[barmar]

 PassedOut, on 2017-February-24, 15:53, said:

Certainly, but the problem is that folks understandably aspire to jobs that support a middle-class lifestyle. Low-paying jobs don't do that.

Exactly. That's why immigrants (particularly the undocumented ones) are so important to many segments of the economy, particularly farming. There aren't enough Americans who are willing to work on farms for the low wages they pay, but undocumented immigrants are often happy to fill this niche.

An argument for securing the border and deporting all these illegals may be that if the farm owners can't get illegals who are willing to work for slave wages, they'll be forced to increase their wages to those that Americans demand. But the only way they can do this without going bankrupt is by passing these costs on to the consumers, so produce prices will skyrocket.

It's the same problem with offshoring jobs. Trump's proposed import taxes will cause prices to increase, either because businesses will keep importing and pass the taxes on to customers, or they'll bring factories home and pass the increased labor costs on to customers. And when they bring factories home, there won't be lots of jobs for low-skill workers like there were in the "good old days", because most of those jobs will be automated. Bringing factories back is not going to provide the kinds of jobs that many of Trump's voters are looking for.

[PassedOut]

 ldrews, on 2017-February-24, 16:05, said:

Increasing automation is indeed a problem for middle class jobs. But many small businesses cannot afford the capitalization required to automate. So perhaps the focus could be on facilitating small businesses.

What do you mean here by "facilitating?"

[ldrews]

 barmar, on 2017-February-24, 16:27, said:

What makes him seem "trollish" is the way he regularly posts provocative messages, rather than engaging in meaningful dialogue. But I could be misreading him, and this is the way he earnestly defends his positions.

I would love to engage in meaningful dialog rather than the drive-by shootings that my dissent seems to provoke. See above discussions on fixing inner cities and improving working/middle class job prospects.

But I do not enjoy being called names and being disrespected simply because I do not echo the predominant viewpoint. When faced with such I naturally retreat into defensive retorts.

[jogs]

 nige1, on 2017-February-24, 08:17, said:

If a moderator agrees with you, then you're free to spew venom.
Before a moderator bans you as a troll, however, he must disagree with you. I think Barmar disagrees with LDrews but is too fair-minded to ban him.

Is this an open forum which welcomes all divergent views?
Or is this forum an arm of the elitist progressive left?

[jogs]

 barmar, on 2017-February-24, 16:37, said:

Exactly. That's why immigrants (particularly the undocumented ones) are so important to many segments of the economy, particularly farming. There aren't enough Americans who are willing to work on farms for the low wages they pay, but undocumented immigrants are often happy to fill this niche.

In the future immigrants will be preforming most end-of-life home care. Few can afford $25+/hr 24/7 from CNAs. I only favor deporting violent criminals.

[awm]

 ldrews, on 2017-February-24, 17:27, said:

I would love to engage in meaningful dialog rather than the drive-by shootings that my dissent seems to provoke. See above discussions on fixing inner cities and improving working/middle class job prospects.

It seems highly unlikely to me that the Trump voters (overwhelmingly white and rural) chose him on the basis of who will be best for the (mostly minority and urban) inner cities. In any case, things are not nearly as bad in the cities as Trump makes them out to be -- despite a slight uptick in the last year, crime rates have been falling in the inner cities for quite a long time. Rates of pretty much every violent crime have fallen substantially since the 1990s. The problems that remain mostly stem from three things: 1. Unequal access to education. The schools in poor urban communities are much worse than the schools in suburban or even rural areas. This is mostly due to intentionally unequal allocation of resources (racism and classism, basically, which persists because wealthy taxpayers want their taxes applied to the schools in their community and not the schools for "those kids"). Kozel's books make this point in great depth and nothing has really changed since he wrote them. 2. Unequal policing. Again, this pretty much comes down to racism. Amazingly, we are having an argument in this country about whether it is okay for police to shoot unarmed people who are guilty of (at worst) a misdemeanor! Guess which side the Republicans are on? Of course the (perceived or real) racism of police forces means citizens in these communities are less likely to be cooperative, and the adversarial relationship leads to the recent (small) rise in crime rates. 3. Lack of good public transit. This is a particular problem in Baltimore for example, where there are parts of the city with lots of poor unemployed people, and other parts of the city with lots of low-wage jobs these folks are qualified to do, but no reasonable way for the home-to-work commute to happen (poor people can't afford cars in most cases, nor can they afford to move to the more affluent parts of town where shops and restaurants need employees). Minority groups in the cities vote pretty heavily for Democrats, because Democrats advocate better equality in schooling and policing, are willing to spend money to improve schools and public transit, and don't say racist stuff (for the most part) about how Mexicans are rapists and murderers and black kids accused of a crime should be executed even after they were exonerated. It's pretty simple really.

As far as job prospects, the interesting thing is that we have an unemployment rate below 5% and have recently set all-time records for the number of job openings! So what's the problem? Despite some 6 million job openings, there's a set of people (of working age) who've left the labor force and are not even looking for work, leading to a (slightly) lower labor participation rate... and this isn't due to a rise in the number of stay-at-home parents. The problem has a lot to do with the type of jobs that are available (mostly in cities and for workers with education and training in a technical field; note that a four-year degree is not necessarily required for these positions, nor is a liberal arts four-year degree necessarily helpful). People living in rural areas (and who don't want to live in cities) and who have only a high school degree (or less) are typically not qualified for these jobs.

So what can we do? The big thing is to improve education (especially in STEM fields). Guess which party wants to make college more affordable? Which party wants to spend money on scientific research? Hmm. What's happened is that many jobs have disappeared due to automation; US factories are producing more but employing fewer. New jobs have opened up (someone has to maintain the machines, program the machines, there are new jobs in healthcare, etc)... but these new jobs require more training and different skills.

Now we can take a look at all Trump's executive orders. Toss aside those which are just making general statements about goals (i.e. wanting fewer regulations), or which are directing someone to do their job (i.e. telling military leadership to make a plan to fight ISIS). What's left mostly comes under two categories:

1. Making it easier for extractive companies (oil, gas, coal) to pollute our environment by building pipelines, dumping in rivers, etc. It's possible this will lead to a few more jobs in pipeline construction or whatever, but that's a temporary need and these sectors tend not to employ that many people directly (for example solar already employs 4x more people than coal). On the other hand, these things endanger the lives of millions and will cost us all in the long-term. Even if you don't believe that humans cause climate change (despite overwhelming evidence)... do we really need more towns with tap-water you can literally set on fire? More earthquakes like in Oklahoma? This doesn't seem like a great idea to me...

2. Restricting who can enter the United States, and kicking people out. I don't think anyone really has a problem with investigating people who apply for visas to make sure they are not terrorists. But of course we already do this. The impact of Trump's executive orders has been to prevent people who have already passed vetting from entering the country. In some cases people who have already been residents of the US for years and have American spouses or children were prevented from coming home after visiting relatives in their birth-country. This does not make America more safe. In fact, having smart and open-minded Iranians (for example) come to the US and work for our tech companies (instead of theirs) and then occasionally visit friends and relatives in Iran and tell them how friendly and welcoming the American people are is one of our best forms of propaganda. Now we're disallowing this? What kind of message does that send? Trump has deportation squads kicking Latinos out of the country. Never mind that most "undocumented" people overstayed a legal visa and aren't even Latino... we are just targeting the "brown people." And again, no one has a problem with kicking out the "rapists and murderers" such as they are. But we are kicking out husbands and wives of Americans, people who have lived here for decades and have worked and contributed to our society... people whose only "crime" was to work without a legal visa. Again, this is telling people that our country is racist; it is not making us safer. It's not creating jobs. We have millions of unfilled jobs anyway. Americans just don't want the jobs (or aren't qualified for them), and we don't want the strawberry-picking and hotel-cleaning jobs a lot of undocumented people do either.

[Winstonm]

 jogs, on 2017-February-24, 18:45, said:

In the future immigrants will be preforming most end-of-life home care. Few can afford $25+/hr 24/7 from CNAs. I only favor deporting violent criminals.

End of life home care (hospice) is a benefit of Medicare and offers skilled nurses, social workers, nurse aides, and chaplains. The cost to the family is zero, including the cost of drugs used for patient comfort.

One of the genuine problems in senior care (meaning assisted living and nursing homes) is that that least educated and lowest paid (the aides) provide the vast majority of the care and have little incentive to provide exceptional care.

[ldrews]

 awm, on 2017-February-24, 19:17, said:

It seems highly unlikely to me that the Trump voters (overwhelmingly white and rural) chose him on the basis of who will be best for the (mostly minority and urban) inner cities...

Wow! Thanks so much! Give me some time to digest this and respond appropriately.

[ldrews]

 awm, on 2017-February-24, 19:17, said:

It seems highly unlikely to me that the Trump voters (overwhelmingly white and rural)

OK, there is so much to comment on that I am going to have to take it in pieces. So here goes ...

Based on the CNN exit polls (http://edition.cnn.c...ults/exit-polls) the breakdown of Trump voters were as follows:

White voters, who make up 69% of the total, voted 58% for Trump and 37% for Clinton. Non-white voters, who make up 31% of the electorate, voted 74% for Clinton and 21% for Trump.
White men opted 63% for Trump and 31% for Clinton; white women voted 53% for Trump and 43% for Clinton.
Among non-college-educated whites, 67% voted for Trump – 72% of men and 62% of women.
Among college-educated whites, 45% voted for Clinton – 39% of men and 51% of women (the only white demographic represented in the poll where the former secretary of state came out on top).
But 54% of male college graduates voted for Trump, as did 45% of female college graduates.
More 18- to 29-year-old whites voted for Trump (48%) than Clinton (43%).
Trump, meanwhile, while winning just 8% of the black vote, collected 29% of the Latino vote – two percentage points more than his 2012 predecessor, Mitt Romney.
Broken down by income bracket, 52% of voters earning less than $50,000 a year – who make up 36% of the electorate – voted for Clinton, and 41% for Trump.
But among the 64% of American voters who earn more than $50,000 a year, 49% chose Trump, and 47% Clinton.

Based on these exit polls, the phrase "overwhelmingly white and rural" seems a bit of hyperbole. Note that voters earning less than $50K/year voted 52% for Clinton, 41% for Trump,
while voters earning more than $50K/year voted 49% for Trump versus 47% for Clinton.

Trump did poorly among blacks (8%) but did better than expected among latinos (29%).

So the common characterization of Trump voters being rural, ignorant, white dumbasses seems not to fit actual reality.

[cherdano]

This is getting amusing.

 awm, on 2017-February-24, 19:17, said:

It seems highly unlikely to me that the Trump voters (overwhelmingly white and rural)

ldrews tries to dispute this claim by citing numbers that

• confirm that Trump voters are overwhelmingly white (69% of all voters are white, but 86% of Trump voters are - according to the figures in ldrews' post), and
  
• say nothing at all about whether they are overwhelmingly rural

Does ldrews even read his own posts?

Btw, what is Trump's first big action for the middle class going to be? Is it Ivanka's childcare tax credit plan (which would mostly benefit families earning 200,000-500,000 $)? Is it his plan to repeal Dodd-Frank (so that we get back to financial regulations of 2007)? Or was it already done by nominating lots of Goldmann-Sachs alumni for his cabinet? Oh, of course, it's

Oh, I get it! ICE employee's jobs are now "fun again", and deporting Mexican nannies will magically make the American Middle Class Great Again!!!

[ldrews]

 cherdano, on 2017-February-25, 17:03, said:

This is getting amusing.


ldrews tries to dispute this claim by citing numbers that

• confirm that Trump voters are overwhelmingly white (69% of all voters are white, but 86% of Trump voters are - according to the figures in ldrews' post), and
  
• say nothing at all about whether they are overwhelmingly rural

Does ldrews even read his own posts?

Didn't you forget the word "rural". So, unless 86% of the white voters are rural the original depiction is incorrect. Do you have any evidence that 86% of white voters are rural?

[ldrews]

 cherdano, on 2017-February-25, 17:03, said:

Btw, what is Trump's first big action for the middle class going to be? Is it Ivanka's childcare tax credit plan (which would mostly benefit families earning 200,000-500,000 $)? Is it his plan to repeal Dodd-Frank (so that we get back to financial regulations of 2007)? Or was it already done by nominating lots of Goldmann-Sachs alumni for his cabinet? Oh, of course, it's

Trump has already taken his first big action for the working/middle class. He withdrew the US from the TPP trade agreement and is starting the renegotiation of NAFTA. If you would like I can draw a picture for you on how that will benefit the working/middle class.

So, what would your suggestion be for Trump to do to help the working/middle class. What big action do you think is needed?

[cherdano]

 ldrews, on 2017-February-25, 17:22, said:

Didn't you forget the word "rural". So, unless 86% of the white voters are rural the original depiction is incorrect. Do you have any evidence that 86% of white voters are rural?

LOL. cherdano "86% of all Trump voters are white!" - ldrews: "Do you have evidence that 86% of white voters are rural?"

"That dessert was about 70% sugar!" - ldrews: "Do you have any evidence that 70% of all waiters are college students?"

[cherdano]

 ldrews, on 2017-February-25, 17:25, said:

Trump has already taken his first big action for the working/middle class. He withdrew the US from the TPP trade agreement and is starting the renegotiation of NAFTA. If you would like I can draw a picture for you on how that will benefit the working/middle class.

TPP was never getting approved by Congress, so it didn't matter what Trump did. But I am strangely curious how your mind thinks this will benefit the working/middle class. Go ahead, draw a picture! (Maybe it gets as amusing as your discussion of exit polls.)

[ldrews]

 cherdano, on 2017-February-25, 17:29, said:

TPP was never getting approved by Congress, so it didn't matter what Trump did. But I am strangely curious how your mind thinks this will benefit the working/middle class. Go ahead, draw a picture! (Maybe it gets as amusing as your discussion of exit polls.)

Glad that you are amused. For a moment I thought that you just want to pick a fight rather than have a discussion.

So, renegotiate NAFTA to reduce the incentive for US manufacturers to export jobs to Mexico. This will put pressure on the manufacturers to move jobs back to the US thereby benefiting the US working/middle class.

Of course this is not the only actions that can be taken. Already the Trump Administration is talking about border taxes, particular applied to US companies that manufacture out of the US. Again, pressure to move jobs back to the US.

Secure the US/Mexico border to reduce/eliminate illegal aliens from entering the US and undercutting wage rates. Increases upward pressure on wages for US working/middle class.

[jogs]

 Winstonm, on 2017-February-24, 20:06, said:

End of life home care (hospice) is a benefit of Medicare and offers skilled nurses, social workers, nurse aides, and chaplains. The cost to the family is zero, including the cost of drugs used for patient comfort.

Hospice does not pay for caretakers. Those other people don't come as often as you think.

Quote

One of the genuine problems in senior care (meaning assisted living and nursing homes) is that that least educated and lowest paid (the aides) provide the vast majority of the care and have little incentive to provide exceptional care.

Hospice does not pay for rest homes. $7,000 to $10,000 a month.

The main problem is unless you visit your loved ones at least twice a week, those aides will ignore the your loved ones. Better if you don't have scheduled visits. Keep the help on their toes.

[Winstonm]

 jogs, on 2017-February-25, 18:08, said:

Hospice does not pay for caretakers. Those other people don't come as often as you think.


Hospice does not pay for rest homes. $7,000 to $10,000 a month.

The main problem is unless you visit your loved ones at least twice a week, those aides will ignore the your loved ones. Better if you don't have scheduled visits. Keep the help on their toes.

Don't attempt to tell me my business. I was a hospice RH for 9 years. Hospices usually start with twice a week visits and gradually increase as death nears. You are right that hospice does not provide caregivers.

The care in most nursing homes is inadequate. What is the solution?

[Winstonm]

 jogs, on 2017-February-25, 18:08, said:

Hospice does not pay for caretakers. Those other people don't come as often as you think.


Hospice does not pay for rest homes. $7,000 to $10,000 a month.

The main problem is unless you visit your loved ones at least twice a week, those aides will ignore the your loved ones. Better if you don't have scheduled visits. Keep the help on their toes.

Don't attempt to tell me my business. I was a hospice RN for 9 years. Hospices usually start with twice a week visits and gradually increase as death nears. You are right that hospice does not provide caregivers.

The care in most nursing homes is inadequate. What is the solution?

[awm]

Some articles about rural vs. urban divide in the election:

The Atlantic
Washington Post
NY Times
NPR
NBC

I know, I know, all "fake news"?

The main point is pretty consistent, that Trump ran up huge margins in the rural areas while Clinton ran up huge margins in the cities (but maybe not quite as huge as Obama four years before). Yes, I know it's not true that 100% of Trump voters are rural, but the major cities voted very heavily for Clinton. The Trump voters you see interviewed on TV (who are basically the Trump voters who aren't consistent Republicans who turn out every election) don't live in cities and in general don't particularly like or respect the people who live in cities. They will tell you why they voted for Trump -- the number one reason is they think he will restore jobs to "small town America"; you will also hear some vitriol about how awful Clinton is (usually repeating some falsehoods about her), and some pseudo-racist stuff about muslims and Mexicans. Of course there are many other people who voted for Trump, and some of them defy the usual demographics, but while something like 1% of Trump voters are black (for example) that doesn't invalidate the point that black voters chose Clinton by overwhelming margins and that the "typical Trump voter" is indeed white (and probably doesn't have a college degree, and probably doesn't live in a major city or in the state of California).

[Al_U_Card]

 barmar, on 2017-February-24, 16:27, said:

What makes him seem "trollish" is the way he regularly posts provocative messages, rather than engaging in meaningful dialogue. But I could be misreading him, and this is the way he earnestly defends his positions.

You can be confrontational or argumentative without being arrogant or vulgar. Personal comments (Such as "you are an idiot/troll etc." are just too childish to be tolerated since we teach our own children about name-calling do we not?)
Reasoned and logical positions when factually supported are what makes people change their minds, not invective or insults. This is a forum and not a free-for-all. Many postshere add to my knowledge and awareness of facts, opinion and perspective. Filtering out the dross is a chore, but I read most and only skip the usually haughty and insipid ones.
Holding an unpopular position is not necessarily holding an untenable one.