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Nov 2023 Mod notice:


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In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#270601: Feb 8th 2019 at 2:27:30 PM

You've also got to ask "why would people put into law that one of the primary goals of a company is to pass profit to investors over other considerations?" followed by "and why didn't anybody worry about the knock-on effects a little more?".

That law creates a culture...

Along with other laws *cough* Citizens United *cough*.

You didn't build it (this means what it means: the culture also built the conditions that allow many billionaires to behave in ways that negatively impact others on their journey to become billionaires).

Edited by Euodiachloris on Feb 8th 2019 at 10:30:47 AM

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#270602: Feb 8th 2019 at 2:34:53 PM

While it takes a lot of hands to make a company, it makes sense that the company itself would primarily profit the one running it-not specifically because they deserve money per se, but because of the nature of what a company is. This isn't necessarily exploitation (certain practices can be), so much as mutual benefit.

@wisewillow: The thing is that all people exploit each other and the nature of making stuff tends to result in exploitation. You have to weigh good against bad here, too. It's not like companies don't use money to help people either, and society depends on the products they make.

@Ultimatum: To be fair, I bet I can find abuses by Microsoft, even if I think the company and Bill Gates are a net positive for humankind.

Leviticus 19:34
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#270603: Feb 8th 2019 at 2:42:14 PM

Jeff's blog goes into full details over the blackmail plot,fair warning it does have descriptions of the photos he was being black mailed with

Edited by Ultimatum on Feb 8th 2019 at 10:42:29 AM

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Kayeka (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#270604: Feb 8th 2019 at 2:43:17 PM

[up][up][up]Well, shares are sold under the assumption that the company will attempt to increase the value of said shares. Like pretty much everything else in finance, the entire system runs on a degree of trust. If companies can just take the money and spend it all on bowling alleys for their employees and stop producing profit, that trust in the system disappears real quick.

Punishing a company for failing to make a profit would be positively draconian. So instead they get punished if they fail to try.

Of course, the ruling was made under the assumption that companies creating profit is always a good thing, which I believe many of us would agree is faulty. "Capitalism is having the worst possible people do the worst possible things for the betterment of all", as a smart person I can't find once said.

Edited by Kayeka on Feb 8th 2019 at 11:43:28 AM

Oruka Since: Dec, 2018
#270605: Feb 8th 2019 at 2:50:12 PM

The problem is that structure itself. Like Fighteer said, it's a kind of Monopoly Rent. "So you want to help people by providing a useful service, you say? Live out a meaningful, productive exustence? What's that? You don't have the independent wealth or networks or coordinating to make it happen? Well, fear not! I will provide you the means to produce, in exchange for a cut of the wealth you make. How large a cut? Well, that depends on how many people there are out there that want to do the same thing as you. It has nothing to do with how much wealth you make; it's all about how replaceable you are. I get to choose whether you get to do this or not. I hold the power you need. So? How badly do you want to do this?"

You see the problem here?

[up]Strawman. Selling the product cheaper. Paying the employees more. That's what it means to lower profits for the good of the public.

Edited by Oruka on Feb 8th 2019 at 2:52:46 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#270606: Feb 8th 2019 at 2:58:05 PM

[up]A publicly traded company would have to make a really strong case to convince their shareholders that doing this won't screw over their investment. As in "by lowering prices a certain amount we'll actually increase profits by encouraging sales!" and "offering higher wages will boost employee productivity and draw in more qualified hires!"

This is easier said than done, especially since investors tend to be very skittish.

[down]There's that too.

Edited by M84 on Feb 8th 2019 at 7:00:23 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#270607: Feb 8th 2019 at 2:59:12 PM

@Oruka: Not necessarily. A company that sells a product at too high a price or pays its employees too little will usually find themselves with less employees (especially less productive ones) and nobody wanting to buy a product. So market forces do regulate this in most circumstances. These are not entirely adequate, but are important to consider.

Leviticus 19:34
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#270608: Feb 8th 2019 at 3:04:01 PM

A lot of America's problems would be solved if they could restore the power of unions and collective bargaining.

Reagan gutted that, though.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oruka Since: Dec, 2018
#270609: Feb 8th 2019 at 3:07:53 PM

Who gets to decide what 'too high' or 'too little' is? The normal trend is for companies to monopolize, by either assimilating or eliminating competition, and by regulatory capture. The incentives are set up so that this is the rational goal.

Once they have cornered the product's market, they'll sell it as high as they want. Once they have cornered the market for the job to make that product, they'll pay the employees no more than what is needed for them to come back the next day and be willing and able to do their job.

If their survival depends on it, if they're terrified by debt and a long line of unemployed folks with the same skill eagerly waiting for their position to open up, you'd be amazed the shitty, shitty deals people will take.

Edited by Oruka on Feb 8th 2019 at 3:09:23 AM

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#270610: Feb 8th 2019 at 3:10:08 PM

That is the case....for some companies.

However, the inevitability of corruption in the capitalist system is not quite as inevitable as a lot of people believe.

In part why the communist vision of the world never came to pass.

(That and it overestimated their own capacity for lack of corruption)

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#270611: Feb 8th 2019 at 3:11:19 PM

A company that sells a product at too high a price or pays its employees too little will usually find themselves with less employees ... and nobody wanting to buy a product.
And the fact that this is not happening in several major industries is precisely the problem.

Oruka Since: Dec, 2018
#270612: Feb 8th 2019 at 3:17:12 PM

[up][up]You think the New Deal would have happened without the overwhelming popularity at the time of Socialism as an alternative model?

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#270613: Feb 8th 2019 at 3:22:24 PM

I think the New Deal happened for a lot of reasons, not the least being the irony of a Blue Blood aristocrat wanting to make his mark on history the same way his uncle did.

Also, I'm a firm believer the Businessman's Plot was real and helped cripple resistance to it.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#270614: Feb 8th 2019 at 3:32:25 PM

Well, the thing I find amusing about AMI's Morporkian act of suicide when they walked into The Post's pub of choice and tried to threaten the landlord...

Is that they followed the age old pattern of checks and balances: sometimes, the hammer of the law needs a tweek, and it's only when habitual bad practice takes a pot shot at a victim with lot of wealth to throw at the indignity that the practice of law get changed to benefit everybody else.

Because, make no mistake: what AMI attempted to do to Bezos reeks of "standard procedure". An effing lawer put his own name to this "negotiation", in full confidence that this was how the system works! Because... it has been working like that. Most other people do not have the bull-headedness, but most importantly, the funds, to effectively answer back.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Feb 8th 2019 at 11:48:42 AM

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#270615: Feb 8th 2019 at 3:35:30 PM

I think the primary reason the New Deal happened is simply because the crash of '27 completely crushed people's faith on the then liberal model.

More to the point, one can say the existence of Communist hurt people in the long run, as the fear of it is still used as an argument to stop welfare and the like here in the Americas.

Oruka Since: Dec, 2018
#270616: Feb 8th 2019 at 3:48:41 PM

The spectre of Revolutionary France's Terror was used to fearmonger against liberalism throughout Europe during the Nineteenth Century. Liberalism still won out, because equal rights before a constitution, and increased participation in government decision making, was objectively more competitive, and better at making wealth. It's still got a lot of room for improvement.

There will always be boogiemen. You just need to point out the worst mistakes and misdeeds of those using the label you want to smear, and present that as all that the label is, means, and leads to.

Edited by Oruka on Feb 8th 2019 at 3:50:07 AM

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#270617: Feb 8th 2019 at 3:50:21 PM

The Communist Party famously shot itself in the foot in America because, well:

1. It kept swearing allegiance to the Soviet Union well after it showed its dark side.

2. It abandoned racial harmony as a position to get the USA in WW 2.

3. Hoover paid off like 1/5th of the party to be spies and actually kept it running with his spies in a kind of Kafka-esque comedy.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#270618: Feb 8th 2019 at 4:08:46 PM

Sandusky, Ohio has swapped out Columbus Day with Election Day and made it a paid holiday.

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#270619: Feb 8th 2019 at 4:13:08 PM

People still celebrate that asshole with a holiday?

TroperOnAStickV2 Call me Stick from Redneck country Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: is commanded to— WANK!
Call me Stick
#270620: Feb 8th 2019 at 4:17:11 PM

It's a day off. Nobody likes giving those up.

Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
Oruka Since: Dec, 2018
#270621: Feb 8th 2019 at 4:17:15 PM

Columbus's villainy has been overstated. Making election day a paid holiday, or, you know, using the weekends, is common sense... if you want more people, especially poor people, to vote.

Edited by Oruka on Feb 8th 2019 at 4:18:43 AM

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#270622: Feb 8th 2019 at 4:24:26 PM

Columbus' villainy is almost impossible to overstate.

Remember Jacob's Loyalty Mission in Mass Effect 2?

That was Columbus.

It's hard to make me lower my opinion of Ferdinand and Isabela but their pardoning of him after he was arrested by disgusted fellow Spainards says just about everything you need to know.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oruka Since: Dec, 2018
#270623: Feb 8th 2019 at 4:42:38 PM

That's exactly the overstatement. Actually read his journal. It's been Quote Mined.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#270624: Feb 8th 2019 at 4:46:19 PM

I’m guessing discussing the extent of Columbus’ atrocities against indigenous people probably belongs in another thread.

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#270625: Feb 8th 2019 at 4:49:49 PM

Yeah, but how inadequate it is to keep the holiday does belong in this one.


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