While rich folks may have a significant amount of a particular company's stock if they founded the company, the reality is they have stocks in many, many companies. So yes, if forced to liquidate it's going to affect many companies valuations and 401k's and IRA's valuations along with pension funds for those who still have them for everyone else.

And inheritance taxes do take a bite of large estates, both at the federal and in many cases at the state level. For some states it is both the payer and the recipient who is affected.

Will the prices eventually recover. Yes. Has the stock market dropped in the past and then recovered. Yes. But drops have also triggered the great depression of the 30's. So don't be quick to dismiss the effects.

You can say that people shouldn't be allowed to have so much stock there would be a problem like that. Well if you have a private company you founded, you start with a huge amount of the stock when you do an IPO. Forcing a business creator to divest control by stock sales until their ownership of the company doesn't threaten its existence when dying would dry up company formation and starve companies of the ability to generate cash to grow early on.

But median net worth is 127,700. So a trillion is only 8,216,926 as much. Still huge, but not quite as bad as you make it out to be. The average net worth is 748,800 so a trillion is only 1,335,470 as bad as that. Again, still unreasonably huge, but not as bad as you make it out to be.

While I appreciate your frustration, the reality is that most people aren't interested in killing somebody, or in kidnapping somebody, or in bringing out pitchforks, for that matter. Even if they knew where a particular rich person was going to be at any one time, they wouldn't be out trying to hurt them. There are always those that would, and that's why most who are well off have their own private well equipped security forces.

One day, regardless of how the tax situation changes (or doesn't change), these few folks will die. Everything they have will be disposed of in some means. The tax man will get some. The will or trust will distribute the rest. And God might ask them, if they make it to heaven, what they did with what He allowed them to have for a while. I'm not rich, but compared to the world, I have a lot. Most of us reading slashdot fall in that category as even the median net worth figure in the US is almost 10x the median worth of half the countries, and many of us are above the US median. Someday, we too may have to answer that question. I'm glad I only have a fraction of a trillion dollars. I'd hate to stand before God as a previous trillionaire, or billionaire for that matter.

Christ said in Luke 12:15 and following And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

While I wouldn't necessarily change the capital gains tax structure, I would certainly increase taxes to payroll levels for any compensation that is supplied in the form of stock options so that there is no incentive to give them or receive them. I've seen too many companies whose performance wasn't up to snuff change the yardstick after a couple of years so they could get all their stock options again even though the company isn't doing great.

When I have an opportunity to vote on executive compensation, I always vote against it if any part of their compensation is in stock options. Which in today's world means I always vote against it. Let them take their obscene compensation like everyone else does and pay full taxes on it. And make it clear by doing so just how much more they're making than the average, median, or lowest paid worker in their company.

Was going to say this, but it is typically alternated with water / waste-water, so the loss of water is also an issue. You just have to be very careful to not pump so much that you damage the formation itself.

Because our MSA of 80,000 people only has drivers to handle vehicles with a seating capacity to carry 324 people, doesn't run on weekends, if the weather is too bad, or on holidays, and only has limited routes and stops. That's similar to most towns and cities in the United States that aren't large.

Wyoming has 20 billion tons of coal that is economical to mine today according to google, with 1.4 trillion tons in existence. Something like 240 million tons was mined in 2021. So several years worth are available right now.

Again, that depends on how you read the account in Genesis. Verse 1:1 records the creation, clearly. But does that mean that the rest of the chapter follows immediately in time? The way I parse it, the earth existed waste and void at some point after the creation of 1:1. Yet Psalms says it was created anything but void and waste. Taken in combination with Jeremiah 4 and Isaiah 14, this would imply a break in time between 1:1 and the rest of the first chapter which I feel shows the earth post initial judgment of Satan's rebellion. The rest of the chapter just records the restoration of the earth to a habitable state.

It isn't even completely certain that this judgment was worldwide. Perhaps Satan's empire was located in the Mediterranean Basin. The destruction alluded to in 1:2 could have just been located around the Mediterranean Sea when it filled - that sea is referred to as the deep in other spots. So it might not have affected anything in other parts of the earth, but just the huge destruction of the Mediterranean basin when the Atlantic poured in.

In addition, although reading the first chapters of Genesis makes it seem like the fall of man happened in just a few days, there is nothing to say just how long a time period passed between their creation and their fall. Six days of work is clear getting to the point of their creation. But then, it gets fuzzy. It also doesn't say when aging started - where the age of Adam would have begun to matter and be counted in years. After all, part of the punishment was to be cut off from the tree of life implying as long as they were in the garden with access to the tree they would have lived indefinitely. I'm of the belief that the ages recorded in the Bible for them were how long they lived post getting kicked out of Eden.

This fits nicely with the fossil record as well. There are many branches of the ancestors to modern man. They all stop within a very short, geologically speaking, period of time. Only modern man continues (or was created by God when the earth was restored).

We'll not know the truth till heaven. But I'm not of the opinion that the history God has recorded in His word would lead anyone to disbelieve in Him. Its purpose may not be science, but He also would not have wanted any excuses about science giving people an excuse to disbelieve the rest of the Bible's truth. This explanation works for me and makes things compatible between science and the Bible. It may not be completely correct, but it is close enough that I don't worry about it. It's kind of like Noah's flood. I see that as probably being the flooding of the Black Sea via the Bosporus. It didn't have to involve the whole world. It just had to involve the area where Satan's angels were trying to pollute the line of Adam's descendants to Christ. Noah just had to save the local fauna if it the flood was big, affecting his entire world, but not worldwide. From the middle of the Black Sea in an ark like boat, it would have appeared to his eyes as if the entire world was flooded, and that was what he recorded.

I'm not saying that God couldn't have created and placed every physical portion of the universe in such a way that it appeared to have been created billions of years ago but actually been done 6,000 or so years ago. It just doesn't seem like something He would have done. It seems more likely the deceiver would try to warp believers in the past into believing something that he could use today to get people to not believe in God.

Just my 2c.

The Bible says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen. 1:1) Or, if you prefer new testament, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1-3).

The Bible also records a few thousand years of the history of some of the people on the earth, and includes limited prophecy about the future of mankind.

In no place does it say the earth was created X thousand years ago. Various religious leaders in the past made that inference, and it stuck with many, but the Bible never says that. In fact, when Satan tempts Adam and Eve in the garden, he is already a fallen angel. Isaiah implies he led forces from earth against heaven. Other spots imply he was in charge of Earth at some point in the past. These things require a much older time frame for earth than just that of man's history as recorded in the Bible. So there is disagreement even among Christians about just what happened.

The point of the Bible isn't to teach ancient history or to be a scientific textbook. It's to point people to Christ as Savior. It does a good job of that. If all Christians would live their lives with his teachings in mind, it would be a better place.

Everybody always forgets the ability to download a free book a month. Sometimes two. They might not be ones I would pick on my own, but I can usually find at least one of the selection that makes a good read. 12-14 free books a year is worth something as well, even if they are electronic so don't cost Amazon much to deliver either.

I guess nobody reads anymore. I tried to hit a book a day, just to see if I could do it, but maxed out at 355 books sufficiently good to rate in 2023. I doubt I'll try that again though. It was a bit rough. But still, even if you aren't crazy like I was last year, doesn't anybody read?

It's completely relevant. You may not be driving from A to B daily, but deaths on interstates do occur and many times it is due to fatigue (or unexpected obstacles like deer, antelope, or escaped cattle or sheep trying to beat you across the highway or just standing there looking dumb). In some parts of the country it's a matter of coming over a blind hill or around a blind turn and having a slow moving tractor right in front of you, although rarely on an interstate. All can lead to deaths.

All of these deaths add up, and even though you may not be affected by them directly as you don't do that kind of driving, it doesn't mean they don't influence the death statistics. It has gotten better with electronic logging for freight haulers, but it doesn't fix people who should pull off for a nap thinking they can make it to town C and finding they can't. And sorry to say, but when an 18 wheeler hits a deer there isn't much damage to the truck and the driver is fine. If a tiny car or motorcycle hits a deer at 80 mph or higher, the occupants of the car usually end up dead. Size matters when an accident happens. Low to the ground, aerodynamic, really safe hitting some similar vehicle, only means the animal goes through your windshield. If you're in a tall pickup, that's less likely to happen. I know that animals are an issue everywhere, but antelope are a particular problem in my state. They have tremendous acceleration, and are always sure they can beat you across, regardless of how fast you are going. Even if they're right, the surprise can put you in a ditch or rollover in a heartbeat.

The 18 wheeler comment is also relevant. They are rare in Japan. Most delivery vehicles are much smaller as well for local city deliveries. This gives better visibility on the roads as well and leads to fewer accidents and greater ability to survive an accident. Driving behind a triple trailer in the wind where the last trailer is weaving mostly back and forth in the lane of traffic it's supposed to be in is also an issue. Maybe you don't see them in your daily driving, but they're a thing across a large part of the country. Passing doubles or triples if they end up routed to a two lane state highway for some oddball reason is also much more dangerous than typical city drivers in metropolitan areas with low speed limits would ever notice.

Finally, I'd say that road design isn't as much of an issue in most places unless you're exceeding its posted limits or driving insanely in bad weather conditions, but road upkeep certainly is.

I suspect less to do with the vehicle, than a combination of other factors. 1) DUI deaths 2017 stats Japan 5.6%, U.S. 29%, 2) Distance to travel. Japan is about the same size as California. Population density Japan 876/sq mi, California 258/sq mi, U.S. 96/sq mi. The U.S. has much larger distances to travel with much lower population density, which leads to two things at a minimum: Faster travel speeds on average and greater probability of losing concentration while driving across large chunks of sparsely populated areas.

Vertical isn't as irrational as you think. With an UHD monitor in vertical 2160x3840, the effective width is still greater than the old effective width of a normal monitor say 1920x1080. So you don't lose anything from an older monitor landscape configuration. The vast majority of the work I do (e-mail, most websites (and particularly financial stock websites where I utilize graphing) aren't particularly wide. Many websites even throw away most of the available horizontal with wide bands of white on either side. Financial stock graphs frequently dump technical indicator graphs below the price graph and work down. Documents I'm writing or reading that eventually end up on a printed page also benefit from having a screen match the normal layout of the printed page.

At any rate, a vertical monitor orientation saves much more paging up and down than I feel I lose for the occasional spreadsheet where I may have more columns that now require scrolling. Even there, most of them also have predominately more rows which again you can see more of with the monitor vertical.

Don't call us irrational unless you've tried it. Gaming is about the only reason to have a landscape view and that's only because the games are designed for it. I don't game on my computer, so that isn't a reason to be tied to landscape.

Without a high resolution monitor, I'd agree with you. But these days, that is no longer an issue.

It's also so ingrained that it should be the other way that when my 3 yr old grand son came in and saw my now vertical monitors he declared that was "wrong" and wanted grandpa to fix it immediately.

Or, another solution since our fertility rate isn't that great and we don't want to end up like Japan giving economic incentives to try to get young people to immigrate would be to open up immigration legally thus reducing the money spent on stupid ideas like the "wall", increasing the tax base, and move forward.

This is the main issue I would think. If you run AI on your own corporate code base subset that has no external license issues, then helping out a new project would be great. If you are relying on some search engine's returns, it is almost certain that the code it examines to come up with the answer will be from GPL'd or if you're lucky BSD licensed code. So even if it's correct, it still isn't usable unless you know the license it was created from and are willing to allow the terms of that license to apply to your derivative work.