We are run by a bunch of amoral economic illiterates

[Soph0571]

It is not enough that we have to put up with their complete and utter nativist, racist, misogynistic bollocks.
It is not enough that we have to bear witness to incompetent policy making and buffoonery every single bloody day
It is not enough that the mental well being of our nations has been severely impacted by their nasty and divisive rhetoric.
OF COURSE THAT IS NOT ENOUGH WHEN THEY CAN MAKE SURE WE ARE POORER AS WELL.
Why just leave it at dismantling our democracies when they can make sure our living standards are also shit upon from a great height?

Link to tweet

Trump’s latest round of tariffs on Chinese goods will drive the U.S. into recession, say a majority of economists polled by @Reuters https://reut.rs/2KALb4p

Recession fears grow as UK economy shrinks on back of Brexit chaos

Fears that the UK could be heading for its first recession in a decade have been stoked by grim official figures showing that the economy contracted in the second quarter of 2019. Brexit uncertainty, car plant shutdowns and the running down of stock built up before the original end of March deadline for Britain’s EU exit resulted in gross domestic product shrinking by 0.2% in the three months ending in June.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/09/uk-economy-contracts-on-back-of-brexit-uncertainty|

The worst things about this - firstly, all of this is unnecessary economic harm has been brought about by the egos of people who should never have been let within a 1000 miles of governance of any sort. Secondly, they do not give one actual shit for the economic hardship that is about to impact the most vulnerable in our societies.

Fuck them

[handmade34]

1. kakistocracy

kakistocracy
[kakəˈstäkrəsē]

NOUN
government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.
"the danger is that this will reduce us to kakistocracy" ·

a state or society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens.
"the modern regime is at once a plutocracy and a kakistocracy" ·

[empedocles]

2. traitortrump is giving us unprecedented opportunities to really expose the

persistent rw agendas.

We, the people, have such a tremendous possibility to rectify and reform the trumpworld . . . if we somehow manage to not screw up this unique opportunity.

[Soph0571]

3. Here's one I prepared earlier...

[Duppers]

4. K & R

[KY_EnviroGuy]

5. "the most vulnerable in our societies" have no voice or power, so...

they're of no concern. I fear the term "public servant" has been rendered meaningless because our leaders now answer only to the high-wealth class.

We now suffer from public masses that care mostly about entertainment value, so the populist clown wins every time - but only when a good percentage of the public also believes their lies and bullshit and there's compliant public media.

There's an uphill battle in the U.K. and U.S. to deconstruct those trends in our culture.

Soph, I still find it ironic that The Guardian (UK) was the only public media outlet I could find during the 2015/2016 presidential campaign that systematically and publicly called out Trump on his lies and deceptions.

KY.......

[Soph0571]

6. I hate when the pundits say 'economic self harm'

in such a cavalier way... because the people causing the harm are immune to it...
The Guardian is great - do you download their podcast? - if not well worth a try..

[KY_EnviroGuy]

10. Thanks, I'll give the podcast a try. So much news to digest.

I saved a couple of bookmarks from the Guardian and thought you might enjoy a little visit to the past from 2016:

See: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/19/trump-fact-check-iraq-war-san-bernardino-nato

They ran that series each week called "Lyin' Trump: a weekly fact-check - The lies Trump told this week" for quite some time but it never gained traction in the U.S.

I like the way they keep Boris' feet to the fire as well. Martin Rowson's and Steve Bell's cartoons are the best.

KY.......

[Cosmocat]

7. I don't think we can pull out of it

First, this did not even REMOTELY start with 45.

I have had heartburn over where things were headed going back to the early 90s, when republicans acted like complete jackasses during the Clinton presidency.

They have been marinating 40% of this country in Rush Limbaugh (and 10,000s of other like him) brain washing via am radio and the general "conservative" press for three plus decades.

THEY created the environment for him to take root, and he simply took the whip from the "establishment" GOP who had been mealy mouthed whistling racism, mysogony, gay bashing, etc.

Each wave has been more and more bold and loathsome, the Gingrich wave in 94, the team party wave, and now the 45 wave.

We get rid of him, we still have a couple 100 Steve King like freaks in congress alone, not to mention in high level state government, and the tweaked out "base."

It took Iraq and the economy blowing up to get a big democratic wave in 2006.2008, but the country saw fit in the next fucking midterms, 2010, to usher in the tea party jackasses because republicans went fanatically insane over a black democratic president signing THEIR FUCKING VERSION OF HEALTH CARE REFORM, then elected an unhinged sociopath russian asset as POTUS for the cherry on top.

We MIGHT be able to win the white house in 2020, but that will only piss them off even more than they are now, as hard as it is to believe, and going by everything I have witness in my 50+ years whatever the country almost assuredly will indulge whatever bullshit they rally around to portray democrats/liberals as the worst thing ever in history in 2022,

[KY_EnviroGuy]

11. Agree. The downward spiral will continue with big money supporting the GOP.

This old article is great a summary of the political cycles we endure and I would like every citizen in the U.S. to read and understand it:

Two Santa Clauses or How The Republican Party Has Conned America for Thirty Years
Published on Monday, January 26, 2009
by CommonDreams.org

Link: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/01/26/two-santa-clauses-or-how-republican-party-has-conned-america-thirty-years

(snips)

Wanniski decided to turn the classical world of economics – which had operated on this simple demand-driven equation for seven thousand years – on its head. In 1974 he invented a new phrase – "supply side economics" – and suggested that the reason economies grew wasn't because people had money and wanted to buy things with it but, instead, because things were available for sale, thus tantalizing people to part with their money. The more things there were, the faster the economy would grow.

At the same time, Arthur Laffer was taking that equation a step further. Not only was supply-side a rational concept, Laffer suggested, but as taxes went down, revenue to the government would go up!

Neither concept made any sense – and time has proven both to be colossal idiocies – but together they offered the Republican Party a way out of the wilderness.
+++
Democrats, he said, had been able to be "Santa Clauses" by giving people things from the largess of the federal government. Republicans could do that, too – spending could actually increase. Plus, Republicans could be double Santa Clauses by cutting people's taxes! For working people it would only be a small token – a few hundred dollars a year on average – but would be heavily marketed. And for the rich it would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts. The rich, in turn, would use that money to import or build more stuff to market, thus increasing supply and stimulating the economy. And that growth in the economy would mean that the people still paying taxes would pay more because they were earning more.

There was no way, Wanniski said, that the Democrats could ever win again. They'd have to be anti-Santas by raising taxes, or anti-Santas by cutting spending. Either one would lose them elections.

So, here we are again, faced with a need to raise taxes to pay for needed programs and bring our debt under control. We work our asses off to GOTV and win elections only to be faced with giving our public the bitter pill it desperately needs.


KY......... ....

[Cosmocat]

13. T H I S and what pisses me off

Is that it is bold faced, obvious as fuck, and this country eats it up with a shovel every god damned time.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. Don't fight it, feed it

stop all discretionary spending to help bring on the recession. Donnie's earned it.

[Danascot]

9. Putin is happy about it

America defeated without firing a shot.

[Soph0571]

12. Heh