Aspire to greatness
(photographer unknown) pic.twitter.com/oOI08Uf1uZ— 41 Strange (@41Strange) February 17, 2019
.
Here’s the view from the front of ?@KamalaHarris?’ town hall in #Charleston, SC. Campaign says nearly 1000 RSVP’ed, but they’ve run out of seats here. Standing room only #2020campaign pic.twitter.com/5b0KqB5Fhe
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) February 15, 2019
And then the twitter-whinging started…
Omg I am living for Kamala in this jacket y’all ?? pic.twitter.com/Qne5GkuVo1
— robert mueller is a cop (@notcapnamerica) February 16, 2019
It is a foine jacket, as my Irish granny would say — a very fine jacket indeed, and I hope President Harris wears it to her Inauguration just to troll the haterz. Dave Weigel leaves off courting the far-left ‘progressives’ to write the kind of sensible report I first started following him for:
… [T]he lasting image was the rainbow sequin jacket she bought at Styled by Naida, a boutique on Columbia’s Lady Street, whose owner had come up from poverty. A member of the press corps had spotted the jacket as the senator talked with customers. It was as frivolous as these photo ops get, and it sparked a conservative media backlash, but Harris asked reporters to see the meaning of the visit.
“This is the classic story of women in America achieving economic success,” Harris said after visiting a few more woman-owned shops. “These are incredible stories of women who were in foster care, who understood what it meant at a very early age to struggle, but who also had dreams about what they could be.”
Harris, who is narrowly polling ahead of every other declared Democratic presidential candidate, is running a campaign as the ambassador of another, kinder America. Early polls may not tell us much, but she has, out of necessity, skipped past the house-parties-and-roundtables part of the campaign and moved to large rallies that channel the spirit of the first Women’s March. In speeches, her first applause line is usually “we are better than this,” an exhausted, hopeful declaration that the Trump administration will be a historical blip…The Democratic primary so far has showcased two basic arguments. One of them, as advanced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, is that the political system has been rigged for years and must be dismantled and reoriented. The other, advanced by Harris (and Sen. Cory Booker), is that America always eventually does the right thing and just needs the right people pushing it that way. Harris, the first of these candidates to get a cable news town hall to herself, is often the first candidate voters hear saying this in person…
As it stands, I’d be more than happy to vote Harris for President, even if she ‘kidnapped’ my senior Senator Warren to run as her veep (would’t *that* give Brit Hume agita) or for her cabinet. Worth reading the rest of the Kamala segment, even if you skip the surrounding horse-race boilerplate.
Charm alert! @KamalaHarris woo’ed by these children in Columbia, SC. Harris meeting Black women-owned small biz owners. Astonishing stories of women raised in foster care who now give back to their SC communities. Black women key to winning SC’s primary pic.twitter.com/TOvSq8Ov7E
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) February 16, 2019
Late to this, but @brithume jumped out of an airplane to help celebrate President George H.W. Bush’s birthday while covering George W. Bush’s presidency. And then posed for pix in his not-super-stylish parachute suit with Chuck Norris. Which is fine. So is pointing out a jacket. https://t.co/NrylK56bVE
— Jonathan Allen (@jonallendc) February 17, 2019
JPL
Harris should have purchased a tan suit. just sayin
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
Baud
Wow, I know she was great, but I didn’t know she was Howard Schultz-level great.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
West of the Rockies
@JPL:
Why are Republicans so damn focused on threads?
Cute kids in that photo. Harris can relate to children. I trust that. Contrast it to Lump’s ludicrous Christmas fiasco when he tried to make a 7-year-old question the existence of Santa Claus. Is there even a photo of Barron happily interacting with his father?
Go Harris 2020!
OzarkHillbilly
Mayor Bill DeBlasio complains about Amazon pulling out without giving NYC a reach around.
Bill? I like you, I really do, but…
Getting $3 billion dollars worth of subsidies while turning an $11.2 billion profit and not paying a single penny in taxes on that profit is the true “abuse of corporate power” you should be upset about, not the sudden disappearance of 25,000 imaginary jobs NYC doesn’t even need to begin with. What is “arbitrary and unfair to working people” is the idea that we pay taxes and they don’t. The supposed deal Amazon walked away form was neither “good” or “fair” to the citizens of NYC because they would have been stuck with the burden of all those unpaid taxes by Amazon and supposedly they wouldn’t even have the right of collective bargaining with Amazon.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Mondays deserve all the sarcasm. They know what they did.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: Blech.
OzarkHillbilly
I don’t often donate to politicians who don’t directly represent me even if they do represent my political positions, but I’m trying to send her a few bucks and get thru to her campaign web site. Why is my my first thought that it is under a DoS attack? I may be paranoid but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get us.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: “and CAN’T get thru to her campaign web site.”
sigh. It’s gonna be one of those days.
Amir Khalid
@West of the Rockies:
It’s hard to imagine Donald Trump happily interacting with anyone he wasn’t screwing over.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: If she were being attacked, we’d probably have heard about it.
Patricia Kayden
So far, I love all of the Democratic candidates (except Tulsi) so whoever wins the primaries will get my vote. The media is going to have a hard time both siding any of our candidates given how awful, bigoted and idiotic Trump has proven to be. Any of our candidates will look angelic, articulate and competent in comparison to the Orange Oaf.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s not just that. It’s that it’s not fair to other employers. Why should Amazon get a special deal? They shouldn’t, and every employer after them will demand terms that favorable, and they should get them and they probably will, because what’s the possible justification for NOT getting them? Then they’d have to start ranking jobs and companies and they’ll get into ridiculous situations like Scott Walker in Wisconsin with Foxconn where there are elaborate made-up formulas on what each of those jobs is “worth” and the counter is what each of those jobs “costs” Wisconsin. I want the Foxconn deal if I locate in Wisconsin now. Why shouldn’t I get it? I should get it retroactively if I’ve been there for 40 years, too.
Someone with 25 or 250 or 2500 employees should pay taxes and not get subsidies but 25,000 should? What’s the magic number? If I have 10 employers with 2500 employees each who pay taxes and one with 25,000 who doesn’t pay taxes, shouldn’t I court 10 smaller employers rather than the 1 larger employer?
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Absolutely Kay.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
The media has not yet begun to spin.
Chyron HR
Have the hashtag American Descendants of Shutterstock weighed in yet?
Princess
This particular quotation:
is why right now I am for Warren over Harris. The house is on fire and I want a president who knows that, and who doesn’t think our problems can be solved with, say, more programs for kids in foster care, however nice and good that would be. 40% of the household wealth in the US is owned by a tiny number of people. You cannot expect to remain a democracy of any kind under those conditions. Plus climate. Etc.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
All of these Wall Street types are backing Amazon in this because they know it too. They know there’s no justification for not extending this to all employers. It’s anti-competitive NOT to extend it. It’s a blatantly skewed playing field that benefits larger employers and newer industries and taxes smaller employers and older industries to pay for it. That’s the next logical step here- why should ANY employer pay taxes? They’ll shamelessly make that argument in 5 years, too. THEN they’ll argue markets and playing fields and how we can’t pick winners and losers, but not just yet, not while they’re busy skewing them.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Staggering crowd for Kamala in South Carolina (photo).
Betty Cracker
@Princess: I agree that the fundamentals are unsustainable, and the next president will either take that on or tinker around the edges and kick the can down the road until it all blows up. I’d prefer the former. My hope is that Warren’s presence in the race will change the conversation, whether she wins the nomination or not. I believe we’ll end up with the most progressive platform in decades, regardless of who is the standard-bearer. Most of the energy in the party moves in that direction right now.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I was struck this weekend by how I must live in a bubble because the TV people were all horrified that Amazon pulled out of the deal and said the “far left” had gone too far. And it’s not like I was watching Fox.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Yep, again. I am wholly disgusted with the skewing of American law in the favor of corporations. Short of a constitutional amendment, I’m not sure there is a solution.
Kay
IMO, Dave Weigel is better than he used to be, which is nice to see. He’s better at his job than he was 5 years ago. He really covers the Democratic races, reports on them, without falling into narrative patterns about what’s “really” going on. There’s no snarky, ultra sophisticated remove from the action. The context he adds is historical, factual context “she was the AG in 2003..” that sort of thing. He was just excellent covering the midterms, IMO. He was the first political reporter on Twitter who said “Democrats are actually running on healthcare” – which they were- when the emerging narrative was “Democrats are only running against Trump and where are the positive solutions?”.
You hope you get better at your job rather than stay the same or get worse, and I think he has.
Baud
@Kay:
They ask themselves that question every day.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: So it’s now a “far left” proposition to want Amazon to pay it’s fair share of taxes? To not get govt subsidies?
Interesting.
I guess I’m a commie.
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It’s such dumb commentary. There’s no real discussion of it. There’s all kinds of factors here! There’s a “displacement” factor in a place as congested as NYC and with such high land values. It’s not “Amazon jobs or no jobs”. That’s not the question. They’re PICKING Amazon jobs – giving Amazon SPECIAL incentives. THOSE jobs, THAT employer. There’s another question too- who WILL pay taxes if these big, favored companies don’t? Does everyone get a freebie? Ok, then who replaces that revenue? Individuals, right? They’re the only choice left. There aren’t endless ways to tax and raise revenue. If they lose one stream it has to come from another.
debbie
How many golf trips would equal the money being grabbed from military housing construction projects? I think at the very least Trump ought to make some sort of personal sacrifice for this national emergency. //
Kay
@Baud:
This was Kasich’s favorite thing. He seated these make-work “economic development” boards in every county. They are crony political appointees here. So they’d pick a business to shower incentives on, and all the existing employers then say “wait a minute- why am I not worth all this taxpayer largess”? and then you’re racing downhill as fast as you can.
The business they chose here, “RuralLogic” is sort of locally infamous because it failed in 5 years. They chose it because they’re morons and anything with “tech” or “STEM” in it even tangentially gets them irrationally exuberant.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: They’re the JOB CREATORS!!!!! We should be on grateful knees thanking them for the opportunity to toil away in their sweat shops, at least until they destroy those jo… ooopps, I mean lay people off due to an economic downturn.
debbie
@Kay:
You’re arguing against something that’s gone on since the 1980s. Where I am, there’s constant pushback about corporate tax breaks and incentives, but it never changes. It only continues.
Baud
@Kay:
I should start a company called eSTEMblockchaintech Corp. and just wait for the money to roll in.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
You get it.
Sab
OT. Commenter Sloane Ranger posted a really interesting Breixit comment at the dead end of last night’s Russian Ratfuck open thread. It was posted about 4am eastern time so probably only a handful of American insomniacs saw it. #85.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly:
Everyone know that.
Baud
@Sab:
https://balloon-juice.com/2019/02/17/russiafvckery-open-thread-brexit-too-also/#comment-7196140
Kay
@debbie:
Right. I think if they’re going to “analyze” this they should question some of their assumptions, though. If they all start with “this is a good thing and there’s no trade offs or costs involved” then they’re not analyzing anything. They’re advocating for Amazon to get special subsidies. Maybe that’s defensible, I don’t know, but that’s what they’re arguing and they can’t rely on “we’ve done this since the 1980s”. I can’t help but notice all this shitty policy came about in the 1980’s, BTW. It might be time to re-examine “the 1980’s” in general.
Someone has to pay taxes. Who or what should pay them? They can only collect so much from fees and fining people.
debbie
@Sab:
Russia has its fingers in just about every international pie. I can’t believe the lack of outcry. Who would have thought George Kennan was psychic?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Once corporations start paying taxes, can nationalization be far behind?
Dorothy A. Winsor
The previous thread on Kaepernick seems related to me, since big sports teams routinely expect special breaks, ie subsidies from the locals. The argument for giving Amazon a break is jobs. I find I’m unable to articulate the argument for stadiums.
debbie
@Kay:
The only “analysis” they would need is to analyze past results of every break given. Every promise to create jobs or housing in exchange for tax breaks. And also analyze just how much money for schools and infrastructure has been lost. Here, it would be in the billions, easily.
Kay
@Baud:
We use a little two person tech repair and system set up company they run out of a storefront they rented. I told them they should threaten to move to the next county over unless they get a state subsidy for existing. Why stop with states? Let’s have counties race to the bottom- blocks, neighborhoods.
Bess
@Kay:
Why should Amazon not get a special deal? Tax breaks to attract business into an area is common practice. Is there some reason why Amazon should be excluded?
And why does there seem to be some sort of special hate for Amazon and Bezos on this site?
Working in an Amazon fulfillment center is probably no harder than typical jobs where one has to perform physical labor. And Amazon doesn’t jerk employees around, permitting them only 25 hour weeks so that health benefits can be withheld. If you want to hate on companies that treat employees poorly aim that at Walmart and fast food places.
Bezos purchased the Washington Post which is pretty much the most liberal large newspaper in the country and he hasn’t steered the editorial policy to the right like has happened to so much of our media.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: One thing about being a union carpenter, it’s very clear from the gitgo why they are called CONtractors.
Citizen Alan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Or, you know, getting a SCOTUS willing to overturn Citizens United and other pro-corporate cases. This is why I will despise the Sanders-Stein Left forever. Because if Hillary were President, we’d be in a new golden age of liberal jurisprudence. But no, baby had to have his pacifier, and the Purity Left had to demonize the Democratic nominee for being too bourgeois or whatever.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Republicans disagree.
Baud
@Citizen Alan: Yeah, the downplaying of the Supreme Court in 2016 was unforgivable.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Oh that ones easy: They are economic multipliers. Stadiums are magnets for all kinds of things: Conventions, sports tournaments, conventions, sports teams, conventions, political rallies, conventions … So what if they sit empty for 300 days every year?
Dorothy A. Winsor
Open thread: Here’s a fascinating video about how illuminated manuscripts were made. It starts with making the parchment and works on from there.
Baud
@Bess:
People don’t like the system because they correctly believe that, more often than not, the deals that are cut are not good deals for communities. Amazon’s selection process here really highlighted that concern. This has nothing to do with the Washington Post.
JPL
@Bess: IMO it’s not just Amazon, but it’s the idea that we have to subsidize corporations to provide jobs, when we can’t afford universal health care. If we are going to subsidize jobs, why not improve our roads.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Depends on the type of stadium. Football is the worst for that. Most expensive and fewest alternative uses.
Bess
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The argument for stadiums is an increase in hotel and restaurant business. And ‘city pride’, which may or may not have value.
I’m not arguing that it’s right to use economic benefits to attract business, of any sort, but it’s something that cities and states started doing. To expect a business to pass up additional profit out of some higher nobel calling is nonsensical.
The textile industry moved from England to New England to take advantage of available hydro power to run the mills and lower shipping costs. It costs more to ship bulky raw materials than finished product. Then the textile industry moved to Appalachia for cheaper TVA electricity and cheaper labor. Then it moved offshore chasing even lower costs. Now that China’s labor costs are rising we’re starting to see some manufacturing move from China to countries with cheaper labor.
Businesses react to economic reality. If we don’t want cities/states to give incentives then we need to legislate against it. And we also need to realize that will put other countries in a stronger position to acquire those businesses.
Bess
@Baud: If the deal was bad for NYC then that is NYC’s fault. They should not have entered into an agreement in which they were likely to lose.
Kay
@debbie:
The school funding debate is dumb too. The main reason schools cost more than they did in 1956 is because schools didn’t educate children with handicaps in 1956. They also lopped off the bottom 25% of their graduating class, who dropped out, never to be heard from or counted again There was this huge civil rights revolution around children with handicaps with activist parents and federal legislation and everything- a whole historical and societal shift, and they’re all pretending it didn’t happen. It was the right thing to do but it costs more. Any way you slice it it costs more. Ask any school board member – they can recite that it’s 7000 annual for one kid and 14000 annual for another. We average that out, because they’re PUBLIC schools. That’s why it went from 7k average to 11k average. It’s math.
These are the conservative “school experts”. This is literally what they do for a living, full time, supposedly- they think about schools. They ignore fully 3/4’s of the story. They’re not thinking at all.
Bess
@JPL: I’m not going to argue with that logic. I’m simply trying to keep the discussion fact based and not turning into a “true progressive” attack on businesses that are operating within the boundaries we have created.
JPL
The president is tweeting. McCabe and Rosenstein are committing treasonous acts and Sessions is a beauty.
In other words, it’s Monday
JPL
@Bess: That is the situation that we created.
Baud
@Bess: Sure. People were upset with how much NY offered. Apparently, more than Virginia did. That’s why there were protests.
Kay
@Bess:
But now you’re measuring the worth of companies based on factors other than “jobs”, which job is slightly better- Amazon warehouse or Wal Mart? Amazon management job or Amazon warehouse? Now it’s a class division. Bezos is “better” because he bought the Washington Post? What if he bought the WSJ? No tax subsidy for him?
If you support the tax breaks and the subsidies then every employer should get them, the exact same ones, and you have to replace or forego the lost revenue. The rule is no employer pays taxes and they all get sweeteners. The same sweeteners, according to some kind of metric per employee, because it can’t be subjective.
JMG
@Kay: On Twitter yesterday Paul Krugman had what I thought was a pretty balanced summary of the benefits and drawbacks of the Amazon deal. Main benefit for NYC and NYS was addition of relatively high-paying jobs, meaning significant tax revenue from Amazon employees if not Amazon itself. Main drawbacks were stress placed on already inadequate transportation infrastructure and additional demand in an already inadequate housing supply. In his opinion, the equation was fairly evenly balanced between pro and con, making the subsidies a questionable public investment. But that’s all it was, questionable, not outrageous. In my opinion the actual impact of no Amazon on NYC will be minimal, but it will be used as a weapon by all sides in New York’s endless arguments about everything.
Baud
@Bess:
That’s a noble objective but I’m not sure how it applies here. No one is arguing that Amazon broke the law.
The Midnight Lurker
TeeVee say Amazon leave because mean women and SOCIALISM!
And TeeVee never wrong!
debbie
@Baud:
They were upset at how much NY gave up and not having a seat at the negotiation table.
Bess
@Kay: From what I’ve observed over 50+ years involvement in education at various levels is that we also have greatly grown the number of non-teaching positions. We now have layer and layer along with multiple branches of people who we never needed before and whom we pay salaries much higher than what we pay teachers.
That’s in addition to being more inclusive. Educating all is probably cheaper overall than what we commonly did in the past. Those who weren’t considered appropriate for public schools were often institutionalized in state hospitals which cost far more per person than keeping students in their homes and provided the educational services they require.
Luthe
@Kay: Also, schools are a form of infrastructure where the cost increase on a step-basis, not a linear one. Every time you add a teacher in response to more kids in the system or the demand for a new specialized subject, the cost goes up by one whole salary because there is no such thing as a one-half of a teacher. It’s not like road repairs where each additional mile of road increases the cost on a straight-line basis.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Agreed about Weigel.
Ladyraxterinok
@Baud: Toward the end of the 2000 sElection one of the contributors to Mike Malloy’s forum wrote that the media spin was so strong that Gore could win and we’d never know it!!!
Never forget–the media cosortium studying the FL
ballots released their report on 9/12 -2001–all except 1 concluded Gore got more votes in FL!!
Ken
@JPL:
I don’t speak tweet, especially not the Trump dialect, but is that a compliment? Didn’t he fire Sessions a few months ago and rage-tweet about how disloyal he’d been?
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Also, school funding is local and wildly unequal from district to district. The biggest problems are in the poorest districts but average spending numbers are skewed by the richest districts. Complaints about the bad return from national per-student spending can be as meaningless as those tendentious computations of “your” average tax burden.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
As far as I know, they are all money losers, which is why they want govts to build them. I despise Stan Kroenke but credit where credit is due: He is building the Rams new stadium with totally private funds.
………………………..
We will see if he can actually make the gamble pay off in LA. I have doubts.
OzarkHillbilly
@Bess:
We? Follow the money.
JGabriel
@West of the Rockies:
An obsession with costumes and appearance seems to be a defining feature of the pathology known as fascism – see Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and Trump for examples.
And, really, the first thing any of us should say to a Trump supporter who criticizes the sartorial choices of any Democratic candidate is, “Seriously? You voted for an orange man in a bouffant.”
The Midnight Lurker
And another thing… Amazon’s search engine sucks. You’re better off starting in Google (or freakin’ Bing) and finding your way to the item that Bozos didn’t know he had.
No wonder the guy’s emails and nasty bits are all over the web.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JGabriel: True. And reporters missed the point on Harris’s shopping trip, which was to highlight these businesses owned by women who’d struggled from poverty. I guess they needed to open a tech company to count. Or maybe a coal mine.
JGabriel
@OzarkHillbilly:
Seems like every day is one of those days these days.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I googled but couldn’t find stats. In article from 2016 said the LA basketball stadium was the most profitable, because it is in use most of the year.
Ladyraxterinok
@Baud: Thank you very much for link!
Bess
@Kay: First, I did not say that I support tax breaks and other subsidies for businesses. (In general. In some cases subsides are highly appropriate.)
Bezos is better for ‘us’ because the Washington Post still exists and seems to be a better paper than what Murdoch or Sinclair would have turned it into. Had Bezos purchased the WSJ and turned it back into an objective business journal that would have been a good thing. Instead we have the Journal as another Murdoch mouthpiece.
I’m circling back to my “In general, ….”. No, not all employers should be treated equally. If the company stands to do things which would be beneficial to the country/world then it should be given special consideration.
Subsidizing the wind industry brought the cost of wind generation down from $0.39/kWh to about $0.02/kWh. Solar panels have fallen from $100/watt to under $0.30/watt. That’s mainly due to the US and a few other governments subsidizing wind and solar. Those lower cost renewable technologies give us a reasonable route to limiting extreme climate change.
Subsidizing some labor intensive manufacturing to set up operations in Central America could benefit us. Create some jobs and generate some capital to get those economies growing.
Subsidizing some high tech companies to move into the Rust Belt should also help out. Create some good paying jobs which, in turn, will support a number of less well paying but decent jobs.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Thanks for sharing. So amazing!
Bess
@debbie: It seems to me that people living in the area where the development would have happened did not want a lot of higher paying jobs created. Jobs that they wouldn’t be qualified for.
The concern seemed to be that they were worried about rising housing prices and finding themselves and their children forced out of their neighborhoods.
tokyokie
@Princess: Your reasoning for supporting Warren is pretty much the same as mine. Although her being a fellow Okie is a plus for me as well.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
They should first look to their own (Melania) for questionable fashion choices.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: That makes sense. I wonder how much the Rams stadium might affect their bottom line. I would suspect not much, but who knows.
debbie
@Bess:
Yes, for those reasons too.
Ladyraxterinok
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Pay for larger number of rmp,oyees? Jobs building stadium? Will attract many more out-of-town fans? Will greatly increase prestige of the city to have gorgeous new stadium? Seems like I’ve read variations on these claims over the yrs.
debbie
@Ladyraxterinok:
And none of those reasons/justifications ever pan out.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ladyraxterinok: I’m half joking but the willingness to build sports stadiums (and scorn heaped on clothing stores) seems like a sign that men still rule the world.
Kay
@Bess:
I think there are flashpoints where people question assumptions. It happened to Wal Mart a decade ago- they were the driver of the Fight for Fifteen movement (which has had measurable success). The mantra prior to that had been minimum wage increases kill jobs.
Bezos just happened to hit at a point where people said “why do we do this, again?” If they want to do it they should set up rules where it isn’t subjective. Where it isn’t a “bidding war”, but is instead conscious and planned. Or you end up with Foxconn, which, incidentally also got a ton of press as a disaster and may have played into this pushback.
Kay
@Bess:
This division doesn’t hold anymore. Modern manufacturing is “high tech”. They’re computerized systems. My son is an electrician and he kept an entire plastic bottle maker running with 11 people. They’re not line workers, not “operators”. They maintain systems.
Bess
We might not want to make too much of Foxconn. Remember that Donald has really disrupted normal business practices and China/a Chinese company may have decided that investing in the US is not a wise move at this point.
BruceFromOhio
@Patricia Kayden: This this this. I am very much enamored with Sen. Harris, and will happily, joyfully fill in the bubble for any of them.
Love to see every one of them give the old-white-guy political media establishment a major sad, daily if possible.
Ladyraxterinok
@JGabriel: IIRC Maureen Dowd wrote an extremely nasty article attacking Gore for getting advice from (horror of horrors!!) a woman about what he should wear on the campaign trail!!
Bess
@Kay: Yes, but the people who program and maintain the systems earn fairly good money. They’re going to spend most of that money close to where they work.
The country could probably be helped were Amazon to locate their new headquarters in a Middle West city that has suffered by the loss of manufacturers. But the problem would be getting high quality executives and employees to locate to a less desirable part of the country.
Ladyraxterinok
@tokyokie: Yeah OK!! Family here in same city since grandparents and g-grandparents moved here in 1906!
Kay
@Bess:
Or, they could locate where they want to locate and pay taxes. Because this is never ending. In ten years they’ll be back and they’ll threaten to RE locate if they don’t get a new deal. In Ohio they count those retained jobs as “net jobs”- when the headquarters threatens to relocate and we bribe them to stay.
Kay
@Bess:
It reaches a point where it’s unfair. The hospital here had trouble attracting physicians and nurse practitioners and PA’s, so they started offering help with student loans. But it wasn’t retroactive, so my nurse practitioner says “why don’t i get this? I’m a local person and mid career so I don’t?”
Are we a country that does this elaborate smart and equitable planning? Maybe we could be, but we’re not now. We’re just throwing stuff at the wall, hoping it works.
matt
NYC doesn’t need to give companies special deals to get them to locate there. Companies should pay their taxes. Corrupt backroom deals are corrupt. The status quo is not automatically good and right.
H.E.Wolf
Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are extremely rich white businessmen whose companies have a reputation of mistreating workers. Both of them inspire passionate devotion and defense in some circles.
My dad once heard a co-worker say about someone’s girlfriend, “Fine type, if you like that type.” My own type is more Harry Truman than Heavyweight Trillionaire, but I’m not out to change anyone’s mind. The heart wants what it wants.
Bess
@Kay:
IIRC, Amazon chose where they wanted to locate and then looked to see what their best deal might be. Businesses are in business to make money, not to generate revenue to pay expenses they don’t need to pay.
It’s how we do business in the US. If enough feel we shouldn’t do that sort of business then write some legislation.
Bess
@H.E.Wolf: You might be smart to do some research to see if there’s any facts to back up your statement about the way Musk treats his employees.
There are a number of myths about Musk that have been promoted by people on this site, including front pagers. IMHO, Musk has been treated in much the same fashion that HRC has been treated.
Bobby Thomson
@Princess: the acts needed to change that will require supermajorities in Congress. The president is a bit player in that story.
Kay
@Bess:
The very things they say attract them to NYC are the things they don’t want to pay for. Someone else paid for them. “Infrastructure and an educated workforce” weren’t free. Companies paid for them. They won’t just continue to exist independent of sustaining investment. The next group who uses them has to pay for them too. It’s not a long term plan, living off prior investments. It’s not sustainable.
Bobby Thomson
@Bess: I do know he used Twitter to libel someone as a pedophile who had the timerity to criticize his uninformed grandstanding.
Bess
@Kay:
Do we know that the NYC/Amazon deal would have resulted in a net loss to NYC? Or did NYC expect to gain?
I don’t know what other locations Amazon might have considered but standard practice would be to consider all the advantages and disadvantages of each and make a choice based on the net gain for the company.
I understand that you don’t like the fact that Amazon was able to bargain for some sweeteners but, again, that’s how we now do business in this country. I suspect the same happens in other countries.
That being the case then efforts should be directed at the system of offering sweeteners to attract businesses and not at specific businesses by making wise business decisions.
Bess
@Bobby Thomson:
The person that Elon called a pedo was not an employee. Vernon Unsworth was someone who was involved in the cave rescue and made an inaccurate attack on Musk. Musk fired back and, unfortunately, called Unworth a pedo.
There is zero backing for the claim that Musk did any grandstanding. Unsworth made that up. Along with his claim that the rescue pod that Musk delivered would have never been able to travel through the passageway.
moonbat
@Kay: Agreed. Seconded. Co-signed. If corporations are people, they are citizens too. Any person moving to NYC knows they are paying higher rent and taxes to live in one of the most interesting and vibrant cities in the world, corporations should have to make that same calculation. Infrastructure don’t come cheap and if Bezos Inc. is going to be a big user of infrastructure, he’s going to have to pay for it. All this offloading of the cost of civilization to the low wage earners has got to stop.
Bobby Thomson
@Bess: well, person I’ve never seen here before today, hunh unh.
Omnes Omnibus
Hey, kids, the sea lion is back.
Bess
@Omnes Omnibus: OK, I get it. You’re fine with stock shorters attempting to sink Tesla so that they can profit off destroying the company that has done more than all other companies combined to move us from petroleum to battery powered transportation.
Anyone who stands up for climate change solutions should just shut the fuck up and let false statements stand unchallenged.
That’s your position, Bubba?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bess: You have a quite a vivid imagination, don’t you?
Bess
@Omnes Omnibus: What do you mean by that?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bess: You seem to have made-up an entire world view that you attribute to me based on my referring to you as a sea lion. What the fuck did you think I meant?
Bess
What I have observed is that there are a small number of people on this site, including you, that have attacked me for attempting to defend Musk/Tesla against false claims.
Apparently asking for someone to furnish support for a claim they make is to be swatted down by calling it sea lioning.
By your actions you support the myths that have damaged Tesla and made it harder for Tesla to get through the tough period of bringing the Model 3 to market and making the company profitable.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well at least we are no longer stuck in our cubicles in the basement of the CIA spending our time spreading authoritarian propaganda on top 10,000 blogs!
How have you been, OO? I hope everything is going well. We’ve been on a turn off the news and just listen to music kick at my house.
J R in WV
@Bess:
Have you never heard the old saying:
Obviously you never learned the lesson that old story attempts to teach!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Princess: That particular quotation is Dave Weigel’s take on Harris. I disagree with it. I think that Harris wants to fight the fire with hope and unity, because that’s what will beat the Republicans. We’re talking about differing political approaches getting urgent change done. Not differences in the candidates’ sense of urgency. Weigel puts it into the same outdated frame that had progressives upset at Obama for not delivering unicorns during a time of unprecedented Republican opposition. It was misguided then and it’s misguided now.
laura
@Bess: Tesla is not great for workers.
Pay, working conditions and job-related injuries are rife.
Anti-union as fuck and it shows.
Sue me.
Bess
@J R in WV: And what hole is that?
Is attempting to relay facts actually hole digging? Are the virtuous on this site those who support false information?
Bess
@laura:
Pay is typical for the job. Plus the employees get stock options. Musk has pointed out that no car plants with UAW contracts receive stock options.
Working conditions are fine. Musk expects Tesla employees to work hard but that is not an unreasonable requirement.
There was an initial charge of high worker injury until someone pointed out that the Tesla data was being compared to Silicon Valley worker injury rates. Once Tesla was compared to other US car companies it was obvious that Tesla worker injury rates are normal for the industry.
Musk doesn’t see why workers want a union but he has done nothing to stop them from forming one.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Bess: Elon Musk is an asshole to many, including his employees.
Defend him all you want, but his character defects are a problem for Tesla and his other companies.
And honestly, if he really cared about Climate Change, maybe he could have done something more to stop the Republicans from forcing another several generations of it down our throats. It would be good for Tesla’s bottom line too, since Dems will raise subsidies for Americans to buy Telsas and other EVs. But the dude is a greedy antisocial asshole. It’s a shame.
And it’s a shame about Ryan Adams, while I’m at it. Fuck that guy too (sincerely, his #1 fan). Fuck. I’ve had a shitty week.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: I’ve been fine. Thanks for asking. I’ve also been very busy, so I haven’t been commenting here very much recently.
J R in WV
@Bess:
Too dumb to know you’re in a hole, let alone to stop digging? Looks like it, dude!
ETA:
If all you’re accomplishing is to enrage people, how is that supposed to help your “hero” Mr. Musk?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Bess: Do you get paid for this PR? You should, it’s a valuable service and probably takes a bit of work!
kindness
I want Kamela to win the presidency. That would be the awesome. But I don’t want another Senator to run as VP. We need those Democratic Senators right where they are to fight Mitch. I think Beto would be a great choice for VP.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@kindness: I like Beto, but I’d like to see an all-female ticket this time. I’d also like to see someone from the Midwest. Maybe Tammy Baldwin from WI (although Klobuchar is probably more likely and both are Senators…)
Uncle Cosmo
@OzarkHillbilly: You left out a letter there, OH.
JOB CREMATORS.
Either they ship the jobs overseas directly or they get bought out by some corp that does it.
MisterForkbeard
@kindness: Kamala is my current favorite, but I’ll admit that the amount of racism and sexism thrown at her (that’s gleefully repeated by various purity leftists) is already making reading anything about her a headache.
The comments on any Facebook post by her are kind of scary. Lots of supporters and TONS of “sleeping your way to the top!” or “hot sauce!” or “you need to apologize for Jussie Smollett” or just lots of uninformed garbage about her time as AG… or just calling her a corporatist based on no evidence. Or just whining because she’s actually highlighting black people during black history month.
It’s already exhausting. >_<
Neldob
@Bess: And we keep expecting schools to do more and more (health, gun issues, social services) all for the better often. Also, many of the severely disabled I taught were both in school and in institutions. They were very expensive to teach (or at least try to).
Bess
It’s almost midnight where I am so I’m not going to bother with this crowd any longer. You are, in my humble opinion, some people who generally are on the ‘good side’ of issues but for some reason you’ve allowed yourself to believe stuff that simply isn’t true.
I really don’t understand why you refuse to question some of your opinions when someone points out that they might not be correct. And I don’t understand why you think bullying is appropriate. But that’s for you do deal with.
Really, it doesn’t matter if you walk around with a head full of crap when it comes to Musk and Tesla. His/their success speaks for itself. We stand a good chance of largely getting petroleum for personal transportation behind us in the next 20 or so years. If it wasn’t for Musk/Tesla it would take much longer because no other company was willing to do the heavy lifting required to demonstrate the advantages of EVs, to build affordable EVs, and to create the infrastructure to allow long distance driving with EVs.
Tesla has now made the transition from a struggling company to a profitable and rapidly growing company. Interestingly, once Tesla had a couple of profitable quarters most of the crap you believe largely disappeared from the media. Apparently the short sellers realized that they had failed to crash Tesla’s stock price and moved on.
Tesla is now by far the most successful seller of luxury cars in the US and has taken significant market share from companies like BMW and Mercedes. It’s left those companies rushing to produce their own EVs in order to stay in business. This was Musk’s plan. Produce a superior product and force other manufacturers to move away from ICEVs.
Within the next couple of months Tesla should start producing the $35k version of the Model 3. Due to lower operating costs Tesla will sell a mid size luxury car for about the same as a tarted up Camry. Cost of ownership over the life of the vehicles will be less for the M3.
The first Model 3s should start being produced this year in the new Chinese factory. The building is on schedule to be completed this summer and contracts are in place for batteries from Chinese companies.
Also this year we should see the short range (300 mile) version of Tesla’s 18-wheeler. Due to the much lower operating costs for a battery powered semi we should see a rapid drop off in diesel powered big rigs. Both climate change and air pollution improvements.
Next year Tesla should introduce their Model Y which is expected to be a more affordable EV. The purchase price may be at or below the average purchase price of US cars.
Tesla’s fine. Almost all the people who work at Tesla love it. Tesla gets hundreds of applications for every skilled job it advertises. They get their choice of the best engineers because the best want to be part of a project that is doing something special.
So you folks have a good day. But when someone makes an untrue charge against a candidate you support you might want to remember that you …
Well, you know,…