We're discussing generational shifts in the economy, mostly implemented at a time when a certain generation was in power.

It's not wrong to examine what those people were thinking, and why.

They were the ones who largely brought about the oligarchy that was grown up in this country, since 9/11 or so.

You can take that personally, or take it as blame, but its also simply what happened.

The moral of the story - diversify your news sources.
#9 | Posted by BellRinger

How is that the moral of the story?
How does that get the media to do their job?

You don't know what "moral of the story" means.
It's probably a symptom of not having morals.

"How the Press Utterly Failed Us in 2025"

As a business, isn't most of our free press owned by The Oligarchs?

Travel bans for transgender care, you'd support that right JeffJ?

"stand up to Europe to defend the freedom of speech."

By denying Europeans entry into a country with a First Amendment.

Can I see the math on that one?

Was "travel bans" for how we should ramp up criminalizing abortion, now that it's up to the States, so a woman can't evade State law by going to a different State?

It's interesting, I've seen our beloved high school teacher go from Conservative that hates Trump to Conservative that loves Trump in the span of a decade.

I ask what happened; what changed.

Crickets.

Posts easily falsifiable and patently ridiculous accusations against Democrats (like we see here), gets called out, acts contrite, then does the exact same thing three days later.

There is a part of the brain that Trump tickles particularly in old white people.

Me personally, I think it's the sense of group inclusion part that society used to sort of segregate into existence. Boys didn't used to have long hair, girls wore dresses, that kind of think.

Not explicitly racist and sexist, but nostalgic for a simpler time -- simpler for them by virtue of the racism and sexism that they were blind to as children and acknowledge but won't introspect on as adults. Like the way we can enjoy Mad Men but not actually agree with the politics of that era. They just want things to be their normal, for boys not to have long hair, for girls to wear dresses, and so on.

One thing I'll say about transgender people.

The earlier you transition, the easier time you'll have passing as your identified gender.

I know one trans woman fairly well; it's basically a dude with big tits.

She would be a whole lot more "ladylike" if society had enabled this individual to be themselves as a child.

Based on the homophobic comments from people who deny trans existence, I see it as some kind of Munchausen thing.

It's pretty much just straight guys who use gay as an insult who have a problem with trans existence. Those straight guys are worried they'll sleep with a really hot chick who was once a man, and that makes them gay.

It's obviously not public safety or safety of children they're worried about, seeing as they voted for a child rapist for President.

"regulation would only apply to minors"

Do we have stats on minors who killed themselves with firearms, where did they get the gun?

I bet Republicans made it illegal to research that.

"uninsured motorist"

We went from "motorcycle rider without a helmet" to "uninsured motorist" so quick, think I missed a step!

Another example is smoking. Smokers die sooner and cost less, compared to non smokers. Even with lung cancer factored in.

So if the only metric is economic, we should want people to transition, because supposedly people who transition have a higher suicide rate, and that saves a ton in downstream health care costs.

You and I pay for the uninsured motorist. That's always been a fact.
#161 | Posted by Danforth

I'm not actually sure it's more expensive though.

Motorcycle crashes tend to be more fatal when you're not wearing a helmet, right?

Like in war, a dead soldier takes one combatant off the field. An injured soldier takes two able bodied soldiers off the field to tend to the wounded.

I doubt it's a big swing either way, with maybe 1% of MVA involving a motorcycle.

"(all between 20-28) are in the 80%"

I'd expect most are, at that young age, and in this "Since 1975" death throes of Capitalism age.

Riders without helmets cost the public indirectly, via insurance premium increases.
#159 | Posted by Danforth

But that's not a public-as-in-government cost to bear.

Helmet laws illustrate that there's a trade off between the State's desire to reduce public harm, and the individual desire to enjoy life as they see fit.

Similar trade off existed with Roe. Past a point, a mother's liberty and freedom gives way to the soon-to-be-a-person inside her.

But with gender, I haven't even seen the data downside that justifies the State to intervene.

Okay but now we're back to reminding Boaz that individual charitable contributions are no substitute for a functioning economy.

"Now, it's bigger than I told you."

He's still talking to the beautiful and cute eight year old girl.

"Male Gen Z voters are breaking with President Donald Trump and the Republican"

They'll be back, as soon as their first date with a woman turns out to be a woman with a penis.

Unless...

Mmmm, that's good Lawfare!
--JeffJ

This is a data driven discussion being hijacked by people for their own reasons.

Data driven?
Here's some data:

A child changing gender neither picks America's pocket not breaks America's bones. What rationale can the state put forth preventing someone from performing an action which causes no injury to anyone?

Seat belts. Helmets. Illicit substances. Firearms. Increasingly, food and/or ingredients. Property uses. Construction codes...

Seat belts and helmets demonstrably save lives, so there's a public good to be realized there. However even that is not universal, many states let you ride without a helmet and I kinda don't see the problem there, do you?

Illicit substances are a holdover from Prohibition, but do also harm others; that's why we're at war with Venezuela. Applied to food that's why we have the FDA. Spoiled food harms others.

Firearms are only a right because of a legal peculiarity. Any data driven discussion of firearms would quickly determine a legitimate basis for regulation, as seen in every other modern country.

All of your examples, except seat belts, are examples where government is protecting unsuspecting individuals and innocent bystanders from harm. As for scope, about 100% of us will ride in a car at some point, most of us will be in a car crash at some point. Unlike changing genders which applies to a very small few.

That's not the case with changing your gender. There's no third party the State can advocate they are protecting here.

And guns is a great example. Far more suicides by gun than other method, but we don't effectively regulate that. So why regulate the far fewer number of people who want to transition?

What is the state's justification for seizing that liberty and denying that freedom?

It's okay if your answer is "I don't know" because that's my answer too.

I'd like a good data driven narrative to curtail freedom, before curtailing it. Like I did with seat belts and stuff.

"Blame games are for children."

Biden's Fault, or Obama's fault?

"You're leaving out the folks who have no kids, and will be giving the money to other households."

Sure, that's certainly a thing that happens.

Could still be a zero sum game, though, as that household goes away when the parents go.

What portion of total household income is gifts? How much of it is gifts to the bottom 80% of households? Point I'm making is, I get a check from Santa in my stocking, but I'm not in the bottom 80% of households.

As we all say to Boaz, when he says it's not governments job to do charity, individual wealthy families don't have the power to right a structurally, systemically unsound economy.

"I bet you don't know who shot and killed President Garfield."

Charles Guiteau, which is a name I know from "The Ballad of Charles Guiteau." Which is an old Americana tune. I have it on a compilation from some Ohio folklore society.

Not "The Ballad of Guiteau" from the recent musical.

It's very on-message for Americans to not know the names of the people who killed our Presidents:

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people, and I believe that so fervently I can't make half the people who used guns to kill the President!"

how close were we to a 0% uninsured rate?
#166 | Posted by eberly

Red states refused Medicaid Expansion, at least at first.

So those are the states that are farthest away from 0% uninsured.

As you're aware, Republicans just recently refused to continue Obamacare subsidies.

So you'll get a "real numbers" answer to your question on Jan 5.

We're all looking forward to rubbing Republican faces in Republican feces when that happens.

Not that Republicans learn from having their failures pointed out to them.

But maybe this time they will. Never give up hope!

I'm not sure when it was I pulled that ladder up against you.
#13 | Posted by Zed

But you can see the hole where the ladder used to be, right?

"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households."

And you can look at the graph of productivity vs wages, and see the same effect. Productivity keeps going up, wages have been relatively static for fifty years.

Boomers used to say "a rising tide lifts all boats."

Boomers seem acutely unaware that it hasn't been that way for two or three generations now.

I'm guessing, the poor ones didn't notice much change. And the rich ones are papering over the structural failures in society by simply giving money to their kids, which addresses the problem at an individual level, but still limits wealth gains to 20% of households.

Boomers end in '64-ish. Thiel and Musk are definitely Gen X. Like Kavanaugh. They're early Gen X.

The way to divide Gen X is, what video game console did they have at home as kids. I was born in 71 so my neighbors had Atari. Whereas JPW might be on the Nintendo portion of the spectrum.

"cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion"

Sounds about right.

The cost of the Iraq War was projected to be around 4 trillion, before it started. As I recall, half of that was future health care costs for Veterans.

Not projected to be $4T by Republicans, though. As I'm sure many of us recall, Republicans said stealing Iraq's oil would pay for the war, which is something the oil companies wouldn't let Republicans do, funny how Capitalism works like that

Can we ALL agree that this level of fraud is objectively bad?
#154 | Posted by BellRinger

I dunno.
Can we all agree the fraudsters are in prison?

"Yes, of course we start with the fraudsters. We also have to look very closely at how they were enabled to commit this degree of fraud/theft."

I dunno.
Are you saying that hasn't happened?
If so, I'm saying you're a liar.

We're still not addressing the real issue that is in play here, not from the perspective of science, or medicine, but freedom and liberty.

If a child doesn't want to transition, who gets to assign their gender? The State, the Parents, the Doctors, or the Child?

If a child wants to transition, the child's parents are supportive, and the medical community is amenable. Who gets to decide if that child can do that: The State? The Parents? The Doctors? The Child?

A child changing gender neither picks America's pocket not breaks America's bones. What rationale can the state put forth preventing someone from performing an action which causes no injury to anyone?