3 minutes ago, Gannan said:

How do you figure buying a hybrid car helps the economy?

 

Just like buying anything else helps the economy, and buying a hybrid cars particularly helps grow the green economy and works toward mitigating climate change.

9 minutes ago, Boogyman said:

Yeah you would be terrible at it.

 

I'd actually be pretty good at it, because I'm quite sensitive to how modern amenities damage a child's mind. They wouldn't have a smartphone/tablet, etc. until they were 16. Screentime/internet access would be severely restricted. They'd absolutely hate me, but it'd be for their betterment. Ultimately, though, I'd rather have the freedom do whatever I want, when I want. Life is short, why waste it managing someone else's life?

3 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

Just like buying anything else helps the economy

Then by your own logic having kids is good for the economy. I buy far more stuff for them than I do for myself. 

1 hour ago, vikas83 said:

It's pretty simple. If you choose to have kids, then you should bear the costs. Stop asking the rest of us to support your offspring. And before someone says "but what about the future" let me respond with 2 things. First, I don't care since I don't have kids. Second, I've seen this generation of kids, and...I'm bearish on the future.

We shouldn't be encouraging the least successful and capable to reproduce the fastest. 

The opening of Idiocracy continues to become more and more a reality.

Of course you're right, but its not like social engineering through the tax code is a new concept, and it isn't going anywhere. I look at it this way, Trump raised my taxes, Biden lowered them because I have kids. I would have preferred rolling the tax code back to the way it was.

1 minute ago, Gannan said:

Then by your own logic having kids is good for the economy. I buy far more stuff for them than I do for myself. 

 

A fair point, but I really do think there's no better argument for going green/combatting climate change than not having kids. Think of it, you can reduce personal consumption all you want, but it's all a net negative if you have kids. You're adding another person's entire lifetime of waste and consumption to the problem.

10 minutes ago, Gannan said:

Then by your own logic having kids is good for the economy. I buy far more stuff for them than I do for myself. 

Yeah it's hilarious how much more money we spend now than before we had kids. And by hilarious, I mean soul crushing.

18 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

I'd actually be pretty good at it, because I'm quite sensitive to how modern amenities damage a child's mind. They wouldn't have a smartphone/tablet, etc. until they were 16. Screentime/internet access would be severely restricted. They'd absolutely hate me, but it'd be for their betterment. Ultimately, though, I'd rather have the freedom do whatever I want, when I want. Life is short, why waste it managing someone else's life?

No, your poor attitude would make you a bad parent IMO.

 

The electronics and internet thing with kids is way overblown. It's not that hard for kids to spend some time enjoying and learning with devices while at the same time not having them dominate their lives. Like most things it's about balance and it just takes some attentiveness from the parents. My kids have both had phones since they were seven or eight (11 YO girl and 14 YO boy now). I don't even need to manage it anymore as they regulate themselves fine.

And life is short which is why I want to experience as much of it as I can. Im convinced the idea that life ends when you have kids is just plain wrong. I enjoy life far more as a parent than I did before 

3 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Yeah it's hilarious how much more money we spend now than before we had kids. And by hilarious, I mean soul crushing.

I just spent my morning hanging new curtains in my son's room, and outfitting my daughters room with wifi lightbulbs and outlets.

This raises a good point: Since capitalism demands perpetual growth (i.e., continually increasing consumption), it essentially demands perpetual population expansion. By extension, this means accelerated destruction of the natural environment and a hastening in the increased scarcity of resources, leading to Malthusian conditions that would seem to ultimately predict the downfall of the species.

Time's yours...

3 minutes ago, Boogyman said:

The electronics and internet thing with kids is way overblown. It's not that hard for kids to spend some time enjoying and learning with devices while at the same time not having them dominate their lives. Like most things it's about balance and it just takes some attentiveness from the parents. My kids have both had phones since they were seven or eight (11 YO girl and 14 YO boy now). I don't even need to manage it anymore as they regulate themselves fine.

 

You've probably done a good job of raising them and placing limits on these kinds of things. Unfortunately, I don't think most kids get this kind of guidance, and it must be harder than ever to be that kind of parental figure when they're constantly surrounded by these distractions with their peers.

Just now, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

You've probably done a good job of raising them and placing limits on these kinds of things. Unfortunately, I don't think most kids get this kind of guidance, and it must be harder than ever to be that kind of parental figure when they're constantly surrounded by these distractions with their peers.

That's neither the kids fault nor the electronics. 

But what you are saying is attentive and decent parents do a better job of raising kids? That's a great point!

10 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

This raises a good point: Since capitalism demands perpetual growth (i.e., continually increasing consumption), it essentially demands perpetual population expansion. By extension, this means accelerated destruction of the natural environment and a hastening in the increased scarcity of resources, leading to Malthusian conditions that would seem to ultimately predict the downfall of the species.

Time's yours...

I hear ya, and I know this is gonna sound corny as F, but I've never felt more connected to "nature" / "God" / "the universe" as I did the very first time I was holding my oldest daughter minutes after my wife just gave birth to her. I'm sure it was the clash of emotions brought on a near constant stream of hours of adrenaline resulting in fear, joy, anxiety, relief, panic, excitement, etc. but it's something I'll never forget. We even went into it hearing from others on how much of a harrowing experience it was, but it's one of those things where literally nothing can prepare you for it until it happens.

12 minutes ago, Boogyman said:

That's neither the kids fault nor the electronics. 

But what you are saying is attentive and decent parents do a better job of raising kids? That's a great point!

 

Yes, unfortunately, they seem to be fewer and far between. Even the parents can't get off their damn cellphone these days. My brother and his wife are great examples. They are incredibly lazy. Work from home and spend all day posting and re-posting pictures on Facebook. Their idea of "family time" is sitting in front of the TV, and their 8-year-old, severely autistic son who can barely communicate spends most of his day swiping on a tablet. If you take it away from him, he throws a fit. They gave him the tablet just to shut him up. Now he's like an addict who can't function without it. The daughter isn't far behind him.

19 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

Yes, unfortunately, they seem to be fewer and far between. Even the parents can't get off their damn cellphone these days. My brother and his wife are great examples. They are incredibly lazy. Work from home and spend all day posting and re-posting pictures on Facebook. Their idea of "family time" is sitting in front of the TV, and their 8-year-old, severely autistic son who can barely communicate spends most of his day swiping on a tablet. If you take it away from him, he throws a fit. They gave him the tablet just to shut him up. Now he's like an addict who can't function without it. The daughter isn't far behind 

So far the one negative I have experienced having kids and allowing them to use electronics and the internet at their own discretion is I have had to get my own Tik Tok account so I can monitor my daughter. She loves that silly crap.

 

Was gonna post this earlier, but now seems like the proper time anyway...f***k Joe Manchin.


 

Quote

Manchin warns that Biden’s agenda would create an ‘entitlement society.’ But his state leads the way.
 

By Karen Tumulty

Deputy Editorial Page Editor and Columnist|Follow

 

Yesterday at 4:31 p.m. EDT

In his skirmishes with the liberals of his party over the size and shape of their agenda, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D) has repeatedly warned that the left would lead the nation into a crippling dependency on government.

"I’ve been very clear when it comes to who we are as a society, who we are as a nation,” Manchin has said. "I don’t believe that we should turn our society into an entitlement society.”

That phrase — "entitlement society” — has become something of a battle cry for the senior senator from West Virginia as he works to slash the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion domestic spending package to less than half its size.

Not surprising from a senator who hails from a state that presents itself as fiercely self-reliant. But in fact, West Virginians are not only older, sicker and poorer than most of the nation; they are, by some measures, more reliant on the federal government than any other state.

Manchin’s political maneuvering has more to do with his state’s political culture than any other factor. As the last remaining Democrat in a congressional delegation that was entirely blue as recently as the 1990s, Manchin is probably the only member of his party who would have a prayer of winning statewide in a place that is now deep red and that President Donald Trump carried by nearly 40 percentage points in 2020.

This helps explain why Manchin scratched some of President Biden’s initial climate change proposals, including a plan to penalize utilities that do not switch to clean energy. He did this not because the coal industry plays as much a role in the state’s economy as it has historically — in 2020, coal mining employed fewer than 12,000 West Virginians, less than half the number it did only eight years earlier — but because coal continues to have a hold on the state’s psyche and its identity.

Yet even as West Virginia’s hostility to Washington has grown, the reality of its situation remains a very different picture.

According to statistics compiled by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, about 32 percent of West Virginians’ personal income last year came in the form of transfer payments — that is, government checks that include retirement and disability benefits, medical benefits, welfare payments, veterans benefits, unemployment compensation and education and training assistance.

That is a higher rate of government dependence than any other state. Mississippi comes in second — at just under 30 percent.

The state has a long history of turning to Washington for help. When John F. Kennedy campaigned in West Virginia in 1960, he was moved by the poverty and malnutrition he saw in a region that had been devastated by a decade-long decline in the coal industry and the lingering effects of the Great Depression. Kennedy promised that, if elected, he would use his first executive order to expand food assistance — to create what is today the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.

The day after he was sworn in to office, Kennedy fulfilled that pledge, and West Virginia’s southern coal fields became the initial region included in the pilot program. Its first recipients were Alderson and Chloe Muncy of Paynesville, W.Va., the parents of 15 children, 13 still living at home, who used the $95 worth of stamps they received to buy, among other things, a gallon jar of apple butter and a watermelon.

Today, about 1 in 6 West Virginians relies on the anti-hunger program that has helped lift millions out of poverty. That is the second-highest participation rate in the country.

Does government assistance make West Virginia, to use Manchin’s term, an "entitlement society”? Of course not — at least, not if the term implies they are undeserving. Even with all the assistance its citizens receive from Washington, it has one of the highest poverty rates in the country.

Manchin recognizes that as well, which is one reason he has remained at the negotiating table. The components of the social-spending package, which include a tax credit that would give between $3,000 and $3,600 per child to almost every family, will have a greater impact in West Virginia than they do in wealthier states.

As the state’s then-Sen. John D. "Jay” Rockefeller IV (D) told me years ago, West Virginians "don’t have to like government, but they really need it.” And they, more than most states, have a lot to lose if Democrats fall short in getting their agenda over the legislative finish line.

 

Attacking the Democrat from a Red state that you need to keep 50 votes in the Senate.

That's a bold strategy.

Watch Cruz completely eviscerate AG Garland who really comes off like a senile old tweeb - like Biden:

 

5 hours ago, rambo said:

A little late on the subject, but if they start taxing unrealized gains, I'm out on the tax aspect of this profession.  It's bad enough it changes every 4 years now, but that would be the icing on the cake.  What a nightmare it would turn into.  Can you imagine what that would do to elderly who have had investments (non-retirement) for ages that use it as supplemental retirement income?  Them selling off to foot their unrealized gain tax bills should be enough to crash the market (especially with the boomers retiring).  Maybe the government will let you carry it forward and write-off a max of $3,000 unrealized losses a year after they tank the market like they do with capital gains now.

It's DOA from what I'm reading.

28 minutes ago, Procus said:

Watch Cruz completely eviscerate AG Garland who really comes off like a senile old tweeb - like Biden:

 

Jesus  you can see him getting paler as his soul is being sucked from his body 

1 hour ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

Attacking the Democrat from a Red state that you need to keep 50 votes in the Senate.

That's a bold strategy.

The 50 votes was never a real thing. Manchin is further right than the moderate republicans. Sinema is the type of crook that makes people hate politics. I wouldn't be surprised if she's taking money from Trump's PACs. 

Just now, Gannan said:

The 50 votes was never a real thing. Manchin is further right than the moderate republicans. Sinema is the type of crook that makes people hate politics. I wouldn't be surprised if she's taking money from Trump's PACs. 

But Manchin plays ball with the Dems. Moderate Republicans don't.

Big difference.

56 minutes ago, Procus said:

It's DOA from what I'm reading.

Everything is. Biden isn't going to get one piece of legislation passed. The question is, will he do nothing or do what Trump did and just bypass congress and do everything via executive order. 

1 minute ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

But Manchin plays ball with the Dems.

7 hours ago, Gannan said:

Then by your own logic having kids is good for the economy. I buy far more stuff for them than I do for myself. 

The failure that is keynes