Perhaps if you work for someone. I've had several things done over the past few years. A water heater for 3500, probably cost 600, so around 3 grand for 3 man hours of labor. The guy worked as a contractor. I asked him if he ever moonlit, as I thought he did good work and would want to bypass the corporate take if he could. He was completely uninterested. Completely. I think he was making very good buck as he had his own tools including a cool little device to crimp copper fittings. I also had a new AC put in. I did a little research, looked like around 4 grand in materials for the system. My price, 13.5K. Probably 20 man hours between the group. Not quite as good as the plumber wage. These were some guys that worked for themselves, and their price was lower than a "big firm". So I see a big disconnect between that average wage and what I've been paying.

OK Komrade. Pretty clear where your loyalties lie.

a low budget sci-fi movie. Attack of the black radioactive fungi. Or Escaped from Chernobyl.

And I repeat, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The alliance was happy to have Russia throwing bodies on Germany's eastern front. Immediately after the war, the friendship was over and the winners were in chop up mode. The west got western Germany & Russia got eastern. Which would you want to have lived in after the war?

That was a very brief period when Yeltsin was pres and it looked like Russia may go for a real democracy. Didn't last. And if we go back to the earliest days, the French wanted to screw the British so they helped the US against Britain. Spain and the Dutch also provided some support. Russia was nowhere. The US should be natural enemies with any dicktatorship. Which is precisely why we should be supporting Ukraine, not having our puppet help vlad take Ukraine, and probably the rest of eastern Europe after he does that. If we are lucky, Putin will die. Hopefully from his fav, poison.

Remind me, when were the US and Russia ever really allies. Immediately after WW2 the alliance collapsed. We were never friends beyond the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That is not friends.

That is my point. The subsidy is they work more for less. The US conversely works less for more. Unsustainable. Really a typical cycle. Societies ascend, societies descend. Maybe it is China's turn again to be top dog. Humans being humans, expect a war.

The one I always enjoy is the wealthy house with the Model X in top tier trim with the Range Rover with the supercharged gas guzzling engine as the stablemate. Its all about image for these people.

From what I can tell, industries in the US feel like China subsidizes everything. Translation, they have a lower standard of living and work hard. While the starting post of this talked about pharma R&D getting lazy, it really amounts to the US in general has gotten entitled. Work in the US is now considered "influencers". Another area the US dominates is money management. Neither of these or many others produce anything of value. IE something someone wants to actually pay for. I believe strongly the reason for the increased friction for direct import to consumers is to stymie things like alibaba and temu. Regular people were discovering the big box and amazon people were adding 3X+ to the price for handling the transaction. The direct import model was a direct threat to one of the last bastions of profit in the US, retailing. Business in the US (even co's like Apple) discovered the best way to large profits was offshoring the labor to reduce the cost but then not reducing the price.

While I agree with some of your arguments, I don't think the proposal would affect you. Sounds like you drive a regular hybrid. From the summary, "Electric vehicles will be charged 3 pence per mile and plug-in hybrids 1.5 pence per mile". Only plug-in hybrids would get the charge. Looks like they are trying to come up with a "gas tax" for ev's. I think reasonable. But I also think their math is a bit high, but did not do the pence->dollar conversion so not quite sure of the numbers.

As to solar, yep all over the map. I'm getting new panels after the roof replacement. Old panels were 20+ old, so starting to fade. I'll get a rebate from the power co to put them in and then they'll charge me back for the power I use. It is psycho how they do it. "Value of Solar" instead of "net". I guess AC electric is bipolar and so is the power co. Give & Take.

Interesting theory. Unfortunately the courts did not agree in the case of Michelle, all the way up to the supreme court. But really how you can defend anyone (or anything) who advises suicide is just weird to me. I'd characterize chatgpt in beta, a beta that should not be in the hands of minors or probably even the general population. Sort of like a new drug, it should be in clinical trials, possibly even animal studies phase, not general use.

Not really, if the kid was smart enough to figure that out, he might also have considered that chatgpt might forward the chat logs to the authorities and some dept like CPS (child protective services) might have taken over and put him in a facility for observation. And if they had, he'd probably be alive today.

And if indeed you are suicidal, I suggest you call the hotline. And I am 100% serious about that. I think fairly common to go thru periods in life that are overwhelming, and professionals can help.

It is not just R&D. Much like the electronics industry, a good bit of the manufacture goes on there too as cost is lower. Didn't listen, but this podcast summary says as much. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/... The problem I think is that now the student has become the master, and the west is finding that out.

might want to check with Michelle Carter in prison I think still. And she too was under age as well when she encouraged her boyfriend to commit suicide. https://www.ktvu.com/news/woma... It really is amazing to me that any corp would stand for their product to act in this manner. I mean on tv anytime they even mention suicide obliquely they pull up the suicide hotline prevention line. The least openAI could do as when a chat starts going that way suggest the person contact the hotline. I mean how hard could that be? Of course they'd lose some revenue from additional chat time...

As some Russians discovered. https://www.reddit.com/r/today...