Same boat here. The further I move up the less work I do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
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Same boat here. The further I move up the less work I do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
That sounds about right.
But Yoshi assures me that my life is the exception.
THE HEAT IS ON!!!
On the Street
Inside your Head
On every Beat
And the beat's so Loud
Deep inside
The pressure's High
Just to stay Alive
'Cause the Heat is
.
.
.
.
.
On!
Dude, fuckin' a.Quote:
Originally Posted by icarusfall
It's probably gone now (or about to be) but there was this awesome place in West Haven, CT called Nick's. They had these two dudes behind the counter who would have awed Waffle House cooks. It was like a combination of dance/art/muscle memory and it didn't matter if they were making the same breakfast sandwich over and over or if some yahoo broke things up for a bowl of fruit - they were just always moving. All of the Waffle Houses I've been to have been small and cramped, and this place was even more so.
I would think diners in general are that way. The sheer number of dishes the cooks have to know is amazing.
It's not just that, it's that they do it all without tickets.
This has been a nice diversion, but the main discussion was about living wages for fast food employees. I've provided illustration that it's skilled work. Where do you fall now?
I remember training to be a line cook, and the guy training me said that one of the most important things was to to start doing something immediately for every order so you don't forget it. It was definitely not my cup of tea. I'm not a damned octopus.
So you are saying I make a decent amount of money in modern society.Quote:
Originally Posted by GohanX
I don't believe skill (the way you're defining it which seems accurate) has anything to do with wages. Plenty of people make more or less money than society deems reasonable. It's all about supply -- a skilled burger flipper st McDonald's is only ever going to be worth minimum because filling the position is easy.Quote:
Originally Posted by icarusfall
$15 an hour is, what, 32k a year? That seems somewhat reasonable to live off of and is still not glamorous. Paramedics make that I heard but paramedics also get a retirement plan and benefits.
You're just trying to make your self feel better. There are plenty of people making an ass load of money that are easily replaced. Nepatism and halo effect are real things.
I'm not going down a rat hole about what is or isn't skill. The fact remains that however you define those jobs, literally millions of people can do them, so there is more supply than demand. That will always keep the value low, and to try to artificially change that doesn't really do anyone any favors, as explained by multiple people multiple times.Quote:
Originally Posted by icarusfall
edit: The fact that you find value in people with that experience means that some of them are upwardly mobile. That itself will increase their compensation through merit but is not a reason to change what the previous job paid.
And yet I'm sure you can understand how a race to the bottom erodes the economic well-being of the country. Wages have been flat, even sagging for a long, long time, with flagging social mobility and a skyrocketing wealth gap. These are not signs of a healthy economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
We can debate about what the minimum wage should be. There's obviously such a thing as making it too high. But the overwhelming evidence is that it's too low right now, and if you can't ever accept that there's a point at which it can be too low, you really aren't allowed to talk economics to grown ups.
I can go to Union Square and hear some of the best musicians I have ever heard in my life. Doesn't change the fact they are playing for change in a subway station. Skill and earning power are two different things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drewbacca
Your completely unfounded condescension never gets old.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
You started by saying you wanted to beat me up, stupid. Don't dish if you can't take.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
I'm being obnoxious, obviously. You going to get your feelings hurt now? Are you new to TNL?
Your intentional misrepresentations don't either.
Like pretending you don't know what "if/then" statements are?
I don't hate the playa :link:Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
I've never heard you advocate for any kind of of minimum wage increase. How much do you think it should be, Yoshi? I'm genuinely curious.
By your own words the MW is not for the socially mobile. So what does this have to do with the other? What problem are you trying to fix?Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
It's maybe too low in big metro areas but it's probably where it should be in large swathes of this nation. NYC and Seattle are not the entire country.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
The median hourly wage in Mississippi is $14 an hour. The minimum wage is fine where it is there.
I don't think the minimum wage increase in NYC will improve affordability (it'll likely get inflated away) and I think there's a good chance it will hurt employment in those sectors. There are better ways to help people than by forcing companies to pay a rate that is unmoored from the economics of the business.
I don't see this as anything different than supply and demand (and luck, to some degree). While I agree with you nepotism is (largely) bullshit... the son or daughter had the rare supply of a rich, power-abled parent or family member. That's a valuable commodity. Being attractive is valuable in the same way (albeit probably less valuable, because attraction is complex). In a market, everything is a "thing" that has some value.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fe 26
Yeah exactly. People fundamentally don't understand wealth or economics (they see it at solely money, which it isn't). Though I understand the effects minimum wage has on the economy its motivation stands outside market factors, and relies solely in social ones. So what someone "should" earn based on skill is largely irrelevant to the decision process.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
Because allowing people a living wage creates opportunities indirectly. It affords people more agency to better themselves, it promotes commerce, which in turn creates opportunity to service those markets... When people are struggling, they're not contributing all they could, they're not even consuming all they can...Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
I agree that the minimum wage should (and obviously does) vary by region, but just because people in Cambodia can live off $2 a day doesn't mean we want that kind of inequality here.Quote:
It's maybe too low in big metro areas but it's probably where it should be in large swathes of this nation. NYC and Seattle are not the entire country.
Is that a good thing? Raising the minimum wage also increases wages for more skilled jobs. Cost of living's not going to be uniform across the country, but we also don't want third world states that no one can afford to escape, either.Quote:
The median hourly wage in Mississippi is $14 an hour.
I doubt it. Let's wait and see.Quote:
I don't think the minimum wage increase in NYC will improve affordability (it'll likely get inflated away) and I think there's a good chance it will hurt employment in those sectors.
If every single person got the "living wage" don't you think that prices will, you know, go up?Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
You should look at what happened to the Northern Mariana Islands when Congress raised the minimum wage beyond the economic reality of the island. Pro tip, it's not what you are claiming happens. Congress actually voted to skip some of the ladders because it was such a disaster.
https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/fi...oad/ascnmi.pdf
It's just a thing. Cost of living is very low. I don't see high wages in New Jersey as some sort of intrinsic good, when taxes are high, real estate is high, things are more expensive, it is harder to start a business, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
What you fail to see is that the market climate evolves around these things. There are companies that are in Alabama or Tennessee because the costs are low. Raise the costs and the companies leave. Who does that help? No highly paid jobs running App Store incubators will save the day for the people losing their jobs. That mass of unemployed people are not going to see the light and enact New Jersey economic policies (NJ isn't doing so great anyway).
If raising the minimum wage increases wages for more skilled jobs, then the minimum wage reverts to being a poorly paid position doing what it is doing now. Then guys like you are going to trot out these arguments again, without ever stopping to think if the minimum wage is the right mechanism for these problems.
I don't think many would agree with you that being related to money and not being able to get a position via your own achievement is valuable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drewbacca
I'm sure there are exceptions where family might open up rich clients or something similar but more often it plays out like little kings and dukes surrounding themselves with loyal people at the expense of the skill set that is really needed for the job. The underlings carry the nephew or s9n or what have you while he provides nothing. He's just a money and labor aponge. Dead weight.
And for what? Loyalty.
Which is useless if you're attacked. Which you always are in business.
The main thing here is that everyone keeps looking at a "minimum wage" and at a "skill level." The reason some people tend to refer to things as a "living wage" - I say a "base minimum survival cost" - is that we don't look at it as skill-based. Humans are alive. Some are shitty. But they still have a right to live, and for everyone's sake they should have that base minimum. Because their mental/physical health, their education, those same things for their children - it all matters. There are people who can't manage their money for crap and would fuck up even that base minimum thing, of course.
All that said, I think minimum wage should remain minimum. There should be a base income level you don't get taxed at. If that's $32k for a family of four then so be it. Then you can focus on being dissatisfied with your pay, put in effort to move up OR move on.
But the only way to balance that base level is higher taxes elsewhere, and we know where that leads in terms of political arguments. We'll never be able to get past that because, at the end of the day, there's always going to be people who want millions and billions of dollars. So these arguments will just rage on.
Back on topic alert! That is part of Trump's proposed tax plan. I forget what the cutoff is, but there is a level under which there is no income tax.Quote:
Originally Posted by Calliander
That's not necessarily true, because the base doesn't have to be static. 20% of $2 is more than 30% of $1. And that's why it's so important to not make myopic decisions that keep small businesses from being able to hire or, worse yet, force them to layoff people. You know who doesn't give a fuck what the minimum wage is? Someone who got laid off because their former employer was forced to give them compensation that was unaffordable and unsupported by the market, e.g. Obamacare.Quote:
But the only way to balance that base level is higher taxes elsewhere, and we know where that leads in terms of political arguments.
edit: The first number is proposed at $12.6K for individuals and $24K for married couples.
Obviously, but do I think that price increases will cancel out wage increases? No, of course not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
And likewise we can look at what happened to Australia, where it's generally held to have been an economic boon. Like I said at the beginning, minimum wage can be too high or too low. We can have a sane argument about where the sweet spot is, but if someone never/always thinks it should go up/down, it's obvious they don't know what the fuck they're talking about.Quote:
You should look at what happened to the Northern Mariana Islands when Congress raised the minimum wage beyond the economic reality of the island. Pro tip, it's not what you are claiming happens. Congress actually voted to skip some of the ladders because it was such a disaster.
It's weird to just hand-wave away the effects of a minimum wage increase to say "the market climate evolves." Of course it does, but that doesn't negate the impacts either.Quote:
What you fail to see is that the market climate evolves around these things. There are companies that are in Alabama or Tennessee because the costs are low. Raise the costs and the companies leave. Who does that help? No highly paid jobs running App Store incubators will save the day for the people losing their jobs. That mass of unemployed people are not going to see the light and enact New Jersey economic policies (NJ isn't doing so great anyway).
Also, NJ has had decades of shitty corporatists in power, and that's part of WHY we aren't doing as well as, say, California, which has a higher living wage and more progressive economic policy. Minimum wage here is like $8 an hour, which is absurd considering a 1-bedroom apartment is north of $1000 here.
LOLQuote:
If raising the minimum wage increases wages for more skilled jobs, then the minimum wage reverts to being a poorly paid position doing what it is doing now. Then guys like you are going to trot out these arguments again, without ever stopping to think if the minimum wage is the right mechanism for these problems.
Why do you keep voting to give the rich tax breaks and massive advantages over small businesses then?Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Thanks for the link - I didn't recall seeing that in there when I read through initially. It syncs with some of his cryptic campaign trail speeches, though. I don't trust that those numbers are enough but his idea of a plan is just a starting point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
I realize what you're saying here (re: not necessarily true) but I simply can't see the no-tax bracket without raising citizen contributions to the "you're stifling job creation" levels of the 60s/70s or whenever it was really high for rich people.
I'm certainly open to the idea of the money coming from elsewhere, mind you. I just lack the fiscal perspective to see it coming from cuts of various governmental departments and whatnot. But the numbers not adding up for me is not an indication that I added them properly.
That's not what I said. Low cost areas use the fact that they are low cost to attract certain businesses and industries. That's the market climate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
Those businesses and industries hire local people who may not get paid as much but also live in the low cost area. If the fed swoops in and says those low cost areas need to be higher cost then the businesses lose a reason to be there. If they leave then ultimately the people who worked there are hurt.
Jerry Brown can suck his own dick all he wants, but California is doing well because it happens to be where Silicon Valley is. Just like New York City was doing great in 2003 because Wall Street is there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
The Bay Area is basically unaffordable if you're not making $250,000 a year and it has the worst NIMBY problem in the nation. Let's not pretend it's all rosy. A minimum wage isn't going to help that area become more affordable.
Good argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
A race to the bottom on labor helps no one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
Oh come on, now. Minimum wage has ripple effects that raise the wages of jobs that require more skill, but it's not proportional in some way that just cancels the whole thing out. It raises the floor, and the lower levels, but that effect diminishes the further up you go, which balances out some of effects of wealth inequality.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
It's just laughable to be like "Oh well if you raise the minimum wage, those people will still be making less than everyone else." Yeah, no shit, that's why it's minimum wage, but it's still putting more money in the hands of people that are actually going to put it back into the economy rather than hoard it.
Labour is just a small part of the cost of doing business. McDowell's could give there employees an extra buck an hour and pay for that by raising the price of a cheeseburger by a few pennies.
McDonald's already costs too much for what they're selling.
How much of an effect does it have on wealth inequality? If your goal is to reduce wealth inequality you're better off just redistributing. It's why I said all the things you talk about can be done better by just giving poor people money. It doesn't have the distorting effect of mandating wage increases when there is no economic reason to do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
Here's something I found that surveys a wide range of studies, finding a negative effect. The conclusion starts at 124.
http://ftp.iza.org/dp2570.pdf
The thing that worries me is that a sharp increase so obviously incentivized employers to automate that the effects can be quite different from the smaller effects we have seen in the past. In some ways it's quite like the power of unions over time, you can gain a lot of leverage by striking in a factory full of enormous and expensive equipment, not so much if you strike in an Amazon warehouse that is basically a tin can that Amazon can relocate with ease.
We're never going to see free basic income. So you guys can just stop it.
Our economy functions because people are forced to work. Thats the deep secret of the conservatives: most of them would quit their jobs if they didn't have to work.
We could have, but Saint Bernie™ didn't get the nomination so now I have to bitch about socialism on Facebook for the next four years via moronic comics and infographics.
Anyway, wtf happened with Comey, the human giant?
The breadth of reactions to his written opening statement is astounding. Fox News's headline says it "clears the air." Trump's lawyer said the president feels "vindicated" by it. Meanwhile, CNN rolled out its WORLD ENDS font to call it a "bombshell."
Fox is focusing on the part where Comey says he did, in fact, tell Trump that Trump was not personally under investigation. CNN and the like are clutching to the part where Comey said Trump asked him to "lift the cloud" of the Flynn investigation and asked that he pledge loyalty.
That Comey is saying Trump asked him to stop the Flynn investigation seems like a pretty big deal, no? But, then again, if it were, Comey should have (and was perhaps even legally obligated to) report it immediately.
No. Never.Quote:
Originally Posted by Satsuki
Old people need young people to be forced to work. They're terrified of people being able to opt out. Why would anyone work at a Mcdonalds ran by an asshole, making that asshole wealthy, when they could just sit at home and play games on steam and travel a bit?
Deep down, these people see work as a ponzie scheme, and they stop being the guy at the top if others don't buy in.
According to the opening statement he did report it immediately. And I concur that is the biggest deal in there.
I don't want UBI. Something more along the lines of EITC expansion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fe 26
:wtf: How is that a secret? Doing something you don't necessarily want to do because it's the right thing to do is what separates the conservatives from the "do what you want but take responsibility" libertarians and the "do what you want and make someone else pay for it" liberals.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fe 26
I feel really bad for you if the only reason you do your job is because it's the right thing to do and you need the money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
It's nice to honestly enjoy the work you do.
I don't dislike the work, but I sure as hell don't enjoy having 1/3 of my life scheduled for me and putting up with politics and the like. The irony is that the better you get at the work, the less of the actual work you get to do.
You don't want wealth to be too low either, so you're really not. You just want to address the factors that are causing wealth inequality to skyrocket. While inequality of wealth leads to inequality of power and can be a viscious cycle, in general wealth inequality is an effect of other issues rather than a cause.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
But they already are motivated to automate any job that will save them money to do so. And in general a few dollars change in pay rate is not going to be the difference between that being worthwhile or not. More often the automation is working far cheaper than any human could at any wage.Quote:
The thing that worries me is that a sharp increase so obviously incentivized employers to automate
Automation shouldn't be an economic issue. It only is because we're kind of cavemen about it. Automation increases productivity and should be creating wealth, it's just this archaic need to compete for a fictional resource that fucks us up. Ultimately we're going to have to tax the robots and pay for a universal basic income. But that's futurology for now.
Because we're animals with a biological imperative to compete for resources. We literally don't know how to handle abundance, so we create a false scarcity, even when we have the resources and technology to meet everyone's needs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fe 26
Eventually we'll grow out of that, or kill each other or something.
Huh? What are the factors to wealth inequality to you? It's not the goddamn minimum wage being too low. The two primary reasons are technology (automation) and globalization.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
Simple logic says that raising the costs adds to the motivation. You're not talking about one guy's pay but many people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
UBI essentially turns humanity into a species of house pet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
We probably won't live to see it. We're not even talking about the real problem yet: how do we reshape lower tier jobs so people enjoy them enough to want to do them rather than sit at the house?Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
That isn't even on the table. People aren't thinking in those terms. Its light years away.
Whats on people's minds? Either, how do I game the system if I'm on the bottom or how do I punish people for not working if I'm at the top.
The corrupting influence of money eroding the balancing factors once built into our system, mostly. Essentially, we need to make it easier for small businesses to compete with larger ones, and the system is increasingly skewed the opposite way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
Globalization and automation are inevitibilities that should make things better, not worse, if we do them right.
Right, if the cost is in-between the current and new minimum wage, sure. But those cases are obviously outliers. It's not a major effect or raising the minimum wage a few bucks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
In the sense that they are cared for and comfortable rather than suffering in the wilderness, sure.Quote:
UBI essentially turns humanity into a species of house pet.
And your solution to this problem is increasing costs and regulations? Ok.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
No, it's based on ROI. Keep raising costs and it raises the viability of automating these jobs. Remember a minimum wage increase is forever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
In the sense they have no freedom and no functional reason to survive or even exist. Man is not meant to live this way. Remember Cyrus' words at the end of The Histories:Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
Quote:
[2] “Seeing that Zeus grants lordship to the Persian people, and to you, Cyrus, among them, let us, after reducing Astyages, depart from the little and rugged land which we possess and occupy one that is better. There are many such lands on our borders, and many further distant. If we take one of these, we will all have more reasons for renown. It is only reasonable that a ruling people should act in this way, for when will we have a better opportunity than now, when we are lords of so many men and of all Asia?”
[3] Cyrus heard them, and found nothing to marvel at in their design; “Go ahead and do this,” he said; “but if you do so, be prepared no longer to be rulers but rather subjects. Soft lands breed soft men; wondrous fruits of the earth and valiant warriors grow not from the same soil.”
Sure but I'm not arguing it's a good move for the business. Just the relative -- to whom that relation is a rare commodity available that can be exploited. It fits a different aspect of supply and demand, a weird one, but isn't exempt from the system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fe 26
This will change as the need for labour decreases. Probably we'll be old or dead when it happens.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fe 26
Automation is an effectiveness issue. Cost increases are a catalyst to invest in change to stay competitiveQuote:
Originally Posted by Frogacuda
This creates wealth for the owners and the customers. But not the individual contributors in the org (read: employees) who arguably block the progress of development.
Also this is the best discussion topic on TNL in months.
Here's a pretty simple boiling down of the arguments about minimum wage: "I believe if a person works 40 hours a week, they should be able to afford a life." For the purpose of the conversation, let's call "a life": rent in an apartment on the lower side of their median by geography, utilities, food, and the occasional splurge on something like eating out once a month.
Take how we pay for that out of the equation for the moment.
Agree, or disagree?
Most work in this world isn't some valiant, soul-affirming pursuit. It's standing in a spot and picking out chicken gizzards or tightening screws. It's walking around a warehouse and throwing things in a box. Hour after hour, day after day, 5, 10, 20 years at a time. Truly, the soil in which wondrous fruits and valiant warriors grow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
People aren't going to be robbed of some grand, existentially enriching life experience by giving these tasks to machines that do them cheaper and far more efficiently. How dull our imaginations that we claw and howl to hold onto years of mindless drudgery, that we can't imagine whatever people would do without the benefit of it.
This a goddamn fantastically written paragraph.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bacon McShig
You're right, it's not, that's the point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bacon McShig
I agree, but what are utilities here? I've heard people say a goddamn smartphone is a necessity.Quote:
Originally Posted by icarusfall
I also don't want to get in the business of monitoring what people eat and shit, the lobster on food stamp shit from a few years ago made my skin crawl. Just give those working people money and let them make their own choices.
I'd say a smart phone falls in the line of necessity in the world we live in, but I don't want to split hairs on that point.
I agree with making their own choices with what's available.
I'm doing just fine without one, but it's not as though they're a luxury item anymore.
Feature phones have actually made a comeback in the last 2 years or so.
I think Diff has the strongest point here about working poor. If you use social reasons to interfere with the minimum wage, which should be market driven largely as a part of that system and not by social pressure, you're bound to disrupt economies in unintended ways.
Since this is a social movement and idea it's better solved with an actual social solution which is probably redistribution or some kind of government program.
Yup. We'll all just keep arguing about what's going to work, things will stay the same, and the problem will continue. Ahh, how deep the cynicism abyss is!Quote:
Originally Posted by Fe 26
We definitely are not as shitty to one another as we usually are about this particular discussion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drewbacca
There's no need to split hairs. The smartphone argument is dumb for multiple reasons. They are necessities (or seem like such) to us. There are swaths of people without them who get along just fine. But even if that weren't the case, you go to the AT&T store or wherever now, you pick out a phone, they toss 10-15 extra bucks on your bill until the phone is paid off. The basis of the argument is that people are spending $600 or whatever on something they don't need but it's a payment plan now and the people buying smartphones probably do have a legitimate use for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by icarusfall
You want to talk about 10-15 dollars a month that someone doesn't need, look at how people pay for Hulu/Netflix/Spotify.
You don't need a smart phone. Internet and a phone, but you do not need a smart phone. You're being silly because you can't imagine life without privileges.
Having a smartphone is cheaper than having home internet and phone, though.
Maybe. I could do phone and Internet for 60. Maybe less. What's a smartphone? 100 a month with a 2 year contract?
And how much does it really help? It's hard to build job skills on a phone. Harder to type a resume.
What is a person doing to improve their life on a smart phone that wouldn't be better on a home pc?
All this was kind of my point when I mentioned it. What is a living wage? Food, shelter, clothing, electricity, heat, and water are probably the bare minimum that you could get people to agree on. After that it comes down to usual political splits.
The hoods and trailer parks near me sure do have a lot of cars nicer than anything I've ever owned.
Not anymore. I pay $107 for three lines.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fe 26
Why assume that this person has a computer at home?Quote:
Originally Posted by Fe 26
I'd be ok with giving them a computer before a smartphone. Their kids can even use the pc for school.
I have a lot of experience with tech on campuses all across America (and Canada) because of my previous job designing educational technology... many poor kids don't have computers. The poorer schools almost always have computer labs students can book time in to get their shit done.
I am curious — does America consider access to education a necessity?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fe 26
Quote:
Originally Posted by Calliander
They could be leasing or paying a lot of money on a finance plan with the intent of raising their credit score. I don't live in a hood or trailer park but that's what I did.Quote:
Originally Posted by GohanX
There probably isn't any planning beyond, "I want this nice car," though.
Do they even do contracts? When I finally ditched my grandfathered unlimited data plan and when I moved my wife over, neither required one. Maybe I have one and it's just so much the norm now that they don't have to discuss it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh
There isn't a direct answer. Not truly, but we take a lot of care to make it appear that we do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drewbacca
I've been out of contract for, like 6 years. I don't know.
Also, I mention this semi-regularly, but call your phone company, and say you're switching to some other company. They'll make your bill cheaper. If you have not done this in the past 6 months you're overpaying, and it's your own fault.
Definitely. They're pretty crazy about retention. When we ported my wife over to my plan, it was from her mother's plan. So I had to call Verizon, the Verizon guy had to call the AT&T guy, and the AT&T guy had to call her mom. And the AT&T guy was badgering her every step of the way about what he could do to stop the port, even though her sole purpose was to provide her authorization.Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh
Can we talk about how John McCain needs immediate medical attention? His line of questioning was baffling, and he called Trump "President Comey" more than once. Every sentence was labored. It was really sad and uncomfortable to watch.
He claims he stayed up too late watching the Diamondbacks game.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me
At a certain point, "needs immediate medical attention" and "being old" just merge into one thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me
"Lordy, I hope there are tapes" needs to become a meme.
It isn't already?
Honestly, after seeing how well-composed, candid, and straightforward he was during this whole testimony, I kinda wish there was some way Comey could become president out of all this. Dude comes off like James Dean next to the standard Washington schlubbery and canned talking points, it was pretty refreshing!Quote:
Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me
No incontrovertible smoking gun displayed today, as expected, but lots of damning little breadcrumbs and implications dropped. Seems something real juicy was dropped during the closed-door stuff after the public testimony; One of the Rs in attendance had an interview afterward where he was vigorously debating that "I hope you'll drop this" can't possibly be interpreted as "please drop this," but even through that stonewall spin act, he signaled quite clearly that something divulged there was sure to fuck someone's shit up.
If nothing else, I appreciate that Comey repeatedly dunked alllllll up in the face of the marks that keep insisting that "There's nothing there!" with regard to Russia.
But... but... it's all a massive coincidence! Witch hunt! Uh... Bowser did it!!
hillary and her emails drove john mccain to madness/senility, and james comey looks like irl alex krychek
well there's my hot take on the trump dumpster fire news this week
e: because crooked hillary and her emails fiasco happened before the trump administration does that mean mccain isn't covered under trumpcare as per the pre-existing condition clause
STOPPPPPQuote:
Originally Posted by cka
Not related: I saw someone with a bumper sticker today that said "THE LYING BITCH SHOULD ROT IN JAIL" and I was like.....damn dude. anger issues.
Fucking nice. Someone needs to make a GIF of his eyes wisping black.Quote:
Originally Posted by cka
This post is fascinating, given that the only person we know without a doubt did something wrong was Comey, who leaked the memo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bacon McShig
And that was wrong/illegal?Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Nothing.
Here's the thing about Trump, for him, this entire thing is "See, I told you I am not under investigation, totally vindicated". It's always 100% about him. Every single world event or policy or anything is 100% about him. He is the most selfish person on the planet.
This seems like the sort of thread I should be involved in.
But it's no longer 2004. My fightin' gloves are dusty.
Which is a ridiculous stance anyway because his campaign is under investigation, which depending on what they turn up could become an investigation of him personally at any moment (and may very well have already done so in the days since Comey left).Quote:
Originally Posted by Joust Williams
Jimmy, I've missed you. Your blue jeans looked nice at Greg Allman's funeral.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Carter
Jimmy's back!
It was absolutely wrong, since he only did it to get the special prosecutor assigned at great cost to taxpayers, but not illegal. Muller isn't going to find anything criminal, so Comey set a bunch of our money on fire. It certainly made firing his ass the right thing to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by ElCapichan
edit: Don't get me wrong though. Ending Hillary's "career" and then giving way to President Pence would be the absolute best case scenario I could possibly dream up for Trump.
The investigation was going to happen either way, though. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if the only way someone like Pence could have gotten in was if Hillary were to win the D, Trump the R, therefore Trump the whole thing (as opposed to Bernie versus Trump) and then crash out afterward
Illuminati
Jimmy is still eligible for 2020?
Jimmy, as a private citizen, gave copies of his recollections of conversations to a friend. I'm sure if there had been something potentially illegal about doing so, the ex director of the freaking FBI would have known. He said he did it to spark a special counsel investigation, which it did.
Is muller normally paid for by tax dollars? Then it doesn't matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
It's not his salary that's the problem. It's all the additional resources.
How much do you think that's going to cost? A few million?Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
It's a bullshit argument tactic. Wow is us at the waste. The far left think the military is a waste and the far right think this is a waste. And idiots think nasa is a waste. As. If we'd get refund checks for them not wasting money.
Ah, the architects of seven Benghazi commissions bristling at the waste of taxpayer money on something with much further-reaching implications and tons of smoke in the air. Such fair, much balance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
The very conceit that Republicans suddenly took a shine to Russia is a big red flag. Russia's done absolutely nothing to deserve it, their government tramples all over freedom of speech, they've invaded sovereign territory, and Putin's essentially installed himself as president for life. None of this is anything the party of Reagan should be fawning over, saying "Russia sucks" should be a wholly non-partisan statement. Trump becomes front-runner, right at that very moment Russia apologism becomes en vogue for the party, and there's absolutely no possible correlation? Just one big coincidence that a party that is usually an unmovable force on their platforms did a sharp 180 on a platform for no particular reason?
I don't hear you complaining about the costs of all Trumps golf trips which easily cost the tax payer more than Mueller does.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Enlighten me of further-reaching implications than Americans being set up to be killed by their own government.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bacon McShig
Except they weren't.