"Women over 40 have the lowest birth rate" shouldn't come as a shock to anyone

Older does tend to mean wiser, after all. Well... okay, for some people.

Destroying middle class has predictable consequence of tanking birth rate. News at 11.

"We must have constant inflation or people might, you know, save!"

Then... basics cost (a lot) more and mid- to low-tier wages don't even come close to keeping up

Brutal housing, education, medical, food, vehicle, and fuel costs, crushing taxes on the lower tier workers... gee, sounds like a great circumstance to bring some ever-more-expensive rug rats into.

The "American Dream" is deader than Trump's diaper contents for a large swath of those of an age to be pumping out crotch goblins. But hey: The stock market is doing Great!

Or perhaps it's just that no one wants to hump someone with their pants falling off their butt — or otherwise dressing like a refugee.

Obligatory: get off my lawn.

And when you do request a refund, they can still worm their way out of paying (Air France and KLM, I am looking at you!) by saying things like "It's not our fault the plane was struck by lightning".

Yeah, it is a silly analysis without comparison to the alternative.

Even totally ignoring the environment, Californians bought 13.6 billion gallons of gasoline in 2022. At a cost of $4.50 that's $61.2B per year on gasoline, every year, forever, until we invest in other options. $20B towards kicking that habit - permanently - isn't necessarily unreasonable.

Of course there are some recurring costs to maintain the grid (though a non-upgraded grid might be higher or lower, I don't know), and other costs to electric switchover such as, obviously, generating clean power.

But simply saying - "Ooooh, $20B, big number!" is more misleading than informative.

I don't think it's even specific to diamonds, but rather in the same vein as Sorry, Boomers, your kids don't want your beloved china. Or fur coats. Or jewelery in general.

Then

Now (yes that is also Mr T!)

It is flamebait. The linked article is worth a read though - more actual quotes

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/2...

What comes across overwhelmingly to me here is a sense of panic. There doesn't seem to be any confidence that they can build something unique. He's totally focused execution - on catching up with whatever somebody else released last month.

Huh, that is a strange omission to make.

They should have put it closer. But puttering down the strip on foot checking everything out, and then hitting the monorail for a 1-way ride all the way back, is a pretty common thing I think. That, or staying in the hotel where your meetings/conference/gambling is, and hardly going outside. Or going to the Raiders game or F1 race.

At least I think we can all see the monorail does have decent ridership, and the extra-wide sidewalks of the strip are relatively crowded, much moreso than typical in the US other than exceptional places like NYC.

https://greekreporter.com/2024...
https://arkeonews.net/italian-...
https://www.heritagedaily.com/...
https://www.sciencetimes.com/a...

I will say this, of all the places you might want to visit without a car in the US, which can probably be counted on one hand, Las Vegas might be at the top of that list. Most visitors are going to the strip, which has the monorail, or the football stadium.

China will figure all that out for us, they're like 30 years ahead in adoption of high speed rail

https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infogr...

Especially since the construction of the rail line is in a race with the electrification of cars and the transition to green energy, both of which are making rapid progress in California every year.

I've heard there are long lines at the recharging stations between LA and Las Vegas on big weekends. Obviously that's not great in itself, but it shows that 400,000 tons number is set to shrink. Of course you'll still never beat a train for efficiency in moving a bunch of people along the same route at the same time, like for a raiders game.

Yeah. I'd expect journalists to know basic grammar and not use present tense when talking about last year.