• A dangerous implosion of American politics

    From ltlee1@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jun 14 09:24:55 2022
    [Asia Times]
    "While working Americans suffer the worst decline in real income since the waning months of the Carter Administration, America’s political parties are in disarray with internal divisions almost as intense as the issues that have polarized “red state
    and “blue state” America.

    Neither party has a proposal – credible or otherwise – on the political agenda to alleviate the inflation that is crushing family income. And neither has the prospect of gaining a governing mandate, as opposed to a temporary majority.

    It’s a national train wreck, and no one has a plan to stop it.
    ...
    Polling shows that 83% of Americans think the economy is in bad shape. Compounding the Biden Administration’s economic misery are two back-to-back foreign policy disasters, in Afghanistan last year and presently in Ukraine.

    In a matter of a month, Washington has pivoted from intoxicated triumphalism to reassigning blame for the almost-certain collapse of Ukraine’s armed forces in the face of Russia’s massive superiority in firepower.
    ...
    President Biden’s attempt to shift the blame to Zelensky for allegedly failing to anticipate a Russian invasion is transparently disingenuous and will only make him look mendacious, as well as dull.

    This matters to the extent that the Ukraine war raises the price of food and energy. The latter is the main driver of inflation during the past couple of months, and is unlikely to improve as long as Washington layers more sanctions on Russian oil
    exports. That effectively directs Russian oil at a deep discount to friendly buyers like India and China, leaving Western consumers to pay higher prices.
    ...
    With the bread-and-butter wing of the Democratic Party holding the bag for inflation, the Democrats will also take the full brunt of popular revulsion over the party’s progressive social agenda. Putting the transgender rights issue at the center of the
    progressive agenda was an act of political self-immolation. By a margin of 46-37, Americans do not believe that a “transgender woman” is a woman. But general attitudes are less important than popular outrage at the extreme reach of the progressive
    agenda. An Ohio state court removed a “transgender” teenager from his parents’ custody because they refused to allow him to take female hormones.

    Legislative and legal battles have erupted in almost all of the fifty states about transgender teenagers competing in women’s sports. Americans oppose boys-who-say-they-are-girls playing on girls’ teams by a margin of 62% to 34%. High school sports
    enjoy unique popularity in America, and sports scholarships are an important path to higher education.

    At the local level, meanwhile, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is pushing the envelope of social innovation to extremes. The Republican-leaning New York Post June 11 reported that the New York City public school system has spent $200,000 to
    fund “drag queen” shows for elementary school children.

    All this leaves the Democrats’ traditional working-class constituencies in the cold. Real income is plunging, and public schools have turned into a laboratory for social experimentation that most Americans find repugnant. On gender issues, moreover,
    blacks and Hispanics, who typically vote Democratic, view transgender acceptance less positively than whites.

    The Democratic Party will be crushed in the 2022 Congressional elections and in the 2024 presidential poll. Republican analysts who have spoken to former President Trump are sure that he wants to run again, unless legal or health problems prevent him
    from doing so. The last two years of a lame-duck Biden Administration will be consumed in bickering and grandstanding.

    By 2024, the US probably will be in recession. Americans spent the $6 trillion the government gave them – starting with the Trump Administration. Credit card debt has jumped back to pre-COVID levels as Americans borrow to maintain expenditures in the
    face of falling real incomes.

    Most of the impetus for inflation came during Trump’s last year in office, when the Federal Reserve expanded its balance sheet by more than $3 trillion.

    Trump’s effort to shift the blame for inflation onto Biden is disingenuous. The spending orgy began on his watch. Capital spending by US nonfinancial corporations also fell during the Trump Administration – a direct result of the 2017 corporate tax
    cut, which made it more profitable for corporations to buy back their own stock than to invest in new plant and equipment.

    The two-year moving average of corporate CapEx is still below the 2015 level in terms of constant 2010 dollars. That helps explain endemic shortages of key products, something the US has not suffered since the Second World War.

    The near certainty that a Republican Congress will face off against a crippled Democratic White House for two years defers any change in economic policy until January 2025, when a Trump or other Republican Administration will try to come to grips with
    the damage. That’s a dangerous situation for the world-second largest economy to sustain for nearly three years."

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jedi Master@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jun 14 11:18:38 2022
    On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 6:24:56 AM UTC-10, ltlee1 wrote:
    [Asia Times]
    "While working Americans suffer the worst decline in real income since the waning months of the Carter Administration, America’s political parties are in disarray with internal divisions almost as intense as the issues that have polarized “red
    state” and “blue state” America.

    Neither party has a proposal – credible or otherwise – on the political agenda to alleviate the inflation that is crushing family income. And neither has the prospect of gaining a governing mandate, as opposed to a temporary majority.

    It’s a national train wreck, and no one has a plan to stop it.
    ...
    Polling shows that 83% of Americans think the economy is in bad shape. Compounding the Biden Administration’s economic misery are two back-to-back foreign policy disasters, in Afghanistan last year and presently in Ukraine.

    In a matter of a month, Washington has pivoted from intoxicated triumphalism to reassigning blame for the almost-certain collapse of Ukraine’s armed forces in the face of Russia’s massive superiority in firepower.
    ...
    President Biden’s attempt to shift the blame to Zelensky for allegedly failing to anticipate a Russian invasion is transparently disingenuous and will only make him look mendacious, as well as dull.

    This matters to the extent that the Ukraine war raises the price of food and energy. The latter is the main driver of inflation during the past couple of months, and is unlikely to improve as long as Washington layers more sanctions on Russian oil
    exports. That effectively directs Russian oil at a deep discount to friendly buyers like India and China, leaving Western consumers to pay higher prices.
    ...
    With the bread-and-butter wing of the Democratic Party holding the bag for inflation, the Democrats will also take the full brunt of popular revulsion over the party’s progressive social agenda. Putting the transgender rights issue at the center of
    the progressive agenda was an act of political self-immolation. By a margin of 46-37, Americans do not believe that a “transgender woman” is a woman. But general attitudes are less important than popular outrage at the extreme reach of the
    progressive agenda. An Ohio state court removed a “transgender” teenager from his parents’ custody because they refused to allow him to take female hormones.

    Legislative and legal battles have erupted in almost all of the fifty states about transgender teenagers competing in women’s sports. Americans oppose boys-who-say-they-are-girls playing on girls’ teams by a margin of 62% to 34%. High school sports
    enjoy unique popularity in America, and sports scholarships are an important path to higher education.

    At the local level, meanwhile, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is pushing the envelope of social innovation to extremes. The Republican-leaning New York Post June 11 reported that the New York City public school system has spent $200,000
    to fund “drag queen” shows for elementary school children.

    All this leaves the Democrats’ traditional working-class constituencies in the cold. Real income is plunging, and public schools have turned into a laboratory for social experimentation that most Americans find repugnant. On gender issues, moreover,
    blacks and Hispanics, who typically vote Democratic, view transgender acceptance less positively than whites.

    The Democratic Party will be crushed in the 2022 Congressional elections and in the 2024 presidential poll. Republican analysts who have spoken to former President Trump are sure that he wants to run again, unless legal or health problems prevent him
    from doing so. The last two years of a lame-duck Biden Administration will be consumed in bickering and grandstanding.

    By 2024, the US probably will be in recession. Americans spent the $6 trillion the government gave them – starting with the Trump Administration. Credit card debt has jumped back to pre-COVID levels as Americans borrow to maintain expenditures in the
    face of falling real incomes.

    Most of the impetus for inflation came during Trump’s last year in office, when the Federal Reserve expanded its balance sheet by more than $3 trillion.

    Trump’s effort to shift the blame for inflation onto Biden is disingenuous. The spending orgy began on his watch. Capital spending by US nonfinancial corporations also fell during the Trump Administration – a direct result of the 2017 corporate tax
    cut, which made it more profitable for corporations to buy back their own stock than to invest in new plant and equipment.

    The two-year moving average of corporate CapEx is still below the 2015 level in terms of constant 2010 dollars. That helps explain endemic shortages of key products, something the US has not suffered since the Second World War.

    The near certainty that a Republican Congress will face off against a crippled Democratic White House for two years defers any change in economic policy until January 2025, when a Trump or other Republican Administration will try to come to grips with
    the damage. That’s a dangerous situation for the world-second largest economy to sustain for nearly three years."


    Democracies always have a point of reference because of reguar electiuons. Asia times should heed the American principle of leadership before spreading political nonsense. You either lead, follow, or get out of the way. Americans will sort it out for
    themselves as they have for over 200 years. Their constitutional republic requires it.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From bmoore@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jun 15 08:06:57 2022
    On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 7:45:39 AM UTC-7, ltlee1 wrote:
    On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 2:18:40 PM UTC-4, Jedi Master wrote:
    On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 6:24:56 AM UTC-10, ltlee1 wrote:
    [Asia Times]
    "While working Americans suffer the worst decline in real income since the waning months of the Carter Administration, America’s political parties are in disarray with internal divisions almost as intense as the issues that have polarized “red
    state” and “blue state” America.

    Neither party has a proposal – credible or otherwise – on the political agenda to alleviate the inflation that is crushing family income. And neither has the prospect of gaining a governing mandate, as opposed to a temporary majority.

    It’s a national train wreck, and no one has a plan to stop it.
    ...
    Polling shows that 83% of Americans think the economy is in bad shape. Compounding the Biden Administration’s economic misery are two back-to-back foreign policy disasters, in Afghanistan last year and presently in Ukraine.

    In a matter of a month, Washington has pivoted from intoxicated triumphalism to reassigning blame for the almost-certain collapse of Ukraine’s armed forces in the face of Russia’s massive superiority in firepower.
    ...
    President Biden’s attempt to shift the blame to Zelensky for allegedly failing to anticipate a Russian invasion is transparently disingenuous and will only make him look mendacious, as well as dull.

    This matters to the extent that the Ukraine war raises the price of food and energy. The latter is the main driver of inflation during the past couple of months, and is unlikely to improve as long as Washington layers more sanctions on Russian oil
    exports. That effectively directs Russian oil at a deep discount to friendly buyers like India and China, leaving Western consumers to pay higher prices.
    ...
    With the bread-and-butter wing of the Democratic Party holding the bag for inflation, the Democrats will also take the full brunt of popular revulsion over the party’s progressive social agenda. Putting the transgender rights issue at the center
    of the progressive agenda was an act of political self-immolation. By a margin of 46-37, Americans do not believe that a “transgender woman” is a woman. But general attitudes are less important than popular outrage at the extreme reach of the
    progressive agenda. An Ohio state court removed a “transgender” teenager from his parents’ custody because they refused to allow him to take female hormones.

    Legislative and legal battles have erupted in almost all of the fifty states about transgender teenagers competing in women’s sports. Americans oppose boys-who-say-they-are-girls playing on girls’ teams by a margin of 62% to 34%. High school
    sports enjoy unique popularity in America, and sports scholarships are an important path to higher education.

    At the local level, meanwhile, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is pushing the envelope of social innovation to extremes. The Republican-leaning New York Post June 11 reported that the New York City public school system has spent $200,
    000 to fund “drag queen” shows for elementary school children.

    All this leaves the Democrats’ traditional working-class constituencies in the cold. Real income is plunging, and public schools have turned into a laboratory for social experimentation that most Americans find repugnant. On gender issues,
    moreover, blacks and Hispanics, who typically vote Democratic, view transgender acceptance less positively than whites.

    The Democratic Party will be crushed in the 2022 Congressional elections and in the 2024 presidential poll. Republican analysts who have spoken to former President Trump are sure that he wants to run again, unless legal or health problems prevent
    him from doing so. The last two years of a lame-duck Biden Administration will be consumed in bickering and grandstanding.

    By 2024, the US probably will be in recession. Americans spent the $6 trillion the government gave them – starting with the Trump Administration. Credit card debt has jumped back to pre-COVID levels as Americans borrow to maintain expenditures in
    the face of falling real incomes.

    Most of the impetus for inflation came during Trump’s last year in office, when the Federal Reserve expanded its balance sheet by more than $3 trillion.

    Trump’s effort to shift the blame for inflation onto Biden is disingenuous. The spending orgy began on his watch. Capital spending by US nonfinancial corporations also fell during the Trump Administration – a direct result of the 2017 corporate
    tax cut, which made it more profitable for corporations to buy back their own stock than to invest in new plant and equipment.

    The two-year moving average of corporate CapEx is still below the 2015 level in terms of constant 2010 dollars. That helps explain endemic shortages of key products, something the US has not suffered since the Second World War.

    The near certainty that a Republican Congress will face off against a crippled Democratic White House for two years defers any change in economic policy until January 2025, when a Trump or other Republican Administration will try to come to grips
    with the damage. That’s a dangerous situation for the world-second largest economy to sustain for nearly three years."
    Democracies always have a point of reference because of reguar electiuons. Asia times should heed the American principle of leadership before spreading political nonsense. You either lead, follow, or get out of the way. Americans will sort it out for
    themselves as they have for over 200 years. Their constitutional republic requires it.
    The US does not have a democratic culture.
    Regular elections are inevitably degenerated into two guys running from a bear. Winning
    is about out running the other guy. Not out running the bear or driving the bear away.

    Meanwhile, the Xi bear in China is trying to be another Mao, ruling until death.

    Anyway, if you don't agree with anything the Asia Time writers, please point out his mistakes.

    Jedi Master did. Asia times is a US basher, for many years now.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From ltlee1@21:1/5 to Jedi Master on Wed Jun 15 07:45:38 2022
    On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 2:18:40 PM UTC-4, Jedi Master wrote:
    On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 6:24:56 AM UTC-10, ltlee1 wrote:
    [Asia Times]
    "While working Americans suffer the worst decline in real income since the waning months of the Carter Administration, America’s political parties are in disarray with internal divisions almost as intense as the issues that have polarized “red
    state” and “blue state” America.

    Neither party has a proposal – credible or otherwise – on the political agenda to alleviate the inflation that is crushing family income. And neither has the prospect of gaining a governing mandate, as opposed to a temporary majority.

    It’s a national train wreck, and no one has a plan to stop it.
    ...
    Polling shows that 83% of Americans think the economy is in bad shape. Compounding the Biden Administration’s economic misery are two back-to-back foreign policy disasters, in Afghanistan last year and presently in Ukraine.

    In a matter of a month, Washington has pivoted from intoxicated triumphalism to reassigning blame for the almost-certain collapse of Ukraine’s armed forces in the face of Russia’s massive superiority in firepower.
    ...
    President Biden’s attempt to shift the blame to Zelensky for allegedly failing to anticipate a Russian invasion is transparently disingenuous and will only make him look mendacious, as well as dull.

    This matters to the extent that the Ukraine war raises the price of food and energy. The latter is the main driver of inflation during the past couple of months, and is unlikely to improve as long as Washington layers more sanctions on Russian oil
    exports. That effectively directs Russian oil at a deep discount to friendly buyers like India and China, leaving Western consumers to pay higher prices.
    ...
    With the bread-and-butter wing of the Democratic Party holding the bag for inflation, the Democrats will also take the full brunt of popular revulsion over the party’s progressive social agenda. Putting the transgender rights issue at the center of
    the progressive agenda was an act of political self-immolation. By a margin of 46-37, Americans do not believe that a “transgender woman” is a woman. But general attitudes are less important than popular outrage at the extreme reach of the
    progressive agenda. An Ohio state court removed a “transgender” teenager from his parents’ custody because they refused to allow him to take female hormones.

    Legislative and legal battles have erupted in almost all of the fifty states about transgender teenagers competing in women’s sports. Americans oppose boys-who-say-they-are-girls playing on girls’ teams by a margin of 62% to 34%. High school
    sports enjoy unique popularity in America, and sports scholarships are an important path to higher education.

    At the local level, meanwhile, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is pushing the envelope of social innovation to extremes. The Republican-leaning New York Post June 11 reported that the New York City public school system has spent $200,000
    to fund “drag queen” shows for elementary school children.

    All this leaves the Democrats’ traditional working-class constituencies in the cold. Real income is plunging, and public schools have turned into a laboratory for social experimentation that most Americans find repugnant. On gender issues, moreover,
    blacks and Hispanics, who typically vote Democratic, view transgender acceptance less positively than whites.

    The Democratic Party will be crushed in the 2022 Congressional elections and in the 2024 presidential poll. Republican analysts who have spoken to former President Trump are sure that he wants to run again, unless legal or health problems prevent him
    from doing so. The last two years of a lame-duck Biden Administration will be consumed in bickering and grandstanding.

    By 2024, the US probably will be in recession. Americans spent the $6 trillion the government gave them – starting with the Trump Administration. Credit card debt has jumped back to pre-COVID levels as Americans borrow to maintain expenditures in
    the face of falling real incomes.

    Most of the impetus for inflation came during Trump’s last year in office, when the Federal Reserve expanded its balance sheet by more than $3 trillion.

    Trump’s effort to shift the blame for inflation onto Biden is disingenuous. The spending orgy began on his watch. Capital spending by US nonfinancial corporations also fell during the Trump Administration – a direct result of the 2017 corporate
    tax cut, which made it more profitable for corporations to buy back their own stock than to invest in new plant and equipment.

    The two-year moving average of corporate CapEx is still below the 2015 level in terms of constant 2010 dollars. That helps explain endemic shortages of key products, something the US has not suffered since the Second World War.

    The near certainty that a Republican Congress will face off against a crippled Democratic White House for two years defers any change in economic policy until January 2025, when a Trump or other Republican Administration will try to come to grips
    with the damage. That’s a dangerous situation for the world-second largest economy to sustain for nearly three years."
    Democracies always have a point of reference because of reguar electiuons. Asia times should heed the American principle of leadership before spreading political nonsense. You either lead, follow, or get out of the way. Americans will sort it out for
    themselves as they have for over 200 years. Their constitutional republic requires it.

    The US does not have a democratic culture.
    Regular elections are inevitably degenerated into two guys running from a bear. Winning
    is about out running the other guy. Not out running the bear or driving the bear away.

    Anyway, if you don't agree with anything the Asia Time writers, please point out his mistakes.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From stoney@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jun 24 07:25:54 2022
    On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 12:24:56 AM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:
    [Asia Times]
    "While working Americans suffer the worst decline in real income since the waning months of the Carter Administration, America’s political parties are in disarray with internal divisions almost as intense as the issues that have polarized “red
    state” and “blue state” America.

    Neither party has a proposal – credible or otherwise – on the political agenda to alleviate the inflation that is crushing family income. And neither has the prospect of gaining a governing mandate, as opposed to a temporary majority.

    It’s a national train wreck, and no one has a plan to stop it.
    ...
    Polling shows that 83% of Americans think the economy is in bad shape. Compounding the Biden Administration’s economic misery are two back-to-back foreign policy disasters, in Afghanistan last year and presently in Ukraine.

    In a matter of a month, Washington has pivoted from intoxicated triumphalism to reassigning blame for the almost-certain collapse of Ukraine’s armed forces in the face of Russia’s massive superiority in firepower.
    ...
    President Biden’s attempt to shift the blame to Zelensky for allegedly failing to anticipate a Russian invasion is transparently disingenuous and will only make him look mendacious, as well as dull.

    This matters to the extent that the Ukraine war raises the price of food and energy. The latter is the main driver of inflation during the past couple of months, and is unlikely to improve as long as Washington layers more sanctions on Russian oil
    exports. That effectively directs Russian oil at a deep discount to friendly buyers like India and China, leaving Western consumers to pay higher prices.
    ...
    With the bread-and-butter wing of the Democratic Party holding the bag for inflation, the Democrats will also take the full brunt of popular revulsion over the party’s progressive social agenda. Putting the transgender rights issue at the center of
    the progressive agenda was an act of political self-immolation. By a margin of 46-37, Americans do not believe that a “transgender woman” is a woman. But general attitudes are less important than popular outrage at the extreme reach of the
    progressive agenda. An Ohio state court removed a “transgender” teenager from his parents’ custody because they refused to allow him to take female hormones.

    Legislative and legal battles have erupted in almost all of the fifty states about transgender teenagers competing in women’s sports. Americans oppose boys-who-say-they-are-girls playing on girls’ teams by a margin of 62% to 34%. High school sports
    enjoy unique popularity in America, and sports scholarships are an important path to higher education.

    At the local level, meanwhile, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is pushing the envelope of social innovation to extremes. The Republican-leaning New York Post June 11 reported that the New York City public school system has spent $200,000
    to fund “drag queen” shows for elementary school children.

    All this leaves the Democrats’ traditional working-class constituencies in the cold. Real income is plunging, and public schools have turned into a laboratory for social experimentation that most Americans find repugnant. On gender issues, moreover,
    blacks and Hispanics, who typically vote Democratic, view transgender acceptance less positively than whites.

    The Democratic Party will be crushed in the 2022 Congressional elections and in the 2024 presidential poll. Republican analysts who have spoken to former President Trump are sure that he wants to run again, unless legal or health problems prevent him
    from doing so. The last two years of a lame-duck Biden Administration will be consumed in bickering and grandstanding.

    By 2024, the US probably will be in recession. Americans spent the $6 trillion the government gave them – starting with the Trump Administration. Credit card debt has jumped back to pre-COVID levels as Americans borrow to maintain expenditures in the
    face of falling real incomes.

    Most of the impetus for inflation came during Trump’s last year in office, when the Federal Reserve expanded its balance sheet by more than $3 trillion.

    Trump’s effort to shift the blame for inflation onto Biden is disingenuous. The spending orgy began on his watch. Capital spending by US nonfinancial corporations also fell during the Trump Administration – a direct result of the 2017 corporate tax
    cut, which made it more profitable for corporations to buy back their own stock than to invest in new plant and equipment.

    The two-year moving average of corporate CapEx is still below the 2015 level in terms of constant 2010 dollars. That helps explain endemic shortages of key products, something the US has not suffered since the Second World War.

    The near certainty that a Republican Congress will face off against a crippled Democratic White House for two years defers any change in economic policy until January 2025, when a Trump or other Republican Administration will try to come to grips with
    the damage. That’s a dangerous situation for the world-second largest economy to sustain for nearly three years."

    The recession in US is coming soon - earliest 7 month's in the beginning of January/February 2023. Again, in the next 4 months, November, US will again have to seek approval to print money for next year's budget to pay civil servants. If not, their work
    will stop and not food on their table back home.

    America is living on hands-to-mouth. For them, there is no need to think or worry, as all of them will think - all well and be well again. Capital expenditure is up and down but will stagnant from next year. Capex will not affect the internal economy of
    bead-and-butter businesses, but will damper consumer growth. Big companies engaged in high cost manufacturing will stagnant soon and some will fail.

    There will not be much consumer buyers for their expensive products. Most consumers in the world will not be buying because they have no money to pay for them. Their pay is eaten up by rising food prices and purchases. Rising inflation will erode
    providers' margin and profit, until its cost will not bear anymore. The gasoline will rise to 6 dollar a gallon; car, food, and beer will burn a big hole on them. Hence, a recession is coming very soon for them.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)