President Sonic T. Hedgehog: Episode XI: #TEAMSONIC2020

[Inshiya]

ah good way to increase wages is to restrict where companies get their labor from, like say, limiting how and when they can import workers. You can reign in immigration that tends to import people who are willing to work for less, driving the wages down. You can make competing trade agreements with other nations, increasing the demand of your nation's goods, which results in companies seeking more labor to compensate for the demand in work. All these factored in and wages begin to increase, unemployment drops and it becomes the employee market.

you know, like what Trump is doing.

What? No. Jesus dude. No.

People aren't hiring legal immigrants at lower wages than domestic workers. It's been a consistently rebutted assumption that legal immigrants make jobs scarcer to find, and drive wage erosion. See, e.g., https://cis.org/Report/Wages-Immigration

Further, exactly no part of Trump's trade agreements have resulted in more demand for our goods. He's cost us billions in losses, which is why we're currently having to bail out our farmers a second time. The modest trade deal he gets out of this war will barely make up even a portion of what we lost, and there's no evidence we weren't already going to get those goods sold to these nations before the deal.

God, the fucking fairy tale land conservatives live in. What is it like to never have to base your beliefs on facts?

[Gadritan]

Yea cost of living is a very easy thing to change and will vary from municipality to municipality and climate zone to climate zone. Imagine being able to live, work, and play without having to pay for car insurance, fuel, maintenance, and permits. Pedestrian/transit oriented and higher-density urban design will be a driving force for mitigating out of control living costs and reduce carbon footprints of entire towns/cities. A lifestyle change will be required for a majority of Americans which is never easy, though. I haven't lived with a car for over 8 years and it is liberating.

Sorry to the rural folk out there.

RDU isn't rural by any stretch of the imagination, but it's quite literally impossible to work in the area simply using public transportation. Then take into account that a massive chunk of the workforce lives in cities (not suburbs) outside of RDU (within an hour commute) because of the low cost of living. I.e. my 3 bedroom apartment with a pool, park, gym, etc is $750/month. You heard that right. Suck it.

People here simply can't work without their cars and I'm not sure how you tie public transportation into so many other cities surrounding the area. It's a logistical nightmare.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[Kaslo]

People here simply can't work without their cars and I'm not sure how you tie public transportation into so many other cities surrounding the area. It's a logistical nightmare.

I actually watched a good video on this recently, let me find it after dinner.

[arus2001]

Solar buses are probably your best bet for rural town/city connectivity if futureproofing, but backroads are still a thing and something very much in heavy decay where buses would not be safe to drive. For greater micro, probably something akin to a public Uber service restricted to these areas and elderly/disabled care. I know where I live, a rail system may work for cities along the Ohio river with key stops to maybe veer another rail east/west, but you will still need the bus/driver system to disperse traffic from hubs. And for now, this largely why you do need your own vehicle in an area like this.

As noted, better internet will do a great for the sorts of jobs that can work remotely, but then we have to look back to the clusterfuckery of the current FCC and the reality we should probably be designating the internet as a public utility to further get away from these soft for-profit monopolies, runaway bills, and remote areas not being deemed worth building toward. The fact I can hop in a car and be an area without cable net within 5 minutes makes me feel fucking lucky I happen to be where I am, but it's still like getting moldy a sandwich when bigger cities are getting the gourmet burger.

[kuronosan]

ah good way to increase wages is to restrict where companies get their labor from, like say, limiting how and when they can import workers. You can reign in immigration that tends to import people who are willing to work for less, driving the wages down. You can make competing trade agreements with other nations, increasing the demand of your nation's goods, which results in companies seeking more labor to compensate for the demand in work. All these factored in and wages begin to increase, unemployment drops and it becomes the employee market.

you know, like what Trump is doing.

Lol what?

[Kaslo]

I actually watched a good video on this recently, let me find it after dinner.

Here Gad

[Jaybar]

RDU isn't rural by any stretch of the imagination, but it's quite literally impossible to work in the area simply using public transportation. Then take into account that a massive chunk of the workforce lives in cities (not suburbs) outside of RDU (within an hour commute) because of the low cost of living. I.e. my 3 bedroom apartment with a pool, park, gym, etc is $750/month. You heard that right. Suck it.

People here simply can't work without their cars and I'm not sure how you tie public transportation into so many other cities surrounding the area. It's a logistical nightmare.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

It requires a complete gutting of existing infrastructure, land use, and allowable area rights; all very easy things to change in the grand scheme of things. The hardest change is for the people that are used to the current form of living: traveling miles through arterial roadways to get to and from work along desolate landscapes flanked by parking lots and unwelcoming big box store facades.

A lot of existing places are utterly hopeless. Some have promise. I fear that we will never adapt and we will fall behind as a "great nation".

[Gredival]

ah good way to increase wages is to restrict where companies get their labor from, like say, limiting how and when they can import workers. You can reign in immigration that tends to import people who are willing to work for less, driving the wages down. You can make competing trade agreements with other nations, increasing the demand of your nation's goods, which results in companies seeking more labor to compensate for the demand in work. All these factored in and wages begin to increase, unemployment drops and it becomes the employee market.

you know, like what Trump is doing.

What? No. Jesus dude. No.

People aren't hiring legal immigrants at lower wages than domestic workers. It's been a consistently rebutted assumption that legal immigrants make jobs scarcer to find, and drive wage erosion. See, e.g., https://cis.org/Report/Wages-Immigration

Further, exactly no part of Trump's trade agreements have resulted in more demand for our goods. He's cost us billions in losses, which is why we're currently having to bail out our farmers a second time. The modest trade deal he gets out of this war will barely make up even a portion of what we lost, and there's no evidence we weren't already going to get those goods sold to these nations before the deal.

God, the fucking fairy tale land conservatives live in. What is it like to never have to base your beliefs on facts?

It's almost like he doesn't realize that our legal immigration is heavily biased towards applicants with special qualifications and degrees who aren't competing for wage type jobs anyway.

Now of course if we want to talk about wage competition and the hard working immigrant who is willing to work harder for less, the best thing to do wouldn't be to try put a wall at the border but instead to give them legal rights. Like if they had immunity from INS prosecution related for the purposes of complaining about OSHA violations or going to the EEOC about discrimination at the workplace or the Labor Board for being underpaid, maybe companies wouldn't be hiring them at substandard wages to increase their profits.

But of course, that would require first recognizing these people have the right not to be exploited.

[6souls]

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/0...ion-over-putin

The Trump campaign is suing the New York Times over defamation against Putin.

In the lawsuit in state court in New York, Donald J. Trump for President Inc. said the newspaper knowingly published false and defamatory statements when the Op-Ed piece claimed the campaign had an “overarching deal” with “Vladimir Putin's oligarchy” to defeat the Democratic candidate.

The lawsuit blamed the newspaper for the essay, saying the March 2019 article headlined “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo,” by Max Frankel, said the deal called for “the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy.”

The lawsuit said Times reporters had confirmed the falsity of the statements, but the newspaper published them anyway because of its “extreme bias against and animosity toward the Campaign, and The Times' exuberance to improperly influence the presidential election in November 2020."

According to the lawsuit, the campaign sued to recover unspecified damages, publicly establish the truth, properly inform the newspaper's readers and the rest of the world and to seek appropriate remedies for the harm.

Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said in a statement that the Trump campaign “has turned to the courts to try to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable. Fortunately, the law protects the right of Americans to express their judgments and conclusions, especially about events of public importance. We look forward to vindicating that right in this case.”

The ACLU points out that if the lawsuit holds up, technically, Trump could be "held liable for asserting that the Democrats colluded with Russia."

[6souls]

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/0...irus-us-threat

Trump appoints Pence as the Coronavirus not-Czar.

"We're doing really well, and Mike is going to be in charge," Trump said, noting Pence's experience as governor of Indiana made him adept at working with state and local health authorities.

"This is not a czar," he said.

Trump said he would add a specialist from the State Department to the White House team, though he did not immediately name that person.

"We're ready to adapt and ready to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads," he said.

"As a former governor of the state with the first MERS case, I know full well the importance of presidential leadership and administration leadership and the vital role" of state and local agencies, Pence said, referring to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

"USA in great shape!" he wrote in a Wednesday tweet. "By the way, we have not had one death. Let's keep it that way!"

Trump also lashed out at news outlets, saying, "Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible."

[Guyverarmor]

ah good way to increase wages is to restrict where companies get their labor from, like say, limiting how and when they can import workers. You can reign in immigration that tends to import people who are willing to work for less, driving the wages down. You can make competing trade agreements with other nations, increasing the demand of your nation's goods, which results in companies seeking more labor to compensate for the demand in work. All these factored in and wages begin to increase, unemployment drops and it becomes the employee market.

you know, like what Trump is doing.

What kind of cinnamon toast fuckery are on to think this...

[Boyiee]

I wonder how Trump pronounced czar.

[Kalmado]

The best part of Guartz's post is 100 facts could show Trump has fuck all to do with unemployment dropping but he'd still stick to his guns that more people are working because of King Trump and only King Trump because he is the sole reason more people are working.

[Kalmado]

I wonder how Trump pronounced czar.

ki-zer

[6souls]

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/0...irus-us-threat

Trump appoints Pence as the Coronavirus not-Czar.

Trump said he would add a specialist from the State Department to the White House team, though he did not immediately name that person.

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/27/80997...virus-response

HIV/AIDS expert Debbie Birx. Steven Mnuchin, Larry Kudlow, Alex Azar, & Jerome Adams have also been added to Pence's team.

Debbie Birx is a State Department ambassador-at-large who works on global health diplomacy issues. Vice President Pence said Birx would be detailed to his office.

Birx will also join Trump's coronavirus task force, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, which is charged with responding to the virus. On Thursday, Pence also bolstered its ranks by adding Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow — signaling concerns about the growing economic threat posed by the virus. Surgeon General Jerome Adams will also join the task force, Pence said.

Birx directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's global HIV/AIDS division before she became the U.S. global AIDS coordinator in 2014.

[Jaybar]

That sounds like a sensible team. At least Pence isn't putting his family on important roles. If only some CDC pandemic unit wasn't gutted some time ago.

[6souls]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...itics-51666413

Patrick Harvie from the Scottish Parliament is urging an investigation into how the Trump Organization could afford to fund golf resorts during a global financial crisis.

Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said the US Congress had heard concerns about possible money laundering involving some of the president's business deals.

Donald Trump opened his controversial golf course on the Menie estate in Aberdeenshire in 2012, before purchasing the Turnberry golf resort in Ayrshire in 2014 - into which the Trump Organisation claimed to have invested about £150m ($193m) within the first two years.

An unexplained wealth order (UWO) is a type of order issued by a UK court to compel someone to reveal the sources of their unexplained wealth.

It was introduced to target suspected corrupt foreign officials who have potentially laundered stolen money through the UK.

Speaking in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday, Mr Harvie said the purchase of Menie and the Turnberry golf resort were part of Mr Trump's "huge cash spending spree in the midst of a global financial crisis".

He added: "Trump's known sources of income don't explain where the money came from for these huge cash transactions.

"There are reasonable grounds for suspecting that his lawfully obtained income was insufficient.

"Scottish ministers can apply via the Court of Session for an unexplained wealth order, a tool designed for precisely these kinds of situations."

[TsingTao]

That's hilarious. Seriously...nice timing Scotland!

[Tokitoki]

The Dems are colluding with Scotland.

[6souls]

Time to 'buy low sell high' lol.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ku...=mw_latestnews

Trump's economics adviser Larry Kudlow is urging the American public to start buying stocks again.

"I still think long-term investors should give very serious thought to coming back in or adding to their positions in the stock market."

Appearing on Fox Business Network, the director of the White House National Economic Council said “our threat assessment is low and the economy is fundamentally sound.”

Kudlow in the interview and in separate comments to reporters stressed that he hasn’t seen evidence of supply-chain disruptions affecting the U.S. economy, and that the Trump administration isn’t planning what he called “precipitous policy moves.”