I never would have guessed pilots could be such an amazing group.

On top of scholars,
Financial gurus, relationship gurus, career advisors, military strategists, epidemiologists and MBAs you're also bankers an constitutional law professors.

An FAA certificate is the new mensa card.

No just the old MENSA card. New guys don’t even need degrees. The vax card is accepted as a proxy though.

You don't have to have a law degree to understand the Constitution. Have you ever read it?

It’s not too late to go to flight school man..

That’s because pilots stay at Holiday Inn Express Hotels.

Anyone gonna talk about the 2 trillion dollars the fed just pumped into the banks?

Seems like months of QT are being erased overnight. Could be quite inflationary

Funny—I just flew a trip with an actual MBA captain that also runs a construction business.

I’m sure this guy has more financial credibility than me, but he tells the same story

Poly Science…completely worthless, hardly better than a medieval Celtic poetry degree with a minor in basket weaving. At least basket weaving produces something useful. Thank god the airlines didn’t care.

If you accept that the Constitution failed to achieve its primary goal (checks on power), eventually you’ll go down the rabbit hole of “why”? Which will lead you down the road to “what is political power and how is it captured then exercised”?

There’s no better primer for this topic than “The Populist Delusion” by Neema Parvini.

Everyone has to have a hobby. Reading really old books about this stuff is mine.

Not trying to be a Richard here. It’s a nerd interest with absolutely no practical benefits. You seem civic minded though, and if you like to move a bit beyond the absolute basics, check out the aforementioned book and enter wonderland.

(If that whets your appetite, James Burnham’s “ The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom” - expands on the basics with political theorists who’ve expanded on it for the last 700 years. Writers who heavily influenced the men who authored the Constitution. Democracy, even in republican form, is a pointless exercise. Ben Franklin hinted at it, because he understood power)

I'm certainly not an expert but the article I read said they are prepared to inject up to $2T but analysts expect no more then $460B.

Look up Art. I, Section 8, Clause 5 and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. That’s 110 years ago. ,I’m pretty far out on the libertarian conservative limb, but reality is beotch. The 10th Amendment has set to do with it.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/.../COMPS-270.xml

There are pilots that run other businesses on the side, are lawyers, even manage hedge funds or work as government consultants… most went to college and and half had a first career before becoming pilots.. not just 141 brats who only know how to fly planes with no other life skills

Why is it that posts like this are so often ignored on here, while I copy, paste, and save them to my collection of poetic intelligent discord from people smarter than me.

I always look forward to any of your posts. You are clearly well read and pair it with being thoughtful. A worthy combination to possess.

While not the point of my reply, I feel I have to add that Herr Schmitt, with one legal decision regarding the Enabling Act, made Hitler the head of State who could rule by decree. We can't know what would have been if he had not ruled as such, but we certainly know what did happen. One could consider him just a continuance of Hegel's view of the relationship of the state and the subject/citizen. Suffice to say he is not universally admired.

Ignoring my above comment, this is about your last quote. "So it ever was and so it shall ever be. There's no changing it."

I may be misinterpreting what you are saying, but have you read Vaclav Havel's "The Power of the Powerless"?

Also any of Adam Michnik's writings? Though he spent much of his life (prior to the 1989 collapse of Communist Party govt of Poland),as an imprisoned dissident, he lived his life as a free man. Something that was, and is, beyond the ken of authoritarians and those who make their little contribution to the oppression of the powerless.
A quote from one of Michnik's essays in "Letters from Prison".
"....that the course of the avalanche depends on the stones over which it rolls. (Czeslaw Milosz) And you want to be the stone that will reverse the course of events."

As a died in the wool romantic, I am a firm believer that if a sovereign goes too far he will lose legitimacy. Then the powerless will eventually find a way to "change it".
I can not accept the sentencing of Mankind to "it shall ever be."

Don’t forget—the sending off of political enemies to Dachau was a little bit of an influence to get the Enabling Act passed.

I just received my three volumes of Solzhenitsynwith the Gulag Archipelago. Looking forward to reading it.

Just read volume one. I am very glad I did not live in the Soviet Union.

But fret not, you're destined to live in the United Soviet States of America and experience the joys that many of us have grown up under - because as a nation, we think because we're Americans, we'll do it differently.... y'know... the Scandinavian way or something. :p

Looks like credit suisse is the next to fall

Someone gets it.

I've been predicting 2023 would be a sh!tshow from about April of 2020. Sucks being right on something that is a going to be a catastrophe.

Fed is literally in a position of eliminating what will end up being many low paying lower middle class jobs all in an attempt to "reduce" inflation induced by an overreaction by a specific segment of politicians more intent on pushing a certain President out of office by destroying their States economies and relying on free money. Unfortunately, those people whose jobs are being dismantled, and their loans interest rates increasing, don't even realize they are voting for the exact same people responsible for their situation. All you have to do is look at which States minorities actually fare better and have lower costs and more opportunities for home ownership.

It's sad watching an administration go on national TV and tell people all is well. What makes it sad is many uneducated people in those low paying jobs, will believe him and keep spending as if all was truly well.

I had a feeling we were in trouble when all of the USA's adversaries sent letters of congratulations to the Big Guy. Shocker other Countries wanted Orange Man Bad out.

I've lived that every day for years.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will look them up

Yeah but that shouldn't surprise anyone. They have been shaky for a very long time.

Or if you’re a pilot. That loophole was closed…so any pilot that works in the US, but lives in PR pays federal and PR tax.

Neither of these books (or their authors) are available through my local library system... :(

“Neema Parvini specialises in Shakespeare studies. His research interests include political and moral philosophy, cognitive psychology, early modern history, literary theory, and historiography. He took his BA (hons) in English from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2004. During his time as an undergraduate, he won the a McDonalds Scholarship (2001), the Margaret Bretherton Memorial Prize (2002), the Gertrude Schryver Prize (2004) and the Edmée Manning Award (2004). He gained his Masters degree in twentieth-century literature from Oxford university with distinction in 2005. He returned to Royal Holloway in 2006, where he was awarded a Thomas Holloway Scholarship to read for his PhD, which he completed in 2010.“

Not really someone I think anyone needs political advice from.

He sure sounds a lot better educated and smarter than most of the guys on here giving political advice.....

Thumbs up.

A well educated, well read, generalist who has developed some ability to think in terms of systems rather than reductionist specifics can have insights a specialist misses.
That said, it ain't always the case...it just can sometimes be so.

Yep, a degree in Shakespeare. Lol what a joke. This is for the little round glasses crowd I guess. The “smart people” have gotten us into a lot of trouble.

20 years on from your degree, had you learned anything or developed at all as a person?

When can we rip a star or three off Old Glory? Asking for a friend.

By that logic I should absolutely listen to you...

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
-Issac Asimov

this observation has never been more relevant

Similarly, Idiocracy and the Handmaid’s Tale were not intended to be prophesies, yet here we are…

Wow. APC needs a blue check mark.

Fascinating. This was a very odd response to a one off book rec.

You just copy/pasted a laundry list of academic achievements and awards from some very impressive universities, but somehow that makes him unqualified to write a book about the genesis of political theory from a specific school of thought that's been evolving in Europe for the past 300 years (at least)?

If you want an excellent Cliff Notes version of Mosca, Pareto, Schmitt, Jouvenel, Francis, etc, you'll find it here. He's an excellent writer and summarizer, which is what you'd expect from someone with those credentials. It might even stimulate interest to read primary sources (it did for me), which is it's intent. Not to "give you political advice."

I'd be curious to know just who you'd think was a good teacher of the mechanics of actual politics would be?

Not original sources, please. No one here is going to read Montesquieu, Gibbon, Plato, Locke, or even just your basic Alexis de Tocqueville.

Who? I'm genuinely curious.

I don’t know how your brains can contort this. He is a theatre major with a degree in Shakespeare. Why would you take geopolitical advice or even give his thoughts consideration? If he’s talking about hamlet, I will listen (if I care at the time) because that is in his wheelhouse. I’ll trust someone else when it comes to consolidating the Eurasian landmass. Bunch of daisies…. Have an independent thought. Not everyone that gets published deserves it.

He’s an English major for undergrad with a phd in comparative literature. Reading comprehension goes a long way in the social sciences and is a transferable skill. You should work a bit more on yours, tbh.

A breadth of knowledge is quite useful in politics, as much as it might seem like ivory towered extravagance. I’m not sure how you’re contorting intellectual and academic accolades into a lack of qualifications.

Reread the authors qualifications that you quoted. Especially the second sentence.
Then reread Delta's response to you.

It's not unique to the US. It exists everywhere in human nature.

Oh lawd….. happy Easter 🐣