Is Trump legally qualified to be a presidential candidate?

[Josh]

I fully understand what “productivity gains” are. The problem is the benefits from them have accrued almost entirely to the top 0.1%.

You say fewer people are needed to do jobs because of these productivity gains. Then why are large numbers of immigrants needed? You can’t have it both ways.

[Ken]

Covid showed it is indeed possible to fix the border problem. You just have to do it.

Of course it is possible to do pretty much anything we want.

What COVID showed was that it is really only possible for a president to act without Congress if he declares a public health emergency and then uses the vast executive power granted by Title 42 to take action without Congress.

I find it oddly hypocritical for the very conservatives who had a conniption fit about presidential overreach during COVID with all the hysteria about mask mandates and vaccines to then advocate for a return to the same exact overreach of presidential authority when it comes to immigration.

Your focus should be on Congress. And the most recent thing we have seen from Congress is the deliberate torpedoing of bipartisan efforts to address immigration because Republicans think a festering border plays to their advantage. They might be right about that because Americans are easily fooled. But the "you just have to do it" part becomes impossible if one party or the other would rather play political games than actually "do it"

[Josh]

I care about results. The result we got was a stop to endless waves of pointless migration.

[Ken]

I fully understand what “productivity gains” are. The problem is the benefits from them have accrued almost entirely to the top 0.1%.

You say fewer people are needed to do jobs because of these productivity gains. Then why are large numbers of immigrants needed? You can’t have it both ways.

Technology gains mean that fewer people are required in the resource extraction jobs that are a far bigger part of rural economies than urban economies. So farming, mining, logging, fishing, oil drilling, etc. But technology also creates new jobs in other parts of the economy. Unfortunately for rural areas, those jobs are more likely to be in urban and suburban areas. For example, the number of people working in telecommunications today is vastly higher than it was in the days before cell phones. But those jobs tend not to be in small towns and rural areas.

If you are concerned about benefits accruing to the top 0.1% then you should be concerned about Republican policies. Because their hidebound twin obsessions with tax cuts and deregulation do little to stimulate the economy but mostly funnel wealth upwards to the 0.1% at the expense of economic growth.

But we can also look at today's economy and see to whom recent gains have accrued. In the past 5 years, much more wage growth has accrued to the bottom 10% than the top 10%. But again, that is mostly happening in urban and suburban areas where the economy is stronger and not so much in rural areas.

[Ken]

I care about results. The result we got was a stop to endless waves of pointless migration.

If you care about results then you should focus your attention on the institutions that actually have the power to achieve results. And in the case of immigration that is much more Congress than the executive branch, The job of the executive branch is to implement the laws and policies of Congress within the fiscal and legal constraints that Congress has imposed, not make up their own laws and policies out of thin air.

[Grace]

You don't have to try to whitewash things. Trump didn't. It was Trump himself and his top aids who made it about religion and labeled the policy a "Muslim Ban". Back in 2017, Trump was all over the news talking about his "Muslim Ban".

It was still a travel ban. I am sure there are thousands of peaceful Muslims. But one thing that Trump did not do was whitewash a radical element of a religion whose Allah orders Muslims in the Quran to terrorize and kill non-Muslims on His behalf.

"Strike terror (into the hearts of) the enemies of God and your enemies."
Surah 8:60
Fight (kill) them (non-Muslims), and God will punish, (torment) them by your hands, cover them with shame." Surah 9:14
" I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them. It is not ye who slew them; it was God."
Surah 8:13-17.

And it is just another example of Trump's failed attempts at immigration policy.

And yet those “failed” attempts curbed illegal immigration drastically compared to under Joe Biden.

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/is ... migration/
https://i0.wp.com/www.edwardconard.com/ ... C641&ssl=1

[Josh]

I fully understand what “productivity gains” are. The problem is the benefits from them have accrued almost entirely to the top 0.1%.

You say fewer people are needed to do jobs because of these productivity gains. Then why are large numbers of immigrants needed? You can’t have it both ways.

Technology gains mean that fewer people are required in the resource extraction jobs that are a far bigger part of rural economies than urban economies. So farming, mining, logging, fishing, oil drilling, etc. But technology also creates new jobs in other parts of the economy. Unfortunately for rural areas, those jobs are more likely to be in urban and suburban areas. For example, the number of people working in telecommunications today is vastly higher than it was in the days before cell phones. But those jobs tend not to be in small towns and rural areas.

If you are concerned about benefits accruing to the top 0.1% then you should be concerned about Republican policies. Because their hidebound twin obsessions with tax cuts and deregulation do little to stimulate the economy but mostly funnel wealth upwards to the 0.1% at the expense of economic growth.

But we can also look at today's economy and see to whom recent gains have accrued. In the past 5 years, much more wage growth has accrued to the bottom 10% than the top 10%. But again, that is mostly happening in urban and suburban areas where the economy is stronger and not so much in rural areas.

Ken, I’m aware you think rural areas and people are worthless and that you think living crammed into dense cities is the nadir of human existence.

Please correct me if I got something wrong.

[Ken]

Ken, I’m aware you think rural areas and people are worthless and that you think living crammed into dense cities is the nadir of human existence.

Please correct me if I got something wrong.

Yes, that's EXACTLY what I said.

Sheesh.

[ohio jones]

Technology gains mean that fewer people are required in the resource extraction jobs that are a far bigger part of rural economies than urban economies. So farming, mining, logging, fishing, oil drilling, etc. But technology also creates new jobs in other parts of the economy. Unfortunately for rural areas, those jobs are more likely to be in urban and suburban areas. For example, the number of people working in telecommunications today is vastly higher than it was in the days before cell phones. But those jobs tend not to be in small towns and rural areas.

But thanks to telecommunications technology, many of these jobs can be done by people who live in small towns and rural areas.

[temporal1]

The City Mouse / Country Mouse dichotomy is ancient.
https://www.read.gov/aesop/004.html

The world works best with healthy urban areas, AND thriving rural areas, not either-or.
Historically, in times of disaster, disease and other calamities have hit cities hard - due to dense populations.

In my early life, there was much more economic balance, lots of jobs and education, plentiful and active churches, cities and small towns, rural areas.

THEN ..
people began noticing their children, upon college graduation, were LEAVING FOR JOBS in more urban places.
rural areas were gutted of work and population (still happening).

PROBLEM BEING ..
where there is work, esp good-paying work, housing+COL is strangling. $3-4000+ rent is .. out of sight, as the old saying goes.

^^CATCH-22

imho, a lot of the economic gutting is purely political. deliberately squeezing out political rivals.