How many of you liberals support the socialist wave?

[Elok]

You can estimate USAID as being over 10m (by the end of the 2030s). We need to see what happens in the newly destabilized world, but it could get much, much worse.

I read Geronimo to be predicting what future historians would say (obviously we can't say in the middle; even the Allies in WW2 couldn't give accurate estimates). I think his prediction is reasonable, but I hope it is wrong.

JM

He's going to have to drastically up his monster game to come even close to matching Hitler before he dies of old age. Going by Wiki's figures for World War II casualties, some back-of-envelope math suggests that, for example, Trump will have to somehow get 27 million Americans killed to match just Hitler's domestic death toll in terms of percentage of the population, setting aside the part where Hitler started a war of conquest against everyone in reach (and set up people-slaughterhouses for his own citizens), while Trump's domestic death toll is largely due to mismanaging a pandemic. Assuming you treat 100% of Covid deaths through 2023 as 100% Trump's fault--which would not strike me as remotely fair--he might be one twenty-seventh of the way there. Wiki says WWII killed 2-3% of the entire population of the earth, so, uh, cut that in half to estimate that maybe about half is Tojo's fault, plug in 10 million to 8 billion and, uh ... yeah, it still comes to ****-all. Off by a factor of at least eight, again assuming "cut off foreign aid funding" is more or less morally equivalent to "attempt to literally conquer the world and then ethnic-cleanse the survivors."

[Aeson]

We're coming into a super El Nino that looks like it may be the strongest on record, with fertilizer and diesel unnecessarily expensive. Oil reserves depleted. No end to the blockade of Hormuz in sight. 300 million worldwide already acutely malnurished. Trade wars and the disruption of USAID channels to distribute American surplus crops.

Trump realistically has a shot at surpassing Mao in deaths due to stupid in the next year.

[Provost Harrison]

We're coming into a super El Nino that looks like it may be the strongest on record, with fertilizer and diesel unnecessarily expensive. Oil reserves depleted. No end to the blockade of Hormuz in sight. 300 million worldwide already acutely malnurished. Trade wars and the disruption of USAID channels to distribute American surplus crops.

Trump realistically has a shot at surpassing Mao in deaths due to stupid in the next year.

Yeah, it's a bleak outlook

[Elok]

I started to look up what the hell you're talking about, decided I don't care enough about this argument to slog through a redux of the health insurance GREEDY CORPORATIONS fiasco.

[Aeson]

I started to look up what the hell you're talking about, decided I don't care enough about this argument to slog through a redux of the health insurance GREEDY CORPORATIONS fiasco.

You really don't know what El Nino is? Or the Straight of Hormuz?

You almost had figured out the answer to why our health system is so expensive too. Perverse incentives for the insurers.

The insurers have their margins capped. The only way they can make more profit is if the cost increases. They negotiate costs with the provider. Both the provider and insurer have reason to inflate the prices. When both sides of the "negotiation" want higher prices ... guess what happens to prices?

There is not much competition to worry about because they're all owned by the same handful of investment firms who control the boards (of the providers too, and each other), and so they all do the same thing. A giant incestopoly.

Thus we pay double so insurers can make more profit.

[Aeson]

It's funny how in the healthcare discussion you admitted to not knowing how Australia's healthcare system worked, while calling me a loon for wanting ours to work like it.

Now you admit you don't know anything about what I'm talking about with the coming food crisis, while implying I'm some loon for bringing it up.

You've got your head in the sand. And seem proud of it.

[Provost Harrison]

I started to look up what the hell you're talking about, decided I don't care enough about this argument to slog through a redux of the health insurance GREEDY CORPORATIONS fiasco.

Is this where the US is at? Headed by its Nero with so many disasters on the horizon (El Niño, sovereign debt crisis, Straits of Hormuz closure having virtually depleted oil reserves, and Canada diversifying away at breakneck speed) yet still this exceptionalist attitude that "it could never happen here" when it arguably has and that the bread and circuses keep rolling - which they won't.

The attitudes I see her put me in mind if the Minty potion sketch with the philosophers playing a football match. Lots of shoe gazing and circle jerking but no one kicking the bloody football. For all the second amendment bull****, when a real tyranny arrives, crickets.

[Provost Harrison]

He's going to have to drastically up his monster game to come even close to matching Hitler before he dies of old age. Going by Wiki's figures for World War II casualties, some back-of-envelope math suggests that, for example, Trump will have to somehow get 27 million Americans killed to match just Hitler's domestic death toll in terms of percentage of the population, setting aside the part where Hitler started a war of conquest against everyone in reach (and set up people-slaughterhouses for his own citizens), while Trump's domestic death toll is largely due to mismanaging a pandemic. Assuming you treat 100% of Covid deaths through 2023 as 100% Trump's fault--which would not strike me as remotely fair--he might be one twenty-seventh of the way there. Wiki says WWII killed 2-3% of the entire population of the earth, so, uh, cut that in half to estimate that maybe about half is Tojo's fault, plug in 10 million to 8 billion and, uh ... yeah, it still comes to ****-all. Off by a factor of at least eight, again assuming "cut off foreign aid funding" is more or less morally equivalent to "attempt to literally conquer the world and then ethnic-cleanse the survivors."

I find you remarkably obtuse to the suffering of many. It's the malicious intent that's important, and that is there in spades. It's the behaviour of your regime towards it's "allies" that is unpalatable, let alone its selected targets. Just a shrug of the shoulders from another arrogant yank. Why the world is cheering on your demise, even if we suffer from the collateral damage too.

[Jon Miller]

Unless Geronimo has had a recent sudden massive change of heart, I read his post as 100% sarcastic.

This is probably the best POV. I had to double-check that it was Geronimo posting it.

JM
(Note that while I defend the prediction, which may be sarcastic, as reasonable; I think it wouldn't be the most likely occurrence. So I do agree with Elok in a way. I just don't think that it is impossible for it to be true.)

[Jon Miller]

Stalin: >6 million
Hitler: >20 million
Mao: >40 million
Churchill: >2 million

I don't treat COVID deaths as all being Trump's (actually, while I don't think that Trump was great for COVID, I think he could have been far worse). My current estimate is that if Trump is held responsible for the excesses of MAGA and the heinous actions of people empowered by him, he is responsible for fewer than 2 million deaths.

There is still time for the US and the world to correct. It is possible that it will get much worse.

JM

[Jon Miller]

We're coming into a super El Nino that looks like it may be the strongest on record, with fertilizer and diesel unnecessarily expensive. Oil reserves depleted. No end to the blockade of Hormuz in sight. 300 million worldwide already acutely malnurished. Trade wars and the disruption of USAID channels to distribute American surplus crops.

Trump realistically has a shot at surpassing Mao in deaths due to stupid in the next year.

I doubt the realistic shot in the next year to surpass Mao, but I agree with the rest. It could be very bad next year, and getting worse.

JM

[Dauphin]

Trump is / will be responsible for millions of deaths that would not otherwise have happened had he not made certain decisions about humanitarian aid.

Quantifying deaths caused vs lives not saved aren’t exactly equal though.