I agree. I spent most of they day driving, and so I listened to NPR and A1 all day. 1/3rd about abortion. 1/3rd about race and identity politics. 1/3rd about everything else.
That last 3rd included hysterics about all the terrible things Trump might do, how the 'Resistance' can fight Trump in Congress, and what the Democrats missed.
Ralph Nader, a Republican strategist, and a community organizer said some pretty damning things about the Democrat's failures. Which, were quickly glossed over and not mentioned again the rest of the day.
I don't expect the Democrats to learn anything from this election. I expect them to double down, lose by larger margins, and eventually be supplanted by radical upstarts just like Trump did to the Republicans.
So what now, Jack Sparrow? Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle, neither of us learning anything from the other, until Judgement Day and trumpets sound, hm?
Us Democrats will keep doing unpopular things like student loan forgiveness, incompetently governing cities, and rallying around idiotic slogans like "defund the police" while Republicans keep cutting taxes for billionaires, doing nothing for the working class, and fighting the fight against climate change.
"mass illegal migrant invasion meant to install a permanent Democrat voting regime in perpetuity"
Curious thing, it's either not the real reason they are here, or once here they decided they didn't want to be used.
Me being me I go with the first one, because I still feel like there is a war brewing in the US, and all those men that came across the border are here to fight, not vote.
One last thing, Trump has 4 years, and then it's back to the same old same old... unless there are significant changes made to voting integrity.
So that cabal that ran the show with Biden as a front man may just be waiting 4 years.
From mid teens to mid 20s would be more accurate historically.
Most 16 YO guys can pull a trigger just fine, guys over 25 YO or so have learned that they, too, can die and often have by then got something better going on than "adventure".
No one is waiting, they run the show all the time. They write the narrative , and the monkey/actor/puppet in the White House makes sure to read the script to disinform the masses as to what is really going on.
Example: We are at war with Afghanistan because we're hunting Bin Laden
Truth: we are cultivation trillions of $ of heroin in Afghanistan which the CIA flies into the USA and now we have an opiod epidemic which we blame on the Chinese.
I suspect that when the heroin market was disrupted by the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan (they committed the ultimate sin by shutting down the poppy fields), the CIA likely shifted to the distribution of Fentanyl (and of course blaming China). It's what keeps the CIA 'independent'.
I don't know if the pdf's are still available at the UN. Their study indicated that cultivation increased a hundred fold from 2003 to 2023. 8 tonnes vs 800 tonnes of heroin. I do speak under correction, but the difference was huge. $ 1.3 trillion pocket money enterprise. Not so on the sly, the internet has been scrubbed of soldiers guarding poppy fields. I think a huge part of that went towards financing ISIS. Which flopped because you know, the Russians. Those 360k mercenaries they lost in that wild oil grabbing endeavour was a bitter pill, especially the greater Israel project in the Levant. High time they kick them out if NE Syria.
And Boko Haram in West Africa, it's all fizzling because of the gnarly Russians. Lots of money to be made with raw materials, arms trade, drugs and oil - it helps to own a bank or two, and a minister or seven.
The Taliban (originally supported by the US) fell out of favour during negotiations over a pipeline crossing the country north-south. They wanted more than was offered so they were cut off and eventually attacked.
Not only that. They had destroyed the poppy fields that the CIA cultivated for its black money. After the US moved into Afghanistan, they restored those fields and protected them with US troops.
Vance is a very clever and very ambitious guy who rose from abject poverty , surrounded by meth heads and rural decay, to write an excellent book, be a military officer, and become Senator from Ohio...Don't ever sell him short...
Don't forget the fact that he's a die hard political opportunist who has been groomed by Peter Thiel. Vance's "hillbilly" bonafides disappeared in a cloud of dollars sometime around his Yale years. Our new VP is severely compromised with regards to his respect for anything but power and money. A right suitable Ceasar for the future.
""mass illegal migrant invasion meant to install a permanent Democrat voting regime in perpetuity"
Curious thing, it's either not the real reason they are here, or once here they decided they didn't want to be used."
The Dems got hoisted on their own petard. That's what they get for objectifying brown skinned people. They thought they could import Latinos and treat them as a US-style victim group, that all they wanted was welfare and any Dem could buy them off with a dog treat.
Instead they got millions of people who may be poor, but who are largely serious Catholics, the most Catholic people in the world, who are very family oriented, who have an outstanding work ethic, and who are proud of their heritage. They came to the US for jobs, not welfare, and to have a safer place to raise their kids than the narco-gang and corrupt politico dominated countries they left.
When they came to the US they were repelled by the Dem hatred of their religion ("clinging to their bibles," indeed...), repelled by Dem embracement of appalling perversion (trans guys hanging their junk out in girls' locker rooms in high schools is an invitation to a lynching in Tijuana, USA), angry the Dems kept coming up with insane ideas to destroy entry-level jobs ("Let's help gardeners by making the minimum wage for cutting the lawn $100 per hour!") and making sure Latinos know they are so second rate that the only way they can get ahead is by dissing who they are and claiming they are "black," as Harris did with her Indian heritage.
You can replay that with almost every immigrant group the Dems have tried to embrace while in reality repelling, like Arabs, all the Afghan immigrants, Palestinians, and even Asians.
"millions of people [Latinos] who may be poor, but who are largely serious Catholics, the most Catholic people in the world, who are very family oriented, who have an outstanding work ethic, and who are proud of their heritage." -- Thank you!
On the NBC morning fib (11/07), their financial analyst reported that there was a 17% difference in favor of Trump for people making less than $100k per year. That little factoid alone tells a lot of the story. Hmm...
Bret Stephens writes a column that I actually agree with?!? Am I in Bizarro World?
Team D ran a shit candidate that had never won a seriously contested election in her own name (VP hardly counts) and was chosen last minute by party insiders. Because Harris had been VP under Biden for four years, she could not pretend that she had no inkling of his obvious senility and could not run on any policy other than the historically unpopular Biden Administration policies, without either being accused of disloyalty or of not having piped up sooner.
Had Team D allowed a normal primary process and been able to nominate a candidate not so tied at the hip to Biden, they might have done better. If Team D were able to nominate a candidate whose basic qualification for office was something other than "I was Willie Brown's mistress", they might have done better. And if the queen had balls, she'd be king.
Now, watch democrats and liberals blame everyone and everything, Russia, men, women, minorities, college students, "ungrateful negroes", Lina Khan, Elon Musk, Russia some more, feral tomcats, Peanut The Squirrel, Puertoricans and other Latinos who don't call themselves "Latinx", everyone and everything but themselves for losing to a loudmouth moron reality TV star.
Oh yeah, and Harris outspent Trump 2-1 and had the MSM to act as her unpaid propaganda arm, not to mention most of Big Tech on her side.
And She Still Lost. Not only did she lose, she got monkeyhammered.
Re: voting integrity, my coastal blue area Maine town had a petition on voter id using picture driver's licenses. It was doing quite well collecting signatures when I was there.
Otoh, few were signing the gun control petition. Which was fun because the karen with the petition had time to try to badger me into signing it & got a polite earful for her trouble. Which gave others a chance to avoid her. I could see them scurry by. 😁
Agree. That was rather the letting the pressure out in a controlled manner. Let's see how quickly, if ever, FARA is applied to the dual-loyalty subversive scum.
Or they're a combination of ignorant/unknowledgeable/intimidated about how/where/when to vote in the US, or detached/indifferent/complacent about the importance of voting, or despite all the perks and free money they're trying to adjust to a new place, disoriented like all newcomers.
Mayorkas and crew organized getting them up here with planned routes and the help of HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society), got them phones and government money cards, planned flights and transpo in the US.
Some how I think they could tell them where to go to vote if that were the plan.
Some of them are here to be prison guards, security guards, local state militias, etc,,, yes they’ll fight or molest/harrass legally and be paid by US taxpayers.
No, they're not terrorists, they just despise ordinary Americans, and most probably rightfully so. The USA would have been so much easier to govern if it didn't have all the blue collar riff raff demanding all their crap- like jobs. Anyone that hasn't made it to American Dream Status yet, should preferably be exported to China, so they can make bone meal from them. Having to deal with poor people when you have loads of money is just so tedious.
"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."--Barbara Bush
Outstanding election recap. Thanks. As if the USA's standing in the world hadn't sunk low enough, those voting numbers by year should scupper whatever it had left.
"Over and over the self-reflection and soul-searching was evident in every major establishment outlet. NY Times’ front page heralded a national turning point, evoking a ‘populist revolt against [the] elite’s vision of the U.S.”
I doubt there's a soul there, just a media that knows that the wind has changed so they're getting ready for a quick pivot.
On the Oregon ID issue, your map is wrong. You must present photo ID to register to vote at the County Clerk's office along with your residential information so the proper ballot can be sent for you to fill out and return.
Yup, over here at 42 degrees North, 123 West. Republican Red is our color, yet living in the blue bubble. I saw that map elsewhere…odd…but then again I check sources only occasionally as I come here, and other stacks, to learn from the bright bulbs.🧲 🐴❤️
"You must present photo ID to register to vote" The map was about an ID needed to vote, not to register. Presenting a photo ID to register to vote is very different from presenting a photo ID to vote.
One of the classic ways to steal an election using mail-in ballots is to steal ballots from mailboxes. Fill them out however you like and send them in. There's no proof whatsoever that the ballot was cast by the person who was registered to vote.
Another classic method is to organize ballot filling-in meetings to "help" people with filling out the ballot. A trade union's shop steward organizes a "get out the vote" session where everybody in the union brings their mail in ballot and fills it out with the union's "help" to make sure it's not disqualified by any errors in filling it out. They pitch it as a "make sure every vote is counted" public service, but in reality, everybody with an IQ over 40 knows that if you filled out the ballot for candidates or referendum questions the union doesn't like you better start looking for another job. Political action groups also organize such "help" sessions at retirement homes and other settings. They even go door to door to "help" people with their mail in ballot to make sure every vote counts - their way.
What all those cases have in common is that there is no guarantee the person who filled out the ballot is the registered voter and there's no guarantee if they were the registered voter they cast their ballot with no duress applied.
I live in Russia and while I'm not a citizen (just a resident foreigner), I've gone with my friends who are Russians to see how they vote here. It's straightforward: you have to present your official photo ID, your "internal" passport, and you can only vote in person at the precinct for your residence address. Russians think the US system is insane and an invitation to fraudulent elections.
It's true that Russia is now experimenting with voting online, but they're trying to find ways to do that which avoid the problem of faked identity or voting under duress. Personally, I think it's a mistake and they should stick to having people vote in person or, in extraordinary cases where they have a long term illness that prevents them from going in person to vote, to dispatch mobile voting officers to take the precinct to them.
It is indeed insane and an invitation to fraudulent elections, and since it's still in place, its operators must be the benefactors of said fraudulence.
There is nothing wrong with voting online if system is setup with porper verifiable blockchain (and Russian online voting system is one of those). People are afraid of technologies for no reason. Probably, lack of knowledge of how blockchain works. It's impossible to fudge results since all checksums are public and testable
I am fine with technology, and enjoy many conveniences daily. Yes, it would be awfully convenient to be able to vote without having to drag my ass to the polling station. Just remember, everything done for convenience makes it more convenient for fraudsters as well.
Keep in mind, even with bulletproof authentication of the voter, if it is not a secret ballot done in a secure polling station, you have lost the ability to know if the verified voter is being coerced or “helped“ by that handsome young man with the laptop, who assures me he is typing in the selections I tell him to, even though he won’t let me look at the screen while he types. And furthermore, with a purely electronic vote, you have no physical record of what those votes were, so there can be no meaningful recount, or really, any assurance that whatever software is counting, those validated ballots will produce an undoctored count.
It's not how it works. Votes are essentially "public". It's long string with checksum of your vote. Everybody can look it up, just like you can look up any transaction in bitcoin. It's anonymous - you can't know who voted (since encryption is one way only), only voter knows his checksum, but you can derive who he voted for - that's what string doesn't hide. This completely protect voter from coercion, since his data is protected by law and can't be accessed even by authorities in normal circumstances. Even if you crack into voter account, you can't recast vote. There are a lot more to it, but I don't remember all details, there are multiple quite simple systems to make fraud nigh impossible (you never know for certain) but it's lot more durable than ballot stuffing or mail in ballots like in US. It's so easy to commit fraud when you have physical ballots and people counting it by hand
There's absolutely no reason for the "Gloden Rule" for election objectivity not to be used everywhere that's very similar to the Russian system. Plus, in USA election day must be moved to an entire weekend, but that's problematic. Paper ballots counted by real people then recounted by real people if required--no machines. Where I live, we get our mail at a post office box that's as safe as one can get for delivery security. The #1 problem is not voting--the fundamental civic duty of the citizen. And then there's the LLC status of the Duopoly parties that allows them to manipulate their nomination process however they want, as was seen in 2016 with Clinton and Sanders. And of course, we have a bunch of other problems because of our dysfunctional federalism.
Voters in Russia do not sign their ballots, which are then taken out of the ballot box by the election commission and counted, so voting is anonymous. Also, unlike in the US, international observers are present at elections in Russia.
Yes. There are also tens of thousands of cameras anybody can view online (I think there were over 30,000 in the last election) that show polling places, counting rooms and other areas in the chain of custody of ballots. There are also surprisingly many political parties in Russia, although only a handful get enough votes to win seats in either local assemblies or in the national parliament. I've heard that some of them organize "watch parties" where volunteers from their party watch online cameras in various polling locations.
There's no reason that couldn't be done in the US if they wanted elections to be truly transparent, to allow citizens to witness any part of the process in any precinct. Make everybody a poll watcher.
Political parties could get more votes if they had more money for the election campaign. Putin's policy of "removing oligarchs from power" has led to the parties not having rich sponsors.
Color me skeptical that Trump will do much of anything to realign the U.S. toward acting rationally in its own national self-interest (as opposed to the interests of Wall-Street financiers) in matters of foreign policy. Trump filled his first cabinet with J. P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs men as well as every washed up mediocre general that he could find. Who appoints someone with the nickname "Mad Dog" to any position of importance? The name itself labels the man an idiot.
I agree with the Russian reactions: skeptical but willing to listen if something does really change. Defeating the blue-haired hoards of chaos, drunken, single moms, and the hoochie mommies of the hood at the ballot box is one thing. Taking on the Wall-Street-CIA=FBI-Federal bureaucracy is another in the U.S. is another thing entirely. Trump won the easy battle. Let us see if he can win the hard one. Let's see if he is even willing to fight the hard battle. He was not in his last attempt to move the U.S. away from the precipice.
And finally, the elephant in the room is Israel. Even if Trump is able to stop the nonsensical drive to war with Russia, deal with China via hard-line diplomacy rather than sabre-rattling and chest thumping, and adopt reasonable policies to curb the power of the drug cartels and Communists who seek to undermine the U.S., the fanatical Zionists, and their perverse influence over U.S. foreign policy remain, and Trump has done nothing to put any distance between their positions and his. To my mind, even if he succeeds somehow in establishing a more self-interested and nationalist foreign policy with regard to affairs in Europe and elsewhere, his reluctance to address the influence of fanatical Zionism on his county will doom it and lead it to war with much of the world.
"Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling. You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
General "Chaos" "Mad Dog" Mattis.
Absolutely the words of an intellectual genius. This is the same man who ordered a wedding party be bombed and who refused to air-evac casualties from his own unit. An air-force pilot had to fly in to do it. Real war hero stuff.
This same guy, who bombed a wedding party, was ordering his troops to grow mustaches and take "culturally sensitivity training" and wave at the locals in Iraq so as to "win hearts and minds." The exact type of jackassery that has characterized the upper echelons of the U.S. military post 1992. I don't care how many times he read Cicero. The man is an idiot.
Well, you're both right and you're both wrong. That somebody has an IQ over 140 doesn't really make him "smart" in a practical sense, as some very high IQ people have engaged in such brain-dead stupidity that you could not have picked such a stupid path without applying a lot of misdirected intelligence, exactly like the jackassery cited for Mattis. And reading Cicero does make one smarter. There's a lot to wade through sometimes, but the man's writings are full of insights and wisdom that will raise your thinking up a notch.
I respectfully disagree with this: "In an organization whose primary job is to kill people and be lethally good at it, he was good at it. "
In theory, the mission of the US military isn't killing cripples, but in reality that's what they've been doing more often than not since losing the war in Korea. Guys like Mattis failed even at that in Afghanistan, getting punched out and tossed out of the country by the Taliban. His foul attitude towards the locals is one reason why. He was so full of vicious woke anger at his own lie implying all Afghan men beat up women for five years he forgot he was in the business of being a nuclear power that invaded a third world country that, forget about not having a veil, didn't have a trillion dollar military, and then ended up killing and maiming mostly civilians in Afghanistan for twenty years. Killing and maiming civilians is supposedly not what the US military budget is for. Supposedly.
Anyway, we just might all see how good guys like Mattis are at killing when Russia finishes up in Ukraine and proceeds to settle scores with the US for the US's many acts of war against Russia. Here's hoping Trump picks better advisors this time and that he makes good on being the guy who closes the door on wars and opens up a golden, peaceful, prosperous, successful, and happy future for the US.
The man holds two contradictory positions in his head. 1) We have to train our soldiers by culturally sensitive. 2) We have to slaughter them because they don't fly a gay-pride flag over Kabul.
American foreign policy demands that anyone who wants to rise to the rank of general be capable of holding these contradictory positions and arguing vehemently for both at the same time. No serious thinker could manage this: the inconsistencies in their own thinking would drive them mad. They could not do it. This is why the ranks of general in the U.S. military have deteriorated to the point where you have people like Petraeus, Milley, and Mattis in senior positions.
Someone like Mattis or Petraeus might be clever, insofar, as he is capable of sufficient casuistry to justify holding two completely contradictory ideas at the same time. The result of being too clever by half, however, is actually profound stupidity.
Cicero is an interesting guy. One of my insights about him was that being a relatively intelligent guy and writing well didn't translate into being a secure human being or achieving a level of self-awareness. He was a profoundly insecure person, always sensitive to his novus homo (new man, no family history) background.
I think of him as being one of those guys who, were he alive in America today, would be a Democrat and a defender of the current status quo. Mainly because he would lack the courage to criticize the majority of the boni/optimates (think of them as the neocon elite) except privately to his modern equivalent of Atticus.
I suppose that depends on who you think was responsible for the assassination attempts. Neither of the would-be assassins had blue hair, were liquored up on box wine, or shook their booties in the attempt. One trained a gunrange with every federal agent in Western PA., and the other was mixed up with every pro-Ukraine NGO and effort in the U.S. . To me, those were warning shots from the deep-state and not agitated lefties.
Ah, but I never mentioned blue hair or lefties. That shot in Pa. was deadly serious, not a warning. If Trump had not turned his head at just that moment it would have been televised brain-splatter.
You think that the U.S. deep-state is just going to leave it at that. "Oh... well.. we took our best shot. I guess we just have to live with Trump and do what he says." Oh... no. The battle has just begun.
When Pompeo appeared at the 4 Nov rally in PA, that was a signal. A deal has been cut between DJT and the DS. So a dog whistle to the John Wicks out there, the contract has been cancelled. DJT has agreed to work with us again.
That is sort of my take on the thing as well. Trump may be 78, angry, unconcerned about consequences to himself, and in no mood to make deals with devils, but he has 5 (is it 5?) children and a host of grandchildren, about whom he seems to care. Taking a shot at Trump may not deter him, but threatening his children and grandchildren? Ask that Kemp fellow down in Georgia what happened to his daughter's boyfriend a few days after he decided to investigate the goings-on in Georgia in 2020.
I would have to see evidence that Trump is willing to go against the CIA-NSA-Wall-Street crowd before I believe it. So far, there has been a lot of talk, and no action at all.
The first assassination attempt was totally fake. Look up the YouTube video Roll Up, Roll Up the Trump Circus is in Town. Watch that over and over. Eventually you'll realize you're watching the worst actors of all time (the crisis actors in the stands). Find the video of the guy who went to high-school with Crookes talking about how Crookes has been bullied. Worst actor of all time. When you realize it's fake you'll realize they never tried to make it believable. They're laughing at us.
But now Trump has Elon Musk and RFK breathing down his neck, and Musk for sure is not one to be put off with excuses...Musk has a powerful personality, no fear of anyone, and is impatient of laziness or delays...
FYI, the last time America was in big trouble, FDR was elected. He worked with the American communists and socialists to 'save capitalism'. As a result, we have reasonable labor and job safety laws, unemployment insurance, and social security. Not bad touches to help out the crotchety greed head capitalists!
"As a result, we have reasonable labor and job safety laws, unemployment insurance, and social security." That was intended as extreme satire, right?
Ever try living on social security? Maybe if you like living on dog or cat food in the middle of a fentanyl ghetto, sure, but not so realistic otherwise. Then there's also the wonderful feeling of knowing the government has been forcing you to give them money your whole working life which they're going to return to you at such a rigged, fraudulent, low rate of return that it would be illegal for a private company to screw people that way, and illegal to steal money out of the fund to bankrupt it. And then there's how they tax, yet again, when they give you back the money they taxed when you earned it. Plus there's the flat out lie of it being indexed for inflation when in fact it's rigged to always be both behind the rise in inflation and also short of compensating for inflation. In other words, it's a typical socialist fraud.
As for "reasonable labor and job safety laws", their main effect was to empower corrupt unions to grab American industry by the throat and squeeze so hard that any sane entrepreneur made sure to move his or her business either to a right-to-work state or even better, out of the country. They created a built-in constituency to elect a parasite class of socialist Dems who had no talent other than to seize by force the earnings of productive people and to redistribute those earnings to their political supporters. Yep, typical socialist fraud again.
The government is absolutely terrible at doing anything but stealing money from productive people and giving it to parasites. True capitalism does a far better job.
A good example today is Russia's turn to capitalism, which swept out the dead wood of communism and socialism and converted a country which could not feed itself into the world's biggest food exporter. Russia's economy is booming, and one of the biggest problems it has is that it is growing so fast it is experiencing a huge shortage of labor. That's creating an astonishing array of perks and indulgences for labor, far beyond what socialist government schemes create and without the built-in corruption government programs feature. ("Yes, of course we steal from them and give to our friends. That's not a bug, it's a feature!")
That's how capitalism works: the best labor and job safety law around is Adam Smith's "invisible hand": when economies boom because a country genuinely embraces capitalism, employers have to compete to get the labor they need. They compete with each other to provide perks for labor, like shorter work weeks, remote work, and generous maternal leave, and they keep their job environments safer for workers than corrupt governments can. The best unemployment insurance is knowing that you can get a new job the next day if for any reason your current job disappears.
When you look at socialist criticisms of "capitalism," they usually end up stemming from socialist interference in capitalism. For example, when a leviathan government weighs down markets with labyrinthian labor laws and a million fees, that's an invitation to form employer monopolies because only big companies can deal with the infinite over-regulation. That prevents new entrants from getting started, who would poach employees from entrenched companies that might be slower or less generous in treating their employees right.
The problem is crotchety greed head socialists who are bent on running their parasite scams with other people's money. It's not capitalists who are forced by *real* markets to compete in giving their customers what those customers want at a better price while taking care of their labor force to ensure their organization's success.
It's impressive how you libertarians can write so much contradictory dribble and yet also fail to say anything accurate or factual correct. I applaud your ability to withstand what must be overwhelming cognitive dissonance
Ah, the gods of irony have just lit a candle at their alter for you, hoping you have a very, very long life, so you have many years of learning how to try to live on social security. That may also give you time to consider if you would have had a better chance at getting wisdom had you skipped the ad hominem attacks and tried to discuss specifics.
The brain isn't a muscle, but what it has in common with muscles is that it gets stronger when you give it a workout instead of just taking the easy, ad hominem way out. Try next time if you disagree with someone to address the points they've made. You may be amazed how doing that can reveal to you inaccurate assumptions you've made or false conclusions you've reached.
FDR was forced to many of 'his' progressive policies to counter/coopt populist sentiment that was finding expression through Huey Long - conveniently assassinated before he could challenge Roosevelt in 1936.
Nothing against free enterprise, but it is nevertheless true that people are still walking on sidewalks, living in houses, utilizing public buildings, driving on roads, lighting their homes due to public works projects of the 1930's.
I think it is an extreme stretch to imply, as you seem to be doing, that the only reason people in the US are walking on sidewalks, living in houses, utilizing public buildings, driving on roads, or lighting their homes is that there were public works projects in the 1930s.
Sure, there were many public works projects in the 1930s. But they did not include almost all roads that currently exist in the US. For example, the Interstate Highway System was not a publics work project of the 1930s, nor were most of the roads that currently exist in the US. That's also true of housing. There are approximately 140 million housing units in the US today. The public works administration from 1933 to 1939 built about 50,000 housing units, almost all low-income housing.
Are some of those units still being used? No doubt. But you can flip that and look at how many of today's 140 million housing units are due to the US having a capitalist economy and more or less free markets. The US certainly outperformed by a wide margin the truly feeble ability of communist and socialist economies to provide quality housing for their citizens. I live in Russia and all around me, 33 years after the fall of communism/socialism, I still see the horrifically shoddy housing built during the Khruschev and Brezhnev years in their attempt to improve over the even worse housing crises of the preceding years of communist rule. And then when Russia went capitalist in 1991 it was like switching a light bulb on in a dark room: suddenly endless, far higher quality housing.
A colleague of mine wrote his doctoral dissertation and then published a book on housing regulations in the U.S. . Do you know what he found? He found that the quality of houses decreased as more regulations were added to building codes, because everyone just built down to the codes, reducing every house to the lowest common denominator.
Licensing all the building trades in the U.S. also had a significant negative impact on housing quality. A man who builds his own house, builds it to last. I know this from first-hand experience. I bought my house from a man who built it for himself. It just feels like fortress from the minute that you walk in. Solid as a rock with a foundation twice as deep as necessary.
There is a harmful myth that "free enterprise" is incompatible with socialism. The opposite is true regarding free enterprise as honest creativity and development of products and industry. Seeing free enterprise as the right to rape, plunder, and steal is indeed incompatible with socialism. See China in the 21st century for examples.
I would say that the problem is the "managerial revolution." Elon Musk does not worry about a free market, because he knows that he can innovate better and compete against all comers. It is when Elon is gone, and the Board of Directors picks a CEO from a pile of CVs written by people who have never actually built anything in their lives: just "managed" the companies that people with actual talent built. These "managers" are the ones who always petition governments to build regulatory moats around their industries, their paychecks, and their stock options.
I'll give you some real numbers. My mother gets about $26k a year in SS. She literally lives on this in a retirement community. We used the remnants of money she had after some financial debacles to buy her a quarter of a retirement house in NJ in 2017. Basically like a 2br apartment, with maintenance to take care of everything but cleaning your own house and cooking. It cost about $45k at the time - today it's worth closer to 90k. Anywho, the nut required to keep her living there and in a car is about $1k a month. The rest is food and fuck around money. I give her an allowance ($400 a month) to fuck around with. The rest is kept for bills and savings. She gets to remodel once in a while (new floor 3 years ago, new bathroom year before last, new appliances this year).
So admittedly her SS check is a large one. Few people get a larger one. But it IS livable. She has no other pensions or anything. I manage her funds, I know precisely what she has.
Your mother is very lucky she has you looking out for her. God bless you. Thanks also for sharing the info, as touching base with real life is important when considering statistics.
"But it IS livable" - As you pointed out that's not the average, and you've also skewed the numbers by buying the home (equivalent to a two bedroom apartment) she lives in.
What would an average case be like living on Social Security, without also taking advantage of past savings, either cash or effectively in the form of a paid-for house, etc?
Although the average Social Security benefit for retired workers is $1800, many more people than just retired workers depend on Social Security and the average number across all of them is lower: The average benefit across *all* Social Security beneficiaries (retired workers, disabled workers, survivors) in the US is $1650. That's significantly less, as you've noted, than your mother's $2167 per month.
The national average rent for a one bedroom apartment is in the range of $1300 to $1500 per month.
The average rent for a two bedroom apartment is $1700 to $2000 a month. In other words, the average SS benefit doesn't even cover housing costs for a two bedroom apartment, unless you're in a rural area where you can find two bedroom apartments for $1000 per month. But forget about cities like New York or LA where it can be $3000 on average per month.
Buying a home at a national average 2023 mortgage of $1800 to $2000 per month is out of range for the average SS benefit. There is also the added national average monthly cost of property taxes ($300 to $500), homeowners insurance ($100 to $200), and (possibly) homeowners fees for condos, etc. ($200 to $500).
According to the USDA (I know... but their figures are the easiest to find online...) the average monthly food cost, with no eating out ever, for a single adult is $250-$300 a month for a "low cost" food plan and $350-$400 per month for a "moderate-cost" plan.
Total estimated healthcare costs for a retired person according to the US government are $400–$800 per month, on average, if they have Medicare and maybe a Medigap or Medicare Advantage plan.
Summing the lowest monthly numbers in the averages, $400 (medical) + $250 ("low cost" food = dogfood) + $1000 (rented housing, somewhere in rural Arkansas) and you get $1650, the monthly average Social Security benefit.
That doesn't include costs of any utilities, like electricity, water, trash, telephone, internet, or cable, clothing, transportation, other insurance or other expenses.
As a practical matter, if you're careful and living really cheap in a place that rental markets indicate has very little competition from people wanting to live there, you *might* be able to live a "no frills" life on an average SS benefit without literally having to eat dogfood and living in a fentanyl ghetto. But if you want frills like having a phone or internet, Social Security is not going to cut it, not even close if you want to live in a place in the US where most people who have the intelligence to be reading Simplicius would want to live.
For those interested in where I got the above numbers:
Just for the heck of it, I asked ChatGPT (which is becoming my "go to" search engine for pulling some representative "information" from the web) to get the above numbers and many more, and then I asked:
"Given all those expenses that we have discussed, is it realistic for the average person to retire in the US on an average Social Security benefit per month if he or she has no other income?"
... and here is what it replied:
Retiring on just the average Social Security benefit in the U.S. without any other source of income is not realistic for most people. The average Social Security benefit in 2023 is approximately $1,800 per month (though this varies based on a person’s earnings history and age of retirement).
Let’s break down whether this is enough:
1. Basic Monthly Expenses for a Retiree
Based on the breakdown we discussed earlier, the average monthly household expenses for a retiree range from $2,700 to $5,000 per month. This includes housing, healthcare, food, transportation, utilities, insurance, personal care, and discretionary spending.
Now, let's compare the average Social Security benefit to these expenses:
Average Social Security Benefit: ~$1,800 per month
Average Total Monthly Expenses for Retiree: $2,700 to $5,000 per month
As you can see, there is a significant gap between what the average retiree receives from Social Security and what they are likely to spend each month. For example:
Gap in Expenses:
On the low end of average expenses ($2,700 per month), the retiree is still short by $900 per month.
On the high end of average expenses ($5,000 per month), the shortfall is $3,200 per month.
2. Housing Costs
For someone who rents, housing expenses alone could easily be $1,500–$2,000 per month, depending on the location and type of housing. This alone can consume a large portion of Social Security benefits, leaving little left over for healthcare, food, transportation, and other necessary expenses.
3. Healthcare Costs
Healthcare is one of the most significant expenses for retirees. Even with Medicare, out-of-pocket costs (like premiums, co-pays, prescriptions, and possibly Medigap or Medicare Advantage plans) can add up to $400–$800 per month. For those with more serious health issues, this could be even higher.
4. Other Necessary Expenses
As mentioned, costs for food, transportation, utilities, and insurance could easily run into the $1,000–$2,000 per month or more. Social Security may cover some of these, but it is unlikely to cover them all without additional savings or income sources.
5. No Extra Savings or Pension
No additional income sources (such as savings, a pension, or part-time work) would make it very difficult to live comfortably on just Social Security. Social Security is meant to replace only a portion of pre-retirement income—about 40% for the average earner.
Retirees who rely only on Social Security would need to drastically cut expenses, especially in areas like housing, healthcare, and discretionary spending, or consider supplementing with part-time work or other sources of income (e.g., savings or home equity).
6. Special Circumstances
Homeownership: Retirees who have paid off their mortgage might be able to live on Social Security more comfortably, as their housing expenses could drop significantly. However, this assumes that they can manage to cover their property taxes, maintenance, and other living expenses.
Living in Low-Cost Areas: Some retirees may be able to make Social Security work if they live in areas with a lower cost of living, such as smaller towns or rural regions. However, even in these areas, expenses like healthcare may still be a burden.
Single vs. Couple: Single retirees are at a greater disadvantage than couples, as they have only one Social Security benefit to rely on, but still face similar household expenses (especially housing and healthcare). Couples can pool their benefits, but it is still a challenge to cover all costs.
Why Social Security Alone is Not Enough
Social Security was never designed to be the sole source of income in retirement. It is intended to be a supplement to personal savings, pensions, or other income streams.
For the average retiree, Social Security covers only about 40% of pre-retirement income, which is far below what most people need to maintain their standard of living in retirement.
Retirement planning often involves building additional savings, either through 401(k)s, IRAs, personal savings, or other investments, so that people can generate a more stable and adequate income during retirement.
What Are the Solutions?
For retirees relying solely on Social Security, here are a few potential ways to close the gap:
Part-Time Work: Many retirees supplement their Social Security income by working part-time or taking on freelance gigs. This can help cover extra expenses without fully relying on savings.
Cutting Expenses: Some retirees live frugally, downsize their homes, or relocate to areas with a lower cost of living to reduce monthly expenses.
Delaying Social Security: If possible, waiting to claim Social Security until age 70 can increase the benefit by up to 8% per year (due to delayed retirement credits). This can significantly improve the monthly benefit, making it more realistic to cover living expenses.
Tapping Savings or Investments: If retirees have saved through a 401(k), IRA, or other investment accounts, they may be able to draw from those savings to supplement their Social Security. However, this requires careful planning to avoid depleting funds too quickly.
Conclusion
It is generally not realistic for the average person to retire solely on Social Security without any additional income or savings. For most retirees, Social Security alone is insufficient to cover the average cost of living in retirement. To ensure a comfortable retirement, it is important to save for retirement throughout one's working years, have additional income sources, and plan for long-term healthcare costs. Without additional savings, many retirees will need to make significant lifestyle adjustments or find alternative income sources in retirement.
Thanks for the kind words. I agree with your general conclusion. With that said, many people (of my mom's generation - she's 77) have alternative pensions that make things better. Even a small pension or two of $1k a month make things livable for others. I have a 401k and home equity to play with.
Retirement housing can be much cheaper than you are quoting. You are talking open market rates. If you are willing to _actually_ live in an apartment building, they can often be gotten for half the figure you quote or even less.
Some factors I didn't point out:
While she is covered by Medicare, that doesn't cover everything. Normally, you'd need a prescription plan, which is not cheap. In her case, she has CHAMPVA, which is the kind of insurance that the federal government gives to the spouses of disabled veterans. It's a quite excellent plan and it comes at no cost. Pays for virtually everything Medicare doesn't. So that is another advantage. (ha) So essentially she gets a free Medicare Advantage plan.
As a result of her deceased husband being a disabled veteran (Korea, frostbite/hearing damage), she gets zero property tax in NJ. It's not a huge savings but the $600 a year she doesn't have to pay in maintenance on the retirement house is yet another thing that makes her standard of living better.
Food - she can go on base to a commissary and get cheap groceries. The PX is not much cheaper than Walmart, but that is available also.
So yeah, she's well off in a lot of ways that make it easier to live. With that said, if you went through your life and didn't manage to buy a house and build some equity, well I feel sorry for you. Retirement is going to suuuuck. If she had been wiser with her funds before I took over she'd have an even better standard of living. This is 'best possible' considering the debt she found herself in. Her and her husband reverse mortgaged their house to finance some nutty business ventures and she tried to make things work after he passed by incurring debt atop that. Unwinding that after he died was my prime directive. I could (and did) in some cases just wave the magic wand and use my own funds to fix problems, but that caused marital problems for me and she had to become self-sustaining anyway.
Her main problem is a QVC addiction. :-) I can think of worse issues.
You are unfortunately cynical; rather than fight lost opportunities caused by the owning class, you seem to think that 'government' is the problem. This government that is wholly owned by the corporations and works for their benefit is the problem; people like you who think that individuals can create their own reality are the problem. Individualistic, parasitic capitalism is the problem.
"Class solidarity is the answer." I live in Russia, man, and I see the horrific effects of what "class solidarity" did in the 70 years Marxists were in power.
I also have seen the dramatic, wonderful, improvement in the quality of people's lives when they threw out the Marxists and switched to capitalism.
By the way, a government that is wholly owned by corporations and works for their benefit is not capitalism.
It's an uphill taking on the deep/permanent state and the first indicators for success or failure are who is in his cabinet. If cleaning out the deep state isn't at the top of the list then everything else is going to end in failure. He also has the headwind from being (not unreasonably) an Israel firster... supporting a genocidal state would be cement shoes for any future dealings with the global majority.
Although I share the joy of this outcome of the American elections, which seem to me to have brought us back from the brink of complete submission to the globalist elite, and I'm not even from America, I don't share that much optimism about what the scope of Trump's mandate will be. It is true that the victory of the Republicans is very convincing and that it creates the impression that there is room for radical changes. However, I have to admit that the very personality of Donald Trump does not give me the impression that he is a man who wants to dedicate himself to the total reconstruction of the power system in America. Not to mention whether he, or anyone else, can achieve that in 4 years. In fact, I'm most concerned about the information I heard on Judge Napolitano's YouTube channel about how Trump is considering Mike Pompeo as his Secretary of Defense. The man is neocon to the max and, if this is indeed going to happen, then it does not bode well for the intentions and ultimate reach of Trump's term. But we'll see.
>I agree with the Russian reactions: skeptical but willing to listen if something does really change.
That is not a good position.
There is no conceivable deal to be had here, simply because of how far things have gone.
Russia MUST end Ukraine's statehood and then erase Ukrainian identity on the territory over the subsequent generations. Nothing else suffices as a minimum satisfactory outcome of the war, and it is a minimum satisfactory outcome because even that does nothing about the more general security threat from NATO in Europe. You still have the US bases in Poland and Romania, and everywhere else, and now the prospect of having hypersonic missiles on mobile concealed launch platforms in Finland too is quite real in the coming decade.
But the Ukrainian problem has the added dimension of an independent Ukraine meaning the loss of tens of millions of Russian people, who would be torn away from the motherland and then brainwashed to hate it and fight it.
This should be completely, totally unacceptable to anyone in the Kremlin who cares about Russia and not about the interests of his resource-exporting oligarch buddies.
But nobody in the West will ever agree to just hand off Ukraine to Putin and say "go ahead, occupy it all the way to Lvov, Rovno and Uzhgorod, and do whatever you want there". That will simply never happen under any kind of a deal.
So you have to accomplish it through military means. There is nothing to talk about with anyone.
It's either that, or Putin will go down in history as the third most catastrophic for Russia ruler, after Gorbachev and Nicholas II, perhaps numbers, if his suspect loyalties, incompetence and indecisiveness result in the final dissolution of the country and its full colonization by the West.
But right now very clearly Putin has no intention to fight a real war for serious objectives.
Agree 100% except for your last sentence. Putin is fighting a real war, and part of that real war, which is a war with the US and the US's vassals, is using the conflict in Ukraine to build up resources and expertise and not to fritter them away.
Going slow in Ukraine is the perfect strategy for that. That bleeds away military resources the US and US vassals will need later on to take on Russia, even while it allows Russia to systematically build an ever larger army that has the world's best hands-on experience at defeating US weapons and US tactics.
Ukraine will be a case of negotiations rather than warfare soon, though it is exactly why Russia will probably launch a new offensive before January.
Still, Putin's endgame has always been security and peace, not outright demolition of his opponents. Granted, when dealing with the Blob the demolition was probably unavoidable and thus necessary. But let's face it, Trump may indeed offer a deal that provides Russia with what it wants. Europe will not be able to maintain the war on its own, especially when its remaining industry is a target of hostile M&A by its American masters.
For Trump Ukraine is a completely garbage asset that leeches resources he wants elsewhere while being toxic on many levels, but it still requires bargaining before being thrown away. Given his style, it will be a period of most shameless bluffing and sable-rattling we've ever seen. Still, I don't see said rattling materializing into anything substantial, after all his main goal demands withdrawal from there, not commitment. So he will have to concede eventually.
Before that happens, though, he'd have to be repeatedly thrashed both during talks and on the battlefield, to make him realize that there won't be a deal on his terms. And since Republican carte blanche allows for unparalleled amount of change in a short while, this is also a golden opportunity for Putin to lay down the foundations for new security architecture he envisions.
When that is done, Ukraine's fate will be of no interest to anybody because there will be no more Western bloc to arm it against Russia. It will go down the disintegration path of so many other failed states, and only sorrowful wails of Julian Roepcke will accompany it. Where pieces of Ukraine will end up is another story.
Main danger will come not from Trump's war, but from his peace, because just as he needs Ukraine out of his way, he needs to pit Russia against China.
I fully agree. It seems, the only thing US may offer to Russia is to make the West recognize Crimea and those 4 regions as an integral part of Russia (or more likely Odesa as well) and lift all the sanctions. For the West it will be equal to capitulation, so not gonna happen. Therefore, the only logical step Russians could do is to continue the war till the objectives will be achieved. There's no other bargaining chip, except recognition of annexation, that the US could offer to Russia (with lifting sanctions as consequence of recognition), and there are no means to stop Russia now
This time it's different, Trump absolutely has to fold Ukraine and cut the losses before proceeding with China, and it's what his electorate wants anyway. Zelensky is rightfully hated among them. At the barest minimum Trump will put it on EU account asap, calling it a victory for the American taxpayer.
It is painfully obvious that the neocon idea of tormenting Russia with proxy war and sanctions to preserve hegemony has failed. I'm intrigued about what will replace that.
The ME is one of those areas where Trump's lack of knowledge, intellectual incuriosity and failure to get advice/input from a broad range of views makes for a huge vulnerability.
Lacking in his own knowledge of the area and only getting input from the likes of Miriam Adelson, Peter Thiel, Laura Loomer - and nothing from say, Doug Macgregor, Prof. Mearscheimer, Michael Scheurer, Candace Owens - not to mention direct from Palestinians, etc. is hardly a formula for developing sound policy.
Neither, of course, is bringing in people like Pompeo or Tom Cotton- you might as well rehire John Bolton.
If Trump really wants to reset the dependence on Israel and rein in their genocidal behavior, he doesn't need to do much, more like stop doing. Stop funding and arming them, limit intelligence sharing, stop providing cover for them at the UN... Instead of a veto, an abstention in the SC and Israel has a serious problem.
As for taking on Zionist influence in the US, it's so powerful and entrenched that it could only likely succeed on the back of a major wave of popular rejection/revulsion.
What could possibly generate that? I wonder about those assassination files that Trump has vowed to release.
There are serious researchers who contend that Israel fingerprints are all over the JFK and RFK assassinations, as well as on 9/11. *If* that turns out to be the case and *if* full disclosure were actually happen...?
I'm guessing no degree of his sucking up is going satisfy the DS/Zios that Trump is completely reliable and might not take a notion to head off their reservation. Whereas with JDV they would have a Mini-me far more to their liking. Not like they would have moral qualms about swapping out Trump for JD.
Lot of struggles ahead if this opportunity is going to lead to positive outcomes for 'we, the people' - there's nothing about being the occupied territory of a malign foreign power that is compatible with 'America First', nothing about complicity in genocide that contributes to MAGA.
Serious challenges ahead, which won't be met if people just congratulate themselves and go home.
I am not opposed to the existence of Israel as a primarily Jewish state, and I really don't have anything against Jews in general. What bothers me is fanatical Zionism, which begins with this medieval, even primeval, belief that the Testament to Moses promises the Jews direct rule over all of the lands between the Euphrates and the Nile well into present-day Syria and indirect rule over the whole earth.
From both a Jewish and Christian perspective, this "eschatology" requires a Messiah. I am a Christian, so I believe in Messiah. Fanatical Zionists are not "Messiahs," and history testifies to what happens when fanatical Zionism and false Jewish messianic proclamations take hold. Ask Josephus, Vespasian, Titus, or Hadrian what happens when Jewish fanatics begin to proclaim themselves the Messiah who will carve out a greater Israel and demand tribute from all the goyim. Eventually, the hundreds of millions get tired of being bullied by the fanatical few, and Jews get slaughtered. All fine, except this time around, a nuclear power stands behind them, blindly supporting every crazed thing that the new false Messiah, Netanyahu, proclaims. This time might be different, in that the slaughter will not be limited to the Jews, who allowed themselves to be mislead by charlatans. This time the slaughter may be billions of people who want nothing to do with Jewish fanaticism.
While his speeches have been pro-israeli, historically, he has been reluctant to provide free funding t other countries. He might resent every dollar provided to Israel.
The election proved one thing: the ‘Deep State’ and hidden hostile powers known as the ‘Globalists’ that scheme behind the scenes and secretly run the country are not all-powerful. They can clearly be defeated when the people are fed-up enough.
----
Oh brother, what a shallow and unsophisticated take.
The truth is exactly the opposite: those at the upper eschelon derive their wealth & power through central banking. They, more than anyone else, understand the dynamics of fractional reserve lending. The essence, the very core is that debt-money systems must continuously expand or suffer a catastrophic collapse.
The Russian (and Palestinian) gambit was about securing the globe's last remaining stores of natural resources, energy that could be parlayed and leveraged by yet another order of national debt. As I have noted elsewhere, missile technology trumped existing air superiority doctrine, rendering our defeat in Ukraine as fait accompli.
Knowing this, knowing the collapse of the dollar system was literally baked in, the only remaining variables were timing and magnitude. By failing to seize the initiative and control the resulting demolition, the global elite risked losing everything with little possible hope of recovery; thus ending their 1,000 year reich.
Trump was allowed to achieve his victory with stand down orders by the PTB to refrain from any significant election tampering. (Resulting in a 10m vote deficit for Harris vs Biden 4 years prior.) So, why Trump?
Because he has the experience, temperant and mandate to guide the West through the coming bankruptcy process, the structured devaluations, the staged defaults, and wholesale cutting of government expenses (includinng the MIC) in an attempt to clear the books so that deep state leaders can position themselves for the incoming BRICS system.
Correct, no one in government has more hands-on experience in managing defaults and bankruptcies than Trump. As with any large scale restructuring, it will be interesting to see who loses everything and who is made whole.
I'll be binge watching all the liberal mental breakdown videos in the next few days.
Whoopi's meltdown on the View is a good place to start ;)
for anyone interested, Vigilant Fox on Twitter has all the juicy video clips in one thread :)
link please 🔗
Well give up that link, son!
Don't bother. The have learned nothing.
I don't expect them to learn anything. Hence why I enjoy watching them seethe and suffer
Yes YES YES. Cry more, HARDER. I love it. And please go bash someone's teeth in, you fucking pussy
I agree. I spent most of they day driving, and so I listened to NPR and A1 all day. 1/3rd about abortion. 1/3rd about race and identity politics. 1/3rd about everything else.
That last 3rd included hysterics about all the terrible things Trump might do, how the 'Resistance' can fight Trump in Congress, and what the Democrats missed.
Ralph Nader, a Republican strategist, and a community organizer said some pretty damning things about the Democrat's failures. Which, were quickly glossed over and not mentioned again the rest of the day.
I don't expect the Democrats to learn anything from this election. I expect them to double down, lose by larger margins, and eventually be supplanted by radical upstarts just like Trump did to the Republicans.
They are the Enlightened Ones. They can't possibly have anything to learn.
So what now, Jack Sparrow? Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle, neither of us learning anything from the other, until Judgement Day and trumpets sound, hm?
Us Democrats will keep doing unpopular things like student loan forgiveness, incompetently governing cities, and rallying around idiotic slogans like "defund the police" while Republicans keep cutting taxes for billionaires, doing nothing for the working class, and fighting the fight against climate change.
Literally can't get enough
even for that pleasure I cannot overcome the distaste of listening to vain people spout nonsense.
"mass illegal migrant invasion meant to install a permanent Democrat voting regime in perpetuity"
Curious thing, it's either not the real reason they are here, or once here they decided they didn't want to be used.
Me being me I go with the first one, because I still feel like there is a war brewing in the US, and all those men that came across the border are here to fight, not vote.
One last thing, Trump has 4 years, and then it's back to the same old same old... unless there are significant changes made to voting integrity.
So that cabal that ran the show with Biden as a front man may just be waiting 4 years.
Yeah, if voting Democrat was the idea, it would have been better to import "Latinx" women, instead of battalions of military age men.
Why you using old tired "military age men" term. It's literally any man between 18-60 and hold no meaning whatsoever.
From mid teens to mid 20s would be more accurate historically.
Most 16 YO guys can pull a trigger just fine, guys over 25 YO or so have learned that they, too, can die and often have by then got something better going on than "adventure".
Why ya care?
No one is waiting, they run the show all the time. They write the narrative , and the monkey/actor/puppet in the White House makes sure to read the script to disinform the masses as to what is really going on.
Example: We are at war with Afghanistan because we're hunting Bin Laden
Truth: we are cultivation trillions of $ of heroin in Afghanistan which the CIA flies into the USA and now we have an opiod epidemic which we blame on the Chinese.
Plus a back-door to Russian Fed which maybe was the ultimate reason all the others are ancillary benefits.
The CIA flooded Russia with Afghanistani heroin in the 90ies.
I suspect that when the heroin market was disrupted by the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan (they committed the ultimate sin by shutting down the poppy fields), the CIA likely shifted to the distribution of Fentanyl (and of course blaming China). It's what keeps the CIA 'independent'.
I don't know if the pdf's are still available at the UN. Their study indicated that cultivation increased a hundred fold from 2003 to 2023. 8 tonnes vs 800 tonnes of heroin. I do speak under correction, but the difference was huge. $ 1.3 trillion pocket money enterprise. Not so on the sly, the internet has been scrubbed of soldiers guarding poppy fields. I think a huge part of that went towards financing ISIS. Which flopped because you know, the Russians. Those 360k mercenaries they lost in that wild oil grabbing endeavour was a bitter pill, especially the greater Israel project in the Levant. High time they kick them out if NE Syria.
And Boko Haram in West Africa, it's all fizzling because of the gnarly Russians. Lots of money to be made with raw materials, arms trade, drugs and oil - it helps to own a bank or two, and a minister or seven.
Add human trafficking to the list. Ugly stuff, but hey. It is the reality we live in.
A good place to look on this depressing topic is this:
https://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/the-politics-of-heroin-products-9781556524837.php
If your theories were correct the Kamunist would be the next president
True...once the illegals are here, it's a case of "what have you done for me lately?"
The Taliban (originally supported by the US) fell out of favour during negotiations over a pipeline crossing the country north-south. They wanted more than was offered so they were cut off and eventually attacked.
A little known fact. Thanks for bringing it up. They were photographed at Bush's ranch a few months before the Deep State/MOSSAD attack in NY 2001.
" . . . the United States we went to
50:57 war in Iraq not for Israel we went war in Iraq for oil and Regional dominance
51:03 now people say well that’s part of the project for New American Century and all this stuff yes that’s peripheral but
51:08 America Goes to War for America”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hSppOU68tc
Not only that. They had destroyed the poppy fields that the CIA cultivated for its black money. After the US moved into Afghanistan, they restored those fields and protected them with US troops.
You meant originally created
They are here for a lot of reasons.
1) downward pressure on wages.
2) upward pressure on housing prices.
3) bolster the Democrat's numbers.
4) join the armed forces and/or Antifa, the left's brownshirts. (Because the loyalty of the existing fighting forces to the current elite is in doubt)
Gabbard and Kennedy in '28 is the Dems only proper answer. Unless, of course, they run as Trump's legacy.
I think JD Vance will have idea's of his own for the Republican ticket... Chip
Vance is a very clever and very ambitious guy who rose from abject poverty , surrounded by meth heads and rural decay, to write an excellent book, be a military officer, and become Senator from Ohio...Don't ever sell him short...
Don't forget the fact that he's a die hard political opportunist who has been groomed by Peter Thiel. Vance's "hillbilly" bonafides disappeared in a cloud of dollars sometime around his Yale years. Our new VP is severely compromised with regards to his respect for anything but power and money. A right suitable Ceasar for the future.
That's consistent with what I wrote...It's dangerous to underestimate guys like Vance....
Is that any different then demonrats and rrinos?
""mass illegal migrant invasion meant to install a permanent Democrat voting regime in perpetuity"
Curious thing, it's either not the real reason they are here, or once here they decided they didn't want to be used."
The Dems got hoisted on their own petard. That's what they get for objectifying brown skinned people. They thought they could import Latinos and treat them as a US-style victim group, that all they wanted was welfare and any Dem could buy them off with a dog treat.
Instead they got millions of people who may be poor, but who are largely serious Catholics, the most Catholic people in the world, who are very family oriented, who have an outstanding work ethic, and who are proud of their heritage. They came to the US for jobs, not welfare, and to have a safer place to raise their kids than the narco-gang and corrupt politico dominated countries they left.
When they came to the US they were repelled by the Dem hatred of their religion ("clinging to their bibles," indeed...), repelled by Dem embracement of appalling perversion (trans guys hanging their junk out in girls' locker rooms in high schools is an invitation to a lynching in Tijuana, USA), angry the Dems kept coming up with insane ideas to destroy entry-level jobs ("Let's help gardeners by making the minimum wage for cutting the lawn $100 per hour!") and making sure Latinos know they are so second rate that the only way they can get ahead is by dissing who they are and claiming they are "black," as Harris did with her Indian heritage.
You can replay that with almost every immigrant group the Dems have tried to embrace while in reality repelling, like Arabs, all the Afghan immigrants, Palestinians, and even Asians.
Adios, Dem trash.
"millions of people [Latinos] who may be poor, but who are largely serious Catholics, the most Catholic people in the world, who are very family oriented, who have an outstanding work ethic, and who are proud of their heritage." -- Thank you!
I'm not a big Bret Stephens fan but he does a pretty solid job on breaking down the Dem-Debacle <<link>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/donald-trump-defeat-democrats.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YE4.boun.TD23q3yRbLHh&smid=url-share
On the NBC morning fib (11/07), their financial analyst reported that there was a 17% difference in favor of Trump for people making less than $100k per year. That little factoid alone tells a lot of the story. Hmm...
Bret Stephens writes a column that I actually agree with?!? Am I in Bizarro World?
Team D ran a shit candidate that had never won a seriously contested election in her own name (VP hardly counts) and was chosen last minute by party insiders. Because Harris had been VP under Biden for four years, she could not pretend that she had no inkling of his obvious senility and could not run on any policy other than the historically unpopular Biden Administration policies, without either being accused of disloyalty or of not having piped up sooner.
Had Team D allowed a normal primary process and been able to nominate a candidate not so tied at the hip to Biden, they might have done better. If Team D were able to nominate a candidate whose basic qualification for office was something other than "I was Willie Brown's mistress", they might have done better. And if the queen had balls, she'd be king.
Now, watch democrats and liberals blame everyone and everything, Russia, men, women, minorities, college students, "ungrateful negroes", Lina Khan, Elon Musk, Russia some more, feral tomcats, Peanut The Squirrel, Puertoricans and other Latinos who don't call themselves "Latinx", everyone and everything but themselves for losing to a loudmouth moron reality TV star.
Oh yeah, and Harris outspent Trump 2-1 and had the MSM to act as her unpaid propaganda arm, not to mention most of Big Tech on her side.
And She Still Lost. Not only did she lose, she got monkeyhammered.
Re: voting integrity, my coastal blue area Maine town had a petition on voter id using picture driver's licenses. It was doing quite well collecting signatures when I was there.
Otoh, few were signing the gun control petition. Which was fun because the karen with the petition had time to try to badger me into signing it & got a polite earful for her trouble. Which gave others a chance to avoid her. I could see them scurry by. 😁
Good points.
Plus I expect the cabal has been preparing for this outcome. Too soon to celebrate.
Agree. That was rather the letting the pressure out in a controlled manner. Let's see how quickly, if ever, FARA is applied to the dual-loyalty subversive scum.
Or they're a combination of ignorant/unknowledgeable/intimidated about how/where/when to vote in the US, or detached/indifferent/complacent about the importance of voting, or despite all the perks and free money they're trying to adjust to a new place, disoriented like all newcomers.
Mayorkas and crew organized getting them up here with planned routes and the help of HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society), got them phones and government money cards, planned flights and transpo in the US.
Some how I think they could tell them where to go to vote if that were the plan.
Some of them are here to be prison guards, security guards, local state militias, etc,,, yes they’ll fight or molest/harrass legally and be paid by US taxpayers.
Aren't we seeing that the top echelon of the Democratic Party, starting with Biden, are in fact terrorists? What other evidence is needed?
No, they're not terrorists, they just despise ordinary Americans, and most probably rightfully so. The USA would have been so much easier to govern if it didn't have all the blue collar riff raff demanding all their crap- like jobs. Anyone that hasn't made it to American Dream Status yet, should preferably be exported to China, so they can make bone meal from them. Having to deal with poor people when you have loads of money is just so tedious.
"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."--Barbara Bush
Outstanding election recap. Thanks. As if the USA's standing in the world hadn't sunk low enough, those voting numbers by year should scupper whatever it had left.
"Over and over the self-reflection and soul-searching was evident in every major establishment outlet. NY Times’ front page heralded a national turning point, evoking a ‘populist revolt against [the] elite’s vision of the U.S.”
I doubt there's a soul there, just a media that knows that the wind has changed so they're getting ready for a quick pivot.
Word. Old lady with a virtual….kat❤️🐈⬛
My comments on the election outcome are here, https://karlof1.substack.com/p/will-trump-be-a-recidivist
On the Oregon ID issue, your map is wrong. You must present photo ID to register to vote at the County Clerk's office along with your residential information so the proper ballot can be sent for you to fill out and return.
Yup, over here at 42 degrees North, 123 West. Republican Red is our color, yet living in the blue bubble. I saw that map elsewhere…odd…but then again I check sources only occasionally as I come here, and other stacks, to learn from the bright bulbs.🧲 🐴❤️
In Oklahoma a voter registration card (no photo) is sufficient to obtain a ballot for in-person voting.
Yes, but how do you get the card?
"You must present photo ID to register to vote" The map was about an ID needed to vote, not to register. Presenting a photo ID to register to vote is very different from presenting a photo ID to vote.
One of the classic ways to steal an election using mail-in ballots is to steal ballots from mailboxes. Fill them out however you like and send them in. There's no proof whatsoever that the ballot was cast by the person who was registered to vote.
Another classic method is to organize ballot filling-in meetings to "help" people with filling out the ballot. A trade union's shop steward organizes a "get out the vote" session where everybody in the union brings their mail in ballot and fills it out with the union's "help" to make sure it's not disqualified by any errors in filling it out. They pitch it as a "make sure every vote is counted" public service, but in reality, everybody with an IQ over 40 knows that if you filled out the ballot for candidates or referendum questions the union doesn't like you better start looking for another job. Political action groups also organize such "help" sessions at retirement homes and other settings. They even go door to door to "help" people with their mail in ballot to make sure every vote counts - their way.
What all those cases have in common is that there is no guarantee the person who filled out the ballot is the registered voter and there's no guarantee if they were the registered voter they cast their ballot with no duress applied.
I live in Russia and while I'm not a citizen (just a resident foreigner), I've gone with my friends who are Russians to see how they vote here. It's straightforward: you have to present your official photo ID, your "internal" passport, and you can only vote in person at the precinct for your residence address. Russians think the US system is insane and an invitation to fraudulent elections.
It's true that Russia is now experimenting with voting online, but they're trying to find ways to do that which avoid the problem of faked identity or voting under duress. Personally, I think it's a mistake and they should stick to having people vote in person or, in extraordinary cases where they have a long term illness that prevents them from going in person to vote, to dispatch mobile voting officers to take the precinct to them.
It is indeed insane and an invitation to fraudulent elections, and since it's still in place, its operators must be the benefactors of said fraudulence.
There is nothing wrong with voting online if system is setup with porper verifiable blockchain (and Russian online voting system is one of those). People are afraid of technologies for no reason. Probably, lack of knowledge of how blockchain works. It's impossible to fudge results since all checksums are public and testable
I am fine with technology, and enjoy many conveniences daily. Yes, it would be awfully convenient to be able to vote without having to drag my ass to the polling station. Just remember, everything done for convenience makes it more convenient for fraudsters as well.
Keep in mind, even with bulletproof authentication of the voter, if it is not a secret ballot done in a secure polling station, you have lost the ability to know if the verified voter is being coerced or “helped“ by that handsome young man with the laptop, who assures me he is typing in the selections I tell him to, even though he won’t let me look at the screen while he types. And furthermore, with a purely electronic vote, you have no physical record of what those votes were, so there can be no meaningful recount, or really, any assurance that whatever software is counting, those validated ballots will produce an undoctored count.
It's not how it works. Votes are essentially "public". It's long string with checksum of your vote. Everybody can look it up, just like you can look up any transaction in bitcoin. It's anonymous - you can't know who voted (since encryption is one way only), only voter knows his checksum, but you can derive who he voted for - that's what string doesn't hide. This completely protect voter from coercion, since his data is protected by law and can't be accessed even by authorities in normal circumstances. Even if you crack into voter account, you can't recast vote. There are a lot more to it, but I don't remember all details, there are multiple quite simple systems to make fraud nigh impossible (you never know for certain) but it's lot more durable than ballot stuffing or mail in ballots like in US. It's so easy to commit fraud when you have physical ballots and people counting it by hand
That does not address the problem of coercion or "help" in voting.
"Russians think the US system is insane and an invitation to fraudulent elections."
The apparent flaws in the US system are seen as features, not bugs, by the ruling classes.
There's absolutely no reason for the "Gloden Rule" for election objectivity not to be used everywhere that's very similar to the Russian system. Plus, in USA election day must be moved to an entire weekend, but that's problematic. Paper ballots counted by real people then recounted by real people if required--no machines. Where I live, we get our mail at a post office box that's as safe as one can get for delivery security. The #1 problem is not voting--the fundamental civic duty of the citizen. And then there's the LLC status of the Duopoly parties that allows them to manipulate their nomination process however they want, as was seen in 2016 with Clinton and Sanders. And of course, we have a bunch of other problems because of our dysfunctional federalism.
Voters in Russia do not sign their ballots, which are then taken out of the ballot box by the election commission and counted, so voting is anonymous. Also, unlike in the US, international observers are present at elections in Russia.
Yes. There are also tens of thousands of cameras anybody can view online (I think there were over 30,000 in the last election) that show polling places, counting rooms and other areas in the chain of custody of ballots. There are also surprisingly many political parties in Russia, although only a handful get enough votes to win seats in either local assemblies or in the national parliament. I've heard that some of them organize "watch parties" where volunteers from their party watch online cameras in various polling locations.
There's no reason that couldn't be done in the US if they wanted elections to be truly transparent, to allow citizens to witness any part of the process in any precinct. Make everybody a poll watcher.
Political parties could get more votes if they had more money for the election campaign. Putin's policy of "removing oligarchs from power" has led to the parties not having rich sponsors.
Color me skeptical that Trump will do much of anything to realign the U.S. toward acting rationally in its own national self-interest (as opposed to the interests of Wall-Street financiers) in matters of foreign policy. Trump filled his first cabinet with J. P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs men as well as every washed up mediocre general that he could find. Who appoints someone with the nickname "Mad Dog" to any position of importance? The name itself labels the man an idiot.
I agree with the Russian reactions: skeptical but willing to listen if something does really change. Defeating the blue-haired hoards of chaos, drunken, single moms, and the hoochie mommies of the hood at the ballot box is one thing. Taking on the Wall-Street-CIA=FBI-Federal bureaucracy is another in the U.S. is another thing entirely. Trump won the easy battle. Let us see if he can win the hard one. Let's see if he is even willing to fight the hard battle. He was not in his last attempt to move the U.S. away from the precipice.
And finally, the elephant in the room is Israel. Even if Trump is able to stop the nonsensical drive to war with Russia, deal with China via hard-line diplomacy rather than sabre-rattling and chest thumping, and adopt reasonable policies to curb the power of the drug cartels and Communists who seek to undermine the U.S., the fanatical Zionists, and their perverse influence over U.S. foreign policy remain, and Trump has done nothing to put any distance between their positions and his. To my mind, even if he succeeds somehow in establishing a more self-interested and nationalist foreign policy with regard to affairs in Europe and elsewhere, his reluctance to address the influence of fanatical Zionism on his county will doom it and lead it to war with much of the world.
"Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling. You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
General "Chaos" "Mad Dog" Mattis.
Absolutely the words of an intellectual genius. This is the same man who ordered a wedding party be bombed and who refused to air-evac casualties from his own unit. An air-force pilot had to fly in to do it. Real war hero stuff.
This same guy, who bombed a wedding party, was ordering his troops to grow mustaches and take "culturally sensitivity training" and wave at the locals in Iraq so as to "win hearts and minds." The exact type of jackassery that has characterized the upper echelons of the U.S. military post 1992. I don't care how many times he read Cicero. The man is an idiot.
Well, you're both right and you're both wrong. That somebody has an IQ over 140 doesn't really make him "smart" in a practical sense, as some very high IQ people have engaged in such brain-dead stupidity that you could not have picked such a stupid path without applying a lot of misdirected intelligence, exactly like the jackassery cited for Mattis. And reading Cicero does make one smarter. There's a lot to wade through sometimes, but the man's writings are full of insights and wisdom that will raise your thinking up a notch.
I respectfully disagree with this: "In an organization whose primary job is to kill people and be lethally good at it, he was good at it. "
In theory, the mission of the US military isn't killing cripples, but in reality that's what they've been doing more often than not since losing the war in Korea. Guys like Mattis failed even at that in Afghanistan, getting punched out and tossed out of the country by the Taliban. His foul attitude towards the locals is one reason why. He was so full of vicious woke anger at his own lie implying all Afghan men beat up women for five years he forgot he was in the business of being a nuclear power that invaded a third world country that, forget about not having a veil, didn't have a trillion dollar military, and then ended up killing and maiming mostly civilians in Afghanistan for twenty years. Killing and maiming civilians is supposedly not what the US military budget is for. Supposedly.
Anyway, we just might all see how good guys like Mattis are at killing when Russia finishes up in Ukraine and proceeds to settle scores with the US for the US's many acts of war against Russia. Here's hoping Trump picks better advisors this time and that he makes good on being the guy who closes the door on wars and opens up a golden, peaceful, prosperous, successful, and happy future for the US.
The man holds two contradictory positions in his head. 1) We have to train our soldiers by culturally sensitive. 2) We have to slaughter them because they don't fly a gay-pride flag over Kabul.
American foreign policy demands that anyone who wants to rise to the rank of general be capable of holding these contradictory positions and arguing vehemently for both at the same time. No serious thinker could manage this: the inconsistencies in their own thinking would drive them mad. They could not do it. This is why the ranks of general in the U.S. military have deteriorated to the point where you have people like Petraeus, Milley, and Mattis in senior positions.
Someone like Mattis or Petraeus might be clever, insofar, as he is capable of sufficient casuistry to justify holding two completely contradictory ideas at the same time. The result of being too clever by half, however, is actually profound stupidity.
Cicero is an interesting guy. One of my insights about him was that being a relatively intelligent guy and writing well didn't translate into being a secure human being or achieving a level of self-awareness. He was a profoundly insecure person, always sensitive to his novus homo (new man, no family history) background.
I think of him as being one of those guys who, were he alive in America today, would be a Democrat and a defender of the current status quo. Mainly because he would lack the courage to criticize the majority of the boni/optimates (think of them as the neocon elite) except privately to his modern equivalent of Atticus.
Easy battle? An assassination attempt he avoided by an ear, 3 impeachments, 4 trials, and it was easy? As the Brits say, Bollocks.
I do agree about taking a wait and see attitude, however. It will NOT be an easy battle.
I suppose that depends on who you think was responsible for the assassination attempts. Neither of the would-be assassins had blue hair, were liquored up on box wine, or shook their booties in the attempt. One trained a gunrange with every federal agent in Western PA., and the other was mixed up with every pro-Ukraine NGO and effort in the U.S. . To me, those were warning shots from the deep-state and not agitated lefties.
Ah, but I never mentioned blue hair or lefties. That shot in Pa. was deadly serious, not a warning. If Trump had not turned his head at just that moment it would have been televised brain-splatter.
You think that the U.S. deep-state is just going to leave it at that. "Oh... well.. we took our best shot. I guess we just have to live with Trump and do what he says." Oh... no. The battle has just begun.
When Pompeo appeared at the 4 Nov rally in PA, that was a signal. A deal has been cut between DJT and the DS. So a dog whistle to the John Wicks out there, the contract has been cancelled. DJT has agreed to work with us again.
Only time will tell.
That is sort of my take on the thing as well. Trump may be 78, angry, unconcerned about consequences to himself, and in no mood to make deals with devils, but he has 5 (is it 5?) children and a host of grandchildren, about whom he seems to care. Taking a shot at Trump may not deter him, but threatening his children and grandchildren? Ask that Kemp fellow down in Georgia what happened to his daughter's boyfriend a few days after he decided to investigate the goings-on in Georgia in 2020.
I would have to see evidence that Trump is willing to go against the CIA-NSA-Wall-Street crowd before I believe it. So far, there has been a lot of talk, and no action at all.
The first assassination attempt was totally fake. Look up the YouTube video Roll Up, Roll Up the Trump Circus is in Town. Watch that over and over. Eventually you'll realize you're watching the worst actors of all time (the crisis actors in the stands). Find the video of the guy who went to high-school with Crookes talking about how Crookes has been bullied. Worst actor of all time. When you realize it's fake you'll realize they never tried to make it believable. They're laughing at us.
warning shots do not hit you
We shall see now, won’t we? Tune in Jan 20, 2025…
Yup, pivotal date. Trump man not get sworn in. A lot can happen between now and then... Chip
But now Trump has Elon Musk and RFK breathing down his neck, and Musk for sure is not one to be put off with excuses...Musk has a powerful personality, no fear of anyone, and is impatient of laziness or delays...
FYI, the last time America was in big trouble, FDR was elected. He worked with the American communists and socialists to 'save capitalism'. As a result, we have reasonable labor and job safety laws, unemployment insurance, and social security. Not bad touches to help out the crotchety greed head capitalists!
"As a result, we have reasonable labor and job safety laws, unemployment insurance, and social security." That was intended as extreme satire, right?
Ever try living on social security? Maybe if you like living on dog or cat food in the middle of a fentanyl ghetto, sure, but not so realistic otherwise. Then there's also the wonderful feeling of knowing the government has been forcing you to give them money your whole working life which they're going to return to you at such a rigged, fraudulent, low rate of return that it would be illegal for a private company to screw people that way, and illegal to steal money out of the fund to bankrupt it. And then there's how they tax, yet again, when they give you back the money they taxed when you earned it. Plus there's the flat out lie of it being indexed for inflation when in fact it's rigged to always be both behind the rise in inflation and also short of compensating for inflation. In other words, it's a typical socialist fraud.
As for "reasonable labor and job safety laws", their main effect was to empower corrupt unions to grab American industry by the throat and squeeze so hard that any sane entrepreneur made sure to move his or her business either to a right-to-work state or even better, out of the country. They created a built-in constituency to elect a parasite class of socialist Dems who had no talent other than to seize by force the earnings of productive people and to redistribute those earnings to their political supporters. Yep, typical socialist fraud again.
The government is absolutely terrible at doing anything but stealing money from productive people and giving it to parasites. True capitalism does a far better job.
A good example today is Russia's turn to capitalism, which swept out the dead wood of communism and socialism and converted a country which could not feed itself into the world's biggest food exporter. Russia's economy is booming, and one of the biggest problems it has is that it is growing so fast it is experiencing a huge shortage of labor. That's creating an astonishing array of perks and indulgences for labor, far beyond what socialist government schemes create and without the built-in corruption government programs feature. ("Yes, of course we steal from them and give to our friends. That's not a bug, it's a feature!")
That's how capitalism works: the best labor and job safety law around is Adam Smith's "invisible hand": when economies boom because a country genuinely embraces capitalism, employers have to compete to get the labor they need. They compete with each other to provide perks for labor, like shorter work weeks, remote work, and generous maternal leave, and they keep their job environments safer for workers than corrupt governments can. The best unemployment insurance is knowing that you can get a new job the next day if for any reason your current job disappears.
When you look at socialist criticisms of "capitalism," they usually end up stemming from socialist interference in capitalism. For example, when a leviathan government weighs down markets with labyrinthian labor laws and a million fees, that's an invitation to form employer monopolies because only big companies can deal with the infinite over-regulation. That prevents new entrants from getting started, who would poach employees from entrenched companies that might be slower or less generous in treating their employees right.
The problem is crotchety greed head socialists who are bent on running their parasite scams with other people's money. It's not capitalists who are forced by *real* markets to compete in giving their customers what those customers want at a better price while taking care of their labor force to ensure their organization's success.
It's impressive how you libertarians can write so much contradictory dribble and yet also fail to say anything accurate or factual correct. I applaud your ability to withstand what must be overwhelming cognitive dissonance
Ah, the gods of irony have just lit a candle at their alter for you, hoping you have a very, very long life, so you have many years of learning how to try to live on social security. That may also give you time to consider if you would have had a better chance at getting wisdom had you skipped the ad hominem attacks and tried to discuss specifics.
The brain isn't a muscle, but what it has in common with muscles is that it gets stronger when you give it a workout instead of just taking the easy, ad hominem way out. Try next time if you disagree with someone to address the points they've made. You may be amazed how doing that can reveal to you inaccurate assumptions you've made or false conclusions you've reached.
FDR was forced to many of 'his' progressive policies to counter/coopt populist sentiment that was finding expression through Huey Long - conveniently assassinated before he could challenge Roosevelt in 1936.
Nothing against free enterprise, but it is nevertheless true that people are still walking on sidewalks, living in houses, utilizing public buildings, driving on roads, lighting their homes due to public works projects of the 1930's.
I think it is an extreme stretch to imply, as you seem to be doing, that the only reason people in the US are walking on sidewalks, living in houses, utilizing public buildings, driving on roads, or lighting their homes is that there were public works projects in the 1930s.
Sure, there were many public works projects in the 1930s. But they did not include almost all roads that currently exist in the US. For example, the Interstate Highway System was not a publics work project of the 1930s, nor were most of the roads that currently exist in the US. That's also true of housing. There are approximately 140 million housing units in the US today. The public works administration from 1933 to 1939 built about 50,000 housing units, almost all low-income housing.
Are some of those units still being used? No doubt. But you can flip that and look at how many of today's 140 million housing units are due to the US having a capitalist economy and more or less free markets. The US certainly outperformed by a wide margin the truly feeble ability of communist and socialist economies to provide quality housing for their citizens. I live in Russia and all around me, 33 years after the fall of communism/socialism, I still see the horrifically shoddy housing built during the Khruschev and Brezhnev years in their attempt to improve over the even worse housing crises of the preceding years of communist rule. And then when Russia went capitalist in 1991 it was like switching a light bulb on in a dark room: suddenly endless, far higher quality housing.
A colleague of mine wrote his doctoral dissertation and then published a book on housing regulations in the U.S. . Do you know what he found? He found that the quality of houses decreased as more regulations were added to building codes, because everyone just built down to the codes, reducing every house to the lowest common denominator.
Licensing all the building trades in the U.S. also had a significant negative impact on housing quality. A man who builds his own house, builds it to last. I know this from first-hand experience. I bought my house from a man who built it for himself. It just feels like fortress from the minute that you walk in. Solid as a rock with a foundation twice as deep as necessary.
There is a harmful myth that "free enterprise" is incompatible with socialism. The opposite is true regarding free enterprise as honest creativity and development of products and industry. Seeing free enterprise as the right to rape, plunder, and steal is indeed incompatible with socialism. See China in the 21st century for examples.
I would say that the problem is the "managerial revolution." Elon Musk does not worry about a free market, because he knows that he can innovate better and compete against all comers. It is when Elon is gone, and the Board of Directors picks a CEO from a pile of CVs written by people who have never actually built anything in their lives: just "managed" the companies that people with actual talent built. These "managers" are the ones who always petition governments to build regulatory moats around their industries, their paychecks, and their stock options.
I'll give you some real numbers. My mother gets about $26k a year in SS. She literally lives on this in a retirement community. We used the remnants of money she had after some financial debacles to buy her a quarter of a retirement house in NJ in 2017. Basically like a 2br apartment, with maintenance to take care of everything but cleaning your own house and cooking. It cost about $45k at the time - today it's worth closer to 90k. Anywho, the nut required to keep her living there and in a car is about $1k a month. The rest is food and fuck around money. I give her an allowance ($400 a month) to fuck around with. The rest is kept for bills and savings. She gets to remodel once in a while (new floor 3 years ago, new bathroom year before last, new appliances this year).
So admittedly her SS check is a large one. Few people get a larger one. But it IS livable. She has no other pensions or anything. I manage her funds, I know precisely what she has.
Your mother is very lucky she has you looking out for her. God bless you. Thanks also for sharing the info, as touching base with real life is important when considering statistics.
"But it IS livable" - As you pointed out that's not the average, and you've also skewed the numbers by buying the home (equivalent to a two bedroom apartment) she lives in.
What would an average case be like living on Social Security, without also taking advantage of past savings, either cash or effectively in the form of a paid-for house, etc?
Although the average Social Security benefit for retired workers is $1800, many more people than just retired workers depend on Social Security and the average number across all of them is lower: The average benefit across *all* Social Security beneficiaries (retired workers, disabled workers, survivors) in the US is $1650. That's significantly less, as you've noted, than your mother's $2167 per month.
The national average rent for a one bedroom apartment is in the range of $1300 to $1500 per month.
The average rent for a two bedroom apartment is $1700 to $2000 a month. In other words, the average SS benefit doesn't even cover housing costs for a two bedroom apartment, unless you're in a rural area where you can find two bedroom apartments for $1000 per month. But forget about cities like New York or LA where it can be $3000 on average per month.
Buying a home at a national average 2023 mortgage of $1800 to $2000 per month is out of range for the average SS benefit. There is also the added national average monthly cost of property taxes ($300 to $500), homeowners insurance ($100 to $200), and (possibly) homeowners fees for condos, etc. ($200 to $500).
According to the USDA (I know... but their figures are the easiest to find online...) the average monthly food cost, with no eating out ever, for a single adult is $250-$300 a month for a "low cost" food plan and $350-$400 per month for a "moderate-cost" plan.
Total estimated healthcare costs for a retired person according to the US government are $400–$800 per month, on average, if they have Medicare and maybe a Medigap or Medicare Advantage plan.
Summing the lowest monthly numbers in the averages, $400 (medical) + $250 ("low cost" food = dogfood) + $1000 (rented housing, somewhere in rural Arkansas) and you get $1650, the monthly average Social Security benefit.
That doesn't include costs of any utilities, like electricity, water, trash, telephone, internet, or cable, clothing, transportation, other insurance or other expenses.
As a practical matter, if you're careful and living really cheap in a place that rental markets indicate has very little competition from people wanting to live there, you *might* be able to live a "no frills" life on an average SS benefit without literally having to eat dogfood and living in a fentanyl ghetto. But if you want frills like having a phone or internet, Social Security is not going to cut it, not even close if you want to live in a place in the US where most people who have the intelligence to be reading Simplicius would want to live.
For those interested in where I got the above numbers:
Just for the heck of it, I asked ChatGPT (which is becoming my "go to" search engine for pulling some representative "information" from the web) to get the above numbers and many more, and then I asked:
"Given all those expenses that we have discussed, is it realistic for the average person to retire in the US on an average Social Security benefit per month if he or she has no other income?"
... and here is what it replied:
Retiring on just the average Social Security benefit in the U.S. without any other source of income is not realistic for most people. The average Social Security benefit in 2023 is approximately $1,800 per month (though this varies based on a person’s earnings history and age of retirement).
Let’s break down whether this is enough:
1. Basic Monthly Expenses for a Retiree
Based on the breakdown we discussed earlier, the average monthly household expenses for a retiree range from $2,700 to $5,000 per month. This includes housing, healthcare, food, transportation, utilities, insurance, personal care, and discretionary spending.
Now, let's compare the average Social Security benefit to these expenses:
Average Social Security Benefit: ~$1,800 per month
Average Total Monthly Expenses for Retiree: $2,700 to $5,000 per month
As you can see, there is a significant gap between what the average retiree receives from Social Security and what they are likely to spend each month. For example:
Gap in Expenses:
On the low end of average expenses ($2,700 per month), the retiree is still short by $900 per month.
On the high end of average expenses ($5,000 per month), the shortfall is $3,200 per month.
2. Housing Costs
For someone who rents, housing expenses alone could easily be $1,500–$2,000 per month, depending on the location and type of housing. This alone can consume a large portion of Social Security benefits, leaving little left over for healthcare, food, transportation, and other necessary expenses.
3. Healthcare Costs
Healthcare is one of the most significant expenses for retirees. Even with Medicare, out-of-pocket costs (like premiums, co-pays, prescriptions, and possibly Medigap or Medicare Advantage plans) can add up to $400–$800 per month. For those with more serious health issues, this could be even higher.
4. Other Necessary Expenses
As mentioned, costs for food, transportation, utilities, and insurance could easily run into the $1,000–$2,000 per month or more. Social Security may cover some of these, but it is unlikely to cover them all without additional savings or income sources.
5. No Extra Savings or Pension
No additional income sources (such as savings, a pension, or part-time work) would make it very difficult to live comfortably on just Social Security. Social Security is meant to replace only a portion of pre-retirement income—about 40% for the average earner.
Retirees who rely only on Social Security would need to drastically cut expenses, especially in areas like housing, healthcare, and discretionary spending, or consider supplementing with part-time work or other sources of income (e.g., savings or home equity).
6. Special Circumstances
Homeownership: Retirees who have paid off their mortgage might be able to live on Social Security more comfortably, as their housing expenses could drop significantly. However, this assumes that they can manage to cover their property taxes, maintenance, and other living expenses.
Living in Low-Cost Areas: Some retirees may be able to make Social Security work if they live in areas with a lower cost of living, such as smaller towns or rural regions. However, even in these areas, expenses like healthcare may still be a burden.
Single vs. Couple: Single retirees are at a greater disadvantage than couples, as they have only one Social Security benefit to rely on, but still face similar household expenses (especially housing and healthcare). Couples can pool their benefits, but it is still a challenge to cover all costs.
Why Social Security Alone is Not Enough
Social Security was never designed to be the sole source of income in retirement. It is intended to be a supplement to personal savings, pensions, or other income streams.
For the average retiree, Social Security covers only about 40% of pre-retirement income, which is far below what most people need to maintain their standard of living in retirement.
Retirement planning often involves building additional savings, either through 401(k)s, IRAs, personal savings, or other investments, so that people can generate a more stable and adequate income during retirement.
What Are the Solutions?
For retirees relying solely on Social Security, here are a few potential ways to close the gap:
Part-Time Work: Many retirees supplement their Social Security income by working part-time or taking on freelance gigs. This can help cover extra expenses without fully relying on savings.
Cutting Expenses: Some retirees live frugally, downsize their homes, or relocate to areas with a lower cost of living to reduce monthly expenses.
Delaying Social Security: If possible, waiting to claim Social Security until age 70 can increase the benefit by up to 8% per year (due to delayed retirement credits). This can significantly improve the monthly benefit, making it more realistic to cover living expenses.
Tapping Savings or Investments: If retirees have saved through a 401(k), IRA, or other investment accounts, they may be able to draw from those savings to supplement their Social Security. However, this requires careful planning to avoid depleting funds too quickly.
Conclusion
It is generally not realistic for the average person to retire solely on Social Security without any additional income or savings. For most retirees, Social Security alone is insufficient to cover the average cost of living in retirement. To ensure a comfortable retirement, it is important to save for retirement throughout one's working years, have additional income sources, and plan for long-term healthcare costs. Without additional savings, many retirees will need to make significant lifestyle adjustments or find alternative income sources in retirement.
Thanks for the kind words. I agree with your general conclusion. With that said, many people (of my mom's generation - she's 77) have alternative pensions that make things better. Even a small pension or two of $1k a month make things livable for others. I have a 401k and home equity to play with.
Retirement housing can be much cheaper than you are quoting. You are talking open market rates. If you are willing to _actually_ live in an apartment building, they can often be gotten for half the figure you quote or even less.
Some factors I didn't point out:
While she is covered by Medicare, that doesn't cover everything. Normally, you'd need a prescription plan, which is not cheap. In her case, she has CHAMPVA, which is the kind of insurance that the federal government gives to the spouses of disabled veterans. It's a quite excellent plan and it comes at no cost. Pays for virtually everything Medicare doesn't. So that is another advantage. (ha) So essentially she gets a free Medicare Advantage plan.
As a result of her deceased husband being a disabled veteran (Korea, frostbite/hearing damage), she gets zero property tax in NJ. It's not a huge savings but the $600 a year she doesn't have to pay in maintenance on the retirement house is yet another thing that makes her standard of living better.
Food - she can go on base to a commissary and get cheap groceries. The PX is not much cheaper than Walmart, but that is available also.
So yeah, she's well off in a lot of ways that make it easier to live. With that said, if you went through your life and didn't manage to buy a house and build some equity, well I feel sorry for you. Retirement is going to suuuuck. If she had been wiser with her funds before I took over she'd have an even better standard of living. This is 'best possible' considering the debt she found herself in. Her and her husband reverse mortgaged their house to finance some nutty business ventures and she tried to make things work after he passed by incurring debt atop that. Unwinding that after he died was my prime directive. I could (and did) in some cases just wave the magic wand and use my own funds to fix problems, but that caused marital problems for me and she had to become self-sustaining anyway.
Her main problem is a QVC addiction. :-) I can think of worse issues.
You are unfortunately cynical; rather than fight lost opportunities caused by the owning class, you seem to think that 'government' is the problem. This government that is wholly owned by the corporations and works for their benefit is the problem; people like you who think that individuals can create their own reality are the problem. Individualistic, parasitic capitalism is the problem.
Class solidarity is the answer.
"Class solidarity is the answer." I live in Russia, man, and I see the horrific effects of what "class solidarity" did in the 70 years Marxists were in power.
I also have seen the dramatic, wonderful, improvement in the quality of people's lives when they threw out the Marxists and switched to capitalism.
By the way, a government that is wholly owned by corporations and works for their benefit is not capitalism.
It's an uphill taking on the deep/permanent state and the first indicators for success or failure are who is in his cabinet. If cleaning out the deep state isn't at the top of the list then everything else is going to end in failure. He also has the headwind from being (not unreasonably) an Israel firster... supporting a genocidal state would be cement shoes for any future dealings with the global majority.
Although I share the joy of this outcome of the American elections, which seem to me to have brought us back from the brink of complete submission to the globalist elite, and I'm not even from America, I don't share that much optimism about what the scope of Trump's mandate will be. It is true that the victory of the Republicans is very convincing and that it creates the impression that there is room for radical changes. However, I have to admit that the very personality of Donald Trump does not give me the impression that he is a man who wants to dedicate himself to the total reconstruction of the power system in America. Not to mention whether he, or anyone else, can achieve that in 4 years. In fact, I'm most concerned about the information I heard on Judge Napolitano's YouTube channel about how Trump is considering Mike Pompeo as his Secretary of Defense. The man is neocon to the max and, if this is indeed going to happen, then it does not bode well for the intentions and ultimate reach of Trump's term. But we'll see.
>I agree with the Russian reactions: skeptical but willing to listen if something does really change.
That is not a good position.
There is no conceivable deal to be had here, simply because of how far things have gone.
Russia MUST end Ukraine's statehood and then erase Ukrainian identity on the territory over the subsequent generations. Nothing else suffices as a minimum satisfactory outcome of the war, and it is a minimum satisfactory outcome because even that does nothing about the more general security threat from NATO in Europe. You still have the US bases in Poland and Romania, and everywhere else, and now the prospect of having hypersonic missiles on mobile concealed launch platforms in Finland too is quite real in the coming decade.
But the Ukrainian problem has the added dimension of an independent Ukraine meaning the loss of tens of millions of Russian people, who would be torn away from the motherland and then brainwashed to hate it and fight it.
This should be completely, totally unacceptable to anyone in the Kremlin who cares about Russia and not about the interests of his resource-exporting oligarch buddies.
But nobody in the West will ever agree to just hand off Ukraine to Putin and say "go ahead, occupy it all the way to Lvov, Rovno and Uzhgorod, and do whatever you want there". That will simply never happen under any kind of a deal.
So you have to accomplish it through military means. There is nothing to talk about with anyone.
It's either that, or Putin will go down in history as the third most catastrophic for Russia ruler, after Gorbachev and Nicholas II, perhaps numbers, if his suspect loyalties, incompetence and indecisiveness result in the final dissolution of the country and its full colonization by the West.
But right now very clearly Putin has no intention to fight a real war for serious objectives.
Agree 100% except for your last sentence. Putin is fighting a real war, and part of that real war, which is a war with the US and the US's vassals, is using the conflict in Ukraine to build up resources and expertise and not to fritter them away.
Going slow in Ukraine is the perfect strategy for that. That bleeds away military resources the US and US vassals will need later on to take on Russia, even while it allows Russia to systematically build an ever larger army that has the world's best hands-on experience at defeating US weapons and US tactics.
Ukraine will be a case of negotiations rather than warfare soon, though it is exactly why Russia will probably launch a new offensive before January.
Still, Putin's endgame has always been security and peace, not outright demolition of his opponents. Granted, when dealing with the Blob the demolition was probably unavoidable and thus necessary. But let's face it, Trump may indeed offer a deal that provides Russia with what it wants. Europe will not be able to maintain the war on its own, especially when its remaining industry is a target of hostile M&A by its American masters.
For Trump Ukraine is a completely garbage asset that leeches resources he wants elsewhere while being toxic on many levels, but it still requires bargaining before being thrown away. Given his style, it will be a period of most shameless bluffing and sable-rattling we've ever seen. Still, I don't see said rattling materializing into anything substantial, after all his main goal demands withdrawal from there, not commitment. So he will have to concede eventually.
Before that happens, though, he'd have to be repeatedly thrashed both during talks and on the battlefield, to make him realize that there won't be a deal on his terms. And since Republican carte blanche allows for unparalleled amount of change in a short while, this is also a golden opportunity for Putin to lay down the foundations for new security architecture he envisions.
When that is done, Ukraine's fate will be of no interest to anybody because there will be no more Western bloc to arm it against Russia. It will go down the disintegration path of so many other failed states, and only sorrowful wails of Julian Roepcke will accompany it. Where pieces of Ukraine will end up is another story.
Main danger will come not from Trump's war, but from his peace, because just as he needs Ukraine out of his way, he needs to pit Russia against China.
I fully agree. It seems, the only thing US may offer to Russia is to make the West recognize Crimea and those 4 regions as an integral part of Russia (or more likely Odesa as well) and lift all the sanctions. For the West it will be equal to capitulation, so not gonna happen. Therefore, the only logical step Russians could do is to continue the war till the objectives will be achieved. There's no other bargaining chip, except recognition of annexation, that the US could offer to Russia (with lifting sanctions as consequence of recognition), and there are no means to stop Russia now
It won't matter what Trump wants. If he tries to walk away from Ukraine, it only will be necessary to call him "Putin puppet!" and he will fold.
Remember how Trum,p twice tried to leave Syria, and he cucked out both times?
This time it's different, Trump absolutely has to fold Ukraine and cut the losses before proceeding with China, and it's what his electorate wants anyway. Zelensky is rightfully hated among them. At the barest minimum Trump will put it on EU account asap, calling it a victory for the American taxpayer.
Since when did what the electorate want matter?
Anyway, I see no reason to believe anything is different.
It is painfully obvious that the neocon idea of tormenting Russia with proxy war and sanctions to preserve hegemony has failed. I'm intrigued about what will replace that.
All good and pertinent points.
The ME is one of those areas where Trump's lack of knowledge, intellectual incuriosity and failure to get advice/input from a broad range of views makes for a huge vulnerability.
Lacking in his own knowledge of the area and only getting input from the likes of Miriam Adelson, Peter Thiel, Laura Loomer - and nothing from say, Doug Macgregor, Prof. Mearscheimer, Michael Scheurer, Candace Owens - not to mention direct from Palestinians, etc. is hardly a formula for developing sound policy.
Neither, of course, is bringing in people like Pompeo or Tom Cotton- you might as well rehire John Bolton.
If Trump really wants to reset the dependence on Israel and rein in their genocidal behavior, he doesn't need to do much, more like stop doing. Stop funding and arming them, limit intelligence sharing, stop providing cover for them at the UN... Instead of a veto, an abstention in the SC and Israel has a serious problem.
As for taking on Zionist influence in the US, it's so powerful and entrenched that it could only likely succeed on the back of a major wave of popular rejection/revulsion.
What could possibly generate that? I wonder about those assassination files that Trump has vowed to release.
There are serious researchers who contend that Israel fingerprints are all over the JFK and RFK assassinations, as well as on 9/11. *If* that turns out to be the case and *if* full disclosure were actually happen...?
I'm guessing no degree of his sucking up is going satisfy the DS/Zios that Trump is completely reliable and might not take a notion to head off their reservation. Whereas with JDV they would have a Mini-me far more to their liking. Not like they would have moral qualms about swapping out Trump for JD.
Lot of struggles ahead if this opportunity is going to lead to positive outcomes for 'we, the people' - there's nothing about being the occupied territory of a malign foreign power that is compatible with 'America First', nothing about complicity in genocide that contributes to MAGA.
Serious challenges ahead, which won't be met if people just congratulate themselves and go home.
I am not opposed to the existence of Israel as a primarily Jewish state, and I really don't have anything against Jews in general. What bothers me is fanatical Zionism, which begins with this medieval, even primeval, belief that the Testament to Moses promises the Jews direct rule over all of the lands between the Euphrates and the Nile well into present-day Syria and indirect rule over the whole earth.
From both a Jewish and Christian perspective, this "eschatology" requires a Messiah. I am a Christian, so I believe in Messiah. Fanatical Zionists are not "Messiahs," and history testifies to what happens when fanatical Zionism and false Jewish messianic proclamations take hold. Ask Josephus, Vespasian, Titus, or Hadrian what happens when Jewish fanatics begin to proclaim themselves the Messiah who will carve out a greater Israel and demand tribute from all the goyim. Eventually, the hundreds of millions get tired of being bullied by the fanatical few, and Jews get slaughtered. All fine, except this time around, a nuclear power stands behind them, blindly supporting every crazed thing that the new false Messiah, Netanyahu, proclaims. This time might be different, in that the slaughter will not be limited to the Jews, who allowed themselves to be mislead by charlatans. This time the slaughter may be billions of people who want nothing to do with Jewish fanaticism.
You realise Trump is a Jew, right? And Candace Owens is a no-mind. If I remember I'll put a link to one of her videos when I get home.
While his speeches have been pro-israeli, historically, he has been reluctant to provide free funding t other countries. He might resent every dollar provided to Israel.
The election proved one thing: the ‘Deep State’ and hidden hostile powers known as the ‘Globalists’ that scheme behind the scenes and secretly run the country are not all-powerful. They can clearly be defeated when the people are fed-up enough.
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Oh brother, what a shallow and unsophisticated take.
The truth is exactly the opposite: those at the upper eschelon derive their wealth & power through central banking. They, more than anyone else, understand the dynamics of fractional reserve lending. The essence, the very core is that debt-money systems must continuously expand or suffer a catastrophic collapse.
The Russian (and Palestinian) gambit was about securing the globe's last remaining stores of natural resources, energy that could be parlayed and leveraged by yet another order of national debt. As I have noted elsewhere, missile technology trumped existing air superiority doctrine, rendering our defeat in Ukraine as fait accompli.
Knowing this, knowing the collapse of the dollar system was literally baked in, the only remaining variables were timing and magnitude. By failing to seize the initiative and control the resulting demolition, the global elite risked losing everything with little possible hope of recovery; thus ending their 1,000 year reich.
Trump was allowed to achieve his victory with stand down orders by the PTB to refrain from any significant election tampering. (Resulting in a 10m vote deficit for Harris vs Biden 4 years prior.) So, why Trump?
Because he has the experience, temperant and mandate to guide the West through the coming bankruptcy process, the structured devaluations, the staged defaults, and wholesale cutting of government expenses (includinng the MIC) in an attempt to clear the books so that deep state leaders can position themselves for the incoming BRICS system.
Yep
Correct, no one in government has more hands-on experience in managing defaults and bankruptcies than Trump. As with any large scale restructuring, it will be interesting to see who loses everything and who is made whole.
The deep state puppets ie “ leaders” work for the banks. Not all the bank’s employees are that bright and yes boy do they make mistakes- eg Alex Soros