Thought for the Day

[hippifried]

"I don't think there are any Russians
There ain't no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playing with tanks
~ The Call ~ The Walls Came Down ('80s)

Still poignant. Just shuffle the antagonists.

[buttslinger]

I read today that WALL STREET has set the clock on a Republican House, and a Democratic Senate and Presidincessity. and go ahead and villianize them all you want, you haters, Wall Street has more visionaries than a Buddhist fan magazine. Wall Street earns its living by seeing the future a bit ahead of everyone else, good and bad.
Democrats like to be right and Republicans like to win, but trust me, Hillary is a Politician and a Lawyer and she is zeroed in on win.
We'll have Wall Street, Government, and Business.
Wall Street will play itself.
The part of Government will be played by the Democrats.
The part of Business will be played by the GOP.
Many people reading this may never have had a discussion with themselves about being a winner or a loser, but I'll bet every one of your bosses decided at some point they were going to be a winner.

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[nitron]

Let's come to some common ground.
It's a terrible gamble, to think ,"Oh no, don't worry about it, just like the Jewish people in Russian empire,or the outsiders that always existed in older times in Europe or the West, they've always been absorbed". Maybe this time ,just once , the demographics in the west are actually making the situation worse. Maybe , with multiculturalists willful blindness to intolerance(Islam) through the mechanism of cultural relativism,coinciding with reduced population numbers are the perfect storm? Why not take some percussion while it's time? And yes, I don't like multinational oil companies, or arm's manufacturers ,doing the buidness with corrupt weasels in oil rich countries.(Sure , I don't like unregulated markets) . But that's a separate fight though .
Maybe the west should focus on limiting the trade with them ,thereby gaining the moral high ground for a change. But, also limit migration from cultures that are truly intolerant.If you are right wing, or left wing , here at least let's come to some common ground. .
Why should we be fighting (our community) for tolerance all over again, why should we even put our self's in a potential danger situation? Look around the world and see how intolerant to the gays the world actually is! For fuck's sake's!How long has it taken our community to even be tolerated in the West? ha, how long? And now to side with a bunch of fool's so that we run the risk of fighting all over again? For our vary existence ? No I say .

Surely, can't you folk's see the simple idea that for us at least , culturally wear our interests should lye . Preservation, simple naked survival?
Other countries limit there immigration/migration, now ,and in the past. Why can't we in the West do it now?And deal with demographic decline other than immigration from backward conservative- valued hell holes, is a good start.

[buttslinger]

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[buttslinger]

I said once that the black race is the only race that did not melt in the Great American melting pot, and Giovanni Hotel jumped on me for blaming blacks for racism.
My Mom grew up on a Mississippi farm during the Great Depression, and I'm not positive PROGRESS is going to take us to a brighter sun than the 1930s, but progress is all we have to work with.
My Mom's cook Leila had 10 times more soul than these Beyoncé wannabes they have now, black people have to lose their soul, and white people have to lose their pride.
There is common ground, yet people always want to own it.
Nobody owns common ground.

[hippifried]

Hmmmm...
A common ground commie who follows the immortal philosophy of Mel Brooks & thinks the Oracle moved from Delphi to Wall St.
Wow!

[trish]

Surely, can't you folk's see the simple idea that for us at least , culturally wear our interests should lye . Preservation, simple naked survival?

So what is it you recommend? End religious tolerance? Politically disenfranchise all Muslims? Return to the prejudicial practices that discriminated against certain races and ethnicities? It’s a terrible risk to offer up for sacrifice our religious and political liberties and our protections against racial inequality in lieu of your recently gained sexual freedom, don’t you think? If it weren’t for enlightened and principled toleration we ‘faggots’ would not have gained the social and political progress toward equality that you and I now enjoy. We do not trade away our neighbor’s liberty to save our own. We stand for both.

Other countries limit there immigration/migration, now ,and in the past. Why can't we in the West do it now?And deal with demographic decline other than immigration from backward conservative- valued hell holes, is a good start.

.

I’m not certain what nation you are a citizen in of, but I would be very surprised if there are not already policies in place that limit immigration/migration that take country of origin into consideration.

In the U.S. the annual influx of permanent immigrants from a single country cannot exceed 7% of the total influx. A brief synopsis of the U.S. immigration policies can be found here https://www.americanimmigrationcounc...n-system-works .

[hippifried]

Butt butt butt...
It's just no fun if you can't be as fucked up as the people you're griping about. Being discourteous (or worse) is how we show our loyalty to mono cultural superiority. After all, they/those/them must be inherently inferior to we/us, irrespective ("irregardless" if you're a Trumpeteer) of who anyone is. Gotta have that "vs" between us and them or nobody will want to play the game. Think we'd be able to tolerate ourselves if we become tolerant of others? Is it possible to drop enough acid to figure all this out without going catatonic?

[martin48]

I love immigration debates as they are a prime example of arguing without recourse to any evidence.

Immigrants flood across borders, steal jobs, are a burden on taxpayers and threaten indigenous culture. Or is it the opposite, that immigration boosts economic growth, meets skill shortages, and helps create a more dynamic society.
Evidence shows that immigrants provide significant economic benefits. But, there are local and short-term economic and social costs. As with debates on trade, where protectionist instincts tend to overwhelm the longer term need for more open societies, the core role that immigrants play in economic development is often overwhelmed by defensive measures to keep immigrants out.

Around the world, there are an estimated 230 million migrants, making up about 3% of the global population. This share has not changed much in the past 100 years. But as the world’s population has quadrupled, so too has the number of migrants. And since the early 1900s, the number of countries has increased from 50 to over 200. More borders mean more migrants.

Of the global annual flow of around 15 million migrants, most fit into one of four categories: economic (6 million), student (4 million), family (2 million), and refugee/asylum (3 million). There are about 20 million officially recognized refugees worldwide, with 86% of them hosted by neighbouring countries, up from 70% 10 years ago.

In the US, over a third of documented immigrants are skilled. Similar trends exist in Europe. These percentages reflect the needs of those economies. Governments that are more open to immigration assist their country’s businesses, which become more agile, adaptive and profitable in the war for talent. Governments in turn receive more revenue and citizens thrive on the dynamism that highly-skilled migrants bring.

Yet it is not only higher-skilled migrants who are vital. In the USA and elsewhere, unskilled immigrants are an essential part of the construction, agriculture and services sector.
If immigrants play such a vital role, why is there so much concern?

Some believe that immigrants take jobs and destroy economies. Evidence proves this wrong. In the United States, immigrants have been founders of companies such as Google, Intel, PayPal, eBay, and Yahoo! In fact, skilled immigrants account for over half of Silicon Valley start-ups and over half of patents, even though they make up less than 15% of the population. There have been three times as many immigrant Nobel Laureates, National Academy of Science members, and Academy Award film directors than the immigrant share of the population would predict.

Research on the net fiscal impact of immigration shows that immigrants contribute significantly more in taxes than the benefits and services they receive in return. According to the World Bank, increasing immigration by a margin equal to 3% of the workforce in developed countries would generate global economic gains of $356 billion. Some economists predict that if borders were completely open and workers were allowed to go where they pleased, it would produce gains as high as $39 trillion for the world economy over 25 years.

In the future, it will become even more imperative to ensure a strong labour supply augmented by foreign workers. Globally, the population is ageing. There were only 14 million people over the age of 80 living in 1950. There are well over 100 million today and current projections indicate there will be nearly 400 million people over 80 by 2050. With fertility collapsing to below replacement levels in all regions except Africa, experts are predicting rapidly rising dependency ratios and a decline in the OECD workforce from around 800 million to close to 600 million by 2050. The problem is particularly acute in North America, Europe and Japan.

There are, however, legitimate concerns about large-scale migration. The possibility of social dislocation is real. Just like globalization – a strong force for good in the world – the positive aspects are diffuse and often intangible, while the negative aspects bite hard for a small group of people.

Yes, those negative aspects must be managed. But that management must come with the recognition that migration has always been one of the most important drivers of human progress and dynamism. In the age of globalization, barriers to migration pose a threat to economic growth and sustainability. Free migration, like totally free trade, remains a utopian prospect, even though within regions (such as Europe) this has proved workable.

As John Stuart Mill forcefully argued, we need to ensure that the local and short-term social costs of immigration do not detract from their role “as one of the primary sources of progress”.

[buttslinger]

Hmmmm...
A common ground commie who follows the immortal philosophy of Mel Brooks & thinks the Oracle moved from Delphi to Wall St.
Wow!

Hats off to the great Gene Wilder, he was a funny man.
HippieFried, if you don't think the wisemen on Wall St have you figured out, you're still living in the sixties.
You think what they want you to think. My proof is your checkbook.