politics Archives - Smiling Anyway

Minneapolis shooting in a broader perspective

Steve — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 16:51:03 +0000

The body cam footage from the ICE agent doesn’t change the underlying issue in this shooting. As I mentioned in the original post, this may be intentional or it may be because of bad training. The character of the person shot, Good, is not the issue. When I voiced concern about the shooting, it was …

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Private Equity’s Real Strategy

Steve — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 19:08:16 +0000

The theory behind capitalism and free markets is the better allocation of resources based on supply and demand. It can be rough and painful at times, but with proper guardrails, it has worked well for us. The key to the social benefit of capitalism is that it is balanced with regulations. It is hard to …

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Social Programs vs Socialism and The Political Lies

Steve — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 21:27:39 +0000

We have a funny confusion in our country. People vote as if the President controls the economy. We hear candidates make promises to reopen the coal mines, keep family farms open, lower the price of gas, and on and on. While they have no control over these things, we vote as if they do. A …

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Brexit – the empty bucket

Steve — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 13:05:37 +0000

Brexit A bunch of guys (politicians looking for an edge) got together and decided to convince the British populous that all their problems could be blamed on someone else… the “them.” And, if they simply pushed “them” out of their lives, everything would be great. But, along the way, they forgot to mention …

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Pork industry safety to be more self-regulated

Steve — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 19:18:15 +0000

The current administration is shifting the responsibility in the pork industry for food safety from the regulators to the companies. The Obama administration made a similar move with poultry. There is an interesting difference between the American perspective and the European perspective. In the US, policies tend to be a “wait and see” if the …

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Europe passes online copyright rules, benefiting large publishers (they think)

Steve — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 17:00:10 +0000

Venture Beat published this article about the liability of linking to publisher content (or anyone’s really). Two issues with the law According to the new EU rules, which must be adopted by EU countries by 2021, sites must pay publishers to publish excerpts of their content. Okay… not sure how much constitutes an …

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The Economy: The best thing the president can do is stay out of the way.

Steve — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 00:41:47 +0000

In the image, there are – 3 ways of looking at unemployment – The GDP – Federal Budget Deficit Since 2010, things have been improving. The trend line from Obama through Trump term to date is steady. The only difference so far is the deficit. While the budget deficit can be, and is, drastically affected …

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Administration changes formual for drug payments. Its not enough.

Steve — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 13:28:22 +0000

The Government, despite being the largest payer for meds, does not negotiate price. We simply agree to pay the average going rate in the U.S. We passed laws that prevent the Government from negotiating drug prices in Medicare and Medicaid. Guess who pushed that law? Since the U.S. has the highest drug prices in the …

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My issues with the GOP tax plans are twofold

Steve — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 03:43:48 +0000

1) we knowingly grow the deficit, even eagerly do so under the two plans. 2) individuals are being sold a lie re individual tax cuts for them. They will phase out. The cuts for corporations and for pass-through income (S-Corps, one of the income drivers for very wealthy people) remain. As for lower taxes on …

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Rest in Peace GOP

Steve — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 20:11:05 +0000

You welcomed your executioner with open arms. Inviting him in with a celebration of disrespect, pettiness, and discarded principles, you walked away from what made you worthy. Too late, your “leaders” came to realize that their private misgivings should have been voiced as forcefully in public as they now appear to have been in their nightmares. …

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