“Honestly, most people almost never use the power button a Mac,” one executive remarked.
Ford: Most people never open their hood so we put the lever under the back seat.
oxjox
joined 1 year ago
That's the problem.
Trump's win will accelerate the privatization and need for individual state control of all federal agencies not outlined in the Constitution.
Federal taxes may decrease by about 50% while state and homeowner taxes will increase substantially. The costs of goods and services will increase as publicly traded corporations take over agencies like the post office, weather service, social security, etc.
This is the kind of stuff that makes me turn on or at least waiver on the candidates I fully support. These interviewers are asking question on behalf to he public - the people you intend to represent. Answer them!
I welcome a Vance presidency. What has made Trump Trump is his stubbornness and defiance of "no". He's the kind of guy who comes into a meeting says, this is what we're doing, make it happen or you're fired, and walks out. This is the same playbook people like Jobs and Musk use(d). Vance lacks this gift and I fully expect Trump's supporters to turn on him.
You can't really point at today's education system and use it to blame Americans.
People who voted for Trump:
65+: 51%
45-64: 52%
30-44: 47%
18-29: 46%
Our public education system has been abysmal compared to other "first world countries" and we should all be embarrassed.
This has been part of the GOP agenda for decades though. The public schools keep getting worse and subtly foster anti-intellectualism in favor or memorization while the private and higher education schools flourish. The GOP wants to abolish the department of education and replace it with either state run education and/or private corporate owned education.
"Education" is not in the constitution so with a conservative Supreme Court, it's very likely we will see the DoE go away. Bear in mind that the DoE was only just created under Carter and Reagan campaigned on getting rid of it.
And, as teachers start getting wind of this and realizing what the future may hold for them, they're going jump ship. Any hope we have of progressing as a country and competing with other countries is gone. This nation will be run by a handful of corporations paying crap wages to non-union workers without the benefit of social security or pensions.
The writing has been on the wall for a hundred years. We've laughed at it, maybe pondered it, but never took it seriously. All the dystopian novels that have been written are about to come true.
I think I've figured this out.
The idea that individual Americans should "do their research" about their health care and medicine is preposterous. Government exists, in part, to do this work for us. However, the Trump / GOP agenda is to strip these agencies from the federal government and replace them with private corporations.
So, who do we then get our medical advice from if not a medical professional at a government agency? The corporations who manufacture the drugs. And how do hear about them? "Sponsored posts" and "influencers" like Joe Rogan on platforms that we subscribe to. Privatization of government run agencies makes the wealthier more wealthy on the backs of clueless Americans still touting "trickle down economics" and "the free market".
Americans, if they don't die first, are about to go bankrupt in record numbers.
The problem I have is that Trump's entire agenda to make Americans poorer and corporations richer is right out there in the open. He's going to dismantle the federal agencies, make the states do it themselves, or make them into corporate enterprise. At the same time, he's increasing the costs of imports from China. There's no way this ends well for Americans' wallets.
Could you tell me one or two of these policies Harris' contributors support?
My personal reaction to reading this is that I want to pick up the book just to better understand what he believes these conservatives values are. Then I realized this is like trying to understand why Hitler wanted to gas the Jews.
What's more important is why the fuck Americans are democratically voting for this. I'm going to venture to guess (and hope) that the majority of people who voted for Trump have no clue what they voted for. I'd like to hope that teachers are going to use this moment in time to perfectly frame it along with the rise of Nazi Germany but I know that Trump also intends on burning down the DoE. Teachers will be prevented from using history to educate students.
Incidentally, I'm already exhausted by all the "news" being made about why the Dems lost and Trump prevailed. We have to be discussing why our media and our existing elected officials are all ignoring the plight of middle class Americans while failing, as they have always done, to educate people.
I remember as a kid hearing presidential debates and getting aggravated that the politicians weren't answering questions. And then in interviews and news reports a topic will be discussed but the contexts and ramifications of that topic are often left out (time constraints, etc). Quick example; why Biden sent arms to Israel has as much, if not more, to do with Iran as it does Gaza. WHY is never explained in political discourse and the media never pressures or holds officials accountable. I am terrified of what Trump will do to our already squeamish journalism community.
I still blame the media for Trump's 2016 win and I'm blaming them again today. People are clueless. Not to say they're unintelligent, they are uneducated regarding politics and history.
People are all in their own bubbles living their day to day lives and occasionally see headlines on their mobile apps. They're subtly influenced, sometimes by the news media but I'd venture to guess equality often by the efforts of Russian, Iranian, and Chinese disinformation armies.
Moreover, this far from a new issue. I was just reading and commented on a story about Musk being the most powerful unelected citizen in America. This reminded me a bit of the guy Citizen Cane was based off of. William Randolph Hearst owned a sprawling media company and used his influence to publish articles that were favorable to Nazis.
How are we not only allowing this but voting in favor of it?
Something is broken. It's not the political parties. It's evidently not the electoral college. Schools have always taught about WWII so it's not our education system. It could be the two party first-past-the post voting system. It could be how election campaigns are financed.
I think we're distracted. I think there's too much going on in modern lives. Too many Americans are struggling to get by while also using every moment of free time to disengage. There's basic government and economic policies and norms that people are clueless about. Take drilling for oil: most Americans think that if we drill for more oil our gas prices will go down. That's not at all true. This will only increase profits for the oil companies because, while the US actually produces more oil than any other country, we lack the infrastructure to refine the oil we have. Honestly, I only learned about that this week. Not to mention the whole tariff thing that republicans are clueless about. Above all else, I'm terrified that Trump's presidency is going to bankrupt Americans.
As this article alludes to, Americans should know that the GOP agenda is to dismantle federal agencies and replace them with private corporations. Some agencies and services will go to the states while others will become Wall Street funded corporations. Theoretically, federal taxes should decrease but state and homeowner taxes are going to sky rocket. The costs of goods and services is going to sky rocket while the quality plummets over time. This has been in the playbook since before Reagan got into office. Now they have the momentum, the votes, and the stooge in the White House to make it happen.
Don't be distracted as the stock market goes to the moon. This is their agenda – to make themselves richer on the backs of clueless Americans.
lighter/heavier oil (I can’t remember which)
So... you didn't even read the first sentence.
“The need is infrastructure,” he said. “You may produce all this light sweet crude oil in Texas. But if you don’t have pipelines to the nation’s refineries to deliver it, how are you going to be able to utilize it?”
Yes, the type of oil is certainly an important part of it and if people were more aware of this I think it would be helpful. But it's the combination of the type, the refining process, and trade that makes it more clear that "drill baby drill" is not the panacea Americans think it is.
Drilling for more oil is for the benefit of the oil producers, not for American wallets.
the most powerful unelected American ever
Other than the "unelected American" part, it reminds me a bit of William Randolph Hearst (who is widely considered as the inspiration for Fox's Murdoch - not to mention Citizen Kane).
William Randolph Hearst Sr. was an American newspaper publisher and politician who developed the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism in violation of ethics and standards influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human-interest stories.
Hearst acquired the New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendos. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines, and thereby often published his personal views. He sensationalized Spanish atrocities in Cuba while calling for war in 1898 against Spain.
During his political career, he espoused views generally associated with the left wing of the Progressive Movement, claiming to speak on behalf of the working class.
Hearst gradually began adopting more conservative views and started promoting an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a staunch anti-communist after the Russian Revolution, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. Following Hitler's rise to power, Hearst became a supporter of the Nazi Party, ordering his journalists to publish favorable coverage of Nazi Germany, and allowing leading Nazis to publish articles in his newspapers. He was a leading supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932–1934, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. Hearst's publication reached a peak circulation of 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s.
His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane (1941)
Ok…
https://www.270towin.com/2020-election-results-live/
https://www.270towin.com/2024-election-results-live/
Pennsylvania 20/19
Biden* 3,458,229^ 50.0%
Harris 3,396,770 48.6%
Arizona 11
Biden* 1,672,143^ 49.4%
Harris 1,534,391 46.6%
Georgia 16
Biden* 2,474,601 49.5%
Harris 2,548,014^ 48.5%
Michigan 16/15
Biden* 2,804,040^ 50.6%
Harris 2,733,352 48.3%
Nevada 6
Biden* 703,486^ 50.1%
Harris 702,079 47.5%
North Carolina 15/16
Biden 2,684,292 48.7%
Harris 2,689,067^ 47.7%
Wisconsin 10
Biden* 1,630,503 49.6%
Harris 1,668,077^ 48.8%
Totals:
Biden 3,458,229 + 1,672,143 + 2,474,601 + 2,804,040 + 703,486 + 2,684,292 + 1,630,503 = 15,427,294
Harris 3,396,770 + 1,534,391 + 2,548,014 + 2,733,352 + 702,079 + 2,689,067 + 1,668,077 = 15,271,750
15,427,294 - 15,271,750 = 155,544 more votes for Biden.