311–320 of 612 posts
(I am not an economist; It is just my opinion)
Was the fall of Rome this embarrassing as well?
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_fall_of_...
Also could not believe there's no public transport at LGA. After 60 years they have not managed to get a rail line out there. WTF?
So I really feel for people stuck there due to this shutdown nonsense.
BTW, title nazi, the title of this post doesn't match the title of the article. That should be easy enough to automate?
I'm still not fully understanding what's going on here, and I'm american. Could someone who is more educated in politics of the US explain to me why this shutdown is allowed to go on for this long, and why there is no law in place for 'if the congress cannot come to an agreement, X shold happen'?
Congress can write, and rewrite, any law. Congress will virtually never be held responsible for any event, since they control the law itself. Another thing: Trump issued a veto-threat against the bills that passed the House. Trump refuses for a budget to be passed unless it has his wall. Republicans don't want to betray their leader, so they're holding firm with Trump.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didn't vote for oligarchy. They stabbed Caesar in the Senate.
They in effect voted for a dictatorship, initially for Pompey on the ground of a terrorism threat, and then later were supportive of Caesar. Pompey used the democratic tribune system which had been abolished by a previous generation of the aristocracy. The dictator argued past the traditions of the Roman Republic as exemplified by the aristocrats, and appealed directly to the people.
Bearing in mind that ~40% of american's could not come up with $400 to cover emergencies, this is going to become more prevalent in the next few days / weeks as people will simply not be able to afford gas to get to their unpaid work. I read an article today discussing how TSA workers in HI are living in their cars in the airport parking lot as they cannot afford to commute. The FBI just cancelled its internship prog…
I've seen too many people say, "Oh, government workers should all know this stuff happens all the time, and if they don't have months or years of savings in the bank then it's just their fault". It's really sad that instead of being compassionate, too many are focusing on what "should" be instead of what is the reality for many people. Like you point out, the reality is that most people don't have savings. They shoul…
I think it's city-to-city. Some cities are just grumpy toward people who experience misfortune. Others are not.
In one city I was in recently, the churches organized a round-robin nightly banquet for furloughed federal workers so they can get a good meal, and household supplies, and help with their basic bills each night. In Las Vegas, the city is putting on a big picnic in the main park this weekend for federal workers with free food, supplies, and support services. When I paid bills online this past weekend, almost every bank and utility web site I went to had a banner across the top reading "Affected by the federal shutdown? Let us know so we can help."
I haven't seen this everywhere, though. It depends on the type of city in which they live.
I hope not too off topic, but I'm puzzled by shutdowns. Every other country I can think of has a system where if the finance is not agreed, the previous budget just continues. The budget sets the yearly amount for each department and it runs on until another budget changes how much everyone gets. Sometimes a new department gets created, sometimes something is abolished. Everyone gets their salary and services run on.…
Interesting thing I discovered when I was concerned about SFO delays is that SFO is one of the few airports in the U.S. that does not use TSA for security...it hires its own private security officers. Edit: For those curious, these airports have private security (SFO is by far the largest as far as I can tell): https://www.tsa.gov/for-industry/screening-partnerships
Whoa, really? Do you know whether/which other airports are like this?