The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

ChiangMai noon

errr, no.

it's a computer modelled projection created by famous statistician Nate Silver based on 2000 simulations daily on fivethirtyeight.com.

these are based on all the trackers from around the States, both national and more importantly, state polls.

today's are even worse for your lot in spite of zogby being included in the sim..

__________________
Pictures of Lily make my life so wonderful.
Pictures of Lily, help me sleep at night.....

HungryHeart

^ 96% ain't to shabby - gonna be some Big Ole Stank Booty up in that White House.

Can you say Watermelon and Fried Chicken Honkey,,,

Boon Mee

err, uhh, like, got a linky to that 'computer modeled projection' there taffy?

ChiangMai noon

^
FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right

Boon Mee

Socialism: A progressive political system that takes the power away from wealth creators and gives it to wealth distributors. Wealth distributors are typically a class of highly trained government bureaucrats who are being watched by a class of political commissars, who, in turn, are being watched by a class of secret police, all of whom are banded together by shared progressive morals. Because progressive morals are relative by definition, a certain measure of absolute propaganda is necessary to encourage collectivism and discourage counter revolution. Since such propaganda is delivered through mass media, arts, and schools, a degree of ideological monopoly, uniformity, and censorship is also required in those fields. The resulting mass enthusiasm creates a vibrant state-subsidized culture, leading to great economic successes and technological breakthroughs, e.g., North Korea...

__________________
ผมเป็นคนบ้านนอก

Mr Earl

96% focking A. It's party time. The circus will be back in DC.

Jet Gorgon

Quote:

Originally Posted by HungryHeart ^ 96% ain't to shabby - gonna be some Big Ole Stank Booty up in that White House.

Can you afford arugula, Trailer Trash?

Prez nominee unofficial food prefs:
BO likes:
Ribs
Grilled fish
Steamed broccoli (anyone see the irony there?)
Cheddar Cheeseburger
MET-Rx chocolate-roasted peanut protein bars
Black Forest Berry Organic Tea
Planters Trail Mix: Nuts, Seeds & Raisins
Roasted almonds
Pistachios
Dentyne Ice
Nicorette
Spinach, arugula
Handmade milk chocolates from Fran’s Chocolates in Seattle
Chili
Pumpkin pie
Cosi
Shrimp and grits
Waffles
Shave ice

Tuna fish sandwich
Vegetarian pizza
Topolobampo
Vegetarian pizza

Dislikes:
British food
Mayonnaise
Salt & Vinegar potato chips
Asparagus
Soft drinks

John McCain
Likes:
Shrimp
Pizza with pepperoni and sausage
Enchiladas
Baby-back ribs
Large cappuccino
Spaghetti with meatballs and sausage
Salsa
Chocolate cream puffs
Tex-Mex
Calamari salad, Grilled chicken, BLT
Asylum & Tee Pee (Arizona restaurants)

Dislikes:
Arugula
Vegetables

HungryHeart

Why did you the omit the part about what you like Jet ?

panama hat

Your point, Jet?

BM - you have not shown a link between Marxism and anything written here. Growing desperate doesn't suit you.

Panda

Shifting the wealth of a nation towards the business community including big corporations may certainly provide economic advantages. However it amounts to modern day economic slavery for the poor masses of blue collar workers. Wages go down, life gets tougher for the working class and profits go up for the business class who become the elite ruling class. There's no doubt this system works financially. It worked for the Romans and Egyptians with their workforce of slaves and it worked in pre-civil war USA.

I doubt most working class Americans realize that their standard of living is not on par with many of the more socialist developed democracies. Wages are low in USA for blue collar workers, social infrastructure for the middle class like health care and education are also low by comparison with other developed democracies. But a large, relatitively low paid workforce, combined with low company taxes and a low level of government social infrastructure does give the country the edge in competitiveness on the world market.

Of course all this is relative. USA only has an edge in business while other developed democracies provide an improved standard of living for the blue collar middle class workers.

However, the world is a changing place. Developing nations have caught onto the capitalist philosophy of wealth creation. The once communist China has embraced the capitalist way and with their workforce of hundreds of millions of peasant workers, China is replacing not only USA , but the rest of the western world in production and GDP growth. The American business principle has served China well. There are many millionaire business owners, just as there are many poor peasants slaving in the factories and living in poverty. Social injustice on a more pronounced scale than USA, but basically the same principle.

Where all this exploitation of the working class comes undone is in the process of democracy where the majority working class are able to elect governments who can at least provide better social infrastructure and quality of life.

USA has reached the end of the road as far as their capitalist philosophy of squeezing the poor and giving handouts to the rich goes. No amount of financial assistance to the wealthy business owners is going to enable USA to compete with manufacturing in developing countries like China today. Certainly developed countries like USA still hold their ground in certain industries like high tech etc..
But overall there is a redistribution of word wealth occurring. Its not surprising that USA is surviving at the moment on increasing debt to places like China.

The bottom line is that USA and many other western countries are going to have to take a cut in living standards as manufacturing jobs and export income shifts to developing countries.

The old way of cutting wages (in real terms) and giving financial assistance to business just isn't going to work anymore in the face of competition that can produce the same items for export at a fraction of the cost.

In the meantime, with increasing unemployment and falling export revenue, who's going to pay for the international debt incurred trying to prop up a failing system?
The only way any government can pay off international debt before the interest burden becomes greater than what they can pay for is to either increase export productivity or to raise taxes. Going with the exhausted philosophy of giving more of the taxpayers money to the rich so they can create more jobs is simply a lost cause and buying into more international debt that someone will have to pay back sooner or later.

USAs capitalist philosophy of taking from the poor to give to the rich in anticipation of creating new jobs and export income is a strategy that may have worked in the past, but its a different world out there now and such a plan will only drive the country deeper into debt and failure.

Jet Gorgon

^ You been on those eucalyptus leaves too long, Panda.
Blue collar workers are unionised and are bleeding companies dry with their wage and benefit demands.
China is surging from the differential in wages and costs with their export destinations and the Western cos who set up shop there. But this is eroding.
Capitalism is built on people with ideas who build companies that create jobs and make money. Low-paid workers do not create the capital base; they are the ant workers. No companies, no bladdy jobs. Go get a paper route.

panama hat

You must know that is not true, Jet, yet you keep saying the same garbage:


Blue collar workers? 7% is hardly going to precipitate a mass flux of manufacturing basis to China . . .

Keep trying, but stick to some facts, please, but you are just talking crap . . . as usual



Union Membership Up Slightly in 2007 - washingtonpost.com

Labor unions in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Panda

Apart from your opening and closing insults and erroneous inference that its the unions fault US exports are falling, you seem to be a little confused. On one hand you state that the "ant workers" as you call them, do not create a capital base. And by capital base I assume you mean the $ capital a company operates on. Then on the other hand you say that China is surging because of the differential in wages.
You don't have to be Einstein to figure out that China is out competing western manufacturers in many areas because they have a large and very low paid workforce with poor living standards, --controlled by some very rich entrepreneurs. Whining about the unions and throwing money via tax breaks or hand outs at the failing companies in USA (or elsewhere) wont create jobs in globally uncompetitive industries and certainly wont benefit the country.

A few decades ago the US had a major trade surplus between imports and exports. Over the past few decades that surplus has dwindled to the barely break even point. And thats not even considering GWBs blow out in national debt to finance his excesses. Once a country imports more than its exporting it goes into a debt cycle that just gets deeper and deeper. A lot like you or I spending more than we earn and making up the difference with a credit card. It is a downward spiral that ends in bankruptcy.

Texpat

Oh to be as poor as American blue collar workers ...

Please don't throw me in the briar patch!

Norton

Obama wants to redistribute the wealth. What a stupid socialist idea. Can only result in disaster.

After cutting taxes for people earning less than $250K he'll be giving "refunds" to people who pay no taxes at all to make sure they get their fair share of the redistribution.

Oh...My mistake!! Obama doesn't have to do it. Already put in place by that bladdy "socialist" Gerald Ford and further expanded under Reagan's "socialist" administration. It's called Earned Income Tax Credit.

__________________
There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

Woodrow Wilson

sabang

Well that is a bit difficult to reconcile with the fact that the differential between average wages and CEO wages has never in history been as high as it is now, not to mention that the rich now own a higher percentage of the USA's net assets than they ever have before- which, ipso facto, means the other 90-95% own less.

Your reasoning may have had some logical basis back in the days when Reagan was campaigning to be President Jet, but things have changed an awful lot since then. One thing that hasn't changed however is that the average Real wage of a US blue collar worker has basically remained static for the last 30 years.

__________________
To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

Milkman

Absolutely incorrect.

11% of full time working adults in the US are in unions. Union membership is still declining further.

And many of these jobs have already left the United States.

Jet Gorgon

^ I said blue collar workers, but I should have been more specific. I was thinking specifically of the auto, steel and mfg industries; and you are right, MM, many of these companies and jobs have vanished because of their lack of competitiveness against lower-cost makers in Asia.
Gotta work, more on this later.

Texpat

A typical American blue collar worker would live like an absolute king in Thailand on his wages. They're fucking loaded. More money than most could imagine. Plumbers earn more than degreed-accountants. Auto repair kunts earn in a few hours what a teacher or fireman earns in a week. If you wish to paint Americans in a poor, disparaged light, don't use the term blue-collar. Come on you miserable kunts, get it right.

The catch is,
Cable TV/Internet is US$100.
An oil change is $70.
Groceries are (generously) $900/month for two.
Movies are $20.
A beer in a Los Angeles strip Club, where one chubby black wench struts for two songs, flapping her 32-year-old tits and showing her fly-ridden minge once for a grand total of 7 microseconds, is ten dollah.

Fuch that. Bad value. I'd rather live here.

Oh, back to the topic, I have fairly decent health insurance through US mil (ret).
It's cheaper here paying full-price, cash than monthly payments (fuck me is the mafia involved? I ain't even sick.)

I'm less than enamored with the HMO, pay-every-month, sick or not plan.

But I'm less amenable to the free-for-everyone plan.

Milkman

You answered my point. Thank you.