Many of these places are basically international hedge funds that happen to also own classroom buildings.
For many others, they are professional sports franchises that also happen to own the apartment buildings their players reside in.
Hindsight is 20/20 but one of the things I didn't understand about the behavior of the government during the pandemic was the willingness to sort of do a business as usual with pharmacy firms. I am not normally
I think the US should have bought the patents of the initial mRNA vaccines and related therapies like Paxlovid. Pay a fair price, but also make Pfizer an offer they couldn't refuse. I'm not normally into the govt getting to run roughshod over private firms, but two cases....war and pandemic seem to allow for it. And as annoying and dysfunctional as they are, Congress should have to be the one to authorize a declaration of "war" or "pandemic" No more under the table "authorization of use of military force” . If you invade another country that is war. Now even Putin follows the lead with "special operation"
A huge chunk of this Paxlovid money will be paid by Medicare so should've just bought the cow...
I mean as long as you can withdraw North Korean won (KPW) or Russian ruble (RUB) I would say 99% of Bitcoin & Binance active users are fine.
Which would also explain Elon Musk's interest in Mars.
"He who controls the spice controls the universe."
Goes back to the overly complex tax code. In theory the idea is that you can encourage certain things via the tax code, like people starting small businesses (tax deduction) or buying homes (mortgage deduction) or donating to charity (charitable deduction).
The reality is that there are unintended consequences for all the good stuff. AND the people who really benefit from the insanely complicated tax code are the super-rich and large corporations. They keep the rest of us sated by the "Hee hee, I deducted the mileage on my trip to Atlanta" or ""Hee Hee got a $2k refund"
Flat freakin tax please. 15% on all income, 22% on corporate.
Ditch all the loopholes, and giveaways from mortgage deductions on first and second homes to child care credits
Start to really balance the budget which means defense, medicare, medicaid, education, everything is on the table**
**Remember the Sequester of 2011? That is where there was this dead mans switch to automatically reduce spending on everything by 10% if the politicians couldn't come up with a budget. Maybe Medicare only got cut by 2-3%, but everything else, Defense, Education, Evironment, all of it. The Republicans cried bloody murder for their stuff, the Democrats cried bloody murder for their stuff. Sequestration was going to doom us all. And guess what...big load of nothing. I propose a spending bill that cuts all government by 4% each year across the board unless the congress can come up with 4% cuts on their own
I would say that 'society' does decide on mergers in general by the laws we agree upon. For example, if the shareholders of all the US airlines decided to merge into one, monopoly, mega-airline, they could agree to do so. But the Sherman Act is a law that would prohibit such a merger. That is geared towards outright monopolies. The Sherman Act was in 1890..perhaps we can decide that there is a lower threshold than outright monopolies that we as a society would desire. Like no one firm should have XX% of a defined market. Not personally suggesting that idea, but point is we get to decide the rules. There isn't a 'natural law' of business.
Vigorous competition results in lower prices for consumers, greater innovation at a faster pace. Also a varied landscape for skilled employees. Lack of such meaningful competition benefits basically just the top management of whatever firm remains in the monopoly/duoply/triopoly(?). Plus the related investment banks, and maybe some shareholders.
As a society we can decide to agree which is preferable. I for one prefer the competition, but as is often the case the latter allows for more concentrated wealth which is more efficient when influencing the politicos.
Sure in some Guy Rtichie movie it could be the oil cartels, or some secret NATO op, or the militant wing of Greenpeace. But c'mon...its the Russians. Twitter guy noted this: https://twitter.com/konrad_muz...?
The only reason not to think it's the Russians is that this and Nordstream attacks were actually successful.
The other operation that has been successful for Russia is keeping energy independence out of Europe blocking implementation of nuclear power. The Western world had decades to replace fossil fuel with nuclear, and then replace some of nuclear with wind and solar as technology improved and costs lowered. Sabine's 'Dunkleflaute' Youtube video is a good one in realistically comparing options for electricity generation. tldr; U-235 contains 24 GWh per kg.
But the bizarro politics around all of this resulted in increasing fossil fuel use instead. In the US such energy independence would have avoided multiple wars in the Middle East, healthier citizens, better, cleaner world, money spent domestically instead of being sent to places that hate us.
" it's essentially a third world country outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow, " That's very true, and all the other stuff you mentioned that goes along with it. And, the Russian (internet) TV is off-the-hook crazy as you mentioned. I really don't think people get the intensity and duration of the propaganda machine. 99% of that population are not watching the Ukraine victory videos we are seeing on Youtube. People in the Russian boondocks don't have a clue what's going on. Though to be fair, the Ukrainians are very much still the underdogs in this war, and some Youtube T-90 tank turret vids won't change the fact Russia still has the capacity to lay waste to Ukraine for years to come.
I would also say that those in the metro centers are still benefitting from Russia being a petro state. That oil money that Putin stocked up on for nearly seven years is still working, and they are still selling oil today in a $5 gallon gas market (thank you Saudi Arabia...no wait...eff you Saudi Arabia) . Yes they are getting only 2/3rds the going rate for oil since China is twisting screws on them, but it's enough to keep the Russian proletariat happy for now. Or at least sated enough that they aren't going to risk their livelihoods and go protest or something.
Prigozhin should have gone all the way to Moscow. Once he left Rostov-on-don and downed a couple airplanes he was condemned. Better take your chances, oust Putin, install some other politician from the Duma, and live to see another year.
I do think Russians want to live a Western lifestyle, but their pride and a bizarre unwillingness to let go of the strong man leader crap sinks them every time.
A huge chunk of people will be working 0 hours because AI took their jobs. The rest will be working 60 hours a week.
This. We have the mechanism to remove these people each election. I mean if McConnel runs again in 2026 at the ripe age of 84...he would likely still win.
My only thing would be to try and figure out a way to reduce the benefits of incumbency. I don't have any good ideas on that, but leveling the field a bit I think would help. From knowing relatives who ran for local offices, there is a lot of regulatory capture here as well. All of the campaign contribution, anti-fraud, etc is well meaning but adds up to a big lift for a new candidate
Unpopular as this would sound, I think increasing the amount a representative/Senator gets paid would encourage better applicants. We have billions...no trillions of dollars of tax payers spending being decided by people making $175k. Having even marginally better people in there to make these decisions would pay for itself. Say we spend $150 million on congress salaries...sounds like a lot, but that's the budget for pencils and erasers on a big Defense contract.
But "a proven innovator with a customer-first mindset". That's senior management gold right there. Who needs engineering knowledge if you are just putting customers first. Like that guy with the Titanic sub.
Yeah, these sort of excessive headlines just diminish actual problems.
I'm a super fan of Purple Air and their model of citizen-based data. Previously one did have rely on gate keepers for raw data. The organization that maintained the one air quality sensor in your city and/or who ever administers the satellite data. I don't think anyone was out to mess with the data, but there was very little and it wasn't very accessible. With the PurpleAir model people can buy a device and if they choose (important distinction) have their data published with everyone else's. And everyone, even people who did not purchase the device, are able to view it on their website. People choose to participate because the more sensors the better the data. And with quality data we can actually point to the factory down the road, or the highway itself, and make needed changes.
FWIW Europe isn't looking all that bad to me. https://map.purpleair.com/1/mT... Albeit just one snapshot in time
It'd be great if we could do something similar with handheld XRF analyzers. Go to your local grocery, zap the organic apples and find out they are covered in pesticides. Or that the coffee mug you bought from the dollar store is glazed in lead and gypsum board powder. Make a website and start tagging places to call them to account if need be.
I have no financial or other interest in PurpleAir
They will get their $868 million dollars
About $40 billion per year according to this site.
https://www.defense.gov/News/R...
Also surprising/not-surprising is that the State of Virginia gets the most spending at the state level. Not CA, not TX, not NV (cough cough).
I guess that's Arlington and/or Langley depending on whose books you are looking at.
Aside from all the political theatre, it'd be nice if a group of bi-partisan legislators just made it their primary jobs to:
-Simplify the tax code...flat tax, whatever. But start phasing out all the wacko deductions...even the ones I like.
-Get the freakin' defense contractor welfare scam under control.
-Destroy telemarketing
Is there anyone of any political stripe that objects to these (whose not in the pocket of the corp beneficiaries)?
Once those are resolved we can move onto the FoxNews/MSNBC circus issues
Good quality sand for concrete and glass is the next major black market. According to television.
Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should.
