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[pmcd9]

I'm having a difficult time with the current reality.

[KeithHernandez]

Occasionally looking at CNN at work hasn't been uplifting.

[wombat]

I'm with you. And it's only like the first two days.

[miles]

Occasionally looking at CNN at work hasn't been uplifting.

We have several TVs on the wall at work on each floor so pretty much anywhere you are, you can look up and see either CNBC or CNN. It's going to be a fuck*ng long goddamn fuck*ng four years. I mean, his twitter profile photo alone. Fuck me.

[pmcd9]

Trump spent the first day of his presidency tackling the important issue of lying about the size of the crowd at his inauguration. And we learned a new term "alternative facts." It's gonna be a long four years indeed.

[wombat]

I don't know if it's really true that there's a Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times," but there ought to be.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Not fully fleshed out thought: Trump's proposal to "Buy American, Hire American" sounds good on some level. It's yet another simple answer to a complex problem, and I see how it's appealing. Leaving aside the questions of the global economy and trade wars with the rest of the world, though, there's one simple thing that I think will prevent it from being fully realized: Americans love cheap crap. I'm sure if you polled people, 90% of them will say "I try to buy American products whenever possible," and a few of them may actually do that, but really? People go to Target and Walmart and buy the cheapest thing on the shelf that fills their need without giving a second thought to where it was manufactured.

Hell, there's a whole region in China where the whole economy is about supplying western dollar stores. I'm sure some people in this country shop at dollar stores because they have to, but some do it because they like their stuff to be cheap. So if we really did start buying everything American, prices would go up and then people would be pissed about that instead.

[wombat]

People always want to change one thing without considering that the one thing is part of a coherent system, and you can't change that thing without changing the whole system.

It's possible that if you moved all the jobs back here, more people would make more money and they could afford the more expensive things that would be manufactured here. I mean, presumably that is how the world used to work. But the difference now is that people just buy so much more stuff than we used to, which is another reason we want it all to be cheaper. Would we be willing to buy less? Wear the same clothes for longer and use things till they broke instead of throwing them away for the new model? Sounds virtually un-American.

[pmcd9]

Another thing that gets lost in this conversation about bringing jobs back is automation. When you talk about bringing jobs back you're talking about manufacturing jobs, because those are higher paying jobs than in the service sector for the most part. Manufacturing is returning to America already, but it's *****s, not Mexicans that are taking the jobs.

[KeithHernandez]

Another thing that gets lost in this conversation about bringing jobs back is automation. When you talk about bringing jobs back you're talking about manufacturing jobs, because those are higher paying jobs than in the service sector for the most part. Manufacturing is returning to America already, but it's *****s, not Mexicans that are taking the jobs.

Mechanical communism.  I've been saying it for years.

[wombat]

I think I am really having a hard time dealing with this. I have never quite been so depressed that I couldn't bite through the toast, but today I wanted to put away my chopsticks and eat my rice with a spoon.

[pmcd9]

I think I am really having a hard time dealing with this. I have never quite been so depressed that I couldn't bite through the toast, but today I wanted to put away my chopsticks and eat my rice with a spoon.

To be fair, you should put your chopsticks away because a spoon is a much better utensil for the job.

[pmcd9]

holy shit shots fired

Oh damn, is this gonna turn into another taco vs. burrito debate?

[wombat]

Remember when the internet was the place where we argued about chopsticks vs spoons? *sigh*

[theinevitable]

Paul, let Wombat enjoy her chopsticks before Trump makes them illegal.