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> In a crisis, state intervention works, actually.

There, fixed that for you. Stop calling literally anything that isn't 100% raw free market capitalism "socialism".


Also by the Fed: 4 in 10 Americans lack enough money to cover a $400 emergency expense:

https://fortune.com/2023/05/23/inflation-economy-consumer-fi...


Question EF3. Suppose that you have an emergency expense that costs $400. Based on your current financial situation, how would you pay for this expense?

Response Percent

Put it on my credit card and pay it off in full at the next statement 37

Put it on my credit card and pay it off over time 16

With the money currently in my checking/savings account or with cash 45

Using money from a bank loan or line of credit 3

By borrowing from a friend or family member 10

Using a payday loan, deposit advance, or overdraft 2

By selling something 7

I wouldn't be able to pay for the expense right now 13

Note: Number of unweighted respondents 11,400

from https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2023-suppl...


Hard to interpret this. It either shows that 55% do not have enough money to pay the expense, or that 82% may well have the money but 37% would prefer to pay it off after their next paycheck anyway.


I've seen people interpret "would use a credit card" as a sign something is wrong but for me it just means I like getting cashback.

Though to me it looks pretty dire - having to sell something, borrow from family/friends, etc. for 400 bucks is pretty terrible.


No, it's 35%. Credit card usage is fine if you can pay off the card.


The ones that can pay immediately, ok. But paying it over time for $400 is pretty much a sign of hardship.


What about the 45% who would just pay it off with cash/savings?


That question allowed respondents to select multiple. EF2 and EF7 give a very clear picture of the average person’s financial situation.


This puts at 35% those for whom $400 would be a hardship (don't have the money on hand). Still a significant amount.


Those numbers cannot be percentages, they add up to 133.


Perhaps because 4 in 10 Americans are bad with money. As jandrewrogers stated, Americans are not good savers. (I believe this is a big contributor to our trade deficit as well.)


To be honest, you don't really want people saving too much in a healthy economy. You want them spending.


But then where would the investment come from?


All "capitalist" economies have very large amounts of central planning for them to function (not to mention state subsidies and other protections from failing to make money), and use taxation and the national debt for that. Socialism plans centrally to the same extent that capitalist economies do, but also has the state owning the infrastructure that the economy relies upon. So it doesn't need to tax for that purpose. Socialism in that sense has never actually been practiced historically though, in the same way as there has never been "capitalism" in the sense of no central planning or regulation. Luckily.


"capitalists" have many central planners each planning the same thing but coming up with different results. Then we reward the ones who are right. Socialism features one planner - they may have helpers, but just one. If one planner gets it wrong in capitalism you can go with a different one.


Capitalists as in capitalist governments centrally organising commercial legislation and regulations, subsidies, tariffs, standards, etc.


Didn't somebody register dot.com and had an email address of dot.dot@dot.com? You could have dot.dot@dotsucks.com


You may be thinking of Tony Finch, dot@dotat.at.


My understanding on China's coal plants is that it's not the number of them, it's whether they're running that counts. Coal-fired generation is currently cheaper than storage for backing up wind and solar generation and their plants are typically running about 50% of the time right now, expected to run less often as storage and more renewables come online. So China’s coal use could fall despite it adding more capacity.

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants


If (and it's a big if) the human race survives to deal with the effects of climate change, the next great battle will be to prevent waste from becoming the existential problem.


I used to naively think that some kind of PKI/trust network for online media would have to rise up to thwart misinformation.

But anger is the real the reason why people want to believe obviously fake info about how Mexicans are manipulating the weather. We live in a society that tells you that you are free: freedom to work hard, treat people right and do the right thing. Then health, wealth and happiness will be yours.

But what if you do all those things and see the opposite happening to you and those around you? You want reasons. 5G brain control, Bill Gates and the Deep State all look like great explanations because long arcs of neoliberal monetarism and deregulated economics is, well, boring and quite hard to understand. So who cares about some AI fakery when that's going on?


Hell, the reason I have is "capital owners have ensured that under the rules of our system wealth generally accrues to capital more than labor" but maybe I am just seeking data that agrees with my own preconceived notions. Thomas Piketty (Debt In the 21st Century) apparently got his data wrong but he's still referenced plenty.


Not downloaded that app, but does it deliver exactly the same features as the web app but just look a bit different? If so, I wonder whether anyone working in the respective web and app departments sometimes wonders why their company maintains two separate apps that do the same thing. I know I did.

Edit: Oh, offline mode. Towering profits?


The weird thing is that companies will pay for entirely separate engineering, product and marketing departments for their apps which duplicate their web apps in every way (or usually a bit less), not to mention being under the thumb of the app stores - all for the sake of notifications.

I'm no bean-counter, but that seems very odd to me.


Issues are a mess because they get used like bulletin boards for any random brain fart anyone has, despite Issue Templates trying to plead otherwise.

IMO the way to fix this is to gestate all issues in Discussions. Then, when a clear and agreed resolution is hammered out there, a maintainer creates an Issue (or just does a PR) referencing that Discussion. This would have the side effect of encouraging people to contribute to projects more when they can clearly see what needs picking up.


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