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Some European Parliament member from Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, Says Trump Is "NATO's Greatest Threat"

I'll try to not get political very often here, but WWII's been over a long time. Let's ease Europe's fears - we can remove the threat of Trump by removing the US (and US money) from NATO. Then they'll be able to so peacefully sleep at night. After all, they'll still have Zelensky.

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I was reading another blog the other day discussing how Federal workers are beginning to panic about their futures. "What will I do?", "How will I pay my bills?", "Where will my next paycheck come from?"

I can empathize - I've been there; I've even been a GS employee at times. And I've been laid off before.

Well, welcome to the real world.

It's a bit of a shock when someone comes to you with a termination notice: "Project's been cancelled, we need to cut costs".

Said message usually brought by someone who knows they won't be laid off and whose main job is terminating others when not shuffling papers.

Sometimes you might get two weeks notice; seems these days you're more likely to be walked out the door right then and there.

A certain complacency sets in when you're assured of not being fired. You might get re-assigned, but you do continue to get a paycheck.

You know who've been the most assured of not getting fired from government jobs? The support staff - secretaries, HR, accounting, legal. Those that do the work are often subject to project funding - and those who "support" the work are often the least likely to be let go. All too often - in my experience - these are the DEI hires, the "affirmative action" hires, those who have "rights" but little responsibility and even less accountability.

So, yes, I have empathy for these workers - I've been in that position and at best, it sucks. Then it goes downhill from there. Their cocoon is bursting and they now find themselves in the same position Biden put the oil pipeline workers in when he first took office. Other examples abound.

Welcome to the world of the private sector ...

What was the government's advice to the oil workers when the pipeline was shut down putting 11,000 people out of work?

"Learn to code" as I recall.

I wonder how much sympathy these same Fed workers had for those workers, knowing that their jobs were "guaranteed?

Biggest trouble in this country now is not enough jobs for too many people.

It's going to take a while to shift things back to production. There will be undeserved suffering.

And there's no way out in the short-term.

I'm in favor of tariffs on principle. While costs will go up in the short run, the nation will be better off if we return to being a "producer nation" as opposed to being a "consumer nation", i.e., welfare state. Make money real again, bring production back to this nation, decrease the actual unemployment numbers, not just those unemployment numbers based on those who collect government welfare. The number of people without livable work right now far exceeds the official numbers - our economy is in very bad shape.

It's largely a tax code and regulatory issue. Out-sourcing is a tax deductible expense (or was when I was in that game); employees are an expense of a different sort. What would happen if the cost of employees was a deduction from gross revenue? What would happen if "labor-saving" equipment was taxed at a rate proportional to the number of "laborers" it replaces?

Someone would figure out a way to pay off the legislators that we allow to make those decisions to benefit the few at the expense of the many
...

What would happen if there weren't so many regulations discouraging small start-up businesses?

What the country now needs - especially in light of the current state of the educated public - is more jobs for ditch-diggers and porters.

And fewer jobs for HR, "administrators", "administrative assistants", and the like.

Rant over ... and I didn't even really get started.

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