Each time I log into my Vanguard brokerage account using Firefox 140.12.0esr which was the previous esr from Mozilla, I'm greeted with a message that tells me I should really be using the most current browser both for security and features.

I dinged them on it last week via their chat link and yesterday I received a call from their tech support. The guy had no idea what the esr version was and told me that they would not support it. I tried to explain using many of the points in the post, but it seemed to have gone in one of his ears and immediately out the other.

This is a fairly recent development. Manuals were more fuel efficient until recently. And it depends on the number of gear in the auto trans.

My Miata beeps at me if I start to wonder out of my lane. I have to turn it off on good twisty roads. Self driving? I didn't buy the Miata to let it self drive :).

Broke my left leg some years ago while out by myself on the family farm. Drove myself to the local hospital in a Ford Ranger w/ a stick shift. Started it out in the field using my right leg to operate the clutch and my fingers to run the gas. Not hard to shift up w/ out using the clutch, but shifting down is a bear so I just cruised through a couple of stop signs. Finally stalled it out right in front of the ER doors.

I once had an embarrassed restaurant maitre d' ask me to park my own car since their valet didn't know how to use a clutch.

My wife drives a manual Honda Fit and won't give up the manual shift. I drive a manual Miata ND. My will states that I am to be buried in it, although my daughter really wants it so maybe I'll give it to her. She'll be the last generation that knows how to use a clutch.

Grateful Dead shows were never in mono, it was a chemistry thing.

A friend of mine moved to Oxford, Mississippi some years ago. He and his SO walked into a store to get a bottle of wine. When they inquired where the chardonnay was located, the old clerk replied "Son, you gotta go all the way to Memphis to get a bottle of Chardonnay."

About the same time, I drove my sister down to school at Auburn, Alabama. I had a 5 hour drive home on a Sunday afternoon and thought it might be nice to pick up a 6 pack for the empty interstate drive (this was before MADD). But the beer in the convenience store was all locked up. I asked if anyone knew a local bootlegger. Three customers immediately volunteered to show me the way.

But it isn't just Mississippi that has a single state owned wholesaler. Ohio, where I live now, does, too. And that wholesaler gets to choose for the entire state which brands are sold in the state. The result is that we have a horrible selection. Basically, the system allows the state legislators to accept bribes in the form of campaign contributions from the producers who want to get their product on the approved list and keep their competitors off of it.

I once looked at the state liquor commission's web site to see if I could find the approved list. Prominently displayed was the commission's mission statement. Their job, they stated, was to bring in as much revenue as they could for the State of Ohio. A far better system would be to do away with the state wholesaler, open it up to competition that could compete on product selection and customer service and charge a wholesale tax. But then the legislators wouldn't get their kickbacks.

S&P is looking to repeal that rule at least for the case of SpaceX.

Nothing really wrong with a 5% withdrawal rule. In exchange for the extra risk, the investor generally gets paid more interest. But this is why such investments should be restricted to institutional and high net worth investors. Most retail investors either can't afford to give up the liquidity or will panic when there is blood in the water. These are long term investments.

Disclaimer: I worked for Citi for a couple of years, 2010-2012, before I got disgusted with their rather hidebound management.

My graduate degrees are in economics and I think the GP probably has a better understanding of how the system works than you do. Or at least he does a better job of keeping up with the news than you do.

OH resident here. I'm of two minds on this. I agree that a constitution should be a simple statement of how the government should work along with a statement of human rights. The problem in OH is that it is fairly easy to amend the constitution by popular referendum and so all kinds of silly stuff that really belongs in laws gets added to the constitution. A few years ago, as an example, a group of casino operators put forth an amendment that allowed 4 casinos in the state. The amendment specifically included the designated locations. It passed because only a simple majority vote by the citizens was required.

OTOH, that simple majority requirement also allowed a pro-choice abortion amendment to pass against the wishes of the Republican controlled state legislature. The anti-choice folks tried to get their own amendment through in a special election held just before the abortion amendment vote. Their amendment would have required a 60% vote to approve an amendment along with a requirement (IIRC) that getting it on the ballot required a certain percentage of counties to have met a strict signature requirement. I would have voted for it except that that last clause was just a sneaky attempt to derail the pro-choice amendment by giving rural counties a veto over whether it even got on the ballot. Their amendment failed the 50% voter approval requirement and the pro-choice amendment went on to pass by a 57/42 margin.

We also have a voter law initiative process. But because it is a law passed by the voters, once passed it can be amended by the heavily gerrymandered legislature. Ohio's marijuana legalization law was passed by a voter initiative over the legislature's wishes, and they have been trying to kill it by amending the law for the past couple of years.

So the bottom line is that yes, in a perfect world, the constitution would be a simple statement of rights and responsibilities, but often, a constitutional amendment is the only way that citizen majorities can impose their will on the legislature.

What you describe rarely happens. It is far more likely that the owner of the stock (or car) is lying about its current prospects and expected future profits and the short seller is simply calling them out about it.

You short sell a stock because you believe it is overvalued. And often it is. But often it isn't. No one is being abused by short selling. Short selling is just one of the normal mechanisms for discovering the value of a stock. Remember, if the short seller is wrong because the price goes up, they lose.

Why is that a problem? You still have the 50 cars. It isn't the short sellers problem that you were dumb enough to overpay for them in the 1st place. But now the market knows that your cars were not as valuable as people had assumed. And if the guy who borrowed the cars can't buy them back at the lower price he expects because they really are as valuable as you believe, he is the one who loses, not you.

All developed market economies (US, Europe, Japan, etc.) have option and futures markets for stocks, commodities, foreign exchange, and various indexes. They are used all over the world for hedging and insurance as well as for speculation. You should pick up a basic textbook on financial markets.

"There is no dark side in the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark. The only thing that makes it look light is the sun."

-- Gerry O'Driscoll, the doorman at Abbey Road Studios

My objection to these decision systems is that they frequently use the wrong objective function. Does the patient have cancer or not? Maximizing the probability of a correct answer is the wrong objective function. If a the patient is told they have cancer and they do not, there is a cost involved, a more expensive, invasive test. If the patient is told they do not have cancer and they do, the patients life has been put at risk, a much higher cost. Is that a car full of terrorists or a wedding party? Decide not to fire at the car and it turns out to have been terrorists, a market is blown up and innocent lives taken. Fire at the car and it is a wedding party, you have likely created a new generation of terrorists. Each wrong answer has a cost that can be measured. Where the costs of a wrong answer of one decision vs the other differs substantially, the correct objective function is to minimize the cost of a wrong answer.