Raising taxes, paradoxically, will not bring in any more $ as a percentage of GDP. We are already over flowing in taxes and revenue, and history of govt revenue over the last 100 years suggests that messing further with taxes will actually reduce income in the long term after a brief surge. On the other hand, our predicted future expenses can only be balanced by a growing economy sustaining 3-4% gdp long term or by massively cutting social programs or either devaluing the currency in international trade or massive inflation at home. All evidence is that both political parties have agreed to devalue and inflate out of the debt. Trump is hoping he can grow his way out, but the establishment doesn't believe him. Leftists hope they can raise revenue, but even fewer believe that is anything other than demagogy used by politicians wanting to stay in power by blaming the rich and the old for every self inflicted laziness and lack of courage and willingness to be honest that the country is simply broke.

Public schools were supposed to be value neutral environments that encouraged equal opportunity for all.
They failed. Thy aren't value neutral and they don't give equal opportunity. At the same time, they've promoted group think, discouraged curiosity, and allowed politicians to more easily rewrite history and tailor the views of future voters who are less informed and more easy to please.

Online news is very similar - people were actually more curious and wiser when they had to read the newspaper everyday and hunt information. Newspapers were much more effective at providing balanced coverage than modern media. Much of the internet is an intellectual wasteland.

Right, automation is good but when lives are on the line....one needs to take every precaution and think about failure cases. I saw a video elsewhere that said that there was an easy way to disable the sensor, but when the pilot only has a few seconds to respond and he is busy trying to keep the plane in the air... in either case, even if we agreed that 1 sensor is enough, 1 in 100K chance doesn't sound reliable enough to me.....I'd rather see 1 in a million minimum, 1 in a billion ideally.. You might need to 5 sensors where at least 3 of them must trigger fault to get super reliability. I'm not sure how expensive or tricky placing several of these sensors is.... In any case, non of us are pilots so its all speculation here.

Politics and economics wise, the US Air Force was reported to have recently chastened Boeing for QA issues. China and Europe, which want to dominate high tech airplanes have a vested interest in taking down Boeing. But, it sounds like Boeing did this all to themselves....perhaps cutting corners to increase time to market and production speed.

As for the FAA, I never have high expectations of any government agency to look out for public safety over vested national and economics interests. Letting companies get sued into bankruptcy with the CEO's unemployable when they massively screw up is a much more compelling and reliable way to ensure corners aren't cut.

Bezo's created Amazon and did a good job for the first 20 years of creating a customer first culture, but he always had to fight investors and a general business climate that said he should avoid pushing profits into new infrastructure and and return them to shareholders.

It's obvious that he was wounded with the failure of the fire phone, and Amazon's retreat from everything android.

Alexa and buying Whole Foods are the only real advancements of the last few years.

Everywhere else, you can see that Amazon is becoming a normal business. They sort of have to. When they had fewer richer customers, they could justify great customer service. Now, they serve everyone in every country and their rate of future growth isn't assured. The financial people have been put in charge.

You can see this with the destruction of Amazon Fresh. That service used to partner with many local fresh produce/fish/meat vendors, including restaurants. Now, it is restricted to almost exclusively Whole Foods. Prime Now has somewhat taken its place, but the fees there are higher and the selection is still limited. I'm not sure it makes sense to get groceries from Amazon anymore.

I've looked at the economics, to do a system properly for my location would be in the $40-70K range depending on if I paid a premium for tesla batteries and how big I built the system and with what panels and inverter design. And, with that, I'd have to keep in mind that batteries might need some significant maintenance on a relatively frequent basis and the panels are probably rated for 25-40 years, so there is a constant depreciation.

Over the long term, I might save a decent amount of $...but that's assuming that I stay living in the home for 10-25 years. If there is any uncertainty, it doesn't make sense.

On the other hand, the local utilities average rate for my location is at least 20 cents/KWH. I do have $300-500 monthly electric bills, and thats with a significant discount and with a very modern AC system kept at modest levels - but with 2-4 people in the house nearly 24/7.

Honestly, given the local utility rates....anyone without solar is already paying a heavy penalty. Yes, new homes might be better off if panels are installed during construction but the golden maxim of good governance is the use minimum force...How much is the penalty here, is it appropriate, is there some other way that the same effect could be achieved? Perhaps, the state could cover the cost of the first X watts of alternate energy installed on new homes, but only paying after someone has lived in them for a few years so that taxpayers don't get scammed. In any case, I hate seeing CA becoming a place each year which requires an ever higher annual income to afford the various regulations in place for the public good. At this point, I can't see how any retire on a fixed income would decide to stay in the state for the last 10-25 years of their life. I love CA, but feel that with every new law that I'll probably end having to move out someday - at least after the kids are grown and I retire. Retirement can stretch much farther almost anywhere else.

What friends to begin with?

Europe --- Maybe the UK and Poland at some point, but the UK is obsessed with its own problems and Poland is hostage to the EU. The EU has never been a friend of the USA. The USA helped it rebuild after world war 2 and payed for its defense for 70+ years. That's hardly friendship. NATO? No one in the USA has ever expected the EU to provide any meaningful support if the USA got into a major war with another super power. It's always been a one way agreement where the USA protected the EU from the USSR and that's it. Anyone who says otherwise is just repeating propaganda.

China -- has been saying internally that they planned to replace the USA as the leading superpower and its military has been preparing for conflict with the
USA for the last 10-20 years. It's also been stealing all the technology it can and looting American companies who want access to its consumer market. The population has become increasingly nationalistic and has always been somewhat xenophobic.

Canada -- I wouldn't say has ever been a friend, more of an easy going business contact next door.

Mexico -- No, never a friend, more like the neighbor next door that constantly needs help and sends you their problems. Yes, some of dreamed of NAFTA being the opening move towards a North American Union, like the EU -- But the cultures are just too different.

Asia -- Strangely enough, One could argue that we have had a real friendship with Japan, South Korea, Philippines, and modestly Australia. The last president destroyed the Philippines relationship. South Korea and Japan are good enough, but both are primarily interested in the USA protecting their independence from a militaristic China and North Korea and Trump has been doing what he can to maintain and build those relationships.

Basically, the existing world order is a result of Americans concentrating on sacrificing its own interests and building world wide prosperity in order to prevent a repeat of the two previous world wars. It's allowed the defeat of the USSR, and the rise of a new multipolar war with several prosperous economic-geographic regions (Asia, Europe, Russia, Middle East). The regions are eager to get the benefits of super power status while letting America continue to bear the overwhelming cost of maintaining a new world order that benefits them. Trump has said enough and asked to re-negotiate. Of course, negotiation is divisive....but ignoring the issues and throwing the can down the road will not improve matters either.

Seriously, at least until age 16, kids need someone at home. Nannies can handle somethings for a few years, but after that -- you need a mom, dad, or grand parent at home. All the time. And, having children should be something has been planned for a few years...there shouldn't be any surprise.

I'd be happier if employers offered more generous vacation and parental leave options for their employees. But, this should be their decision, not the government.

The best the government can do is to promote an economy where employees are valued/highly traned and where business are willing to take on extra costs to get access to the talent pool. For too long, the USA has been miserable at letting low wage labor flood in while not encouraging any continuing training and education of employees. When businesses get desperate to hire, that's when life gets better for more of the population...that takes strong economic growth and good government policies...not mandatory parental leave laws.

Try to use an amazon tablet. If you don't install the play store, there is a limited selection of apps and nearly all the key apps require play services for notifications to work properly.

If you install the play store, it conflicts with the amazon store over time and causes the device to occasionally slow down or restart on a regular basis.

If you install some of the play store alternatives that attempt to get around google licensing and provide play services .....you might get 75% of the apps you need, but there will be a few that just don't work or have compatibility problems.

Try to buy a samsung device with google apps installed, but not create a google account. Doesn't work. Create a google account but opt out of everything google you can, mostly works...but it can be frustrating.

I'm not saying googles a bad company or that they shouldn't be able to set some rules for Android, but the current situation is essentially a google monopoly on android. Changes can only make things better.

Bought a Ford C-Max Energi last year, $30K purchase price before taxes, but received a $4,500 federal tax rebate. The electric range isn't awesome but its enough for daily commute, and the combined electric + gas range is over 500 miles. Drives nicely too.

No. Some of us have gotten rid of our phones and only carrying two devices around -- a 10" android tablet for entertainment and android apps, and 12-15" Microsoft Surface for work and windows apps. Why get a crippled smartphone device when a tablet is so much better? Portability? Not really...10" tablets are easy to carry around...put in pocket, I guess...but who does that.

Yes, 16:9 Is a dumb aspect ratio for anything other than video or video games. But, then that's all some consumers care about.

I personally have a 4:3 display at my desktop, a 3:2 display on my surface pro, 3:2 ratio for all photography gear, and a 4:3 display on my latest android tablet.

Being able to travel all over the world w/o substantial scrutiny or barriers is a relatively modern event, and was perhaps simply a temporary anomaly resulting from a brief period where long distance travel was easier than getting detailed information about travelers across borders.

In any case, this isn't a USA specific issue.

As an American with conservative political beliefs, I would not feel safe traveling to the UK or Europe. The UK just imprisoned a US Traveler for 3 days just because they didn't like his/her political beliefs. Europe is worse, who knows what laws I might break by speaking my mind?

No country is perfect, and now that countries are engaged in the modern fad of encouraging only politically correct speech - all of them are taking advantage of the influx of information about travelers.

My experience with EV Vehicles and Local Utilities in San Diego:
- State EV Vehicle rebate -- State controller says he is out of $ and won't pay out the rebate to any taxpayer making a decent income.
- Federal EV Vehicle rebate -- fine, fair enough and I'm happy to hear that it will be winding down over the next few years.
- Utility Rates and Discounts -- Pricing has gone up from 18 cents/KWH to 24.5 cents/KWH on average for my home. Time of use plans are estimated to cost me more, even with the EV vehicle. There is a $250 rebate for having an EV car, but it's unclear how much longer it will be paid. My normal Gas and Electric bill is $450, but I work from home so it isn't completely out of line. However, that's after the switch to LED lights and ultra efficient appliances. I also already have solar panels...but they're for a moderate sized pool. I'll probably need to invest substantially into solar electric soon too...but I'm waiting for panel tech to mature and efficiency/lifetime of panels to be compelling. The panels will be a once in a lifetime purchase.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but everywhere I go -- at least in California...there are two separate groups of electric or plugin hybrid cars and two sets of chargers and this seems set to go forward as more and more infrastructure is built out. It doesn't seem efficient.

Tesla chargers for Tesla only (perhaps usable via adapter by other vehicles, but seriously why would someone driving a different manufacturer car want to go to a tesla network).

J1772 chargers via multiple 3rd party commercial/industry groups supporting it -- there is now even a separate backwards compatible form of J1772 plug for DC charging. Manufacturers implementing the newer plug include Audi, BMW, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche, and Volkswagen.

Tesla is done the most to build out a national charging infrastructure, but I'm not sure how relevant it is for society. If there is going to be a massive build out of charging stations in the future, I'm currently hoping it is J1772 based.

Much like Sears, B&N has been a walking zombie for way too long.

- Prices too high
- Selection/choice too minimal
- Customer communication/experience continually degraded
- Not really that much faster than ordering books same-day/overnight, don't have to find book in store or wait in line
- Switch to online books was too little, too late

Could B&N have saved itself? Sure. But, they kept pigeon holing themselves as a retailer and not a solution provider. The only real reason to keep going to a physical bookstore is the experience. B&N needed to do more to partner with starbucks, libraries, post offices, etc to integrate themselves into town centers rather than stand-alone mall shops. They needed to be able to print out books onsite ondemand. They needed to have more staff with real knowledge about the books they sell. And, they needed to do more to make their customers feel special and stay in regular contact.

B&N thought they could survive by just being a low-cost retailer. That was always doomed to failure.