They are STILL pushing the "glacier melt will drown all of us" narrative? The one that defies primary school level physics? Even as beachfront property continues to be purchased and built upon by those spreading the panic? Even though anyone with eyesight can tell that sea levels haven't risen anywhere on earth (although there are places that have sunk into the sea, which according to this ridiculous logic should cause even more "rise in sea level")? smh

"red touches yellow. dangerous fellow

red touches black, he's OK, Jack!"

I still remember that from primary school field trips to the zoo.

This is encouraging, but Im sure that you knnow that these amounts are tiny compared to the money held by these companies. They could have just as much invested in baseball cards.

But, it is encouraging.

There's always someone.

Thank God for that.

In my experience, Chinese "regular folk" are pretty blunt, or what some may call "based". If you're fat, they'll say "hey, fatty!". The "pejorative" term for white people is "dabizi", which means "big nose". They don't say these things to insult so much, they just state what they consider to be obvious as a way to identify people - think "Little Rascals" in the USA of the 20's and 30's. Nicknames regarding physical features were common and not necessairly meant to insult.

My Mandarin teacher was "straight off the boat", although she glommed onto capitalism pretty fast - after one semester at a "language school", she made a separate deal with me to continue classes privately, cutting out the middle man :)

She taught university by day, and she, without any prompting by me, asked me "why are black people so lazy?". I was taken aback a little not so much by her opinion but that she was so matter-of-fact about stating it. I danced around the issue and mentioned that there are plenty of lazy kids in university of all persuasions. But it did strike me that she (and other Chinese, as I discovered later) was so blunt about opinions that would be considered "delicate" in western society.

Not defending by any means, but one of the many great "advancements" that the Clinton administration introduced to the federal government was the "substitution" theory.

The "idea" was that keeping a static "basket of goods" in the inflation measure was "unrealisitic" because people, being faced with an astronomical increase in the price of a single item - say "swiss chard", would then "substitute" that item in the basket for something cheaper, say "iceburg lettuce", and that action should be reflected in the measure of inflation. This was done with the intention of lowering the COLA (cost of living adjustment) given to social security recipients in the face of inflating prices.

Theree have been many "adjustments" to the "basket" over the ensuing forty years, Grapes go up? Substitute "oranges". The idea was to eliminate spikes from "temporary" changes in price, due to a bad crop or whatever.

But anyone with a right mind and any skepticism at all of the federal government knew what that real goal was. Keep changing the goods to loeer the "official" rate of inflation and thus lower the "COLAs".

Way back then, some people continued to publish the rate with the constant basket of items, but eventually they gave up.

By the way, the "unemployment rate" was similarly affected by the Clinton administration when the rate of "number of employed" was changed from "those who are jobless" to "those who are actively seeking work an remain jobless", also in an effort to adjust damaging government statistics to something more palatable to the proletariat. The fake "unemployment rate" lives today.

Last night I watched Ron Paul interviewing a candidate for Libertarian Party's nomination for POTUS. They asked him a tough question: "If you were to be magically placed into the seat of the POTUS right now, today, what would you do?"

The tap dancing was hilarious.

I shun politics completely, but from what I understand, wouldn't a Libertarian first rescind all foreign aid (not just to Israel, but to every foreign country) and also revoke membership in all "entangling agreements", like the UN (first order of business) and then NATO (more difficult)? A true hands off policy on Israel may temporarily "enable genocide", but as soon as the money runs out and without big brother saving their political ass internationally (no more UN Security Council vetos), wouldn't that eventually end the problem of Israeli aggression oonce and for all? I thought that this was an easy question.

The candidate quickly ran off on tangents in just about every direction and of course never answered the question asked. This is why even "third-party" candidates cannot be trusted to rule over humanity.

This seems right. Home prices (automobiles too) are probably the highest inflated prices of any items that consumers would expect to buy and college tuition increases certainly would be comparable to housing.

Of course, at one time this was seen as a "benefit" - "a house is the best investment that you may make", which may still be true for practicality but as a hedge against inflation maybe less so, especially if the government actually somehow finds a way to tax unrealised gains.

The goal, it seems, is to make home ownership more or less impossible except for those in the government and their allies. College tuitions are already demonstrably worth less despite the increase in cost, but one doesn't necessarily NEED a college degree (I don't have one), but housing is a necessity.

Of course, one could also make the argument that houses are far larger and more luxurious than those purchased by our grandparents. My cousin laughed at me when I reminisced about the house he grew up in, laughing it off as "ridiculously small" with bedrooms just big enough for a twin bed and an equal sized area of play space for him and his sister, and of course the family of four shared a bathroom. Maybe the housing prices need to be adjusted for bathrooms/square footage lol.

My guess is that those who are giving sats are tapped out, and those collecting sats are happily enriched.

If you hadn't already figured out that Snowden is also a plant, maybe the idea that Signal has a president should have set off a few bells...#decentralize #allmenarecreatedequal #allauthorityisunnatural

Just one "pay $5 to kick this asshole in the nuts" day would bail out the whole country.

Is this inflation adjusted? Cuz I think the kids now will be millionaires. But a loaf of bread may cost $10 million.

Exactly. The staffing here has never been lower. But, thank the Lord for all the surveillance cameras and the city partnership with Palantir (made without public scrutiny or even informing the city council). Now the bereaved can relive the terror of their loved ones any time they'd like by simply re-watching the footage.

Ticket revenue has been a line item in the New Orleans City budget for over two decades. It's not "rainy day" "windfall" money. It's expected.

Ross Perot famously proposed a "tax return on a postcard". No deductions, no anything. Just income here, tax due there. Everyone laughed him out of the building, at least until he won enough votes to sneak Bill Clinton into the White House with a pluarily of 43.8% of the votes cast (of course, every president is "elected" with a plurality of the total voting public).

Perot also described NAFTA as "creating a giant sucking sound" as it hollwed out American industry. Perot did not win, Clinton did, NAFTA passed, Glass-Steagall ended, the Interstate Banking Act passed, the Telegraph Act passed, Monica Lewinsky and Hillary Clinton became household names, and Mark Rich was pardoned. And here we are..:)

The generational wealth folks don't care if the inheritance taxes (or any other tax, for that matter) go to 100%. The current vogue among the "super-rich" is foundations, which become 501(c)3 (tax-exempt) organisations by dint of their tossing money at various enterprises - logically those enterprises who stand to create wealth for the same founders of the foundation. For example, Gates buys vaccine patents, Gates Foundation promotes vaccines worldwide. Gates himself earns very little income, but as an "unpaid" employee of his foundation, all his expenses are paid and written off by his foundation. This isn't new.

Every tax code change always embeds a leaky get-out clause for those with the best lawyers and accountants, and they are always well-informed as to where to find those leaks well before any legislation passes.

As far as the poor ol' USA goes, well, they'll just keep printing money and backing it with threats of violence to those (foreign and domestic) who fail to accept their toilet paper. At some point, the very richest will simply shut the place down and return us all to outright feudalism and disabuse us of the charade that we've been playing for over a century.

Careful there. The Rockefellers and other family empires may hear you.

Of course the Biden machine doesn't have anything against generational wealth. For them. There are always loopholes for those with the resources to use them. But as far as Becky and Tom on the family farm, they'll be screwed even more "royally" than they were with the last change in the inheritance tax.

Erdogan is a jerk, but the way he plays both sides against each other is masterful. He'd be a great secretary of state. :)

who's "we"?

exactly. the life you save is defeintely 100% not your own. Or your family's. or your friend's. or anyone that you know. or anyone that values your life even one sat.