That’s a good idea. I think it still misses a needed link between productivity increases and increases to the lowest wages. Maybe loosely tying minimum wage to productivity?
510 karma · joined June 17, 2021
We literally have one right now.
This assumes that we won't make moves to mitigate this dependence in response to Russia's invasion. The US Innovation and Competition Act [1] likely has a much higher chance of passing today than it did prior to Russia's invasion. It calls for $250 billion investment in high tech manufacturing [2]. It has passed the Senate and is currently waiting in the House. I wouldn't be surprised to see the bill grow in scope.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/126...
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-passes-bipa...
The big companies of America fall into every category, not just the ones you cherry-picked. You could have easily mentioned GE, Intel, MSFT, Apple, Target, Lowe's, Home Depot, Ford, GM, Kroger, Walgreens, Deere, Oracle, Caterpillar, and a bunch of other as-big companies. Those companies each have higher revenues than Coca-Cola, Instagram, or Netflix.
The entire premise of the discussion is a world where we have transitioned the economy completely to EVs. I think it's safe to assume that, in this new energy world, batteries would be smaller, lighter, and cheaper. This has been the observed trend since 1991 [1].
I don't think anyone has proposed more EVs without an improved grid. In fact, this January, the DOE announced a "New Initiative From President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law To Modernize National Grid" [1]
> Being able to store fuel in 5 gallon increments in a cheap container has no equivalent in the EV world.
Batteries? I have multiple for my son's Peg Perego John Deere 12v [2]. My vacuum also has multiple batteries that I swap.
[1] https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-launches-new-initiative-...
[2] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Peg-Perego-John-Deere-Gator-XUV-1...
We have created economic dependencies on our vast military spending. At a fundamental level, the $1 trillion spent on defense ends up in the hands of US service members and defense contractors. They spend that money back in the US economy.
When viewed from that (cynical?) perspective, it isn't surprising that the military's spending and scope grow year after year.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat...
We are sending actual weapons and machinery, which need to be replaced by new weapons off the factory line. One Javelin missile costs $175k.
"In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons, including Javelin missiles, over the borders of Poland and Romania, unloading them from giant military cargo planes so they can make the trip by land to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and other major cities."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/us/politics/us-ukraine-we...
Our military's size and capabilities seem to be more a function of job-creation, rather than actual military need.
NATO is a nation state alliance built on mutual defense and strengthened by precedent. The precedent of defending allies is built into the NATO agreement.
> For democracies this timeline is short. For dictatorships and monarchies this timeline tends to be a little longer because nobody wants to leave a giant mess for their kid.
Great point on the different timelines, I have to disagree on the reason. Dictators/monarchies have a longer timeline because they tend to rule for much longer than leaders in democracies. By definition, democracies involve turning over the ideals and ideas of leadership every few years. Do you believe Putin is worried about leaving things to the daughters that he never mentions?
The headline "RT turns to Peter Thiel's Rumble after Big Tech companies block the network" tells us that private companies blocked the network, not the government.
This is true.
> He gave up a job at Google and beats himself up every day for literally giving up millions, probably well over $10M had he just stayed.
This is also a biased success story. Very few people will experience Google-like returns.
This is the exception that proves the rule. The fact that winning the EPL was such a monumental upset and that you have to go back 5 years to find it, kind of proves the entire point. Them falling back to 12th place is further evidence of the difficulty of maintaining success as a small-market in European soccer. Compare to the sustained small-market successes in US sports like Oakland A's or Tampa bay Rays in the MLB, Green Bay and Pittsburgh in the NFL, the Memphis Grizzlies or San Antonio Spurs in the NBA.
> And they won the EPL trophy straight out of League One the year they were promoted.
This is false, they finished 14th in EPL for the 2014-15 season. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%9315_in_English_foo...
In the case of baseball, the negotiations are being held up by the small-market owners because the existing system is so beneficial to them. There is a de-facto salary cap through the Competitive Balance Tax, which directs money straight from the richest to the poorest teams. Meanwhile, there is no guarantee that the poor teams spend that money on actually improving their team.
I don't see any non-North American system where small-market teams perform this well. In the NFL, small-market Cincinnati was just in the Super Bowl because of a draft process that rewards poor performance.
No, it was not. Partisan would be asking if they were going to switch to a specific different party. I asked if they re-thought their affiliation.
> As for Russian propaganda, that isn't remotely representative of the forum.
I never claimed it was, just that it has increased the past two weeks without much moderation.
> the bias that causes internet users to feel that other commenters are foreign agents, astroturfers, spies, shills, bots, etc.
Another thing I never claimed.
All of these assumptions sound like they may be an example of the Illusion of Asymmetric Insight (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_asymmetric_insight). Is that how this works?
I'm sure it means different things to different people. For me, it means that I don't follow any party's platform in lockstep. I try to judge each candidate and policy based on merits, not team affiliation and have voted for multiple parties over the years (Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green).