llamaimperative

I don't disagree with most of this except the continued characterization of this as "belt tightening."

It demonstrably has nothing to do with "belt tightening." If it did, the GOP wouldn't need a $4 trillion increase to the debt ceiling.

> My point is these things existed and did have actual power. They had sway in private organizations

This is called the marketplace of ideas

Sometimes the marketplace lets stupid things get some sway, and it is up to the marketplace (not the state) to push those aside

> A lot of people like to pretend like this came from nowhere, in reaction to nothing, and that's simply not true

No, I think people are "pretending" like the use of state power is not an appropriate reaction to "overstepping" within the marketplace of ideas, which of course is true. The vast majority of left-leaning people find the blue hairs goofy at best, which is exactly why they do not hold political power. I don't think anyone on the left is "surprised" by what's going on right now, FWIW.

National debt growth rates by President:

* Clinton (D): +31% over 8 years

* Bush (R): +105% over 8 years

* Obama (D): +70% over 8 years

* Trump (R): +40% over 4 years

* Biden (D): +21% over 4 years

Simply untrue to suggest "one party spends way too much" or that the other's "slash and burn" is at all related to strengthening our financial situation.

Ah yes, the classic equivalent extremism of the blue hairs on Twitter (who hold approximately zero levers of state power) and the actual elected leader of the other party.

One extremist group says insane shit on TikTok, the other runs the FBI. The latter is totally a sensible response to the former.

Do you have any examples of this happening in corporate America outside of the Twitter takeover?

I have never heard of this approach. I’ve heard of new management coming in with a strong opinion and firing people, or new management spending some time understanding the situation up close.

Also: Corporations don’t have a mandate to serve the public writ large. A corporation imploding itself through dramatic reinvention every 4 years is perfectly fine. A government doing this type of purge every 4 years is obviously fucking insane, though I assume you’re operating under the assumption that the other side can’t/won’t/shouldn’t conduct ideological purges when they get into power?

Most administrations know there are people with varying levels of ideological commitment to their causes and they accept this friction because relative operational stability is a feature of a democratic government, not a bug.

Must’ve just missed the ideology tests and purity purges under the previous admin. Could you link to some evidence?

What makes you think I’m describing handouts or destroying your industrial base?

Was the New Deal an industry-destroying handout?

No

You should let his Commerce Secretary know (or stop sanewashing)

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/20/commerce-secretary-lutnick-...

Do income taxes on the 60th percentile earner completely kill their incentive to earn an income?

Then why would ensuring the same effective tax rate on the 99th percentile kill their incentive?

Who is advocating for that?

And...? Everyone hates paying taxes. Normal Americans pay them anyway.

Here's another idea: tax those people appropriately and pump that money back into the economy...

Way easier and more globally optimal than just saying we're going to do absolutely everything (even the shitty jobs) here in the US.

Yes this is one reason tariffs are so valuable to a corrupt POTUS. They have essentially unilateral and very fine-grained control over them, down to exempting specific companies or products outright.

Sure: Private insurance overhead is around 15% (up to 20%) while Medicare/Medicaid overhead is around 2%.

They are both insurance programs.

Aside from variations in fraud detection efforts (which Medicare/Medicaid should do more of), what justifies such a gap?

It's various methods by which they grow and retain market share, which Medicare/Medicaid don't need to do.

1. Your $3.7 billion figure is about auto insurers

2. I misspoke and meant "marketing" broadly, not ads in particular. This all fits under administrative overhead which is one of the major sources of inefficiency between private health plans in the US compared to Medicare/Medicaid.

Also should be noted that health insurers’ marketing costs are part of “administrative overhead.”

Competition among insurance companies in most other systems (like the Bismarckian system) is far more constrained and so consumes far less capital. A huuuuge portion of health insurance premiums just go toward spending on ads to pull members from other insurers and otherwise retain your own (especially while they are paying into the plan rather than pulling from the plan, at which point you’re happy to lose them).

Uhh the point is for people to take it seriously. Which works.

If only a 5 second Google search could tell you: https://autocrypt.io/transformation-of-vehicle-recall/

To notify consumers of safety issues using the existing rails that are used to notify consumers of safety issues?

Sadism! That’s why.

To add on: if someone's "irreversible" crypto transaction goes awry, do people really think they're not going to go to court and/or that courts won't do exactly what courts do in every other case of fraud?

"Your honor, the smart contract was clear as day: this fraud was totally above board" is not going to work. I promise.

And Canada.

A child totally prevented from standing for 5 years and then stood on their feet will not walk at all.

> It makes them effectively have similar societal power as the middle class.

No they don't

> They can’t get their names on institutional buildings.

This has never been the purview of the "merely rich."

> I think that makes them much closer to the middle class than the truly wealthy

Sure they are closer to the middle class than the ultrawealthy, but that does not make them either not-rich or middle class.

> Let’s say you make $1 million per year and your net worth is $20 million.

Then you are unambiguously extremely rich.

Yes there are people orders of magnitude richer, but yes you are orders of magnitude richer than the median American. Money is no longer a daily consideration to live a 100% comfortable and healthy (to the extent money can pay for it) life.

I am well aware of how much more obscenely wealthy the ultrawealthy are. That doesn’t make a $20MM net worth or $1MM/yr household middle class.

No, that is actually exactly what I was describing. If it was innate, they wouldn't need to trial and error their way (i.e. learn) to proficiency. But indeed they do.

Your analogy was puberty, which in fact happens with development regardless of trial and error (i.e. learning).

The two developmental processes are clearly distinct. The distinction is that one is a process of learning and the other is not.

What you tried to do was move the definition of "rich", i.e. the target of ire, to way, way, way above what most Americans consider rich.

"Rich and paying no income tax" -> largely the top end of the top end. The vast majority of rich people pay lots of income tax.

I'll go out on a limb and guess that you land in the category that most Americans consider rich, but you think attention should really be directed towards the ultrawealthy. Totally reasonable and capital gains obviously needs to be the center of that discussion, but let's not try to get there by just moving the line of what "rich" is and helping people delude themselves into thinking $300k+/yr is middle class.

> It's very obvious I wasn't talking about salaried rich

Yeah no shit, by circular definition of "doesn't pay income tax."

> I was talking about "generational wealth" people.

That's obviously not the same word as "rich."