Dumb Trump supporters raise mortgage rates, reduce money for Social Security and Medicare, and Make America A Laughing Stock.

  • HWK_290@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Who would have thought that people so vehemently against a functioning government would ultimately give the world the impression that America does not have a functioning government

    • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Mate, we’ve been laughing at you for decades.

      At least Trump only really hurt America, unlike the third world countries everyone one of your presidents bombs and murders while you self title yourself defender of the free world or whatever wankery it was.

      • FrankFrankson@lemmy.world
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        Most of us don’t like Trump, most of us don’t like the bombings in other countries, most of us didn’t want to be in Vietnam, most of us didn’t want us to be in Iraq.

        I don’t look at every person in the UK and assume you all love the Monarchy and love the current and past two morons you have had running the place. I mean fuck Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, and Boris Johnson and Brexit? Shit isn’t lookin great over that way either but I don’t assume it’s because every single citizen of the UK wanted it that way. Quit looking at America like one big collective individual and take a moment to realize that the system here is rigged to shit from years of political fuckery. We are stuck with a two party system and the past two presidents who did the most damage to our foreign relations and our political system didn’t even win the fucking popular vote.

        Oh and if I incorrectly assumed you nationality just fill in the appropriate bullshit that is probably happening in your current country.

        Sincerely,

        One of the majority of Americans that don’t like what is happening in this country either

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          What, come on, everyone knows that having four prime ministers in two years is the sign of a stable government.

          The monarchy in charge would probably result in a better political situation to be honest.

          • foo@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            Did their government change? Did the military take over? No, the timing party just decided to elect a new front man to distract the population while the Tories resort and pillage society

        • asap@feddit.de
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          most of us didn’t want to be in Vietnam, most of us isn’t didn’t want us to be in Iraq.

          I think change starts by taking an honest assessment of the situation, and the statement above is easily disproven:

          It doesn’t matter that public support shifted later - of course people feel bad about doing something bad after the fact. But at the time, most Americans did want you to be in Vietnam and most Americans did want you to be in Iraq.

          I’m sure that the people in your social circle do disagree with those wars and do disagree with some of the more recent things which have happened, but you need to understand that sometimes the majority does sadly support some very bad things.

          • FrankFrankson@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            We don’t make the decision to go to war the government does that without our input. The public supported for the war in Iraq after the government decided to go to war then spread propaganda saying that Iraq was related to 9/11. Those are graphs of how effective propaganda was on those polled after the government made a decision to go to war… we don’t vote on that shit.

            It doesn’t matter that public support shifted later - of course people feel bad about doing something bad after the fact.

            That is the propaganda losing the battle. People found out that the person (supposedly) responsible for 9/11 was in Afghanistan and had nothing to do with Iraq.

            Vietnam was the same but it took longer for the general public to find out the truth. The government decides to go to war and spreads propaganda everywhere about why we needed to go to Vietnam. Propaganda weakens as real information about the war spreads then people no longer support the war.

            Americans are not just inherently warmongering people I don’t think any citizens of any country are…unless their government has a super effective propaganda machine constantly brain fucking them into being that way (see Russia).

            I’m sure that the people in your social circle do disagree with those wars and do disagree with some of the more recent things which have happened, but you need to understand that sometimes the majority does sadly support some very bad things

            My social circles? I live in the Midwest there are people in my neighborhood with flags up that say “Fuck Biden Don’t blame me I Voted for Trump” in their front yards here. I have seen the worst of Americans and they are not the majority even here. There are some dumb fuck gravy seals that cosplay as soldiers and act like war is a solution to anything and everything but most of the people here who support Trump and have that “America first” mindset are just well meaning morons that fell prey to propaganda.

            I am well aware that propaganda works champ the idea that there are brief periods of support for such things somehow cancels that the majority of the time the majority of everyone doesn’t support such things is moronic.

            • asap@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              First:

              most of us didn’t want us to be in Iraq.

              Then:

              The public supported for the war in Iraq

              What you’re saying is there was a period of time where the war had support of the public. This is what Deceptichum is saying is not normal. There should not be any period where the majority of Americans thought invading Iraq was a good idea. This part is what the problem is.

              • FrankFrankson@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Nice cherry pickin champ. You are a moron.

                Edit: You edited your comment to add that last point to it then claimed I didn’t respond to the point… that you edited in after the fact. Double moron points for you.

                • asap@feddit.de
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                  1 year ago

                  There should not be any period where the majority of Americans thought invading Iraq was a good idea. This part is what the problem is.

                  I notice you didn’t actually respond to my point, and then you got angry and started calling names.

        • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Most of you vote for this every fucking time.

          Stop acting like you’re not responsible for the state of your own country; fucking pathetic.

            • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Oh fuck off mate, accept a bit of responsibility in your pathetic life.

              No one else on this planet is responsible for America except Americans.

              You allow this system to flourish and support it year after year. Just because a small percentage of your population can’t vote doesn’t mean shit when you were founded without the right to vote.

              • FrankFrankson@lemmy.world
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                Yupp me and the other Americans were like “Lets push SCOTUS to rule on Citizens United in a way that allows unchecked amounts of money in politics and also lets create a system that lets a candidate that loses the popular vote become president anyway!” we all worked really hard at it… or we watched and let it happen without protesting or trying to change it at all…

                …or that is completely wrong and you could go read both those articles I linked and realize that “the majority of us” literally did not vote for this shit and or voted against it.

                • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  You and the other Americans instead were like “let’s do nothing and complain”.

                  Tell me, who do you think is responsible for America if not Americans?

              • new_acct_who_dis@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Why is everyone downvoting this guy? He’s right.

                Who tf else is going to fix us? There are a ton reasons why it’s extra challenging to effectively come together like the French do against their government, but it’s still up to us to change shit.

      • sudo@lemmy.today
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        1 year ago

        ‘mate’, ‘wankery’…

        I take it your country is totally free of any atrocities and has since Its inception been fair and impartial in all of its international dealings.

        • Drewfro66@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Interesting how this obvious Whataboutism gets upvotes when it’s defending America and not China

      • AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Please tell me you’re British. Because that would make your moralizing about Americans go from mildy amusing to outstandingly hilarious.

          • AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            Pity. But judging from your vernacular, you’re from a Western country, none of which have a stellar history when it comes to colonialism and imperialism. So I would wager your particular nation has done some really shitty, fucked up things in the past. Probably at least a few genocides, eh? Maybe more? Shall we gloss over those atrocities, so your comment doesn’t come off as ridiculous?

            • Phoenixbouncing@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Pity. But judging from your vernacular, you’re from a Western country, none of which have a stellar history

              FTFY. There’s not a country around that doesn’t have something dark in it’s closet. I feel that a real patriot would accept the dark parts of their country’s history, and work to make the future brighter rather than putting their fingers in their ears and going ‘nananana’.

              I’m not signaling any country out here since there isn’t a point.

              This does not mean that we should never point out bad stuff other countries are doing just because at some point in the past our country also did terrible shit. Raising the plight of the Uyghurs does not lighten what happened in Algeria, but neither can what happend in Algeria be used as a justification (or whataboutisme) for what’s currently happening in Xinjiang.

            • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              It’s funny how interested you are in whataboutism.

              From a colonial nation, so yes we’ve done horrible things to the original inhabitants. I accept that fact.

              • AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                Unless you’re addressing every Western nation with your remarks, then it’s just whitewashing your own nation’s crimes against humanity. Pointing that out isn’t whataboutism, it’s a perfectly valid argument addressing your hypocrisy. I’m not going to say you’re wrong, because you’re not. But I think we can all agree we had really good teachers on how to be horrible.

                So maybe don’t call people laughingstocks over something your country is probably also still engaging in to this day, eh?

                • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  Yeah, no.

                  That’s not how it works, you don’t get to not be called massive jokes because of our utterly dysfunctional and pathetic you are just because other nations have done bad shit.

                  This idea that you have to be 100% pure to be able to comment on others actions is unrealistic.

  • treefrog@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    So, the ‘pro-economy’ GOP has done more damage to our economy. Basically.

  • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Important to remember, in many cases it was a goal, not a side effect. When someone lived out their life and they’re kinda miserable and unfulfilled, they might justifiably hate our world, in a sense. There’s really only one way to take revenge on it, and that’s to perpetuate and worsen the shittiness so that nobody can hope to escape it.

    Misery loves company, or so the saying goes.

    • SSUPII@sopuli.xyz
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      Says a lot about the people that absolutely don’t want for student debt to be cleared in the USA because they had to clear it themself.

      • snooggums@kbin.social
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        The worst part is that the student debt they paid off was a small portion of the debt that people cannot afford to pay off now because the same people defunded universities.

        When I was a young kid a summer job at minimum wage could pay for a year of state college. By the time I attended a summer job paid for a semester. Now a summer job at the minimum wage will barely pay for books, since the minimum wage has stagnated and tuition goes up year after year.

          • flipht@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I don’t think it’s particularly complex.

            They captured state houses and gutted state budgets for direct funding to universities. Simultaneously, democrats tried to make up the difference at the national level by pushing for and getting pell grants, which are dedicated grant funds. This means there’s a dedicated amount of federal funds on the table every year, which mitigates against the market forces that would otherwise push tuition prices back down.

            Students are then encouraged to take personal loans to cover the manufactured shortfall. Students can’t discharge this in bankruptcy, which encourages bad lending practices.

            Almost all of this is very normal cause and effect with plenty of analogous historical examples, so even if we the idiot people don’t get it, you can be pretty sure that our highly educated and wealthy elected officials knew exactly what would happen.

            If this were all too confusing or complex to know the outcome, then at least some of the time we’d see benefit randomly go to the individual. But it doesn’t, ever.

              • snooggums@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                You know what would help with rising costs and increased enrollment?

                Not eliminating funding.

              • flipht@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Let me clarify. It is complicated - there are a lot of moving parts, as you say. But again, that is 100% design choice.

                Complexity means that there’s some level of uncertainty. I don’t believe that there’s any uncertainty with how we have structured education. It works consistently to force individuals to shoulder the burden, while providing benefit to the people who need it least. If you implement these policies, you’ll get the same outcome every time.

              • flipht@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Sure was. Was using swipe typing in bright sunlight. Fixed a few of the glaring typos. Thanks!

            • hoodatninja@kbin.social
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              I’m not sure I agree. It’s had a huge impact on community colleges and a lot of state schools, but the issues really are varied and impact different schools/states in different ways and to different degrees.

              Make no mistake, the democrats are better for schools than republicans. But we can’t just blame every single thing on republicans or we sound like them calling everyone they disagree with a commie in the 2000’s/2010’s.

              • samus7070@programming.dev
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                You should cite some of the other reasons rather than just saying they exist. For example administrative staffing costs have risen dramatically over the last few decades. The upper management of universities now make CEO like wages. Universities are competing on amenities more than they are academics. Nice housing and recreational complexes are the norm while full time professors are all being replaced by adjuncts who aren’t paid a living wage. The economics are broken.

                • Domriso@kbin.social
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                  While correct, the real problem came when they made banks unable to refuse college loans. Suddenly, colleges could set whatever price they wanted, and the banks had to agree. That skyrocketed costs and directly led to the current situation.

                  Of course, it really started even further back than that when we allowed education to be privately funded rather than a public good.

              • snooggums@kbin.social
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                If Republicans didn’t spend the majority of their energy on destroying anything publicly funded I would stop blaming them first for destroying everything publicly funded.

      • Hylactor
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        I would be surprised if the people most aggressively against student loan forgiveness had any personal difficulty with student loans themselves at all. The politicians beating the drum were likely wealthy enough for tuition to be an afterthought, and their constituents do not value education enough to have needed the loans in the first place.

        If you’re in the second camp you’re probably also bitter that these educated liberal elite, that think their so fancy and embarrass you with their big city talk, want now to get their education, which they lord over you, FOR FREE! You’re probably angry that these young people with their hip culture you don’t understand or have time for, because you’re waking up predawn to drive 45 minutes to your manual labor job which is wrecking your body, “don’t have to work like you do.” In short, you’re probably not very big picture oriented, your self esteem is probably pretty fragile, and you’re probably not the strongest abstract thinker. You’re likely angry to the point of antisocial, and relish any opportunity to leverage your will.

      • flipht@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        If those people are over a certain age, they “cleared” it themselves with GI benefits and/or they worked during the summer to pay for tuition.

  • scytale@lemmy.world
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    These are the same people who would cut their noses off to spite their own face, so not surprising.

  • Debs
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    Can we make it a habit to post source links? I don’t want to surf completely on vibes.

      • Debs
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        Ideally, an un-paywalled version can be found. Even if one can’t be found, it is still much better to post the source.

  • TwoGems@lemmy.world
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    We deeply need educational reform. Perhaps even a fairness doctrine for social media. It’s just a problem we can’t keep ignoring. And homeschooling needs a better set of standards so you don’t have Qanon mom #5000 teaching her kids the earth is flat.

    • OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works
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      Holy fucking shit does homeschooling need better standards.

      My mom wouldn’t send me to school because she was afraid I’d get “indoctrinated by all the liberal propaganda in the Alabama public school system”.

      Needless to say, I’m mostly self-educated.

    • garibaldi_biscuit@lemmy.world
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      The U.S. is reaping destructive misery by failing to progressively raise education levels back when it had the opportunity during the last 60 years

  • kemsat@lemmy.world
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    Thanks Republicans! That will really help that economy you claim to care so much about.

  • solstice@lemmy.world
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    What’s really interesting is that the [manufactured] debt ceiling crisis in 2011 caused the credit rating agency S&P to downgrade US debt then as well…BUT, instead of causing US debt to be more expensive, investors wound up selling equities and buying MORE debt, causing interest rates to go down even more, and bond prices to increase!

    Bill Gross, founder and manager at the time of PIMCO’s fixed income/debt fund, the biggest in the world, wagered HEAVILY that the debt downgrade would cause interest rates to go UP, and bond prices and to go down, as they should, according to every economics textbook ever. He lost billions as a result and I think that’s about when Pimco fired him even though he was the founder.

    Interestingly, this downgrade seems to be largely ignored by both debt and equity markets. Markets appear to be pricing this in as “business as usual” which is sorta interesting in itself. Smart money seems to think everything is fine. I usually go with the smart money on these things, so I’m not too upset about Fitch’s downgrade. (Just to be clear though, the R party can go fuck themselves.)

    • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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      It can be smart money thinks it’s fine, or smart money has already priced in the risk due to the trump years.

      • solstice@lemmy.world
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        That’s always possible I suppose but I don’t think so. The crisis in 2011 rocked markets for months with monstrous daily swings up and down. There was barely a blip when fitch downgraded the debt and during the last few debt ceiling impasses.

        Personally I think it’s pretty clear at this point that it is just theater and they’ll never allow a default. The reason being, all of congress is too wealthy and heavily invested in stable world markets, and obviously in the pockets of their corporate overlords who feel the same. A default would be catastrophic so it’s just not going to happen.

  • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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    S&P lowered their rating to AA+ back in 2011, honestly I’m surprised it took so long for another rating agency to drop theirs down. Wouldn’t be surprised if Moodys drops theirs as a result.

  • habitualTartare@lemmy.world
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    Original source

    Fitch downgraded the U.S. credit rating due to fiscal concerns, a deterioration in U.S governance, as well as political polarization reflected partly by the Jan. 6 insurrection, Richard Francis, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, told Reuters on Wednesday.

    For the United States to have its rating upgraded there would need to be a combination of factors, such as a stabilization of debt to GDP, and possibly a permanent suspension of the debt ceiling, said Francis.

  • violetraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    Not surprised as this has been accomplished by not approving government budgets as well causing all Americans costs for financial services to raise.