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Do You Live In A Political Bubble?

Pretty much anyone can contribute to Forbes these days. And as it says on there, it is not the shared opinion of the publication. Just some guy at the Jack Kemp Foundation.
 
“Unions are bad. Also, my political party cares about not leaving behind workers.”

Lol. A fucking fool.
 
Go ahead and tell me that California's Pension System is sustainable. Put your name on it.
 
That would be right out of a Forbes magazine article. Here you go, sport: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ikebra...-emergency-services-in-house/?sh=364013c3629a

They cited the California Policy Center study, linked here: https://californiapolicycenter.org/californias-state-and-local-liabilities-total-1-5-trillion-2/

Sorry, but you're not going to be able to shout away math. It's not all OrangeManBad and virtue-signaling yard signs. You're eventually going to have to face the music and do some math.

it would appear that basically every state is in the same position so not exactly a D/R problem:

Cost_Unfunded_State_Government_Employee_Pension_Liabilities_Per_Resident_2017.png
 
That would be right out of a Forbes magazine article. Here you go, sport: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ikebra...-emergency-services-in-house/?sh=364013c3629a

They cited the California Policy Center study, linked here: https://californiapolicycenter.org/californias-state-and-local-liabilities-total-1-5-trillion-2/

Sorry, but you're not going to be able to shout away math. It's not all OrangeManBad and virtue-signaling yard signs. You're eventually going to have to face the music and do some math.

California policy center huh. “The California Policy Center (CPC) is an educational non-profit working for the prosperity of all Californians by eliminating public-sector barriers to freedom.”

Sounds legit! But I’m not disputing their number, it’s probably right but I’m disputing the alarm bell conclusions they’re reaching.

For a pension liability you have to estimate the present value of future payouts for whoever is receiving pension benefits into their expected death based on actuarial estimates. Makes sense. But you also have to estimate the same for everyone currently working in the system even if they haven’t retired yet and you won’t be paying these payouts for decades. But per accounting rules since some component of these future payouts is certain you have to make your best estimate for your balance sheet. Hence, you get a bazillion dollar liability.

Unfortunately on the asset side it’s a valuation/estimate based on what you have as of the balance sheet date. Which will never line up with those liability estimates. In theory, you could have trillions of dollars socked away now to prepay those needs. But why would you? It’s stupid. That’s what current year and future contributions are for but you can’t count those chickens before they hatch from an asset accounting perspective.

It’s essentially a comparison of apples and oranges. Which leads you to bad conclusions. Sort of like when all sorts of articles come out annually claiming that some company pays no income tax because of their book income statement.

Save your snark.
 
They believe that reversing the trade deals, stabilizing the labor market by enforcing immigration rules and putting their country first IS the right thing to do. You obviously have different opinions. They know what the Dems stand for and decided after about a generation of voting for Dems to stop. Don't they have the right? Why is the burden on them to explain their reasoning to you?

Alternatively, they love grifting upper mid-west, Christian, factory-worker types for cash donations to political campaigns so they hype up the fear of foreigners and promise to build useless walls on the border.
 
yeah, they could leave the US altogether, that would be much better

Why wont democRATS pass laws that drop the minimum wage, eliminate labor safety standards, and discard environmental protections!?!?! If they actually cared about the working and middle class they would!
 
The only thing I know about this issue is what I read in the article you posted, but the article says that .52% of American farmland is owned by Blacks and 1.3% of American farmers are Black. Thus, the benefit of the initial aid by race was distributed in almost exact proportionality to the land ownership by race, and the benefit of the COVID aid was in almost exact proportionality to the racial makeup of farmers. In fact, it was more skewed toward Black farmers, based solely on racial makeup. Yes, White farmers on average received 8x more than Black farmers, but that stat is meaningless (as are the ones above) without also knowing the size, scope, crop, debt, and profitability of the farm, among other things, which the article didn't provide, to allow for 1:1 comparisons to be made. On these facts--or, rather, lack of facts--you haven't made the case that the Trump administration discriminated in favor of White farmers, which I assume is the argument you are trying to make.

In short, you can't just stomp your foot and say "but White people got more money than Black people!!1!!" and conclude that discrimination is afoot.

Under the Biden USDA plan, Black and other minority farmers are, by law, eligible for billions of dollars in benefits--such as the ability to have 120% of their debt paid off--that white farmers are not eligible for based on nothing more than the color of their skin. That's racial discrimination, pure and simple. Whether the discrimination can be justified by past de jure discrimination against Black farmers is an issue I don't know enough about to opine on, but I do know that strict scrutiny poses an extraordinarily high bar, and this type of race-based set-aside doesn't strike me as the type of program that will survive constitutional review.

You argue that "White farmers on average received 8x more than Black farmers, but that stat is meaningless (as are the ones above) without also knowing the size, scope, crop, debt, and profitability of the farm, among other things, which the article didn't provide, to allow for 1:1 comparisons to be made:," yet you then generalize (without knowing all the facts) that since the percentages of black farmers is roughly the equivalent to the amount of money distributed that it must have been a fair distribution of money. According to the article, black farmers make an average of about $40,000 a year, while the average white farmer makes $190,000 a year, but I'm sure that no historical, long-term racism is involved there. The article also quotes the President of the National Black Farmers Association that 8 out of 10 black farmers who applied for the federal aid in Texas were denied, despite arguably needing the aid more than wealthier white farmers given the statistics cited.
 
You argue that "White farmers on average received 8x more than Black farmers, but that stat is meaningless (as are the ones above) without also knowing the size, scope, crop, debt, and profitability of the farm, among other things, which the article didn't provide, to allow for 1:1 comparisons to be made:," yet you then generalize (without knowing all the facts) that since the percentages of black farmers is roughly the equivalent to the amount of money distributed that it must have been a fair distribution of money. According to the article, black farmers make an average of about $40,000 a year, while the average white farmer makes $190,000 a year, but I'm sure that no historical, long-term racism is involved there. The article also quotes the President of the National Black Farmers Association that 8 out of 10 black farmers who applied for the federal aid in Texas were denied, despite arguably needing the aid more than wealthier white farmers given the statistics cited.

I most certainly did not. In fact, I admitted that the stats I provided (i.e., "the ones above"), like the ones you provided, are meaningless without context. My point is that, without that context, you did not make a case for your claim--that the Trump administration discriminated against Black farmers on the basis of their race. You still haven't.
 
I most certainly did not. In fact, I admitted that the stats I provided (i.e., "the ones above"), like the ones you provided, are meaningless without context. My point is that, without that context, you did not make a case for your claim--that the Trump administration discriminated against Black farmers on the basis of their race. You still haven't.

So 8 out of 10 black farmers being denied aid in one of our largest states and black farmers making far less annually than whites isn't a sign that there may be some long-term racial discrimination in US agriculture, but this lawsuit will likely be upheld because this Biden Administration program is "racial discrimination, pure and simple" and is a race-based set-aside. Got it.
 
So 8 out of 10 black farmers being denied aid in one of our largest states and black farmers making far less annually than whites isn't a sign that there may be some long-term racial discrimination in US agriculture, but this lawsuit will likely be upheld because this Biden Administration program is "racial discrimination, pure and simple" and is a race-based set-aside. Got it.

That was not your original claim. Your original claim was that the Trump administration discriminated against Black farmers. You've moved the goalposts to talk about long-term discrimination in US agriculture, which is something I admit I don't know a lot about.

As for whether the Biden administration program is racial discrimination, there isn't really a question about that, is there? I mean, it discriminates on the basis of race. That's racial discrimination, pure and simple. The question is whether that racial discrimination is consistent with the constitution. Because it's a set-aside, in light of the current law of affirmative action, I have my doubts.
 
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That was not your original claim. Your original claim was that the Trump administration discriminated against Black farmers. You've moved the goalposts to talk about long-term discrimination in US agriculture, which is something I admit I don't know a lot about.

As for whether the Biden administration program is racial discrimination, there isn't really a question about that, is there? I mean, it discriminates on the basis of race. That's racial discrimination, pure and simple. The question is whether that racial based discrimination is consistent with the constitution. Because it's a set-aside, in light of the current law of affirmative action, I have my doubts.

My original point was that the Trump Administration's program was part of the long-term discrimination against American farmers, and there is evidence of both based on what I cited, which you, like a good lawyer, chose to dismiss by arguing that since the money given roughly matched the percentage of black farmers in agriculture it basically looked OK to you, although you quickly stated that you really weren't certain of the facts.

You are now arguing, like a good lawyer, that the Biden Administration program is clearly race-based and you clearly imply that you don't approve of it, yet you also admit that you don't really know about racial discrimination in US agriculture. It existed and still exists. If that is the case, then how is the government to rectify the discrimination against black farmers? The implication of your posts is that you seem to think black farmers are getting their fair share of aid from the US government, and programs like the one the Biden Administration have created are thus unnecessary and likely unconstitutional.
 
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/...rs-say-cheney-should-lose-leadership-position

FWIW, "The survey, which polled nearly 2,000 registered voters over the weekend, found that half of those who identified as Republican or “leans Republican” supported House Republicans voting to remove Cheney, while just 19 percent said she should remain in her post."

I think this is foolish, as stated, and while 50% is too high and 19% is too low, 50% is not a clear majority. It is half. There's an ideological struggle going on but the 50% polled who didn't support her ouster aren't outliers; that's the other half.

Only 19% said she should stay in her post. That is a clear minority.
 
Only 19% said she should stay in her post. That is a clear minority.

50% seems like a high number of people to care about who the Number 3 Republican in the House is, let alone insist she be replaced. I follow politics kind of closely and had to look up who the #3 Democrat is (it's Clyburn). Wouldn't expect 50% or more of my party to insist on his removal unless he did something like pay for sex with a 17-year old girl, or covered up sexual abuse as a college wrestling coach, or tweeted out the location of congressional leadeship while the capital was beset by a violent mob.
 
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