Political Discussion Thread

General Discussion Off-Topic
#8935

If it’s too big to fail, it’s too big to exist. We’re a modified market economy for a reason - break. Them. Up.

But yes, I remember all those things, my friend. Just let a brotha have a little hope! :slight_smile:

Yeah… I’m pretty worried. Here’s to hoping we are both pleasantly surprised.

EDIT: Something that’s not talked about enough, and ignored by both major parties, is our debt and deficit. The debt is a ticking time bomb that will sink us at some point. Just don’t know when that point is. But what we all do know is that eventually you do indeed run out of other people’s money.

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#8936

It really is a pity, some trust busting really might’ve done wonders here. Really, just not giving them a red cent and sending the money to the populace instead might’ve done wonders. Or spending it on infrastructure. Or really doing much anything of real value, rather than repeating a failed strategy that drove inequality through the roof and hamstrung a recovery.

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#8937

"I mean everyone loves Donald Trump, but we’re also in complete awe of Joe Biden. Yet we have to pick one. It’s like being asked to pick between sunshine and the laughter of babies.”

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#8938

A sobering read:

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#8939

I do not find this surprising. At all. It’s incredible to think that a “melting pot” like NY could be so afflicted, but it is. When I was taking my education classes at uni I was surprised to hear that NYC has the most segregated school system in the country, but a quick search turns up lots of depressing articles like this one that show it’s a known problem as recently as 2018, and you can probably find more current ones.

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#8940

Want some more sobering stuff?

By the way, the ‘president’ and ‘leader of the free world’ twitters this:

“Once we OPEN UP OUR GREAT COUNTRY, and it will be sooner rather than later, the horror of the Invisible Enemy, except for those that sadly lost a family member or friend, must be quickly forgotten. Our Economy will BOOM, perhaps like never before!!!”

At the moment, he is practically begging Americans to forget his horrible mishandling of the plague. That is the only reason he is doing a daily ‘Praise me’-conference instead of, just for once, his job.

Edit: I stand corrected, the United States have ‘the best testing system in the world’

0:14, with no further explanation.

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#8941

Even as sarcasm that made me twitch Mike.

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#8942

My work here is done.

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#8943

This is a sick joke.

From the guy who said he likes conflict…:


…he has the states fighitng over equipment/supplies.
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#8944

As per our discussion in RTT, this is a good article about the Sweden situation.

(Which I sent on to my sister-in-law of course)

He’s (chief state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell) also repeatedly said it would be good for the Swedish population to gain immunity to the disease, though he’s flatly denied purposely seeking “herd immunity.”

Tegnell firmly denies that developing herd immunity in Sweden is his goal, but he has told reporters it’s “not contradictory” to his aims, either.

So, “herd immunity may be considered quackery so we’ll call it something else.”

Edit : the “article” that spurred this on (warning : contains egregious ignorance)

Closes with this nugget of wisdom:

Nature’s got this one, folks. We’ve been coping with new viruses for untold generations. The best way is to allow the young and healthy — those for whom the virus is rarely fatal — to develop antibodies and herd immunity to protect the frail and sick.

Which of course is the theory of herd immunity but explained with such wonderful aplomb.

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#8945

Someone could explain to the author that ‘nature’ does not have an anthropocentric bias and is fairly well known to let ‘her’ creations kill each other off enthusiastically. Nature’s got this one, my :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

While of course humanity survived the Black Plague, the Pox, the Spanish Flu and so on, the price wasn’t something one should easily forget.

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#8946

I haven’t yet seen what you kids discussed in the RTT (I enjoy going into arguments completely blind), but I’m not sure that ‘herd immunity’ is necessarily crackery, is it? Now, the way that the Swedes have chosen to go about it might very well be - only time will tell, I suppose. (But I guess that also goes for our approach, too.)

Herd immunity is, I thought anyhoo, an actual thing. It can be accomplished via most of your population developing antibodies from already being sick, and/or implementing mass vaccinations. One assumes that the later approach to acquiring is preferable.

It’s been my understanding that developing herd immunity (mooooo!) is kind of our approach, too. Just a very slow-walked version so as not to overwhelm our health care systems.

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#8947

Ha, just read the RTT - is @Jefe in the process of composing an email to yours truly? :slight_smile:

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#8948

Are you my insane sister-in-law? Creepy.

Short version of our reply : Sweden’s death rate per capita is higher than Iran’s and the States’. And that’s with very low population density.

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#8949

Yep, already saw, homie. Still waiting on that email, tho.

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#8950

UNEXPECTED PLOT TWIST!

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#8951

I’ve been told I like hockey enough that I qualify as an ‘honorary Canadian.’ Also, and not to brag too much, but I’ve also been told I’d make one helluva handsome woman.

Wait - is that a compliment?

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#8952

Mostly the latter. Unless you’re comfortable with a really high death toll? The former would probably work with a less severe illness with a low mortality rate, but then you wouldn’t be as concerned about that in the first place.

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#8953

This basically. Mike’s not wrong about herd immunity (it’s an important tool), but Sweden has about a third California’s population, half it’s infected number, and is still nearly a month behind it in terms of timeline of this infection. More succinctly? Take a look at the peak hospital resource usage numbers in here and what kind of shortages they’re looking at.

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#8954

There’s also the issue with the recent reports of reinfection. Herd immunity isn’t a reliable option if people aren’t developing antibodies.

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