Let’s dive a little deeper into the almost trade war with Colombia that Trump started, Colombian President Gustavo Petro fired back to escalate, and then both sides backed down.
Some context: Immigrants are regularly repatriated to their home countries, apparently usually in civilian charters. Trump has been tweaking Latin American countries by repatriating immigrants using military planes. Brazil was the first country to protest this by removing 88 repatriated Brazilians from a US military aircraft that made an unscheduled stop in Manaus. Those Brazilians were in handcuffs and shackles, and were not allowed to use the restroom in flight. Brazilian President Lula da Silva and Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski both made a stink about it, and Brazilian TV carried the whole event. A Brazilian-American on BlueSky has a thread on it — apparently Lula compared the flights to slave ships.
This incident made the rounds on TV in Latin America. The next act is that two military planes that were in-route to Colombia and had already been granted the right to land had that clearance revoked by the Colombian government. This pissed off Trump, who immediately threatened 25% tariffs and a host of other sanctions.
Let’s take a moment to review the bio of President Gustavo Petro: he joined the M-19 guerrilla group at age 17, was arrested and tortured in 1985, became a politician when M-19 and the government made peace, formed a new political party because of issues with the party he was formerly associated with, became president in 2022 and is term limited. He is known as a tempestuous dude, apparently, and when he was accused of having an affair with a trans woman, his response was basically, so what and fuck you for hating trans people.
So, in other words, the ideal guy to get in a pissing match with Trump. And he sure did that, because his response to Trump’s sanctions was an absolute screed on Xitter: Here’s a translation of it on BlueSky. There is no way I can do justice to it with a summary, but the net is that Petro said “25%, right back at you”. At one point Petro apparently said “50%, let’s go” because Trump had threatened that in a week.
I was following this on BlueSky while watching football and drinking beer, and it was interesting. The posters there immediately got exercised about the damage this would do to the price of coffee — even though Brazil and Colombia are neck and neck as far as the main source of US coffee, many countries are in the running and Colombia at most supplies 20% of our coffee. Colombia is by far the largest source of cut flowers for the US, and it’s 3 weeks from Valentine’s Day, so that would be an even bigger deal.
By the end of the evening, this whole thing had calmed down. Colombia maybe got what they wanted in the first place, which is to have their immigrants repatriated without putting them in chains. Trump can claim a victory saying that he got Colombia to back down. (The spin you’ll hear from Fox News (not linking) is that Colombia was so scared of Daddy Trump that they offered their Presidential airplane to do repatriation, but that happened before Petro escalated.)
Here’s the AP live feed on this, and here’s good analysis of the whole dust-up from Dan Drezner. The Guardian has a good summary of the whole event.
Politically, I think the way this shakes out is that both Trump and Petro get to claim some sort of victory in the local papers, and Trump is certainly going to spin it like a win.
That all said, Mexico refused a military deportation flight, too, and Trump didn’t say boo. For the reasons why, perhaps consult the graph at the top of the page. Claudia Sheinbaum has announced that Mexico is ready to take 35,000 repatriated citizens immediately, btw, so it was the military flight, not the repatriation, that was probably the issue here.
Here’s what I’m taking home from this whole debacle:
- Don’t get worked up about possible tariffs until they actually happen. Trump backed off, here, too, and he will probably do it again.
- Trump’s threats are the max immediately, which makes him an unstable trading partner. A small country like Colombia will have to back down initially, but in the end, they’re going to look for other trading partners, and China is going to benefit from this.
- This is just another example of how Trump just owns the news cycle by shit-stirring, and he goes fast — there was little time for anyone to comment on or digest this before it was over. Welcome to the thousand things all at once Trump Presidency, we’ve been here before.
- This would have shaken out a lot differently if Mexico or Canada were involved. See graph above.
Please keep comments on the topic of immigration and tariffs. Thanks!
suzanne
A perfect distillation of why most actual businesspeople voted for Harris: uncertainty is terrible for business.
Belafon
Just to show that Trump’s true skill is he has no redeeming qualities.
Phylllis
@Belafon: I’m a little in love with that guy. Just saying.
JerseyBeard
China grins at this. American hegemony is dead which is probably good. We don’t know what will replace it which is probably bad. If crypto fills in the potential dollar-void we are fucked.
ExPatExDem
Transporting out of status immigrants via military aircraft is going to be a red line for most places. These people aren’t enemy combatants. A lot of US Ambassadors and Charges D’Affaires are going to be receiving diplomatic notes from their host nation very soon if the practice continues.
Raoul Paste
@JerseyBeard: I remember Bill Clinton’s farewell speech where he said ‘you know, we’re not always going to be number one’
Villago Delenda Est
The convicted felon yet again fucks up with bullying tactics, and eventually he’s going to get in a fucking shooting war with someone over them.
Betty Cracker
@Phylllis: Same. He had me when he quoted Gabriel García Márquez (Bluesky thread linked above).
Old Man Shadow
I can’t think of a better way of pushing Latin America towards China (or perhaps India) and ensure less cooperation on our national interests than trying to revive 19th century American imperialism.
suzanne
@Villago Delenda Est:
No kidding.
Also, not letting people use the bathroom is probably considered inhumane treatment, depending on how long we’re talking about.
Old Man Shadow
@suzanne: From southern USA to Sao Paulo would be 10-13 hours.
ExPatExDem
@Old Man Shadow: Concur. I think the next four years is going to see a lot of Central and South America joining BRICS.
p.a.
I wonder how this shit is reported to tRump? Do his toadies watch Fux news first so their info matches DonOLD’s main source of intel and they avoid having to even try explaining discrepancies to shit-for-brains? How much will bad decisions based on accurate (but shaded) info be compared to bad decisions based on the whacko wurlitzer, when filtered through Don Dementia’s brain?
Academic exercise I guess…
JML
I was today years old when I found out that Ireland was #7 on the list of countries we bought stuff from. Huh.
Starfish (she/her)
I really like the way you have been informing us of how other world leaders have been responding to Trump. The ones who have been winning this have not been the ones saying, “Let’s go make nice.” They have been the ones willing to punch a bully in the nose. We need some Senators and Representatives to learn from this.
suzanne
@Old Man Shadow: I know in workplaces and prisons, that would be far, far in excess of what is allowed. I don’t know if deportation under INS or ICE has to follow that standard.
Are they even providing drinking water if they’re not letting people use the restroom?! For fuck’s sake.
VFX Lurker
It won’t be crypto. It will be whatever currency people trust the most. In the past, it was the pound sterling. Today, it’s the American dollar.
I can picture people turning to euro, yen or yuan, but not crypto.
Jeffro
Tariffs and deportations = prices go UP, America. Y’all were warned.
I had a really good conversation today with the lady who owns the housecleaning service that we use. She knows we’re quite aligned on politics so she was very open with her take on current events. She said half of her workforce is worried sick about being deported; the other half is worried about their friends in the first half.
Also: “who’s going to do any yard work or roofing this coming spring and summer? who’s going to pick all the crops? what am I going to do when my husband (who’s half non-white) gets picked up by ICE just because he doesn’t ‘look right’?” She has always been quietly anti-trump but now she’s furious.
Villago Delenda Est
ICE is the American Gestapo.
JerseyBeard
@VFX Lurker: I can picture people flocking to the dumbest possible scenario. Unfortunately, I feel like recent history backs me up on this. Would be thrilled to be wrong.
Jeffro
@JML: right?
I was surprised to see Mexico ahead of China. I know I go a little heavy on the guac at times but apparently it’s having quite an impact(!)
Steve LaBonne
I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords. (Actually not at all, but that’s where we’re headed.)
Belafon
@JML: And it all happens in March. /sarc
delphinium
@Villago Delenda Est: Small dick waving is no way to run a country.
And as other commenters have previously noted, using military planes and not giving a head’s up to the countries involved is stupidity defined. Glad these countries aren’t having it.
suzanne
@Jeffro: Lots of cars come from Mexico.
Steve LaBonne
@delphinium: The military planes were a total clown move. Classic Trump.
Phylllis
Here’s the thing about those jobs. They are physically hard. It’s not just that ‘Americans won’t do that work’, it’s that they probably can’t. Oh, they could for maybe an hour or two, but I can assure you even the fittest gym rat would struggle with bending over all day, filling multiple 40-lb bushel buckets with vegetables, then tossing said bucket up to another person on a flatbed truck at the end of the row.
Denali5
I should have stayed away from the news. Was ready to panic hoard coffee.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
I’ll take China over Russia, to be honest.
Since Democrat is off the table for so many voters.
rikyrah
Can someone in the tech field explain to me what the Chinese did over the weekend that can up- end our AI companies? Is it that serious?
Kayla Rudbek
@JML: Ireland apparently has a lot of pharmaceutical and tech companies having a business presence/base there for tax purposes.
K-Mo
@suzanne:
Totally agree about uncertainty and business. And “actual businesspeople.” Trump is not such a person.
Top takeaway was #2:
“but in the end, they’re going to look for other trading partners”
Glory b
@VFX Lurker: Someone reported that BRICS members are in favor of dropping the US dollar and returning to gold.
Jeffro
@Phylllis: oh we talked about that too. Not just picking crops, either. I heard plenty about why she won’t hire (in her words) ‘redneck white women’.
“And I say that as a white woman with an accent myself, Fro!”
Oh my. She was on a tear, that’s for sure.
Jeffro
Jeffro
@rikyrah: I think it’s also a good excuse for other nervousness that our blessed ‘market’ is having, or is about to have, re: tariffs and deportations.
They’ll blame the market drops on anything BUT trumpov, that’s for sure.
Belafon
@Glory b: Someone might point to them that all that will do is make a few rich people immensely richer since there isn’t enough gold to match just the US economy at current prices, not to mention the world.
stinger
There is absolutely no “art of the deal” here; his go-to move is just to start throwing his excess weight around.
Glory b
@rikyrah: Im not in tech by a long shot, but my understanding is that a Chinese company has created open source AI that rivals NVIDIA and other AI companies, causing a significant drop in their stock prices.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: released an AI engine with fewer license restrictions than ours. A good one apparently. So, international competition with the likes of OpenAI. Hard to see how to slap a tariff on it.
Steve LaBonne
@Jeffro: This is just a sneak preview of what will happen when the whole AI bubble bursts.
Starfish (she/her)
@rikyrah: Our AI companies are burning lots of money and giving their products away or selling them for less than it would take to break even. China just came in even cheaper so some companies are wondering if they want to continue to throw billions in the AI bonfire. But there is a chance that China may be lying about how cheap their product was to develop or run. We will have to wait until everyone runs their internal tests on the product.
Steve LaBonne
@Glory b: Welcome to Great Depression II in those countries.
kindness
You know who had the best Trump’s First Week Back? Putin. I truly believe Trump wants to take the US out of NATO and is fishing for any excuse to do it. Why else threaten to attack US allies economically & militarily (and not mention our actual enemies once)?
Kayla Rudbek
@rikyrah: they came up with much more efficient AI programs (AI is very resource-intensive and burns a lot of electricity, particularly the image processing programming) which are going to eat the lunch of the current big tech players in AI.
Steve LaBonne
@kindness: As awful as such a prelude to WWIII would be, I would enjoy watching “strong on national defense” Republicans squirm.
suzanne
@Jeffro:
Honestly, I think this is an under-discussed divide.
Steve LaBonne
@Kayla Rudbek: Or rather, they CLAIM to have done that.
suzanne
@K-Mo:
No, Trump is an absolute fucken clown.
That might be insulting to clowns.
Doug R
@JerseyBeard:
@kindness:
Putin’s plan is all coming to fruition.
Steve LaBonne
@Doug R: But the real beneficiary will end up being China, not Putin and his backward Potemkin state.
Quinerly
14,000 Colombians deported back to Colombia in 2024 per former Colombian president.
MSNBC reporting and interviewing him
VOR
@rikyrah: The various tech companies are spending large fortunes on building data center infrastructure for AI processing. For example, Microsoft said they would spend $80B in 2025 and Meta just said they would spend $60-65B this year. OpenAI did an announcement at the White House with Trump of Project Stargate, a plan to spend $500B over several years. NVIDIA (NVDA) graphics processing units (GPUs) are the preferred equipment so the AI hype drove their market cap over $3 trillion.
An NBC News article explains:
rikyrah
Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) posted at 1:08 PM on Sun, Jan 26, 2025:
America’s postwar vision for the world succeeded — and no country has benefited more than the United States.
Now President Trump might unleash forces that over time will damage, even destroy, the world that America created.
My take: https://t.co/MscqI1oIJd
(https://x.com/FareedZakaria/status/1883592967438352753?t=LD3EBXxnIhhirqyCillh4A&s=03)
Phylllis
Good. Now do Tesla.
rikyrah
@VOR:
thanks for this.
And to everyone else with their info on this topic.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: This is what both the ends of the horseshoe want because they think that world they live in came about naturally. They want their politics to entertain. Biden was too boring.
JML
@Kayla Rudbek: right. but that shouldn’t impact import numbers if the drugs or tech is being made elsewhere, right? or is this just based on “who owns”?
Regardless, it’s interesting to see Ireland so high on the list. Nobody tell the Current Occupant or…TARIFFS!
Belafon
@Phylllis: When do we get an open source battery?
rikyrah
Have any FrontPagers attacked the new
Turn the undocumented into slaves Bills that have been proposed in Missouri and Mississippi?
VOR
@Phylllis: One of Elon’s companies is xAI, makers of the Grok AI model used on Twitter (X). The release of Deepseek would impact xAI too.
Phylllis
@VOR: Ha ha/NelsonMunch.
Librettist
AI valuations are a pig in a poke.
IT infrastructure is long since commoditized.
Jeffg166
Looks like the best way to deal with the felon is to make anything he does into bad optics for him.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
And, don’t want to take responsibility for their actions.
rikyrah
chris evans (@notcapnamerica) posted at 8:03 PM on Sun, Jan 26, 2025:
When you see the ideological gap between men vs women under the age of 30 it is a really stark and disturbing contrast. Something has to be done about the red pilling of the young men of America
(https://x.com/notcapnamerica/status/1883697390072525063?t=qoGCciajlYaFQvH7yz5A9g&s=03)
Captain C
@rikyrah: Lifetime full-immersion virtual reality can’t come too quickly for these people. If we tell them Democrats hate the idea, they’ll jump at the chance.
rikyrah
Non-Human Media (@NonHumanMedia1) posted at 0:31 PM on Sun, Jan 26, 2025:
The reason why so many people keep wishing deportation will effect Black Americans on a mass scale and keep using fear tactics to convince us this is the case is because they can’t fathom a reality where Black Americans are not treated worse than every other group at all times
Non-Human Media (@NonHumanMedia1) posted at 0:31 PM on Sun, Jan 26, 2025:
In most situations from mass incarceration, environmental racism, employment opportunities, life expectancy and almost any other social indicator of well being Black Americans are usually at the bottom so it’s breaking ppls brain to imagine a scenario where this isn’t the case
Non-Human Media (@NonHumanMedia1) posted at 0:31 PM on Sun, Jan 26, 2025:
Essentially, Black Americans are the ground floor on which everyone else walks on so our degradation and depredation is normalized as the status quo
Now that perhaps another group might have negative experiences that don’t necessarily apply to us is an affront to reality itself https://t.co/zK9TQq1RkF
(https://x.com/NonHumanMedia1/status/1883583511636103319?t=tEkiSt4QridBFKksR5gIUQ&s=03)
rikyrah
Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) posted at 2:38 PM on Sun, Jan 26, 2025:
You know how during an election we always say “if you’re in line, STAY IN LINE”?
Here’s the new version:
If you’re in a federal job, STAY IN YOUR FEDERAL JOB.
Don’t quit. That’s obeying in advance. Make them fire you. Then sue them to stop it.
Keep fighting. Do NOT surrender.
(https://x.com/TristanSnell/status/1883615631314178356?t=p8OtNg1E3YyiHfN3XYvLNA&s=03)
LAC
@rikyrah: Word… Normalizing this shit – the other white meat.
rikyrah
Reginald Hudlin (@reghud) posted at 6:01 PM on Sun, Jan 26, 2025:
It’s important that we stop referring to the current administration’s racist policies as a backlash to DEI. It’s resegregation, plain and simple.
(https://x.com/reghud/status/1883666715290333610?t=QINp2bJoG22ZT4lCk6fRDw&s=03)
Glory b
@rikyrah: Welcome to the mean girls table!
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: True that.
matt
@Kayla Rudbek: Zuck just announced he’s spending $65 billion this year on his own company’s large model ML including building an enormous data center. As usual, he is shown to have a prey animal level of business acumen, past his one lucky hit.
Barbara
@Librettist: There has been a lot of skepticism about the amount of resources for both software and hardware that are being thrown at things denominated AI. I was dreading looking at the impact of today’s trend but it’s actually pretty small outside of tech stock, and not even all tech is being affected.
Kristine
@rikyrah: Thanks for posting that.
WTFGhost
@JML: Ireland is home to a lot of pharm, I believe, which would make for a surprisingly high ranking.
@VFX Lurker: in fact, it’s not *just* the dollar, it’s US Treasuries. There aren’t many safe places to park $20billion while an international trade occurs. Every time they screw with the debt limit, we put that at risk.
@Phylllis: Anyone who *wanted* to do the work enough could, of course – but most don’t want it enough to harden themselves to it. If we stopped immigration, Europe’s experience suggests a lot more machinery might take its place, IIRC.
@rikyrah: we don’t let China have the “good” AI chips. They say they have a ChatGPT equivalent, on a shoestring, which should be impossible, if the good AI chips were *all that*. At the least, they should have spent billions training it, like US companies are doing! But, China says “we did it cheap!” Wait for the news to shake down – it will take time.
rusty
@rikyrah: An important part of re-segregation is SCOTUS, they have been laying the ground work to allow government to outsource discrimination. Hire third parties, particularly religious organizations, to perform government services. Adoption, education, housing, etc. Those organizations are allowed to discriminate. So an evangelical adoption agency can refuse to serve LGBTQ+ couples, and church run schools can discriminate against LGBTQ+, minorities, and more. ProPublica had a good report on effectively all white Christian Academies receiving the majority of their funding from school voucher programs. SCOTUS will now consider if Oklahoma can directly fund a Christian charter school. My bet is yes, allowing discriminatory schools and organizations even better access to government funding. There is another case before SCOTUS this term that will very likely allow religious adjacent organizations to evade more government requirements. Depending on how broadly the decision is written, that could extend to private, profit making organizations ala Hobby Lobby. The re-segregation plan has been long in the making.
Kelly
@JML: Some of it’s kinda based on who owns. Multinational companies have staff devoted to finding which national subsidiary will pay the least tax on profits. Some of my IT work for the giant chip company was was for the transfer pricing accountants.
cmorenc
Trump is using the rough tactics of the highly leveraged real estate speculator that are a match for his personal sociopathic bullying personality.
Kelly
@Jeffro: @Phylllis
Farm work isn’t just physically hard work. It’s higher skilled than many folks think.
Librettist
@Barbara:
If that was the case then they are the same as the aluminum industry. Smelter locations are determined by access to low cost energy. Why aren’t they all building out in Quebec?
It’s a con… the amount of empty space in data centers is a one way ratchet – it only ever increases.
Matt McIrvin
@Glory b: dropping the US dollar is one thing, returning to gold quite another and a recipe for all sorts of trouble.
A Ghost to Most
@Matt McIrvin: Skynet 2.0. Just say no.
Ksmiami
@suzanne: yep. Crazy isn’t good for the economy.
schrodingers_cat
@Glory b: That would be extremely stupid.
Ksmiami
@WTFGhost: honestly, we don’t know the parameters set for China’s recent AI model. Even ours are suspect in terms of actual limitations.
stinger
@rikyrah: Powerful. Thanks for putting it here.
Doc Sardonic
@Kelly: When I was in middle and high school eons ago, farm work was what we kids did. Our school year in Florida revolved around the seasons for row crops.We started school in August after all the crops wound down, and ended in early May so we could start harvesting. It is hot, back breaking work, and you don’t go willy nilly running through a field picking everything in sight. There is an art and science to picking vegetables and fruits at the right stage of ripeness to survive shipping. Things too ripe will arrive over ripe or rotting, not quite ripe enough they still have to finish ripening at the destination and that creates other problems. There is a degree of expertise to farm work that the average American does not have to perform these jobs and working condition/wages they aren’t going to deal with or accept.
Phylllis
@Kelly: Absolutely. The fact is, there really aren’t many, if any, unskilled jobs. Anybody read a Safety Data Sheet lately? Well, probably not, because y’all will do anything except complete your workplace safety training*.
*Just watch the damn Bloodborne pathogens video and get on with your day already. Said by every safety officer everywhere at least once a day.
WTFGhost
@Matt McIrvin: You might be misunderstanding the situation. If BRICS went to “gold” instead of “dollars,” then they wouldn’t agree that the deal would be in dollars, but in grams of gold. You’d need a clearinghouse when you parked your foreign money in gold, and your trading partner would redeem the gold in their preferred currency.
I’d assume they’d do something like, set the price of gold, on the exchange, to a stable rate for 30/60/90 days, because that way you can measure prices to the mg of gold, rather than worrying about the spot price.
This clearinghouse wouldn’t limit total money in circulation, just, total amount in pending trade, and, with a stable rate of exchange, the gold might only be needed for the length of two virtual ATM transactions, so, not even that would be much of a limit.
A world reserve currency isn’t a necessity; gold could become our latinum. (Ref: to Star Trek.)
Phylllis
@Doc Sardonic: Where generally in Florida? I grew up in Manatee County, picking tomatoes and other vegetables on our farm. Also worked at the tomato packing shed. It was good money for the time, and a good incentive for considering other education/career options.
Barbara
@Librettist: I read your post three times and I have no idea what you are saying.
So let me restate what I said in simpler terms — there are more than a few knowledgeable people who have been saying for a while now that the level of investment by tech companies in AI cannot be justified by any realistic expectation of return, not in the near term and maybe never. The fact that a small Chinese company seems to have done just as much with a fraction of the resources was probably a catalyst for investors to act on the escalating doubts they already had regarding companies that are associated with this trend.
Citizen Alan
@rikyrah: Takes me back to my constitutional law class in 1998 when I nearly provoked a riot bye saying point blank that the school voucher movement was nothing more than a backdoor attempt to resegregate the schools. Strange, really, how every conservative in the class who went to an all white or mostly white private school took such offense at that.
JaneE
@Old Man Shadow: Agreed. I read somewhere China may be talking to Nicaragua about reviving the canal possibility there. Only designed to accommodate modern container and cruise ships.
WTFGhost
@Ksmiami: Agreed – that’s why I’m very much in a “wait and see,” mode. Could they have reverse-engineered a bunch of stuff? Maybe, but that strikes me as unlikely. Did they find some really brilliant people to write a new chip, using principles we never thought of, or discarded? Seems possible, but it would surprise me.
Did they use distributed computing, and all of their surveillance state data, to train the model? Um… wow.
Kelly
@Doc Sardonic:
@Phylllis:
I picked strawberries, cane berries and green beans as a child and teen. Keep the ripe strawberries, toss the overripe berries away from the plants so the rot doesn’t spread. As best I can recall we went over most strawberry fields twice a week or so apart.
In all harvests the migrants we worked alongside were at least twice as fast as the fastest local kids.
There’s also work other than harvesting. Pruning grapes and fruit trees is a skill. Weeding isn’t too complicated but once again the full time farm workers are much, much faster than part timers.
MrPug
This whole dust up got me thinking that the only thing that can defeat Trump is, well, the world. Hopefully, countries will call Trump’s bluffs (that is mostly what they are after all) and never back down and if he does go through with tariffs they go even harder back. The only thing idiot U.S. voters will notice is the stuff they like either getting more expensive or not being available at all. Also if enough losses pile up for Trump not even Fox can hide that he is, in fact, a pathetic weak loser.
I say this because our political and media institutions are tilted heavily towards the Republicans, voters are uninformed idiots and, at the moment, at least, the opposition party is rudderless and feckless (if/when that changes I’ll stop complaining about the Democrats).
Phylllis
@Citizen Alan: I remember initially being amazed by the number of valedictorians and salutatorians in my freshman class in college (small, Southern-Baptist supported in S.C.). Until I learned they were in graduating classes of 19, or 26. Because instead of attending integrated public schools, they had attended private schools, with names like Andrew Jackson Academy and Jefferson Davis Academy. My folks weren’t the most progressive, but at least they didn’t entertain that nonsense.
Princess
After the nonsense be been reading about this on Bluesky, it’s a relief to read this measured, thoughtful post. Thanks.
gene108
@rikyrah:
The “backlash” against DEI is also about making discrimination okay, so the most mediocre white man will get the job over a more qualified woman or minority.
The unspoken assumption underlying the anti-DEI is less qualified women or minorities getting senior positions is because of preferential hiring passing by the “obviously” more qualified white man.
No argument can convince these knuckleheads that white men are not automatically more qualified than anyone for senior positions.
Phylllis
Absolutely. I was always in awe of how fast they could clear a tomato field.
Glory b
@Doc Sardonic: As someone whose father and other relatives actually picked cotton, you are very correct.
MrPug
@suzanne:
Did they? I would have thought the opposite, but would like to see some data backing your claim.
Doc Sardonic
@Phylllis: Central Florida, in the same general area of Betty Cracker.
Princess
@matt: I had completely forgotten until this morning that Zuck had plans for his own cryptocurrency before Covid.
Kelly
My good money at the time was a summer job on a logging road construction crew. My Dad got me on his crew when I was halfway through college. As a sturdy, outdoorsy 20 year old guy, working in the woods around heavy equipment dragging logs and pushing dirt was fun. The guys running the heavy equipment always need a guy on the ground with a shovel. The money was comparable the entry level IT jobs I expected to be looking for when I graduated. When fall rolled around and it was time to go back to school I talked to my Dad. “This was a great summer. I’m tired of being a poverty stricken student, some of my classes are tedious. I’d rather keep doing this.” My Dad a lifetime operator of heavy equipment said “It’s fun in the summer. It no fun in November when the rain is washing the snow down your neck and the mud is over you boot tops. When you’re my age everything hurts.” I when back to school and finished my degree.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: well, that’s about the least surprising thing I’ve heard. It’s blatantly unconstitutional but when did that ever stop these people? They don’t think the 4th amendment applies, why the 13th?
Miss Bianca
@Kayla Rudbek: Good. One of the things that’s been making me sick lately is seeing how the US and Britain, among others, are apparently just lining up for the chance to set billions in dollars and pounds on fire to boost AI. I’d like to see that bubble pop now, please, rather than after all those stacks of billions go up in smoke and down the drain.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@kindness:
If nothing else, the fact you have northern European members meeting irt the “threat” posed by the supposed lead member of the alliance, is all anyone needs to know.
Putin sees stuff like that, kicks back in his chair and does his best Montgomery Burns “Excellent” impression.
Phylllis
@Kelly: A colleague/buddy said his realization that he needed an indoor job was the windy, rainy day he had to chase his clip-on tie all over the grocery store parking lot while gathering carts because “it was also my church tie”.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@MrPug:
There is no data. According to this piece:
https://archive.ph/7ilRg
Which is also mostly data free, infers the small bidness community voted for the Orange Fart Cloud. And, of course, the reasons? REGULATIONS AND TAXES!!!!!
This piece from that noted outspoken commie group, the National Chamber of Commerce, also reads like a laundry list of why bidnes owners were gonna vote for Hair Furor:
https://www.uschamber.com/small-business/heres-what-small-business-owners-are-saying-ahead-of-the-2024-election
Sure, the “businesses hate uncertainty” bromide has some applicability but as we’ve seen over the last 40 years, bidnesses will gladly trade “uncertainty” for “NO REGULATIONS AND NO TAXES!!!!” any day of the week.
Rudi666
@Citizen Alan:
The Catholic church opened schools in Boston and Detroit for white people to shield there kids from bussing to remedy segregation in public schools.
https://www.michiganpublic.org/education/2013-11-12/3-things-to-know-about-the-history-of-detroit-busing
http://detroitchurchblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/st-clement-church-centerline.html
WTFGhost
@gene108: There’s one point you’re missing. Republicans know they do everything possible to depress wages and worker power.
Complaining about affirmative action is how they cover for that. “You would have a good job, but *LIBERALS* gave your job away to the undeserving!”
WTFGhost
@Kelly: Experience, I’m sure, counts for a lot, as well as hardening to the job (if you stay healthy enough, eventually, all the bending and stooping isn’t as stressful, as you strengthen, and learn to use your muscles more efficiently), but, I heard one story that fascinated me about farm workers’ fast work.
There was an opportunity somewhen – during Covid-19, maybe? – when US citizens had a chance to pick alongside migrant workers. Minimum wage, *OR*, an incentive wage, per bushel picked above some not-easy minimum.
At harvest time, a farmer knows exactly how much each bushel is worth unpicked ($0), and will gladly split the difference (not necessarily 50/50, mind you!) to get it picked.
The poor citizen *never* got close to incentive, except once, when one (or more) of his new migrant friends pity-loaded him a few bushels.
And it’s not some physical superiority. It’s just, you can flip burgers, you get a high protein meal, and some cash; do you really want to hustle *that* much more, for *that* much longer, to get maybe twice, three times as much harvesting?
If you’re sending money back home to Mexico, you live on that minimum wage, and send the rest home. But an American who wants a better life might instead stop cutting up at work and finally land a management slot, or might show up at day work, and learn a bit of a trade (and get off weed for umpty-weeks) and land a job that way, but those jobs often demand a citizenship check as well as a pee test.
I heard – maybe from Paul Krugman? – that in Europe, they’ve mechanized instead of using labor, which fascinated me – “we can *do* that now? HOW?” – but if it was true then, it’s likely much more true today, that if we cut off migrant labor, eventually, we’d get to the point that we could get the crops picked, once the equipment was cheaper than “letting it rot.”
Ruckus
@suzanne:
As the past owner of 2 different businesses (one manufacturing and one retail), political uncertainty can really
screwfuckup a business, especially one that does business in 2 countries. (one of my big customers was from Mexico, they were rather short of the type of the specialty manufacturing business I owned and the tools we produced). They needed the products those tools produced. I made a few trips to Mexico to work with them, certainly a different country than the US. (At least they drive on the same side of the road…. I’ve driven in countries that didn’t – good times!)Ruckus
@WTFGhost:
Some things cannot be done by machines, it takes the touch, of a human hand, to feel how much pressure to apply to the product without damaging it and often how to pick the crop. I used to use a pole clipper to harvest our avocado trees. We had two prolific trees, one in front and one in the back of the house – we gave away bags full of avocados every year. The entire family couldn’t eat 2 trees worth. We couldn’t eat 1 tree’s worth. And we all liked avocados. We also had a lemon tree that grew huge lemons. We gave away a lot of those as well. This was in Los Angeles county.
VFX Lurker
William J. Bernstein wrote a brief essay called “The Longest Discipline” about the harrowing experience of having gold in one’s portfolio.
Burton Malkiel’s “Sleeping Scale of Major Investments” in A Random Walk Down Wall Street put cash at the “sound night’s sleep” level and gold at the “nightmare fuel” level.
If the BRICS members have the stomach for that particular asset, more power to ’em. I don’t think I have the courage for it.
Peale
@VFX Lurker: The only reason they have to put gold on the table is that none of the BRICS members actually have currency that anyone would trust to replace the dollar and collectively they wouldn’t trust a BRICS specific currency handled by a central bank they created to issue it.
Kayla Rudbek
@Belafon: battery tech is a very active area in patents filed (at least pre-pandemic)
Kayla Rudbek
@Miss Bianca: yes, that money could be used to solve real problems like CO2 mitigation, water desalination, hydrogen generation, etc etc etc