• billwashere
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      312 years ago

      And Fetterman. These two really make me smile with their next level trolling.

    • @[email protected]
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      242 years ago

      I don’t always see eye to eye with AOC, but I know her heart is in the right place. Can’t say the same for any other politician, Republican or Democrat.

      • @[email protected]
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        182 years ago

        Same. I think her and Bernie believe in what they’re fighting for and it’s for the good of the people, not corporations.

        I may not agree with some of their positions but I believe they are doing what they believe is right. 9 times out of 10 I will vote for someone I think is honest and trying to do what’s best for the country even if I disagree with them, and I refuse to vote for an obviously dishonest politician even if I do agree with most of their positions.

  • downpunxx
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    782 years ago

    clean? republicans defunded more military funding for ukraine

        • AFK BRB Chocolate
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          192 years ago

          But isn’t that just because it wasn’t covered in the 45 day bill? They didn’t address it, it needs to be addressed, but they didn’t defund what we already funded.

          • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin
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            82 years ago

            I mean since Lend Lease is in effect Biden has a lot more power to just give war material if he’s running up short financially.

            Really how the US does most of its most effective work, find a partner, give them the guns, ask the pursers forgiveness rather than permission when war material doesn’t come back in the condition it was loaned in.

            • AFK BRB Chocolate
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              172 years ago

              And it’s hard to imagine that the American military doesn’t think the war in Ukraine is a big win. I mean, it’s horrible, and I can’t imagine anyone is happy that all those kids in both sides are losing their lives, full stop. But given that it’s happening:

              • The world is seeing the Russian government for the aggressors that they are - something the US government has been saying, but many didn’t believe.
              • Russia and China have been considered the biggest threats to the US, but you don’t go to war just because a country is a potential threat. Ukraine is fighting a war with one of our primary threats, depleting their capability significantly (and showing us the weaknesses in the capabilities).
              • The US is getting to see their systems in operation during a real conflict without risking US troops or being at war themselves. I bet there’s an awful lot of note taking happening.

              It’s expensive but it’s money well spent even for selfish reasons, let alone it’s the right thing to do.

              • @[email protected]
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                2 years ago

                Here’s what will happen; because I don’t see how it won’t happen again. After the war, Russia will be a broken state financially. But all Western powers will be too chicken shit to let the country break up into smaller independent states. Some nation will get greedy and start pouring money and investment into Russia because the war is officially over and “relations must normalize” and we can’t let all those “poor, innocent Russians” starve. Of course civil war would be seen as a disaster, too. All the old power structures will stay in place, but titles will change. World still on the edge of disaster because people are too scared to let things die to be reborn better.

              • @[email protected]
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                102 years ago

                It’s not even expensive. These are all vehicles and equipment that were just collecting dust. Imagine if you could accomplish one of your top goals using some old string and other crap you found in the attic. It’s like that.

                • AFK BRB Chocolate
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                  32 years ago

                  One item I didn’t mention because it may or may not be in the US government’s best interest is that sending all those weapons to Ukraine is resulting in big contracts to weapon makers to resupply the stockpile. Probably good for the economy, certainly good for the defense contractors.

              • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin
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                2 years ago

                That second point is actually even worse than it sounds, because now Russia is draining the war materials of other adversaries to US geopolitical goals because of how unsustainable continuing to use their own stuff is.

                This isn’t just a war of attrition against Russia, it’s now also against Iran and North Korea too, and Ukraine is STILL eating it all up like their front line forces are all just kirbies in Ukrainian army helmets.

                The US not only has incentive to support Ukraine, it has incentive to do so vigorously enough to keep morale in Ukraine high enough to keep the war going even if it begins to drag into the years to come, almost especially if it starts dragging that long, every extra day Ukraine fights is more material Russia or China or North Korea or Iran wouldn’t be able to call upon threatening American allies or America itself.

              • @[email protected]
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                32 years ago

                Here’s what will happen; because I don’t see how it won’t happen again. After the war, Russia will be a broken state financially. But all Western powers will be too chicken shit to let the country break up into smaller independent states. Some nation will get greedy and start pouring money and investment into Russia because the war is officially over and “relations must normalize”. All the old power structures stay in place, but titles will change. World still on the edge of disaster.

              • @[email protected]
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                22 years ago

                Another side-goal is showing past, present and potential Russian allies that it’s nothing more than a paper tiger. This’ll push more countries towards the US, especially those who’re vary of Russia’s future puppet master (China).

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        Fun fact for those on the fence about this, the US has monetary sovereignty in a fiat currency, which means that the US government has essentially infinite money.

        Edit: for those that are curious, yes, the game about the federal budget is exactly that. The deficit is essentially tracking the amount of money that the federal government owes to itself. Remember, fiat currency means that the value of money exists because the government says that it holds that specific value. A $2 dollar bill is still worth $2 when purchasing items, but worth several $ more than the printed value.

        Edit 2: I didn’t think it needed to be said, but I’ve been proven wrong. I don’t literally mean infinite money.

        • HububBub
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          42 years ago

          Absolutely correct. And for more detail on how non-fiat economies work and why the deficit is essentially a fiction to keep bond markets functioning, I recommend reading “The Deficit Myth” by Stephanie Kelton. This also explains why the EU will never rival the US (TLDR: EU member states are not able to control their individual monetary policies).

        • @[email protected]
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          162 years ago

          Holy Zimbabwe Batman!

          For those that are curious this is not even remotely close to how the economy words. The us government absolutely does not have unlimited real money, sure they can print money and it will become worthless. But that’s not the same.

            • @[email protected]
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              62 years ago

              Can we please not have YouTube videos be sources

              At best, they’re a tertiary source consistimg of a bunch of condensed summaries of other sources

              More often they’re cherrypicked by content creators to build a narrative for entertainment

              And like, in this context (Lemmy comment debate) you’re asking people to watch a bunch of videos with ads and debunk the points inside. Maybe thats not too much to ask in other contexts, but you must know nobody arguing with you here is going to spend their time doing that

              I could link to a bunch of flat earth videos as sources, and although they would be easily debunked, nobody here is gonna sit through them and follow up the specific claims they make

              • @[email protected]
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                32 years ago

                The Second Thought video is indeed a tertiary source, but the 1Dime videos has all sources in the comments. I understand that people don’t “like” it as a source, but that doesn’t invalidate them either. They are essentially longer form content explaining what I said in greater detail. If someone came in and said inflation was due to the flat earth, then we can dismiss those claims. Any “sources” would not be backed by economic or scientific theory. This doesn’t change based on the format of the source.

              • Stoneykins [any]
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                22 years ago

                This is an internet comment section. You need to chill about youtube videos as sources. It almost comes off as snobbish. No one here is under any obligation to do anything for each other. If you wanna ignore a long video someone posted because you don’t want to sit through it, fine. You are allowed to do that.

                The existence of flat earth videos doesn’t invalidate the entire concept of information in videos.

                Get an ad blocker or use piped or something.

            • @[email protected]
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              2 years ago

              I got a degree in economics. I’m not going to watch up trash on YouTube. If you can’t condense it and make a point it is obviously meaningless.

              The government buys things with US dollars, if it uses huge huge amounts of US dollars to buy things you get inflation. It’s a basic premise…

              Just look at Germany pre ww2 or look at Zimbabwe after it stopped being Rhodesia.

              • @[email protected]
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                82 years ago

                If you can’t condense it and make a point it is obviously meaningless.

                That’s literally what he did in the first comment you replied to.

                He posted the sources to back up his point because you were disputing it, and then you said “you don’t have a point!” Ridiculous.

                • @[email protected]
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                  He talked about fiat money being unlimited but it isn’t unlimited.

                  Fiat money is a type of currency that is not backed by a commodity, such as gold or silver. It is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender.

                  In no way did he explain why fiat money is unlimited money. That’s the bit that needs explaining.

                  If you flood the economy with money that money becomes less valuable (inflation) and therefore you need more money to buy things. At no point does that mean you can buy unlimited goods, it just means you can print worthless paper.

                  So yea I need to know what evidence I’m disputing to dispute something. It’s not up to me to disprove an argument that hasn’t even been explained.

              • @[email protected]
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                2 years ago

                neither of those governments had monetary sovereignty. Zimbabwe was also an exceedingly rare case of hyperinflation within a country using fiat currency.

                Edit: please, engage with the source material. What about monetary sovereignty is incorrect?

                • @[email protected]
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                  22 years ago

                  YouTube isnt a source.

                  If what you are claiming is true that the government has unlimited real money this means three things. 1 any government could make as much real money as they like and massively improve the livelihoods of all citizens but choose not to. There is a guaranteed Nobel prize in economics and probably physics. Someone somewhere is hiding a huge conspiracy for whatever reason.

                  That at a minimum requires a paper on the topic. A YouTube video isn’t up to that standard.

                  The claim you are making is extraordinary. I’m not going to watch 1.5 hour worth of YouTube to prove you wrong just as I wouldn’t for a flat earther.

                  It really is up to you to explain this world changing information succinctly and coherently. To at least raise the topic. What you are saying is all the governments and universities are wrong here is a a load of YouTube videos. Not worth my time sorry.

              • Stoneykins [any]
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                92 years ago

                As someone who is not informed on this and just is going by what is written in this thread, the videos seemed high quality and informative, and you saying “I got a degree” and refusing to engage because you don’t like YouTube is absolutely unhelpful and uninformative.

                It seems like @[email protected] is right, based on the information available right here. If you really disagree and would like like to show otherwise, please do engage and provide more information, I find this interesting.

                • @[email protected]
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                  12 years ago

                  The economics major has a point actually, but it’s nowhere near as interesting or important a point as they think.

              • @[email protected]
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                72 years ago

                Just look at Germany pre ww2

                The German government in the early '20s engineered their hyperinflation as part of an attempt to demonstrate an inability to pay the ruinous war reparations demanded by the Versailles Treaty. It’s really not a good example of “natural” inflation.

              • @[email protected]
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                22 years ago

                People just don’t seem to understand the supply-and-demand aspect of inflation, which is what causes these braindead takes; nor do these YouTube videos bother explaining it.

                • @[email protected]
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                  42 years ago

                  It’s madness.

                  They get a viewpoint and then just agree with everything that everyone remotely says close to it without judging it.

                  Then to win an argument you spam a huge amount of information that doesn’t prove the point in question but all does need to be disproved or they are magically right.

                  I just hope some people reading comments and not replying at least gain some knowledge of the system they are using.

        • swab148
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          242 years ago

          I wonder, sometimes, what a society would look like without inflation. Is there an economic system that says “this is the price of bread, from now on” and builds off of that?

          Of course, my only talents are music and memes, so I doubt that I’d specifically benefit from such a system, but maybe humanity as a whole?

          • @[email protected]
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            52 years ago

            That’s how you end up with either huge government spending to keep the prices of something fixed either by subsidies or by buying surpluses.

            Or you end up with shortages and a black market.

            • swab148
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              32 years ago

              Again, infinite money. Surplus could be exported to countries who don’t have infinite money.

              Also, yarr

          • @[email protected]
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            102 years ago

            On many items produced in the USSR, the price was molded into the form itself, since it was fixed and wasn’t going to change.

            • swab148
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              62 years ago

              But fine, then my bicycle is worth how many breads? If I offer to play my guitar for you, how many breads is that worth? I don’t care what kind of leftist you are, these are the real questions we should be asking in a post-capitalist society.

              • Dave.
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                After a while it becomes a pain to lug all that bread around, so what if everyone just agrees to have little bits of paper with “1 bread” written on it in place of actual bread, and we can use that. Someone gives you a bit of bread-paper and later if you need bread, you can just go see them at home, or wherever they keep their bread, and get a loaf or two as agreed.

                But of course people will just write “1 bread” without actually having the bread so it’s better if we have some central authority where people can swap their bread for carefully drawn bits of paper that can be verified as real, and if anyone wants bread they can just go to that authority and swap their paper back for bread.

                You don’t have to go and actually get the bread of course. Nearly everyone will take the bread-paper as a replacement for actual bread, because hey, if they really need bread they can go to that central authority and get bread. And it’s good bread, high quality stuff, so everyone trusts them to give them bread if they need it, but how many people really need all that actual bread? It’s much easier to swap bits of bread-paper for that motorcycle, or groceries, or whatever, rather than pass actual bread around the place.

                But then after a while it becomes a real nuisance to hold all that bread somewhere, so how about we just hold a nominal amount of bread, say, enough to cover people who might want to change their bits of paper for bread today, and for the rest of the bread we’re supposed to have we’ll just keep track of who has how many bread-papers in a journal.

                And so on and so forth, until there’s no bread at all and hardly any bread-papers even, and we’re transferring bread-papers electronically using phones and plastic cards with a lot of smarts in them and in the end we’re just mucking around with bread-numbers in a book somewhere.

                • @[email protected]
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                  82 years ago

                  Just want to say my initial comment was a bit tongue in cheek but you actually used it to explain the issue really well, so thank you!

          • @[email protected]
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            192 years ago

            One of the reasons some inflation is ‘good’ is that it drives investment. People are discouraged from saving their money since it will slowly devalue. Rather, those with capital are incentived to invest it in other areas of the economy.

            • swab148
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              152 years ago

              That would only happen if deflation was a thing too. In my (highly idealistic) world, money would not change value at all, so growth in a business would be real, not just projected numbers on a chart no one understands. In a fixed-econony, you invest into businesses that actually grow.

              I know this may come off as controversial, but this sort of thinking will be necessary for interstellar trade, if we don’t blow ourselves up first.

              • @[email protected]
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                32 years ago

                Could you elaborate a bit on that? I’m not really sure how a business that “actually grows” would be functional ina fixed economy without becoming confusing graphs or entering some other major problem.

                • swab148
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                  12 years ago

                  Like, the business actually gets bigger: opens more stores, creates new products, offers more services. The regulatory system behind this is starting to sound a bit tankie though, so I’m gonna shelve it for more thought.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 years ago

                Taxes are the current most frequent form of deflation in any country with a sovereign currency. The government spends/prints money in step one, the currency circulates through the economy in step two, and the last step, taxes, is your anti-inflationary device.

      • BarqsHasBite
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        1262 years ago

        I can’t believe the Republicans are appeasers. They beat the drum for decades how Democrats couldn’t stand up to tyrants, and now Republicans are literally appeasers. It’s 1984 levels of turnaround.

          • @[email protected]
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            362 years ago

            It’s not like you’re gonna find them all flying over to Russia together, like during the 4th of July or some crazy shit like that…

        • @[email protected]
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          92 years ago

          They always were and always will be appeasers and bootlickers. Democrats are also appeasers who lack conviction and courage, but they’re not (anywhere near as often) bootlickers.

        • @[email protected]
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          242 years ago

          They will verbally jerk off Ronald Regan for “outspending the USSR into dust” and then act like Ukraine Aid doesn’t do the exact same thing

        • @[email protected]
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          762 years ago

          They don’t believe in anything but power. Internal consistency is not a concern.

          Republicans are an existential threat to the US and we should treat them as such.

        • @[email protected]
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          132 years ago

          It’s a whole party caught between giving head to their long term partner, the Military Industrial Complex, or their new side fuck, Vladimir Putin. Either way, the rest of us are forced to lick up the leftovers.

      • @[email protected]
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        122 years ago

        Holy shit… they’re STILL on about “the Clintons”? At least it wasn’t the Clinton Soros Obama Global Initiative…

  • @[email protected]
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    422 years ago

    I would’ve preferred if Ukraine funding was still in there, but MTG screeching is an alright consolation.

    I find it interesting too how many people wanted “a clean bill” but then voted against it anyway because it didn’t have extra stuff they wanted or, in Rand Paul’s case, they’re fucking pieces of shit.

  • Drusas
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    922 years ago

    How is it “clean” when it defunded support for Ukraine and added pay increases for Congress?

    • @[email protected]
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      882 years ago

      Fucking congress doesn’t deserve to get paid (the obstructionist assholes) let alone a fucking raise. Cut social security but let’s give ourselves a raise to the six figure salaries we already make. Fuck off

      • @[email protected]
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        132 years ago

        This isn’t a great take. If Congress paid poorly only rich people (or their minions) would be able to afford the job. If Congress paid really well, like as well as engineering or banking, then people would be more heavily incentived to compete for the slot by getting better education, or by desiring the role in the first place. Since a lot of well educated highly qualified people are working elsewhere bc it is better pay and conditions, you can tell which reality we are already in.

      • @[email protected]
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        72 years ago

        Isn’t that only half of congress? And it didn’t get cut in this bill. It was a sticking point for Democrats.

    • @[email protected]
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      392 years ago

      They’re funded through next Feb, iirc. They’re not going to run out of support - until the next shitshow discussion that is

      • Meldroc
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        32 years ago

        IIRC Ukraine funding was deemed important to national security, so was exempt from any shutdown.

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin
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      62 years ago

      If it’s any consolation Congress can’t raise their own pay for the current term, the increase will go into effect starting Jan 1st 2025

  • 👁️👄👁️
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    1712 years ago

    I will never not read that as magic the gathering, it makes the news so much better

  • @[email protected]
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    1262 years ago

    I think that MTG, and a lot of commenters on here, need to realise that Ukraine will not stop this war until Russia are out, regardless of the international support or otherwise. Even if Ukraine is overrun completely the war would not stop, but would go on until Russia leave.

    • @[email protected]
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      212 years ago

      People refuse to recognize that the Ukrainian people do not want to be taken over by the Russians. There’s no good reason why they should be. They refuse to acknowledge the desires of the people, maybe because fighting back against an oppressor is foreign to their own cowardly psychology.

    • @[email protected]
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      542 years ago

      To add on – we need to recognize that Russia is trying to enforce the old rules of imperialism. In their eyes, Ukraine did not have the right to determine their own future and who they wanted to ally with. Russia had to approve of all their decisions and Russia controlled them.

      Defeating Russia is more then Ukrainian independence. It is an unequivocal statement by the West that we will not allow imperialism nor wars of conquest to resurface in Europe. And hopefully with time, this extends to the rest of the world too, and other countries will check Western ones if we begin to forget that.

      At the end of the day, a country’s sovereignty and right to self determination are sacred, only to be stripped if they use it to deny others of the same. There is a clear leftist geopolitical perspective here for continuing to back Ukraine.

      • @[email protected]
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        42 years ago

        That’s great and all, but mostly it’s keeping one of their largest geopolitical rivals tied up in a war that saps their strength at relatively small cost.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          Multiple things can be true. And we’re hardly keeping them tied up in a war when they can unilaterally withdraw and end the war. If they don’t want to end up in a protracted, hopeless war, they can stop at any time.

          • @[email protected]
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            2 years ago

            Well that’s the thing, they can, but unless leadership changes, they won’t. Can’t be a strongman if you appear weak, so Putin has kind of cornered himself

      • @[email protected]
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        42 years ago

        To add on – we need to recognize that Russia is trying to enforce the old rules of imperialism.

        Which is absolutely bullshit when you consider that originally Moscow was in Ukraine, not Russia

        • @[email protected]
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          192 years ago

          The fuck are you talking about. The capital of the old Rus was Kiev, hence it being called the Kieven Rus. But moscow was at most an irrelevent village at best during most of the history of the Kieven Rus, it wasnt until the Mongols that you see Moscow become relevent through trade and not getting pillaged.

          This is the equivelent of saying Dublin was originally in England not Ireland. Its nonsense.

    • @[email protected]
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      I would add three things to what they need to realize:

      It is possible for Ukraine to win.

      Russia is a ruthless and incompetent oligarchy, and they cannot be allowed to expand their territory.

      Fighting or fleeing are vastly preferable to being subsumed by Russia.

        • @[email protected]
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          182 years ago

          To elaborate on this point: Russia is trying to 1 take Ukraine and 2 keep it. They have not succeeded in part 1, and part 2 is much much more difficult. Afghanistan, as stated in the above comment, is a good example of this: the war to take Afghanistan took less than a year, whereas the struggle to keep it under control was failing two decades in.

          Russia can’t even do the easy part.

          Of course, this is assuming that they’re not just trying to keep hold of Crimea so they have a port on the black sea, which I think is the real reason they’re prosecuting the war.

          • @[email protected]
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            92 years ago

            What’s funny is that Ukraine was making no moves on the conquered territory of Crimea. They didn’t seem to want to fight Russia over it. But now that Russia went and invaded the rest of the country all bets are off…

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            I think he was referring to the Russian war with Afghanistan not the 2 decades long US war with Afghanistan.

    • JokeDeity
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      12 years ago

      You should rephrase this, almost looks like you believe Ukraine wants to be attacked by war criminals and terrorists.