It's a similar concept to Alternative Minimum Taxes [*], which you probably haven't experienced with your own taxes. Basically, deductions that corporations can normally claim are disallowed and then their taxes are calculated at the lower rate. If the result is more than they would pay with the higher rate and broader set of deductions, then they have to pay it rather rather than the normally-calculated amount. So it doesn't apply to all corporations, or maybe even most, but it extracts additional revenue from those that would otherwise be successful at using extensive deductions and credits (also known as "loopholes") to reduce their tax liability.

In some cases they're already committed to the behavior and won't be able to avoid the tax. But, yeah, in many cases this tax may deter the behavior rather than raise revenue. The CBO's projections try to take that into account when projecting the revenue impacts, of course. But I think the main goal of this part of the IRA is to appease populists on both sides who think stock buybacks are bad, because they don't understand how publicly-traded corporations work.

The grants will also be paid out over time, so it's more like spending money in the future that will be raised in the future.

Yeah, it's probably inflation-neutral. The IRA does contain some inflation-reducing provisions in specific areas, notably healthcare, but it's mostly revenue-neutral and inflation-neutral. I suppose you can say it's inflation-reducing compared to its previous incarnation, the Build Back Better bill, which if enacted would have increased the deficit and potentially stoked inflation.

[*] Note that AMT is slightly different in that for most taxpayers AMT is actually calculated at a higher tax rate, in addition to disallowing a lot of deductions. But AMT also allows a much larger standard deduction (with a phaseout based on income).

If we were sure that we'll never go to war with China, I'd agree. Right now we're facing a situation where we may end up in another world war, but we'll be on the side fighting against the manufacturing powerhouse. If it weren't for such strategic concerns, I'd be all for dropping all the tariffs (well, we should add some carbon tariffs) and outsourcing all the manufacturing to China. Trading electronic dollars that we invent as needed for hard goods? Hell yeah. I'll take all of that they want to give us.

But I don't think the geopolitical situation can be ignored. I'm not sure that propping up the US auto industry is the best way to maintain vehicle manufacturing capacity, but until a better alternative is proposed we should probably stick with it.

It really won't. We already know how battery degradation works. Unless they bought trucks with too-small batteries to begin with, the trucks will wear out before battery capacity drops enough to require replacement.

My point is that expanding the acronym isn't useful, except perhaps to chemists who would already know what the acronym expands to. Explaining what PFAS are is useful. And the article did that:

PFAS are a class of 15,000 chemicals used across dozens of industries to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. Though the compounds are highly effective, they are also linked to cancer, kidney disease, birth defects, decreased immunity, liver problems and a range of other serious diseases.

They are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and are highly mobile once in the environment, so they continuously move through the ground, water and air. PFAS have been detected in all corners of the globe, from penguin eggs in Antarctica to polar bears in the Arctic.

So, I think the Guardian did a fine job of explaining what matters.

Battery EVs already solved everything, primarily the convenience. And with enough mileage it is even matching/cheaper than TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of gas vehicles. I just had to wait some years for the next regular replacement of my car. The problem is if you do not have your own house with your own garage / parking place. Wall Connector (in my garage) I had installed during a weekend - and I am not an electrician. That little installation cost/effort gets paid off by the EV benefits quickly.

I am 100% for the free market rules. So plug your tailpipe to your cabin and start paying Middle East wars from petrolheads' pockets, not my pocket.

Per- And Polyfluorinated Substances. Did that help?

With 65,502 bytes left over.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Not flat, 10% increase. Some of that increase may be due to more dual-income households, but we were already pretty well along that transition by 1999.

Let's do that: GDP per capita of the UK: $46k. GDP per capita of China: $12k. But maybe China does better at distributing the wealth? Nope. UK Gini coefficient: 35, China, 47 (higher is more inequality). Until recently China had phenomenal growth rates, but that's only because (a) they started from a very depressed level and (b) they mostly abandoned socialism. As Xi is reasserting more socialist policies their growth engine has largely stopped and their growth rate is currently below that of the UK. It's still positive at the moment, but if Xi continues what he's doing, it will likely go negative.

Socialism -- not social democracy, which is a thoroughly capitalist economy that accepts high but strongly progressive taxation to fund a strong safety net -- consistently drives economies into the toilet whenever applied on any scale larger than a kibbutz. Without fail, every time.

I don't think this is true. If you enable emergency mode video recording you have to enter your PIN to end the recording, but biometrics will still unlock the lockscreen. While the recording is going, hit the power button to activate the lockscreen, which will be unlockable with biometrics. You can also swipe up from the bottom (assuming gesture navigation) and switch to other apps. The device is not locked and not in lockdown mode while in emergency mode.

What you can do is press power and volume up to bring up the power menu, and then tap the "Lockdown" icon. That will lock the device and disable biometric authentication.

If you really, really want to lock it down, power the device down, or reboot it and don't log in. Android's disk encryption scheme uses your PIN/pattern/password ("lockscreen knowledge factor", or LSKF) along with keys stored in secure hardware to derive the disk encryption keys. It would make for a long post to go into all of the details, but given the hardware-enforced brute force mitigation,if the attacker gets a device in this state it's extremely difficult to decrypt any of the credential-encrypted data on the device without your LSKF. This is particularly true on devices that implement "StrongBox" (all Pixels, some Samsungs, some others). Android StrongBox moves some crucial functionality, including LSKF authentication and LSKF brute force resistance, into a separate hardened, lab-certified[*] security processor with its own internal storage, a "secure element".

Of course, note that appellate courts in the US have split on whether or not your LSKF can be compelled. Some have ruled that unless the PIN/pattern/password is itself incriminating, it's no different than compelling the combination to a safe, which has long been held to be constitutional.

[*] For anyone interested in the details, the required certification is Common Criteria EAL 4+ (5+ is recommended, and common, many devices meet 6+), using protection profile 0084 for the hardware and equivalent "high attack potential" evaluation for the software, plus AVA_VAN.5 penetration testing, all performed in a nationally-accredited security testing lab. While certification isn't a guarantee of security (nothing is), the required certification applies the highest level of scrutiny you can get for commercially-available devices. Apple also uses a similarly-certified SE in their devices, but it's not clear whether they use it for LSKF authentication, or whether they use their (uncertified) Secure Enclave.

Maybe not hundreds, but at least dozens. For most people their phone is their digital assistant in all sorts of ways... not only for communication for for calendaring, looking up random things, reading the news or books, listening to music, getting directions, checking their bank account/brokerage, doing calculations, fitness tracking, managing shopping and to-do lists... the list goes on and on.

True, and neither does Hamas. For that matter, neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian people get to claim the moral high ground, since both overwhelmingly support the actions of their governments. Both are in the gutter, and digging downward. A pox on both their houses, and I don't think we should support either one. I am okay with humanitarian aid to starving people, though.

I suppose. I prefer to plug in every time I park, then I basically never have to pay any attention to range except on long trips.

Yeah, that's another side of my second reason, though cycles really only begin to bite when you get close to full or close to empty. Oscillating near the middle is fine.

Google is one of the companies that built the tools that allow propaganda to be made much more efficiently, funny its own employees fell for it hook line and sinker.

In the age when males are beating females in sports by pretending to be females the structural inability to tell the truth, to provide negative feedback is not only hurting female sports. Musk will never land a star ship on the Moon or Mars or anything because he is a sharlatan and he hires former government officials who signed government checks, he is burning through billions of tax money with every flight, all of these star ship flights are pointless. Gaza residents and Hamas operatives not only indistinguishable, they share the same values. People protesting pro terrorism (against Israel) are wrong for the same reasons this male athlete is participating in female sports. USA denying help to Ukraine is literally murdering thousands of Ukrainians and promoting putinism, which is terrorism. USA federal reserve has created the inflation by monetizing government debt and so the economy is dying. The planet is going to become extremely hostile to people because we are still burning coal, oil and gas for power and heat production instead of building more nuclear power plants. There are more and more lies all over.

These Googlers are a sad reflection of the modern approach to reality - our game is ignorance, lies and denial and these protests are just a form of it.