jross

7. I 100% agree with you (and Thomas) that it is easy to sympathize with the plight of refugees. Immigrants want to improve their lives and believe/hope their destination will be better for them and their heirs. I agree with Thomas about Middle East refugee 'fit' concerns in America. The USA doesn't just get workers; it gets people, not necessarily the people it desires. There is a difference in 'fit' for potential immigrants. America is an English-speaking, Individualistic, Christ-religious country with personal freedoms. The Middle East is less English-speaking, collective, Muslim, with different views on freedoms. There are generational conflicts still occurring today between these people. Americans hear much about how diversity makes everything better... but less discussed is the research presenting the downside of diversity https://www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com/pdf/j.1467-9477.2007.00176 Putnam Diversity.pdf. And we can see clashes in videos from across the pond. One clever statement made by George Borjas on immigration is that people should look at immigration as a redistribution of wealth as a social policy. Your support relies on whether you want to better support your country's natives versus immigrants, BUT also how much you want to redistribute wealth from natives that compete with immigrants to the natives that use the immigrants. For my comments earlier... I was thinking about immigration during colonization being compared to today. That was different than comparing 1900 to today. Reframing my thinking to 1900... the public's desire to have immigration, and specifically Middle East immigration, changes over time.

1. Don't care to discuss outside the original point. There have been other discussions on this topic on this forum. 2. The definition of entitlement is in the original sentence. "A feeling that the world owes you something while you owe nobody anything." 3. Please tell me more about how Thomas and his siblings were raised. Tell me if he was raised left or right-leaning. What politics did he support in his college paper writings? What caused his belief system to change? What about him makes him awful in your opinion? Why bring up Trump? I am critical of Trump's behaviors while supportive of his policies and execution. This is stated with specifics across these forum discussions. 5. The metric is wealth. North Korea, South Korea is the obvious live example. This is one of those self-evident items at this point. One enables wealth creation. The other redistributes wealth. Listen to Argentina talk about their lived experience. 6. I may not understand your concern? Here is the original statement with 'oppression' listed. Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for the oppression that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for the oppression they themselves are doing today? I'm assuming you are dissagreeing with the first point... which is fine... my point is that many people do not have any guilt or responsibility for their ancestor behavior.

5 Words Big Government Support Is Childish

My argument is with your accusation that Trump 'literally' tortured the children. I'm surprised you didn't say, 'and the evil man enjoyed it hugely.' What did the article say about this from what was provided before? It was several comments ago...

I don't think about visa holders and non-immigrant students as immigrants. If I did, they would be classified as legal immigrants. If that's how you think about them, then fair point.

1. My reading into Thomas' statement was that the government monopoly is poor quality. 2. The statement is about encouraging individuals to take personal responsibility for their actions and contributions. It criticizes societal attitudes toward achievement and entitlement. 3. Will you address it without dismissing it with rhetoric? 4. The media needs to cover facts without spin. Its what citizens want per the surveys. 5. LOL. Would you deny that capitalism has lifted more people up than socialism? Look around and read a book. 6. The generalization is irrelevant. Thomas emphasizes the importance of individuals taking responsibility for their actions today, which is a foundational principle in ethics. 7. One of the key comments is that there are negative cultural clashes that are occurring in other countries and will increase in the USA. You keep talking about actions from previous generations and comparing immigration today as if the context was the same as the past. Feel free to explain why this matters and why you think the situation is the same. 8. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/climate-crimes-must-be-brought-justice-0 ...I (Catriona McKinnon) have proposed that international criminal law should be expanded to include a new criminal offence that I call postericide. It is committed by intentional or reckless conduct fit to bring about the extinction of humanity. 9. I don't accept your ignorance. We talk about this on this forum. 10. Remember this isn't me... rather a readout of the article from Thomas. I think he is saying we need to be wiser and avoid monumental tragedies caused by politics.

MLK has something to say about accepting responsibility for your actions. We are all familiar with the most common agencies on which we project responsibility for our actions. First we tum to environment. How easy it is for one to affirm that one's whole personality make-up and indeed one's very destiny itself is determined by one's environment. Here is a man about forty now whose life has been given in riotous living. Now as he looks back over these wasted years his comment is: “I would have been if I had been {in} a rich family with prestige and fame or if I had been in a more progressive community. It is my environment that has corrupted me.” Yet such persons as this fail to realize that many individuals rise from the very lowest of environments to be some of the most noble characters of human history. There is a Marian Anderson, born in a poverty stricken area of Phila. Pa. She could have very easily given up in despair and cried out that she was born in the wrong environment. But she was not one to make excuses. This same Marian Anderson rose from a poverty stricken environment to be one of the world's greatest contraltoes, so that a Toscanni can say that a voice like this comes only once in a century and a Seballius of Finland can say, “My roof is too low for such a voice.”4 There is a Roland Hayes, born on the red hills of Gordon County Georgia under the most crippling restrictions. At a very early age he found himself working in an iron foundry of Chatanooga Tenn. But from these red hills of Georgia, he rose to the palace of Queen Mother of Spain. From this iron foundry in Chatanooga, Tenn., he rose to the palace of King George the 5th.5 There was an Abraham Lincoln, born in poverty and insecurity, later working as a Kentucky rail splitter. Yet this same Abraham Lincoln rose from a Kentucky rail splitter to be one of the greatest characters in the great drama of history. These are but few of the many examples that could be used to refute the claim that one is completely determined by his environment. Those who hold such a position fail to see that many fine and noble persons stem from bad environments and many very bad and corrupt persons stem from comfortable and desirable environments. Another external agency on which we readily cast responsibility for our actions is heredity. There are those who would affirm that one is completely determined by heredity. How easy it is to say, “I would have been better if I had had better hereditary circumstances.” Here again those who project total responsibility for their actions on hereditary circumstances fail to see that numerous individuals rise above such circumstances. There is a John Bunyan, deprived of his physical sight, and yet he wrote a Pilgrim's Progress that generations will cherish so long as the cords of memory shall lengthen.6 There is a Franklin D. Roosevelt, inflicted with infantile paralysis and yet he rises up to leave such an imprint in the sands of our nations history, that future history books will be incomplete without his name. There is a Hellen Keller, burdened with blindness and deafness, and she rises up to live such a sublime and noble life that millions have come to admire her as one of the choicest fruits on yhe tree of history.7 These are but few of those who have proved that man is not finally caught in the cluches of heredity. He has within himself the power to transcend the disadvantages of bad hereditary conditions...

Thomas Sowell says things in 2016 that are more true today. If you want to know how a libertarian-conservative thinks about issues... It is astonishing that some people think that the answer to the problems of Obamacare is to go to a “single-payer” system. But “single payer” is another way to say “government monopoly.” Does anyone notice how government monopolies operate — from the local DMV to Veterans Administration hospitals? Politics has turned the lofty ideal of equality into the ugly reality of resentment of other people’s achievements — and a feeling that the world owes you something while you owe nobody anything. The political Left’s hatred of Donald Trump is ironic because both he and they have the same pattern of automatically demonizing those who disagree with their views rather than confronting opposing arguments with hard evidence or convincing logic. If the media seriously wanted to report the news — instead of spinning it — they could stop calling rioters “protesters” and stop calling terrorists “militants.” Letter from a reader: “The socialists want to take the ‘sting’ out of poverty. They don’t understand that it’s the ‘sting’ that got everyone I know out of poverty and not a minimum wage.” Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today? Any decent human being can sympathize with the plight of Middle East refugees. But other refugees have been helped in their own part of the world — with money, food, medicine, and other things, in settings more compatible with their own way of life, rather than being brought across an ocean to a country that neither fits them nor which they fit in. Have you ever encountered even one human being — whether in person, in print, or in the broadcast media — who denied climate change? If not, why do you suppose zealots for the catastrophic “global warming” theory want laws passed to punish “climate-change deniers”? Is it because they are losing the battle of evidence on “global warming” and need to shut up others? One of the mysteries of the ages is why the political Left has, for centuries, lavished so much attention on the well-being of criminals and paid so little attention to their victims. The monumental tragedies of the 20th century — a worldwide Great Depression, two devastating World Wars, the Holocaust, famines killing millions in the Soviet Union, and tens of millions in China — should leave us with a sobering sense of the threats to any society. But this generation’s ignorance of history leaves them free to be frivolous — until the next catastrophe strikes and catches them completely by surprise.

I can remember my naivety of being pro-government. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

Great, they can follow the legal path available to them.

Go ahead and lay out your criticism in detail and consider supporting it with data. What would be the long-term impact of temporarily stopping legal immigration while eliminating illegal immigration?

Some of your responses man o man. Did Trump 'literally' torture children? LOL. If we choose not to take care of our own people, why are you talking about caring for other's people? Are you the guy asking for a raise and promotion right after your employer announces financial distress and layoffs? Timing! To expand the homeless conversation. Have you read into and watched interviews with many homeless that share they are homeless by choice? It's not always money, shelter, and rehab access.

Yes.

Given ~90% of Fund Managers lose to the market, an index fund is the best advice. But FYI SPY has beaten VTSAX, and NDX has crushed SPY well before 2020. 2024 is trending for another NDX win. Stock pickers can beat indexes and carving off 10% or so is fun/safe. I've picked individual stocks and beat the market in 14 of 20 years. Originally the investment was 10% individual to 90% retirement index...this grew to 60% individual to 40% index... to 100% SPY... to 100% individual. I'll go back to heavy index soon enough.

And? I support legal immigration. Yet, zero legal immigrants is temporary tolerable if that means zero illegal immigrants.

Silly... @Le duke, breathe in, hold 4, breathe out, hold 4s, repeat the box breathing, calm down, and reread the message. Rather than 'controlling' (your words) the media, the government will legally pay for advertising as it already does. And the media will freely promote the news regarding the government's war on illegal immigration. Ratings = clicks = profit. This message will inform the illegal immigrants the same way they learn about the open border (their network). Rather than walking up to random American moms on the streets (your words), it will be performed during illegal immigrant encounters 'at the border.' This is entirely legal and predates Trump! See this and the trafficking victims protection reauthorization act. Enforced law and the repercussions get the word out...

Declare it, communicate it, fund it, enforce it. Allocate the currently approved military funds to protect the border, build the wall, add technology, and add staff. Advertise over social media and the news that "Illegal immigrants are not welcome here. Illegals will be detained, fined, barred from reentry, and charged with a crime. If you cannot prove your relationship to children with you at the border, you will be separated from them for their safety." Continuously use the media propaganda engine against illegal immigration. Create a public-facing page with photos and information for illegal immigrants who are deported, and highlight deported folks over media each week. Create a page with the illegal immigrant encounters at the border. Take the shackles off border control and supplement with the National Guard.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/us/politics/dhs-kirstjen-nielsen-families-separated-border-transcript.html

Logical conclusions that go against one's belief cause pain. They don't want pain.

Excellent question. Higher wages could indicate a strong economy... but increased unpaid credit card debt indicates a lousy economy. At the end of 2021, 39% of credit card holders carried debt from month to month. That jumped to 47% in 2023 per Bankrate. According to TransUnion, the number of Americans missing payments increased, and the average credit card balance is the highest in a decade at $6,000. The price of used pinball machines is dropping because there is less demand for the high-cost supply. The product is not moving... I heard the IKEA CEO talk about reducing prices to stimulate consumption and help with profit.

It is awful but also

Speaker Mike Johnson releases a document with instances of the Biden Administration undermining border security policy and encouraging illegal immigration. It is easier to load the image and zoom through the brower URL at https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFOO8zfX0AEcnyS?format=jpg&name=large

Shrinkflation. Less product for the same or higher prices.

Anything beyond stopping illegal immigration and fast-tracked return-home paths for those illegals who entered the USA is dead on arrival. Now, how many years of entry before 2023 do we want to deport illegals? 5 years? 8 years? At what cutoff will we grandfather birthright citizenship and end the misinterpreted policy? 2020?

I could tell you what stocks I like, but you'd miss out when I no longer favored them and be angry when I missed them. AT&T, Verizon, and Western Union were good buys recently at lower prices. The share price has recovered nicely, and the dividends are very good. I will not hold those three beyond 2024. SOFI is a rapidly growing bank that recently became profitable. I am bullish on SOFI through 2026. The stock price is being manipulated, so it will cause a new person to freak out, like the recent 20% gain and sell-off with earnings. For the longer-term holder, I like buying SOFI for under $8 and holding through 2026-2027 for $20. I've been tracking COTY since 2020, listening to the quarterly earning calls, etc. The company made many mistakes, changed leadership, and has returned to its profitable ways. This goes from $12 to $15 and returns dividends in 2025 in my analysis. SOFI and COTY are underpriced, though I'm not buying more COTY unless it drops to $ 10.50. I like high insider buys on profitable companies on the low end of their 52-week price range as prospective companies to perform due diligence on for my buys. I also look into companies like Roblox because my kids play the game, but it's a no currently as they do not seem to have a path to profit. SPX and NDX index funds remain safer hands-off investments with great returns since 2020. See below for reference and note that the 'current' rows compare the beg of 2020 to a price check in the past week. I think S&P will be down in the first half of 2024 and be better in 2025... especially if we get a pro capital Trump as president. As for me, I'm a maniac that swing trades and holds individual stocks... putting in larger amounts across a small number of companies. A recent stupid decision was thinking there was a runway for DISH to return on a mid-term holding investment, and instead, it merged with Echostar and keeps losing value. Frick. edit: redid image