Politics Thread

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Originally Posted by X-man

Only if the government debt is externally held. If it's internally financed, paying it off simply transfers wealth among Americans.

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Neither is sound policy for growth.

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Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Neither is sound policy for growth.

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Why? Are you seeing any evidence of crowding out? What if the government programs are for infrastructure?

What kind of infrastructure? Bridges, roads and pipelines? Or paid leave, child care and caregiving?

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Originally Posted by GoMuskies

What kind of infrastructure? Bridges, roads and pipelines? Or paid leave, child care and caregiving?

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Nothing says not "a sound policy for growth" like paid leave, child care, or caregiving.

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Originally Posted by X-man

Why? Are you seeing any evidence of crowding out? What if the government programs are for infrastructure?

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We’ve seen that before with the CRA. It didn’t work because gov’t ran it. Loads of waste.

What infrastructure is lacking that would help private enterprise?

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Originally Posted by Strange Brew

We’ve seen that before with the CRA. It didn’t work because gov’t ran it. Loads of waste.

What infrastructure is lacking that would help private enterprise?

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Rural broadband?

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Originally Posted by STL_XUfan

Rural broadband?

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Many companies already receive grants for that and it’s a target of many telecoms. In other words, it’s happening organically.

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Originally Posted by Smails

It is completely out of control and nobody really seems to care. In my job I am in charge of several distribution centers across the US. We offer entry-level (no-experience needed) employees $16.00/Hour + free medical benefits. Our working conditions are THE best in the industry too. Pay goes up from there depending on your skill level. We are currently operating at about 70% labor capacity and it's really hurting our business.

We did a labor analysis to see how long we can anticipate this issue affecting our bottom line. What we found out was that if you are what we call a triple-header, you literally can make more staying home and doing absolutely nothing. The triple headers are people receiving stimulus checks, a moderate tax return and and unemployment benefits. The 'stay at home' rate for those individuals is $26.50 through September of 2021. I have connections that work for Amazon, DHL and other DC's and they are experiencing the same issues.

If you were an hourly worker and able to make $10 more/hour staying home why would you work? I don't blame the workforce at all. I blame our elected officials who time and time again aren't able to see the downstream effects of their base-pandering legislation. What's going to happen when the government nipple runs dry for these individuals and they want to come back to work? Jobs with my company won't be available because we've decided to make a huge investment in robotics and automation to eliminate the need for 30% of our workforce.

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I’m repeating this because.......I can! We have a serious problem that nobody seems to be paying attention to!

Stacey Abrams was against the MLB pulling the All-Star Game from Atlanta. Therefore, I now believe it was a good move by MLB.

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Originally Posted by xu82

My son never missed a beat then got a MUCH better gig, the DIL was furloughed briefly A YEAR AGO before finding a comparable job, probably making a little less. All things considered, they are doing great! ZERO reason to be getting handouts. She had unemployment briefly, and that was appropriate.

This is just ridiculous. How do they justify that? It just looks like buying votes from people who like handouts to me. I honestly find this FAR more egregious than the Georgia voting changes, but it doesn’t get the same scrutiny for some strange reason. Hey, I guess people like handouts and money grows on trees! I guess we are just supposed to smile and say “you’re welcome”.

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I think two things are at work here:

1. Populism. The one thing (seemingly) that both Trump and Biden can agree on is that it's good Politics to send people money. They like that. And they generally don't care where it came from, or what the national debt looks like.

2. Laziness / ineptitude. It's much easier to just give everyone money than it is to try to only get money to the people that have truly been negatively impacted.

Personally I would liked to have seen more money going to support small businesses and others that were severely impacted, rather than everyone getting $1400 or whatever people got. My next door neighbors business was essentially shut down by COVID for 1+ yrs now and may never re-open. He did everything right and capitalized the business well, but even with all of that you can't withstand a year of no revenue while still having to pay rent etc. The challenge is that it's hard to means test something like that.