Re: Trumpled (Alternative Leading)
Reply #3553 –
In the day to day grind I have to deal with a few scientific / engineering types that are senior in organisations like NASA, mostly on advance manufacturing and technology issues. Of course following on from recent events I had to ask what they thought about the political situation in the USA, the general consensus is grim.
Just in the last week, some individuals have had shots fired across the bow, budget cuts are coming, jobs are going, yet again, they had just finish rebuilding after the last era of cuts. They've yet again been put on notice by the political aspirants. The people in the gun this time are the people that run our weather satellites, they provide the data for prediction of hurricanes, tsunamis and tornadoes, etc., etc.. It seems if the political opponents can't stop the crowd spreading the message learned from the data, the next thing they are going to do is cut the source of the data. This is the USA not China or Russia, but the tactic of silencing or restricting the access to the data is clearly not democratic, it's dictatorship.
Why does this affect us? Because Australia has just kick started a major push to become involved in space and advanced manufacturing, actually it's to become re-involved given we were in it early and our dullard leaders dropped the ball. Apparently in the distant past, some at the very top of the tree in our leadership thought Australia was "Too Dumb" to be part of the space race.
Ironically Australia is one of the world leaders in advanced manufacturing technology, but we are close to the worst at commercialising it, we are or have invented a lot of the stuff others profit from. Generally, our political or industrial leaders play the short game, and they find the GOP tactics very attractive. I suppose they all expect to be long gone when the price for short term gain is long term pain,
When you saw Trump and his family on stage, that wasn't about politics, that's about them knowing who is the hand that feeds them and what is at stake. If Trump can't get re-elected he is financially ruined. That is eventually their money and Trump doesn't hesitate to let them know, they know he's not long for this earth and they are still young, but don't be fooled into thinking they trust him because he has burnt the family fortune before. The last time it was his late Ex-wife that saved the empire, not Donald.