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Angry Liberal OR, we could levy a permanent 40% wealth tax on the richest 5% and permanently pay for: 24/7 day care for all, health care for all, $70K salaries for all child-care workers and teachers, a 10-kids-to-1-teacher-ratio for all schools, fund education at the level of the military, provide healthy breakfast and lunch to all kids, and STILL have a couple hundred billion left over for art and music programs, and enriching summer camps. One generation of investing this way in our REAL infrastructure--American children--will result in a country we all will want to live in, safe and equal for all.
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JOHN MILLER >> Yes, spending on social issues by liberals has made the debt grow too muchWhat about $700 billion per year reckless defense spending?
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| 8,139 |
David MD I have never understood of why a company so crucial to US tech and national security like Intel was headed by financial persons but not by a STEM field expert who understands the semiconductor and tech industry from top to bottom. How on earth an Intel CEO can approve millions of stock buy back rather than investing in advanced process tech, R&D and/or cutting edge manufacturing of AI or advanced chips thats beyond any explanations.Semiconductor business is a long term investment that takes years to offer any tangible outputs. It doesnt offer quarterly profits for wall-street investors. US policymakers finally has stood up for something truly important and beneficial for US in the long term. A nice start for path to glory.
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| 3,150 |
Ken Livesay When the chickens return to lay eggs, does this mean the supermarket price of a dozen eggs will return to $1.99? Or will they "stabilize" at $7.99 per dozen, now that profiteers know people will pay exorbitant prices in order to eat?
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| 7,345 |
Moved to West Virginia at retirement in 2016 from DC area. I am way more educated then your average West Virginian. What would I say about the people of West Virginia? So many suffer from "impulsivity" where they cannot plan ahead or wait for fulfilment of their dreams. Neighbors got a cash settlement for car accident and talked about building a house to replace their 1990's trailer. Spent 10K to build a road up to top of mountain to house site. But then spent the rest of the money on adult toys: tractor they didn't need, more ATV's, second riding lawn mower and garden that sits abandoned and weedy. It's been three years and still no house and likely never will be.
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| 2,080 |
Clever Lies are still lies. US had the highest debt as a percentage of GDP by the end of second world war at 120% of GDP. Yet by 1956, it was back to just 60% of GDP. Today, US debt stands at 120% of GDP and is projected to rise each year as a percentage of GDP. By 2050, it will reach 200% of GDP. I do not subscribe to debt doomerism, but we still have to address this issue. Last year, interest payment was 5% of the budget and by 2031, it will reach to 11.8% of the budget according to Congress budget office and by 2050, it would reach 25%.If democrats at least supported business innovation with low taxes and low regulations, we would have higher GDP growth, which would significantly reduce debt as a percentage of GDP. But instead we are constantly expanding administrative state that hurts business innovation and any infrastructure upgrade or development ( California Bullet train, Keystone XL etc). We cannot continue to have high deficits without economic growth. Isn't the whole point of Mr. Krugman's economic theory based on deficit spending to spur growth? Yet we have seen years of low growth. So, now its time to pivot.
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| 8,911 |
A shiny new Bitcoin bar just opened up on Washington Place- Pubkey which is a couple of doors down from Blue Hill the famous farm to table restaurant owned by the Rockefeller's where Obama had his famous meal. Pubkey has all sorts of Bitcoin events and l have overheard a group of young Bitcoiners preparing for an event in the evening while having a burger at the bar (it was actually very good and fairly priced) Sitting at the bar you see notices for various Bitcoin events but also a very prominent notice announcing that Pubkey doesn't accept Bitcoin, so at this new bar which promotes itself around Bitcoin, you can't even use Bitcoin to buy a drink! Telling.
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Angus That’s no longer true. Two months ago the Pound was around $1.10, today it’s at $1.24. That’s a significant decline in the dollar.
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| 3,972 |
This strikes a major chord in my life today. I'm in my late 30s, recently divorced. Last month I turned down a partnership offer at my small firm, resigned, and am preparing to hike the Appalachian trail. I was burnt out. Tired of the emptiness I felt at the end of each workday. As a kid, I knew what I wanted to do, but lines blurred in high school. To "salvage" my college experience at a local state school, I got a business degree and was lucky to land a job in Procurement. Ten months later I was laid off due to the ripple effect of the '07/'08 financial crisis. I made it through 3 rounds of layoffs, but that was little consolation. I had done all I thought I was supposed to do, but my reward after months of job searching landed me in food service to get back on my feet and just "do something." I ended up in Program Management a few months later, moved to the East coast then onto France for a couple years, returned to the US to work in Procurement Contracts and then took the leap to Sales/Consulting for a really small firm. I've been there for 10 years. I just couldn't do it any longer. It doesn't feel like I'm doing anything of value or moving the needle for myself personally. This feels like someone else's life being played out. So I'm walking away into an unknown abyss. I'm scared. I don't know what will happen next. I'm excited. I don't know what will happen next. Maybe grad school. Maybe farming. Maybe logisitcs. My only hope now is to live a full life without regret.
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Woof Thank you. The loudest voice in the many lectures and presentations he had sat through with economists “telling us open markets are wonderful, everybody benefits from open markets.” was Paul Krugman He still has to admit this in the NY Times. He boasted that he had "the largest bullhorn on the planet " (thanks to his NYT column)And apologize to American workers . He did apologize to Japan when he was wrong about hereconomyThe NY Times Apologizing to Japan The NY Times Oct 30, 2014<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/opinion/paul-krugman-apologizing-to-japan.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/opinion/paul-krugman-apologizing-to-japan.html</a>He needs to do the same to American workers
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| 633 |
I suspect most people go by what they know on the ground, not what they hear on the news. All those big #’s sound great & glad to hear it, but last week I paid $240 for a modest grocery trip which would have cost me $169 8 months ago—that’s a 40% increase (that's been going on for 2/3 of the last year). And for the first time in my life I’m seeing cheeses packaged at 4oz instead of 8oz (!) at a price that’s more than double the per lb price charged last spring. We can handle it, but grocery prices are killing my millennial sons’ meager budgets. And sure, gas prices are inching down, but paying 40% above normal for 6 months put a huge dent in their savings… And I’m thanking god for relatively mild temps at this mid-winter moment in NJ, because I know my relatives in northern NYS are getting crushed by heating costs. Yes, those big #’s mean we’ve all still got our jobs, and may even have received a modest raise—but don’t try to kid a kidder…
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| 4,525 |
I actually lived in that building from the article photos in Seattle the first year it was open. I’m also an Architect. While it may not be my personal style, the building functioned great, with well design spaces and services, and wasn’t cheaply put-together. It also used it’s site very well, taking into account the commercial areas and parks nearby. I’ll take a ‘bland’ but well designed and constructed building any day. Exciting visual design tends to be much more expensive, and considering our housing crisis we shouldn’t be prioritizing exciting visuals over cost, function and quality.
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| 1,468 |
I don't think anyone in NZ doubts the good intentions and compassion of Ms Ardern. Her personality is infectious and she is able to quickly gain the attention and support of many. The problem for her, and her party, is that is that ideals have run ahead of their ability to find a pragmatic path forward. The Covid lockdown and border closing was absolute, understandable at the beginning when there was real fear, but many felt the rules didn't evolve quickly enough to mitigate either human or economic situations as they appeared and the reality of Covid infections and the impact of vaccination became apparent. Family members effectively locked out of the country. Others unable to attend funerals - even those held outside. Businesses that could operate safely unable to do so. No priority system for border quarantine...My impression now is that the Covid related issues are largely forgotten although the impact of decisions taken then is still obviously still being felt. The bigger problem for Ms Ardern and her Labour party is that so many of their major initiatives (health, road toll, crime, water, transport, national broadcasting, immigration, housing, climate, co-governance), are stumbling or just simply feel and look wrong to an increasing number.And worse, they are having difficulty explaining their strategies if indeed they actually exists.I don't buy into tank empty. Effective leaders delegate. Ardern can't see the way forward. It's as simple as that.
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We need to raise taxes AND cut spending. It should be that if you make more money, then you pay more taxes Progressively upwards no matter how you make your money. You should also pay a minimum percentage tax, even if you use every loophole there is. There also should be no FICA cap. The IRS should have ALL of the proper resources to do its job efficiently and properly. On the other side, we NEED to reduce spending. We need to reduce military spending first that it is not multiples of the next ten nations combined. We need Single payer health care so that money is not spectacularly syphoned off to the insurance companies and again, everyone is paying into the system. We to invest in ourselves which means infrastructure but ALSO education. The brain drain is costing billions upon billions of lost capital. Do all of that and we would eliminate the ENTIRE debt and deficit within just a couple of years.
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| 2,834 |
Paying 1% of a million dollars is $10,000, each and every year. That is a ridiculous amount especially when year to year an advisor might spend an hour or two at most on your account. A smarter alternative is to hire an advisor by the hour for a one time assessment and then periodically to see how you are doing. Take Warren Buffett's advice and skip the stock picking, invest in low cost index funds at a place like Vanguard or Fidelity. You only need to re-balance your stock and bond funds every few years and an Excel spreadsheet can do that in seconds, especially if you have been smart and kept to a few wide ranging funds. The only real value of a "financial advisor" is to keep you from selling in a panic whenever there is a downturn. They can do that by the hour, too.
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| 2,440 |
"Cutting taxes" *IS* spending."Tax cuts that pay for themselves" is a LIE -- as big a lie as saying that spending money is "saving."Trump's great "Tax Reform" tax giveaway was $2 TRILLION in unfunded spending -- giving away money we don't have, knowing we will need to borrow it in the future. Where were the Republicans then? EVERY ONE of them was on board."Tax cuts" ARE spending.Republicans need to own up to the reckless spending they did when they approved Trump's "tax cuts" -- and those taxes will be going back up for millions of taxpayers soon. Watch the Republicans fight to keep that spending happening, instead of reversing all that "tax cut" spending. Watch them lie about this like everything else.
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| 6,125 |
Actually it is just the opposite. Jared Kushner flunked multiple security clearances but still eventually got approval in a way no one does. But for his position as son-in-law. He got a $2 billion deal with Saudi Arabia to serve as an investment banker despite no experience. And there are no investigations of this by Democrats during the last 2 years. And he was one of the most influential members of the Trump administration.
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| 9,370 |
Eric B Wordle 584 2/6*⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩I have some go-to words for when I get a one-out-of-five situation, like today's opener. A few days ago I discovered that some of them were on the used solution list. The one I would have used today was one of those—a good vowel-fishing word too—but with its first letter changed, it's back in action. The result was a deuce, which is more than I expected, but I'll take it. I'd be willing to take a few more, in fact.Yesterday's words:STARE 106 words leftGLOVE 7 words leftFLUKE 2 words leftPLUME 1 word leftELUDE —words leftIn answer to my third word, the bot suggested FLUME, a previous solution, and scored my word lower. I protest: A word that cannot be a solution again—at least not yet—should have been scored at zero, far below the score for my word. I see nothing "more efficient" about using words that won't solve the puzzle in hard mode. As it is, my word differed by only one letter, and I still got the solve. What does it know?Congratulations to Spelling Marauder, Great Lakes, and Eric B (& any others, since) on their deuces as well. Woo-hoo to you all. I still await a replay of that day last October when at least eleven of us solved in three or fewer steps. (Oct. 28, '22; here's the link: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html#permid=121179596" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html#permid=121179596</a>Wherever you are, I hope you're warmer than here: it's 31 degrees outside. Not that I'm complaining or anything.
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Sometimes I think the nature of the people who gravitate toward the GOP is the reason it is coming apart at the seams. There's really not much of a "we" in that group. It's more like a group of people who trust, believe in and promote only "I." Sometimes it extends to "people like me," (witness the current cases before the SC in which affirmative action is expected to be thrown out, basically because it extends some of the privilege of the "I" group to other people). But at its foundation, Republicans are very "I" and "me," and that's why its extremes gave us Donald Trump, and now the likes of Gaetz and Greene - all "I" people.Maybe that's one reason evangelical Christianity is attracted to the GOP. By its nature, Christianity is an excluding faith (only through Jesus can you get into God's favor and go to heaven), as are many others. Is it any wonder it would be attracted to the "I alone can fix it" type?The GOP these days is fractured because it can't help but be fractured. Everyone in it is an "I" person whose interest is their own privilege.
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Al Bernanke was not as smart as he (we) thought he was. We needed to take our medicine instead of flooding the economy with empty $$ (QE). This never works (author here is 81). We seem unable to think to think in terms longer than 10 years. But, here we are, the dye is cast. Interestingly, this all began in 1946; post WW2. Keep the economy smokin' at all costs; avoid the return of the Great Depression. It works for a while but eventually reality strikes.
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| 6,283 |
On a more timely basis, do any of the chapters address the myth of our two party system? Current events indicate that it may not be sustainable in the internet age of open information platforms. Our democracy deserves a wider range of choices.
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| 9,095 |
David Brook offers an interesting perspective on Biden and America's conduct in the world.Putin, Xi are all crazy people doing crazy things. In contrast, Biden is a steady hand guiding the American ship of the international rule based order.I suppose if I lived in the Washington bubble, I might have a similar view. But I come from a world of anti-imperialist struggle, and my world looks very different.I see the US undermining struggling nations all over the world, most recently in Africa. The ugly American fingerprints are also all over the coups in Honduras, Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru.Cuba is now in its sixtieth year of a crushing US blockade. US military bases now nun from Niger in West Africa, across the continent to Kenya.Active military operations are going on in Somalis, Syria and of course Ukraine.There's no difference between the referendums for autonomy held in Kosovo and the Donbas and Crimea, except that one was sponsored by the US and the other by Russia.According to the UN, world famine this year can be averted for 1.7 billion dollars. In contrast, our military funding for Ukraine is now at 122 billion.Under American leadership, corporations paid out $257bn to wealthy shareholders, while over 800 million people went to bed hungry.So, forgive me if I see Biden's ''steady hand” differently than the NYTimes crowd does.Perspective is everything, and the world looks very different when you see it from the bottom up.
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Eric B Wordle 579 4/6*⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩Not a stellar outcome today, but then this was no ordinary word. A go-to word for when the opener tanks helped a lot, along with the follow-up third. But then came the head-scratching time—looking at letter after letter until reaching the 'what else can it be?' moment. And there it is.Yesterday's words:STARE 17 words leftWHARF 3 words leftCHARD — words leftIt helped a lot to know that CHARM had been a solution already, which kept this from maybe going one more step. That the bot remains unaware of previous solutions is evidenced by its continued use of them as suggestions when analyzing the player's choices.And with that I take my leave; but not before congratulating all who solved today and in particular, those who solved in only a few steps.
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Netanyahu is what 4 billion in US tax dollars buys America every year. Kind of like investing in a car that loses an essential part every year . . . but somehow keeps rolling.
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| 5,324 |
PWR. The extent that the shortcomings are caused by underfunding, the UK has plenty of room to increase spending and still be more cost-effective than the US. The OECD estimates that the US spent 17% of its GDP on healthcare versus 10% in the UK.How long is the wait time to see a specialist in the US for someone who doesn't have health insurance and can't afford to pay out of pocket?
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| 5,756 |
How about penalizing the DOD say $100,000 for each mistake and that money goes to education?!!
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| 4,575 |
GMooG Redmond is a suburb of Seattle. Used to take 20 minutes to drive from one to the other. Now it can take an hour and a half or more! And an amazing percentage of Microsoft workers commute from Seattle!
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| 4,871 |
Of the total 7.2 trillion in US debt held by foreign countries, Japan and Mainland China held the greatest portions, with China holding 870 billion U.S. dollars in U.S. securities. So it is an uneasy alliance/adversary relationship.
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| 6,884 |
I read that Trump's tax cuts constitute 25% of the deficit. Are the Trump tax cuts for the rich and corporations on the table? The real cohort at risk are the middle and working classes. The rich we will always have with us.Decency/ethics/morality/values are all middle class characteristics, the rich don't need'em and the poor can't afford'em. You want a decent society sans Qanon & MAGA types? Then expand the middle class in both directions. See graph #2 at: bit.ly/EPI-studyAlso: Bit.ly/FED-RealGNPsince1972Bit.ly/FED-WagesBit.ly/FED-PerCapGNPWhen will they address the key issue: the inflection point of 1972?
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| 5,706 |
I'm sorry Biden have not decreased the national debt at all. In fact so far he has added 3 TRILLION DOLLARS. it was at 27.2 when Biden took office and now is over 30 trillion
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| 6,549 |
While $200 billion to restart the US chip manufacturing projects since early 2020 is great, it misses the point about who will eventually control the industry. At the heart of any high-tech industry is who owns and controls the #intellectualproperty. The narrative of manufacturing leaving the US resonates well with the public, most of us can touch and feel stuff at an electronics store. But many of us do not quite understand that the reason #Taiwan is a superpower in chip manufacturing is because of the number of and quality of #patents it holds in this space. Also, China used to be far behind the US in patent filings. The biggest increase in patent filings was in Asia in 2021/22, where 67.6% of worldwide patent applications were filed. According to an article in the IPWatchdog, Inc (<a href="https://lnkd.in/gGZ3GmEp" target="_blank">https://lnkd.in/gGZ3GmEp</a>) China's IP office received 1.58 million patent applications, while the US received 591K patent applications according to the World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO.With increased spending of almost $150 billion in #researchanddevelopment every year in the US, we still come up quite short on the protection of #patents in strategic areas, because of a disconnect between #basicscience and #intellectualproperty strategy. We spend only about $500 million for the protection and management of #patents from that research, which by the way, is not funded by the government, it is funded by the universities themselves for pursuing #techtransfer.
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Kelcy Someone said, "The truth will set you free."This isn't Russian; we get to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's the free press. You can watch or read a good book.The truth will out. See Putin cower before the truth.The internet makes the world an open book and hate simply cannot win over love in the long run.Be at peace Kelcy and become active to get out the vote in 2024.
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Or that would make driving a privilege only for the very affluent and force everyone into public transit even though they don’t want to be there.If we can actually expand transit lines and quality of service, that might make a difference. But even in places like New York where lots of people take trains and busses there’s been little improvement in half a century or more.If actual history is a guide you’d just force a bunch of voters into a slow and unreliable transit that they’d resent you for until service was expanded or improved 50 years down the line for billions of dollars. Meanwhile wealthy people would be zooming around paying your tolls and gas taxes.
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| 1,173 |
A well-known appliance maker with a 5-letter name that begins with B offers a line of side-open ovens. Been keeping notes on universal design for decades as my mother was a wheelchair user late in her life. There are many clever fixes but most of us don’t think about these matters—until we have to.
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Alternate Identity I relate to your situation. In 1970 my mother (an elementary teacher) and my father (an adjunct instructor at Cal State Northridge) purchased a property in Benedict Canyon for around 40,000. They sold in 1984 after their divorce. The property is now worth over 3 million. My husband and I have similar jobs (I'm also a teacher and he's a scientific researcher) and we will never afford a 3 million dollar home! 600,000 is a stretch for us.
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| 8,277 |
I took a $15,000 cruise 9 years ago. I debated whether I should allow the cruise line make my travel arrangements or do them myself and decided to go with the cruise company. Am I glad I did. I had to take one airline to a European country and transfer to another airline to get to my port in still another country. The first airline went on strike two days before my departure flight and all I had to do is phone and speak to a cruise travel agent and I was on another even more convenient flight to Europe and everything was arranged at the other end. Had I gone with trying to save a few pennies, I would have possibly run into big problems.
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charles I always laugh when I hear fans complaining about big salaries. First, there are very few players making these gigantic paydays. Second the average professional baseball player's career is very short. Most are out of a job by age 27 or so. Third I have yet to witness a player holding a gun to an owner's head and say pay me a gigantic salary. Fourth, the owners split the enormous TV revenue that helps enable these salaries.The hidden truth is virtually every owner is playing the long game regarding finances. George Steinbrenner paid about $10 million for the Yankees circa 1973 and now they're worth about $4 billion. You do the math on that rate of return.
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Tom, I agree with fiscal responsibility but the party that gets there is the Democratic party. Here are the numbers: Reagan took the deficit from $70B to $170B; first Bush took it to $300B; Clinton took it to zero; second Bush ran it up to $1.2T ! Obama halved it to $600B. Trump took it back to a trillion. Biden has had it continue to climb. None of these are truly meaningful without context, like Biden inherited a growing deficit and a pandemic that needed attention to keep people and the economy afloat, but at the top level it should be pointed out that Democrats are the part of fiscal responsibility. Now if you want to disagree about what the spending goes for and if someone wants to pitch trickle down for the umpteenth time, that's a different discussion. But personally I would never trust a Republican administration to lower the deficit and therefor do anything good for the debt (which is the real problem). Carville and by association Clinton was right when they said "It's the economy stupid" but there's a lot of Republican myth busting to do to get back to that.
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I am a physical scientist. I do not agree that the technological analysis of this book (at least as reflected in this column) is accurate. Supersonic commercial flights were tried: they are uncomfortable, expensive, inevitably noisy and were not a success. Flying cars are in development but in addition to energy expense solving safety / flight control problems if they became common is probably only recently a solvable engineering problem, with GPS and increased computer power. Nor are advantages over current practice (cars, helicopters, small and large planes) obvious. Replacing subways with Jetsons flying cars into crowded airspace over Manhattan and parking it is hard to envision as possible. A space elevator would require a rather thick cable, made of some low density material possibly kevlar like material with remarkable strength - no such material currently exists despite obvious other applications. There are additional problems, including hurricanes and orbital instabilities, and a huge initial investment. I am not very clear on the actual point / economic value of a Lunar colony. The moon is not terribly hospitable to life, and has striking advantages except potentially space travel. There are not substantial advantages to low gravity manufacturing: particularly not to drug synthesis, which (like most chemical reactions) is little changed by gravity.Oh: abundant fusion energy is still several decades off.
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I see an opening for Democrats in Montana. The wealthy conservatives buying up land are locking their land down, and closing off access to hunters which always been part of Montana tradition. Separate hunting from the NRA by treating “hunting” culture as you would treat that of any indigenous culture’s hunting tradition. Run on a platform of opening up private land, like they do in Europe, which formally recognizes the public’s access to nature. The non-super wealthy hunters in Montana have no one who is listening to them.
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Karyn It is I I didn’t feel yelled at and yes the rolled eyes 👀 was intentional. The interesting thing I thought about the sharing button is that it pops up after “genius” first and the option to keep playing is now a very small icon in the upper right of the screen (on a browser, anyway). Maybe that signals we’ll soon see much longer lists of accepted words (ducal, atlatl?) and a sense that the game really is over at genius except for diehards who want to sweep up 100 word lists..
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CC Very glad to receive interest on federal, state and municipal bonds that are used to finance infrastructure and other useful purposes. Some are actually triple tax free. Better than buying corporate stocks, funds of which are now rarely used for capital investment.
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Dan Weisselberg got 5 months for several million in hidden income.Santos? A weekend of supervised release.
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Aristotle - Sure I remember organized labor. The Feds tended to step in and knock heads. Legislators burdened union locals with draconian rules (sometimes with justification, sometimes less so). Microsoft employees, however, are not a class of employee who suffers so very badly in their serfdom. Most of those 10,000 will get jobs when they decide they want to work again. Some may start their own businesses. They won't be picketing or setting up barricades in downtown Redmond.
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We should destroy Iran's capability to supply weapons to Putin. We invested trillions of dollars in our own capabilities that includes stealth bombers. It's time we get our monies worth.I can understand (but don't agree with) the hesitation to directly engage the Putin regime, after all they are a Nuclear power. But Iran has no retaliatory capacity.
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| 1,902 |
Does anyone really believe the government is going to break up Ticketmaster? This is all Kabuki Theater.Ticketmaster lobbyists will pay off a few senators and congressman and ensure nothing happens. Americans will continue to pay $40 in ticket processing fees on a $100 ticket.When is the last time the government intervened and actually made a difference for citizens? AT&T / Bell? That was 40 years ago, 1982.
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Joe That's Saudi Arabia's problem....They have refused to help Ukraine diplomatically or militarily in the self-defense of their sovereign democracy against Putin's aggression... even though their biggest rival and enemy across the Gulf, Iran, is loading Russia up with all sorts of weapons and goodies like it's Christmas morning.If Saudi Arabia wants to maintain the balance of power, they have more than enough excess American military equipment we've given them for decades which they could pass along to Ukraine...( even a tiny fraction would make a huge difference!)... and this would help put Russia -- and by extension/the transitive principle -- would help put IRAN back into its place....But Saudia Arabia doesn't want to do that because Russia is their big buddy in Opec+; and dictatorships like MBS don't have a good track record when it comes to supporting democracies or defending human rights from international law-breaking genocidal aggression.In fact, as we've seen with OPEC's stance vis-a-vis Putin's folly; if the war raises oil prices worldwide, any other moral or practical consideration gets sacrificed on the chopping block of its "good for business". Cartels don't have consciences... and dictators tend to stick together.So a better strategy for the EU is to just go all-in on renewables/nuclear energy so they can figure out how to flank and outmaneuver the OPEC cartel-- which has overstayed its welcome in terms of the good it accomplishes (if you ask me).
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Of course Microsoft's income had to be mentioned as if a company that is making profits should never lay anyone off.
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BB No money for her except for her $30 million + over-the top wedding (evidently her second of that genre) and who knows how much for her wardrobe.
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| 4,453 |
“Myth No. 5: Plant milk is healthier than dairy milk.”Not that this is not a myth but I believe many are moving away from so much dairy and meat in their diets not because of the myth but due to the inhumane conditions and lives dairy cows and most animals raised for consumption endure. It’s not like they live natural lives in the fresh air, direct sunlight, and open nature that the livestock of our ancestors would have experienced. I love half-and-half in my daily cup of coffee but I’m now reducing its use with a plant-based dairy substitute called “Nutpods” instead a few days a week; not a huge shift but a step, for me, in a more conscious direction.Better living conditions may not effect the actual molecules we consume but it does effect the spirit of the animal and ultimately ourselves. A society blind to the suffering of the least among us will only grow calloused to suffering throughout, as it seems American society has become. Laugh all you want at California but I wouldn’t trade living in a state that, at least, is trying to address a few of these atrocities like in mandating that egg-laying chickens not be crammed into cages for the entirety of their short and brutal lives. It’s a start…
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| 8,970 |
Diane Trans people have never been “the oppressors”.If someone’s “gazing” at you using the toilet in a bathroom stall, that person’s gender isn’t the problem.Trans people, by and large, support women’s rights. They are allies. They fight for you. They are not the enemy. They understand oppression and the importance of fighting for one’s right to simply exist better than you do. The real oppressors come for trans rights first. It’s low hanging fruit, you see, they’re the most marginalized of the marginalized. But once everyone everyone gets on board with taking away trans rights, it opens the door, makes it easier to accept, doing away with gay rights, the rights of people with disabilities, skin color, religion, income, and yes, women too. Sure it’s already started, but, sis, you ain’t seen nothin yet. The same people who oppress cis women, want cis women to oppose trans rights. They are banking on it, it makes their lives easier. Don’t play into it.
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| 4,376 |
Well, the circus has come to town for an extended stay.I’m wondering when several of the Republicans that are planning on retiring or just stepping away from the crazy will just put their votes behind a democrat that cannot be pushed into deals that do not work for citizens? Maybe all these years the Republicans just needed to be slapped with losing control of the power to force them to govern again? Is this a direct consequence of gerrymandering and voter suppression coming home to roost? Why are they letting the few with the loudest mouths case these issues? Maybe it’s time for them to defang all of these people. Cut anyone involved with the insurrection out of any and all positions of power, why seat a known traitor? They turned on the country and are destroying a party I could respect even when I didn’t agree with their policies.
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| 4,995 |
While I appreciate your perspective that you HOPE ESG investments are profitable as well as consistent with ESG principles I think you are being unfair by splitting the comments of the Treasurer of Louisiana. His duty is fiduciary and notwithstanding if they are concerned about their energy industry his responsibility is financial return. Blackrock while pushing ESG is now BACKING away from it to the extent ESG investments provide a LOWER return than other investments. In and of itself it is IMPOSSIBLE to measure ESG investments in dollars return.
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| 6,252 |
We went did Trick or Treating on North Street in Litchfield this year (we’re one town over with not much Halloween activity.) It was almost unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it, even in the movies. So many of the historic homes open with smoke machines, bonfires and Jack o’Lanterns, with all kinds of ghouls, vampires and 18th century figures just raining down candy. I felt so lucky to be a part of it. My kids are still talking about it. If I’d had a spare $1.6M in the bank that might, I might have just bought this house to join the fun.
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| 6,215 |
Supporting aging, often ill parents, is not just a challenge for immigrants or families of color. Extended and costly illness decimated my parents savings long ago. Friends and family helped them through particularly rough periods. After my dad died, my mother was able to support herself on social security and savings until she couldn’t. Luckily, my husband and I could.Her dementia got to a point where it wasn’t safe for her to live on her own or with us we found a memory care facility that was less astronomically expensive than others. When I was signing the paperwork I asked how people afford this, they told me usually by selling a house. My parents sold long ago their home long ago, the funds wiped out by illness related costs. What about people who don’t have a house to sell or family to help? What a desperate situation. The cost of my mom’s facility was raised annually. Notification of the latest increase cited the “large” Social Security bump and high cost to pay employees - who do very difficult work for “as much as $17 an hour.” I wrote the director pointing out that we already paid more than my mom’s SS and my salary combined. They adjusted the price but the cost still remained beyond her SS and my income. This robs my own family of savings that could help support us as we age. And I have MS and Sjögrens so there will likely be caregiver costs not to mention criminally high prescription drug costs. The cost of caring for the elderly in America is a national crisis.
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| 1,403 |
Spideriffic I completely agree. But in the states that allow open carry and easy access to guns, it is indeed up to the establishment to monitor patrons if they truly want to enforce their restrictions. Until gun laws are changed, that’s the only solution.I’ll be honest, if movie theaters used magnetometers before entry I wouldn’t mind it one bit. Nor any other establishment for that matter.
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| 6,262 |
God Republicans attacking NATO, extorting Ukraine and printing Russia strategically opened the door for the Ukraine invasion. Energy price inflation was your fault for enabling that.Republicans also protect concentrations of wealth by moving all taxes locally that makes it impossible for small businesses to compete with big businesses. And big businesses that fund republicans can play politics.If you like being robbed keep voting Republican. If you want to stop being robbed vote in people who will end citizens United and properly tax the big boys and help competition from the bottom compete with them to drive down costs where we can.
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| 7,145 |
Flaminia a bit of a mischaracterization there of Pelosi's take on Congressional investment. "The speaker said she didn't believe the step was necessary because she trusted her colleagues and that existing laws currently require regular disclosure. "I have great confidence in the integrity of my members," Pelosi said.Still, she has asked the House Administration Committee to review the STOCK Act, the law requiring members regularly report trades and file reports within 45 days, and said she is open to increasing fines for lawmakers who fail to comply with the deadlines. She added the committee is reviewing all the bills proposed on new reforms.Pelosi said if there are concerns that a member is engaged in insider trading "that's a Justice Department issue." Existing laws give prosecutors the ability to charge lawmakers with insider trading."
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| 5,273 |
"The Menu," I now see was a documentary, not merely a parody. The only untruth in the movie is that the price was only $1200 per head. That experience described in the movie would cost no less than 5 grand a head.
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| 3,044 |
Jim R and it doesn’t hurt that you get a check for 174k plus a year. Not bad work if you can get it.
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| 9,776 |
Dwayne We had so many medical expenses last year it left our HCSA at $0 coming into 2023. We have a Very High Deductible plan which often costs us about 1/3 of my husband's pay. I'm unable to work.GoodRx has been a boon in helping us pay for the prescriptions which I couldn't refill for 3 months in December.HOWEVER, using GoodRx means that what we pay is not counted towards our insurance deductiblesnwhich puts the first $3k totally on us. Then it's an 80/20 split until we pay out $7k after which they cover 100%.The system is truly rigged when it does not allow us to buy medications at the best price available. I'm still trying to figure out what to do come March when all of my many (& my hubby's) 90 day refills come due.I turn 65 in March & my sister is pushing Medicare as the solution to my healthcare costs. I'm not convinced. It's almost 2 years before I can collect my full SS. I'm on several expensive medications which (thankfully) I buy under a PAP. That's only while I have private insurance. They aren't available through Medicare. Medicare isn't free & needed supplemental plans also cost. Plus out of pocket costs. Prescription cost limits don't go into effect until 2025. By then, the Rs could have control & repeal these measures (& beyond) while also cutting SS benefits. It might be less expensive staying on hubby's work insurance!Any way you look at it, the average American is being screwed. By Pharma but also in many other ways. Death by a thousand cuts.
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| 5,455 |
This is not the pre-Trump GOP. The balance of power in the House is in the hands of insurrectionists who no longer believe they can achieve power in a genuine democracy. They supported the overturning of a free and legal election, and some of them helped plan and execute a (barely) failed coup. They are enemies of the Constitution and the Republic. They want to destroy the liberal state - some of them have said so explicitly. They support reactionary Neo-fascists around the world, attend their conferences, and want to stop supporting Ukraine. They will use the power they have gained to advance their goal, which is to turn the US into an authoritarian, white nationalist, minority-ruled, anti-liberal phony republic like Hungary. They will empower however they can armed right-wing militias and fascistic groups like the Proud Boys allied with them (and increasingly with GOP House members). Every move they make in Congress will be designed to advance this goal. They don't care about legislating, policy, raising or lowering the debt ceiling, shutting down or opening the government. They will pursue whatever course they think will hasten the demise of genuine liberal democracy. Articles like this one that obscure this and pretend that we are returning to something different only make it easier for them, just when the survival of the American republic depends on making it clear what they are up to. Thanks for your help, Mr. Douthat.
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| 5,785 |
I think the Democrats need to reframe the government spending debate. The GOP often uses the analogy of household spending. Dont spend money you dont have on things you dont need, running up your credit card bill on vacations, new clothes, and bon bons. Instead, I think the analogy of business investment is more appropriate and politically effective. To increase productivity a business needs to invest money in its infrastructure, people and research. You have to spend money to make money. With that framework, then a (rational) discussion of on what, to whom and to where we should invest our resources should/could be had. The US is one of the most stable and productive countries in the world, that's why the world invests in our government to make the right decisions for our future. By the people, for the people. Rather than burning it down to get pennies on the dollar in lower taxes, as a people let's become more involved in the decisions of where the money comes and goes. Investing in the social safety net of our children and elders creates the stability that allows for more productivity by the working aged. We cannot just leave it up to the corporate lobbyists!!!
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| 2,259 |
Documentalista Thanks.😍 It surely makes a HUGE difference to have a tab open for this thread, instead of going into the forum looking for this thread every time one wants to check for updates…
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| 868 |
Loved the "wealth management" guy who, instead of answering the question said, "$160,000 - $200,000 salary goal"!
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| 5,271 |
I was hired by IBM to work in Palo Alto in 1984 so I have seen the tech business cycle up close. There are several facts that people outside (and some inside) of tech don't understand. First, it's incredibly "age-ist". I was surprised that the engineer in the piece allowed his age (48) to be printed. 48 is well past the sell-by date for the most programmers, engineers, and other tech creatives; sales and marketing are a little different but as a colleague said to me during the dot-com boom, "I don't see a lot of gray hair in the office" - he worked at Cisco Systems (as I had earlier).Second, there is a universal refrain during every boom: "this time it's different". When I moved to SV in 1984 it was in year 2 of a recovery that lasted until a major downturn hit tech by 1989. When I joined Cisco in 1992 it was still in the downturn. The "dot-com" boom began with the NetScape IPO in 1995, when Microsoft released Windows95 and the web became accessible to the public. This lasted until 2000. The bust was from 1989-1995 and the boom was from 1995-2000 so each lasted about five years.From 2000 to 2009 tech was fundamentally moribund except for a few players like Apple and Google. THe current boom really began with Facebook's IPO in 2010. VCs cashed in on early investments in a small number of 'unicorns' and funded the current crop of (now failing) startups. That's a 9 year boom. My strong suspicion is that the bust will last nearly as long. This is only round 1.
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| 3,815 |
Democrats actually lost votes across the working class spectrum in 2022, compared to 2020 - not just white, but among all races.<a href="https://unherd.com/2023/01/joe-bidens-false-optimism" target="_blank">https://unherd.com/2023/01/joe-bidens-false-optimism</a>/"the Democrats lost the nationwide popular vote by 3 points (48-51) in 2022, along with control of the House; they lost the overall working-class (non-college) vote by 13 points, down 9 points from 2020; Hispanic support declined 11 points and black support declined 14 points. The Democrats did, however, clean up among white college graduate women in competitive House districts, carrying them by 34 points."This is because the majority of people of all races feel the Democrats are out of touch on key issues. "Democrats went into the election with double-digit disadvantages on immigration and the border (-24), reducing crime (-20), focusing enough on the economy (-20), valuing hard work (-15) and being patriotic (-10)."Basically, if Democrats want to win big, like really big, they need someone to come in and close the border, throw the bums in jail, and give a hand-up not a hand-out. This is not a Republican talking point; this is what the majority of the country wants.
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| 2,604 |
AOC was the only Democrat to vote “no” on the Omnibus bill. Yet she was eager to issue a press release outlining that she was “excited to announce that over $15 million has been secured for community projects” in her district. Apparently it passed without her help, just like the Infrastructure bill. The local online paper posted a summary of this glowing report on their website, but failed to mention that she voted against the bill. Perhaps the paper’s new owner doesn’t want to publish any criticism of AOC.
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| 2,153 |
Television was an essential part of my "great awakening" growing up in mid Ohio on a steady diet of FM radio rock Blue Oyster Cult, Rush, Jethro Tull. Of course Iggy and Patti were kicking at the door, but Tom and his Television bandmates - along with the Pistols, Ramones and Damned - busted it wide open. My record collection and car cassette player were never the same, which inspired many roadtrips out of my sleepy backwater to Cleveland, Detroit and NYC to catch performances by the early pioneers of this next phase of "rock" music, though frustratingly not Television. Finally and transcendently did get to see them live decades later in Athens GA in the late 90s and 00s. Exceeded even my hoped-for lofty expectations. Though not as famous or immediately impactful as his peers, Tom inspired many future rock musicians to explore subtlety and lyricism rather than rely solely on speed or force.
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| 2,997 |
We've been folllowing all the mainstream media coverage of this story since the beginning, and that's not how I remember it. Intially, Meghan was welcomed here with open arms; very warmly. No 'racism'; it's illegal here and we didn't know her background or anything about her. The media were onside; a Royal Romance! Beloved of (some) of us Brits.Short story. All was well until Meghan acquired the title 'Duchess Difficult'. Problems with staff who kept leaving. Princesses in tears. Rifts between brothers, fathers, relations - and the media. Tsunamis on the placid-ish waters of the palace - who don't comment, but there is a media protocol. But what really got us was 'The Pitch'. In 2017 Harry was made Captain General of the British Royal Marines. In 2019 he and Meghan attended the premier of the Lion King movie, where they talked to Disney's Bob Iger about a part for Meghan. On the same day, the Royal Marines held a 30th Anniversary memorial concert for Marine musicians killed in a terrorist bomb attack. But their Captain General was at a movie premier...From there on it was downhill all the way. 'Harry's Truth' seems to involve unapologetic substance abuse and all the associated distortions and fantasies. However, the truth of Diana's death is out there and it is, utterly tragic. Yes; good luck to him. I hope he enjoys the sunshine - and gets clear. Brexit; just a thought. Would the US be happy to have their laws made in say, Argentina? (posted by gp)
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| 4,447 |
CinnamonGirlf Another New Orleanian here to agree with this post. Murder, awful as it is, is but a part of the grievance. Carjacking and car theft, particularly Hyundai and Kia models, are widespread in way never seen before. The NOPD is unprecedentedly understaffed. Anyone contemplating working at police pay finds housing increasingly difficult to afford. The city's historic housing stock is being bought up by out of town short-term rental and dorm conversion landlords. This headwind is not the Mayor's fault, but many believe she could have done more, sooner. City-wide work on ancient sewer and water lines has yielded impassible streets across entire neighborhoods. A lack of departmental coordination has left residents to park and walk blocks on torn up sidewalks for months or even years. Traffic signals are broken on a number of major intersections, so portable stop signs are becoming semi-permanent fixtures. The city has blamed this on COVID supply chain issues, but that explanation is wearing thin with time.Same for the street illumination: On I-10, a terrifying stretch in 7th ward is dark. Same for the Carrollton Avenue I-10 exit, made worse by driving into the bright lighting of the Xavier campus and Costco. That's the experience of locals, all without getting to the behavior allegations, first-class travel (with her insinuation that crossing the pond in coach is more dangerous than walking through the Quarter), etc.
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| 3,189 |
Patrizia Filippi I think that you missed the part where they are out in the open ocean pretty much daily. Not to justify the capture and penning of wild animals, but another comparison that could be made is to the animals being sold to for-profit amusement parks, SeaWorld and their ilk. A couple of items that I found to be of interest in this article (hate the idea that the Navy is green selling itself with promises of keeping humans young) is that they are no longer breeding the animals in captivity and they are no longer capturing these animals. I have no doubt that the dolphin and sea lion handlers love and care for their well-being. You cannot be in their presence for extended periods without developing deep respect for them.
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| 8,409 |
Eric Opposing California's first Latino Senator would have been very risky. Schiff would likely have lost. Why run against an incumbent when 2024 was going to be an open race?
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| 9,716 |
God, the comments. I know that there's a high Boomer population here but even so it's shocking to encounter the same attitudes I did when I went overseas to escape an abusive family and family friends and locals who resented me for leaving. At this point we're all steeped in Dr. Phil, therapy, and years of the #Me Too movement. Yet people who had zero problem with years of relentless negative articles designed to ruin Harry and Meghan's reputations are now complaining they're heard too much from the victims in the coverage of their book. It's very telling indeed.Piers Morgan has hounded Meghan on a daily basis, in fact, often multiple times per day in nasty coverage and he has been completely open that that's about her rejection of him. He did it right in the middle of the #Me Too revelations and not one Brit I know of called him out. It was only a couple of years ago, when he lost the plot over Meghan in a live interview that he finally faced a consequence. Jeremy Clarkson, another creep, recently wrote an article in a national newspaper where he hoped Meghan would be paraded through the streets naked. Meghan has been accused of bullying Kate and staff in situations that turn out to have been the other way around. I'm running into a word limit here...Again, many people are confused about why Meghan and Harry want to defend themselves. Any of us would. I won't read the book and don't click on many articles about the situation but I get why they wrote the book.
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| 2,526 |
bip425 Well, we know who wants to toss out the Constitution!The GOP can talk all they want about fiscal responsibility, but what was the BIG triumph of the Trump administration? A tax cut (supposedly good) with no reduction in spending (supposedly bad). Estimates of the increase in our deficit now range between $440 billion to $2.3 trillion over the next 10 years. Well done Republicans! Let’s hear you brag about that when you run for election that this just didn’t go far enough!
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| 3,344 |
But the GOP gets billions in campaign cash from the wealthy and powerful that wish to bend the actions of the country entirely to their benefit. If we cannot fix this inequity, as have many democracies including Canada and Europe, then we will always fight an enemy that has more funds than us and often lose. Stop the legal bribery of people running for office and elected officials trying to stay in office. Make them accountable only to the voters and we will see our democracy renewed. To do this we need to have Democrats retake the house and increase their margin in the Senate.
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| 7,969 |
Medford Koukla If Santos has been paid any part of the usual Representative's salary, he should be made to pay it back. That money comes from Federal taxes, so Santos is committing fraud against the voters of his Long Island District, and, by extension, against the People of the United States.
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| 926 |
The Showdown at the OK Corral (the debt ceiling) looms large. Republican renegades--all of them, to one extent or another--will be willing to bring the world economy to its knees by defaulting on US financial obligations because they don't (or won't) understand how modern money works.I heard one Republican in the House chamber today decry our $31 trillion (yes, that's with a "T") "national debt." And this white male--almost all Republicans are--shed crocodile tears over how we were saddling our grandchildren with this "debt."But let's think about this for a second (OK, it might take a few minutes). Does this GOP Congressman own US dollars free and clear? Stay with me, because this is an important question. US dollars enter our economy in 2 ways: when private banks (or quasi-banking institutions) issue loans, or when the federal gov't spends more money created "out of thin air" than it claws back in taxes (we call this a deficit). "Bank money" accounts for most of the dollars circulating in our economy. But it's all spoken for--a bank loan is simultaneously an asset and a liability for both the bank and the borrower. By force of logic they sum to zero!None of us has a "Benjamin Tree" in our backyard, so where did our financial wealth (expressed in US dollars) come from? The shocking truth (to deficit hawks, anyway) is that our wealth comes from federal deficit spending. Where else could your dollars come from? Why would the GOP take that money away from you?
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| 7,956 |
I was told by the head of an agricultural extension at a university that while the bird flu has certainly been a factor, the main reason prices are so high is because many producers are trying to move away from keeping birds in close cages. While seemingly more humane, chickens are extremely aggressive with each other (“pecking order”). The word he used was “cannibalistic.” With more space to move around, chickens attack each other. Any eggs that are laid on the floor and not on racks have to be disposed of for sanitary reasons. Can anyone comment on this? All of the press about high egg prices has been centered around avian flu and not this.
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| 3,123 |
John D. My ideas are totally sound. What were the tax increases that Manchin and Sinema were against? Perhaps you are thinking of the "carried interest" loophole?If they closed that, they might raise $100Billion. If that. On the Federal budget of $6.2Trillion that is crumbs in the sofa. The Dems should have repealed Trump's 2017 tax cut law in its entirety. Why didn't they? Those evil Rich People. Was that ever a bill?Debt reduction? A pipe dream. Congress, Democrat or Republican, keeps spending more and more and more.
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| 3,634 |
Dennis Some comments here imply that the federal share of the Medicaid expansion will run out. In 2020, the federal share of the Medicaid expansion is 90% with the state share 10%. As of now, there are no changes planned to reduce the federal percentage. <a href="https://www.macpac.gov/subtopic/state-and-federal-spending-under-the-aca" target="_blank">https://www.macpac.gov/subtopic/state-and-federal-spending-under-the-aca</a>/
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| 7,573 |
Price isn’t the issue, millennials (and Gen Z) have no problem spending $10+ on smoothies and boba teas in single portions. Market natural wines as a ritual of self-care and connection.
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| 8,461 |
The corruption ran so deep at FTX that SBF sending $400 million of investor money to his buddies barely even got noticed… Hope they get all what’s coming to them, even though the depositors will never get their money back.
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| 8,408 |
Here we go. Michel’s Christiana, a restaurant opened in 1959 where Hem had his last meal on the evening of July 1, 1961 in a corner booth and in the company of his wife Mary and their friend, Geroge Brown, his boxing coach and trainer, who flew out to Rochester MN to drive Hem and Mary to Ketchum from the May Clinic, a 5 day road trip which began on June 26. Hem ate a New York strip steak, baked potato, Caesar salad and drank a French red wine, probably Châteauneuf-du-Pape. During dinner, Hem thought that two men at a small table farther back were FBI agents following him. The next morning, while Mary slept, Hem blew his brains out with a shotgun. And now, 62 years later, people would have dinner there because Hem did? Why?
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| 6,776 |
They hate the employer mandated matching funds. For Social Security, the employer matching is 6.2% (on the first $147,000 of salary) and 1.45% on regular Medicare.Though they always claim their efforts to cut the “entitlements” are budget driven, the reality is it is simply greed driven. Less money a corporation has to pay toward the employee meNs more money for shareholders.
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| 2,934 |
China occupies an area roughly equivalent to the USA but with nearly 5 times the population. I hardly think a decline in population will be a threat. While you site social spending, there really isn’t much of a government provided safety net for the aging population. Children are expected to take care of the parents, with 3 generations usually living under one roof. Housing is also not a problem, other than it’s overpriced, poor quality and massively overbuilt - since real estate is the primary investment used by most people and a large portion of the housing is speculative and often vacant as seen by the “ghost cities”.China’s biggest problem is it’s leadership who prioritizes power and wealth above everything else. China could use this slowdown to shift priorities. It could 1) Develop the impoverished rural areas so the inhabitants don’t have to migrate to the urban areas where internal passport restrictions cause them to live almost as illegal immigrants without access to basic services.2) Develop their education to foster creativity. This way they don’t have to rely on IP theft and cheap labor to sustain the economy 3) Work on quality infrastructure vs quantity. Their glittering buildings are mostly falling apart after 10 years.4) Start cleaning up the horrendous air, land and water pollution contaminating most of the country.Unfortunately the leaders have no interest in the people. It’s power & money enforced by surveillance, nationalism and repression.
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| 9,574 |
The only determinant in failing to provide for individual designs for different cities is GREED. The 5 development companies managing 40% of the housing projects can make more return on their investment if they put ugly, cheap, poorly built and never built-to-last cookie cutter buildings wherever they can. What do the executives care? They and their families will NEVER live in these buildings that are designed for low income people who have no money to advocate for themselves and decent, basic human design.
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| 6,370 |
David And their fortunes would be minuscule if they didn’t have the laws on commerce & other systems that facilitate & protect their investments and assets.
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| 9,023 |
My collecting interests are the 1880-1970 period, traditional and impressionist American painting. These kinds of works are staggeringly out of fashion. You can get very nice paintings, and not small ones either, for under $1000 at regional auction houses. Even relatively big-name traditional artists from this period run from $3000-20000, unless the work is really extraordinary. Some of these paintings are pretty dull, cows in fields or distant mountains in routine 19th-century style, but there are some good ones too.Sure, sometimes the bidders go crazy, but there is always another auction next week. Patient collectors can get good buys. You can go to an auction aggregation platform, put in the names of the artists you collect, and you'll be notified. Local auctions are another possibility. I once managed to snag a giant fall landscape painting by a listed Canadian artist for under $100. It's not particularly valuable, but a good art auction house could probably get $600-800.
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| 4,544 |
Where is an employer's willingness to accept reponsibility for a employee's mistakes? It sounds like a rookie checkin clerk misread the traveler's documentation requirements and then refused either to acknowledge their error or to call in a supervisor. Some people are inflicted with an inflated sense of their pride or their stature. American airlines is directly responsible for training and supervising its employees. The consequences of the employee's mistake should have been obvious at the outset. The employee should have had the humility and good sense to regognize the magnitude of the issue, apologize for the confusion and call in a supervisor to resolve it rather than insist that they were in charge and attempt to save face.American Airlines is directly responsible for training and supervising its employees. They are responsible for this fiasco, not the traveler. Had American accepted its responsibility immediately, i.e. had the employee upgraded the issue to higher authority as they should have, it would have been resolved immediately by an experienced and more knowledgeable supervisor. The traveler would have had her experiece of a lifetime and neither, the airline, nor the insurance carrier, nor the traveler would be out $17,000 and the vacation experience of a lifetime.
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| 4,690 |
Arizonia spent $82 million on a shipping container fence of what 3 miles, the containers could have been better used for supply chain shortages. The federal government had a 400-page engineering report commissioned along with other litigation. I wonder what that cost taxpayers. Maybe one day the supporters of the trump criminal enterprise will wake up and acknowledge the lies, cheating, theft and scorn for them by their boy.
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| 7,444 |
Mixed Family My company welcomes a new crop of interns every year. We pay them a living wage that takes into account getting a short-term rental apartment, as well as living expenses. In other words, we view the internship as an extended job interview and treat them as we would any other new colleague. Unpaid internships are a stain on the wealthiest country this planet has ever seen. They should be ended.
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| 3,906 |
This isn't a "conversation," it's an interview. Gail asks Bret, "What's your opinion?" And Bret pontificates, spouting the same Fox News propaganda over and over. Oh, the couple in New York making $400,000 a year, "scrimping" and agonizing over the cost of eggs. How dare the government audit them.The rich are the "job creators." (Forget about the poor; they don't vote or provide campaign contributions.)This reminds me of any Republican appearing on MSNBC. They talk and talk nonstop - steamrolling the host. Roll the tape!
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| 350 |
JM Harry and Meghan are monetizing their grievance.Hard to feel sorry for two privileged people who live in a $14 million gated estate and have business deals of more than $100 million - all because of their grievances about the Royal Family.
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| 5,938 |
Sorry, but Ms Nelson is just as tone deaf in her accusations as DeSantis is in his assault on the woke. Both conflate every shortcoming of people's resistance to woke dogma into something akin to Kendi's anti-racism or Trump's anti-patriotism. Both are intellectually dishonest.I oppose DEI. Full stop. The words are wonderful. The implementation is censorious. The DEI attacks on non believers destroy careers, change nothing for the positive and simply fan the partisan divide. If the DEI industry would concentrate its energy to teaching literacy, numeracy and rational thought to K-12, then minority children would stand a much better chance of a successful life in this rapidly changing society and its economy. Stop assuming the role of self appointed parent and priest. Right now, DEI accomplishes nothing except to provide high paying jobs to administrators who have nothing to do other than police white attitudes.The issue is not that accurate facts of the history of slavery and jim crow are not taught. The issue is the framing of the lessons as evidenced in such trope as the opening chapter of the 1619 project and in Kendi's dogma about racism and anti-racism. Academic research has given way to opinion. Besides being a disastrous political strategy with its emphasis to vilify everything and everyone of European origin, it is so riddled with self-interest on the part of its cadres as to appear to be a giant con game.
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yes
| 7,859 |
We immigrated to Canada when my parents were in their forties; we all had to learn a new language and adapt to our new life. My mother was a full-time working mother of five, even so, money was tight as they were starting afresh. Yes, growing up in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s was different than it is now; but then, it was again quite disparate from my parents and grand-parents upbringing. They trusted us to do our best, and intervened when it was necessary - we always felt loved and nurtured and secure. We already had the looming threat of nuclear war, and it was starting to be evident that the earth was fragile. Even with our own family, our expectations did not include fancy trips, multiple vehicles and expensive possessions; we lived within our means. We had moved far from family because of jobs; we didn’t have extended family to count on. Of course, like many parents, we look back and think we could have done some things differently, but not where it counted. Childrearing is never an easy job and should not be undertaken lightly; I was also lucky enough that I did not have to parent on my own. Rearing good human beings was paramount – not an online presence, with its constant texting, chatting and living up to the impossible social media standards many people seem to think are vital these days. The pandemic has made things harder for most, but when I contrast our lives to our ancestor’s lives, or to those who live in Third World countries, we are fortunate indeed.
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no
| 3,542 |
Republicans have a very consistent and simple policy agenda - fund tax reductions on corporations and the wealthy by cutting government programs. Motivate voters with xenophobic fear-of-the-other tropes.This leaves SS, Medicare, Medicaid and Defense on the chopping block, since these (along with debt interest) make up the vast majority of our budget. Reversing their 2018 $1.9 Trillion handout to corporations and the wealthy would make sense, but the new House of Reps would burn it all down first.
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yes
| 6,115 |
JLH If you compare Federal spending plus state spending to GDP ratios across EU members vs the US we're right in the middle of the pack. One big difference is an extra 1.5% of GDP on the military. If we didn't, Russia might be in Poland by now. The other reason is how much health care costs here. This doesn't really have anything to do with politics, it's the post WW2 world we've inherited. We spend 80% of all biomedical R&D dollars here. Someone has to pay for it and it's not the EU, they have price controls.
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no
| 1,889 |
Everything Derek B is spot on. Another strong and legitimate factor for the general populous to hold bias against those who are obese is the significant increase in healthcare and tax costs that are inevitably passed down to all of because of their unhealthy personal choices! It’s often understated in conversations regarding this problem that obesity currently costs our government almost $200 billion annually and if articles such as this are any indication that number can surely be expected to explode in coming decades. As someone who does everything in my ability to maintain the best health and physical fitness possible I personally find the idea of incurring any cost for others neglectful behavior repugnant
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no
| 3,609 |
Homer D'Uberville Had much the same experience with ChatGPT. It created a spectacular bibliography for a paper on designing public open space. Which was entirely fictitious. When I pointed this out it did apologize. But it really has no conception of truth or fact, it is just generating what looks plausible based on language models. Not Urban Design theory. Or Mechanical Engineering. Or, I suspect, coding.
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no
| 2,284 |
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