America coming apart at the seams?

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Kenr6583
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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by Kenr6583 » August 14, 2020, 7:05 am

To add to what I said earlier about the US Post Office, the number 2 Board of Governors,there are 9 positions, recently resigned due to what the current Postmaster General and POTUS are attempting to do with the post office. That means they do not have enough for a quorum.



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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by dragonz » August 14, 2020, 9:47 am

Kenr6583 wrote:
August 14, 2020, 7:05 am
To add to what I said earlier about the US Post Office, the number 2 Board of Governors,there are 9 positions, recently resigned due to what the current Postmaster General and POTUS are attempting to do with the post office. That means they do not have enough for a quorum.
us post office been losing money from 2007 with biggest losses 2010 and 2012 . wonder who was president then ?Oh obama why did he not put money into the psot office ?
Postal Service Net Income/Loss By Year
2019 - $8.8 billion loss
2018 - $3.9 billion loss
2017 - $2.7 billion loss
2016 - $5.6 billion loss
2015 - $5.1 billion loss
2014 - $5.5 billion loss
2013 - $5 billion loss
2012 - $15.9 billion loss
2011 - $5.1 billion loss
2010 - $8.5 billion loss
2009 - $3.8 billion loss
2008 - $2.8 billion loss
2007 - $5.1 billion loss
2006 - $900 million surplus
2005 - $1.4 billion surplus
2004 - $3.1 billion surplus
2003 - $3.9 billion surplus
2002 - $676 million loss
2001 - $1.7 billion loss

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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by tamada » August 14, 2020, 11:04 am

Kenr6583 wrote:
August 14, 2020, 7:05 am
To add to what I said earlier about the US Post Office, the number 2 Board of Governors,there are 9 positions, recently resigned due to what the current Postmaster General and POTUS are attempting to do with the post office. That means they do not have enough for a quorum.
Who is 'they'?

Nobody needs any quorum anyway as DJT will simply sign an(other) EO and make it all happen the way he wants it.

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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by Kenr6583 » August 14, 2020, 11:16 am

tamada wrote:
August 14, 2020, 11:04 am
Kenr6583 wrote:
August 14, 2020, 7:05 am
To add to what I said earlier about the US Post Office, the number 2 Board of Governors,there are 9 positions, recently resigned due to what the current Postmaster General and POTUS are attempting to do with the post office. That means they do not have enough for a quorum.
Who is 'they'?

Nobody needs any quorum anyway as DJT will simply sign an(other) EO and make it all happen the way he wants it.
Without a quorum the Board of Governors cannot meet or set policy. That means the Postmaster General can run amok.

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GT93
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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by GT93 » August 14, 2020, 3:34 pm

AlexO wrote:
July 9, 2020, 6:53 am

GT93 The Chinese are responsible for the pandemic throughout the world ... How can Trump be the sole cause of the spread of Covid-19 in the States ... You might not like the man but he is nor wholly responsible for the situation in the USA. Don't see you commenting much on Melbourne, who's fault was that.
Trump is principally responsible for the pandemic in the US and carries some responsibility for it spreading around the world. For example the US was a major source of our initial outbreak in NZ. Trump has encouraged Americans to act like idiots and hasn't understood the scientific advice. The Chinese eventually managed Covid 19 very well. It can be done. I would rather the next virus comes from China than the US. The US with Trump in the White House is friggin' hopeless. Everything is so politicised. Unfortunately that will linger once he's voted out.

As for Victoria (and NZ) it's up to their respective governments to manage their outbreaks. We don't want or need the Chinese government to come in and do it for us. We're capable of doing it ourselves. Unlike the US.
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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by glalt » August 14, 2020, 4:22 pm

WOW!! The Chicago Police are getting tough. They just put out a news flash bulletin that they are going to start arresting looters. What a sad city that is. That will do very little good when the politicians release them the next day.

I did see something encouraging. A large group of black men ran off a group of thugs and yelling at them that enough is enough and to get out of our neighborhood.

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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by Whistler » August 14, 2020, 7:20 pm

glalt wrote:
August 14, 2020, 4:22 pm
WOW!! The Chicago Police are getting tough. They just put out a news flash bulletin that they are going to start arresting looters. What a sad city that is. That will do very little good when the politicians release them the next day.

I did see something encouraging. A large group of black men ran off a group of thugs and yelling at them that enough is enough and to get out of our neighborhood.
You think the police have been doing nothing, they have been arresting looters and vandals on a rugular basis when protest got out of hand, more than 100 on Monday alone.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/06/08 ... st-9-days/

The disinformation is not helpful, it fuels distrust and division and is plain wrong. The police have been doing their job, and Democratic controlled cities and states are not hotbeds of law and order breakdowns

In fact the greatest breakdowns are in Republican controlled regions

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... hey-arent/
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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by jackspratt » August 14, 2020, 8:35 pm

glalt doesn't do links to back up his posts ........ to do so would risk analysis, and probable rebuttal.

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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by Whistler » August 14, 2020, 9:26 pm

The entire concept that Progressive politics is about letting criminals go free, opening borders to the world etc is ridiculous. Progressive ideals are about equality, communism is a failure, socialism is outdated as are neo-con vilification of those that do not adopt their totalitarianism of the capitalist idea. The true balance is somewhere in between, tapping the energy of the entrepreneur, but also blocking the excessive disparity between the elite and the average citizen. No CEO is worth 1000 times the salary of his workers, that is obscene
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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by Laan Yaa Mo » August 14, 2020, 10:11 pm

jackspratt wrote:
August 14, 2020, 8:35 pm
glalt doesn't do links to back up his posts ........ to do so would risk analysis, and probable rebuttal.
This brings up a salient question, has Izzix left the building?
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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by GT93 » August 15, 2020, 2:48 am

It seems so. Hopefully Covid 19 didn't run him down.

Too many conservatives don't use legitimate arguments these days. They do conservatism a disservice.
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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by AlexO » August 15, 2020, 8:16 am

GT93 wrote:
August 14, 2020, 3:34 pm
AlexO wrote:
July 9, 2020, 6:53 am

GT93 The Chinese are responsible for the pandemic throughout the world ... How can Trump be the sole cause of the spread of Covid-19 in the States ... You might not like the man but he is nor wholly responsible for the situation in the USA. Don't see you commenting much on Melbourne, who's fault was that.
Trump is principally responsible for the pandemic in the US and carries some responsibility for it spreading around the world. For example the US was a major source of our initial outbreak in NZ. Trump has encouraged Americans to act like idiots and hasn't understood the scientific advice. The Chinese eventually managed Covid 19 very well. It can be done. I would rather the next virus comes from China than the US. The US with Trump in the White House is friggin' hopeless. Everything is so politicised. Unfortunately that will linger once he's voted out.

As for Victoria (and NZ) it's up to their respective governments to manage their outbreaks. We don't want or need the Chinese government to come in and do it for us. We're capable of doing it ourselves. Unlike the US.
So Trump is responsible for a remote rock near Antarctica's Covid breakout, nothing to do with stupid Australia's letting hundreds of infected people of cruise ships to bomb burst to homes everywhere. I find your comment on "respective local Governments" in Aus. are supposed to manage outbreaks but State Governments in the USA get a free pass because its all Trumps fault to be about as sensible as most of your posts normally are. Suppose its Trumps fault the Auckland is being locked down as well. [-X [-X

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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by glalt » August 15, 2020, 11:14 am


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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by jackspratt » August 15, 2020, 11:37 am

glalt wrote:
August 15, 2020, 11:14 am
Why bother to arrest them?

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... es-agains/
May be related to this (taken from your link):
Ms. Gardner’s office did not respond to requests for comment, but she released a statement Wednesday night that said cases are only as strong as the evidence provided by arresting officers.
While on the subject of links, be careful not to confuse the credibility-challenged Washington Times with the mainstream Washington Post.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-times/

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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by GT93 » August 16, 2020, 3:58 am

AlexO wrote:
August 15, 2020, 8:16 am
...
So Trump is responsible for a remote rock near Antarctica's Covid breakout, nothing to do with stupid Australia's letting hundreds of infected people of cruise ships to bomb burst to homes everywhere. I find your comment on "respective local Governments" in Aus. are supposed to manage outbreaks but State Governments in the USA get a free pass because its all Trumps fault to be about as sensible as most of your posts normally are. Suppose its Trumps fault the Auckland is being locked down as well. [-X [-X
Yes. Countries are still very wary of travellers from the US. If Trump was the Aussie Prime Minister, then the Prime Minister would be carrying the can for grossly undermining public health messages, not helping co-ordinate the states' actions and not applying federal resources wisely. Trump wouldn't survive for long as a prime minster in a Westminster stye political system.

The recent testing in Auckland to date indicates an Australian or English source for the virus. Both those countries have made very good progress in managing the spread of the virus. Recent progress in the UK's case. That's all other countries can ask. It got back into NZ because of NZ border failures.

The US has been a dismal failure in managing the spread of Covid 19 and the Trump pandemic is an ongoing risk to other countries. It urgently needs to get its act together.
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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by AlexO » August 16, 2020, 5:42 am

GT93 wrote:
August 16, 2020, 3:58 am
AlexO wrote:
August 15, 2020, 8:16 am
...
So Trump is responsible for a remote rock near Antarctica's Covid breakout, nothing to do with stupid Australia's letting hundreds of infected people of cruise ships to bomb burst to homes everywhere. I find your comment on "respective local Governments" in Aus. are supposed to manage outbreaks but State Governments in the USA get a free pass because its all Trumps fault to be about as sensible as most of your posts normally are. Suppose its Trumps fault the Auckland is being locked down as well. [-X [-X
Yes. Countries are still very wary of travellers from the US. If Trump was the Aussie Prime Minister, then the Prime Minister would be carrying the can for grossly undermining public health messages, not helping co-ordinate the states' actions and not applying federal resources wisely. Trump wouldn't survive for long as a prime minster in a Westminster stye political system.

The recent testing in Auckland to date indicates an Australian or English source for the virus. Both those countries have made very good progress in managing the spread of the virus. Recent progress in the UK's case. That's all other countries can ask. It got back into NZ because of NZ border failures.

The US has been a dismal failure in managing the spread of Covid 19 and the Trump pandemic is an ongoing risk to other countries. It urgently needs to get its act together.
If the much decried Boris can survive in a Westminster style Government I am pretty sure that Donald could as well. I would be interested to know what evidence there is that either an Aussie or an Englishman are deemed responsible for the latest NZ outbreak, just how did they manage to get into NZ whose borders are locked down. Glad you acknowledge the progress being made in the UK, Boris and his team must not be as bad as you and a few other haters claimed they were. Only time will tell if Donald's actions were wrong or if total lockdowns at the first sight of a virus breakout can be sustained as the only way to deal with it. I fear for my home nations (the UK) as winter approaches and a second wave is predicted, what do you do, go back into total lockdown again?

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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by tamada » August 16, 2020, 8:27 am

^ Is the USA on the UK's rapidly shrinking list of "green light" nations that are allowed quarantine-free entry to the UK?

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus ... -corridors

I rest my case m'lud.

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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by maaka » August 16, 2020, 4:04 pm

America coming apart at the seams...


The Guardian
Making billions v making ends meet: how the pandemic has split the US economy in two
Dominic Rushe in New York 1 hour ago
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It’s only a hundred miles from Manhattan to East Hampton but as the city swelters the Long Island town can seem a world away. Cool Atlantic breezes take the heat off long summer days spent on its miles of white, soft sand beaches. High-priced farm stands provide heirloom tomatoes, peaches and arugula to summer visitors and the mansions of the financial titans and the celebrities, including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Julianne Moore and Robert Downey Jr, who summer there.

Nor does the coronavirus pandemic seem to have dampened the 1%’s enthusiasm for the Hamptons.

Related: Why the Covid-19 financial crisis will leave lasting scars on Gen Z

If anything, quite the opposite. House prices are soaring. High-priced rentals have all been snapped up. It took developer Joe Farrell just one day to rent Sandcastle, his 15-bedroom mansion with sunken tennis courts, for $2m for the summer to “a textile tycoon and his family who were stuck in Manhattan and wanted to leave the city on a day’s notice. This was a Covid situation – not a normal summer rental”, he told the New York Post.

The Hamptons really is a world away for Sara Fearrington. It may as well be another planet. The 43-year-old lost her job at Waffle House in Durham, North Carolina, when the pandemic struck. Now she, her husband and their six children are trying to make ends meet on $125 in unemployment benefits each week. Fearrington is one of the 2.6 million people to have lost her job in the food services and drinking industry since February.

The Fearringtons had been receiving an extra $600 a week in benefits thanks to an emergency lifeline set up by Congress in March. That expired at the end of July and Washington is deadlocked over a replacement. “Now we literally have to sit here and wait, your head on a chopping block,” she said.

Once again coronavirus has shown that it is far more deadly for those suffering from pre-existing conditions. For the US body politic that pre-existing condition is inequality.

Stock markets are setting new highs driven by soaring prices for the tech companies that enable those lucky enough to work from home. Apple is close to being valued at $2tn. The total wealth of US billionaires has soared $685bn since the middle of March to a combined $3.65tn. Rock-bottom interest rates have triggered a home sales boom for some as those with the money reconsider their priorities in the work-from-home era. With nowhere to go, those Americans who can are saving at record rates.

But only one in four Americans can work from home. Meanwhile roughly 30 million people are unemployed in the US, about 20% of the workforce. Almost 30 million Americans recently reported that they have not had enough to eat at some point in the previous seven days, according to the Census Bureau. The vast majority – about 26 million – had lower rates of educational attainment.

The recession has also further exposed the racial wealth gap. The job market ticked up again last month but 14.6% of Black and 12.9% of Latinx adults were unemployed in July, versus 9.2% of whites.

“It’s white-collar professionals who are able to work from home. In some ways, this is a sign that the economy is just officially split in two,” Glenn Kelman, chief executive of property company Redfin, told NPR last week.

“We are all in this together” may be the rallying cry for the pandemic but the truth is the poor, and particularly people of color, have been devastated by coronavirus and its attendant recession while the wealthy have weathered it and in some cases made huge gains. Research into previous recent pandemics from economists at the International Monetary Fund suggests it’s a trend that may continue even after the outbreak abates.

Economists often talk of V-shaped economic recoveries, a sharp drop and an equally sharp bounce back. Sometimes the economy drags along the bottom before bouncing back – a U-shaped recovery. Now there is talk of a “K-shaped” recovery. A fall followed by a split where the well off and well educated tick up while the poor and poorly educated fall further behind.

For people able to work from home, “life has returned largely to normal”, said Peter Atwater, adjunct lecturer in the economics department at William & Mary. “In fact, the wealthiest today are even richer than they were before the outbreak.”

For those people, on the arm of the K, Atwater said it’s “almost as if the outbreak never happened. That’s starkly different for people on the leg. If you are a small business person, work in the service industry, had to go back out into a manufacturing facility, a job in the ‘real world’, as it were, that has weighed heavily. Sadly it has weighed particularly heavily on minority communities at a time when they are the largest populations experiencing the outbreak. It’s a stacked inequity.”

Jeff Bezos wearing a suit and tie talking on a stage: The total wealth of US billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, has soared $685bn since the middle of March to a combined $3.65tn. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian The total wealth of US billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, has soared $685bn since the middle of March to a combined $3.65tn. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death Prince Prospero and the knights and dames of his court retire to “the deep seclusion of one of his crenellated abbeys” to escape the Red Death, a plague that is devastating the country around them.

Amply provisioned and, so they think, sealed off from the outside world, Prospero and his pod put on a masqued ball but the prince is angered to find that one of the guests has dressed as Red Death.

Prospero chases the guest from room to room, only to realize the figure is the Red Death personified. The guests sicken and die: “And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

Inequality was a pre-existing condition for the US economy long before the coronavirus started its spread. For Fearrington the pandemic has merely exposed its “ugly face”. But she is certain that if this goes on much longer today’s Prosperos too will see that face.

A Fight for $15 activist campaigning for a rise in the national minimum wage, Fearrington is hopeful that as so many people come to realize how bad the situation has become, something will change. “What we have right now is economic failure,” she said.

“My husband is black. We are a mixed family that is living through this struggle. It is not a fun place to be. I have been with my husband for 28 years. Twenty-eight years and I am still seeing the same problems? No. We have got to speak up. I have had enough.”

She has seen the reports of people snapping up second homes. “I have dreams of that too,” she said. “I am happy for people who have that. I want everybody to prosper. But at the same time I feel left behind. Some of my dreams are now halted.” She said “every little bit of savings” she had stowed away has gone “just to keep our heads above water”.

Even before Covid-19 life was hard for Fearrington. She worked 42-72 hours a week, taking all the shifts she could get. “Every holiday. Every one of my kids’ birthdays, I was working.” Paid $3.15 an hour before tips she could make $40-$70 a day. The family needed every dollar. Medical costs are a constant fear. Her husband has a rare lung disease, ABPA. His inhalers can cost $300. One stay in hospital left the family with a bill for $15,000. “If you get sick, too bad, so sad,” she said.

I feel left behind. Some of my dreams are now halted

Sara Fearrington
“We need healthcare for all,” she said. “A lot of things have to change, we need to learn to live together. Just because we fall in a certain pay bracket doesn’t mean our lives are less valuable than anybody else’s.”

The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Fight for $15, #MeToo and Occupy Wall Street are all recent examples of powerful, popular movements demanding real change. The continuing protests across America following the killing of George Floyd and the fact that more white people too are joining those protests gives her hope. “Now is a time when people are recognising that silence has not worked. We are coming together. Ugliness has to stop,” she said.

Without change there will be more outrage, said Atwater. “I don’t think the wealthy appreciate how vulnerable they are to those who are out in the real world. They are not immune to the world around them.”

The US economy is driven by the consumer. About 70% of economic growth is dependent on consumer spending. The longer this slowdown continues, the more likely that drain on growth will creep up the income ladder. The last recession started at the top with Lehman Brothers bankers walking away with boxes of their belongings as the financial crisis bit. It soon trickled down. This may have started in Waffle House but it doesn’t mean it won’t trickle up.

If the current situation continues, “there is a very real risk that companies will start looking at their balance sheets and thinking, ‘Actually, we really need to trim our workforce’, and that could happen across the board. That’s not just confined to leisure and hospitality,” said John Payne, economist at Oxford Economics.

Widening job losses and increasing inequality is likely to lead to louder calls for change.

“We talk about the American dream, the ability to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Rags to riches. All this American mythology is being challenged by this extraordinary wealth divide,” said Atwater. “The rubber band has been pulled too far. People are uncomfortable with how divided we have become.

“At the same time I don’t think the wealthy appreciate how vulnerable they are to those who are out in the real world. They are not immune to the world around them.”

That realization can’t come soon enough for Fearrington: “It has to stop. We are still all humans at the end of the day,” she said.

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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by tamada » August 16, 2020, 4:38 pm


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Re: America coming apart at the seams?

Post by papafarang » August 16, 2020, 6:17 pm

tamada wrote:
August 16, 2020, 4:38 pm
^ A good read. Link below.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... employment?
3.15 dollars an hour plus tips, working 42- 72 hours a week . No wonder the slave traders are scared of socialism
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