Trump becoming presidential

[Coronita]

just build the damn wall and move on…people are going to end up digging under it anyway . China built one a long time ago.

Call it the Great Wall of America.

[spdrun]

Call it an anti-Cartel Protection Rampart, but make sure the guards’ rifles face north.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall

“GDR authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart”

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=The-Shoveler]”Hate him as much as you do, but my prediction is Trump is going to win a second term for 2 reasons.”

1) No Stupid wars.

2) Peace and prosperity are worth something.

Other than that I think the guy is actually nuts too.[/quote]

Ha! The deplorables are the idiots who wanted to go kick ass in Afghanistan and Iraq. They were so proud of America went they watched shock and awe on TV. It was like a patriotic Hollywood movie to them.

Then, when we started losing they began to regret. Remember the Freecom Fries dude? He had a change of heart big time.

And Trump, just like the deplorables can’t admit defeat and eat humble pie. Yeah, right, we won and beat them badly, Trump says. Sure. The way I see it, Bin Laden won. We went on a costly ill-conceived war on terrorism, we lied to our people, we subverted our values. We were so fixated on the Middle East that we allowed a resurgent Russia, a dominant China. And America is now in decline.

Ask yourself why we have stupid wars. It’s because deplorables are military idol crazies. When you idolize the military, it follows that you end up with stupid wars.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=The-Shoveler]What the heck do LED lights have to do with anything LOL?

Seriously I get them for less than a dollar each these days.
[/quote]

So fast we forget the lightbulb freedom of choice act. That was the rallying cry of the deplorables.
Rush Limbaugh was railing that the government was going to force consumers to buy $20 LED bulbs, so better stock up on incandescent, he advised his whackjob listeners.

I know some nutcases who went out and bought 5 gallon flush toilets before CA mandated 1.6 gallon flush toilets. True that, at first, the low flow toilets didn’t work that well. But the new toilets at 1.28 gallons now work perfectly fine. The deplorables apparently don’t believe in innovation or economies of scale.

https://youtu.be/LEZE7T8-8UQ

‘New’ law requires homeowners to retrofit with water-saving toilets, faucets

‘New’ law requires homeowners to retrofit with water-saving toilets, faucets

Or the air-conditioner SEER ratings… the deplorables wanted to keep low efficiency standards instead of better products. Really? They have to be nuts. I’m enjoying my LED lights, electric car and efficient AC and appliances. They provide me comfort, convenience and savings. What’s not to like?
https://www.nrdc.org/media/2004/040116

I love the Green New Deal. But…. we likely won’t have it but China will. Then the deplorables will bitch about China when China owns the products and markets.

[The-Shoveler]

LOL America is not in decline.

[spdrun]

National debt tops $22 trillion. $6 trillion of that is money thrown away in the Middle East and Afghanistan since 9/11/2001. Another few trillion is probably money thrown away by predatory “War on Drugs” law enforcement and imprisonment. Imagine how great we could be if we spent money on things that are actually useful to Americans instead on killing and jailing people.

America may or may not be in decline, but it falls short of its potential due to militarism, corruption, and authoritarian culture.

[outtamojo]

Prosperity has always been a debatable item but imo its worth noting that national debt,household debt are at record highs while late auto loans just set some kind of record.

[Coronita]

Recently, my kid in social studies is studying the Roman Empire ..And as I predicted, the assignment was compare and contrast the fall of the “Roman Empire to the United States.” Is the US doomed to the same fate as the Roman Empire. And then my kid asked are we going down the same way the Roman empire did?

I chuckled … This is the same assignment I was given when I was roughly her age and that was back in 1992, when folks were predicting the same decline of the US and the US would eventually blow up in 10-20 years.. Coincidentally, during the time during the Savings and Loans crisis that left many people foreclosed on and jobless and the economy was in tatters and the outlook extremely negative, especially in SoCal when the aerospace industry vaporized more or less….

I told my kid about all the positive things about the US, how we are still around, and how a percentage of the population are doing just great, our family being one of them, unemployment being at an all time low, innovation after innovation..

But I left the remark that if you want an easy A on the essay, it’s far easier to be negative and argue we are going down like the Roman empire did, even if you don’t believe it….But I am pretty sure 20 years from now, your kids will get the same assignment and we will still be here….

Extreme Pessimism, I explained, is a great seller for academic exercises and for getting easy A’s on research projects in academia…Because many of the leaders in academia are grumpy old farts that want to be correct with their predictions… That’s why they stay in academia instead of working in the real world….But that’s not how the shit works in the real world. In that’s been proven time after time again….after every recession. You have winners and you have some losers. try not to lose…lol.

I think the people that really got left behind were the ones that bought into all that negativity AND bet their financial future on the doomsday scenario….lol….

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=The-Shoveler]LOL America is not in decline.[/quote]

If you’re so sure, don’t worry about China. We are worried because we are in decline.

America as a whole is still great but but as a percent of global GDP, we are in decline. That’s the biggest factor. Militarily, on a PPP basis, China is catching up quickly and has surpassed us in some areas.

We may be innovators in basic research for now, but that becomes public domain quickly. Any qualified student can go to the top universittiea and learn. That’s called learning, not spying. We no longer own all the commercializarion of innovation.

Just go to the best college campuses. The kids of deplorables ain’t students there. Go to any tech company. What is the percentage of foreign born employees? They are global citizens more than Americans. They are part of the global elite.

[The-Shoveler]

No one is forcing you to live here, you are free to leave anytime you want.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=flu]

I think the people that really got left behind were the ones that bought into all that negativity AND bet their financial future on the doomsday scenario….lol….[/quote]

You can make money anywhere.

Here’s an anecdote for you. I have a friend from panama who married a military dude a couple decades ago. Son is now in college — community college.
She wanted her husband to invest in housing in Panama, but hubby thought that nothing is better and safer than USA. 25 years ago $100k USD was big money anywhere in the world. Not anymore.

The bothers, sisters, cousins and friends back in Panama invested in booming deal estate, prospered, and are now much richer than the Ameirican GI. They now ridicule my friend for marrying an “uneducated” enlisted American. Socially, my friend is now one step below. The Panamanian cousins speak English, go to university around the world while the American kid, who doesn’t even speak Spanish, follows on this father’s footsteps to community college.

My friend regrets marrying her husband because she’s educated and she grew intellectually while her husband stagnated. She’s pretty, worldly, while the husband devolved into a fat ass grumpy old man living paycheck to paycheck like most Americans. The sad part is that their son is a low education deplorable in the making, because of the dad.

Look at Panama City, Panama today, and compare to Panama City. Florida were the rednecks still think they are greatest.
https://www.google.com/search?q=panama+city+panama&prmd=minv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3rOmzrbngAhX9HjQIHZimCr0Q_AUoAnoECBEQAg&biw=1024&bih=666

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=The-Shoveler]No one is forcing you to live here, you are free to leave anytime you want.[/quote]

I am now a proud metropolitan elite as the Brits put it. I don’t have anything in common with the Trump deplorables. I’m sad for America that rather than helping our fellow citizens gain knowledge and education, we are enabling their basest most deplorable instincts.

Nationalism is destroying western civilization from USA to Europe.

[Coronita]

If people actually lived elsewhere an extended period of time, they would appreciate what America still has to offer versus just about everywhere else. Folks that don’t understand are entitled spoil brats that haven’t experienced what corruption and extreme government is.

People that routinely say how much better Europe or in a third world shithole is, but still remain in the US, gloss over the fact that they still are here because, despite everything they bitch about, their economic well being and freedom to complain is still better here in the U.S than anywhere else. Otherwise, they would have left a long time ago. These folks can’t dance around that fundamental fact. They are just unappreciative of what they have. It’s really the same thing as those that complain about how liberal and horrible California is, but have yet to leave the state.

See BrianSD(FlyinHi), you and NeetaT are have a lot in common, more than you think! Lol…

[FlyerInHi]

I don’t have anything in common with Trumpitas.

I bitch because I see what other people do well and I want it too. I don’t sit around bitching about others while at the same time claiming we are greatest and don’t need to change. That’s totally illogical.

Another anecdote for you, flu:
[quote=flu]
I think the people that really got left behind were the ones that bought into all that negativity AND bet their financial future on the doomsday scenario….lol….[/quote]

The biggest lost opportunity and doomsday scenario is China.

For anyone who doesn’t know, architecture in USA is a thankless job, Kinda like adjunct professors.
I have an architect friend who left a shit job in San Diego working on strip malls for Hong Kong. At that time, HK returned to China and news articles were claiming that even the lamp posts were leaving. Fast forward to today, the guy is working on big projects in Shenzhen, projects he could only dream about in USA.

The world is changing…. we are not greatest at everything anymore. And if we don’t open our eyes and acknowledge it, we will decline faster.

By decline, I don’t mean going down the shithole, I mean in relative terms. It’s like, at one time, Clairemont was the shit neighborhood in San Diego. But after they built Carmel Valley, Clairemont became a relative shithole, relatively, because the world changed and you need for change with it.

[spdrun]

flu — what is “extreme government?” You know, the US locks up the largest number of people (proportional to population) of any “free world”/”developed” country, yet it claims to be free. I’m literally in grad school in the US to make myself more marketable to foreign Ph. D. programs — I plan to cut and run as soon as I can.

Germany is great. I won’t have to worry about college funds for my kids there, since higher ed is nearly free. They have beautiful, fast, amazing trains that are relatively cheap to ride. Their culture is much less prudish than the US, I can enjoy the beach on my own terms, if you know what I mean.

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