5 ms·

This viewpoint (where the unstated understanding is 'the group that is good is Democrats, and the group that is evil is Republicans') is part of the problem. T

This viewpoint (where the unstated understanding is 'the group that is good is Democrats, and the group that is evil is Republicans') is part of the problem. The world is more complicated than that.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
The viewpoint that both groups are just as bad or just as good for wage earners is a problem. It’s easily verifiable that Democratic states have better laws for wage earners, and have pushed for policies that benefit wage earners. They’re nowhere near perfect, but there’s no reason to pretend Dems and Repubs are the same.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  But it’s also easily verifiable that there are many wage earners in both parties, meaning many who don’t agree with your standards for which policies are better.
  - tzs 6y ago
    That's not necessarily true, because for many people there are issues more important to them than where a candidate stands on issues related to wage earning. For example, there are many people who in a race where one candidate favors restricting or ending abortion and the other favors reducing restrictions on abortion will choose whichever of the two agrees with their position on abortion, regardless of where the two candidates stand on anything else such as economic issues or foreign policy issues.
- chrisjarvis 6y ago
  both sides push for higher immigration and a globalized market, which have more effect on wage-earners in the US than any policy in "Democratic states". Imo you are missing the forest thru the trees, at scale they really are the same.
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    The evidence is that immigrants generate positive net tax benefits. The amount of immigrants who are founders of successful business would reflect that the impact is net positive. AFAIK the idea of immigrants impact being a net negative isn't supported by the studies I have read. I understand this isn't necessarily in line with the rhetoric du jour.
    - laverya 6y ago
      > The evidence is that immigrants generate positive net tax benefits. Immigrants as a whole being a net positive might be clear, but the demographics most commonly under debate are things like "refugees" or "illegal immigrants" or "people seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border". Now, it's possible that those groups are still a (financial) net positive, but I'd be a lot less confident in that than "doctors" or "people with a degree". This also doesn't really address the issue of "what impact does immigration have on US wage earners". An immigrant doctor or programmer might be clearly beneficial financially and to the country as a whole, but the doctors and programmers they're competing with might not be quite so happy. And while those demographics can "take it" so to speak, unskilled laborers facing the same competition are in a bit tougher of a spot.
    - chrisjarvis 6y ago
      I never said or implied a NET negative. My comment was specifically talking about effects on wage earners in the US.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  Even if people agree with you on that, people care about more things than benefiting wage earners. Gun rights are a big deal for a large number of people. Abortion is a big issue for many people, as is immigration policy. Saying that, "One side is better on the things I value!" is startlingly blind to the fact that a whole lot of people don't value what you do, or value things in the same order. I could just as easily turn it around and say, "It's easily verifiable that Republican states have better laws for gun owners." Now do you see the issue? Your above statement matters only if your primary goal is benefiting wage earners. It would be like me saying that Republicans are better at building a border wall. Maybe so, but that's not top priority for Democrats.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I agree with you. That was my whole purpose of replying to the person that said they are tired of “red/blue” shit. The political situation is not just colors, it has real life consequences on the allocation of society’s resources. If I want my daughter to be able to take maternity leave to properly breastfeed her children, it would behoove me to support a specific party. And the other party wants to spend resources on other things.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    There are a lot of single issue voters out there who will happily vote for someone who promises to screw them over financially as long as they are for their pet issue. More recently, we are seeing the rise of the Zero Issue Voters who don’t care about any particular issue at all. It’s purely a team sport. They love their team, love their candidates and they just want to “own the other side”.
- tzs 6y ago
  I have no idea if this actually means anything, but I did a couple amusing calculations. If the number of Electoral College votes each state got were proportional to that state's cumulative per capita COVID infection rates, the result would have been 329 Trump, 209 Biden. However, if we go by cumulative per capita COVID deaths, then the result would have been 228 Trump, 310 Biden. Why the big swing? I think it is because the big early outbreaks that swept through retirement and nursing homes before we got better at treating it were in big urban areas. By the time it got big in rural areas, we'd gotten a lot better at dealing with it. It would be interesting to do a similar calculation, but using say the rates over say the last three months instead of cumulative from the start. If someone wants to do that one, a good place to get the COVID data is here [1]. They have links to download the data for all the graphs as CSV files. [1] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/ http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/
  - laverya 6y ago
    > By the time it got big in rural areas, we'd gotten a lot better at dealing with it. Or by the time it hit rural areas, we'd also gotten better at testing for it. Perhaps the IFR is the same across both demographics, but better testing means a higher proportion of cases were detected later in the pandemic.
    - tzs 6y ago
      I grabbed the data again, and this time used the changes in cumulative cases and deaths over the last 60 days, per capita, in each state for doing the EV reallocation. Using cases, it comes out 344 Trump, 194 Biden. Using deaths, it comes out 354 Trump, 184 Biden. The big difference this time is largely rural states that are getting hit much harder than the rest of the states. North Dakota in this allocation gets 35 cases EV and 46 deaths EV, and South Dakota gets 30 and 36. Montana get 21 and 23. For comparison to some high population states, California is 4 and 4, New York 4 and 3, Texas 8 and 10, Florida 6 and 10. Now I'd be curious to see something that looks at various sliding windows on the data and sees how to allocations change, but that would be a bit more elaborate than I want to do.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  > It’s easily verifiable that Democratic states have better laws for wage earners, and have pushed for policies that benefit wage earners. The most solidly blue state, California, just enshrined a law to screw over gig workers and has among the worst housing crises in the country for average (and below) wage earners. Both parties are not equally bad, but the idea that the Democrats support working people is pretty laughable at this point. Yes, they’re not as awful as Republicans on these issues, but that’s a pretty low bar and still so far below the wage and labor protections in places like Europe as to be laughable.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I also support ranked choice voting to break the duopolies between Democrat and Republican, but as you said, there is a difference between the two, which is what we have to deal with while we have first past the post voting.
  - lern_too_spel 6y ago
    The Democratic Party was against Propositions 22 and 13. You can blame both on underinformed voters.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      The Democratic Party in California is quite cozy and takes a lot of money from the people who wrote it, so I find this claim of opposition unconvincing.
      - lern_too_spel 6y ago
        They wrote and passed the law that Proposition 22 modified.
        claudeganon 6y ago
        And did nothing meaningful to oppose it being modified, beside saying they opposed it. This has been Democrats tactics with this stuff for decades, “we tried to do something good, but then something happened that we couldn’t do anything about it. Sorry.” It’s intentional fecklessness, while posturing at progress, so they can keep getting checks from the tech industry.
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  Republican states tend to emphasize having a good labor market, and prioritize whatever gets employers to offer more jobs. This is a positive good for wage-earners. Democratic states tend to emphasize using government laws to require employers to do things like pay a higher wage. This is also a positive good for wage-earners. They both get lots of votes from wage-earners, and the ones voting for Republicans are not ignorant or blind. They are suspicious (rightly or wrongly) of the effectiveness of government regulations to help them, and know from experience that a tight labor market makes their boss suddenly see the importance of treating their workers better compared to when there was a line of people waiting to take their job if they didn't like it. The difference between the two is mostly how they think it best to go about improving things for wage earners, who are the vast majority of their voters in both states. Not saying this makes them equal, but the difference is not what you assert.
florencebuzz 6y ago
join https://classunity.org https://classunity.org
solarhoma 6y ago
The guy above you edited his comment.

This viewpoint (where the unstated understanding is 'the group that is good is Democrats, and the group that is evil is Republicans') is part of the problem. The world is more complicated than that.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

The viewpoint that both groups are just as bad or just as good for wage earners is a problem. It’s easily verifiable that Democratic states have better laws for wage earners, and have pushed for policies that benefit wage earners. They’re nowhere near perfect, but there’s no reason to pretend Dems and Repubs are the same.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
But it’s also easily verifiable that there are many wage earners in both parties, meaning many who don’t agree with your standards for which policies are better.
- tzs 6y ago
  That's not necessarily true, because for many people there are issues more important to them than where a candidate stands on issues related to wage earning. For example, there are many people who in a race where one candidate favors restricting or ending abortion and the other favors reducing restrictions on abortion will choose whichever of the two agrees with their position on abortion, regardless of where the two candidates stand on anything else such as economic issues or foreign policy issues.
chrisjarvis 6y ago
both sides push for higher immigration and a globalized market, which have more effect on wage-earners in the US than any policy in "Democratic states". Imo you are missing the forest thru the trees, at scale they really are the same.
- Daishiman 6y ago
  The evidence is that immigrants generate positive net tax benefits. The amount of immigrants who are founders of successful business would reflect that the impact is net positive. AFAIK the idea of immigrants impact being a net negative isn't supported by the studies I have read. I understand this isn't necessarily in line with the rhetoric du jour.
  - laverya 6y ago
    > The evidence is that immigrants generate positive net tax benefits. Immigrants as a whole being a net positive might be clear, but the demographics most commonly under debate are things like "refugees" or "illegal immigrants" or "people seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border". Now, it's possible that those groups are still a (financial) net positive, but I'd be a lot less confident in that than "doctors" or "people with a degree". This also doesn't really address the issue of "what impact does immigration have on US wage earners". An immigrant doctor or programmer might be clearly beneficial financially and to the country as a whole, but the doctors and programmers they're competing with might not be quite so happy. And while those demographics can "take it" so to speak, unskilled laborers facing the same competition are in a bit tougher of a spot.
  - chrisjarvis 6y ago
    I never said or implied a NET negative. My comment was specifically talking about effects on wage earners in the US.
da_big_ghey 6y ago
Even if people agree with you on that, people care about more things than benefiting wage earners. Gun rights are a big deal for a large number of people. Abortion is a big issue for many people, as is immigration policy. Saying that, "One side is better on the things I value!" is startlingly blind to the fact that a whole lot of people don't value what you do, or value things in the same order. I could just as easily turn it around and say, "It's easily verifiable that Republican states have better laws for gun owners." Now do you see the issue? Your above statement matters only if your primary goal is benefiting wage earners. It would be like me saying that Republicans are better at building a border wall. Maybe so, but that's not top priority for Democrats.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I agree with you. That was my whole purpose of replying to the person that said they are tired of “red/blue” shit. The political situation is not just colors, it has real life consequences on the allocation of society’s resources. If I want my daughter to be able to take maternity leave to properly breastfeed her children, it would behoove me to support a specific party. And the other party wants to spend resources on other things.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  There are a lot of single issue voters out there who will happily vote for someone who promises to screw them over financially as long as they are for their pet issue. More recently, we are seeing the rise of the Zero Issue Voters who don’t care about any particular issue at all. It’s purely a team sport. They love their team, love their candidates and they just want to “own the other side”.
tzs 6y ago
I have no idea if this actually means anything, but I did a couple amusing calculations. If the number of Electoral College votes each state got were proportional to that state's cumulative per capita COVID infection rates, the result would have been 329 Trump, 209 Biden. However, if we go by cumulative per capita COVID deaths, then the result would have been 228 Trump, 310 Biden. Why the big swing? I think it is because the big early outbreaks that swept through retirement and nursing homes before we got better at treating it were in big urban areas. By the time it got big in rural areas, we'd gotten a lot better at dealing with it. It would be interesting to do a similar calculation, but using say the rates over say the last three months instead of cumulative from the start. If someone wants to do that one, a good place to get the COVID data is here [1]. They have links to download the data for all the graphs as CSV files. [1] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/ http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/
- laverya 6y ago
  > By the time it got big in rural areas, we'd gotten a lot better at dealing with it. Or by the time it hit rural areas, we'd also gotten better at testing for it. Perhaps the IFR is the same across both demographics, but better testing means a higher proportion of cases were detected later in the pandemic.
  - tzs 6y ago
    I grabbed the data again, and this time used the changes in cumulative cases and deaths over the last 60 days, per capita, in each state for doing the EV reallocation. Using cases, it comes out 344 Trump, 194 Biden. Using deaths, it comes out 354 Trump, 184 Biden. The big difference this time is largely rural states that are getting hit much harder than the rest of the states. North Dakota in this allocation gets 35 cases EV and 46 deaths EV, and South Dakota gets 30 and 36. Montana get 21 and 23. For comparison to some high population states, California is 4 and 4, New York 4 and 3, Texas 8 and 10, Florida 6 and 10. Now I'd be curious to see something that looks at various sliding windows on the data and sees how to allocations change, but that would be a bit more elaborate than I want to do.
claudeganon 6y ago
> It’s easily verifiable that Democratic states have better laws for wage earners, and have pushed for policies that benefit wage earners. The most solidly blue state, California, just enshrined a law to screw over gig workers and has among the worst housing crises in the country for average (and below) wage earners. Both parties are not equally bad, but the idea that the Democrats support working people is pretty laughable at this point. Yes, they’re not as awful as Republicans on these issues, but that’s a pretty low bar and still so far below the wage and labor protections in places like Europe as to be laughable.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I also support ranked choice voting to break the duopolies between Democrat and Republican, but as you said, there is a difference between the two, which is what we have to deal with while we have first past the post voting.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  The Democratic Party was against Propositions 22 and 13. You can blame both on underinformed voters.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    The Democratic Party in California is quite cozy and takes a lot of money from the people who wrote it, so I find this claim of opposition unconvincing.
    - lern_too_spel 6y ago
      They wrote and passed the law that Proposition 22 modified.
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        And did nothing meaningful to oppose it being modified, beside saying they opposed it. This has been Democrats tactics with this stuff for decades, “we tried to do something good, but then something happened that we couldn’t do anything about it. Sorry.” It’s intentional fecklessness, while posturing at progress, so they can keep getting checks from the tech industry.
rossdavidh 6y ago
Republican states tend to emphasize having a good labor market, and prioritize whatever gets employers to offer more jobs. This is a positive good for wage-earners. Democratic states tend to emphasize using government laws to require employers to do things like pay a higher wage. This is also a positive good for wage-earners. They both get lots of votes from wage-earners, and the ones voting for Republicans are not ignorant or blind. They are suspicious (rightly or wrongly) of the effectiveness of government regulations to help them, and know from experience that a tight labor market makes their boss suddenly see the importance of treating their workers better compared to when there was a line of people waiting to take their job if they didn't like it. The difference between the two is mostly how they think it best to go about improving things for wage earners, who are the vast majority of their voters in both states. Not saying this makes them equal, but the difference is not what you assert.

florencebuzz 6y ago

join https://classunity.org https://classunity.org

solarhoma 6y ago

The guy above you edited his comment.