Well, he renamed it and made minor changes around the edges so he could claim that it was broken and he fixed it. And then, of course, proceeded to violate the agreement he signed.

You guys get that 4.3% is low unemployment, right? Something like 90% of the last 30 years have had higher unemployment rate than that. It's the participation rate that's dropping, and that's almost entirely a demographic issue... there are more people retiring every year than graduating. The labor pool, as a percentage of the total population, is falling. This was all known well in advance and has been talked about to death. Those lower 4.3% of the population... the vast majority of them are really difficult to employ. A small percentage of people show up work late, or get drunk before they come to work, or whatever, and it's that group that finds it hard to stay employed.

Excellent post, just a couple of comments.

First, it's interesting that Nikkos said "a previous administration", without naming it. It was, of course, Trump 1.0.

Second, international treaties on refugees don't require a country to accept every refugee and there are multiple examples where nations have made agreements that modify which county must handle asylum claims. For example, the US-Canada Safe Third Country agreement specifies that asylum seekers must make their asylum claim in whichever country they arrive in first. If the US and Mexico had a similar agreement, then refugees could not enter from Mexico at all. Trump tried to get Mexico to sign a Safe Third Country agreement, but Mexico refused -- and it probably would have been invalid anyway, since Mexico might not satisfy the requirements of a "safe" country under the US law that authorizes the signing of Safe Third Country agreements.

Instead, Trump signed the "Migrant Protection Protocols" agreement with Mexico, which was the "remain in place" agreement. You said that no other country should be willing to put up with it, but Mexico did formally agree to it, though only to avoid tariffs. Of course, Mexico has declined to renew the protocols in Trump 2.0 (though Trump announced they had, which Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum immediately denied -- Trump's habit of unilaterally announcing that an agreement has been reached obviously doesn't really work).

Anyway, there are lots of reasons why countries might agree to various limitations on asylum processes to manage refugee volumes, and these agreements are often perfectly valid under international and national law. Trump, of course, doesn't care about legality, or humanity, only what he can get away with.

If you're referring to the chargers, I agree. They have a bad reputation currently. But I think a lot of the effort and resources has to go into more generation and distribution infrastructure, which tends to be robust, but expensive and it takes a while. I do think the AI boom is going to leave us with a lot of unused electrical capacity, and I think that's a good think for EVs.

I work in the automotive industry. Two years ago the attitude across the automotive industry was that whole industry was switching to EVs and it was all expected to happen at a completely unrealistic pace. There was still a ton of charging infrastructure to build out, but the industry was expecting high double-digit growth and a rapid phasing out of gas vehicles within a few years. It was absurd at the time. Then a couple years later and the whole industry has flipped (yes, this has a lot to do with government subsidies and Trump winning the election) and now everyone thinks EVs are "dead". This is, of course, just as silly as the continual proclamations that the PC market is dead. In reality, the EV market will continue to exist and mature, and with a number of really promising battery technologies in the pipeline, not to mention a massive build-out of electrical generation capacity to support an AI future that's primed to burst for a few years, there's actually a bright future for EVs. Just not on the ridiculous timeline that everyone was thinking two years ago.

There's another detail that often gets missed. I don't know the details myself, but the way it's been described to me, mid-size pickup trucks fall into a category under the EPA or something which requires them to meet much more stringent environmental and other regulations that full-size pickups are exempt from, and at the end of the day it means that the price difference between a mid-size and a full-size truck was much smaller than it should be based on the amount of materials and extra functionality you get from a full-size truck, so that caused the auto-makers to discontinue most (all?) of their mid-size lineups. You really couldn't buy a smaller truck for about a decade or so. I think the last one was the Colorado.

You are correct about the fascist project, but do you understand that if your alternative is a party (the dems) who have been vocally opposed to the free speech amendment, play with definitions in a weird way a la 1984 (they look stupid when asked to define what a woman is) and doubled down on cancel culture as a way to stifle political speech. So while I agree that Trump and his cronies are fascist, the other side only looks marginally better, and I wouldn't trust them at all. Yes, I would vote democrat, but they're pretty horrible too. I would easily vote a moderate left or moderate right party over either of these alternatives, and I suspect most people would.

My more plausible but still less nefarious guess is that Trump wants things to brag about, and with Isaacman running it, NASA has a chance of actually doing something worth boasting about. Though not in 3 years.

I don't know. When Isaacman was first nominated, pretty much everyone in the space enthusiast community was like, "oh, that's interesting..." and were genuinely surprised and hopeful because he's generally regarded as a space exploration idealist. Then when Trump revoked the nomination the assumption was that Trump didn't like him because he actually was an idealist and wasn't just a sycophant. I'm not sure why Trump has changed course again, and I do agree there's probably a deal or a mutual understanding that's been agreed to, but Isaacman is still one of the better choices to actually get NASA exploring again.

As a Canadian who was working in the US at the time, I can say that this period (2001 to ~2004) was just "weird". In particular, the pivot from a focus on Afghanistan to a sudden focus on Iraq. The invasion of Afghanistan made sense simply because Al Qaeda was known to be operating out of there and was being supported by the Taliban. There was broad international support for this.

The sudden push to invade Iraq came out of left field and didn't make any sense to me. Almost all of the 9/11 hijackers were actually Saudi Arabian. The Iraqi regime, while certainly evil, was contained and the no-fly zones over the north and south of the country were keeping the minority groups safe. And the presentation that the US did at the UN to provide evidence that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" was unconvincing. I had previously respected Colin Powell, but after that presentation I really lost respect for him. So there was no UN support. The US went ahead with the invasion, but lost a lot of credibility in the process.

Yes, there was oil involved, and Cheney had ties to the oil industry. That's certainly part of it. But I've never been 100% satisfied that this was the only reason for the invasion. I heard a more nuanced theory, that the US was dealing with terrorist organizations who could cross borders with impunity, and trying to fight them from country to country would be almost impossible, so they needed a way to convince the countries of the middle east not to let these organizations operate in their countries. The solution: a show of strength in Iraq... "this is what we could do to you if you give us a reason."

I still think the 2nd Iraq war was a terrible decision because it was the beginning of the end of the rules-based world order, which is something the US created for its own benefit, and benefited the most from, even if it was costly to support. And Cheney was an undeniable hawk when it came to Iraq. He wanted the invasion, and was looking for any excuse. His legacy will always be overshadowed by that reality.

Note quite. Manufacturing is becoming ever more highly automated, yes, and farms are too. But as someone who works in automation, this actually makes it easier to employ really low IQ people to do the job. We push really hard to remove all decision-making from the entry-level positions because the decision-making capacity of many people graduating from high school is exceptionally poor. Not to say there aren't a few bright lights in the bunch, but we look for those and try to move them up into area leader positions rather quickly. That's why manufacturing is so important... it allows people who make really bad day-to-day decision to do something valuable enough to earn $20 or more an hour instead of just collecting welfare.

What we're talking about here, though, is skilled trades, like plumbers. By definition these are people who need to be able to make good day-to-day decisions. The thing is, while there are some skilled trades needed in manufacturing, mostly in maintenance and service, what really drives demand for skilled trades is growth. Building new factories. Re-tooling existing lines for new products. And this includes engineers too. That's why steady and sustainable growth is important. Feast and famine sucks.

I think you're correct that only some plumbers are doing exceptionally well (the ones who own their own business). But I can assure you they're all busy. Have you tried hiring a skilled trade to fix something around your house recently? Good luck. Many will just ghost you. Also, your comment "we don't build cities anymore" is absurd. In fact the US has seen a massive increase in construction spending in the last few years. This is fueled mostly by the end of globalization, which was already starting to happen before COVID, but was amplified by the pandemic. In fact this surge in re-industrialization was expected to continue to grow, but a certain president's tariffs have caused a lot of trepidation in new capital spending, and everyone is holding their breath waiting to see what actually happens. But long term, China is in a decline driven by demographics which simply cannot be reversed, and Europe is close behind. Even if they started having more kids now, you still can't turn that around for 18 years. And even if you don't like the US, it's still the safest place to park your money worldwide these days, so construction of the new US industrial plant is going to continue no matter who's in office.

I once had an interesting conversation with an Android OEM. I sat down with them to discuss what security issues they'd like to see the Android security team work on. They asked me "When are you going to fix the USB hole?". I didn't know what they meant and asked for clarification. They explained that in some parts of the world, notably India and China, there were "free" charging stations set up in bus stops, train stations and other public areas. These charging stations allow the public to charge their phones, for free! There's just one catch. On a sign above the charging station there's a set of instructions that tells users how to go about activating the charging. The sign tells them to go into the Settings app, then "About Phone", then scroll down to the build number, tap it seven times, then... it walks them through enabling ADB and accepting the key of the "charging station" computer, which would then proceed to install malware -- and to start charging.

Huge numbers of people used these charging stations every day, to the point that the biggest problem users had (besides the malware) was that they were always occupied. No one had a problem with "activating" charging for their device.

90% of people are capable of following a list of instructions. 100% of people are capable of either following a list of instructions or getting someone nearby to do it for them.

Anyway, this OEM wanted us to disable ADB entirely, or allow them to, because their users were doing it, getting loaded up with malware, and then blaming the OEM for making a crappy phone. I, of course, told them that we were not going to disable ADB and we were not going to remove the compliance requirement that forces them to support ADB.

Unfortunately, the current change still doesn't fix the "USB hole", but it does offer a way to rate-limit malware installation via downloadables.

Anyway, if you really think your users can't follow instructions, or can't get someone else to do it for them, you can always just register for a developer account. As long as you don't distribute malware, people will be able to sideload your APKs without using ADB. If the $25 is too much for you, maybe share the cost with some buddies, or get one of the limited accounts, though your APKs will only be installable on a small number of devices. Except, of course, by people who can follow instructions, or get someone else to.

Yep. It allows them to stop malware. How terrible!

How did you learn this?