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You do know the quote is in the context of defense spending, which spends tax dollars on guns, warships, and rockets instead of food and shelter? The “world” may produce enough food and clothing, but that is little consolation to the impoverished who cannot afford them.

How is that a compromise? You either have a massive black bar at the top of the laptop, or a small notch that allows for more screen real estate.

It’s the system language, not the keyboard settings.

https://ke-la.com/lockbit-2-0-interview-with-russian-osint/

Not to say you shouldn’t like Muir Glen, but this seems like the most appropriate place in this thread to drop this link: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/best-canned-tomatoes...

1) China, USSR, etc had/have more government involvement in running business but also controlling people’s movement and freedom of expression. That’s a different situation than American politics, because even the most progressive democrats don’t necessarily want the government limiting people’s freedoms so much as forcing rich entities to pay higher taxes and to provide more socialized services.

1b) We don’t really need 1 party. More than 2 parties would be great as well. But really we just need the Republican party to not be obstructionist nor actively harmful to democracy.

2) Democrats have the presidency, which, while having greatly expanded powers over the last 50ish years, is still a relatively weak executive. The Democrats have a narrow majority in the House and Senate; due to parliamentary rules, the narrow majority that they have does not allow them to pass or amend laws as freely as you may think. The Supreme Court, while notionally non-partisan, is filled with a majority of conservative Justices which can dissuade or reverse policy made by more liberal branches of the government (federally, or at state levels).

2b) 6 months is not a long time for governments the size of the US. Barrack Obama likened it to a large ocean-liner: there’s a lot of built up momentum, so it takes a long time to stop it or change direction.

Can you not use the button on your steering wheel in that scenario?

The assumes the price of goods outpaces wages raised. NYC minimum wage buys you more McDonalds in NYC compared to Alabama. So the cost of goods in NYC has not risen past the gains in wages.

He also does a lot to offset his private jets.

> I have a higher-than-average carbon footprint, so I’m taking extra steps to do my part. In the book I briefly mention how I’m offsetting my own emissions. I spend about $5 million every year to offset my family’s carbon footprint. As of now, the standard calculation for carbon footprints is based on an estimate of $400 per ton of emissions. But since the way we calculate carbon footprints is still in its infancy, I take our family’s carbon footprint and double it to make sure we are fully covering our footprint and then some.

> I also like to think of my investments in zero-carbon technologies as another kind of offset for my emissions. Investing in companies doesn’t make my carbon footprint smaller. But if I’ve picked any winners, they’ll be responsible for removing much more carbon than I am responsible for creating. I have given more than $1 billion toward innovations and ideas that I hope will help the world get to zero—including affordable and reliable clean energy, low-emissions cement, steel, meat, and more.

https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/What-you-can-do-to-fight-c...

I’m going to disagree with all three points.

1. To think that the military does not know what they need shows a very narrow understanding of the people fighting a war. If you ask a pilot “What do you need to accomplish your mission”, they will tell you. They may not know how to necessarily do sensor fusion or “cyber” things or the math/physics involved, but the way they will describe the problem and what their solution would be will show that they are thinking outside the box. Now, I will be fair and say that there is probably a disconnect between the end user and Air Force Materiel Command and it’s therefore up to the program management office to solicit feedback and requirements from the expert users.

2. The military follows the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement. There may be instances where contracting officers prefer and write requests for proposal that target specific contractors, but that should be an edge case and not the standard. I’d argue the real challenge is the scale of federal acquisitions and consolidation of industry players. In order to meet certain contractual obligations, you have to be large enough, which brings us to...

3. Security clearances take a long time to adjudicate, but it does not follow that that causes the inability to rapidly develop products. Going back to size, the problem is DOTMLPF - you cannot just design and purchase one thing, you need to build the entire logistics support chain for the next XX years. Maybe you squeeze a JUONS out that gets a capability “rapidly” developed but there’s still the expectation that you re-evaluate and create that long supply chain at a certain point.

Not to mention conscription, which probably helps with both discipline and meeting people not like you.

Curious what your background is to make those statements. My experience from Red Flag and other exercises is that the 5th gens (22 & 35) have a much better K/D and survivability. When you expend all of your stand off weapons or need to get a B-2 deep into a contested airspace, including against SAMs, you need a 35 going in to do sanitization. No F-16 is fighting off both SAMs and a huge ass wave of J-10s or any J-20s while protecting a bomber.

Now is that 35 worth the price? If our policy continues to insist for preparing against an impossible push peer adversary landmasses, then maybe. Personally I don’t see those pushes happening, but that’s more due to the tyranny of distance and having like 10 minutes of play time before needing to refuel.

Harmful online speech has not been banned. The outlets where one can express death threats, hate speech, and calls for insurrection have been decreased. Two very different things.

That’s quite a pedantic interpretation of gathering in a public square at a particular moment in time where doing so is detrimental to the health and economy of a community. In the event that you’re not disingenuously asking that question, as with all things, “it depends”, on specific local ordinance, how many people, the ability to maintain six feet distance, etc.

Are they actually being silenced, as in someone is forcing them to not express their thoughts? Can they not congregate together the old fashioned way and have as much free speech as they want?

This also seems like an odd mindset. Can’t you have a good economy without overpopulating an area? A saying I grew up with - The frog does not drink up the pond in which it lives.

It’s fair to eye roll at ineffective agreements that don’t pan out. Racing to the bottom with tax incentives is not the only way to bring back manufacturing and hasn’t seemed to work when it’s tried.

Tariffs don’t really seem to help anyone. Appliances are much more expensive than the last time I bought them in 2015. If we continue to raise tariffs, China will just stop buying corn, soybeans, and pork, and suddenly all of the revenue raised from tariffs are going to bail out farmers in Iowa.

A joke I’ve heard is: Why does a SEAL platoon need 14 men when a green beret team only needs 12? The SEALs need to bring their cameraman and producer.

It kind of depends on your priorities, whether taste, animal-welfare, cost, etc. I think grass-fed tastes better, but I do find it has less marbling. Check out The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore's_Dilemma

That’s an interesting point, given modern animal farming practices. 97% of cows are going to come from a feedlot, where they’ll be fed grain (corn). The special part of their stomach that allows them to extract more nutrients from certain plant foods compared to humans, the rumen, is “made” for grass. When switching over to grain, acid builds up in the rumen which can lead to acidosis, so we then have to pump the cows full of antacids to keep them placated while we continue to fatten them up for slaughter.

It probably depends a bit more on how you define “need”. Do factory owners need people in factories when a robot can do the job? Probably not. Does society need people in factories so that the individuals have a job, which creates a sense of purpose and means through which people can provide for themselves? Probably.

The top 20% also owns 86% of the wealth, so it seems like they are still coming out ahead.

For posterity:

>Second, Delaware’s tax system gives businesses several ways to legally minimize their tax bills. Companies that are incorporated in Delaware but do business in other states don’t have to pay state corporate income tax to Delaware. Some groups accuse Delaware of being a tax haven because the “Delaware loophole” allows companies to declare certain types of revenue in Delaware rather than in the state where the business actually occurred. Delaware also doesn’t tax profits on royalty payments, trademarks, or copyrights.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/76951/why-are-so-many-us...

I mean you basically cherry-picked half a sentence and ignored the rest of the argument for morality and taxes having a connection. Also, please don’t confuse “less taxes = immoral” with the actual position of taxes which should be paid, but because of loopholes are not. For example, if we had Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan and every corporation, regardless of size, paid its 9% (which is less than the existing 21%) in full, I think few people would claim its immoral.

Looks like your data is paywalled. Is it the same that’s available here? https://hifld-geoplatform.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/fortu...

Because if so, I think it’s a little bit more complicated. For example, Alphabet’s corporate headquarters is located in Mountain View, but it looks like it is incorporated in Delaware [1].

1: https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/alphabet-certificate-of-...

Galaxy brain: We made taxes up too. Surely if both companies and taxes exist only in the fiction world then companies can be taxed?

It is a thing - good or bad is relative.

Is there any evidence to support the claim that state and local governments would raise taxes to a level that harm the economy? I’m sure you could find some examples, but does the evidence support that claim in more than a few outlying cases? There’s ample logical reasoning (The Federalist Papers, for example) that state and local governments are more responsive to their populations and that the federal government should be the culprit that “shoots itself in the foot”. Outliers can exist in the inverse as well, as Kansas showed us that it’s possible to reduce taxes so much that it harms the economy!

Also, and I don’t want to come off as too nitpicky here, but I’m pretty sure governments already have absolute power to raise taxes. That is, a non-government organization cannot levy a compulsory fine on you. And don’t take this as a personal attack, but if people don’t know those sorts of things, they are not a very engaged citizen. Since the government is elected by the people, if we have uninformed and disengaged citizens, we should distrust the government. The best way to gain trust, in my opinion, is to be an engaged and informed citizen (and encourage others to be as well!), and to only elect “the best”.

edit: I may have misinterpreted your “absolute power to raise taxes”. I think now that you meant the power to raise taxes with no regard for its consequences vice meaning that another entity could raise taxes. Sorry if I put words in your mouth. In that case, yes “voting with your feet” can influence tax policy, but there are still other methods of doing that which do not require moving. I also want to point out that there’s an injustice in the ability to move in order to lower tax burdens. For example (and IANAL so someone please correct me if I am wrong), Bob’s LA Auto Shop, LLC can’t pick up and relocate its headquarters to Delaware to take advantage of lower taxes like a multinational corporation can to the Isle of Man. Is it moral that a large MNC can, but a mom and pop shop can’t?

“Only a Sith deals in absolutes”.

If businesses operated in a vacuum from politics, then maybe you could have an argument that taxes have “nothing” to do with morality. In the real world, businesses are lobbying for changes to the tax codes to benefit them, holding disingenuous or rigged contests to extract the maximum concessions from tax authorities, relocating or transferring intellectual property and licensing it back to subholdings to min/max gains and losses, and a myriad of other schemes.

To directly answer the questions you posed: Corporations which incorporate in a state like South Dakota or Delaware to take advantage of incorporation policies, with no intention of operating primarily in those states, the majority of their business conducted in a higher tax state like California, and trying to avoid contributing back to the society of the states that they primarily operate in - yes, those corporations are less moral. They are less moral than companies which are incorporated in e.g. South Dakota where the owner lives in South Dakota, and serves primarily South Dakota residents.

Hungary is harder to answer. Did the corporations of Hungary lobby for lower taxes which resulted in that tax decrease? Does the tax decrease adversely impact Hungary as a whole, or was there a budget surplus which allows the state to lower the rate? Does the relaxed rate improve the lives of “normal” Hungarians? The answers to those, and probably more, questions would guide the answer to the question of morality.

Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying that morality is not a binary choice. It’s the perception of right and wrong guided by context.

That’s a very disheartening attitude to have. These are still people with lives and feelings. We should expect humans to use the compassion and empathy that so very few other animals are capable of.

This article mentions one possible factor: https://www.huffpost.com/highline/article/capitalist-takeove...

I think question 1 should really be: should Google, Facebook, etc, be responsible for the user generated content that they algorithmically focus presentation on? It’s one thing to have, say, an early 2000’s forum where users search for and consume information. It’s another to ignore timelines and present content that will likely generate the most engagement. The latter to me is editorialization of the content.