US Elections 2020 (geopolitics, informed debate, no ad hominems)

Biden

14 (66.7%)

Trump

7 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 21

Voting closed: November 02, 2020, 06:25:59 pm

[Peter McLennan]

Electric heating is many times more expensive than oil or natural gas.  Decades ago, the electric companies paid people to install electric heating in new homes.  Biggest mistake homeowners ever made.  They paid for it in higher electric bills many times over.

More rash and unsupported generalizations from Mr. Kline. 

Two years ago, I switched from wood heat to an electrically powered mini-split.  Now, instead of tending a fire 24/7 from October to March and all the work and mess and air pollution that results from those responsibilities,  I dial up my desired temperature with a remote. 

Those responsibilities were considerable.  They began with shoveling a path to the woodshed for my wheelbarrow and ended with continually cleaning the house of fly ash and wood debris.

Oh, I forgot.  It's cheaper, too.  My wife did the math.

[Peter McLennan]

...  It's like as if when Biden is sworn in, he will flip the magic switch to stop the virus that Trump has been refusing to do.

I've never heard of that assertion by the left.  Perhaps you can point us to some references on this.

[Craig Lamson]

More rash and unsupported generalizations from Mr. Kline. 

Two years ago, I switched from wood heat to an electrically powered mini-split.  Now, instead of tending a fire 24/7 from October to March and all the work and mess and air pollution that results from those responsibilities,  I dial up my desired temperature with a remote. 

Those responsibilities were considerable.  They began with shoveling a path to the woodshed for my wheelbarrow and ended with continually cleaning the house of fly ash and wood debris.

Oh, I forgot.  It's cheaper, too.  My wife did the math.

Reading a problem for you?  Wood was never part of Alan’s post.  Sheesh. 

[Craig Lamson]

I've never heard of that assertion by the left.  Perhaps you can point us to some references on this.

Here’s one...

LA teachers union say it can start in class instruction after the election

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/la-schools-reopen-after-election

[Robert Roaldi]

Where do you get free tractors? And then there is the ongoing maintenance, and fuel and stuff. Then one year you might need fewer workers because of drought or pestilence, or you shift to a less labor intensive crop because Trump is screwing around with tariffs and the Chinese won’t buy the stuff you used to grow, and while you can fire half your workers, you can’t fire half your tractor, and so maybe your net actually goes down. I mean if you shift from soy beans to corn, you need a combine not a tractor. So what are you going to do with your tractor? Nobody wants it because everyone is growing corn now. So you lose you shirt on the trade-in. People have lost family farms from buying tractors and such. I am not saying don’t buy tractors, but you have to really crunch the numbers and take on some risk, so it is not as easy as it looks. It's got government bailouts written all over it. They call it the Farm Bill. It's really the Farm Subsidy and Bailout Bill. Willie Nelson had some really big concerts called Farm Aid because farmers bought too many tractors.

I don’t ever remember reading about anyone breaking windows or whatever. I mean that is so crazy even I wouldn’t do it. My dad didn't go around the house knocking out windows so I could earn my allowance or anything.  Maybe he should have been an economist given that insight. So I looked it up. Guess what? It’s called the broken window fallacy, not the broken window theory. Nobody won a Nobel Prize or anything. Basically it means don’t do stupid stuff, except if you have a really good reason. Like all of the make-work projects during the Depression. That worked out pretty well. Kind of the right tool for the right job. Nothing wrong with a few broken windows now and then when you have the need for them, like now, with twenty or thirty million people out of jobs because of the pandemic and our less than award-winning response. Something to think about anyway.

I am not an economist or anything, but some of this stuff is obvious if you think about it for a minute.

I thought the broken windows thing was about stopping crime in New York. Things are moving too fast for me.

[John Camp]

We all know that Trump lies about almost everything -- seems to lie by preference, even when the truth might actually be more favorable to him. I think today, all day, he was telling on of his more despicable lies. The Trump campaign is trying to sell the idea that Biden is mentally unfit for office, and Trump was claiming today that Biden had forgotten his (Trump's) name, and had referred to him as George. They even had the video to prove it. But the video was as an edited version of an interview with a guy named George, and that was the George that Biden was referring to. If you saw the entire sequence, that was quite clear, but a number of news outlets used the Trump/YouTube/Facebook version from the Trump campaign. They later apologized, but of course, an apology never gets back all the people who saw the first version. And YouTube and Facebook, according to CNN, haven't (at this writing) removed the doctored video.   

[Alan Klein]

Where do you get free tractors? And then there is the ongoing maintenance, and fuel and stuff. Then one year you might need fewer workers because of drought or pestilence, or you shift to a less labor intensive crop because Trump is screwing around with tariffs and the Chinese won’t buy the stuff you used to grow, and while you can fire half your workers, you can’t fire half your tractor, and so maybe your net actually goes down. I mean if you shift from soy beans to corn, you need a combine not a tractor. So what are you going to do with your tractor? Nobody wants it because everyone is growing corn now. So you lose you shirt on the trade-in. People have lost family farms from buying tractors and such. I am not saying don’t buy tractors, but you have to really crunch the numbers and take on some risk, so it is not as easy as it looks. It's got government bailouts written all over it. They call it the Farm Bill. It's really the Farm Subsidy and Bailout Bill. Willie Nelson had some really big concerts called Farm Aid because farmers bought too many tractors.

I don’t ever remember reading about anyone breaking windows or whatever. I mean that is so crazy even I wouldn’t do it. My dad didn't go around the house knocking out windows so I could earn my allowance or anything.  Maybe he should have been an economist given that insight. So I looked it up. Guess what? It’s called the broken window fallacy, not the broken window theory. Nobody won a Nobel Prize or anything. Basically it means don’t do stupid stuff, except if you have a really good reason. Like all of the make-work projects during the Depression. That worked out pretty well. Kind of the right tool for the right job. Nothing wrong with a few broken windows now and then when you have the need for them, like now, with twenty or thirty million people out of jobs because of the pandemic and our less than award-winning response. Something to think about anyway.

I am not an economist or anything, but some of this stuff is obvious if you think about it for a minute.

They didn't break windows during the Depression.  There were actual projects like the Hoover Dam.  Which reminds me.  Rather than the government just printing money during COvid and giving it out as handouts, the least they should do is use the money to do productive things and have the unemployed work for it as wages.  Build another Hoover Dam.  Something. 

I haven't heard one politician, Democrat or Republican suggesting this. In fact no one in government or civilian life.  Both sides are afraid to mention it because of the election.  Why would someone vote for a politician who made them work for the cash they received?  That shows where we've come since the Depression.  Would it be terrible if people actually have to work for the money?  I could just see it.  Trump promising as soon as Nancy passes the next stimulation handout, he's going to start a work program, where unemployed will have to report to government centers to get their work assignments for the day.  I can see his motto: "Vote for me and I'll get you a job."  Of course, Biden, not to be outdone, will demand double time for overtime and minimum wages of $20 an hour.  CNN will check if it's all legal with lawyer Jeffrey Toobin, by voice phone only, of course.  Libertarian Kennedy from Fox will ask whether  government has the right to force a free people to work for a living, and the contributors at LuLa will have more stuff to argue about before Jeremy shuts it all down. 

[Alan Klein]

Go electric.  ROFLMAO.  No really I love my battery powered light chainsaw.

Electric? Traitor.

[Alan Klein]

In absence of free tractors, the farmers could switch back to oxen and horses. Cubans did it.

https://havanatimes.org/news/as-tractors-grind-to-a-halt-cuba-returns-to-oxen/

Well, the fertilizer's for free.

[Alan Klein]

More rash and unsupported generalizations from Mr. Kline. 

Two years ago, I switched from wood heat to an electrically powered mini-split.  Now, instead of tending a fire 24/7 from October to March and all the work and mess and air pollution that results from those responsibilities,  I dial up my desired temperature with a remote. 

Those responsibilities were considerable.  They began with shoveling a path to the woodshed for my wheelbarrow and ended with continually cleaning the house of fly ash and wood debris.

Oh, I forgot.  It's cheaper, too.  My wife did the math.

Why do you accuse me of lying and making generalization for every post.  Do I look like a guy who lies?  Am I wearing a mask or something?  Anyway,  It happened to my cousin.  They had a house built in Westchester County NY around n 40 years ago and installed electric heating. It costs a fortune to heat.  They couldn't switch over to oil because there's no room for a fuel tank and the complex has no propane gas.  Everything is electric.  If you'd like, I'll get a deposition from them affirming the truth of this matter. 

[Alan Klein]

We all know that Trump lies about almost everything -- seems to lie by preference, even when the truth might actually be more favorable to him. I think today, all day, he was telling on of his more despicable lies. The Trump campaign is trying to sell the idea that Biden is mentally unfit for office, and Trump was claiming today that Biden had forgotten his (Trump's) name, and had referred to him as George. They even had the video to prove it. But the video was as an edited version of an interview with a guy named George, and that was the George that Biden was referring to. If you saw the entire sequence, that was quite clear, but a number of news outlets used the Trump/YouTube/Facebook version from the Trump campaign. They later apologized, but of course, an apology never gets back all the people who saw the first version. And YouTube and Facebook, according to CNN, haven't (at this writing) removed the doctored video.   

He prefaced George with President while referring to our current president TRump.  So he was thinking of President George Bush, not some guy named George.  Biden wife's lips moved slightly.  She was probably mumbling to him, " Donald you dope, Donald."

Here's the link.  People can make up their own minds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixjYjlktqOw

[JoeKitchen]

He prefaced George with President while referring to our current president TRump.  So he was thinking of President George Bush, not some guy named George.  Biden wife's lips moved slightly.  She was probably mumbling to him, " Donald you dope, Donald."

Here's the link.  People can make up their own minds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixjYjlktqOw

That is how I read it too; John is clearly trying hard to convince himself otherwise. 

He clearly forgot who he was running against, just like when he forgets he s running for president says he is running for Senate.

[faberryman]

That is how I read it too; John is clearly trying hard to convince himself otherwise. 

He clearly forgot who he was running against, just like when he forgets he s running for president says he is running for Senate.

Sometimes forgetting is a good thing. I wish Trump would forget to call Fox News, forget to attend press briefings, and forget to talk to gaggles of reporters on his way over to Marine One. You know, STFU. I'm not sure I would mind it all that much if Biden did the same. If Biden is half way there already, I'm voting for Biden. By the way, I seem to remember Trump misidentifying someone once. I'd look it up on YouTube if I didn't have to listen to him say it. This is one time I'll join Alan and say I am not going to do your research for you.

Besides, everyone forgets things from time to time. I have probably forgotten more than I have retained over all these years. Some of what I have forgotten was dumb stuff or bad stuff, so that's okay. I think of it kind of like cleaning out the closet. You know, get in there and clear out of the stuff you no longer want or need. You might even give some of it to charity. It would be the Christian thing to do and you can take a tax deduction. I mentioned Christians give things to charity. People of other faiths do it too. I'll admit sometimes I forget where I put my car keys, but you know that's part of life. I sometimes even call my dog my son's name. That cracks my wife up. Me too. So maybe Biden had a son or a dog named George. So I forget things from time to time, but I also remember things from time to time. That can really be special. So I guess it pretty much evens itself out. Speaking of remembering, sometimes it helps to write stuff you need to remember down in a notebook. Trump would never do that. Then he would have to read it back. Trump doesn't read. I bet Biden reads. He seems like a smart guy.

Some people say taking naps is a bad thing. Trump says that. He's says Biden is bad and calls him Sleepy Joe. When I was growing up, my mom use to make me take naps, and I turned out okay. Sort of. Anyway, I learned a valuable lesson. Now I take naps on my own initiative. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon. Trump doesn't exercise because he thinks it will wear down his battery. Biden is smart. He knows he can recharge his battery by taking a nap. I like people who are smart and use rechargeables. And it is good for the environment. You know, now that I think about it, I think I would prefer, as president, to have Biden sleep through the next four years than have Trump lie through the next four years. I'm voting for Biden.

[Robert Roaldi]

That is how I read it too; John is clearly trying hard to convince himself otherwise. 

He clearly forgot who he was running against, just like when he forgets he s running for president says he is running for Senate.

I think you're stretching things. Trump's public incoherences are too numerous to list, they are well documented. It is often the case that I don't understand what he says. From what I read, Biden's performances at both debates were cogent and reasoned, though needless to say people are free to disagree with him. But you keep harping on Biden's supposed senility. It is not a convincing position to take.

[Craig Lamson]

Well, the fertilizer's for free.

We have to dodge the horse poop on the country roads here from the Amish buggies. 

[faberryman]

Why do you accuse me of lying and making generalization for every post.  Do I look like a guy who lies?  Am I wearing a mask or something?  Anyway,  It happened to my cousin.  They had a house built in Westchester County NY around n 40 years ago and installed electric heating. It costs a fortune to heat.  They couldn't switch over to oil because there's no room for a fuel tank and the complex has no propane gas.  Everything is electric.  If you'd like, I'll get a deposition from them affirming the truth of this matter.

No need. You have given us one example, and that's enough to make a sweeping generalization from. If you were walking down the street and saw a little girl wearing rainbow colored shoes, you would be on here in no time making a sweeping generalization that people wear rainbow colored shoes. How do you know if anybody else wears rainbow colored shoes? I mean they could have been white shoes and the little girl fixed them up with magic markers, you know, one of a kind. I am kind of leery of people who make sweeping generalizations. A lot of time they aren't true.

The first house I bought had electric heat. The ceiling had wires in the plaster. It was called CeilHeat. That's what was on the thermostat. The good thing was that you only had to heat the rooms you wanted to heat. They call that zone heating now, which is usually considered a good thing. We switched to an electric heat pump because we wanted air conditioning too. Our electric bill went down in the winter. You know what? The electric company financed it for us, and in the winter their revenue went down. My electric company did me a favor. Not all electric companies are evil.

You know what? If your cousin was dumb enough to buy an all electric house with no room to put a fuel tank and no access to gas, it's his own damn fault. No one held a gun to his head to make him do it. Tell him to suck it up and accept some personal responsibility. Tell him to quit blaming everyone else for his own fuck-ups. Bitch, bitch, bitch. All some people do it bitch. Like Trump. And really he doesn't even bitch; he whines, which is worse.

I'm going to go get a cup of coffee and shake it off.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Now that we have a majority of 'originalists' on the Supreme Court here is what I'm looking forward to.  Any funding for the US Air Force needs to be declared unconstitutional as only an Army and Navy are explicitly allowed (Article 2, section 2).  The second amendment will be revisited and in accordance with 'originalism' individuals may only own flintlocks and black powder cannons.  Judicial review will be struck down as the framers did not explicitly give this role to the Supreme Court and Marshall's decision was the type of power grab by the courts that the 'originalists' object to today. 

[faberryman]

I think you're stretching things. Trump's public incoherences are too numerous to list, they are well documented. It is often the case that I don't understand what he says.

My suggestion is when Trump starts talking, just hit the mute button so you don't have to listen to it. I wore mine out. I had to go down to the XFinity store and get a new one. When I got there, it was still closed because of COVID. So I called them up and they said they would mail me one. Longest three days of my life until it arrived. Fortunately, this occurred before Trump put that idiot in charge of the Post Office who fixed it so the ballots wouldn't arrive on time. If that had been the case, it would have been three weeks instead of three days, and I would have been in a straightjacket.

[Alan Klein]

Now that we have a majority of 'originalists' on the Supreme Court here is what I'm looking forward to.  Any funding for the US Air Force needs to be declared unconstitutional as only an Army and Navy are explicitly allowed (Article 2, section 2).  The second amendment will be revisited and in accordance with 'originalism' individuals may only own flintlocks and black powder cannons.  Judicial review will be struck down as the framers did not explicitly give this role to the Supreme Court and Marshall's decision was the type of power grab by the courts that the 'originalists' object to today. 

I don't know about reversing these decisions.  But many of the decisions the court has made should be revisited.  We've given too much power to the Federal government.

[Alan Klein]

By the way, Alan G, I forgot to mention.  You look very debonair in your mask.  What have you co-workers said about it?