Welcome to Thunderdome

TheCatt wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 9:40 am I still believe in the death penalty for politicians who lie this blatantly.

I'm sure this is true because I believe YOU, but Harry makes George Santos seem credible.

TheCatt wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 3:14 pm WaPo bends the knee.

I have no idea what the hell he even means when he says "personal liberties and free markets", but I know that squashing opposing voices is not something I support.

Leisher wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 3:21 pm

TheCatt wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 3:14 pm WaPo bends the knee.

I have no idea what the hell he even means when he says "personal liberties and free markets", but I know that squashing opposing voices is not something I support.

I'm a big fan of personal liberties and free markets, but yeah, I don't understand the constraint to a single ideology.

Also, we already have the WSJ.

In his defense, every news outlet squashes opposing view points. He's just got the balls to admit it. I can respect that he's owning what he's doing, where everyone else denies it. But It sucks that it happens at all.

Cakedaddy wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 3:29 pm In his defense, every news outlet squashes opposing view points. He's just got the balls to admit it. I can respect that he's owning what he's doing, where everyone else denies it. But It sucks that it happens at all.

Fair.

Although, there are a good many people who don't believe that to be true. They deny it even when presented with facts from their own trusted sources.

Rich? Get a gold green card for $5M.

Buried "under the fold" is the fact that a very similar program already exists:

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, standing alongside Trump, said the card will replace the government’s EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, which allows foreign investors to pump money into US projects that create jobs and then apply for visas to immigrate to the US.

“They’ll have to go through vetting, of course,” Lutnick said, “to make sure they’re wonderful world-class global citizens.”

So, they'll still be vetted, but this is a much faster way to citizenship, and quite frankly, utter horseshit. But also...not.

I'm not down with rubber stamping people just because they have money, although let's be truly honest here, that's the reality of the world.

On the other hand, I'm all for those people becoming citizens and having their money subject to tax laws, and whatever they spend here being pumped into the economy.

Yeah, I thought this was already there, but a little different.

I'm fine with letting in rich people, I think

I bet a dollar the bill was still called "Bill to eliminate tax on tips" and then it included 100 different spending things.

I didn't need the clarification. I told you I trusted you.

Harry Sisson? Not even a little bit. That silver spoon fed cuck is bought and paid for, and genuinely, has lied more than Santos.

Leisher wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 4:36 pm Harry Sisson? Not even a little bit. That silver spoon fed cuck is bought and paid for, and genuinely, has lied more than Santos.

Ah, yeah, don't really know who that is.

Accurate though.

More on the "Gold Card citizenship", I guess this report is saying companies can pay for Indian graduates who studied here to become U.S. citizens via the program? I'm still torn. I like the influx of cash. I like the faster path for skilled people. However, it still feels unfair...not that life is fair...

The rule used to be that we don't accept economic refugees, which is why we were turning away Haitians in the 90s. They were floating over because their country was a shithole, not that they were oppressed. They barely had a government to oppress them.

So paying to win................. I'm not sure. The rule has always been that they will be allowed in if they have a skill not all Americans possess, so maybe "can produce $$$ on request" is a way to demonstrate that? Not all Americans can display the skill of having lots of money?

98% of the Indian programmers to which I was exposed sucked at programming hard, though, on the H-1Bs. And they kept my salary suppressed because they would come in and work cheaper than me. So I'm kind of biased against them.

GORDON wrote: ↑Sun Mar 02, 2025 2:58 pm And they kept my salary suppressed because they would come in and work cheaper than me. So I'm kind of biased against them.

Perhaps that's how you spot the ones we don't need? If they're willing to work for less and send X% of their salary out of the country, buh bye.

Anyway, soon this will all be moot as AI is programming everything.

Yup. There will just be AI wranglers, which will amount to fewer programmers and more low-level managers. And the handful of long-beards will be the gods with access to the AI code and data.

This whole post is really just bait to get Catt's, hopefully, fair thoughts. I'm not seeing much good coverage so far of the tariffs. It's all one sided and/or "the end is nigh" garbage to get clicks.

Trump's tariff war has begun. I don't pretend to know much about economics, which is why I always say "Hey Catt", but I do know I want to see where this all goes. Sure, a bunch of people are telling us this will be a disaster, but those same people were telling us the economy was awesome the past four years despite the majority of Americans struggling, record CC debt, a frozen housing market, cars not selling, etc. Oh, and those same people said that "recession" changed its definition. (That last sentence was snark. I know there was more to that discussion, but I like to keep things light.) Those same people also didn't seem to have a problem with the U.S. being the world's sugar daddy despite our unsustainable and growing debt, other countries having tariffs on U.S. goods (why is that ok and not vice versa?), continued pushing DEI despite it being so insanely unpopular that several companies were seeing massive losses, and so on. Point being, it'd be cool if people could remove politics from their economic opinions...

So, you know, grain of salt.

Last I heard him talk about this stuff, he said he was just going to match their tariffs on us. Is that what he did or did he *gasp* not do what he said?

Yeah, prices will rise, but last time I saw news about them, China and Canada's economies weren't in great shape. I have no idea about Mexico's. A trade war can't be high on their list of "wants" at the moment. Interesting that angle doesn't seem to get covered much. After all, it takes two to tango. Seems silly to focus on only one dancer if the other is in a wheelchair. Why does all news seem to imply that the U.S. will lose? I get focusing on the U.S. side by U.S. journalists, but those other countries aren't going to be unscathed, right?

Point being, do you think that's his intention? To wear them out before we wear out?

In related news, are his tariffs working (albeit maybe only to a point?)?

I think we're up to close to $2T being invested here in the states to build manufacturing and all the jobs that would come with it. So far, I've heard Apple, Honda, Clarios, TSMC, OpenAI, Softbank, Oracle, and Steve Madden have all announced investing in manufacturing in the U.S.

Oh, and Saudi Arabia pledged $600B, which...yuck. Listen, I'm all for second chances, but can you maybe stop doing the bad behavior first?

Pfizer also moving manufacturing to U.S.

Are these not welcome developments?