I own, but do not operate, a few IT companies that manage corporations in the $600MM-$1B receivables range.

Based on our own help desk ticket software, our clients have opened 40% fewer tickets since ChatGPT was rolled out to every desk and phone. 40%. I expect another 40% drop (total 80%) by next year as end users just manage things themselves.

I won't downsize as the tickets aren't really generating revenue as much as headaches. One of my engineers had a broken PDF file that took her 6 hours to fix, and the end user spent 6 days trying to fix it themselves with Ai.

But -- the basic stuff? Reboot your computer stuff? Email rejected because you mistyped a domain name stuff?

You don't need a human, and we would probably have outsource that stuff to India anyway next year if not for ChatGPT etc.

I spend quite a bit on Discord server services, but I'm out.

GFY, Discord and governments, for mandating this bullshit nonsense.

Talking to people in public isnâ(TM)t harassment.

Talking to people on taxpayer funded grounds also isnâ(TM)t trespass.

Tax funded?

Not private property anymore.

Let's consider history and debt. The economies of the world have passed through several stages. Prior to the gold standard things could only scale so far before it failed. The gold standard reintroduced stability and fostered even more international trade. The principle of the gold standard was to maintain the peg of a currency to gold. This worked really well up till world war one. Its weaknesses had started to become carat before that where the need for currency expansion could not be satisfied till the next unpredictable gold rush discovery. As a result under capitalized banks became at risk and eventually their were crises that led into world war 1 and utterly failed after it leading to the great depression

We got out of the Great Depression largely in part ti temporary suspension of the gold standard.
A new way of pegging currency emerged with the Brettin woods agreement. All countries would peg to the us dollars and use treasuries as the medium of international money transfer not gold. The us would remain on the gold standard because it could afford to buy gold with all those treasury purchases.

But eventually this too saturated and limited growth. Under Nixon the us left the good standard.

The goal of the fed central bank was not to maintain the dollar per se since the dollar stood alone as the international benchmark. But instead the goal of the Fed was to curb inflation and curb unemployment. The weakness is the Fed only can use monetary policy not fiscal policy. As a result those two goals are in conflict since they cannot be decoupled with a single point of control ( monetary policy without fiscal policy)

But somehow we've done a great job using that system.

But now the international system has again scaled to a new problem which is deficit spending is reaching a point where debt service is a burden.

The next evolution of this is well known. It was beta tested in The depression when the us both went off the gold standard briefly but also excersized both monetary policy abs fiscal policy in concert.

The approach is called modern monetary theory. It has its critics but critics fixate on sound bite summaries of mmt and really fail to grasp that actually it not only can work but has worked in all the instances it has been tried ( us, Italy, Venezuela all recovered from crises under mmt approaches)

The fact that Europe is having problems is in fact due to the euro not allowing fiscal policy since states can't control their own money supply any longer.

The Fed not true problem with mmt is tgat one cannot actually trust politicians to conduct proper discipline in fiscal policy. That has to be solved before it can be implemented. What allowed its implementation in the past was the automatic and not political and transient spending needed to meet crises like the Great Depression. But to do it outside of unemployment periods is dangerous unless it can be done by an apolitical entity -- something similar to the Fed but with different powers and madates.

In any case the bottom line is this, under mmt a debt equal to your gdp is not a bad thing! No need to panic.

The economies of the world have passed through several stages. Prior to the gold standard things could only scale so far before it failed. The gold standard reintroduced stability and fostered even more international trade. The principle of the gold standard was to maintain the peg of a currency to gold. This worked really well up till world war one. Its weaknesses had started to become carat before that where the need for currency expansion could not be satisfied till the next unpredictable gold rush discovery. As a result under capitalized banks became at risk and eventually their were crises that led into world war 1 and utterly failed after it leading to the great depression

We got out of the Great Depression largely in part ti temporary suspension of the gold standard.
A new way of pegging currency emerged with the Brettin woods agreement. All countries would peg to the us dollars and use treasuries as the medium of international money transfer not gold. The us would remain on the gold standard because it could afford to buy gold with all those treasury purchases.

But eventually this too saturated and limited growth. Under Nixon the us left the good standard.

The goal of the fed central bank was not to maintain the dollar per se since the dollar stood alone as the international benchmark. But instead the goal of the Fed was to curb inflation and curb unemployment. The weakness is the Fed only can use monetary policy not fiscal policy. As a result those two goals are in conflict since they cannot be decoupled with a single point of control ( monetary policy without fiscal policy)

But somehow we've done a great job using that system.

But now the international system has again scaled to a new problem which is deficit spending is reaching a point where debt service is a burden.

The next evolution of this is well known. It was beta tested in The depression when the us both went off the gold standard briefly but also excersized both monetary policy abs fiscal policy in concert.

The approach is called modern monetary theory. It has its critics but critics fixate on sound bite summaries of mmt and really fail to grasp that actually it not only can work but has worked in all the instances it has been tried ( us, Italy, Venezuela all recovered from crises under mmt approaches)

The fact that Europe is having problems is in fact due to the euro not allowing fiscal policy since states can't control their own money supply any longer.

The Fed not true problem with mmt is tgat one cannot actually trust politicians to conduct proper discipline in fiscal policy. That has to be solved before it can be implemented. What allowed its implementation in the past was the automatic and not political and transient spending needed to meet crises like the Great Depression. But to do it outside of unemployment periods is dangerous unless it can be done by an apolitical entity -- something similar to the Fed but with different powers and madates.

In any case the bottom line is this, under mmt a debt equal to your gdp is not a bad thing! No need to panic.

This is retarded.

1. It isn't for profit healthcare that is the problem, it's THIRD PARTY PAY.
2. I don't use third party pay, ever, for healthcare. I've been insured nonstop for over 30 years, and NEVER ONCE has my insurer paid my doctor.
3. Even when I've had emergencies, I still called around, negotiated a fair cash up front rate, paid cash up front, and billed it to my insurer. My cash up front rate was sometimes below any co-pay negotiated with my insurer, lol.

I just recently had some elective surgery that would have cost me about $2000 on my annual deductible, but I was able to cash pay a negotiated rate of $400 including a follow-up "free". I submitted the $400 to my insurer and they reimbursed me.

Third party insurance exists because YOU VOTERS demanded the HMO Act of the 1970s, which tied health care to employment, and then employers outsourced it to third parties.

Health care is remarkably cheap in the US (cash pay, negotiated) and I don't have to wait months to see a doctor when I call and say I am cash pay. They bump me up fast.

I concur. The unemployment rate is about 4% and even the more padded U6 unemployment rate is below 5%
Those are normal.
Under condition when unemployment rates are normal the primary job of the federal reserve is to bring down inflation. It's not simply a good idea. It's their mandate

The fact that there are more jobseekers than jobs is also close to normal. There's always a mismatch between jobs and jobseekers.

It may well be that those jobs are demotions or involve moving etc..

So the Fed has done everthing correctly.

But now they are on toes because we have the immigrant labor leaving and hightarrufs.

While those might increase the number of jobs available it might not fund takers. And both will cause supply side inflation. Simultaneously extending the tax cuts and the debt ceiling means the high rate of pumping debt into the economy will continue.

So the Fed is in an uncharted territory . It could mean high inflation is coming. Most likely. But it could mean a recession. You love the rate in opposite directions there! Most likely is both: stagflation. Which is awful. We did the stagflation experiment in the early 70s and tried both spending into it and later raising interest rates sky high. Only the latter worked.

Fed is exactly doing the right Thing by being watchful

Nah.

Iâ(TM)m 51. Iâ(TM)ve had health insurance continuously for 35 years and have used it exactly ZERO TIMES.

I am self pay. For everything but true life threatening emergencies, which Iâ(TM)ve had zero.

Even the ER is cheaper when negotiated self pay.

My urologist is stunned that I pay $85 for his visits. Self pay. Including labs. My colleague goes to the same urologist and his insurance pays $550 for the same visit and naturally it comes out of his deductible lol.

Insurance is a scam. All insurance is legal gambling and gamblers never win.

Supply and demand dictate this is exactly the case.

If something is valuable to everyone, it should only be accessible to those who have enough saved value to acquire it.

The poor fucked themselves. My parents are poor but worked hard so I wouldn't be.

Being compensated for it means it wonâ(TM)t get wasted and will always have a fair valuation.

Compensation is as cooperative as it comes because nobody can hoard it.

I have two theories
1. Other languages are falling faster than Perl making Perl rise

2. Perl is what smart people use instead of bash. So for all sysadmin tasks or ad hoc system scripts or gluing you'd be crazy to use bash when you can use Perl.

does 2x shift the frequency?

It would be amazing if there was a document that stated in very clear terms just how limited our federal government is and what it can't do at all no matter what.

Everyone I know who makes my equivalent AGI, except for my household, has 1+ dogs, work crazy hours, and have been told that their dogs are lonely and depressed.

Not one or two people.

EVERYONE. Dozens upon dozens of my clients, colleagues, peers, friends from grade school, etc, have a dog or two, and then they have to have someone come spend time with said dog when they're putting 10+ hours away from them.

Wag/Rover/etc is part of their crazy consumer spending. I always am shocked to hear they're spending $1000 a month on their pets.

Americans are insane about their pets. Instead of buying a dog, I invest in corporate veterinary hospitals, because it's crazy profitable.