Prioritized Decision Plan
1. Potent sperm?
2. Decent stud?
3. Good father?
4. Makes money?
5. Handsome? (for spawning offspring)
6. Intelligent? (for spawning offspring)
7. Loves me?
8. Fun in bed?
9. Handyman?
Tucker Carlson claims higher-earning women are hurting marriages.
- Thread starter sglowrider
- Start date
1. Potent sperm?
2. Decent stud?
3. Good father?
4. Makes money?
5. Handsome? (for spawning offspring)
6. Intelligent? (for spawning offspring)
7. Loves me?
8. Fun in bed?
9. Handyman?
Yeah, that stuff is going to get old for her real quick. Nobody wants to go into a partnership where they are responsible for everything. Women don't want another child and far too many men fall into that kind of irresponsibility which makes them feel that way.
A quick way for high excelling women to weed out that type of person is to weed out low wage earners. That may not always be fair but it is reality. Now if you have a lawyer and a teacher pairing up, that tends to be different.
Blame Rockstar for making that damn Red Dead Redemption 2. That thing is more addicting than crack.
What other pain points do you believe need to be addressed, besides the opioid/drug problem that's referenced in the link?
Just out of curiosity, do you know many people who fall into the hillbilly elegy constituency? I mean, know them well enough that you've discussed politics, or policy with them.
I have family members that would fall into that constituency.
As far as pain points, I think Carlson hit quite a few of them. Opioid and drug addiction, stagnation and malaise in rural economies, break down of the familial unit. The items that plagued the inner cities when I was growing up are spreading to more rural areas (other than violence levels, those are generally down.) Education disparities is another. Being stereotypical, what do we do with men who are more inclined to "hands on" jobs in an increasingly info-centric economy?
I love when this Crazy is part of conversations. Really interesting stuff, dude. It's fascinating to see a conservative like Carlson complaining about politicians not addressing these problems when he's long proselytized how government isn't the answer to people's problems.
So, I've been a decades long supporter of massive investment in skills training programs for workers from displaced industries, infrastructure investments across the board, and drug prevention programs. If somebody like Carlson wants to join that conversation I'm all for it. But, if the conversation is focused on how families don't look the same as they used to, I'm skeptical. The wormhole of women making more money and not feeling compelled to marry as a policy focus is a goofy aside that makes Carlson not seem serious about addressing rural voter malaise.
That's one example of what makes adjusting to the new economic world challenging. It's easy to say we're going to create more jobs in rural areas, another thing to actually do it, and another thing to create jobs that pay a life wage.
skills training is great, but reality is, it only allows one individual to leapfrog another. skills training can't help the whole. (i'm for skills training. just don't see it as a fix to the problem at hand of raising the whole).
for instance, everybody complains about college degrees that aren't as easily monetized, and engineering is always brought up as being more easily monetized than many others, which it is.
say Bernie is elected prez, college is free, everybody takes him up on that, and everyone gets an engineering degree, or even a masters.
if everyone has a masters in engineering, engineers will command about $9.50 hr, or about whatever fast food or store clerk money now is.
same for training everyone to be plumbers or electricians or heavy equipment operators or whatever.
if everyone learns a skill, the increased supply of skilled workers in whatever field will just diminish the wage those possessing said skill can command.
Judge Smails missed the mark in saying "the world needs ditch diggers too".
what the world needs, is ditch digger jobs and better wages for ditch diggers.
and if everyone else was an engineer or lawyer or architect or teacher, ditch diggers or fry cooks would probably do great due to lack of supply, and people would lament that workers should go into ditch digging or fast food prep for a high paying career.
while there are exceptions, pay for so many jobs above all else is determined by how many people can do those jobs, and how many of those jobs there are, supply and demand.
thus while training is great for the individual, it won't lift society as a whole, as it will only distort the supply and demand curves in fields said workers get trained for .
to lift society as a whole, workers in jobs for which worker supply is great, need a way to command a better share of the revenue they help generate, and not just be slaves to the laws of supply and demand.
workers have no ability to do this on their own, and necessitate govt policy to force ownership and top management from keeping a disproportionate share of the revenues of the business for themselves.
a living mandatory min wage is the only way i can think of to do this, so until someone shows me a better way, i'll go with that.
a single payer/negotiator Medicare for all type healthcare system will also help Joe Worker, and enable a lower min wage as livable than current healthcare costs do, as it's easily the most efficient way to bring healthcare costs down. (thus Medicare for all helps both workers and ownership. not just one at the expense of the other).
on a side note, govt could command free medical education and knock down a lot of the limits on the number of med students schools/hospitals take, but a Medicare for all system would be a lot easier to implement, and give near instant results, rather than waiting 20-40 yrs for the added supply of med personnel to sufficiently ramp up, and then have to fight price fixing after it does.
that said, slashing the cost of med school and opening up the limits on number of students still sounds like a plan that needs implemented, but start with Medicare for all.
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I was mostly responding to the part of Crazy's post where he said, "Being stereotypical, what do we do with men who are more inclined to "hands on" jobs in an increasingly info-centric economy?". That said, I think you are missing or undervaluing the import of skills training programs. It's to help workers whose industries have disappeared develop skills in comparably high-paying fields that have job openings. The inability to make that transition has been devastating to the "Joe Worker" you purport to want to help. It seems like you are fixated on changing the laws of supply and demand and mandating that people pay more for what they value less. I'd rather we help workers develop skills that employers actually value. There's no reason that someone who might lose a job in an assembly plant couldn't develop other more relevant skills if supported correctly. And there's no reason that those skills should flood the market. The point of skills training is to give workers an advantage and keep their wages high and a good skills training/transition program does that.
I've got no problem with finding the best form of single payer healthcare that works for our economy and agree that it can be extremely beneficial to middle income workers if implemented in a way that doesn't allow employers to horde the savings they would see.
quite the opposite, i'm not fixated on changing the laws of supply and demand.
i'm acknowledging that they CAN'T be changed, which the concept of skills training as an employment/wages fix to society as a whole, rather than to the individual, would necessitate to be the case.
for skills training to be a fix to the whole, demand for said skills would need to be flexible to the point of being at minimum, and most likely more, at least one to one to the positive. (increase demand for said skill at least by one for each worker acquiring said skill).
i'm totally on board with skills training. i just acknowledge it as a fix for the individual in a somewhat zero sum gain equation, where the individual can elevate himself over another individual without said skill, but not a fix for the whole.
if some, many, or all, get a certain skill, laws of supply and demand dictate the market value of said skill is diminished proportionally to the added number that acquire it, absent a proportional increase in demand for said skill, for which there is no reason to assume will happen..
an individual should absolutely acquire a skill, as it will elevate him over those who don't.
it's just not a cure for the whole.
mandates in how wealth is "distributed" in the first place, (not "redistributed" after the fact), is how we benefit the whole.
he who decides how the wealth of a business is distributed in the first place, will always, (almost always), distribute as much to themselves as they can get away with, regardless of their percentage of contribution to the effort.
and each on down the line will also take all they can, irrespective of contribution.
only 3rd party (say govt or strong union), intervention, can force those grabbing at the cash first as it makes it's way down the line, to reserve a "fair share" be left for those who's hands it didn't flow through first.
increased minimum wage is the logical way to reserve a fair share and living wage for those left with what those on top of them didn't grab first.
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I guess I'm confused by what your cure for the whole is. IMHO, you have the approach to supply, demand, and zero sum gains backwards.
The one constant in the modern economy is change, so any large support we can give to enable employees to have flexibility in their skills and the ability to adapt to new industries is a massive positive.
I’m a woman. And know lots of women. Do you think we haven’t met any men? Lots of them? You know, the ones you have to remind when it’s an anniversary, birthday, etc. Which obviously isn’t the only way to be romantic, but... There’s obviously nothing more than anecdotal evidence, but I think you’re pretty wrong.
It might have something to do with the age when people marry, as you mention in full adulthood. When people marry fairly young, they don’t really know what their spouse may end up doing. When you are older, the people you meet of the opposite sex are more likely to be in the same social strata. Online dating services have changed things dramatically too. While looking through those, I’d be willing to concede that women are more likely to be looking for someone with a good job.
i added this below to the post you quoted, just as you posted your reply.
------------------------------------------------
mandates in how wealth is "distributed" in the first place, (not "redistributed" after the fact), is how we benefit the whole.
he who decides how the wealth of a business is distributed in the first place, will always, (almost always), distribute as much to themselves as they can get away with, regardless of their percentage of contribution to the effort.
and each on down the line will also take all they can, irrespective of contribution.
only 3rd party intervention,(say govt or strong union), can force those grabbing at the cash first as it makes it's way down the line, to reserve a "fair share" be left for those who's hands it didn't flow through first.
increased minimum wage is the logical way to reserve a fair share and living wage for those left with what those on top of them didn't grab first.
----------------------------------------------
everyone fixates on "redistribution of wealth", as the moneyed interest control the debate as they control the media and the parties.
the original "distribution" is rarely addressed, other than the line that those distributing the lion's share to themselves deserve it.
absent a gun to their head, those controlling the original distribution will never share one cent more than they have to.
and they will argue to the death that they deserve all they grab for themselves.
i won't debate how much they do deserve, as no way to actually quantify that for me or them.
i'll just acknowledge that every hand it passes through first will take all they can from the pile, regardless of how much of it they actually deserve.
when there literally is no way to actually quantify each member of the team's actual percentage contribution to the effort, and then mandate that the spoils be distributed accordingly, that leaves only distribution based on the power to control the distribution itself, rather than a perfect world scenario where one's exact percentage of contribution to the overall effort could be quantified, and the spoils distributed proportionally to said contribution.
due to the absence of a way to quantify the contribution of each team player, then mandate distribution based in said contribution, another means of protecting those who's hands the spoils flow through last becomes necessitated.
minimum wage is the best means of doing so that i can think of, and benefits the economy as a whole, including those at the top, in the process.
is minimum wage unfair to those who otherwise would have grabbed some of that extra income for themselves as it passed through their hands first?
that's debatable but not definable, and every case is it's own.
but is the alternative of distribution by pecking order of who grabs first, fair?
again, debatable, but not definable. and also varies with every case.
but life in the US requires a base income, and the pecking order grabbing as much as you can as it comes down the line distribution method, can't protect that base income need.
a livable minimum wage can.
Thanks for the update. I support strong unions and increases in minimum wage, but those are only effective measures if workers have skills that allow them to get hired in the first place. I can see their value as a broad set of policy measures, but have concerns that those who focus heavily on them in the absence of other measures are looking backwards when we need to be looking forward.
I don't think that women are necessarily looking for money, they are looking for an equity in their partner. I saw an article that females that graduate from elite colleges have more trouble finding a mate (insert gender studies joke here), some of that may be do to the fact that they have more trouble finding someone who, for lack of a better word, "completes" them. Intelligent conversation, stability, a near equal income, etc. are probably harder to come by.
On the flip side, there are countless articles about how the woman being the main bread winner can be a strain on marriages. People do not like that there tend to be gender roles but I think it is a reality nonetheless. Guys like to be the provider because it gives them self worth (speaking in broad generalities). You have to find other ways to find that in a relationship that most of society still views as an oddity. The Princess rarely picks the pauper. That is just not how the stories go.
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I think one important issue that everyone seems to ignore is the impact of women or second household wage earners on the stagnant wage paradox. As significantly more labor supply entered the workforce, it contributes pressure on wage inflation because we assume women can do most jobs the same as men (or better).
So if we now have two workers per household, how much more goods and services does that household need? Certainly more than the status quo, but likely less than equal to a full 2x the base consumption. So, we've also effectively added more workers than product demanded, which somewhat explains why GDP growth over the past several decades is less than post-WWII.
If you add in additional factors such as smaller/shrinking family sizes, the average household needs less goods and services than in prior periods.
I appreaciate the debate in this thread and The efforts of Twenty and IUCrazy to provide a full report on what Carlson was actually saying.
But....I personally didn’t look at any of the clips or read any of the posted articles. Why? Carlson has been such a clown with so many issues that I couldn’t take him seriously. This is credibility. He acts like a horses ass on Fox every evening. This I know. I don’t need to watch repetitive clips of him being an ass. This means that I will miss the part when he actually stumbles into something that is worthwhile discussing.
But....I personally didn’t look at any of the clips or read any of the posted articles. Why? Carlson has been such a clown with so many issues that I couldn’t take him seriously. This is credibility. He acts like a horses ass on Fox every evening. This I know. I don’t need to watch repetitive clips of him being an ass. This means that I will miss the part when he actually stumbles into something that is worthwhile discussing.
The meta analysis of his monologue is that he's arguing for pragmatism, including such long-term issues as caring about our inner city and rural indigence. On a meta level, it's about the only discussion worth prioritizing these days, even if his personal focus is on the decline of the family in this context.
So isn't the question, how to increase consumption commensurate with the increased supply of labor? That would seem like a pro-growth strategy, whereas aggregate lowering of incomes undermines growth of consumption, the main driver of the GDP, and thus is an anti-growth strategy.
The monologue has created a bit of a firestorm in conservative (and liberal) circles...with a lot of fairly interesting pieces both agreeing and critiquing the positions he discussed. Here's some follow up (to the follow ups).
https://www.vox.com/2019/1/10/18171912/tucker-carlson-fox-news-populism-conservatism-trump-gop
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019...capitalism-social-conservatives-fox-news.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...-was-right-about-working-class-family/579754/
I'd consider setting aside preconceived notions and watch the monologue....as it's not an issue that's going away, but only likely become more and more relevant to our national politics over the next generation.
I saw some of the same articles reacting to his monologue. It's interesting, but I hear what Cortez is saying as well in regard to Carlson's credibility. Credibility is a crucial commodity that has become undervalued in the current climate. Absent a little mea culpa and some self-awareness on the issue, it's hard to take Carlson seriously as a critic of market-focused policies when we've listened to him champion the market to the exclusion of most everything else for decades. And it's hard to take him seriously on his self-interested politician rant given his political support of one of the most self-interested people in politics in my lifetime.
That said, I think you're right that the issue raised here isn't going to go away and likely to become even more relevant. I just think Carlson is being a good media creator and trying to get out of front of a wave rather than expressing sincerely held policy views.
Are liberals still proud of their ability to be tolerant? Heck, look at my transformation within this thread. I savaged Carlson, then finally listened to his monologue and am willing to consider that he's had an epiphany of sorts.
Maybe Carlson changing is just another consequence of the Trump Phenomenon.
The Vox article is where I think people are starting to get it. I said after the election that Trump was a symptom of people feeling left behind and that the alliance between the economic side of the GOP was fraying with the social conservative side. I still believe in a free market, I do not think that is necessarily what we have.
Pundits go where there is money to be made. Carlson and Coulter and others are starting to sense that there has been a sea change among a large portion of the electorate on the right. I started seeing it several years ago and distinctly remember a staunchly Republican blog I read (like fire breathing right) bring up that what is good for corporations is not always what is good for the U.S. That is starting to accelerate. And certain high profile mega Corporations are compounding that growing unease by singling out conservatives in a negative way (looking at you Google, Facebook, and Twitter.)
Pundits go where there is money to be made. Carlson and Coulter and others are starting to sense that there has been a sea change among a large portion of the electorate on the right. I started seeing it several years ago and distinctly remember a staunchly Republican blog I read (like fire breathing right) bring up that what is good for corporations is not always what is good for the U.S. That is starting to accelerate. And certain high profile mega Corporations are compounding that growing unease by singling out conservatives in a negative way (looking at you Google, Facebook, and Twitter.)
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Huh?
IMHO, part of having an epiphany is realizing that you had it wrong before.
Maybe. Or maybe Carlson isn't actually changing at all. IDK.
Being tolerant includes having patience, no? You want Carlson to change from red to blue over night? Is it enough if he changes enough to come to the table and have a pragmatic conversation? Your post reeks of intolerance.
I'm not invested in whether Carlson changes from red to blue. Isn't that part of the non-pragmatic politics that you talk so much about. I do think you're being unreasonably uncharitable to my post and overly charitable to Carlson's "change", but so be it. Is that partial intolerance on your part? Hmmm...I don't think so, but who knows?
I'm wide open to a conversation, but a single monologue in a twenty year conversation isn't change. Hopefully, he'll stay on the topic, admit the mistakes he made in the past, and be part of a better future. When that happens, my patience will be rewarded.
As if on cue, Carlson is a terrible person and Trump sycophant again.
Tucker Carlson Knocks the FBI Over New Trump-Russia Report
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-...criticize-them/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Tucker Carlson Knocks the FBI Over New Trump-Russia Report
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-...criticize-them/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
From partisan to partisan? That sure sounds pragmatic. Go to the head of the class.
Our lives are pragmatic. All one needs to understand pragmatism is to be oneself when engaging here.
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