qqqwerty (u/qqqwerty)

qqqwerty commented on Thai Air Force seals deal for Swedish Gripen jets scmp.com/news/asia/southe... · Posted by u/belter

corimaith · 7 months ago

You won't be keeping the USD as the global reserve. Trump wants his cake and to eat it, but that position is likely unsustainable long term anyways. Mind you, the role of reserve currency today is larged hoisted by the rest of the world onto the USA, there is no rule dictacting its role. But the thing is anybody who is large enough to support it (EU/China) dosen't want that role either, lest they end up deindustrialising like USA.

The actual alternative, with the so-called multilateral "Bancor" and the International Clearing Union as originally proposed by Keynes works via directly controlling exchange rates to punish surplus nations and provide relief to deficit nations. Well, it's for that reason there isn't a serious effort to create it from these other nations, which leaves them at an impasse. That's why as much as I hate to admit, Trump may actually win here because other countries don't really have any good options. Unfortunately the USA is playing a necessary systemic role here that nobody else wants to do.

qqqwerty · 7 months ago

Trump is being pulled in too many different directions to the point where nothing coherent is going to emerge from his strategies (or lack of). You can't promise Wall Street/Corporate America the moon and keep the economy running along nicely while rounding up and deporting immigrants, cutting federal spending, and implementing regressive taxes via tariffs. If he would have just limited himself to the goal of balancing trade while maintaining reserve currency status, I think that he would have had a shot to pull it off. But there is the very real risk that the rest of the world just starts routing around the US so even that is not a given. But when you combine this with all the other things he is trying to do, I think he is seriously risking sending the U.S. economy off a very tall cliff. That is also why he probably is so obsessed with lower interest rates. It is an attempt to try and jolt the economy before all the head winds from his policies start to have an impact.

qqqwerty commented on California unemployment rises to 5.5%, worst in the U.S. as tech falters sfchronicle.com/californi... · Posted by u/littlexsparkee

ivewonyoung · 7 months ago

Why didn't the Biden admin "fix" the rule before it took effect in Jan 2022? They passed several bills, they could've have included the repeal. It took effect on the democrats watch, because of their inaction.

Edit: Republican Marco Rubio introduced a clean bill to repeal the changes in 2023.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/282...

The Democrat controlled Senate blocked it from coming to a vote.

Why does HN always blame only Republicans for this change?

qqqwerty · 7 months ago

Because how could the Democrats be certain that the Republicans wouldn't just use the same accounting trick again the next time that they wanted to pass tax cuts via reconciliation (which would effectively let them double count the "savings"). The Republicans have shown very little good faith in bipartisan efforts over the last decade and a half (as just one example, all the R's who voted against the IRA only to then campaign on the achievements of the bill later in the year).

So while it is great that the Republicans fixed this one thing (that they themselves broke), asking why the Democrats didn't fix it kinda feels like you have been living under a rock for these last few years. If they break something, and they regret breaking something, let them expend the political capital to get it fixed. There is no free lunch in politics. If you spend your time on something like this, it means some other priority is getting ignored. And doubly so if your counter party has been operating on such bad faith as of late.

qqqwerty commented on Hundred Rabbits – Low-tech living while sailing the world 100r.co/site/home.html... · Posted by u/0xCaponte

throwaway328 · 8 months ago

Nice post. I hadn't noticed the "subtle suggestions" of donations myself, to be honest, but maybe I hadn't browsed around their pages enough.

Anyway, if they do mention it, is it not a very far cry from the situation everywhere else? Youtubers begging, screaming, shouting, seducing, murmuring, doing the bug-eyes, repeating, cloying, getting emotionally heavy and forceful, for subscriptions, likes, and comments? Interspersed with violent sudden shifts to advertising products, etc.

So it was a bit of a surprise to hear it mentioned like it might be bad. Are you surprised that the suggestions are so gentle? Or what

qqqwerty · 8 months ago

Perhaps OP can clarify, because I too read that as a snarky dig. Perhaps that wasn't their intention, but it felt off. The only place I saw a "subtle suggestion" for a donation was by clicking the "Support" link all the way at the bottom of the page. The site has probably the least intrusive monetization scheme one could implement without forgoing it entirely.

qqqwerty commented on What's happening inside the NIH and NSF science.org/content/blog-... · Posted by u/rrock

jandrewrogers · a year ago

~82% of all R&D funding in the US is non-Federal, and 75+% is industry. The total investment by companies on R&D is about the same as the US defense budget. Many people still think it is like the 1960s and 1970s, when US government funding of R&D was a large percentage of the total. Federal investment in R&D hasn't declined so much as industry massively increased their investment.

The Federal government found a niche in basic research for a few decades and funded the vast majority of that. Per NSF, today even basic research is <40% funded by the Federal government, again not due to a decline in Federal funding but due to vast increases in industry investment. This shift toward industry investment in basic research was not overnight, it has been a monotonic trend for decades. Over the last century, the areas where Federal research funding is critical have dwindled greatly in scope because industry spends more money and is willing to take more risks.

One of the more interesting stories here is why and how this change happened in the US, to the point where the vast majority of R&D is funded by industry even in areas historically dominated by Federal government funding.

qqqwerty · a year ago

We are at the tail end of a 50 year bull run powered by declining interest rates. Maybe ZIRP is the new normal and private industry R&D investment stays high, but I don't think we should gamble our status as an economic, scientific, and technological powerhouse on that and gut our government financed R&D programs.

Further more, my wife works in biotech so I have seen first hand the compromises one has to make to secure private funding. They care about things like market size and revenue potential when making these investments, which means you end up with most of the money flowing towards diseases that largely affect rich people and solutions that are either expensive or recurring. And lets also not forget that almost all of these companies are working off of or spinning out from research programs that were funded by the government. I have yet to meet a single company where that wasn't the case.

qqqwerty commented on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE wired.com/story/elon-musk... · Posted by u/medler

mostertoaster · a year ago

> It would effectively mean a handful of billionaires would control the country.

Is that not what we have already. Do you really think your vote matters?

I don’t think my tenants ever thought I was greedy. And I don’t think a vast majority of landlords who aren’t some big corporation are. Though people will think they are regardless, so just want them to sure the accusation of greed with that of the bureaucrats, and the public schools who simply flush money down the toilet.

I think if landlords structured rental contracts that way (and maybe give a $50 discount if you choose that option), you will see a huge amount of school levies fail which is a net win for society.

qqqwerty · a year ago

> Is that not what we have already. Do you really think your vote matters?

At least in the current setup, they are required to maintain and fund a vast propaganda apparatus, lobbying efforts, and political organizations in order to secure their power. And even with all that effort, they still only have a tenuous control over our institutions. Your proposal would literally just hand the keys over to them.

> I don’t think my tenants ever thought I was greedy

As a lifelong renter, who has for the most part had relatively good relationships with my landlords over the years, I can assure you that they do. At the very least, they probably don't have a very positive opinion of you, even if they are nice to you in person. After decades of financialization of our housing market, we now have an entire swath of our population locked out of the housing market. And if you think these folks like handing over a significant chunk of their income each month to a bunch of rent-seekers, I think you are solely mistaken.

qqqwerty commented on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE wired.com/story/elon-musk... · Posted by u/medler

mostertoaster · a year ago

Eh, it’s all politics. I’m sure they are trying to win however they can, don’t sit there and be so naive to think the other side wouldn’t be perfectly happy to let illegal immigrants vote if it benefited them.

I’m all for fairness. For example I think we should weight votes, where everyone gets one vote for each dollar of taxes they pay.

I also want to see all landlords structure rental contracts so that the renter pays the property taxes, if rent was 2k a month but there are $500 in property taxes a month, rent would become $1500 plus $500 property taxes. That way the immediate effects of voting for tax increases is felt acutely and their blame can go on themselves instead of their “greedy landlord”.

qqqwerty · a year ago

> I’m all for fairness. For example I think we should weight votes, where everyone gets one vote for each dollar of taxes they pay.

You are joking right? Honest, question, what life experiences have you had that make you think that this would be a good idea. It would effectively mean a handful of billionaires would control the country.

> I also want to see all landlords structure rental contracts so that the renter pays the property taxes

It is a free market. Outside of a handful of places with rent control, nothing is stopping them from doing that. And if you think splitting out property taxes as a separate line item will somehow make tenants think that landlords, the vast majority of whom increase their rents to the absolute maximum that the market will bear, are somehow not greedy, I think you have a pretty bad handle on what it is like to be in the renter class.

qqqwerty commented on What's Going on at the FBI? lawfaremedia.org/article/... · Posted by u/hkhn

bboygravity · a year ago

How is this different from any previous president?

Isn't the very reason that the puppets "need replacing" (according to the president) tell you that they are of the wrong (previous president's) political flavor?

Honest question, I'm not from US, but on the surface it just looks like more of the same thing that has always been happening? Except with way more media attention?

qqqwerty · a year ago

These organizations consist of political appointees and civil servants. It is customary to replace all of the political appointees. Civil servants however have a lot of job protections and can only be fired for a limited set of reasons. Typically, a new administration would appoint new political appointees to the various departments (many of whom need to be confirmed by the Senate) and those appointees would then exert their influence on the department by shifting priorities around and they could even alter the hiring process to target more "aligned" individuals for the open civil servant roles. But they cannot just do a wholesale house cleaning. The high level purpose and the budget/size of the organization is determined by Congress and the political appointees are constrained by that.

So this is in fact very different from how things normally work.

qqqwerty commented on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE wired.com/story/elon-musk... · Posted by u/medler

mostertoaster · a year ago

Does blocking non citizens from voting count as “suppressing voter turnout”? It’s all just politics and words, and we’ve picked our side and so we use the language that best supports it. Is someone pro-life, or are they anti women’s rights? Is someone pro-choice, or are they pro-baby-murder.

How does one actually convince someone of the “rightness” of their side? It somehow starts with love your enemies, though if I say that to my more right wing friends it means capitulate to whatever the progressives want. All I know is the spirit of the age is evil.

qqqwerty · a year ago

That is not what they did: https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/

Passing laws to make it harder to vote, and easier to challenge a persons voter registration and ballot, and then running an operative campaign to specifically target voters on the other side of the political spectrum is a bit different than "just politics". Legal, sure. Ethical, moral, fair, absolutely not.

qqqwerty commented on The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE wired.com/story/elon-musk... · Posted by u/medler

yellow_lead · a year ago

Is there a source on this? I haven't heard of it and it sounds undemocratic

qqqwerty · a year ago

This is a link I stumbled on earlier today: https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/

qqqwerty commented on South Korean president declares martial law, parliament votes to lift it apnews.com/article/south-... · Posted by u/Inocez

dmix · a year ago

There must be some rule on the internet where if some geopolitical thing happens anywhere in the world at least one person will blame Russia.

qqqwerty · a year ago

And a similar rule that at least one person will defend Russia, regardless of how truthful the accusations are. And in this particular case, NK troops fighting in a land war in Europe at Russia's side is a major geopolitical shift, whether you agree or not.