somewhat_drunk

"There are concerns"

Can you link to something describing the basis for these concerns?

I absolutely agree that we should not give the Executive any more power.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/dang...

So... Harris 2024, yes?

Snark aside, as long as democracy functions, all power ceded to the government is ceded willingly by a majority of the people.

That is, by definition, the people exercising their collective will, which is to say it is the decentralization of power.

And please, we are nowhere near communism in the USA. We aren't even approaching socialism, despite what your bogeyman solicitors are shouting at you.

Do better.

Is money tantamount to power?

Is the centralization of power bad?

If yes to both, then the centralization of money is bad.

You have no argument against this. The best you can do is to attempt to refute the notion that money is tantamount to power, which will be laughable. But please do try.

Is it?

Currently: https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/arizona-republic...

Recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict...

There were a large body of studies showing that Ivermectin helped with COVID.

No, there wasn't. I haven't kept up with the science, so there may be such studies now, but there certainly wasn't back in late 2020, when the ivermectin craze spread like wildfire among right wingers.

It's difficult to parse subsubzero's post after his edit, but he's saying Zuck believes Trump will win in 2024, so Zuck's spinning a narrative that he was forced to remove COVID misinformation, because COVID misinformation was largely a right-wing phenomenon.

My response to him was to point out that Harris is strong and trending stronger, while Trump is weak, so the tea leaves are saying the opposite of what he thinks they're saying.

he sees the tea leaves in where things are headed in November

Things are headed strongly in the opposite direction you're implying.

They didn't last longer.

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/diagnosing-car...

Prove that it wasn't fair.

As long as half the country gets their information from a biased, inflammatory propaganda ecosystem, this will only get worse.

I interned at Goddard a few years back and Greenbelt was my favorite place. In the middle of a giant, hellish urban/suburban wasteland full of cars and roads with almost no walkability was a quaint little walkable village that was designed around a small central shopping/community center. I loved it. That's how we should build everything, imo.

Please describe how the Affordable Care Act led to the situation you're responding to.

Everyone here nitpicking the trees are missing the forest: EVs are necessary to reduce CO2 output, but consumers don't want them if charging is a pain in the ass. Resolving chicken vs egg problems for the good of the nation is exactly the proper role of a well functioning government.

I tried this a decade ago, on a kopi luwak farm in Indonesia, before it became popular.

It cost me less than a dollar, and it's still the best cup of coffee I've ever had.

How very snowflakey of you.

I can't tell if you actually believe your logic is sound or you're just trolling.

We don’t live in an Economics 101 world.

We do, in fact, live in an Economics 101 world. Sure, you also need Economics 102-499 to fully explain how it all works, but applying Economics 101 to any economic situation will yield a correct understanding 90% of the time.

That said, the poster you're referring to is 100% correct: every service has a price at which people will perform it.

Perhaps a bit less likely, but we'll allow it.

I was a landscaper on 9/11/2001, on a job, riding a big lawnmower at a customer's house, when the first plane hit. I remember the customer ran outside, frantically flagged everyone down, and invited us all in - she said we just had to see the news for ourselves. There were six of us standing in her spotless living room, dusty and dirty and stinking from working hard all day, watching the recorded footage of the plane fly into the first tower, when the second plane hit. We were all aghast, shocked as the gears in our brains slowly turned into the realization that this was not an accident, it was an attack. Eight months later, I joined the US Army. While in basic training, my drill sergeant told us we'd declared war on Iraq. I somehow managed to avoid being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan while in the Army, but 9/11 would affect all of our lives profoundly going forward. From the Patriot Act to TSA monitoring, that was the point where we collectively decided, as a society, that we would in fact sacrifice a little of our freedom for a little more safety.

It was unavoidable, perhaps. If Benjamin Franklin could only see us now.

I've been using maps.me for a long time for offline map use while hiking and traveling off the grid, but recently switched to organic maps due to their superior interface. They both use openstreetmaps, which I have found to be outstanding. Even the most obscure trails and overgrown overlanding tracks are almost always on openstreetmaps. The file sizes are quite small, and being able to download specific areas, or states, or entire countries at a time is perfect. I prefer organic maps to alltrails, gaia maps, etc. It's become an indispensable tool for me while hiking and traveling.

Thank you for posting this. I've seen it a few times already, but I'm watching it again, and it's cracking me up, yet again.

I had a pretty cushy, 100% WFH job at a big company and was probably getting promoted to senior within the next year. I liked the company, I liked the position, I liked my team, I liked what I did, and I was making pretty good money.

I hated the location though, and I'd been renovating my house to get it ready to rent so I could move. My manager was fully onboard with me working from anywhere within the lower 48.

Then, after nearly three years of fully remote, they called us back into the office with the usual "collaboration is better in person" justification, but no data of course. My manager allowed me to continue to work remotely, but it was a hassle. I could feel that I was now at a disadvantage, and it was painful to deal with meetings where 80% of the team was onsite, in some conference room, speaking through outdated teleconferencing equipment, watching someone draw on a whiteboard through someone else's laptop camera pointed at it (seriously). I started making plans to leave, and lo and behold, they offered a buyout, which I of course accepted.

I firmly believe that remote is the future of work, but rather than adapting onsite processes to remote work, the processes need to be built around remote work. It takes time to do this, but it's clearly possible to achieve similar levels of productivity remotely as onsite, as evidenced by the many companies who were fully remote before the pandemic, and still are.

Employers are pushing back on remote work now, but with the USA's long-term structural skilled labor shortage and climate change bearing down on us, I would be very surprised if remote work doesn't become the norm (where possible) in a decade.

I'm currently working on a master's degree and I have enough money to coast for a while, so I'm being very picky. I'll only consider hybrid or fully onsite in specific geographic areas (west coast), and compensation has to increase significantly to make up for the increased hassle and decreased mobility. 95% of non-remote roles don't make the cut.

I faithfully respond to every recruiter on linkedin who contacts me with an onsite or hybrid position with the same line:

"Thank you for reaching out, but I'm only considering remote work at this time. Please keep me in mind if a fully remote position opens up which fits my skillset. Thanks!"

I would urge everyone who feels as I do about remote work to do the same.

Ukraine is not in NATO, but they are absolutely an ally. Why would you allow Russia to invade a potential member of NATO as well as an ally as well as someone who you persuaded to give up their nukes in exchange for a promise to defend them in just this circumstance is beyond me.

We had every reason to defend Ukraine, and very few to abstain from doing so. That we also got Russia's collapse for a pittance in the bargain is just icing on the cake.

You have drank the koolaid, and are likely still doing so. Stop doing that.

Russia invaded an ally whom we promised to protect, who is also rich in natural resources, and is a strategic chokepoint for a future Russian invasion of Europe proper.

Ukraine had problems with corruption, but they were trending in the right direction, and their democracy was working. Russia, on the other hand, has a long history of murdering political dissidents and journalists, and their democracy was a sham. Ukraine was clearly ideologically aligned with western interests; Russia was clearly not.

I'm wholly in favor of inducting Ukraine into NATO once this is over and helping them rebuild. Russia can get fucked.

China is watching. We fail to honor our promise to Ukraine at Taiwan's peril. Appearing weak on our promises to allies invites World War.

Finally, $75 billion is an absolute bargain to effectively destroy one of our longest-standing enemies.

Defending Ukraine was correct morally, ethically, ideologically, and strategically. It boggles my mind that right wingers argue against it with a straight face.

You are spreading Russian propaganda. Stop doing that.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/exposing-the-myth-...

You know what, after googling a bit, you are more correct than I thought.

The Ukraine War is responsible for a significant portion of US inflation. Not all, but maybe a third, at its peak.[1]

But as other posters have mentioned, the FED had been telegraphing raising interest rate hikes for months prior to the war. I would wager the acceleration of inflation accelerated their rate hikes, but hikes were coming nonetheless. Russia essentially made a difficult situation much worse.

That said, we can no more end that war than we can invade Russia and force them to withdraw. The best policy going forward is to continue to support an ally who was aggressed upon, one whom we promised to protect in case they were invaded in return for them giving up their nuclear weapons only thirty years ago.[2]

1. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-russian-invasion-of-uk...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

Lol, ok.

By the same logic, I can argue that "bidenomics" (printing money) started when the Federal Reserve was formed, in 1913. Or that it started when the FED closed the gold window in 1971.

Though all three of those arguments would be reductive and stupid, and I'm sure we're both above that, so let's not.

But really, reconsider your sources, because they're lying to you.

The current US debt as of today is $32.71 trillion. When Biden was signed into office, it was $27.6 trillion. Subtract the two and you get $5.11 trillion, which, you may not be aware, is just a smidge more than half of the $10 trillion you claim.

The question is: where are you getting your information? Because it is lying to you.

Talk about rectally-sourced information... sheesh.

The Ukraine War has almost nothing to do with US inflation. Have you even bothered to look at a chart of inflation? By your logic, inflation would have shot up from nothing as soon as the war started.

But of course, inflation was already humming right along when Russia invaded in February 2022. Maybe you don't know how to google things? I'll help, here's a link.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi

As you can see, the Ukraine War caused inflation to begin rising two years before Russia even invaded! Impressive investigative work, Watson!

Bidenomics worked great, delivering record low unemployment as inflation fell faster than any other country in the G7. The US economy was full steam ahead for 3/4 of Biden's term, and is only now beginning to slow after the steepest FED rate hike in history.

But there's a reason "don't fight the FED" is a well-known adage among traders: it has the most powerful levers, so it always wins in the long run. They wanted to kill inflation, and the only way to do that was to slow the economy.

P.S. Your awkward attempt at partisan, clever humor is pretty embarrassing.

these issues are far more complex than the way they are talked about

There are complexities to consider, yes. And surprise! They have been considered. All of your concerns have been analyzed ad nauseum and converted into neat little chunks of peer-reviewed literature that's just waiting for your perusal.

Please stop bloviating about contrived nuances emanating from the right wing propaganda machine.

Google and read.