Dr. Gonzo

I’m thankful for it tbh. Fantastic stint at Bayern Munich - but I’m not sure how hard it is to be great at Bayern tbh. Was totally shit with Germany though. After a few days to digest the news, the only people I think I’d be happy with are Xabi Alonso or Simone Inzaghi. Inzaghi I think is stylistically more similar to Klopp, Xabi’s a LFC legend and had a great start to his career. But anyone we bring in will be a massive downgrade so it’s hard to be excited about our future at the moment.

He’s still a massive shareholder so he’ll still be manipulating stock value to suit him when he can - I think despite no longer being a director he’s going to remain very influential over the company. Not gonna lie though this is the most interested I’ve been in WWE since I was a kid. The shocking allegations, the ridiculous - and I mean RIDICULOUS - text messages, the moment where I said “did you just say he shat on her head?!” Wild drama.

@Michael re: Qatar - https://www.iranintl.com/en/202211254809

Why does she have to apologise for accurately describing various Tories?

Yeah but even as a 10th choice backup on the list Rafa or Dalglish are more realistic choices than Gerrard. Realistically none of these 3 are going to be our next manager. Klopp’s not an easy manager to follow, Liverpool aren’t an easy club to manage.

I think it is that simple though. They’re not going to bring in Gerrard now even as an emergency option - I think aside from being not good enough, they respect him too much to bring him in to damage his legend status here. They’re going to be looking at a long term replacement.

There’s no fucking way Gerrard is on the list lol. Flopped at Villa & now flopping in the Saudi Super League One. He’ll be lucky if he ever gets a top flight job in a serious league again.

I keep seeing different names linked with taking the job next and honestly it makes me depressed.

The shitting on a woman's head during a threesome

I think we'll be bringing in a new DOF before a manager's picked.

Think he's given up on management a while ago. Went into racing cars for a bit and now he's trying to be president or chairman at Porto.

He'd be shit with us, imo. He's tactically so far off from the type of football that gets the most out of our squad.

This is my worry about any new manager. I honestly don't think there's anyone who can step in and keep the standards as high as Klopp would be able to right from the off.

He doesn't stress me out. I just want to understand why he's got so many beliefs that are either contradictory, why he pushes false narratives (which are easily disproven) that are tied to fucked up ideologies that when he's asked to defend... he says things that are pretty far removed from the ideology he was pushing. Someone can only say so many things to me that don't make sense before I have the thirst to know what the hell is making them say so much insane shit that doesn't even make sense. Using terms regarding ideology and then not even seeming to have a grasp of the basics of the ideology is... bizarre. Saying things like the US has a strong economy, while it's economic backbone is somehow not a strong economy... that's just a statement that can't be made sense of. And I know it's because of repeating certain narratives that he's heard before elsewhere from people pushing bullshit. But we live in a world where you can go online and read about the things you're talking about and verify pretty easily that the people pushing these weird narratives are lying. And the die hard believers of these weird narratives and ideologies fall in too far into hole and start unwittingly supporting things that they probably wouldn't have supported before they've fallen into the holes. I basically want to know where these strong convictions that can be easily refuted by simply reading the definition of things like "libertarianism" "capitalism" and "social democracy", etc. Because when the things being said just don't make sense and someone seems to be pushing a narrative/ideology that can lead to a dangerous slippery slope, it's likely you've got a person confused by people on the internet trying to confuse people into supporting horrible things. People shouldn't have strong convictions of things that are actually against what they actually believe politically just because some joker on reddit, youtube, twitter, etc are trying to feed people to have strong convictions about politics and policies they don't really understand.

Even challenging for the Bundesliga title is more impressive for a first full season at a club than just winning the league with Porto - especially that era of Porto, imo.

Yeah this is absolutely gutting news. Nobody we can replace him with can do the job he’s done with us imo. And the timing of the announcement is totally shit, honestly. I’d want Alonso ideally or De Zerbi, but I’m not massive on De Zerbi.

I’m gutted. Whoever comes in after him has impossibly large shoes to fill.

California is also the home of some of the US's biggest and wealthiest corporation with a solid tech industry, biotech industry, chemical engineering industry, financial industry, agricultural industry, name a sector - California's got it and is doing it better than most of the US. It's the state with some of the highest paid highest skilled workers in the country and attracts international workers as a result of that. As discussed previously, that "insane taxation" is a lower effective tax rate than in the only red state that can come close to competing with it, Texas. As far as American economic success goes, California is the most economically successful in pretty much every metric. That's simply not debatable. The socioeconomic disparity and corruption are not unique to California. They might be more apparently because there's a lot more people in California. That's a national problem. Okay let's dissect this, using American politics as the reference point since this is the American politics thread. 1.) In the US, unemployment benefits aren't provided federally. They are provided by each state. I don't know how it works in other states, but in California you only qualify for unemployment if: a.) you have been sacked - resignations do not qualify for unemployment. If you've never had a job, you don't qualify for unemployment; b.) when you demonstrate proof of actively searching for jobs - seeking unemployment while not actively looking for work leads to people being popped for unemployment fraud. This means paying back the money they received from the state, as well as at least a few months in prison, c.) you can only collect unemployment for 26 weeks. So by US standards, or at least Californian standards, you only get unemployment under certain conditions including actively looking for work... and for much less time than you'd get benefits than you'd get in South Africa. So in practice, what happens in California (which is part of the US) is actually nothing that "encourages people to do nothing about their situation" - and in fact mandates that they do in fact do something about their situation in order to receive these benefits. If you've been sacked and receive a severance, you likely will be rejected on your application to receive benefits - or will later have been found to have lied in your application and get popped for unemployment fraud. 2.) Sounds like South Africa has more employment regulation than the US. California is an "at will employment" state - this means employees can be fired for basically any reason. There are certain limitations to this, that have been carved out through employment law cases - but that's the general rule of "at will employment" or "right to work" states. Keep in mind, as well, this is California. The so-called "communist republic of California," that the right wing portrays as a communist hellscape. Yet in terms of employee rights, this state falls short of left-wing protections for workers by some way and is in fact more right wing and capitalistic than many countries including South Africa. So it seems to me, your actual view on US fair labour practices would be that the US should actually moving less to the right and more to the left in that regard. And if I have you right, then I think that means you are rejecting some core beliefs of purely libertarian/capitalist doctrine. 3.) Only in rare circumstances in the US are increases and bonuses guaranteed.

America's got an ineffective government because of the shitty way it was all structured and designed for gridlock. It's not a failed or failing government. There's issues with the elite being able to get away with crimes, but that seems to be a problem everywhere in the world. It's funny you site that the economy is far from a failure, yet you've criticised California for being an abject failure of a state... yet California is the economic powerhouse of the US & I know from experience it is a great place to live. But whether you view the economy as far from failure really depends on perspective. While wages in the US are relatively great compared to doing the same work in other countries, since the 80s there's been an increasing gap in how wealth has been distributed in the US. Wage growth has stagnated for the many, while for the elite few there's been record profits and income. When the many are left behind for a handful of ultra-wealthy elite, it's easy for many to think "this is a broken system." When people look back to the US golden era post WW2, where Americans felt economic opportunity was limitless, there was a massive tax on the American ultra-wealthy and corporations. Did they stop making money? No they made shitloads of money. And Americans, on average, seemed more than content with their economic system. In the 70s, many economists started talking about the "death of the American dream" - but the disparity between the rich and the regular in the US has just gone insane since the 80s.

In the US the current system certainly isn't no regulation though? There's federal agencies that have oversight on big business because of the things big business has done. You don't get labour safety regulations without companies first operating without those regulations and injuring, maiming, and killing a few employees. You don't get banking regulations without banks creating crises. The current system of the US is a capitalist representative democracy that has too few restrictions on lobbying. Previous restrictions were wiped out by a conservative Supreme Court ruling in the case Citizens United, which was written by US conservative hero Antonin Scalia. And just because America is capitalistic, that doesn't mean it doesn't have some semblance of socialism. There are social programs. Democratic socialism is pretty far from a capitalist democracy. Which isn't to say that capitalism can't exist in democratic socialist societies - the closest countries the west has to democratic socialist countries have a blend of both capitalism and socialism in a way that goes far beyond the social programs provided by the United States. The difference between say Sweden and the US is how much socialism and capitalism is blended into their economic systems. You see, the extreme scenarios are not the only choices people have in their governance. And extreme political solutions are often bad solutions.

A failing government is the system though, so you're on the same page as @Spike it sounds like?

Libertarian policies are all the less likely to solve that corruption. Libertarian policies push for as little regulation of the free market as possible, with the goal of increasing business through profitability. History has shown time and time again, following libertarian policies leads to wealth hoarded by those at the top while the little guy ends up more exploited than ever and has. But it looks like you're abandoning your claim to being a libertarian and are now calling yourself a democratic socialist/capitalist. Democratic socialism and capitalism are not the same thing, though. It depends on who you ask with regards to democratic socialism and how capitalistic a society should be, but a core concept of democratic socialism is the belief that capitalism, at least with minimal regulation, is incompatible with the notion of freedom, liberty, and equality. The "socialist" part of democratic socialism is believing there should be a somewhat socially owned economy - which is direct state involvement in the economy. The democratic part is believing that the way government should be structured should be a democracy. I just don't think you've really got an idea of what you're advocating for anymore. But a lot of what you've pushed is pretty far from the ideals of democratic socialism. And a lot of what you've said since advocating for libertarian policies... simply just aren't libertarian policies. It's all very confusing and I don't know what to make of it.

Well yeah, but should they care about that? I wouldn't

He didn't though. Under Trump only one meaningful piece of legislation could be passed - despite him having the senate and house for a portion of his presidency. And it was his lower taxes for the wealthy, while raising taxes on the working and middle class - particularly those in states that voted against him (the economic powerhouses of the US, I might ad) with the SALT (state and local tax) deduction cap lowered significantly. Even though those states have MORE REPUBLICAN VOTERS than many of the red states that went for him. So aside from being nearly totally unable to work with a friendly legislature for a part of his presidency, other than on something all conservatives agree on: rich people should pay less in taxes than the working and middle class, who should shoulder most of the burden. He didn't really do much. And those kinds of policies, by the way, fly in the face of the notion that he did anything positive for the "every day working man" or their interests as you claimed earlier in this thread. It was just another handout to the elite. Everything else he did in government was through Executive Order, something he (and his party) bashed Obama for continually while running for election and appointing judges that lied during their confirmation hearings to further a far right agenda. And he didn't even pick those judges, he got them off a list given to him by the Federalist Society - so it was a far right lobbying group doing his presidenting for him when it came to judicial appointments. Another handout to the elite. And many of his executive orders were totally meaningless, others were wiped away after legal challenges because he and his advisors struggled with basic legal concepts.

The alternative to libertarianism is not limited to solely socialistic dystopia like Venezuela.