Progressive Politicians: Fill & Download for Free

To quote a *gasp* Fox News host:“Mr. President, it’s not the ‘fake-news media’ that’s your problem— it’s you. It’s not just your tweeting — it’s your scapegoating. It’s your refusal to see that sometimes you’re the one who’s feeding your own beast — and acting beastly with your own guys.”Neil Cavuto:I assume it's easier for Trump’s base supporters to grab their pitchforks and rally against the “fake news” instead of expecting the man they picked out of all the other GOP options to be held accountable. Trump is the issue, not the “liberal media”. If Trump had the correct temperament, he would not be so easy to bait. The coverage Trump receives is not unfair; Trump’s coverage is simply a symptom of his behavior. There is no “assault” - this is part of the job and if he expected no critics, he's delusional.As for his supporters who claim that the media is unfair in how it discusses Trump, what exactly does “fair” mean to you? Trump is the most historically unpopular President since modern polling existed…Trump has refused to be presidential and only appeals to ~4/10 Americans. Do you expect the news to cover Trump like his die hard supporters would? If so, that means you don't want news as much as you want opinions that side with yours.If Trump can't handle the criticism, he shouldn't have run for President. Every POTUS faces criticism, some of it’s fair, some of it isn't. Trump, who has a long history of saying hateful things about others, including Obama (birther lie), can't suddenly be too fragile to handle news coverage. Yeah, some of it may be “mean”, but wasn't he the dude who said he hates “political correctness”? So, I’ll pretend to be ignorant in what “political correctness” really means [1] by asking this; why is Trump being such a “snowflake” in dealing with those who don't worship or praise him? The media is just “telling it like it is”.Footnotes[1] Political correctness: how the right invented a phantom enemy | Moira Weigel

More power to ’em, I guess.The issue with veterans as a class is that their population is shrinking. If you look at VA statistics, or just think about it for a minute, in 1946, about 10% of voters were veterans, and everyone else was related to them. Since that point, however, our population has declined continuously. We are a much more efficient military, if you can believe it or not, in regards to manpower. For perspective, if our military manpower were the same as in World War II, we would have around 33 million uniformed fighting men and women. We have closer to 1 million. This is at the time that the US population has also doubled from 150 million to about 324 million today. So not only has our population declined, but we are much smaller population percentage. That means that our vote mattering as a voting bloc was once the most powerful minority in existence, but now, matters for almost nothing in reality. Traditionalists and people who are really knowledgeable in conservative politics still care, but it isn’t a personal thing anymore.So a “progressive” PAC for veterans seems nonsensical. It’s splitting an already small population down to maybe less then 10% of that population, then saying they speak for us, when really, they only speak for the few issues that progressives care about that don’t include the things that veterans detest. They’ll get a lot of attention whenever progressive politicians and pundits need to show “the voice of real veterans”, where they haul out someone who doesn’t agree with 90% of the veteran community, but has the resumé, so the American people think that’s good to go and representive of veteran viewpoints.I mean, fine, but next we need a conservative one that has far more membership, but nobody listens to them besides Fox.That just seems stupid because then you realize it really isn’t about the veterans, but propping up politicians.What I would rather have is more people do what I did, support the VFW. I never get told about issues that are Right or Left other than those that directly and obviously affect veterans. A single issue organization and that’s it.

Well, the “risk” of automation is accelerated by progressive ideology, and I suspect most of these folks aren’t too eager to admit that the policies they embrace actually hurt the very people they derive power from.Progressives cling to disproven notions of wealth inequality, high minimum wages and forcing employers to pay “living wages” to workers, no matter what the actual value of the work is. In every case, these policies create greater incentives for automation and offshoring of labor.Indeed, in 1970, about 10% of all workers paid an hourly salary were paid at the minimum wage. Today, less than 3% of all hourly workers are paid at the minimum wage. In just a few short decades, the employment market for the low-skilled has been decimated by well-intentioned progressive policies. Where did the jobs go? Mostly offshore, or to automation projects.And how else can it be?When the cost of labor is artificially increased beyond the value of the work product, employers seek alternatives. They must - it’s life-and-death survival for them.A simple example is the average US McDonald’s franchise owner. Today, the average McDonald’s franchise represents about a $1M investment for the owner, and he makes roughly 15% ($150,000) a year in profits on his investment. Because labor is one of his chief expenses, if the nation raises the minimum wage from its current value to $15/hour, his business goes from a net profit of $150,000/year to a net loss of $150,000/year.Clearly, the McDonald’s franchise owner isn’t in business to lose $150,000 a year, so they need an alternative. Today, the alternative is to invest in automation, and an investment of about $250,000 lets the franchise operator reduce his labor cost enough so that his annual cash flow isn’t impacted. That’s 50% fewer jobs for the low-skilled, but progressive politicians will fight for this sort of thing all day long.News flash: when you decouple wages from productivity, bad things happen - most notably, you get fewer jobs.One last point is the automation is really not a “risk” long term. It’s a risk to the low-skilled worker, of course, but the business investing in automation tends to become more profitable over time. Consumers benefit, and American firms tend to be stronger and more competitive with the rest of the world because of the efficiency gains. From this regard, use of the term “risk” is misleading - it’s only risky to the 3% at the bottom of the economic ladder, not the rest of us.It’s pretty amazing how many economic illiterates we have…despite centuries of human experience and sound economics that reveal the pitfalls of these redistributionist schemes, tired old progressives just never seem to learn. Just as sadly, Americans are so eager to believe they can get something for nothing, they abandon all common sense and flock to the charlatans spouting these ideas.