5x the property tax rate for all vacant housing?

This is the clearest explanation for Disco Elysium I’ve ever read, thank you.

Heads up

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Nah I don’t think so.

That’s not how I interpreted their comment. It seems to me that they were making a statement about the broad political climate of Florida being somewhat of a lost cause, using the example of ineffectively trying to stop the ocean from reclaiming the land while simultaneously railing against efforts to combat climate change.

You specifically are not the problem, but a majority of your neighbors are. The problem isn’t going to be fixed by national political forces, y’all need to organize and fix it yourselves.

Bluesky is supposed to be Twitter 2.0 - Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter, is on the board for Bluesky and was supposedly very involved in building the platform. So in theory it could be a lot of things that Twitter wished it could, or it could just be bad like most other socials.

Either way if you have an interest in the tech world it’s probably worth keeping an eye on.

I see the argument you’re making, and it’s a good one. At the same time I can’t help but feel that if her policy positions don’t dissuade people from voting for her, but her birth name does, then I’m going to take the win and suggest that we keep rolling with the thing that works.

I’ve always assumed you’d melt the gold down and create coins or other tradable sub-amounts of the gold that you could exchange for goods and services. If people are still peopling, they’ll still want a currency to transact with; if the dollar has failed then gold has a historical precedent that would probably make it easier to convince people to trade with you using it as a medium of exchange. It always seems like it’s more suited to be an emergency measure than a plan A to me.

Ah, well then it was I who didn’t understand what you were saying. Sorry about that! We’re all on the same page here - vote blue, no matter who, even if… they stink like poo. 😂

I don’t think you really do get what they’re saying - my interpretation is that if you overthink who to vote for, you’re probably missing something. It seems to me that both of you generally agree on the same approach of voting straight down the ticket. In the example, we have 3 voters: one is portrayed as being simple, and they vote straight down the ticket, another is portrayed as wisened and they also vote straight down the ticket, and then you have the third voter who is frantic in their search for the ‘best’ candidate and might split their vote.

Put another way, in the current American political climate splitting your vote is missing the forest for the trees - an individual tree (politician) is comparatively less likely to bring about radical change, but if you vote for the forest (party platform/fascism or no fascism), you’re more likely to empower the ideals you’d like to see put into action.

Making the government as dysfunctional as possible is a major component of their strategy for governance.

Why act in good faith in service to your constituents when you can make things worse and get reelected when you point to how poorly you run things and call it “government waste”?

American voters fail to see this connection and thus continue the churn of ineffective government.

Yes, we should invest in trains, but this is not a short or even medium term solution. It’s also horrifyingly expensive in many parts of the US, and broad public support simply isn’t there. So in the mean time we need to adapt using the infrastructure that already exists.

Where are you located where there is perfect charging station maintenance for the previous 10 years?

I’m not saying it isn’t possible that you’ve never encountered a broken station, but I’ve had an EV for only a few months now and encounter malfunctioning stations on nearly every trip to a DC fast charger. It usually isn’t that every single station is broken, but if there are 4 stations, 1-2 of them will be out of service.

Totally agree with the points you’re making. Policymakers don’t do nearly enough to support the economic base of the country. In the long run, that does have dire consequences.

Regarding housing prices, I think you already know this, but wanted to clarify that those are less of an inflation problem and more of a supply / demand problem. New housing supply collapsed after the 08 crisis and has been slow to recover since. Some have argued that once more of the boomers die off it will open up more supply, but I’m not fully convinced.

Unfortunately, I don’t see any quick fixes for the housing problems we’re facing. We need to advocate locally against NIMBYs and more broadly for programs to enhance access to housing, public transit, etc. We have lots of big problems but IMO public discourse gets bogged down arguing about semantics.

Okay so it seems I struck a nerve, sorry that wasn’t my intention. I pointed out my different background to illustrate why I might have a different perspective than you.

Until now, I’ve never heard of a situation where an automation tax has been implemented, so a case study would be a great way for me to understand the circumstances that led to it working. I’ll look into Pågen when I have a chance, since that seems like it could be a lead.

Capitalism certainly isn’t the end-all solution, but arguably it’s one of the best systems we’ve come up with so far.

I think that we in the US don’t have nearly enough regulations to rein in the negative aspects of capitalism, but the most popular argument against further regulation is that it stifles innovation, and that’s scary enough to people that we aren’t taking enough steps to get ahead of it.

Also… Trump University 😂😂😂

Yeah, IMO, the biggest thing to remember about inflation is that interest rates (the cost of borrowing) factors a certain level of inflation into the calculation. If you haven’t taken an interest in finance, this piece isn’t always obvious.

This is important to the modern economy because so much of our financial system is predicated on this principle.

For example, in the US, 30 year fixed rate mortgages are wildly popular, in no small part due to this idea. When one takes out one of these loans, the payments earlier in the loan might be rough. Over the years, due in part to inflation, personal income (generally) increases, but loan payments don’t. This makes it easier to pay down the loan over time. By the end of the 30 year loan period, typically the mortgage payment is a much smaller proportion of income. Conversely, if the economy experiences deflation, then it gets harder over time to pay off the loan.

Now expand this principle to institutional loans, government securities, etc and you’ll likely see why it is imperative to policymakers to avoid deflation.

It’s surprising that your education in business did not include a section in economic efficiency. My American business education really leaned in on that concept, so maybe that’s where our views diverge.

Having said that, your argument isn’t compelling. Your entire counterargument is, “Your example is not reality”. Can you provide a case study or a real life example of your suggestion in practice?

Link for the lazy

Okay, let’s say infinite growth is impossible. That seems intuitive. If that’s true, where’s the ceiling? It sounds like you’re worried that we’re going to hit it and bounce off, so maybe we should be planning for this event. What would be the best things for us to do as a species to prepare for this potentially cataclysmic event?

Money is made up and stupid

You’re made up and stupid. 😂 Just kidding, money IS made up, but it certainly isn’t stupid. Money doesn’t have any inherent intelligence, obviously, but I think your implying that we are stupid to keep using it as a medium of exchange? What would be a better alternative? Going back to the barter system?

Idk, money definitely seems better than that. It allows for greater skill specialization and for the construction of more complex economic systems. I know that can seem scary because there’s so much going on to keep track of, but arguably most people participating in society prefer it this way.