Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "The Damage Report"
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Affluent voters or rural folks (who tend to vote red) likely weathered the crisis better. In affluent areas they also get elecrticity back sooner - well, that may have been a mixed blessing, if they had a variable rate.
Some of them likely have some outdoor, hunting experience. Propane gas cooker, etc. They have the space for a gas generator (maybe have one because hurricanes). Camping and BBQ equipment was very helpful too, they often have or can arrange for a fireplace, chimeny, woodstove.
affluent folks likey also have the 4WD vehicles (torsion control) to help with driving and the new cars with the new tires.
They can store food, wood, water (space), and also can insulate their home - it is theirs. Or having solar panels, and batteries. Insulating pipes if the are the outside of the wall or install a heater - of course then you need a generator.
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In the Golden Era most productivity wins (they come from technology, automation, new marketing and communication methods) landed in the pockets of the workers. Sure inflation was somewhat higher but wage growth BY FAR outpaced that. Purchasing power of average hourly wages in the U.S. almost doubled between 1947 and 1970, that is in 23 years. It was plus 97 % (again that is after inflation). While productivity rose by 112 %.
Hourly average wages adjusted for inflation - economists also call that "real" wages and it means the purchasing power you get from 1 hour of paid work.
The owners and shareholders got a smaller piece of the pie of 112 % average productivity growth (that is across industries) . Still good (it was a large and growing pie and not that many people that are owners). But they had to give the workers the lion's share - and they resented it.
The oil crises of the 1970s meant the oligarchs could - finally ! - hit back after labor and regular folks in the U.S. had a good run for 25 years. and then they started pushing their politicians to pass trade deals that made outsourcing lucrative and safe. And they defanged the unions. So they could pit the domestic workforce against the workforce of poor countries.
Before that the companies needed the domestic workforce and unemployment was not high enough to put pressure on wages (or to refuse to give the raises). If they were not willing to pay the good wages, they were not able to stay in business, and would miss out on the profits that could be made. Some other company would gladly step up.
With the advent of neoliberalism and outsourcing
Even with high employment - like in the 2018 and 2019 - real wages were not going up (not if you factor in inflation). The manufacturing companies that are still in the U.S. will threaten to just leave the country - and politicians made sure they can do that.
Manufacturers only turned their back on the domestic workforce, they still need the domestic consumers. So the permanently low import tariffs make planning easier, they can move the factory and invest the millions. It is not like another admin that is pro labor could raise the tariffs on imports for garments, or plastic products, or shoes. The "free market" advocates made politicians remove all risks for them.
Trump did change tariffs to a degree, but trade wars can last 3 weeks, months or 2 years. So companies will not move production back to the U.S. based on that.
After all the theatrics - NAFTA 2.0 brought very little real improvements. GM closed the factory in Lordstown, they moved - after they had gotten the Trump tax cuts (they also profit from making investments abroad, that is tax deductible).
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USD 17 - may be a hefty fine in a developing or emerging countries. Think the equivalent of several hundred or thousand dollars (max) in first world countries. The high fines for serial offenders, I know that they put people in prison at least for a short time in Australia because they were serial offenders. you bet that will be a hefty fine, even if they are not imprisoned for longer time.
Normally people that are such idiots do not have a lot of money, but at least they serve as a warning example. One lady did not like the restrictions and requirement to quarantine after she had gotten a special waiver to fly to another territory in Australia. Well try prison for restrictions, and no fun.
Quarantine (at least of persons that had tested positive) was controlled by police here (Austria). The routine for people that suspect or know that they had contact or if they have symptoms:
They call the hotline, get an appointment for a test right away, do the test often get the result within 20 minutes or max. a few hours, test might be repeated after a few days.
It can happen: first test negative, because it is too soon. and a few days later they test positive.
After the test it depends: they are free to go, or they have to quarantine (just in case, maybe with a repetition of the test. That is covered by paid sick leave btw if they cannot work, either because of the symptoms or because they are well but they cannot work online).
Or they test positve with the first test already. Then they will be included in the stats (case numbers = tested positive and still under quarantine), also paid sick leave of course.
AND randomly the police will control if they are at home. - If they can weather it at home, most people do not need the hospital.
Happened to a friend.
His retired parents have a weekend house nearby where he lives so he left his home to not endanger family. Friends delivered groceries to the doorstep and he has internet there, so he could even work, he had fever in the first few days but nothing dramatic.
It is much harder to observe all the necessary rules of hygiene if the infected lives in a household with other people. Even IF the house is large, they can reserve one bath and toilet only for the infected, etc.
Police showed up unannounced at the regular address of residency. They were told where they could find him, not sure if they bothered, the explanation was convincing.
Now they do random mass testing on a national scale (after another lockdown that has ended on Dec. 6th).
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@michaelshigetani433 she had a history of being a staunch anti Iraq war activist. (Which at that time may have been genuine.) Was associated with the Green party, I think she even ran on their ticket once. I think she is a lesbian, that would of course make her a Democrat in AZ (in the past). A progressive lost the primary in 2018 against her, and even though there were some red flags (too much talk about bipartisanship during the campaign) one could have a reasonable expectation she would be a middle of the road Democrat, not too bad, maybe a little better than the average. And certainly better than the Republican in the race.
Meanwhile in Germany: They just voted on Sep 26th, 2021: they have around 7 parties in the race that will get seats in the parliament (more on the ballot, so the Germans have their pick among outsiders and opposition parties).
Sinema - is a brazen and completely shameless sellout. Her brazenness is indeed outstanding, voters did nothing wrong, she is much worse than the usual lot.
Plenty of sellouts and cowards - but most do not have the nerve of Sinema or Manchin.
The bipartisan talk could have been a tactic to win over voters in a red state leaning purple. Affluenct voters that style themselves "moderates": read voters are embarrassed by the current Republican party and vote their economic interest.
I saw a video about racial discrminination in a high end neighbourhood in California. Household income averages 240,000 USD, they voted over 60 % for Trump.
In 2020.
No one runs around with the MAGA hat that would be uncough, they just vote for the guy. Consindering that 1980s style Republican Biden was the other choice on the ticket.
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Details on the choice voters have in other nations, they don't have to pick between one (hopefully not too bad) candidate like Sinema (some red flags in 2018 already) and the awful Republican (which is even worse than Sinema - still after Sinema shows her true colors the alternative to her in the general election would have been worse - only no one expects better). In other democracies voters have options and established parites have competition. In Germany any progressive would have voted for The Left or The Green Party (ahem !), or strategically this time even the Social Democrats.
They vote for parties(and the lists of ranked candidates although that is not legaly binding. If a party wins fewers seats than expected and a candidate got a good position of the list to placate some fringes of the party - they often get shoved to the bottom. Or at least the party establishment tries to do that. The party darlings were placed behind them with the expectation that it would not matter, there would be enough seats for everyone. If that is not the case the concessions to the party fractions (female, environmental, digital natives, younger voters, ....) and the candidates that represent such voters are often obsolete - the knives are out, ....
Well the voters have an option for that, they ALSO and additionally can vote for certain candidates in their districts. Which can alter and shift the results somewhat. There is nothing the party can do. The system does not encourage that the districts vote for certain persons (instead of giving the party a general mandate to appoint the members of parliament).
name recogniton usually does not play a role unless it is for the top positions. Ad spending in campaigns (especially on TV and radio) is strictly limited. So candidates NEED the party / unions OR they have a grassroots organisation. If they have a good candidate and / or a cause that resonates with voters, they can get in, and that can happen within a few years.
There are examples that parties popped up with 4 years. The far right - but also digital natives, and in Germany a center left minority party got one seat. They are excempt from the 5 % hurdle for parties (5 % of the popular vote) because they represent an ethnic minority - Danes ;) in Northern Germany. They often only run in local elections, but this time they participated in federal elections. Occasionally they were (or could have been) the little hinge that swings big doors).
Name recognition CAN help and it is not easy but also not impossible to get it. big money- as in ad spending - cannot derail them. With exception of the newspapers who are still kingmakers to a degree - that goes mostly against The Left, and to a degree against the Social Democrats unless they have a leading candidate (potential chancellor) that is sufficiently in line with the neoliberal economic order, finance, weapons exports, and NATO establishment.
Chancellor Schroeder knew he needed the right wing trashy BILD ("image") to win, they could sway a few percent if they were hostile, and deny him the win. And he undermined labour - what the center right under Changellor Kohl could only dream of getting done (they feared it would help the Social Democrats then in oppostions) - he (with help of a colluding Green Party) could pull it off.
Like it needed Bill Clinton to sideline the unions and get NAFTA passed and the China deal prepared. And he finalized the deregulation of finance, which not even 10 years later led to the crash.
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Sanders said he wanted to be the organizer-in-chief if elected president. Well turns out he is more comfortable with being the eternal educator / underdog / dissenter / kinda movement leader, if they do not really rock the boat - . When a crisis offered a huge chance and he was CALLED (by fate so to speak) - he chose to play nice and safe with the establishment.
Sadly neither Sanders nor the progressives were willing to throw an EARLY fit about the conditions of the stimulus bill. Starting with the fact that it was tied to the handout to big biz.
There was no reason for that, only that Republicans held citizens and small biz hostage.
Someone should have called that out - with exact those words.
It was clear where the "stimulus" bill was headed, when Pelosi insisted on "means testing". Never mind the Republican shenanigans that were even more open and brazen.
So the servants of the corporate overlords "made" the progressives work their behind off that they could "secure" 2 crumbs for the peasants (and a bone) instead of only 1 crumb.
I think that placates also the conscience of the feckless, timid progressives - at least they got a little bit more and they really DID fight (in the wrong arena) and then did some grandstanding on the floor (see AOC) - too late when the vote was imminent, when they could not leverage the only power they really have.
Trump had a problem HE WANTS to win the election, he needed the stimulus bill as well.
Public opinion, people willing to do something. They are scared, all at the same time having the same problem. THAT is the ideal time to organize, because voters have so much motivation. I am sure many voters were just waiting for some leadership to being OFFERED. Instead the feckless progressives played the little game and scrambled to secure crumbs.
How about turning the tables on the servants of big biz (of both parties !). Who also did some grandstanding and window dressing, and then they all arranged for the bailouts and handouts for the big donors, no strings attached.
Strings, means testing, are for smaller biz, and normal people. And THEY shouldn't be spoilt by getting "too much".
Sanders should not have done virtual townhalls or participated in the negotiations of the bill as usual (I guess usually they do not leak the details to the press while they are making the sausage so to speak).
Instead he should have trolled them ALL, the word "general strike" should have been floated ("general strike now or later, or partially, with what we can do now") believe me Corporate media and their overlords would have gone nuts, and Trump would have paid attention.
Of course thy would have called it irresponsible. So what ? That would have been a discussion starter. The negative coverage of Trump did not hurt him -he struck a chord with people.
Sanders and the progressives were on the right side of the issues and there was historic precedence. 1932 - the united left have FDR the leverage for the New Deal. (and frankly nudged FDR - he and the New deal were the lesser evil for the oligarchs then).
Any coverage would have helped the cause.
Sanders should have called a spade a spade, asking voters to call their "representative", asking for civil disobedience. (protests IN CARS to practice social distancing. organizing rent strikes).
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Lincoln D a few thousands ? for ONE special * treatment in the U.K. - TRY a few thousand for EVERYTHING in the U.S. before your insurance kicks in.
* which you might get for free on the continent, if need be you could get a job in Germany, Netherlands, Denmark or France or Sweden and work there for a few months to get that - well before Brexit.
A few thousand USD is the default deductible in many U.S. plans. If your income is low enough that you cannot afford the out of pocket spending for THIS treatment in the U.K - you would likely have one of those plans with at least 5,000 USD deductible if you lived in the U.S. A plan with better conditions would be too expensive so you would have to take a gamble and hope you are not one of the unlucky ones that get hit by it.
And if your employer even offers coverage (the number of employers that do goes down every year) there is a chance it is not good or gets worse every year. Employers change the plans at will (often forced by price increases or to save money, and every time the conditions, co-pais the "network" changes).
To the point that smaller companies would rather fire people if they or their family members need costly treatments (especially ongoing).
The insuers now "blacklist" such companies. They either end the contract or they send them a new contract with inferior conditions, the contracts are valid for ONE year. . Some companies accept the worse conditions for all of staff because one staff member costs the insurance more money than the statistical average (or a family member gets expensive medication, etc.). Then it might mean they cancel the insurance coverage for family members, only staff members are covered from now on.
Or another typical "adjustment" to keep costs acceptable for companies is to have higher co-pays and deductibles. A company insurance plan does not mean you get services "free at the point of delivery". And heaven forbid the ambulance brings you to the "wrong" hospital while you are unconsious. An Out of Network hospital for your plan. They will slap you with a bill. It can change every year what is in and out of network (even IF the conpany stays with the same insurer), so consumers can easily go into that cost trap as well.
Going to the right hospital can also mean a longer drive. Danger of medical complications because of delay, but also the costs for the ambulance. You guessed it; ambulance drives are often also not included, even in decent plans, and they cost money. Easily 1000 USD if the transport is longer.
A mayor of a small town said she had to cancel insurance for family members, they could not afford anymore to have family of their staff on the plan as well. Likely they had a costly event and reacted with a drastic price incrase for the town employees. The small hospital in town closed. They have a program for low income persons in the U.S, but if most patients in low income , rural areas have it, the rates are not sufficient (they might be good enough for a smaller rural NHS hospital, but not sufficient in the U.S. for-profit hopspital system.
All hospitals have to finance a highly complicated system of billing (software and especially trained staff) even for the relatively few parients that have good contracts that they can "milk" in poor area. That and the profits for shareholders and marketing and sales staff costs extra money. Drugs are also much more expensive.)
If the employer accepts a downgraded contract - for instance staff only, no more family members covered (the staff has no say in that) the citizens have to buy insurance for family from the "marketplace". Under ACA - hello high deductibles.
Not many jobs offer good and comprehensive coverage as benefit (and if you work in a comparable good job in the UK you CAN afford a few thousand). If you work service sector in the U.K. you get much better healthcare coverage by default and treatment "free at the point of service" than the other regular folks in the U.S. - low income to lower middle class.
The deductible does not mean only a once in a lifetime expenditure for a treatment that does not seem to be mainstream but for everything, even the most basic generic medical treatments. A deductible of 8,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 USD means you have to pay ot of pocket every year again until the "insurance" finally kicks in. That screws especially people with chronic conditions that need ongoing medication or treatments.
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The Dems and Repubs serve the same big donors. A few brazen Republican Lite defectors have always defended the interests of the big donors, when the voters had given the Democrats too much power, so they would have run out of excuses why they did not deliver for the constituents.
That is the reason the defectors are gladly tolerated, even if they occasionally take it that far that they undermine the presdent when he REALLY wants to get something done. Or a very popular campaign promise (the public option).
No one steps on their toes. They come either from red states or are very well established, or represent a small state with a lot of affluent voters.They have 6 year terms, so they can easily risk to sell out the regular people.
Manchin and the 2 others cost their collegues in the 2014 midterms and one could argue that with a stimulus package passed in Nov. 2013 (just in time to show some effect for the midterms 2014) the Rustbelt states would have voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
She snatched defeat from the jaws of victory to be sure, but that is an additional reason for the D own goal.
She needed WI, MI, and PA (as she lost Florida by 1.2 % and Ohio by 8 %) - and Trump to everybody's surprise won all 3 (and needed only one of them, no matter which one).
But the margin in favor of Trump was 70,000 votes in ALL 3 states. With all 3 states called for Hillary Clinton (so 70,000 votes - and then a few more to avoid a Florida 2000 scenario - in the other direction) SHE would have won. With 273 Electoral Votes. Not impressive, but she would have won.
"We did not have the votes to get a bill passed" often means: The blue dogs took one for the team. Of course this was not in the middle of a depression in most cases, and in the past it was easier for mainstream media to control the narrative for them.
Republicans misbehaving (for instance under Obama, or now) is intentionally conflated with them hindering the Dems from getting things done. If letting the Repubs participate is presented as necessary; they (both big donor serving parties) can always water down the D proposals and the Republicans play the role of the bad cops.
The Democrats have someone to blame. No one talks about why Dems do not eagerly go for passing bills with a simple majority. (at least not in the past). Which they CAN DO with a simple rule change with 51 votes (no more filibuster).
Obama let the Republicans "negotiate" (in bad faith) regarding healthcare reform and after 1 year of a lot of watering down by Republicans and removing a lot of regulations that would have helped with cost control - not ONE of the Republicans voted for ACA anyway.
It should be mentionen that some blue dogs too worked openly to proetct the big donors. Some "Democrats" in the Senate killed the public option that was a campaign promise of Obama.
Obama did not invite the blue dogs to the White House to "discuss" this (FDR would have twisted arms).
The Democrats then passed ACA with NO R votes in spring 2010 during a filibuster proof window of 60 days (R Senators retiring or something like that), they could have passed ANY bill. The Democratic votes were enough (and they should have had a few others bills ready on the shelf).
They let the Repubs make the (not too good origianl proposal) much worse and gave them enough time to fearmonger and deceive the public.
Remember death panels ?
In the end the D candidates that were up for election in Nov. 2010 ran from the health insurance reform and distanced themselves from Obama when they were in a purple state. One in Tx did not want to say if she had voted for Obama.
voters do not appreciate cowards.
Midterms went badly and then the Dems REALLY had it hard to get anything done (that would be good for voters. They found the Repubs cooperative with some issues. Military spending, Patriot Act, subsidies for big biz. And trade deals.
Obama made the Bush era tax cuts permanent.
Did Repubs reciprocate for that. Of course not.
I am not even sure the Democratic establishment and Obama regretted losing the midterms 2010 and not having all 3 branches of government anymore.
Good shills that lost the election, but were useful for the big donors will get a golden parachute. If Republcians hold either congress or Senate Dems can complain that Repubs do not let them do anything.
That is the base for their demand of the base to vote for them and to fall in line. So that they can do a little more for the voters in the future. Or so they say ....
Next round in the game of Fool The Sheeple.
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