US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

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Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Kalit posted:

Are you insinuating that Lee Carter got things done? Based on how things turned out for him, it seemed like he was a giant rear end in a top hat and ineffective.

It’s weird for a number of unions to not support the incumbent candidate who’s supposedly the most pro-union option

Which is evidence of conspiracy? Because that was my larger point, people are stumbling into conspiracy brain with little evidence.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:27

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# ? May 26, 2024 00:19

RBA Starblade: Apr 28, 2008; Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Lib and let die posted:

Our leadership is simultaneously asleep at the wheel, while ramming lines off the 8-track catching air on hills, blasting metallica, and has a trunk full of C4 on a hair loving trigger.

That sounds pretty badass ngl

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:29

Nucleic Acids: Apr 10, 2007

Woops.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:29

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

WaPo and NYT articles with more detail and context on the massive spike in alcohol-related deaths in the U.S.

tl;dr

- The upward trend of alcohol-related deaths had been occurring before the pandemic and wasn't caused by the pandemic, but really accelerated and spiked during the pandemic.

- Previously, alcohol-related deaths had been on a steady climb of about 3% per year every year in the last decade. But, it was an astronomical 26% increase in 2020.

- Even though there were almost no cars on the road and bars were closed for most of 2020, there were more than 11,000 alcohol-related traffic deaths in 2020.

- Full data for 2021 isn't available yet, but preliminary data indicates that alcohol-related deaths remained around the high reached in 2020.

- Some scientists think this may be a "new normal" and alcohol-related deaths won't start to decrease until consumption goes down.

- Although consumption among the youth has declined, it has been steadily increasing - both in amount of people drinking and the total amount of drinks they average per week - for the last 15 years and doesn't show signs of declining.

- Alcohol sales in the U.S. in the last two years have set a record. 1968 is the only year with a larger annual increase in alcohol sales.

- Even before the pandemic, few people with alcohol problems got treatment. It generally isn't viewed as a problem until law enforcement or major health issues become involved. But, even if everyone with alcohol-related issues did want to get treatment, that there isn't capacity for it anyway.

quote:

Almost a million people in the United States have died of Covid-19 in the past two years, but the full impact of the pandemic�s collateral damage is still being tallied. Now a new study reports that the number of Americans who died of alcohol-related causes increased precipitously during the first year of the pandemic, as routines were disrupted, support networks frayed and treatment was delayed.

The startling report comes amid a growing realization that Covid�s toll extends beyond the number of lives claimed directly by the disease to the excess deaths caused by illnesses left untreated and a surge in drug overdoses, as well as to social costs like educational setbacks and the loss of parents and caregivers.

Numerous reports have suggested that Americans drank more to cope with the stress of the pandemic. Binge drinking increased, as did emergency room visits for alcohol withdrawal. But the new report found that the number of alcohol-related deaths, including from liver disease and accidents, soared, rising to 99,017 in 2020, up from 78,927 the previous year � an increase of 25 percent in the number of deaths in one year.

That compares with an average annual increase of 3.6 percent in alcohol-related deaths between 1999 and 2019. Deaths started inching up in recent years, but increased only 5 percent between 2018 and 2019.

The study, done by researchers with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a division of the National Institutes of Health, was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on Friday. Using information from death certificates, the researchers included all deaths in which alcohol was listed as an underlying or contributing cause. (Only a very small number also involved Covid-19.)

�The assumption is that there were lots of people who were in recovery and had reduced access to support that spring and relapsed,� said Aaron White, the report�s first author and a senior scientific adviser at the alcohol abuse institute.

�Stress is the primary factor in relapse, and there is no question there was a big increase in self-reported stress, and big increases in anxiety and depression, and planet-wide uncertainty about what was coming next,� he said. �That�s a lot of pressure on people who are trying to maintain recovery.�

Among adults younger than 65, alcohol-related deaths actually outnumbered deaths from Covid-19 in 2020; some 74,408 Americans ages 16 to 64 died of alcohol-related causes, while 74,075 individuals under 65 died of Covid. And the rate of increase for alcohol-related deaths in 2020 � 25 percent � outpaced the rate of increase of deaths from all causes, which was 16.6 percent.

The alcohol-related deaths went up for everybody � men, women, as well as every ethnic and racial group. Deaths among men and women increased at about the same rate, but the absolute number of deaths among men was much higher.

Drug overdose deaths also reached record levels during the first year of the pandemic, with more than 100,000 Americans dying of overdoses during the 12-month period that ended in April 2021, a nearly 30 percent increase over the previous year, according to reports issued in November. The number of deaths from opioids in which alcohol played a role also increased.

Young adults ages 25 to 44 experienced the greatest increases in alcohol-related deaths in 2020, rising nearly 40 percent over the previous year, according to the new report.

Available data for 2021 indicates that alcohol-related deaths remained elevated, Dr. White said, but he added that it was hard to say whether that indicated a continuation of the trend because alcohol consumption and deaths generally drop in February after the holidays and then trend back up.

�Maybe they�ll go back down,� he said, �but this could be the new norm.�

The crisis has actually been brewing for years, as drinking among adults has been increasing even as drinking among adolescents has fallen off, said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, who was not involved in the study. Mental health struggles were also becoming more prevalent before the pandemic, making people more susceptible to substance abuse.

�As with many pandemic-related outcomes, this is an exacerbation of issues that were beginning before the pandemic for many people,� Dr. Keyes said. �Drinking has been going up for 10 or 15 years among adults, and the trend accelerated in 2020, as some of the motivations to drink changed: Stress-related drinking increased, and drinking due to boredom increased.�

Adults in their mid-20s to mid-40s with children at home were under increased stress as they juggled remote working and learning, she said; those without children, who generally drink more anyway, may have been contending with more isolation and loneliness.

And when people drink at home, she noted, there�s no bartender monitoring the size of the drink � �you have less ability to regulate how much is going into the glass,� she said � and drinking is much less expensive.

But it was the inability or reluctance to access treatment during lockdowns and periods when the health care system was overwhelmed that may have deterred those who needed treatment from getting care, said John Kelly, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital.

That may have contributed to deaths from alcohol-related liver disease, which accounts for about one-third of alcohol-related deaths, Dr. Kelly said. Other major causes are drug poisoning, which occurs when alcohol is involved in a drug overdose death, and alcohol-related mental and behavioral disorders.

Total alcohol sales in the United States by volume increased by 2.9 percent in 2020 over the previous year, the greatest annual increase in sales since 1968, Dr. White said.

He called for new approaches to addiction that teach people to cope with stress in a more productive manner.

�We are entering an era in public health where we are talking more about promoting wellness and building resilient people,� he said. �What we are doing now is not sufficient. We need to help people live meaningful purpose-filled lives.�

quote:

Michael Barnett, assistant professor of health policy and management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said the coronavirus pandemic did not create many new social problems. It magnified the ones some people were struggling with � social isolation, financial uncertainty, the burden of mental illness with not enough available treatment, he said.

�It�s all kind of a perfect storm for addiction to get worse, if not prevent it from getting better,� he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/03/23/alcohol-related-deaths-pandemic/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/health/alcohol-deaths-covid.html

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:30

Lib and let die: Aug 26, 2004

RBA Starblade posted:

That sounds pretty badass ngl

I'd be willing to accept an ascendency of Dr Rockso to the halls of power, instead of a foreign mercy invasion.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:31

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Yeah, the lack of "access to affordable" treatment was a factor in the spike in alcohol-related deaths, as was the delay of treatment for alcohol-related conditions like liver disease & mental illness.

This would be a good time to use the study as a reason to deschedule cannabis, given other studies that I believe showed a drop in alcohol abuse in states that went legal, or to pass any legislation that allows legal states' dispensaries to operate within the federal banking system instead of continuing to operate as a criminal banking cartel & required to deal with cash.

eta: The NYT story also mentioned relapses from sober people who couldn't attend in-person 12-step meetings as a factor, which makes sense.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:38

Josef bugman: Nov 17, 2011; Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Kalit posted:

It�s weird for a number of unions to not support the incumbent candidate who�s supposedly the most pro-union option

Not entirely. Unions are great, but it is quite honestly a big problem that they are made up of apparatus that will back candidates that aren't the best for the members, but are the best that they can think they can get away with right now. This is not to comment on Lee Carters own status (I don't know the bloke from Adam to be quite honest) but it is vital that you look at which union groups and which sector of unions are supporting certain candidates. Police unions are the obvious one to watch in this instance of course, but we should discount them more generally.

Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Mar 24, 2022

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:42

Bishyaler: Dec 30, 2009; Megamarm

Lib and let die posted:

Don't care who it is. Let Canada or Mexico, or hell, the asshokes in England come and take us over. Our leadership is simultaneously asleep at the wheel, while ramming lines off the 8-track catching air on hills, blasting metallica, and has a trunk full of C4 on a hair loving trigger.

Can't stop with the politicians, have to do something about their oligarch bosses. I hear seizing their assets is in vogue.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:43

DarkCrawler: Apr 6, 2009; by vyelkin

Bishyaler posted:

Cool reductionist speedrun!

How about we start by acknowledging there is a difference between making billions of dollars of weapons available to self-avowed neo-nazi national guard units and having someone with far-right views drive on a road paved with tax dollars?

How about we start acknowledging that you're completely and utterly exaggerating the presence of neo-nazis in Ukraine? Because this is not the first time this was pointed to you? "Billions of dollars of weapons to neo-nazis" wow how many Nazis are there in Ukrainian forces? Because unless they're flying fighter planes, it is definitely going to have to be a lot for them to have billions of dollars of weapons.

Lib and let die posted:

Putin, Xi, I don't give a gently caress at this point. Yes, final answer, Regis.

The American exceptionalism in believing that things possibly can't be worse anywhere else under anybody else is amazing.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Mar 24, 2022

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:47

Nucleic Acids: Apr 10, 2007

DarkCrawler posted:

How about we start acknowledging that you're completely and utterly exaggerating the presence of neo-nazis in Ukraine? Because this is not the first time this was pointed to you? "Billions of dollars of weapons to neo-nazis" wow how many Nazis are there in Ukrainian forces? Because unless they're flying fighter planes, it is definitely going to have to be a lot for them to have billions of dollars of weapons.

I think those Roma women being tied to flagpoles for �looting� might disagree about how widespread of a problem Nazis are there.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:52

Bishyaler: Dec 30, 2009; Megamarm

DarkCrawler posted:

How about we start acknowledging that you're completely and utterly exaggerating the presence of neo-nazis in Ukraine? Because this is not the first time this was pointed to you? "Billions of dollars of weapons to neo-nazis" wow how many Nazis are there in Ukrainian forces? Because unless they're flying fighter plans, it is definitely going to have to be a lot for them to have billions of dollars of weapons.

"Its only Azov" doesn't really cut the mustard when we know they've been drawing government paychecks for 8 years. Know what's a really good recruiting tool? Facing an existential threat like an invasion, having your leadership interviewed and platformed on CNN, all while the rest of the liberal media softens your image from extremists to plucky underdogs.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:53

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

It's going to be great when the mods give a bunch of sixers to the people who didn't burst in to start another insane derail about Ukraine.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:53

Josef bugman: Nov 17, 2011; Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Gumball Gumption posted:

It's going to be great when the mods give a bunch of sixers to the people who didn't burst in to start another insane derail about Ukraine.

Yeah I don't want to backseat mod, but there are whole threads in multiple places for this stuff.

Alongside that I don't want to delve too deep into trying to tell the future, but have there been any indications of what might occur post loss of the houses under the democrats? Can things be done via executive order then?

# ? Mar 24, 2022 15:55

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Not the thread to discuss Azov or Ukraine, thanks

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:02

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Josef bugman posted:

Yeah I don't want to backseat mod, but there are whole threads in multiple places for this stuff.

Alongside that I don't want to delve too deep into trying to tell the future, but have there been any indications of what might occur post loss of the houses under the democrats? Can things be done via executive order then?

Things can be done by executive order now.

DarkCrawler posted:

The American exceptionalism in believing that things possibly can't be worse anywhere else under anybody else is amazing.

Sincere question: Is there another country in the world with as bizarre of a "healthcare system" as ours?

Because I'm inclined to believe that an invasion by another country is the only way we'll get single-payer before the several decades from now that Dems have proclaimed to be a pragmatic & reasonable timeline.

eta: Yesterday was the 12th anniversary of the signing of the "Affordable" "Care" Act, yet premiums have doubled, out-of-pocket costs have tripled, and more people than ever before are avoiding seeking medical help (including pharmaceuticals) because of the prohibitive expenses of doing so.

Even a privatized "public option" is a bridge too far, as is lowering the eligibility age for Medicare.

vvv Yes; you can find a press release from the CPC stating that this is the case.

Willa Rogers fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Mar 24, 2022

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:03

RBA Starblade: Apr 28, 2008; Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Willa Rogers posted:

Things can be done by executive order now.

Is an executive action the same thing as an executive order?

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:05

DarkCrawler: Apr 6, 2009; by vyelkin

Willa Rogers posted:

Sincere question: Is there another country in the world with as bizarre of a "healthcare system" as ours?

As bizarre? No. Worse or no healthcare systems? Absolutely.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:10

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Willa Rogers posted:

Sincere question: Is there another country in the world with as bizarre of a "healthcare system" as ours?

Because I'm inclined to believe that an invasion by another country is the only way we'll get single-payer before the several decades from now that Dems have proclaimed to be a pragmatic & reasonable timeline.

The U.S. is the only OECD country without a form of universal healthcare.

Israel and the Netherlands have universal private systems that are basically national Obamacare.

But, no other (major) country has anything similar to the general American healthcare system.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:11

DarkCrawler: Apr 6, 2009; by vyelkin

No other OECD country also has as pants-on-head moronic system of voting or government as the United States so I mean a bizarre healthcare (or education, policing, etc.) system is expected. UK is probably the only one that comes close. Turns out that giving fascist rurals hideous extra voting power: not the path to success.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:20

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Josef bugman posted:

Not entirely. Unions are great, but it is quite honestly a big problem that they are made up of apparatus that will back candidates that aren't the best for the members, but are the best that they can think they can get away with right now. This is not to comment on Lee Carters own status (I don't know the bloke from Adam to be quite honest) but it is vital that you look at which union groups and which sector of unions are supporting certain candidates. Police unions are the obvious one to watch in this instance of course, but we should discount them more generally.

While I agree overall, that�s why I included a couple of keywords in my post. I mentioned �incumbent� to demonstrate that the politician is already a viable/realistic candidate. And I mentioned �a number of unions� to demonstrate it�s not just 1 or 2 and to insinuate it�s a variety of different unions. And both of these are 100% applicable in the specific case of Carter.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:20

Bishyaler: Dec 30, 2009; Megamarm

Willa Rogers posted:

Things can be done by executive order now.
Because I'm inclined to believe that an invasion by another country is the only way we'll get single-payer before the several decades from now that Dems have proclaimed to be a pragmatic & reasonable timeline.

Invasion or revolution. You won't get single-payer decades from now either because the whole system was built to shut down things which adversely impact the capitalist class. Just like the Biden admin defending the Trump policy to allow predatory lending, except helping the wealthy ghouls is done quietly where Republicans would be advertising that people should be able to take their own risks.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:25

BIG-DICK-BUTT-FUCK: Jan 26, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

WaPo and NYT articles with more detail and context on the massive spike in alcohol-related deaths in the U.S.

tl;dr

- The upward trend of alcohol-related deaths had been occurring before the pandemic and wasn't caused by the pandemic, but really accelerated and spiked during the pandemic.

- Previously, alcohol-related deaths had been on a steady climb of about 3% per year every year in the last decade. But, it was an astronomical 26% increase in 2020.

- Even though there were almost no cars on the road and bars were closed for most of 2020, there were more than 11,000 alcohol-related traffic deaths in 2020.

- Full data for 2021 isn't available yet, but preliminary data indicates that alcohol-related deaths remained around the high reached in 2020.

- Some scientists think this may be a "new normal" and alcohol-related deaths won't start to decrease until consumption goes down.

- Although consumption among the youth has declined, it has been steadily increasing - both in amount of people drinking and the total amount of drinks they average per week - for the last 15 years and doesn't show signs of declining.

- Alcohol sales in the U.S. in the last two years have set a record. 1968 is the only year with a larger annual increase in alcohol sales.

- Even before the pandemic, few people with alcohol problems got treatment. It generally isn't viewed as a problem until law enforcement or major health issues become involved. But, even if everyone with alcohol-related issues did want to get treatment, that there isn't capacity for it anyway.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/03/23/alcohol-related-deaths-pandemic/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/health/alcohol-deaths-covid.html

in the big picture, I think this is rooted in similar causes as the opioid epidemic - worsening material conditions drive people to abuse drugs. opioid Rx are down 45% compared with a decade prior but fatal overdoses set records every coming year.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:29

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

DarkCrawler posted:

As bizarre? No. Worse or no healthcare systems? Absolutely.

This is technically true. The U.S. doesn't have the worst healthcare outcomes in the world (it typically ranks ~18th out of 193), but a lot of that is due to the fact that the U.S. is wealthy and can coast on that. Also, most people are covered through the weird patchwork of public and employer-provided systems.

But, the U.S. has very few guardrails compared to other countries, so despite the fact that it "works" for most people most of the time, the bottom 10-15% of the population or people who run into one of the instances where it doesn't "work most of the time" can fall into a pit that would be almost impossible to fall into in other countries.

The fact that the U.S. is the richest country in the world and #1 in many individual financial/quality of life indicators, but #18 on healthcare is indicative that it is severely underperforming relative to its capacity. It's not "the worst" healthcare system in the world, but it is pretty bad in context.

"U.S. healthcare is better than nearly 90% of other countries" and "U.S. healthcare is a wildly inefficient disaster" are both technically correct, but don't really mean anything without context of how rich the U.S. is and how poorly it performs relative to other countries.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:30

Kavros: May 18, 2011; sleep sleep sleep
fly fly post post
sleep sleep sleep

Bishyaler posted:

You won't get single-payer decades from now either because the whole system was built to shut down things which adversely impact the capitalist class.

I quite like the succinctness of this, describing a system which can immediately priority-board the passage of bills instantly materializing trillions of dollars to pay off megacorporations' last five years of stock buybacks, but which instantaneously locks up like an engine submerged in molasses when it is even conceptually tasked with providing workable public good systems that would undercut the presence of price-inflated private monopolies and monopsonies

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:31

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Bishyaler posted:

Invasion or revolution. You won't get single-payer decades from now either because the whole system was built to shut down things which adversely impact the capitalist class. Just like the Biden admin defending the Trump policy to allow predatory lending, except helping the wealthy ghouls is done quietly where Republicans would be advertising that people should be able to take their own risks.

Yeah; my favorite example of this is how Biden continued Trump's program of further privatizing Medicare with its direct-contracting experiment but Biden gave it a new name & branded it as an equity program, lol.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:34

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

WaPo and NYT articles with more detail and context on the massive spike in alcohol-related deaths in the U.S.

tl;dr

- The upward trend of alcohol-related deaths had been occurring before the pandemic and wasn't caused by the pandemic, but really accelerated and spiked during the pandemic.

- Previously, alcohol-related deaths had been on a steady climb of about 3% per year every year in the last decade. But, it was an astronomical 26% increase in 2020.

- Even though there were almost no cars on the road and bars were closed for most of 2020, there were more than 11,000 alcohol-related traffic deaths in 2020.

- Full data for 2021 isn't available yet, but preliminary data indicates that alcohol-related deaths remained around the high reached in 2020.

- Some scientists think this may be a "new normal" and alcohol-related deaths won't start to decrease until consumption goes down.

- Although consumption among the youth has declined, it has been steadily increasing - both in amount of people drinking and the total amount of drinks they average per week - for the last 15 years and doesn't show signs of declining.

- Alcohol sales in the U.S. in the last two years have set a record. 1968 is the only year with a larger annual increase in alcohol sales.

- Even before the pandemic, few people with alcohol problems got treatment. It generally isn't viewed as a problem until law enforcement or major health issues become involved. But, even if everyone with alcohol-related issues did want to get treatment, that there isn't capacity for it anyway.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/03/23/alcohol-related-deaths-pandemic/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/health/alcohol-deaths-covid.html

Extra scary thing to consider with this is the new studies confirming pretty much any alcohol is bad for you and causes damage to your brain tissue. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/18/any-amount-of-alcohol-consumption-harmful-to-the-brain-finds-study

Edit: And just personally as someone who never drank much and recently cut it all out I'm always taken aback by how accepted functional alcoholism is as a way to self medicate.

Gumball Gumption fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Mar 24, 2022

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:37

Bishyaler: Dec 30, 2009; Megamarm

Gumball Gumption posted:

Extra scary thing to consider with this is the new studies confirming pretty much any alcohol is bad for you and causes damage to your brain tissue. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/18/any-amount-of-alcohol-consumption-harmful-to-the-brain-finds-study

Nice knowing you guys

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:42

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Gumball Gumption posted:

Extra scary thing to consider with this is the new studies confirming pretty much any alcohol is bad for you and causes damage to your brain tissue. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/18/any-amount-of-alcohol-consumption-harmful-to-the-brain-finds-study

I can't remember who said it, but someone had a quote about how if alcohol were invented today, it would be immediately banned and the news reports would say "New drug is highly addictive, is one of the top 10 causes of death, causes 6 different types of cancer, kills thousands on the road each year, heightens aggression, and can be made in your basement with just simple plants!"

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:44

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Bishyaler posted:

Nice knowing you guys

Functional alcoholism and whatever it is that's giving all of us prostate cancer really young is going to be our generation's version of leaded gas. Gen Z gets to have their blood be 99% microplastic.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:44

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

Gumball Gumption posted:

Functional alcoholism and whatever it is that's giving all of us prostate cancer really young is going to be our generation's version of leaded gas. Gen Z gets to have their blood be 99% microplastic.

I thought Millennials were screwed over with respect to microplastics too.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:47

RBA Starblade: Apr 28, 2008; Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Eric Cantonese posted:

I thought Millennials were screwed over with respect to microplastics too.

I thought basically all of Earth was at this point.

Gumball Gumption posted:

Functional alcoholism and whatever it is that's giving all of us prostate cancer really young is going to be our generation's version of leaded gas. Gen Z gets to have their blood be 99% microplastic.

That's not true - there's also heart disease ready to screw us.

e: Oh you don't mean just to kill us

RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Mar 24, 2022

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:47

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Willa Rogers posted:

Things can be done by executive order now.

Large swathes of this list are either already being done, already done, not doable by executive order or action, or so vague as to be unclear what can be done. I started to go through it with the IRS material, but it's not worth the time.

Curb abuse of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act�s Opportunity Zone program in which wealthy investors shield capital gains from taxes by promulgating new regulations that the Treasury Department annually certify Opportunity Zone funds fulfill all the program�s requirements, including 90 percent of an investment being made in an Opportunity Zone itself and robust reporting requirements. This is vague, but there�s already an annual cert process for participants in the Opportunity Zone program; if they�re asking for additional, intensive enforcement scrutiny, that would require additional Congressional funding.
Raise billions by closing the carried interest loophole that lets Wall Street executives managing other peoples� money disguise part of their salary as investment returns to cut their taxes; currently, investment income of wealthy money managers is taxed at the capital gains rate of 20 percent, whereas their wage income is taxed at 37 percent. I have no idea why the authors would think this wouldn�t require an act of Congress.
Fight unfair tax evasion by the wealthy through IRS authority to require reporting by financial institutions on large deposits related to business transactions without encroaching on the financial privacy for average account holders. This rule was proposed months ago.
Reverse Trump administration regulations that further expanded the offshore tax loopholes created by the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Promulgate new regulations to close transfer pricing loopholes, prevent earnings stripping, reform the abuse of foreign tax credits, and protect and expand the U.S. source taxation base. Incredibly vague, but several of these are already done. Others can�t, because TCJA was a law, and the president still doesn�t get to overturn laws.
Advance corporate transparency through a Securities and Exchange Commission rule requiring public companies to disclose information about their exposure to climate-related risks, including: the company�s direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions; the total amount of fossil fuel-related assets the company owns or manages; the company�s expected valuation if climate change continues at its current pace or greenhouse gas emissions are restricted to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal; and the company�s risk management strategies related to the physical risks and transition risks posed by the climate crisis. Already being done.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Mar 24, 2022

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:49

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

Willa Rogers posted:

^^^ You keep mentioning how baffled you are that "unions have dropped him" and you've been saying so for months. Have you delved into which particular unions, and their stated reasons? (His staff was the first to unionize in Virginia among pols, btw.)

I'm not sure whether what I posted doesn't hew to your framework of current events (student-loan forbearance) or new information (a study about the VA drop in younger voters) or you're just mentioning it as an aside.

If it's the former, please clarify, since I've laid out why I think it was relevant to this thread & followed your framework.

Bit of a late reply, but the latter. You posted about McAuliffe polling, youth vote, and student loans. The general behavior of Virginia Dems was mentioned and then this began discussion of Lee Carter.

The reason I brought up your post was to circle back to what originally started discussion of Lee Carter--it was a tangent from your post on McAuliffe and student loans. I wanted people to wrap up discussion of Carter with any final thoughts or information that haven't been covered and return to the initial point of derail (if they want). Your post was completely within bounds and I wasn't calling it out, it was just the point where discussion of Carter branched off.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:50

Sephyr: Aug 28, 2012

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

I can't remember who said it, but someone had a quote about how if alcohol were invented today, it would be immediately banned and the news reports would say "New drug is highly addictive, is one of the top 10 causes of death, causes 6 different types of cancer, kills thousands on the road each year, heightens aggression, and can be made in your basement with just simple plants!"

As a med student, I can see that. It'd be easier to list the conditions that do NOT have a blurb at the end of the pathology book saying "by the way, alcohol use really worsens this and/or messes with the treatment".

Smoking may be more directly harmful, but it still doesn't have the absurd organic reach and general impairment that alcohol produces.

My toxicology books have the "small amounts can bring measurable benefits to cardio" bit, but....you can pretty much get the same result from drinking fresh grape juice.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:51

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Eric Cantonese posted:

I thought Millennials were screwed over with respect to microplastics too.

Yeah but they will have it even worse. I mean really anything that ever exists on earth again will probably have to live with microplastics.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:51

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Kalit posted:

It�s weird for a number of unions to not support the incumbent candidate who�s supposedly the most pro-union option

It's not that uncommon

For the same reason Carter was expected to 'just get along' and stop really trying to repeal Right-To-Work in order to protect the careers of party members who are privately pro-RtW, unions often face a choice between supporting the most pro-labor candidate in primaries and not pissing off party bigwigs whose good side the union needs to stay on to get anything done at all

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:52

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

VitalSigns posted:

It's not that uncommon

For the same reason Carter was expected to 'just get along' and stop really trying to repeal Right-To-Work in order to protect the careers of party members who are privately pro-RtW, unions often face a choice between supporting the most pro-labor candidate in primaries and not pissing off party bigwigs whose good side the union needs to stay on to get anything done at all

It's also being used as a logical jumping point to argue that there must be fire to the second and third hand accounts of smoke which makes even less sense. I can't tell if Kalit is falling into a technically correct hole where they need to push back on the union comment or if they're pushing the union stuff to silently push the "and the rumors are all true". One is pretty chill and whatever, we're all nerds who need to be right. The other is very unchill.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:55

Manager Hoyden: Mar 5, 2020

Discendo Vox posted:

Large swathes of this list are either already being done, already done, not doable by executive order or action, or so vague as to be unclear what can be done.

That's a heck of a claim there

Which ones specifically are being done, and not in a squint-and-frame-it-just-right way

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:57

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Manager Hoyden posted:

That's a heck of a claim there

Which ones specifically are being done, and not in a squint-and-frame-it-just-right way

I provide some of the ones I did when I started trying to deal with it, but the reality is this is an absurd burden shift; dropping a list of nonspecific agenda asks and claiming the executive can unilaterally do all of them doesn't make it true.

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:58

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# ? May 26, 2024 00:19

Manager Hoyden: Mar 5, 2020

So none of them then

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Mar 24, 2022 16:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

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