It's my duty to battle the Left (split from War Games: Russia Takes Ukraine, China Takes Taiwan. US Response?}

[Greg A.]

On 8/7/2022 at 8:29 PM, swansont said:

And CEOs make 200x (or more) than the rank-and-file workers. Wealth disparity is worse than it was a few decades ago

But they don't eat 200x more or use up any other resource 200x more, so what does it matter. Wealth is an illusion, but still it's 'existence' used by you people on the Left in your grab for power.

On 8/7/2022 at 8:29 PM, swansont said:

In 2021, the top 10 percent of Americans held nearly 70 percent of U.S. wealth, up from about 61 percent at the end of 1989

This type of crap is always being pushed by the Left on to a public that has hardly anyway other to interpret it than literally. And is evidence of your ignorance, and as such how you can get things terribly wrong (including your understanding of my position). For one thing 'wealth' is a virtual thing. The wealthy do not have money bins full of money or warehouses full of food and other commodities, and that's because for they would not be able to consume anymore than anyone else does if they did. And don't be surprised if it's actually the working class that eat more, waste more energy, use more consumables, than the other two classes put together.  You know absolutely nothing about economics. 

On 8/7/2022 at 8:29 PM, swansont said:

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-inequality-debate

So we are wealthier now, but wealth has not been redistributed 

We have a lot more now than in the fifties. How stupid can someone be? There is poverty because there is unemployment. Private enterprise employs people so can not be held responsible for unemployment, something the government by default is responsible for. Economies not functioning well is the responsibility of government and not that of private enterprise. 

On 8/7/2022 at 8:29 PM, swansont said:

Force the prices down? With a magic wand?

If you weren't so arrogant you would have read my post properly and noted that because of Canada's huge size and small population there are no excuses for housing shortages. That is no magic wand is needed only effective government prepared to create new provinces with new cities and towns within. Something the warming of the south would allow with an increased agricultural output as would be the case. 

On 8/7/2022 at 8:29 PM, swansont said:

You were asked to back this up. All you’ve done is repeat the claim.

I'd figured no one would be so stupid and arrogant that they could ignore the trends. Men getting kicked out of marriages, losing their family and homes, now losing their jobs (to women) even. Are you blind or just plain stupid. 

On 8/7/2022 at 8:29 PM, swansont said:

 

Others have addressed most of the other points. All you’ve done is make stuff up. You bring to mind a quote from Josh Billings (though something similar is attributed to Mark Twain)

"It ain't ignorance causes so much trouble; it's folks knowing so much that ain't so."

And that’s you: you “know” stuff but don’t/can’t show that it’s factual. 

I don't make things up and anyone believing different would need to be an incredibly arrogant sack 

49 minutes ago, swansont said:

Like the guy who set the minimum salary at his company at $70,000? 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dan-price-gravity-payments-ceo-70000-employee-minimum-wage/

"He was hailed a hero by some and met with predictions of bankruptcy from his critics. 

But that has not happened; instead, the company is thriving.

...

"Our turnover rate was cut in half, so when you have employees staying twice as long, their knowledge of how to help our customers skyrocketed over time and that's really what paid for the raise more so than my pay cut," said Price."

If an increase in salary worked then the salary was too low in the first place and would also need to be in line with similar enterprises. And are you saying that the disadvantage most of the world has against Chinese imports is to do with poor management and nothing to do with low wages. You've cherry picked with this and is why it made the news anyhow. 

Edited August 8, 2022 by Greg A.

[Bufofrog]

34 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

Wealth is an illusion

Huh?

35 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

For one thing 'wealth' is a virtual thing.

What?

36 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

Economies not functioning well is the responsibility of government and not that of private enterprise.

What are you some kind of liberal socialist or something?

 

[Greg A.]

20 hours ago, swansont said:

Was it true, or did he just say it?

He saw what was obvious and so could hardly be wrong. And is still right today unless you are incredibly stupid or completely arrogant that is. It was the political inference that mattered anyhow.

 

Which cancers receive the most funding.

 

 

Breast cancer received the most funding by far, at $460 million, accounting for a third of all cancer-specific nonprofit revenue. Next in line—with less than half the funding of breast cancer—were leukemia ($201 million; 15% of total revenue), childhood cancers ($177 million; 13%) and lymphoma ($145 million; 11%).30 July 2019

 

 

20 hours ago, swansont said:

The NIH says that both of these cancers are overfunded relative to their burden on society.

So your brother’s claim doesn’t hold much water. Prostate cancer is not being “pretty much ignored”

How does overfunding get rid of the disparity between the two. If heart disease were something exclusive to women then that's where funding would be prioritized too. 

And, a person would have to be an arrogant sack to ignore that I'd said in the "eighties" and not now, wouldn't they? 

"Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men, behind only lung cancer. About 1 man in 41 will die of prostate cancer".

 

 

20 hours ago, swansont said:

 

(Greg hasn’t shown any interest in facts or substantiation of claims, but others who read this do, so here is the link

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411479/ )

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the politicization of breast cancer funding. How arrogant and dishonest can people get. 

20 hours ago, swansont said:

 

P.S. how is this an example of white males being discriminated against?

Who said it was. I'd said females were given priority when it come to medical funding. 

FCS can you get anything right?

20 hours ago, swansont said:

 

You could question the source of your beliefs, and confirm them as facts rather than blindly believing things. Make no mistake - this is a choice on your part.

No, it is for you to do this and show a little bit of respect. Innocence is presumed. You should show where I'm wrong, something you have consistently failed at doing from my first post at this forum. 

[swansont]

32 minutes ago, Greg A. said:

How does overfunding get rid of the disparity between the two.

That wasn't the point. I was rebutting the second half of the claim

"funding for breast cancer was a priority while that for prostate cancer was pretty much ignored"

If prostate cancer is overfunded relative to its impact, it cannot be the case that it is ignored.

But since you won't actually cite any statistics, what you're left with is changing the argument instead of admitting that the claim isn't true.

Quote

Who said it was.

You made several comments about white males being discriminated against, Phi called you out on it ("So you think white males are discriminated against under the law?!"), and the prostate funding bit was your response. It's all there.

So if this isn't supposed to be about white males, then your response to Phi was irrelevant, a red herring. You're just throwing things out there. Trolling.

[iNow]

6 hours ago, Greg A. said:

There's plenty of evidence I've just had no chance to present it.

Friendly hint: You just spent a few hours typing 4 or 5 long ranty posts where you essentially dig in your heels, move goalposts, and offer straw men and red herrings.

That same time could’ve instead been used to post even one single example of the evidence you say is plentiful. Nobody has stopped you but yourself. 

Gosh. I wonder why that is. 

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, Greg A. said:

No, it is for you to do this and show a little bit of respect. Innocence is presumed. You should show where I'm wrong, something you have consistently failed at doing from my first post at this forum. 

Nobody but YOU is calling anyone stupid sacks. You have no respect for the reasoning process. The fact that none of the arguments against your stances got through to you shows none of the mistaken information was corrected. I showed you some statistics about which party OVER A SEVENTY YEAR PERIOD has grown the economy more, and your response was some bullshit about lag time. Between presidencies, your lag time argument can affect the economy, but over a long period the trends are clear and precise. The Dems have grown the economy more, and you continue to lie about that.

But the real problem is that you don't understand the basics of a lot of these concepts. We can explain it to you, but we can't understand it for you. You seem to have adopted a worldview first, and now only listen to "facts" that support that view. Sorry, but I don't think discussion, especially science discussion, is for you. I would recommend some online courses in various studies, because you need to learn more before making arguments you're going to base your whole life on. Wouldn't you hate to find out you were mistaken AFTER you did something really dumb based on what you've been told? I know there are some folks who found out recently that their ignorance can be weaponized by unscrupulous leaders.

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, Greg A. said:

I'd meant 'public' schools would be less needed if everyone had employment and could then afford to send their kids to private schools. 

What planet do you come from?

Classic planet Eton, so full of irony that they don't even need binmen...

[iNow]

2 hours ago, Greg A. said:

I'd figured no one would be so stupid and arrogant that they could ignore the trends.

1 hour ago, Greg A. said:

And is still right today unless you are incredibly stupid or completely arrogant that is

2 hours ago, Greg A. said:

Are you blind or just plain stupid. 

2 hours ago, Greg A. said:

I don't make things up and anyone believing different would need to be an incredibly arrogant sack 

1 hour ago, Greg A. said:

a person would have to be an arrogant sack to ignore that

1 hour ago, Greg A. said:

How arrogant and dishonest can people get. 

1 hour ago, Greg A. said:

it is for you to do this and show a little bit of respect.

Oh, the sweet delicious irony. 

[TheVat]

4 hours ago, Greg A. said:

The nature of business does not allow it to be all too socially aware, and this is the job of government anyhow. 

What are you, some kind of liberal socialist?

[Peterkin]

7 hours ago, Greg A. said:

That's how it looks. The reality is conservatism is in its death throws and that creating the illusion of increased activity. 

Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. Let's hope this is one.

On afterthought, it all depends on how - and whether at all - you define your terms. Conservatism: everything you wish were true that the rule of capital hasn't made happen, so you want government to do it, only without interfering with capitalism, but only restricting individual freedom. Expanding the economy: Wait till the liberal parties have built up a level of harvestable prosperity, then start a war - doesn't matter if you've already got three on the simmer; the armaments and fossil-fuel industries can always use a boost, and cannon-fodder is a kind of employment that tends not to rise to the level of sending their kids to private school or getting decent medical care for their injuries, but so what?  Activity: incitement to violence, death, rape, arson, disfigurement and child-murder threats against anyone who disagrees with the extreme far-right agenda, election fraud and subversion, armed insurrection,  

Edited August 8, 2022 by Peterkin

[TheVat]

4 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I'd meant 'public' schools would be less needed if everyone had employment and could then afford to send their kids to private schools. 

"Let them eat cake!"

This guy is hilarious!

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, Greg A. said:

For one thing 'wealth' is a virtual thing. The wealthy do not have money bins full of money or warehouses full of food and other commodities, and that's because for they would not be able to consume anymore than anyone else does if they did. And don't be surprised if it's actually the working class that eat more, waste more energy, use more consumables, than the other two classes put together.  You know absolutely nothing about economics. 

This is me, showing you where you're wrong. Please take note, since you seem to have missed all the other times.

You're wrong: https://fortune.com/2020/07/14/billionaires-philanthropy-coronavirus-crisis/

Quote

The staggering amounts of hoarded wealth are almost beyond comprehension. Foundations like Gates, Rockefeller, and Ford are sitting on endowments of nearly $1 trillion, but even that is dwarfed by the $12 trillion held by the top 0.1% of households. And things are only getting worse. Food shortages and unemployment are at record highs, yet billionaires managed to add over $400 billion to their collective holdings just since this crisis began. Yet so far this year, the ultra-rich have barely increased their giving at all. 

I have more statistics that support where YOU'RE WRONG about the rich hoarding wealth.

You're wrong about them not hoarding commodities because they can't consume them all by themselves. That shows an almost childlike naivete about how supply and demand work. And nobody said anything about "wasting" resources, we're talking about hoarding. The working class can't afford to hoard. What you think you know about the economy is WRONG.

[dimreepr]

14 minutes ago, TheVat said:

"Let them eat cake!"

This guy is hilarious!

I'd be laughing my arse off, if he's an outlier; but you're welcome to share my bunker...

[Moontanman]

I honestly think this should be moved to political humor.

[Phi for All]

4 hours ago, Greg A. said:

I'd figured no one would be so stupid and arrogant that they could ignore the trends. Men getting kicked out of marriages, losing their family and homes, now losing their jobs (to women) even. Are you blind or just plain stupid. 

What if the men are getting kicked out of their marriages because they're abusive, ignorant, malicious SOBs who hurt their wives and children?  That seems to be the trend. Why are you boohooing over them getting the treatment they deserve? Or do you think a woman is just supposed to stay quiet and take it when they get beat up by their man?

What if a man loses his job because a woman came along who was better at it? Isn't that what the standard hierarchy says, best person for the job gets it? Do you believe men are always best for every job except raising children, cleaning, or cooking? 

I hate to assume you know anything, so it would help if you answered some of these questions. Your stances seem to ignore a great deal of reality in favor of some kind of Tucker Carlson spin-vomit engineered for those whose education left them in a steep deficit.

[Peterkin]

48 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Why are you boohooing over them getting the treatment they deserve?

Because real men, tough men, strong men never complain; they just suffer and suffer and suffer in silence. You can hear them doing it every Saturday night after the after-football pub-crawl. Poor things, wraith-like in the dark shadows, floating homeward to abusive wives, preparing to bear the kicks and blows without a whimper of protest... One's heart goes out to them!    

[zapatos]

4 hours ago, Greg A. said:

Which cancers receive the most funding.

 

 

Breast cancer received the most funding by far, at $460 million, accounting for a third of all cancer-specific nonprofit revenue. Next in line—with less than half the funding of breast cancer—were leukemia ($201 million; 15% of total revenue), childhood cancers ($177 million; 13%) and lymphoma ($145 million; 11%).30 July 2019

Can you please provide a link to the source of your quote?

[TheVat]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I'd be laughing my arse off, if he's an outlier; but you're welcome to share my bunker...

Thanks.  BTW, don't know why your name is above that quote I was reacting to, which was from the Dutiful Greg.  I can't seem to edit that out, sorry.  

[zapatos]

On 8/7/2022 at 7:50 AM, Greg A. said:

It's not the law that has failed these people it's a system of government that doesn't allow those with the solutions to have any effect, or if they do not the time to carry them out. 

Well that was pretty misleading. The discrepancy in funding you cite wrt breast cancer has nothing at all to do with our system of government. From the link you conveniently failed to provide us:

Quote

The researchers noted that cancers that are common but typically progress slowly or have a relatively low mortality rate, like breast cancer, have more survivors who can become advocates for the cause and attract more donors. A factor not mentioned by the researchers is the fact that breast cancer affects mostly women, so it receives attention and funding from organizations and political entities that support women’s issues—much as HIV/AIDS has received attention and funding from groups that support the LGBT community.

https://www.cancerhealth.com/article/cancers-better-funded-others

[Arete]

The "chromosome conspiracy" is biologically nonsensical. Meiosis is a stochastic process, so the formation of gametes is probabilistic. The "conspiracy" therefore assumes selection on an inherently random biological process, and is therefore trivially dismissible. 

Second, patriarchal societies are not a "natural" state for humans or other organisms. Evolutionary selection for societal structure is dependent on environmental factors such as population density, resource allocation, infant survival rates, kin structured cooperative interactions, etc. Matriarchal structures predominate in environments with male biased dispersal and female philopatry, high offspring investment and reliance on cooperative resource acquisition. Patriarchal societies dominate in environments with lower resource allocation, higher rates of mate competition, higher fecundity and infant mortality. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31303158/

That is to say that the "natural" structure of a society with respect to the role of the sexes is both environmentally dependent and labile.    

[Phi for All]

31 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Because real men, tough men, strong men never complain; they just suffer and suffer and suffer in silence.

Until they whine online about how life is stacked against them now that non-white people matter. Poor white men, denied their right to abuse their families as they see fit by a system created by rich white men. Poorly educated monkeys who can't grasp the complexity of the systems they rely on, yet have enough human capacity for intelligence to realize something is very wrong.

Unfortunately, they turn away from the one group that could actually help improve their lot in life, the intellectuals and progressives who crawled out of ignorance one book at a time to accept the responsibility of accumulated human knowledge.

[Arete]

14 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Until they whine online about how life is stacked against them now that non-white people matter.

"Participants were randomly assigned to positions with unequal opportunities for success. Results showed that both winners and losers were less likely to view the outcomes as fair or attributable to skill as the level of redistribution increased, but this effect of redistribution was stronger for winners. Moreover, winners were generally more likely to believe that the game was fair, even when the playing field was most heavily tilted in their favor."

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aau1156

Now imagine a player losing, even though they were dealt a stacked hand. Now imagine the dealer, halfway through the game gives all the other players the wild card the advantaged player had in their hand at the start. Experimental data shows that the player will perceive this as unfair even though the objective data unequivocally demonstrates the playing field is simply becoming probabilistically flat. 

The societal impact is the same. If one is white and male, and has low socioeconomic status,  one is less likely to perceive the inherent advantages they have over others, as those advantages have not manifested in tangible benefit. When the playing field is evened out, it is perceived as bias against the individual not receiving benefit, because it places them at a relative disadvantage to their previous position - despite all objective evidence to the contrary. 

[Phi for All]

5 minutes ago, Arete said:

"Participants were randomly assigned to positions with unequal opportunities for success. Results showed that both winners and losers were less likely to view the outcomes as fair or attributable to skill as the level of redistribution increased, but this effect of redistribution was stronger for winners. Moreover, winners were generally more likely to believe that the game was fair, even when the playing field was most heavily tilted in their favor."

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aau1156

Now imagine a player losing, even though they were dealt a stacked hand. Now imagine the dealer, halfway through the game gives all the other players the wild card the advantaged player had in their hand at the start. Experimental data shows that the player will perceive this as unfair even though the objective data unequivocally demonstrates the playing field is simply becoming probabilistically flat. 

The societal impact is the same. If one is white and male, and has low socioeconomic status,  one is less likely to perceive the inherent advantages they have over others, as those advantages have not manifested in tangible benefit. When the playing field is evened out, it is perceived as bias against the individual not receiving benefit, because it places them at a relative disadvantage to their previous position - despite all objective evidence to the contrary. 

Perhaps you know of some good studies, Arete, but I think this is exacerbated by the way men specifically tend to organize in a hierarchy with some kind of alpha at the top controlling those below who are stacked vertically the same way. Some men have a hard time letting women be in charge partly because they assume women just want to usurp them in a similar hierarchy.

But a matriarchy or a woman-owned organization might not be set up that way at all. Women might feel a council is a better approach to politics or business as opposed to having a president who's over a VP, who's over the next in line and so on. Men worry about being displaced from a pecking order, and don't see a female dominated group as a rearrangement of responsibilities.

[Peterkin]

12 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Perhaps you know of some good studies, Arete, but I think this is exacerbated by the way men specifically tend to organize in a hierarchy with some kind of alpha at the top controlling those below who are stacked vertically the same way. Some men have a hard time letting women be in charge partly because they assume women just want to usurp them in a similar hierarchy.

But a matriarchy or a woman-owned organization might not be set up that way at all. Women might feel a council is a better approach to politics or business as opposed to having a president who's over a VP, who's over the next in line and so on. Men worry about being displaced from a pecking order, and don't see a female dominated group as a rearrangement of responsibilities.

Every word in that quote corresponds to my experience of group activities in a very general way. I'd like to add only two things.

I have been in a mixed group that worked very well, because the men involved had a broader vision than the question of who's in charge. Every member of the team, male and female, was goal-oriented: more intent on the success of the project, and finding the most effective means of achieving that, then their own status. Of course, it's helpful if the members are all secure in their own competence and worth. 

On the same premise, I take a slightly different view of the last statement. A 'rearrangement of possibilities' is perhaps the greatest threat of all to people who hold unearned privilege - as well as the only hope of mankind.   

[swansont]

7 hours ago, Greg A. said:

But they don't eat 200x more or use up any other resource 200x more, so what does it matter. Wealth is an illusion, but still it's 'existence' used by you people on the Left in your grab for power.

But they do use more resources. They almost always have vices of some sort. Big houses with pools and lawns that need watering. Some buy yachts, other buy lots of cars, some have private jets. Some do all of it. If wealth is such an illusion why don't the rich share it freely?

Quote

This type of crap is always being pushed by the Left on to a public that has hardly anyway other to interpret it than literally. And is evidence of your ignorance, and as such how you can get things terribly wrong (including your understanding of my position). For one thing 'wealth' is a virtual thing. The wealthy do not have money bins full of money or warehouses full of food and other commodities, and that's because for they would not be able to consume anymore than anyone else does if they did. And don't be surprised if it's actually the working class that eat more, waste more energy, use more consumables, than the other two classes put together.  You know absolutely nothing about economics. 

They literally do have structures full of commodities. Perhaps not warehouses, because they're ugly, but to argue essentially that rich people don't own more stuff is just something I can't take seriously. 

I'm sure the working class eat more, owing to the fact that there are more of them. The thing about the 1% is that the comprise just 1% of the population. (funny how the math works out on that) but it's a matter of whether they consume more in proportion to their numbers. And of course this is all a distraction from the original point, which was your claim that "An expanding economy increases employment redistributing wealth in a non-inflationary way" and my rebuttal (with a cited source) that wealth equality is worse and now we get this tap-dancing about consumption.