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My second Eulogy is to Javed Khurrum Mirza aka JK Mirza. He was my childhood neighbor and I met him again when I started my university that is the best public sector University namely Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU). We became really good friends. Since I was a year senior to him, I completed my MSC in Economics in 1998. I needed a BIke that would cost nearly 500 Dollars so that I can move around Islamabad doing my volunteer work, teach children of Shanti Towns for free and young kids Mathematics. I told Javed 'I should have a nice Bike'. Next day I met him at QAU and suddenly he reached out to my 501 Levi jeans that his fiancé brought for me from the US. After the class I checked my pocket and there was 500 dollars. I bought a Bike. My parents asked where I got the money from and I asked JK Mirza. His fiancée was daughter of none other than Tariq Aziz who was the all-powerful principal secretary and childhood friend of President Pervez Musharraf and who single handedly created Pakistan Muslim League Q, that is right now the ruling party of Punjab province. JK Mirza said that he sold the engagement ring that he planned to put on the finger of the daughter of Tariq Aziz. Anyway later it didn't work out with them. With a bike, I could do all the welfare work that got me a scholarship in the Netherlands. JK Mirza taught me that money is not important but putting smiles on the faces of your loved ones are important. It is the most cherished human value and so JK Mirza you Rock.
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This is really scary and sad. The things we create are like a frontier of the mind, never quite reachable and always on the horizon. It is a place our collective dreams write and rewrite with each new creation that enters the public consciousness.When some piece of great, perhaps even transcendent art comes along, it can thrill an excite. I think it comes from the joy that something that came from nothing tickles our imaginations and our senses in ways that feel personal and secret. Somehow, something outside of us held the key to what unlocks the pleasures of our inner life!So I say it's scary and sad when a program comes along and outdoes years of creativity in minutes. I suppose it could be a helpful tool in the sense that it gets our competitive juices flowing. Yet perhaps it's not horrible if we as a race of creatives can try to remember that this is a box sitting in a room with no life of its own, with all its needs met, with no purpose other than a given directive, with no finite years to fill with meaning, with no children or other life to tend. I think we could do what the box does just as well if we didn't have to manage the tasks that go along with being living beings, but then what would be special about that life? I wonder how well the AI would perform if it had to worry about its next meal, and why its dog looks sick, and whether its companion AI is cheating on it with the PlayStation next door.
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Sounds like many of Trump’s companies that earned exactly one cent below the threshold for paying corporate income tax. All crooks.“Mr. Santos’s campaign spending has also come under question, with scores of expenses for $199.99 — exactly one cent below the threshold for requiring receipts.”
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Nicholas Halfinger A recent study indicated that climate changing was likely to double the chances of an ArkStorm as well.Estimated damages around one trillion dollars..
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Austin Ouellette - Anyone can buy Microsoft stock - it's publicly traded. You could have picked up 100 shares in 2011 for $2600, and today you'd have 10 times the money, plus dividends.
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Joe Biden invests in Ohio and they vote for election denier JD Vance when Tim Ryan has been fighting for them forever. Deplorable.
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I can't believe how broken the US political system is.Ridiculous campaign spending, reality show presidents wielding far too much power, partisan Supreme Court, judge nominations as a political weapon, the Electoral College, gerrymandering, voting restrictions targeting minorities, no public referendums or other involvement of the public past elections, destructive procedures like the filibuster, idiotic rules like having to agree on a speaker but no provisions for a tie-breaker... it's mind-blowing to me (as a Swiss citizen) to look at this mess, and seeing no concerted effort to clean it up. Has anyone in government proposed changing the rules for how this speaker election works? It's really not that hard to come up with rules which work. E.g.: First round open to everyone, second round only the three candidates with the most votes electable, third round only the two with the most votes, abstaining/invalid vote does not count towards total, majority wins at any point. This way, it never lasts more than three rounds, and some 20 extremists have absolutely no way to take the government hostage.
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Israel has never had a robust democracy as it has always ignored the Palestinian people in the land. The Zionist aim was to rid the land of the people and that theme continues with home demolition, expulsion, and killings. In the past, all of the US negotiators have been negotiating on the side of Israel with never the real intent of a two state solution and now that time has past. Biden should stop US aid to Israel, 3.8 billion per year until the Palestinian people are full and equal citizens of Israel/Palestine.
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Presumably the CCs could expand to accommodate. And no- they are no longer the cheap education they used to be. They are cheaper than universities but still $5k and up a year.
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jprfrog We never made more than $135,000 between the two of us and we moved out of the city in 2002 after selling our co-op in Hudson Heights which we purchased in 1988. $1,000,000 in savings and investments and a current home. We owned a car and also a home outside the city where we travelled pretty much every weekend, paid our city taxes, car insurance, home owners insurance, groceries and recreational drugs, home owners insurance on the 2nd home, taxes, utilities, gas to drive back and forth. It can be done. And to think a sibling who brought in more income with the spouse actually borrowed money from us and took forever to pay it back.
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Bed Bath & Beyond Warns of Potential Bankruptcy The home goods retailer said weak sales and slower foot traffic had forced it to consider options for restructuring. Bed Bath & Beyond, the beleaguered home goods retailer, warned investors on Thursday about rapidly darkening prospects for its future, saying that bankruptcy was a possible option and raising doubts that it could pull off an ambitious turnaround plan it put in place just months ago. The home goods retailer said weak sales and slower foot traffic had forced it to consider options for restructuring.
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Salim Durrani The investor class loves it. Unlimited taxpayer dollars flowing to defense corporations. More lucrative and safer than crypto.I would like to think McCarthy could put the brakes on some of this nonsense, but I have my doubts.
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A quick search on Zillow shows a nice assortment of single family homes in Fort Lee under $1M. You should have highlighted some of these, since they would be the perfect "move up" homes for those who want to settle in a historical, leafy suburban locale with a diverse population, good schools, some decent restaurants, a busy downtown, and (relatively) easy access to Manhattan.Showcasing only two single family homes with prices well over $3M does a disservice to many of these potential residents, I believe.
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My thoughts indeed. $113B is a lot of money
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Amazing, Governor DeSantis wanted to shut down Government spending to the A.C.A and cut $250 billion from Social Security and Medicare while a previous Governor turn Senator from Florida (Rick Scott) had a Company Columbia/HCA that had settled allegedly "the largest Government health care fraud in U.S. History with two fines totaling $1.8 billion. What a Roller Coaster ride the people of the State of Florida are being subjected to and there is no stopping it.
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| 4,768 |
You are correct, in a way. Costs are prohibitively expensive partially for the environmental review and bid process reasons I’ve mentioned. We do spend a lot, but the public sector has been gutted in more ways than budget. The Bay Area has multiple small transit agencies when it should have one comprehensive one. Public review requirements open up endless possibilities for projects to be politically manipulated. Even in a rich city, there isn’t a transit agency with the vision or power to create what the region needs. Compare this to Toronto or London where one, empowered, expert agency is responsible for regional transit. I’d love if American metro regions could move towards this.
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Mr. Biden's response to the Republican's demand to cut Social Security and Medicare should be an immediate reversal of their 2018 $1.9 Trillion tax payoff to corporations and the wealthy.
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Silas Campbell It also doesn’t tell us what every Republican member of Congress is doing for their pay, either. Of course, if taxpayers are only paying them $1 per day, and they are responsible for their own parking, then my question will be what are they doing for the money flowing into their pockets from lobbyists and wealthy donors. When I get those answers, I may be mildly interested in the contractual agreement between Hunter Biden and this or that company.
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Aaron Wasser - Agreed, except that despite Big Corporate Ag's huge lobbying efforts and undue influence on elected officials that result in them being handed billions in corporate welfare (funded with taxpayer monies), agriculture comprises only 1.7% of CA's total GDP., according to ca.gov
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| 9,180 |
One point Mr Asimov failed to make is that of exposure. Most people who go out to decent restaurants pay inflated prices for a glass or two of less than stellar quality wine that might go with the meal but not stand alone as something the diner would seek out on its own. As fewer watch television each year, ads there will not be seen by significant potential purchasers, so marketing in partnership with restaurants would be a better way to reach the under 60 demographics.
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| 5,072 |
This is such a classic and unfortunate rhetorical strategy common in the NYT. Present an uncontroversial ethical issue (pay should be transparent), and turning it into a watered-down both-sides argument. We need to expand this notion of transparency to keep companies accountable to their workers. Financial transparency across the board. A worker shouldn't be paid based on the market rate, or the rates of their coworkers. That just pits workers against other workers. Workers should be paid based on how much value they produce for the organization. And how are they supposed to know if they're being paid fairly if they don't understand how much money the organization is bringing in? I used to work as a tutor for a private tutoring corporation (seems oxymoronic, but there you go). We were getting paid minimum wage while the parents were being charged over $100/hour. And still I have absolutely no idea how much profit this company was making. I do, however, vaguely understand that I was completely taken advantage of to make money for ownership and pay bloated corporate executive salaries. Can't imagine they would have hired easily if people understood going in they were getting about 10% of what was being paid in by parents, while doing nearly 100% of the labor
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| 8,002 |
Kate C - True enough, well said.The 'open border' language is a false, conservative talking point. They like to use this language, but when in power will do nothing about it. (Having one's cake and eating it, too.)
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| 7,022 |
Well Russia's investments in electing Donald Trump in the US and promoting Brexit in England sure have been a huge victory for them at the expense of the people living in those two countries. It is debatable when either country will recover from these two bad decisions.
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| 4,532 |
I know multiple young adults in white collar professions who switched jobs in the past year. In all cases, the new job offered more pay. But what I heard more about was that the new job also offered more benefits--health care, employer match for 401K, more vacation time, etc. Yes, Managers, people change jobs for those things. These young adults' former employers of course made counter-offers, but the offers focused only on salary (which might have made a difference before the employees got so fed up they decided to leave) and never addressed problems like poor corporate morale or lack of health care. So I applaud these young folks for having the initiative to find a better situation. Great, you might say, but what prevents them from doing the same thing in a few months? Isn't this the problem described in the article? Here's the thing: Every one of the new offers ALSO had some clause for future good: for example, a signing bonus now, and another at the one-year mark; or a vacation allowance that's attractive enough to lure good applicants and then doubles after 2 years. I've also noticed that these new employers seem invested in their employees' well-being: I'm hearing about structured mentoring, schedule flexibility, access to skills-building or credentialing programs, team-building events that are actually enjoyable and productive.Come on, corporate overlords! It's not that hard! Give good employees a reason to stay, and they will.
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| 6,665 |
Yes, a definite step in the right direction. But one of the big investments always touted is the one near Phoenix,Az. How smart was it to locate this Water hogging industry in a place with NO water, instead of located in a wetter part of the country ? Not too intelligent, but I guess the cities Bribes to bring it there out bid common sense.Kind of like when you drive around the corner & there are vast Cotton fields near Yuma. How much sense does that make ?
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| 6,949 |
"Salesforce bought the office communications tool Slack for $28 billion"I've never used Slack. Someone explain the magic that makes an instant messaging platform, the technology for which has been available for free in various forms for decades, worth $28B.I don't understand.
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| 8,571 |
I love all these suggestions and have a few of my own (no private gun storage; have a cabinet at some municipal site like a safety-deposit box, requiring two or even three keys to open it; make an appointment to retrieve and return your gun; if it's not back by the appointed time, the police to go pick it up. Guns must be stored locked and unloaded and ammo in another such cabinet). I have more but you get my point, and I think they are good ideas. Oh, and let's require annual safety classes, and target tests. Let's have a written test. Let's limit the number of guns anyone can own. Let's have every gun have a license on it with the name of its lawful owner.Still: we have 3D printed guns, ghost guns and so on. They are small enough to be hidden, so even if licensed, how would we know whom to check? And when? We have opened Pandora's Box and thanks to a republican-sponsored SCOTUS, that lid will never go back on.And we need to remember that more people use guns for suicide than for homicide. Absent a gun, so many people would be alive today. It's our national shame.
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| 5,157 |
The Republicans in the House and many in the Senate (looking at you Ron Johnson) seem to believe their own lies — and are now acting in that belief. The bill to roll back IRS funding, which would increase the deficit by $100 billion and reward law breakers (and campaign contributors) was the first indication that legislation from McCarthy’s House will be untethered from reality. This new “investigative” committee is just another step down that delusional road. Hopefully, there will be no permanent damage, but the slope is getting ever more slippery. The US has nothing to fear from China or Russia; we continue to hold the face cards internationally, now and most likely for at least the balance of this century. The US’s Achilles heel is within our own country, among those who would divide us, who ignore real problems and facts, and who yearn to return to a past that never was. As we saw at the opening of this Congress, the extremists in the Republican Party want to “win” at any cost, including the cost of a functioning government of a Constitutional representative democracy. 2024 will be a VERY important election, up and down the ballot.
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| 9,434 |
JEH The very wealthy (whose income comes mostly from investment earnings) definitely pay a low share, thanks to the lower rates on investment earnings and things like the pass-through income tax deduction. The working poor, while they may not pay a lot in income taxes, have payroll and sales taxes to pay (and sometimes property taxes). Also, in most countries health care is provided through the tax system. So if you include healthcare expenses (see the work of Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez), American "tax" rates jump up. (I realized this when I moved to Canada and saw my taxes rise but my health care premiums fall, basically offsetting each other.) In general, wealthy (and even middle class) people are taxed at much lower rates in the US than they are in other advanced nations. The poor are taxed less, but also have poor safety net benefits. So overall, the US system is far more favourable to the wealthy and upper middle class than are other nation's systems.
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Clyde Benke, While you beat yourself up over the verbiage ("affordable" vs "subsidized"), my take is, it'd still be far far far better than an open-air parking lot. Simple as that.
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| 5,754 |
So riddle me this...how does a sophisticated, private equity investor and money manager believe in "guaranteed returns of 16%"? It sounds like both parties had about the same amount of market knowledge. Someone wise once told me that a sucker is born every minute.
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Ed I disagree. The Democratic Party's priorities extend beyond equal protection and free speech. They include a tax code that puts more of a burden on those who don't need large tax breaks. They also include expanding health care access and addressing climate change and gun violence, the leading cause of death for American children. Among other things. The GOP wants to and has lowered tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. They get support from their base by evoking racial fears. Stick with the Dems, Ed. The alternative is costly.
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| 1,921 |
I'm very intrigued by Gail's framing of the gun issue in the form of "gun pride." It mystifies me (actually it infuriates me) that "responsible gun owners" seem so determined to be allowed to do as they like based only on their assurance to the rest of the world that they are "responsible." In general, in civilized societies, a certain level of proof of such responsibility is expected before a privilege is granted.You'd think RESPONSIBLE gun owners would be glad to have a way to prove that they were RESPONSIBLE -- some process that weeds out the IRRESPONSIBLE gun owners from among the class of Gun Owners. You'd think they would WELCOME a process that yanks out the bad apples who give the RESPONSIBLE gun owners a bad name by extension.What are they so afraid of, or so offended by? Or are they just so lazy and entitled that they don’t want to have to pass a course, take a test, or do any paperwork, even to get the guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, impulsive angry fools, and cold-blooded race warriors?In that case, guess what. They are IRRESPONSIBLE gun owners. They are not even responsible adults. They are spoiled crybabies who just want their toys without having to prove they can be trusted to use them safely.
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| 9,255 |
This baby boomer paid inheritance and estate taxes on a small inheritance (everyone paid them years ago), now people can inherit $13 million and pay no taxes (I inherited about $200,000, actually slightly less, plus a teardown house with no driveway), and I have also paid the nation's highest property taxes, since I live in New Jersey. Not all boomers are freeloaders. But the rich of every generation are freeloaders.
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Best article in the paper on this first day of 2023. The $200 billion private investment in semiconductor expansion in some 20 regional technology hubs, coupled with last August's bipartisan passage by Congress and the Administration of the $280 billion CHIPs bill excite me. My 6-year-old grandson's prospects for a career as a mechanical engineer in some field of science and technology could very well change civilization . . . for the better!What better way to challenge the rapacity of Russia and the insidious mercantilism of China? Not to forget the threat of man-made climate change. And the social and cultural demands of vibrant and thriving democracies. Can it be the aging and decrepit Joe Biden who is actually forging this inspiring policy direction for the United States? Naaaah, can't be. Yet, who else?
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Even before Covid restaurants were basically a gamble.All restaurants operate on thin margins and their failure/closure rate is high even in good times. According to an Ohio State U. study, 60% do not make it past the first year, and 80% go under in five years (these numbers are pre-pandemic).With record inflation laid on top of Covid, it seems inevitable that more restaurants will be forced to close, and not just the $500 a plate places.I enjoy dining out, but lately that has become more difficult because many of the restaurants in my area have had to limit seating because of a shortage of waiters and kitchen staff.I hope the economy will improve and that more restaurants will be able to remain open. However, in the meantime I have embraced the financial and gustatory joys of home cooking.
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The alternative to firing people because management failed at its job ("laying people off") (Napoleon: "There are no bad soldiers, only bad generals") is lifetime employment (tenure).Tenure forces management to pursue strategy of long term market share growth. As it happens, stock markets also highly value market share growth - so its a good approach to help shareholders achieve market share value.As it happens... Modern tenure was first started inside the Prussian Education system which was public schools funded by local taxes (our system still). People want good teachers for their children but they don't want to pay high taxes to pay high wages necessary to attract good teachers. How do you square that circle?They found that quality people will take lower pay if it comes with guaranteed employment. So tenure is one way for companies to gain higher quality people at below market cost. But, as they say, there is more.After WWII, land reform ("tiller of the land should also be the owner of the land") was implemented all over East Asia that did not succumb to Communism (to prevent it). The benefits were 2 fold, the former landowners were flush with capital to invest in mfg, but more importantly, agricultural productivity increased substantially.Tenure has the same affect on workers. Workers are more dialed in on their work. This explains why cars made by Japanese cos in Japan are still better made than those in the U.S.Microsoft could choose that model.
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Harley I'm all for Ukraine beating back Russian aggression. It's the other $800 billion that I'd like trimmed down.
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Mr. Trump once had $50M of income and paid almost zero dollars in Taxes. Even if there was no tax cut enacted, The rich already use various legal and illegal techniques to dodge their taxes. That aside servicing the debt right now is not a big deal, and social security will be find, if they simple remove the $100K ceiling and other adjustments. The finances of the nation is fairly strong and everything else is Republican code word for reverse Robin hood, taking from the poor and giving it to the rich.
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Matthew Holt The DEA has directly caused some of the worst drug problems we have today. Fentanyl wouldn't even be a "thing" on the streets if not for the persecution of oxycodone and heroin. And heroin wouldn't be a "thing" if not for the same persecution of morphine. When you make something illegal, you develop a strong incentive to refine/purify the product because the costs of illegal drugs are almost all "delivery charges". If I can smuggle in 1KG of product, if that product is morphine it's X doses. If it's heroin, it's 3X doses. If it's fentanyl, it's 100X doses. If my cost to move 1KG 10,000 dollars regardless of the drug, what do you think I'm going to focus on? During prohibition, beer was rare and 190 proof/moonshine was everywhere. Same reason, shipping was expensive, a keg of beer would get 100 people drunk, the same volume of moonshine would get 2000 people drunk. We just can't learn from the past, I don't know why, but we can't.
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Kudos to Duncan Clark for highlighting the crux of the issue (for China's leadership): "'There’s a lack of trust right now, and that’s not going to go away,” said Duncan Clark, the chairman of BDA, a Beijing-based investment advisory firm. He said businesses now assumed a greater risk with operating in China than they had in the past."Brickbats, however, are all that Jacob Rothman, a businessman with operations in Guangdon, should get, for suggesting that "the economic outlook in China will not improve until Beijing and Washington stop escalating tensions for political gain at home."It is neither fair nor accurate to claim that the Americans are solely interested in "political gain at home" as they ratchet up the pressure on China. But, then again, I suppose Mr Rothman (and others like him) were never all that concerned about matters of principle (such as the implications of the PRC's use of forced labour in supply chains, or its en masse mistreatment of minority groups (however defined) in China, or its cavalier disregard for international law and treaties (South China Sea, Hong Kong).
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FTX Founder Gamed Markets, Crypto Rivals Say Sam Bankman-Fried found ways to control the prices of digital coins to benefit his companies, FTX and Alameda, according to cryptocurrency investors. In Sam Bankman-Fried’s quest to keep his cryptocurrency empire looking profitable, the disgraced founder of FTX often promoted newfangled digital currencies that crypto aficionados came to call “Samcoins.” Sam Bankman-Fried found ways to control the prices of digital coins to benefit his companies, FTX and Alameda, according to cryptocurrency investors.
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vishmael Yes. But not likely to be initiated on the basis of a couple of stolen checks from 2008 used to buy shoes and clothing in Brazil worth less than $2000. Let him stay in New YOrk where in the not too distant future he will be indicted for multiple frauds.
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Betty Marcon I also like the idea of cutting back the hours a place is open. We -collectively - got spoiled with the always available, open every day attitude, with restaurants and other establishments feeling pressure, believing more and harder and longer is better. But after the last several years, it's been clear that sometimes that's not possible ... but even more importantly, it's not necessary. Unsustainable work schedules are doomed to fail apart. Having a restaurant that's open fewer hours, serving a good product ... that might be part of an answer.Reminds me of a man here in New England who hand makes fly fishing poles. He's got years worth of backlog of orders, but continues to make them at a pace that is doable and sustainable for him. He's not looking to expand, to add staff, because more more more is not the point and it's not necessary.
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As a scientist, professor, and researcher, I can say with some degree of confidence that many of the explanations for this phenomenon offered in the article (and the comments section) have merit: a lack of public investment in long term projects, the political assault on research budgets, the 'publish-or-perish' paradigm in academia, etc. But if we set aside our 21st century instinct to yell "crisis" for a moment, I think there might be another possible explanation here. It may be possible that as we -- as a species -- become *better* at science that huge leaps become less common. Setting aside its deeply problematic undertones for just a second, consider the example of the "discovery" of the globe by Western Europeans. As the explorers discovered more and got better at discovery, the discoveries themselves shrank from "South America is a continent!" to "Ow wow! There are the Andes!" to "Here is the highest peak of the Andes!" to "The headwaters of XYZ river exist in this place in the Andes!". I understand the limitations of this example: the world is finite and scientific knowledge is (presumably) not. But I do think that this is worth considering. While this lack of "disruptive" discoveries almost certainly heralds significant problems in the way we run the modern scientific establishment, it may actually also have an optimistic undertone: we may simply be getting better at science.
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The U.S. has very large deposits of rare earths in Mountain Pass, California, south of Los Vegas, and in fact had at least one working mine and processing plant there until the Chinese undercut world prices in the 1990s, and Congress foolishly allowed the Mountain Pass facility to close. Now there are efforts to open it back up (along with similar facilities in a number of other countries that were also closed in the 1990s for the same reason).
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American liberal media and Democrats insisted to lockdown America and ridiculed Trump who wanted to reopen slowly. In spite of constant ridicule, Trump and Republicans slowly reopened America and saved America. From the Chinese experience, it is proven that Trump was right. Under Biden, even with very effective vaccines produced under Trump, multiple times more people got infected and more than double died than under Trump, but we don't hear much criticism of Biden. That standard cannot survive without a negative reaction in a democracy.
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Mike M. Defense acquisition -- all of the research, development and production -- is about 1% of GDP, down from 4% in the 1950s and 1960s. It is hardly bankrupting the country.
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What would you give to have full and unrestricted access to Goldman's internal files including all investments, ownership and equity stakes?Can you even imagine the results of a leak from their databases?Almost as much fun as watching Solomon squirm in front of the cameras. Almost.
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Marston It might help things initially if all tax deferred retirement accounts were forced to be taxed the day the fair tax act was signed into law. Those accounts currently have around $32T.And because basis would no longer matter with respect to assets, all unrealized gains (and losses) should be realized. That should be enough to pay down at least a portion of the national debt. But neither of those will ever happen.
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| 7,894 |
You mention "The distrust of the government and resentment of “elites” by the majority of residents in Red states, but don't mention the effect uncontrolled migration has on cities and states...and the majority of those cities and states are South of the Mason Dixon line. Recently, with Border States and their neighbors overrun by millions of illegal migrants, with millions of residents and their governors begging for help from VP Harris, President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, governors decided they must act to get the attention needed to address this problem. Our "leaders" tell us the borders are not open - but NBC News reports undocumented migrant crossings of our SW border for fiscal year 2022 topped 2.76 million, That's the 'known' count. So one governor put illegal migrants on buses and sent them to Martha's Vineyard - a location with several thousand vacant houses during the winter. The island has about 17K year-round residents, but the population increases to 200K during the summer. Surely those closed houses or hotels could accommodate a few hundred illegals, right?Nope. Sending illegal migrants to cities North of the Mason-Dixon line caused howls heard across every square foot of the USA. Mayors and governors of the states that received the bussed-in migrants demanded the buses and planes must stop and the Feds must give them millions to care for the illegals.The distrust of government and resentment of elites has a firm foundation!
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| 7,511 |
Tesla Bulls Are Back at the Wheel Shares in the electric carmaker continued to rally after the company reported strong profits, even amid growing competition and economic pressures. Tesla investors are feeling heartened by the electric carmaker’s earnings announcement on Wednesday, which had plenty for them to like: a 59 percent year-on-year gain in quarterly profit and rising demand for its vehicles. Shares in Tesla were up nearly 7 percent in premarket trading on Thursday. Shares in the electric carmaker continued to rally after the company reported strong profits, even amid growing competition and economic pressures.
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You have wonder at the national nightly Broadcast news, the NYTimes and Washington Post and commenters here on the way they are contorting themselves into pretzel-like figures trying everything to exonerate this Democrat President from this predicament. This morning the Washington Post buried the story on Page 9 and last night the National News spent about a minute on this coverage. Everyone knows that if this were a Republican President it would have been blasted over the front page and kept under everyone's nose for months. As anyone who has handled classified documents knows that if you are cleared to read or courier such documents any time that document is out of your sight it must must be locked up either in a special safe in a special room or locked up in a room that has been cleared by special investigators with numerous safeguards depending on the level of classification. Trump kept documents in an uncleared room for 2 years, Biden for more than 6 years. Biden cooperated with the proper agencies when this was found out. Great, it mitigates the punishment but DOES NOT mitigate the illegal Act. Trump did not properly cooperate with the FBI so he violated a statute different than the document statute. SOo both Trump and Biden are guilty of violating the same exact law. No amount of cooperation or apologizing will undo that illegal act.
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| 8,954 |
B. In my job at a non-profit there was always a good mix of appropriate face to face chats (office door open) and head-down work (office door closed) until my employer moved all the knowledge workers to an "open plan" and said it was up to us to figure out as a group how to manage noise. What ?! Most departments ended up defaulting to silence, with the tap-tapping of employees emailing each other the only sound. Those who wanted to talk had to find a "focus room", but of course those were in short supply, so a 10-minute conversation would involve an additional 10 minutes of circling the floor looking for a room. It destroyed the morale of the workers and turned our jobs into an assembly line of managing communication streams while shackled to our computers.
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| 6,052 |
Wow, $26-28K a year with stroke risk???Surely this isn't the best the "modern" medical, mega drug corporates who get highly federally-funded University research can do?Millions more of us suffer from this every yearand need more toaccommodate the increasingly required care& treatment for accompanying injuries & system failures.If you've got a family history, thissux!
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| 4,977 |
Until my signing bonus allowed me to buy a house in my later 20's all I had was a small reserve fund. Undergrad, Grad school and the PC delayed my working life -- any extra money was going towards loans. This was the 80's and before any 401k matching was around. I don't think anybody 25 years old with a decent job prospect should worry too much about not having enough savings. I did have a positive career path ... nothing works like income. I invested in real estate initially and by my early 30's I was with my partner (few years younger) and loan free. You need a plan but don't beat yourself up at 25/26
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| 2,620 |
I so appreciate Dame and his loyalty to Portland. He believes in us—the community, the fans, the team, the back office, the potential—this means a lot to me after what Portland has been through and my faith in our city has wavered. Dame keeps reminding us of what being a champion truly means, especially off the court and in the off season: generosity, openness, integrity, dedication, and vision. He deserves the accolades for his athletic achievements, his physicality so to speak but Dame’s got transcendent metaphysicality, too. (He’ll be a great coach someday, if that’s what he aims to do.) The Blazers are a great team, and I am a proud fan no matter what.
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| 6,223 |
Outlawing third trimester abortions, as the Democrats are evidently willing to do, is just another extension of legislators thinking they know better than Doctors and patients, and ignoring the complexities of pregnancy. Just because only 1% of abortions are performed that late in pregnancy shouldn’t mean that we force women at that stage with a non-viable fetus to continue the pregnancy, which will result in more deaths and injury to women. If you can’t name the multitude of complications which would make late-term abortion the best medical decision, you have no business imposing your ignorant opinions on others. Certainly health care dollars could be saved if conditions affecting only 1% of the population are to go untreated, but it is grossly unfair. Should Doctors refuse to treat men with heart valve problems because it’s only 1% of men? It’s a ridiculous assertion and one unworthy of a just society.
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| 4,501 |
Thank you, Mr. Suozzi, for your statement.However, I believe that in our current environment where telling the truth is ofttimes considered a tactical or strategic mistake, he could easily escape any consequences if he is not charged, tried and convicted of a serious breach of ethics and law, in court. Without that, he will settle into the new House majority where the truth is not always necessary and acceptable as long as you get what you want. The simple fact that so few Republicans in Congress have made known that they consider his malfeasance unacceptable tells me that he will thrive there.As a retired high school Social Sciences teacher (History/Gov/Econ), I believe many students will see here that it has become acceptable and normal to see politicians as outright liars. And that works to destroy their belief in our system of government. Why be honest if you can lie and still get that job that pays $174,000 per year with lots of benefits, and where you have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from businesses and the actually wealthy to use for your personal benefit?I wonder what plum committee assignments he will get from Kevin McCarthy for supporting McCarthy in his quest for Speaker.
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| 6,120 |
California needs to make public policy based on the needs of its people, not the whims of environmental activists or the activist billionaire's that fund them. Legislation from bench is also killing new construction. They haven't built anything substantial in over 50 years. They vote for 2.7 billion in dam extensions 8 years ago and they are still not built?
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| 4,771 |
Steel Magnolia ...I think that most people, even conservatives, would agree that some liability should attend to what internet companies choose to "promote" on their sites. It is the promotion, after all, that is at the heart of this legal question for those looking on from the sidelines.But what does the law have to say on the matter? It would seem the the language of Section 230 is fairly unambiguous in the relief it provides to Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al. The lack of ambiguity leaves the Courts with few open avenues.The problem is not something that the Court is empowered to resolve. That power rests with the Legislature.And here we go again, with the REAL problems in our legal structure: A legislature prone to passing short-sighted legislation, and a legislature incapable of addressing the complexities brought about by their previous shortsightedness.Since the Democrats controlled the legislature for the past two years, the responsibility falls on their shoulders for the oversights. Divided government may or may not get around to the corrections. Republicans and Independents take on responsibility when they are in control.To blame one side for the inactivity is as shortsighted as the blinkered legislation was in the first place.This is a bi-partisan problem. Nothing more; nothing less.
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| 4,224 |
Broken bones and atmospheric pressure changes (approaching low) as another reader has commented i can predict weather change via increased pain to the injury, the injury occurred at 12 years old, worked it out at 18, now pushing 60, Arthritic pain increases with cold weather, radiant heat brings some relief IE open fire however if i leave that heat source the pain returns fairly quickly. Surely there would be enough medical data to support at the very least a trend.
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| 5,640 |
OedipalMass You're thinking too much like a lawyer.For most people. it's not about the quality of the non-compete or non-disparagement agreements or whether they're actually enforceable, it's the fact that they exist and their employer has deeper pockets than they do.I beat back a total joke of a non-compete enforcement threat (two months left on it, and it was signed without consideration years after I started, so I knew it was unenforceable) but it ended up requiring the services of a lawyer who could make it completely clear it was folly to enforce. And I was out $1300 in legal fees.You can add a zero to that number to end up responding to an actual civil suit trying to enforce it. And employers can get emergency restraining orders to force you to quit or not work at your new job IMMEDIATELY.Non-competes are less about preventing harm and more about an avenue of retribution in a situation of power imbalance.
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| 6,625 |
MJ Oat milk from Aldi…$2.50 for a half gallon. Pretty cheap.
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| 6,775 |
I have worked my whole 33 year career in semiconductor capital equipment and in semiconductor process development. The push to onshore our semiconductor industry and build it up is a golden opportunity for U.S. manufacturing, but we have some issues that need to be addressed. Number One in this regard is a cultural obstacle that we have grown and nurtured since about 1985, when we refocused our efforts from building great things to building a billionaire class. The results are seen in reduced taxes for the wealth accumulators while forcing the wealth creators to compete with relatively unregulated foreign companies that are free to pay lower wages, ignore worker safety, and pollute. We need to rewrite our tax laws to incentivize long term domestic investment. We need to not incentivize the enrichment of shareholders over all else. In other words, we need five and ten year federal plans that can survive political rollover, that have meaningful cascading effects on tax law, worker rights, and education.
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| 8,688 |
I own a small preschool with a staff of 6. Prior to opening my business, I worked in various educational jobs, always imagining what I would do differently if I was the boss. I strive to live into those values honed over 25 years. I am so challenged by the task! I never expected to encounter the kinds of difficulties I see within the employer/employee relationship. I naively believed that if I offered employees freedom, support, a creative work place and more, that they would like their job. I have learned quickly that things are much more complicated. This year, I have an amazing staff, but last year was a nightmare. I had one teacher who was out of control with backstabbing and gossip - I was shocked at the speed with which she plowed through any sense of staff comraderie. I wish more journalists would write about this topic. While self-help books for business owners help some, they are usually written by business OWNERS. That perspective is not what is needed in this climate of much-needed worker empowerment. I want to hear from employees about what they want - employees outside of the corporate environment. I want to hear from the store clerk, the teachers, the nannies, etc. I am slowly finding my way as an employer with the help and feedback of my staff. When they are willing to talk about what they want and need, that information is invaluable.
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| 2,446 |
Freddy It worked out nicely this time. Had the virus been more virulent you could have read "Gov. DeSantis was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Florida school children after re-opening all the schools" Shouldn't one err on the side of caution when lives are on the line? Jr taking a remedial math class is preferable to Jr suffering the effects of long covid the rest of his life.One mans political courage is another's political folly.
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| 5,793 |
UK is stopping vax and Boosters for under 50y, driven by 2022 data. The data at the bottom of the report is eye openning, but gets no press in the USA.
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| 6,204 |
This a really cheap investment to substantially weaken Russia, 40 billion spent, no American lives lost, Russian economy, military devastated and a weakened Putin…this is a DEAL for the US.
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| 5,056 |
Stephen Ebert ... perhaps a question is being sidestepped, i.e. is it within the realm of possibility that at some point lenders become reluctant to transact in dollars? Hypothetical example, lenders extend loans in dollars, but require repayment in a combination of other reserve currencies and commodity futures contracts (oil, gas, gold, etc). Inflation, becomes a consequence, rather than the cause, of some sort of a lender refusal to accept repayment in dollars. Yes, of course having control of the world's major reserve currency provides considerable borrowing capacity, but the underlying assumption on the part of lenders is that repayment will be made with relatively stable dollars rather than with debased value dollars caused by an excessive monetization of exorbitant deficits.
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| 6,812 |
the financial media has been repeating a "china re-opening" theme as a way to push stocks higher. my question is "re-opening" into what? the great recession was the result of a real-estate crash. i think china's economy is in worse shape than what's being reported. the chines central bank has been lowering interest rates in an effort to stimulate their economy. i see this as an act of desperation.
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| 7,707 |
James this is why a free and open society, especially with its government, is crucial to modern society.
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| 6,205 |
At best, managing construction in NYC is incredibly difficult. DEVELOPERS, people often like Trump and his fellow crooks, are the people that have the money to build, and they want the best returns on investment that they can get. Any housing that they construct has to be high-priced to do that - huge rents or purchase prices that few can afford except the very rich. Enter Bruce Teitelbaum. This article should make it very clear to everyone how people like this pressure their way into billions of profits on high-income housing when what NYC needs is AFFORDABLE, SAFE housing. Little by little the City is becoming a bastion of the rich and influential while ordinary people must move father and farther from where they need to work to serve these rich residents. We see the everywhere.Our government MUST make the commitment to provide affordable housing. Issue bonds as needed for VERY WELL-SUPERVISED, GRIFT-FREE residential development. It has become a fact of building these projects that huge graft and corruption are often found in them - so we need someone as unlike Trump as possible, to oversee this. These people exist and NYC has had some of the best in the past. DO IT AGAIN!
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| 8,950 |
Keep in mind a person must earn 90 thousand dollars just to acquire the scratch needed to pay the 62.5 thousand dollars in state taxes.
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| 7,763 |
IJJ I agree about the Nat gas. I plan to invest in LNG companies shortly to offset the inevitable doubling of my natural gas costs in 5 years or so. Supply and demand 101, parity between Europe and US gas prices will be much closer.
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| 6 |
Huh....30 seconds on Google shows that early middle aged celebrity chefs can have net worths of 5 million dollars, or more. How do such figures become so affluent and influential, and do they not have very promising futures? How did things turn out so well for them when the fine dining industry is completely impossible for those who work in it? It's classic; as a group celebrity chefs are financial success stories by almost any standard, somehow having became rich in an industry that can't support its workers. Just imagine what such people could accomplish in a profitable industry? Think of all the sacrifices that they and all the anonymous, underpaid, overworked employees in their restaurants made to provide us with the chance to eat their delicious food. We should be ashamed of ourselves!
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| 9,758 |
It would help if the NYT explained that the word "insulin" now covers a range of biological molecules. If a doctor prescribed the original $1 patent type of insulin, they would be subject to medical malpractice lawsuits. Tweaking insulin and getting a new variety, that offers better safety or efficacy, through the FDA process is neither trivial nor inexpensive. That said, pricing in the pharmaceutical industry should be fair for patients, middlemen, and investors. Quick check on greed: what dividend does Eli Lilly pay? Easy to look up. 1.26% at today's stock price. Anyone who wants to share in the greed can buy the stock and pocket that hefty rate of return. I'll pass.
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| 5,044 |
Firstly it's an absolute disgrace that the US has allowed the advanced chip situation to get out of control to such an extent. Has nobody been paying attention?Secondly, I suspect the US won't need to worry much about staffing shortages, because when China attacks Taiwan the Taiwanese with the right skills will be welcomed in the US with open arms - if they time it right.
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| 2,692 |
Populism isn't a strategy. It's not a basis for anything constructive and valuable. It's a reaction to grievances, real or imagined. Some people love the mantle of downtrodden-ness and "long-suffering". For them it's cathartic to open the window and shout to the street that you're mad as hell and won't take it anymore. It's how they self-actualize. Other people just love to watch the world burn. They hate being reminded of their own failures. They're attracted to populism like metal shavings to a magnet. In the end, they're still stuck to a useless magnet and all the other shavings.
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| 4,270 |
The article conveniently omits the fact that the meat and dairy industry is subsidized to the tune of $38 Billion per annum (in 2013 dollars, this is from the well-researched book Meatonomics) whereas the other agro-industries are subsidized hardly $4 Billion per annum. Immaterial of which side of the dietary spectrum you are on, this is a political issue that needs debate and sane policy-making. The article does a disservice to the need for debate on this.
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| 6,580 |
What I find quite hilarious is how, specially young entrepreneurs, brag about starting a billion dollar business all by themselves, and even write books about how they got so rich so fast. There are even movies that glorify this point of view, like The Intern, in which Anne Hathaway plays a young entrepreneur who started a million dollar business in her kitchen … and then later in the movie she is basically asked to abdicate the throne because the company is not making the profits that investors hoped for. And that’s the rub right there. She did not create a million dollar company, she conned a bunch of investors into throwing her millions with the hope her company would turn a dime some day. All the buildings, her cars, her mortgage, her kid’s school and everything else was paid by investor money, not by profits from her company. She never made a profit, it was all money lent to her by investors. At the end they wish to remove her so a CEO can maybe turn her company around.And this is what happens in reality. Elizabeth Holmes is the poster child for this.It was about time investors started looking at who they throw money at. And maybe , just maybe, time for companies to start making a profit other than by selling stock.
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| 5,230 |
From this week, my checking acct was hacked and $7000 processed to a real debt consolidation company, Upgrade Inc . Luckily I caught the fraud within 3 hours of its occurrence but it still processed the payment. Upgrade Inc wouldn't "speak" with me as they couldnt find me in their data base. I even begrudgingly gave them my SS number on their recorded line. I didn't exist ! But my $7000 exists in their company .Hilarious phone calls later to real humans who followed an AI script . We can't speak to you - you don't have an account here . Yes , I am the fraud victim. Please correspond to us using a valid email in our system !! But I don't exist in your system . Most insane situation and responses ever . All governed by a computer program and database .Sadder still is that the humans I dealt were not allowed to or were too scared to over ride the AI "script." Work in progress on this
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| 517 |
I’m sorry, I don’t think he is an example I would want my children to follow. You talk about revenge. I assume you mean toward Australia for deporting him last year. He not only flaunted the rules that he knew existed but, lied about the timeline of his prior Covid infection. He was deported for those reasons just as anyone else would have been. Rather than seeking revenge, he should be expressing gratitude to Australia for treating him like the privileged character he thinks he is and waving the 3 year requirement to return to the country so he could play in the Open. I would much rather my children learn from the examples set by Federer and Nadal.
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| 6,999 |
I am 68, and my marriage of 46 years is ending. Until today, in my efforts to deal with this loss and continue to be a father with our seven adult children, I have taken the “lone-warrior” approach: “I can handle this. I know what to do.” The 8-minute call episode opened my eyes to the self-inflicted loss I was enduring through my failure to reach out these last months to Bill, my friend of 30 years. Bill knows me in and out, and he has preceded me in this difficult transition in his own life.After reading the newsletter early this morning, I texted Bill and we scheduled a phone call for this afternoon, probably our first direct conversation since the death of Bill’s mother two years ago.The conversation was all I could have hoped for. Broke the 8 minute limit early on, and have exchanged texts several times since. I am sold.
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| 4,725 |
Hunter Biden made millions by influence peddling. Those who paid the millions, corrupt oligarchs and criminals, knew just what they were buying for their millions. Now we know some of those millions were used to pay Joe Biden’s bills, and “10% for the big guy” is the quintessential smoking gun.
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| 8,718 |
IGT Nurses LISTEN! They pay attention. It was a Nurse Practitioner who finally paid attention to my husband saying his chest hurt. Many doctors had poo-pooed his complaint, saying “that’s because you had open-heart surgery.” She said: “well, it may be just muscular, but let’s take an x-ray.”Bright and early the very next morning, she phoned: “we need him to come in and have pulmonary testing.” He was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, which turned out to be progressive. Nearly 6 years later he died of it. A nurse listened! Many doctors didn’t!
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| 4,303 |
For years, the only way to get a decent increase in salary was to move to another organization. This is what has been driving the great resignation post pandemic, people leaving their current positions for better opportunities at other companies. At least there are plenty of job openings available to move to. Staying at the same place is likely going to result in the same 2-4 percent annual raises, no matter what the inflation rate.
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| 2,480 |
JH That's why we hope that with Hobbs, a Democrat, now in charge, there will be positive change. As far as solar, the middle and working class are spending their money on $60K SUVs rather than solar panels, and the working class cannot afford it in the first place ($20K+ for solar these days with still no access to the middle class tax credits doesn't make it a priority). God forbid taxes be raised to make sure everyone at every income level has access to affordable renewable energy and water conservation tools like composting toilets and rainwater collection tanks.
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| 861 |
Open carry is an implied threat. Concealed carry, in contrast, can be a deterrent in some sense, because a 200 lb guy swinging an all-metal Mac Book is also a deadly threat (why these are allowed as carry-on luggage in planes is a mystery). The law should reflect this.Speaking of deterrence, ANY gun is a deterrent, but a semi-automatic pistol or long gun is also a threat to a crowd and consistent with mass violence. Since the lethality of a semi-automatic is much closer to that of a (mostly banned) fully automatic than that of a revolver or bolt action rifle, there should be a pathway to end sales of semi-automatics and lower the terror-indicing effects of both concealed and openly-carried firearms.
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| 8,976 |
commenter from WarsawYes we are the self-appointed leader of the world. That is part of the American rhetoric. We use our might wherever we want. We used it in Vietnam, we used it in Iraq, we used it in Syria, we used it in Afghanistan and we even used it in Granada (remember Reagan). We used it clandestinely in Chile and in Mossadegh’s Iran before that.858 billion. Let us prioritize our people’s health and welfare, their education, their self-respect if they belong to a racial minority properly. Helping Ukraine win against the tyranny of Putin is fantastic. I am proud of such help as I am of the help we provided anti-fascists in the Second World War (we could have done much more by bombing the tracks that went to Auschwitz and take in a few million Jews (my ancestors) in our sparse and wealthy country). But the 858 billion is not going to Ukraine. We send them mostly obsolete or almost obsolete equipment and spend the rest on overpriced defense industry invoices (even Charles Grassley, a conservative Senator criticized the overcharging on the senate floor).
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| 3,380 |
Hunter Biden has a lot of baggage to handle. Get it out in the open and clean up what can be cleaned up. Those that wish to assist in the effort should resist making comparisons to the transgressions of the Trump Family, their time will come. Of critical concern, Hunter Biden needs to be forthcoming and make sure the public hears his story from him. Undoubtedly his detractors will do everything in their power to make out his story to be much worse than it is in actuality. It will be embarrassing; however by getting it out in the open on his terms he will be able to cope much better going forward.
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| 4,727 |
Isn’t this just a wonderful, warm and fuzzy, feel good story? No. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy Mr. Hamlin is recovering. Whether he ever plays football again is an open question. More importantly is his recovery and whether he will be little more than an afterthought in the NFL in a few years.I know most people think professional sports athletes are paid too much. But for the NFL, most players are the cannon fodder that runs the game. For every Tom Brady playing for 20 years and making hundreds of millions to a billion dollars, the average playing career is less than 2 years, playing at close to the league minimum of $660,000, then being cut or retiring because of injuries. All while the NFL is the most profitable professional sports league. All the owners are billionaires who are guaranteed to make money with their totes even if their teams are perennially losers.Again, I hope Mr. Hamlin fully recovers.
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| 8,300 |
Thank you! Finally, someone has come out and admitted as I've long said that companies like Meta and Twitter are nothing more than new advertising platforms. Replacing older platforms such as TV, newspapers and magazines. They aren't necessarily expanding the amount of money companies spend on advertising, just taking existing revenues from older platforms. Nothing new is being created.I'd argue that while Google also an advertising platform, has other components to it's business that provide tangible services and generate revenue. Never understood, crypto. AS Dr. Krugman has questioned in a number of his articles. "What problem does it solve?"
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| 5,920 |
TL trump’s tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations adding 3 trillion to deficit were paid for bigly, to America’s loss.
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| 4,133 |
I thought the "open" southern border was their complaints. Not a word about that yet.
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| 9,848 |
The $700k he loaned himself: Was that made in dollars, or rubles?
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| 1,427 |
How is the problem solved? If the pharma company is able to push availability of a drug for generic production, then people will have to pay steep prices for 20 plus years. It makes absolutely no sense. Prioritizing your investment portfolio over the suffering of other people seems to represent exactly the worst outcome predicted for capitalism.
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| 6,417 |
Either Russia is deluded as some commenters have expressed, or they are really fighting this war to defend their sovereignty and protect against enemies at their borders. I believe it is the latter.It’s obvious now that Ukraine, on behalf of Britain, the US and NATO is their enemy.Russia, with a GDP of 1.8 trillion, is fighting by itself, an alliance of the most powerful and wealthy countries in the world. The US GDP alone is 22 trillion. The US military is acknowledged as the most powerful in the world.This is a David vs. Goliath.
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| 2,450 |
I'm an Earth Advantage Accredited "Sustainable Homes Professional" and "Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Specialist" who is a ver strong proponent of TRUE "Granny Flats" and "ACCESSORY Dwelling Units."Unfortunately, this author has drunk the Kool-Aid and misserved her readers by her HUGE omission in not pointing out the blatant swindle that rental investors are using to exploit the appealing character of (nominally) single-family neighborhoods.The pivotal swindle is not requiring an owner to occupy one of the units.In Portland, Ore., for example, multiple so-called attached or detached "ADUs" can be added to a modest-sized lot that has a small, detached house that would previously have been in the supply available to middle-income households to purchase.But, by effectively doing "stealth upzoning," Portland has now increased the market value of the land so that investment funds inevitably outbid prospective home buyers.This is ripping apart older, close-in neighborhoods and displacing lower- and middle-income home buyers and renters.AARP (which is already an insurance scam) has duped and betrayed its members by supporting this scam.
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| 1,547 |
Barbara add in the 34k they are set to receive as a stpend for travel and other expenses and the money for their staff and I’m positive we can get the job done in about 6 seconds. Maybe less
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yes
| 5,218 |
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