..well, so pretty much have all the FUD-spreaders in the CDC, government, and NGOs who've been all telling us that "any moment" we could get a "deadly flu" since the (ha ha ha) Sars "epidemic".

All I've ever gotten is the "Cry Wolf" heebie jeebies.

English is the best language.

Think BIG!

What if the next presidential limo was 3000 mics of LSD, Donald Sutherland reading "The Cat In the Hat" and a disco ball?

Back in the day, every FedEx package used to route through Tennessee.

Would you depend on this vehicle if your life was at stake. Tesla can certainly bring it, but the internal combustion engine has over a century of demonstrated reliability.

As do electric motors. I mean, the first cars were electric (or steam!) - the ICE didn't come about until much later.

The big problem with Tesla is the dealers. The reason Tesla sells directly is because no dealer wants to sell a Tesla. It's just like Nissan and the Leaf. Dealerships don't make much money on car sales - sometimes as little as a couple of hundred bucks profit. The real profit's in the dealer service because despite the number of independent garages, there's still a large number of people who bring their cars back for servicing to the dealer. (It doesn't help that the dealer often incentivizes it by offering loaners, pickup/dropoff services, free car washes and other value-adds).

An EV like a Tesla or a Leaf requires practically no servicing. They recommend a yearly look-over and inspection just to make sure things are on the up-and-up, but you can skip those.

That's why dealers are fighting against Tesla - not because of direct sales, but because EVs are bad for their business. They just cost less to maintain, have less to go wrong and are just simpler on the inside.

It's like computing going from vacuum tubes to transistors.

I had that attitude, but so many of the local sellers are just gouging. I needed a 12 foot HDMI cable a while back. It was going to cost me $10 on Amazon, but I wanted it right now. I went to Best Buy, half a mile down the road. They wanted $40 for the same cable.

Instant gratification is not worth a $30 surcharge.

Being a lousy shopper apparently is, for you could get the HDMI cable far cheaper if you simply checked to see what Wal-Mart, Target and many other stores are selling it.

My personal favorite are the little stores you only see in the flyers that come on your doorstep with the free newspapers. Because they often have them cheap cheap cheap ($6 for 12').

Of course, it actually requires doing some real physical work and looking at ads.

Insert Goat.cx here (pun intended)

You know what, that's too much sarcasm for me to fart out at once. This sounds essentially like the subprime mortgage crisis. And a lot of other banking crises. It doesn't seem totally insane to me to trust your friend Joe in a trailer over the banking industry: when he runs off with my money, at least he might go to jail rather than getting millions in rewards.

You know, in 2008, Washington Mutual (aka WaMu) failed. Dead, A lot of people used them, too.

And yet, they're all happily going about their lives - having lost none of their money that was stored at WaMu.

Another bank took over the remains and all of WaMu's customers were automatically integrated in.

For all intents and purposes, the only thing that changed was the name on the envelope and on the card - the money that was deposited was still there, all the other assets were still there, etc.

So for all the banking crises, regulation does help, because instead of bank failures hurting regular joes by losing all their hard earned savings, life pretty much continued on as no one lost their deposits. You put your money in, you can be reasonably assured you will get it out.

I am also in the Bible belt, and the condoms are out there for anyone to pick up. I believe the biggest issue with contraception is people are embarrassed to buy it because they don't want people to know about their sex life. This leads to either theft, no sex, or pregnancy depending on the individual.

But that's not the same as the OP and other posters saying that contraception isnt' available unless ACA or the like is in place.

It's out there always has been, just a matter of people getting it. I think they mean to say, it only matters if someone else is PAYING for it.

Conflating availability with who is footing the bill.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/...

Are you sure you paid into the unemployment fund? Most self employed do not, even though they think they do. If you did, then you should be eligible for unemployment.

I am 100% positive.

I have an "S" corp, I paid myself salary with the taxes and I paid the employer side of all those taxes too. I filled out the parts for unemployment, state and fed taxes.

I was told all the way through my appeals that sure I'd paid it, but the law said I couldn't get it in the state of LA.

People who are poor don't have the same choices you do.

They're not buying 60" televisions.

I guess you aren't driving by the same projects I am, seeing said 60" TVs through the open doors of the apartments, while they're sitting on the porch.

And as for the rest of it...hey, life is tough.

Were it local-governor-care instead, would that really make you substantially happier? How so?

Because, you could have more of a say in how your state enacts or doesn't enact it.

If you didn't like that state's solution, you could move to one that more closely shares your views on life and how much they want to make you pay for someone else's life.

Unless you were one of the millions of people who have a precondition.

I did/still do.

The book borrowing feature alone is worth it twice over.