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Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 24th, 2023
  • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.worldtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•Good morning Mr. President! You wake up after a snap election in the US to find out that you are the new POTUS, what are the five first things that you focus on to reverse the current course of the US
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    14 days ago

    1. Pass an act that declares infrastructure to be part of national security. Billions in military spending would then be redirected to the Army Corps of Engineers to repair our roads, bridges, water, sewer, electric (especially solar and wind), railroad, and other systems of infrastructure. This would provide a large amount of jobs and make out country safer and more efficient. It would also reduce wasted military spending.

    2. Pass the USPS modernization act. Internet service would be considered to be under the purview of the Postal Service. They would be enabled to operate low cost high speed Internet service nationally, with a focus on isolated rural communities. This would provide competition for private ISPs, keeping the prices down and the quality of service high.

    Amazon would also be nationalized and put under the USPS through this bill. This would eliminate the defacto monopoly, allow regulation of product quality, and prevent market manipulation.

    1. Constitutional amendment defining healthcare as a human right as well as mandating a nationalized healthcare system.

    2. Pass the Wealth Disparity Reduction Act. It would remove the annual income cap on paying into Social Security, tax inheritance 100% over 1,000,000 times the federal minimum wage, tax stock dividends as income, add tiers above the current top marginal tax rate escalating 5% per tier until there is a top tax rate over 80%, and tax political donations by any person or entity by 1% per $1,000 capped at 90%.

    3. Labor Rights Act. “Right to work” laws are illegal, federal anti-union activity watchdog empowered, mandatory sick/vacation leave, mandatory parental leave, mandatory employer health insurance contributions to national healthcare system, time and a half over 8 hours at work, double time over 40 hours, no scheduling shifts within 12 hours of the end of previous shift, corporate tax subsidies for work from home and 4 day workweeks, mandatory paid 30 minutes lunch plus two 15 minutes breaks included in 8 hour shift.

    I expect I would be assassinated pretty quickly after that.

  • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.worldtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•You wake up as a random 10-year-old in 2002 with your memories intact. In your hand is a USB drive with a backup of Wikipedia as of Jan 1 2025. You must keep your identity secret. What do you do?
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    19 days ago

    I was in college in 2002, so I would go there and tell myself what is going on. That shouldn’t break the rules since nobody but me would know what was happening (just a different version of me). Working together with a blueprint of the next two decades, it would be trivial for college me to make money in the stock market. I would raise as much money as I could before the 2008 housing bubble bursts so I could buy up a lot of property cheap.

    From there I could use the information on close elections to politically swing things the way I want. 20 year old me would practice writing so I could get into writing newspaper editorials, building my reputation as someone who has exceptional ability to predict political and social trends. This reputation would give me a foothold to get to speak to and advise people in power, further allowing me to shape the direction of politics. With this money and influence, I could make sure COVID was handled properly, that the war in Ukraine never happened, and that climate change was addressed with the seriousness it deserves. I could save hundreds of millions of lives and nobody would ever know.