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I just can't believe our main steel manufacture have been sold to the Japanese. Our financial investors are selling out America just to make quick short term profit.

And this is news to you ?

China is by far the smartest country on the planet .
They are using the greed of the share holders in Western countries to destroy the economy of that country by off shoring production to China to make ever increasing profits and in most cases from a falling market share .
So Wall St is destroying the USA financially.
You can thank every president from Regan for this as bit by bit they changed all the rules in favour of Wall St investors
As more & more both whole goods , steel & steel sub assemblies are imported from China less & less US steel is being made.
Steel plants require lot of investments all the time to upgrade the plant so they need a lot of tonnage through put to provide the profits to justify the investments .

At the same time Russia is destroying the USA politically

But you lot just keep riding around in your massive suburban assault vehicles shooting off whatever assault weapon that makes you feel like a real man while buying everything from Wally's HF or Amazon till you consume yourselves into a 3rd world economy.

Well I driving normally a 25 yr Chevy S1500, Shop very little at Tramlaw, HFT, and some at Amazon. I try get best value for money. This does not mean buying the cheapest things out there but things that will last.

When Sam Walton was running Walmart it was buy and sell American products but once he died Walmart start buying the bulk of their items out of China. As you Greed is the problem.

One problem that I am having lately is that the OEMs are falling for the Chinese trap as I have seen the exact same products from the aftermarket companies.

I don't need an assault weapon to spray bullets at my targets. I am an one shot one kill guy. Yes both my rifle and shotgun have multiple round mags but that is a storage space. And even when I go hunting I only kill what I need for a meal not a truck load. I see no point in killing 6 geese when one goose feds the family.

But I do agree most of people around here are buying the cheapest things they can but still paying an arm and leg for alcohol, tobacco products, and illegal drugs. They then bring that junk equipment into my shop expecting me to fix it for free.

And I missed my favourite target MBA's who know every thing about money & nothing about either the company they are destroying or the industry the company is in.
It is a case of suck the business dry, sell off what is left over then on to the next company to destroy.
But you might get lucky & the Japanese owners sent their 30 year old plant to the USA to modernize it and make it profitable again
I mean Bezos could have bought it, closed it down sold the steel to China as scrap then bought new Chinese steel to build a new amazon warehouse

bertsmobile1 said:

And I missed my favourite target MBA's who know every thing about money & nothing about either the company they are destroying or the industry the company is in.
It is a case of suck the business dry, sell off what is left over then on to the next company to destroy.
But you might get lucky & the Japanese owners sent their 30 year old plant to the USA to modernize it and make it profitable again
I mean Bezos could have bought it, closed it down sold the steel to China as scrap then bought new Chinese steel to build a new amazon warehouse

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When the largest steel manufacturer in the U.S. sells out to Japanese company, we call that a clue. A canary in the coal mine. Stock market at all time high, unemployment rate very low, however, interest rates are up, and debt is 33.5 trillion. How long will all this hold up?
Merry Christmas

If ran my household like the US government I would be homeless. It is not just one political party either that is at fault for the mess we are in; it is all of them. Just look how they sit of their fat backsides and do nothing until the very last minute. Most of us got to work at things all the time not just at the minute. Most of the year I work my backside off. Now of course there a month or so there is nothing to do in the business but that when doing most my personal stuff like home repairs.

Just look how are doing on the immigration issue. They should have been working that years ago. We need our 40+ yr old immigration laws update to deal with the modern day issue; not the 70's and 80's issues.

As for our debit we need to both cut down on the spending at the same time stop all the tax loop hole cheats out there which would increase our revenue. Everybody should be paying their fair share. So far in my lifetime we only had one time the US has been out debit and that was when Jimmy Carter was president. And the very next president put us right back in debit.

And is an article on some what many think are US companies that are no longer US companies.

No offense, but come on people, this won't be the only company foreign owned. If u really want to be depressed, know that International Harvester truck is owned by the car company HItler created, the Jeep that was built for WW2 was owned by an Italian co, now french, the "American" Toledo scale co is owned by a Swiss co., Your good ol Baldor motor is now made by another Swiss co. Don't fret you can always relax and down a Belgian owned Budweiser, among others.

US just seems to be the develop company, sell to another country country.

Would that be Volkswagen? If I remember they went to Canadian company first then pass along the to another company.

Oh my I just realized it is now 33F outside, we going to have a heat wave today......

Maybe I get the frozen wrench off the outside work bench today.

China has a massive steel manufacturing capacity and is the world’s largest producer, US Steel is ranked 27th in terms of steel capacity world wide. Competing with the Chinese is difficult, they don't have the labor and environmental restrictions that the rest of the worlds producers face, and given the blurred lines between business and government they don't even have to make a profit. So China prices steel at whatever it takes to get the volume they wish to produce, or to drive targeted competitors out of the market. The risk is Nippon Steel will take US Steel’s intellectual property and spread it across their many facilities, focus their investments on Nippon’s facilities in India, then when the economy slows gradually close the US facilities due to “their high operating cost”. I would guess that US Steel is doing this because they are getting hammered on energy costs & environmental regulations and the ESG movement is drying up their access to capital. So it’s make the best deal they can, or gradually go out of business. The government should demand that US facilities receive a perpetual minimum percentage (say 25%) of Nippon Steel’s annual capital / R&D expenditures and maintain a domestic steel production capacity of TBD tons / year or face economic penalties so severe that they would go out of business.

not when the mob (mean guvment) is destroying the country intentionally.

SHB said:

China has a massive steel manufacturing capacity and is the world’s largest producer, US Steel is ranked 27th in terms of steel capacity world wide. Competing with the Chinese is difficult, they don't have the labor and environmental restrictions that the rest of the worlds producers face, and given the blurred lines between business and government they don't even have to make a profit. So China prices steel at whatever it takes to get the volume they wish to produce, or to drive targeted competitors out of the market. The risk is Nippon Steel will take US Steel’s intellectual property and spread it across their many facilities, focus their investments on Nippon’s facilities in India, then when the economy slows gradually close the US facilities due to “their high operating cost”. I would guess that US Steel is doing this because they are getting hammered on energy costs & environmental regulations and the ESG movement is drying up their access to capital. So it’s make the best deal they can, or gradually go out of business. The government should demand that US facilities receive a perpetual minimum percentage (say 25%) of Nippon Steel’s annual capital / R&D expenditures and maintain a domestic steel production capacity of TBD tons / year or face economic penalties so severe that they would go out of business.

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That can quickly become counter productive
Post WW II the Aust government decided we needed a better steel industry thus BHP took over every steel making facility and basically bled each factory dry plus gobbled up billions in government aid.
Because they had a monopoly on steel they also bleed the heavy manufacturing sector dry .
To prove they were advancing the nation they made a lot of tonnage of low grade low profit products like Reo Rod .
There was no actual investment to the point that the 2nd hand backwards forwards primary break down mill transferred to Australia during WW II to roll 4" thick armour plate is still being used today.
The largest blast furnace is 1/3 the size of Kobe Steels research furnace .

If there is any technology transfer it will be the other way Americans think they are so great when in reality they are lagging way behind the rest of the world when it comes to manufacturing technology,
US steel is failing because it was being run by over paid under performing accountants in order to squeeze the maximum dividends out of the minimum capital on behalf of the investment companies that own it ( and most of the rest of the US manufacturing industry )
It takes the same number of man hours to run a 36,000 ton furnace as it does to run a 6,000 ton furnace but the former is 6 times more productive
Your arguments are the same facile ones I used to hear from Australian managers to justify off shoring Australian production .
China pays a premium price for all of their imports and gets the minimum price for their exports
What they do with their steel is to buy ore & coal from various sources, including Australia & mix them up so what comes out of the furnace is the bare minimum specification ( often under specification ) steel which requires the least cleaning .
They process it in massive furnaces that are dedicated to a single product thus bringing in massive economies of scale and of course everything is continuous cast then direct rolled thus requiring no reheating , no descaling .
Scrap heat is recovered from every where possible to generate not only internal power but enough to export to the grid

australias Whyalla steel plane has never ever run at a profit & sucked up government subsidies like a deranged vacuum cleaner .
When it closed down plans were well under way to convert the site into shopping malls & residentila high rise .
The Gupta stepped in , bought the plant from the liquidators and set about to do a $ 1,000,000,000 upgrade to the facility when his major financier went belly up.
He managed to refinance and pay back the $ 430,000,000 in 2 years . Right now he is undergoing a $ 3,000,000,000 redevelopment of the plant over the next 6 years as he changes over from plain carbon steel ti high nickel alloy steel which was his original plan 3 years ago
Steel prices have been at an all time high for the past 3 years so if USS can not make a profit then that says a lot about the quality of USS management

StarTech said:

Our financial investors are selling out America just to make quick short term profit.

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It's not investors.
And interestingly it is the LAW~!!
Th officers and directors of all publicly traded corporations owe a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. The duty is enforceable at law. If they don't hold true to the duty they can be sued in a derivative shareholders action and forced to disgorge the lost profits from their personal funds.
The duty can be described like this: Officers and directors must increase shareholder value. It is a harsh mistress. There are no alternatives.

So if China comes along and offers to buy a company for more than the current stock value of the company, guess what? They gotta sell to them. That's the law.
If the officers and directors refuse they will be sued by the shareholders.

bertsmobile1 said:

Americans think they are so great when in reality they are lagging way behind the rest of the world when it comes to manufacturing technology,

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No one in the USA thinks that. We all know that we have let manufacturing slip away and our manufacturing is all but non existent.
And it is all because of one thing. Just the one thing.
Some time in the 70s we started sourcing US military hardware from foreign suppliers. That began the decline of American Manufacturing. Prior to that and subsequent to WWI and WWII the USA was the apotheosis of manufacturing. The military bought everything they use from American manufacturers and That meant that American manufacturers had to be able to produce the best most precisely made products which set of capabilities bled over into the rest of everything else we made. "MADE IN USA" was the sought after imprint the mark of finest quality, and the world beat a path to our door.

But with the change in military acquisition policy And the lax enforcement of laws that give preference to US manufacturers We lost the edge that made us the best. And then globalism took the rest.
Now we are lucky if we can make automobile floor liners.

RaulMcCai said:

It's not investors.
And interestingly it is the LAW~!!
Th officers and directors of all publicly traded corporations owe a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. The duty is enforceable at law. If they don't hold true to the duty they can be sued in a derivative shareholders action and forced to disgorge the lost profits from their personal funds.
The duty can be described like this: Officers and directors must increase shareholder value. It is a harsh mistress. There are no alternatives.

So if China comes along and offers to buy a company for more than the current stock value of the company, guess what? They gotta sell to them. That's the law.
If the officers and directors refuse they will be sued by the shareholders.

Click to expand...

That is not actually true .
The job of the directors ,is to ensure that the business is being run in a sound mannar and that the investors funds are not being misused, that is the actual law.
However investment funds got a court ruling that directors had to increase the value of the shares and this happened under Regan
latter still investment companies won another court case because the actual earnings were well short of the projected earnings.
The US amd in particular Wall St has forgotten that a share is a share , not a 100% secure government backed bond so if the company makes a profit you investment entitles you t a share of that profit.
If the companuy makes a loss then you share that as well, that is how the system legally was set up to work
However year in year out regulations were relaxed and government after government failed to rein in corperate greed, particularly in the investment sector who by the way get very generous tax consessions.
A board is not obliged to accept any take over offer, they can reject it when it becomes what is called a hostile take over .

And in keeping with the subject matter of this forum, go back and look at what the board of B & S did to protect the board and senior executives during the bankrupticy .
We have a similar problem down here that we hope to solve by forcing companies to pay bonuses to executives & directors in 10 year excuitable script so if the company is not there in 10 years, neither is their bonus
needless to say it is being fought tooth and nail.
The problem is in the company law, the duty of the board & managers to the COMPANY has bees superseded to the duty to the shareholders.
The you get to travesties where the O'Bama government bailed out the boards of the banks that had traded illegally ( all of the board members should have been doing jail time ) while hanging the customers who no fault of their own had bad loans lost every thing they owned while 2 years latter the same criminals were back paying themselves multimillion dollar bonuses

Nippon Steel will probably make USS a profitable business again however now 100% of that profit will go to Japan.
Thus making USS workers Japanese slaves in their own country .

Under capitalism theory a business that is badly run should fail , get liquidated and it's assets get acquired by another better run business weather that happens or not depends just how mush money that business funnels into your very corrupt political system .

StarTech said:

If ran my household like the US government I would be homeless. It is not just one political party either that is at fault for the mess we are in; it is all of them. Just look how they sit of their fat backsides and do nothing until the very last minute. Most of us got to work at things all the time not just at the minute. Most of the year I work my backside off. Now of course there a month or so there is nothing to do in the business but that when doing most my personal stuff like home repairs.

Just look how are doing on the immigration issue. They should have been working that years ago. We need our 40+ yr old immigration laws update to deal with the modern day issue; not the 70's and 80's issues.

As for our debit we need to both cut down on the spending at the same time stop all the tax loop hole cheats out there which would increase our revenue. Everybody should be paying their fair share. So far in my lifetime we only had one time the US has been out debit and that was when Jimmy Carter was president. And the very next president put us right back in debit.

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The government collects enough money. They don't have a taxing problem. They have a spending problem. That $33+ trillion debt comes from both sides of the isle. Up until Biden, the GOP held the record for the most money spent, and the amount of debt ceiling increases. FWIU, it's about equal now.
What did "we the people" get for the $8 trillion Trump/Pelosi/Ryan spent? What did we get for the $6 trillion that Biden/Pelosi/McCarthy spent?

The bill. With interest.

Like what @bertsmobile1 stated about Reagan (and where this big spending started), we have a dollar that's worth about 80% less now than when he took office. According to this, $100 today was worth $387 in 1980.
Injecting $30 trillion of new money into the economy in that short of time, it's a wonder the USD is still around.
BRICS is slowly but surely making a name for itself. If all of those countries decide to abandon the USD, our goose is cooked.
Fiscal Conservatism is almost dead in this country. Most voters, for some reason, seem to think that charisma and funny one liners is somehow a presidential qualification. So regardless of their monetary ideology, we get people who think that it's OK to just print more money.

Well PT, I would challenge that assertion
If you look at the total tax take per annum as a percentage of the countries GDP you will see it is about 1/2 of what it was when Regan was the president
The military is about 3 time the size and the social security budget is way bigger as we all get older
So allowing for inflation the government is doing more with substantially less and that is the same for most Western countries
If you can find a graph of total tax take vs GDP you will see the curve took a big dive under the Regan government
And if you chart company tax vs GDP vs executive salaries vs wages over the same time you see company tax take a dive , wages take a dive and salaries skyrocket .
This of course totally disproves the "trickle down" effect.
Another interesting chart is inherence tax vs executive incomes , you would expect them to follow roughly the same path but again the salaries have had a steep climb while the tax has takes a massive dive as those with the money find ways to avoid the tax rules .
This is why fixed rate tax on everyone and fixed rate turnover taxes on all businesses , including the finance sector is vital and churches should be included in the businesses .

bertsmobile1 said:

Well PT, I would challenge that assertion
If you look at the total tax take per annum as a percentage of the countries GDP you will see it is about 1/2 of what it was when Regan was the president
The military is about 3 time the size and the social security budget is way bigger as we all get older
So allowing for inflation the government is doing more with substantially less and that is the same for most Western countries
If you can find a graph of total tax take vs GDP you will see the curve took a big dive under the Regan government
And if you chart company tax vs GDP vs executive salaries vs wages over the same time you see company tax take a dive , wages take a dive and salaries skyrocket .
This of course totally disproves the "trickle down" effect.
Another interesting chart is inherence tax vs executive incomes , you would expect them to follow roughly the same path but again the salaries have had a steep climb while the tax has takes a massive dive as those with the money find ways to avoid the tax rules .
This is why fixed rate tax on everyone and fixed rate turnover taxes on all businesses , including the finance sector is vital and churches should be included in the businesses .

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I'm of the influence that corporations and even small companies don't pay taxes. The consumer does.

With that said, there's obviously huge profits in which taxes are minimal to large corporations, compared to a small business. But is that so bad? Because there's a LOT of taxes being collected from that corporation and it's employee's. The government taxes the corporation and every employee. Those corporations and their employees do more for the country and the economy than the government. So I think it's highly unfair to tax them anymore than they're being taxed. Especially since a tax increase is going to keep wages down even further and potentially keep them from hiring more people.

The simple solution is for the government to stop borrowing any money from the federal reserve and learn to live within it's means. Stop funding retarded things like gender studies in Pakistan. A few years ago, our government funded a gay parade in Progue. They're always funded some political opposition candidate in some other country. They spend millions on reproductive research on things like worms.
They gave something like $1 million to study young people's cell phone habits. (or some BS like that)


The way to do it is to simply stop that kind of funding, learn to live within their means. Then if they want to add taxes, they can do something Ron DeSantis wants to do. Charge a fee/tax on people who are sending money out of the country. Mexicans alone send like $6 billion per year per year back to Mexico in wire transfers. (Pay Pal, Western Union and others)

After that, then they can see how much they need to tax everyone. Most folks don't have a problem with paying taxes. Where they get disgruntled is when they find out the retarded things the government does with their money. And constant see the national debt increasing in the trillions.

While those sorts of spending programmes look like a frivolous waste of money there is usually a strategic reason behind them often things like CIA off the books funding for example .
The problem comes from those who do not pay tax
If you get an extra $ 20 a week tax rebate then chances are you will spend it locally, heck you might even buy some better quality USA made tools rather than the HF Chinese junk
If Trump gets an extra $ 20,000 tax rebate he either uses it to buy more shares or another luxury boat , private plane etc etc and in most cases it will be spent overseas
The fastest way to stimulate the economy is to give money to those who do not have any discretionary spending power because they will spend it and spend it locally so it stays in the country
Give it to the top end & they buy another Rolls Royce , villa in Italy, Island off the Greek coast etc etc etc
Then you have company tax
so USS makes a ton of steel for $ 50 & sell it to their distributor for $ 100 of which $20 will be tax.
The distributor sells the steel to Bills Bridges for $ 150 and the government gets another $ 20 tax
Bill builds the bridge & charges the customer $ 200 and the govenment gets another $ 20 so there is $ 60 net tax
However now USS has a wholey owned subsidiary in the Phillipines and they sell the ton of steel to them for $ 50 and get a $ 10 tax credit under the developing nations tax incentive
USS P sells that steel to Bills Bridges for the same $ 150 but the $ 100 profit is made in the Phillipines so the US gets no tax
Bill builds the bridge and sells the steel for $ 200 so the government ends up with $ 10 of tax in place of the $ 60
This is how transfer pricing works and how it robs the US government of tax revenue .

Then you get really shady deals like apple USA sells the Apple trade mark & logos to Apple Ireland for $ 1,000,000 .
Then every year Apple US sends apple Ireland $ 700,000,000 in tax free royalties for use of the Apple trade marks on phones & shit they sell in the USA every year .
so the government has lost $ 200,000,000 of tax money ( actual figures from around 2000 ) now add Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Adobe, Snap On, Mc Donalds etc etc etc and you can see why there is such a big national debt .
And it gets worse
Every second of every day currency traders by & sell US $ for all sorts of currencies and make astronomical daily profits and we are talking trillions , not millions or even billions and there is no tax on the profits , not one cent .so that is money that USS could be investing in new steel plant but instead it is with hedge funds going round & round & round the world and every time it gets converted some one makes a killing that is 100% tax free
next we have partnerships . legal firms & consultants , again not taxed on the initial payment the customer makes so by the time the 700 billion that the US government pays to Price Waterhouse gets all of the total BS deductions , like $ 100/page for photocopying a 5,000 page report sent to 50 partners , the tax the US government gets is... almost nothing .
So who is left holding the can for everything, the saps on PAYE wages who are on the lowest rates in the country

and that my friend is the real problem with the economy
You have government over the poor by the rich & power full for the benefit of the rich & powerful
and every year it gets worse , your spending power decreases, you get sick and either you become bankrupt or get tossed out into the street because the hospital has no money to treat you .

StarTech said:

If ran my household like the US government I would be homeless. It is not just one political party either that is at fault for the mess we are in; it is all of them. Just look how they sit of their fat backsides and do nothing until the very last minute. Most of us got to work at things all the time not just at the minute. Most of the year I work my backside off. Now of course there a month or so there is nothing to do in the business but that when doing most my personal stuff like home repairs.

Just look how are doing on the immigration issue. They should have been working that years ago. We need our 40+ yr old immigration laws update to deal with the modern day issue; not the 70's and 80's issues.

As for our debit we need to both cut down on the spending at the same time stop all the tax loop hole cheats out there which would increase our revenue. Everybody should be paying their fair share. So far in my lifetime we only had one time the US has been out debit and that was when Jimmy Carter was president. And the very next president put us right back in debit.

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I thought Jimmy Carter was the worse president in US history that is until Biden came along? I remember gas rationing and high inflation.

RaulMcCai said:

So if China comes along and offers to buy a company for more than the current stock value of the company, guess what? They gotta sell to them. That's the law.

Click to expand...

Not really... If they want to stop the sale, there are many ways to prevent it. From "flip-in" to "flip-over" to c-share stock owners can have a large enough share, etc to name a few.

hlw49 said:

I thought Jimmy Carter was the worse president in US history that is until Biden came along? I remember gas rationing and high inflation.

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Unemployment is down
Post covid inflation is down
Oil price is down
US oil production is up
GDP is up
so where is the problem , apart from a functionally broken political system ?

bertsmobile1 said:

Unemployment is down
Post covid inflation is down
Oil price is down
US oil production is up
GDP is up
so where is the problem , apart from a functionally broken political system ?

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Inflation isn't actually down. It's only been adjusted.

Oil production and prices are due to the oil companies and the futures market. Not the government. I get a kick out of the people that think the president has anything to do with either of those.

The political system isn't broke for republican and democrat politicians. It's right where they want it to be. It's broken for us independents. But those of us who are truly independent, are a tiny minority with no real political party to support.
I support fiscal conservatives. And there's only a handful of those in DC. There a lot who claim to be conservative (Trump, McCarthy, Johnson & McConnell. But they're not. They only identify as conservatives.
A good example of this is how the GOP is claiming they're not going to fund much of the Ukraine war. But somewhere in the dead of night, the Senate got a bill that funds billions to Ukraine. It's in the Senate right now.

Just take a look at this list. It appears the conservative republicans had the biggest debit increases after Jimmy Carter. So far we have just under 9% debit increase under Biden when compare to Trump which had over 40% increase in debit. I think Biden has done a pretty good at keeping the increase to a minimum so far.

11 > https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/historical-debt-outstanding/historical-debt-outstanding

StarTech said:

Just take a look at this list. It appears the conservative republicans had the biggest debit increases after Jimmy Carter. So far we have just under 9% debit increase under Biden when compare to Trump which had over 40% increase in debit. I think Biden has done a pretty good at keeping the increase to a minimum so far.
View attachment 67518
11 > https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/historical-debt-outstanding/historical-debt-outstanding

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Trump is a con artist. Biden is your typical career politician. Neither are good for the country. We down to supporting those who don't suck as bad as the last guy.
It's funny how the GOP always campaigns on fiscal conservative policies. But never fulfill any.
Trump promised to cut so much spending that he was going to zero out the national debt. LMBO. And what's worse, his worshippers never held him accountable for anything.
When he assaulted our 2A, they didn't say a word. When he started spending all that money and increasing the debt ceiling, they didn't say a word. When all those jobs didn't come back, they didn't say a word. I could list 100 other things they didn't hold him accountable for.
But honestly, it's partly the democrats fault. All these witch hunts they've been on since 2018, have turned Trump into a martyr. If they'd have just kept their mouths shut from 2018 to 2020, Trump might not have even won his party's primary.

I think the main problem is people only hear what they want to hear and ignore the rest. This is why I try to stay out most discussions related to either politics or religion. It just causes a lot bad feelings.

As one guy here locally once said if you want to know when a politician is lying, just look for their lips moving.

So much trouble in this world is caused by politics and religion. Man will never have total peace on this planet as long either one is around. They will always be fighting over which is the right way to go. Otherwords they have one finger up their butt hole and one in the mouth and they would rather fight than remove both.

But in general it is best to leave a hornet nest alone than start poking it. For as soon you start poking it you are in for a world of hurt.

With that guys have a safe rest of the year. Personally I staying home just to stay out of trouble and play a lot of Sudoku.

StarTech said:

I think the main problem is people only hear what they want to hear and ignore the rest. This is why I try to stay out most discussions related to either politics or religion. It just causes a lot bad feelings.

As one guy here locally once said if you want to know when a politician is lying, just look for their lips moving.

So much trouble in this world is caused by politics and religion. Man will never have total peace on this planet as long either one is around. They will always be fighting over which is the right way to go. Otherwords they have one finger up their butt hole and one in the mouth and they would rather fight than remove both.

But in general it is best to leave a hornet nest alone than start poking it. For as soon you start poking it you are in for a world of hurt.

With that guys have a safe rest of the year. Personally I staying home just to stay out of trouble and play a lot of Sudoku.

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Every war that's been fought in this century was started by a government. So I agree, completely.

And to be totally fair to president Trump he had the misfortune of being in office during covid and that contributed to massive government debts world wide so you could halve that 40%.
I can appreciate why Trump got elected as it was a toss up between just another career politician who has had her hand in the public purse nearly all her life and a supposedly successful business man so I like a lot of others expected him to run the country like a business.
Unfortunately President was not actually a business man but a sleazy real estate sales man and he ran the country as you would expect a sleazy business man to .

And FWIW I am a swing voter and rarely ever vote for either of the major parties .
Lucky for us we have a much more honest political system , with compulsory & preferential voting
So while our pollies are a lot more honest than the US ones , because we have to at least get a ballot paper and put it in the box that means we end up with a very mediocre bunch to choose from .

A good example of this is how the GOP is claiming they're not going to fund much of the Ukraine war. But somewhere in the dead of night, the Senate got a bill that funds billions to Ukraine. It's in the Senate right now.

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I don't think that is correct as Johnstone is ardent he will subvert democracy and not allow the vote because god spoke to him and instructed him to do so .
I am following the Ukraine war fairly closely as I knew quite a few metallurgist who worked in the Ukraine , some Russian, some Ukrainian & some Turks , all good men & all worked well together .
Once upon a time if you heard voices in your head they locked you up in a padded cell, now days it appears that they elect you to the most powerful position in
congress .
As a black fella friend of mine used to say
"most dangerous animal in Australia is a white fella with a bible in his hand "

PTmowerMech said:

Every war that's been fought in this century was started by a government. So I agree, completely.

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Actually most wars have been started by dictators , or monarchs .
Democracies rarely start a war because they are ( mostly ) responsible to the population & populations do not like being at war .
so governments become hostage to a single person , Hitler & Putin , for example who change the system so they can never be voted out then you have sham government .
The next most common war starters are generals who think they can run the country better than the elected government , then they go on to become dictators .
Switzerland is a true democracy ( only one on the planet ) and thy have never declared a war nor joined a war since they became a democracy .
And there is a world of difference between a democracy, a representative democracy & a democratically elected government .

What I am seeing is that the world as we know it is getting more and more hostile...Right now any one thing could start our last major war that is not fought with sticks and stones as the following war would be if anyone is left.

Right now we got localized wars that could potentially explode into major regional wars. Dictators like Kim of North Korea for one that his father would take an anti-aircraft gun and blow away a rival just to he had the power to do so.

People here are even stealing driveways now or when you pull up to stop light pointing guns at you...The World has gone MAD with angry... All because of politics and religions extremism.

What ever happen to our peaceful childhoods. Now it seems everybody thinks everybody is out to get them. No wonder I will not join any of the social media forums like Facebook or X. I just withdrawing from about every forum in general now because of all the hateful attitudes. I used to be on about 30 repairs forums, now I am down to about 5 now. Even here I am withdrawing my technical support. I like helping others but there is a limit of how much hateful attitudes I will take from other members. I have bad days just everyone else but I don't take it out on others. I just find something else to do with my time.

bertsmobile1 said:

Unemployment is down
Post covid inflation is down
Oil price is down
US oil production is up
GDP is up
so where is the problem , apart from a functionally broken political system ?

Click to expand...

And what country do you live in? Gas prices, food prices, energy prices are up. Ask truckers what it cost now to fill up their trucks. Higher fuel prices make higher prices for every thing. Unemployment is only down due to people going back to work after the covid shut. Biden has opened our border and we are being flooded with illegals from all over the world and they are not being vetted at all. Setting records every day in illegals flooding across the border. Have had over 14,000 in one day and growing. Mayors from all over the US are crying about it. Mostly in blue cities. Not that they want anything done about the border but want help from the government and this will put an extra burden on us tax paying citizens. Biden and dems are doing this because they are loosing their voter base and are trying to make it legal for the illegals to vote. To build their base up. If you think this is a good job God help us all.

The Biden adminstration will have allowed between 8 and 10 million known elligals not counting the got aways into our country during his presidency. The got aways are the ones we need to worry about the most. Probably terrorist.

hlw49 said:

And what country do you live in? Gas prices, food prices, energy prices are up.

Click to expand...

Exactly
Our cost of living expenses are WAY up from just a few years ago.
Everything from gas to diesel, groceries, propane (heating), electric, water, Etc.
Everything costs a lot more.

Lets see just saw this on the news this morning. Cars up 22%,Rents 21%,Gas 25%, Eggs 57%, Bread 47%, Credit Card rate 25% and higher. 14% agree with Bidenomics. 46% say it hurt then, 39% said there was no difference. 68% Disgussed with Bidenomics. So if all these number are doing a good job I would hate to see a bad job. Bidens poll number are in the tank and dropping.

Strange....Gas here is down from $3.25 / gal to $2.25 / gal. My credit card interest rate have been unchanged for years sitting at 8.9%. With zero interest paid on the card for the last 5 years. even though I charged up to $4000 per month on it.

Apparently some US people prefer to see deflation (recession) to be happening. At least the overall inflation is down to under 4% annual now and headed to under 2%. If a recession happens then what we buy today will sell for less tomorrow and even less the following days. IE business would be losing money inventory instead making a profit or just breaking even. When business start losing they start closing down putting everyone in a world of hurt as thing start to accelerate to worst conditions. Everytime one of my supplier goes out business it takes months to find new ones meanwhile my business loses customers due to the lack of products.

In order for the bread prices to drop then we need to the Ukraine/Russia to end since they are the main supplier of wheat. But that would take a long time to recover due to all the unexploded ordinance laying around. It is bad enough that Russians are blockading by mining the shipping lanes out of Ukraine.

In order for eggs and chicken prices to drop we have stop the whole slaughter of the chickens and learn to treat the sick flocks. My flock just recovered in December from all being sick with bacterial cold infection. Two weeks of antibiotic medication and they all recovered except one. I treated two week due to they got sick over a period of a week, three groups. Not bad odds considering I have over 50 birds and if the health department knew about it they would just killed my whole flock and I probably would had committed suicide as they are my family. I had been treating the flock for years so I usually get a head of it but caught off guard this year due a massive black bird flock passing though the area. Usually it is just a couple birds that get sick before I catch it. We do need to come up with Avian Flu antivirus vaccine. It is not going away by just slaughtering whole flocks. It is in the environment and we can't stop it otherwise.

Fuel prices will be going back up due Israel /Hamas war with the Iranian backed Houthis showing their a**e* even when we in the US are producing more oil then ever. Global product prices will start going back up too due the extra shipping costs of having go around the Horn of Africa. The whole Middle East area is a powder keg right now. Then of course we have China and North Korea showing their butts too. And we can't forget the damn Somalian pirates either that has caused a lot trouble around the Horn of Africa.

And top of that we might just have a civil war here after the next major election caused by brainwashed people that won't accept the results.

When will the people in the US understand that the government can only do so much when the rest of the world is in such turmoil? Our economy is Global reliant so are our costs.

When the US people start living within their means and not living off of credit, they be better off. Yes you have to do without fancy gadgets and other finer things. Just think how our folks survive the Great Depression? They buckle down and survived.

Ever heard operating on a shoe string budget? That is why my home is paid for other than annual property taxes and insurance. I had the option of paying $70K cash or taking out a mortgage that I would still be paying on that would have doubled the cost in the long run. Matter of fact the bank did me a favor by turning the loan down.

One thing we should all keep in mind is that the president doesn't control the economy or the gas prices. He can make those things worse by injecting too much money into the economy.
That 8+% inflation we all went through during Biden's first year, came from Trump who injected $8 trillion of new money into the economy in just 4 years. That buys a LOT of inflation.
The high gas prices were due to the oil bust cycle that always happens every 4 or 5 years. Right now, the US is producing more oil than at any time when Trump was in office. But the economy still has too much money flowing through it.
Biden lied when he said he was going to end fossil fuels in the US. Funny, how people only believe a politician when it either makes their side look good. Or makes the other side look bad.

Oil companies are going to produce as much or little as they want. The reason why gas was so much cheaper under Trump was because Saudi and Russia were in an oil price war. They flooded the market with cheap oil. US oil companies were buying it. The government was buying to refill the SPR's.
US oil companies and OPEC went into a bust cycle in April, 7 months before the 2020 election. They had so much in reserves that it took months before those reserves were depleted. By June, US oil companies were issuing record layoff notices. That was OK with Trump, because his deal with US, Mexico and Saudi is what initiated the bust cycle.
By January or Fed, the oil companies reserves were low, and the prices started to climb. Add that to the inflation that $8 trillion created, we have the makings for a huge economic down turn.

As far as spending goes, Biden seems to be trying to break Trumps record. Which is going to create the same scenario.
The end result will be the same. These big spending politicians come in and pretend to save the world. Then we get stuck with the bill.

StarTech said:

In order for eggs and chicken prices to drop we have stop the whole slaughter of the chickens and learn to treat the sick flocks. My flock just recovered in December from all being sick with bacterial cold infection. Two weeks of antibiotic medication and they all recovered except one. I treated two week due to they got sick over a period of a week, three groups. Not bad odds considering I have over 50 birds and if the health department knew about it they would just killed my whole flock and I probably would had committed suicide as they are my family. I had been treating the flock for years so I usually get a head of it but caught off guard this year due a massive black bird flock passing though the area. Usually it is just a couple birds that get sick before I catch it. We do need to come up with Avian Flu antivirus vaccine. It is not going away by just slaughtering whole flocks. It is in the environment and we can't stop it otherwise.

Click to expand...

That's cool, man. I didn't know you raised chickens. I suppose you sell a lot of eggs?

StarTech said:

Fuel prices will be going back up due Israel /Hamas war with the Iranian backed Houthis showing their a**e* even when we in the US are producing more oil then ever. Global product prices will start going back up too due the extra shipping costs of having go around the Horn of Africa. The whole Middle East area is a powder keg right now. Then of course we have China and North Korea showing their butts too. And we can't forget the damn Somalian pirates either that has caused a lot trouble around the Horn of Africa.

Click to expand...

We Americans show a lot of support for our oil industry. But my support is starting to fall a little. They seem to go into a bust cycle at the same time as OPEC does. And considering they could sell us oil/gas at a fair market price, they still use the price gouging global market price. It really ticks me off that they got record profits, and produced record low amounts of oil.

StarTech said:

And top of that we might just have a civil war here after the next major election caused by brainwashed people that won't accept the results.

Click to expand...

I think there could be isolated instances around the US. But it won't be a civil war. People have groceries to buy, lawns to mow, kids top raise and everyday life to live.

StarTech said:

When will the people in the US understand that the government can only do so much when the rest of the world is in such turmoil? Our economy is Global reliant so are our costs.

Click to expand...

It wouldn't hurt if the government would do a lot less. Just leave a lot of things alone. And stop wasting money on things they've got no business in.

StarTech said:

When the US people start living within their means and not living off of credit, they be better off. Yes you have to do without fancy gadgets and other finer things. Just think how our folks survive the Great Depression? They buckle down and survived.

Click to expand...

This needs to be the way of our government. Everyone else has to live within their means. Including the states. So should the federal government. And the fed needs to put stricter guidelines on the government. No more money for gender studies in Pakistan. No more money to fund reproductive research on insects. You know, stupid money.

Your right the government wastes a lot money on things where it can be better spent on needed things.

But as you probably know some people completely lose all common sense at times. I got one down the street at sends all his spare money to a political group instead fixing his roof. Right he got a lot loose tin on his roof that is just being held down by use tires. He think those millionaires are so broke that they need his pennies.

I owe no man anything. Only buy if I can afford it.

Everything I own is paid for.
Doesn't change the fact that our cost of living has went through the roof the past couple years.
Our gas here is still at 3.40/gal

And it doesn't change the fact that is not just one fellow that is causing but the whole world of problems. When our state governments scares even the living hell out legal immigrates, to a point that they leave our country and then we have depend on the lazy American workers that refuses to work in the fields; prices are bound to go up and up as the farmers have to buy more expensive equipment to replace them or have to just let the crops lay in the fields and rot. Which did and does happen a lot. Then you got weather extremes also affecting the crops.

It is call supply and demand economy. Instead of the end users cutting down or downgrading a little they just keep living like there is no tomorrow. Once I start drawing my about $1000 per month SS it will feel like a small fortune as I have been living on $300 per month for several years now.

Personally those that paid over $1200 each just to watch a lighted ball drop in NYC are just plain crazy.

And just think three years ago we were facing 15% unemployment and a 200 % year over year deficit. Covid 19 was at its peak too. So are we better off than then and the answer is yes things have improved a lot.

Let me see if I got this right.
You claim to be living on $300 per month, the cost of living has increased 25-30% the past few years, but your better off ???
OK, sure

StarTech said:

Your right the government wastes a lot money on things where it can be better spent on needed things.

Click to expand...

Or better yet, simply not spent at all. We just reached $34 trillion national debt.

StarTech said:

But as you probably know some people completely lose all common sense at times. I got one down the street at sends all his spare money to a political group instead fixing his roof. Right he got a lot loose tin on his roof that is just being held down by use tires. He think those millionaires are so broke that they need his pennies.

Click to expand...

That's insane. It's like throwing money at a problem.

PTmowerMech said:

Or better yet, simply not spent at all. We just reached $34 trillion national debt.

Click to expand...

Yes, I seen that figure yesterday. If I owed that kind of money they would be putting me at least 6 feet under the jail.

PTmowerMech said:

That's insane. It's like throwing money at a problem.

Click to expand...

Now you get it as that is what the government does.

We might be better off right now than 2 years ago, but We are not better off than 4 years ago.

mcostello said:

We might be better off right now than 2 years ago, but We are not better off than 4 years ago.

Click to expand...

And 4 years ago, we were worse off than 4 years prior to that. And 4 years prior to that. And so forth and so on, all the way back to George Washington days.

Once people realize that any president has very little to do with making the economy and gas prices better, the better we'll get a choosing a good president.
When Biden took office, the economic and oil bubble had already burst. That die had already been cast and there was no way to stop it.
When Trump took office, the bubble had already burst (during Obama) and we were in an economic recovery stage. That die was already cast as well. Regardless of who won the 2016 election, the economy was going to get better. Russia and Saudi's oil price war was happening. Cheap oil was starting to flood the market and the prices were coming down.

None of this was because of anything Trump did. Just like all the oil production that's going on right now in the US, (record levels) is of Biden's doing. But like Trump, Biden is going to try and take credit for it.

Closing a pipe line did not change anything?

mcostello said:

Closing a pipe line did not change anything?

Click to expand...

No, not really. How could it, when there was nothing flowing through that part of it? If that part was completed and Biden forced them to stop pumping those tar sands through it, that would be one thing. You know, an actual reduction in production.

Except for a refinery outside of Houston, the US isn't going to benefit from that crap anyways. It's tar sands. It's expensive to refine. And they have to dilute it so much, and use a higher pressure for it to even flow.
The high pressure is the real concern about it. Because it crosses over the Ogallala aquafer. That stretches from South Dakota all the way down to Texas and New Mexico. Millions upon millions of people and livestock drink from that aquafer.
If it leaks or busts, it could contaminate trillions of gallons of water. And since it's an aquafer, there'd be no way to clean the spill.


BTW, closing all those oil leases in the Gulf, made no difference either, because no oil company was even trying to lease them. And hadn't been for years. Once an oil company leases one, when they get around to it, they'll start doing geological studies on it to find the right place to drill. That takes a long time. Then there's another 4 years or so before they drop a well on that location.

So you see, a lot of that propaganda was being passed around, was just propaganda. If the pipeline had been completed,
1. It wouldn't have created 10's of thousands of jobs. Just a bunch of temp jobs for pipeliners and Xray guys, who probably drug up from one job to work that one. (so no "new" jobs).
2. The tar sands that would've been flowing through it wasn't going to be the USA's. It would've never went into our gas tanks, or reduced the cost of our gas. It would've been the Chinese and Canadians to sell on their market. We would've been doing the refining. But only by a company that's already refining. So no new jobs there either.

Biden was a gift horse to the oil companies. Record high profits at the same time as record low production. Biden is gravy for the oil companies.
He lied when he said he was going to end fossil fuels in this country. And both sides believed him.

Never trust a politician.

DK35vince said:

Exactly
Our cost of living expenses are WAY up from just a few years ago.
Everything from gas to diesel, groceries, propane (heating), electric, water, Etc.
Everything costs a lot more.

Click to expand...

The reason why you are seeing higher prices is WALL ST profit gouging pure & simple
Go to any market index site and check the oil prices , they are all so far down that OPC + is cutting production in 1/2 to try & bring the price back to the $ 75 -$ 100 mark.
As it is reporting season right now, follow this up with checking the returns on all of the oil companies & retailers
Profit percentages are way way up and that only happens whe the margins are up and that is price gouging .
Australia has avoided the worst of the downturns for 1 reason & 1 reason only, record levels of immigrants
You are being brainwashed by the Trump maga republicans .
If you stop & think about it , undocumented migrants actually save the government money because they never go to a public hospital, never claim social security , they never get any benefits they have to pay full price for every thing and they have to live so they have to buy things and when vendors know they are illegals most jack up the prices they pay because they know illegals have no way of registering a complaint , they have to live some where and they have to rent because they can not purchase US real estate
Illegal very rarely commit crimes, not even a parking fine , because being caught means instant deportation , now this bit excludes the drug runners, but they go back again for a second shipment and again most of them are working for a US citizen , and the bulk of all illicit drugs come in via the ports not via the border .
Serious criminals bribe officials to get visas & fly in or fly in using a charter flight as border running is way too risky for them, and again the pilots smuggling them in are usually you flag waving church going hand on your heart republican voters .

There will of course be a very small minority of rat bags who do cause trouble but they usually get booted out.
Then there is the geopolitical aspect .
Russia is doing it's best to destabilise the USA , create unrest and stoke the fires for civil war , and the proof was the Jan 6th riots.
And one of these tools is to escalate the border issue way out of hand by posting total BS on social media that the Americans fall for, hook line & sinker .
A for instance there were over 2000 images of supposed illegals storming across the border taken off social media in the past 2 months .
All of them were not a US border post and the bulk were from Venezuela , security camera footage on toll booths , one was a foot ball stadium etc etc etc .
In fact several congress people presented these fake images to congress in the past few weeks during the Ukraine aid bill fiasco .
And Russia is recruiting illegals and bussing them up close to border posts just after the media gets a tip off that a mass border crossing is under way .
Next time you hear some one mouthing off about the dire straits of the mass illegal scourge , write down every point they make, then ask yourself does this make sense to me then do some fact checking.
Again here was a republican congress person stating that the democrats were involved in smuggling in these illegals to increase the democratic vote in republican seats to swing the election in the democrats favour which of course is nonsense and if you do not believe then then check the rules about being elegible to vote if you are an immigrant , And if that was the case, one might ask how much does that elected representative actually know about the way they were elected ?

hlw49 said:

The Biden adminstration will have allowed between 8 and 10 million known elligals not counting the got aways into our country during his presidency. The got aways are the ones we need to worry about the most. Probably terrorist.

Click to expand...

Again this is Russian propaganda spread on social media to destabilize the USA
have a think about it
If you were a known terrorist how would you try to enter the USA
1) on a boat disguised as a crew member
2) on a small boat & try to evade the coast guard . way north of the border like say NY
3) an a light aircraft charter flying low to avoid radar ( so pilot was most likely ex USAF or marine )
4) on a commercial flight with a fake passport & some disguise
5) run across a border where here are thousands of police

Terrorist are only raving lunatics on cheap Hollywood movies , most of them are very clever because if not they would already be deceased .

PTmowerMech said:

And 4 years ago, we were worse off than 4 years prior to that. And 4 years prior to that. And so forth and so on, all the way back to George Washington days.

Once people realize that any president has very little to do with making the economy and gas prices better, the better we'll get a choosing a good president.
When Biden took office, the economic and oil bubble had already burst. That die had already been cast and there was no way to stop it.
When Trump took office, the bubble had already burst (during Obama) and we were in an economic recovery stage. That die was already cast as well. Regardless of who won the 2016 election, the economy was going to get better. Russia and Saudi's oil price war was happening. Cheap oil was starting to flood the market and the prices were coming down.

None of this was because of anything Trump did. Just like all the oil production that's going on right now in the US, (record levels) is of Biden's doing. But like Trump, Biden is going to try and take credit for it.

Click to expand...

never a truer word said
Wall St runs most of the country .
In the few places where congress runs things, well Wall St still runs the congress .
It comes down to your idiot voting system, optional, voting , the electoral college system made all the worse with elections every 2 years so both parties are on a perpetual bribe the public to vote for me footing .
So every 2 year both parties have to find a couple of hundred million to encourage you lot to drag your butts off the couch or away from the bar & cast a vote , that of course is if the totally corrupted registration process has allowed to to register to vote in the first place.
Wall st foots the bill for this in expectations of a 500% return on their "investment" which both parties have no problem in doing .

Then of course every state has their own voting laws plus you have this really idiot system where President Trump can run for president even after being found guilty on the 18 charges he currently is on trial for so is in jail but a university student who smoked some pot on campus & was convicted can never vote again .
You have a constitution with no provisions for overcoming a blockage of supply so every couple of months you get a government shut down because one side ( both are culpable ) refuses to pass the budget.
Every other country on the planet has a provision for this and in most cases it s a dissolution of the government completely and a full election for all houses and in some cases the president as well .

PTmowerMech said:

Or better yet, simply not spent at all. We just reached $34 trillion national debt.

Click to expand...

There are 3 kinds of national debt and all of them produce figures that make super rubber look like wet clay
1) money the government borrowed as a contract from persons, countries or governments overseas . This is real, has real interest and has to be paid back in a timely mannar
2) money raised internally within the USA usually as bonds & leans , this money is sort of real as in many cases the bonds never get paid back, they just roll over into new bonds and of course inflation eats into the repayments as the interest rate is always fixed
3) bull shit debt cause by money printing as happened during covid where the White House owes money to the Treasury who bought bonds from the White House .
These are left pocket to right pocket debts that never get paid back but are relaxed or written down over time but the numbers come in handy when there is a big cost items you either want or do not want to finance .

You are mistaken, over here the Immigrants do get free welfare, free health care, free rent and who knows what else. Government cards can be openly traded for alcohol, cigarettes etc. Against the law but signs openly posted on some convenience stores. Massive cost to state and government. They Can purchase real estate.

First you got remember America is a country of Immigrants is the first place. Only the Native Indians are truly the legal residents but even they are long ago Immigrates themselves. Yes illegal immigration is a major problem. Immigrants came to our land and just stole it by force.

Most legal immigrates brings skills to add to our own and are law abiding citizens.

But about the only way to stop illegal immigration is to totally shutdown the borders and setup our military along the borders with machine guns and mow people down regardless if they are trying enter legally or not. There I said it, its what the Republicans want period.

If our Congressional members really want to something about immigration they got to get off their asses and change our laws related to immigration. But Congress members just just do things from the lip out causing more problems than they fix.

I need to correct something.
"(record levels) "isn't" of Biden's doing. But like Trump, Biden is going to try and take credit for it.

bertsmobile1 said:

It comes down to your idiot voting system, optional, voting , the electoral college system made all the worse with elections every 2 years so both parties are on a perpetual bribe the public to vote for me footing .

Click to expand...

Our electoral system was fine 150 years ago. But now it's not. Now it's a means to allow a small amount of unknown people to decide who our next president is going to be.
The delegate process we have is even worse. Once the RNC sends down it's orders to the state and local chairman, as to who the party is going to support, then any possible delegate for someone that opposes that nominee is blackballed from the state and national convention.
Been there. Done that.
The local chairman isn't allowed to tell the local members which candidate the RNC or DNC is supporting. But they can and do steer the meetings and the potential delegates towards that candidate. If someone who's vying to be a delegate at the state convention, even if they're well spoken & clean cut, they don't stand a snowballs chance at going to the state convention.

bertsmobile1 said:

Then of course every state has their own voting laws plus you have this really idiot system where President Trump can run for president even after being found guilty on the 18 charges he currently is on trial for so is in jail

Click to expand...

There's nothing in our constitution about felons not being able to run for president.

bertsmobile1 said:

but a university student who smoked some pot on campus & was convicted can never vote again .

Click to expand...

That's not accurate. Being caught smoking pot isn't a felony. But I get your point.

bertsmobile1 said:

You have a constitution with no provisions for overcoming a blockage of supply so every couple of months you get a government shut down because one side ( both are culpable ) refuses to pass the budget.
Every other country on the planet has a provision for this and in most cases it s a dissolution of the government completely and a full election for all houses and in some cases the president as well .

Click to expand...

This is 100% accurate. Each president releases a budget, and each congress doesn't even care. It's either voted down or completely ignored. This has happened so many times, It makes me wonder why the president even bothers to write up a budget. I know why the House doesn't pass a presidents budget. Because there's not enough handouts for their lobbyist.
We're in a constant state of continued resolutions. And they always wait til the last minute so that there's sufficient pressure on congressmen to pass it, so they can go home for the holidays. (when the voters themselves are more concerned with the holidays)

hlw49 said:

The Biden adminstration will have allowed between 8 and 10 million known elligals not counting the got aways into our country during his presidency. The got aways are the ones we need to worry about the most. Probably terrorist.

Click to expand...

I used to think this way. But it's been 3 years since Biden took office and stopped the "remain in Mexico" rule. And we still haven't had a terrorist attack. So much of this is just fear mongering propaganda.
Agreed, we need to secure the border. But even moreso, they, Trump and Biden both, need to address "why" they come here. And the bottom line is money. (it's always money)

Most Mexicans and South Americans are lucky to make $15 per day. The minimum wage in MX is only $10 per day. (Yes, per day). They can make as much in one day here, as they can in a week there.

The end all solution to this is to address our monetary policy.
Right now, $25hr is a lower middle class wage. (or about that) This is because our currency is over inflated. $25 doesn't buy $25 worth of goods anymore. There was a time, not too long ago, (maybe 50 years) where a person making $8hr could live pretty good. We need to return to that.
Would you rather have $20 that bought $20 worth of goods? Or $100 that bought $20 worth of goods?
It doesn't matter, does it? We're still getting $20 worth of goods.
Where the huge benefit comes is when companies can hire people for $8hr and the employee can be satisficed with that amount, because they can live pretty good on it. Once the wages come down (drastically), so will the prices of everything else. Then those companies can not only afford to expand and hire more people. But also other countries can afford to buy American products. This is how the USA was able to become the manufacturing giant of the world. It wasn't until big spending politicians started over inflating the USD value by ballooning the debt, did US companies started outsourcing so much of our labor.

If $1 USD was equal to 1 Peso, the flood of immigrants would stop. US manufacturing jobs would come pouring back so much so that illegal immigration wouldn't be a problem.
But politicians don't want to solve either of these two problems. They want to keep the problem alive to keep you voting and donating.


If all of this is confusing, I understand. It took me a few years to finally get it.

P.S. I'm not holding my breath for the House, Senate or the president (any of them) to get it either.

When it comes down to voting we have a better of electing a pet rock for at least we know it will do more than most politicians.

DK35vince said:

Everything I own is paid for.
Doesn't change the fact that our cost of living has went through the roof the past couple years.
Our gas here is still at 3.40/gal

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You're problem is the same as everyone's. But the solution is addressing the monetary policies and the USD value.

"We the people" need to realize that no president can make the economy better. Nor can they reduce the price of gas. That is, unless we want to have a chancellor.

People look back to 2017 and 2018 and think that Trump had something to do with how well the economy and fuel prices were. The fact is, Trump just got lucky to be elected when the economy was finally leveling out and we were adjusting to it. Fact is, the economy was worse off during Trump than it was 5 years prior. But since we'd adjusted to it, we forgot how much better things were the last time the economy had recovered.
FYI, Trump was also lucky he lost the 2020 election. Because the economic down turn and the oil bust cycle was coming, regardless of who was president.
The $8 trillion that Trump, Ryan and Pelosi spent, caused a lot of that 8% inflation increase. All the money that Biden spent, is going to cause the next inflation increase.
It won't be overnight. It takes a few years for all that spending to show up in the economy and cause economic downturns and inflation increases.
Trump and Biden both didn't do anything different than the rest of them, starting with Reagan, has done. Dump trillions of new money into the economy. Make everything look good for a few years. Then the bill comes due. The economy spirals down, and we all have to tighten our belts and get through it. And just about the time we've made it through all that, the next president comes in and dumps trillions more into the economy and the cycle starts all over again.

This, IMO, is the fault of Republican voters who keep voting for big spending Republicans because they don't truly understand fiscal conservatism. I mean they sort of understand it. But they never hold their republican politicians accountable for their overspending. 60 years ago, the GOP would've kicked Trump out of the white house for spending so much, assaulting our 2A, forcing landlords to go without rent payments, suspending the debt ceiling for 2 years. Along with all those republicans who supported him. Now days they're trying to make him chancellor.

StarTech said:

When it comes down to voting we have a better of electing a pet rock for at least we know it will do more than most politicians.

Click to expand...

Every congressman and senator in my state are republicans. (RINO's). Our state legislature is about 70% Republican. And almost every one of them are Trump supporting RINO's as well.

When I try to explain fiscal conservatism to them, I get called things like "liberal" or a Biden supporter. Or some childish name that's not even close. And the democrats call me a Trump supporter.

An tell me again what country you live in that makes you such an authority on the United States of America. Name the one crime Trump has been convicted of. All these charges are baseless false charges. Biden is the criminal in the White House. Selling the Biden Brand to China, Russia. Ukrain and the rest of the world. Allowing a Chines balloon to fly over the US and steal top secret information before he finally shoots it down after it has run it course and is out to sea where the information has probably been ruined but China already has it.

Look here HLW49 neither you nor I know the whole truth about anything other than our personal space. So stop listening to just one source and listen multiple sources and try to filter through the static instead just blindly believing in one source. BTW Trump has been convicted of some the civil charges already. Right now his tactics is just trying to delay things as long as he can any of the pending criminal trials.

As for the Chinese balloon you do know that one of our internet providers relay the data from it to China don't you? I don't hear you screaming about that.

Biden said he was going to end oil, but he's pumping out more than ever...and without filling the reserves. Killing Our Mother. Some other President will have to 'own' that Debt to refill it.

hlw49 said:

An tell me again what country you live in that makes you such an authority on the United States of America. Name the one crime Trump has been convicted of. All these charges are baseless false charges. Biden is the criminal in the White House. Selling the Biden Brand to China, Russia. Ukrain and the rest of the world. Allowing a Chines balloon to fly over the US and steal top secret information before he finally shoots it down after it has run it course and is out to sea where the information has probably been ruined but China already has it.

Click to expand...

Here's a few things Trumps guilty of.

Reauthorizing warrantless spying on Americans. (FISA 702)
Assaulting our 2A (Banning bump stocks) Luckily a constitutional judge deemed it unconstitutional and reversed Trumps ban.
He also stated he was in favor of "take the guns first. Do due process later." <<His exact words
Lying about nearly everything.
Borrowing and spending way more than the government takes in, and helping to create the 8% inflation hike.
Getting US, Mexico and Saudi oil producers to decrease oil production. Decreasing productions always leads to fuel price increases.
Forcing landlords to go without rent payments for a year. (the first covid mandate)
On his last day in office, he gave Fauci an award.
He tried to give blacks reparations to the tune of $500 billion (The Platinum Plan)
He didn't "lock her up." He didn't even try. Even after it was known that she funded the initial stages of the whole "Russia collusion" scandal.

Most of these things should've been impeachable offences. Maybe his idea of protecting and defending the US constitution has a different meaning to him.

jbugj said:

Biden said he was going to end oil, but he's pumping out more than ever...and without filling the reserves. Killing Our Mother. Some other President will have to 'own' that Debt to refill it.

Click to expand...

The Strategic Petroleum Reserves are going through maintenance that was scheduled years ago. But because of the Russia/Saudi oil price war (making oil so cheap) they put off the maintenance.
They can only refill about 3 million barrels per month because of the maintenance. Plus, there's no big hurry to refill now due to the oil prices that are still kind of high. But coming down.

Biden sold some to China, at a high price. Which recouped some of the money from releasing a lot of it to the public because of the high price at the pump.

StarTech said:

Look here HLW49 neither you nor I know the whole truth about anything other than our personal space. So stop listening to just one source and listen multiple sources and try to filter through the static instead just blindly believing in one source. BTW Trump has been convicted of some the civil charges already. Right now his tactics is just trying to delay things as long as he can any of the pending criminal trials.

As for the Chinese balloon you do know that one of our internet providers relay the data from it to China don't you? I don't hear you screaming about that.

Click to expand...

If the government was transparent on everything, there would be a rebellion.

PTmowerMech said:

If the government was transparent on everything, there would be a rebellion.

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Any wonder why the media and bureaucrats keep it all covered up...

The JFK assassination documents were supposed to be released 50 years after. Now, years after that, even the media refuses to demand even that assassination 'transparency'.

We are given lots of reasons to believe there is a deep state. They keep giving us reasons to believe that.

and I don't believe Joe reducing the Reserves by almost half was for maintenance reasons. Its a sorry excuse now being used to not having to refill it. Its just propaganda.

jbugj said:

and I don't believe Joe reducing the Reserves by almost half was for maintenance reasons. Its a sorry excuse now being used to not having to refill it. Its just propaganda.

Click to expand...

I don't believe much of what they say either, but It was reported back in 2016.

PTmowerMech said:

I don't believe much of what they say either, but It was reported back in 2016.

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There are Annual Reports for each year since then. Interesting reads. I failed to find much in there about significant drawdowns because of maintenance. I believe that is an excuse some want us to believe for the large drawdown since January 2021.

But I'd rather read lawn machine maintenance articles any day!

jbugj said:

There are Annual Reports for each year since then. Interesting reads. I failed to find much in there about significant drawdowns because of maintenance. I believe that is an excuse some want us to believe for the large drawdown since January 2021.

Click to expand...

From the link:

the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Annual Report for Calendar Year 2016.This report also includes details concerning the physical capacity, type, and quantity of petroleum in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2016, as well as plans for upgrades and major maintenance.

To worry less stop reading outside you normal work area of manuals and docs. Just too much miss information out there. Anybody can make up stuff and have others to believe it as most rather believe lies than the truth.

This why I avoid all the junk news sites and social media posts that I can. Can't worry about something if you don't know about it.

StarTech said:

To worry less stop reading outside you normal work area of manuals and docs. Just too much miss information out there. Anybody can make up stuff and have others to believe it as most rather believe lies than the truth.

This why I avoid all the junk news sites and social media posts that I can. Can't worry about something if you don't know about it.

Click to expand...

When I first joined FB, I subscribed to everything. Including the political stuff. But now, I've deleted & unsubscribed to everything political or had a lot of hateful comments. I've reduced my friends list down to people I actually know. Now it's either animal rescue, jokes or small engine (or Mechanical) stuff. It's a lot better. It's filled with only stuff I want to see. Things that make me smile and puts me in a better mood.
I tried X (Twitter) but there's no way to get away from the politics there.

There you go...Glad you feel a lot better now. Social to me is just too nerve racking.Got enough equipment problems to keep myself wound up lately. Just wish I had some halfway warm and dry days for a week or so. Two major projects at a standstill due weather being cold and wet.

StarTech said:

There you go...Glad you feel a lot better now. Social to me is just too nerve racking.Got enough equipment problems to keep myself wound up lately. Just wish I had some halfway warm and dry days for a week or so. Two major projects at a standstill due weather being cold and wet.

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I hear ya. My JD caught on fire a couple of weeks ago. And been waiting for a day that's above 60 to address it. My knee hates cold weather, and takes it out on me.

Hopefully it not as bad as the one I repaired last run $2200 with to replace bulk front and engine plastics. S180, less than 4 months old at the time. Warranty didn't cover stupid.

StarTech said:

Hopefully it not as bad as the one I repaired last run $2200 with to replace bulk front and engine plastics. S180, less than 4 months old at the time. Warranty didn't cover stupid.

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Oh no. I think it's just going to need a new fuel filter, short piece of fuel line and the fuel solenoid wire.
To make this one run right, I had to put another fuel filter between the carb and the fuel pump. To restrict the fuel flow. I'm guessing the fuel filter got a hole rubbed in it and it spewed onto the muffler.

I'm just guessing though. I haven't really looked at it closely.

hlw49 said:

An tell me again what country you live in that makes you such an authority on the United States of America. Name the one crime Trump has been convicted of. All these charges are baseless false charges. Biden is the criminal in the White House. Selling the Biden Brand to China, Russia. Ukrain and the rest of the world. Allowing a Chines balloon to fly over the US and steal top secret information before he finally shoots it down after it has run it course and is out to sea where the information has probably been ruined but China already has it.

Click to expand...

Rape
Defamation x 2
Witness intimidation
Election fraud ( convicted but is appealing at the moment )
Fraud in NY convicted on all 4 counts but appealing the penalty at the moment
Tax evasion convicted but again appealing the ruling of the 3 supreme court judges so seeking another full bench retrial
Then there is the faked electoral college votes , most of the actual people who signed the fraudulent voting certificates have taken a plea and Trump will be also included in those charges using that weird mobster law conspiracy to committ a crime law whose name I can't remember right now
And the Jan 6th insurection , again already been found guilty but currently not sentence because he is trying the "presidential immunity " plea currently before the US high court .
Is that enough for you ?
Then there were a couple more Supreme Court rulings that he is challenging & demanding a new hearing by the full court in order to overturn the guilty verdicts by the std 3 judge panel

And I am in Australia so I can have a totally objective view because I have no political biases and have not been subjected to the Russian propaganda introduced through fake social media accounts then taken up by the convicted pedophile before he finally got kicked off both You Tube & Twitter .

I can see why Americans voted for Trump in the first place , he already had a TV cult following and presented himself as a non politician business man .
SO when he was elected I thought , great , some one who can run a business is finally in the White House but within a few weeks it was apparent he was nothing more than your typical lying , cheating, stealing real estate agent con man with a god complex .

I do not know the story behind the balloon , but a Chinese spy satellite passes over the USA every 3.5 minutes and the quality of those is good enough to read the cartoons in your newspaper , China has 4 times more spy satellites flying around the planet than the USA does and by the end of the decade will have more than the rest of the world combined . so there are no secrets that balloon could have found out that China did not already know except perhaps the actual amount of atmospheric pollution in the atmosphere above the USA if it has sampling equipment on board .

I try hard not to be insulting because it gets you nowhere but quite frankly hlw49, every thing you post that is about politics , economics & environment are lifted from RT propaganda , Russian talking points designed to create division & distrust within the USA to destroy the USA

PTmowerMech said:

I used to think this way. But it's been 3 years since Biden took office and stopped the "remain in Mexico" rule. And we still haven't had a terrorist attack. So much of this is just fear mongering propaganda.
Agreed, we need to secure the border. But even moreso, they, Trump and Biden both, need to address "why" they come here. And the bottom line is money. (it's always money)

Most Mexicans and South Americans are lucky to make $15 per day. The minimum wage in MX is only $10 per day. (Yes, per day). They can make as much in one day here, as they can in a week there.

The end all solution to this is to address our monetary policy.
Right now, $25hr is a lower middle class wage. (or about that) This is because our currency is over inflated. $25 doesn't buy $25 worth of goods anymore. There was a time, not too long ago, (maybe 50 years) where a person making $8hr could live pretty good. We need to return to that.
Would you rather have $20 that bought $20 worth of goods? Or $100 that bought $20 worth of goods?
It doesn't matter, does it? We're still getting $20 worth of goods.
Where the huge benefit comes is when companies can hire people for $8hr and the employee can be satisficed with that amount, because they can live pretty good on it. Once the wages come down (drastically), so will the prices of everything else. Then those companies can not only afford to expand and hire more people. But also other countries can afford to buy American products. This is how the USA was able to become the manufacturing giant of the world. It wasn't until big spending politicians started over inflating the USD value by ballooning the debt, did US companies started outsourcing so much of our labor.

If $1 USD was equal to 1 Peso, the flood of immigrants would stop. US manufacturing jobs would come pouring back so much so that illegal immigration wouldn't be a problem.
But politicians don't want to solve either of these two problems. They want to keep the problem alive to keep you voting and donating.


If all of this is confusing, I understand. It took me a few years to finally get it.

P.S. I'm not holding my breath for the House, Senate or the president (any of them) to get it either.

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I think you are a bit off course there PT
Wages go up because of inflation
Inflation is an artificial device to ensure the value of the assets of the wealthy do not diminish over time
The other thing it does is reduces government debt over time .

Wall St has bought the government so business earnings & profits skyrocket while wages barely keep pace with inflation
So the rich ge richer at an ever increasing rate while to middle class slowly slide into becoming the working poor

Some of the border crossers are financial refugees while others are escaping repressive regimes or criminal warlords
And again, much of the political instability in South America is directly due to US interference and all of the drug cartels are a direct result of stupid US drug laws creating a massive black market .
I would have thought that after the booze prohibition that created massive amounts of organized crime gangs , the USA would have realised that banning things does
not work , never will work & just creates a black market .
I find it hillarious that in the bastions of the free market economy the conservatives decided that they & they alone know what you can put into your body, take out of your body, who you can marry and how you have sex , not a very free market to my understanding.

If you want to fix the border then you do what Australia has done and jail employers who employ people who have entered the country illegally , ie no greencard .
Our first attempt was to tax the undocumented workers 75% but that did not stem the flow as they simply worked 2 full time jobs + weekends to make ends meet so then we fined the employers and that did not work very well so we jailed a few and that stopped large employers dead .

I had a full shift of over 300 men who were all illegals & paying 75% tax

StarTech said:

To worry less stop reading outside you normal work area of manuals and docs. Just too much miss information out there. Anybody can make up stuff and have others to believe it as most rather believe lies than the truth.

This why I avoid all the junk news sites and social media posts that I can. Can't worry about something if you don't know about it.

Click to expand...

Actually there is at least 1 trustworthy source of news and it is called Ground News .https://ground.news
They have no reporters as such, just fact checkers on stories taken from all of the major world news sources ( including Fox )
Their free service is fairly neutral bias but the paid for is excellent because it will show where each story originated which is one way I know so many stories originate from RT so are strait Russian propaganda ( like the whole Biden-Ukraine story ) .
Their premium service will also list stories according the political bias of the originators & the repeaters plus the credibility rating of the story
To date they have been just about bang on the money

bertsmobile1 said:

I think you are a bit off course there PT
Wages go up because of inflation
Inflation is an artificial device to ensure the value of the assets of the wealthy do not diminish over time
The other thing it does is reduces government debt over time .

Click to expand...

It's just my opinion, but I think you're way off on this. Reduces the government debt over time? In 2000, the national debt was only $5 trillion (I can't believe I just said "only $5 trillion). Now, in just 2 decades it's $34 trillion. And we've had a LOT of inflation since them. So when is the debt gonna come down?

bertsmobile1 said:

Wall St has bought the government so business earnings & profits skyrocket while wages barely keep pace with inflation
So the rich ge richer at an ever increasing rate while to middle class slowly slide into becoming the working poor

Click to expand...

You'll get no argument on who owns our politicians.

bertsmobile1 said:

Some of the border crossers are financial refugees while others are escaping repressive regimes or criminal warlords
And again, much of the political instability in South America is directly due to US interference and all of the drug cartels are a direct result of stupid US drug laws creating a massive black market .
I would have thought that after the booze prohibition that created massive amounts of organized crime gangs , the USA would have realised that banning things does
not work , never will work & just creates a black market .
I find it hillarious that in the bastions of the free market economy the conservatives decided that they & they alone know what you can put into your body, take out of your body, who you can marry and how you have sex , not a very free market to my understanding.

Click to expand...

The US government has never actually fought a way on drugs. They tinker with it.
Drugs and booze kill an enormous amount of innocent people. Not just the druggies and boozers. Ending prohibition created some freedoms. But in turn, those freedoms have killed billions of people in return. People driving DUI. Others robbing and killing innocent people for drug and booze money. If druggies and boozers were responsible people, you'd have a point. But too many of them are not. And when you have that many killed, and the government does nothing about it, what good is the government?
It's like having a terrorist attack and not retaliating.
The innocent victims of druggies and boozers lost more than just their freedoms.

bertsmobile1 said:

If you want to fix the border then you do what Australia has done and jail employers who employ people who have entered the country illegally , ie no greencard .
Our first attempt was to tax the undocumented workers 75% but that did not stem the flow as they simply worked 2 full time jobs + weekends to make ends meet so then we fined the employers and that did not work very well so we jailed a few and that stopped large employers dead .

Click to expand...

We have laws that are supposed to prevent that. The Biden administration don't enforce it. Trump's administration enforced it some. But not near enough.
My idea of solving the immigration issue (through monetary policy) kills a few birds with one stone.

bertsmobile1 said:

I had a full shift of over 300 men who were all illegals & paying 75% tax

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The government doesn't need anymore money. They can't manage what they get now. Taxing people more, even immigrants, creates a black market for labor.

Oh we can't forget that now Trump is claiming on his social media platform that he is God chosen one to run Our country. Yes he actually posted that.

And PT it is us low end tax payers that can't high lawyers that has to pay taxes. Rich guys like Trump can find a way to avoid paying taxes. Like he did recently when he paid only $750 dollars in taxes claiming huge write-offs yet a guy like me had to pay $859 on $6077 of income last year.

And of course companies like close to me that no employment taxes on their employees and still by with it.

StarTech said:

Oh we can't forget that now Trump is claiming on his social media platform that he is God chosen one to run Our country. Yes he actually posted that.

And PT it is us low end tax payers that can't high lawyers that has to pay taxes. Rich guys like Trump can find a way to avoid paying taxes. Like he did recently when he paid only $750 dollars in taxes claiming huge write-offs yet a guy like me had to pay $859 on $6077 of income last year.

And of course companies like close to me that no employment taxes on their employees and still by with it.

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I'm fine with anyone cheating the government out of taxes. Even him. And will remain so until they stop funding so many things that I disagree with.

Like your local law enforcement. Just remember you may just get you ask for and when you need someone to help they just might not be there.

And SS may not even be there when you need it.

Between little government & big government here is a happy medium
When I was in short pants over 70% of the Australian population worked for the government , 5% worked in agriculture 5% worked in retail 10 % worked in the services industry and the remainder in manufacturing ( excluding the government factories ) with an unemployment rate less than 1%
Back then only 1 parent worked 85% of the population owned their own home and a labourers wage could pay down a home loan feed , cloth & educate 4 kids
Since then we have sold off the government banks,airlines, phone company , electricity generations , ports, airports, rail freight , shipyards, railway workshops & defence manufacturing , including aircraft & social housing .
This was done to become a modern efficient small government economy and "reduce the tax burden" on the economy, company taxes are down 15% PAYE tax is down 8 fabulous result over 60 years .
Net result , home ownership down to 68% ( owner occupiers ) absentee landlords up by a factor of 40 , power bills so high the government is forced to regularly make relief payments , 2 university graduates can not save enough to get a home deposit because the absentee millionare landlords push prices way beyond what a normal person can afford , 1/3 of all renters get government rent relief ≈ $ 380 week that goes to the greedy landlords , banks financial institutions & insurance companies just found to all be corrupt and all finned massively , massive subsidies for airlines, airpots all turned into captive shopping malls , phone bills so complicated Einstein would be hard put to work them out , hospital waiting lists so long people fly to the Phillipines or India to have surgeries because they would be dead before a public hospital can get around to performing the surgery , thousands of very sub standard medical staff imported every year because wages are so low you make more money driving a Uber and the hours are better .
When I started out as a graduate, my salary was $ 8,000 /pa and a CEO was on average $ 40,000 ie 5 x base graduate salary
An equivalent graduate now days as a starting salary of $ 70,000 and a CEO in on $ 1,000,000 minimum with most in the $ 10,000,000 to $ 20,000,000 range ie 15 x to 300 x a graduate base salary and these are the people who determine how much I pay for water, electricity, rent etc etc etc .

As for your idea about lowering wages does that come with manditory price drops ?

All I know about wages is that everytime the government raises the minimum wage to help the low end wage earners, they are the ones that get hurt by prices increases.

With the recent tends of minimum wage hikes here I can no longer afford to eat out at the local fast food places. Meals that cost $3 with a drink five years ago are now over $10 and may not even include a drink.

StarTech said:

All I know about wages is that everytime the government raises the minimum wage to help the low end wage earners, they are the ones that get hurt by prices increases.

With the recent tends of minimum wage hikes here I can no longer afford to eat out at the local fast food places. Meals that cost $3 with a drink five years ago are now over $10 and may not even include a drink.

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Minimum wage hikes are just a symptom of the real problem.

Well personally I am getting out of the rat race, then I can make a decent living. Just got my Federal Taxes done and I am not sending the $197.06 payment this year. They can F themselves.

The last half of the last year was done basically at cost and so will this year. So next year it is highly likely I be reporting a lost. Just going to try recover what I have invested currently in parts.

Don't you have something like $40k in parts?

Yelp it is over 46K but they will be sold at cost. Otherwords; I just be getting back what I have already paid out. So the IRS will be losing out on the potential profit taxes since I write off the parts cost as I sell them. So no more trying to sell them at retail which is over 93K. Besides I don't have report a profit but once every five years.


Just sold a battery charger that I just brought for 24.59 for 24.59 plus sales tax. That will keep me legal with my state sales tax people.

Good luck. That is a lot of stock to whittle down. I just stock a couple thousand so I can close the shop fairly easily when the time comes. I turn 66 1/2 in a few months so I can file for my SSA benefit without them penalizing me for making money. At least I will get back some of the money I paid into for 50 years.

Hopefully your are already on Medicare as they will penalize you for the rest of your life if you're not.

Went on medicare at 65. I was paying over 600 a month for insurance from the marketplace from 61 to 65.

Oh that market place acted like they could get me financial help with my insurance. Want a financial statement which I provide where I was netting $300 per month at the time and then they wanted over $900 per month for insurance. I had to do without insurance ever since.

What worst is Tenncare said I making too much to on their program too.

Yeah $600/mo got me a plan with a $7000 deductible. I didn't qualify for a discount.

PTmowerMech said:

Here's a few things Trumps guilty of.

Reauthorizing warrantless spying on Americans. (FISA 702)
Assaulting our 2A (Banning bump stocks) Luckily a constitutional judge deemed it unconstitutional and reversed Trumps ban.
He also stated he was in favor of "take the guns first. Do due process later." <<His exact words
Lying about nearly everything.
Borrowing and spending way more than the government takes in, and helping to create the 8% inflation hike.
Getting US, Mexico and Saudi oil producers to decrease oil production. Decreasing productions always leads to fuel price increases.
Forcing landlords to go without rent payments for a year. (the first covid mandate)
On his last day in office, he gave Fauci an award.
He tried to give blacks reparations to the tune of $500 billion (The Platinum Plan)
He didn't "lock her up." He didn't even try. Even after it was known that she funded the initial stages of the whole "Russia collusion" scandal.

Most of these things should've been impeachable offences. Maybe his idea of protecting and defending the US constitution has a different meaning to him.

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President Trump on Wednesday voiced support for confiscating guns from certain individuals deemed to be dangerous, even if it violates due process rights.

“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence.

“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.

Trump was responding to comments from Vice President Pence that families and local law enforcement should have more tools to report potentially dangerous individuals with weapons. {mosads}

“Allow due process so no one’s rights are trampled, but the ability to go to court, obtain an order and then collect not only the firearms but any weapons,” Pence said.

Don't you just love the way they promise you the moon and then give you a toothpick to reach it?

Yesterday I finally got a call from the TAS about my IRS problem, it only took a lot bitching and 6 months. She started right off lying to me and trying to find excuses. I just told her to do her job and either get the problem fixed or not. Meanwhile I am sending this year's 1040 with no payment. So I am escalating the problem; five years is long enough to fight the problem. Somebody will get fired over this probably.

hlw49 said:

President Trump on Wednesday voiced support for confiscating guns from certain individuals deemed to be dangerous, even if it violates due process rights.

“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence.

“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.

Trump was responding to comments from Vice President Pence that families and local law enforcement should have more tools to report potentially dangerous individuals with weapons. {mosads}

“Allow due process so no one’s rights are trampled, but the ability to go to court, obtain an order and then collect not only the firearms but any weapons,” Pence said.

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"Shall not be infringed."

I get a kick out of these hunting gear ads that pop up, using Trumps face and part of his speeches. I can't wait find one selling a bumpstock, praising Trump.

StarTech said:

Don't you just love the way they promise you the moon and then give you a toothpick to reach it?

Yesterday I finally got a call from the TAS about my IRS problem, it only took a lot bitching and 6 months. She started right off lying to me and trying to find excuses. I just told her to do her job and either get the problem fixed or not. Meanwhile I am sending this year's 1040 with no payment. So I am escalating the problem; five years is long enough to fight the problem. Somebody will get fired over this probably.

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Those SOBs. It took forever and thousands of $$$ to get them off my butt.

Here's a suggestion: Do not escalate anything with the IRS.

StarTech said:

Oh that market place acted like they could get me financial help with my insurance. Want a financial statement which I provide where I was netting $300 per month at the time and then they wanted over $900 per month for insurance. I had to do without insurance ever since.

What worst is Tenncare said I making too much to on their program too.

Click to expand...

They're using common core math.

StarTech said:

Yelp it is over 46K but they will be sold at cost. Otherwords; I just be getting back what I have already paid out. So the IRS will be losing out on the potential profit taxes since I write off the parts cost as I sell them. So no more trying to sell them at retail which is over 93K. Besides I don't have report a profit but once every five years.

View attachment 67585
Just sold a battery charger that I just brought for 24.59 for 24.59 plus sales tax. That will keep me legal with my state sales tax people.

Click to expand...

Are you working out of a shop? Or at your house?

PTmowerMech said:

Are you working out of a shop? Or at your house?

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Can be considered both. But I don't have to make a profit. Or if push comes to shove I will just destroy the parts.

PTmowerMech said:

Those SOBs. It took forever and thousands of $$$ to get them off my butt.

Here's a suggestion: Do not escalate anything with the IRS.

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Why not...Oh I know let them be dictators. They will have to provide my lawyers as I can't afford one. I am through begging them to do something so simple. I just like them try to find the cat they claim I am. I am just as stubborn as they are after 65 yrs.

Just remember those that voted to send 79,000 new IRS agents after us...and don't believe they're going only after 'the rich'.
I know...those same people have other rationalizations why the 79,000 new agents are 'needed'.

Remember, its not your money...you didn't earn it.

jbugj said:

Just remember those that voted to send 79,000 new IRS agents after us...and don't believe they're going only after 'the rich'.
I know...those same people have other rationalizations why the 79,000 new agents are 'needed'.

Remember, its not your money...you didn't earn it.

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There shouldn't be that many IRS agents. Much less new ones.

I thought we were buying American when we bought our Dodge Ram truck. However, the tag on the door frame says "Made in Mexico".

First the IRS can't correct a name on their system how do you expect them to do anything else.

And yes you be surprised were things are assembled.

jbugj said:

Just remember those that voted to send 79,000 new IRS agents after us...and don't believe they're going only after 'the rich'.
I know...those same people have other rationalizations why the 79,000 new agents are 'needed'.

Remember, its not your money...you didn't earn it.

Click to expand...

The problems is electors like offical who stand on a podium and drop figures like
"Last year we issued 250,000,000 summons on tax cheats"
What they don't say is 249,999,950 were for late filings

The plain truth is the people fail to understand it can take years to bring a tax fraud case and then it can take a decade to get it through the courts by which time any funds that could have been recovered are gone .

As we are talking about Trump
2 different valuations on the Florida property
one at $ 18,000,000 as a private residence for the purpose of paying property tax
the other at $ 1,600,000,000 as a gentlemans club for the purpose of collateral for a loan .
So when the NY fraud case is closed the IRS case opens to decide what the property was actually used for and how much tax should have been paid on it .
Now the NY case has been running for 11 years and will finally be settled next week but the proposed $ 357,000,000 fine will not cover the actual cost of the investigations and bringing on the prosecution .
Down here the tax commissioner 2 previous got hammered for accepting a 10¢ in the $ out of court settlement on one of the biggest tax evasions in the country's history.
His justification , even if successful through the courts it would take at least 10 years and by the time a ruling was made the actual recovered amounts would be less than 6¢ in the $ and because they could not freeze all of the assets of associated entities they would be lucky to get that much .

SO it is much easier to fine me over incorrect deductions because I can not afford $ 100,000 / hr lawyers to get me off the hook for $ 5,000 and my assets are not in off shore bank accounts where the government can not access them . And do the same thing to another 1,000,000 and on paper the tax man is doing his job.

Another reason why tax on total turnover makes a lot more sense and is easier to enforce then tax on profits .
And this is every business , company, partnership , church , NPO's everything
Then those who genuinely need tax relief can get grants at the end of each financial year .

Same for people , tax everyone at 30% then give social security benefits to those wth a income below the threshold .
You would be amazed at how many directors or CEO's who get $ 20,000,000 + /year miraculously have no assets come tax time or when they get sued
How could you spend $ 20,000,000 every year and not acquire any assets .
Watch the declared assets of Trump when the defamation settlements are determined in a couple of weeks