Trump

[gilesgoat]

Next Thanksgiving family dinner could be awkward for one Trump advisor:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... cle-219351

It's not as surprising as it reads, and doesn't just apply to the US... some of the biggest anti-immigration voices that you could hear in the UK are immigrants themselves, or descendants of immigrants.

If you go back, everybody is an immigrant, except for maybe one unknown place in Africa, and probably not even there. Britain is particularly immigrant central, and always has been.

Isn't the whole Britain mostly been created by "immigrants" of Germanic origins that misplaced local old Celtic groups ?

[zip accident]

Next Thanksgiving family dinner could be awkward for one Trump advisor:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... cle-219351

It's not as surprising as it reads, and doesn't just apply to the US... some of the biggest anti-immigration voices that you could hear in the UK are immigrants themselves, or descendants of immigrants.

If you go back, everybody is an immigrant, except for maybe one unknown place in Africa, and probably not even there. Britain is particularly immigrant central, and always has been.

Isn't the whole Britain mostly been created by "immigrants" of Germanic origins that misplaced local old Celtic groups ?

Before the Celts, it was the Beaker people (short and dark haired allegedly), and before them there were no people? or maybe they were invaders too? anyhow, it was the end of the ice age when people started moving in, before that it was wolves, beavers and bears, and even they came from somewere else originally.

[F-ZeroOne]

Next Thanksgiving family dinner could be awkward for one Trump advisor:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... cle-219351

It's not as surprising as it reads, and doesn't just apply to the US... some of the biggest anti-immigration voices that you could hear in the UK are immigrants themselves, or descendants of immigrants.

Indeed. Nigel Farage famously had a German wife, though IIRC they're separated now.

[tufty]

Next Thanksgiving family dinner could be awkward for one Trump advisor:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... cle-219351

It's not as surprising as it reads, and doesn't just apply to the US... some of the biggest anti-immigration voices that you could hear in the UK are immigrants themselves, or descendants of immigrants.

If you go back, everybody is an immigrant, except for maybe one unknown place in Africa, and probably not even there. Britain is particularly immigrant central, and always has been.

Isn't the whole Britain mostly been created by "immigrants" of Germanic origins that misplaced local old Celtic groups ?

And the French. Remember, the polite half of English is pretty much French. Well before them, there were the Italians. Plus pretty much the rest of Europe. The UK was europe's quiet, isolated spot for having a quick shag.

[Harlequin]

Next Thanksgiving family dinner could be awkward for one Trump advisor:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... cle-219351

It's not as surprising as it reads, and doesn't just apply to the US... some of the biggest anti-immigration voices that you could hear in the UK are immigrants themselves, or descendants of immigrants.

If you go back, everybody is an immigrant, except for maybe one unknown place in Africa, and probably not even there. Britain is particularly immigrant central, and always has been.

Isn't the whole Britain mostly been created by "immigrants" of Germanic origins that misplaced local old Celtic groups ?

And the French. Remember, the polite half of English is pretty much French. Well before them, there were the Italians. Plus pretty much the rest of Europe. The UK was europe's quiet, isolated spot for having a quick shag.

Do not forget the Vikings (large parts of the east coast apparently having Scandinavian genes). Personally, my grandfather was a Mayan, West Indian, Spanish descendant from Belize.

[Rubisco]

Next Thanksgiving family dinner could be awkward for one Trump advisor:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... cle-219351

Only as awkward as having to explain that in 1903 the welfare state didn't exist. If he were to propose a return to the 1903 immigration policy of "you can come in, but work your butt off or you'll starve to death" then I don't think he'd face much opposition from Republicans.

[PFVA]

And truth isn't truth

Truth isn't truth

Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Donald's attorney being interviwed on Meet the Press

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45241838

[F-ZeroOne]

"Last Week Tonight" this week does a good job of looking at Trumps current trade policy. Highlight for me was that his top economics advisor (hired, according to Oliver, by Jared Kushner after a search on Amazon) made a "documentary" movie about the threat to the US economy from China. In one scene, Chinese bombers are shown dropping economic "bombs" on the US. It says a lot about the thought that went into making it that the bomber model used by the movie makers for the Chinese attack is the B-24 Liberator - an American design.

[gilesgoat]

*SNIP*Chinese bombers are shown dropping economic "bombs" on the US.

So why for example Apple, the jewel of USA stuff, has everything manufactured in China instead of being made in USA factories by USA employees and strong American people hands giving jobs to millions of Americans ?

Oh wait you mean then no one could afford to buy any Apple product or Apple won't have such enormous profits/value the stock would go low ?

tch tch ..

[KlaxonCow]

As I've touched on, there's a far more profound thing actually going on here.

We're moving from a "post-industrial" to a "post-labour" society. The fabled "leisure society".

You've picked up on the point I made before. China dumping cheap steel on the world has threatened to bankrupt the steel industries all the world, yet not a single Chinese foot had to step onto UK (or US or anywhere else) soil at any point.

You've captured it from a different angle - Apple takes the manufacturing to China, where it's cheaper, so American jobs are lost in an "opportunity cost" kind of way.

I also pointed out a similar "opportunity cost" method of how people are losing jobs through machines, robots and automation - and, soon enough, AI will join that pile, when autonomous cars put the taxi and bus drivers, and the long distance truckers and delivery vans, out of a job - which might not always be obvious to see happening, as machines often don't do a 1:1 replacement with a human being.

But automation - the rise of the machines - often simply means that one person can do the job that once took ten people. We might not face the obviousness of being told not to turn up for work on Monday, as "Robbie the Robot" has taken over - to have it spelt out to us in the same way that the Luddites did - but tech that makes our labour easier also brings the capacity to do more work. Seeing as it now takes you, alone, five minutes to do what used to take ten people five hours, then we can now run what used to be, say, a 100 man business back in the 20th century with just 5 people today.

(In fact, I've been phoning support to sort out my TV and broadband yesterday. Whilst - you can tell from the accents - the call centre is in India, the even subtler point is that I was only put through to a human being when the automated menu couldn't help me. So even the Indian call centre workers are slowly losing their jobs to the machines as well. If you've seen the video of the Google assistant demo, then you can see that it really won't be long until you could eradicate human beings from 99% of such calls. You'd still have to have a handful of people to deal with the 1% of cases where the AI's completely stumped as to what the shit you're talking about. But our Indian call centre friends have a problem too, when the call centre no longer needs 1000 people but can make do with just 10 for the 1% of most awkward calls that a machine can't comprehend.)

People are still stuck in the "nationalist" mindset of the 19th and 20th centuries, in a 21st century where, honestly, none of that remotely works like that anymore.

They're looking backwards, when we need to look forwards, because what's beginning to happen here will be, ultimately, the biggest revolution that humanity's ever faced thus far.

Indeed, what exactly do we do once our several-thousand-year-old quest to eliminate all toil succeeds?

That's much more than a practical question - though it certainly is that too - but is moving into philosophy about humanity's very "raison d'etre" itself.


Meanwhile, we have an orange man who can barely speak English, ranting and raving about getting brown people to pay for walls that - you know, some basic research - almost no illegal immigrants even attempt to cross in the first place, you blithering idiot.

[Deckard]

The AI bit is covered pretty much the same way in his new book which is rather fantastic

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/ ... ari-review

[F-ZeroOne]

*SNIP*Chinese bombers are shown dropping economic "bombs" on the US.

So why for example Apple, the jewel of USA stuff, has everything manufactured in China instead of being made in USA factories by USA employees and strong American people hands giving jobs to millions of Americans ?

Oh wait you mean then no one could afford to buy any Apple product or Apple won't have such enormous profits/value the stock would go low ?

tch tch ..

Yeah, Oliver covered some of that (as well as a little on the role of automation), but as it happens I also read an article the same day about the challenges Trumps policies are causing for sellers of electric bicycles in the US, many of which are either made in, or are made of components from, China and the rest of Asia. The short version is that they have years, if not decades of experience in manufacturing them and it would take major investment and time to match that particular market niche, and even if you could the end product would probably still cost more. One retailer tried selling a more expensive "Made in USA" e-bike alongside a Chinese one, with a notice explaining exactly why it would cost more, and people would come in stating that they wanted a "Made in USA" product but buy the cheaper Chinese-made one.

[F-ZeroOne]

According to Trump, he shouldn't be impeached/prosecuted/shot to the Moon because it would be very bad for the economy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45285585

How did it go again? "Lock her up"...?

[PFVA]

Any U.S. President being impeached will cause turmoil in the market, not because of Trump's thinking capabilities, but because changes and insecurity generally bring that. And it would recover afterwards.

[F-ZeroOne]

"Pointing to his head, he said: 'Because without this thinking, you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe in reverse.' "

Like hope going upwards?

I'm a little unclear on what happens if Trump is successfully impeached - would that mean Mike Pence would take over for the end of his term, or only until some new election is held?