President Donald Trump
I assume it's still acceptable to have a Trump thread in a Politics forum?
So this is an obvious lie - basically aimed at
In an all seriousness, there’s slightly fewer murders each year in San Francisco proper (800k people) as there are in all of Ireland (5+mm)
If we go by the Bay Area 7+mm then it’s several multiples higher in murder rate compared to Ireland
That's cuz you yanks are all crazy😮
Also what gives with your population? I come from a large family and need to constantly respond with “no we’re not Irish” how come the native Irish don’t have sexy time like their American brethren?
Different generation I reckon. I'm from a family of five siblings and it wasn't uncommon to have families of seven when I was growing up. My mam's family was 11 so you can't get more Catholic than that. 😃
Now everyone is saving for a home and are just having less kids. Not necessarily less sexy time though as birth control and Catholic repression can be a fun combo.😉
I'd certainly nationalise their companies. Amazon too.
And put a high property tax on high value property. Try avoiding that tax. If a billionaire wants to swerve this by living in a Portakabin off a motorway, they can. And we can all laugh at them when they do.
Property taxes in the USA are already among the highest in the world (except in California if you bought a long ago).
The blue is recurring, yearly property tax revenue as a percentage of GDP

In "socialist" Scandinavia they pay FAR LESS than in the USA (as a percentage of GDP!!) in yearly property taxes.
The light green are taxes on transfer (like stamp duty)
I mean, it is not my cup of tea ideologically, but apart from a few rock-wielders, the anarchist-socialists are pretty chill. We could even share trenches if the Marxists-Leninists ever get to power. Or get buried in the same mass grave depending on which way it pans out. Cue the dwarf-elf meme.
On a more serious note, recently almost all of these Twitter posts brought into the forum aren't even arguments. They're just increasingly clumsily worded constructs where the aim is to include as many buzzwords as possible.
If you ignore the content and just look at the format, they are in essence just advertisements meant to attract attention. Ideologically and politically speaking, it is just slop. There isn't a single commentary on actual policy, neither of theirs or their supposed political opposition. Neither is there anything new, it just references what the audience is already supposed to think.
I suspect it is a sign that a lot of these commentators are competing with each-other for attention and business. The influx is dwindling.
I mean, it is not my cup of tea ideologically, but apart from a few rock-wielders, the anarchist-socialists are pretty chill. We could even share trenches if the Marxists-Leninists ever get to power. Or get buried in the same mass grave depending on which way it pans out. Cue the dwarf-elf meme. On a more serious note, recently almost all of these Twitter posts brought into the
There is a ton of actual policy content these days, given the "beautiful bill" is being discussed and there are actual disagreements about a lot of stuff.
Maybe you decide to focus on the performative theater because you find it more entertaining
There is a ton of actual policy content these days, given the "beautiful bill" is being discussed and there are actual disagreements about a lot of stuff.
Maybe you decide to focus on the performative theater because you find it more entertaining
I wrote "Twitter posts brought into the forum" for a reason.
I have almost no social media accounts, and I the few I have I use minimally. And I don't take myself or the world seriously enough to use it for anything other than hobbies, and certainly not politics. A software printer that never stops printing and is designed to induce addiction is not a healthy thing.
Perhaps you are right and perhaps there is more insightful debate than what people bring with them to other places. I suspect though, that a lot of that debate is just weaseling.
Because if there is one thing I have noticed in the social media age is that people have gotten almost incapable of noticing weasel words. You (aka me) get away with writing crap that wouldn't have gotten past anybody's radar 15 years ago. Stuff like "They should consider including...", "It might be an oversight...", "Thought should be given to", "I personally don't think"..., "I disagree with the motivation..", "A potential consequence not to be ignored is..."
Policy topics being debated among the right (and adjacent centrists like Iglesias, Noah smith and so on) related to the BBB these last weeks:
1) possible cuts to medicaid, their extent, reintroduction of working requirements
2) possible increase of SALT deductions cap
3) exact extent of which DOGE cuts to formalize into law if any after the first small (9bln) bunch passed recently
4) how (and if) to change technical details of immigration courts and to finance them more to solve the backlog of millions of cases vs hoping SCOTUS clears the way for faster procedures
5) which baseline to use and why to assess increases in the deficit following from a bill passing
Not BBB related, but policy nevertheless:
1) neverending discussion about H1B visas, their purported misuse, possible fixes (started like in December)
2) several parallel ongoing discussions about ongoing litigations related to executive power possible abuses by the trump admin; what to do if SCOTUS axes this or that EO or executive agency decision, how to achieve specific policy goals (from tariff setting under IEEPA being litigated, to birthright citizenship, to the impounding attempts and other stuff)
3) several ongoing discussions about who to replace Powell with when his term is up, and why
4) hugely relevant regulatory framework for AI being proposed at the federal level and maybe not included in the BBB (purportedly)
5) stable coin regulations
And so on and on
JFC rickroll sucks. Posting very long and very stupid screeds about how those damn poors have a bad culture and are lazy. ****ing evil creep.
pretty gross
I wonder if they're cool with foisting fear and terror on 2 billion Muslims across the planet
From Karl:I’m just drawing the lines the places that most socialists draw them. Just because I don’t want insane wannabe technocrats like Thiel and Musk to control our futures for the “greater good” doesn’t mean I want to imprison every billionaire unless they give up 90% of their net worth (which I guess includes their stock portfolios which would tumble in value if we tried t
That sucks. Why do you enjoy mass poverty? Oh, I see, mass poverty is ok because we don't want to cause market volatility.
Looks like the billionaires are too good at inserting their money into the system in such a way that harming their pocketbooks means harming our entire market-based economy itself. Welp, nothing we can do about that, I guess it's billionaire rule for the next couple centuries.
all this moronic talk about the great mystery that American cities have more violent crime than western European ones, yet somehow the fact that Americans are FAR more likely to end up in severe poverty than the ****in' Irish or whomever goes unmentioned
I know the rickroll solution is for them to pull up their damn pants, but I hope we can do better.
SF is not a "major metropolis". My city is 500k people and there is no area that is even vaguely as trashy as those areas of SF.There isn't any in Zurich either. Or Tokyo (which is actually a major metropolis).And in Europe in general no areas of big cities are trashy normally unless they are full of immigrants (Naples and Marseille are the exceptions).What's almost unique of r
Tokyo has tons of homeless but they also have:
Robust public assistance for the poors
Coffin apartments
Strict drug laws
Many cheap options for vagrants
Kinda dumb to say SF isn’t a major metro when they have 700,000 people in a 50 square mile area
Which areas of Milan are trash if any? then we check how many foreign borns / actual citizens (grandparents were citizens) live there. Or we can do Amsterdam or Bruxelles
Train stations in Milan tend to have lots of druggies. Druggies with dogs who also look like druggies. Neighbourhood around San Siro seemed kinda dodgy too. That said it's overall a nice city and seems safe enough.
Denver has 2x more homeless people than San Francisco and I can assure you the whole city doesn't smell like piss, just like the whole city of san francisco doesn't smell like piss, despite what rick might claim. I'll just say that making up a claim that a whole city smells of piss when it doesn't seems quite detached from realityAs for "any" neighborhood, nobody here claimed
Several people argued with me at length that they would have no problem going to any neighborhood.
That sucks. Why do you enjoy mass poverty? Oh, I see, mass poverty is ok because we don't want to cause market volatility. Looks like the billionaires are too good at inserting their money into the system in such a way that harming their pocketbooks means harming our entire market-based economy itself. Welp, nothing we can do about that, I guess it's billionaire rule for t
Where do you think these billionaires come from, the planet Zorgon? They made their money by creating value. If they created a lot of value, they made a lot of money. Saying they "inserted" their money into the system is dumb as **** when they literally made their money on the very things you want to take away from them.
Also, just as an aside, but your statement about "billionaire rule" is stupid too. As with most statements of the form "the top x% this" or "the bottom y% that", it completely ignores the fact that year on year, the membership of those groups changes. I think it's pretty likely that a significant number of people people currently alive in the US have been both in the top 25 % of earners and in the bottom 25 % of earners at some point in their lives.
It was pretty shitty in the 80s and 90s and pretty much still is. When my in laws visited I had to dissuade my father in law from going down the quays as it's just an army of almost exclusively Irish crackheads. The city centre has been dodgy since I was a kid.
Also a lot of gypsy gangs.
Where do you think these billionaires come from, the planet Zorgon? They made their money by creating value.
Yeah, value... to their shareholders, that is, on the backs of the poor and middle class of whom they exploit. Every billionaire is a malevolent force on society.
If they created a lot of value, they made a lot of money. Saying they "inserted" their money into the system is dumb as **** when they literally made their money on the very things you want to take away from them.
You nailed it dog, it's not like there's AN ENTIRE INDUSTRY devoted to the hoarding of billionaires' wealth, shielding it from taxation and whatever else. The already rich have additional mechanisms to hide their wealth from those who would deign to take a fraction of it away to form social programs for the other 99% of society -- mechanisms for which the other 99% have little-to-no access.
I think it's pretty likely that a significant number of people people currently alive in the US have been both in the top 25 % of earners and in the bottom 25 % of earners at some point in their lives.
Yeah, well, you're wrong*. I mean, unless you're counting all of the kids from wealthy families working crappy jobs throughout the summer that their parents made them get at age 16 (of whom I've met several). One of the most well-known things about the American economy is its perpetually continuing decrease of income mobility.
*insofar as it's possible to be wrong with the vague stuff you're saying here
Tokyo has tons of homeless but they also have:
Robust public assistance for the poors
Coffin apartments
Strict drug laws
Many cheap options for vagrants
Kinda dumb to say SF isn’t a major metro when they have 700,000 people in a 50 square mile area
I guess that it depends on how you define homeless, but I was in Tokyo very recently for several days, and I only saw two people who appeared to be living on the street.
I guess that it depends on how you define homeless, but I was in Tokyo very recently for several days, and I only saw two people who appeared to be living on the street.
They live in coffin apartments, in pc cafes, manga cafes, and pretty much anywhere else that is out of sight. Goes back to my comment about the homeless here who aren’t addicts or mental patients generally staying out of sight because of the shame
They have more options, and more affordable options, and again, they get free money from the government for being poor that generally covers one of these cheaper options
Tokyo has tons of homeless but they also have:
Robust public assistance for the poors
Coffin apartments
Strict drug laws
Many cheap options for vagrants
Kinda dumb to say SF isn’t a major metro when they have 700,000 people in a 50 square mile area
1) I never equated homeless = trash areas. I am talking trash areas. Check my post where i discussed the homeless: i uniquely addressed the scam democrats perpetrate raking in 100k per homeless person per year without solving the problem.
2) Semantics shmantics, but i lol at the idea that something with less than 1M ppl can be a MAJOR metro area.
3) the total homeless population of JAPAN is in the "a few thousands" range. For the whole country. Less than san francisco. Not sure why you think it's even comparable. Even adding one order of magnitude to estimates and official statistics, Tokyo would have the same homeless population SF has, with 50 times the total population
4) Welfare to the poors in Japan is incredibly lower than in the USA (in absolute, real $$), and i truly don't understand why you think the opposite is true. Medicaid alone is a lot more money per person than what the poorest person that qualified for everything gets in Japan
I guess that it depends on how you define homeless, but I was in Tokyo very recently for several days, and I only saw two people who appeared to be living on the street.
It's just a complete invention by coordie , no definition of homeless people can ever qualify more than a few thousands people as homeless in Tokyo. Official numbers are in the hundreds, for the whole Tokyo. Even counting "invisibles" and so on, you get to the few thousands.
1) I never equated homeless = trash areas. I am talking trash areas. Check my post where i discussed the homeless: i uniquely addressed the scam democrats perpetrate raking in 100k per homeless person per year without solving the problem.2) Semantics shmantics, but i lol at the idea that something with less than 1M ppl can be a MAJOR metro area.3) the total homeless population
Japan purposely fudges their homeless numbers. They throw homeless people in jail for being homeless outside of designated areas. They don't count vagrants who bounce around 24/7 cafes, they don't count people on welfare, they don't count people who live in their car, they mostly don't count people who live in the subways or sewers.
Its basically propaganda