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Comment Re:Credit (Score 1) 124

Your analogy is far from perfect. If you as a husband do your part to only ever have sex with your wife and be a good husband then it is fair to take credit for divorce being avoided and having a good plan. If you wife runs off with the fireman, then isn't it fair if you blame her... Specifically I actually think Biden did try to address inflation by proposing an infrastructure/spending plan. That failed due to Manchin and Senema if I recall the names correctly. By the time inflation was being taken seriously congress was decidedly Republican and tax increases were/are very much off the table. That only leaves increasing interest rates as the last option to address inflation. I'm not sure very many people really think these things through. Now, personally I would agree the third (only one under Biden) stimulus could have been more measured, but if anyone is willing to recall even Trump pushed hard for more stimulus when it was to his benefit to not let the economy crash. Now ask yourself this, did republicans and Bush ever take credit for the '07 and '08 great recession collapse? He had all of his tenure to do anything he wanted to address systemic risks in the economy.

Comment Re:Useful war (Score 1) 221

Cheney, is that you? Shouldn't you be out pheasant hunting? It is the last day of the season, stay safe.

Snark aside, I detest this "we must police the world" mindset. Why was it our job to address terrorism and despot states in the middle east? We know that doesn't always go well; I won't list all those examples. Some other regional state should have and could have stepped up and dealt with their own home-grown terrorist problems for us. It is much more their concern than ours and it should be their desire to do so. There's no guarantee bin laden survives in our absence. Regardless, who punished the Saudis? Who punished Pakistan? There's holes all over in the logic from that era and I will forever despise the neocon war hawks who espouse it. They did not tell us their real reasons for what they did. Never forget the broken backs, ears, and minds a plenty we got back in return for the boys who came home.

Comment Re:This is why the fed raised interest rates (Score 1) 28

The primary concern is lowering demand, which is better thought of with specific examples. This became very clear when I heard this described as such, by an accountant relative no less who hates Biden and blames him for the inflation. It was worth fixing their roofing and siding this year, because the inflation on those goods meant it would be considerably more expensive to fix next year, than it was to do so now and pay for the loan from the banker. THAT is exactly why the fed has to raise interest rates, and NOT just a little bit but actually more than they have been. This same relationship plays out elsewhere in the economy in various areas, though of course not all to the same degree or to the same extent as this specific example.

Comment Re:bad enough that states want this (Score 1) 227

This cannot be a states rights issue long term. States already are facing concerns with what to do about the mailing in of early term abortion medicine, and what they would do if a "mother" crosses state lines for an abortion. In this way its just like slavery since crossing state lines is forcing the issue and the states rights crowd want to force their desires on other states with different attitudes. There clearly is an interstate commerce clause style situation here that demands a common answer. It will all play out messy since the conservative states rights crowd has zero clue how to govern effectively and cannot see the consequence of their actions. Just like it did a century and a half ago. As a slight aside, I also do not see how you call a newly impregnated egg a baby. Madness.

Comment Re:Save for retirement in alternative assets (Score 1) 25

On the one hand, chalk it all up to greed. But on the other, I'm sure its all about the potential upside. If your investments are sufficiently diversified you could put a small portion of it into crypto and then wait to see if it was eventually worth the risk. "About 1% of companies accounted for all of the global net wealth creation. - The other 99% of companies were a distraction to the task of making money."

If BTC goes from 30k to 300k, your small risky investment of say 10% of your portfolio could grow to be close 50% (1btc owned of an initial $300k overall mix) and reward your gamble. If you risked only 1% you'd still grow at 10%. This is all hypothetical, just trying to think of a way it could be viewed as something better than stupid.

Comment Re:propaganda aimed at stupid people (Score 1) 193

If you asked any business that does pay taxes, if they pay taxes, I can guarantee you that they give you a different answer than this nonsense you're parroting. The only difference is their size, and how well they can play the game. Amazon and other large companies pay their lawyers, accountants, lobbyists, and politicians enough money that they can get and keep their taxes paid low. I mostly believe in taxing income, not profits, it perhaps has some unintended consequences that would maybe need dealt with, but those will probably happen regardless. (Companies get larger, take out men in the middle, etc; that already happens...)

Comment Re:Wait (Score 1) 117

Agree! Will Smith and his family have been blessed beyond measure. Even if the joke is not in good taste, he should not lash out and "smack" a comedian. I think this kind of thing sets a tremendous precedent - Will Smith should apologize profusely, and I would imagine this would cause other comedians to seriously consider whether they should speak at stupid pompous ceremonies like this. If a comedian's usual routine isn't desired then they shouldn't be there, and comedians have a habit of trying to find the line and you don't do that without stepping over it once in a while.

Comment Re:Electric engines offer better torque, lower cos (Score 1) 419

I'm not sure about other places, but here in our rural backwater town they drive older vehicles like 20 year old jeep grand cherokees. They leave neat little oil drip trails as they drive from one mail box stop to the next. Often they'll smell kinda funny too. I am not sure who owns them, if it is the driver or the USPS, but I'm guessing due to the age its probably the driver. But yes they're perfect candidates for EV roles if only there was the money and motivation to do so. And to your point, for all the people that complain about how expensive it may be to replace a battery pack in a hybrid, people very easily forget how expensive it is to get newer ICE cars fixed when they need a gasket replaced or any of the other myriad of problems that so easily happen.

Comment Re:Fairphone (Score 1) 170

A quick check of Wikipedia says the iPhone 6 just got 12.5.5 as of September 2021, which really should color this whole discussion since that is seven years. The Android ecosystem really needs to lengthen their support, especially for security bugs. The Android ecosystem is basically your local dump. There are so many Android phones that are hard to get repaired with too short of support cycles. This is what my family observed, albeit anecdotally, so we switched. Apple is better at both repair and support and it's not even close.

Comment Re: Tulips or reserve currency? (Score 1) 114

Everyone right now is definitely recognizing the conservative slant of the police in power. In modern democracies we have completely enshrined the ability to peacefully "speak truth to power." But the trucker protests are doing so in an illegal manner. You cannot block roads and bridges perpetually just because you've got a big truck that is hard to move. As right-wing capitalists, they should recognize you don't hamper commercial enterprise and get away with it. It wasn't long ago that these same truckers (in a demographic) didn't want to go into cities where BLM protests were blocking roads and marching on bridges. I shouldn't have to recall how truck(s?) drove into crowds not very long ago.

Comment Re:Microsoft's programmers (Score 1) 124

Assume the point of the computer is running windows/MS products, it is never turned off (let alone for longer periods), has permanent broadband connectivity and the user uses it exactly how they thought up the "flow"

The latest on this front, is "Modern Connected Standby" - its the worst sleep mode idea ever.

Comment Re:What I want in a vaccine requires only 1 word: (Score 1) 82

I agree, for the anti-vaxxers there's just not much we can do. The rest of us want a multivalent vaccine, we'll take it as needed (hopefully once a year) just like the flu shots. Time is on our side, we can show its safety and efficacy and eventually, perhaps, the antivax crowd will realize how ridiculous they are acting.

Sarcasm Mode. Or our balls will fall off and they'll point their fingers and laugh at us. Or they'll die off. Either way the world will keep turning, with or without us. I just wish people were nicer about things and stop forcing things on each other, as if a trucker needs to have a vaccine requirement. The pro-vax crowd acts like the mortality rates are way higher, and the anti-vax crowd acts like the vaccine will give them the plague.

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