Sorry you have to see this
Sorry you have to see this
Original join date: 11/23/2004
Eclectic Connoisseur of all things written, drawn, or imaginatively created.
Not trying to be a jerk...
On paper? Get what you are saying.
When you actually get into the detail?
Not always as simple as that.
Let's say you are going to actually try to lower the cost of living for a homeowner in Illinois.
How, exactly, are you going to contend with that the largest expense for that homeowner is their property tax bill?
Don't confuse price controls domestically with cheaper goods for export markets. Imposing price controls may make goods more competitive internationally, but it will also reduce or possibly eliminate profit margins, forcing producers to cut output which means that they won't be able to meet any of the new international demand. The normal way to make your exports more attractive is to purposely devalue your own currency, and while this has worked for some Asian countries this would be a disastrous approach for the US to take because we are a net importer of goods.
Increasing the minimum wage is not a perfect policy and will lead to some job loss, but all of the alternatives are much more difficult to implement and have even more potential downsides. The real reason that conservatives oppose it is not for some feigned concern for marginal workers, but because they know that once the minimum wage has been raised, people will like the fact that they are being paid more, and it will be absolute political poison for a future Republican administration to propose lowering it back down. But this should be all the more reason the Democrats should be more vigorously pursuing it, because it guarantees that something this administration does won't just be undone by a future Republican president.
I can't contribute, but this is an interesting discussion on economics and wages.
Original join date: 11/23/2004
Eclectic Connoisseur of all things written, drawn, or imaginatively created.
How to Unite a Deeply Divided Kosovo? Name a Lake After Trump
ZUBIN POTOK, Kosovo — Ljiljana Trifonovic, an ethnic Serb living in a waterside hamlet in northern Kosovo, never cared for American politicians — “they are all against us,” she said — but she took a shine to Donald J. Trump when he was in the White House.
“He is a bit crazy like we are and has the same hair color I do,” Ms. Trifonovic, 58, said, patting her orangey-blond mane.
All the same, it came as a rude surprise late last year when a huge banner suddenly appeared next to the reservoir outside her home declaring the water “Trump Lake.” Another big banner went up at the same time on a bridge down the road announcing that it would now be called “Trump Bridge.”
“We already have our own name for the lake. Why Trump?” Ms. Trifonovic asked, mystified and also annoyed by the abrupt renaming of the first thing she sees every morning when she looks out her window.
But things aren’t that simple. The artificial lake, created in the early 1970s by a big hydroelectric project when Kosovo was still part of Yugoslavia, has not one but two names: one used by Serbians — Gazivoda — and another — Ujman — used by the ethnic Albanians who now dominate Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008.Most things in Kosovo have two names and that is not usually a big deal. The two communities, which rarely mix and harbor deep suspicions of each other, just use whichever they want.
But what to call the nearly five-square-mile reservoir, which extends into Serbia but lies mostly in Kosovo, became an issue late last year when officials from the two countries became entangled in an unorthodox diplomatic push by the Trump administration to heal the poisonous rift between the two communities.The effort, led by Mr. Trump’s ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell, sidelined the State Department and also the European Union, both of which had been working for years, with little success, to get Serbia to accept the existence of Kosovo as an independent state. Divided by ethnicity, language and history, Kosovo’s majority Albanian population and its Serb minority disagree on just about everything, particularly the status of the land they share.
Original join date: 11/23/2004
Eclectic Connoisseur of all things written, drawn, or imaginatively created.
In regards to that photo of the golden Trump idol, is the slogan behind it cropped down or is the slogan literally just "AHEAD AMERICA"? Because the Honorary English Major in me just can't handle that, it looks like something right outta Veep.
MAGNETO was right,TONY was right, VARYS was right.
Proud member of House Ravenclaw and loyal bannerman to House Baratheon
"I am an optimist even though I am told everything I do is negative and cynical" --Armando Iannucci
As far as colleges, in the 1970s, the State paid 70% of the cost. Today it is 17%. With mostly students picking up the cost.
We can blame administrators or Title 9 or any other conservative talking point. But States decided to not fund higher education. And the student loan programs let them put it on the students.
There came a time when the Old Gods died! The Brave died with the Cunning! The Noble perished locked in battle with unleashed Evil! It was the last day for them! An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!
The minimum wage ought to be much higher and, also, I like the idea of tying its actual value to rent.
Multiple studies have shown, over and over again, that the 'classical wisdom' about the increased minimum wage being a 'job killer' doesn't really play out in reality, at least partially because our's is *so frigging low* right now.
But sure, let's pretend that minimum wage kills jobs and ignore the trillions of sucked up, stolen wealth and productivity is not, as per usual.
Stock buy backs kill jobs. Vulture Capitalism kills jobs. High rents kill jobs. Tax breaks to off shore production kills jobs.
But a living wage? Oh no!
There came a time when the Old Gods died! The Brave died with the Cunning! The Noble perished locked in battle with unleashed Evil! It was the last day for them! An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!