***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[whywesteppin]

I'm going to bust out laughing every time you post that.

 

[AZwildcats]

how is that different from a manufacturing facility full of automation?

This should be good.

I'm guessing because adults shouldn't be relying on fast food for their livelihoods. Something along those lines

 

[frankmatthews]

I can't believe that, in 2016, we are talking about manufacturing jobs as a path to economic prosperity. Just astounding. A vast majority of the population are liabilities and they have a very rude awakening coming.

Maybe if we all push mouses in trendy office spaces and drink lattes all day...buildings, highways, and infrastructure will jump out of high speed routers and fill the shelves at walmart at the same time.  
You are suggesting leaving the manufacturing of necessities to other countries, like that is not a recipe for getting screwed big time.
E business fail all day everyday but I need toilet paper, cars, chicken, shelter etc etc etc.
What I have read here is that you think its crazy that america is talking about creating something tangible that you can hold......and it would be smarter to sell people useless online services.
Not really sustainable and short sighted imo...

You're jumping to a lot of conclusions here so I'll elaborate. Corporate bureaucracy and redundancy is an issue as well. There are far too many paper pushers collecting salary while spending a good portion of their day surfing the web. Im not suggesting leaving mfg. jobs to other countries, the free market itself is dictating that. Its absurd to expect $15+ an hour for work that can be done overseas for 10x less, work a robot monkey can do. And infrastructure works projects are tantamount to welfare. So are wages above global market price. Talk about short sighted and unsustainable! I dont think its crazy that Americans are talking about creating/manufacturing tangible goods. Thats fine in a vacuum, but that ship has sailed. Generally speaking, you cant pay the people to produce goods at a profit and expect that same population to be able to afford to consume those goods you are having them produce. There is no middle class in that scenario. US will end up in serfdom. We should have been investing in education long ago instead of continually lining the pockets of defense contractors and debt-as-money magicians on wall street. We are a consumer, debt based economy and we have dug ourselves in much too deep of a whole to think we can just go back to producing goods and selling them to ourselves. There will be a reset, its inevitable at this point. 2007 was just an appetizer. We are all under the illusion that we are much more prosperous than we actually are, let alone future prosperity. Like i said, folks are gonna get a wake up call. With a little foresight, I'd say this new inexperienced, outsider business man will be the scapegoat, and i said that hundreds and hundreds of pages ago in this very thread.

 

[frankmatthews]

Are Trump fans insufferable and delusional? Is Donald Trump a con man? Are most Trump supporters white supremacists? Yes, yes, yes and yes.

With all that said, we shouldn't forget the structural issues in our economy. There aren't many good jobs for people who cannot go to grad school, do an unpaid interneship and afford to live in New York, DC., LA and a handful of other cities. Barack Obama couldn't solve that problem, Trump will not be able to solve that problem and the fact that genuine middle class jobs are increasingly being sequestered deep within unaffordable cities and are being handed down like family heirlooms will drive our politics for years and years to come.

Every American should have ample opportunities even if they only went to high school and even if they want to stay in the community of their birth and I am appalled that so many liberals are suddenly sneering at that simple proposition.

Unfortunately its not a simple proposition at this point, as the rest of your post intimates. There is no taking a step back in a debt fueled economy on steroids. Its growth greater than previous growth or its crash and burn. The compounding interest equation is exponential, so there is a ticking clock and an unbalanced balance sheet in terms of tangible wealth thats gonna need to be reconciled.

 

[AZwildcats]

 

I can't believe that, in 2016, we are talking about manufacturing jobs as a path to economic prosperity. Just astounding. A vast majority of the population are liabilities and they have a very rude awakening coming.

Maybe if we all push mouses in trendy office spaces and drink lattes all day...buildings, highways, and infrastructure will jump out of high speed routers and fill the shelves at walmart at the same time.  

You are suggesting leaving the manufacturing of necessities to other countries, like that is not a recipe for getting screwed big time.

E business fail all day everyday but I need toilet paper, cars, chicken, shelter etc etc etc.

What I have read here is that you think its crazy that america is talking about creating something tangible that you can hold......and it would be smarter to sell people useless online services.

Not really sustainable and short sighted imo...

Educate yourself Tea, you can be pushing mouses in trendy office spaces too if you try hard 

 

[EddieDoyers]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...elect-s-shock-Taiwan-phone-call.html#comments

Henry Kissinger heads to Trump Tower as conduit for Chinese leader he met in wake of President-elect's shock Taiwan phone call

Interesting.

 

[rico x hood]

*

 

[IATT]

 

[rico x hood]

We posting tweets now? Where's the article or video?

Don't follow in Wavy's footsteps.

 

[rico x hood]

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.time...ryan-free-school-lunch-empty-soul/?source=dam

Found the article. Stop peddling your lies.

 

[IATT]

Merry Christmas:

http://time.com/14887/paul-ryan-free-school-lunch-empty-soul/

 

[rico x hood]

*

 

[rico x hood]

*

 

[AZwildcats]

David Clarke is a weirdo, Leiu never brought up Carson's race

 

[rico x hood]

.

 

[EddieDoyers]

David Clarke is a weirdo, Leiu never brought up Carson's race

But I thought Republicans didn't play da identity politics /s

 

[deleted]

David Clarke is a weirdo, Leiu never brought up Carson's race

Clarke's entire feed is a cesspit

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

Merry Christmas:

http://time.com/14887/paul-ryan-free-school-lunch-empty-soul/

.

Another liar.

Time?

 

[EddieDoyers]

https://www.google.com/amp/www.lati...verless-20161205-story,amp.html?client=safari

Why the driverless car industry is happy (so far) with Trump's pick for Transportation secretary

Silicon Valley voted heavily for Hillary Clinton, but companies working on driverless cars seem overjoyed with President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Transportation secretary, Elaine Chao.

Chao will wield great power over how driverless cars and other automated vehicles will be regulated — or not.

Although she needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate first, she’s highly regarded in Washington, especially among Republicans, and her husband is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Moreover, as secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush, Chao was known not for the rules she crafted and enforced, but for her free-market approach that was generally hands-off.

For those in Silicon Valley and other tech firms where fears abound about too much government intervention and meddling, that’s a big relief.

“We expect the new administration to be pro-innovation, pro-American innovation and pro-American employment,” said Mike Jellen, president and chief operating officer of Velodyne Lidar, in reaction to Chao’s nomination.

Based in Morgan Hill, Velodyne is a major supplier of sophisticated sensors for driverless cars and trucks. Jellen believes enacting regulations to control advancing technology would impede innovation.

Others in the industry agree.

“We’d like to see her continue with her track record of light regulation,” said Grayson Brulte of Brulte & Co., an innovation advisory and consulting firm. “If she allows forward thinking entrepreneurs to build on the platforms that are autonomous vehicles, we’ll unleash an economic boom that will create huge numbers of jobs.”

Even consumer advocates offer cautious words of praise: "I’m concerned about her general anti-regulatory approach, but even though I disagree with her philosophy, I would say she is clearly qualified for the position,” said John Simpson, a director at Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica.

Chao has served as a deputy secretary of transportation and was Labor secretary through Bush’s two terms, during which she pushed for less federal regulation and was criticized for allegedly not enforcing some regulations already on the books, such as overtime rules for wage earners. She describes herself at the top of her own homepage with a 2003 quote from Newsweek: “Elaine Chao – as slender as a stiletto, and as steely.”

She can’t approach automated vehicles as a deregulator — few federal regulations on driverless vehicles exist. Still, as automakers race to develop autonomous cars, the government faces big questions about how the vehicles will be adopted on a mass scale.

Safety is the biggest concern, and Chao must balance regulations that protect the public while avoiding those that impede innovation.

Today, some cars already come with semiautonomous features, such as Tesla and its Autopilot mode. As long as a driver is at the wheel to take control, federal laws put few limits on automation.

Federal law also says a car is not allowed on the road without a steering wheel or a brake pedal.

But at some point, those early rules could change.

Industry insiders say they don’t want Chao to ignore driverless car policy.

Instead, they hope to avoid a patchwork of differing and conflicting rules across the 50 states.

“This should be centralized,” said Alain L. Kornhauser, director of the transportation program at Princeton University and an autonomous vehicle expert, “but that doesn’t mean the states don’t play a part. It would be better if we had a common understanding.”

Although some had expected an aggressive regulatory approach from the Obama administration, it’s been mostly hands off under Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

In September, the department issued a federal automated vehicles policy that set guidelines for driverless car developers and sought to balance safety and innovation.

It avoided hard-and-fast regulations while making clear that additional rules were likely to come as more was learned about the technology and its record of safety. The policy also listed “model” regulations for the states to consider. And it set out reporting requirements so government officials could stay on top of the industry's problems and progress.

The Obama policy “is light-handed enough to provide enough flexibility for innovation,” Kornhauser said.

Bridget Karlin, managing director for the Internet of Things at chip maker Intel, called the Obama policy “an important first step and a milestone.”

Still, Karl Iagnemma, chief executive of NuTonomy, a driverless start-up, hopes Chao will cut back on paperwork requirements that, he believes, favor established companies. “If you’re a large organization, you may welcome a bit of regulation to keep the small guys out,” he said.

Regardless of whether Clinton or Trump won, the industry was ready to push for more clarity after the election, especially for real-world testing of driverless vehicles on public roads.

“We want [government] support to test these fleets as soon as possible,” said Velodyne’s Jellen. “Anything that promotes real world testing could really have a major impact on the development of this technology and on saving lives.”

States can allow driverless car testing on, say, a closed business campus or a dedicated highway lane.

Michigan and Florida are establishing rules and guidelines as they aggressively promote their states as test beds for driverless cars. Economic development is one motivator. In Florida, the state’s huge population of retired baby boomers is another highway safety concern.

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles put forward proposed regulations this year, drawing complaints from industry representatives who consider them prescriptive and heavy handed.

To promote flexibility and innovation, Michael Boehm, executive director of the E4 Advanced Transportation Center in Los Angeles, suggested the state allow regions to, in certain cases, set their own local policies for testing self-driving vehicles.

For instance, desperate to cut pollution and ease congestion, the Southland might be up for allowing driverless trucks to be tested on dedicated freeway lanes, whereas other regions might balk at the idea.


Hod Lipson, a professor at Columbia University, said setting a safety standard based on statistical goals, not specific technologies, should be Chao’s top priority.

The Department of Transportation “really needs to provide a clear definition of how safe a car needs to be before it can drive itself, and then step out of the way,” he said. “Once consumers are assured of safety, the ripple effect will begin. But until that safety standard is defined, everyone’s in the dark.”

 

[ninjahood]

but at the same time, retail and fast food jobs should not be considered naturally low wage and insecure.

that's da default though...walked by a self Check out isle and kiosks in McDonald's today... artificially telling McDonald's you gotta pay 15-16 bucks minimum wage is gonna cause alot of collateral.

how is that different from a manufacturing facility full of automation?

u can't automate da whole blue collar sector like u can robot replace cashiers eit kiosks.

vocational jobs will be veey much in demand for da foreseeable future.

 

[rexanglorum]

u can't automate da whole blue collar sector like u can robot replace cashiers eit kiosks.

vocational jobs will be veey much in demand for da foreseeable future.

You're right that many blue collar jobs will always require human labor but so will most restaurant and retail jobs as well.

Fast food workers do more than take orders and "flip burgers" (side note: why is that the term for unskilled labor? Grilling meat takes skill to do well). they clean, organize the inventory and assemble and package the food for customers and keep the condiments filled up. That work cannot be reliably outsourced to machines.

Then consider that fast food, because it relies upon mostly premade food, is least the labor intensive type of restaurant. Better restaurants have even more jobs that involve labor that is hard to do with machines. I see a pretty small percentage of restaurant jobs, in general, being lost due to minimum wage hikes.

The same is true for maids, home care givers, day care workers and retail workers. The thing is that if you could have outsourced your tasks to robots you probably would have done it already. Just because minimum wage jobs are castigated as menial, low skilled (and all too frequently, as feminine) does not mean that minimum wage work is easily dispensable.

Minimum wage can be increased and employers end up paying it because they have no other viable substitutes. That is why industry trade groups lobby so hard against minimum wage increases.

 

[gry60]

but at the same time, retail and fast food jobs should not be considered naturally low wage and insecure.

that's da default though...walked by a self Check out isle and kiosks in McDonald's today... artificially telling McDonald's you gotta pay 15-16 bucks minimum wage is gonna cause alot of collateral.

how is that different from a manufacturing facility full of automation?

u can't automate da whole blue collar sector like u can robot replace cashiers eit kiosks.

vocational jobs will be veey much in demand for da foreseeable future.

You do realize that there exists software...

...that writes software, don't you?

You do realize that with 3-d printing, you can create a wide variety of hardware at home, don't you?

You do realize that both of those elements of tech only get cheaper with time, don't you?

I think you severely underestimate technology.

 

[charlie parker]

I don't know if anyone saw this but they just had a segment on 60 minutes last sunday talking about how one man brought back factory jobs to one of the most desolate regions in the country for factory jobs. "The Golden Triangle"

They work with the local college to offer courses which will train workers in the new jobs they are creating. This is vision!

Very Interesting. This is obviously someone unique and filled with passion but maybe this is possible in the future. Link to the segment

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-mississippi-factory-jobs-joe-max-higgins/

 

[EddieDoyers]

I don't know if anyone saw this but they just had a segment on 60 minutes last sunday talking about how one man brought back factory jobs to one of the most desolate regions in the country for factory jobs. "The Golden Triangle"

They work with the local college to offer courses which will train workers in the new jobs they are creating. This is vision!

Very Interesting. This is obviously someone unique and filled with passion but maybe this is possible in the future. Link to the segment

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-mississippi-factory-jobs-joe-max-higgins/

Great guy and the plan he enacted was great. [emoji]128079[/emoji]