Formesse

Lets be honest: The Not trump vote, probably made the election results as close as it was. And that might be difficult for some to wrap their head around - trump is unlikable, but: To anyone dealing with the fall out of certain choices Biden made attacking trump era policies (I'm thinking of one in particular), it's a bit of a no brainer. This brings us to three key issues that are causing problems in US politics, but western politics in general:

1. The Stay in Mexico agreement is the perfect example of how Opposing political representatives have a "everything the opposition does is mostly evil and bad, and it needs to be killed as soon as possible" - and this goes for EVERYTHING. If we could have sane, nuanced discussions and come to agreements and policies we would see a LOT less whip lash, and a LOT MORE cooperation. But people who think they have the moral high ground - doesn't matter the side - uses that as a justification for their actions, no matter how harmful those actions are. To say that illegal immigration is a problem is an understatement - it creates downward pressure on ceertain wages, which is then used as justification because hard working americans don't want piss poor wages.

2. We have seen migration problems bleed into regional crime issues, tent cities, and so on.

3. There are a handful of very democrat cities that are suffering dramatically from catch and release policies to the point that corperations that provide necessary essential services to make a city viable are leaving the city. They are simply closing up shop. And the attitude from the democrats is not to solve the underlying problem - it's to try to make it illegal to close up shop in the city or area. Well: The only other option is to drive up prices, or basically make it impossible to get in and out without exactly what you have paid for.

All of this comes to a reality that we have seen a march towards Institutional Authoritarianism for DECADES, since about 1970... well, a little sooner, but if you look at a lot of shifts you are going to find that about 1965 through to about 1975 is a big shift in a lot of governance decisions, and this is no different. More, and more federal agencies were created - and laws were more and more written such that it was agency rules that dictated the specifics instead of clear written law by congress. In function, it was a divestment of power from Elected officials to Appointed agencies - and over time, the Bureaucracy has been ever more empowered to dictate the direction of many of these organizations, not the elected officials or congress: And yes, Democrats are the biggest fault in this, though republicans are... barely better in this regard.

So: How do we fix this?

The answer is: Smaller government. Simpler regulations are cheaper and easier to be in compliance with, and require less resources to audit. Simpler taxes are this with added benefits - in that, by simplifying, you crush the legal loopholes used to hide money from scrutiny. And part of the simplification is you remove basically everything that is eligible as a tax credit.

And this applies for EVERY SINGLE regulatory body, every government agency, all of it.

You can't tax a nation into prosperity, you can't regulate it into prosperity. You can tax a society into equality by making everyone miserable - but since the politicians are human beings as well, you can bet they will NOT be living a miserable life meaning it will never happen. Those two things are the core of stratifying a society - and again, they have increased in count and size consistently. And if you think taxing the rich is a great idea - income tax on the rich was the first income tax in the US, levied to pay the debts of the civil war. Pretty soon governments decided that taxing everyone else would be better then taxing just the rich: After all, it's just fair... right? And pretty soon, the regulations, and rules shifted such that the rich pay significantly less as a portion of their income as does literally everyone else: Oops?

It's almost like Equal opertunity serves society better then trying to force equitability. It's almost like Free association, is better then trying to force everyone to associate. It's almost like Freedom from government oversight is better then a government up in every bit of your business. And it's like Free trade is good for the wealthy - and bad for about everyone else in the long term: Because it's not about YOUR benefit, it's a bout the owner classes benefit.

You can't tax an economy into prosperity, you can't regulate a nation into prosperity, and you can't export your industry and become prosperous.

The Democrats and Republicans since about 1965 have worked in concert to offshore industry, tax and regulate domestic businesses out of profitability, printed more money then you can imagine - driving inflation. And the crowning jewel of all of this was killing to gold standard, with a nice improvement to the display of the crown through implementation of Free trade.

If we had a Fair trade arrangement - that allowed for Tariffs that explicitly were put in place to undermine the value of subsidizing foreign production that is exported to your nation, we would have a very different story. If we had an explicit way or costing up production that is done to the detriment of environmental standards - China and such would have had actual pressure to clean up their environmental standards.

Lets explore something that demonstrates the missunderstanding:

I want to talk about China, It's National Security concern, and Renewables. And yes - these three things are linked HEAVILY.

A lot of people who are pro Renewables will point to China: They can do it. And sure - they can. But what they entirely miss out on, is that to China Renewable energy is THE ONLY OPTION FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE. And Energy independence is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIALLY if you want to be a global power. Energy independence allows the nation to be more aggressive without risk of embargo - for if China were to engage militarily in Taiwan, the shipping lanes in and out of china could be put under blockade, western insurers would basically kill the option to use them to ensure the ships going to/coming from the region - and that would dramatically reduce the amount of oil/gas coming into the nation. It would also limit food entering the nation.

See: A Nation like Canada, or the US, who are each are (or capable of being) food AND energy independent - you can't exactly siege them. While the last several decades manufacturing in these nations has been lacking, these nations also have tremendous mineral resource availability if they ever choose to start exploiting it at scale again: China has none of this.

Traditionally, this is why China has a strong incentive to facilitate the power of their Empire through Trade (ex. Silk Road). Because they have such need of importing food (especially over the last couple of decades), trade is the only option China has for expanding it's influence. China CAN NOT use military force without fear of retribution that literally starves out it's populace of energy, and food. Basically: China is vulnerable to a nation wide siege. And China's potential greatest Rival: The US, has the absolute means to do this.

So, in order to solve ONE of these problems, China needs Energy Security through renewable. Oddly enough - in the mid term, as China's populace begins to shrink it will become feasible for China to become food independent as well. Once that occurs, we may very well see China become more aggressive militarily.

Now: Take that same principle and apply it to EVERY SINGLE POLITICAL ISSUE.

When you start to see the agenda's being pushed - and start ripping down and looking at the underlying motivations which come down to "we don't want to die" and a couple other core ideas - each of which is very immediate - what we find is both Republicans, and Democrats are prone to ignoring the details in favour of pushing their agenda.

See: Climate change is very much real - the only question is, how much is it human caused? See - the big forest fires in Western Canada/US come down to a couple of things that are piling up over the last 5 or so years. 1. Beavers killed in massive quantities through the 1700's and 1800's. 2. Then we have massive fire suppression. 3. Then we have clear cutting of forests. Beavers seems odd - but beavers build damns out of wood, wet wood takes A LONG time to dry, like - from green wood to dry we are talking a year of air drying in near ideal conditions per inch of thickness and the beaver damns are... wet, covered in part by silt, and it's deep. From the time the water ways start re-routing we are probably talking like 100-150 years for that material to dry out, break down and rot, and otherwise cease helping to maintain moisture in the area. When you suppress fires heavily - underbrush builds up and as it dries, becomes perfect fuel for a forest fire. Then you have the clear cutting which accelerates the drying of the area out. Look at the time lines and: Yep, forest fires will probably remain a problem for another decade or so.

What is going to fix the forests is: Removal of artificial damns (more fish in the water ways), Recovery of Beaver populations (they slow water ways and redirect them - they don't stop them and control them the same way artificial ones do), and ceasing clear cut in favour of selective cuts and thinning (doing it this way does cost more per log, but - it actually can help the forest grow more lush, and a more limited area of forest support more life as more shrub and such is capable of growing in a way that allows safe spaces for wild life while providing food sources in the form of berries etc).

You know what WILL NOT fix the forest fire situation? Fighting carbon emissions. But that is exactly the argument.

I don't see republicans, or democrats arguing for sensible long term models for dealing with the problems in a sensible way that can actually solve the problem. I see radical climate denial, and radical human caused arguments - and they aren't useful, nor helpful but it's what the media focuses on, it's what gets spouted, because: It's easy.

It is ABSOLUTELY functioning as designed. But you have to understand - Tyranny of the Majority; the threat of Religious Despots: Those two things were VERY MUCH in the minds of the founding fathers.

The argument is sometimes said as "they can step in" but in reality, that is up to the rules regulating how votes are cast based on state rules.

But you must first understand: The Founding fathers understood that Tyranny of the Majority could be a serious threat (see religious Tyranny and conflict that has lead to all kinds of problems and persecutions throughout history). It's complicated.

Now: If you want to argue that election reform is needed in the modern day: I ABSOLUTELY 100% AGREE. I would LOVE to see an abolishoning of first past the post, and party centric electoral voting - in favour of Ranked Choice Ballots where it all pans out through one single vote. But who benefits? Well: It's not the DNC, and it's not the GOP: SO good luck getting the constitutional amendment needed to make that a reality.

Thing is: We COULD start - at municipal elections, elections for small positions. That is the BEST place to start but odds are, even there, you are going to have the DNC, and GOP fighting it at every step of the way, because that is a DISASTER for party control over elected officials: After all, in a world of Mass to Mass communication, you don't need a big party to organize campaign drives - you can set up your social media posts, you can do a tonne of efforts and coordination remotely which means you can be out and talking to people basically anywhere in the country, and still be able to work to coordinate efforts directly.

Just remember for much of the Post WWII era, Congress AND the Senate, and fairly often the presidency was held by the Democrats. It is only really in the wake of the post end of gold standard that the Republican party saw growth in it's numbers, basically in lock step with inflation. And I don't mean inflation approved by government made up CPI numbers that are doctored through changing methodology to promote as close to the supposed golden value of 2%, when if we look at most of history the real golden number for inflation was somewhere around 0%. The only benefactors of ending the gold standard were the wealthy. The major benefactors of free trade agreements were the wealthy. The only benefactors of shipping manufacturing to China was Western Governments hell bent on isolating the Soviet Union, when - that was hardly necessary, and practically speaking ineffective.

When people talk about gerrymandering, and so many other issues: What I start to see is a planned distraction, one masking a much older, deeper, and more fundamental truth that eats and rots the foundation.

Pure Fiat has been disastrous for productivity in the West. And that too has been disastrous for birth rates that again, fall in lock step starting with the oil crisis - and continuing on with disastrous fiscal policy, followed by export of good well paying blue collar jobs to foreign nations - removing the value creation from the local economy, and handing it to nations who politically are opposed to the wests way of life.

The only people who were wanting to change that in some way - got assassinated.

I swear, marriage would be easier dealt with if both parties opted to incorporate a business, and put their relevant assets in the name of the corporation. Then at least separation would be pretty clean cut and dry. The Irony is - this is basically what marriage is.

If you are Caffeine Sensitive, and Like Coffee...

There are a few brands out there that make a really good Decaf Coffee and some roasters and Coffee Suppliers are actually giving more of a shit about their Decaf offerings. It does get a little pricier per bag of beans, but - might be worth shopping around if you have some independent shops/roasters around you.

Once upon a time, stoves had a dial you set, and it was basically a resistor and some wires. Today, a stove has a computer built in it that operates the entire thing.

While the computer in a modern oven is simple - it is an illustration that more, and more of what we have is computerized. When you add in reinforcement learning algorithms to adjust factors like say, If the fridge is aware of what time you generally open the fridge it can opt to kick on the heat pump a little before that to bring the temperature down and avoid running while it is open. This could save pennies of electricity in a year. But more importantly - could lead to less duty cycles on the condesor that could cause a fridge to say instead of lasting 10 years, last 12 years.

If you are starting a car company today, what you have to be thinking about is a reality where we move to "Humans don't drive, the cars drive you" - I mean even a manual control situation could have the AI actually being a watcher in effect we "Let" people drive, but if the AI detects an unobserved obstacle etc it immediately takes over and adjusts. Well: You need to build that - and that, is AI.

If a company isn't thinking about AI, and makes anything but basic appliances - they are likely on a limited time window because at some point Autonomous cars WILL be good enough, and the safety consideration will make both people, and governments, along with insurance companies to eliminate human driven vehicles.

Apple isn't looking next year, or a year after. They are looking 5 to 10 years out and they don't see a path where they can effectively compete in the car industry and make the profits they are after. However, if they can solve the AI driving problem - they don't NEED to make a car, they can sell the brains and system that drives the car.

It's also worth noting the term is "capture". And outside of rare instance - you didn't really want to kill knights and the like: You captured them, and ransomed them back to their family/liege lord etc.

And there is a reason the term "Kings Ransom" exists. John the II of France for instance was captured, and Ransomed for something like 300000 gold coins of the day - something like 300 million or up to about 3 billion in today's dollars (conversion is a little fuzzy but to put it simply: A BLOODY TONNE OF MONEY).

And now I want to 3D print myself a couple sets of pieces - One that is Woman in Bikini's in Pin-up poster poses, and the other in Hot AF Beach boys and the like in poses accenting there form.

Trump is a result of the systems failure to address underlying problems. The underlying problems can all be associated with a single common source: Inflation.

Governments printing money at a rate greater than value is created in the economy, nets you inflation - and that has been going on since around the mid 90's in a very real way, and even before that. We can more or less call this the "NeoLiberal Era" if you like. Around the 90's is when things get bad - and to more or less cover it up, the CPI was manipulated (read: Fixed like you would fix a wrestling match) to make inflation look acceptable - in reality: Replace Steak for Ground beef in the CPI shopping cart and tell people it's still relevant.

End of the 90's you get the ,Com bubble and crash. 2008 Market Crash - and you get "Quantitative Easing" being sold as a fix - when all it is is, PRINTING MONEY. Then during the pandemic a huge push to shut down the economy (largely impacting the lowest wage earners the hardest just FYI) requiring the government to provide stimulus, coupled with grands, loans, and such to businesses in hopes they would keep people employed (hint: They didn't). And so we have had a series of the most NeoLiberal thing possible: Publicize the risk, privatize the profits, and screw the poor over in the process.

The fix: Reduce the Money Supply. Drive to a negative inflation number. But the kicker is? The wealthiest hedge funds, realestate investors, and what not would basically go belly up from that type of move. And why? Because if inflation lowers - the debts accrued cost more to maintain the interest on, than they can gain with inflation flipping for real profit over time. Once you reduce the money supply by at this point about 2/3eds - we can move to aiming for a 0% inflation number. The government should at that point be focused on reducing debt one way or another.

The real problem for the US Economy is, if any action is taken to reduce the debt - it will be a clear signal that the US economy is not gaining value, and that the Dollar Value is currently overvalued. And that could in a very real way cause a spiral. And a fear of the Spiral is making the long term problem worse as it's kicked down the road.

By the way: You can take the US out of this and replace just about any western nation into the mix and find the same problem. Actually, China really fits in here. And oh boy a correction is coming and it's going to be ugly.