partial_accumen

I’d also add that companies/government offices should not be permitted to pay any employee more than 100x the annual income of their lowest paid employee.

Sadly this wouldn’t be difficult to loophole. Today’s corporations would simply create nested contracting companies. As in, top execs would be one company where the lowest paid employee is a highly compensated Executive VP and the highest the CEO. The next step down being Senior VP that reports to that Executive VP would be the highest paid employee in a separate company that is contracted to the first company housing the high execs. Repeat until you get to the person that waters the flowers in the lobby.

Here’s a visual to show the relationships between these companies and the contract linkage:

Here’s the extra insidious part. While there is absolutely a racial component in the initial request that gave them this power, there’s an added dimension beyond even race.

This action doesn’t just enable immigration enforcement. It can be used and an intimidation tactic. It can be used for reprisals against citizens completely unconnected with anything to do with immigration. Do you show up at a rally protesting trump’s actions? You can now be forced to show ID and have your name collected. Do you trust the current administration to not use those lists of “disloyal” citizens to enact revenge in denial of services or even worse? It may not even have to be at the federal level. There are those in local groups looking to harass and intimidate opposition voices. Embolden by trump, they’ll now have a list of their neighbors to target.

Headline is inaccurate"

ICE lets local officials stop immigrants anyone on the streets as task force program is back.

Fixed.

Immigrants don’t have a specific uniform or identifying mark. So this doesn’t just apply to immigrants. It will apply to everyone and the “local officials” will simply claim they have to identify your immigration status and can take you away if they don’t feel you’ve proven your citizenship.

This is a true face of the russia that trump is so eager to hand Ukraine over to.

trump controls the justice department in the executive, and GOP has firm control over the Judicial branch at the Supreme Court. Musk hasn’t made friends of the GOP Washington power brokers. So trump could vindictively railroad musk through whatever remains of the justice system, and there would be no one that would stand and fight for Musk (except maybe Putin).

It might descend into one of those bizzaro world scenarios where “free market” Republicans call for and get the nationalization of SpaceX as a strategic asset (with its tight control of US military launch capabilities and Starlink network). Lefties would be uncomfortably cheering on the GOP for “seizing the means of production” in the form of Musk’s companies.

Some people are not capable of empathy. They cannot or will not put themselves in the shoes of others and imagine what it would be like to be without healthcare or be hungry.

Others are worse, they can imagine it, and they delight in the suffering of others.

The House Republicans’ budget plan would give major tax cuts to high-income, wealthy households. Extending the expiring individual income and estate tax provisions for households with incomes in the top 5 percent of the income distribution (households with incomes over $321,000) costs around $1.8 trillion through 2034, accounting for 49 percent of the total $3.6 trillion cost of extension through 2034. That $1.8 trillion for wealthy and high-income households is close to the amount of the spending cuts House Republicans have outlined — including at least $880 billion primarily from Medicaid, $230 billion primarily from SNAP benefits, and $330 billion primarily from making student loans more expensive. Of the tax cuts for wealthy households, nearly $200 billion is for an estate tax giveaway that showers some $6 million per estate on the 1 in 1,000 wealthiest estates. In contrast, the average SNAP benefit is $6.20 per person per day, which helps struggling families put food on the table.

Reverse Robin Hood. Stealing from the millions of poor to give to the few rich. Sickening.

Store bought, 6510 1.023 MHz CPU, 64KB RAM, VIC2 video with shared memory, SID 3 voice sound, Single 160KB Floppy, BASIC 2.0 OS

and let us know if you still have access to the computer.

I do! I used it for about an hour just two weeks ago.

I love a good meme, but this one is spreading false info and you’re making me defend the GOP, which I hate doing, but I like facts more than “team wins”. The most obvious sign this graph is fake is because its missing Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid spending.

The real one looks like this:

Here’s a full article debunking the meme:

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/aug/17/facebook-posts/pie-chart-federal-spending-circulating-internet-mi/

Is Brother still decent?

Brother laser printers are still good. Inkjet should simply be abandoned as a consumer product irrespective of who makes it.

Sorrowful upvote.

The “full faith and credit of the united states government” as expressed and guaranteed in American dollars, is probably pretty safe for a while at least,

February 10, 2025 quotes from the article:

• Trump says some Treasury payments might ‘not count’

• “We’re even looking at Treasuries,” Trump said. “There could be a problem - you’ve been reading about that, with Treasuries and that could be an interesting problem.”

source

If trump decides to not pay on US Treasury Bills even ONE TIME, that’s the whole ball game. The indestructible, ever-present, no-safer-investment-literally-anywhere-in-the-world is gone forever. The USA is able to be the nation it is because we are allowed to borrow money from the rest of the entire world and unbelievably low interest rates. If we’re forced to pay higher rates on our T-bills because we aren’t trustworthy anymore we will immediately drown in our $36.22 trillion national debt.

how the market isn’t down 75% - 90% by this point.

I keep asking myself this same question as I stare at my retirement savings in what seems like trump’s crosshairs. I only have a few possible answers, and none of them are enough to explain the continued high valuations.

The only things i know are: “the market is irrational” and “time in the market beats timing the market”. How long before the crash occurs? How much gains are lost if I pull it out too early? Days? Years? Even if I were to pull everything out now, when would I know its safe to put it back in? Would I accurately be able to determine the bottom of the market and magically put it all back in to reap the spoils? If the damage trump does to our country destroys the value of the dollar, then even having pulled everything to cash would mean it would be in (at that time) worthless US Dollars.

I’m simply not that smart to execute that successfully and I don’t pretend to be.

Some might say “low t”.

Your 4% and 5% across the pond are about the same here stateside for what are considered “high yield” savings accounts (government protected) or money market accounts (private-based protection). These rates are largely tied to US Treasury Bill rates which echo what you’re seeing on your side too.

The motto of project development:

• Fast
• Cheap
• Good

You can only choose two.

trump is choosing fast and cheap.

So why is a “reality check” ALWAYS felt negatively?

When someone is being told they need a “reality check” its usually in response to that person proposing some overly ambitious or aspirational idea as being practical. So the “reality check” means that expectations need to be lowered to match reality.

I’ve always thought that we should offer some kind of a credit to parents to invest in a retirement account for their kids.

Parents could do savings, but in the USA a “retirement account” is usally defined by an IRA or 401k. For an IRA, there’s actually no age restriction, but the person must have earned income. I suppose this could even be a 12 year old babysitting or lawn mowing, but the 12 year old would have to file a tax return (but they wouldn’t be charged any tax for their low income).

Nothing huge, but something that will get six decades of compound interest. Not only would that help all future generations to retire in an economically sustainable way, but it should also be a slow and steady boost to the economy.

Starting in 2024, you could rollover unused funds in 529 accounts (college savings accounts) into IRAs (retirement accounts) without any penalty. So I suppose this would check the box with what you’re asking for. Note: limit on this is up to $35k.

Unfortunately, that would be unlikely to happen in the best of times. The people who would benefit most won’t be voters for years, and won’t actually reap the benefits until the politicians passing the law are all long dead. Given the dystopian nightmare timeline we’re in now, I’d say the odds of a program like that being created are slightly lower than the odds of us trying to fund social security by invading Ireland to find their leprechaun gold.

Well beside the 529 rollover to IRA, there was a great problem called myRA which was a baby Roth IRA with no fees, no minimum deposit to open it, a guaranteed return (backed by the US Gov), and contributions could be as little as $5.

"The myRA was a “new type of saving bond that we can set up without legislation”[1] guaranteed to have a decent return, by holding an “add on” Treasury security in a Roth IRA, with contributions after taxes and lifetime growth to be tax free. The maximum annual contribution is $5,500, including any Roth and Traditional IRA contributions.[17] When a myRA account reaches either $15,000 in value or 30 years of age (whichever comes first), it will roll into a private-sector retirement account. The initial investment can be as low as $25, and one can make periodic investments for as little as $5 every time one gets paid.[18] "

source

It was closed down in 2018 because so few Americans used it. source

How many banks in the US offer that rate?

If you’re looking at parking your money in a bank for any appreciable return, you’re going to be disappointed. 7% is a moderately conservative expected return rate especially given a 45 year time horizon. The boring S&P 500 has a historical rate of return of 9% to 11%.

That said, as a Canadian, it’s always fun to look back at Blackberry’s history and remember a time when a home-grown gadget was the star of the tech world.

Others that fit description were ATI Techologies (now the AMD graphics card division that makes Radeon) and Nortel networks, a maker of corporate and commercial telecom gear (including hardware routers and firewalls).