US election 2020

[Pies4shaw]

Congratulations on 200,000 COVID-19 deaths.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

That's more deaths than the US suffered in all of:
- the Revolutionary War;
- the War of 1812;
- the Mexican-American War;
- the Spanish-American War;
- World War I;
- the Korean War;
- the Vietnam War,
- the 9/11 attacks;
- the War in Afghanistan; and
- the War in Iraq;
combined.

Ignoring it has been a big effort and pretending it hasn't even happened should improve his re-election chances substantially.

Everyone does admire a genuinely lying, murderous psychopath.

[think positive]

[Tannin]

^huh?

[Tannin]

But he hasn't got near to the number of dead in the US Civil War yet. Mind you, he's working on starting another one, so stand by for even more death and conflict.

[Pies4shaw]

^ According to the IHME in Washington (see the Coronavirus thread), he's not going to be far off by the time he leaves office, assuming that's next January. If he survives the election, he'll probably be able to add the Civil War and World War II to that list.

Another way to look at is that 498,332 people died in the American Civil War in a whisker under 4 years. The IHME expects that the dead from COVID-19 in the US by 1 January will be over 415,000 - in well under a year from the first fatality report. Thus, the fatality impact of COVID is happening at a speed about 4 times the fatality impact of the Civil War.

[pietillidie]

If you're one of those really dumb Aussies who thinks that global economic suppression is just going to magically disappear if Captain Delusional just puts some upbeat tweets and fist pumps out there, and wrecks a bit more pristine wilderness, you've got another thing coming. At this rate, you'll be personally paying for his tax cuts for US billionaires, vanity walls and gross negligence for years to come:

[roar]

^^ That's pretty much what most economies are doing, and has very little to do with Trump. What Trumo and his government do with the unlimited funds is another matter.

Great article by Bill Kelt in The Age, today that covers the opportunities provided by this current monetary regime, and how governments need to take advantage to improve things.

[pietillidie]

^No and no. This is a common misapprehension getting around. All fine for a brief moment under imaginary conditions of no competition for capital. However, you're confusing a short-term tactic (monetary easing) with an effective long-term strategy (productivity), and thinking people with capital will somehow fall for this sleight of hand and not flee somewhere else.

You need to consider how superpower status, global reserve currency status, global capital market centre status, and global trade wars in a context of competition for capital actually work.

New Zealand can't slip into domestic chaos and division, and run massive deficits as its productivity growth declines, without its currency and terms of doing business getting hammered. But the superpower not only gets the free kick of being the global reserve currency, being propped up by transactions in its currency that bear little relationship to its performance, it can also instigate and enforce illegal global trade war actions and use it's massive military, buying power and influence to destabilise other markets, artificially forcing capital into its jurisdiction — again, regardless of its actual performance and productivity.

The traditional term for this is 'beggar thy neighbour'; but when you're the superpower it's 'bugger the rest of the world'. And unfortunately, zero sumism — beggar thy neighbour psychology — is the single most powerful delusion driving the Manslaughterer-in-Chief as he compulsively reacts to fill the hollow void in his sick person.

Treaties and agreements, and the principles and rights which underwrite them, and the power balance that keeps them in place, and their mutual acceptance by sane people, are all that stand between you and servitude to Trump-like psychopaths and fist-waving fundamentalist nutters.

Don't think there's some natural balance out there, or some natural ethereal good will that seeks mutual betterment just for you, that can't be snatched away by a dysfunctional greater power for its own end. As an Aussie you've already been heavily shafted by Trump's global suppression strategy; yet, there you are defending the Dear Leader to the bitter end to win some imaginary culture war. It's got all the hallmarks of fundamentalist religion — devotion, sacrifice, imaginary victories, holy scriptures, code words, wreckage and ruin.

[Sicks Bux]

I see Trump is still holding on to his lead in our poll. And it's interesting to note that the I don't Care vote is still level pegging with the Biden vote. Funnily enough I reckon that's going to be the difference in the election. The way I see it Biden is leading in the polls but Trump's base is more enthusiastic and are more likely to come out and vote. That's why I'm tipping a Trump victory.

[stui magpie]

^

Yep. Hillary was leading in the polls too.

[David]

Pretty big news this morning is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg just passed away at the age of 87. Remarkably, Trump will seemingly get the opportunity to appoint a third supreme court justice in a single term in office, tipping the bench 6-3 in favour of conservatives. Because of America’s totally-fine, not-at-all-insane laws in this regard, these are all lifetime appointments and will potentially shape the direction of American legal interpretation for decades to come.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-19/us-supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-dies/12681148

One of the most gobsmacking aspects of all this is that one of those three should have been an Obama appointee, but, in a characteristic act of bastardry, Republican senate leader Mitch McConnell decided (without any real basis) that it would be inappropriate to nominate a new judge in an election year, and the Republican-dominated senate refused to accept any Obama nomination. So, given we’re now in an election year again, surely McConnell will abide by the same principle, won’t he? Lol what do you think.

The Democrats need to get a lot better at playing dirty, that’s for sure. On that basis, I’d be totally in favour of them fighting fire with fire and extending the bench to 11 next time they get in. But what I’d really like to see happen if Biden is elected is for the entire bench to be dissolved and for an independent, non-partisan panel to be set up to install a new set of justices – not along ideological lines, but according to quaint notions such as experience and peer regard. Time to put a stop to this circus once and for all.

[Pies4shaw]

Dead judge? Typically, this is a universal good.

[Jezza]

[think positive]

[David]