ejb999

With the benefit of hindsight lots of things could have been done differently/better in many areas of life, especially war (and especially ww2).

I personally give a lot of latitude to the people who had to make those difficult decisions, with terribly incomplete information, that were literally life and death for hundreds of thousands of people at the time.

why?

>>Perhaps if someone has cancer, nobody should profit?

Does that mean the doctors and nurses and others should all work for free to? If individual people can 'profit' by providing care, i.e. a doctor, why can't a collection of people providing the same service, but as a company be allowed to profit as well?

maybe if someone is hungry, farmers and supermarkets shouldn't profit? maybe if someone needs a place to live, builders and realtors shouldn't profit? maybe if my gas tank is empty, oil companies shouldn't profit.

Where do you draw the line?

define 'hugely profitable' - PFE is one of the biggest, their stock is at about the same price it was 25 years ago, so inflation already made you lose 50% of your money - with dividends maybe you broke even for a 25 year investment. I would not call that hugely profitable.

Why don't we go after the actual 'hugely profitable' companies if that is the goal.

with dividends, you might just about broke even on your 25 year investment.

If the goal is to go after 'extremely profitable' companies, maybe we should be looking at tech companies, that are in fact, 'extremely profitable', unlike most pharma companies.

and for the record, I have zero love for pharma companies, or how they operate - but they are not - in general - 'extremely profitable' companies. Far from it.

Just as a point of reference, if you bought 100K in Pfizer stock 25 years ago, it would now be worth about 100K. Adjusted for inflation, you would have lost about 50% of it’s value.

Not what I would call ‘incredibly profitable’. And they are one of the biggest.

> In my first meeting with DesignAgency’s team, I asked how long they expected my project to take. “How long is a piece of string?” their lead designer asked.

...and that would have concluded my last meeting with this agency.

do you have evidence that I am wrong? ... I thought so.

I got it - was making a sort-of joke - scams don't need to be that sophisticated or work on everyone, because exactly half the population has a below average IQ.

In fact, 50% of people have a below average IQ, even when not under stress.

>>This type of scam is very effective and can catch anyone.

I disagree - most people would never fall for this obvious scam.

I agree, seems short-sighted - they could have even just started charging a bit for it to keep it alive if necessary.

No surprise though, after a fantastic start, twilio has turned into a sh*t company, unfortunately - I was a very early adaptor of many of their tools and services, and 1 by 1, they have all gone downhill.

They should have sold the company while it still had a decent reputation, at this rate there will be nothing of worth left.

lots of software developers never deal with clients (clients as in the people who will actually use the software) - most of them in fact, in any of the big companies I have worked for anyway...and that is probably not a good thing.

I myself, prefer to work with the people who will actually use what I build - get a better product hat way.

same here - it is especially bad in huge companies, the inefficiencies and waste are legendary.

you are somehow making the incorrect assumption that everyone older than you is an 'executive' that nobody should feel sorry for?

Thats some stretch.

Doesn't seem odd to me - if all someone (an elected person) does is get in front of the camera and make speeches about something a corporation is doing wrong - but never writes/sponsors a bill (and more importantly gets the votes to get it written into law) to fix those bad things - then they are doing exactly zero to make things better - they deserve all the criticism they get.

Yep - companies will continue to use these bizarre hiring criteria/tests unless or until enough people refuse to participate; but as long as their is a line of people behind you willing to do 'whatever' for the chance at the job, not much will change.

last time I interviewed for a job (and I am a sr developer with lengthy resume and all the 'right' skills for the job I was applying), after initial interview with recruiter and then hiring manager the recruiter said I had to take a coding test like I was some entry level programmer - I said no way, and thanks for your time - they made me an offer a few days later anyway.

Sometimes you just need to push back - won't always work - but at least you can have some control over the process.

one of the many reasons I have chosen to never be a residential landlord - some people make it work, and grow their wealth (good for them) - I don't need or want the hassles of dealing with bad tenants that (at least in my state) have way more protections than the person who actually owns the property.

How about insurance, electricity, labor, property taxes and maintenance ... they are not going up in your area?

Exactly - a apartment I know of had 7 units with long-term low to moderate income tenants - one by one each unit was evicted (or non renewed), a quick sprucing up and now 6 of the 7 are only available on AirBNB - and the landlord gets as much per week as he was getting per month before - the tenant in that 7th unit is getting pretty nervous that she is next.

some states (like Mass) do allow a renters deduction on your state taxes

I get what you are saying, but lots of people can only rent - or only want to rent - so somebody needs to own those houses.

I do agree, there is really something weird about owning 'extra' houses that you may only use a few weeks a year.

The gas grid is much less likely to go down than the electric grid - and btw, many run on propane - not natural gas - and that is stored locally (i.e. in a tank at the house) - I use propane gas, stored in my own tank - natural gas is not available anywhere near my area.

with a very small generator or battery - but you can't run a heat pump on a generator without going with a much bigger one, (and much more expensive one).

Counterpoint to consider.

According to the CDC the USA death rate is 1.04% - i.e. for every 100K people, 1043 will die in any given year.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

The LA jails (referenced in this article) has most recently had a population of approx 15,000 'residents' at any givern time in the last few years.

So statistically, you are more likely (by many times) to die outside this prison, than inside it.

This site is pretty good for checking out the various risks by county or census tract for about 15 different climate risks.

https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/map

You should get a private jet too, that is how all the truly committed environmentalists travel these days. </sarc>

not a popular opinion, but I agree completely - if you are trying to sell a message of sacrifice to the common person, being preached to, by people who own and travel in private jets , while they return to one of their many 20 bedroom mansions located just feet above the sea that is supposed to have a devastating rise any day now - it is very, very easy to see why people just shrug it all off as scare tactics when they are asked to give up their tiny little gas lawn mover or gas stove.

May not be fair, and may not be scientific - but the message delivery matters - ignore it at your own peril.