I know how totally uninformed you Joe voters are. I am here to educated the uneducated. It is a public service that I am happy to perform.

https://theconversation.com/the-us-is-losing-access-to-its-bases-in-niger-heres-why-thats-a-big-deal-227632


" The United States was forced to stop its military operations in March 2024 in Niger – a landlocked, western African country in the Sahara desert. Niger may not immediately seem like a key ally for the U.S., but it served as a crucial staging ground for the U.S. military to carry out work and respond to terrorism in the region. "

So when you say "explain", do you want me to explain basic economics? I ask because the assumption that you can blame two presidents out of the last 16 years can only be made in complete ignorance of how the economy works.

I noticed you haven't actually specified what they did to "hit" the middle-class and that you're careful to blame only the Democrats and not the one Republican. Clearly, you are parroting right-wing propaganda without the slightest clue about how things really work.

I'm going to explain anyway, not that you will understand or even want to, but because you're not the only one reading this thread (which means I don't care if you don't read this).

1. Middle-class doesn't mean anything... Working class does:
I'm going to use the word "working-class" instead of "middle-class" because the later term is intentionally vague so as to obscure the division between the classes that actually do exist... The wealthy class and the working class. The wealthy class contains the people that have enough money to where they never actually have to work and the working class is everyone else.

So now instead of guessing between arbitrary income levels to decide if you're in the middle-class, you can ask yourself a very simple question... Do you have to work for a living? If you answer yes, you are in the working-class. This is important to understand because all of the economic policies are designed to help one class or the other.

2. The working-class has been in constant decline since 1972 almost entirely due to the free market
The working class is "hit" all the time, usually as a result of economic developments that have nothing to do with the government. I would guess that 90% of the decline of the working class is due to corporate decisions, not government decisions.

If you are locked into right-wing media as many of you are, then you are not allowed to know this. The reason why is that the government is one of the few institutions to which the working class can turn for help and conservative leaders don't want that to happen, so they are trying to convince you turn your backs on the government. The only other place for workers to turn is the labor union and we know how conservatives feel about that. It's the same thing.

So now I should explain why the right is so opposed to the worker having any place to turn when corporations turn the screws of exploitation. You probably won't like this...

3. The American tradition that conservatives defend without understanding is to screw the worker.
As you might know... the conservative right is interested in preserving traditional systems. The problem for the worker is that the American tradition has ALWAYS been based on the exploitation of workers. There is a strong argument that the American Revolution itself was a fight to preserve slavery since abolitionism was already rampant in Britain and in 1775 their parliament was passing legislation to ban the slave trade.

So what I am saying here is that the status quo that conservatives continue to defend has ALWAYS been detrimental to the working class from day one. It was in fact the government, that finally banned slavery in 1865. But that didn't stop corporations from keeping children out of school and in coal mines or in spanking rooms. It didn't stop corporations from forcing workers into 16 hour shifts for company scrip that could only be used in company stores, effectively controlling the workers entire economic existence wile also preventing them from seeking a better situation elsewhere... One example of slavery without chains.

4. Every policy protecting the American worker from abuse comes from progressive legislation.
Every single step away from slavery and abuse was a battle fought against the corporation by the government. Child Labor Laws, the 8-hour day, the minimum wage, the right to take a vacation, safety regulations and most importantly the right to bargain collectively. These were all pushed through the government by liberals in the face of opposition by conservatives who started off as a class of politically astute corporatists but eventually included working class people, fooled into fighting against their own interests.

OK, so here's what happened (generally speaking)...

By the 1950s, American industry had become globally dominate. The corporations were making record-breaking profits and because of progressive policies, the American worker was getting a decent share of it. Conservatives today often pine for those days, without realizing that without the progressive element, the American worker would still be getting squat.

5. The real culprit... resource peaks and capitalism.
But by the time the 1970's rolled in, something happened that no one was counting on. Resource peaks. The first thing we should understand about industrial capitalism is that it's basically a conversion of resources into profit. This leads to the second thing we should understand... that the cheaper the resources are, the greater the profit will be.

When the cost of acquiring resources exceeds the profit that can be made from the enterprise, that is considered the resource peak. The most famous one is the oil peak of 1972. It was then that big oil started to realize they can make higher profits from buying cheaper oil from OPEC than to spend the money on the deeper drills needed to reach the remaining oil on American land.

But oil wasn't the only resource with a peak. Labor was too. By the 1970's American labor was way more expensive than foreign labor and so corporations started to look for ways to export jobs to foreign labor markets.

As a result of these resource peaks, the American worker has been under a constant threat of decline, mostly coming from corporations seeking better profits by excluding or minimizing the more expensive American resources (human and otherwise) and this trend will most likely continue into the future as long as the market remains free.

6. The tiny role of a president.
So what role does a president play in all this? A tiny one. As I said the working-class decline is an inevitable result of a free market responding to the dynamics of capitalism seeking cheaper resources and it would be unconstitutional for the government to interfere with that.

Even then, the president doesn't have the power to legislate so for that minor influence we have to look at Congress first... You mention hits to the middle class under Obama... Obama's 8 years were affected by a Senate that was controlled by Republicans for 6 of those years.

7. Conclusion.
So if you're trying to pin the blame for hits to the middle-class on a president you really need to get a little more policy-specific. And considering the 50-year, free-market trend that's driving the decline, it nothing less than absurd to blame one president, wait 4 years then blame the next one just because the two you are blaming are Democrats.

So here's your synaptic abyss on this example. If you click on the first link presented in the text of the article you referenced, another document tells you that the REASON for the withdrawal is that Niger's government has revoked the agreement that allows U.S. troops to be stationed there.

So... WTF do actually expect Biden to do here? We don't just station our troops wherever we want. Our stations are installed in countries we have agreements with. If one such country rips up the agreement, there isn't much we can do about it. We can leave or refuse. If we refuse it would be an act of war. Do we want a war with Niger now?

Instead of obsessing over how many of these claims you've collected, maybe you can take deeper look at any one of them to see if you're not actually just collecting evidence of your short-sightedness.

Good to hear from you. I was afraid you had died. I have not run across any comments from you in a dog's age. Your fellow Liberal posters on OPP mostly avoid me as if I have dandruff. Dashy is the only one brave enough to dare respond to me. Plus my new topics seem to disappear off the face of the earth.

As far as my investments, I never buy individual stocks. I only have mutual funds. My IRA and my personally controlled investments have only recently recovered from your boy Joe's malfeasance in governing, that keeps me from being homeless. Plus, luckily my doctor has me on a severely restricted diet because of my liver, so I am spending less on food. It is almost a starvation diet. It is amazing how little food a human being needs to live on and still not lose weight.

To get back to investment talk. You must be doing well as always. You are the man. The man who never lost a penny in the stock market. I just sold my 25 year old car. It still ran, but I got more from the crusher guy than anyone else was willing to offer. The price of scrap metal must be up. Joe's henchmen at the IRS are holding up my much needed Tax Refund. It seems they needed documentation which they have never needed in previous years. Instead of getting my money in 3 weeks, I will be lucky to get it in 3 months. I think somebody told them I am a Trump supporter. It couldn't have been you, cause you been MIA lately.

Glad to see you back.

So when you say "explain", do you want me to explain basic economics? I ask because the assumption that you can blame two presidents out of the last 16 years can only be made in complete ignorance of how the economy works.

I noticed you haven't actually specified what they did to "hit" the middle-class and that you're careful to blame only the Democrats and not the one Republican. Clearly, you are parroting right-wing propaganda without the slightest clue about how things really work.

I'm going to explain anyway, not that you will understand or even want to, but because you're not the only one reading this thread (which means I don't care if you don't read this).

1. Middle-class doesn't mean anything... Working class does:
I'm going to use the word "working-class" instead of "middle-class" because the later term is intentionally vague so as to obscure the division between the classes that actually do exist... The wealthy class and the working class. The wealthy class contains the people that have enough money to where they never actually have to work and the working class is everyone else.

So now instead of guessing between arbitrary income levels to decide if you're in the middle-class, you can ask yourself a very simple question... Do you have to work for a living? If you answer yes, you are in the working-class. This is important to understand because all of the economic policies are designed to help one class or the other.

2. The working-class has been in constant decline since 1972 almost entirely due to the free market
The working class is "hit" all the time, usually as a result of economic developments that have nothing to do with the government. I would guess that 90% of the decline of the working class is due to corporate decisions, not government decisions.

If you are locked into right-wing media as many of you are, then you are not allowed to know this. The reason why is that the government is one of the few institutions to which the working class can turn for help and conservative leaders don't want that to happen, so they are trying to convince you turn your backs on the government. The only other place for workers to turn is the labor union and we know how conservatives feel about that. It's the same thing.

So now I should explain why the right is so opposed to the worker having any place to turn when corporations turn the screws of exploitation. You probably won't like this...

3. The American tradition that conservatives defend without understanding is to screw the worker.
As you might know... the conservative right is interested in preserving traditional systems. The problem for the worker is that the American tradition has ALWAYS been based on the exploitation of workers. There is a strong argument that the American Revolution itself was a fight to preserve slavery since abolitionism was already rampant in Britain and in 1775 their parliament was passing legislation to ban the slave trade.

So what I am saying here is that the status quo that conservatives continue to defend has ALWAYS been detrimental to the working class from day one. It was in fact the government, that finally banned slavery in 1865. But that didn't stop corporations from keeping children out of school and in coal mines or in spanking rooms. It didn't stop corporations from forcing workers into 16 hour shifts for company scrip that could only be used in company stores, effectively controlling the workers entire economic existence wile also preventing them from seeking a better situation elsewhere... One example of slavery without chains.

4. Every policy protecting the American worker from abuse comes from progressive legislation.
Every single step away from slavery and abuse was a battle fought against the corporation by the government. Child Labor Laws, the 8-hour day, the minimum wage, the right to take a vacation, safety regulations and most importantly the right to bargain collectively. These were all pushed through the government by liberals in the face of opposition by conservatives who started off as a class of politically astute corporatists but eventually included working class people, fooled into fighting against their own interests.

OK, so here's what happened (generally speaking)...

By the 1950s, American industry had become globally dominate. The corporations were making record-breaking profits and because of progressive policies, the American worker was getting a decent share of it. Conservatives today often pine for those days, without realizing that without the progressive element, the American worker would still be getting squat.

5. The real culprit... resource peaks and capitalism.
But by the time the 1970's rolled in, something happened that no one was counting on. Resource peaks. The first thing we should understand about industrial capitalism is that it's basically a conversion of resources into profit. This leads to the second thing we should understand... that the cheaper the resources are, the greater the profit will be.

When the cost of acquiring resources exceeds the profit that can be made from the enterprise, that is considered the resource peak. The most famous one is the oil peak of 1972. It was then that big oil started to realize they can make higher profits from buying cheaper oil from OPEC than to spend the money on the deeper drills needed to reach the remaining oil on American land.

But oil wasn't the only resource with a peak. Labor was too. By the 1970's American labor was way more expensive than foreign labor and so corporations started to look for ways to export jobs to foreign labor markets.

As a result of these resource peaks, the American worker has been under a constant threat of decline, mostly coming from corporations seeking better profits by excluding or minimizing the more expensive American resources (human and otherwise) and this trend will most likely continue into the future as long as the market remains free.

6. The tiny role of a president.
So what role does a president play in all this? A tiny one. As I said the working-class decline is an inevitable result of a free market responding to the dynamics of capitalism seeking cheaper resources and it would be unconstitutional for the government to interfere with that.

Even then, the president doesn't have the power to legislate so for that minor influence we have to look at Congress first... You mention hits to the middle class under Obama... Obama's 8 years were affected by a Senate that was controlled by Republicans for 6 of those years.

7. Conclusion.
So if you're trying to pin the blame for hits to the middle-class on a president you really need to get a little more policy-specific. And considering the 50-year, free-market trend that's driving the decline, it nothing less than absurd to blame one president, wait 4 years then blame the next one just because the two you are blaming are Democrats.

" So... WTF do actually expect Biden to do here? We don't just station our troops wherever we want. Our stations are installed in countries we have agreements with. If one such country rips up the agreement, there isn't much we can do about it. We can leave or refuse. If we refuse it would be an act of war. Do we want a war with Niger now? "

Nothing can be done now. Two or three years ago would have been the time to do something. Obviously the Biden foreign policy team is weak and failed to manage the situation.