jfengel

17 ms·

391.
by jfengel 6mo ago
As a quick-and-dirty measure of corporate profits, the S&P 500 P/E ratio is at 33 and rising. A "good" number is more like 15-20. Historically, the market has crashed whenever the number gets in this range. It's far
392.
by jfengel 6mo ago
TFA is inconsistent about its age grouping. That $110 trillion doesn't belong to people ages 55-64, who are indeed not going anywhere soon. That money belongs to those 64 and up. And the people born in the actual baby boom (1945-1950
393.
by jfengel 6mo ago
Incumbent American automakers had a hard time switching over. EVs require significant expertise that they didn't have, and didn't particularly want to acquire. Only Tesla designed cars to be electric from a clean sheet. And they w
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by jfengel 6mo ago
Wow. That's really applicable, nearly a century later.
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by jfengel 6mo ago
The way I see it, the leadership in the US is acting in the interest of the empire. Or at least, he's acting with the approval of a very large swath of the population. He's doing what he was elected to do. His actual approval ra
396.
by jfengel 6mo ago
Has the disease model of behavior done much for eliminating or reducing any kind of social ills? We've had the disease model of addiction for quite some time, and it does seem to have some use in treating patients. But addiction as a w
397.
by jfengel 6mo ago
The homeless don't fill up on Pepsi at McD's. Practically all McDonalds' serve Coke. Same with Burger King. If the homeless prefer Pepsi, they have to go to Taco Bell or Subway.
398.
by jfengel 6mo ago
Yes, but the two aren't exactly comparable. Inflation is consumer inflation -- what customers pay for products. In fact, consumer inflation leads to higher GDP, if they're drawing down savings to pay higher prices. GDP covers a br
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by jfengel 6mo ago
TD Bank also believes it will work, i.e. return them a profit. They've seen the detailed plans and I haven't. But they're the ones with real skin in the game. It seems like an opportunity for them to lose their shirts. So yea
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by jfengel 6mo ago
Moving money around and pretending that there is more of it.
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by jfengel 6mo ago
It is remarkable the way fossil fuels often seem to be found in violent, barbarous places like Iran, Venezuela, and Texas.
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by jfengel 6mo ago
It also seems to have the effect of encouraging you to latch on to whatever "truth" you fancy, providing tools to dismiss any contradictions. I don't quite get how that keeps people from applying those critical tools to their
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by jfengel 6mo ago
Is it profitable? Current price for No is $.96. Making 4% in 8 months is better than most sure bets but less than the stock market on average.
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by jfengel 6mo ago
Yeah, but Jesus is gonna place a big bet on himself just before he returns.
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by jfengel 6mo ago
Back in the 90s, I developed a rule of thumb: if I saw it in Wired, it's because it was either already over, or it wasn't going to happen at all. I was so disappointed when I saw BetterPlace (the car with replaceable batteries) on
406.
by jfengel 6mo ago
I obsessively avoid any kind of "technology is going thataway" content. So I haven't seen anything that looks like humanoid progress in quite some time. About the only thing that has snuck around my barrier is Musk apparently
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by jfengel 6mo ago
"Free market principles" haven't been a consideration for a while now. Democrats always considered the free market secondary to supporting labor rights. Dispensing with free market principles is a recent change of heart for R
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by jfengel 6mo ago
Decision-making is his job. There's no criteria for me to apply; it is a simple fact that he gets to decide things. If you're asking how I feel about a billionaire expressing an un-scientific opinion, then I say it's still sh
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by jfengel 6mo ago
Politically, it's easier for people to get angry about long lines in airports than it is about people occasionally getting murdered. If Republicans could have successfully pinned the blame for the shutdown on Democrats, they would have
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by jfengel 6mo ago
It's better than caving, but it's the least conceivable quantum of backbone. We're talking Cambrian Explosion levels of backbone, and I expect any further growth will proceed at about the same pace.
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by jfengel 6mo ago
Sanders doesn't care who wins. Sanders is pushing to assume that somebody will win, and to consider the world that will result in. In particular he wants to consider the worst case scenarios. Which sounds reasonable, except that as so
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by jfengel 6mo ago
The absolute cost of these programs is in the single-digit-billions. Deleting them is a rounding error in the budget as a whole, which is in the thousands-of-billions. You cannot get "real savings" by cutting these programs. It&#x
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by jfengel 6mo ago
It's shameful because he's not a scientist, and his opinion is irrelevant. He was put in charge of NASA to administer it in a business sense, not to put a thumb on the scale of scientific decision-making. He's entitled to an
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by jfengel 6mo ago
Even if it's just a biased view, it's interesting to note that their view has changed. What about America's recent changes have altered the view of French neoconservatives? (Or alternatively, has something changed for the Fre
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by jfengel 6mo ago
An exception, however: the well regarded County Executive of Howard County, Maryland, Calvin Ball III. https://www.howardcountymd.gov/county-executive Every election year I'm sorely tempted to steal one of the yard sig
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by jfengel 6mo ago
The best photo for a dating site isn't one that makes you look good, but one that makes you look interesting. That's true now more than ever, when a very polished photo looks like AI. A good candid is much better. It conveys somet
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by jfengel 6mo ago
The Roman influence is limited mostly to place names. Otherwise Latin had basically disappeared from the island. Latin influences English as a learned tongue, used by clerics and academics. Other than that most of it comes via French, when
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by jfengel 6mo ago
That's not news. They said the same thing about gerrymandering years ago. You're entitled to a vote, but you're not entitled to have it matter. Same as with electoral votes: if you lose, you get nothing.
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by jfengel 6mo ago
That's unexpected. He was only 80, and as I understand it still working. My his memory be a blessing.
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by jfengel 6mo ago
The single visible data point is interesting, as an illustration. It doesn't prove climate change one way or the other, but that is a discussion that ceased to be meaningful decades ago. Climate change is real, it is significant, and i

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