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Haven’t had a New Year’s resolution but I think it will be to try to cook every dinner. Luckily I am privileged and can afford food. My thought has always been that whatever it costs is always less than a restaurant meal. During one year of Covid we saved $3000 in restaurant spending!
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Paul OK, seems like 800,000,000 x 365 = 292B roughly 44% of 660 B. To say 'around half of our trade' isn't that far off
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There is solid basic advice on investment on the times web site. Look under retirement and Your Money. The most fundamental ask is to diversify your investments using low-cost index mutual funds. You can also read one of the books by vanguard founder John Bogle or A Random Walk Down Wall Street. These are pretty standard.
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U.S. Deficit Fell to $1.4 Trillion in 2022 The deficit was down from $2.6 trillion a year earlier, as pandemic emergency spending slowed, the economy reopened and tax revenue rose. The new figures come as spending fights loom in a divided Congress. WASHINGTON — The federal budget deficit fell to $1.4 trillion for the 2022 calendar year, down from $2.6 trillion a year ago, as pandemic emergency spending slowed, the economy reopened and tax revenue rose, according to the Treasury Department. The deficit was down from $2.6 trillion a year earlier, as pandemic emergency spending slowed, the economy reopened and tax revenue rose. The new figures come as spending fights loom in a divided Congress.
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AnneW Most wealthy nations spend around 10% of their GDP on health care, usually single payer. That's called "socialized medicine" by the ideologues at U of Chicago, Claremont and George Mason (to name a few). In the years 2019-2021, the U.S. spent 17.6%, 19.7% and 18.3%. I expect it to exceed 20% in 2024. Yes: 2020 was a tough year, but the portion has been increasing since 1960, when it was 5%. In dollar terms, U.S spent $12,418 per capita in 2020 while Canada spent $6,639 and France spent $5,032 per capita. Personally, I feel that half of the money spent on my health care purchases actual health care while the other half pays for the capitalist infrastructure.
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Tara Galles , due respect. I owned a small hair salon as an investment for 10 years. I tried as hard as I could to keep staff and prevent them from stealing customers my marketing efforts brought to the salon. That said, my business was a pinprick. Indiana is NOT an innovative state; mine is. Why? No enforced no competes.
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Once I saw the $125 for the omelet, I closed out of the story. I'm a professional with decades of work under my belt but that is simply beyond my ken, or my wallet. I have to imagine that's true of most people.
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macman2 While his personal history would have revealed a lot of inconsistencies in 2020, the meat of the issue - campaign finance shenanigans, the $750K donation to his own current campaign from a guy who declared a $55K annual income during the prior campaign, all the fishy expenditures including $40K in airfare, dinners, hotel stays, $199. expenses/ just below the reportable limit, would not have yet reared their ugly heads until this cycle. These latest infractions are the legal issues that will likely, in the end, bring him down if pursued.
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Ana M. I am not familiar with visas so perhaps this is a silly question but don’t these visas have expiration dates on them? And if not, why not? Furthermore, if they are open ended what need is there for any “expiration date”?
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Good luck trying to moving a fee-based adviser who charges on assets under management to any kind of lower rate. And yes, it does add up & up & up, year after year, in good markets or bad, yet their fees stay amazingly the same, almost like a guaranteed annuity. And as one draws down assets, for retirement housing, or other latter life needs, the fees go up, because fewer $$ remain. Rather paradoxical.One strategy a family member employed -- but I must note, she is very sharp, even as aging, with figures & projections -- she divided, I believe she halved her portfolio 'under advisement' while maintaining the same allocations investment allocations and strategies for both portions. That is, an advisor is still holding half the $$, and providing guidance, and she mirrors that with the 'self-guided' half. [Or, if she didn't actually do it, she 'had the conversation' with the advisor. Did I mention she is utterly unafraid to confront potentially awkward topics and areas??I guess however it worked out, it cut her fee burden down.] This would be too much mathematical acrobatics for many certainly, and I am NOT advising anyone rush out to do this. I think it also comes down if one is dealing with a true Fidicuiary and is pleased, or at least at peace with their management & oversight, and not just today but into the future. Because yes, as the years go by, and the really tough choices must be made, they can be a bridge and a lifeline of steadiness and continuity.
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I’ve been muddling over this project for about 5 years. Time to plan it out. My goal is to enhance the play of light on our open plan cathedral ceiling. I can’t imagine the skill required for the specialty plaster work; or the cost. May take another 5 years before I begin.
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I was expecting an appraisal of $260k for a home I recently sold and was surprised when the first appraiser told me it was worth 150k tops. I brought in a second appraiser who told me it was worth $250k. It sold for $250k within one week. I later found out that the first appraiser was working with the realtor to low ball my property so that the realtor could arrange an in-house sale; essentially steal my property at a low rate to sell it higher for themselves later. I wonder if this is what might have happened with the couple in this story??? Not every mean act is a racially motivated one. Sometimes people just get scammed for being people.
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Part IVPrevious section is actually “PO” [tired typing fingers]PR• The bottom pane of her sash window would fall shut so she used a stick to PR(4) it open.• She worked as a PR(10) in a nursery, taking seeds or cuttings from a single plant and planting them to create more.RA• A grad school classmate drove a blue convertible VW Bug with a black RA(6).• The students established a RA(6) among themselves as they swapped stories of where they came from originally.• An eagle is a type of RA(6) or bird of prey: so are owls and hawks.RO• The crowd let out a RO(4) as the ball sailed through the uprights.• Many believe that money is the RO(4) of all evil; I think it depends on how and on whom you spend it.• Four years ago I had RO(7) cuff surgery and had to learn to sleep sitting up.• A RO(5) is the “rotating assembly in a turbine.” (Oxford Languages Dictionary) TA• The Ginkgo tree grows a very long TA(7), which is why Los Angeles has it on a list of suggested trees to plant in a parking strip.• Recently I wrote about the traditional luau dish of purple poi, which is made from TA(4) flour: an acquired taste, I believe.• A woman did a TA(5) reading for me long ago, predicting great success, wealth, and happiness. Was she telling me the truth, do you think?• My daughter has a dolphin TA(6) on her ankle to mark her eight years as a high school and collegiate swimmer.TH• The young man had a sore TH(6), persistent cough, and body aches so he took a Covid test.
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‘I Don’t Want to Die’: Fighting Maternal Mortality Among Black Women A St. Louis doula program, part of a nonprofit that received funding in the $1.7 trillion federal budget bill, looks for solutions in a benefit largely associated with affluent white women. ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Tara Ervin will never forget the week her sister Kelly died. A St. Louis doula program, part of a nonprofit that received funding in the $1.7 trillion federal budget bill, looks for solutions in a benefit largely associated with affluent white women.
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While I appreciate this reporting and the larger issue, this episode completely misses the systemic causes behind non-profit hospital systems operating in this manner. Where is the investigation on how insurers both private and public, as well as congress make decisions about how healthcare systems are paid? The 340B discussion is a clear example of how programs are designed without thought or insight from the front line. Non-profit hospitals are the healthcare delivery system of our nation. They are the frontlines. Although they have the power to lobby congress and negotiate with payers, they do not make actually have final control over how they get paid for services from those groups. There are certainly real injustices occurring in non-profit healthcare. There are real negative patient outcomes because of this. There are definitely cases of fraud and abuse. But to put the entire blame on the care delivery system that provides the majority of frontline care and not on the real decision makers behind our healthcare system seems like a major miss and error in reporting. Finally, "margin = mission" is critical in the non-profit space. Those non-profit health systems that survived the pandemic without laying off healthcare workers and investing new new ways of providing necessary care (e.g. telehealth, PPE, ventilators) were only able to do that because of the margin they had saved.As a listener, this did not feel like reporting. This felt like an opinion piece.
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And yet he continues to make $180K/year with full benefits…
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$9 for organic eggs yesterday at Whole Foods on Cape Cod (Pete and Jerry brand). I made sure to be extra careful when bagging them and bringing them home. Precious commodity.
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The wife and I took our 8 yr old back in November to see it. It was our first time seeing it. Really enjoyed it. I will admit, however, we almost didn't see it as we had debated long and hard about going out at such a late hour (8pm) but despite barely being able to keep our eyes open at the end of the show we were glad we went.
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The poorly named Inflation Reduction Act bolsters blending credit for SAF between $1.25-$1.75/gal, increasing SAF credit values over that of other renewable fuels. The author should have mentioned that as it can put SAF blends at parity with traditional aviation fuel. It also makes SAF produced from biomass (think pine tree scraps from the timber regions of the American Southeast) a immediately profitable venture. The power to liquid process, like hydrogen, is years from any sort of commercialization. Electric airplanes will have an enormous positive impact by 2030. Think of an airline like Cape Air that can basically replace it's entire fleet with electrics.
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MidtownATL The reason that these McMansions are built is not to house single families. They're built to look like McMansions on the outside, but inside it's a de-facto boarding house.Changing zoning laws to allow units built in garages or on lawns does absolutely nothing to bring down the cost of renting a home. We have data from many countries that show this. Investors with capital disproportionately buy up a large number of the newly built units because they are the ones who can afford to bid up prices, and have the collateral. These extra smaller units never go to first-time home buyers.Once the house is sold, these multi-generational houses become boarding houses, not multi-generational living homes. This is what destroys neighborhoods and communities, besides making them look ghastly from the outside. You might as well legalize people living in trailers or tents on front lawns.
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Thank you for your beautiful column. I am 42 and already it seems like half of those I deeply love have died. I can only imagine how many of my beloved ones will be gone if I live a very long life. It seems so true that the twin of deep love is deep grief. You describe it so well because it is so visceral, physical, sensory. I took a walk on a lovely path today that reminds me of having my two wonderful siblings dogs together. We had so many fun times in those woods. I lost the girl a few months ago and someday in the not-very-distant future, I will most likely outlive her brother, and those many years when they were my everyday companions and great loves will only be a chapter in this long life. How strange! And sad.. But I'll miss them forever. On this same walk, I said aloud, "I miss you!" to my sister Fiona, who died when I was ten, and I have been talking to my uncle Greg, my sister Maria, my grandparents, and Gertrude who raised me - all on the other side - a lot these days. And those precious cats,, Sundance and Igloo, too.I too imagine flinging open the kitchen door of heaven and falling into all of them. I imagine my girl dog Buttercup leaping on me when I am an old lady who may have forgotten even my own name. I guess it's just life this grief and love, joy and sadness! But thank you for sharing...
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Michael Tyndall Exactly. And they want to burn the place down even as they collect their paychecks to the tune of at least $174,000 a year.
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Socrates This article is a distraction from a distraction and should be seen as such.1. There is too much classification of documents that should be open to the general public.2. Too much is being made of this.3. The real issue is the continuing and growing control of our nation by rich and powerful individuals with the help of both parties. Hence, the "narcissism of small differences" being elevated to another distraction from what is really at stake.
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Hunter Greer Couldn't disagree more! Trump was, perhaps, the worst geopolitical strategist ever elected to the presidency. He essentially withdrew America from the world stage and handed China the keys to the kingdom. While China was making massive, long-term, strategic investments in education, quantum computing, Eurasian and African infrastructure, and so forth, Trump mindlessly ripped up the TPP, the JCPOA, alienated our NATO allies, buddied up to Putin, Orban, Kim Jong-un, and a host of other strongmen. He took a sledgehammer to decades of American foreign policy and seriously destroyed trust in America and our influence in Eurasia. Biden has done a remarkable job in re-establishing our NATO relationships, but Asia is another matter. Trump alienated our key strategic partners there...South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the Phillipines, then attempted a form of appeasement through the Quad (which isn't a formal alliance or agreement). The Phillipines declared its preference for China during the Trump administration; and, the Middle East (despite Abrams) and India are leaning that way, as well. There were no more effective strategies for America's enemies than having Trump running American foreign policy.
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Hoo boy, scant sympathy for the greed shown by the investor.“The client, a wealthy investor named Andrew Intrater, had been lured by annual returns of 16 percent and had invested $625,000 in a fund offered by the company, Harbor City Capital — in part because he trusted and admired the account manager, an aspiring politician named George Santos.”Life lesson: “If it seems to0 good to be true, it probably is.”Consider your $625,000 Lehrer geld — lesson money, or money spent on a mistake or folly from which to learn. And learn the lesson well.
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Johanna❌🅾️ --- Excellent reply, Johanna. Thanks. I agree with all three of your points: $400,000 poor people? Biden document stash comparable to Trump's? And a British tabloid take down is piddling?
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In 2022, a typical Humira treatment was $5K per month. Under a Medicare Advantage plan, this required a $2K copay, more than half of a typical Social Security check and more than most people can afford. AbbVie conducted the same legal strategy in Europe, but eventually prices settled at a more reasonable level. A typical treatment in The Netherlands was EUR 250 ($270) a month with biosimilars being even less costly. To qualify for a reduced price in the US, the company requires disclosure of health history and financial information that a lawyer I spoke to considered onerous and out of proportion.We all know the stories about how high drug prices support research. But in this case, a great deal of the proceeds went to lawyers and lobbyists with no benefits to patients.Crohn's Disease and other autoimmune disorders that Humira is meant to treat afflicts an ever-increasing number of people, young and old, here and in Europe. It is very painful and, if left untreated, leads to more severe conditions. It is well documented that the US spends more on healthcare than any other developed country and that access to healthcare is unevenly distributed. More politicians should be on the side of Americans who suffer because of the lack of access to healthcare they can afford. Since it is so difficult to negotiate a price cap on a simple drug like insulin, I am pessimistic about getting a more reasonable price for complex drugs like Humira.
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I find two very interesting things about the Times reporting on the Republican tactics to impose their brand of "austerity" on matters of federal debt and deficits, a tactic which they didn't deploy under Republican Presidents who ran up debt and the luminary who declared that deficits no longer mattered.First, the Times doesn't seem to want to consult with the school of thought called Modern Monetary Theory which has had a lot to say about these matters, close to the core of its theoretical and practical work. And they're available right in the NY area: Stephanie Kelton at SUNY and L. Randall Wray at the Levy Institute.Second, and especially Wray has looked very closely at this, the Federal Reserve spent trillions to bail out many institutions besided the banks (and non-US banks and the Central Banks of other nations) during and the wake of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, and then on an even bigger scale in March of 2020, the Covid crisis. The congressional authorization for this was not apparent, but no one seemed to want to look for it, as most agreed whatever the Fed did, with or without approval, worked and better to not look too closely. So why if a small faction of Republican fanatics cause a "Great Financial Crisis" couldn't - or is it shouldn' - the Fed once again rescue the fiscally "tied in knots" Congress?Besides Wray and Kelton, the Times could contact Warren Mosler, Bill Mitchell, Jan Kregel Mat Forstater, Scott Fullwiler or Eric Tymoigne.
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Judy "But the idea that inflation is trending down, investors are buying US treasuries, everything is fine, I wonder about that."Well if you're wondering about it, check the numbers."inflation ran at an annual rate of only 4.8 percent over the past six months, 3.6 percent over the past three months and 1.2 percent in November."So yes, inflation is trending down, and the US government is still a great bet for investors. Do you have data or know-how that is different or better?Furthermore, we currently spend billions every year cleaning up from natural disasters made worse by climate change - which is only going to get worse.So a trillion dollars spent now is going to look like nothing compared to the annual year over year costs of cleaning up after storms and helping areas in drought or the economic impact of not being able to grow enough food. We have no choice but to try and curb climate change. The economic consequences in the future of doing nothing are far more consequential than what we face now. By leaps and bounds.
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Deborah Peifer the gift would be $16k per recipient. If there are four people living in the house, and each spouse gives to them, this would be $128,000 annually. I doubt there’s a tax problem.
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I've been a debt-hawk my entire adult life and sometimes dream of how it could have been. After the Carter administration, total USA debt from the beginning of time to 1981 was about a trillion dollars. And, it was off to the races with reagan doubling the national debt in just 8 years. We are now at $32 trillion and counting. Going back to the early 80s, what if we had collected more taxes and spent less money to truly balance the budget each and every year? We could have paid off the national debt by now. Instead, our country is faced with high interest payments for the rest of time.
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JCinTX Over $500/sq. ft.! If people would quit paying these outrageous prices driven by greedy real estate folks and rehab companies, prices would come back down to earth.
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Not now. Let the GOP have its clown show. This is when I think the Democrats should act. When the Senate has voted to raise the debt ceiling. Then the few sane Republicans, and there are at least five, can vote to vacate the chair, elect a sane Speaker and keep the government open to avert a catastrophe. But make the GOP create the specter of disaster first.
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How long can America continue to ignore the poverty so many of its citizens must endure? The federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour! There's no universal medical coverage. Social programs are inadequate. The U.S. spends over $800 billion per year on the military, while citizens can't afford food, shelter or medical care. Schools are wildly underfunded. Why?
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Desantis is no middle of the road Republican. Along with Jim Jordan, he's one of the founding fathers of the "House Freedom Caucus". DeSantis voted to repeal the ACA and is one of 11 governors who did not expand Medicaid. What's more, now he wants to "unwind" Medicaid so even less Floridians have health insurance. Consequently, Florida ranks among the worst states for key health indicators (see America's Health Rankings 2022). What's more, he's wasted millions of dollars on "anti-woke" legal battles to erase citizens' voices and votes, arrested registered voters for voting, and is throwing away taxpayer dollars on cruel political pranks he played on legal asylum seekers. DeSantis advised GOP states on "alternate" slates of electors even before tRumps's lawyer Eastman did. He's full steam ahead MAGA and would be bad news for our democracy.
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Divisions, the button pushing modes of receiving news and communicating, and the constant pull and push to grab your attention, money and support is frankly, inhumane. That said, I blame the victims. Tue out. Simply say no, no to protests, no to lousy art openings, no to signing up, no to lousy restaurants that are popular because of a mob belonging herd mentality, and quit defending everything you feel you must be a part of or you will be shunned. This is what has made everyone so miserable. The refusal of a very natural and exciting truth that everyone is a bit different and different isn't a crime. This goes to the right wing as well as the progressive activist left. Absolutely horrible.
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It's high time the Democrats face the monster that bedevils them, the Republicans. Let them come together even if they revert to fisticuffs. Eventually, they will reach a compromise and move forward. Today they are looking at each other as enemies with war the only solution, a tactic that forgives all sins. When one side prevails, the other seethes for years. But the country suffers.The Republicans have a few trump cards (no pun intended): family, tradition, heritage, economic opportunity and most recently, the working man's ethos. The Democrats want to extend the social contract to expand healthcare, education, economic and environmental interventions, welfare, and other social spending. They are really two sides of the same conundrum. Time both camps start talking about the American condition in anthropological terms.The smoke from political partisanship clouds the fields that once grew wheat, and forever leaves the fields fallow and eventually poisoned with corpse. The only winners are the media and professional pols.
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People need to realize that crypto was never meant to be an investment! It is a tool to be able to make payments where traditional money trading hands isn't possible or convenient. Just like I put money in Venmo to pay someone who can't take cash or a check or a credit card. It's like buying tokens in a game arcade! Or buying drink tickets at a county fair! Nobody buys up a ton of drink tickets because beers could cost more in the future! Nobody"buys" Venmo or PayPal thinking it will be worth more, crypto needs to all map to a fixed currency or we will constantly have scams and cheaters tricking the public into buying crypto get rich tickets.
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Don't IPOs work in a similar way? You get Goldman Sachs (or Morgan Stanley or ...) to back you. They, and the other underwriters, get the shares for cheap. Everybody else goes "oooh hot startup, oooh VCs invested a lot, oooh IPO, oooh GS is underwriting the IPO" and buys the shares with little true insight. GS then slowly sells more shares at a profit. I think the dot.com bubble worked basically in the same way.... and to this day, the valuations of several companies have been inflated in ways not much different from the coins.
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Gandhian A bag of potato chips is $0.79. A carton of eggs is $9.
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Will well maybe you should not have "tied" your retirement to the stock market.there are other more stable returns. but i am sure you feel that if your not getting at least 10 percent a year, then you think "the economy is not great".
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Get ready for historic violence. Joe Biden’s open borders policy is allowing thousand of gang members to walk in. The worst is yet to come
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In 1998 when I was moving to the city from a grad school in upstate I had a lawyer who had successfully defended me in a civil suit by my landlords insurance company (a fire). He managed to settle the case for $2000 and asked me what my starting salary would be. I told him $60k plus bonus and he said that's a lot for here but in the city you'll just get by. Rent for a studio was 800 in Harlem and $1200-1600 in Gramercy and you could buy an apartment in Brooklyn for 220k. Now rents are triple, purchasing is 3-4* but starting salaries aren't even a sure double. People starting out in most careers need to double or triple up. Maybe better to just start some new cities or grow mid-sized cities that currently have 500k and spread the good jobs around the country rather than trying to take 8m to 12m on 100-year old infrastructure. With sea level rising later this century keeping lower Manhattan functioning might be more money than these alternatives. Food for thought anyway.
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Recent news stories: one man enters a grocery store carrying an assault rifle, six handguns with ammunition, wearing body armor: another man wearing a leather mask with spikes, carries an assault weapon into a mall and stands watching a group of children perform. Both were arrested, but neither were charged because they live in "open carry" states and had broken no gun laws.My conclusion: the 2nd amendment has become the right to legally terrorize the public by a fringe few.
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Remember when Adams claimed he was a Crypto mayor? He's been so open and honest about wanting to swindle money from poor and naive people and convincing them to invest in con artists and gambling bosses. It's pathetic.
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Religious fanaticism and teachings lead to intolerance and hatred resulting in violence not just towards other religions but also towards sects within the same religion (Sunni, Shia, ahmadiyas, etc.).Pakistan was founded based on religion and continues to exist focused on enmity towards India. The military and the religious leaders own the country. So much energy and money is spent on military expenditure and military support for terrorists, including sending terrorists to Kashmir and India. Many minorities were oppressed and most have left Pakistan since independence. Recently a temple promised by the government was bombed because the religious leaders said that Pakistan is a Muslim country and cannot have temples. Minorities are targeted through blasphemy laws and minority girls are kidnapped.US also supported military dictator in Pakistan as an ally against terrorists while Pakistan was playing a double game and hiding terrorists.Eventually Pakistan will itself have to pay the price for its intolerance and for supporting terrorism.Without religious fanaticism there would be peace and prosperity in the region. Intolerance by one group only makes the other group intolerant.
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Incorporeal Being There is also Pegasos in Switzerland, which has more lenient requirements. Both are expensive and sadly, out of reach for most people who don't have $10-$20K socked away. It is sad that we have to leave our home and country to be able to have a peaceful death. Another option that I haven't seen discussed is VSED. Here in the states VSED (Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking) is legal here in the states, but does require support. As an End of Life Doula, I have worked with patients who have chosen this as their method of exiting.
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Rachel Langlois "Why Tom wastes his talent with the Mission Impossible series is a mystery to me."$$$$$$$$$
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Leslie If you go to the linked page you will see a diagram with a timeline for each project. Construction begins this year for the Harvest Water Program, the Kern Fan Groundwater Storage Project and the Los Vaqueros Reservoir Expansion project. Construction on the Sites Projects begins next year. <a href="https://cwc.ca.gov/Water-Storage" target="_blank">https://cwc.ca.gov/Water-Storage</a>
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I just want to inform you, Brett, that the little people suffer from the under staffed, money starved IRS. I’m just your average middle class slob, and I have been waiting for an $18,000 refund check for over two years. My CPA managed to get through to them a year ago, and they said they have the paperwork, and I’ll get the check, with interest. So I wait. I want the rich audited, too, but the problems at IRS need to be addressed, including adequate funding.
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WTig3ner Or unwinnable wars. Those are good, too. President DeSantis would be happy to spend trillions of dollars nation-building in Iran or some other country.
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I was in the software business for 30 years. There's nothing I enjoy more than watching billions of dollars incinerated in the latest "AI breakthrough" craze.
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I'm curious, how does it look if you disaggregate energy supply and transmission? Here in California, T&D is 2/3 of the bill. Something tells me costs in this fraction have grown faster than energy supply. And the California Public Utilities Commission, showing itself to be a sock puppet for the three investor owned utilities in the state, has approved a Net Energy Metering rate plan which will discourage rooftop solar and thus result in greater need for expensive (to build and maintain) T&D infrastructure, the IOUs' last guaranteed monopoly.
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Instead of cuts to middle class programs, why not increase revenue to balance the budget?Initiate a wealth tax on those individuals with a net worth of $50 million or more.
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DS In fact, they supported the tax giveaway as making the economy more robust, because of all the ... trickle down ... and all of the ... job creation.In fact, 85% of the tax breaks that went to companies were used to buy back stock. Those buybacks did zilch for creating jobs, and just bumped the stock price (and lined the pockets of some of the fat cats who sold stock, and/or exercised stock options).Look it up.Link: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/annemarieknott/2019/02/21/why-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-tcja-led-to-buybacks-rather-than-investment/?sh=13a024c737fb" target="_blank">https://www.forbes.com/sites/annemarieknott/2019/02/21/why-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-tcja-led-to-buybacks-rather-than-investment/?sh=13a024c737fb</a>Quote:For the first three quarters of 2018, buybacks were $583.4 billion (up up 52.6% from 2017). In contrast, aggregate capital investment increased 8.8% over 2017, while R&D investment growth at US public companies increased 12.5% over 2017 growth.End quote
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You just have to watch a house hunting show on HGTV to see what you can get for the money down south. Don’t know about the quality of construction, but new houses with large kitchens, family rooms, 3/4 bedrooms, multiple baths go for under 500k. What family would not want that as opposed to a cramped 1 or 2 bedroom apt?
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Kathy When you have paid $17000 for a trip it’s a darn good idea to get to the embarkation location a day or two early. I build in extra time even in the U.S. when I have more than one connection. On one occasion, we had to leave the plane on my first of three flights because of a mechanical problem which affected the following two flights. if I had not planned an overnight stop in LA, I would have missed a flight to Australia.
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| 1,038 |
DPM Compromise between what position and what? Between the terrorist who wants to destroy the economy as leverage to reduce spending on social security, Medicare and Medicaid, and those who don't want to destroy America?It's important to note that any spending compromise that is made to extend the debt ceiling is unethical. It is literally giving terrorists what they want.
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| 8,299 |
This article is partly accurate, but doesn’t dig far enough. It’s true that without delusions, such as the Big Steal” in the US, this wouldn’t have happened; however, questions remain to be answered by investigating who is the financier, for example? Who opened the doors, in connection with whom? There were several buses transporting delusional people from several distant locations in the country. The governor of Brasilia was at the time visiting Florida. There were practically no police resistance to the invasion. Why? The conspiracy, including consultations with Mr. Steve Brannon, must have cost substantial financing, from fake news to the transportation costs. Above all, at this point, the greatest enemy of the new administration is the agrobusiness, the destruction of the Amazon, the richest of all enemies, and the growing awareness that Lula is going to put a break in this crime against the Earth. These people are not delusional. They see solid regulations on their way to making easy money. Obstacles to their survival. The delusional crowd were used, as usual, to warn Lula of more violence to come. This possibility must be considered and investigated.
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| 839 |
“Believe it or not, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida would have carried more seats on the relatively fair map he vetoed than on the enacted Republican gerrymander.”This is based on a false assumption that voter turnout would remain the same despite the districts being far more competitive and more resources being invested in said races.
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| 8,247 |
JPH What part of the country are you living in? What kind of social circle? This is a vast country and there are a lot of regional and class differences. I grew up in a working class household helmed by Midwestern transplants and we often had extended family and friends for informal meals. My partner and I now have regular get-togethers with friends for meals in our homes. Of course our friends (many of whom work in hospitality or adjacent occupations) are also mostly good cooks and/or enthusiastic entertainers so these gatherings are fun, easy, and low-pressure for us. I suspect that for many Americans, especially those of us facing the many weird manufactured pressures of upper middle class aspiration, there is a lot of fear and shame around not being good enough, or revealing things about class origin, and being judged for that. And that's a shame, because you can make a perfectly nice party out of a good bottle of wine (or three) and a bowl of potato chips if you can just relax about it. All of that said, one of my great joys in life is attending any Spanish town's fiesta. Who needs to entertain at home when they are serving up ham in the Plaza?
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| 2,408 |
Socrates Fun fact: the restaurants on the Microsoft 'Campus' don't serve even beer until after 4pm, even if you are a guest (not an employee) No 'Madmen' martini lunches there...
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| 7,802 |
We should support more local papers like The North Shore Leader (owned by a Republican), who first broke the story of George Santos as a “fake”. A democracy can only flourish if, at the very least, newspapers are given the financial ability to stay viable. Although NYT does exceptional reporting, it is often the local papers who feel the pulse of their community. The North Shore Leader warned about the fraud George Santos was perpetrating on the constituents of NY-3rd CD, as did the Daily Beast & Newsday. However, elitist papers like NYT often snub the goings-on of local communities, unless it rises to the level of sensationalism. I encourage everyone in communities across the U.S. to either donate or “subscribe” to the many papers that are often distributed as “free” to the local libraries or community centers. They might cover “fluff articles” like a local business opening (or closing), parade events , or community activities, but these local papers are the heart & soul of our communities, who every once in a while, expose wrongdoing that rises to a national level.
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| 1,623 |
Please do an article to support GDP and population growth. I no longer believe that growth is a necessary objective. I've even thought of a financial solution to a no growth economy that depends on growth to increase share value. If a company invests 80% of its earnings into growing its business and 20% into dividends. Could that same company, if it was not trying to grow, retain 60% to maintain the business and dividend the remaining 40%? Doing that would double the dividend and provide a sufficient, but not large, return. Greed of returns is one of the reasons we want growth.
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| 4,269 |
Most of those 11 million open jobs either pay poverty wages or would require someone to retrain, which is really expensive. And not realistic anyway for older workers. You gonna retrain a programmer in their mid 50’s to be a nurse? By the time they graduate, how many years will they have left to work?
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| 1,669 |
Born in the 40's, I spent the 1980's in Silicon Valley. Always with young, venture capital financed companies. They all crashed, laying off employees and stripping off unpaid vendors through bankruptcy. Only the top execs with exit packages came out ahead. Then they'd get picked up by another start-up and offered another generous exit package. Maybe one in ten startups survived long enough for employees to cash out stock options. We all knew the game and stayed in for the brass ring.
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| 1,509 |
The problem is, if a person with a disability earns too much, the disability entitlement disappears.As to bus fares, there should be provisions everywhere that reduce the fares to nearly $0.00.......I do firmly believe that for all populations, the poverty level is about $26,000. Anyone with combined HUD rental assistance, AFDC, SNAP, wages from work, and SSD/SSI entitlements should have an income plus subsidies of NOT LESS than $26,000. In today's world, an individual with less than $26,000 annual income is looking at the possibility of being homeless.
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| 2,309 |
Reality check: a two-income couple making $200k per year is doing quite well, even in the SF Bay Area. If they're driving a Camry, it's by choice, though it's a fine car. I live here and I know many Tesla owners who make far less than that.Obviously, this couple won't be buying a superyacht any time soon, so I guess they're not "rich" but this is definitely well into the territory of affluent.
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| 1,572 |
The studio actually seems the most spacious with the best use of space. Unfortunately, it reminds me of an apartment I rented in Los Angeles when I was in graduate school. My front door literally opened onto the sidewalk on Sunset Blvd. To have a constant flow of humanity at your doorstep and passing by inches from your front window occasionally banging on or bumping into it is indeed unnerving.
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| 6,400 |
Here is a window into the current thinking of our finance industry:You're at a cocktail party and ask the following:"Would you kill a little old lady?"Average human and Financier both respond: No, of course not."Question 2: "An investment company buys and rolls up multiple nursing homes and in order to increase the profit margins from 4 percent to 20 percent (ROI promised to investors), the company drastically cuts nursing and care staff, cleaning and maintenance services, and facility repair work.As a result of the cuts, a little old lady (or several) dies."Would you invest with this company?"Average human: "of course not, they effectively killed an old lady."Financier: "of course. It's a solid investment". But what about the little old lady? "It's not the same thing"As long as our financial industry doesn't see the above two examples as the same thing, we can't fix our healthcare system.To them, people are not humans, people are things, commodities, and no different than sneakers, buildings, or hats.
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| 2,927 |
Me We don't have an open border, as evidenced by record detentions and drug seizures. One could argue that the Biden admin is doing a better job. They don't have to send POTUS or VP there for a useless photo op.
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| 3,509 |
At the heart of the challenge here is a university system that exists in what for most families and students is a series of ambiguous cohorts of radically dissimilar academic and campus life experiences that is uniformly bankrolled by the federal government. Standardized testing is anything but, the K12 public school system is a patchwork of parochial interests and legacy structures relevant only regionally and academic opportunities are still largely beyond the reach of almost every student except those from significantly economically privileged backgrounds. Affirmative Action served its initial purpose, and though flawed, has greatly increased targeted populations attendance in university programs. Nonetheless, there exists a better way, and California already has it--the effectively free community college. Extending college to all students, providing opportunities for remediation, and giving adults a chance to change careers through relevant training begins at community colleges. It is high time for the establishment of a federal system of research universities much like California's own university system that is federally funded, completely free (CA failed on this one) and available to the public's best and brightest. Moving forward, this should be our next step toward educating our nation for tomorrow's greatest challenges and would satisfy not only the intense interest to secure diverse attendance, but pave the way for more complete college programs.
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| 1,589 |
Michael Magee I have not heard any denials from Biden. By all reports he contacted the appropriate depts as soon as the documents were discovered. He also opened his home and offices for investigators to search. This is in stark contrast to trump's response.
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| 3,794 |
M. We live in San Diego County, a few miles away from the largest desal facility in North America. Roughly 10-15% of our water comes from that facility, and it costs 2x what water from other sources does. Conservation should be the first priority (it's free), followed by recycling (a la Orange County) and reusing water, and only then should desal be invoked.With regards to Ag; if my water district can tell me what days I can water, and for how many minutes, the state should be able to tell Ag what crops can be grown where in the state so as to reduce consumption of a communal resource.
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| 3,574 |
Let's try this thought experiment. Andrew Jackson wiped out the US national debt in 1835--the last time it was zero. But now suppose the gov't has balanced its budget every year since then. What would life look like? Let's say the federal gov't started spending on Jan. 1 and clawed back all of that money in taxes by Dec. 31 during each and every year. On New Year's Eve the entire country would be broke! Everyone would be penniless, unless they held gold doubloons or foreign currency. They couldn't have any US dollars in their checking or savings accounts, because the gov't collected it all.But wait a minute, you'll argue. The private banking system creates most of the money that circulates in our economy. True, but that money is created via the issuance of loans. And each loan is simultaneously an asset and a liability of both the bank and the borrower. The bank's liability is its promise to allow the borrower to write checks up to, say, $100,000, and its asset is the borrower's promise to repay that money. The borrower's asset is the $100,000 in their checking account, and their liability is the promise to repay it. It all sums to zero.Under this system, can anyone ever truly save US dollars? If you have $50,000 free and clear, either you robbed a bank or another bank if getting stiffed on a loan. New loans can raise the funds to cover this discrepancy, but new loans covering old ones sounds like a Ponzi scheme.Deficit spending makes the economy work.
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| 3,575 |
We, in the US and all other developed countries, get food in very cheap and that sector is controlled by big commodity traders in a significant way. Whatever high price we pay in retail stores hardly reach the farmers. In the US, only about 13 cents reach the farmers for every dollar we spend in retail stores. That share was almost three times higher around 1980s. Too much consolidation of each and every aspect of our food systems is now controlled by few big corporations. That makes farming less than viable as a profession even though its arguably the most demanding profession and also a critical aspect of national security. More than 50% American farm household's annual sales is less than $10,000- much below poverty line. Keep in mind that average farm size in the US is huge compared to almost any developing and most developed nations- around 444 acre or 180 ha. Importing cheap and heavily exploited workers from poorer nations makes the situation for local farmers worse. It also makes farming rife for foreign powers (including hostile ones, like China, Saudi etc. in the US) mainly the ones with perpetual food insecurity. The situation also encourages venture (read, vulture) investors and big corporations to buy more land and/or consolidate the industry even more. If managed carefully by putting proper policies in place, this vital sector can generate so many viable jobs in this era of growing automation, job loss, & rise of poverty. mainly after pandemic.
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yes
| 5,397 |
So my partner and I watched the released videos of the Tyre Nichols beating/murder. And I wondered.... When will it come to pass that police can use deep-fake AI to generate bodycam footage to suit their narrative? One disturbing part of the videos was the conversation the cops had at the end, constructing the narrative of the (false) events that they would report. One of them even said words to the effect of, "Yeah, we'll go with that story." What happens when they can simply feed the story into a prompt for an AI program to crank out video to support their story, body-cam style?
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| 6,871 |
From the article, “Erich Pratt, the senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, said the laws “don’t work,” citing back-to-back mass shootings in November in Colorado, which adopted a red flag law in 2019, and Virginia, which did so in 2020.”This is absurd. That is anecdotal. You must look at aggregate numbers. For example the largest state in the union is California and 7th from the bottom in gun violence. It’s not about just stopping mass shooters. It’s also about keeping guns out of enraged people that simply kill family, friends and anyone around them.The state with the strictest gun laws is Hawaii and they violence is the lowest. It also majorly helps to be an island. Also rural red lives on private property. A person brandishing open carry can be removed by then easily simply with trespassing. And they don’t care that the rest of us share public property they don’t have. They force their idiotic gun fetish on us all putting our lives at risk.You can read about it at the Atlantic.<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-origins-of-public-carry-jurisprudence-in-the-slave-south/407809" target="_blank">https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-origins-of-public-carry-jurisprudence-in-the-slave-south/407809</a>/
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| 7,659 |
Count me as another who reacts with a big dose of scorn. The SCOTUS has lost its legitimacy. Conservative justices pay lip service to high ideals and principles, which they drop at the first chance they get. They crave power, not justice.Whether it does or does not announce its decisions in open court is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Who cares? The ship is sinking.
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| 6,480 |
So the trade-off is that people making extraordinarily more money should pay more into Social Security by lifting the cap,and in return for that eminently fair request,an aging population that has gone for decades on stagnant wages should "work four or five more years" in what will undoubtedly be low paying service industry jobs, before they can begin to receive the funds that they have spent their life paying into. That's the bottom line of what Bret Stephens repeatedly and indefatigably 'suggests' via his labors on the keyboard.Heaven forfend if we should rescind the trump tax cuts for the wealthy, which accounts for 25% of our total national debt incurred by the federal government since the founding of this country. Somebody has to make up the difference. Life-long laborers just need to work a few more years to get back some of the money they've been paying into their whole lives.Sure.And Mr. Stephens assures us "Don’t get your hopes up that I’m speaking for other conservatives," suggesting that he's not, just because he says some things about gun safety that are nothing less than fanciful.Sure, Mr. Stephens. You're different.
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| 9,586 |
Patrick The fact is that red Wisconsin would never let Milwaukee do what is needed to clean up its problems - which BTW are problems of any large urban area.Red Wisconsin would have to let urban areas address economic inequality, healthcare and education. It would have to tolerate cultural diversity on every level. It would have to see the value of the "common good" over individual rights. Crime and homelessness aren't the result of Democratic policies; they are functions of economic inequality, lack of opportunity, and desperation. The rural solution would be more police, guns, and prisons. But that's just a simplistic band-aid on a much deeper social rot.Who pulled the manufacturing jobs out of Milwaukee and gutted auto manufacturing in Kenosha? Corporations. Who duped the small town of Mt. Pleasant into coughing up a couple hundred million (plus millions in state infrastructure improvement) to lure Foxconn who promised a $10 billion manufacturing facility – a promise which fell apart and is now a mere shadow of the original commitment. GOP con artists Scott Walker and Donald Trump. But red Wisconsin who lost all of the jobs will still vote for people like Walker, Trump and Ron Johnson who represent the very corporate America which is gutting Wisconsin. They vote against their own economic interests in exchange for cultural affirmation and grievance weaponizing.You can't pay the rent or the doctor with "traditional rural values." Red Wisconsin thinks it can.
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| 833 |
I believe Harvard was wrong in rescinding the fellowship to Roth. I do believe in academic freedom. Roth should have the position. Would be nice to see academic involvement and support for those who expose the extreme murderous corruption of Hamas who use the per person highest chartable grants per person to build tunnels and buy armaments rather than feed, educate and provide health care for their people. And maybe some discussion of how Arafat went back on his word, thus dashing a real chance at a two state solution.PLEASE have speakers and researchers expose Israel’s many flaws and human tights violations.But let us also look clearly at the corrupt necrotizing leaders of Gaza and the West Bank who in their charters essentially call for end of all Jews in Israel, and never would agree to any reasonable settlement BEFORE the extreme expansionism of the current Israeli government.
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| 498 |
alayton It would be nice to learn precisely how George Santos (aka George Devolder) spun the "Devolder Org" out of thin air in 2021 and suddenly had the means to pay himself $750K, loan his political campaign $600K, and give Republican candidates $185K, all from from a company which showed basic revenue of less than $44,000! That’s a cool trick.
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| 6,993 |
I am in support of the freedom to choose an abortion when a pregnancy is unwanted, unviable, or a danger to the a woman's health or well-being. With that freedom comes the responsibility to be intellectually honest about what we're really doing when we terminate.In 1972 my best friend worked as an abortion counselor at one of the newly opened clinics in NY. The counselors had no qualifications for this position, other than a sincere desire to serve. They told women seeking abortions that any ambivalence they might feel about the procedure was simply the result of conditioning by the patriarchy, and that the fetus was simply a "clump" of cells. The procedure was no different from having a tooth pulled. In short, they lied.I learned this when my friend revealed that when she had an illegal termination, prior to becoming a counselor, that the emotions she struggled with were far more complicated than the party line the counselors espoused.The percentage of women who were not using contraception when they became pregnant was roughly 40% in 1971. Based on data collected at clinics, that figure has not changed much.If we were honest about what a complex emotional issue pregnancy is for many of us we would not normalize abortion as simply "health care." Women need honest counseling from high school on that encourages contraception. The fact that abortion is used as a political football makes such honesty impossible because we are forced to preserve our rights instead.
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| 1,888 |
Adding to the problem is China's low age threshold for forced retirement. "At present, the retirement age in China is 60 for men. For women, it is 50 for blue-collar workers and 55 for civil servants." <a href="https://u.osu.edu/mclc/2020/11/17/china-moves-closer-to-raising-retirement-age" target="_blank">https://u.osu.edu/mclc/2020/11/17/china-moves-closer-to-raising-retirement-age</a>/Is this clear? Not entirely, to me. My understanding is that Xi Jinping strengthened these retirement requirements and lowered the age for some groups, while permanently exempting himself from the age limits. Some say these low retirement ages were established when China's life expectancy was much lower. More recently, they seem to have been used to open room for promotion for younger, better educated Chinese professionals. Now there is talk of raising the retirement age, of course. However, one has to wonder about the long-term impact of Covid-19, which is not going away any time soon, and of "long Covid."Add to that the historical pattern of epidemics arising in China about every 10 to 20 years. If the next viral outbreak is as badly managed as Covid-19, China could be in big trouble again in the 2030s, with another big hit to the nation's population.
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| 222 |
John Bergstrom It's easier to not be afraid when there is an assurance that those coming here will obey and respect our laws. That is not too much to ask. We should have an open invitation to all who want to come and be a part of making this a fantastic land of opportunity.This does not mean we have to abandon all law and order and legal precedence. In abandoning our laws and processes we will quickly deteriorate into the type of society that many of these refugees are trying to flee from.We do not have to lower the bar, to show love. Rather than lowering the bar, we should lift the individual. Help them rise up to meet and accept our legal code.
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| 7,039 |
After being a physician for 46 yrs in the USA, I retired last month. The cost of any drugs is astounding and insane in the USA market which makes no sense other than pure greed. I'm spending two months in India and here are the comparison of drug costs ....apple to apple.Humira ....$4500 vs $50Medrol pack....$8-9 vs $ 0.75- $1Edarbi.....$380 (30 tabs) vs and $7Amlodipine 5mg ...... $13 vs $1.The figures say a lot.
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| 4,847 |
No. Some tech layoffs came from smaller companies that grew super fast during the pandemic then came down to earth (e.g. Robinhood).BUT, the big number layoffs from Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and now Google have all been about activist investors pushing for short term profits. These layoffs were highly cynical and very avoidable. These companies have permanently damaged their own reputations.
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| 8,186 |
The endless free meals, on-site gyms, "chill time", etc. ere all contracts of the over-indulgence of the early tech boom. Anyone who expected that to continue knows little of corporate responsibility and fiscal quarters. Tech, as every other facet of our economy, is subject to massive swings - and swinging they are right now.Covid knocked the socks off most businesses and the era of freebees and Gen-whatever indulgence is OVER. It's back to serious business like real grownups, so welcome to the REAL world.That doesn't mean that people have to be unhappy at work - it just means that work is now work and not play, not early Google and the like. Jobs can be very fulfilling unless one has unreal expectations - EARN your perques because they will not now be handed out like M&Ms.
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| 2,991 |
Why on Earth would anyone want to live longer? This place is surly no utopia. And if everyone's age is extended it only exacerbates our environmental catastrophes. And I really don't want to hang around for the worst of that. There is a spiritual revolution going on, and it is about embracing the fullness of who we are, and that extends well beyond the physical (call it divine if you wish). It's where all the peace, love, and joy exist (achievable here and now if you know the practices). The barrier towards achieving these states is clinging, and there is no bigger clinging than trying to hold onto an illusion of a body that won't change. It will, and you will certainly die. Once you embrace that you can live freely and open to who you really are, a wide-open spiritual being having a temporary bodily experience. If you can't do that, then all your clinging keeps you stuck in an ego-based identity destined to get no further than its self-clinging neurosis. Why would anyone want that. Maybe you need to take the "Blue pill", as in the Matrix, at least you know what is true and what is illusion.
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| 5,498 |
Of course Brett thinks it's OK to raise the age for collecting social security benefits. After acknowledging it might be hard for a person in their 70s who does physically demanding jobs , he blithely suggests they can easy switch to easier jobs.OK Brett, most of us do not make in excess of $300K pper year. 40% of current retirees subsist solely on social security. Most folks in the working half of " the middle class" do not have huge amounts to invest. I am not fond of a lot of Democratic issues, but from an economic standpoint, I can't image voting Republican. Two unfunded wars. Numerous unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy. And the rest of us working ourselves to I'll health for scraps.
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| 5,353 |
I lived in a rural community for 36 years. My assessment: they would rather complain about everyone else rather than actually accept responsibility for their own lot. They don't want to be taxed, they don't want investment, and have little interest in their community. The elect ideologues. They continuously vote down school levies needed to keep schools operable. The last straw for us was the unwillingness of the voters to support the library system leading to its closure. Conversely, the biggest deal for them is when a new fast-food joint moves in.But try pointing out the issue to them. What you get back is blame, blame, blame - especially the hated Democrats. They love drinking the juice of Trumpism rather than actually having to acknowledge their own impotence. They hitched themselves to an ideology that puts personal responsibility on everyone but themselves. There is no choice but to suffer the consequences.
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| 4,111 |
The Netherlands, a tiny country (approximately 200 miles long and 130 miles wide) spends $650 million per annum on improving and developing cycling infrastructure - and have calculated that it brings in $19 billion per annum in return. They realised that while the average urban street can handle approx 2,500 cars an hour, it can handle 14,000 bicycles in the same period. If you connect up cycling infrastructure for short journeys with very high quality public transport (mainly rail) for the long journeys, then you can remove millions of vehicles from the roads. Ultimately the only solution to traffic is to reduce the number of people in their cars - and bikes and trains are most of the solution.
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| 733 |
Picture-perfect response to the most interesting (#1) Question.Sadly, "phoned in" and increasingly lame responses to the other 3.... You'd never hear PG wonder out loud, but I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that "sexting" is an awful lot like the "spitting" that one saw 20-40 years back pretty widely.That is, it's ego-gone-wild. Maybe, Anthony Weiner has his fans, but when he was found to have sent "pix" - I was with the 95% of the people expressing opinions that ... were awfully censorious. (And I think it would have been 80%+ leaving aside the age of the recipient.) There used to be a Dial commercial with a tag line of "friends should tell friends." I know feelings run strong pro & con on this one, but unlike PG, I can see merits in what the questioner was thinking about doing.And with #4, how can a columnist be clueless to what may be a very big piece of change for that individual in an economy where it's more than possible that a person willing to shell out $400 for a ticket "on a good day" has since suffered some reverse. He's pretty harsh to Q#2 as to "how did you happen to see that sext?" so while answering a question with a question is not great for an advice column, here it looks to me like simple common sense.
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| 7,884 |
They are all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ for me me me...
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| 6,209 |
I would expect the majority of Americans do not support "Permissive gun laws." So... why don't the Democrats propose legislation next week banning "open carry?" If the Republicans vote it down (and they likely will), then the Democrats must publicly list the name of every Republican who voted it down. And command significant media attention. The Democrats have nothing to lose by proposing majority favored legislation. And it demonstrates to Americans that the Democrats care about gun violence, and are actively trying to address it. Complacency gets us nowhere.
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| 9,177 |
".....The industry’s recent job cuts have been eye-opening to young workers. But to older employees who experienced the dot-com bust, it has hardly been a shock..."NOW who's an old fuddy duddy Boomer who don't know nothin'?Delicious.
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| 9,225 |
Fun read but we need to ignore the rhetoric and stay laser focused on policy. The only major policy from the last 4 years of Republican control brought a massive tax cut for corporations and the wealthy.The last two years of Democratic control brought infrastructure investment, climate action, technology manufacturing investment, school funding, voter protections...We are a nation of laws and policy is king - everything else is a distraction.
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| 782 |
Art Likely World War II began in Europe with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and Josef Stalin's Soviet Union on same side invading and occupying Poland on September 1, 1939.Followed by the Soviets systematically massacring 22,000 Polish elites in the Katyn Forest.When the Nazis turned on the Soviets during the summer of 1940, the farmlands of Ukraine and the nearby ports were the initial prime strategic prize. But Hitler drove his generals to strategically disastrous sieges of Leningrad aka St. Petersburg and Stalingrad aka Volgagrsd and a series of harsh steppe Russian winter.World War II in Europe ended with America, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union on the same side after the Nazis butchered 27. 5 million Soviet men, women and children including members of Putin's immediate and extended family. Along with thousands of Ukrainian Jews at Babi Yar. Some Soviets and Nazis collaborated to exterminate Jews by execution squads.Putin's lamenting the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest strategic calamity to befall his nation, ignores his deeply rooted hatred for Nazis and Germans.Putin speaks fluent German and was covertly stationed as a KGB agent in Dresden East Germany when the Berlin Wall fell. The reunification and resurrection of Germany culminating in the long leadership reign of Angela Merkel was and still is Putin's worst nightmare.
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| 1,881 |
Emma Quinn That question would only make sense if the layoffs were a response to not making enough money - they aren’t. Google is still making astronomical amounts of money and spent $70 billion on stock buybacks last year and still turned an incredibly high profit.Simply reducing stock buybacks to the amount they did in 2021 would cover the difference 10 times over, so there’s no “need” to cut workers or pay.The layoffs are a power move, the goal is to reduce the power of the employees so they demand less in pay overall. If they had just cut pay by 6% to start, many of the top performers would leave. If instead they and all their Silicon Valley exec friends do coordinated mass layoffs, they get the first 6% off there and the employees will be scared enough of another round of layoffs they won’t complain about the pay cut they are about to get in addition (in the form of no/minuscule cost of living increases during record inflation). They’ve been caught colluding on this before.It’s not a coincidence this is announced shortly before the yearly raises are supposed to be announced in February.
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| 307 |
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