Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Thom Hartmann Program" channel.

  1. All those clowns from Harvard's Medical School need to do is walk a few yards over to the Harvard Business School and they'll get the answers they seek.
    2
  2. ​ @ramonaboggio7402  I'm Australian but went to college in America. So I know what we have down under and I have some experience of being in America. We also hear lots about places like Canada and Britain. My father also had a heart attack while visiting Italy so my family has seen their system in action. No one has the perfect system BUT the one thing I can state with absolute certainty is that NOBODY in the world wants to copy what America has right now. The problem for America is how do you change a system with 330 million people in it. Australia has 26 million and we struggle to change things. So changing the health care system for 330 million people is going to be unbelievably difficult and anyone who simply says _"Lets just do A, B, C..." is talking out their butt. I can't see America moving to a British NIH type system but maybe you could move to a system like Australia which has BOTH public and private systems running in parallel OR maybe something like Canada has which is sort of part way between Australia and Britain. The one thing I think America could do which would be a massive step in the right direction is to control the prices a lot better. We hear of some of the prices you guys pay and fall over in disbelief. At the core of it America's real problem isn't capitalism its the type of unrestrained capitalism that's running right now where profit is the only measure of economic value. Your lobbyists, Think Tanks and Super Pacs are simply out of control. Looking back the stupidity and ludicrous nature of the Citizens United, that decision has to be overturned. Until that's fixed there's almost zero chance of fixing anything in America because whoever has more money to lobby with and spin the public narrative with wins.
    2
  3. I think this is one of the very few times I have heard ANYONE point out the obvious flaw in hammering the crap out of the middle class in a consumer economy. If you rely on consumption you need a population that is financially capable of consumption - DUH In what PRACTICAL UNIVERSE does that not make common sense? BUT according to Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman corporations have no other responsibility than to their share holders. I'd love to see any economist explain how destroying the market you sell your goods and or services into serves the best interest of your share holders?
    2
  4. Reasonable Republicans is a contradiction in terms like military intelligence, miniature giant, jumbo shrimp, colorful shade of grey.
    2
  5.  @bobpeters61  Yeah Christians have a problem with that 3rd Commandment, Especially the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox churches. That includes all of them who wear a cross around their neck. Exodus 20:4 You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them;... There's a crystal clear warning by John at 1John 5:21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. Many translations have the word "guard" instead of "keep." There's also a great line somewhere in the OT about how people will take a piece of wood and carve 1/2 of it into something sacred that they pray too, while they cook diner with the other 1/2.
    2
  6. I know this will sound callous but they are using the wrong gas. They should be using Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Please bear with because there is a shocking part to this story. A number of years ago when the types of drugs being used were under question a British Journalist did a straight forward "what are the alternatives" documentary. I saw it on the website for the Melbourne Age (part of Fairfax media) in Australia. After evaluating all the different ways that animals are disposed of and humans are executed the most reliable and least invasive and least cruel method this journalist found was carbon dioxide. Above a particular level CO2 simply knocks a person out after a brief moment of euphoria (light headedness). Its very quick as was shown with the Lake Nyos (Cameroon) disaster in 1986. A cloud of CO2 was released from the lake and it swept downhill and wiped out several villages. They could see from the footprints that most people were knocked out instantly with only a few taking a couple of foot steps. THIS IS THE SHOCKING PART. When the journalist presented what he found to the doctor in charge of executions in one of the US States (Sorry I forget which one) that doctor replied that he didn't care and said (paraphrasing) "Its not meant to be nice its a punishment." Just so we are clear my issue with the death penalty is not that it exists. There can always be some argument made that person 'X' did crime 'Y' and its so egregious that they deserve death. My problem with the death penalty is THE ATTITUDE of those pursuing it. As in are they pursuing justice or something else like vengeance or political gain. In my home state of Victoria (Australia) our last execution was Ronald Ryan a small time criminal who was convicted of killing a guard during a prison escape. There were numerous flaws in the evidence presented with at least 2 witnesses lying. The ballistics made it almost certain the guard was accidentally shot by another guard in a tower on the prison wall. Government papers from meetings that were only released only a few years ago have made it clear the government of the day were fully aware of the actual facts (the lies and the ballistics). Its in the record that when presented with these facts the Victorian Premier Sir Henry Bolte was noted to have said words to the effect "We have an election to win later this year and this will make me look tough on crime." They went on to win that election in a landslide.
    2
  7. WTF are you talking about? When has Thom EVER supported American Imperialism?
    2
  8. David Pakman and some others covered it as well and have covered him in the past. This guy is truly off the deep end.
    2
  9. I hate to bust Thom's and everyone else's balls but Kamala Harris is a terrible campaigner. She DID NOT WIN California in the primaries AND THAT SHOULD RESONATE. OR are you NOT OLD enough to remember Dan Quayle, who was mocked brilliantly by Robert Redford. Like Kamala he was a lawyer and was smart enough to get into and finish Law School. BUT he was slaughtered in debates and mocked relentlessly. There was the gaff that went around the world over his Murphy Brown snipe. I'm not saying Kamala isn't intelligent or that she has good ideas but her political savvy is terrible and it shows EVERYTIME she gets away from scripted speeches.
    2
  10. ​ @yvonneplant9434  That's actually a very good question and there's an answer. Sometimes you have to listen to the other side and give them their moment to state their case. I recently saw an interview with British actor/comedian Tom Walker who plays the character Jonathan Pie. He made this incredibly valid point that if you don't listen to the other side you can never deal with what they are saying or doing. If you have watched this video you can now tell other people you have actually heard and interview with Peter Navarro and seen him dodge the question on proof the election was stolen. NO TRUMP SUPPORTER can now say you haven't listened or tried to listen to their claims. Thom challenged him that all the Trump Team have done is a marketing campaign where if you tell a lie enough times it becomes the public narrative and eventually accepted truth. David Pakman has had Mike Pillow on several times including today. It was bonkers and aggravating and annoying and ridiculous BUT AT TIMES WE HAVE TO HEAR THESE PEOPLE so we can then answer other people's questions.
    2
  11. Its a great idea and could be done all across the world EXCEPT All of our financial controls were effectively privatised via the consulting industry.
    2
  12. Even Joe Manchin went for that and he's the most corporatized (or at least one of the most) politicians in any Western Democracy (not just America) on the planet.
    2
  13.  @rjung_ch  Well said and explained which for social media isn't done enough. There's a lot more than Switzerland nervous. Ireland, Holland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, most of the Caribbean, the Channel Islands, the state of Delaware and a few other tax havens.
    2
  14. To all of Thom's watchers. Trump endorsed Kari Lake whos running for governor of Arizona had a train wreck interview with Australian 60 Minutes that was broadcast free to air only hours ago. Before she stormed out she abused the reporter and gravely insulted Australia. FYI - I am Australian, I went to college in America and this might blow up. This wasn't some silly rant by some clown on YouTube this was a Trump endorsed candidate going off the rails. Don't forget Australia, Britain Canada and others just spent most of the last 20 years supporting America in Afghanistan and Iraq. It wasn't popular anywhere, but we stood by America. I was in Canada for work when Trump tore up NAFTA and hit them with tariffs. How do you all think this makes us feel about America? We are all now asking if there is anyway we can believe that America will be a reliable trading or security partner going forward.
    2
  15. Its NOT our reliance on fossil fuels that is blocking humanity's future. ITS THE RELIANCE of POLITICIANS on the fossil fuel money they use for their campaigns that's the problem.
    2
  16. I'm an Australian who went to college in America and this disturbs me at several levels. 1) It angers me that these clowns are wrecking a country and people I love. 2) It scares the crap out of me because like Canada, Britain, Japan and others we are getting further into deeper security ties with America and NOBODY can tell us with this going on that out main security partner is being overrun by crazy people who don't care about right and wrong. 3) No matter what anyone does or does not think about America the US$ is still the worlds reserve currency. Despite that the Chinese and Russians are pushing the BRICS currency nobody is buying it because who can trust any of the main players? The Euro is only as reliable as the weakest economies in the EU and some of those are seriously unreliable. So no matter what almost all international trade is still going to depend on the reliability of the US$ for a while. If these clowns destabilise America and the US$ with it then the entire planet is in trouble including the Russians and Chinese who both have massive investments in America. So no matter what NOBODY on the planet can afford this sort of nonsense. It goes well beyond America's borders and beyond the American people. You wanted to be the worlds dominant player well that comes at a cost and the cost is RESPONSIBILITY.
    2
  17. Yeah WTF is this all about. Yeah us men have issues and some of us have some damn serious issues and others have issues at a level that's terrifying but this sounds like a heap cultural mansplaining instead of the actual issue. The Uvalde shooter was known to enjoy killing animals and posting it online. That came out day 1 and that's 1 of the key indicators of psychopathy. I might have only done Psych 101 but even I know that. Trying to re-explain this as some male cultural issue isn't going to help anything. The kid had issues letting those fester wasn't good. Letting have a gun was a disaster in the making.
    2
  18. AUSTRALIAN HERE There is no doubting one sleazy damn fact about America culture. No mater how immoral or unethical or miserable a situation is there's always some PIECSE of SHlT sneaking about the situation trying to make money our of it. Do you guys all realise that when Superman used to announce that he was there for "Truth, Justice and the American Way" that that implies that the "American Way" does NOT include either truth or justice? There's something seriously WRONG in the minds of a nation that creates a BULLSHlT character like Superman to convince themselves they are somehow better than any other nation, tribe or culture on the planet. FYI - I went to college in America and love the American people and MOST but not all of their culture. But this aspect of American Exceptionalism is a cancer that has metastasised into the malignant narcissism that is Trumpism.
    2
  19. Do I hear a cheer for Milton Freidman and the Reaganomics he inspired in that? Is it just me or do you think if we had access to Dr Who's Tardis that Milton would be at or near the top of the hit list.
    2
  20. Very interesting opinion and I think you're absolutely right they could be more reliable than Saudi Arabia. The question is after demonizing them for that last 40years after having supported a repressive regime since the 50s that the CIA helped put in place via a coup that overthrew a democratically elected government and then after Trump simply tearing up a treaty in a combination of tempestuousness, childishness, stupidity and lies - WOULD YOU TRUST ANY AMERICAN DEAL IF YOU WERE THE IRANIANS? Lets not forget Trump also whacked a national hero who was on a peace mission at the time or forget that Trump tightened sanctions at the moment Iran was getting hit by COVID or forget the deal Reagan made where he got them to keep Americans hostage to help win an election. I don't doubt your claim they would be a better partner long term, but if you're the Iranians what deal can you make with America that you can trust? Sorry but this is the legacy leaders like Trump & Reagan left America with.
    2
  21.  @progressforward  I'm Australian but went to college in America on a sports scholarship. I find it very sad to see a great country being dragged down by a very selfish minority who have learned how to manipulate large slabs of a population into believing garbage. Both the DNC and GOP are guilty of that. We don't openly talk about it much here but we do have concerns for our long term security. We just backed our future on the F35 and a few other toys. What if another Trumpist (from either side) gets in and starts tearing up treaties? I was in Canada (for work) when Trump tore up NAFTA and imposed tariffs on Canada. No one and I really do mean NO ONE outside of Trumps circle got what that was about. Its Canada the most polite nation on earth and Trump just turned around and kicked them in the face. There are enormous American investments in Canada. The infamous far right Koch brothers are THE MAIN player in the Alberta Oil Sands. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️
    2
  22.  @progressforward  Yeah and America exported it to the rest of the western world world. In Australia right now we have a overly influential pro-China lobby. They are either miners selling raw material, importers importing crap or housing people selling housing. They make so much money, they will do anything to keep the cash rolling in. If you strip away the the surface its almost identical to the American oil money in terms of influence. I just saw a graph yesterday. In 1921 (100 years ago) America lead the world in iron ore production with 21MTA (million tons per annum). We currently mine over 850MTA most of which goes to China. Just like America has people saying that America needs to break its addiction to oil, our people are saying we have to break our addiction to Chinese trade. AND its the same reason - that addiction produces incredible levels of corruption.
    2
  23. For everyone interested here's the full Henry Wallace quote from the New York Times, April 9, 1944 “The really dangerous American fascist... is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”
    2
  24.  @davehendricks4824  What DOJ? You know that thing that criminals used to be scared of? Yeah - That DOJ!
    2
  25. Good reply. Thom is right about many things in this but the Bible does NOT have abortion other than to mention that if you injure a pregnant woman who then miscarries from that injury you can be held accountable. On the subject of slaves the word in the bible for slaves also means EMPLOYEEs. The actual word for employee and the modern concept of employee is very recent in terms of history. There are so many ideas and concepts in the bible that have been misrepresented and misconstrued by organised religion it staggering that anyone even links the bible to religion any more. that moment when Trump held up a bible and it was upside down was maybe one of the most accurate representations of religion ever - they have it upside down.
    2
  26.  @roypitta3459  You absolutely right. How Reagan is held in the esteem that is the greatest PR exercise in history. Second place is Margret Thatcher who did the same in Britain. Just last week in some discussion about the Regan era somebody pointed out SCOTUS judge Gorsuch's mother. She's one of the best face palms ever. She sacked 100s of EPA inspectors and regulators and the few she replaced were all industry hacks. It reads like sacking the FBI Organised Crime division and re-hiring a bunch of mobsters and wise guys to police the Mafia. Trump wasn't the first to pull that crap he just copied Reagan. Somebody needs to write book about the effects and consequences of what Reagan, Thatcher, Freidman and others did.
    2
  27.  @crysstoll1191  I think Gary's channel is one of the most underestimated YT channels there is. I stumbled across him when he was interviewed by another channel. The actual channel is called "Garys Economics." He hasn't done anything for a couple of weeks but all the stuff he's done previously is worth watching.
    2
  28. Almost every label in politics has been abused, misused and misrepresented so often these days almost NOBODY knows anything anymore. I'm an engineer and spent most of my COVID downtime looking into economics because I'm tired of having economists scuttle proposals. I've tried to learn their language so I can talk to them. What I found is that most economists are so confused over what economics is and how it works because so many professors and commentators have no idea what they are saying or teaching. The best comment I saw was recently when someone said: "most economists think they know what economics is, but almost none of them have any idea how it works" Politics is even worse. When you combine the 2 you have the mess we live in.
    2
  29.  @nedludd7622  Actually you are very very right except on the final point. The most important function of the second Amendment was providing SECURITY of a free state. There is NOTHING about the government. A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. What many Americans don't realise is that first part A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State,... had incredibly profound effects on the world. Prior to the American revolution most societies had people like sheriffs, marshals and bailiffs BUT NONE of them had a civilian police force separate from the military. All those sheriffs, marshals and bailiffs used regular military units or special units of the military like the Praetorians of Rome for enforcing government rule over civilians. EVERY country was (to some extent) a military dictatorship. When Pilot sent his men to get Jesus they were Roman soldiers, not police officers. The concept of what we now call a police force didn't exist. Then one day a group of people decided they'd had enough of that threw out their king and his soldiers and started this country called America. After deciding that (like the Athenian Greeks) every citizen could help choose the government they decided every citizen had some basic rights. The FIRST right was citizens could believe what they wanted, say what they wanted and most importantly tell the government what they didn't like (as in their grievances) and not be publicly executed for it. It was a truly revolutionary concept that most of the kings and emperors since have come to regret. The SECOND thing they decided was that it would be local citizens under local control who would supply security for the villages, towns and cities of this new nation. It was a revolutionary concept the federal government would not use the military to rule over the population and enforce laws. That task would be done by a "well organised militia". They went even so far that local people could not only vote on who would be their sheriff but who would be the lawyer responsible for trying criminal cases. Not every country since has taken it that far, but every developed nation since that has a civilian police force TOTALLY SEPARATE from their military owes that to the Founding Fathers of America. FYI - I'm Australian and studied engineering in America (late 80s) and a bunch of my frat brothers were pre-law and used to drag me into discussions on the Bill of Rights. So I had a fairly unusual introduction to American civics.
    2
  30. Welcome to modern politics in every developed country in the world. I'm Australian and the number of lawyers in our politics is over the top terrifyingly scary. All they are trained to do is argue semantics and its why they can't get a damn thing done. Did you know Biden, both Obamas and both Clintons are all lawyers along with Ted Cruz? Those are just the few I can name of hand. And just like ours all any of them can do is argue semantics the rest of us don't care about. Maybe after the next revolution we put a tariff limit on the number of lawyers allowed in society.
    2
  31. SORRY BUT - I went and checked this and maybe Thom could have done some checking too. There definitely is a direct link from Cannons husband (Josh Lorence) to John Rosatti, but there's not much of a link between John Rosatti and the Colombo crime family and nothing to suggest he's actually a mobster. According to FBI informant and former Colombo captain Salvatore "Big Sal" Miciotta "in late 1993, Victor Orena asked multi-millionaire businessman John Rosatti to provide cars from his dealership to be used to carry out murders, Rosatti declined and instead handed over $50,000 to Orena." (source Wikipedia on the page about the Colombo Crime Family). So there's no actual claim anywhere that Rosatti was actually a mobster just a claim that a mobster approached him at one time and the implication he paid money to NOT be involved.
    2
  32. Australian here looking at this from the outside. The craziest aspect of the American-Israeli thing is the GOP's near fanatical pro-Israeli stance, because one of the core fundamentals of GOP ideology is the complete dismantling of social welfare including public education and publicly funded health care. This is all summed up in Ronald Reagan's infamous "Welfare Queen" remark. Heres' the thing. Israel is now politically dominated by the ultra-orthodox Jewish population and they don't work at all. Their men sit in Yeshiva's all day long and study the Torah. Their women mostly stay at home and raise their large families. They get their food, rent, power and medical all paid for by the rest of society and its all underwritten by the American tax payer. Up until recently they rarely served in the military. So how does the GOP support the State of Israel with tax payer money that has a welfare system that they would NOT TOLERATE in America?
    1
  33. As an outsider (Australian) looking in - YES, not prosecuting Trump over January 6th has been incredibly damaging to America's image and reputation. IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD - Not only would Trump and all those who spoke at the rally but anyone who entered the capital on that day would have been in custody AND NOT RELEASED as fast as they could have been captured. In ANY OTHER COUNTRY they would have received lengthy jail sentences and in more than a few countries MOST of them would have been EXECUTED. The Chinese executed people after Tiananmen Square. The Saudis and Iranians execute anyone who protests their regimes. The Nigerian government executed Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 others for protesting against the environmental damage of oil companies. Trump's buddy Kim Jong Un would have executed ALL OF THEM in a heartbeat. When American history is studied in future Merrick Garland will be viewed in similar context to Benedict Arnold for the betrayal of the office for which he was entrusted with. When he was first appointed an people cheered that justice was coming there were a few people pointing out that he was also a known member of the Federalist Society and warning that he'd do nothing.
    1
  34. Its already been tried. NASA adapted Hubble Space Telescope technology for the task but every time they pointed it at a politician the electronics inside the camera melted. At first they thought it was a design flaw in the lens before they worked out it was like a human eye looking directly at the sun. They are currently adapting other space telescope technology to get past this problem, but are having trouble getting congress to fund it. 🤔🤔🤔🤔
    1
  35. HEY THOM: Please interview Sir Angus Deaton on the subject of healthcare in America. I just listened to him with Prof. Mark Blyth (Brown U. and a person you should have on regularly) for the Rhodes Centre Podcast (here on YT). Angus has just published a book Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist in the Land of Inequality. Mark Quotes from the book "If you gave every person in America the Swiss health care system they would get 5 more years of life and a $3,000 check each year" and then asks Angus why nobody can do anything. That gets to your favorite topic (or one of them) on Lobbyists. I really do recommend you interview BOTH Mark and Angus. By the way I am Australian but went to college in America. Love your vids because unlike so many others your actually working to INFORM people. Also are you aware of the PwC scandal in Australia and what (so far) they have been allowed to get away with?
    1
  36. You make a great point - its predatory capitalism NOT capitalism that's the problem. I recently bought a copy of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" it has 2 introductions. One it nuts the other is a brilliant essay by a professor from the LSE. He points out that Smith was concerned with EVERYONE in Britain having the opportunity to gain some wealth. Smith was actually reacting to the existing economics called "mercantilism" which was like predatory capitalism and resulted in entities like the British East India Company. We think Amazon and google are big. The BEI at one stage was 50% of the worlds economy. It took the British government 70 years to break it up and they only got there because they had a bigger army and a bigger fleet.
    1
  37. Henry A. Wallace “The really dangerous American fascist... is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection." - the New York Times, April 9, 1944”
    1
  38. That's a reasonable comment except just check your history to see what happens when the Left go too far like they did across Eastern Europe. At the moment people are forgetting the Far Left can be just as insanely destructive as the Far Right. Some foe worlds worst offenders of human rights were Far Left governments. Look at China right now for their ethnic genocide of the Uyghurs. They are also among the worlds most destructive when it comes to the environment. Look at what the Soviets did to the Aral Sea. When it comes to propaganda and feeding an entire population misinformation look at North Korea or right now Russia. Look ay any authoritarian regime - Left, Right, Religious Theocracy, Military dictatorship, Oligarchy,..... etc and the first thing they do is restrict information to the narrative they want people to hear AND they will always claim THEY are the TRUTH SPEAKERs like all those goons across the Murdoch empire. Before he screwed up his brain on drugs and was still a reasonable person Jordan Peterson pointed out that it was easy to know when people had gone too far to the Right - they became racist. But there wasn't as simple of a marker for when people had gone too far to the Left. I think he missed the more generalised assessment that when people start to put their ideology (what ever type) ahead of common sense and allow it to HURT other people and/or DEGRADE their lives THEN they are going too far.
    1
  39. Yeah but he's also completely IGNORANT of what White Supremacy actually is. Its NOT the be all and end all of everything. As an African American I sure he see's it as the be all and end all BUT HE IS WRONG. Its fundamentally a racial superiority issue that EVERY tribe and culture has some version of it. Irrespective of if you take a look at ancient or modern history we see the same thing again and again and we have so many examples that HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH WHITE PEOPLE. Thom's example of Korea is just one example of the entire Asian continent. Dig a little and you will find examples of this racial superiority in all of them and at one time or another they have all used to to do great harm to each other and there was not a WHIT PERSON ANYWHERE. FYI - I'm Australian and yes we have a serious issue with White Supremacists but we also have some other racial issue that HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH WHITE PEOPLE. We have sizeable communities of Pakistanis and Indians and others form the sub-continent and you have to be damn careful what you say around them. Most of them are fine but like every culture there are those who have this racial superiority trait and they can fly off the handle. Another 2 groups we have to be very careful with are Vietnamese and Cambodians. There's several 1,000 years of conflict there and there is NOT A WHITE PERSON INVOLVED. This guys claim that the African conflicts are 100% the fault of White People is just nonsense. There are tribal conflicts going back 1,000s of years just as there is everywhere else. I can understand his point of view being African American but he's simply WRONG.
    1
  40.  @DarylBark  George Carlin once said look at how stupid the average person with an IQ of 100 is and then realise that 1/2 the population has an IQ under 100. This is one of the crazy aspects of sending trying to send 80% of high school leavers to university to get a degree. In that model - out of every 100 high school kids 80 go to university and 30 of those 80 have an IQ under 100. Yeah 3/8ths of all the people who go to university shouldn't. This is why the drop out rate is so high across the world. IT DOES NOT mean they are stupid or worthless it just means they aren't suited to that type of study and there's a lot of other stuff they could do and trained people we do need. I'm an engineer and there's lots of technical jobs like lab technicians, welders, machinists, electricians and other technicians that don't require a degree but do require an advanced diploma or similar PLUS we are super short of them across a bunch of fields. Go ask any doctor about lab tests and they howl about the shortage of lab techs. Go ask the police about their shortages of forensic techs. Sorry to go on but its a favorite rant of mine. Even when we get away from the Wars and stupid politics there's stuff NOBODY is addressing and its slowly eating our societies.
    1
  41. Yeah - professional sports like car racing and European Soccer. They brag about better conditions (better equipment, better facilities, faster cars,... etc.) and better pay and some of them even pay taxes except when they pay their employees so much money they run at a loss.
    1
  42.  B G  As an Australian I can tell all of America (and I have seen many others from around the world say the same) "Citizens United" is one of the stupidest things any nation has ever done in all of human history. Its a self induced malignant cancer that is metastasising into a nightmare not just for America but the entire World. If you listen to the most recent vid Thom did with Richard Wolff he remined us all that 44 allied nations agreed at Breton Woods in 1944 that the US Dollar would be the worlds reserve currency and how that works. YES - Breton Woods has been surpassed by other agreements, but the US Dollar remains the worlds reserve currency. Even though it is being traded less and less the stability of the currency exchange markets still relies on the stability of the US Dollar. Even though that annoys the crap out of many people we put up with it because it works. However with Citizens United certain billionaires are now going UNRESTRAINED on what influence they can buy. People like Charles Koch and Robert Mercer who have unusual views on how they should run America. See Thoms other vids on Koch & Mercer if you haven't. What those 2 are working on should scare everyone. If that disaster of a Constitutional Convention Koch wants goes ahead America as we know it ends. That would be incredibly bad for America and likely end in civil war and or the complete break-up of the United States of America. For the rest of the world it would also completely destabilise the currency markets because we all have money in New York Federal Reserve as Prof Wolff Described. Think of the bank rush there'd be if nations panicked and started scrambling to get their money out and what that would do to the NYSE and with it the other major stock exchanges.
    1
  43. I'm Australian and an outside observer to all this nonsense. Its pretty damn obvious all of the Hunter Biden & Joe Biden nonsense is simply a distraction from just how close this mess cam to ending democracy in America. I actually went to college in American. I did engineering but a bunch of friends were pre-law and they used to drag me into all sorts of their discussions. I had studied Orwell in high school (Animal Farm & 1984) so I used to always put forward that ANY DEMOCRACY could fall into a totalitarian dictatorship (Left or Right) because that was what Orwell warned about. People think Orwell was only about what happened in Russia and that's not true. His message was a warning against ANYFORM of absolute dictatorship. My friends used to argue that such a thing was IMPOSSIBLE in America because the US Constitution had too many checks and balances to get around. I am stunned at what's happening now because that system of checks and balances has failed. At the moment I put the blame squarely on 2 people in particular - Mitch McConnell and Merrick Garland. McConnell could have slapped down Trump at the FIRST impeachment the same way they muzzled Clinton with a "We aren't throwing you out but you are now going to behave and do your job." McConnell could have at the SECOND impeachment simply said "No this is too much. Get out and stay out!" Garland should have seen the failure of McConnell and done the right thing by simply charging Trump the moment there was sufficient evidence and there was enough. The fact he put his Institutionalist ideology in front of the reality of the situation will haunt America for generations.
    1
  44. NO - not a chance. World leaders with UN security counsel veto don't get charged. Clinton fired missiles into the sovereign nation of Sudan - what happened there? Bush & Cheney threw the Geneva Convention out the window and had people tortured - what happened there? Obama let the CIA bomb women and children using drones - what happened there? Trump actually murdered an Iranian General on a peace mission - what happened there? Most of the Western World supported those actions - what happened there? World leaders need to do something truly despicable like bio or chem weapons against children and then its a maybe.
    1
  45. Exactly. I don't know why anyone thinks there is a "secret cabal" running everything when groups like the Federalist Society do it all out in the open. The entire world knows that the super wealthy hide their money using off shore banking. They don't even hide it anymore - they don't need to. The Panama Papers came out and nobody went to jail. The Paradise Papers came out and nobody went to jail. Trump tweeted come to Washington "it will be wild" and then he told a wound up mob to go down and "STOP the steal" and they did and it was all on film and HE GOT AWAY WITH IT (so far).
    1
  46. For everyone interested here's the full Henry Wallace quote from the New York Times, April 9, 1944 “The really dangerous American fascist... is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”
    1
  47. Milton Friedman the man who gave the world "Greed is good" also said: “Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” The great BULLSHlT of that is he and his Chicago School Buddies through the ACTIONS of GOVERNMENTS went and REARRANGED the entire World's Economy. There's a famous photograph of him and Augusto Pinochet the Chilean dictator. The so called genius economist. As Thom has said several times he was a psychopath
    1
  48. I'm an Australian who went to college in America (late 80s) and have been warning that this is a huge issue to Australia, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Britain, Europe, the Philippines and many others. For so many America is our most important trading partner and MORE IMPORTANTLY our most important security partner. Like others we've staked our security future on things like the F35.
    1
  49.  @sheldonbodryn1003  A few years ago I was in Canada for work right at the moment Trump tore up NAFTA and hit them with tariffs. It was interesting to watch Canadians drop the politeness and go into hockey mode. I used to joke with them, what was going to happen when they had hoards of American refugees at the border trying to escape the Trumptocracy? For all their sense of humour, they never found it funny.
    1
  50. ​ @sheldonbodryn1003  I was in college in America in the late 80s. I did engineering but a bunch of my frat brothers were pre-law and we used to discuss these thigns a lot. Because I had studied Orwell (Animal farm & 1984) I use to argue that ANY country even America could become a totalitarian state if it wasn't careful. They used to argue that the US Constitution would NOT allow anyone to take America down that path. Look at America right now. SCOTUS has been corrupted by the Federalist Society. Congress has been corrupted by the corporate elites. The free speech of the 1st Amendment is under threat. The security of the free state of the 2nd Amendment has been hijacked by the NRA. The 3rd Amendment isn't used any more and I personally think its incredibly important and underrated. Its actually about protecting the land and resources. So when the EPA is regulating polluters they are actually protecting people's 3rd Am. right to their land not being spoiled. But the one that amazes me more than anything is how The Patriot Act tore a hole right through the 4th. The NSA can be watching us right now, without a warrant, without cause, without due process or anything else. I'm not even American and I think the US Bill of Rights is one of the greatest achievements in human history and to see it trampled is a tragedy of epic proportions.
    1