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Thread: Backroom Errata

  1. #301

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    A bracing history of the transition of European social democracy from its revolutionary roots and long-term programs into neoliberalism:

    The two keywords of the socialist movements born in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century were “working class” and “social revolution,” where the latter was expected to realize the “ultimate goal” of abolishing the class system. Yet when socialist parties entered into electoral competition and, for the first time, gained parliamentary power in the aftermath of World War I, “ultimate goals” were not sufficient to mobilize electoral support or to govern. As political leaders, socialists had to offer a program of immediate improvements to the life conditions of the public. Moreover, socialists learned to dilute or obscure the language of class in order to win elections. While communists continued to adhere to “class contra class” strategy, socialists formed coalitions and fronts aimed at appealing to “the people.” Thus reformism was born: the strategy of proceeding toward socialism by steps, through electoral expression of popular support. The social democratic view of the world was one in which there was no choice between reform and revolution.

    [...]

    Following the success of the Swedish Social Democrats in the 1930s, and in the aftermath of World War II, the Keynesian welfare state institutionalized a compromise between organizations of workers and of capitalists across Western Europe. Gradually abandoning Marxism, social democrats accepted the tenet announced in the German Social Democratic Party’s Godesberg program of 1959: markets when possible, the state when necessary. Social democrats were to administer capitalist societies with the goals of liberty, employment, and equality. And they did accomplish much: they strengthened political democracy, introduced a series of improvements to work conditions, reduced income inequality, expanded access to education and health, and provided a foundation of material security for most people, while promoting investment and growth.

    But because it left the property structure intact and allowed markets to allocate resources, the social democratic approach fuelled the causes of inequality at the same time that it aimed to mitigate them. This contradiction reached its limits in the 1970s. As many old ills were overcome, new ones emerged. Indeed, the list of problems to be resolved by socialist programs in the mid-1970s was not any shorter than it had been at the turn of the twentieth century.

    The constraints of capitalist economy turned out to be inexorable, and political defeats meant that reforms could be reversed. In office in most Western European countries, social democratic governments desperately searched for responses that would preserve their commitment to “ultimate goals” in the face of the economic crisis. During the early 1970s, socialist parties developed new energy policies, workers’ management schemes, and structures of economic planning. But James Callaghan’s loss to Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom in 1979, and the departure of communists from François Mitterrand’s government in France in 1984, administered fatal blows. Mitterrand’s turn to austerity was the final act of resignation in the face of domestic and international constraints. All that was left were successive “third ways.”

    The evolution of social democracy until the advent of neoliberalism has been extensively documented. The capitulation of the left to the neoliberal offensive is more puzzling. It is thus revealing to get a glimpse of how social democratic leaders saw the future when they got the first whiff of the impending crisis of their long-term project. Fortunately, they were articulate about their fears, their hopes, and their plans. Particularly telling is an exchange of letters among German Chancellor Willy Brandt, Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, and Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme on the eve of the first oil crisis of the 1970s.
    The exchange included a series of letters and two in-person debates. It was initiated by Brandt on February 17, 1972 and ended with a conversation in Vienna on May 15, 1975. Brandt became chancellor of Germany in 1969, won reelection in 1972, and resigned in 1974. Kreisky became the Chancellor of Austria in 1970 and continued to serve until the summer of 1983. Palme came to office in Sweden in 1969, left after an electoral defeat in 1976, returned to office in 1982, and was assassinated in 1986. Hence, all the three were in office through most of the period of correspondence.

    The exchange took place after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 and during the onset of the first oil crisis of the 1970s. The economic situation was changing in dire ways. Between October 1973 and March 1974 oil prices increased by about 300 percent. Unemployment in OECD countries rose from an average 3.2 percent between 1960 and 1973 to 5.5 percent between 1974 and 1981; inflation rose during the same periods from 3.9 percent to 10.4 percent, and GDP growth rate fell from 4.9 percent to 2.4 percent.

    Brandt initiates the exchange with a call to discuss the fundamental values of democratic socialism. Quoting the Godesberg Program, he declares that the goal of social democrats is to create a society “in which all men could freely develop their personality and cooperate in the political, economic, and cultural life of humanity as members of the community.” This transformative orientation is immediately echoed by Palme: “social democracy is more than a party charged to administer the society. Our task is much more to transform it.” Kreisky even more explicitly refers to the ultimate goal: “Socialists . . . want to eliminate classes and justly divide the product of work of the society.”

    Echoing Jaurès, all three reject the choice between reform and revolution. For Brandt it is an artificial distinction “because no one can seriously deny that all reforms tending to increase our sphere of liberty do not also contribute to a transformation of the system.” Palme rejects the idea of a violent revolution as “elitist,” claims that reformism is based on the support of social movements, and sees reformism as nothing but a “process to improve the system.” Kreisky is less certain about the cumulative effect of reforms and more specific about the reforms that would have transformative effects, but he also believes that “there is always a moment in which the quantity [of reforms] becomes transformed into quality.”

    All three also worry about the relation between long-term goals and current policies. Resolutely democratic, they condition the progress of reforms on popular support, and they welcome cooperation with other political forces. Yet whatever their commitment to long-term goals, they are leaders of political parties, with the responsibility to win elections. They are acutely aware that people will condition their support on bread-and-butter issues, not on goals far off in the horizon, so this is what preoccupies them. As Palme writes:

    It is the problems of everyday life which occupy men most. . . . The relation between the ideas and the practical questions must be explained. . . . It is not sufficient to say: We need to modify the system. All efforts in this direction must be attached to solving human problems.
    And problems there were: income inequality and capital concentration were intensifying, unemployment was rising, natural resources were limited, and the environment was increasingly under threat. “Sooner or later,” Kreisky notes, “we will face the problem of how far we can guide ourselves by our principles in practical politics.” He worries about the rise of multinational corporations, environmental limits to growth, and the depreciation of manual work. The letters are forward looking: the three discuss structural reforms that would advance their fundamental values.

    On December 2, 1973, the three meet to discuss the consequences of the oil crisis. Brandt recognizes that it constitutes a decisive breakthrough for industrialized countries and will require serious efforts to cope with. Kreisky strikes the first alarm bell:

    There is something that seems very important to me, namely, our lack of foresight in matters of social policy. There has been a particularly dangerous development. It was believed that crises like the one in the early 1930s could not be repeated. Yet we now see how from one day to the next political events came to weigh on our economic situation a threat of global proportions which, just a few months ago, would have been held to be impossible. . . . We suddenly see that we confront a situation the seriousness of which cannot be minimized.
    Palme spells out the difficulty:

    We told the people who were already enjoying a prosperous situation that things would be much better for their children and that we would be able to solve the outstanding problems. . . . [But the new situation] presents a much more difficult task to fulfill. Because from the moment there is no longer a constant surplus to be distributed, the question of distribution is appreciably more difficult to resolve.
    Brand echoes these concerns, noting that it is essential to prevent inequality from increasing as growth resumes. Eighteen months later, during another in person meeting on May 25, 1975, Kreisky makes the fiscal constraint even more explicit: “It is precisely now that reforms should be made. It is just a question which. If we strongly develop social policies, we will not be able to finance them.”

    As a result, they desperately search for a distinct social-democratic response. “Social Democracy,” Kreisky emphasizes, “must find its own response to the crisis of modern industrial society.” Brandt rejects the accusation that “we have become a party confined to tactical maneuvers. The program of 1959 does not separate us in any way from the grand objectives of the German and international workers’ movement.” They agree that some reforms—those in the realm of social policies—have become much more difficult, but they emphasize that reforms that extend democracy to the economic realm by introducing employee co-management, as well as new energy and environmental policies and increased state intervention in the economy, are not only still possible but necessary. While Palme reflects that “the time of simplistic belief in progress is irrevocably gone,” he searches for a new “third way” between “private capitalism” and “bureaucratic State capitalism of Stalinist variety,” offering a detailed eleven-point program of reforms. And Brandt admonishes that “the effort to reform the society must not cease.”

    The reforms did not cease. After Brandt resigned in 1974, his successor Helmut Schmidt pursued stimulus policies, albeit paying increasing attention to fiscal constraints and reducing some public expenditures, until he was removed in 1982 by a vote of no confidence in favor of Helmut Kohl. Palme lost the election in 1976 but returned to office in 1982, restoring most cuts to social policies instituted by the interim government but emphasizing wage restraint and abandoning Keynesian policies. Kreisky won several elections and remained in office until 1983, continuing to expand social policies, particularly in education and health. Hence, while the shadow of fiscal and foreign exchange deficits tempered the reforms, the reformist zeal was not abandoned.
    For fifty years social democrats had believed that equality promotes efficiency and growth. In the words of Swedish Social Democratic minister Bertil Ohlin, social expenditures “represent an investment in the most valuable productive instrument of all, the people itself.” Yet suddenly they adopted the neoliberal verbiage about “trade-offs”—between “equality and efficiency,” between “equality and growth.” The world became full of “dilemmas” and “trilemmas.” The sociologist Anthony Giddens invented as many as five dilemmas (none of them agreeing with the logical sense of the term). “The government can do only so much,” social democrats echoed the right. “Responsibility,” a key word in the Thatcherite lexicon, was shifted from the state to individual citizens. As Giddens preached, “One might suggest a prime motto for the new politics, no rights without responsibilities.” And in addition to this linguistic turn, social democrats ran out of ideas. In the grandiosely entitled chapter, “A New Capitalist Order,” from his 2010 book Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy, the economist Joseph Stiglitz urged the same reforms of the postwar period: governments should maintain full employment and a stable economy, they should promote innovation, provide social protection and insurance, and prevent exploitation. So much for “new.”

    Looking back, the trajectory from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth is stark. The Hague Congress of the First International in 1872 had proclaimed that the “organization of the proletariat into a political party is necessary to insure the victory of social revolution and its ultimate goal: the abolition of classes.” The first Swedish program specified that “Social Democracy differs from other parties in that it aspires to completely transform the economic organization of bourgeois society and bring about the social liberation of the working class.” Socialists were going to abolish exploitation, to eradicate the division of society into classes, to remove economic and political inequalities, to finish the wastefulness and anarchy of capitalist production, to eradicate all sources of injustice and prejudice. They were going to emancipate not only workers but humanity, to build a society based on cooperation, to rationally orient energies and resources toward satisfaction of human needs, to create social conditions for an unlimited development of personality.

    These turned out not to be feasible goals. But the vision of transforming the society survived for nearly one hundred years, even when it was imperative to cope with immediate crises, even when some ideas—most prominently nationalization of the means of production—revealed themselves to be mistaken, and even when social democrats experienced political defeats. This is what faded at the end of the 1970s.

    [...]

    he title of the Brandt, Kreisky, and Palme exchange was Social Democracy and the Future. But this may have been the last time when social democrats struggled to maintain a transformative perspective while coping with an immediate crisis. Perhaps social democrats have transformed as much as they could have; perhaps they have succeeded in making some of their reforms irreversible. They have adapted to cultural changes, promoted gender equality, and became keenly aware of the impending environmental catastrophe. Nothing in this essay is intended to question their achievements. But any vision of a common future to which they would orient their societies faded under the onslaught of the immediate obstacles. What was no longer “ours” for the Andalusian secretary was a language that does not extend beyond a program for the next election, a language that does not guide the society toward long-term goals. And this is what we must regain.

    What these eminent figures didn't realize at the time is that the post-war European economic model was premised on an industrial economy under conditions of European/American supremacy (cf. the referenced "constant surplus"). Through the 1970s to the present day these conditions have been upended irrevocably, and the ongoing failure to seek transnational solidarity is exactly what contributed to the decay of the social democratic state and philosophy as the working class changed shape and roles and the private sector grew more in scale than ever in history; it's a hydra against which no single country can go it alone, something I've vocally recognized since at least 2015 here.

    The problems of today are too vast and intricate for left parties to address in an electoral timeframe and individually, even assuming promising parliamentary arrangements in any given government. Look at the tragedy of Syriza. Look at the Greens replacing the SPD as the primary center-left party in Germany for their turn at the bat.



    What a distasteful graph.

    To skip a few steps, the problem of solidarity and coordination is such that the American left is literally the only force that can bootstrap whatever this is. It's not jingoism if you accept it pessimistically.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 07-19-2021 at 07:45.
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  2. #302

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Every American learns that Harry Truman exited the presidency into poverty in 1953.

    Paul Campos has done some excellent original research showing that Truman was in fact one of the richest people in the country by that time, having benefited from extensive tax fraud and book deals, on top of the massive presidential salary and perks. He was, however, broke or nearly so during his Senate career prior to the POTUS...
    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021...uman-show.html
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  3. #303

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    ^Holy crap, the author actually put together a 40-page historical paper. Now that's scholarship.

    Damn shame about Truman though. Not sure if it makes it better or worse if Truman didn't even apply the money towards his lifestyle (tracking down inheritance would be next-level scholarship for the 21st century).

    Harry Truman was a very rich man, who lied about his considerable wealth in order to cajole
    Congress into passing the Former Presidents Act. Contrary to the standard historical account,
    that law has never had any reasonable justification – and least of all any justification based on
    what turns out to be Truman’s fraudulent claims about his supposed financial difficulties.
    Exposing that fraud provides a powerful historically-based argument for repealing a law that
    should never have been enacted in the first place.

    Relevant to the post on the mid-century left, I recalled this 1970s op-ed by a Democratic senator from when I was researching the filibuster. I'm struck by the rhetoric the author uses, rhetoric that I believe would strike most of us as conceptually-rare for the past 30+ years. The former senator is still alive, by the way.

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    Filibuster is an extended debate, generally in the United States Senate, which, because of its rules, allows unlimited debate for those who can count votes well enough to know that their side will lose should a vote be taken on an issue. Historically, filibusters have been the exclusive province of Southerners who have sought to prevent or to weaken civil rights legislation and, more recently, improvements hi antitrust laws.

    Why then would a northern Senator, supposedly in his party's majority, filibuster to prevent a vote on the deregulation of natural gas? This must be answered in light of the criticism lodged against use of the filibuster. When debate on the gas bill began, Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum, Democrat of Ohio, and I were told that even if the Senate did vote for deregulation, the House conference committee would stand firm against it—and, if it didn't, the President would veto the bill.

    Bу stacking those arguments the gesture might, on the surface, appear to be Quixotic. The commitment to undertake a filibuster must be one of major proportions. In addition to the physical punishment, it is a severe emotional drain because it is designed to exhaust the other side in order to weaken its commitment to an all‐out position. But exhaustion Is not limited to the other side. Even one's own supporters become impatient at the imposition on their time, and at the chaos rained upon orderly procedures necessary to the Senate's normal operation.

    In the natural‐gas filibuster, the leadership, both Democratic and Republican, made every effort to direct our peers’ anger against us. The issue itself was submerged in what eventually became a battle over Senate rules, traditions and personalities. One must wonder then what is at stake in legislation dealing with natural‐gas pricing that requires a resort to such methods?

    Continue reading the main story
    Five years ago, the Federal Power Commission, which regulates the sale of gas sold across state lines, had set a ceiling price for gas at the wellhead of 26 cents per 1,000 cubic feet.

    In its most recent pricing decision, the F.P.C. raised the ceiling to $1.40 per 1,000 cubic feet a staggering 500 percent increase. Yet during that period of rapid escalation in price, both production of natural gas and the amount of proved reserves actually decreased. Although industry arguments have always hammered at the concept that higher prices would produce more gas for the United States, behind the propaganda the claims were utterly false.

    An early effort to deregulate natural‐gas prices was stopped cold when the gas industry attempted to bribe a South Dakota Senator, Francis Case, in 1956. The bribe, and its attendant publicity, hampered further efforts until 1973, when the Senate defeated, 45 to 43, an amendment by James L. Buckley, then Republican of New York, that would have lifted the lid on gas prices.

    Encouraged by promises from an F.P.C. appointed by President Nixon that deregulation was just around the corner, the industry made withholding of natural‐gas reserves a basic part of its strategy in order to create artificial shortages and to save its reserves for the day deregulation would come.

    Taking advantage of the air of crisis that surrounds the energy problem, Senators Lloyd Bentsen, Democrat of Texas, and James B. Pearson, Republican of Kansas, offered another deregulation amendment in 1975. The first Pearson‐Bentsen bill passed the Senate, 50 to 41. The House refused to go along with total deregulation, but by then the industry had established its running game. This year, Senate passage of the bill was aided by fears from last winter's gas shortages, which, incidentally, were created by an unusually severe cold wave and inadequate gas‐transmission facilities.

    Natural gas is used to heat 60 percent of the homes in the United States. It is used almost exclusively to bake bread, as an ingredient for agricultural fertilizers, in oil refineries and throughout industry as a boiler fuel.

    Deregulation—total removal of price ceilings—will have a direct cost to natural‐gas users of $160 billion by 1990, over and above even the Carter plan. What cannot be measured is the enormous cost to the economy of what ripples outward in the form of higher prices for food, for synthetics and industrial goods.

    In my state, South Dakota, pensioners who receive only a couple of hundred dollars a month from the Social Security Administration would have difficulty buying food or paying rent after gas companies had exacted their tribute.

    Deregulation would deal a more serious blow to our economy than did the drastic oil‐price increases in 1973 and 1974. I seriously question whether we could recover from such a blow in the near future.

    If such a staggering price Increase could be shown to be of commensurate benefit to the public, perhaps the point could be reasonably debated. But as a Congressional Budget Office study has shown, total deregulation would increase our natural‐gas production by no more than 5 percent.

    Once the price of natural gas rises high enough, production of synthetic gas from coal becomes economically feasible. As firms with finite resources, oil and gas companies have a gigantic stake in extending their grip on energy resources to include synthetic fuels made from coal. Already, the Senate Finance Committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Russell B. Long, Democrat of Louisiana, is considering resurrecting the Rockefeller plan to establish a multibillion dollar Government fund that would allow the industry to “develop” synthetic fuels, among other things.

    The price is too high for the public to pay.

    Thus, even though the oil and gas interests have succeeded in convincing a slim majority of the Senate to legalize this plunder of the public's purse, I can see no valid reason to roll over and play dead for an industry that operates solely on the basis of greed.

    Continue reading the main story
    Reliance on a small Congressional committee or on a Presidential veto is much too risky considering the amounts involved, especially since the oil and gas people are now talking about forcing on the conference committee a majority that supports deregulation.

    Although President Carter has announced this year that he would veto a deregulation bill, last year he promised to support the industry's efforts to deregulate.

    In light of all of this, Senator Metzenbaum and I agreed between ourselves to undergo what was necessary to delay a final vote on deregulation as long as we were able. It seemed to us that the discomfort to both our colleagues and ourselves was outweighed by the danger deregulation poses to the economy. Although the Carter Administration, which at first claimed to support our position, eventually teamed up with the Senate leadership to break the back of the filibuster, part of our goal has been accomplished. Without the extensive press coverage that came in response to the filibuster, the Senate would have quietly approved deregulation with no one the wiser until after the economic damage had been done.

    While those on our side were accused of abusing the rules, the Administration and the leadership succeeded in actually brutalizing Senate procedures to bring about a final vote.

    The puzzle went beyond the display of raw power exercised by Vice President Mondale and the majority leader, Robert C. Byrd of Virginia. It included a startling reversal of position by the Administration on the issue—a shock to nearly everyone involved. But that in itself may have accomplished something the gas and the oil industry had not anticipated: the stark realization by many Senate members of the injustice of both the industry's position on deregulation and of the tactics used to achieve it.

    Defeating deregulation by filibuster was the end strategy, with the hope that public exposure of the issue would work to that end. We lost, 46 to 50, because during the 13‐day debate not enough votes were switched to change the final outcome. But another unintended result has, I think, been realized: Senate liberals, who have been beaten down, and who have felt a sense of defeat in past years because of the growing conservative trend in the Senate, came to life during the often bitter debate. One can now de tect an uplifting of those whose spirits incline toward protection of а vulnerable and unorganized public.

    The battleground in 1977 and for the years to come will be centered on the basic issue of who actually runs the economy and in whose interest. Most Americans accept the characterizations of the energy proЫ em that is brought to them by the oil industry. They may not accept the industry's conclusions, but they consider the issue too complicated to impose their own ideas.

    Continue reading the main story
    At the same time, the industry uses other methods to create the same acquiescence in Congress. During consideration of the natural‐gas bill, oil lobbyists openly boasted to the press of their computerized bill‐analysis services and other “capabilities” available outside the Senate chamber.

    The incessant repetition of the theme that American life as we know it will end unless more and more money is funneled into the oil companies has paralyzed serious debate about real policy alternatives.

    The natural‐gas‐pricing issue was the scene of the first battle in a fight that will determine whether our national energy policy is to be established by 20 oil companies in the sole interest of profit, or by 200 million American people in the interest of the nation as a whole.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  4. #304
    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Backroom Errata


  5. #305
    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    He really should resign. If not, he should be impeached.
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  6. #306

    Default Re: Backroom Errata


    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  7. #307
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    It is impossible that he is unaware of the "harassing environment" component of virtually every sexual harassment policy in use. His denial about "inappropriate touching" can be completely correct and that still does not obviate his responsibility in allowing/inculcating such an environment.

    Perhaps he was taking the same New York Bar Association Continuing Education classes in ethics as former mayor Giuliani?
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  8. #308

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    It appears Amazon has over 200 million Prime subscribers, and has built a massive transportation fleet that now independently delivers almost all Amazon packages, to the point that Amazon has begun poaching non-Amazon parcels (presumably the highest-margin routes and types) from Fedex, UPS, and USPS.

    Seems like a worrisome degree of industrial integration... wait'll China duplicates the model toward a cybernetic command economy.
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  9. #309
    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    a massive transportation fleet that now independently delivers almost all Amazon packages, to the point that Amazon has begun poaching non-Amazon parcels (presumably the highest-margin routes and types) from Fedex, UPS, and USPS.
    Have they? It seems like 99% of my packages are still through USPS and UPS.
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  10. #310

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Quote Originally Posted by Hooahguy View Post
    Have they? It seems like 99% of my packages are still through USPS and UPS.
    Amazon has enough excess capacity to offer Multi-Channel Fulfillment and third-party transport. For example, and the likes of Ebay or Walmart deliveries being packaged in Amazon facilities or delivered through Amazon carriers is well-known.
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    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  11. #311

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Some reflection on the Armenian-Azeri 2020 war and how Turkish-sourced UCAV utterly dominated the battlespace.
    @Crandar You still simpin'?

    Whether or not major militaries would find it easy to hunt down offensive UCAV in combined arms warfare, the lesson is obvious: If you're a smaller or poorer country with a crappy military, spam dronz; macro that shit.

    I wonder when we'll get the first terrorist attack using autonomous loitering mini-munitions.


    The site also compiled, or purports to, every single confirmable loss of major military equipment/platforms among the belligerents, with photographic signatures. What a data overload.

    The tabulation isn't far off from Wiki figures. Ever since I became aware of contemporary warfare I was impressed by its lethality toward armor. Pre-Cold War armored warfare was somewhat comparable to pre-20th century warfare in general, in that the tank/infantryman was as likely to be neutralized by breakdown/disease than by enemy action. In contemporary context, these figures instead demonstrate the continuing advantage of sweeping offensives in dynamic warfare. If the figures below are accurate or understated then Armenia must have lost nearly its entire operational tank element in the war! Moreover, the amount of equipment captured by the Azeris (see link for disaggregation) must, unless repatriated under the peace, be enough to furnish reserves for much of the Azeri armed forces.


    ARMENIA
    Tanks: ~250 (100! captured; most destroyed were by drone)
    AFV/IFV: 160 (mostly captured)
    Artillery (Towed): ~240
    Artillery (Mortar): 60 (mostly captured)
    Artillery (SPG/MRL): 110
    ATGM: 140 (almost all captured)
    SAM: 36
    Aircraft: 2
    UCAV: 6
    Trucks: ~700 (half captured)

    AZERBAIJAN
    Tanks: ~60
    AFV/IFV: 90
    Artillery: 1 mortar, 2 MRL
    Aircraft: 13
    UCAV: 26 (mostly loitering)
    Trucks: ~60


    Surely more aircraft though? Too hard to confirm?

    While the Azeri/Turkish TB2 Bayraktar drone racked up an impressive tally against Armenian tanks, the full list suggests, plausibly, it was even more dangerous to artillery and transport vehicles.

    @spmetla While I said earlier that I don't expect Turkey to wage war against Greece anytime soon, I just realized that Erdogan must entertain plans to annex Cyprus without great delay, mustn't he? No one would be able to stop him in the attempt - certainly not the Cypriot military - and if Greece tried to intervene, it would just fail embarrassingly without hope of a mandatory Article 5 trigger. Would be hilarious if the event rngages Chinese mobilization against Taiwan - how's that for Domino Theory (of Frozen Conflicts)?
    https://jamestown.org/program/the-cy...kish-alliance/
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  12. #312
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Yeah, the Azeri-Armenian war is incredibly interesting to study. I'm really lamenting being National Guard as I'd love to see the classified reports and conclusions on the fighting.

    The biggest point of victory on the Azeri side though was their successful use of all assets together in good combined armed warfare. UCAV destroyed enemy equipment, vehicles, and platforms as well as providing accurate and timely intelligence allowing for effective use of artillery coordinated with infantry/armor assaults on defensive positions.

    From the outside though UAVs definitely give countries an ability to have a cheap airforce, the Azeri victory was crushing against the Armenians which essentially stuck with the same outdated equipment and tactics that worked so well for them in the '90s. This is one of the reasons the US is rapidly reversing its stance on air defense systems. Air Defense Artillery (ADA) battalions are once again being stood after their rapid decline post-gulf war. This together with the ADA assets used to defend FOBs from mortars and rockets mean the US can have a decent defense against UCAV in the future.

    Major militaries will be far less vulnerable to UCAV so long as they actually invest and deploy the air defense systems together with whatever electronic warfare can take advantage of the requirement for GPS navigation and communication with operators. This vulnerability is exactly why investment in AI is so prolific among all major militaries as any 'drones' that can fight and kill without the umbilical cord to home base will be a huge advantage and can greatly offset shedding of blood with massive shedding of hardware.

    Like I always say, Turkey is the wild-card of NATO. They're in a dangerous neighborhood but they like to play equally dangerous games too. Russia is a potent threat that mostly needs to be contained. They're only a threat to NATO if they think NATO or the US won't act to defend each other or the 'partners' with NATO like Sweden, Finland, or the Ukraine.
    Turkey on the other hand has no shortage of beef with all of its neighbors including the NATO ones and is very prickly when criticized on the Armenian genocide or its actions against the Kurds domestically and abroad. The recent Erdogan course of opposing Israel also puts it at odds with the US policies there too.
    For historical laughs about NATO issues with Turkey and Cyprus:
    NATO Is Viewed as Weakened by the War on Cyprus
    Aug. 13, 1974

    The Greeks wonder if Washington can put leverage on Ankara to make concessions in this conference to Greek interests on Cyprus. The Turks appear to think this is the time to press for an old goal—the formal partition of the island between the Turkish Cypriote community of 140,000 and the Greek Cypriote community of 500,000.
    https://www.nytimes.com/1974/08/13/a...on-cyprus.html

    There's also the historical and current issue of Turkey holding US nuclear weapons hostage whenever we put too much pressure on them:
    Members of Congress Worried in 1960 That Leaders of a Coup “Might Seize Control” of Weapons
    Other U.S. Officials Feared Risks of Accidental War or Overreaction to Local Crises
    During Mid-1960s Turkish Officials Were Interested in Producing an “Atomic Bomb”

    https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-b...ns-turkey-1959

    I do miss Lefteyenine's input on Turkish issues. My viewpoints of course are very biased.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  13. #313
    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Well, I am sure drones are lethal, destructive and all that, but most of our vehicles malfunction and fall on their own anyway, so the joke is on them. A bit difficult to bomb helicopters in the bottom of the sea* or dividable minesweepers.

    On a more serious note, the likelihood for a war between Turkey and Greece is a bit less than zero. There wasn't even a war, when we overthrew the government of a sovereign nation and started massacring minorities, with the Turks responding in kind. Journalists, officers and populists have been saying how gravely the tensions between the two countries have been escalating the last 47 years, but, despite their hype, the long-promised war does not happen. That doesn't mean of course that we will not spend a few billions buying frigates, which are more threatened by Aegean's shallow waters than Hayreddin Barbarossa's successors.

    *Extra cookie for whoever guess why the Apache helicopter was doing these unnecessary exercises so close to the sea's surface. The reason demonstrates the most essential principles of the officer corps' mentality.

  14. #314

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  15. #315

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    An anti-fascist activist in Florida was sentenced to 44 months in federal prison for his social media posts that called for armed defense against possible far-right attacks on the state’s Capitol in the wake of the January 6th riots.

    Daniel Baker, a 34-year-old yoga teacher and emergency medical technician trainee, had no previous criminal convictions and has already been held for 10 months of harsh pretrial detention, including seven months in solitary confinement. He never brought a weapon near a government building; he amassed no armed anti-fascist forces; he made no threats on a single individual.
    Hmmm... almost makes me want to fuck around.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  16. #316
    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Xiomara Castro won the 2021 Honduran presidential elections. She's the wife of Manuel Zelaya, the Honduran president that had been overthrown in 2009, as a result of a military putsch. It's interesting to note that the US had officially condemned the coup, but leaked emails showed that the administration, under Hillary Clinton, cooperated with the culprits and even attempted to suppress any serious reaction to it.

  17. #317

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    The law locks up the man or woman
    Who steals the goose from off the common
    But leaves the greater villain loose
    Who steals the common from off the goose.

    The law demands that we atone
    When we take things we do not own
    But leaves the lords and ladies fine
    Who take things that are yours and mine.

    The poor and wretched don't escape
    If they conspire the law to break;
    This must be so but they endure
    Those who conspire to make the law.

    The law locks up the man or woman
    Who steals the goose from off the common
    And geese will still a common lack
    Till they go and steal it back.



    Just a fantastic little (Anglo) anti-enclosure poem, prefiguring the the emergence of class populism. Pairs well with this tune...
    Vitiate Man.

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  18. #318
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    yoink
    Last edited by spmetla; 12-13-2021 at 20:53.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  19. #319

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    ngl I should have noticed earlier but this stuff gives more than an odor of "astrology for men."
    Vitiate Man.

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  20. #320
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Yeah, perhaps I should put this in the frontroom instead, certainly not discussion worthy, just a bit of fun.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  21. #321

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    PERSISTENCE THROUGH REVOLUTIONS

    Can efforts to eradicate inequality in wealth and education eliminate intergenerational persistence
    of socioeconomic status? The Chinese Communist Revolution in the 1950s and Cultural
    Revolution from 1966 to 1976 aimed to do exactly that. Using newly digitized archival records
    and contemporary census and household survey data, we show that the revolutions were effective
    in homogenizing the population economically in the short run. However, the pattern of inequality
    that characterized the pre-revolution generation re-emerges today. Almost half a century after the
    revolutions, individuals whose grandparents belonged to the pre-revolution elite earn 16 percent
    more and have completed more than 11 percent additional years of schooling than those from
    non-elite households. In addition, individuals with pre-revolution elite grandparents hold different
    values: they are less averse to inequality, more individualistic, more pro-market, and more likely
    to see hard work as critical to success. Through intergenerational transmission of values,
    socioeconomic conditions thus survived one of the most aggressive attempts to eliminate
    differences in the population and to foster mobility.
    Sure seems (again) like social mobility is a scam and the answer remains to generate, capture, and broadly redistribute wealth.

    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  22. #322

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    An important research topic. For example:

    Conventional studies of economic mobility generally look at the change across one generation — typically comparing the incomes of fathers and their sons. These studies show that mobility varies significantly from country to country, with a relatively low 0.2 percent elasticity of income in the Nordic countries and a relatively high 0.5 percent elasticity of income in places like the UK, the US, and Italy. An elasticity of 1 would mean that income status is perfectly inherited between father and son, whereas an elasticity of 0 would mean no inheritance.

    The important thing is that even a relatively high elasticity implies a great deal of mobility in the long run. An elasticity of 0.5 in one generation implies 0.25 in two generations and 0.125 in three generations. As Gary Becker and Nigel Tomes concluded back in 1986, "Almost all the earnings advantages or disadvantages of ancestors are wiped out in three generations."
    But

    Barone and Mocetti show that, empirically, this is not the case, and there is meaningful income persistence across seven centuries in Florence. Their paper adds to earlier work by UC Davis economic historian Gregory Clark, which reached a similar conclusion with regard to Sweden going back to the 17th century. The implication is that there's much less economic mobility over the long run than short-term figures would lead you to believe — even in the countries where short-term mobility is very high.
    The table below shows some of their most striking findings. They looked at 2011 income data to identity the five highest-earning surnames in present-day Florence. They then looked back at 1427 data to find information about the earnings and occupations with those same five surnames 700 years ago... They show here that the four highest-earning surnames of 2011 were all above-average surnames back in 1427. Indeed, three of the four were in the top 10 percent. This is much greater intergenerational income persistence than could possibly be accounted for by even Italy's relatively high 0.5 percent elasticity. It's also remarkable considering the massive political and social upheavals that have occurred in the city during this time — including several episodes of foreign conquest and domestic revolution.
    Although I wonder how autochthonous these surname-members could be after 600 years, or how concentrated or diffuse these surnames were in Florence/Italy 600 back then. The roots in skilled trades and guilds are telling though.

    One might, of course, see this as merely a curious fact about Florence. But Gregory Clark conducted a similar study of Sweden and had a broadly similar finding. He did not have access to historical income data, so instead he exploited the fact that when surnames were introduced in 17th-century Sweden they had strong class implications. A defined group of noble families had surnames based on the names of their noble houses. A larger group of middle-class craftspeople adopted a name based on their profession. Peasants usually adopted a name based on the first name of their father — a name like Andersson for a guy whose dad was named Anders.

    What he showed was that hundreds of years later in 2008, people with surnames indicating great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents who were members of the nobility were drastically more likely to be in the Swedish financial elite than people with the surname Andersson.

    On the one hand, this is less surprising than the Florentine case, since Sweden has had less political upheaval than Italy and the 17th century is much more recent than the 15th. On the other hand, it's more surprising, since Sweden has had much more explicit income redistribution than Italy and has a much greater level of measured economic mobility.
    The most plausible explanation of this data is that simply projecting one generation of mobility out across three or four or 30 generations is misleading. Income and occupational social status are linked, but only imperfectly so.

    It's not unusual for the child of an economically successful professional to attend an elite educational institution and then move into an artistic or academic or nonprofit career or political career that might still involve traveling in elite circles but at a much lower salary level than his father's. If the professional's grandson then also attended an elite college and moved into a high-paying career in business and law, statistics would show a great deal of economic mobility while common sense would indicate three generations' worth of a high-status family.

    Shared family access to real estate assets, social connections, a common gene pool, and elite educational institutions could allow for a great deal of long-term entrenchment even as a close-up view appeared to show instability as people shift in and out of different fields.

    The truth, however, is that we don't really know what's going on. Short-term mobility is much easier to study than long-term mobility, since the records are much more precise and complete. The important thing to know is that as best as we can tell, short-term mobility does not translate into long-term mobility — even in countries like Sweden where short-term mobility is very high.

    So on the one hand, Becker's reassurance that we don't need to worry about inequality because long-term mobility is high seems wrong. On the other hand, the notion that Sweden-style policies are good because they promote long-term mobility also seems wrong. Perhaps mobility itself is an inherently misguided social goal.
    We know through the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries there was just enormous attrition among aristocrats, losing titles or fortunes; after all these folks tended not to have the steadiest sources of income after feudalism, and were often bad or uninterested at adapting to the new capitalist economy. It's unsurprising if surviving or continuous nobility are still larded, but what about those whose lineages sank into obscurity centuries ago? I can't identify any such work done on aristocratic genealogies, which might involve the arduous process of tracking, approaching, and collating the records of individual families.

    Social networks have incredible resilience, which is why the likes of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot sought to wipe them out. Nepotism is the highest form of human capital unfortunately.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 05-18-2022 at 02:14.
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  23. #323

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Most contentious excerpt from Orban's most recent "Nazi" speech (though AFAICT he's said much the same for years):

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    The second challenge is migration, which you could call population replacement or inundation. There is an outstanding 1973 book on this issue which was written in French, and recently published in Hungary. It is called “The Camp of the Saints” [Le Camp des Saints], and I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the spiritual developments underlying the West’s inability to defend itself. Migration has split Europe in two – or I could say that it has split the West in two. One half is a world where European and non-European peoples live together. These countries are no longer nations: they are nothing more than a conglomeration of peoples. I could also say that it is no longer the Western world, but the post-Western world. And around 2050, the laws of mathematics will lead to the final demographic shift: cities in this part of the continent – or that part – will see the proportion of residents of non-European origin rising to over 50 per cent of the total. And here we are in Central Europe – in the other half of Europe, or of the West. If it were not somewhat confusing, I could say that the West – let’s say the West in its spiritual sense – has moved to Central Europe: the West is here, and what is left over there is merely the post-West. A battle is in progress between the two halves of Europe. We made an offer to the post-Westerners which was based on tolerance or leaving one another in peace, allowing each to decide for themselves whom they want to live alongside; but they reject this and are continuing to fight against Central Europe, with the goal of making us like them. I shall leave to one side the moral commentary they attach to this – after all, this is such a lovely morning. There is now less talk about migration, but, believe me, nothing has changed: Brussels, reinforced with Soros-affiliated troops, simply wants to force migrants on us. They have also taken us to court over the Hungarian border defence system, and they have delivered a verdict against us. For a number of reasons not much can be said about this now, but we have been pronounced guilty. If it were not for the Ukrainian refugee crisis they would have started to enforce this judgment on us, and how that situation plays out will be accompanied by a great deal of suspense. But now war has broken out and we are receiving arrivals from Ukraine, and so this issue has been put aside – they have not taken it off the agenda, but just put it to one side. It is important that we understand them. It is important that we understand that these good people over there in the West, in the post-West, cannot bear to wake up every morning and find that their days – and indeed their whole lives – are poisoned by the thought that all is lost. So we do not want to confront them with this day and night. All we ask is that they do not try to impose on us a fate which we do not see as simply a fate for a nation, but as its nemesis. This is all we ask, and no more.

    In such a multi-ethnic context, there is an ideological feint here that is worth talking about and focusing on. The internationalist left employs a feint, an ideological ruse: the claim – their claim – that Europe by its very nature is populated by peoples of mixed race. This is a historical and semantic sleight of hand, because it conflates two different things. There is a world in which European peoples are mixed together with those arriving from outside Europe. Now that is a mixed-race world. And there is our world, where people from within Europe mix with one another, move around, work, and relocate. So, for example, in the Carpathian Basin we are not mixed-race: we are simply a mixture of peoples living in our own European homeland. And, given a favourable alignment of stars and a following wind, these peoples merge together in a kind of Hungaro-Pannonian sauce, creating their own new European culture. This is why we have always fought: we are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race


    Big words for an Ugrian interloper.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
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  24. #324

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    The statement that 'China has to keep applying capital punishment in thousands of cases as a deterrence against committing capital crimes' sounds like an obvious self-refutation to me, but there are a lot of people out there who like the idea of governments killing people (yet denounce any government intervention in the economy as "authoritarianism").
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  25. #325

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Worthwhile thread, and it bears pointing out that I don't think the second person photographed is even "ethnically" Swedish. It just goes to show how these ideologies filter out.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  26. #326

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Huuuuuuh?

    The gist being that Soviet WW2 production figures for tank guns show how the typical production numbers attributed to Soviet tanks models cannot represent unique vehicles.

    "But wait", some keen-eyed readers may exclaim, "these numbers are all wrong! Only 34355 F-34s? Less than 20,000 85 mm guns? Wikipedia tells me that there were over 35,000 T-34s and nearly 50,000 T-34-85s, not to mention all other vehicles that used these guns!"

    Did they go into battle with no gun, in some kind of bizarre Enemy at the Gates type arrangement? Of course not. Every vehicle had a gun, with ample spares. The discrepancy comes from the definition of "produced". A vehicle that came out of the factory counts as produced regardless of how it came in: as raw materials or as a heavily damaged tank. Where a German bureaucrat would keep track of a single tank regardless of how many times it was knocked out and sent back to the factory, without counting it as a loss until it could no longer be repaired, a Soviet one would count it as a loss if it could not participate in battle, and the factory would count the tank as produced once more. A tank could last throughout the entire war, and if it required major repairs (even due to noncombat damage like engine wear), it would count as multiple casualties and multiple tanks.
    As far as I know none of the famous living East Front scholars have written their books with this awareness?

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by Montmorency; 11-08-2022 at 04:59.
    Vitiate Man.

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  27. #327

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    I finally cracked an unexpectedly-historic can of condensed milk to make a cake this morning.



    "Kupyansky Milk Canning Plant" is one of the oldest enterprises for the production of condensed milk on the territory of Ukraine. The plant was put into operation in 1957, according to the project, up to 20 million cans of condensed milk could be produced there per year. Despite the fact that the range of the enterprise was constantly expanding, the main type of products remained the condensed milk, made according to the classical technology. By the beginning of the 90s, the plant had undergone several large-scale reconstructions and privatization.
    I presume my can was produced on July 27 2021. Hearsay is that the factory supplied Russia during the occupation. Bets on it surviving another round of Kupyansk's contestation?
    @Gilrandir
    Vitiate Man.

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  28. #328

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Interesting points about the Greek election a week ago:

    1. Syriza passed PR rules in 2016 that were reversed in 2020 by the current ruling center-right party New Democracy, but because of the Greek constitution's supermajority requirements on electoral reform, the 2016 PR system took effect for the first time only in the just-past election.

    2. Because of Greece's tough preexisting bonus seat version of PR, 16% of votes were wasted and only 5 parties made it into parliament.

    3. Because the ruling party narrowly lost its majority in the election, and the only other parties making it to Parliament are the traditional center-left PASOK, the new center-left Syriza, the Communists, and the upgraded Golden Dawn neofascists in the form of Greek Solution, a coalition cannot be formed and new elections must be held in a month. These will be held under the 2020 reversion of the PR system, under which New Democracy is guaranteed to regain a majority given current vote shares.

    Structure is a powerful thing. But at least the fash won't be in government.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  29. #329

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    I'm starting to see a lot of YouTube channels talk about the financial struggles of large companies such as Disney and Netflix, which the mainstream media is ignoring.





    Wooooo!!!

  30. #330

    Default Re: Backroom Errata

    Wooooo!!!

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