buddha

wow dylan larkin

bert, the straw that stirs the drink.

clinton had no choice but enter into nafta and let the chinese into the wto. reagan made him do it.

yes, the republicans in congress face fault too. and now - like lee was alluding to - were stuck. raise rates and the market slows down and people start to panic and then we have to decrease rates again to heat things up. easy money for everyone until inflation goes nuts or the world moves on from the dollar as the reserve currency.

its not an excuse. its an explanation. income inequality in america is not a simple issue. it is extremely complex. and increasing the highest tax rates on income back to what they were pre-reagan isnt going to solve the problem. there are many more factors at play and one of the big ones - maybe THE biggest one - is the fed handing out free money. which is not an argument that this is all bernake's or obama's or yellen's fault, but it is to say that it is probably more important in the immediate rise in upper incomes than anything reagan did. there are plenty if things they can do to transfer wealth to poor people from rich people, but the bigger issues are structural and have more to do with the fed's money policies and the government's lack of pursuit in breaking up big firms and preventing mergers. a more aggressive sec would be a good first step (and not for overhyped "facebook isnt stopping people from saying "false" things garbage) but rather to stop the cycle of big getting bigger and preventing innovation and keeping all the money themselves. biden seems to have taken that step already, which is promising.

its much easier to just blame republicans. fits the narrative better.

way to ruin everyone's day.

no, I'D be the one telling you he IS the man! you would be the one arguing with me about how he started the process of the atlantic slave trade and was mean to africans. or dont you remember our columbus conversations. lol 😉

look, there's no need to be rude, we just disagree about something neither of us will ever know the answer to.

im talking about the rise in differences between upper incomes and lower incomes. the ease of free money and the low interest rates with which businesses and financial firms can borrow money has greatly contributed to the rise in upper incomes. so has the internet. there are other factors as well, but your refrain of "reagan ruined everything" is too simplistic.

federal reserve with 0% interest rates and free money for businesses has more to do with it than anything reagan did.

no you dont.

who do you like in the 6th or 7th spot? cause that's where were picking, lol. /debbiedowner

right, you dont agree with their political views so you call them all stupid and make fun of them. i get it. secondly, no one has any idea what jesus looked like. no one. you can guess, but that's all youre doing. again, you bring this up to mock a stereotype of religious people that you have. that's all.

jesus's relationship with the essenes has been rexamined since the dead sea scrolls and many scholars believe he was influenced by them. john the baptist too.

and you have had a lot more incremental improvements (and huge improvements) in many of those things here than anywhere else in the world. that's my point.

if you think the mindset of exceptionalism - whatever that means - is exclusive to america, i suggest you spend some time elsewhere. you'll find xenophobia, racism, homophobia, and unfettered nationalism exists in lots of places. again, people who constantly bleat about america is the greatest yadda yadda yadda are annoying. but that is not exclusive to america. you just notice it because you live here and youre an american so you know all the flaws in our country. if you lived in portugal you'd be complaining about henry the navigator and all those people saying portugal is so great.

yeah yeah jesus was brown, ha! i showed you, you stereotypical ignorant white southern red neck! you have no idea what jesus looked like. neither do i. all we can do is guess. heck, we know very little about his actual life and never will. you bring this up to make a comment that you think religious southerners who disagree with your politics are racists. got it. but it has nothing to do with jesus or the interpretation of the bible. the bible is such a big book of stories that anyone can take passages from it to justify just about anything. slavery, capitalism, communism, gay rights, gay persecution, whatever you want. how you quote the bible and what you choose to think in it is relevant depends on your world view and what you think is important. like that meme about brown skinned jesus, it says more about you than it does about jesus.

jesus actually hung out with jewish "extremists" in his day. if you're all for supporting religious extremists, let me know. i think its difficult to extrapolate jesus political and religious views to today's politics. both sides do it and neither is really all that successful.

yeah, despite bernie sanders' dreams, the us is not the same as a tiny country in north western europe with a homogeneous population, no immigrants, sitting on a bed of oil, and no military concerns because a big ol' country an ocean away guarantees their safety. well damn. you got me. shit man, why dont you trot out luxembourg to show everyone how poor we are, lol? but seriously, i question whether the "gini coefficient" means much and whether the goal of society should be "everyone must have equal incomes." the us is a great place to be rich and - in comparison to many of its peers - not the best place to be poor. we'll see if the restrictions on immigration and the lack of families having children leads to the us having severe labor shortages. that will likely drive wage gains and might decrease some of the dreaded inequality that worries us comfortably middle class people from the comfort of our keyboards.

so again, your issue isnt with the united states, its with your perception that some americans think were "exceptional." we are "different," not exceptional. that said, its a really nice place to live. not the best, not perfect, not without problems, but pretty good considering everything.

all countries technically have the ability to "fix the problem" of the rich getting rich because of connections and then not transferring that to the poor. but no country has ever solved that issue because all countries are run by human beings. american capitalism is particularly harsh in many respects, harsher than other countries. an expanded social safety net could ameliorate many of those issues. but we are not alone in having those issues, and those of us who live here - yes, even black people - do pretty well compared to other countries. the united states is not a bad place to live.

everyone is on microsoft teams now anyway.

this post says more about your prejudices than it does about christians.

all those issues exist in every country and are not unique to the united states.