Nit: it’s brinksmanship by the republicans. They happily blow up the deficit and raise the debt ceiling when they’re in power, but then cry foul as soon as there’s a democrat in the White House. I don’t know of any time the democrats have refused to raise the debt ceiling as a negotiating tactic.
My favorite rhetorical trick is definitely the one-siding of a two-sided issue in a two-party political system. /s
Back in 2021 the Democrats had the option from the get go to do a clean unencumbered unconditional debt ceiling increase with just the votes they had and chose to try to pin it with a spending bill they wanted to push through but didn’t have the votes for, as described in even this blatantly partisan CNN article bylined by CNN’s Editor-at-large[1]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/22/politics/debt-ceiling-increas...
The parent comment was correct the first time. It’s brinksmanship by both Democrats and Republicans.
[1]: Genuine question: how is this different from an Editor-in-Chief?
Bush presided over a few debt ceiling fiascos run by Democrats - I think the first ones in modern times were under the Bush administration. Trump wasn't in office for long enough with an opposition congress to have had any time for congress to play these games: his cronies raised the debt ceiling a lot in his first 2 years in preparation for the next 2. Otherwise, the only presidents since Bush have been Democrats, so the opposition party doing this would be the Republicans.
The good news is that you don't have to trust this guy about the fact that Bush had a debt limit fight: it was a pretty big deal in 2006-2007 and it's all over every source that you might bother to look at. Also, this is the New York Times, which is pretty well known for not getting facts wrong, although their opinions are often suspect (and not always constrained to the editorial section).
As always the devil is in the details, and I'm old enough I was around and paying attention for the Bush years. The debt limit fight referenced in the essay was actually extremely minor - there was never a real risk of a shutdown, unlike 1995, 2011, and 2013 - and the Democrats' position was broadly not "don't raise it" but "if you're gonna raise it, how about also we fund something other than wars". It's not at all comparable to the times the Republicans have a) actually precipitated or enacted crisis, sometimes with no specific demands, and b) when they do have demands, it's a hard line of tax cuts plus lower expenditures.
Your bias is showing here. Someone could easily come in and say that the Republicans weren't saying "don't raise it" they were saying "if you're gonna raise it, how about we give people some tax cuts too?" And those Republicans really meant it, too (/s)! It's not magically better or less of a political play when the side you like does it, even though Democrats generally cave on their own threats too early.
I've been running my own finances with double entry bookkeeping (via beancount) for about 4 years now, and it's ended up being super useful. As long as I'm 90% sure I got all the income, expenses, investment buys and sells, and transfers between accounts, I can add "balance" statements for a date and easily work backwards to find if I missed anything.
The Fed is designed to be independent from the whims of any individual politician, but it still exists due to an act of congress, and could be changed at any time by congress passing a law and the president signing it. And if that can't/doesn't happen, it's because _congress_ doesn't represent the people of the United States.
That is an extremely curious reading of the comment you are responding to, given that it appeared they were just arguing that if people want to change the Fed, and it doesn't happen, then that would show Congress doesn't represent the people of the US.
> if that can't/doesn't happen, it's because _congress_ doesn't represent the people of the United States.
You're just saying the same thing with different words. If the Fed or the congress doesn't represent the people it doesn't make any difference to the elite class, who indeed own these two entities.
The distinction is significant though, there mechanisms to limit the fed's power if it's necessary, even if those levers and dials are not being currently used.
I think every salary transparency law I've seen (including this one) only includes base salary, and not bonus, stock, etc. Realistically the laws probably cover 90+% of available jobs by only requiring base salary/hourly rate.
My biggest annoyance with most salary transparency law compliance is companies pretend they'll accept anyone in any location at levels between 1 and 5, resulting in ranges like "$85k" (lowest paid location, level 1) to "$250k" (highest paid location, level 5) - when they're (internally) looking for "level 3 or 4".
My hope is that the internal posting requirement will help with this, since internal postings are maybe more likely to be more specific about what level/location the team is looking for.
> if you live in an apartment with nfc entry, they might charge an arm and a leg to replace it, even if the actual device is only a few dollars
That's just theft — plain and simple. The only half valid argument I've heard is to discourage carelessness leading to loss of the key and weakening of the building security. But that's moot in places where the garage gate is broken and left open half the year (my current place) or where people can casually wait for someone to walk in and tail gate them without anyone complaining.
By the way, I purchased a proxmark a long time ago to play with and to date, it has paid for itself many times over, by allowing me to carry my building keys the way I like to (cards vs bulky key fobs) by duplicating them where otherwise it would cost $100 or impossible.
Can't wait for keys on Apple Wallet to become mainstream.
Unfortunately, it's accurate. Theft is what I'd call the racket that is management companies in London.
In my case, with a London apartment, it's an "Administrative Fee", £150 to replace your lost fob.
Then for my costs as an individual, it was not only that fee, but also new locks for external door(s) and mail box, another administrative fee for the communal meter cabinet/room key, new Kensington lock and a car key/fob when my wife's keys were "lost in a known location yet never again found".
That is to say, "losing" those keys is a £300-500 affair.
At first I thought you bought the proxmark with the purpose of dating. Also, how does the proxmark work? Does it store the signal of a card key or something like that?
Laws shouldn't exist just because people think they'd be a good idea. There's also no evidence that voter ID laws prevent voter fraud, or even that voter fraud happens at any meaningful rate. Advocating for unnecessary restrictions without evidence is dishonest and dishonesty is bad.
I'm not strongly in favor of voter id laws (the deep blue area I live in has them). I just think it's dishonest to refer to them as "voter suppression". And I agree that there's no evidence of substantial voter fraud.
Making it harder for people to vote is literally voter suppression. You might argue that it is ineffective voter suppression, but I don't think you can argue that adding unnecessary steps to voting, and making penalties for making mistakes harsher while making it easier to make mistakes, is anything else.
> Making it harder for people to vote is literally voter suppression
As I said upthread, it's "literally true but dishonest". Barring children from voting is literally voter suppression but calling it that is stupid.
> I don't think you can argue that adding unnecessary steps to voting, and making penalties for making mistakes harsher while making it easier to make mistakes, is anything else.
Reasonable people can disagree over whether showing an id to vote is "unnecessary". The fact remains that voter id laws are not unreasonable, not beyond the pale, most Americans support them, and this whole thing is a manufactured political drama.
> Barring children from voting is literally voter suppression
Actually, no, it's not. Maybe this is pedantic, but children are not, and have never been, putative voters and therefore are not being suppressed.
Minority groups less likely to have IDs are voters, however. 8% of white Americans do not have government photo ID, whereas 25% of African-American citizens do not[1].
While there are some topics where I agree with both major parties, and many issues where both are near equally bad, I have yet to come across a national policy issue where Republicans are better than Democrats (even if the Democrats' policy is still not great). So yeah, I don't agree with one party 100% of the time, but I will support them 100% of the time over the alternative.
