Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[Peter McLennan]

... Another advantage that the US had is timing and cheap real estate. It came into being at just the right moment of unprecedented industrial wealth creation and had no history to adapt to. And it was very handy not to have to pay retail for all that land, given how generously the first nations already inhabiting it let you have it for the price of a few laws and bullets.

For more on this subject, and especially how America was dealt the best hand of cards in history, read "The Accidental Superpower"  ISBN 9781455583683

For an inside look at the book, read here.
https://www.twelvebooks.com/titles/mr-peter-zeihan/the-accidental-superpower/9781455583676/

If you read none of the above, at least scroll down to Chapter 2 and "The Geography of Limitation".

[Alan Klein]

Quote from: Robert Roaldi on October 03, 2021, 11:45:47 am

... Another advantage that the US had is timing and cheap real estate. It came into being at just the right moment of unprecedented industrial wealth creation and had no history to adapt to. And it was very handy not to have to pay retail for all that land, given how generously the first nations already inhabiting it let you have it for the price of a few laws and bullets.

For more on this subject, and especially how America was dealt the best hand of cards in history, read "The Accidental Superpower"  ISBN 9781455583683

For an inside look at the book, read here.
https://www.twelvebooks.com/titles/mr-peter-zeihan/the-accidental-superpower/9781455583676/

If you read none of the above, at least scroll down to Chapter 2 and "The Geography of Limitation".

It's not only geography, natural resources, and land that has blessed America, but our political system and written constitution that have been in continuous operation for over 225 years.  The freedom it's given the individual has allowed America to reach the leading edge of technology and industry, culture and the arts, and military and economic power. Canada has been pretty blessed with these things as well.

If you look at other countries in the Western hemisphere that had the same opportunities of great resources and land, their political and economic systems have not encouraged similar liberties and the gains that these give a people.  They remain in the backwater as their governments and economic systems have changed hands on a regular basis.  It's hard to get ahead when you're scrambling to stay alive politically and find food to eat.

Unfortunately, I see an America that is moving away from its liberties, socializing the economy and removing incentives to be the best. 

[PeterAit]

Quote from: Robert Roaldi on October 03, 2021, 11:45:47 amIt's not only geography, natural resources, and land that has blessed America, but our political system and written constitution that have been in continuous operation for over 225 years.  The freedom it's given the individual has allowed America to reach the leading edge of technology and industry, culture and the arts, and military and economic power. Canada has been pretty blessed with these things as well.

If you look at other countries in the Western hemisphere that had the same opportunities of great resources and land, their political and economic systems have not encouraged similar liberties and the gains that these give a people.  They remain in the backwater as their governments and economic systems have changed hands on a regular basis.  It's hard to get ahead when you're scrambling to stay alive politically and find food to eat.

Unfortunately, I see an America that is moving away from its liberties, socializing the economy and removing incentives to be the best.

Let's not forget the enormous contributions to America's economic success due to slavery. We had some 4 million slaves in 1860 and their unpaid labor contributed greatly to our economic growth. That's 1 of 8 Americans forced to "donate" the value they produce to the overall economy.

[Robert Roaldi]

... Unfortunately, I see an America that is moving away from its liberties, socializing the economy and removing incentives to be the best.

Dial back the doom and gloom fetish.

If you can survive FDR, the 1960s, Vietnam, disco, Clinton and Iraq's WMD, I'm pretty sure you can tolerate some expenditures on human and physical infrastructure. The interstate highways, space program, and the world's largest military by a large margin, I'm pretty sure you'll survive this too.

But as a side comment, it just kills me that you seem to think that only Americans understand freedom and liberty. It must seem like a miracle to you that the other 7 billion on earth manage to get up every day and work, eat, raise kids, talk on phones, etc. Some of them even manage to make a good living.

[Peter McLennan]

If you look at other countries in the Western hemisphere that had the same opportunities of great resources and land, their political and economic systems have not encouraged similar liberties and the gains that these give a people.  They remain in the backwater as their governments and economic systems have changed hands on a regular basis.

What "other countries in the western hemisphere" are you referring to?  ie other countries with "opportunities of great resources and land"? 

Please give examples of similarly resource-endowed countries that "remain in the backwater"

[TechTalk]

I very much doubt Woodward will live through the ages like Dostoevsky will, or even to the same extent Dostoevsky has to this point in time.  500 years from now, Dostoevsky will still be in print, whereas Woodward will be a forgotten soul.

People who study literature will read Dostoevsky. Bob Woodward is a journalist who chronicles current events. Historians, and others, will be reading Woodward, if for no other reason, his contributions to uncovering and unraveling the tangled threads of the Watergate scandal which resulted in the resignation of a president.

By the way, here is an interesting interview with the late Katharine Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post, on the 25th anniversary of Watergate, discussing their reporting. She's a very intelligent and interesting woman with a fascinating life story. I've read a little about her life, but would like to read more about her and from her. Her memoir won a Pulitzer and I look forward to reading it someday.

https://www.youtube.com/Katharine Graham on the 25th anniversary of Watergate

For a little bit of humor, and a bit of insight, here's a brief clip of LBJ talking to her on a recorded phone call.

https://www.youtube.com/LBJ and Katharine Graham 12/2/1963 [excerpt]

* The timing of the call is interesting as it was just days after the assassination of JFK and four months after her husband committed suicide. Her husband, Philip Graham, had been the publisher for many years prior to his suicide. His death caused Katharine to step in and take over as publisher of the newspaper which her father had purchased during the depression in the 1930s.

[Alan Klein]

Let's not forget the enormous contributions to America's economic success due to slavery. We had some 4 million slaves in 1860 and their unpaid labor contributed greatly to our economic growth. That's 1 of 8 Americans forced to "donate" the value they produce to the overall economy.

What "other countries in the western hemisphere" are you referring to?  ie other countries with "opportunities of great resources and land"? 

Please give examples of similarly resource-endowed countries that "remain in the backwater"

While slavery was a shameful economic system, the greatest growth for America occurred after slavery ended 160 years ago.  Of course, you can also blame the expansion into the west and the taking of territory from the Indians and Mexicans.  But other nations in South and Central America had similar expansions of European peoples.  Yet due to their political and economic systems, many remain in the backwater.  Venezuela and Cuba are examples.  Many South American countries have had military coups. Even huge Brazil and Argentina have come up short for these reasons.  If America discards its constitution and economic foundations, it could wind up with similar problems.

[Alan Klein]

Dial back the doom and gloom fetish.

If you can survive FDR, the 1960s, Vietnam, disco, Clinton and Iraq's WMD, I'm pretty sure you can tolerate some expenditures on human and physical infrastructure. The interstate highways, space program, and the world's largest military by a large margin, I'm pretty sure you'll survive this too.

But as a side comment, it just kills me that you seem to think that only Americans understand freedom and liberty. It must seem like a miracle to you that the other 7 billion on earth manage to get up every day and work, eat, raise kids, talk on phones, etc. Some of them even manage to make a good living.

We were addressing Peter's comment about why America was a superpower.  I never said other countries didn't understand freedom and liberty or their societies weren't rich.  I did say that our constitution and political system did ensure these things for us while many other countries have had to struggle to win and keep them only to lose them again.  We're very fortunate. 

[Alan Klein]

People who study literature will read Dostoevsky. Bob Woodward is a journalist who chronicles current events. Historians, and others, will be reading Woodward, if for no other reason, his contributions to uncovering and unraveling the tangled threads of the Watergate scandal which resulted in the resignation of a president.

By the way, here is an interesting interview with the late Katharine Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post, on the 25th anniversary of Watergate, discussing their reporting. She's a very intelligent and interesting woman with a fascinating life story. I've read a little about her life, but would like to read more about her and from her. Her memoir won a Pulitzer and I look forward to reading it someday.

https://www.youtube.com/Katharine Graham on the 25th anniversary of Watergate

For a little bit of humor, and a bit of insight, here's a brief clip of LBJ talking to her on a recorded phone call.

https://www.youtube.com/LBJ and Katharine Graham 12/2/1963 [excerpt]

* The timing of the call is interesting as it was just days after the assassination of JFK and four months after her husband committed suicide. Her husband, Philip Graham, had been the publisher for many years prior to his suicide. His death caused Katharine to step in and take over as publisher of the newspaper which her father had purchased during the depression in the 1930s.

Making a pass at a new widow sounds like him.  LBJ as I recall was never very couth.  During his presidency, he once pulled up his shirt to show off a huge scar he got from some sort of stomach surgery.  Another time, he was lambasted in the press when he showed off his beagle by lifting it up from its ears defending himself later by explaining his dog loves it when he does it.  I don't recall if anyone asked the dog.

[Alan Klein]

Making a pass at a new widow sounds like him.  LBJ as I recall was never very couth.  During his presidency, he once pulled up his shirt to show off a huge scar he got from some sort of stomach surgery.  Another time, he was lambasted in the press when he showed off his beagle by lifting it up from its ears defending himself later by explaining his dog loves it when he does it.  I don't recall if anyone asked the dog.

Here're the pictures:
https://hottestheadsofstate.com/lyndon-b-johnson-gallbladder-scar/


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/LBJ_Lifts_Dog_By_Ears-C311-7-64.jpg

[TechTalk]

Making a pass at a new widow sounds like him.

It should be clear, from the hearty laughter of both parties on the call, that it was humor among close friends. That you believe otherwise reveals more about you than it does LBJ. It should also be clear that the purpose of the call was to nudge her to encourage her reporters to write some stories about the sluggish activity of congress over the holidays.

Kay and Phil Graham were close family friends of both the Kennedys and the Johnsons. Phil Graham was instrumental in persuading Kennedy to put Johnson on the ticket in 1960.

[Alan Klein]

It should be clear, from the hearty laughter of both parties on the call, that it was humor among close friends. That you believe otherwise reveals more about you than it does LBJ. It should also be clear that the purpose of the call was to nudge her to encourage her reporters to write some stories about the sluggish activity of congress over the holidays.

Kay and Phil Graham were close family friends of both the Kennedys and the Johnsons. Phil Graham was instrumental in persuading Kennedy to put Johnson on the ticket in 1960.

People laugh when a president tells a joke, even if off color, which Johnson was known for.  Would you tell the new widow of a close friend who just died that you'd like to climb over a fence to go after her like the animals do on your ranch?   

[TechTalk]

It should be clear, from the hearty laughter of both parties on the call, that it was humor among close friends. That you believe otherwise reveals more about you than it does LBJ. It should also be clear that the purpose of the call was to nudge her to encourage her reporters to write some stories about the sluggish activity of congress over the holidays.

Kay and Phil Graham were close family friends of both the Kennedys and the Johnsons. Phil Graham was instrumental in persuading Kennedy to put Johnson on the ticket in 1960.

What makes the timing of the call interesting, at least to those not in search of a twisted motive, is that they were both new to their jobs. LBJ was a new president and Graham a new publisher and they were long-time family friends.

Johnson was known for crude language and humor which was sometimes a source of public horror and private delight in Washington social circles; especially among close friends like the Grahams, who understood both his virtues and his flaws. Among his virtues, they admired his political intelligence and skills, as well as his genuine compassion for people in poverty—something with which he had personal experience.

He could also be eloquent in his political persuasion, as this two-minute video clip shows. It's a clip that I think everyone should watch, from time to time, as a reminder of how the power of government can be a force for good when used to rectify long-standing national defects. It's a short clip from his speech to Congress on the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

https://www.youtube.com/Cotulla, Texas

[Alan Klein]

What makes the timing of the call interesting, at least to those not in search of a twisted motive, is that they were both new to their jobs. LBJ was a new president and Graham a new publisher and they were long time family friends.

Johnson was known for crude language and humor which was sometimes a source of public horror and private delight in Washington social circles; especially among close friends like the Grahams, who understood both his virtues and his flaws. Among his virtues, they admired his political intelligence and skills, as well as his genuine compassion for people in poverty—something with which he had personal experience.

He could also be eloquent in his political persuasion, as this two-minute video clip shows. It's a clip that I think everyone should watch, from time to time, as a reminder of how the power of government can be a force for good when used to rectify long-standing national defects. It's a short clip from his speech to Congress on the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

https://www.youtube.com/Cotulla, Texas

Johnson was a terrible president. His lies about the Gulf of Tonkin got us into the Vietnam War when 58,000 Americans and over two million Vietnamese were killed. His war on poverty made a permanent underclass of people on welfare that wasn't broken until another Democratic President Clinton reversed a lot of those policies. Johnson debt due to the war on poverty and the Vietnam War created the double-digit inflation of the 1970s and 80s. It forced Nixon to impose wage and price controls and to go off the gold standard setting us up for the inflation we now have today. LBJ was evil.

[TechTalk]

Johnson was a terrible president... LBJ was evil.

If you're looking for anyone to argue that Johnson and his presidency weren't flawed in numerous ways, good luck finding that person.

However, if you were a minority facing severe discrimination in numerous ways, sometimes including violence and death, Johnson's political skills in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 might lean you away from a description of terrible or evil and more in the direction of flawed. Of course, if you put on blinders to any of the good things that were accomplished during that period, you can get a different description.

Johnson knew what the political impact on the Democratic Party would be due to the passage of those acts. He pushed thru the legislation despite knowing what the fallout would be for the Party.

"By enfranchising racial minorities, the Act facilitated a political realignment of the Democratic and Republican parties. Between 1890 and 1965, minority disenfranchisement allowed conservative Southern Democrats to dominate Southern politics. After Johnson signed the Act into law, newly enfranchised racial minorities began to vote for liberal Democratic candidates throughout the South, and Southern white conservatives began to switch their party registration from Democrat to Republican en masse. These dual trends caused the two parties to ideologically polarize, with the Democratic Party becoming more liberal and the Republican Party becoming more conservative. The trends also created competition between the two parties, which Republicans capitalized on by implementing the Southern Strategy."

[TechTalk]

Johnson debt due to the war on poverty and the Vietnam War...

"LBJ's increased government spending added $42 billion, or 13%, to the national debt. It was almost double the amount added by JFK, but less than a third of the debt added by President Nixon. Since Johnson, every president has increased the debt by at least 30%.

It also boosted gross domestic product during Johnson's term. As a result, LBJ was one of the few presidents to avoid any recessions. The unemployment rate fell during the years he was in office."

"In his 1964 State of the Union address, Johnson announced the program's audacious goals. He stated, "Our aim is not only to relieve the symptoms of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it."

His first step was to sign the Revenue Act of 1964. It reduced income taxes, lowering the top rate from 91% to 70%. It reduced the corporate tax rate from 52% to 48%. It created the minimum standard deduction. According to the Tax Foundation, the cuts spurred the economy enough that revenue increased 33%. It rose from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968."

"Although the unemployment rate was only 5.5%, it was 25% for Black youths. The percentage of families living below the poverty threshold wasn't getting better. The number of children on welfare had doubled between 1950 and 1960 to 2.4 million.

The programs successfully reduced poverty, according to a Columbia University study. Between 1967 and 2012, poverty rates declined from 26% to 16% of the population. Food stamps kept 4 million people out of poverty. The programs especially help those living in extreme poverty, defined as less than $2 a day.

The Jobs Corps program increased participants' earnings by 12% and reduced crime. Medicare reduced medical expenses for seniors, while Medicaid did the same for the poor."

"The Social Security Amendments of 1965 created Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare-covered hospitalization for seniors. Medicaid provided health care for those below the poverty line. They also expanded Social Security benefits and increased the payroll tax cap and rates."

https://www.thebalance.com/president-lyndon-johnson-s-economic-policies

[TechTalk]

The Top Five Debt Contributors by Percentage

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945): President Roosevelt had the largest percentage increase to the debt. Although he only added $236 billion, this was a nearly 1,050% increase from the $22.5 billion debt level left by President Herbert Hoover. The Great Depression and the New Deal contributed to FDR's yearly deficits, but the biggest cost was World War II: It added $186.3 billion to the debt between 1942 and 1945.

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921): President Wilson was the second-largest contributor to the debt, percentage-wise. He added $21 billion, which was a 724% increase over the $2.9 billion debt of his predecessor. World War I contributed to the deficits that raised the national debt.

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989): President Reagan increased the debt by $1.85 trillion, or by 186%. Reagan's brand of supply-side economics didn't grow the economy enough to offset the lost revenue from its tax cuts. Reagan also increased the defense budget by 35%.

George W. Bush (2001-2009): President Bush added $6.1 trillion, or a 101% increase, putting him in fourth. Bush launched the War on Terror in response to the 9/11 attacks, which led to multi-trillion-dollar spending on the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War. Bush also dealt with the 2001 recession and the 2008 financial crisis.

Barack Obama (2009-2017): Under President Obama, the national debt grew the most dollar-wise ($8.6 trillion) but was fifth in terms of percentage: 74%. Obama fought the Great Recession with an $831 billion economic stimulus package and added $858 billion through tax cuts.

  6th: George H.W. Bush - 54% increase in national debt / $1.55 trillion added to national debt

  7th: Gerald Ford - 47% increase in national debt / $220 billion added to national debt

  8th: Jimmy Carter - 43% increase in national debt / $300 billion added to national debt

  9th: Richard Nixon - 34% increase in national debt / $120 billion added to national debt

10th: Donald Trump - *33% increase in national debt / $6.7 trillion added to national debt (Figures as quoted in linked article from thebalance.com.)
*Actual debt calculations, including most recent 2020 data, are 39% increase in national debt / $7.8 trillion added to national debt.
                                       
https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent

[LesPalenik]

September Car Production/Sales Stats:
Ford, GM, VW, Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, Stellantis down. Tesla 73% up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJPesQH4Ji4

[James Clark]

September Car Production/Sales Stats:
Ford, GM, VW, Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, Stellantis down. Tesla 73% up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJPesQH4Ji4

I'm not sure how much you can read into those numbers considering how goofed up auto production is at the moment.  (Semi-related, I did a 50+ mile drive behind the wheel of a Model Y yesterday.  Great car)

[TechTalk]

The sooner we move to electric cars, of any brand or type, the better.

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/huntington-beach-oil-spill-pipeline-leak-closed-beaches-orange-county-wildlife-envirnoment

Crews on the sea and land fanned out over the weekend along the Orange County coastline in an an effort to contain one of the largest oil spills in recent California history.

The spill from a suspected leak in an underwater pipeline reached the sands of Huntington Beach and could keep beaches along the Orange County coast closed for weeks or longer.

About 126,000 gallons of oil spilled covered about 5.8 nautical miles or 13 square miles between the Huntington Beach Pier and Newport Beach. The spill is about the size of Santa Monica. The leak is believed to be about four miles offshore. The 17.5-mile pipeline is 80 to 100 feet below the surface.