Tax Refunds are less this year, must be Trumps fault

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 4:04:03 PM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 1:31:12 AM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-04-22, trader4@optonline.net <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:
On Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 6:31:06 PM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-04-21, trader4@optonline.net <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:
On Saturday, April 13, 2019 at 10:20:56 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Sunday, April 14, 2019 at 10:30:04 AM UTC+10, Flyguy wrote:

I don't want more from govt, I want LESS. The taxes to pay for all the
free stuff the Democrats are proposing would kill taxpayers and even the
libs know it. The last great promise, Obamacare, turned out to be pretty
much a dudd. Unless you think paying $500 a month for a healthcare plan
where you have a $7K deductible is a great idea. It was as fraudulent and
dishonest as Trump's tax cut.

That something "kills taxpayers" is not any kind of figure of merit.

Seatbelts, airbags, doctors, and the police also kill taxpayers.
It is reckoned that they save significanly more than they kill.

List all the new programs that the libs running for president want
and the cost, then we can talk.

If all you're going to do is spout emotionally charged sound-bites I'll
pass on that.

Figures, someone asks how much will that cost and the lib bolts.

How - precisely - are the libs gong to find out the costs of the program being proposed by some unspecified Democrat?

In Australia, the Treasure works out the costs of program proposed by the major political parties. It's not a cheap exercise, and the accuracy of the estimates isn't great.

What is fairly obvious is that the Democrats are prepared to spend more on social services than the Republicans are. They clearly aren't prepared to spend as much as Scandinavian governments or the German government does spend, and the tax burden in those countries isn't killing anybody - in fact their life expectancies are slightly longer than the US can manage.

BTW, seat belts, airbags and doctors are not govt programs.

Maybe, maybe not, your taxes are still spent to promote them.
https://www.transportation.gov/mission/health/seat-belt-laws
https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/air-bags

Since cars already have seat belts and air bags, why are we spending
money that we don't have on that? Sounds like a good place to cut.

Having a seat belt in your car doesn't do you any good if you don't do it up, and idiots have been known to rip-out airbags to make room for the junk that they think they need.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 1:54:32 AM UTC-4, tra...@optonline.net wrote:

The real problem is that there is not actually any thing in the trust fund. In earlier times the SS contributions were greater than what was paid out. So Congress spent the excess and put in an IOU. So starting now , Congress either has to collect real money in order to pay on the IOU. Or reduce SS benefits.

That's not true. The SS trust fund is redeeming it's securities
and the treasury issues new ones in the open market as part
of it's normal operations. It's swapping one debt instrument
for another.

It is not true now. But what do you think will happen in 5 or 10 years when large amounts of real money is needed?

I am betting on both. Raising the amount collected from the workers and also decreasing the benefits paid.

It's true that it will have to be addressed, but there is no
immediate need due to the trust fund being used. Congress
could do nothing and there is sufficient funding to pay all
commitments for 15 years. Sometime during that period,
fixes will be made, just as they have in the past, currently
neither party wants to address it.

That is just not true. The funding is just an IOU. Try giving an IOU to anyone on SS. How much food will that IOU buy?

Dan

 

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 9:32:59 AM UTC-4, dca...@krl.org wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 1:54:32 AM UTC-4, tra...@optonline.net wrote:

The real problem is that there is not actually any thing in the trust fund. In earlier times the SS contributions were greater than what was paid out. So Congress spent the excess and put in an IOU. So starting now , Congress either has to collect real money in order to pay on the IOU. Or reduce SS benefits.

That's not true. The SS trust fund is redeeming it's securities
and the treasury issues new ones in the open market as part
of it's normal operations. It's swapping one debt instrument
for another.

It is not true now. But what do you think will happen in 5 or 10 years when large amounts of real money is needed?

Actually, I think it is true now. We were supposed to start drawing down
the trust about now, or even earlier. But the economy picked up a bit,
so it pushed out a bit. I think another poster said that we are in fact
starting to draw it down. And the amount doesn't matter. The federal
govt is selling debt securities in the open market all the time, yes?
It's a combination of issuing new ones to cover the budget deficit and
ones to replace maturing ones that are redeemed. The SS trust is just
part of that. SS trust says we need $100 mil, the treasury just gives
them the cash and sells $100 mil new treasury securities in the market.
It's just swapping one part of our $22 tril national debt for another.

I am betting on both. Raising the amount collected from the workers and also decreasing the benefits paid.

It's true that it will have to be addressed, but there is no
immediate need due to the trust fund being used. Congress
could do nothing and there is sufficient funding to pay all
commitments for 15 years. Sometime during that period,
fixes will be made, just as they have in the past, currently
neither party wants to address it.

That is just not true. The funding is just an IOU. Try giving an IOU to anyone on SS. How much food will that IOU buy?

Dan

What is not true? Per the above, there is no need to give an IOU to
anyone on SS. And if SS securities are worthless, are all the US govt
bond funds that trade every day worthless? Pensions that also have
money invested in US securities, they are worthless? Could there come
a day, where if the US continues to run huge deficits, where the US winds
up defaulting on it's securities? Sure, but that's very different than
claiming US securities are worthless today. The first sign of that
would be rising rates on US securities and clearly investors, who actually
put their money down, are not worried.

 

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 4:11:08 AM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 4:04:03 PM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:
On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 1:31:12 AM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-04-22, trader4@optonline.net <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:
On Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 6:31:06 PM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-04-21, trader4@optonline.net <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:
On Saturday, April 13, 2019 at 10:20:56 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Sunday, April 14, 2019 at 10:30:04 AM UTC+10, Flyguy wrote:

I don't want more from govt, I want LESS. The taxes to pay for all the
free stuff the Democrats are proposing would kill taxpayers and even the
libs know it. The last great promise, Obamacare, turned out to be pretty
much a dudd. Unless you think paying $500 a month for a healthcare plan
where you have a $7K deductible is a great idea. It was as fraudulent and
dishonest as Trump's tax cut.

That something "kills taxpayers" is not any kind of figure of merit.

Seatbelts, airbags, doctors, and the police also kill taxpayers.
It is reckoned that they save significanly more than they kill.

List all the new programs that the libs running for president want
and the cost, then we can talk.

If all you're going to do is spout emotionally charged sound-bites I'll
pass on that.

Figures, someone asks how much will that cost and the lib bolts.

How - precisely - are the libs gong to find out the costs of the program being proposed by some unspecified Democrat?

There are estimates from various sources on the web and in the media.
In fact, one estimate should be from all the lib presidential candidates
that are proposing more free stuff. It's irresponsible to propose
something, without understanding the cost.

In Australia, the Treasure works out the costs of program proposed by the major political parties. It's not a cheap exercise, and the accuracy of the estimates isn't great.

What is fairly obvious is that the Democrats are prepared to spend more on social services than the Republicans are. They clearly aren't prepared to spend as much as Scandinavian governments or the German government does spend,

Woooh there Pilgrim. What evidence do you have for that? Bernie wants
a full socialist, Europe style US for example. And he's just one of them.
And how much is spent doesn't enter into the equation, they think money
grows on trees or rich pig capitalists have plenty that they can take.




and the tax burden in those countries isn't killing anybody - in fact their life expectancies are slightly longer than the US can manage.

Who put a man on the moon? Sweden? Who leads the world in technology,
entrepreneurship? Who does the world need every time there is a world
crisis and military action is needed?

BTW, seat belts, airbags and doctors are not govt programs.

Maybe, maybe not, your taxes are still spent to promote them.
https://www.transportation.gov/mission/health/seat-belt-laws
https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/air-bags

Since cars already have seat belts and air bags, why are we spending
money that we don't have on that? Sounds like a good place to cut.

Having a seat belt in your car doesn't do you any good if you don't do it up, and idiots have been known to rip-out airbags to make room for the junk that they think they need.

Pure BS. Rip out air bags to make room for junk? If anyone did that, it
would be such a nit, on a nit's ass, that it's beyond stupid. What
space would that be? The air bags are in the steering wheel, behind
door panels, inside the dash. Even if you made a hole, the only one
that might have any usable space would be the passenger bag in the
dash. Rip it out, have an ugly hole, have warning lights on?
But heh, thanks for representing how silly libs justify their spending.

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 10:21:47 AM UTC-4, tra...@optonline.net wrote:

It is not true now. But what do you think will happen in 5 or 10 years when large amounts of real money is needed?

Actually, I think it is true now. We were supposed to start drawing down
the trust about now, or even earlier. But the economy picked up a bit,
so it pushed out a bit. I think another poster said that we are in fact
starting to draw it down. And the amount doesn't matter. The federal
govt is selling debt securities in the open market all the time, yes?
It's a combination of issuing new ones to cover the budget deficit and
ones to replace maturing ones that are redeemed. The SS trust is just
part of that. SS trust says we need $100 mil, the treasury just gives
them the cash and sells $100 mil new treasury securities in the market.
It's just swapping one part of our $22 tril national debt for another.





I am betting on both. Raising the amount collected from the workers and also decreasing the benefits paid.

It's true that it will have to be addressed, but there is no
immediate need due to the trust fund being used. Congress
could do nothing and there is sufficient funding to pay all
commitments for 15 years. Sometime during that period,
fixes will be made, just as they have in the past, currently
neither party wants to address it.

That is just not true. The funding is just an IOU. Try giving an IOU to anyone on SS. How much food will that IOU buy?

Dan


What is not true? Per the above, there is no need to give an IOU to
anyone on SS. And if SS securities are worthless, are all the US govt
bond funds that trade every day worthless? Pensions that also have
money invested in US securities, they are worthless? Could there come
a day, where if the US continues to run huge deficits, where the US winds
up defaulting on it's securities? Sure, but that's very different than
claiming US securities are worthless today. The first sign of that
would be rising rates on US securities and clearly investors, who actually
put their money down, are not worried.

Not claiming the SS securities are worthless. Just that the only thing supporting them is faith in the US gov.

At some point the average investors are going to distrust the US securities. When that happens the Treasury will raise the interest rates to get investors to buy US Treasury Bonds. Which will make more investors worry.

Ponzi scams are good until they are not.

Dan

 

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 11:28:46 AM UTC-4, dca...@krl.org wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 10:21:47 AM UTC-4, tra...@optonline.net wrote:


It is not true now. But what do you think will happen in 5 or 10 years when large amounts of real money is needed?

Actually, I think it is true now. We were supposed to start drawing down
the trust about now, or even earlier. But the economy picked up a bit,
so it pushed out a bit. I think another poster said that we are in fact
starting to draw it down. And the amount doesn't matter. The federal
govt is selling debt securities in the open market all the time, yes?
It's a combination of issuing new ones to cover the budget deficit and
ones to replace maturing ones that are redeemed. The SS trust is just
part of that. SS trust says we need $100 mil, the treasury just gives
them the cash and sells $100 mil new treasury securities in the market.
It's just swapping one part of our $22 tril national debt for another.





I am betting on both. Raising the amount collected from the workers and also decreasing the benefits paid.

It's true that it will have to be addressed, but there is no
immediate need due to the trust fund being used. Congress
could do nothing and there is sufficient funding to pay all
commitments for 15 years. Sometime during that period,
fixes will be made, just as they have in the past, currently
neither party wants to address it.

That is just not true. The funding is just an IOU. Try giving an IOU to anyone on SS. How much food will that IOU buy?

Dan


What is not true? Per the above, there is no need to give an IOU to
anyone on SS. And if SS securities are worthless, are all the US govt
bond funds that trade every day worthless? Pensions that also have
money invested in US securities, they are worthless? Could there come
a day, where if the US continues to run huge deficits, where the US winds
up defaulting on it's securities? Sure, but that's very different than
claiming US securities are worthless today. The first sign of that
would be rising rates on US securities and clearly investors, who actually
put their money down, are not worried.

Not claiming the SS securities are worthless. Just that the only thing supporting them is faith in the US gov.

It's not just the faith in the US govt, it's faith in the US economy,
that the US govt has a tax stream that can support it's operations and obligations. So far that is true.

At some point the average investors are going to distrust the US securities. When that happens the Treasury will raise the interest rates to get investors to buy US Treasury Bonds. Which will make more investors worry.

It doesn't have to be average investors, just some major player in the bond
markets changing their opinion of the risk of US securities could start it.
Or dummy Trump with a tweet. When running he said we could just negotiate
with bond holders to get them to accept less than full value. And if that
didn't work, just borrow more and then default. He went on to say that if
interest rates rise, then we could refinance the national debt. That last
part helps explain how his casinos went bankrupt.

We certainly should be addressing the deficits and debt right now.
We're at what, 110% of GDP now? It was significantly higher in WWII,
but in the period after, the US was the manufacturing powerhouse
economy in the world and much of the rest of the world was in shambles
and needed everything. It's reasonable to conclude we could support a
higher debt load in that environment than we can today. We're running
a $1 tril deficit this year and it's a decent economy. We're overdo
for a recession, what happens then? Suppose there is some totally
unexpected calamity, whether a natural disaster, a war, etc? We should
not be as vulnerable as we are.

 

trader4@optonline.net wrote in news:f5cbe9eb-97b0-43d3-92ae-
a45bf25f8fdb@googlegroups.com:

> Woooh there Pilgrim.

You are an insult to John Wayne. Fuck off, TraderTARD4.

And it is Woah you stupid fuck.

woooh is not a word, but wooh has a sound like the word moon.

You lose, again, you stupid fuck.

 

On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 12:11:40 AM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 4:11:08 AM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 4:04:03 PM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:
On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 1:31:12 AM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-04-22, trader4@optonline.net <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:
On Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 6:31:06 PM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-04-21, trader4@optonline.net <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:
On Saturday, April 13, 2019 at 10:20:56 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Sunday, April 14, 2019 at 10:30:04 AM UTC+10, Flyguy wrote:

I don't want more from govt, I want LESS. The taxes to pay for all
the free stuff the Democrats are proposing would kill taxpayers and
even the libs know it. The last great promise, Obamacare, turned
out to be pretty much a dud. Unless you think paying $500 a month
for a healthcare plan where you have a $7K deductible is a great
idea. It was as fraudulent and dishonest as Trump's tax cut.

That something "kills taxpayers" is not any kind of figure of merit.

Seatbelts, airbags, doctors, and the police also kill taxpayers.
It is reckoned that they save significanly more than they kill.

List all the new programs that the libs running for president want
and the cost, then we can talk.

If all you're going to do is spout emotionally charged sound-bites I'll
pass on that.

Figures, someone asks how much will that cost and the lib bolts.

How - precisely - are the libs gong to find out the costs of the program being proposed by some unspecified Democrat?

There are estimates from various sources on the web and in the media.
In fact, one estimate should be from all the lib presidential candidates
that are proposing more free stuff. It's irresponsible to propose
something, without understanding the cost.

It's also equally irresponsible to advise inaction, when you don't know the cost of leaving things the way they are.

You should be talking about cost-benefit estimates, but conservative politicians concentrate on costs to the exclusion of any consideration of potential benefits.

In Australia, the Treasure works out the costs of program proposed by the major political parties. It's not a cheap exercise, and the accuracy of the estimates isn't great.

What is fairly obvious is that the Democrats are prepared to spend more on social services than the Republicans are. They clearly aren't prepared to spend as much as Scandinavian governments or the German government does spend,

Woooh there Pilgrim. What evidence do you have for that? Bernie wants
a full socialist, Europe style US for example. And he's just one of them..

Bernie Sanders is seen as more left-wing than most Democrats. He wasn't even a Democrat until a few years ago.

And how much is spent doesn't enter into the equation, they think money
grows on trees or rich pig capitalists have plenty that they can take.

This is a well-known right-wing claim. It's total nonsense - as can be seen by looking at the history of US government spending under Democratic and Republican administrations. You just lost any chance of being taken seriously.

and the tax burden in those countries isn't killing anybody - in fact their life expectancies are slightly longer than the US can manage.

Who put a man on the moon? Sweden?

The current population of Sweden is 9.995 million people. The current population of the USA is about 330 million people. The US has more money to spend on pointless extravagances.

> Who leads the world in technology, entrepreneurship?

Europe now does seem to have the technological lead. The gross income inequalities within the USA mean that there are more cashed-up entrepreneurs around looking for projects to finance than there are in places with a more egalitarian income distributions. Australia has a couple of very successful start-ups that exploited US venture capital.

If the US educated more technologists, the US venture capitalists might not have to look outside their borders for projects to finance.

Who does the world need every time there is a world
crisis and military action is needed?

Not the US, if Syria, Irak and Chile are anything to go by.

The US does spend a lot on its "defense industries", but it doesn't seem to have the kind of weapons it needs to effortlessly impose order. Mary Kaldor nailed the problem back in 1981.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1981-09-01/baroque-arsenal

<snip>

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

trader4@optonline.net wrote in news:f2587a8e-2b30-4844-bc94-
97ccef0a4dc4@googlegroups.com:

Instead we encouraged single mom families, the black out-of-wedlock
birth rate percentage went from the teens to two thirds.

You're a goddamned liar. And apparently a racist fat fuck as well.

 

On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 1:26:33 AM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:

On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 12:11:40 AM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:
On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 4:11:08 AM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 4:04:03 PM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:
On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 1:31:12 AM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-04-22, trader4@optonline.net <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:
On Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 6:31:06 PM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-04-21, trader4@optonline.net <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:
On Saturday, April 13, 2019 at 10:20:56 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Sunday, April 14, 2019 at 10:30:04 AM UTC+10, Flyguy wrote:

I don't want more from govt, I want LESS. The taxes to pay for all
the free stuff the Democrats are proposing would kill taxpayers and
even the libs know it. The last great promise, Obamacare, turned
out to be pretty much a dud. Unless you think paying $500 a month
for a healthcare plan where you have a $7K deductible is a great
idea. It was as fraudulent and dishonest as Trump's tax cut.

That something "kills taxpayers" is not any kind of figure of merit.

Seatbelts, airbags, doctors, and the police also kill taxpayers.
It is reckoned that they save significanly more than they kill..

List all the new programs that the libs running for president want
and the cost, then we can talk.

If all you're going to do is spout emotionally charged sound-bites I'll
pass on that.

Figures, someone asks how much will that cost and the lib bolts.

How - precisely - are the libs gong to find out the costs of the program being proposed by some unspecified Democrat?

There are estimates from various sources on the web and in the media.
In fact, one estimate should be from all the lib presidential candidates
that are proposing more free stuff. It's irresponsible to propose
something, without understanding the cost.

It's also equally irresponsible to advise inaction, when you don't know the cost of leaving things the way they are.

You should be talking about cost-benefit estimates, but conservative politicians concentrate on costs to the exclusion of any consideration of potential benefits.

Why should I be talking about cost-benefit, when I'm not the one proposing
anything, I'm not the one claiming to have the solution, I'm not the one
claiming to be looking at the whatever the alleged problems are?

In Australia, the Treasure works out the costs of program proposed by the major political parties. It's not a cheap exercise, and the accuracy of the estimates isn't great.

What is fairly obvious is that the Democrats are prepared to spend more on social services than the Republicans are. They clearly aren't prepared to spend as much as Scandinavian governments or the German government does spend,

Woooh there Pilgrim. What evidence do you have for that? Bernie wants
a full socialist, Europe style US for example. And he's just one of them.

Bernie Sanders is seen as more left-wing than most Democrats. He wasn't even a Democrat until a few years ago.

He's more left wing, but not by all that much. He is mighty stupid though.
The other day he came out in favor of voting rights for terrorists, rapists,
murderers that are serving prison sentences. That's typical for the lefties
running for president, they are so stupid and full of themselves that they
think that kind of thing is what most Americans want.

And how much is spent doesn't enter into the equation, they think money
grows on trees or rich pig capitalists have plenty that they can take.

This is a well-known right-wing claim. It's total nonsense - as can be seen by looking at the history of US government spending under Democratic and Republican administrations. You just lost any chance of being taken seriously.

Fine, then don't take me seriously. Do you deny that the libs here,
including those that are running for president, think that the rich are
too rich, that we need a wealth tax? I don't deny that both parties
have spent too much, but it's always the libs that create whole new
govt programs, that once created, can never be undone. And if they are
estimated to cost X, a couple decades later they are costing 4X.
We've spent trillions on the war on poverty and yet the poverty rate
is the same. Imagine if that money had been left with those who
earned it, to invest, save, enjoy, the benefits to the economy.
Instead we encouraged single mom families, the black out-of-wedlock
birth rate percentage went from the teens to two thirds. Pay for
something, encourage it, and you get more of it.
And then the libs look at the rich and want to take more. If given the
chance, they will take it and then just spend more and we'll still
have the same deficits and national debt will still be piling up.

and the tax burden in those countries isn't killing anybody - in fact their life expectancies are slightly longer than the US can manage.

Who put a man on the moon? Sweden?

The current population of Sweden is 9.995 million people. The current population of the USA is about 330 million people. The US has more money to spend on pointless extravagances.

I see, thanks for weighing in with that opinion of our accomplishment.

Who leads the world in technology, entrepreneurship?

Europe now does seem to have the technological lead.

According to you, of course.




The gross income inequalities within the USA mean that there are more cashed-up entrepreneurs around looking for projects to finance than there are in places with a more egalitarian income distributions. Australia has a couple of very successful start-ups that exploited US venture capital.

So what?

If the US educated more technologists, the US venture capitalists might not have to look outside their borders for projects to finance.

Oh please. And you say I should not be taken seriously? You see some
US venture capitalists in a free country decide to make some investments
in AU and all of a sudden that's used as a negative against the US?

Who does the world need every time there is a world
crisis and military action is needed?

Not the US, if Syria, Irak and Chile are anything to go by.

You know, maybe we should have just sat on our asses and let Russia
takeover Europe and the Mideast instead of footing the lion's share of NATO
for 75 years. And we still do. Maybe we should just let the world
get out of control and let you Aussies handle it all. Must be nice
living down under. Oh, and I would never be so presumptuous to sit
here in the USA and pontificate to you about AU, it's policies,
it's economy, and kangaroos.

 

On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 10:28:30 AM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:

trader4@optonline.net wrote in news:f2587a8e-2b30-4844-bc94-
97ccef0a4dc4@googlegroups.com:

Instead we encouraged single mom families, the black out-of-wedlock
birth rate percentage went from the teens to two thirds.

You're a goddamned liar. And apparently a racist fat fuck as well.

Well, I must confess, I am a little bit off. The black out-of-wedlock
birth rate at the start of the war on poverty, circa 1965, was about
20%. I had said it was in the teens. So I was off by just a tad.
On the other hand, I said that
it's two thirds today, when it's actually 73%! So, the increase is
just as large and the point remains
correct. And racist? Me? For pointing out the truth? Don Lemon
cited the 73% number, is he racist too?

 

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 12:07:30 AM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:

On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 1:26:33 AM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 12:11:40 AM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:
On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 4:11:08 AM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 4:04:03 PM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:
On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 1:31:12 AM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-04-22, trader4@optonline.net <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:
On Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 6:31:06 PM UTC-4, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2019-04-21, trader4@optonline.net <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:
On Saturday, April 13, 2019 at 10:20:56 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Sunday, April 14, 2019 at 10:30:04 AM UTC+10, Flyguy wrote:

I don't want more from govt, I want LESS. The taxes to pay for all
the free stuff the Democrats are proposing would kill taxpayers and
even the libs know it. The last great promise, Obamacare, turned
out to be pretty much a dud. Unless you think paying $500 a month
for a healthcare plan where you have a $7K deductible is a great
idea. It was as fraudulent and dishonest as Trump's tax cut.

That something "kills taxpayers" is not any kind of figure of merit.

Seatbelts, airbags, doctors, and the police also kill taxpayers.
It is reckoned that they save significanly more than they kill.

List all the new programs that the libs running for president want
and the cost, then we can talk.

If all you're going to do is spout emotionally charged sound-bites I'll
pass on that.

Figures, someone asks how much will that cost and the lib bolts.

How - precisely - are the libs gong to find out the costs of the program being proposed by some unspecified Democrat?

There are estimates from various sources on the web and in the media.
In fact, one estimate should be from all the lib presidential candidates
that are proposing more free stuff. It's irresponsible to propose
something, without understanding the cost.

It's also equally irresponsible to advise inaction, when you don't know the cost of leaving things the way they are.

You should be talking about cost-benefit estimates, but conservative politicians concentrate on costs to the exclusion of any consideration of potential benefits.

Why should I be talking about cost-benefit, when I'm not the one proposing
anything, I'm not the one claiming to have the solution, I'm not the one
claiming to be looking at the whatever the alleged problems are?

Your attitude may be that ignoring problems will make them go away, but denying that real problems actually exist isn't a way of winning elections, even if it can be the kind of debating pose that passes for argument here.

If you see a particular situation as a problem - as with children born out of wedlock, which you mention below - you do have to pay attention to the costs of not dealing with the perceived problem as well as the amount of money currently being spent on it.

In Australia, the Treasure works out the costs of program proposed by the major political parties. It's not a cheap exercise, and the accuracy of the estimates isn't great.

What is fairly obvious is that the Democrats are prepared to spend more on social services than the Republicans are. They clearly aren't prepared to spend as much as Scandinavian governments or the German government does spend,

Woooh there Pilgrim. What evidence do you have for that? Bernie wants
a full socialist, Europe style US for example. And he's just one of them.

Bernie Sanders is seen as more left-wing than most Democrats. He wasn't even a Democrat until a few years ago.

He's more left wing, but not by all that much. He is mighty stupid though.
The other day he came out in favor of voting rights for terrorists, rapists,
murderers that are serving prison sentences. That's typical for the lefties
running for president, they are so stupid and full of themselves that they
think that kind of thing is what most Americans want.

The habit of disenfranchising people with felony convictions for life seem to be confined to some US states.

https://medium.com/the-new-leader/time-to-get-out-the-vote-for-people-behind-bars-8f110017cb2b

For some odd reason, it disenfranchises a lot more of the coloured population than any other identifiable group. Bernie Sanders probably wasn't looking for votes from terrorists, rapists and murders - there aren't enough of them to count - but the more minor felony convictions do cut into the people who would be likely to vote for him.

And how much is spent doesn't enter into the equation, they think money
grows on trees or rich pig capitalists have plenty that they can take..

This is a well-known right-wing claim. It's total nonsense - as can be seen by looking at the history of US government spending under Democratic and Republican administrations. You just lost any chance of being taken seriously.

Fine, then don't take me seriously. Do you deny that the libs here,
including those that are running for president, think that the rich are
too rich, that we need a wealth tax?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level_(book)

makes the point that income inequality in the US is very high, and that it correlates with unfortunate social consequences (looking at correlations across US states, which match the correlations across advanced industrial countries).

Higher income taxes are one way of reducing income inequality. Japan seems to manage it by social expectations but getting something like that to work in the USA might be difficult.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century

does argue for a wealth tax, but more to avoid the over-concentration of capital into too few hands.

> I don't deny that both parties have spent too much, but it's always the libs that create whole new govt programs, that once created, can never be undone.

Anything that is created by legislation can be destroyed by legislation. Your problem is that the right sees a virtue in ignoring existing problems and leaving society just the way it is, while the left is committed to making changes that should solve problems. Once you solved - or at least reduced - a particular problem it is difficult to dismantle the solution, but it's not that it can never be undone but rather you can't generate the kind of support needed to let you undo it.

> And if they are estimated to cost X, a couple decades later they are costing 4X.

A very specific prediction. 3% inflation over two decades will double the cost of any program expressed in current dollars, and over 47 years will quadruple it.

The reality is that effective solutions to real problems tend to get expanded where they work, so that more money gets spent to provide more real benefits.

We've spent trillions on the war on poverty and yet the poverty rate is the
same.

But the poverty threshold isn't the same. The percentage of people living below the current poverty line now - 12.7% - isn't much lower than it was - 19% - when the War on Poverty started (under LBJ in 1964) but they do live a lot better now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty#/media/File:Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate_1959_to_2011._United_States..PNG

Imagine if that money had been left with those who
earned it, to invest, save, enjoy, the benefits to the economy.

Healthier, better housed, better fed and better educated workers also benefit the economy. Germany spends even more on keeping the working class productive, and their economy exports about four times as much per head as the US economy does.

Instead we encouraged single mom families, the black out-of-wedlock
birth rate percentage went from the teens to two thirds.

https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/out-wedlock-births-rise-worldwide

That wasn't all that was going on - the US white out-of-wedlock rate went up by a factor of ten (from about 3% to about 30%) over the same period. You are trying on the usual right-wing sleigh of hand, conflating "birth of of wedlock" with "single parent families" which doesn't happen to be correct.

Again, you have demonstated that you aren't to be taken seriously.

Where the war of poverty is waged effectively - as it is in Sweden - the children of single mothers don't seem to be disadvantaged versus the children from two-parent families, but somehow this never seems to register in the right-wing world view.

> Pay for something, encourage it, and you get more of it.

But that probably isn't what's driving out of wedlock births, much as you might like to to think that it is. Do you imagine that all the white unmarried mothers that you know, decided that they weren't going to bother marrying their partners when they decided to get pregnant because the could rely on the - notoriously mean - US social security system to support themselves while they raised the child?

> And then the libs look at the rich and want to take more.

The US collects a relatively low proportion of it's GDP as taxes - 27.1%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio

Australia is only marginally better, at 27.8%, and the UK and New Zealand sit a bit higher at 34.4% and 34.5% respectively

Germany - at 44.4% collects a lot more. France and Belgium collect even more at 47.4% and then you come the Scandinavian countries, Sweden at 49.8%, Denmark at 50.8%, Finland at 54.2% and Norway at 54.8%.

Algeria and Timor-Leste are claimed to collect even more, but neither set of national statistics is entirely trustworthy.

If given the
chance, they will take it and then just spend more and we'll still
have the same deficits and national debt will still be piling up.

There's quite a lot of evidence that suggests that tax rates in the US should be higher, and that the US should collect a whole lot more from the well-off.

The US electoral system gives the well-off a lot more political power than they have in other advanced industrial countries - which is reflected in the way people like you find ostensibly plausible arguments to come up with - so this probably isn't going to happen.

There's absolutely no reason why collecting a higher proportion of the GDP in taxes should lead to higher deficits - it should reduce them - or a bigger national debt. Electing irresponsible ego-maniacs like Trump will do that

and the tax burden in those countries isn't killing anybody - in fact their life expectancies are slightly longer than the US can manage.

Who put a man on the moon? Sweden?

The current population of Sweden is 9.995 million people. The current population of the USA is about 330 million people. The US has more money to spend on pointless extravagances.

I see, thanks for weighing in with that opinion of our accomplishment.

It was a giant step for mankind, but strictly a public relations exercise.

Putting satellites into orbit has been a very useful activity, but getting to the moon hasn't made anybody any money yet, give or take a few profitable movies.

Who leads the world in technology, entrepreneurship?

Europe now does seem to have the technological lead.

According to you, of course.

What has the US come up with recently? ASML in the Netherlands dominates the market for lithography machines, and there are semi-conductor fabs spread around the world. China is now graduating enough engineers to take over, if their social system lets the engineers think far enough outside of the box to let them lead the competition - Japan had the same kind of problem when I was younger, but the blue-LED Nobel Prize demonstrates that it isn't an absolute block.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29518521

The gross income inequalities within the USA mean that there are more cashed-up entrepreneurs around looking for projects to finance than there are in places with a more egalitarian income distributions. Australia has a couple of very successful start-ups that exploited US venture capital.

So what?

If the US educated more technologists, the US venture capitalists might not have to look outside their borders for projects to finance.

Oh please. And you say I should not be taken seriously? You see some
US venture capitalists in a free country decide to make some investments
in AU and all of a sudden that's used as a negative against the US?

Australia has a population of 25 million, the US has a population of 330 million, and US entrepreneurs have to come to Australia to find innovators to support with venture capital? Why should they even bother looking?

It's not as if the US technical community takes anything done outside the US seriously until they can buy the product off the shelf from a supplier with warehouse and offices inside the US.

Who does the world need every time there is a world
crisis and military action is needed?

Not the US, if Syria, Irak and Chile are anything to go by.

You know, maybe we should have just sat on our asses and let Russia
takeover Europe and the Mideast instead of footing the lion's share of NATO
for 75 years.

The US sat on it's hands until 1941, and got into Europe only when it became obvious that the Russians were beating Germany, and would take over the whole European landmass if the US and the UK didn't set up a second front (which was something the Russians really wanted - they did win WW2, but it cost them a great deal more than it cost the US and the UK).

https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-balance/2018/07/us-and-nato-allies-costs-and-value

US spending is currently 22.1% of the NATO budget - substantial but not a "lions share" of the NATO budget. It's about 5% of US defense spending, and it is clearly part of the US forward defense strategy (as it always has been).

And we still do. Maybe we should just let the world
get out of control and let you Aussies handle it all.

As if the world was ever "under control", and the US ever did anything useful to get it under control. US and UK activity in Iran in 1953 made the country much more accessible to US and UK oil companies for a while, but the long term consequences of supporting the incompetent Shah they'd installed weren't great.

Pinochet in Chile got that country back under the sort of control that suited the CIA, and Chile was able to get out from under him without replacing him with a fundamentalist nut case, but it didn't win the US and brownie points.

Places like Australia do contribute to UN peace-keeping forces, which do seem to be less devoted to supporting US commercial interests than the US would like, and do seem to have a better record in getting parts of the world "under control".

Must be nice living down under. Oh, and I would never be so presumptuous to
sit here in the USA and pontificate to you about AU, it's policies,
it's economy, and kangaroos.

Of course you would, but since you don't care what happens outside of US borders, you aren't going to bother. You are presumptuous enough to make all sorts of silly claims about NATO (and I spent 42 years living in England and the Netherlands, both NATO countries).

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 1:50:04 AM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:

On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 10:28:30 AM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
trader4@optonline.net wrote in news:f2587a8e-2b30-4844-bc94-
97ccef0a4dc4@googlegroups.com:

Instead we encouraged single mom families, the black out-of-wedlock
birth rate percentage went from the teens to two thirds.

You're a goddamned liar. And apparently a racist fat fuck as well.

Well, I must confess, I am a little bit off. The black out-of-wedlock
birth rate at the start of the war on poverty, circa 1965, was about
20%. I had said it was in the teens. So I was off by just a tad.
On the other hand, I said that
it's two thirds today, when it's actually 73%! So, the increase is
just as large and the point remains
correct. And racist? Me?

You did manage to ignore the fact the white out-of-wedlock birth rate went up by a factor of ten - from about 3% to about 30% - over the same period which is the kind of omission that looks decidedly racist.

And you ignored the fact that "out-of-wedlock births" don't necessarily produce single mom families which is what what you rather explicitly implied.

For pointing out the truth? Don Lemon
cited the 73% number, is he racist too?

Possibly. Context makes a difference. The sentence "we encouraged single mom families, the black out-of-wedlock birth rate percentage went from the teens to two thirds" does imply that out-of-wedlock births necessarily create single-mother households, which certainly isn't necessarily true.

If a black career woman in her thirties decides that she is making enough money to able to pay for enough child support to let her pursue her career, she is entitled to have a child and raise it on her own and social secrutiy won't play any part in her decision.

There are obvious racist assumptions embedded in what you posted, even if the facts claimed happen to be correct.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 12:45:35 AM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 1:50:04 AM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:
On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 10:28:30 AM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
trader4@optonline.net wrote in news:f2587a8e-2b30-4844-bc94-
97ccef0a4dc4@googlegroups.com:

Instead we encouraged single mom families, the black out-of-wedlock
birth rate percentage went from the teens to two thirds.

You're a goddamned liar. And apparently a racist fat fuck as well.

Well, I must confess, I am a little bit off. The black out-of-wedlock
birth rate at the start of the war on poverty, circa 1965, was about
20%. I had said it was in the teens. So I was off by just a tad.
On the other hand, I said that
it's two thirds today, when it's actually 73%! So, the increase is
just as large and the point remains
correct. And racist? Me?

You did manage to ignore the fact the white out-of-wedlock birth rate went up by a factor of ten - from about 3% to about 30% - over the same period which is the kind of omission that looks decidedly racist.

And you ignored the fact that "out-of-wedlock births" don't necessarily produce single mom families which is what what you rather explicitly implied..

For pointing out the truth? Don Lemon
cited the 73% number, is he racist too?

Possibly. Context makes a difference. The sentence "we encouraged single mom families, the black out-of-wedlock birth rate percentage went from the teens to two thirds" does imply that out-of-wedlock births necessarily create single-mother households, which certainly isn't necessarily true.

Of course it's true. When you have a father around, then those pesky
welfare folks start asking questions, like why doesn't he have a job
and support the kids? On the other hand, being single and the more
kids you have, the more money you get. Why is it that libs don't
understand that when you provide incentives, you get more of what
you're subsidizing? And when you tax things, you get less of it?

If a black career woman in her thirties decides that she is making enough money to able to pay for enough child support to let her pursue her career, she is entitled to have a child and raise it on her own and social secrutiy won't play any part in her decision.

ROFL

That isn't what's happening, as evidenced by all the black teens involved
with crime living in inner cities. They don't have nannies.

There are obvious racist assumptions embedded in what you posted, even if the facts claimed happen to be correct.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Sure, that's always the lib way. Play the race card.

 

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 10:18:33 PM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 12:45:35 AM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 1:50:04 AM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:
On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 10:28:30 AM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
trader4@optonline.net wrote in news:f2587a8e-2b30-4844-bc94-
97ccef0a4dc4@googlegroups.com:

Instead we encouraged single mom families, the black out-of-wedlock
birth rate percentage went from the teens to two thirds.

You're a goddamned liar. And apparently a racist fat fuck as well.

Well, I must confess, I am a little bit off. The black out-of-wedlock
birth rate at the start of the war on poverty, circa 1965, was about
20%. I had said it was in the teens. So I was off by just a tad.
On the other hand, I said that
it's two thirds today, when it's actually 73%! So, the increase is
just as large and the point remains
correct. And racist? Me?

You did manage to ignore the fact the white out-of-wedlock birth rate went up by a factor of ten - from about 3% to about 30% - over the same period which is the kind of omission that looks decidedly racist.

And you ignored the fact that "out-of-wedlock births" don't necessarily produce single mom families which is what what you rather explicitly implied.

For pointing out the truth? Don Lemon
cited the 73% number, is he racist too?

Possibly. Context makes a difference. The sentence "we encouraged single mom families, the black out-of-wedlock birth rate percentage went from the teens to two thirds" does imply that out-of-wedlock births necessarily create single-mother households, which certainly isn't necessarily true.

Of course it's true.

It may be true in some cases. It's not going to be true in every case.

When you have a father around, then those pesky
welfare folks start asking questions, like why doesn't he have a job
and support the kids?

If the father is around, he may be perfectly happy to support the kid, and welfare wouldn't be involved at all.

On the other hand, being single and the more
kids you have, the more money you get. Why is it that libs don't
understand that when you provide incentives, you get more of what
you're subsidizing? And when you tax things, you get less of it?

They understand it just a well as you do, if not better.

What US conservatives don't seem to understand is that US welfare for single mothers has gone down rather than up over the past twenty years - if welfare was buying single motherhood there would be less of it now, not more.

Your problem is that you have equated "birth out of wedlock" with "single mom family". If your white friends don't bother to get married before they get kids, you don't assume that the mother will have to go on welfare to support the kid, or that the father will make himself scarce.

If a black career woman in her thirties decides that she is making enough money to able to pay for enough child support to let her pursue her career, she is entitled to have a child and raise it on her own and social security won't play any part in her decision.

ROFL

That isn't what's happening, as evidenced by all the black teens involved
with crime living in inner cities. They don't have nannies.

An unspecified number of black teenagers involved in crime while living in the inner cities doesn't have any obvious connection with the equally unspecified number of black mother who haven't married the father of their child..

Statistics on whether the parents of a child are married is easy to find - all births are registered and data on whether the parents are married is on the birth certificate.

Statistics on the number of single mothers who are dependent on welfare seems to be harder to find.

https://prospect.org/article/consequences-single-motherhood

There are obvious racist assumptions embedded in what you posted, even if the facts claimed happen to be correct.

Sure, that's always the lib way. Play the race card.

You make a racist assumption, you get called on it. What works when you are out drinking with your Klan buddies doesn't get the same kind of positive reception from a wider audience.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote in
news:59975461-8adc-43a2-8b86-c298fc60f945@googlegroups.com:

Sure, that's always the lib way. Play the race card.

You make a racist assumption, you get called on it. What works
when you are out drinking with your Klan buddies doesn't get the
same kind of positive reception from a wider audience.

And they are blind to the fact that they are the ones playing the
race card.

And this pissy retard also calls anyone not in his klan 'libs'.

He is a punk who got up to 350 lbs sitting in front of his computer.
Squoze out even more of the tiny space he had between his ears for
brains. Between the four inch thick skull, and all the fat, I would be
surprised if his brain weighed more than a gram or two.

 

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 11:02:55 PM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:

bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote in
news:59975461-8adc-43a2-8b86-c298fc60f945@googlegroups.com:

Sure, that's always the lib way. Play the race card.

You make a racist assumption, you get called on it. What works
when you are out drinking with your Klan buddies doesn't get the
same kind of positive reception from a wider audience.


And they are blind to the fact that they are the ones playing the
race card.

And this pissy retard also calls anyone not in his klan 'libs'.

He is a punk who got up to 350 lbs sitting in front of his computer.
Squoze out even more of the tiny space he had between his ears for
brains. Between the four inch thick skull, and all the fat, I would be
surprised if his brain weighed more than a gram or two.

Nothing racist about it. Don Lemon at CNN cited the same statistics.
In fact, I was off, I said that the black out-of-wedlock birth rate
was two thirds, it's actually 73%, just ask Don. Is he racist too?

ROFL

Like K says, you're wrong on everything.

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Fri, 26 Apr 2019 07:27:34 -0700, trader4 wrote:

Nothing racist about it. Don Lemon at CNN cited the same statistics.
In fact, I was off, I said that the black out-of-wedlock birth rate was
two thirds, it's actually 73%, just ask Don. Is he racist too?

Never used to be that way. Going back 60, 70 or 80 years, the typical
black family was highly moral, abstemious wrt alcohol, never touched
drugs and were huge church-goers. The sad state they're in today is
almost entirely due to the policies of the Democratic Party.


--
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protocols constitutes acceptance of this condition.

 

On Saturday, April 27, 2019 at 12:27:39 AM UTC+10, tra...@optonline.net wrote:

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 11:02:55 PM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote in
news:59975461-8adc-43a2-8b86-c298fc60f945@googlegroups.com:

Sure, that's always the lib way. Play the race card.

You make a racist assumption, you get called on it. What works
when you are out drinking with your Klan buddies doesn't get the
same kind of positive reception from a wider audience.

And they are blind to the fact that they are the ones playing the
race card.

And this pissy retard also calls anyone not in his klan 'libs'.

He is a punk who got up to 350 lbs sitting in front of his computer.
Squoze out even more of the tiny space he had between his ears for
brains. Between the four inch thick skull, and all the fat, I would be
surprised if his brain weighed more than a gram or two.

Nothing racist about it. Don Lemon at CNN cited the same statistics.
In fact, I was off, I said that the black out-of-wedlock birth rate
was two thirds, it's actually 73%, just ask Don. Is he racist too?

It's not citing the statistic that's racist, it is the implicit assumption that any black unmarried mother is also a single mother who is going to be dependent on welfare.

The roughly three-fold increase in the proportion of black birth that are out-of-wedlock has to be seen in context with the fact that the proportion of white births that are out-of-wedlock has risen by something like a factor of ten - from about 3% to about 30%.

There's no guarantee that the increase in black out-of-wedlock births represents a three-fold increase in the number of black single mothers who are dependent on welfare, which is the statistic that ought to be being cited.

I'd like to be able to cite the actual figure for this, but it is curiously difficult to find. Right-wing propaganda sources like the Heritage Foundation are a full bottle on black out-of-wedlock births, but curiously silent on the number of black single mothers on welfare.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2821602/

looks at a limited sample of women on welfare, and makes the point that problems with physical and mental health (which are more common amongst poor people (and blacks are over-respresented amongst the poor) are assocaited with higher reliance on welfare.

ROFL

Like K says, you're wrong on everything.

Krw thinks that any opinion he doesn't share is wrong. It's not a useful assertion.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Saturday, April 27, 2019 at 3:00:11 AM UTC+10, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Fri, 26 Apr 2019 07:27:34 -0700, trader4 wrote:

Nothing racist about it. Don Lemon at CNN cited the same statistics.
In fact, I was off, I said that the black out-of-wedlock birth rate was
two thirds, it's actually 73%, just ask Don. Is he racist too?

Never used to be that way. Going back 60, 70 or 80 years, the typical
black family was highly moral, abstemious wrt alcohol, never touched
drugs and were huge church-goers. The sad state they're in today is
almost entirely due to the policies of the Democratic Party.

Go back 60, 70 or 80 years - to 1959, 1949 and 1939 - US black hadn't had the benefits of the success of the Civil Right movement which got under way in the 1950's and started making life better for US blacks in the 1960's.

Any virtues that Cursitor Doom may attribute to the "typical black family" mainly represent those enforced by poverty - they couldn't afford drugs or alcohol and church-going was the only entertainment that was financially accessible. Individuals could do better - Louis Armstrong and Art Tatum come to mind.

Once the Civil Rights movement reduced that poverty appreciably, the black community could afford some of the vices practiced by similarly poor white families.

The US Democratic Party were more sympathetic to the Civil Rights movement than the Republicans, and can - to that extent - be blamed for the fact that US blacks got enough money to afford the same vices as the US white poor, but that doesn't make them responsible for the current "sadness" of the state of the US black population (who don't seem to be much worse off than similarly poor whites, but at least have enough sense not to have voted for Trump).

If anybody is responsible, it's the slave merchants (English, Dutch and American) who bought their black ancestors as slaves in Africa and shipped them to the US to be sold as slave labour to plantation owners. Poor whites got bought and sold as "indentured labourers" in much the same way, but they weren't colour coded as "inferior" and some of them out from under.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney