simplecomplex

The number of representatives apportioned for each state does not dictate how they vote on any particular issue. The Senate has existed long before our current president.

The purpose of the Senate is to give all states equal suffrage in the legislature. Article 5 of the constitution states “no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.“

The Senate is more necessary than ever in this age of unconstitutional and almost unlimited exercise of federal power.

The Senate ensures less populous states have an equal vote in our united (federated) states.

I hear this a lot from people who've never been to a yoga class. It's more of a stereotype than reality. All the yoga classes I took have never mentioned anything resembling yogababble.

Eat vegan and ignore the haters.

Let’s see... at every tech job I’ve had I received:

- 6 figure salary

- healthcare

- paid vacation

- comfortable safe work environment often with free food

What “rights” would the union be fighting for, exactly? 4 weeks vacation instead of 2? Working from home?

“repo operations”, “quantitative easing”, and “emergency asset relief” are all fancy methods of printing money.

Main Street is starting to see that the Fed will monetize anything, with no limit. They’re starting to demand access to the printing press. The moral hazard with permanent ongoing QE is becoming a reality if Yang is taken as an omen of what’s to come.

All the research indicates

Which research would that be?

Fastmail is pretty snappy for me. Why else would I want to switch to Superhuman besides a snappy experience?

Also I mostly use mail via IMAP using the iOS mail app, in which case the web client is entirely irrelevant.

The war on drugs doesn’t work. the government should not have the authority to interfere with what people put inside their body.

Stop blaming drug addiction on everybody but the drug addicts.

Huh? There is no spam with RSS or IM. The user chooses what to consume.

And spam is a solved problem with email.

Big Mac isn’t unhealthy

Neither is nicotine, necessarily. Neither is smoking if it isn’t done long term and on a regular basis. But of course people who eat Big Macs tend to do it more than occasionally.

People don’t have to intake sugar. They don’t have to intake meat either.

You think I’m being facetious, but I’m dead serious. I’ve lost one family member to obesity and another suffers from type 2 diabetes.

Downvote all you want. The facts are the facts. Unhealthy eating is just as bad as smoking. If the government is going to regulate our personal health choices, then it needs to be consistent.

Why can't we ban sugar?

Okay. But there's a double standard when it comes to food. Why do fat people get a pass? Why is it legal to eat cheeseburgers and drink soda? The health risks from obesity are statistically just as bad as smoking. It's the leading cause of preventable death in the US. 1/3 of America is obese. It's a larger problem than smoking, statistically.

I don't smoke or vape. But it's a glaring double standard. McDonalds can market to kids, lure them with toys, and people who are 300+ lbs are allowed to eat whatever they want, as much as they want.

Why is it legal for parents to feed a 12 year old Cheetos and Pepsi? It's just as damaging health wise. In my city's public school there are teenagers who have gout. Yet nobody cares.

It’s not a gain unless it’s realized.

If one owns a stock and the price goes up 10% they don’t make any money. They would have to sell to make money.

At some point “Bob” needs to retire, hopefully that’s not during a downturn.

Some say debt to GDP does not matter, because we can print dollars. My question to them is: Would a 1000% matter? 100000%?

At some point people will start demanding the government provide everything because they’ve been told debt doesn’t matter and we can print money. It looks like we’re reaching that point because “Main Street” seeemingly realized in 2008 that there was no limit. That it’s a game of chicken with the Fed. Let’s give everyone $2000 / mo and free healthcare and education. Why have any limit on government spending? The Fed will monetize it after all!

Yang might not win this time around, but Yang #2 will be more popular and have bigger demands. Especially when another downtown and another bailout occurs. It’s getting very hard to convince Joe Sixpack that the printing press should only be used for the banks. Yang is the canary in the coal mine.

Yup. You’ve got it right. I am far more interested in preserving capital than chasing returns at this point. So keeping it parked while using it to capitalize cash flow from businesses and real estate is more to my liking than making one giant bet on an index fund over 30-40 years. Don’t get me wrong I’m not knocking index funds they have their place.

I don’t even know what agency in the government did this. Or that I was part of an investigation. Or anything. Different people at different positions in the bank would say the same thing “the computer says your account is flagged” “the system says your social security number is flagged” etc. When I would ask what “flagged” means they would just repeat nonsensical shit. All they would really tell me is that they had no control because a government system had flagged it.

you don't like the way this is done, i suggest you take it up to your congressmen.

I wish they would listen. Everyone in congress right now supports an unconstrained federal government that does things like freeze your bank account without any reason or due process. Both parties are hellbent on expanding their power at the expense of liberty in the name of safety or security.

Where else would I keep it? In the stock market where it can disappear overnight?

Where do you keep your savings?

Nobody knows. HN has downvotes for a secret group of users. HN weights votes using a secret algorithm, so some users may have the ability to grey out posts with a single click.

I’ve experienced it first hand. One day my card was declined while paying for dinner. I paid cash and thought something was wrong with their card reader.

I checked my bank account, and it had $30k in it (my life savings at the time). So I thought nothing was wrong and went to bed.

Next morning I try to pay for groceries and my card is again declined. I call my bank. They say my account has been flagged and it’s frozen. They can’t tell me why, or how to appeal.

I go into the bank. I ask why I wasn’t notified my account was frozen. They said they “oh sorry someone should have called you”. I ask what I did to get my account frozen. They said they don’t know, it’s part of some social security electronic audit. They say it’s all automated and because it’s the government it was out of their control. I ask how long will it take to unfreeze they say they don’t know. They tell me to call an 800 number, and that nobody in the physical branch has any power over really anything.

I tell them my rent check is going to bounce, they said “we’re sorry”.

Long story short: 2 weeks later my account is unfrozen for no reason. I was never given a reason. I missed rent. I couldn’t buy food.

I committed no crime, and was never accused of committing any crime. This was a personal account not involved in any business. I deposited paychecks into it and bought food and paid my rent. That’s mostly it.

Just FYI money in the bank is not yours. If the government wants to freeze it for no reason they can, despite all the people who say otherwise. It happened to me. This was at Chase bank in US. I now keep thousands in cash hidden in various places, and bought some bitcoin as well. At least if the thugs in the federal government want it they’ll have to fucking physically take it.

I don’t get the fascination with Yurts. It’s a tent. People stopped living in tents as soon as they could, because they don’t stay cool, don’t stay warm, and don’t stay dry. They only work well in gentle, temperate climates.

The one advantage to tents is mobility, but Yurts are pretty much permanent tents. They’re the worst tent.

If you’re a nomadic group in the plains with not much wood around and a herd of animals it makes sense. Build tents with skins, burn the poo for fire.

When the Fed monetizes assets (QE) it adds to bank reserves (monetary base) AND adds to demand deposits at commercial banks (money supply) that held those assets. Where does the Fed get money to purchase the assets? They create it. Obviously no “printing” is happening it’s on a computer.

When the Fed buys the assets they add credit, giving the banks more than they need in reserves. Banks then seek to make a profit by lending that extra money, thus “stimulating” the economy.

The whole point of QE is increasing liquidity by increasing the supply of money.

The Supreme Court has been a treasonous organization since Wickard v Filburn (8 of 9 justices then of course appointed by Roosevelt)

NSLs are unconstitutional.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The US is allied with Afghanistan’s government.

The US allied with the Northern Alliance after invading Afghanistan, and they had no say in whether we invaded or not.

The US asked the Taliban to extradite Osama Bin Laden, they refused, so the US invaded Afghanistan to bring him to justice and dismantle the Taliban.

The US killed Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban is just as powerful today as they were then. The conflict has also killed over 100,000 civilians, and almost the same number of US citizens have been killed in battle as on 9/11

Oh and let's not talk about how the officially stated purpose of the Taliban was to kick US armed forces out of Somalia and Saudi Arabia... We chose to get involved in Saudi Arabia's war with Pakistan in the first place! If it's a "war" then US military leadership's decisions are directly responsible for 9/11. The US military leadership has been actively endangering national security with their reckless support for Saudi Arabia's wars for decades, and continue to do so to this day.

US presidents and businessmen sold out their fellow citizens and soldiers to arm an absolute monarchy so Aramco could make money.

They did rapidly expand the monetary supply and it did cause inflation. Assets are sky high (stocks and real estate). Properties are priced 10-20x cash flow. Stocks are similarly trading at absurd earnings ratios.

Does anyone remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_asset_price_bubble ?

Massively expanding credit to the point where money is free .... reduces the value of money. But denial is a helluva drug.

“The GDPR does a lot to protect user data”

As you proceed to state absolutely nothing. Before GDPR my information was in a bunch of databases managed by other people. After GDPR my information is in the same databases managed by the same people. Except now they have legalese stating this totally fucking obvious fact.

Before GDPR if my information was hacked and used to hurt me, the business was not liable. After GDPR they still are not liable. Oh and if they violate the GDPR the state gets money, but the victims don’t. Such amazing protection of consumer data...

Nothing, except soon there will be annoying legalese on every website form. Just like the GDPR. Large businesses will benefit at the expense of smaller ones. Lawyers will make more money selling these legalese templates, and sometimes when a big company doesn’t pay the right bean counter they’ll end up being investigated by regulators, and paying the state money to continue doing the same thing.

But it will be celebrated as a heroic victory because “privacy good. Business bad. I want a banana.”