No, it has to do more with human nature. When things get tight, people start looking out for themselves more than their neighbors - and it doesn't take a huge percentage of people doing that to ruin it for everyone. See toilet paper and hand sanitizer a year ago.

Look up tragedy of the commons for more information on how this usually plays out. (And the Earth is about the biggest "commons" you can have.)

If you don't think inflation is running out of control, you aren't paying attention.

• Housing prices are through the roof - increases vary by area, but are all double-digits
• Prices for fuel is up almost 40% in the last year
• Lumber prices are up 200-300% (adding over $24k to build a new house)
• Used vehicles are up 11% last month - partly due to stimulus, partly due to supply issues with new vehicles

Head over to ShadowStats if you want a better number. (Which is over 10%) They also have pages to explain why they use their methodology instead of the current ones. (i.e. - They explain why the government changed their formulas in 1980 and 1990.) They also have different numbers for unemployment.

I don't care about your politics, or what party holds what branch of government. Look how many USD it takes to buy the same things you've been buying for years and ask if there is inflation. For example, 3 years ago, I could get my usual protein bars on sale for $1 each. The best sale they are ever on now is $1.25 each. So, for my protein bars, that is 8% inflation over those 3 years. This year, I saw my usual block of cheese go from $3 to $3.49 for the same 8oz block - so a 16% jump in the last 3 months. I am moving, because my apartment complex wanted an 18% increase in my rent. I declined.

So, stop trusting a website and start trusting the numbers YOU are experiencing. The grocery store isn't going to lie to you about the price they are charging you. Neither is the gas station. The home owner/builder. Or anyone else selling you something.

Public space has nothing to do with a presumption of privacy.

The courts have overturned recordings by law enforcement even though it was a public space because the people walked to that area to get away from crowds so they wouldn't be heard. So, if someone wore a Frankenstein mask until they got inside, and then took it off because a sign said, "No photography or video allowed in this area" then they may still have an expectation of privacy.

The law is almost never cut and dried, so you shouldn't consider it as such - which is why I used "may" above. It really depends on what the judge thinks is reasonable.

By tricked, I assume you mean "false accept" and that's just not true. However, most people prefer the system not lock out valid users (false reject) so they tune the variables to make that the usual case - which allows some false accepts to happen.

Ridiculous example to prove point: I glue a USB cable to a brick and call it a fingerprint reader. It doesn't actually read anything, so it has a perfect 0% false accept rate. It also has a horrible true accept rate (also 0%) but no one can trick it.

Your bias is showing.

Have you ever looked at the curriculum for a meteorology degree from a university? It is usually more math than anything but a math degree; and more physical/hard science than anything but the physical science degrees. It is probably one of the hardest programs at any university - but, yeah, some of them become "just a weatherman."

Have you ever considered what it takes to model weather and forecast it? I lived in Chicago during 9/11 and the nighttime low was 2 degrees lower than "normal" because there were no contrails. Those are the kinds of things that they have to consider - along with things like air density, velocity, opacity (how much sunlight is hitting the ground), surface composition (asphalt vs. concrete vs. grass vs. crops vs. forest), surface topography, and a lot more as well.

Nice to know that you think older folks can't be highly skilled. Or that skilled younger folks can't be found at the various state universities that are, well, literally in every state.

Nope - it was created back in the 60s and greatly expanded in the 90s. While it was modified under Obamacare - which touched pretty much anything related to medical in the U.S. - it definitely wasn't Obama who created it.

Rhetorical question: Why did you think it must have been created by Obama?

Since you live in the U.K. I will let you in on a little secret... The U.S. has a LOT of safety nets - you just never hear about them.

You may have heard about Medicare - specifically the idea of "Medicare for All" but have you heard about Medicaid? It is Medicare... for low income people, families (i.e. - have kids), are disabled, etc. Also, you can roll into an emergency room and get looked at - which is a stupid and inefficient way of doing it, but you can still do it - even if you are in the country illegally.

We also have SNAP - the supplemental food program - that we spend $60 billion on every year. Again, for low income people. The average person got $125/month - families averaged $250/month. I heard this program got expanded this year, but I don't know the details.

If you want to talk this year, people earning less than $75k/year are getting two stimulus checks totaling $1800 - more if they have dependents. If they were unemployed, they got another $6000 from the federal government on top of their state unemployment. Some states even got an additional 4 weeks at $300. So, they could have gotten $9k on top of their unemployment benefits - which were also extended past the usual 26 weeks. (Some states are shorter, some are longer, but most have 26 weeks of benefits.) In fact, in my state, people were making $1k/week for sitting on their couch for 10 weeks. I talked to a number of managers who said their employees didn't want to come back to work because they were making more doing nothing.

Hey - you can even get a free smartphone and plan under the Lifeline Program by the FCC.

So, yeah... Plenty of lifelines on this side of the pond - especially this year.

Did you know that nothing was stolen during the Boston Tea Party? When someone suggested they were going to keep some of the expensive tea for themselves, the others involved made them throw it in the harbor.

In addition, other than the tea, there was only damage to one item... a padlock. Which was replaced the next day by those who did it.

Does that sound, in any way, like what has happened in cities like Minneapolis, Seattle, or Portland? I didn't think so. Well, unless the Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland police departments owned the TVs, clothes, Nikes, Coach bags, and other items stolen - and the rioters paid Target, Wendy's, and other small businesses for the damage they caused.

You are WAY off on Tesla. Their P/E ratio is currently 1194.97 per live market feed. Or almost 100x the historic median for S&P 500 values.

I recommend that everyone look up the historical chart for Yahoo (YHOO) and see how high it spiked in the Dot Com bubble - and how fast it came back down within months of being added to the S&P 500.

Well, I'm assuming you are talking politics - except Wisconsin and Minnesota went blue; Iowa and Wyoming went red; and Nebraska was a 60/40 split. So, not really sure why you are lumping them together.

Even if you say that Nebraska went red, I have no idea why you are lumping a 2-3 split together.

That's not even close to true. He's running at about 50% of what he said between "kept" and "compromise." Withdrawing from the Paris Accords and TPP. Pushing for tax cuts. Appointing Supreme Court Justices from his list - which is hard to overlook given the coverage given to the ACB confirmation hearings. Pressuring NATO to increase spending. Restricting immigration. Renegotiating NAFTA.

Now, they may not be things you like, but you can't pretend that he didn't say he was going to do them - or that they didn't happen.

You can see the list here.

Also, I would have given him "compromise" instead of "lie" on the border wall. Mexico didn't pay for it, but there have been 400 miles put in - despite a lot of opposition.

How did it raise your taxes? Was it because you didn't get full deductions for your state taxes? Was it because of your dependents or business structure?

Another major annoyance is that the North and South Hemispheres go in opposite directions. So, when we go to 9:10 in the USA, Australia would go to 8:50.

Here's my argument against it: The rich - the ones who are going to foot the bill for UBI - will leave. A billionaire can easily live anywhere on the planet that they want. See what happened to France and NYC.

Also, your argument about "more building" falls flat since you are saying that rent won't go up because there will be more building - but don't explain why the cost of building wouldn't go up when people have more money. (Also: "We have no idea what the UBI would be" just says that you have no idea, and no argument, and are just hand waving support for your argument.)