[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

oilypenguin wrote:

Their worst idea since the tax cut.

This sounds incredibly expensive and almost impossible to do properly.

Sure, let's make the program worse, more difficult to manage, more logistically expensive, and provide no real benefit, just so we can fix a mostly imagined problem of people selling their benefits. It'll also, as the story mentions, pull a bunch of revenue from retailers, so probably cost some jobs, and also give the government some sweet contracts to hand out. MAGA?

oilypenguin wrote:

Their worst idea since the tax cut.

This sounds incredibly expensive and almost impossible to do properly.

#1 - The party of small government.

IMAGE(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/SatisfiedDimpledGeese-size_restricted.gif)

#2 - I ate that sometimes as a kid. I don’t look back on it fondly as “OG Blue Apron”.

#3 - Because of the URL and the article I double checked to make sure that wasn’t a fake news site.

#4 - I didn’t catch this, my wife did after I told her this, so I can’t take credit. But this is a major vector for graft. Watch the bid go to some company from Whitefish, MO. and they distribute $1 of expired goods for every $10 they take in to run the operation.

So a centrally managed food program, then? Sounds like a great leap forward to me!

oilypenguin wrote:

Their worst idea since the tax cut.

This sounds incredibly expensive and almost impossible to do properly.

Food stamps are like the pinnacle of economic stimulus (short of just handing folks cash). Every five bucks in food stamps stimulates nine dollars of economic activity.

It's an absolutely stupid idea to take money that's going to be pumped into economies that need it the most and, instead, have it funnel to companies that might be states away (and eat up a great deal of the funding just in transportation).

A truly conservative idea would be just to give people cash and not worry whether they buy groceries or spend it all on steaks and booze. But they don't really care about being economically efficient. They'd rather be paternalistic.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

So a centrally managed food program, then? Sounds like a great leap forward to me!

jfc this is an amazing joke. I just marvel at it. Well done.

Well done.

oilypenguin wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

So a centrally managed food program, then? Sounds like a great leap forward to me!

jfc this is an amazing joke. I just marvel at it. Well done.

Well done.

And juxtaposed with that username?

IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/l41YleLHixOeCWNe8/giphy.gif)

So like every week for the last 3 months I've seen stories on package thieves... and we're just gonna drop boxes of food on people's doorsteps?

What about food allergies?

Like, I can't really be unbiased here, this would absolutely be a huge economic hit to not only my company, but the entire grocery industry... which is only likely to lead to MORE people needing to be on the program... but just... the more I think about this for f*cking 5 minutes, the more absolutely horrible problems I can envision with it... and that's without even actually figuring out the exact logistics of half of those problems.

They're going to ship $50 in canned goods a month? Hahahahahah

Given that the people most in need of food assistance are likely to be the least served by reliable deliveries, this seems like a bad plan that someone came up with because it saves money on paper. Though I suspect they haven't thought through the distribution costs because that's going to add up really fast...

Also, I suspect Walmart will oppose the plan.

Oh, I'm sure they'll "partner" with Walmart and such places so that people have to go there to pick up their boxes. Ignoring the fact that people with such levels of food insecurity probably have neither time to go to the "official" place to pick up food, nor time to cook such food into meals.

This is all based on the wrong-headed idea that poor people don't know how to spend their money on food and have to be taught to economize. No, that's not how it works. Poor people have no time and need to turn their money into raw calories as quickly and easily as possible in order to have *enough* food to survive.

So the company that makes a business model out of stealing open source software and doing a find-and-replace on the branding. and now they are bankrolling corrupt pieces of garbage in congress? I am shocked. SHOCKED!

ok not that shocked.

No-one told me there were new episodes of Brasseye.

What’s the matter with Oklahoma?
Low teacher pay and severe budget cuts are driving schools to the brink

The Economist wrote:

FORTY miles from Tulsa, sometimes along unpaved roads, sits Wagoner High School, with its 650 pupils, championship-calibre football team and show barn—a seemingly ordinary small-town school. But unlike most high schools, Wagoner is closed on Mondays. The reason, a severe reduction in state funds, has pushed 90 other school districts in Oklahoma to do the same. Teacher pay is the third-lowest in the country and has triggered a statewide shortage, as teachers flee to neighbouring states like Arkansas and Texas or to private schools. “Most of our teachers work second jobs,” says Darlene Adair, Wagoner’s principal. “A lot of them work at Walmart on nights and weekends, or in local restaurants.” Ms Adair hopes that Walmart does not offer her teachers a full-time job, which would be a pay rise for many.

The roots of the fiasco are not hard to determine. As in Oklahoma’s northern neighbour, Kansas, deep tax cuts have wrecked the state’s finances. During the shale boom, lawmakers gave a sweetheart deal to its oilmen, costing $470m in a single year, by slashing the gross production tax on horizontal drilling from 7% to 1%. North Dakota, by contrast, taxes production at 11.5%. The crash in global oil prices in 2014 did not help state coffers either. Oklahoma has also cut income taxes, first under Democrats desperate to maintain control over a state that was trending Republican, and then under Republicans, who swept to power anyway. Mary Fallin, the Republican governor, came to office pledging to eliminate the income tax altogether. Since 2008 general state funds for K-12 education in Oklahoma have been slashed by 28.2%—the biggest cut in the country. Property taxes, which might have made up the difference, are constitutionally limited.

...

No fact embarrasses Oklahomans more, or repels prospective businesses more, than the number of cash-strapped districts that have gone to four-day weeks. Yet even such a radical change may not help finances much. Paul Hill, a professor of education at the University of Washington, Bothell, estimates that the savings are “in the 1 or 2% range at most”. That sliver is still important to Kent Holbrook, superintendent of public schools in Inola (the self-styled “Hay Capital of the World”). “In my mind, that’s five or six teachers,” says Mr Holbrook. Already, from 2008 to 2016, he has lost 11 teachers from a corps that once numbered 100. He has also had to reduce Spanish classes and, for the tenth year running, delay buying new textbooks.

...

The real reason why so many school districts are resorting to a tighter calendar is that it is the only true perk they can offer to poorly paid teachers, whose salaries start at $31,600 and who have not received a rise for ten years. The exodus to Texas and Arkansas, which included Oklahoma’s Teacher of the Year in 2016, continues unabated. A 20-minute drive across the border often results in a $10,000 increase. Dallas’s school district has unashamedly set up booths in Oklahoma City to poach what talent remains. So dire is the shortage that school districts have found 1,850 adults without the necessary qualifications, given them emergency certifications, and placed them in classrooms. “This year, I emergency-certified my secretary,” says Penny Risley, the principal of an elementary school in Wagoner. Teach for America, which places fresh graduates from leading colleges in classrooms, is usually unpopular with teachers’ unions. In Oklahoma, they are welcomed with open arms.

To make matters worse, the expensive health insurance offered to teachers eats into already meagre pay. Under the cheapest plan on offer, monthly premiums are $400 for a single person. The cost of adding a spouse is another $470 per month; a child is $208. In Catoosa, a school district not far from Tulsa, an elementary-school secretary tells of an aide with four children whose premiums were so large that she paid the district $200 a month to work there. A recently hired special-education teacher worries that she will not be able to afford a flat for herself and her two children without a housing voucher and food stamps, says Julie Phillips, a speech pathologist with Tulsa Public Schools. After a school drive to raise food for poor families unexpectedly had some left over, needy teachers divided the remaining bags of apples and potatoes among themselves.

Oklahoma is just looking to churn out more grist for the idiot mill.

'The Trump slump': Remington files for bankruptcy as gun sales tumble

For 200 years, Remington has been one of the most famous names in guns, supplying arms to soldiers in the civil war, both world wars and to generations of gun enthusiasts. Now it has met its match: the gun-friendly presidency of Donald Trump.

After a golden era of sales under Barack Obama, America’s gun manufacturers are in trouble. Sales have tumbled, leaving the companies with too much stock on their hands and falling revenues. The crunch claimed its biggest victim this week when Remington filed for bankruptcy.

The move does not mean the end. Remington is using the US’s chapter 11 bankruptcy law to offload $700m of its $950m in debt, and to restructure the company. But it does underscore the level of distress in the industry.

In December, American Outdoor Brands, the owner of Smith & Wesson, reported that its profits had fallen 90% year over year, from $32m to just $3.2m. Sales fell 36%. Last October, Sturm Ruger, the US’s largest firearm manufacturer, announced its quarterly revenues had fallen 35%. Both companies will report their latest results shortly but neither is expected to announce a dramatic increase in sales.

“They call it the Trump slump,” said Robert Spitzer, a professor at the State University of New York at Cortland and the author of five books on guns.

“Gun sales have become politicized to a great degree,” he said. “Gun purchases recently have been made not just because someone wants a new product but to make a statement; not just because of fears that there might be tighter regulation but also to make a statement against Obama.”

With Trump in the White House, said Spitzer, gun sales had sharply defaulted to their long-term trend of declining ownership rates.

Bitcoin energy use in Iceland set to overtake homes, says local firm

Iceland is facing an "exponential" rise in Bitcoin mining that is gobbling up power resources, a spokesman for Icelandic energy firm HS Orka has said.

This year, electricity use at Bitcoin mining data centres is likely to exceed that of all Iceland's homes, according to Johann Snorri Sigurbergsson.

He said many potential customers were keen to get in on the act.

"If all these projects are realised, we won't have enough energy for it," he told the BBC.

Mr Sigurbergsson's calculations were first reported by the Associated Press.

Iceland has a small population, of around 340,000 people.

But in recent years it has seen a marked increase in the number of new data centres, often built by firms wishing to tout green credentials. Nearly 100% of energy in Iceland comes from renewable sources.

Bitcoin mining refers to the work done by computers connected to the global Bitcoin network.

These computers solve complex mathematical problems - a process that in turn validates transactions between users of the crypto-currency.

The computers that do this validation work receive small Bitcoin rewards for their trouble, making it a lucrative exercise, especially when done at a large scale.

Now the creepy NRA ads make sense: they need scare white dudes into buying more guns.

From last summer:
Cerberus’s Remington Debt Fizzles as Trump Cools Firearms Fervor

"The industry right now is suffering because they built their infrastructure up under the premise that you’d have increased demand,” said Kevin Cassidy, a Moody’s analyst who downgraded Remington deeper into junk on June 28. “When things changed, they had to right-size their business essentially overnight."

So they stocked up in anticipation of a Clinton victory and four years of increased sales driven by fear-mongering over gun control.

I take heart in the fact that, though under Trump we are closer than ever to full societal collapse, at least firearms are more affordable.

I did note, while perusing the NRA TV Twitter account a month or two ago how much of their material is just a non-stop drumbeat of fear. Of many things, but fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.

JeffreyLSmith wrote:

I take heart in the fact that, though under Trump we are closer than ever to full societal collapse, at least firearms are more affordable.

You know what they say - dress for the dystopia you want.

Prederick wrote:

I did note, while perusing the NRA TV Twitter account a month or two ago how much of their material is just a non-stop drumbeat of fear. Of many things, but fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.

Thing is, they've been doing that for years now, and at some point, the market becomes saturated. When I've got a pistol under my pillow, another in my glove box and a third strapped to my hip during all waking hours, a rifle in my closet and a shotgun by the front door, what's left to sell to me?

Clearly, gun makers need to take a leaf out of the appliance industry's playbook. Start making shoddier guns that break sooner.

Jonman wrote:
Prederick wrote:

I did note, while perusing the NRA TV Twitter account a month or two ago how much of their material is just a non-stop drumbeat of fear. Of many things, but fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.

Thing is, they've been doing that for years now, and at some point, the market becomes saturated. When I've got a pistol under my pillow, another in my glove box and a third strapped to my hip during all waking hours, a rifle in my closet and a shotgun by the front door, what's left to sell to me?

Clearly, gun makers need to take a leaf out of the appliance industry's playbook. Start making shoddier guns that break sooner.

A bazooka in the barroom, an uzi in the urinal, and a missile in the mancave.

Jonman wrote:

Clearly, gun makers need to take a leaf out of the appliance industry's playbook. Start making shoddier guns that break sooner.

Hey Remington man!

Tanglebones wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Prederick wrote:

I did note, while perusing the NRA TV Twitter account a month or two ago how much of their material is just a non-stop drumbeat of fear. Of many things, but fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.

Thing is, they've been doing that for years now, and at some point, the market becomes saturated. When I've got a pistol under my pillow, another in my glove box and a third strapped to my hip during all waking hours, a rifle in my closet and a shotgun by the front door, what's left to sell to me?

Clearly, gun makers need to take a leaf out of the appliance industry's playbook. Start making shoddier guns that break sooner.

A bazooka in the barroom, an uzi in the urinal, and a missile in the mancave.

Or a shotgun in the headboard!

Peace of mind? Yeah, my idea of peace of mind is an easily and quickly accessible loaded shotgun for anyone in the house.

OG_slinger wrote:

Now the creepy NRA ads make sense: they need scare white dudes into buying more guns.

Exactly what I was thinking.

obirano wrote:

Peace of mind? Yeah, my idea of peace of mind is an easily and quickly accessible loaded shotgun for anyone in the house.

My favorite part of this is when they make sure to point out how the design keeps the muzzle past the head of anyone else in the bed, for obvious safety reasons. The guy then immediately pulls the gun out and points it directly at the camera. Cool, cool. Also, let's hope you don't reach move your arm over your head in your sleep, or your bed will drop a shotgun on your head.

It's a sad commentary that when the liberal black guy was in office, gun sales skyrocket, but when the Republican white guy takes office, he's constantly telling everyone how the whole country is full of crime and danger, but suddenly gun sales are in the toilet. Gee, it's almost like personal protection isn't the main driver of gun sales.

I'm sure Trump will be tweeting his support, and about how Bibi has strongly denied it so it must not be true, and due process and all.