On the dairy farms... The NYT quotes a farmer saying the price we pay for milk would double. So I went looking for percent of cost of gallon that is labor, average wage of illegal dairy worker Wisconsin, etc. To double the price a farmer would have to pay a legal worker between $80 and $90 an hour.
I often run across similar in "news" stories, but seldom so easily falsified. It's like the fact checkers no longer work there, or they suspend disbelief when they go to work, or maybe they don't care if what they are saying is blatantly untrue.
It's hard to estimate how much of our military budget is now useless. Are we still building tanks? APCs? Aircraft? Seems to me drones have made most things obsolete. A modern drone costs $40,000 to $100,000. A fraction of the cost of a patriot anti missile or an aircraft with pilots we don't want endangered. Maybe the money we do spend would be better invested in wages to attract and keep bright dedicated folks and a lot in R+D. The old scenario of huge expensive hardware purchases spread amongst as many congressional districts as possible seems like a huge waste.
Even 40k is crazy. Ukraine is shipping cardboard drones. Tiny drones that can carry a grenade's worth of explosive are valuable and should be hobbyist priced.
Oren is slowly coming to grips with reality. The "new" right is in peril. The animating fight on the right is between MAGA and America first over MAGA's Middle East war and Don's infatuation with tech bros, crypto criminals and fellow plutocrats. While MAGA has predictably fallen in line, America first not so much. But in any event, neither wing is interested in the arcane economic debates Oren seeks. Don's tariffs are unpopular, and his ratings on the economy have fallen below the worst numbers ole Joepa suffered.
Oren hitched his wagon to a movement animated not by economic policy, but by grievance, anger, hatred of brown people, and owning the libs. He bought the ticket, now he's takin the ride...
It's hard to fathom the damage the leader of the "new" right can do in three more years. Imagine him at 82.
While I agree with your position on this matter (nobody is as surprised as I am), I’m disappointed you didn’t mention President Eisenhower’s warning about mixing defense spending with industrial policy. His predictions came true years ago and have just gotten worse. I’m not sure there’s a good solution, but the ideas behind the policy are worth another look (it is a good idea to preserve certain capabilities, if not actual industries, and plane and ship building are likely among them).
It's amazing just how many people still get Trump wrong after so many years. He asks for $500 billion to set expectations such that if he only gets $250 billion and a 5% reduction in domestic spending programs, it will be hailed as a defeat for Trump.
In the mean time, we do need to spend a bit more on defense over the next few years. Trumps other priority, changing the balance of trade is working, and combined with China and Russia's other problems is pushing both of those nations to the brink. You would reasonably think they would start backing down and try to address their own domestic issues, but that's not how authoritarians governments work.
There is a fundamental flaw in modern ideology. Separating trade from mutual defense and shared values have created some truly massive commons problems. How can France or Germany spend 4% on defense while in a union with Spain (2%), Austria (1%) or Ireland (0.25%). It's either higher taxes which will send businesses packing, or higher deficits which will raise interest rates, all while facing deeper and deeper domestic spending cuts. What we're seeing in France, going through five prime ministers in the last couple of years is a taste of what is to come.
Until a lot more intelligent people wake up from the globalization delusion, and start working towards building trade alliances that reconnect with mutual defense and shared values, things are just going to keep breaking down further. That makes it more likely that we will have to more aggressively use our military might to get certain actors to back down. To that end, churning out more warplanes, missiles, drone and warships will send a very powerful message.
Don's America Alone strategery is playing out in real time as he prosecutes MAGA's Middle East war. He appears to be struggling. Who coulda guessed that years of belittling someone might cause them to think you don't like them?
It's humiliating to watch a US president alternate between groveling and threatening war crimes as he randomly casts about for someone to blame for the disastrous war he began.
It used to be that the US mocked China and Russia for only being able to cobble together a couple random, rogue states as allies while we enjoyed dozens. Now the joke is on us as we're left with El Salvador, Hungary, Israel, and a few rump states as friends. Don's "new" right has its wish, we have relinquished our global leadership position to others, and shrunk our vision of what America is.
Meanwhile, let's all say a prayer for Don, the damage caused by his flailing war leadership has only just begun, and we have a looong road yet to travel.
Actually it was the Neo-cons/libs that killed the western alliance. Go back and read my first post. Disconnecting trade from mutual defense has hollowed out the militaries and industrial bases of our allies.
First NAFTA, then the USMCA has sent lots of factories that would have been in Canada and America down to Mexico instead. Yet where was Mexico when it was time to protect the global supply chains feeding those factories from the Somalis pirates. I don't recall Mexico sending their warships to the South Pacific to train with our other Pacific allies or run freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea. Mexico didn't spend any it's blood or treasure helping us fight terrorists in the middle east either.
Meanwhile America and some of our other allies burnt through billions of dollars in missiles trying to protect a bunch of Chinese built ships, registered and paying taxes in Panama, carrying things like Russian oil through the Red Sea. England was a big help. Of course England, much like us, are struggling to find the money, experience and facilities to replace their aging warships with in reasonable budgets and time frames.
What is more humiliating is to realize just how hollowed out our allies have become. Canada lacks the warships and fighters that they would need to really offer any assistance in Iran. In the mean time their economy is starting to crash as their property bubble collapses. Unfortunately their manufacturing has largely been hollowed out by free trade.
Mark Carney, like all you old Neo-con/liberals just can't seem to admit that he may have got some things wrong. Instead is trying to run around writing trade deals with China and the EU, completely failing to understand that both of those entities are struggling to replace the surpluses they used to rely on the US to buy.
But just keep believing that it's not the system that's failing. We just need the right people in charge. That how the Democrats get through the day.
Dan, it's time for MAGA to man up, ya'll are in charge dude:) I get it, the backward looking grievance and blame makes for simple politics and is easier than actually governing, but at some point ya gotta accept responsibility. Yesterday is, yesterday... Every president inherits a difficult hand. Time for Don to grow up.
So let's look at today, and tomorrow. Perhaps you're right, and MAGA's Middle East war is going swimmingly. Don's clever, well-articulated strategery is unspooling brilliantly. The deaths of our troops, the groveling to adversaries, the threats of war crimes, the closing of the strait, the civilian deaths, surging oil prices, the impact on the global economy, the financial cost, the depletion of our military stockpiles, the lifeline to Vlad from lifting their (and Iran's) oil sanctions, the gift to China, it's all just Don's 4D chess. Art of the deal. It was all planned. Perhaps.
But maybe I'm right, and he's an aging, incoherent, dementia riddled narcissist that has started a disastrous war that he has no clue how to end. I read his rambling, incoherent daily bleats. I read the words he speaks. You should too.
I pray that you're right, and MAGA's Middle East war is right on track.
Check out the fight the Chinese had with the Hoover Institution over custody of the diaries of Mao’s personal secretary. The Chinese want to control thought. Then you can find the answer to the question you pose.
As to the military budget, am I the only one that noticed that Democrats are saying the exact thing that made Caesar cross the Rubicon. And whose support did Caesar need to do that. I have spent my whole life being a hard core constitutionalist but I am also a realist and the Republic cannot survive the hatred that is loose now. A house divided cannot stand, eh. So something is going to break. To qoute JD, you are always going to have a ruling class but it needs to be one that has the interest of the people in mind. I have tried to interest people in The National Divorce and in populist fusion but I get no takers except maybe you about populist fusion.
Check out the fight the Chinese had with the Hoover Institution over custody of the diaries of Mao’s personal secretary. The Chinese want to control thought. Then you can find the answer to the question you pose.
They do indeed want to control thought. They are masters of propaganda. Which is why I don't understand how you think Trump announcing a huge unfundable defence budget increase is a remotely plausible psyop. They have watched Trump as he blusters about doing untold damage to America and the system of global alliances the US patiently built after the second world war. They have watched him as he constantly changes his mind and speaks without thinking. They have watched the US fail to learn the lessons of the Ukraine war and to grossly overestimate its military capability. And they see Trump weakening politically as the mid terms approach, as MAGA fractures over Trump breaking his promise not to embroil the US in another Middle Eastern forever war. And they merrily sell US government bonds, driving up US government interest rates while the self inflicted oil price rise drives up inflation. Another of his campaign promises broken. If this is a psyop its a ridiculously clumsy one. More likely China sees it for what it actually is: more macho bluster from Trump Hegseth. And they will continue the steady build up of their own increasingly capable armed forces. As America declines China will likely become the leading nation of the rest of the 21st Century.
On the dairy farms... The NYT quotes a farmer saying the price we pay for milk would double. So I went looking for percent of cost of gallon that is labor, average wage of illegal dairy worker Wisconsin, etc. To double the price a farmer would have to pay a legal worker between $80 and $90 an hour.
I often run across similar in "news" stories, but seldom so easily falsified. It's like the fact checkers no longer work there, or they suspend disbelief when they go to work, or maybe they don't care if what they are saying is blatantly untrue.
I would be astonished if there were a worker shortage if people were paying 180k to work in a dairy.
It's hard to estimate how much of our military budget is now useless. Are we still building tanks? APCs? Aircraft? Seems to me drones have made most things obsolete. A modern drone costs $40,000 to $100,000. A fraction of the cost of a patriot anti missile or an aircraft with pilots we don't want endangered. Maybe the money we do spend would be better invested in wages to attract and keep bright dedicated folks and a lot in R+D. The old scenario of huge expensive hardware purchases spread amongst as many congressional districts as possible seems like a huge waste.
Even 40k is crazy. Ukraine is shipping cardboard drones. Tiny drones that can carry a grenade's worth of explosive are valuable and should be hobbyist priced.
Oren is slowly coming to grips with reality. The "new" right is in peril. The animating fight on the right is between MAGA and America first over MAGA's Middle East war and Don's infatuation with tech bros, crypto criminals and fellow plutocrats. While MAGA has predictably fallen in line, America first not so much. But in any event, neither wing is interested in the arcane economic debates Oren seeks. Don's tariffs are unpopular, and his ratings on the economy have fallen below the worst numbers ole Joepa suffered.
Oren hitched his wagon to a movement animated not by economic policy, but by grievance, anger, hatred of brown people, and owning the libs. He bought the ticket, now he's takin the ride...
It's hard to fathom the damage the leader of the "new" right can do in three more years. Imagine him at 82.
Good luck America.
Hey, defense conractors have to eat too.
Trump is the most non-serious president the country has ever had. Macron said the quiet part out loud.
While I agree with your position on this matter (nobody is as surprised as I am), I’m disappointed you didn’t mention President Eisenhower’s warning about mixing defense spending with industrial policy. His predictions came true years ago and have just gotten worse. I’m not sure there’s a good solution, but the ideas behind the policy are worth another look (it is a good idea to preserve certain capabilities, if not actual industries, and plane and ship building are likely among them).
You can’t have an indefensible war w/o indefensible spending and an indefensible Aminsitration that started it.
It's amazing just how many people still get Trump wrong after so many years. He asks for $500 billion to set expectations such that if he only gets $250 billion and a 5% reduction in domestic spending programs, it will be hailed as a defeat for Trump.
In the mean time, we do need to spend a bit more on defense over the next few years. Trumps other priority, changing the balance of trade is working, and combined with China and Russia's other problems is pushing both of those nations to the brink. You would reasonably think they would start backing down and try to address their own domestic issues, but that's not how authoritarians governments work.
There is a fundamental flaw in modern ideology. Separating trade from mutual defense and shared values have created some truly massive commons problems. How can France or Germany spend 4% on defense while in a union with Spain (2%), Austria (1%) or Ireland (0.25%). It's either higher taxes which will send businesses packing, or higher deficits which will raise interest rates, all while facing deeper and deeper domestic spending cuts. What we're seeing in France, going through five prime ministers in the last couple of years is a taste of what is to come.
Until a lot more intelligent people wake up from the globalization delusion, and start working towards building trade alliances that reconnect with mutual defense and shared values, things are just going to keep breaking down further. That makes it more likely that we will have to more aggressively use our military might to get certain actors to back down. To that end, churning out more warplanes, missiles, drone and warships will send a very powerful message.
Don's America Alone strategery is playing out in real time as he prosecutes MAGA's Middle East war. He appears to be struggling. Who coulda guessed that years of belittling someone might cause them to think you don't like them?
It's humiliating to watch a US president alternate between groveling and threatening war crimes as he randomly casts about for someone to blame for the disastrous war he began.
It used to be that the US mocked China and Russia for only being able to cobble together a couple random, rogue states as allies while we enjoyed dozens. Now the joke is on us as we're left with El Salvador, Hungary, Israel, and a few rump states as friends. Don's "new" right has its wish, we have relinquished our global leadership position to others, and shrunk our vision of what America is.
Meanwhile, let's all say a prayer for Don, the damage caused by his flailing war leadership has only just begun, and we have a looong road yet to travel.
Good luck America.
Actually it was the Neo-cons/libs that killed the western alliance. Go back and read my first post. Disconnecting trade from mutual defense has hollowed out the militaries and industrial bases of our allies.
First NAFTA, then the USMCA has sent lots of factories that would have been in Canada and America down to Mexico instead. Yet where was Mexico when it was time to protect the global supply chains feeding those factories from the Somalis pirates. I don't recall Mexico sending their warships to the South Pacific to train with our other Pacific allies or run freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea. Mexico didn't spend any it's blood or treasure helping us fight terrorists in the middle east either.
Meanwhile America and some of our other allies burnt through billions of dollars in missiles trying to protect a bunch of Chinese built ships, registered and paying taxes in Panama, carrying things like Russian oil through the Red Sea. England was a big help. Of course England, much like us, are struggling to find the money, experience and facilities to replace their aging warships with in reasonable budgets and time frames.
What is more humiliating is to realize just how hollowed out our allies have become. Canada lacks the warships and fighters that they would need to really offer any assistance in Iran. In the mean time their economy is starting to crash as their property bubble collapses. Unfortunately their manufacturing has largely been hollowed out by free trade.
Mark Carney, like all you old Neo-con/liberals just can't seem to admit that he may have got some things wrong. Instead is trying to run around writing trade deals with China and the EU, completely failing to understand that both of those entities are struggling to replace the surpluses they used to rely on the US to buy.
But just keep believing that it's not the system that's failing. We just need the right people in charge. That how the Democrats get through the day.
Dan, it's time for MAGA to man up, ya'll are in charge dude:) I get it, the backward looking grievance and blame makes for simple politics and is easier than actually governing, but at some point ya gotta accept responsibility. Yesterday is, yesterday... Every president inherits a difficult hand. Time for Don to grow up.
So let's look at today, and tomorrow. Perhaps you're right, and MAGA's Middle East war is going swimmingly. Don's clever, well-articulated strategery is unspooling brilliantly. The deaths of our troops, the groveling to adversaries, the threats of war crimes, the closing of the strait, the civilian deaths, surging oil prices, the impact on the global economy, the financial cost, the depletion of our military stockpiles, the lifeline to Vlad from lifting their (and Iran's) oil sanctions, the gift to China, it's all just Don's 4D chess. Art of the deal. It was all planned. Perhaps.
But maybe I'm right, and he's an aging, incoherent, dementia riddled narcissist that has started a disastrous war that he has no clue how to end. I read his rambling, incoherent daily bleats. I read the words he speaks. You should too.
I pray that you're right, and MAGA's Middle East war is right on track.
Check out the fight the Chinese had with the Hoover Institution over custody of the diaries of Mao’s personal secretary. The Chinese want to control thought. Then you can find the answer to the question you pose.
As to the military budget, am I the only one that noticed that Democrats are saying the exact thing that made Caesar cross the Rubicon. And whose support did Caesar need to do that. I have spent my whole life being a hard core constitutionalist but I am also a realist and the Republic cannot survive the hatred that is loose now. A house divided cannot stand, eh. So something is going to break. To qoute JD, you are always going to have a ruling class but it needs to be one that has the interest of the people in mind. I have tried to interest people in The National Divorce and in populist fusion but I get no takers except maybe you about populist fusion.
You still do not understand Trump. That increase is targeted as a psyop to China. That is all.
And why do you think they would fall for it? It might be a mistake to assume the Chinese are as dumb as Americans...
Check out the fight the Chinese had with the Hoover Institution over custody of the diaries of Mao’s personal secretary. The Chinese want to control thought. Then you can find the answer to the question you pose.
They do indeed want to control thought. They are masters of propaganda. Which is why I don't understand how you think Trump announcing a huge unfundable defence budget increase is a remotely plausible psyop. They have watched Trump as he blusters about doing untold damage to America and the system of global alliances the US patiently built after the second world war. They have watched him as he constantly changes his mind and speaks without thinking. They have watched the US fail to learn the lessons of the Ukraine war and to grossly overestimate its military capability. And they see Trump weakening politically as the mid terms approach, as MAGA fractures over Trump breaking his promise not to embroil the US in another Middle Eastern forever war. And they merrily sell US government bonds, driving up US government interest rates while the self inflicted oil price rise drives up inflation. Another of his campaign promises broken. If this is a psyop its a ridiculously clumsy one. More likely China sees it for what it actually is: more macho bluster from Trump Hegseth. And they will continue the steady build up of their own increasingly capable armed forces. As America declines China will likely become the leading nation of the rest of the 21st Century.