mtutiger

Boomers are mostly still alive, still buying houses, still shopping in stores and ordering goods on Amazon. They will soon get older and require more in home and in patient care, which will demand more people to provide those jobs and services. At least until the huge age services drag comes. If the answer is to further restrict immigration, throw out hands up in the air and say "it is what it is", we need to be honest that answer may come with higher costs and a reduction in quality of services across many industries and fields.

Obviously - the issue is that, again, the policy we appear poised to pursue seems likely to exacerbate the problems. Maybe I haven't been clear enough, but this is the point I'm driving at. The direction we are heading in immigration wise will make things worse on that front IMO

It's a pretty clear driver of it... G2 makes good some decent points, to be clear, but I don't think we can have an accurate conversation about this that doesn't acknowledge that there is a demographic cliff that we are facing with boomers exiting the workforce. In the context of this last election and what the voters signaled on inflation in particular, it seems pretty critical to maintaining an acceptable level for prices of goods for there to be enough workers to backfill those who are heading for the exits. And to me, there's a fundamental tension between this and what this administration is signaling in how they plan to pursue immigration policy (to put it mildly)

You would agree though that more people are retiring than are currently coming into the workforce, correct?

An AfD supporter literally just attempted one two days ago.

The irony is that the election probably turned more than anything else on inflation (even more than immigration). And there's a fundamental tension in giving the people what the want on both immigration and inflation / the economy.

I think this misses the mark or, at the very least, is an overly broad characterization that might not apply in all cases... Again, within the context of the construction industry, it isn't that companies aren't able to find domestic Americans willing to work, they do. And it isn't necessarily that they aren't paid well - where I live, they are (career earnings can far exceed mine as a Licensed PE, union healthcare as good or better, etc.). I don't think it's pay or compensation that is causing this - it's the demand for projects / infrastructure far exceeding the existing labor force. And it's exacerbated by a larger pool of workers being in the verge of retirement (ie. boomers) and a much smaller cohort (currently Gen Z) being expected to replace their existence. That's a math problem, simply put. As someone on the engineering side of this, I'm always up for complaining about contractors and management, and would gladly say they are wrong if I felt they were. But they aren't here IMO...

One of the big issues with the immigration debate in this country, and why I do not expect it to be solved any time soon, is that there is a real breakdown on what the problem actually... is. Before getting into the actual debate, there's the enforcement piece. I agree with that, have long felt Biden dithered way too long (into 2024) to actually deal with it. Most Americans (if polls are to be believed) feel this way as well. But with respect to the actual debate, is it limited to just border crossings and who cares about the status quo? Or is the problem that, because the process to actually get into the United States is onerous and years long, policy is *causing* this crisis to occur? Or, from more of the Stephen Miller perspective, is the problem that we have immigration at all? My perspective comes a lot from the industry I work in and talking with contractors... The average age in labor and trades (at least in our geographic area) is somewhere in the mid to high 50s. That's really really high. And there aren't people to backfill these roles currently. It's not even that there aren't domestic kids entering the trades, there are, it's that the demand combined with the attrition just overpowers those numbers. So how do you fix that? I'm not sure how you do that doesn't involve streamlining immigration, even if that is uncomfortable for some

Because the AfD and their supporters are also extremists, just with different characteristics / viewpoints? Ever heard of horseshoe theory? By the way, this is the same party who had a leader out there offering up apologia for the Waffen-SS... Last I checked, those guys were not above terrorism.

There is no strategy here...

To this end: Are they still "on to something"?

Do you think they're "on to something" here? German far-right AfD in disarray after Nazi remark

Good example of the issues that come with the "just blame the Democrats" strategy.... especially when Donald Trump continually goes out and does **** like this: There's probably a not-insignificant amount of Americans who probably think Trump *is* the President at this point lol

That isn't the framing I am seeing thus far, for what it's worth.

Four points: If a party can't get to a majority with their own membership when they hold a majority in the House, it's on them to find alternate paths (ie working with the other side). This crew has not chosen this path.... so they own this. Full stop. Because government shutdowns tend to hit programs that hit Democratic interests, Republicans frequently try to jam Ds and force them to accept terms that aren't otherwise ideal in order to prevent shutdowns or end shutdowns... the political reality we are living in suggests that assumption by Rs (that Ds will just fold) no longer holds. At least in my lifetime, in every government shutdown (starting with the 1990 one), the party that was blamed was the Republican Party... in large part because (with the exception of 1990, which was more of a Newt Gingrich vanity exercise), they all started with GOP Congresses. At the end of the day, the purse is Congresses job, and their responsibility. Combining Points 1-3 with Trump and Musk intervening in a high profile way on this, it's hard to see history changing should we have a shutdown here....

Watching the WGN 10:00 pm news tonight, while reporting on the bill going down after Musk and Trump's criticism, the anchor (Ray Cortopassi) dryly reports that Elon Musk " who, isn't elected to any office..." That's the good **** there.

Elect a clown, get a circus..... News at 11

There are risks, and generally am skeptical of big contracts, but he'd be worth backing the truck up for. With the Red Sox and Yankees in the mix, there's real challenges even if they are aggressive with him though.

For perspective, the Toronto Blue Jays, based on their latest Forbes valuation, are worth C$3 Billion - so we are talking about a total investment yearly that is less than half of the value of Canada's MLB team. So very much a drop in the bucket in terms of Canada's federal budget, correct.

If Trump doesn't want to be treated like a vassal of Elon Musk, he could probably start by not having Elon Musk involved in every intricate little public policy detail and every public engagement that he does as President-elect and, eventually, President. Incredibly predictable though... deep down, Trump has always been a beta.

"Surrender Pronto, or We'll Level Toronto!"

He's going to have some bite in areas where he has room to maneuver outside of Congress (namely tariffs and immigration), but the Margins in the House are incredibly narrow.... it's going to make governing really really hard, at least for the next two years.

I don't even know how much of a hot take it is at this point, but I think the chances they upgrade (via free agency or trade) at 1B are way higher than 3B at this point.

I've pretty consistently been skeptical of tariffs. On both this iteration of the board and the last Sorry if ideological consistency is inconvenient for your whataboutism.

Biden engaging in dumb policy quite obviously does not absolve Trump for engaging in even dumber policy.