Trump 2.0: MAGAA

[UNI88]

I've been to San Juan PR, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, St. Lucia and on 2 Caribbean cruises - the islands are not very similar IMO.

I’m speaking more to the Lesser Antilles where the islands are a lot smaller

You could be in Antigua, St. Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, St Vincent and barely know the difference

Martinique or Guadeloupe, very similar

Curacao is pretty fun

St Martin/st Marteen is both unique and similar at the same time

But you’re right, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic are very different places. Customer service is really good in The Dominican Republic but Puerto Rico, not so much

You ever wonder why there are so many baseball players from the Dominican and Venezuela? And why Puerto Rican players have diminished steadily?

I

On cruises, I've been to:
- Aruba
- Barbados
- Curacao
- St. John
- St Martin/Sint Marteen
- St Thomas
- Tortola
- Trinidad

Each had it's own personality / feel and I enjoyed them all.

[Caribbean Hen]

I’m speaking more to the Lesser Antilles where the islands are a lot smaller

You could be in Antigua, St. Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, St Vincent and barely know the difference

Martinique or Guadeloupe, very similar

Curacao is pretty fun

St Martin/st Marteen is both unique and similar at the same time

But you’re right, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic are very different places. Customer service is really good in The Dominican Republic but Puerto Rico, not so much

You ever wonder why there are so many baseball players from the Dominican and Venezuela? And why Puerto Rican players have diminished steadily?

I

On cruises, I've been to:
- Aruba
- Barbados
- Curacao
- St. John
- St Martin/Sint Marteen
- St Thomas
- Tortola
- Trinidad

Each had it's own personality / feel and I enjoyed them all.

Nice

So you went to the Dominican Dominican Republic on vacation like for more than a day?

[UNI88]

On cruises, I've been to:
- Aruba
- Barbados
- Curacao
- St. John
- St Martin/Sint Marteen
- St Thomas
- Tortola
- Trinidad

Each had it's own personality / feel and I enjoyed them all.

Nice

So you went to the Dominican Dominican Republic on vacation like for more than a day?

I spent a week in Punta Cana. That was more like Jamaica in that it's more difficult to engage with the local culture. Tourists are somewhat isolated and very protected along the beachfront hotel properties.

[Caribbean Hen]

Nice

So you went to the Dominican Dominican Republic on vacation like for more than a day?

I spent a week in Punta Cana. That was more like Jamaica in that it's more difficult to engage with the local culture. Tourists are somewhat isolated and very protected along the beachfront hotel properties.

Definitely, I know Punta Cana very well but not as a tourista really

If you wanted to mingle with the locals you could have gone inland to Higuey… Presidente the cerveza, tastes much better in country and you would of been dancing merenage in no time

Was in Ocho Rios long time ago, first port call on the way down to Antarctica, not telling any stories about Jamaica

[kalm]

Is this MAGA?

[Caribbean Hen]

I've been to San Juan PR, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, St. Lucia and on 2 Caribbean cruises - the islands are not very similar IMO.

I was gonna say. Dominica and Jamaica are not like Grabd Cayman or Aruba…at all.

It’s OK
I don’t expect you to know anything about the Caribbean, but sometimes you should just stay quiet

The Dominican Republic and Dominica are not the same place

[kalm]

I was gonna say. Dominica and Jamaica are not like Grabd Cayman or Aruba…at all.

It’s OK
I don’t expect you to know anything about the Caribbean, but sometimes you should just stay quiet

The Dominican Republic and Dominica are not the same place

So it’s been a few years. We stopped at Dominica. Never have been to the Dominican Republic.

[Caribbean Hen]

It’s OK
I don’t expect you to know anything about the Caribbean, but sometimes you should just stay quiet

The Dominican Republic and Dominica are not the same place

So it’s been a few years. We stopped at Dominica. Never have been to the Dominican Republic.

Are you sure you weren’t in Kokomo

[kalm]

Along with the NFL, Jesus, and the 2A, MAGA has also given up on capitalism and anti-trust.

[BDKJMU]

[UNI88]

90% is FAKE NEWS. It's true for immigrants who have committed violent crimes not a broader set.

The devil is in the details and the majority of Americans don't support much of what trump is doing and how he is doing it ...

Majority of Americans support deporting immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally

2. While support exists for deportations on a general level, it declines considerably as specific policies or outcomes to achieve the deportations are included.

• Just 38% of Americans support using active duty military to find and detain undocumented immigrants. In the same vein, only 28% support using money allocated to the U.S. military to pay for deportation.
• A third of Americans show support for quickly deporting detained immigrants, even if it involves separating families or sending people to countries other than their country of origin (34%), and deporting immigrants that came to the U.S. illegally as children (34%).
• Few Americans strongly support each of these measures:
  • Using active duty military to find and detain undocumented immigrants in U.S. cities and towns (16%)
  • Quickly deporting detained immigrants, even if it involves separating families or sending people to countries other than their country of origin (16%)
  • Deporting immigrants that came to the U.S. illegally as children (14%)
  • Using money allocated to the U.S. military to pay for deportation (8%)

I wonder if Americans support deporting immigrants who came here legally but then had their status arbitrarily changed (pulling TPS status, etc.)?

[kalm]

Are we making America great again yet?

[BDKJMU]

Are we making America great again yet?

So Trump has been in office for 1 year, yet it’s his fault that the US hasn’t graduated more engineers which is at least a 4 year degree.

And how many of those lost STEM PHDs were USC? Probably little to none.

[kalm]

Are we making America great again yet?

So Trump has been in office for 1 year, yet it’s his haul that the US hasn’t graduated more engineers which is at least a 4 year degree.

And how many of those lost STEM PHDs were USC? Probably little to none.

We’ve lost 10,000 in one year. That seems like a big number.

[kalm]

This may become a long term mistake by Trump that hurts the U.S. for decades.

For years, Donald Trump's supporters promised that tearing up trade agreements, antagonizing allies, and weaponizing tariffs would make America "great again." The pitch was simple: dominance through disruption. Strength through confrontation.

What's unfolding instead is something far more dangerous and permanent. The world isn't bending to American pressure. It's reorganizing without the United States. And once that reorganization is complete, there is no way back.
The Damage That Doesn't Reverse

Imagine you run a business. For decades, you've relied on one supplier. Then that supplier becomes unpredictable, changing prices without warning, threatening to cut you off, making deals one day and tearing them up the next.
What do you do? You find new suppliers. You sign longer contracts with them. You build your operations around partners you can trust.

Now imagine that supplier comes back a few years later, claiming everything is fine again.

Do you go back? Or do you remember the chaos and stick with your new, reliable partners?

That's what's happening to America right now. Except the contracts being signed aren't for a few years. They're for 20, 30, sometimes 50 years. The supply chains being built aren't temporary workarounds. They're permanent infrastructure. The trade blocs forming around the world aren't political gestures. They're the new economic architecture of the 21st century.

And the United States is being designed out of it.

[GannonFan]

Are we making America great again yet?

Just some thoughts here. Typically, in the past, engineers would graduate from these schools in China, and then come here to the US and would basically do their bachelor's degrees over again once here. There was a reason for that - often the engineering education in places like China paled in comparison to what they learned here. There's always been a larger number of Chinese-educated engineers - but that hasn't really translated into an innovation edge for China. With the population bomb in China over the next 50 years as they lose half their population, it will be interesting to see how the education profile changes in China.

On the second topic, the number of STEM-related PhD's in the federal workforce, it really begs the question, for many of those departments, why there were so many federally employed STEM-related PhD's in the first place. I understand some of the need for some of the departments - the CDC, NSF, and NASA for instance. But why did we have so many PhD's in the Geological Survey department? The Census Bureau? The Forest Service? Many engineering fields (as opposed to other science fields) only require PhD's if you're going on to education (teaching in college) so why so many PhD's in non-teaching fields? It's really hard to find PhD engineers out in industry as most are in academics, or, apparently, were in government for some reason.

[kalm]

Are we making America great again yet?

Just some thoughts here. Typically, in the past, engineers would graduate from these schools in China, and then come here to the US and would basically do their bachelor's degrees over again once here. There was a reason for that - often the engineering education in places like China paled in comparison to what they learned here. There's always been a larger number of Chinese-educated engineers - but that hasn't really translated into an innovation edge for China. With the population bomb in China over the next 50 years as they lose half their population, it will be interesting to see how the education profile changes in China.

On the second topic, the number of STEM-related PhD's in the federal workforce, it really begs the question, for many of those departments, why there were so many federally employed STEM-related PhD's in the first place. I understand some of the need for some of the departments - the CDC, NSF, and NASA for instance. But why did we have so many PhD's in the Geological Survey department? The Census Bureau? The Forest Service? Many engineering fields (as opposed to other science fields) only require PhD's if you're going on to education (teaching in college) so why so many PhD's in non-teaching fields? It's really hard to find PhD engineers out in industry as most are in academics, or, apparently, were in government for some reason.

Good question but arguments can be made Geology, analytics, and forestry. They may not seem important to some but I think those fields are crucial and we want the highest level educated driving those fields.

[GannonFan]

Just some thoughts here. Typically, in the past, engineers would graduate from these schools in China, and then come here to the US and would basically do their bachelor's degrees over again once here. There was a reason for that - often the engineering education in places like China paled in comparison to what they learned here. There's always been a larger number of Chinese-educated engineers - but that hasn't really translated into an innovation edge for China. With the population bomb in China over the next 50 years as they lose half their population, it will be interesting to see how the education profile changes in China.

On the second topic, the number of STEM-related PhD's in the federal workforce, it really begs the question, for many of those departments, why there were so many federally employed STEM-related PhD's in the first place. I understand some of the need for some of the departments - the CDC, NSF, and NASA for instance. But why did we have so many PhD's in the Geological Survey department? The Census Bureau? The Forest Service? Many engineering fields (as opposed to other science fields) only require PhD's if you're going on to education (teaching in college) so why so many PhD's in non-teaching fields? It's really hard to find PhD engineers out in industry as most are in academics, or, apparently, were in government for some reason.

Good question but arguments can be made Geology, analytics, and forestry. They may not seem important to some but I think those fields are crucial and we want the highest level educated driving those fields.

Do we? PhD's, in most fields, are gained via a very specific and very targeted pursuit of research. You become the recognized expert in whatever that research is. PhD's aren't given for breadth of knowledge and they certainly aren't given for skill or study of how to manage a large bureaucracy, and especially not a bureaucracy that isn't involved in research. Like I said, there are departments where research is the #1 driving force in that department (the aforementioned CDC, NSF, NASA) but that's not the case with many of the others. Education for education sake isn't always productive and certainly isn't always needed.

[kalm]

Good question but arguments can be made Geology, analytics, and forestry. They may not seem important to some but I think those fields are crucial and we want the highest level educated driving those fields.

Do we? PhD's, in most fields, are gained via a very specific and very targeted pursuit of research. You become the recognized expert in whatever that research is. PhD's aren't given for breadth of knowledge and they certainly aren't given for skill or study of how to manage a large bureaucracy, and especially not a bureaucracy that isn't involved in research. Like I said, there are departments where research is the #1 driving force in that department (the aforementioned CDC, NSF, NASA) but that's not the case with many of the others. Education for education sake isn't always productive and certainly isn't always needed.

Isn’t a breadth of knowledge a part of recognized research?

[kalm]

[kalm]

Openly displaying in public your idiocy and ignorance is a winning strategy I guess.

[Caribbean Hen]

Openly displaying in public your idiocy and ignorance is a winning strategy I guess.

It’s a political statement as 65% of Americans own homes

[kalm]

Openly displaying in public your idiocy and ignorance is a winning strategy I guess.

It’s a political statement as 65% of Americans own homes

Who would they sell those homes to?

[BDKJMU]

It’s a political statement as 65% of Americans own homes

Who would they sell those homes to?

So you want the value of your home to go down?

[kalm]

Who would they sell those homes to?

So you want the value of your home to go down?

Yeah….that’s shat I was getting at.

I want a well regulated market and banking to set the price based on demand and competition. You know…capitalism…that thing R’s used to adore.