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I will be honest here- both my teens completely lost respect for teachers when the schools refused to open and masks were required long after everywhere else dropped them. My youngest is in high school- she behaves appropriately herself but clearly has no sympathy when others don’t, stating “it’s their own fault”
| yes | 7,171 |
Great article. I’d add just the federal debt item. Imagine, your mortgage interest payments went from 15% of your annual budget to 35% and your medical bills are racing away (entitlements) and THIS is how you run your household finances? You and your partner sit down once a year and say Yes to almost everything and borrow more money to pay for it? And for it all in about 15 minutes? Party loyalties aside, can we at least agree this is insane? Please?
| no | 2,078 |
I have no idea how much money Bret makes. But he very well could be right about the struggles of couples making $400,000 a year. What is striking how little concern or is it just severe cluelessness he has for people making considerably less than that. He opposes even a barely decent minimum wage let's say $40 an hour. Well of course he opposes a much lower minimum wage than that. Could he even imagine living on something like that. Rents are sky high. One aspect the economic structural crimes that define many so called blue cities. He of course opposes any type of rent control or rent stabilization. Medicare for all. God forbid.
| yes | 6,978 |
In 1997, Hugh Thomas published "The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870." I suspect today's historians in the US think that's the whole story. What happened in the US and maybe in early modern Europe. But did you know that slavery goes back to the beginning of civilization some 10,000 years ago. All societies engaged in it. All races and ethnicities were its victims. Does presentism account for that? It strikes me that the historians who think all US history must be rewritten to atone for slavery are imposing morality on the past and then claiming that they deserve reparations for those sins. But they're not slaves today. They hold PhD's and have privilege that their ancestors couldn't even imagine. They are not actually doing anything about the inter-generational poverty in Baltimore or Chicago or Los Angeles with all this moralizing and lying about when the US began. They aren't doing anything about the fact that there are only 29 black-owned banks in the US as of 12/31/21, which is up from 15 a couple of years ago and down from 26 in 2015. With all the black millionaires today, there is no shortage of investment capital. But moralizing doesn't require them to explain that. Because they hold a privileged position. That's what presentism has become. A means of establishing an oligarchy in the university. And putting out history that doesn't seek to explain what really happened.
| yes | 5,443 |
So much for Biden's boycott.
| yes | 6,178 |
Bill Joy one of the founders of Sun Microsystems and a pioneer in the development of the Internet was purported to have said that he would never allow his kids to become programmers. There is a global push downward in software development. It no longer rewards creativity only to the few. Developers are all to happy to cut their legs off and develop software that will replace them. Microsoft has to trim costs, fine. How about starting at the top with Nadella taking a larger pay cut and the administrators as well.
| no | 3,661 |
I have empathy for these small business owners…however in my community we have a public system of gyms that are open to parents. From babies to school aged. There are multiple times a week…oh it’s the strong start program. Some gym play and then some directed song time. Various locations in my small sized community. Again the reminder to me that America has the capitalist all mighty chasing the dollar handled. I hope other country citizens write that they also have these free programs in their community to support families. It’s included in our taxes! Just like medical care.
| no | 1,044 |
William Colgan The House can't control the purse by itself (in the Constitution it is delegated to Congress). The Senate and the President have to sign on. You think the House can just pass a bill? What it means to "control the purse" means that the House is the one with the authority to say $0.00 or a trillion. But the rest of the government has to concur. This is how I understand the system working. There are some other minor perks which people in the House can use to cause trouble but they can't abolish the FBI, etc.
| no | 4,394 |
One of the insurgents’ main demands involves being able to offer amendments to bills outside of any established procedures. They tout this as some important step toward an open democracy but it is all about getting themselves airtime on the House floor spouting their backing for one absurd position after another that has absolutely no chance of passage. As Goldberg notes, that airtime is the whole point. These are grifters selling their brand on TV, just as Trump did on “The Apprentice” and continues to do with his rallies. It’s a lucrative business and easier than the normal path to political riches — lobbying. All follow in the footsteps of Newt Gingrich whose pathway to power was paved by speeches given to an empty House chamber broadcast on CSPAN when the rules prohibited the cameras showing the deserted seats.
| yes | 7,041 |
"...China is productive, yes, and attentive, but they see it less as a benign partner than as an imperious and corrupting force that raises the risk of conflict."Benign? Of course not, China is simply seeking to expand its global military footprint for its own ends. The use of "secretive" deals with the government of the Solomons is a pretty standard tactic, for they do not want the world at large to know what they are doing. China barely takes interest in its own poor, let alone the disadvantaged of some far off island chain.
| yes | 7,977 |
The trouble is that our models reflect our society. For example, when police use "AI" to determine where patrols should go, they rely on the data the police have already collected. If the police spend more time in minority neighborhoods, or make more arrests there, the model will tell them to keep doing what they're doing. The same goes when a model is used to review resumes. If biased decisions were made by the company in the past, the model will continue to make biased decisions, with a false veneer of objectivity. Garbage in, garbage out.There are also base rate problems that come into play. When a company says their facial recognition system is 99.9% accurate with only 0.1% false positive rate that sounds pretty good. But if there are 10,000 people that pass by the city cameras, it would be expected to falsely identify 10 people as criminals. Even if there were 10 suspects in those 10,000 people, half the people targeted would be innocent. This isn't hypothetical - in the UK they tried something like this and found significantly more false positives than actual suspects.
| no | 4,256 |
I am appalled by your generosity. I could be impressed but I am not. First, if you and your husband hold the deed (and I certainly hope that is the case), then you are simply landlords without a lease, and they are tenants at sufferance. Good luck trying to remove them. They don't sound like motivated humans.If you truly gifted them the house (deed and all) then the whole issue is moot. It's not your house anymore. But by saying that you gave up $6,000 in rent, that tells me you own the house.First, hire a lawyer.Next, it's time for the lawyer to inform the tenants that their existing month to month lease will be terminated. That they may remain in the property until X date (whatever works for you), and that moving forward they are required to (1) execute a lease for the remaining portion of time (even a $1) a month, and (2) they are required to pay for all maintenance and upkeep. What happened here is you have two freeloading people who have taken full advantage of your generosity. You two are basically well meaning schlemiels. Please recover your self esteem and common sense and change the situation now.
| yes | 9,188 |
Mercury S Your comment is wrong on so many points.- So do you draw the line at 10 billion? What do you suggest when that threshold is reached? Because this argument begins anew.- Look around you. If you do not recognize the ongoing sustainability crises we now face --- water depletion, knock-on food insecurity, fragile supply chains, diminishing affordability/availability of shelter diminishing affordability of education etc etc --- if you do not recognize the immediacy of these issues NOW at 8 billion population, then your observation and judgement is impaired. - "Degrowth" as an expired idea from the past? Hardly. Population pressure as an existential problem has only a limited number of realistic solutions. We aren't going to enlarge our planet and the Elon Musk interplanetary solution is just a CGI fantasy. You prefer wars and pestilence as a solution?
| yes | 5,260 |
The cost sounds very much like the Boston Highway tunnel project which started out at 1.4 billion and ended up costing over 13 billion. It seems that all it has done is just to hide the traffic under ground rather than cut traffic numbers down. I have always wondered where that money has actually gone.
| no | 2,431 |
The key is funding research and development at US universities like Purdue (leader in SiC) and New Mexico (leader in FinFET, nanowire). The R&D will lead to patented technology. Make it easy for universities to license their technology domestically and easily enforce against infringer. Let universities enforce their patents locally and make injunctions against infringers mandatory. Royalties can be plowed back into funding basic research.Award tuition, fees, undergraduate debt forgiveness, and living wage stipends to all graduate students in approved graduate programs in areas of need (EE, Physics, Chem. Eng.). Free college and graduate school should be limited to degrees in areas of national strategic need.The cost of a trained semiconductor EE in the US is about $125k to $175k. In Taiwan, it's $45k. Ireland is $75k. That gap means to keep domestic industry from fleeing to low wage sites, tarrifs may be required. The cost to manufacture in the US must be lowered compared to places like S. Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and India. That requires a long-term, multi-faceted approach beyond giving money away to chip makers. Educational System ChangesInfrastructure SupportTax Policy ChangesPatent Reform to Strengthen US Patents (after years of Big Tech attacks)Immigration Policy ChangesIt requires leadership. It requires intelligence. It may require too much for the US to provide in a time where social media chooses our leaders.
| yes | 5,326 |
Couple 15 minutes from San Francisco making $300k a year here, go ahead and audit us. Eggs are getting expensive but all the people we have to pass on the way in and out of that store want to eat eggs too. Generally, people who become successful don’t spend their time trying to pinch pennies and skirt the rules. Some people Bret knows will laugh at $300k a year but it pays the bills and it pays taxes and we have enough for college and eggs.
| no | 3,388 |
All of Roberta Smith's collection statistics here are worthy of the sports pages or an NFL halftime show, and worse yet they don't prove anything except that one pile of paintings over here has more paintings than the other pile of paintings over there. If someone is offering you 200 Guston paintings as a gift, isn't it a bit crazy to complain that there are no Joan Mitchells in the gift, or no Bob Thompsons, even if you'd like a few of the latter? She does make a decent point about the Met's aspirations for the future, acknowledging its recent wandering away from the usual glorification of various canons (I was mesmerized by the 2 massive Kent Monkman paintings installed in the Great Hall in 2020), but having so many Gustons now in the collection will not prevent the museum from furthering those new courses. And who's to say that taking care of 200 paintings will financially burden one of the richest museums in the world? There are, after all, those art-collection graveyards (you've seen the ads) that let you know you can store 24 Van Goghs for $192 per month (or something equally cheap). While wanting to expand the canon of art is commendable (everyone wins) and wishing it could be, in this case, sprinkled to many museums across the country (send some this way, west of the Mississippi, please), Smith's real beef is with the artist's estate for not doing the sprinkling in advance. But hey, the ten million bucks it included with the gift is probably a plus.
| yes | 6,079 |
One mistake we're making as a country is that we aren't funding research into new Covid vaccines and treatments. The virus is going to continue to mutate, and our current arsenal will become less and less effective. Yet Congress rejected Biden's request for $9 billion for new research in the latest spending bill.That $9 billion would have been a small price to pay to avoid another pandemic.
| no | 219 |
$1,000/sq-ft at the median salary of 50K/year for 1,200 sq ft means 1,200/50 = 60 years of 100% salary.For a small place built 110 years ago.THAT's how badly people want to live in Berkeley or Santa Monica, or the very few other pockets that are NOT the rest of the U.S. -- with all their traffic, record homelessness within 10 miles, Oakland PD too busy with violent crime to investigate property crimes, etc.Small problem: these are funded by switching from other inflated houses and investments. Only without jobs or tech stocks at 50-100X valuations, there won't be anyone to buy all these houses, and you can't retire to a house with $20K/year in taxes.
| yes | 8,046 |
The problem is that Arizona does not yet have an open primary top two system in place. If it did, there would not be a problem. Either Gallego ir Sinema would finsish second in the primary and then face off against the Republican in the general election. This is why Sinema went independent- to avoid the Democratic primary and run directly in the general election. Because Arizona does not have a top two primary, the Republican is likely win the general election if Sinema and Gallego are both running.
| yes | 9,897 |
Full Name Most Americans get little real value from the taxes they pay.What I call the security state chews up $1.3 trillion a year to support cost plus contracts for the Military Industrial Complex, a militarized police and Prison Industrial Complex to fight an unwinnable war on drugs and ever more invasive security which in the end will be used by the right wing and fascists to maintain permanent control should voters ever be so unwise as to hand it to them.The government's portion of health care spending alone exceeds what all other countries pay for health care, as a portion of their GNP. Then nearly as much again is spent privately to provide gold plated care for the top 10% and very inadequate or nonexistent for the rest. Somehow about half of Americans continue to be taken in by this swindle. The Republicans have access to a lot of dark money to do this.
| no | 2,239 |
The recent revelation about access by obscure and privileged groups is what is more alarming. If, for years, organisations such ALEC and the Federalist Society and the Scalia 'mafia' alumni clerks circumvented the course of justice, by being open to influence, then the constitutional legitimacy of SCOTUS has been undermined and should be challenged. Now that all branches of government are proving to be as dysfunctional as the US Post Service, we should be very worried. I agree with another reader on separate news item, who noted that the SCOTUS is now on par with the Religious Council in Iran. The Court has issued proclamations that are out of step with democratic values and expressed wishes of the citizens. Expand it or gut it.♟️
| yes | 5,237 |
Can we talk about Rebekah Mercer and Peter Thiel's involvement in OpenAI? I have concerns.
| no | 3,887 |
My admittedly incomplete understanding for the dramatically decreased values of tech firms stems from the denominator of the net present value formula.Taking the simple annuity formula as an example, for a tech firm expected to make X dollars profit annually.NPV=X/r, where r can be the risk-free rate, the discount rate, or the cap rate.Until recently r as a risk free rate was a very small number, like 0.01. Depending on risk, in terms of a cap rate it could have been say, 0.05.However, now with inflation and risk thrown in the real risk-free rate is closer to 5%, and a risk bearing cap rate might be 10%, and consequently the corporate valuations have decreased by 50-80%.That may all be over-simplified, but it's inescapable that in many cases the new, lower valuations are NPVs tied to higher discount rates. Now I can go back to practicing my tuba.
| yes | 5,411 |
How is minting the trillion-dollar coin any more gimmicky or undignified than the behavior that is making a solution like that necessary in the first place? The reality is that the Republican Party, over the past several decades of its current iteration as the "fiscally conservative" party, has spent nonexistent money on their own boondoggles, pork, and giveaways to the ultrarich donors as a reward for funding their political careers. Now, as in prior years, they want to exploit public ignorance over the nature of a legislatively self-imposed financial limit in order to fraudulently portray themselves as the fiscally responsible half of a profligate government.If Pres. Biden ultimately orders a trillion-dollar coin be minted, it will be after one of the two major parties has already degraded the credibility and dignity of our government with their repulsive lies and grandstanding. It's a "gimmicky" solution to a gimmicky and idiotic manufactured crisis, so the undignified silliness cancels itself out as far as I'm concerned. The coin would ensure that soldiers and bondholders get paid, and it would put the box of matches out of the reach of this giant, petulant toddler we call the Republican Party. It's a win-win.
| yes | 6,017 |
Maybe it’s their consistent policy of treating customers like they don’t matter. I have had the worst shopping experience ever with BBB. I bought and quickly returned a bathrobe three months ago (a bday gift for my wife) and still have not received a refund and they are acting like it’s my fault, but they got the robe back and insist they refunded me. Haven’t seen it hit my bank account. Should I hurry up and sue them for the $59 before they shut down? Lol. It just shows how you have build a company from the bottom up and remember what drives your profits.
| no | 516 |
When I was looking for a therapist to treat my depression, I called the physician who was head of NIMH to ask for a referral. (No I didn't not know him but he had a very impressive national reputation). He asked me some questions and then said "I recommend you see this person." I said can I have one or two additional names in case this person doesn't have an opening? He replied "If he doesn't have an opening, tell him the referral came from me and say you'll wait till he has an opening."This kind of stuff can sound like being uncooperative but in my case, it led me to the person who became my therapist for 17 years. He was outstanding in every way. Therapy with him saved my life.This was when I was in my 30s. I'm in my 70s now and I often feel waves of gratitude that I wound up with the therapist I did. I needed to wait for an appointment but he was the right guy.Therapy is a huge investment of time and money. Be careful about getting a referral and be prepared to wait. Also make an initial appointment with someone involve some carefully considered questions. Even if the questions don't turn out to be useful, its better to have the questions to start a discussion instead of just walking in and having no idea what to ask.I guess my recommendation here is be careful who you ask for the referral and then be prepared to wait for an opening. A really good therapist may not be able to schedule you immediately, you may need to wait for a while.
| yes | 7,127 |
I got invited on a thrifting date recently, which was fun to get out somewhere, but the sad part is my date was really only interested in getting me to borrow all the money I could (I have two unsecured lines of credit each with a $50,000 limit) so she can invest in some kind of a tavern / bar / convenience store in Costa Rica. Obviously I’m not that stupid but it’s sad when the only reason anybody associates with you is because you look like you’re going to be their scam victim. It’s discouraging, you know?I don’t even bother getting involved in social media, there’s almost nothing online that isn’t a scam or a con. I don’t think I ever really figured out how to socialize with anybody without them trying to con me into something, or out of something. The only people who call anymore are con artists.
| yes | 5,156 |
I agree with much of what Ezra says about books, reading, and bookstores in general. I just don't trust this article, and am surprised that Ezra, a journalist, is so "trusting" of Daunt and his optimistic reporting about how well Barnes and Noble is doing. I worked at a Barnes and Noble in Houston, TX and most of the time, staff had to be sent home because the store was not making enough money for payroll. Moreover, most of the product sold was non-book items such as games, candles, journals, cards and other assorted tchotchkes. And the stress of working there made it a real drag for most of the employees given how little we made. (I'm sure latte sipping Ezra and his "kind" just thought this place was heaven.) Most of the stores inside the loop in Houston have closed. But Daunt says they're planning to open 30 new stores. Interesting. I love bookstores, but would like to see more smaller, independently owned stores open if that is possible. Barnes and Noble needs to go away!
| yes | 5,947 |
This is a great project that adds to our system, so let's celebrate that it's done. This infrastructure will last generations--my subway station was built around 1907. Cost overruns and delays will soon be forgotten. This would not have been my vote for $12 bn of capital dollars, but wherever it went, others would have complained. Parts of Queens and Brooklyn need service, the 2nd Ave line should be completed, the airports should be connected, etc. Yet, if one of those projects was done instead, the rest of the region would complain that it didn't help them.How about for a day we forget the complaints and just celebrate an improvement that will last generations?
| yes | 5,008 |
Technology for EV is on a steeper growth curve than sales in Nations such as Norway. People in the U.S, especially those writing about EV transit talk of various sources of pessimism for the use of the EV, but they look to a model somewhat frozen in time. ICE vehicles have evolved and we have all sorts of changes made since the 1920s to the Otto Engine and some challengers such as the Wankel Engine, mostly used by Mazda in the past.Compared to that, EV is moving tremendously fast. Whether with or without stationary solenoid, the EV Motor is itself simple. It needs little modification and is inherently much more efficient with fewer moving parts. Most of the technology is new batteries or applications. People need to know that an EV car 2-5 years from now is likely to have many new changes to it.Lithium slurry batteries exist now, but much better batteries are likely to come with less problematic mining concerns, less volatility (fire risk -never high- will lessen) and with even new sources of charging.Hyundai has a solar hybrid technology which can extend life of batteries. Lithium Iron Phosphate is more efficient and Texas Instruments has optimized its management by better supervision of charge management.New potential battery technologies can supply more energy in lesser weight and volume displacement improving the range.The U.S has to realize that the potential of EV performance has only just scratched the surface of what is possible.
| yes | 8,282 |
Years ago I worked at a company that built sideshows for big corporate presentations. Clients would send the content and we would format the slides (actual slides!). The process was slow and expensive, so clients made only a few rounds of changes.The business died out when slideshows shifted to PowerPoint. How great was it that companies could create their own presentations in-house!Turns out, not so great. Highly paid executives were now spending hours deciding what font to use, searching for clip art, wrestling with Microsoft’s maddening formatting challenges, and trying to figure out if version V4.final.final.ppt was actually the final version. Those secretaries and copy editors and art departments did a lot of specialized and often tedious work for the knowledge workers and gave them time to do what they were being paid to do: think.
| no | 1,110 |
It’s something of paradox that a nation that acts so tribal and one sided in recent times can, slowly but surely, now enact new laws and policies of open thought with wider open eyes!Now, young lives will no longer be destroyed, in such high numbers, by archaic and draconian laws that sapped the revenues and time of law enforcement as well as the courts and incarceration system. Let’s now put that revenue and police time to better use.
| no | 489 |
Richard There were good reasons to release the videos. One among them is to lay bare the full extent of these wrongs and make them undeniable. Look at the result when Emmett Till’s mother insisted on an open casket. Sometimes we have to force ourselves to look in order to fully see the problem.I did not want to watch the videos but considered it a civic duty. As A.O. Scott wrote in the Times, “The cost of looking is thinking about what you see.” I thought I knew what the videos would show, but I was wrong. It is far, far worse. The videos make absolutely clear that the problem is systemic, not just “bad apples.”
| yes | 6,897 |
I wish winemakers and distributors here in the US did a better job with a very common practice in Europe: selling half bottles. Sure, there are usually 1-2 options of wine varieties (why may or may not be my preference) - but when pressed, the retailers claim they don’t sell. But is it a case of the chicken or the egg? Personally, I don’t drink enough to justify opening a good bottle of wine, so I revert to the canned cocktails if I just want something at home. Offer a few more selections of good wines, and I’d be glad to pay $15 -$20 for a smaller bottle.
| yes | 5,322 |
Microsoft's customer service has completely expired. Just try to get a credit for an erroneous charge. The website is a disaster of confusion.
| no | 642 |
This is a weirdly pessimistic article. We're spending $200 Billion Dollars, in effect, to restart our domestic chip industry, but it won't instantly cure all our problems? That's hardly news. The trip to Rome starts with the first step.
| no | 4,746 |
I like this guy. California is a good fit for a heretical prince. California has a lot of weird healing traditions, some deservedly mocked, but increasingly The Establishment is coming around to the efficacy of formerly woo-woo paths like psychedelics, mindfulness, and trauma therapy. If Harry shines a light on all that, well I'm for it! He's a vet too, so that helps open American minds with more, shall we say, conservative proclivities.As for the man himself, anybody who lost a parent they way he did deserves a break. And as a long term partner om a biracial marriage I can also attest to the constant drone of prejudice that is a part of the black American experience. Harry is learning all about that, believe me.This prince might just become a healing figure after all. Wouldn't that be a fairy tale ending!
| no | 651 |
GeritheGreek Unfortunately the windows in many high rise buildings don’t open. We have created a situation in which we are completely dependent upon the technologies and fuels that created the problem in the first place.
| yes | 6,455 |
By helping Ukraine extend the war into attempting to evict Russia from Crimea the Biden administration is demonstrating its desire for this war to go on indefinably. It most certainly will not result in showing Russia that its control of Crimea can be threatened, as the article asserts. Russia has been digging in their positions in the territory they hold in the Donbas, so Ukraine's fall offensive is over and the war will revert to the slow slog it has been before Ukraine's surprised the world with its fall offensive.However the idea that Putin simply plans to sit by and allow things to go on as they have is not simply a naive assumption on the part of Biden, and goes against what both Ukrainian military intelligence claim along with what Russian military officials say, according to CNBC. They both say that Putin plans on drafting 500,000 troops and to train and prepare them for a spring offensive. These troops will be well equipped with the thousands of tanks Russia has along with thousands upon thousands of mechanized heavy artillery in addition the many thousands of heavy artillery guns they have yet to bring into the war.NATO and Biden will quickly see that Russia is the only country fully equipped to fight a world war, and the desire to prolong a war with a Putin and Russia who cannot afford to lose is an idea they will come to regret. After all Russia's MO has always been to return with much stronger and larger forces when they are met with initial defeat.
| yes | 7,247 |
Sirlar "Now, debt free, this young man will be able to carry on the business."So the original owner just gave up decades of investment?But, you are correct about the plague. I wouldn't call it the best times, but it did spark economic and educational growth.
| no | 2,077 |
Talking about the age of fake.I don't know if anyone read this unbelievable story, but it's a fake that work:<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/business/jpmorgan-chase-charlie-javice-fraud.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/business/jpmorgan-chase-charlie-javice-fraud.html</a>'How Charlie Javice Got JPMorgan to Pay $175 Million for … What Exactly?A young founder promised to simplify the college financial aid process. It was a compelling pitch. Especially, as now seems likely, to those with little firsthand knowledge of financial aid.'CON woman adventure, I just wonder if there is a happy ending in this phantasmagorical story.Great movie material! Hollywood should get to work!
| no | 1,864 |
I’m sure drinking only water is best for everyone’s health.I’m pushing 60 and already feel blessed with long life following the decimation of friends during the 1980s from AIDS. My mother suffered an aneurysm at age 75, and July 2023 will mark the ten year reunion of that event. It isn’t clear for anyone that the extension has been a gift.I work for a 91-year old with dementia. Today his wife told me she’s spoken to his doctor, and they will probably stop his medications to allow him to pass, because he is suffering, confused, and terrified at night.Longevity is overrated. Live as happy a life as you can. Alcohol for centuries has been a simple joy. Don’t drink if you don’t want to. But I will not stop moderate drinking. I don’t need to win an imaginary prize.
| no | 1,411 |
EC Christopher"10 Trillion in wealth has officially been wiped out in the markets at the moment."Ditto"...If an investor projects the next five(5) years of ROI / ROE for the global equity markets to be zero ? This will not be a normal biz cycle since awaiting the Fed Chair Powell PUT before the next Presidential election cycle... Many reference "the pain trade" instead of increasing allocation to cash equivalents & rebalance each diversified portfolio periodically... Simple estate planning advice for the middle class, tho... Just sayin'
| yes | 8,335 |
The Indigenous Environmental Network, led by Tom Goldtooth, has been carrying these messages for decades. The entire capitalist model is built on exploitation and growth, a devastating calculous over time. In my book Coyote Warrior, I tell the story of the architect who was hired by the DOD to come up with some fool proof way of telling people 10,000 years from now that the nuclear waste at Hanford was lethal to all living things. The nearby Yakima tribe was holding it's annual powwow and the chief invited the architect to join him for the opening feast and festival. Over dinner the chief asked him:"What is your purpose here, can we help?"We're here to design a solution to the nuclear waste buried at Hanford for people who will come along 10,000 years from now.""Oh," replied the chief. "You don't have to worry about that, we'll tell 'em."The reductionism of western science, and the exploitive engines of the capitalist growth economy, have combined to disassociate human beings from the natural world, as if human cultures exist 'apart from' those systems...when, in fact, we are utterly dependent on the very sources of wisdom and sustenance that we are destroying at an ever accelerating rate. I've always found Aldo Leopold's quote to be deeply prescient...ah, the green fire in the wolf's eyes that changed the direction of that man's life has been a gift to us all. Indeed, she is correct...pushing back is a joyful dance.
| no | 4,714 |
Former Speaker John Boehner - a Republican - calls Nancy Pelosi the best speaker of the modern era, with great reason.During her first speakership, Pelosi publicly opposed the invasion of Iraq, the Iraq War catastrophe and the Bush administration's greedy attempts to partially privatize Social Security. Pelosi shepherded the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the 2010 Tax Relief Act through Congress to make the country and its citizens much better off and healthier.During her second speakership, the House twice impeached scofflaw Donald Trump and Pelosi led the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.Compare that record to laws that Republican Speakers helped pass.....laws that gave the country more tax cuts for the rich, more guns and more forced birthing for everyone else.See any difference ?No wonder the the right-wing industrial propaganda complex spends all its time attacking progressive minded women like Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who try to bring positive change to the USA's Grand Old Patriarchy.The right actively markets misogyny to their addled, patriarchal masses in their eternal quest for power, greed and male domination.Nancy Pelosi is a great American.
| yes | 5,474 |
617to416 One of my former bosses, the CEO of our medium-sized company, believed that if you had a good candidate for an open position, grab them (no matter sex or ethnicity), and if you had a good worker, hold on to them. If you have a good performer, you would be performing managerial malpractice to deliberately chisel on their salary relative to others on staff just because they were a woman or otherwise. Good performers should be held on to...
| yes | 8,483 |
We're making a big mistake by taking this route. Instead of working with China, we're actively trying to cripple China to maintain our worldwide hegemony.Why is this bad? Because what we're doing will result in our being worse off than if we just cooperated with China. Why? At its simplest, China will build their infrastructure to make those chips we've been selling to them and this is business that we will never get back.Our arrogance led us to believe that China can never achieve this. Never is a long time. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. Huawai has already patented technology to build the core EUV tech needed for nanochips.Secondly, we don't have the talent to make these chips, we'll depend on Taiwan talent for this. Even in Taiwan their yields are only around 50% for the 3 nanometer chips. With our native talent, you think we can get better yields than Taiwan?Lastly, by the time we're actually up and running there will most likely be a glut of chips on the market driving the price down. This makes our investment next to worthless.
| yes | 6,649 |
Greed rules this country, and unregulated capitalism is the blueprint for the unscrupulous.That includes a good many of us. And then, there's the lack of education. I lived in one of the states that comprise the Bible belt. If Jesus said it, that was the science and the law of it. So many of these adherents are home schooling their young, sowing more of the seeds of discontent of this country. So, these elements become poorer and poorer, and the 1% become richer and richer, robbing them of any possibility of improving their lot. Okay, that's a simplification of a huge problem bringing this country to decline. Sure, there's a lack of integrity in our Congress, there's dishonesty in our representatives, there's ownership of our leaders by the lobbies that use them. So, let's change some rules, let's get corporations out of Congress, get term limits, start requiring children to go to secular schools, let's attack poverty, let's do what Scandinavia has done, and invest in our people, not enrich our politicians, give bonuses to brokers, charge our youth for their college education, bankrupt an ill citizen, and have sensible gun laws. I'm such a dreamer. The reality is that we are declining and Trump was the evidence of the illness in our country.
| no | 3,635 |
Toni China's demographic cliff is a very real problem. Youth unemployment might be high right now, but the rapidly rising numbers of retirees will quickly swamp the available labor force as they transition from productive adults to a massive cohort of non-productive, low-consuming seniors. When paired with China's looming real estate market issues, this will absolutely have serious impacts on China's ability to continue growing (and therefore funding debt via prospective investment). The demographic problem will almost immediately become an economic one.For anyone interested in an in-depth analysis of the very real and very pressing crisis of China's waning demographic dividend, I would recommend PolyMatter's "Demographic Collapse - China's Reckoning" on YouTube.
| no | 705 |
One of the very first things we can do is find a way to prevent developers of AI applications like ChatGPT from using our writing, our art, our music, in training their systems. When we post our writing, none of us ever imagined it would be used for something like this. The developers of ChatGPT and other intelligent applications that train on open content are stealing from us. There is already a move among artists to find ways to make their images offlimits - the rest of us need that capability too.
| yes | 8,984 |
SMB Yes, and where did that $700,000 come from? I'll bet both she and "my Kevin" know
| no | 4,560 |
One can only wonder if Intel had taken the billions of dollars it used to manipulate financial markets with that ubiquitous tool of incompetent management known as the stock buy-back and instead invested in its design processes and fabrication technologies whether this chip would have been so delayed and whether the industry as a whole would have needed the federal life preserver/incompetent management bailout known as the CHIPS act. Perhaps the CHIPS act should have had claw-back provisions to take back the bonuses of the managers and executives who engineered this mess...
| yes | 8,043 |
Madrugada Mistral When our kids were young, during our travels, we always would seek out bookstores or books in giftshops. We were strong library supporters as well and what you say is true and applies to your local library's other services, workshops, lectures, website, and online offerings as well. In fact, on my property tax bill (which I just paid a little over a month ago) the library portion is $659. I used to smile, years ago, when my kids would tell me they could borrow tapes and DVDs "free" at the library as they were exchanging books there as well. I realize costs and services varies greatly by locale. You, nevertheless, owe it to yourself to make use of the library. I think, these days, most libraries work hard to stay relevant.
| yes | 7,800 |
Hold onto to your tickets, folks, you may want a full refund of whatever you might have invested in this spectacle. The Republicans have now driven their clown car of a party right into the halls of Congress, attempting to repeat the passionate paranoid probe of patriotism by the Right on Jan. 6 by refashioning it into a neatly packaged three-ring circus destined to not go away until the American people have another chance to take away the keys from these kleptocratic bamboozlers and certified con men in 2022.The chief among them are well known, the ilk of Boebert, Taylor-Green, and Gaetz, etc now joined by Santos - hey Santos would make a great 22Speaker, dontcha think? But what about the tolerant silent majority, who along with McCarthy, seem incapable of restoring a modicum of sanity in the party's agenda. The implosion of the party in Illinois - and a determination to stay that course - suggests the infection is systemic. As is the solution as Dem majorities begin setting down roots in places like Michigan and Arizona. State politics reflect local politics, too, so this id the start of a generational shift in the opposite direction as strong as Reagan led into the party 4 decades ago. The exodus is already apparent in suburban Chicago, where a decade ago brand R was a reliable contender. The shamefully suborned abortion ruling finished off positive R results there for as far as the eye can see. The real Q is how many clowns in the car to get McCarthy elected?
| yes | 9,262 |
I spend so much of my time fielding emails and reacting to pings that I have lost most of my ability to think slow and deep. I have become like a trained circus animal, performing acts like answering a text or liking a post, that have little relationship to the real work I'm supposed to be doing. Even if I cook a meal I've got my computer open on the counter in front of me and I rarely watch a TV show of longer than 20 minutes without pulling out my computer or looking at my phone. This is not how I expected to spend my mid- and later-life!
| yes | 6,574 |
There are nearly 20 Republican House members whose assets exceed $10 million. If the Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling, I suspect their financial advisors will be on the phone with them, explaining why their assets are going in the wrong direction. Hopefully, these 20 members will have a Damascus moment and tell their more radical colleagues that their own self-interest trumps any fabulist quest to play chicken.
| no | 453 |
ABC Are you aware of the fact that the government didn't prepare enough medicine for Chinese people, they refused western vaccine provided for Chinese people, and people over 65 were not vaccinated enough in China. They spent 3 years and billions of dollars for the zero covid policy and for strengthening dictatorship, but they didn't help the world and their Chinese people at all. They dropped policy over night without any preparation of anything. This is no difference than slaughtering. The protests were desperately needed in China. But the tragedy and the casualty were completely caused by the regime!
| no | 3,753 |
This is vulture capitalism at its very worst. These firms buy up companies, cut costs and workers, have no idea as to how relationships with the franchisees clients work and how important they are, destroy the human element and then turn around and sell it for a large profit. This happened with my father’s company. A private firm bought it, combined it with another company — which was struggling badly — put the other company’s CEO I charge of my dad’s firm and the fired him and me. They then turned what was once a well-run, relationship-built firm into some kind of monstrosity and sold it to a sucker for over 300 million dollars. Dad’s company never recovered and barely makes a profit. The good thing is my father made enough on the same to retire and live easily for the rest of his life. By the way, the company that bought the new monstrosity lost so much money on the deal they had to sell it just a couple of years later!
| yes | 7,739 |
I seriously doubt Google, Meta, or Microsoft are at any risk of an employee sabotaging a digital asset. Companies of any size have a “promote to production” process that strictly controls what is implemented and when, with procedures to back out changes. Access to make changes to systems is limited, and the access to production systems is frequently not even an actual person, but a process. Accounts that do have “critical” access are very limited, and there are processes in place to quickly cut off this access in case of a security issue.What I suspect is happening is that it’s easier for the company to lay everybody off at once, and simply deactivate these people in their access and authentication system. The managers making these decisions then avoid awkward conversations informing people they’ve been let go, or having to debate decisions with people defending their team. The larger concern is companies don’t want people copying things they’ve worked on or contacts. Employees will sign some type of non-disclosure to get their severance, but information has a value to you even if you’d never actually disclose it. It’s a complete and utter management failure to not speak with employees you’ve let go. Even if you provide managers with a script so they don’t say stupid things, part of management is doing difficult things. It’s easier to just make people disappear, but this approach says a lot about the integrity, governance, and maturity of these firms
| yes | 8,404 |
I am not in the field of climate change. However I am a physician and scientist who has organized scientific conferences and supported advocacy actions by patients and families. The issues with your employer are different from the meeting organizers.1. For the Geophys Union, the concerns should be taken up with highest level group, likely the Board for a nonprofit. Find sympathetic members and have them advocate on your behalf. Most people in my field know I am more likely to be open to ideas so I am often the person contacted.2. For the employer, govt employees I know are restricted in their advocacy. even if your bos has accepted your actions before this doesn't mean that they will do so in the future nor is it necessarily incumbent on them to be consistent every time in accepting your actions.Ultimately you have to decide where on the spectrum between Insider and Outsider you want to be when it comes to advocacy. by Insider I mean working from within an organization/ field versus from the outside. Both are equally needed and both have pros and cons.If you are an Insider like me you won't get the attention that an outsider will get when progress is made. However it is still gratifying to see and you don't take the same career or financial risks.One thing you can do is reach out to the general public as you are doing today with this column. Not so much to explain your work position but to explain the science and why the public should act or vote in certain ways.
| yes | 6,379 |
Rich in Atlanta Addendum. BREAK also led me to do some other searches - specifically wondering about BREAKER - and I came across a quite remarkable puzzle: A Tuesday from October 8, 2013. Here's an example of a theme answer: 23 Across: Clue: "With 23 Across, CBer's opening. Answer: BREAKERAll the other theme answers were similarly clued, with a self-referential cross reference. Another example: Clue: "With 55-Across and 55-Across, real-estate catchphrase "Answer: LOCATIONSome other theme answers, similarly clued: PROMISESMONDAYHEARYECHOOPETERTINHEY..
| no | 4,242 |
Nancy Well, do a little research. The human cost is massive (996 for example) and it is the most polluted country to ever exist on earth. Then there's your basic authoritarianism, injustice, corruption, consumer safety, workplace recourse, and a suspicious amount of organ transplants. That's just the surface of what the CCP is up to
| yes | 6,185 |
Juan, a functioning government needs money to build roads and bridges and to have a military and all the millions of other things needed to operate. Republicans want the middle class to pay the bill.The 25 richest Americans are collectively worth $1.1 trillion. It takes 14.3 million average wage earners to tally the same wealth. The average earner group paid literally 70 times as much in income taxes in 2018 as the 25 richest Americans.The last time the IRS had fewer than 10,000 revenue agents was 1953, when the economy was a seventh of its current size. The only ones who benefit from a gutted IRS are the ultrawealthy and multi billion dollar corporations. “Tax compliance rates are high for low- and middle-income workers who have their taxes deducted automatically from their paychecks. The rich, however, are able to use accounting loopholes to shield their tax liabilities.”The top 1 percent are evading $163 billion a year in taxes, the Treasury finds.<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/business/irs-tax-avoidance.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/business/irs-tax-avoidance.html</a>
| no | 3,497 |
This is true, but since it was in the syllabus the student could have contacted the teacher privately. The professor explicitly expressed her openness to discussing this.
| no | 2,329 |
The government should honestly default on the debt and pay the bondholders 50 cents on the dollar. The creditors deserve to lose money because they knew when they lent the money that the government is insolvent.
| yes | 6,735 |
Baffling that your conclusions to the “slow, mediocre, and loud” public option isn’t re-entrenching investment in that option but to improve infrastructure to accommodate your automobile. As someone who used to live in the Bay Area, have you considered living closer to your location of work?
| no | 831 |
Expat India and Russia are old friends. Russia has helped India diplomatically, weapons sales, weapons developmentand production. BRAHMOS, India's cruise missilewas developed in collaboration with Russia.MOS stands for Moscow. Migs are producedIn India. Indian oil company has investmentin oil field, Sakhalin. It is a tangled relationship.Indians don't have the same view of the waras Americans. They don't view it as unprovokedaggression by Russia. They point to manyprovocations by the west too. Angela Markleand Holland have disclosed how they deceived Putin, pretending to negotiate Minsk Accordwhile arming and training Ukrainian army. What you see depends on where you stand.
| yes | 7,777 |
Kathy Lollock - Preach! But let's not fool ourselves that we're up against the corporate PAC/unlimited dark money crowd, who see the U.S. as primarily a place to incorporate their HQs while offshoring jobs, cosset executives and their families, provide access to universities, access to wide capital markets, legal protections to corporations deemed individuals, and low/no personal or corporate taxes. And not very many of our 600+ U.S. Billionaire$/Trillionaire$ are interested in strengthening the fabric of Americans' lives which you mention; we have enough U.S. Billionaire$/Trillionaire$ for each to individually fund a Congressional/Senatorial campaign every 2 years, with a surfeit of the 600+ left over, so that they could individually concentrate on Statehouse/Gubernatorial/Judicial elections. We should not fool ourselves.
| yes | 5,782 |
Erik McGuire Er... the dollar is backed by the might of the US taxation system, as well as by solid material assets such as one of the biggest countries on earth, that has amazing natural features (like the Mississippi system that offers cheap transport of agricultural goods to open oceans, and the inland waterway, etc.) as well as some pretty good infrastructure (bridges, roads, etc) that has been built over centuries all over it, as well as an impressive educational system, a mighty military and goodness knows what else. And crypto is backed by... what, again?
| yes | 7,150 |
Tom Top full retirement age benefit is currently about $3600/month. If you wait until 70 to retire, it’s currently about $4500/ month. So, about $43,000/yr, or $54,000 if you wait until 70, and have paid the most possible in tax through your working life.
| yes | 5,521 |
I think baseball should take the same approach as soccer does world wide - which is invest in a youth system (not the minor leagues, a youth system) in which a team can identify talent at very young age (again, like soccer does on the world stage) and they can develop that talent in their own youth systems. Unfortunately, as some noted below, the only kids who can play baseball are the ones whose parents have the money to pay for them to play in little league (or whatever it's called these days). That means that there are many talented kids with impoverished backgrounds who cannot participate and learn the fundamentals of the game. Teams here would be allowed to scout their own communities whether urban or rural, to find and develop players (some of whom may certainly be kids of color). Of course, this would require and investment on the part of the teams. However, based on the monstrous contracts teams are throwing and players, this doesn't seem like it would be a drop in the bucket. But teams may feel that they are investing in developing a kid only to see that kid go to college or whatever or get scooped up by another team. A way around that would be the team would have the right to sign that player when they reach a certain age (say, 16 - remember Jose Oquendo?) as a "home grown" in the way that teams in the MLS does or in other world soccer leagues such as Spain, Argentina, Brazil, the Netherlands, etc.)
| no | 4,359 |
Quite right. TFFG's influence that brought the holdouts to power has now become wholly absorbed into the holdouts' self-identity, and whatever further influence they can now manifest. They own it on their own. TFFG's year is about the idea of that power being entirely about him. He becomes an island. For the dozens of reasons already outlaid, that island is receding.Thus to the House. TFFG - what's the word; it's not "supporters" - consorts such as Jim Jordan are set to utilize their positions which place an immensely strong attention on TFFG's direct or implicated circumstances.On their own - issues of privilege, for example - are worthy of House interrogation. At the heart of these is the matter of public service, respect and what is fair and good for representatives of the people. Normally, that is a beneficial act in democratic pursuit. But by tying TFFG to it, directly or implicitly, the entire Committee(s) procedure is tainted. I believe the wider public will eventually be disgusted. (And sick of the sound of Jim Jordan's voice.) Not the diehards, of course -- who along with the ranting receding TFFG island are set to define the Republican Party. As "unfit to govern". Add in DeSantis who will throw his own political bombs at his opponent, bringing to the forefront the TFFG unfitness any Committee cannot.Short term, Jordan's ravages will work. But the wider public won't take two years of it. Holdouts, Jordan and TFFG can seal the party's irredeemable fate.
| no | 191 |
For several years we have sent my children to an after-school math program which has changed my perspective on affirmative action. As a part of this program, my kids do extra math homework every night (now years ahead of grade level), they have tutoring sessions twice per week, and they spend many Saturdays doing math competitions. Participants put in hundreds of hours per year doing extra math.My kids are white - I'm mixed-race, but they pass as and largely identify as white - and they and some recent Russian immigrants are the only white children who have stuck with the program for more than a couple of weeks. (There is also a Black family, now dear friends.) All other participants, 150 students or more, are Asian-American. I note this program is advertised to all in the public schools.Our experiences with the extended math program have shown me two things. 1. "Asian" is an awful demographic. The children are virtually all Asian-American, but that includes people with Chinese, Indian, Korean, Japanese, Kazakh, and Filipino heritage, among others. That is, this is itself an immensely diverse group. 2. It is criminal that these kids will find it harder to get into elite colleges than peers from underrepresented groups (or my own kids). Few, if any, are rich. All are spending Saturdays and weekday afternoons, for years, doing extra math. They are preparing, at great opportunity cost, for elite academic work - and elite colleges don't want them, entirely for racial reasons.
| no | 1,018 |
John I am heartbroken for this loss.My best friend and master musician in high school Mark Gougeon, led me into the universe of music by way of Jeff Beck and the "Truth" album. Then he took me to the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, 1969, to see The Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart on vocals.Cannot ever forget the commanding opening number.We went back to see them again for the Beck-Ola tourAnd one more time in 1971.There are no words to describe the influence he has had on well, everyone. If you don't know, well now you know.Look up the videos for a thorough schooling.My big regret is missing out in a few chances to see him with Imelda May. But he was at Bonnaroo.Farewell indeed.
| yes | 8,595 |
The Catholic church's primary goal is, and always has been, protection of its estimated one trillion dollars in assets. Rather than use this massive wealth to feed the poor or compensate victims of its sexual labuse, Benedict approved Dolan's transfer of $57 million to a cemetery fund, where it could not be reached to satisfy claims. All the while, he lived in luxury in an array of palaces.Revered conservative? I think not.
| yes | 6,907 |
My husband and I are avid hikers here in Colorado. We live near enough to Rocky Mountain National Park to take an easy day trip there, as well as many other glorious places even within a 25-minute drive of our home. We are both also avid photographers - of the landscape, preferably without a human in it. We have long lenses, in-between, and macro so that our range can extend from the "epic" landscape to minute details of leaves and lacy ice patterns. I'm appalled when we visit New York City and observe as people take their selfies in front of everything, including Van Gogh's "Starry Night." Straight-up photography, where one's eye is trained on one's surroundings, really does teach us to truly see. Selfies are but a visual diary of Look At Me, I Was There - with the emphasis on "I."
| no | 805 |
What does a single person account for? The age of the singular genius seemed to have been passed as much as a century ago. Then came Elon Musk. Since 2002, he has made the smart electric car desirable, sparking greatest change in the auto industry since the 1920's and significantly slowing global warming, he's built Starling, his satellite Internet that has had as great an impact to war as nuclear devices, and SpaceX that has vastly reduced the cost of space travel and is opening the solar system to exploitation and colonization, and invigorating the optimism that will propel Humanity to explore the Cosmos when quantum computers unlock the secret to interstellar travel. And, he did all that by the age of 50.
| no | 4,026 |
We currently spend less than half on R&D than we did in the postwar years. Worse yet, funding in many areas has neglected basic research in favor of work that has a clear economic benefit. This is shortsighted; we are eating the seed corn of innovation.One example of how it is not possible to foresee the application of research: At first, Einstein's 1915 General Relativity theory was knowledge at it most abstruse. Few understood it. Among its its first implications were black holes and expanding universes. More than 60 years later, in 1978 the US first launched a Navstar satellite, the beginning of the Global Positioning System (GPS) now so fundamental to many technologies. Without general relativity, GPS positions would be off by kilometers.
| yes | 7,061 |
Carlos It's pretty clear that the 'price' of this war will cost Americans infinitely more in the long term, should Russia be allowed to win. There is the difference between buying vs investing in something - in this case, the stability of the Western world, democracy, rule of law. Isolationism has not worked out spectacularly well for the US in the past... it's even less likely to do so now.
| no | 1,221 |
Rob And the shareholders who think they are supposed to get 10% every quarter. Of course, our government created that with the creation of IRAs. Everyone wants their nest egg to grow so they can retire. It allowed employers to get off the hook for pensions and created jobs for financial consultants who do nothing to make money.
| yes | 9,472 |
spud Huge profits and multi-million dollar compensation packages for the C-suite
| no | 1,907 |
Donald Trump cheated the American taxpayers out of billions of dollars in fraudulent write offs. And his father did the same before him. Trump's $1.6 million fine is a slap in the face of every American taxpayer.
| no | 1,271 |
$292 million towards a $30 billion project that, based on the experience with every other train project in NYC, will cost 3-4 times as much. Yup, that will get it done.
| no | 2,642 |
Me too! What an easy way to make money! I’d even offer to share the windfall with my friends and family afterwards. If it were $100 million, surely they’d forgive me and we could all laugh our way to the bank.
| yes | 7,836 |
I get all the Schadenfreude, but if they end up with less than about 5 million dead, they still "win". Though, I do think they could've done better on 2 fronts:1- More vaxxing and boosting. Not even necessary with fancy mRNAs, but they definitely could've used a little more. 2- Despite and sort of vaxxing or prepping ripping off the bandaid is inherently painful. The CCP needed to spend a little more time outlining the rationale behind the pivot from zero COVID and acknowledging that the country would enter a period of hardship and loss. In other words, a little leadership and a little handholding. But with or without these things, opening up unavoidably costs many lives and this is nothing to celebrate. Hopefully, for them and for the world, COVID is something that we will all be able to successively "live with". It is sad that something that really highlights our shared humanity and vulnerabilities has intensified divisions.
| yes | 8,599 |
Perry J. Greenbaum (Lifelong Liberal) This is going to kill plenty of older adults who are in good health, not just the frail. China has essentially declared open season for the death of millions of older adults. I strongly disagree with the notion that China could not have done anything more. It could have employed mRNA vaccines on a repeated basis rather than the far less effective Chinese vaccines, it could have used a more balanced approach to the whole process.
| no | 4,817 |
A Right. So she shouldn't have agreed to attend a show that cost $400.00 .
| yes | 6,386 |
Timshel The US spends about 5% of her military budget on Ukraine. Most of this is pent in the US buying from our companies.5%.By conservative estimates, Russia has lost about 50% of it's military strength. 50%.Who do you think will win this?
| no | 273 |
Here is the 1040 part: The government will collect taxes for Social Security at 6.2% up to $160,200 for income earned in 2023. High wage earners regardless of income therefore will not pay more than $9,932.40 in 2023. Either eliminate or substantially raise the these caps (e.g., to $5 million?) and the huge gap in funding entitlements would be largely solved. At the current rate, a person earning $2 million would pay $124,000 (which translate to an 82% increase) to Social Security. For Medicare tax, the is a paltry 1.45% up to $200,00 and 2.3% for earnings in excess of $200,000. Raising or eliminate the wage cap would have similar dramatic effects on revenue. On the other side, Social Security is not an investment vehicle and any "returns on investment" should not be treated as such. It is societal safety net, but it is doubtful that anyone who has paid into Social Security declines to take the benefit because he or she is too rich and does not need it and leaves in the fund for the public good. Thus the other part of the math is to impose a maximum limit on how much a person can receive from Social Security regardless of income and/or payment history.
| yes | 7,737 |
"In particular, McElroy urges the church to shelve any meaningful judgment on sexual relationships and to open communion to “all of the baptized,” presumably including Protestants. "Someone should tell Douthat that the Sulpicians of Notre Dame, in Montreal -- le Jérusalem en terre froide" -- call to Communion each Sunday all those who believe in Christ. The horror, oh the horror. Concerning the judging people's sexual relationships, the priesthood does not actually lack experience of such relationships -- though where it exists it is usually not of a healthy or honest sexuality. Nobody's perfect.And Cardinal Pell does not exactly represent a model of clerical behaviour, although he beat the rap.There is nothing wrong with the Roman Cattholic Church that could not be cured by abandoning the imperial ambitions of a millenium, and returning to the teachings of its alleged Founder, rather than continuing to elaborate those of 1000 years of conspiring Curial bureaucrats.
| yes | 5,986 |
Exxon broke all records in 2022 with a $56 BILLION profit (not earnings) - every single dollar of that came directly out of our pockets in the form of overpriced (never mind toxic and planet-killing) fossil fuel products and went straight into the pockets of shareholders and executives, not into increasing employee compensation, not into reducing prices at the pump, not into cleaning up their filthy products or expanding production/refining of them.Kroger, the massive grocery chain, pulled well over $30 BILLION in profits (not earnings) straight out of the pockets of US consumers last year while squeezing employees - employees who put their lives on the line for their jobs over the past 3 years - and squeezing consumers who are often captive due to limited time and bandwidth to comparison shop at 5 markets.What pundits are calling "inflation" is an orchestrated redistribution of wealth and wages from the bottom 90% of the pyramid to the top 10% of the pyramid. It's not increased wages or "flooding the market" with the scraps people got from the government during COVID, it's market dominance, collusion and corruption.Who is willing to talk about that? Not the Wall Street water-carriers in the media and elected office, that's for sure.
| yes | 7,442 |
The Russians, and not just Putin, see this war with NATO as existential one. They cannot afford to lose it no matter the cost, so they will never back down. This is a war to the end. If anyone thinks Russia will simply disengage, you clearly don't understand the Russians. The US/NATO cannot back down either as they have invested over $150B in just 10 months and the very credibility of NATO alliance is on stake. If Russia wins, then there's good chance that NATO will cease to exist which will be death knell for US global hegemony as well.With both sides determined to fight to the end, further escalation is given until we reach the point of direct NATO-Russia confrontation. At that point, we're all doomed.
| yes | 9,822 |
Nit everyone in tech gets nice severance. I was a data scientist at Seagate for 5 years before getting laid off. My takehome severance after tax was just above 10k.
| yes | 8,171 |
Harsh - There are good people in Russia, too. There are scientists, musicians, writers and many others whose careers have been hurt. There are brave Russians doing their best to protest in what little way is open. And, of course, those who can and are young are leaving. I've met Russians in my travels who were truly good people, not to mention those who have emigrated to the U.S.Americans in the past 50 years have tried to be very fair to Russians, in part compensation for the excesses of the early 50s. Watch "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming," 1966, and you will see how Americans reached out in peace, not just in the movies. This film made a deep impression on the public at the time. I think most Americans were rooting for Russia after the fall of the USSR, and hoping democracy would take root. How much of what has transpired was the fault of the Russian people is hard to say. Either way, they are paying a heavy price. It is natural to be angry for all this. But I hope that we do not fall into hatred for Russia and the Russian people. One of the finest things about President Biden's handling of this is that he has not stirred up anger toward Russians. What is happening to Russians, what Putin is doing to them, just makes me sad.
| yes | 5,113 |
Large investment firms, foreign and domestic, are buying up US housing. And, wealthy Americans are buying second and third homes and TAKING THEM OFF THE MARKET in order to rent them as short-term (airBB) rentals.With so much of our housing stock now in this short-term rental scheme there are not enough homes and apartments left for normal housing.Again: capitalism, and the chasing of the next almighty dollar, have broken another aspect of the average American's life.Who do the very wealthy think they will get their riches from, once all the rest of us are wallowing in poverty? Who will they tax, once the middle class have all fallen into poverty? Who will buy their software and their cars and their fossil fuels, when only the 1% have money? Who will clean their toilet or diaper their children, once they've turned all the houses into hotels for other rich folk?
| no | 3,761 |
Isn't inflation a measurement of entropy flow, catching it and losing it over a short time. Isn't that a interface between the sun and the leaf. You need both. Post GFC, the banks killed the leaf to hoard capital for the NPL's. Today corporations expand their leaf to catch more & shortly they will insist on removing the fruit of trees and eating that? (household wealth transfer via immigration to reduce labor costs). Look at consumer loans post GFC, why not do that? <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/H8B1029NCBCMG" target="_blank">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/H8B1029NCBCMG</a>Look at the deposit swings in the '70's. <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/H8B1058NCBCMG" target="_blank">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/H8B1058NCBCMG</a>
| no | 2,686 |
A You do not understand how FEMA works. The bigger FEMA problem is repeatedly bailing out storm victims who rebuild right in nature's way? That should be outlawed. You get one bailout. Done. Relocate away from areas known for coastal inunadation. The real problem is the GOP has given the wealthiest a $2 Trillion tax cut, under the orange baboon guy, and working people are still fighting for an increase in the federal minimum wage and access to healthcare! Women are now second-class citizens who can't control their own bodies and their own futures! Is that freedom? We have to stop the GOP from catering to the rich and powerful. Our economy grows when we all pay our taxes. For the Common Good. The rich got rich off of our tax-dollar investments! They need to pay too! The GOP, with its Fascist power-grabbing, truth-denying ways, is void of ideas on helping our economy, fixing our broken healthcare system, getting weapons of war off of our streets, and holding Big Tech accountable for the big steal they have made with our information for profit. We are owed a big refund from Big Tech for their taking.
| yes | 5,490 |
Hearty congratulations to Novak Djokovic for winning the 10th Australian open in 2023, an International Tennis tournament despite being unfairly deprived of an opportunity to win the Australian open last year for a possible 10th time. Novak is not just a greatest Tennis player of the decade. He is a fighter for justice and principles and the showed the error of the ways of the Australian political kangaroo court last year. The then prime minister of Australia Morrison lost his election soon after denying Novak his right to play last year. There was no science to justify preventing Novak from playing in 2022 when he already had the real thing (COVID) and did not need the vaccine to survive sunbequent infection. We now know that in 2022 those with vaccine neither were protected 100% from exposure nor from infection and spread.
| yes | 8,322 |
Only $1.6 million?And once again, Trump & the organization get off easy.This is America and people who vote for Republicans are getting fleeced.
| yes | 6,266 |
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