I think it's more scary than impressive. What kind of adults are all of those children going to grow up to and become, where multiple parties are the weekly norm?
Maybe you can clarify because I don't understand your fear or what you think it means for these kid's future adulthood?
The kids just see it as a fun 2 hour playdate with lots of friends in an interesting setting with dessert. It's the same friends they see at school, sports, etc. so it's their time to have some less structured play time, which - not sure if you've heard - is in rare supply for many children these days.
When I was a kid, even at this age, I was roaming all over town on a bike with my friends, I basically had the Stranger Things childhood experience, and I feel very confident there was a lot more to fear in that timeline of childhood.
Playing (and roaming) is great, non-stop parties is not.
Excessive partying can foster a mindset in children that equates fun with extravagance rather than simple enjoyment.
Frequent extravagant parties can foster a mindset in children that equates fun with material possessions and lavish events, rather than personal connections and shared experiences.
Not sure if the picture I painted originally was unclear but these kids are already living a very comfortable lifestyle by most standards. Most outsiders looking in would say they are all spoiled brats which is basically what I feel like you're trying to say more politely. But, this is just their norm, it's very much a part of their interpersonal connections and shared experiences which is exactly why we try to attend as many as we can. We try to engage in the community and support these kids as a group by celebrating their milestones and achievements; birthdays are one such example. What you fail to consider is these kids do not care about the material possessions at all. They've never had a shortage of that so they have no want for it. That is not special. I've never seen a kid even look at the presents during a party. They get loaded up and opened at home. I know my kid often doesn't open them for days or even weeks after the party. At this moment, he has a shelf full of toys he got as gifts half a year ago that are unwrapped but unopened. He's never even played with them. Some of them he already had and so he'll probably donate them at Christmas. However, the idea that they got to pick a theme and an venue that represents their personality/interests and share it with their friends during a day of fun is what they thrive on. Being the guest of honor at such an event has plenty of social-emotional benefits (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6130922/).
There's nothing lavish about these events unless you seem to think so. A $20/day trampoline park is not lavish. A 2 hour arcade card at D&B is not lavish. I don't know what your frame of reference is but this is what we do on a normal weekend if we have no plans too, just with a smaller group and withot birthday cake to eat.
Not shorting TSMC, I’ve lost too much money shorting and it’s just too easy to lose because of timing even if you eventually are correct.
I’ve overweighted EU weapons manufacturers because a Taiwan war will be coupled with an expansion of the war in Europe. With the US busy trying to fight China, Russia will for sure make a bigger move in Europe. European defense budgets will 10x.
Big picture, I think you're right that there will be continued and increased EU spending on weapons. But... Russia is basically at full capacity just standing still (or losing slowly) in Ukraine. Do they even have the ability (people, weapons, fuel, money, logistics) to significantly expand the war further?
The point to short will be when the Chinese army forms up.
With Ukraine we saw it. It was incredibly obvious. Hilariously the Ukrainians themselves saw the huge army on their border and told everyone it wasn’t going to happen and refused to build any defences. Taiwan will be the same. But the satellites will give everyone enough warning.
To be fair my understanding at the time was that Ukraine was well aware the invasion was coming and the government was publicly making claims that helped avoid panic and allowed them to move military assets around more easily.
> the Ukrainians themselves saw the huge army on their border and told everyone it wasn’t going to happen and refused to build any defences
You're going to have to cite that, because Ukraine was already in the low-intensity Donbass conflict when the most recent invasion happened.
But yes, you can't hide an invasion fleet. The Chinese navy only has three aircraft carriers. They've recently had high level purges in the PLA. Invading now would be a disaster for them. But you never know when a disaster is going to get ordered for political reasons.
At the time it did seem like mobilization came very late, after the invasion already began. But like the other commenters pointed out they did prepare for it and a few more days of mobilization wouldn’t have changed the outcome.
> Hilariously the Ukrainians themselves saw the huge army on their border and told everyone it wasn’t going to happen and refused to build any defences.
In terms of gaining political support, being a victim in the modern world is very advantageous. The more of your civilians die unjustly, the more the media will portray you as a great and brave leader. There is nothing hilarious about this, only cynicism of the leaders of the country.
>Hilariously the Ukrainians themselves saw the huge army on their border and told everyone it wasn’t going to happen and refused to build any defences.
Not the full truth. Leadership said publicly that there was nothing to worry about, but the AFU dispersed assets, distributed suppiles and ammunition, and took a defensive stance before the invasion happened.
I'm sure leadership in Ukraine was aware of an impeding war, but naturally that's not the type of thing you're gonna tell your citizens. It doesn't help anything; it would only cause panic, migration, and resource hoarding.
> Thanks to capitalism, I don't have to toil in the fields.
No, that's thanks to commerce not to capitalism. Capitalism benefits those those who hold capital, which is not me.
The fact that there are more than enough resources for no one to live in poverty should suggest to you that something is wrong with the distribution system.
"It's true, Mr/Ms Rationalist, that our patented Miracle Medical Snakeoil caused a third of your leg to become necrotic and fall off, but be glad for the two thirds that did not fall off!"
> > Thanks to capitalism, I don't have to toil in the fields.
> No, that's thanks to commerce not to capitalism. Capitalism benefits those those who hold capital, which is not me.
Are you toiling in the fields? It seems to me like your attitude is that "If I can't be rich, then no one should be rich."
> The fact that there are more than enough resources for no one to live in poverty should suggest to you that something is wrong with the distribution system.
So instead of two thirds of the world not living in poverty, everyone should live in poverty equally?
> It seems to me like your attitude is that "If I can't be rich, then no one should be rich."
The problem with capitalism is not that some people get rich and some people don't. The problem is that of an unfair playing field.
Everyone has a body and a mind, and commerce allows us to rent out those features in exchange for pay. People who are smarter or stronger or work harder or work more will be able to benefit more. That's how I got rich. But there's a limit to how rich I can get, because I have only one body and one mind and there are a finite number of hours in the day.
The other way to get rich is to own things. If you own a factory or real estate or bonds you get to charge other people and make a profit even though you are expending no effort. And in this case there is no limit on your profit, because you can use your profit to buy more capital and make more profit from that. The result is eventually a winner-take-all economy, where the winners own an increasing amount of society and everyone else pays them to use it. If that sounds familiar, it should, because it's feudelism, and is the eventual end state of capitalism.
You should really read a bit about the philosophy that you're arguing so vehemently for, apparently without knowing anything about it.
> So instead of two thirds of the world not living in poverty, everyone should live in poverty equally?
> The other way to get rich is to own things. If you own a factory or real estate or bonds you get to charge other people and make a profit even though you are expending no effort. And in this case there is no limit on your profit, because you can use your profit to buy more capital and make more profit from that.
Risk : Reward, that's obvious, isn't it? I have known many relatives who bankrupted themselves trying to "own" stuff. I also know some who succeeded and are rich. Starting a business is very hard, try it.
> Risk : Reward, that's obvious, isn't it? I have known many relatives who bankrupted themselves trying to "own" stuff. I also know some who succeeded and are rich. Starting a business is very hard, try it
In order to risk one's own capital, one must first own capital. Today's working poor, just like the serfs of times gone by, have nothing to invest but their own labor. It's hard to build a business when you're fully occupied in working to buy food.
You've inadvertently pointed out the fundamental inequality of capitalism: in order to get the (potential) benefits of capital, you must first belong to the capitalist class.
It's interesting how when you talk to people who are vocally in favor of capitalism, they always turn out to be in favor of an imaginary version of capitalism where everybody is a small business owner, rather than in favor of how the system works in practice and the outcomes that it necessarily creates.
> You should really read a bit about the philosophy that you're arguing so vehemently for, apparently without knowing anything about it.
You had a good comment until you wrote that. Don't lower your standards with stupid personal attacks.
> The problem with capitalism is not that some people get rich and some people don't. The problem is that of an unfair playing field.
I would love for things to be fair, but I grew up in the real world and learned that things weren't fair back when I was a kid in primary school.
Instead of lamenting about something that I can't control, I decided to focus my efforts on what I can control. Instead of tearing other people down, I built myself up.
Unless you can change the human characteristic of greed, the world will always be unfair. You can spit into the wind, or you can set a sail.
> You had a good comment until you wrote that. Don't lower your standards with stupid personal attacks.
I apoligize for judging you based on the things that you write.
> Unless you can change the human characteristic of greed, the world will always be unfair.
There is nothing wrong with greed or unfairness, to a degree. As I said in my previous comment, some personal characteristics will naturally lead to inequality of outcome. That's fine, because everyone is deriving profit from the (variable quality) work that they are personally able to produce. I would say that greed and unfairness are essential to any system of commerce, which I support.
Capitalism, on the other hand, allows inequality on a grand scale that necessarily results in a society that no longer rewards hard work: the lords own all property, everyone else works for them, and there is no way to achieve wealth competitive with that of a lord simply by labor. The laborers work to surive, and the owner class consumes all the benefits. This is the system that we spent a century of war fighting to end. It seems silly to go back to feudalism just to appease the modern-day lords.
> Instead of tearing other people down, I built myself up.
Who, do you suppose, am I tearing down? I want a society that rewards hard work. A system with no social mobility is not that system. I want people to improve themselves in order to make more money. What I don't want is a society where the owner class are able to be parasites on everyone else, producing no labor (physically or intellectually) but showing giant profit. The modern day US is increasingly distant from its much more socially mobile past, and it's only going to get worse.
I'm not saying that the current crop of billionaires haven't worked hard to get where they are. I am saying that their work is not proportional to their benefit, and at a certain point they are able to continue benefitting despite producing noting of value.
Processors are currently becoming the next bottleneck on the server component side of things. If consumer SKUs start seeing even less volume than they are today, manufacturers will simply produce more for the datacenter.
Certain popular AMD SKUS are already 120 days lead time and growing. If a vendor will talk to you at all.
I expect motherboards to get cheap until they get to be really expensive niche products should the current situation last a few more years. At least as we know them today as PC enthusiasts and/or prosumers. I could very much see that market evaporating entirely and moving towards large integrators instead. Gamers and such were already a rather small niche to begin with.
Right now the saving grace is a server board doesn’t look a whole lot different than a consumer board. But that may change significantly faster than anyone predicts should current trends with SoCs and the like continue. You may be in a place soon where you get to choose your CPU/RAM/storage at purchase time like you do with a MacBook today.
I so wanted one of those, but then when I heard about their poor to non-existent software/OS updates, I stayed away. I'll stick with my USB-C FLIR dongle.
That's the problem with non-Google and non-Apple phones.
No the thesis of cash is that it's a legally enforced means to extinguish debts within a certain legal jurisdiction.
A court cannot generally find that I must furnish someone with some weight of gold for example but they can find a monetary value in sovereign currency which I must supply.
The thesis of cash is that governments and their influencers can turn some knobs and decrease its value and enrich themselves simultaneously by creating more of it. A lot of it as debt for the normals.
Any war that has the USD no longer be accepted has significant existential risk, and besides if things devolve that much you should be worrying about any entity holding the gold for you or someone killing you for the gold you personally hold.
It's just not the same when your crew has another ship's crew at its mercy, loaded blunderbusses at the ready, waiting for the leather sacks and chests full of bitcoin to be turned over.
I think the point is that when it comes to investment vehicles, gold generally beats cash. Oh and that means that in the last 20 years or so (ie. including the period where it didn't appreciate much), physical gold beats a balance in bank accounts.
Inflation means "interest" on gold, measured in reliable currencies like USD or EUR, is at least 4%. Far more than you will get from any bank.
Of course this goes for anything, so you might want to select something with less regulation attached to it. On the other hand, gold is really dense and "liquid" (easy to sell), which are great advantages to have for a store of wealth. And then there's the recent history of gold prices (which is due to the third world attempting to use anything but dollars but not succeeding at it, but one assumes it will end)
But yes, gold makes less than you'll probably get on the S&P500.
Only for very large amounts of money. It can't easily be subdivided. Oh and this is illegal in most countries.
But yeah, what people forget is that gold is incredibly dense. Nearly double lead's density. This means 1kg of gold is about the size of a nokia 3360, and worth close to 150,000$. A very large amount of gold doesn't take up much volume at all.
... which also means that people "stealing gold" like in the bond movies is totally unrealistic. If you loaded a pallet of gold bars (12.5 kg a piece, 200 gold bars, about 2.5 tons, 375 million USD) into a standard van, that van would probably just break down. And carrying 10 gold bars, 20 million USD in a backpack? Not happening.
(which frankly Trump is abusing because of course the density of gold means that any facility storing gold, including Fort Knox, is going to "look empty")
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