341–350 of 369 posts
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What makes you think that RFK was substantially different from LBJ or any of the other Democrats at the time?
What makes you think he wasn't? That said, assassination is a pretty strong signal for different.
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That was not how he was campaigning, was it? Nor was it his fault he was born that way. The most difficult attacks to stop are inside jobs. Where he came from doesn't dictate where he was headed. The most difficult attacks to stop are inside jobs
What makes you think that RFK was substantially different from LBJ or any of the other Democrats at the time?
The Democrats were anything but a bloc in the days of LBJ and RFK. The progressive wing was, with LBJ, forcing through the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, over the objections and filibuster of the Dixiecrats, who were soon to flee the party in droves. Meanwhile, LBJ was terrified that RFK would primary him and win.
It is fundamentally meaningless to try to differentiate someone from "the Democrats" when the party was fundamentally split between warring ideologies.
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I imagine you've never really engaged in political philosophy very thoroughly? Much like any political system you can imagine, a democratic system requires a complex web of rules and regulations to function properly. For one, so-called democracies always require more specification. Are you talking about direct democracy? Are you talking about deliberative democracy? Are you talking about representative democracy? Dem…
I imagine you've never really engaged in political philosophy very thoroughly? The opposite, I grudgingly came to this conclusion after decades of believing (or I guess, hoping) differently. Not that it's an original conclusion, many philosophers called it out long before I was even born. Took me awhile to see it. When you say "we are stuck relying on the intelligence and wisdom of the masses" you're making a pro-eli…
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> GDP per capita adjusted for PPP What's the point of per-capita here? I've found personally this is the part that cause confusion. The per-capita makes it look like each person is equally participating in the gross production and receiving an equal income from it. Obviously that's false, the distribution is very uneven, so I've always wondered why we want it per-capita? If 1 out of 100 people produces 100% of the GD…
>why adjust it by capita Because we might want to measure efficiency and compare two economies of different sizes.
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> In truth, pretty much nobody really knows for sure what policies actually will increase GDP... Have they tried securing access to large amounts of cheap energy? It is a bit of a win-win because either GDP goes up and case closed or they can sit back and relax in luxury mulling why GDP didn't go up despite massive increases in the general prosperity. Energy isn't the entire story because there also need to be people…
Every country tries securing cheap energy; that's what energy markets are for. There is no such thing as a trivial win here. And trying to secure it could end up costing significant GDP, as demonstrated by wars fought over securing energy.
You can see what countries trying to secure cheap energy do by looking at China and India - lots of coal, lots of oil, bring on as much capacity in nuclear and renewables as they can. They're playing with effectively 4x as many sources of energy as the EU despite the Europeans having a wealth and tech lead! I say 4x because renewables aren't quite a big enough energy source to break up into components.
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It doesn’t put healthcare costs in a positive light, it puts the economic surplus to support healthcare spending in a positive light. There’s a subtle but critical difference between them. Namely you can simply increase healthcare spending by 100x in the US without dramatic improvements in other parts of the economy.
This would be true if health care costs were discretionary, but they are not. Your bank account going to zero due to breaking a leg, or medication needs, or X is not a sign of a a healthy economy. If that health care demand hadn't occurred, you could have spent your "economic surplus" in a way of your choosing -- perhaps frivolously or perhaps on something that provides longer term financial upside to you, your famil…
As to bankruptcy, unpaid medical bills aren’t part of the GDP. It’s a measure of output so they also exclude things like buying a house for 1 million and then selling it for 1 million.
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What makes you think he wasn't? That said, assassination is a pretty strong signal for different.
That's not how this works. You're the one peddling a conspiracy theory. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to provide better evidence than him delivering a populist speech once.
Nah. I simple stated the obvious. That is, when and what ideals those two cultural leaders - who were assassinated - shared.
It doesn't take a conspiracy to murder someone for their ideals when they conflict with and undermine your very profitable and powerful status quo.
But sure...let's just write it off as bad luck. Who cares if history teaches plenty of lessons otherwise.
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Every country tries securing cheap energy; that's what energy markets are for. There is no such thing as a trivial win here. And trying to secure it could end up costing significant GDP, as demonstrated by wars fought over securing energy.
They aren't. The EU is in the news right now because they cracked down on nuclear and fossil fuels and - after succeeding - ended up in an energy crisis. You can see what countries trying to secure cheap energy do by looking at China and India - lots of coal, lots of oil, bring on as much capacity in nuclear and renewables as they can. They're playing with effectively 4x as many sources of energy as the EU despite th…
They allowed the fossil fuel lobby to severely curtail their renewable installations and had a quarter of their nuclear reactors fail. Then had a massive source of gas disappear.
The renewables are working exactly as advertised. Seems like a pretty good argument for more of them.
> do by looking at China
So at least half of new generation as renewables with a small increase in nuclear whilst keeping thermal plant capacity roughly constant (mostly by moving existing production to more efficient plants)?
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I imagine you've never really engaged in political philosophy very thoroughly? The opposite, I grudgingly came to this conclusion after decades of believing (or I guess, hoping) differently. Not that it's an original conclusion, many philosophers called it out long before I was even born. Took me awhile to see it. When you say "we are stuck relying on the intelligence and wisdom of the masses" you're making a pro-eli…
What author do you draw from ok that subjects ? I’m asking because there is a lot of various work in that field
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Yes, pointing out the delay representative democracy induces as proof that democracy doesn’t represent the will of the people is quibbling.
You must have misunderstood my comment. Only one of my examples might conceivably be delayed. One is explicitly being reversed, and the other is protection of a vulnerable group regardless of majority status. My point isn’t that democracy fails to represent the will of the people. Democracy is more complicated than that, in some ways more flawed and in some ways better.
The “reversed” case is because people don’t actually care enough to elect representatives that reflect those views. There is a Democratic majority house, senate, and president. Why isn’t abortion protected?
> and the other is protection of a vulnerable group regardless of majority status
It’s protected because the majority decided to protect it. The majority could easily remove that protection. They aren’t constitutionally protected.