perceive the tragedy of what has been lost, and what is being lost.
Perhaps I don't see what you're seeing because I've had toe-hold in ex-pat-ery myself? Not as far as being "a man without a country" (I'm 'murican through and through), but enough to have informed my perceptions. I don't always (or often) agree with his prescriptions, but which of his criticisms is wrong?
He doesn't say anything about our this country that isn't being noticed and lamented by you and other people here - he's just describing the development of these things from a different vantage point, an outsider perspective lacking the long decades of obliviousness characteristic of those on the "inside". And oblivious we have been - liberals for one set of reasons, "conservatives" for another. (I put conservative in quotes because nobody who calls himself a conservative has any excuse for that kind of obliviousness, but there it is.)
If Welfare State and Police State are your stations on the Democracy train, no need to change course.
European DPs disembarking from the refugee ship the USS Grant in the New York harbor.
Maybe some of you might find the video at my link interesting.
Our ship, the USS General Langfitt left Bremerhaven and arrived in New York with grateful families aboard ready to start new lives in America. My grandkids have brought in pictures and documents from this time for their school social studies projects and it’s been great fun helping them with it.
Your teacher prep system needs to be eliminated.
I don't see it as adding value. Indeed it is a great negative.
One can counter that it should be reformed, to which I can reply that the personnel in the system or the pipeline into that system will make such attempts futile. You cannot re-educated the "educated".
Your system of K-12 public education in general is substandard by any developed country norm. This is one of those areas where the US is most intensely and counterproductively parochial.
And it is not a matter of liberty loving Americans versus statist Euros either. We are talking about state-run, state dominated systems in both cases, all of them steeped in left-wing ideologies. Its just that their state-run, ideology steeped systems work better than your state-run, ideology steeped systems.
mock - I agree with you about that certain type of foreign visitor, though. Were they raised in barns? No doubt quick to bitch about how dreadfully obnoxious and crass Americans are, but feeling free to mouth off to their hosts here in a manner that would make the most vulgar of "ugly Americans" ashamed of himself.
the sensibility to perceive the tragedy of what has been lost, and what is being lost.
Yes. Accurate descriptions of the current state of the country, and what needs to be done, disturbs the left.
OK Inga, I will ignore you and your nasty comments just as I ignore Ritmo. You seem to be competing for the worst commenter award. Go for it !"
Ironically, I sense that she desperately wants to be liked, sort of like mean girls in 7th grade who try to bully those outside their approved orbit.
Your system of K-12 public education in general is substandard by any developed country norm
Teachers' unions have been a part of the problem but all of education has suffered as it has been preempted by the left.
I think Ed Schools are now selecting the bottom quintile of the college population.
Some of that is due to women who used to choose elementary ed as a career until they got married, now have more choices.
Both nursing and education have suffered.
The college level faculty was infected during the Vietnam War by leftists students hiding from the draft in grad school. They became the PhDs and then selected the same sort of students for their own grad school candidates.
I think the debt bubble will soon kill off much of brick and mortar colleges. MOOC will replace some and, I hope, trade schools will take off another third or so.
buwaya happens to be correct in his analysis. Anybody who cannot see that is purposefully blind.
American systems have been willfully, purposely degraded. The Long March is real.
“Ironically, I sense that she desperately wants to be liked, sort of like mean girls in 7th grade who try to bully those outside their approved orbit.”
Ironically, you’re again wrong. Of course I want to be liked, who doesn’t, don’t you? Don’t most people, well normal people anyway. But to say I’m desperate to have people here like me? Um, no. I’d rather not be liked by certain people here, which includes you. I will say this. I do occasionally go out of my way to prove to some of the dopier people here that liberals, Democrats, progressives are every bit as patriotic, family oriented, decent, kind and loving as any conservative. I see so many here trying to otherize and even dehumanize those on the left. I do bother to push back against that nonsense. If you were a better psychologist you would’ve understood that already.
I didn't say that buwaya was wrong in his analyses. He is seldom--if ever--wrong. Which is why the comparison to someone criticizing my own family member for traits which I may criticize, myself. Where I see contemptuousness is when he expresses doubts that we can correct our faults short of violent revolution and that he doubts we are capable of fully understanding our own issues. No, I didn't protest that he is wrong. Just that I consider his exhortations unseemly for someone who is not a citizen and has, I believe, a rather limited experience with Americans as a whole.
Just that I consider his exhortations unseemly for someone who is not a citizen and has, I believe, a rather limited experience with Americans as a whole.
I think he has said he has been here at least 20 years and his kids have grown up in US schools.
Sometimes the objective view is easier for the person with less history.
I have friends in England that I visit from time to time. I keep my opinions to myself although I did have one enjoyable dinner conversation with a brother-in-law who was a "name" at Lloyds and was bankrupted by the asbestos lawsuits.
We agreed about American law. I also agree with Conrad Black whose histories are outstanding.
mockturtle: Where I see contemptuousness is when he expresses doubts that we can correct our faults short of violent revolution and that he doubts we are capable of fully understanding our own issues.
I don't see that at all. I think he's speaking as someone who's well-read in history and is giving a disinterested opinion from the "long view". Whether we've reached such a dreadful juncture is a matter for informed people to debate, and it implies no peculiar contempt for Americans. (Things coming to a violent head isn't exactly rare, anywhere). I certainly don't "take it personally" as an American. (Or, for a slightly different, and equally not offended perspective, given just now, by my husband reading over my shoulder: "This is what a friend says to you when you're lying drunk in a gutter".)
As for "not being capable of fully understanding our own issues", I suggest you ask him his opinion on how well he thinks any people fully understand their own issues. If you want to read it on a more personal level - well, hell yeah, mock, *I* think there are a lot of Americans who don't "understand our own issues". If we didn't buy our own bullshit, we wouldn't be where we are now. This in no way implies that I think Americans are any more blind to themselves than any other people. But we're no more immune to this tragic failing, either.
No, I didn't protest that he is wrong. Just that I consider his exhortations unseemly for someone who is not a citizen and has, I believe, a rather limited experience with Americans as a whole.
We'll have to disagree on the former, but you may be right on the latter. Just as those on the inside miss what those on the outside can see, those on the outside can never completely enter the mysteries of the natives.
32 years in the US.
I see myself as a colonizer at this point.
Now I want to put that island on my bucket list. I really need to win the lottery.
mockturtle,
I suppose your criticism would apply to Alexis de Tocqueville, right?
He was French and I'm sure he couldn't truly understand America.
Tocqueville: "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
"Democracy in America" is available through the Althouse Amazon portal.
AD-AB: "I don't see that at all. I think he's speaking as someone who's well-read in history and is giving a disinterested opinion from the "long view"'
Precisely.
An objective, educated, outsider view which is framed by a deep understanding of history and philosophy as well as clear "Renaissance Man" understanding of many subjects and areas of interest.
“Where I see contemptuousness is when he expresses doubts that we can correct our faults short of violent revolution and that he doubts we are capable of fully understanding our own issues.”
Perfectly stated. This is what drives me to distraction about him. He gives the American people no credit for being able to solve our own problems and has said on numerous occasions that it would take an outsider, a foreigner to do it. He has also on numerous occasions spoken about bloody conflict being the only solution America’s problems. To deny that he’s ever said these things is disingenuous or a lie.
Birkel: I suppose your criticism would apply to Alexis de Tocqueville, right?
He was French and I'm sure he couldn't truly understand America.
I'm pretty sure mock knows her Tocqueville.
"No, I didn't protest that he is wrong. Just that I consider his exhortations unseemly for someone who is not a citizen and has, I believe, a rather limited experience with Americans as a whole"
I've yet to read anything from Buwaya that was not empirically true as well as conceptually and instinctively true.
His voice is a canary in the coalmine....a big beautiful and powerful and magnificent coal mine that Hillary would have crushed out of existence while transferring the jobs and profits overseas.
Birkel: "mockturtle,
I suppose your criticism would apply to Alexis de Tocqueville, right?
He was French and I'm sure he couldn't truly understand America"
Perfect.
“The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
BTW, just for the record, one of my favorite Frenchman stories is that of Charles DeGaulle.
One of his daughters had Down Syndrome and it has been shared that he kept her near and every chance he got during the workday he would get down on his hands and knees in his offices and play with her.
What a pity that now in lefty Europe they seek to wipe these children out while importing by the millions those that have no intention of assimilating and view the children of european as targets that deserve to be abused, raped and killed.
“The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
DJ Trump is part of the corrective action necessary to take on a completely corrupted and incompetent leadership class.
We see the same thing happening with Brexit, the Eastern European nations, now Italy, etc.
This is a western world-wide revolt against those who believe, with astonishing arrogance, that they can design the lives of a billion people and worse, believe they are morally superior than others which qualifies them to do it.
Inga,
Do you see how my Tocqueville quote beats up your quote and gives it a swirlie?
Birkel: "Inga,
Do you see how my Tocqueville quote beats up your quote and gives it a swirlie?"
It's a darn good thing that de Tocqueville wasn't from the Philippines.......
Conrad Black's biography of Nixon points out that he and DeGaulle were very close.
If only the French had listened to DeGaulle on tank tactics in the 1930s. They had better tanks than the Germans in 1940. Most German tanks in 1940 were Mark IIs and Mark IIIs.
Sorry. I meant Royal ass Inga.
The true American problem is that the Americans are no longer the Americans of Toquevilles day.
Indeed, they are no longer the Americans of 1986, when I first came to stay. Some of this is immigration, but most isn't, or it was not an inevitable consequence of it.
The process of cultural change is a sort of boiling the frog thing, to go trite.
It is best seen in California. Now, you can complain that wherever you are, it isn't California. And you will be right. Situations vary. But goodness gracious, California, and places that are in this condition, are huge, important, and massively culturally influential. Its a tremendous inertia in the wrong direction.
Inga: To deny that he’s ever said these things is disingenuous or a lie.
Nobody's denying his words. What we're asserting is that you wildly misapprehend them.
You are imputing personal animus to what are disinterested observations formed from knowledge and experience. This is like imputing a desire for death and destruction to the meteorologists doing hurricane predictions.
“Nobody's denying his words. What we're asserting is that you wildly misapprehend them.”
Mockturtle didn’t misapprehend him and neither did I. Keep trying.
Yes, mock knows her de Tocqueville. His observations were pertinent and, in most cases, spot-on. Like buwaya's. He was also condescending, if not contemptuous, of our upstart nation and its values.
We see the same thing happening with Brexit, the Eastern European nations, now Italy, etc.
This is a western world-wide revolt against those who believe, with astonishing arrogance,
Yes. I read Richard Fernandez every day. Another one of those damned Filipinos.
And he lives in Australia which makes him doubly suspect for the dull normal.
Globalism was a "Grave Mistake
Though Soros defiantly vowed to double down on his efforts despite setbacks, Reihan Salam of The Atlantic (The Atlantic !) is willing to consider the alternative: maybe globalization itself, or at least the way it was implemented, was a big mistake. Salam argues it facilitated Beijing's entry into corporate networks which now constitute "Chimerica," the meld of multinational corporations with "China-centric supply chains" that, like Frankenstein's monster, Washington can no longer rid themselves of.
Had America been more careful, Salam argues:
... [the U.S. could] have entered the age of globalization under markedly different terms: Instead of offshoring much of its industrial base to an often-hostile authoritarian power, perhaps it would have deepened its economic ties to democratizing states in Latin America, Asia, and the wider world. ... There is no going back. We can’t rewrite history. ... The question is what we should do now. For starters, I propose admitting that we made a grave mistake.
Aww. Another leftist theme shot down. And by The Atlantic !
It seems like only yesterday the lefties were telling us Ronald Reagan was a warmongering dunce who was going to get all of us killed if that glorious angel Gorbachev didn't save us!!
where in eastern europe as you know the namesake of my handle.was a cross between
betsy ross (the fellow behind the cuban flag) and i suppose nathan hale (died in an incursion) we have seen where hop and change leas.
mockturtle: "His observations were pertinent and, in most cases, spot-on. Like buwaya's. He was also condescending, if not contemptuous, of our upstart nation and its values."
The former negates any and all importance of the latter.
Results matter.
Concerns for style are bull shit.
“where in eastern europe as you know the namesake of my handle.”
Are you addressing me narciso? If so, It was Yugoslavia.
Most of my relatives moved to Australia. I have tons of Australian cousins.
A very typical choice for mestizos (like Fernandez).
The others were Spain and the US.
The true American problem is that the Americans are no longer the Americans of Toquevilles day.
One the big changes is religion. We are still the most religious country of the west but that is a low bar.
The Culture War did what Antonio Gramsci wanted it to do.
What went horribly wrong for Soros in 2018 was the future he believed in and poured his fortune into creating disappeared. The real future, to the anxious anticipation of Angela Merkel and many ordinary citizens, is about to make its appearance. What will it be?
WE can hardly wait to learn what it will be. One thing to do is keep Muslims and illegals out.
Unless, of course, you want book publishing to be at Muslim levels ten years from now.
BTW, Erdogan of Turkey, where they are busy shutting down Christian Churches and driving Christians underground or out of the country all the while killing and Kurds, is complaining about the Austrians appropriately kicking out Inga's pals, the radical Islamist supremacists.
Vienna of 1683 still looms large.
"I consider his exhortations unseemly for someone who is not a citizen"
I think you're being way too touchy. I see an honest, clear-eyed assessment by someone with a wide knowledge of the world and its history. I don't agree with some of his more pessimistic predictions, but I can understand where they are coming from, and why they would seem reasonable. I would never tell him to be quiet just because he's what, not a citizen? Perhaps your own personal history colors your views here.
Buwaya's comments are head and shoulders above almost anyone else's. Each one easily worth at least 100 Inga comments (which seems about the ratio at which they occur.)
mockturtle: He was also condescending, if not contemptuous, of our upstart nation and its values.
[Double face palm.]
I can't even.
Tocqueville?!?!! Alexis effin' de Tocqueville? This is your take-home from Alexis de goddamn mofo'in Tocqueville?!?!
Help me, Lord.
I need a drink. (Something French.)
AD-AB: "Tocqueville?!?!! Alexis effin' de Tocqueville? This is your take-home from Alexis de goddamn mofo'in Tocqueville?!?"
Remember, Tocqueville loved America.
No leftist can really identify with that since America has never been great, never will be great, and needs to be humbled and made to serve the interests of other nations to make up for its unique historical crimes.
Just read any high school history/social studies textbook and you'll see that.
yes i was. inga. now that were being civil. from burleighs sacred places one gets a notion of the natiomalism that rhe serbs had suppresed that errupted with the
ustachi and the handschar. a turmoil that emergee 50 years latwe.
When a union makes itself a political enemy of half the nation, is it any wonder that they find that half of the country tries to damage them.
When someone works so relentlessly to be the enemy of Republicans, is it any wonder that they find themselves on the outs with the Republicans?
Just so the Deep State...though that is more the Deep Pockets agenda. The public unions are all political hacks who will do anything for Democrats, not because they are traitors, not because they are all Marxist Proggies. Not because they are Republican haters necessarily.
Simply because that when Democrats are in charge, they open the spigots full on into the Public Union paychecks and coffers.
Not only are they whores, but cheap whores.
And yet ARM wonders why Reagan had an issue for unions trying to extort money beyond their paychecks to do their jobs.
My late uncle "went Australian" to such a degree that he owned a brace of .303 rifles and would hunt kangaroos. He sent me a boomerang and didgeridoo, from Queensland.
There is nothing wrong in anything buways [or Toqueville, for that matter] has said about the US. The problem lies with me and my chauvinistic sentiments. All I said was that I DON"T LIKE it when non-Americans bash the USA and that included my late husband, whom I loved madly.
I've read many European descriptions of America and not one has shown any real understanding of the American character. Many criticize our entrepreneurial spirit as if the ability to create capital is crass and vulgar. Many were critical of our Puritanical morality [obviously in past centuries]. Most saw the USA as an interesting experiment with a short future. And they may have been right. But they still don't fully understand us and what we are made of.
And a daughter for any occasion.
“Most of my relatives moved to Australia. I have tons of Australian cousins.”
My mothers two uncles emigrated to Australia. I have lots of Australian cousins too. Most of my mother’s side went to went to Canada. Oh that dreamy Trudeau. Most of my fathers side came to America, Milwaukee! Ja Ja bier und cheese curds.
Buwaya I’m hard on you, but I do like you and respect you...most times
“mockturtle: He was also condescending, if not contemptuous, of our upstart nation and its values.
[Double face palm.]
I can't even.
Tocqueville?!?!! Alexis effin' de Tocqueville? This is your take-home from Alexis de goddamn mofo'in Tocqueville?!?!
Help me, Lord.
I need a drink. (Something French.”
Jesus. Can you for once stop being such a condescending biatch?
even gunther grass. had an insight or two. forty years ago. i attributed it to jean jacques revel, 'fascism is aleays funning on america. butvit always lends in europe.
Re my late uncle, its a good thing he passed on before the Australian government tightened the gun laws there. He was a ferocious, bellicose Australian. Did his military service there, again, in the 1950s, in spite of having done Philippine ROTC.
He was the most militaristic accountant I ever met.
Granted, our ancestor was an adventirous accountant as well, an auditor for the Manila audencia, on the staff of the Spanish Jolo expedition of 1876. The Spanish were very careful about accounting, even while fighting suicidal juramentados in a disease-infested hellhole.
like the Greek Princess Cassandra, they can see the future, but they will not be believed. "
Scott Adams?
⛱
Oh, I see the problem.
Royal ass Inga thinks other people are condescending when they know facts.
I cracked the code.
Then there are those who wouldn't recognize condescension if they tripped over it in broad daylight. The British UC would have lots of fun with them.
/snark
FIFY
I get a kick out of someone like David Rothkopf, who has probably never negotiated anything more difficult than getting a break on his car insurance, feeling like he has some great insight into the art of negotiation that Trump doesn't have. Our elite simply aren't, and they are too dumb to know it.
In fact, they are so dumb it wouldn't even help to explain it to them.
A lot of these analysts are making a big deal about there being a private meeting between the two leaders and how each could come away with a different story as to what happened. So what? I am sure they will. That is not a bug. What is obvious though is that you want to hear what the North Korean leader has to say away from his retinue where he may be able to speak more freely. Strong men cannot show weakness in front of their henchmen. And any problems Kim faces which he might need help with can be voiced directly to Trump. Both men can be candid and they can get to know each other. All of those things are invaluable.
The press and other leftists are heavily invested in the narrative that Trump is an idiot with poor impulse control who can be easily fooled. That is why they are making a big deal of a private meeting. But if Trump were fooled he would just be the last in a long line of our presidents that the Norks have fooled. And Trump has already made it obvious that he is not desperate for a deal and is skeptical.
mock: All I said was that I DON"T LIKE it when non-Americans bash the USA...
Taking umbrage at intelligent, sympathetic critics who are in no way "bashing" our country isn't an admirable trait.
I've read many European descriptions of America and not one has shown any real understanding of the American character.
...as if Tocqueville and some Guardian prat were of a piece.
Tocqueville was amazing, both for his understanding of the (then) American character, and his prescience in seeing how things would develop. To dismiss all this because of dead-on, if less than worshipful observations of our national character, is absurd. We were what we were as we are what we are.
"A puritanical streak" is, historically, a characteristic of American culture. Why are you offended that this should be remarked? Entrepreneurial peoples throughout history are noted for the "crassness and vulgarity", and this is not just because the rentiers and land-holders were envious snobs toward the creators of capital (though of course they were that, too).
I see nothing here indicating "lack of understanding". Like any peoples, we have our virtues and we have our failings, and the failings of peoples are sometimes the natural concomitants of their virtues. It strikes me as very childish to dismiss any negative or neutral evaluation or description as "not understanding". (Though, to our credit, Americans in general as nowhere near as prone to indignant childish butthurt when criticized as certain furriners I could name.)
Just read any high school history/social studies textbook and you'll see that.
Especially if its an AP History book. They are now fully Zinnized.
When I was in Queensland about 25 years ago a friend asked me to come back in the winter to go kangaroo hunting in the outback.
I wonder of they are even allowed to hunt now?
He lived in Toowoomba.
“Though, to our credit, Americans in general as nowhere near as prone to indignant childish butthurt when criticized as certain furriners I could name.)”
Stop picking on Buwaya!
mockturtle: "Then there are those who wouldn't recognize condescension if they tripped over it in broad daylight. The British UC would have lots of fun with them."
The Brits are too busy dodging knife and acid attacks and throwing reporters in jail for telling the truth.
Has anybody read anything by buwaya that betrays any emotion whatsoever? He is patient beyond measure and is probably the most evenly keeled person who posts.
Come off it, Royal ass Inga.
Birkel doesn’t recognize sarcasm, lol.
Our fine feathered friend was referring to me as a ”furriner”, silly Birkel.
————-
“Though, to our credit, Americans in general as nowhere near as prone to indignant childish butthurt when criticized as certain furriners I could name.)”
————
“Stop picking on Buwaya!”
At least half of my motivation to read this blog is buwaya, no matter what the retarded may say,
He is not the only one but is a large part of the value of this blog.
“At least half of my motivation to read this blog is buwaya, no matter what the retarded may say.
Don’t call the Buzzard retarded. You old meanie.
Nobody can recognize sarcasm through the abject stupidity, Royal ass Inga.
Write more clearly or give people clues to your intended purpose in advance instead of incessantly (and always self-servingly) explaining the emotional content of your tripe.
See, I am writing with disdain for you because I don't respect you and I have observed that you are a liar.
Now we can both be clear.
Per Angle: Tocqueville was amazing, both for his understanding of the (then) American character, and his prescience in seeing how things would develop. To dismiss all this because of dead-on, if less than worshipful observations of our national character, is absurd. We were what we were as we are what we are.
Dismiss all this? Have I said that, because I take umbrage [your words] at some condescending statements about my country, I am dismissive of the works of the likes of de Toqueville? Of buwaya? Of my condescendingly British husband? You either don't read my posts at all [your prerogative] or you don't understand them. Which is fine with me.
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