He is quoting political comedian Stephen Colbert, referring to the fact that different political groups all independently believe that their perspective is actually a reflection of reality.
To the contrary-- his neocon character is admitting that his perspective does not align with reality. That's a much more scathing critique of the neocons than the generic upshot you wrote above.
There's no "proof." It's a joke made by comedian Steven Colbert (in character as a self-parody of a Conservative and right-wing pundit) during the 2006 White House correspondents' dinner, mocking the Bush Administration's low approval rating as "reality" having a "liberal bias." In the context of post-Trump politics, the joke would be to dismiss unfavorable poll numbers as "reality" being "fake news."
I know i will f(l)agged for this. But have some kind on me, it's just my opinion at the end. I know, through my work, some homo lads. The are not well, most of then needs some kind of help. But criminalizing this was the worst idea we ever have: some of my greatest idols were gay or least post as them: Wilde, Melville, Petronius, Capote... Some of them suffers the criminalization, some of them lived in a period when being gay was not a crimen or was not different at all. Edit: Freddie, I miss you as hell, man.
There should be a legal requirement for companies to publicly post the salary band for every role. Otherwise, how do employees know where to start negotiations? This opaqueness only helps the employer, who already has much more leverage. Price assymetry goes against free market principles. The price of labor is like any other price of a good or service. People should know how much something costs before buying.
Public institutions do this in a lot of places. Apply for a job at a state University or other state-run institution and depending on where you live you might be able to look up the exact salaries of everyone who works there, including your future boss and coworkers.
Sounds great, but it doesn't really work out in favor of higher salaries. It becomes too easy for hiring managers to say "that's the salary band, can't go any higher". A lot of people hate negotiating and accept it as-is. Compensation at these institutions tends to be lower than what you get elsewhere, not higher.
The real negotiation just gets moved to a different discussion: If you say you need $150K but the salary band for the job listing is $100-120K, you can try to get them to create a separate, new opening at the higher salary band. Or they might already have multiple job openings at different salary bands and they'll quickly switch you to the other opening in the system, which doesn't actually change much at all from the hiring perspective.
I fully support this, but it needs to be beyond base salary. they should state base and total comp with all of the strings clearly attached.
A previous employer would pat themselves on the back for keeping tight comp bands and paying everyone fairly, but they didn't disclose how new highers received very different signup bonuses and RSU packages. So yes, looking by ethnicity/gender/age/etc, everyone had the same base, but they were definitely not paid equally.
This is already law in Colorado. From what I’ve seen, however, folks are only required to post the base salary, not the whole band. Either way employers likely end up posting the widest band possible for all positions, so the data may not be super useful in terms of offers signed.
Being open about our comp band only results in increasing the top of the funnel but they fail the first tech screen (which is a fairly simple problem - doesn’t require any data structures beyond a hash map and the algo could be figured out by a lay person). Decided to be more cagey so I could prefilter out people I won’t want to hire anyway. Better that way.
In my experience, the guys who make $700k are public with their expectations because they’re filtering out positions they’d be unhappy with.
That’s my lived experience. We do controlled experiments on a one month cycle to refine our hiring process.
> "Automotive semiconductors will continue to be a limiting constraint on the automotive market through the first half of 2022, but barring any unforeseen shutdowns or semiconductor manufacturing issues, supply should gradually improve through the second half of the year," she said.
Probably a good idea to wait til the end of the year to buy a new car then. The market is simply and truly insane right now. The best price you can get for a used car is now the MSRP of the new version. And the best price you can get for a new car is $5-6k over MSRP. It's just insane. If you're spending $40k on a RAV4 or CRV, you might as well just spend that same $40k and get a Tesla.
I just got a new car at msrp in Canada so it is possible, a Toyota. However there was no bargaining and was more “call everyone and find the dealer with one coming in soon and grab it”
It's interesting that you managed to get a Toyota. Toyota until very late on wasn't affected by the chip shortage [0]. Toyota practically invented lean manufacturing and are the only business that seems to do it right, I guess it's because they didn't need to bring in a bunch of lean consultants, that either miss the nuance or can't effectively communicate that nuance.
Lean manufacturing and JIT are like DRY in software development. Those that are just learning think don't repeat yourself is a rule, "DRY means DRY" whereas experts have learnt that "DRY means DRY except in all of those situations where it is better to repeat yourself".
Toyota knew prior to the pandemic that their chip supply chain was vulnerable, being filled with single points of failure, and they stocked accordingly. But those stocks were only going to last so long, and, thanks in part to the panic buying of the other car manufacturers, Toyota is also facing a shortage.
The above is a really long winded way to say, I'd be interested to know if MSRP Toyota's will remain available in the near term, mostly because I'm in the market for a new car, I'll put the local Toyota dealers at the top of the list.
I know they went up a little over the last couple years, but they (at least tacomas) hold their price really well, and they are generally solid and will last. Driven Toyotas all my life and 100% recommend them. My only advice is to just call all your local dealers and find one with a vehicle already on its way to claim
Also in Canada. We ordered a new Rav4 back in early October and just got word that it's 'scheduled' to arrive in the middle of April. When we first placed the order it was thought that we'd have it by Christmas/New Years. Definitely major delays and shortages but the MSRP doesn't seem to have been affected (but time will tell when we actually go to sign the paperwork)
I called about a dozen dealers to find an unclaimed one that was already enroute to the dealer. From what I understand you do not go onto “Toyota’s” list you go onto the dealers list, and they will not send you elsewhere, thou a really good/honest dealer can query what dealers are getting what. Took me about a week to find one, and another week to pickup my Tacoma, however I did have to spend a few hours each way on a ferry. I’ve been told “if you don’t have a vin you don’t have a date” but not sure how true that is.
What has happened with all those cars that weren't sold during 2020 and 2021 due to pandemic? I remember seeing photos of huge parking lots filled with new cars? Did they all get sold in the end?
My recollection is that only happened during the first month or two of the pandemic. When everyone thought we were surely plunging into a recession or depression. The stock market dropped quite a bit during that same period.
After the initial few months, it all reversed. I don't recall ever seeing any stories like the one you linked past 2020.
I know that here in Australia its damned hard to get a car.
5 months ago I placed an order, would have been happy with a 2021 model but they don't have any... so I'm stuck waiting till October THIS YEAR... over a years wait. for one of the most popular cars on the Australian market.
Looks like a similar situation to car sales in Eastern Europe in the 1980s. You had to wait for years to be able to buy a new one, even if it was the popular model of the day. Some people made money by registering to the queue and selling their spot.
Trabant, Wartburg, Moskvitch, Zastava, Lada, Skoda,... I guess all of them had a long waiting lists. I don't know if it was a joke but I've heard that people would leave their spots in last will and testimony to their kids.
Not sure about others but in the '80s nobody waited for Zastava. All over the country foreign cars were "assembled" (Opel, Renault, Citroen, WV Golf...) so while Zastava priduced cheaper cars they weren't the only game in the town and they kinda produced enough to satisfy demand (actually I believe that they would prefered that demand for their cars was even larger). Not sure about 60's and 70's though.
Can you say what you are getting? I got a RAV4 which I ordered in Nov 2020 and collected in late Mar 2021. Not long after the wait list blew out to 8 months.
It might be fairly easy to get a second-hand hail-damaged-but-mechanically-fine bargain. The flipside of that is the potential insurance hell invited by that situation.
If I remember correctly rental businesses were offloading cars at a crazy rate to survive the pandemic, but then once people were travelling again they needed to buy them back up at a crazy rate.
I was at a honda dealer last friday and they didn't have a single new car on the lot. I person I knew there told me they sold every car in their allotment before it shipped and at a hefty markup. They haven't had an unsold new car hit the lot in months. There were selling used cars for more than they sold for when new. I was on the edge of buying a new Camry in the summer of 2019 and decided to wait one more year. That didn't work out very well.
> The market is simply and truly insane right now.
It's ridiculous. I was very fortunate to get a CPO near the end of 2019. Whenever I take it in for service, I get both a text and an in-person request to have my car's value appraised.
They're offering 2-5K over carfax value, no questions asked -- which is currently more than I paid for the car 3 years ago! Frankly, if I lived in a more walkable/bikable area, I might do it.
Tesla's been growing like crazy, but the demand is crazier still. I ordered a Model Y in September. It's currently set to arrive in March, in the mean time the price of a new one has gone up almost 10% since I ordered.
Polarization is due to cultural issues, not economic ones. And no, those cultural issues don't stem from economic issues either. That's a Marxian base/superstructure analysis of the situation, which isn't accurate.
Furthermore, inequality will always be with us. Pareto principle is an actual thing and is mathematically sound when it comes to economics. Generally, the top 20% will hold 80% of the wealth. Many phenomena exhibit this distribution.
Even if we transition to a multipolar world order and renewed great power competition, America will still be the strongest and most secure global power. It has hegemony in the western hemisphere through its enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine; it is protected by the two largest oceans; it has historical, linguistic, and cultural ties to two regional powers on both sides of the ocean (UK and Ireland in Europe, Australia and NZ in the Asia Pacific, Five Eyes, etc.); it is by far the leader in soft power (music, movies, TV, technology, English language, etc.); and most importantly, it has the strongest military by far. Despite strategic defeats in the Middle East and South Asia, US officers gained tons of battlefield experience and the ability to test its weaponry. So even if the US now has to deal with a hegemonic challenger in East Asia (China) and more assertive one in Europe (Russia), its geography and demography give it advantages no other great power has.
>America will still be the strongest and most secure global power.
>and most importantly, it has the strongest military by far.
"America" (The U.S.) will likely collapse from internal conflict, possibly precipitated or accompanied by external provocation (cyber warfare, infrastructure attacks, propaganda), that will divide the country and the military. Imagine the U.S. during the Civil War/War between the States. This time there won't be borders between the sides. How is a country facing such internal strife going to be able to control, let alone worry, about global affairs beyond it's borders?
I think the key unmentioned weakness of the United States is our economic system and monetary policy. Especially because of our ever increasing debt and deficit spending.
Yeah, I don't really get that either. If push comes to shove and we (the US) devalue our currency, then all the other foreign debt holders are left holding the bag while we just suffer through a couple years of recession.
Exchange rates are indeed set by markets, but then all a central bank has to do to devalue its currency is to sell its own currency for another (or buy assets denominated in another currency, which is essentially the same thing with extra steps)
At the crudest level, what do you suppose would happen if the U.S. Treasury/Federal Reserve suddenly decide that every dollar-denominated account of $n got a "stimulus payment" of $2n?
That’s a very indirect way to devalue a currency for foreign exchange purposes. Sure, you’d be massively increasing that supply, but it’s doesn’t necessarily follow that said supply would flow directly into forex markets.
Usually beneath the veneer of such questions it seems to be some sort of libertarian/crypto fan/anti fiat currency ideologue. Rarely based on sober analysis.
I think it would represent a fairly strong change in global power structures, but like you I don’t think the sky would fall.
It's quite a long read, but I can tell you it doesn't come from a libertarian perspective. It does touch on Bitcoin, but near the end in one of a few theoretical "where things could go" perspective.
>"I think it would represent a fairly strong change in global power structures, but like you I don’t think the sky would fall."
Agreed, it would be shocking but life would go on. We would just have to live with a new international monetary paradigm.
I’ve read Alden’s analysis before. I can’t say that I have found any particular weaknesses with it.
But as she says, such a change could take place in different ways, with different implications. If it were to happen suddenly it would be a shock, but that isn’t necessarily the case.
Most signs point to a multipolar world order isn’t he future, and outside a complete internal political collapse, the US would in all likelihood be one of those poles.
Broadly speaking, the US has to run trade deficits in order for the rest of the world to have the dollars they must use to buy oil. This severely handicaps our ability to manufacture and produce things domestically. During the past century the US Government took on lots of debt with the understanding that our economy would naturally grow to cover the obligations. But given this international monetary system, I struggle to see how the US can manage to grow it's way out of all the debt we've made for ourselves. I would like to go on, but Lyn is a far better writer than I.
Alden’s analysis is certainly thought provoking, but it doesn’t made broad statements about the impact on US global power, which is the topic at hand here.
Gotcha. The article itself doesn't go into the global power aspect, but I was looking at it through the lens of implications. Mainly, how the trade deficit has made us particularly vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and how the domestic knowledge to produce certain vital things (like chip manufacturing) has been gutted. Confidence in the US and it's ability to deliver on it's obligations also diminishes as the debt grows and the growth of our economy stalls. I just don't see how we can grow our way out of debt after reading just how badly the deck is stacked against non-tech and non-intellectual sectors of the economy.
The implication of the article, though, is that eventually the regime will end, and the structural factors that force the US in trade deficits will end. This will allow the dollar to finally be devalued, and the value of exports to rise, resetting the ability for the US to build its industrial base.
Also, the notion that domestic knowledge on how to build things like chips has been gutted is just flat out false. Intel is still close to the cutting edge in chip fabrication, they just aren’t #1 anymore.
This "buy oil" stuff is a non-sequitur from an economic POV. A current-account deficit is the flip-side of a capital-account surplus, i.e. of money flowing into the U.S. as investment, from whatever source. Far from handicapping "ability to produce and manufacture things domestically", a persistent trade deficit may thus be a reflection of that very ability.
Every (at least most) past conflicts that toppled the dominant players brought with it a new type of combat that those players were not ready for. Troop tactics, air power, etc. In the next one, it will be cyber.
We have opened a direct line for all of our enemies to be able to attack us without any regard to geography whatsoever. Critical infrastructure is all online and barely protected by even the most basic security. We’ve already seen multiple utilities go down due to hacks, and those were probably accidents where the attackers were overzealous. It’s not unreasonable to assume that we’re already completely pwned, with foreign interests just sitting back and waiting for the right time to flip a switch.
Military and geographical advantages are irrelevant in this scenario.
I see oddity of article in comparing America to Portugal, France, Soviet, and Britain as well. The unique and original system of Democracy and Repbulicanism that have continuously forced politicians to innovate further protects America from collapsing, unlike China and its virtual dictatorship.
> All the MAANG companies use algorithmic and system design style questions as their main metric for hiring candidates. The internal justification for doing so is likely a combination of “this is what everyone else does” and “it’s a quick way to evaluate someone’s skill”.
They argue that this is the only way to weed out all these candidates. It is MAANG's version of the SAT.
> the best solution is to have trial work periods. There’s no better way to see how someone performs at the job than having them actually do the job.
Businesses that are highly leveraged with debt would either go bankrupt or raise prices to account for higher debt costs, which wouldn't address the problem.
That's their problem.
If your business can't handle a 1% a year rate hike, you have no business in business.
Sooner or later, they will turn into a zombie company and weigh on the economy anyway. So better purge them sooner than later so capital starts flowing to more healthy businesses and sectors.
A lot of this is due to fuel prices. The price of fuel affects the price of everything else. It's a benchmark since everything requires fuel. Manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, etc. It all requires fuel. It doesn't help that OPEC refuses to increase production in order to make up for their budget shortfalls last year. Also doesn't help that the US government is sending signals that it is no longer on board with fossil fuels. The shutting down of pipelines, ending of fossil fuel leasing, etc. sends a market signal to producers and traders that the US is hostile towards the industry, leading the producers to cut production and maintain their profits.
Best option would be to have a diverse portfolio of energy production: oil, natural gas, solar, wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear. Don't go all in on one, that's how you arrive at the situation we are currently in.
> sends a market signal to producers and traders that the US is hostile towards the industry, leading the producers to cut production and maintain their profits.
Great! Puts us one step closer to slowing global warming and giving us a chance to turn this boat around.
Rising oil prices makes the market naturally move away, which is really really good in the long run.
That will disproportionately affect lower income households who can't as easily withstand these rising costs, which further drives income inequality.
> Rising oil prices makes the market naturally move away
This is trivialization of the transition as the worlds depends oil in many ways: development of cars (electric or otherwise), airplanes, solar panels, vaccines, acetaminophen, etc. -- these are all petroleum-derived products.
Given this dependence, axing our production just means we have to rely more on other countries and given that climate change is a global problem -- what's the difference? If we do it here, perhaps we innovate on making its extraction more eco friendly (which has been the case for the last 20 years)
> That will disproportionately affect lower income households who can't as easily withstand these rising costs, which further drives income inequality.
I see your compassion, but income inequality isn't driven by prices, it's driven by the employers not paying enough to their employees. Prices can't fix that.
> This is trivialization of the transition
Is it? I read it more as this being an important step toward addressing the climate crisis.
> as the worlds depends oil in many ways
How much oil is used in making acetaminophen? Why even bring it up? Nobody is saying "no oil," they're saying "stop polluting so much".
> perhaps we innovate on making its extraction more eco friendly
The extraction is a small problem. The global warming it causes is the large problem. Less pumped oil means less burned oil which means fewer greenhouse gases.
> I see your compassion, but income inequality isn't driven by prices, it's driven by the employers not paying enough to their employees.
Not exactly, it's also driven by price increases. If employers give their employees a 50% pay increase, but prices increase by 50% then that pay raise is rolled back by inflation. Wealthier people more often have their money in assets, with values that increase alongside inflation. This is largely the dynamic we're seeing in the US: labor shortage means people get paid more, but those increased wages are getting eaten by higher prices.
Very low income people frequently have more debt than assets. They also see their net worth increase from inflation.
Also the sources I see show nominal wages growing faster than inflation for low income households, meaning that their real wages are actually increasing.
> I see your compassion, but income inequality isn't driven by prices, it's driven by the employers not paying enough to their employees. Prices can't fix that.
The two are intertwined. Every big-ticket item costs at least $1000 round numbers these days. If you halved that threshold to $500, you would put more valuable goods in reach to more people without adjusting wages.
You can do the same by increasing wages, but that threshold might go up in response to $2000.
It’s all about prices relative to wages, not either in isolation
this is why focusing on the wage part of inequality is the wrong approach.
Figure out how to make products cost less and cheaper -> more can enjoy them and everyone becomes richer.
Print more money to give to people to fight inequality? If you don't invest to make supply more efficient, all you'll get is inflation.
Rich people don't buy the same products as poor people. In fact, most rich people (Elon) own capital that is being invested in part to make production more efficient.
If you were to tax all of Elon's wealth and give it to the poor, it's just not the case that everyone could suddenly afford a Tesla. What would happen is that nobody could afford it, even people that can afford it today, because you are moving capital away from investment and into consumption.
it does, but you also have to tax some people so that they spend less.
Recent narratives is that you can do welfare for 'free', either by printing money and not worry about inflation or default, or by taxing 'billionaires' so nobody feels it except 100 people.
Climate change will also disproportionately lower income households.
> perhaps we innovate on making its extraction more eco friendly
Wait what? Fossil fuels will never be eco friendly. The best thing for renewable energy is to be more economical than their competitors, which is far more achievable when oil is expensive. It should be obvious that oil prices doubling do not cause electric cars or solar panels to double in price, even if they do become slightly more expensive.
Well that's just false. As of 2020 US reduced its emissions by over 20% below 2005 levels which was mostly due to fracking natural gas instead of coal.
Not saying that's all rainbows either but you're suggesting there can't possibly be any improvement here. Sounds like a bad bet.
You claimed that the best way to make oil consumption more eco friendly was by reducing the environmental impact of extracting it, rather than letting high cost motivate consumers to switch to renewables. Now you've backtracked to supporting natural gas to replace coal. It is true that switching from coal to natural gas is a big win for CO2 emissions, but there are clear diminishing returns on that. Since 2005, the US has already gone from 50% coal power to 20%. The problem is that our current levels of oil and natural gas consumption are incompatible with hitting emissions targets. The mere act of burning those fuels at the current rate already puts those targets out of reach -- before even considering the cost of extracting them.
> The shutting down of pipelines, ending of fossil fuel leasing, etc. sends a market signal to producers and traders that the US is hostile towards the industry, leading the producers to cut production and maintain their profits.
That's the point isn't it? From an environmentalist perspective, policy that discourages fossil fuel production makes renewables more economically attractive by comparison, encouraging attrition away from fossil fuels into renewables, thus reducing emissions.
> Best option would be to have a diverse portfolio of energy production: oil, natural gas, solar, wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear.
Pretty much everyone can agree with this statement, the devil is in the details as usual.
Interesting, I thought the US was now "energy independent" but Forbes is claiming we're now short.
> However, thus far the price surge is primarily a result of 3 million barrels per day (BPD) of oil production that was lost in the spring of 2020 that hasn’t fully recovered. Demand has fully recovered, so that is the fundamental reason for the surge in prices. Further, that surge began in the fall of 2020 — five months before President Trump left office.
The shutdown hit oil production quite a bit. Recovery and startup lag by months.
All the Democrat candidates put themselves forward as anti-oil. If you thought Trump would lose, it would be smart to buy oil and then hold for a while.
When Biden won, the speculation took off. Signals matter.
Biden signaled that everyone must move away from gas-driven vehicles. He banned a pipeline (getting sued by Canada over that one). He banned as much fracking as he could. Even worse, he defied congress and the law by allowing the Russians to build their pipeline which will pipe money straight into Putin's pocket
The result of these changes (and others) was a lot of people shutting down oil production. Others speculated even more that the pipeline and fracking decrease would mean less supply, so they bought up the oil while the prices were still down.
With OPEC refusing to up production, there's even less reason for the speculators to sell. Biden released part of the strategic reserve, but it amounted to less than two days supply of oil for the country and nobody who knew anything about the oil market cared very much.
That also doesn't work because that same precedent can be used for other preventative health issues such as obesity. "Well, you shouldn't have been eating all those cheeseburgers, sorry"
I think you have a point, it's a fine line, but say there was a shot which could prevent you from becoming obese and all the problems that come with it? Now I'm going to kind of argue against myself here, but as I write this I think a better comparison would be Flu, you can get a Flu shot and pretty much stay out of the hospital. People end up in the hospital with Flu every year and insurance covers that. I guess this is all to say after some reflection, I can see both sides to the argument.
Uh...what? Where is the proof of this?