Agree with all your points.

It's possible I might have missed these, but they're also major considerations with COVID:

1. It causes scarring of tissue, especially heart tissue. That's why COVID sufferers often had severe blood clots in their bloodstream. Scarring of the heart increases risk of heart attacks, but there's obviously not much data on by how much, from COVID. Yet.

2. It causes brain damage in all who have been infected. Again, we have very little idea of how much, but from what I've read, there may be an increased risk of strokes in later life.

3. Viral load is known to cause fossil viruses in DNA to reactivate silenced portions. This can lead to cancer. Viral load has also been linked to multiple sclerosis and chronic fatigue, but it's possible COVID was the wrong sort of virus. These things can take decades to develop.

I would expect a drop in life expectancy, sometimes in the 2040-2050 timeframe, from life-shortening damage from COVID, but the probability depends on how much damage even mild sufferers sustained and what medicine can do to mitigate it by then. The first, as far as I know, has not been looked at nearly as much as long COVID has - which is fair. The second is obviously unknowable.

I'm hoping I'm being overly anxious, my worry is that I might not be anxious enough.

Few people seem to know that there are almost no hard and fast rules with a currency: * There is no unacceptable debt to GDP ratio. Some countries have faltered at 60% others have sustained 200+%.

* Confidence is seemingly a factor, but this can be so fickle as to have little predictive value.

* It doesn't have to be backed by anything. Gold backed can increase confidence, but take somali currency. The government was never solid, and has been a basket-case since the 90s. Yet, people go to the market to buy/sell stuff using the "national" currency. For international trade it is entirely useless, so they use neighbouring or solid currencies.

* Once currency can be terrible, but people living under an even worse currency will find it attractive. I fully believe this is one of the things propping up the USD. Other people (in some countries) want it because they want their own even less.

* Too much of it isn't entirely a problem. It takes a confidence crisis to usually push too much over the edge. Going right to the edge of "too much" will stimulate an economy to produce things to mop up the ever growing amount of currency. I would argue this is where things like crypto currencies are becoming attractive. They are just a way to mop up the huge amounts of USD sloshing around. Some people argue these are a hedge, I would say at this point this is not the case.

* Most people are unaware of the velocity of money problem. Once various categories like M1 and its friends are actually crossing the line of "too much" people will dump their now inflating currency faster. This increases velocity, which effectively increases the money supply; which (everybody sing along) increase the incentive to increase the velocity. This is a positive feedback loop with very negative consequences.

* People forget that you have to pay your taxes in USD. This means that people will still do part or whole of all transactions in USD, so as to pay their taxes. This can place a support for a currency for a period. If the US federal government said that all taxes had to be paid in Leopard pelts, the leopard would go extinct in weeks.

* Most of the rich world is quietly dumping US debt, and only acquiring what is needed for basic trade.

* The USD debt is safe because the US can always print more. This is technically, and pedantically true, but the reality is that if you hold a 10 year bond with a 5% and a 10% one comes out, the first one is now only worth $69.30. That is a massive massive massive haircut. If you are thinking that 15% is on the table, then you are thinking your bond could go to $49.81. That is a halving in value if rates on a 5% bond go to 15%.

* Crises come along on a fairly regular basis. Not every presidential term, but pretty close. Right now the US deficit spending is at a crisis level (the level you would expect during a crisis like 2008, 2001, a major war, etc) This means a real crisis would require way more spending. Where is this money coming from?

* The world can't supply limitless money to the US. Think of it this way. If you have a trusted friend and they come to you looking to borrow $1,000. I think most people could manage this, some could manage $10,000, some could manage $100,000 or even a million if they mortgage against their house, etc. But a point would come for the vast majority of people where they could not round up the money to loan. If the US goes to the rest of the world looking for 5T, 8T 10T, a point will come where no matter how much they threaten, or the world even wants to desperately help, they can't cough up that much. Seeing that the US is not inspiring confidence, and is no longer a trusted friend; there will very soon be a point where bond auctions don't produce results. So, they will start cranking up interest rates

* Triggers. This is one many are actually worried about. If they screw with the fed's independence, this will trigger an instant bond auction failure. Minimally, this tags 2-5% onto the next successful auction. Other triggers include punishing some country by nullifying its debt in some way. This an instant confidence crisis and the world goes from quietly dumping US debt to quiet panic dumping of US debt. The US bond auctions have to compete with this debt.

* On this last, going back to the value of lower interest debt to higher interest debt, it gets weird. Many countries hold US debt from over the last 20 years. Much of it is at 1.5% or so. Thus, selling it into a market where the US is printing at 10% means you have to sell it at less than $47.77. Seeing you are in a buyers market, this could be far lower than that. Many countries would not be happy to have something which seemingly has a value of $100 and are dumping it at say $30. I say seemingly in that most people would see a bond with a face value of $100 as worth at least $100. The reality is far more complex. But this highlights that this whole event would not be simple.

* Revenge. Quite simply, there are a whole lot of countries in the world now who are still having to do business with the US but no longer want to. Beyond the financials, things like pension funds, etc are not inclined to be buying US anything. This is a little bit of a doom loop. If large pension funds are slowly exiting the USD, then it will drop, which makes the US stock market look less attractive; which makes all of them less inclined to invest in US anything.

* Quantitative Easing. This is a financial term we all learned in 2008. This was the pumping of massive amounts money followed by trying to slow down and mop it all up before the economy overheated. With the amount of money now being paid in interest payments on US debt; the amounts dwarf QE. With the new debt being issued at much higher rates, these interest payments are flooding the economy with massive amounts of money.

* Economic indicators. People are saying these are lies now. Who knows. But with organizations like ICE getting a budget triple that of the US Marine Core, and larger than the military budget of russia, that is a whole lot of hiring to produce a whole lot of nothing.

* Risk free interest rate. This is a foundational part of the math behind finance. Everyone was comfortable with this number in the US being the 3 month treasury. People are now realizing that while still low risk, it is no longer no risk. This has ripple effects on all kinds of things like options, derivatives, etc. I couldn't even guess as to how this could blow up; but these are massive markets, so if they do blow up or hiccup, it would be quite bad.

* Post WWII Britain is a very good analogy for what is going on now. They had too much debt, a crumbling empire, and a new world competitor. But, it really didn't come to a head until 1959. In the few years up to 59, it looked like things were on the mend. Did the UK come to a screeching halt and everyone died? Nope, but they were no longer an empire.

TLDR; various tropes about the US being sound, a world reserve, no alternatives etc, are all basically BS based on ignorance, misplaced confidence, and hope. As most financial reports say, "Past performance is no guarantee of future results."

Not before some of those involved in the bubble have got away with a lot of cash from the naive.

The 1890's called, but it turns out they DON'T want their 16 hour work days back.

It's on you to present actual evidence.

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a list of books deemed heretical. The idea was to stop people from reading things that might give people ideas that the Church did not like. Taking down these web sites is much the same thing: stop people getting ideas that those funding Trump do not like.

That depends on the work. For maintenance, you don't care if he labors like a madman for hours a day, or if he reads a magazine all day, then takes out his wand and says "REPAIRO" with a flourish. So long as shit works.

But it DID. Better performance is a real and measurable result.

And get a lot less vacation days.

Tell that to the back to office zealots that expect 8 hr/day 5 day/week attendance.

The real problem is we can't return to being a key chip manufacturing nation overnight. You have to fall down to learn how to walk.

The process of board FAB is now mostly automated. I honestly think much of the difference is that thChinese companies don't have to tithe to the toddlers of Wall Street (The yachts for tots program) so they can do it MUCH cheaper.

I would also help friends with such a thing. None of them are on /.

Others might decide to make it into a business or at least a side hustle. They could easily make some spare bux while saving their customers some money.

The OEMs wouldn't like that, but the laws are supposed to be what's good for the society as a whole and it's economy, not just what makes manufacturers the most money.

Agreed, having the CAD files is best, but since that pre-supposes having the same CAD program available, STEP should be included as well. STL can work in a pinch, but if you have STEP, you can convert to STL easily, but not the other way around.

Often, even re-producing the part will prefer a STEP file at least. Odds are, the original was designed for injection molding and will do better as a 3D print with some modifications that don't affect function but help printability.

I use FreeCAD as the base here both because I use it regularly and like it and because anybody can obviously afford FreeCAD. Solidworks, not so much.

Because the Apple Genuses are mostly trained to tell you you need a new one and help transfer the data over after you buy it. Rossman's videos are full of repairs done for vastly less tn Apple wanted and corresponding customers that chose that option. As a bonus, no lost data. The phone repair places obviously do enough business to keep the employees paid and the lights on, so while YOU may not want that option, obviously plenty of people do.