Saw this on the iFunny app and thought of Cole:
Not that Cole would flip off the magnificent creature that is Steve. Would he? From the looks of Steve, he’d probably draw back a stump if he tried!
I regularly curse at my dogs when they do irritating things like demand to go outside and then scratch at the door to come back in 15 seconds later — over and over — turning me into their involuntary door-woman when I’m trying to get shit done. But I verbally abuse them in such a pleasant tone that they’re none the wiser.
Open thread!
rikyrah
Steve would eat Cole’s hand.
Jeffro
The WaPo is unusually shrill: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/05/12/trump-is-waging-an-assault-on-the-entire-structure-of-our-democracy-now-what/
It’s weird, because my agreeing with this article essentially means that I also at one point in time, somehow, agreed with Jeb? about the ‘chaos candidate’. Hmm. Not sure I like that. Hope it is the only time I ever agree with Jeb? except for things like the importance of breathing…
Major Major Major Major
My cat thinks his names are, in order, cat, Samwise, asshole, and fuck you
dedc79
Insider account of Ryan/Trump meeting:
Ryan: Donald, it would mean a lot to me if you’d read Atlas Shrugged. I’m lending you my copy so that you can have the benefits of all my notes in the margins.
Trump: Paul, I’m sorry but this book is yuuuuge. And look at that photo of the author on the back. What a dog she was. There’s no way I’m reading this.
Ryan: Ok, well how about you at least watch the film adaptations?
Trump: There’s no way in hell i’m watching three movies unless there’s some T&A in there.
Ryan: There’s no nudity, Donald. Would you at least watch the trailers?
Trump: Ok, fine I’ll watch the trailers. But I can’t promise I won’t be tweeting while I’m watching.
Ryan: We’ve got a deal. Man, you really are a good negotiator.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Jeffro:
I was rooting for Trump at the beginning as a GOP Establishment disruptor, but him releasing so much naked hatred from under the rocks isn’t really what I anticipated. It’s shocking really how many hateful morons there are in this country – like John Fugelsang said early on, we always knew they were out there, but now we’re going to get an accurate head count.
Catherine D.
One of my dogs thought his last name was Move Dammit.
rikyrah
The fallout from House Bill 2 just keeps getting bigger
………………………..
McCrory has claimed that a large number of businesses supported the law, but his office has not listed those companies despite many media requests.
NC Values Coalition, which urged passage of the law, claimed in a Tuesday news release that it had a list of more than 300 North Carolina businesses which had pledged support for HB 2. Claiming that most businesses feared retaliation if their support was made public, the group released a list of 17 companies it said had agreed to openly support the law.
But the largest and most influential of the companies on that list — HanesBrands of Winston-Salem — said it doesn’t support the law and asked to be removed.
“HanesBrands has not taken a position on HB 2 other than to note that it will have no effect on our company’s strong anti-discrimination policies and practices that include protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” spokesman Matt Hall said in an email to the News & Record.
When asked about the HanesBrands error, NC Values Coalition spokeswoman Kami Mueller said her group acknowledges the mistake and has removed the company from its list.
When asked about the veracity of the rest of the list, Mueller clarified that it actually represents more than 300 individuals, not businesses.
“The people on the list are business leaders who gave permission for their companies to be listed,” Mueller said.
But Keith Zimmerman, the HanesBrands employee on the NC Values Coalition list of supporters, “does not hold a leadership position in which he would speak for the company,” according to Hall.
NonyNony
@Jeffro: Just because Jeb Bush is a horrible human being it doesn’t mean he’s always wrong. Sure he’s horrible, but I’d expect him to be able to realize when his car is driving off a cliff and jump out.
It’ll be really interesting to see if Jeb Bush ever comes out and endorses Trump. Or if he goes with the “I’m not endorsing him but everyone should vote for him because he’s the Republican” endorsement-lite that so many of these Republican politicians think they can get away with. I would not be surprised at all to see him give Trump his non-endorsement endorsement.
Emma
OK, since it’s an open thread, a question for those of you who are serious cooks.
I had a relative accident with my ancient omelette pan. By relative, I mean my beloved aunt, who is still controlled by the ancient rules of Cuban cookware washing, tried helpfully to remove “all that black greasy coating” from my pan. I tried everything but it’s just not coming back. It is an ex-pan. It if weren’t nailed to the counter it would be pushing up daisies. So, please, recommend me a good omelette pan that won’t cost me $139.00 (real price for one).
Isobel
There’s a reason I just cut to the chase ad named my goat Shit.
FoxinSocks
Upon discovering that my sofa-eating dog Hope had stolen my last cookie (and it was a delicious cookie), I launched into the following rant: “Why did you do that, Hope? You’re supposed to be man’s best friend, but if you steal my cookie, then you’re not my friend. Friends don’t steal other friend’s cookies!”
Hope merely twitched her tail and looked vaguely guilty, while no doubt planning to eat more of my stuff.
donnah
Yep, the dog gets insulted regularly when she’s being an idiot. But like Betty, our Wendy only hears “Come on, stoopid” in honeyed tones.
Ultraviolet Thunder
When she hears the back door close, our parrot Sunny always says “GOOD DOG” because that’s what she’s used to hearing.
hitchhiker
I used to do that with my infant daughter when she had gotten me to the exact level of sleep deprivation that involves random meaningless weeping.
Hello, sweetheart! Awake again? How about I give you to the neighbors? The mean ones with the trash all over their yard?
Spoken in dulcet, soothing tones. Hey, it made me feel better.
Hungry Joe
Our cat thinks her name is “In or Out?” The dog probably thinks hers is “Did You Do That?”
jl
Been reading news stories on the court ruling today against Obama spending on PPACA subsidies for lower income. Any merit to the ruling? Will it be upheld? Any BJ lawyers know?
WarMunchkin
@Jeffro: So, that article is super interesting to me because I feel like the author attempts to look at what politics used to be through the rose-colored glasses which we generally reserve for 1950s America. Maybe policy mattered once, but I’m not sure it ever did. It was simply a veneer of policy over identity because politics was conducted by a core of elites… but they got gatecrashed (as kos would say) by the internet and social media.
Betty Cracker
@Emma: I cook A LOT of omelettes, and I use an 8-inch Calphalon nonstick pan that works like a charm. I know I didn’t pay more than $50 for it. You can still make omelettes Jacques Pépin-style in a nonstick pan — just use a wooden fork rather than metal.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Emma: Can you simply re-season it?
http://www.gourmet.com/food/2006/12/omelet_pan.html
Might be worth a try.
I haven’t done that myself – my seasoning experiences are with cast-iron skillets and I often did those in the oven.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Trollhattan
@Emma:
Something like this?
Tom Levenson
I regularly inform Tikka that next cat up I’m just going to eliminate the middle man (name?) and call him or her “Shut up!”
Catherine D.
@hitchhiker:
Rosalie Sorrells recorded the “Hostile Baby Rocking Song”.
Trollhattan
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Hilarious. Smart, those parrots.
Ultraviolet Thunder
A garden note: Don’t hang your hose on one of those wall-mounted spool-type hangers. Use two of them. One above the other or side by side, according to the room available. Hang the hose in a figure 8 wrap between them. To coil a hose on a single spool you have to introduce a 180 degree twist for each coil. That twisting is difficult with a long hose. Then when you take it off the hanger the coils turn into kinks unless you un-twist every twist. If you figure-8, the twists are equally left and right, and cancel out. Geometrically the figure-8 hose is equivalent to a straight, kink free length. It’s easier to get the hose on and off the hangers, and no kinks.
Vacuum cleaner cords and long extension cords: same deal. Figure-8.
raven
We have a dog door.
narya
@Emma: A few years ago when a cooking website was having a sale, I sucked it up and bought a set of All-Clad stainless (don’t remember which set; there are usually several to be had). And now I ADORE these pans. Yes. Expensive. But holy FSM, they are just awesome. I bought additional pans, too, on top of the set. Also also wik, made in the U.S. (the stainless pans, at least; possibly not the lids).
Mnemosyne
Since our cats have human names (Keaton, Annie and Charlotte) I sometimes worry that the neighbors think we’re horrible parents who spend all our time saying, “Charlotte, no!”
This may be another reason why Charlotte’s alternate name is now “Stinky,” short for “Little Stinker.”
jl
@dedc79: I heard Ryan’s dishonest and vague bafflegab at his press conference this morning. Pretty much open secret that GOP money bags would rather lose the right way than wage any kind of campaign that is run the wrong way. I read or heard Ryan let it slip himself yesterday.
Trump has to find a way to go back on his promises to protect social insurance, he has to stop flirting around with upper income tax increase talk, he has to go more aggressive on foreign wars to for partisan domestic jingo appeals, go more dog whistle on the racism and xenophobia. Trump starting to backtrack on his Muslim ban, so I guess his floating of Giuliani yesterday to head some bogus commission on the idea was a tell. Giuliani has dissed the ban in various ways.
So who will fold? Trump will lose a lot of his appeal if he backtracks on his relatively (for a GOPer) populist economics. He can probably tone down the racism xenophobia a little, or fudge it. Not sure he can go back on social insurance guarantees for White people. They know they are roadkill without Social Security and Medicare, and need it so badly, they don’t even care that other kinds of people get it too.
Anoniminous
@Emma:
We don’t make a lot of omelets but ditto what Ms. Cracker wrote. Non-stick pans can still have butter melted in them for the taste and there are plenty of wood and heat-resistant plastic cookware so they don’t get all scratched up.
Miss Bianca
Oh, I am so glad to know I’m not the only one who has to do the dog doorwoman thing. My big girl Stella has started doing this and it is crazy-making. I was starting to wonder if it was a sign of doggy dementia…like…”need to go out…wait! what am I doing outside? I want to come in!!” Rinse, repeat. I really, really miss the doggy door at my old place.
Mnemosyne
So one of the problems with working for a Giant Evil Corporation with many offices across the US is that sometimes when a vendor messes up, they mess up big. That’s why an office supply shipment of ours is currently in Florida rather than in California.
Emma
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Tried that. Didn’t work. Shed used *sob* steel wool.
Emma
@Trollhattan: That looks very promising!
Shana
@Emma: I’ve had a set, bought separately, of Sur La Table non-stick pans that I love. I just took a look at their web site and they’re selling the 8 1/2″ and 10″ as a set for $60 which I know if more than you wanted to spend, but if you call them they may sell them separately. They have good thick bottoms and heat quite evenly. They’re listed on the web as “Dishwasher-safe Hard Anodized Nonstick Skillets.” They’re also induction usable in case that’s a concern.
Betty Cracker
@raven: We had a cat door at our old house back when we had a cat, and the dog would stick his head through it and bark when he wanted to come in. It was pretty funny — that big old head sticking through a small door. I’ve thought about dog doors, but our dogs are fairly large, and I worry that a door that could accommodate them would allow a skinny teenager to break in if we were gone from home. Also, I’d have to remember to shut it when the chickens were wandering around in the yard, or the chickens might decide to parade around the house, or the dogs would go out and eat the chickens. I don’t think it would work for us.
divF
@Catherine D.:
This is the day we give babies away
With a half a pound of tea
ETA: You can’t give the screaming teething baby paregoric because you drank it all.
guachi
@narya:
Totally agree. All-Clad pans are truly awesome. You think they are expensive and then you use them and realize they aren’t.
Foods browns up nicely, creates a great fond, and then the food releases easily for a great sauce and easy clean up.
Clean with barkeeper’s friend every once in awhile and your pans will shine like new forever.
Roger Moore
@Emma:
Unclear from your comment: is this a well seasoned cast iron pan that has been stripped of its seasoning, or a non-stick pan that had the non-stick surface removed. If it’s cast iron, you can re-season it. There are lots of recommendations on the internet for how to do it, but the simplest method is just to cook greasy food in it regularly. I recommend bacon.
dedc79
@jl: Yeah, Ryan probably lectured him about the importance the GOP places on acting like more of a monster while sounding like less of a monster.
jl
And BTW, I am not fooled by that pic. No self respecting cat would deign to dignify something as trivial as a human insult with such a response.
Something else more important, like a moth, or maybe some other cat, was around and some mere human jumped in to take a quick pic as a sad human style jape. Humans!. So sad! Pathetic!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Emma: I wouldn’t give up. We had a pretty beat-up cast iron skillet that I was able to recover. Used cleanser to scrub out the rust, etc., etc. It was fine.
Maybe try the technique listed here: http://www.clovegarden.com/ke/kp_iron.html#season
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
bemused
Our two dogs try to fake each other out with the in and out do-see-do. One asks to come in and if the other dog follows her, she immediately wants back out to take possession of the bone. Same story with the indoor treat ball. Usually they are both wise to this ruse but it works once in awhile so it’s still a trick worth trying.
Davebo
In my old house there were french doors in my bedroom leading to a balcony. More than once as my wife and I lay in bed my Lab Beaux would walk up to those doors and tap it with his paw. I’d get up to let him out and as soon as I did he’d jump up and take my place in the bed.
It was annoying, but cute.
Mike in NC
@jl: The “new” Erick Erickson just wrote an op-ed in USA Today where he urges the GOP not to commit suicide by nominating Drumpf. Schadenfreud, indeed.
Major Major Major Major
bemused
@Davebo:
lol, the pups are just too damn smart.
Emma
@Roger Moore: It was an ancient cast iron omelette pan I inherited from a good friend. After several rounds of steel wool scrubbing and god knows what else, I tried reseasoning. I even took it to a friend who’s bout 3/4 of the way to professional chef. Nada. Dead. Pitted. I cried.
Jeffro
@NonyNony:
I would. I think the Bush dynasty has spoken and is speaking with one voice here, from Bar on down: not one bit of support for Trump. All they have to do is quietly discourage their multitude of ‘bundlers’ from helping raise any $$$ for Trump and GOP advertising & GOTV will suffer by that amount.
They (and Mitt, and Lindsey Graham, and a few others) will hang back and hope that Trump’s historic defeat means the return of ‘their’ brand of conservatism. Let’s hope they’re half right. ;)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Emma: Hell, I’m crying and I never even met the pan. I’m sorry for your loss.
raven
@Betty Cracker: The Bohdi has liked it from day one. It took the little stinker a bit but, even thought she is visually impaired, she finds it and sniffs around in the yard.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Miss Bianca: Our Sophie is a mutt (we had her DNA tested and it came back with nothing dominant but traces of: GSD, German Shorthaired Pointer, Irish Water Spaniel, Bernese Mountain Dog, Dachshund, and something else (Great Dane?). She’s a working dog and likes three things in life: chasing squirrels, protecting the back yard from the evil black dog 4 houses down, and “helping” when we’re doing yard work. When she goes out and then turns around and barks at the door, I’m pretty sure she’s telling us that she wants us to come outside so she can get to work.
Cheers,
Scott.
dexwood
@Miss Bianca:
A door is something a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
Ogden Nash
germy
@NonyNony:
Never. Trump stole his family business.
gene108
You last sentence made me think of this Farside cartoon
Shell
Steve bite off Cole’s finger? Nah, from all the photos Ive seen, he looks like too much of a gentleman.
bemused
@Emma:
I’m still shocked that there are people who don’t know the best iron skillet is supposed to look like that.
Geoduck
Garrison Keillor’s homage to all cat-door operators:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NZh9ennozk
Roger Moore
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
You can avoid kinks by doing an over/under wrap rather than a straight wind. It’s equivalent to doing one unit of a figure eight and then folding one eye of the eight back over the other. I was taught how to do this by an electrician who would use that wrap for extension cords; you can just drop them on the ground and pull them straight without having to worry about kinks.
raven
@dexwood: Outside of a dog a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
Jeffro
@WarMunchkin:
I hear you, but I think the author’s basically right: we’ve had flip-floppers before, but Trump is a whole different order of magnitude. He can be on multiple positions of an issue, multiple times daily, not care in the least, and with at least a significant chunk of one party, pay no price for it.
It’s why the media and the eventual Dem nominee would be wise not to try and pin him down and/or argue against him on a particular issue. The media should try to recalibrate, put his statements back to back, ask follow-ups, and then generally note that “once again, Mr. Trump, you have come down on every possible side of issue X just this week”. The Dem nominee should do the same while promoting a very specific, pocketbook-issue-centered campaign that speaks to everyone (especially groups Trump has offended).
germy
@Davebo:
My cat did something similar yesterday. I was seated in my chair (the chair she loves to doze in) and she walked into the room and started scratching and pretending to eat bits of our rug. I walked over to her to tell her to stop and she ran past me onto my chair. My wife says she even winked at her after getting comfortable in my chair.
I surrendered to her greater intelligence and sat at my desk to go online to balloon-juice.
Shell
@Davebo: Now thats a cartoon begging to be drawn.
dexwood
@raven:
Long live Groucho!
raven
@Roger Moore: I use a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a 12 inch hole drilled in the bottom. you run the male end through the hole and just wind the cord around your and and drop it it. Comes out like a charm.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: well, both places are sunny.
Nerves on edge. Tomorrow, I buy my first car ever, from a dealership. And less than 20 years old. Ugh. Never had a car payment before. Boo.
germy
@raven:
Shell
In our family, we’ve always called that “getting the snakes out.”
germy
Trollhattan
@gene108:
Heh, and for folks whose critters (two & 4-legged) have figured out lever-handle technology, I saw this last weekend at Home Despot.
NonyNony
@Mike in NC: I’ve got to be honest – discovering the Erick Son of Erick actually believes in something other than promoting the Republican Party no matter how stupid it gets might actually be the most surprising thing about this election cycle so far. Even acknowledging how crazy this election cycle has been.
I wonder if he’ll hold out or if he’ll cave.
gbear
I swear at my 15 year old cat Halley. She has this annoying unbreakable habit of meowing to the point of yowling if she wants to be petted where she is right now, which is almost never the same room that I am in. She has hollered at me to come downstairs and pet her at 3:00 in the morning to the point where she has eventually come up to the bedroom to holler at me from the same damned room that she wants me to get up and go with her back downstairs to be petted in her fave place. She won't come up on the bed to be petted there.
She's got a nearly 100% track record at hollering at me for petting the moment I sit down for a meal. She doesn't care about my food at all, and a lot of the time I've just put her breakfast or dinner down. Somehow she knows to start hollering the moment my plate is on the table.
Halley is a fluffy pain.
? Martin
The GOP is walking a difficult line. Trump delivers more directly on all the things the GOP has been promising through dog-whistling but doing it in a way that the GOP knows will cost it voters in the long term. Everyone agrees with his goals, but can’t agree on his methods. The problem is that guys like Ryan have a longer view – where Trump can barely see to next week. He is all tactics, no strategy.
Trump promises a return to the 1950s, which GOP voters want desperately, but Ryan can’t resolve how to deliver the 1950s without the blatant plundering of women and minorities to prop up all the things that were great for white males. Trump is fine to openly offer that plunder, and Ryan is smart enough to realize that’s suicide, even if it does peel some more West Virginia voters from Cruz. Ryan’s problem is that he’s smart enough to see the contradiction and too stupid to see that the GOP framework and voting base allows for a solution.
That said, I’m not convinced the Dem framework and voting base allows for a solution either.
Betty Cracker
@Trollhattan: We changed two lever door handles to round because of the dogs. They were always bursting into the laundry room and rudely interrupting occupants in the master crapper. No more!
germy
@Shell: Our cat turns around three times. I notice after she settles in, she lets out a soft snoring sound. We can tell when she’s dreaming because she twitches her whiskers and paws. Once we were watching a nature program about lions on TV. Lion was chasing something. I told my wife “that’s what the cat dreams about. She’s a lion in the African savannah, hunting for food.”
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: On first read-through, I was wondering why you had the laundry room in the master crapper.
NonyNony
@WarMunchkin:
I think this is wrong – the walls got torn down because of the catastrophic end of George W Bush’s presidency that discredited Republican leadership completely, then Citizen’s United prevented any new leadership from having any leverage to force the party back together and build those walls up again. The idiots in the Senate and House refused to provide any actual leadership but instead decided on a “do nothing and make Obama look bad” strategy – which was stupid and did nothing to help rebuild their fractured party.
Trump didn’t need to crash the gates, just step over the rubble and claim the fragments of the party George W Bush destroyed as his own.
germy
@? Martin:
SiubhanDuinne
@Catherine D.:
Don’t know if it’s the same song, but decades ago the South African duo Marais and Miranda recorded a lullaby with murderously brutal words — set to a soothing tune of surpassing loveliness.
Germy Shoemangler
@gbear: Pet her.
I think of cats I loved twenty and thirty years ago who are long gone. If I had a time machine I’d go back and pet them.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
It’ll be fine. Just remember that you’re the buyer, so if there’s anything you don’t like, you can walk out. Don’t worry, they’ll chase you into the parking lot rather than lose the sale.
And bring a snack. The whole process will take a LOT longer than you think.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
But not a parrot.
Peale
@jl: Who knows? When Democratic candidates change position to help with re-election its called flip flopping and shows that they have no core values and can’t be trusted. When they change opinion to match current public opinion it just reinforces that Democrats can’t be resolute “leaders.” When Trump does it, it will demonstrate his seriousness chops and show how he’s brilliantly becoming more presidential with each passing day.
D58826
I haven’t read the article yet and it’s on my iphone so I can’t link but it has an interesting headline that the real damage that Bernie is doing by staying in the campaign is it prevents Obama from getting out on the campaign trail and supporting the nominee by name. With all of the pixels annihilated on BJ between Hilbots and Bernie Bros, I’m don’t remember that particular slant
Trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Only in a yooge and classy house does one find the combination. Reminds me of a house I toured in one of the tony ‘burbs. The master walk-in closet contained…another closet. Kind of like finding a Starbucks has opened inside your Starbucks.
SiubhanDuinne
@Geoduck:
He didn’t mention Balloon Juice. Fuck him.
? Martin
@germy: The entire GOP wants this. That’s pretty clear from the polling. More specifically, the want the labor and wage predictability for white males that the 50s delivered on, much of which was due to the US having an infrastructure advantage due to the war and much of which was due to having a very different kind of economy that didn’t demand the kind of personal investment in education, relocation, and so on that the modern economy does. The GOP promised to extend the 50s by denying the benefits to everyone who was lifted up by civil and women’s rights. That worked in the 60s and 70s when the economy still looked a lot like that of the 50s, but now it’s totally different. That strategy not only doesn’t help white males, it makes their situation worse by stunting the overall economy. The GOP hasn’t come up with a new economic vision. Dems really haven’t either, however, from what I can see.
Germy Shoemangler
@Trollhattan: another reason to not spend a single dime at Home Despot:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/ken-langone-home-depot-donald-trump-222808
Mnemosyne
So it turns out that all of those teenagers who are spending 24/7 on their smartphones can’t be bothered to email their middle-aged aunt back. I told G that I’d emailed my 17-year-old nephew and he said, “You should have used SnapChat.”
Mnemosyne
@Trollhattan:
The second closet is for shoes. Don’t you ever watch Home & Garden Network?
JPL
@Shell: Steve or Cole?
I like the idea of open threads featuring cats and dogs. My dog is recovering from an illness, and tomorrow returns to the vet for a recheck.
Trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Well she-yutt, I thought it was for storing the Ark of the Covenant or somesuch. Doubly odd was it was free-standing in the center, not just a space created by adding a wall and doors to one side.
Germy Shoemangler
@? Martin:
They’re perfectly fine with their old one: “Reduce (or eliminate) taxes on the wealthy, reduce (or eliminate) regulations on business/industry, and reduce (or eliminate) “entitlements” and while they’re at it… Tort Reform. (so we can’t sue them when they maim/kill us)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Mnemosyne: Oh, perhaps they’re training you to leave them alone entirely. Including at times like, I don’t know, when gifts are traditionally given. I’m certain that’s not their goal, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone who’s not paying me to stay in contact dictate the method of communication. Don’t like email? Cool; that’s one less task for me, effort to stay in touch with relatives/ acquaintances.
Trollhattan
@Germy Shoemangler:
Which is pretty interesting, given half the stuff in their stores would have yooge price increases if Trumpy went and reneged on all our trade deals. All that Canadian lumber, for starters.
JPL
@Germy Shoemangler: He doesn’t have anything to do with Home Depot now.
FlipYrWhig
@Peale:
No, it’ll go into that other category that pundits also really like: it’ll demonstrate his genius at messaging. They’ll say, “How can he say so many contradictory things and get away scot-free? How can he defy the media’s expectations so brazenly? Coming up, our panel discusses the magic of Trump’s Teflon coating and how well he ignores us and connects with people.”
laura
@Major Major Major Major: well maybe if you took the cat to Delores Park and selfied it up . . .
Schlemazel Khan
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I was really pulling for Crudz. The GOP will deny Drumpf once he gets is ass kicked in November. “He was never one of us!” It would have been closer with Crudz but the GOP could never really deny he was their boy.
Tinare
I have a cat that probably thinks her name is F’ing Cat at this point. First, she started peeing over the walls of the litterbox. I thought I had solved the problem by buying higher walled litterboxes and they worked for a while. Now she’s started peeing beside the litterbox. (though she goes inside to poo.) If she weren’t otherwise so cute and sweet, she’d be dead. Or living somewhere else. Instead I just buy lots of puppy pads for under and around the boxes.
F’ing Cat.
Davebo
I need to get a stereo for my boat. I want one with a tuner and USB or SD card slot (or both) with decent sound. No CD required (does anyone still use CD’s?)
I’m considering a Clarion though there are those out there for half the price. I’d rather pay a little extra for a decent one.
Any suggestions?
raven
@germy: They are just finding their spot:
A Ghost To Most
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I didn’t care when I thought it was just a non-stick pan, but ruining the seasoning and surface of a beloved cast iron pan – it is to cry.
gbear
@Germy Shoemangler:
I’m not going to get out of bed at 3:00 in the morning on a work night to go downstairs and lie on the goddamned living room floor.
smintheus
Why have Democrats been so slow to trumpet this colossal screw up by Trump advisor Sam Clovis?
Even if Trump’s supporters are not on the whole terribly bright, some of them at least are able to figure out what entitlement cuts would mean for them.
Iowa Old Lady
Since this is an open thread, Mr IOL is getting off work early and we’re going to the grand opening of our library’s Hive. It’s a center for various kinds of creativity. I love the public library.
Betty Cracker
@Davebo: I’ve been a boater all my life and have burned through many a stereo. Unless your boat has an enclosed cabin, you’re probably better off getting a portable unit, especially if you go out on salt water a lot. Open boats are an incredibly harsh environment for electronics.
bemused
@smintheus:
I dunno ’bout that. Some or many of them are mighty delusional. They think the millionaire fatmouth is on their side.
Germy Shoemangler
@Iowa Old Lady: I love my public library also. A ton of books I’d never have the time to read in my lifetime, community meetings, special events, a ton of DVDs, free computer & web access. A community room with historical stuff about our town.
Imagine if there were no such thing as libraries. And someone stood up in front of congress and proposed the creation of them. Can you imagine how the republicans would respond?
“Free book lending? Free DVDs? Unpossible! It’s communist! No way it would work!”
NonyNony
@jl:
I think you’ve got this exactly backwards. Trump might lose a lot of his appeal if he tones down the racist xenophobia. Nothing will happen to his support if he backtracks on his talk about protecting Social Security.
jl
@? Martin:
” Dems really haven’t either, however, from what I can see. ”
Not sure we need a new economic vision as far as basic post Great Depression and post WWII government functions though. Basic arithmetic, accounting and old-fashioned investment analysis and cost accounting goes along way. And as Dean Baker has said, just because arithmetic is very old, doesn’t mean it is out-of-date and we should get rid of it for something post-post-industrial.
Old fashioned Social Security is fine just as it is, and it would be even better if relatively minor tweaks were made to its funding, like using an adjustment for maximum taxable earnings with better economic rationale. I think a lot of the perceived need for a new vision is due to corporate the GOP sabotage of regulatory system that worked pretty well and needed moderate reforms, but has been gutted instead.
The racist and xenophobic dog whistles were needed to distract from something going on, when you think about it.
? Martin
@Germy Shoemangler:
The voters aren’t. If they were, they’d have voted for Jeb or one of the reliable establishment candidates. All of that crap was sold to GOP voters as ways of getting the jobs and wages. That’s why they rebranded ‘rich’ as ‘job creator’. The voters never got that. See Louisiana and Kansas. I don’t think the GOP can go back to that plan considering how plainly it’s now failing and how convincingly those who advanced that agenda were removed from the presidential race.
I think a somewhat similar story is playing out on the left, with the typical Dem economic playbook working a little bit, but not well enough. Clearly income inequality hasn’t improved in 8 years, and $15/minimum is a good start, however anyone making over $30K is hardly excited that their salary now can’t possibly go down. Doesn’t mean it’s going up, doesn’t mean that the path to more comfortable living is any clearer.
Emma
@bemused: Old Cuban lady used to iron pots that were constantly scrubbed because *tahdah!* they were mostly used to fry pork or cook steaks in a little oil. Instant seasoning that they didn’t even know was happening. The idea of a skillet that is used for a single purpose and needed special handling is non-starter.
hamletta
@Emma: Is it even possible for a cast iron pan to be a lost cause? I don’t think so. If it’s pitted, you can always have it sandblasted.
One way to start over is to coat in Easy-Off and put it in a plastic bag (outside, of course) for a couple of hours. Then clean and re-season. This article at Serious Eats has some good background and how-tos.
Mnemosyne
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
To be fair, I think I’ve emailed this nephew exactly once before, so he may be a little confused by the whole thing. If I don’t hear from him by Saturday, I will ask my brother to nudge him, which is my usual MO. I feel like it’s my contribution to helping raise their children.
;-)
Germy Shoemangler
@gbear:
I had the same problem. She’d doze all day and then get “frisky” at 3:00 AM. Drove me nuts. Finally I took the advice of some people here and made sure I exercised her before I went to bed. Dangled toys in front of her. Let her chase and catch crumpled up pieces of paper. Played “chase” with her. Basically, exhausted her. Now she leaves me alone at night.
They lay around all day and get pent up energy. They see us sleeping at 3:00 AM as frustrating. That’s when they evolved to be outside and hunting.
jl
@NonyNony: We will see. Trump seems to disagree with you, so far. A few days ago Trump talked about Giuliani heading a bogus commission as cover to reverse course on the Muslim ban. And I heard on the news this morning that yesterday, or this morning, Trump said that it was just an idea he threw out there anyway, and hey, maybe he would ‘figure out what was going on’ quicker than expected. Trump said that is was ridiculous to think that he ever suggested it was something he was going to, like, actually do, in real life.
Germy Shoemangler
@? Martin: I think they like to conceal their ambitions. So instead every four years they dangle the “Perverts want to piss and shit in the same bathroom as your little daughter and son!!! Come out and vote for us!!”
And then they quietly pass their stupid anti-regulatory and tax law.
That’s why people like Paul Ryan and Cruz are so coy when asked directly about policy. They don’t want people to know.
Mnemosyne
@Tinare:
Assuming kitty has already been checked out by a vet (cats do get painful UTIs just like people do), you probably need to move the box. For some reason, she doesn’t feel like it’s a safe location.
We used to have one of the litter boxes by the front door (don’t ask) until Keaton decided to start pooping by the front door. No medical issue, said the vet, so eventually I managed to convince my husband to move the box into his home office. Voila, no more pooping by the door.
Emma
@hamletta: We tried. Unfortunately, I think it was a combination of damage and the age of the pan. Another cast iron skillet I have which I use for more generic stuff and is newer survived the treatment. I was able to re-season it and it works nicely.
Iowa Old Lady
@Germy Shoemangler: I read that when the hurricane hit NYC and power was out, there was a priority list for who got power back first. Hospitals, obviously, were high on the list. But public libraries were not far below them because they were places people could go for information, to recharge their electronics, or just to get warm in safe place. I hadn’t thought about it before but that drove their importance home to me.
D58826
@Germy Shoemangler: add – reduce voting by non gop core demographics. I’ll be charitable and leave out the (eliminate) part
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Ceramic pans are a godsend.
Just avoid using them on high heat. Omelettes come out perfectly fine on medium heat in the ceramic pan.
bemused
@jl:
It seems that Trump has said “it was just a suggestion” to two or three different issues in the last few days. Looks like that will be his policy plans for the next 6 months. Wonder if that will bother his groupies.
Iowa Old Lady
@jl: I worry about the call to means test social security and medicare. That sounds reasonable on the surface, but as soon as those are defined as programs for poor people rather than everybody, they become more vulnerable. You see it in the difference between how medicare and medicaid are treated.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@smintheus:
None of Trump’s followers give a shit about anything he says policy wise, unless he backtracks about hating Mexicans, women and Muslims. That’s what their lizard brain heard first, and the rest of their brain went dormant after hearing that. There’s literally nothing he could say about SS or Medicare or anything else that will override their first impression. He would never say he’d cut entitlements anyway, and if he ever did, he’d just bullshit something else about what he really meant. It’s the racism, first, last and forever with his orc army.
ETA: I sit near the kitchen at work where I hear the Republican older males discuss their thoughts on things, especially after the first few GOP debates. One really liked Rubio, another had been a Pioneer for GWB and I think was leaning JEB. It’s been radio silence since Trump. They’re well regarded professionals so I think they understand that if they admit to liking Trump, they admit that they’re just as racist. It is definitely a marker.
bemused
@Emma:
After my fil died at 94, the kids were helping mil clean out some of the outdoor sheds and found an iron skillet that was so well “seasoned” that it had a half inch of crud like rough cement on bottom of pan and thinner but just as gross coating over the rest of it. I told her that pan would have to be set in a fire to get all that crap off and even if that worked, it would have to get reseasoned correctly. She’s never been one to take care of her cooking utensils so the pan went into recycling or something. None of the rest of us wanted to take the time to try to save it. It really looked bad and too much work.
Germy Shoemangler
@D58826: Yes, voter suppression is a big part of it. And every once in a while one of the idiots admits it in an interview, and the rest of them get pissed off about it.
jl
@Iowa Old Lady: I don’t want means testing either. I don’t think a better formula for setting the maximum taxable earnings is means testing though, the maximum would apply to everyone, and it would only bite for the people at the upper end of the income scale. The maximum has been tied to several indices over time, the consumer price inflation rate in the past, average wage rate growth since the 1970s, and has typically undershot what is needed by the logic of the system. I think a maximum that is likely to track growth rate in average national real income or GDP would be better.
But I wrote that off the top of my head, so if I am making a mistake, someone let me know.
Iowa Old Lady
@jl: You’re talking about lifting the cap, right? I think that’s a terrific idea. I’d get rid of it entirely if it were up to me.
Miss Bianca
@Iowa Old Lady: speaking as a fan of both libraries and maker spaces, I approve this message!
Ramping Up
As soon as SS and Medicare is means tested, it will be come “welfare” for the blahs.
Trollhattan
Probably noted earlier somewhere, but this story encapsulates pretty much everything wrong, ever.
bemused
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
They don’t give a rat’s ass about debt and deficits either no matter how loud they howl about them during a Democratic administration. All the longest lasting Republican candidates economic plans were racking up around $10 trillion debt but it’s crickets from Republican voters.
jl
@Iowa Old Lady: yes.
Interesting article on Trump policy train wreck at TPM blog
Trump Gets Kochy
Trump is signaling that he’s getting behind one of the worst but least discussed policy ideas in Washington today, privatizing the Veterans Administration, something that would basically be a disaster for the nation’s veteran. The politicization of very real shortcomings at VA has been used as a cudgel to lay the groundwork for this move. But selling off the VA’s assets and dumping veterans into the private insurance system or Medicare is simply a terrible idea.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-gets-kochy
(emphasis added)
Trump can add another group to the list that just loves him. Anyway, here is hoping that Trump will be goofy-ass disaster as a candidate in the general election.
Gimlet
Zombie misinformation
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/us/comey-ferguson-effect-police-videos-fbi.html
MAY 11, 2016
James Comey, the director, said that while he could offer no statistical proof, he believed after speaking with a number of police officials that a “viral video effect” — with officers wary of confronting suspects for fear of ending up on a video — “could well be at the heart” of a spike in violent crime in some cities.
“There’s a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime — the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’” he told reporters.
He first raised the idea in October that a “chill wind” had deterred aggressive policing. But Obama administration officials distanced themselves from Mr. Comey at the time. They said they had seen no evidence to support the idea of a “Ferguson effect,” named after the 2014 shooting by a police officer of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo., which sparked widespread protests.
“He’s basically saying that police officers are afraid to do their jobs with absolutely no proof,” James O. Pasco Jr., executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said.
The F.B.I. has promised to build a database compiling police shootings and confrontations with members of the public, but Mr. Comey said that project was at least two years from completion.
Gelfling 545
@Emma:this is the one most like the pan I bought in France 40 years ago & it is still in regular use for omlettes & crepes only. It has been reseasoned in the oven twice after well intentioned ignorami “cleaned” it for me so there may be hope for your pan.
Cacti
The story blowing up on the interwebs right now is that Trump’s personal butler of 17 years, and personal historian is an unhinged racist nut.
Called for the POTUS to be hanged, Ferguson, MO to be carpet bombed
bemused
@Cacti:
As it should be. Really vile, ugly and insane. Ah, the company Trump keeps.
Chip Daniels
I’ve always thought that the only thing that prevents a cat from completely expressing everything he ever wanted to say to his people, is his lack of a middle finger.
Iowa Old Lady
@jl: It makes me crazy that Trump’s voters don’t care about policy at all. I’m too lazy to look who said it above, but yeah, it’s racism and hatred all the way down.
Davebo
@Betty Cracker: This is a pontoon boat so no salt water and the stereo is stored in an enclosed compartment like a glove box.
I grew up on a houseboat and have had stereo’s in many boats of almost all types and in the past I’d just say “get something cheap as you’ll probably be replacing it every 2 years”.
Just thinking that’s a flawed position.
bemused
@Iowa Old Lady:
They really, really want to thump someone or two or three and Trump gives verbal thump passes.
? Martin
@jl:
Let’s look at the arithmetic. Starting in the 80s, automation started to become cheaper than US labor. Mexican and Chinese labor were cheaper yet, but the safer gains were simply to automate and ride the declining cost of automated labor until it overtook Mexican and Chinese labor. Well, automation is now cheaper than Mexican and Chinese labor, which is why outsourcing is for the most part no longer a thing. Why send your call center to India when you can much more cheaply have Amelia do it instead?
The White House in their latest Economic Report estimates that 83% of workers making less than $40K will eventually lose their job to automation. GDP is a pretty simple thing – it’s total output. You can increase it by adding workers or increase it by adding productivity per worker. We’re doing both – and at a rapid pace. The workers we’re adding, however, aren’t human. And increasingly the output from automation is pushing out the benefit of human labor. After all, there’s only so much demand – and robots don’t really contribute to that. So we’re aiming for a future where workers capture almost none of the GDP due to labor, and therefore can contribute to almost none of the demand which is needed to drive that GDP.
None of the automation is in the arithmetic. None. Right now the automation is either captured profit that goes back mostly to investors or is passed onto consumers in the form of lower prices (lots of things get cheaper over time, such as food which is increasingly automated). We can see it in the GDP and in inflation, but it’s not part of the taxation/safety net math.
What would be a modern approach would be to determine a reasonable revenue/worker for a given industry. Rather than do profit sharing – which is a trap because the board will often trade profits for expansion, companies would do productivity sharing. As a company increases it’s output per employee, the differential from baseline would be returned to the feds to fund a minimum living wage. Companies would be free to automate and gain the benefits of doing so – improved quality, more reliability, speed, longer hours, etc. and workers wouldn’t be punished so badly in doing so because the reduction in wages paid would simply get pushed into the living wage pool. In a hypothetical boundary condition, there are no workers, all of the GDP captured from all of this automation would be returned to the living wage pool, and people would have money to spend on whatever, keeping the GDP cycle going. (Notably, there would also be no SS contributions since that is a payroll tax, and there is no payroll – we need our robots and computers paying into SS somehow). This would replace unemployment insurance and would not expire. If your job were displaced, you could just collect the living wage. Social Security would logically roll into the same program. The other benefit is that it would limit the amount of revenue that could be returned to shareholders through profits by ensuring that the real and displaced wages are all accounted for, so it should help at least slow the rate of which the 1% get richer.
Now, there would need to be some disincentives for workers that retired early or never engaged in the labor market, and those will be hard, but we’ve done them before. And the living wage would not be extravagant, so people would still be incentivized to work.
That would be an economic approach that at least acknowledged the direction of the current economy. There is nothing either in current policy or in proposed policy from Dems that is looking at the economy in this way. That may not be the right way of approaching it, but its a start in the right direction.
jl
@Chip Daniels:
” I’ve always thought that the only thing that prevents a cat from completely expressing everything he ever wanted to say to his people, is his lack of a middle finger. ”
But who uses their middle finger to express malign pity and benign contempt?
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
My piano/vocal score of [censored] came today. Now I need someone who can rap to come over and sing it with me. The piano part sounds kind of boring by itself! But I read scores the way you read a book, for my own amusement rather than entertaining those who hear the sounds that come out, so on that level it’s a lot of fun.
jl
@? Martin: 4 day 28 hour work week is just an update of creaky old 19th century policy BS, for example.
Edit: and un-gutting labor law and regulation would do a lot for incomes. And a lot of the problem is macro policy that results in weak demand.
gogol's wife
@gbear:
Sounds like my two 14-year-old cats.
D58826
@Iowa Old Lady: for the elite Gooper that is a feature not a bug. for the average gooper it is a feature for the other guy but a bug for him
rikyrah
@? Martin:
Um, I don’t want a return to the 1950’s. In any way.
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin: Sure, that’s what we should be looking to do in the wake of mass automation. This has been predicted for some time (but then again, lots of things that didn’t happen were too), but hasn’t been obviously true for all that long. I think that at a national level the Dems are too busy fighting a rearguard action to do much more than continue to work on decades-old policy priorities (like universal healthcare), unfortunately. “Let’s replace paternalistic transfer income with a guaranteed living wage to move into the 21st century” just won’t work, electorally; not to mention the entrenched interests that would fight it tooth and nail.
Hell, they’ve only recently been entertaining the idea of cap-and-trade, and that doesn’t even work.
smith
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
My son told me a few days ago that he was disappointed to learn that a couple of his friends were Trump-curious. I pointed out to him that the silver lining is he now knows who among his friends is a racist. I wonder what kind of social schisms this election will produce. The country is already so polarized that outing the covert racists is going to be interesting.
les
@? Martin:
But that’s Trump’s platform. All 17 had the exact same platform, that’s one reason it was just a shitstorm, they had no policy arguments. Maybe trade–maybe–but that’s not something that comes along all that much or that the Donald would be actively involved in anyway.
bemused
@rikyrah:
Me neither! If it was like the 50’s, I wouldn’t have my precious blended family.
? Martin
Just to be perfectly clear on the above: the reason that payroll taxes were used for SS and other safety net programs was that prior to the 1960s, labor and GDP were directly connected. Labor was a necessary condition for GDP, and labor output was relatively static with low linear gains in productivity. Since the 1960s, labor and GDP are increasingly disconnected, due to three things:
+ productivity gains going non-linear (mostly due to computerization)
+ labor being displaced by robotics allowing for GDP with zero labor involvement
+ the internet allowing for zero marginal cost industries. Whatsapp was bought by Facebook for $22B. It had 55 employees. It was impossible in every sense of the word to generate that kind of output from so few workers in 1960. Not only was it impossible, it was inconceivable that it would ever be possible.
PurpleGirl
Awwww, pretty kitty looks like a denizen of My Cat From Hell. Jackson Galaxy will teach the hoomin guardian how to correctly interprete what the cat is saying.
D58826
Satan is going to have to build a new level for this piece of non-humanity as well as those that host the auction and take part in it. And the thing is he probably isn’t just bragging about the traffic issue. It probably happened the way he claims. Unfortunately I’m afraid it would have to be a major expansion.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/05/12/george-zimmerman-gun-auction-back-online.html
? Martin
@rikyrah:
Socially, I totally appreciate that. But economically, you would be pretty happy with the economic view from white male 1950s where you were almost guaranteed a job, college or no, and enough to easily buy a house and car on a single income.
bemused
@smith:
In what way(s) are his friends Trump curious? Tough guy foreign policy or white resentment or terrified of Muslims or building a wall? Hard to pin down when Trump pushes so many buttons.
amk
@? Martin:
Really? That’s why the senate, the congress and state leges and govnorships are all red majority?
liberal
No commentary on the ruling today against ObamaCare? I see on the right-hand side that Cole tweeted something about it.
D58826
@? Martin: Wasn’t it also true that prior to WWII relatively few people were paying the federal income tax?
FlipYrWhig
@bemused:
They say they care about debt and deficits as politer proxies for “welfare” and “a bad economy.” What they care about is the government giving money to Those People, which they think makes the economy worse because of, um, laziness or something, it’s not clear. But the important thing is that the entirety of Republican fearmongering about deficits and debt is a morality play with fiscal costumes.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Iowa Old Lady: Yup. Means testing sounds fine, but as you say, it has huge implications. Plus, as Krugman (and Atrios) has pointed out, it won’t save much money.
One has to examine everything – everything – proposed by Republicans with a microscope.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cacti
@? Martin:
Which was possible for the above group primarily because everyone else was shut out of the same opportunities.
Chris
Never had pets, still don’t, but I now live with friends who have two cats (and a dog).
This week, the entire bathroom is being remodeled. That means a hole in the bathroom floor, through which one cat disappeared and spent the next hour or so hanging out in the floorboards. (I eventually pulled her out). That was Tuesday. The next day, the other cat snuck outside at some point, presumably while the workers were coming in and out. Why the hell she did that, we’re not sure, because she fucking hates the outdoors, which probably explains why she spent the next few hours under the porch petrified. I wasn’t here for any of this, but apparently, getting her out required an hour and a half of 1) my friend (her human) talking nicely to her, 2) her other human also talking nicely to her, if on Skype, and 3) a feast of food involving chicken and tuna being laid out for her.
Such kitty. Very drama. Wow.
bemused
@FlipYrWhig:
Yup. Basically they believe every dollar that supports social programs is directly lifted right out their wallets. Exception for SS/Medicare but they deserve it not the others.
D58826
@liberal: I had posted this on an earlier thread when I firest saw the dsecision
latest in the Obamacare legal wars:
A federal judge on Thursday handed a victory to the House of Representatives in what may turn out to be the third path-marking lawsuit challenging specific aspects of the Affordable Care Act.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, who sits in Washington, ruled that the Obama administration may not fund a section of the law — which allows for “cost sharing” with insurers and cheaper deductibles for low-income beneficiaries — if Congress has not appropriated the monies to do so.
“The Affordable Care Act unambiguously appropriates money for … premium tax credits but not for … reimbursements to insurers,” Collyer wrote. “Such an appropriation cannot be inferred.”
Needless to say the WH disagrees and it will be appealed posibily all the way to SCOTUS. One more reaon for that 9th justice to be appointed by a D
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..d4d6f24f8e
and a bit on the judge
Judge Rosemary M. Collyer was appointed to the United States District Court in January 2003. She had been a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Crowell & Moring LLP from 1989 to 2003. Judge Collyer served as General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (1984-89) and Chairman of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (1981-1984). She graduated from the University of Denver College of Law (1977) and Trinity College Washington, D.C. (1968). She practiced law with Sherman & Howard in Denver, Colorado, before her government service. Judge Collyer is a member of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and the American Bar Association Foundation.
Seems to have spent a good bit of time in GOP administrations.
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/dcd/collyer
Cacti
@liberal:
District Court decision.
Meh.
Judge won’t enforce her ruling b/c she knows it’s not going to be the last word.
Betty Cracker
@Davebo: Well, if you find a decent one, let me know. Our boat is a walk-around, so it does have a little cabin, but we manage to destroy electronics in short order nonetheless!
smith
@bemused: Seems like the last 3 can be largely subsumed under the R word, and even the first as well, since the tough guy foreign policy is mostly concentrated on blowing up Mooslins.
amk
@Cacti: exactly.
bemused
@smith:
Heh.
? Martin
@Major Major Major Major: I fully appreciate the challenges of it, but that’s not an excuse to ignore the problem while the electorate anger spills over. I will also note that Sanders prescription doesn’t address any of this either. His policies are still based on a labor-dominated economy.
Bottom line, we need to shift to the idea that work is for machines, not people. That requiring labor for survival is only a short step from the notion of indentured servitude when you can automate many activities. That attitude change can start now, and I’d bet a lot more of the GOP base would be open to it than you might expect. There’s a lot of people that are really proud of their work and look forward to it and they should continue, and there’s a lot of really shitty jobs out there that nobody would miss and if you could pay the bills without the shittiness, why wouldn’t you be in favor of that?
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin: Sanders is way worse than Hillary on this. Protectionism is stupid.
jl
@? Martin: I think more along the lines of Dean Baker that policy choices are at least as important as technological change in decline in labor income, living standards and economic security. I’m not as extreme as he is, since he sounds like he thinks policy choices are all of it. I think it’s half and half.
Don’t agree with all of your list either. Measured productivity gains remain unpredictable, as they always have. And demand side GDP = C + I + G + (X – M), and even C is much more than manufactured goods. And much of (X – M) is policy choice. The whole point of neoclassical comparative advantage is that absolutely richer (more expensive factor) countries can productively trade with poorer ones to mutual advantage, huge rich country trade deficits are not predicted by standard theory. And that part of standard theory held up pretty well until Asian financial crisis for the US.
My underlying belief is that a lot of the total economic transformation story is bafflegab used as cover to push certain regressive policy choices.
Betty Cracker
@? Martin: I suspect there’s a lot of revisionist history even on the status of white males in the 1950s. My grandfathers both grew up poor in the rural South and didn’t paint such a rosy picture, though they were damn sure better off than non-whites and women.
les
@D58826:
One thing the back-to-the-50’s crowd ignores is the 90% top federal tax bracket.
liberal
@Cacti: Fair enough. I’m a bit surprised, though, because I thought this is one of those “political controversies” that the courts refuse to rule on, district judge or no.
A Ghost To Most
@NotMax:
Heresy, I say! What good is a fry pan if you can’t get it ripping hot?
Omelets turn out beautifully in seasoned cast iron.
liberal
@les: Marginal rates are pretty meaningless without an understanding of what’s actually taxable income.
D58826
@bemused: Well in a way it is. It is a tax after all. But the same can be said for highway construction, DOD, farm subsidies, disaster relief (in my district but not yours), schools, etc. But they never seem to make the connection to the larger picture that taxes are the price we pay to have nice things. . My sister told me yesterday that it is wrong to take money from those who have it and to give it to those that don’t. I knew it was a lost cause so I just rolled my eyes. Obviously 2 things wrong with her view
1. there has been a massive transfer of wealth from those who have less (most of the 99%) to those who have so much they could not spend it all if they lived forever
2. can’t very well help poor people by taxing those same poor people. They don’t have the money to tax.
But she and her hubby still believe in voodoo economics.
? Martin
@les:
Not really. Trump is promising the result without providing much in the way of a formula to get there. Everyone else is talking policy without talking about result, while Trump is mostly talking result without talking about policy. That’s why Trump is getting in trouble – it’s obvious the result won’t apply to minorities, to women, etc. The GOP historically has masked that by only talking policy and then defending that any interpretation of that policy that predicts results is wrong.
In short, the establishment talks about tax incentives to lower the cost of livestock breeding, Trump just promises a pony.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: Can you Martinsplain how 10 hedge fund managers taking home billions is a good thing for the economy and the rest of us?
D58826
@Betty Cracker:
The magic incantation that made all else bearable. At least there were some people lower on the totem pole.
schrodinger's cat
@jl: Its next disruption or creative destruction. You pick the buzz word or let Martin pick it for you.
Doug R
@Emma: My $139 (Canadian) microwave has an omelette setting and an excellent recipe in the owner’s manual. It’s a Panasonic inverter I bought at Costco.
dedc79
Wonder if Trump’s butler is bidding in the auction for Zimmerman’s murder weapon….
? Martin
@jl:
That’s fair, but the half and half is a shifting percentage, and the technological change is coming at a faster and faster pace. And policy changes aren’t going to bring ANY manufacturing jobs back to the rust belt, nor will trade policy. What do you tell those workers? Strengthening Social Security is fine, but policy was never designed to handle major labor displacement. That’s not what unemployment insurace does. That’s a completely unaddressed area.
jl
@schrodinger’s cat: I’m not sure Martin is saying what you think he/she is saying.
A Ghost To Most
@Chris:
Fixed for accuracy.
bemused
@D58826:
For the amount of taxes we pay every year, income and property, federal and state, we are getting schools, fire & police protection, highways, safety regulations, disaster relief, etc, etc, etc. I always want to ask the voodoo economic folks how much of these services they want to give up in less taxes. Of course, they think we should be able to magically get all those benefits on the cheap.
We were in high fire danger in MN. We were going to pick up our dogs from the kennel after a weekend away when we were stopped by a roadblock with fire ahead. It’s been scary dry here. We were directed to dirt roads to get to the highway where kennel is located. Once there we learned from the kennel owner that the previous day, Saturday, there was a fire only a mile away. She posted a pic of the smoke cloud on social media saying it didn’t look good and immediately about 200 wonderful people contacted her saying they would help evacuate the dogs if needed. Thankfully, the fire was contained with the water bomber planes, etc. The first one that flew right over their home and kennel scared her so she dropped to the floor. I am so grateful that my taxes paid for the firefighting.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@jl:
This.
Cui bono? is always a good question to ask.
Cheers,
Scott.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker:
C.f. Caudill, Night Comes to the Cumberlands.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
Back when we still kept yard-bird chickens, we also had a giant (18 lbs) White Cat with red/orange spots. His name was Ralph, because that was what he said when he wanted your attention.
Ralph learned to open the slider door in the kitchen by digging into the rubber gasket with his claws and pulling. That was OK, but he didn’t care to push it closed after going out!
So one evening we get home from work, and there’s a small herd of chickens standing around in the kitchen, as Ralph had opened that door and walked away. I herded them out, which was easy, fixed dinner, and we got to bed.
The next morning when I came downstairs, the first thing I saw was the two hens sitting on top of the bookcase, roosted up by the time we got home. They hadn’t made a sound or moved all night. Fortunately they were both on a vinyl-wrapped backgammon set, so the chicken shit they dropped over night (a surprisingly large amount!!) was easy to clean up, and no books were damaged in the creation of this – I swear – true story.
We had to start latching that door, which as a country living West Virginian, was uncomfortably like moving into town! Many great Ralph stories…
jl
@? Martin:
” And policy changes aren’t going to bring ANY manufacturing jobs back to the rust belt, nor will trade policy. ”
I completely disagree with that statement, though. I think evidence shows that the very sudden and disruptive US manufacturing trade collapses and lack of recoveries after panics and recessions is a new thing that started with Asian financial crisis in late 1990s. That has to do with hording dollar reserves by foreign countries, and increasingly leveraged (even today) Euro- Emerging Market- and Asian-dollar financial markets, and trade policy. Edit: so chalk that up to bad international financial macro policy, the effects of which were predicted by the likes of Stiglitz.
Actually, there is no world trade policy in the sense that there was until the 1990s, since the US pulled out of real multilateral trade negotiations decades ago and won’t go back. Instead we have these crappo divide and conquer deals that the US is trying, and largely successfully, imposing on a few countries at a time.
I have to go now, so we can argue it out later, when relevant posts come up.
FlipYrWhig
@bemused:
Because they think there ought to be plenty of money to pay for all the good things for good people if you just cut off the wastrels and moochers, who bleed dry the treasury with their crab legs and manicures. It’s all a very tidily arranged just-so story.
bemused
@J R in WV:
I hope you took photos.
Gimlet
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-north-carolina-lgbt-transgender-bathroom-law-20160512-story.html
The Obama administration made clear Thursday it won’t withhold money for North Carolina while a legal fight plays out over the state’s law on bathroom use by transgender people.
bemused
@FlipYrWhig:
A very liberal outspoken friend got disgusted listening to a conservative woman going on and on about how she grew up poor but made it ok, the bootstrap thing, after complaining mostly about our native american population and other non-whites getting breaks, he finally said, “So what should we do, take them out and shoot them?” Got pretty quiet in the room.
? Martin
@schrodinger’s cat:
You must not have understood what I just wrote. What I’m suggesting is that the hedge fund managers couldn’t take home billions if the productivity gains from automation were captured in lieu of (or in addition to) the payroll tax and dumped into a new safety net program for displaced workers. Look at chart 2 on this page.
That divergence between GDP per capita and wages starting in the 1970s (pre-Reagan, it should be noted, and well pre-NAFTA) is attributed by many to automation gains – both computers replacing clerical wages and robotics replacing manufacturing wages. That allowed output to grow disconnected to both jobs and wages, which is not only captured as profits (which flow unfettered to the hedge fund managers) but also is lost payroll revenue for SS and Medicare. What I’m advocating for is to capture dollar-for-dollar that (now) vast gap between income and per-capita GDP and redistribute it to the workforce starting with a minimum living wage, effectively eliminating the need for a minimum wage. Why would you work food service for $8/hr ($16K/year) if the national automation workforce paid you $16K per year in a minimum living wage? The only way for that food service to operate is to either automate itself (and dump it’s $16K per year per potential worker into the same pool to be redistributed) or to pay more than $8/hr so that people that wanted to earn more could do so. Over time, the return to that pool would grow, although if you currently captured every dollar from that graph, you’d be paying out close to $40K per household, so it’s already viable.
The effects on corporations and the market would be pretty massive, and it’d need to be phased in or else you’ll bankrupt half the companies in the US, but it’d stop the 1%ers pretty much cold in in their tracks. Effectively corporate profits would revert to inflation-adjusted 1950s levels.
A Ghost To Most
Speaking of cats, has anyone here ever make the acquaintance of a grey tuxedo cat. If so, was it really smart? We have one, and it is scary smart. We often comment that if she had opposable thumbs, we’d be in trouble.
Chyron HR
@liberal:
We congratulate Senator Sanders and his followers for their hard-earned victory against the abominable ACA.
D58826
@J R in WV: I read a book where the author described how her horse figured out how to turn on the hose when he was thirsty and open the grain bin when he was hungry. Just by watching what she did each night.
? Martin
@jl:
Manufacturing jobs are declining globally. They’re declining in China and Mexico. The manufacturing may come back, but it’ll all be automated. There won’t be jobs there. The long arc of manufacturing bends toward no labor at all.
smith
@FlipYrWhig: They also think that government workers should be glad to work for free.
Major Major Major Major
bemused
@smith:
LOL, too true. Unless they are the government workers.
les
@liberal: Totally right; but the 1% would be there. Even scaled up for inflation, more than the conservadreamers expect.
A Ghost To Most
@Major Major Major Major:
Ad copy from Boston Dynamics?
Or am I missing a major cultural touchstone?
D58826
@les: Few of those subject to the top marginal rate were dumb enough to actually have to pay it. They all could afford tax lawyers to come up with tax avoidance schemes. Even St Ronulus the Unready, in spite of his complaining about it, continued to turn out 3rd rate flicks.
What that 90% rate does show is:
1. there is no short straight line between marginal rates and economic growth (the aptly named Lafer curve not with standing), and
2. it doesn’t matter what the top marginal rate is or the capital gains rate is, those who have the bucks will spend them to avoid paying it. If you reduced the rates to 0, Romany and the 1% would find a way to get a refund or a subsidy from the government. all the while complaining about tax and spend liberals and the safety ‘hammock’ for those people.
Major Major Major Major
@A Ghost To Most: Old Simpsons episode.
les
@? Martin:
No, actually, really. Cut or eliminate tax on capital gains, dividends; cut top rates; he’s said his tax cuts will be the biggest, yooooge, might think about some increases after a while but never back up to now. Reduce burden on the job creators; the usual anti-regulation shit. Bomb the browns, send back the illegals, keep the blacks in their place. Just like every other Klown in the car.
Gin & Tonic
So according to CNN, the auction site where Zimmerman listed his gun or said he listed his gun *itself* rejected the listing. When you’re too toxic for an on-line gun-auction site, that’s really something. Here’s what they said:
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@? Martin:
Phrasing, dude, how does it work?
Just as applies to me, not being a white male, it’s hard to get behind the concept that economically, I’d
KWIM?
Only if I believed that view would apply to me. Which in the 1950s, it sure as hell wouldn’t. I’m pretty certain the same is true of rikyrah, perhaps even more emphatically.
Major Major Major Major
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Which is what Martin said, by way of explaining why white males like the idea of “returning to the 1950’s”, not quite catching the issue here.
Schlemazel Khan
@Gin & Tonic:
Don’t worry, the asshole has already found another asshole to list the gun. Its back on sale
D58826
@? Martin: It’s not manufacturing but 125 years ago it took 1/2 dozen men to run a freight train with a few dozen cars. Today two men (engineer/conductor) run a train two miles in length from the lead engine. The modern freight train doesn’t even have a cute little red caboose, just a flashing red end of train device that also signals the engineer that the train is still connected.
A Ghost To Most
@Major Major Major Major:
If you remembered that, out of all those episodes, I am impressed. If The Great Gazoogle helped, still good google-fu
Schlemazel Khan
Colbert has a major Drumpf strategist on his show I think the interview, here, seems to well reflect Drumpfs mindset
les
@D58826:
I’ve been a tax lawyer for 30 years, I’ve read the playbook. And yeah, yeah, I know there’s a point where the Laffer curve actually is real. The first point is, those who want to go back don’t have a clue where they want to go back to. And despite cpa’s and lawyers, rates matter: tax capital like income, and the rich will pay more. Raise the marginal rate and the rich will pay more. Not, probably, proportionally more than the rest of us. But more than they do now. They’re not really going Galt, ya know?
Mary G
Just back from the doctor. My latest RA flare up ate through the extensor tendons on the fourth and fifth fingers of my right hand, so it’s more surgery for me. Trying to decide whether to have the wrist fused or try for a replacement. Feeling pretty depressed right now.
PurpleGirl
@Iowa Old Lady: Wow. That looks like a really neat program. I’d love something like that in NYC. Sometimes you want to try something but you don’t want to or can’t buy a piece of equipment until you know you’ll really use it or until you know how to use it. Enjoy this evening.
A Ghost To Most
@Schlemazel Khan:
Maybe Colbert can get tRumps butler on next week.
? Martin
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Give me some credit, please? I’m aware of that, and aware that rikyrah is neither white nor male. What I’m saying is that you have every right to demand today what was offered to white males in the 1950s, regardless of whatever demographic pigeonhole society wants to try and stuff you in.
Just because you couldn’t have received that then, doesn’t mean you can’t demand it now. And it looks as though it can be delivered. US GDP is $53K per person. Not per worker – per person. ¼ of the US population is under 18 and there’s $53K being generated for each of them as well. There’s $53K being generated for every retired person. Delivering that (admittedly revisionist life as Betty correctly notes) is feasible. Hell, I live in the 6th richest city in this country and earn well more than the national median wage, own a big house, cars, every electronic doo-dad you can think of, and I’d be WAY the fuck better off if I got a reasonably large fraction of that $53K for every person in my household.
Major Major Major Major
@A Ghost To Most: It’s that dang librarian’s brain I have.
PurpleGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: Then it’s a good thing it was Andrew Carnegie who decided to build public library buildings if a city or town was able to pay for the upkeep of a library. He built them world wide but built the most in the US. I haven’t been to the Carnegie Mansion in a few years but they used to have pictures of the various libraries he built in basement hallway. In many ways he was bastard capitalist but he felt compelled to build public libraries to help others as a boss’s personal library had helped him.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@? Martin: You make good points, but I think you carry them a little too far.
Tamarack is a site off the highway in Beckley, WV that is next to a truck stop. They have cultural exhibits, display rooms for local artisans, beautiful displays of handmade furniture, etc., etc. There’s a cafeteria there as well.
People are making stuff there and can earn a decent living. Automation isn’t going to replace that kind of work. WV isn’t doomed when coal finally goes away.
Yeah, it’s not a million-worker Foxconn plant.
Germany is still a manufacturing and export powerhouse. Policy choices matter.
FAS (3 page .pdf):
Maybe Germany had a better starting work-life balance than the US and didn’t feel the need to cut hours as much.
It’s still really hard to measure a lot of the data that people use as evidence for various policy positions. Did we really have twice the productivity growth of Germany? Did all those computers really make us more productive? It’s hard to say…
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
? Martin
@D58826: It’s nearly every single industry. Farming went from 85% of the population to less than 2% – and we export more in the process. Accounting has seen a massive decline due to Excel and accounting software. A few have not – health services have managed to grow mostly due to expanding what they can do. My mom just had routine eye surgery that would have been impossible 20 years ago, so efficiency gains in routine heath care have been offset by new services. And new industries have been created – there’s a ton of programming jobs out there.
But even these jobs will eventually succumb to some degree. Services will last though. I think it’s safe to say that we will continue to need human contact (and may need it even more), and will be willing to pay for that. And those jobs will be easy to fill because there will be people that want to be part of that relationship.
chopper
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
germany has been brought up before. though their manufacturing job base is shrinking at less of a rate compared to ours, martin has pointed out in the past that germany is a major manufacturer of automation equipment i.e. the robots that they and everybody else uses to replace manufacturing jobs.
A Ghost To Most
@Major Major Major Major:
My mind used to be sharp as a trap. Now it’s just used fly paper.
D58826
@les: Oh I know they will pay more but they will still find ways to soften the blow of the increase that the 99% can’t take advantage of. so to pick some random numbers when the top rate went back to 39%, maybe Mit wound up paying a couple thousand more but if he had been hit with the full impact of the top rate it might have been a few 10k more. In spite of all the complaining I don’t ever remember seeing a guy on the street corner selling pencils with a sign that say’s ‘Hi I’m a Rockefeller and due to Obama’s tax increase I have to sell pencils to make ends meet.’
They have every right to use the tax law to minimize their tax bill but as Bernie keeps saying it may be legal but the scandal is that IT IS legal. And I know that the middle class has its mortgage deduction and some of the ‘loopholes’ are there for a good reason. It’s just when i look at my 1040 and people see they paid at a rate of 17% for example while Romney releases his tax forms that show him paying 13%, no wonder people are mad. And it doesn’t help when they have shell out to fix the shocks on the car because there isn’t enough money to fill the potholes.
? Martin
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
And I don’t suggest that it would, I just omitted to talk about it. People that derive value from their work will continue to do so and there will always be work that is valuable enough to pay more than that minimum wage for. But the idea is that these jobs would eventually fill with people that were truly invested in them. Most jobs deliver minimum value, and as a result will be automated. Maybe you love assembling iPhones but that won’t be work worth paying for (right now the job is too difficult to automate, but that’ll change).
I think you see some of that emerging in the current economy around the edges. You have more and more relatively upscale businesses selling a distinct product. You have more kickstarters and etsy businesses. Some are people just trying to pay the bills, but many are people that really want to do this stuff looking for a way to monetize their hobby. And I think this would cause that to expand, freeing up people to try something new. If you fail, you are no worse off than your minimum living wage and you did your hobby. If you succeed then you make more and turn it into a distinct, value-add business. That’s exactly the sort of thing we want to have happen – it encourages people to take a risk and do what they care most about.
Schlemazel Khan
@A Ghost To Most:
Its a send up. The ‘consultant’ is a school bully who helps make up names for candidates
D58826
@? Martin:
It is a political decision that it isn’t being done. Not an economic one. That is the point that Bernie is his inarticulate way is getting at. He may have a 1950’s view of the labor market but even he can see it isn’t working today. His solutions aren’t realistic but he is at least talking about the problem
Miss Bianca
@Mary G: sorry to hear it. : (
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@chopper: Germany makes lots of stuff. :-) As does Japan.
As I said, he makes some good points, but I think he carries them too far.
Dean Baker and Jared Bernstein (115 page .pdf):
And so forth.
Cheers,
Scott.
D58826
@? Martin: @? Martin:
That’s why we need strong safety net programs. If the venture fails then the person won’t be out on the street, and he has the time to grow his business without worrying about a big medical bill.
A Ghost To Most
@Schlemazel Khan: Ah, thanks.
? Martin
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Yes. It really did. Consider that the internet is to a decent degree a large export economy from the US. We discount it because there’s no shipping container leaving a port, but Google and Facebook and Microsoft and Amazon and Apple are all generating considerable revenue overseas off of digital services sold. And that stuff is all automated to the 9s. It’s allowed for US movies and TV and music to distribute overseas at a much higher rate than before.
And there’s a ton of productivity gain that people just don’t acknowledge:
My grandmother sat at one of those desks for a large insurance company. Her job doesn’t exist. New ones do, but the new jobs and the automation allowed them to create new insurance products, reach new markets, operate more efficiently (cheaper insurance, so the gains flow back to consumers) and so on.
Automobiles no longer have humans involved in the chassis construction. That’s all robots now, pretty much right up to the point when the car comes off the paint line and its time to start assembling it. And on assembly, the two workers that put on the door are now a worker and a robot.
My grandfather worked in the aerospace industry. One of the things he did later in his career was in the prototyping/testing phase. They’d build a plane wing and then run a million tests on it to see how it would perform, in the end load testing it until it failed. That’s all software now. The first wing they build goes on a plane that will fly – the software is not only cheaper and faster, but it’s more accurate as well. His job doesn’t exist any more, either.
ruemara
@Mary G: *hug* I’m terribly sorry. I hope they find a solution that improves on your quality of life.
? Martin
@D58826:
I think he’s talking about it the wrong way. He still believes that these jobs are coming back. They aren’t. It’s false hope. So long as voters keep believing that the old economy is still possible, they’ll reject dealing with the new economy. It’s why I think young people are so far out of phase with the rest of the electorate. They think these discussions focusing around the old economy is complete bullshit. That economic vision is even more fantastic (and worse, undesirable) to them than mine is (and I admit mine is pretty hard to grasp). Clinton is slightly better, but not better enough.
I know there is disdain for our tech overloads, but they pretty widely believe in a minimum living wage. They’re in the process of building this future, and they can see what’s coming. We can try and reject that future, but it’s pretty pointless. It’s going to get built no matter what. We may as well treat it as an opportunity – getting people out of dangerous and shitty jobs and people out of poverty.
D58826
@? Martin: I’m glad I’m pushing 70. Life is getting to complicated. I feel sorry for my young nieces because this is the brave new world they are going to have to live in. Under the best of circumstances the transition will be hard. Yet we have a political party that pretty much controls the agenda but views the world like it was the first century CE. it will be awful. Facts, scientific or economic do not matter to them. Global warning – nope not happening. Lets include pictures of Jesus riding a dinosaur in our high school text books. Lets build museums that celebrate the great flood and Noah’s ark.
Unless that changes we are doomed.
? Martin
@D58826: I don’t think it’s so much that life is complicated as that it’s unpredictable in new ways, and our hunting for predictability causes us to make it more complicated. The path to a stable job that can take you to retirement is increasingly vague. Sure, you could be a doctor and roll the dice on each step of getting into college, medical school, etc. because there are insufficient seats to meet demand, so competition is absurdly fierce. But for people with more modest aims, it’s pretty unclear. And so people jump through all kinds of stupid hoops to try and get there, because getting there seems more a matter of having just the right credential, or knowing the right person, or living in the right place, etc. It’s mostly voodoo, but people will grasp onto whatever they can find.
Predictability leads to simplicity because people know what to do, and they just do it. And predictability leads to simplification because it then becomes easier for everyone. When you start to see all of these new requirements and rules and things you need to do, it’s usually because something is out of balance. There aren’t enough seats for all the people that want to see the show, so you need to do 18 different things in an effort to get that balance right – stand in this line, get a wrist band, stand in that other line, etc. If there were enough seats (they add another show, etc.) then you buy your ticket and that’s it. It’s predictable, and therefore its simple.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@? Martin: I think we’re talking past each other.
Yes, there’s a smaller proportion of the population working in farming, or drafting, or making buggy whips. But there are more people working in other areas that get food from the farm to our refrigerator or our favorite eatery, or making CAD software, or making smart phones. Yes, you’re right that people who want coal mining to employ hundreds of thousands of people in WV are going to be waiting a long, long time. But people really don’t want to breathe coal dust and crawl around underground – they want (and need) to earn a decent living.
But there are going to be jobs for people to do even if many things are automated, and even if many jobs disappear. The idea of robots taking over all the mass-manufacturing jobs sounds appealing in some way (I’m sure the people working at Foxconn would love to be doing something else if they found a different job that paid as well or better), but it’s not going to happen anytime soon. And if it does, then there are going to need to be people who fix the robots, people to design the robots, people to dispose of the broken robots, etc. (General-purpose repair is a much, much more difficult problem than snapping parts in a box.)
And we’re still not doomed to robots taking over and everyone being unemployed. We can make policy choices that shape our future even if machines get clever enough to replace many jobs. The way the economy evolves is guided, to a large degree, by legal and policy choices we make.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Frankensteinbeck
@jl:
I’m sorry, but I think the entire framing of your question is defective. Trump has no consistent policies except maybe ‘Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.’ He has been on every side of every issue. That’s not going to stop, either, because his whole campaign style, rooted in his personality, is ‘bigoted asshole stream of consciousness.’ You can’t ask what he’s going to walk back, because he’ll walk back everything, then return to it, based on how he feels at the time. Establishment Republicans who actually care about their Hellish and destructive policies are caught between supporting the guy whose actions are random and is outing them as racists, or having no party because they can’t elect a dog catcher without Trump’s racists.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@? Martin: Also, software does a lot, but things still have to be verified with real tests.
787 wing test (1:31).
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
D58826
@? Martin: The problem is what you are outlining is an entirely new way of think about the economy for most of us. I think I’m reasonably well reads but these ideas are totally new to me. I can see where you are coming from and it makes a lot of sense. But how do you get those ideas out to the general public. I suspect if Hillary started making some your arguments people would look around for the little man with the butterfly net. Until these ideas make it into the econ 101 and management 101 text books most of us will continue to stumble along like its 1950.
Until the mid 60’s the accepted idea in cosmology was the steady state universe. The establishment looked at the young turk big bangers as slightly deranged. Today because of new information it’s the big bang that is the standard model. And the young turks are now the establishment and think the string theorists are a bit nuts. The economic world is going to have to go thru the same transformation. At least in the cosmology battle both sides believed in facts and the scientific method. With one party wedded to fantasy and Jesus on the dinosaur it will be a long slow process.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Whoops. Wrong video.
787 wing test (3:28).
A comment there says:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@? Martin: You got credit, which is why I framed it “phrasing.” I understand what you’re saying – and agree – but it could have been worded a bit better, because I know you’re aware… In my opinion only on the composition, of course.
D58826
@? Martin: And just add another point, at least in my case and maybe others, I’ve been think along the lines of what happened in the transition from the farm economy in 1880 to the mass production economy of 1910. Sure the jobs making washing machines weren’t coming back but just as the tractor replaced the horse which reduced the need for farm labor. Labor that was then used to build the tractor.
In your model that transition will not happen because at some point a small number of people (atleast at the moment it’s people) will write the software that controls the robots and before long the robots will be building the new robots. The horse has been replaced but the tractor can be built without the man.
StellaB
@Emma: I have several expensive pans, but my favorite non-stick is a cheap Cerastone. A silicone spatula and you are good to go for omelet making.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: If I didn’t understand it is perhaps because your explanations are convoluted, laden with excess verbiage and jargon. To paraphrase Feynman, if you can’t explain a concept to a freshman than you don’t understand it yourself. And I have had more than freshman level exposure to economics.
What does a hedge fund manager’s salary have to do with automation?
John Cole
I flip Steve off all the time. Especially when he is bitching incessantly for food.
chopper
@schrodinger’s cat:
automation has increased productivity but all that extra money made, instead of going into worker wages, ended up in business profits that increased stock prices and made hedge fund managers rich as shit. make sense?
chopper
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
rather than rely on an anonymous youtube comment (seriously, youtube?!), here’s a link to an actual informative source on that.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@chopper: Heh. :-) Thanks for the link.
I will note, though, that the YouTube comment seemed to be a pretty accurate 3-sentence summary of the article you point to.
I merely quoted it to indicate that the test jig was doing more than testing the wings.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
I think people overestimate how much automation can do. It can do A LOT, but watch a few episodes of “How It’s Made” and you’ll be surprised at how many otherwise automated processes require human intervention somewhere along the line, if only as a quality check. Perfect machines that never break down do not exist and can never exist.
WaterGirl
@JPL: I’m reading this late, so you may not even see this… But how does Finch seem? Are you fairly hopeful?
J R in WV
@D58826:
We came home one evening and the horse had opened the well house, pulled out the hose, and turned on the water, which created a 4 inch deep puddle in the whole bottom where the horse hung out. If she had put the hose in the barrel and then turned it off when the barrel was full, I would have entered her in school.
She also got into the corn crib once, and foundered on too much corn. Mrs J walked her every half hour all night long ( Tuesday before Thanksgiving, cold and wet ) until she moved her bowels, which saved the mare’s life.
Critters are SMART, folks, they would never vote for Trump !!!
schrodinger's cat
@chopper: I know that’s what Martin is saying but that makes no sense. Hedge funders are making money hand over fist because they make most of their money on profit sharing which is taxed at a much lower rate than your wages or mine are. Automation has nothing to do with this but the policies that have been enacted in our name.
J R in WV
@Mary G:
Mrs J is just recovering from a total knee replacement, and I have had both shoulders replaced. Our tendons were in good shape, cartilage was all gone.
But we are both pain free (comparatively, as muscle pain is nothing compared to joint pain) and way more functional than pre-surgery.
Obviously your situation is completely different from either of ours, but I’m trying to cast a tiny and barely-informed vote in favor of replacement, if your surgeon thinks it will work for you.
Denali
@Mary G,
Sorry to hear this.
ZeeLizzie
It’s True Confession time: I fat shame my cat.