All I see is how a certain corporation appears to benefit, as one of the largest employers in the country, by providing part-time employment to a portion of the absolutely massive pool of low-skilled, border-line unemployable labor which happens to exist in America today and which also happens to be subsidized by the government. I fail to see how those people would not otherwise need to be fully supported by the social welfare system if it were not for this employment, and I fail to see how it is Walmart's fault that there aren't other employers providing part-time jobs for these people to fill the gap. Maybe one could say they are taking advantage, but either way I don't see how this works as a counterpoint, or how it shows that "Capital" is draining on social welfare systems... Just the opposite.
In this scenario, in America, the reason a social welfare subsidy exists at all is because the supply of capital offered through jobs to low-skilled labor is smaller than the supply low-skilled people. Without this excess of low-skilled people, after all, there would be no need for such a subsidy.
From the perspective of the social welfare system, the part-time, low-skilled employment (capital) Walmart is able to provide to people who otherwise, ostensibly, would be unemployed actually reduces the burden (created by these people) on the welfare system. Without those part-time jobs, the subsidy these people would need in order to live would be even greater. No?
I guess your perspective is that somehow the social welfare system is subsidizing Walmart's labor force, and, if I'm being generous and give you the argument, that Walmart wouldn't be able to exist/profit without this low-skilled, part-time labor force, transferring the responsibility for the drain onto Walmart (Capital) NOT the people it ultimately supports, which, again, the system must support regardless of the existence of a Walmart or any other employer, so long as the people exist in the country? Is that about right?
How is the actual drain on the social welfare system not the oversupply of people? Would removing Walmart's capital improve the situation? Or is Walmart actually responsible for the increase in low-skilled labor, using its capital to demand mass immigration and creating the over-supply which they then take advantage of? Because if so, that wasn't explained when I googled "walmart subsidy."
Is this your attempt at "defending the narrative"? Because what you just said... its actually worse? I mean, it doesn't get more literal than that.
Why does Joe Biden get a pass on the "white guy arrogantly dictating what is and is not permissible for blacks"? I don't know if its possible to be more delusional or cognitively dissonant.
I mean, wow. That's almost on the level of LBJ's "we''ll have those * voting Democrat for the next 100 years."
Replace the word "dictator" with "leader" in your statement, and your sophistry becomes obvious. You are just describing common traits of executive leadership, conflating them with a shallow and dumbed down version of "dictator" to try to make it fit.
>that does not directly contribute towards said leader's goals and the goals of his electorate
Well yeah, in most of these cases you are talking about unelected bureaucrats caught trying to undermine and subvert the elected President's agenda and constitutional authority.
Are you trying to say a President should not have people helping him, and that he should permit employees who have been secretly and actively working against his agenda and undermining his authority? Seriously?
>repeatedly fire
How do you "repeatedly fire" someone?
>That anyone was fired from this duty without a clear explanation and justification is cause for alarm
Good thing nothing like that has happened, no matter what the fired individuals or their "resistance supporters" might like everybody to think. Falling for this line depends purely on ignorance and buying into the opposition's propaganda without question.
What part of Commander and Chief of the United States do you not understand? Was Obama a "dictator" when he blanket fired all of Bush's political appointees without explanation? Or was it, rather, the routine action of an incoming President attempting to set up his incoming agenda for success?
>until he sees a loyal drone in the slot
As opposed to a disloyal drone? Come on... This is just sad at this point.
>The procession of a dictator is more nuanced and complex than people realize.
Not really, though it really is fun to see Progressives leak their inner motivations through projection.
>but there's a characteristic tone and I recognize it
>and I am not a psychologist
Hmm... talk about delusional... Maybe you should worry about yourself?
You aren't qualified to say what you said with any degree of certainty, and yet you go for it anyway.
You don't even try to explain yourself, basically just "trust me I can tell."
You don't attempt to address the content of the ideas as expressed nor do you investigate the logic behind them, at all.
You do however confidently report your conclusion, one that without any basis almost entirely invalidates and discredits both the ideas themselves and the person expressing them at the same time.
>I don't mean to be disrespectful
If you meant otherwise you would you would have kept your malignant amateur diagnosis to yourself then, no?
>Quarantine is hard for brains.
Oh gee thanks for this little tidbit of wisd.. No wait... What do you know about it? Right, you say this without qualification, as if none is needed. Do the implications of this "obvious" truth apply to yourself as well? Or does your narcissistic delusion of grandeur and savior complex protect you from such awareness? See how that works?
Quite honestly your comment sounds like you are engaging in a manipulative technique called gas lighting:
>Gaslighting describes the abuse employed by a narcissist to instill in their victim’s mind, an extreme anxiety and confusion to the extent where they no longer have faith in their own powers of logic, reason and judgement.
The only question is why... The term 'schizophrenic' especially, as an accusation or concern in response to big picture questions and/or criticisms of the "progress" and direction of the modern world, is almost a cliche at this point. Basically, instead of questioning the sanity of the society we live in, or those in control of it, question your own! You mean you don't want to be monitored and controlled? Wow what a red flag... I know it when I see it... /s
Taken on the whole, its just really hard not to question your motivations here.
Did you think you were accomplishing something else here? Did you honestly think you were being a "good guy" here and "helping" this person out? How did you avoid seeing yourself as simply irresponsible and reckless for attempting to plant what might be considered the ultimate seed of near total existential doubt?
Your argument against this valid criticism that the current consensus is wrong about what sources can be trusted to be authoritative is an appeal to consequences which relies entirely on reductio ad absurdum.
The alternative to "something we thought we could trust and rely on but wow they really got it wrong and won't admit it" isn't "now we have nothing", its "now we need to hold these people accountable or find something else." It means that blind, unthinking trust in authority is what got us here. It means reevaluating your assumptions, not the end of the world. Doubling down simply because you can't imagine what the world would be like without CNN or the NYT is ridiculous.
>But who actually gains when e.g. a gay couple can't buy a cake?
The Christian baker who did not want to bake them a cake, but who was being compelled by the state to act against his personal religious beliefs?
Who loses when the gay couple can just go to another baker, one who doesn't let his/her religious beliefs get in the way of business? What did they hope to gain by ignoring every other baker in town who was willing to bake their cake, shopping around until they found a baker who refused them? Was it ever about a cake or rather about using gay rights as weapon to attack Christians?
Not totally disagreeing but I'm pretty sure the idea for most is that we want people to keep their jobs. Corporations staying rich means people staying employed.
What does it say that you use Apple as a supporting example, one of the strongest corporations in the history of the world, rather than any or all of the millions of small businesses all over the country which are now hanging on by a thread.
The people going to the parks and crowding the piers obviously disagree. What gives you the right to tell them what to do? Their body, their choice, no?
>where solidly 1/3... believe that healthcare is a product not a right
And I guess the opposing 1/3 just don't understand the difference between positive and negative rights?
Healthcare, as a matter of fact, does represent a collection of products and services, and access to those products and services represent a positive right because it requires somebody else to provide something for you.
It is only negative rights, those which define what other people can not do to you, that should be considered inalienable. The right to free spreech doesn't require somebody else to go to school for 20 years so that you can express yourself, they just aren't allowed to prevent you from doing so.
Intentionally or not, people like you confuse the issue by treating both positive and negative rights as the same, and actually do not seem to understand, or are avoiding acknowledgment of the fact, that treating a positive right as some kind of natural right carries the high potential that you will be demanding access to another human being's labor or resources against their will, and in America, 1/3 of use are against the enslavement of others.
From what I understand, that it isn't the virus that kills us is based on the idea that it is an overreaction by a weakened or dysfunctional immune system to the virus that results in the immune system basically attacking the body's own cells.
>I'm not sure I understand the "bad for the economy" side of things
Rest assured, you don't.
What about the people driving the Ubers, or the middle-class property owners who have come to depend on the income they receive from their extra room via Airbnb, or the stewards, pilots, and all the other airport employees, all whom depend on "us" riding, renting, flying, and buying... Not to fund anything close to a wealthy lifestyle, but likely their basic living expenses. Their many more of them than the people at the top its almost as if the so-called "ultra-rich" are completely irrelevant.
>Curious, if supply is lower and the demand lowers more, then what does it mean. A depression??
Seems like break even?
Its kind of like how a person who normally works out everyday and is very active might reduce their caloric intake if they break their leg. From 4000 calories a day to maybe 2000 very suddenly might sound like a problem if he wasn't just gonna be sitting at home all day for a while.
But obviously its more complicated than that, and the system we are talking about is not even close to organic, and in a more equivalent scenario the guy with the broken leg sitting at home is also no longer able to harvest his crop for the season to provide the food a local village depends upon, so...
And this is happening where, exactly? Are you talking about heroin addicts or something?
>military spending
You are talking about <19% of all Federal spending, most of which ends up in the hands of American citizens employed by the DoD and private Defense contractors. Medicare and medicaid combined equal this expense, then you still have SS and the rest of the welfare system.
>the wall
Less than $5B was appropriated for the border wall and border security, which represents an aspect of national defense which is about as basic and fundamental as the concept of an independent nation itself.
So, clearly, the vast majority of the rest of that $1.5 trillion budget is going to other "dumb shit" that is even less important than the most foundational purpose of state government but you haven't bothered to mention what, for some reason...
>Even when it would likely reduce healthcare spending.
For who? How likely? How much would it be reduced? What do we have to give up in exchange? You do know that giving full control of your personal healthcare and a larger portion of your hard-earned income over to a bloated and corrupt bureaucratic state (that has proven time and time again to put the interests of the state over and above that of the nation/people it is mandated to serve, to the extent that the idea of replacing American citizens with a completely foreign population is seen as a viable avenue in pursuit of its own expansion and preservation) isn't the only way to reduce the price of healthcare, right?
Universal healthcare in a country where people like you wish to basically dismantle our national defense and allow open borders is just about the fastest way to national ruin I could ever imagine. Just stone cold stupid.
The argument could (and should more often) be made that recessions are sometimes healthy and that propping up failed or stagnant businesses or industries usually only prolongs the suffering. It also locks up resources that could be invested elsewhere in less entrenched but more promising new growth areas. So I would argue that it is likely to cause the stagnation
To use an analogy from botany, its like how certain types of plants need periods of dormancy, but its actually possible to create or install a given plant into specific environmental conditions where the inducement of dormancy is prevented, for a time... But overtime, without the time to rest and regenerate, the plant will become incredibly weak. It will stop flowering or producing delicious fruit. It will grow frail and live to only a fraction of its potential age limit. Similar to this are how efforts to reduce the spread of wildfires only ends up with a far more dangerous and uncontrollable situation down the road and the 'debt' of uncleared deadwood piles up.
In the modern world its also about incentivizing/disincentivizing debt.
There is no argument that cannot or does not have long-term effects, and no we would not all be incredibly rich, as it absolutely costs something to increase to money supply.
When you increase the money supply you devalue each and every current piece of money in existence. Money (fiat) can be infinite but what you buy with it is not.
>Every underdeveloped nation would simply increase their money supply and poverty would end for ever.
No, it wouldn't. Have you heard of hyperinflation? A gallong of milk would simply cost $1000 dollars. Kind of like how milk used to cost 5 cents a gallon 50 years ago. The countries that do try what you are talking about, and there are plenty of examples, amazingly, all end up incredibly poor and economically devastated.
The argument that monetary policy cannot affect the real world economy is more about its limitations, where it cannot really make up for something like a months long interruption to international trade because the world's leading manufacturing nation has quarantined half its population.
The best it could to benefit the long term, I would think, is to make credit more available and cheaper to make it easier for companies and governments to weather the storm with minimal damage.
In this scenario, in America, the reason a social welfare subsidy exists at all is because the supply of capital offered through jobs to low-skilled labor is smaller than the supply low-skilled people. Without this excess of low-skilled people, after all, there would be no need for such a subsidy.
From the perspective of the social welfare system, the part-time, low-skilled employment (capital) Walmart is able to provide to people who otherwise, ostensibly, would be unemployed actually reduces the burden (created by these people) on the welfare system. Without those part-time jobs, the subsidy these people would need in order to live would be even greater. No?
I guess your perspective is that somehow the social welfare system is subsidizing Walmart's labor force, and, if I'm being generous and give you the argument, that Walmart wouldn't be able to exist/profit without this low-skilled, part-time labor force, transferring the responsibility for the drain onto Walmart (Capital) NOT the people it ultimately supports, which, again, the system must support regardless of the existence of a Walmart or any other employer, so long as the people exist in the country? Is that about right?
How is the actual drain on the social welfare system not the oversupply of people? Would removing Walmart's capital improve the situation? Or is Walmart actually responsible for the increase in low-skilled labor, using its capital to demand mass immigration and creating the over-supply which they then take advantage of? Because if so, that wasn't explained when I googled "walmart subsidy."