***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[Wargames]

We do live together now

The plan for the longest time was for me to move back into my house. And for her to get a place with her sister (who has a young child and needs help)

Maybe even them renting my house and me getting a place on my own or saying in our current apartment

But the family I rent my house to is in a tough place. I gave them so many breaks on rent, and with increases in the market, if they moved the rent they would pay would double or worse.

I don't want to screw them over either.

Them fools baking be giving me pies and cakes, and sending me albums with pics of their kids to butter me up because they know my heart is soft.

So while I could still move out and get a place myself, my girl and her sister probably need my help. Now the plan might be all three (four with the kid) to get a bigger apartment in the current complex. They are over here all the time already

So I'm over here eating this struggle pecan pie, with Peppa Pig blasting in the background, cursing socialist Jesus as to why he gave me so much damn sympathy.

Since I work from home, I provide free babysitting too.

This morning after waking up mad early to make this kid banana pancakes, this child gonna get sad, and when I try to cheer her up she asked me for two guinea pigs for X-Mas. Looked at her like...

You’re a good person Rusty also as a word to the wise as a former guinea pig owner get them two female guinea pigs and have the pet store check the gender twice maybe even three times. If they are guys they will try to kill each other eventually and if they are boy/girls you’ll have about 100 within a year.

 

[mplsdunk]

I like how she asked for two also. Not just one

 

[RustyShackleford]

You’re a good person Rusty also as a word to the wise as a former guinea pig owner get them two female guinea pigs and have the pet store check the gender twice maybe even three times. If they are guys they will try to kill each other eventually and if they are boy/girls you’ll have about 100 within a year.

Yeah I know about them multiplying like crazy

I wanted one as a kid and my grandmother refused.

Come to find out when my mom was a kid. My uncles, and my two aunts all got them as gifts from their uncle that lives in the rural part of the island.

Unfortunately for my grandmother, the lineup ended up being three females and one male. She said by the end of the summer she had dozens of them.

Also, I remember the tale of the pipe gawd Sooty...

 

[RustyShackleford]

I like how she asked for two also. Not just one

She said she wants them to have a friend to play with for when she is not home

 

[biggie62]

He is a certified legend.

On a side note my Spanish professor in college was Ecuadorian and said in class in Spanish that where she was from they’d eat them. You should have seen the faces of the horrified white suburban girls. Then my professor goes “what? They are tasty” and licked her lips

I was rolling laughing.

 

[mplsdunk]

She said she wants them to have a friend to play with for when she is not home

i think she’s right tbh. I think they get depressed without homies.

 

[mplsdunk]

He is a certified legend.

On a side note my Spanish professor in college was Ecuadorian and said in class in Spanish that where she was from they’d eat them. You should have seen the faces of the horrified white suburban girls. Then my professor goes “what? They are tasty” and licked her lips

I was rolling laughing.

you don’t even have to go to Ecuador, Ecuadorian spots here serve it.

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[a-friend]

Black Wodow was highly entertaining.
I should have watched that in the Theater, nah….…
…on to, Shang-Chi

 

[Benny Hinn]

Black Wodow was highly entertaining.
I should have watched that in the Theater, nah….…
…on to, Shang-Chi

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[Wargames]

 

[IATT]

 

[rexanglorum]

Political constraints aside (and there are always lots of political constraints when we want to help anyone who is not already wealthy), educational debt is barbarism. The very concept of it from lunch debts for elementary school students up through student loans for grad school, are an example of the fact that the American state not only is indifferent towards the working class but actively hostile to it.

I hate, hate, hate that I have to have an ethical dilemma pretty much whenever one of my former students asks for a letter of recommendation for grad school. If they deserve it, I write them that letter and thus far all of them have deserved it (I figure it’s selection bias, if you are seriously interested in getting a graduate degree in economics, you did well in your undergrad classes). While I know that my former students can do the graduate level work, I know that most of them will have to take on debt to get that graduate degree and many of them will struggle to pay back because there aren’t enough good paying jobs out there.

I see so much human potential wasted because of this decade’s long neoliberal project of transferring the cost of education onto the student. Education is a public good and should be treated as such. If that public good allows someone to make a lot of money, congratulations, you can now pay a higher tax rate. If your education had every sort of benefit except pecuniary benefits, don’t worry, you don’t have to pay a high tax rate. That’s how it ought to be and thus country has the resources to make it so.

The idea of using giant federal student loans to tax high income earners is foolish. Why use the size of someone’s student debt as a proxy for their income when there’s already the IRS which is able to find out someone’s exact income. Using high student debt loads as a substitute for a progressive income tax, ends up “taxing” low income earners at a very high rate and doesn’t “tax” those whose parents or family trust could just pay their tuition and other costs of education.

When I see daughters of migrant farm works, who are far brighter than me and far more passionate about economics than me and far more prepared for grad school than I was after undergrad, having to either forgo further education or risk a lifetime of debilitating debt, I see a political and economic system so broken and so unwilling and unable to solve this glaring and easily remedied betrayal of its own people that the only remedy is revolution.

 

[TooOlfForThisIsh]

Political constraints aside (and there are always lots of political constraints when we want to help anyone who is not already wealthy), educational debt is barbarism. The very concept of it from lunch debts for elementary school students up through student loans for grad school, are an example of the fact that the American state not only is indifferent towards the working class but actively hostile to it.

I hate, hate, hate that I have to have an ethical dilemma pretty much whenever one of my former students asks for a letter of recommendation for grad school. If they deserve it, I write them that letter and thus far all of them have deserved it (I figure it’s selection bias, if you are seriously interested in getting a graduate degree in economics, you did well in your undergrad classes). While I know that my former students can do the graduate level work, I know that most of them will have to take on debt to get that graduate degree and many of them will struggle to pay back because there aren’t enough good paying jobs out there.

I see so much human potential wasted because of this decade’s long neoliberal project of transferring the cost of education onto the student. Education is a public good and should be treated as such. If that public good allows someone to make a lot of money, congratulations, you can now pay a higher tax rate. If your education had every sort of benefit except pecuniary benefits, don’t worry, you don’t have to pay a high tax rate. That’s how it ought to be and thus country has the resources to make it so.

The idea of using giant federal student loans to tax high income earners is foolish. Why use the size of someone’s student debt as a proxy for their income when there’s already the IRS which is able to find out someone’s exact income. Using high student debt loads as a substitute for a progressive income tax, ends up “taxing” low income earners at a very high rate and doesn’t “tax” those whose parents or family trust could just pay their tuition and other costs of education.

When I see daughters of migrant farm works, who are far brighter than me and far more passionate about economics than me and far more prepared for grad school than I was after undergrad, having to either forgo further education or risk a lifetime of debilitating debt, I see a political and economic system so broken and so unwilling and unable to solve this glaring and easily remedied betrayal of its own people that the only remedy is revolution.

I agree with all of this.

I thought almost every serious PhD program in Econ was fully funded with stipend. Has that changed? Maybe it’s just the B School versions and not those in the college of social science?

My program (in math) was funded, but my B school friends had a better stipend. On the other hand we all knew CS students had the best support (and parties).

 

[rexanglorum]

I agree with all of this.

I thought almost every serious PhD program in Econ was fully funded with stipend. Has that changed? Maybe it’s just the B School versions and not those in the college of social science?

My program (in math) was funded, but my B school friends had a better stipend. On the other hand we all knew CS students had the best support (and parties).

I feel way more comfortable when I know that they’ll go directly into a PhD program. But thus far a lot are looking to get a masters degree and see where to go from there. I try to nudge them into trying for a PhD for the very reason you laid out.

Although even then; because so many of my former students are from such marginalized and disadvantaged situations, frequently with parents who do circular migration back to Mexican or Central America and/or live with the risk of deportation, many of my former students have obligations towards caring for younger siblings or elderly relatives and therefore the approach of live modestly, alone or with other students, and graduate with a PhD but little or no debt, is not always viable.

I say thus far, because I’ve only been teaching for a few years and it’s introductory classes. So it’s only been about that I have former students who are now graduating. I suppose my best bet is to nudge potential master degree students into a PhD program and hopefully I’ll get some former students asking about letters of rec for law or business school. I’ll write a letter of rec regardless of a students’ current or future material circumstances but I hate feeling that I’m going to help mess up someone’s life.

 

[Nike Jordan]

I was at Famous 4th Street Delicatessen in Philly today and I sat at the same table Obama sat at when he visited the place.

 

[rexanglorum]

I may not be the biggest fan of Kamala Harris but Peggy Noonan is off her rocker when she basically calls Kamala Harris a flashy, hip-hop, me-first VP. I suppose Noonan wants a lunch pail, team-first VP like **** Cheney.

 

[AEA18]

Some people literally complain that they haven't heard/seen enough of VP Harris

 

[IATT]

 

[gry60]

Serbs vote to leave Bosnian institutions – DW – 12/11/2021

Lawmakers have voted to start work on pulling their autonomous Serb Republic out of Bosnia's armed forces, judiciary and tax system. The decision sparked warnings from the international community about a new conflict.

www.dw.com

Bosnia: Serbs vote to leave key institutions in secession move | News | DW
Lawmakers have voted to start work on pulling their autonomous Serb Republic out of Bosnia's armed forces, judiciary and tax system. The decision sparked warnings from the international community about a new conflict.
The non-binding motion by the Republika Srpska parliament is meant to pave the way for secession from Bosnia
The parliament of the Serb part of Bosnia-Herzegovina decided Friday to transfer powers away from the country's central institutions.
The approval by the regional legislature of Republika Srpska (RS) comes in spite of warnings against such a move from the international community and an opposition boycott.

What did the Republika Srpska parliament agree?
MPs voted to strip the Bosnian state of competencies in the areas of taxation, justice, and security and defense for the RS region.
The three institutions represent key pillars of joint security, the rule of law and the economic system in Bosnia, which was divided into two autonomous regions after its 1992-1995 war.
The proposal won a clear majority with 49 votes in favor in the 83-seat chamber.
The vote amounted to a non-binding agreement that fell short of a final decision to quit the institutions — a move that would have needed the support of the region's upper house.

Who is behind the move towards succession?
Milorad Dodik, head of the SNDS party and a Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was the driving force behind the initiative.
Dodik, a former Western protege turned nationalist, has been threatening for years to separate Republika Srpska from the Bosnian state.
He has long complained about state institutions, saying they were established based on decisions by international peace envoys and were not enshrined in the constitution.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is nothing more than "a paper republic," Dodik told the Banja Luka parliament on Friday.
He announced that within six months, he would initiate legislation to reorganize the areas for which the central state no longer has jurisdiction.
It is not yet clear whether he will follow through on a promise made in September to create a separate army.
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik

What could be the impact of this decision?
Dodik's course threatens to destroy the architecture of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended more than three years of war between Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks. The early 1990s conflict killed roughly 100,000 people.
The agreement saw one half of Bosnia given over to Bosnian Serbs while the other was to be ruled by a Muslim-Croat federation. The two entities are held together by federal institutions.
Opposition leaders warned the moves may lead the Serb Republic into a new conflict.
"I think the path you have chosen is dangerous for Republika Srpska and we cannot follow you," said Mirko Sarovic, the head of the largest opposition Serb Democratic Party (SDS).

How has the West reacted?
In a joint statement, the embassies of Germany, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy as well as the European Union delegation said the parliament's motion was "a further escalatory step."
"Members of the governing coalition in the RS must be aware that continuing this dead-end path of challenging the Dayton framework is damaging the economic prospects of the entity, threatening the stability of the country and the entire region and jeopardizing Bosnia's future with the EU," the ambassadors said in a joint statement.
The Peace Implementation Council, which monitors compliance with the Dayton agreement, recently warned that a "unilateral withdrawal" from federal institutions is not possible. It has threatened "consequences" for any party that violates the peace agreement.
This statement was not co-signed by Russia, which is part of the PIC, along with representatives of Western countries.
The Kremlin supports Dodik's actions, and the Bosnian Serb leader met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week.

 

[dmbrhs]

Biden will give Kentucky aid and Rand Paul will continue to be Rand Paul and nothing will change.

 

[IATT]

 

[gry60]

Biden will give Kentucky aid and Rand Paul will continue to be Rand Paul and nothing will change.

Republicans are lucky they don't have some cut throat democrats facing them.

After the intentional sabotage Trump and the GOP inflicted on blue states throughout his term, I wouldn't have been satisfied with anything less than McConnell and Paul's actual "yes" votes on the BBB and the John Lewis bill before sending FEMA down there.

I'd have them announce the news in person on Fox News too.