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 Deer hunting with JesusISBN : 0307339378 SUMMARY When Joe Bageant returned to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, he rediscovered his redneck roots: ‘the great beery, NASCAR-loving, church-going, gun-owning America that has never set foot in a Starbucks’. But he soon realised that these were the very people who had carried George W. Bush to victory. This seemed ironic, because Winchester, like countless American small towns, was fast becoming the bedrock of a permanent underclass — a white ghetto of the working poor in which two in five people do not finish high school, nearly everyone over fifty has serious health problems and little or no health care, and credit ratings are virtually nonexistent. What it adds up to, Bageant argues, is an unacknowledged, American class war from which alcohol, overeating, and Jesus are the preferred avenues of escape. Deer Hunting with Jesus is a raucous mix of storytelling and political commentary. Bageant delivers a dose of redneck reality, describing ‘white trashonomics’ (mortgage and credit-card rackets that saddle the working poor with debt), the ubiquitous gun culture, factory jobs that are constantly on the verge of being outsourced, and the heady blend of Scots Irish culture with the blinkered ‘magical thinking’ of the Christian right. By turns brutal, tender, incendiary, and seriously funny, Deer Hunting with Jesus is a potent antidote to what Bageant dubs ‘the American hologram’— the televised, corporatised, virtual reality that distracts us from the insidious realities of American life. |
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jonheck 30-Jan-25, 04:34 |
bobspringette There was also a wealthy side, even an excessively wealthy side to the place, and plenty of room for for those closer the middle. There were the run down poor areas, and similar and nearby worser areas for the blacks. There was and still is stately Handily HS, about a hundred years old and vigorously maintained by the cities public schools system through a large endowment. Handly is an exceptional HQ HS that is available to any city resident Hi School-er interested in a quality HS education. Sadly many were not interested. The US drop out problem accelerated as states started lowering the age at which ones child was granted complete in charge status regarding their education, a brilliant move, largely, I believe, or at least I suspect, led by the Southern states. Did the author provide any dates for the story? |
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Jon |
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jonheck 30-Jan-25, 18:44 |
bobspringett |
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dmaestro 30-Jan-25, 21:40 |
The fallacy that we have a basic unity anymore exposed. Thumper heere example knows well we are too different and bitches about DEI which he doesn’t even understand; yet he wants it both ways to justify crushing opponents. He thinks securing dogs in trucks for safety concerns is government overreach. :/) But he’s fine with the demonizing, lies abcnews.go.com and forcing progressives to kiss the ring or else. It’s the golden age—he who has the gold rules! |
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How tariffs 'help' the domestic economy. Or that's the theory, at least. The practice is that other nations respond with their own tariffs, crippling any manufacturers looking for export markets. That reduces employment and economies of scale, eventually sending the exporting industries bankrupt. Even the 'protected' industries suffer over time. Without the competition from imports, the efficiency of those domestic manufacturers drops over time. Costs go up to match the price of the (imports plus tariff) benchmark. BUT BUT BUT That assumes the tariff regime is permanent, or at least lasts long enough for sensible investment planning. What happens when tariffs go up and down faster than a prostitute's knickers? Imagine you are a manufacturer of widgets, and you can barely compete against imported widgets. Suddenly there is a 25% tariff on the imports. You can now put your prices up 15% and still undercut the competition! Wow! Sales increase, ans profits too! So do you expand your factory? Aim to produce twice as many widgets? On paper, you can build a new factory, pay off the loan over 25 years from the increased profits, and after that the economies of scale are on your side! So you go to your bank with this business plan. The bank is quite happy with things as they are; you are paying your interst and there are no problems. But will they double your loan? What security can you offer? Answer:- a widget-production line that will run at a profit! No problems! "Ah, but what if the tariff on imported widgets is dropped next year? You will still have the same market, the same competitors, and we can assume the same sales, more-or-less. So how will you be able to pay the interest on the new loan?" The bank manager smiles as he shakes his head. "We want security that will be worth something even if the tariff is abolished." So you consider Option B. You float more shares, to be able to build on the basis of the additional capital. But most investors want 3% with certainty, not 6% as a punt against the wind. So they ask, 'How likely is it that this tariff will stay in place for the 25 years proposed as the payback period?' They will price the value of the extra shares on this basis. In short, any business that relies on a tariff advantage that could be swept away next year is playing Russian Roulette. RESULT Nobody with any business acumen will invest on the basis of a tariff regime that might disappear in a year. Instead, they will capitalise on the temporary increase in profits, park that cash in their private accounts, and then sigh when the good times end. In the meantime, no new investment. But in the meantime, everyone else has been thrown into an environment that is chaotic. Those are environments that favour only the scavengers. |
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jonheck 03-Feb-25, 02:02 |
bobsprineett with them widget price increases there would naturally be a reduction in sales. No problem, just raise the price a touch more to cover the profit loss, then for grins, more profit, and shareholder smiles, push those prices a bit higher, like they always do. And so on. How long does it take to increase manufacturing to accommodate the likely shortage of vital widgets, especially the types that are needed in multiples in bigger more complex stuff, and what does society do in the meantime? IC’csare a good example. The foreign makers are miles ahead of US manufactures. trumps smoke dream, simpleton answer would be that the US manufactures get to go back to making and selling more of um, it’s really quite simple don’t ya know. No, it is not.! Bend over folks, the screw is a coming |
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www.bbc.com The key take-away... <President Xi Jinping may also have another reason: he may see an opportunity here. Trump is sowing division in his own backyard, threatening to hit even the European Union (EU) with tariffs - all in his first month in office. His actions may have other US allies wondering what is in store for them. In contrast, China will want to appear a calm, stable and perhaps more attractive global trade partner. "Trump's America-first policy will bring challenges and threats to almost all countries in the world," says Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre. "From the perspective of US-China strategic competition, a deterioration of US leadership and credibility will benefit China. it is unlikely to turn well for China on the bilateral level, but Beijing surely will try to make lemonade..."> |
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Panama Canal www.theguardian.com Executives with Donald Trump’s family hotel business have abandoned the management offices of a luxury hotel in Panama that has been the scene of a tense 12-day standoff over a business dispute with the hotel’s owners. Trump’s security guards also left the property. It took place as a Panamanian judicial official and armed police escorted into the offices the owner of most of the units of the 70-storey, Trump-branded hotel in Panama City. The legal dispute involving Trump’s company was expected to continue, but Monday’s developments meant that Trump had effectively surrendered physical control of the property. “This was purely a commercial dispute that just spun out of control,” said Orestes Fintiklis, a private equity investor and the head of the hotel’s owners’ association, shortly before entering the hotel management’s offices. “And today this dispute has been settled by the authorities and the judges of this country.” End quote. So Groper lost this property through gross mismanagement and negligence, and boy was he pissed about it. Panama will pay, and pay dearly for their sorry treatment of our jackass and bestial concubine of President Musk. It's purely retaliatory. As for China--that's another sad outcome our idiots embrace. China richly deserves to lead the world and become the fiat currency, and we happily surrendered that to them. My MAGA friends still insist we're far better off ceding global authority to superior nations (not their precise phrasing) and how the destruction of USAID is a blessing for our billionaires and corporations, where our tax dollars should rightly flow instead. How do you reason with these folks? It is like pleading with locusts. |
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jonheck 04-Feb-25, 02:39 |
lord_shiva |
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I continue to be amazed that so many powerful men create thier own downfall by their over-reach. As the Good Book says, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." |
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Locusts Locusts eat each other, particularly when they are deficient in protein. The fear of being eaten by locusts behind them drives their swarming behavior. Cannibalism is so common that researchers describe it as a standard behavior in the animal kingdom. Sounds about right |
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bobspringett Indeed |
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America's 'Great Leap Forward' More and more, the chaos that surrounds Trump's 'decisions and revisions that a minute will reverse' threatens to paralyse all investment that would actually achieve that aim. I suspect that Trump's tariff policies are NOT about making America Great Again, but about showing how he can control other people, make them dance when he says "Jitterbug!" and change dances when he says "Time for a minuet now!" This will help no-one, except in so far as Trump picks his options and changes them to maximise benefit to himself (and perhaps reward an obedient toadie). The chaos itself is reminiscent of Mao's Great Leap Forward; here is what Wiki says about those times... <The Great Leap Forward was an economic and social campaign within China from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to transform the country from an agrarian society into an industrialized society through the formation of people's communes. Millions of people died in mainland China during the Great Leap, with estimates based on demographic reconstruction ranging from 15 to 55 million, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest or second-largest famine in human history. The Great Leap Forward stemmed from multiple factors, including the purge of intellectuals and the surge of less-educated radicals. Mao was dismissive of technical experts and basic economic principles, which meant that industrialization of the countryside would solely be dependent on the peasants. Grain quotas were introduced with the idea of having peasants provide grains for themselves and support urban areas. Output from the industrial activities such as steel was also supposed to be used for urban growth. Local officials competed to fulfill or over-fulfill quotas which were based on Mao's exaggerated claims, collecting non-existent "surpluses" and leaving farmers to starve to death. Higher officials did not dare to report the economic disaster which was being caused by these policies, and national officials, blaming bad weather for the decline in food output, took little or no action.> That sounds like Trump's toadies afraid to tell the Great Man the truth. |
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Truth to Idiocy So sad no one stands up to the toddler tyrant. |
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Shiva "You're fired!" until he gets an 'advisor' who says what he wants to hear, whether it is true or not. Everyone else will be labelled an 'Enemy of the People' and denied security protection; in other words, hung out for the brownshirts to use for their sport. This would be a good time for anyone with any expertise to find a job overseas. |
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jonheck 10-Feb-25, 06:25 |
Bobspringett I wouldn’t want to be looking for a yob! It’s good time to be retired, 🤔, or is it? |
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Teaching in Australia |
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Shiva Also plenty of jobs for police, but the standards demanded are higher than in most jurisdictions in the States. But the pay and conditions generally better. I still can't tempt Riaan to come over. We are drastically short of nurses, etc because the pay is terrible. The governments have relied on their unwillingness to do anything that might harm patients; a bit of a blackmail situation. That has kept their salaries down, but at a huge long-term cost as retirees are not being replaced. Building trades are also in big demand, and well paid. |
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WOW!! He is not a member of Cabinet, his appointment has NOT been endorsed by the Senate, the 'Department' he heads has no legislative basis (only an Executive Order) and he is a foreign national in not one but TWO other countries. Does he have Cabinet-level security clearance? But what he DOES have is the means to use what he hears for insider trading. |
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