gotorazor

A lot of this guy's stuff reminds me of the white Marxist-Leonists I met in college. Except, those guys were at least somewhat serious when you talk to them.

I don't know how this guy grift his way to notoriety and influence. It seems like everywhere he is onboard on every ship of fools.

Bell Canada or Telus? 2nd most massive landmass.

Oh yes!

I do remember doing this as well at Decathlon.

RFID

We have the tech to do this. They library system where I am put RFID tags in all the books. You put the all books you want in a special tray at checkout. (There is still a checkout counter with a machine.) The computer will instantly display all the books you have on the tray. You touch the screen to confirm all the books and it will check them out and print a paper receipt.

They can probably eliminate the checkout too, maybe. I imagine that they do it so that the user (you) can confirm what items the computer thinks they wanted to check out.

I have been looking for an alternative for Apple News. If this is true, then it would be worth looking at.

> My preference would be for the government to not intervene with regulatory regimentation of the token sale market, but that obvious frauds - where a team promises the moon and then uses the money raised to buy themselves lamborghinis - be punished after the fact. In other words, that the government establish the rules of a free market - no prior restraint, but consequences if you are found to have committed fraud. Yes people would still lose money, but at least the fraudsters wouldn't learn that crime pays, and survive to defraud another day. > no prior restraint, but consequences if you are found to have committed fraud

The problem is that --- how does the government catch crooks without a regulations or laws? Like what are the criteria that you would need proof that fraud --- not incompetenance --- lost all the money. I mean, if you can just get people to buy your useless algo stable coin, you can pay yourself millions to buy Lambo's and it would still be all legit. It was all from salaries and performance bonuses.

That's exactly how airline tickets work. You can't board a plane if the ticketed name don't match your ID name in full.

I think that's the part why your story didn't make any sense to me. I am not questioning its truthfulness. Just, why?

Why even go thru the hassle of using bitcoins? You could just exchange it with the guy on the street for pesos. Not sure about ten years ago. Right now, you can even western union money to yourself at the blue rate. I am sure you can even just pay people in USD in many cases.

I am a bit dense. How does hyperinflation, an artifical peg, and exchange restrictions allow USD currency reserves (presumably held by the government) to flow to those who has freely accessible USD exchange (the patron of the ruling class)?

What is the mechanism that would facilitate this?

(Also, I think I disagree with everything you have said in the thread so far. But, this is a serious question. I don't follow this argument at all.)

but that's exactly what this is. It is money laundering.

It just maybe didn't come from cartels and drug trade.

Considering that Iceland has a population of less than 400k, more than doubling the population over a 12-month period in the cold would be a death sentence not just the the country, but for all the new immigrants that are moving there.

GE hasn't really been doing fine since the great Recession. The GE of the mid-2000's was a behemoth. If I have to guess and adjusted for inflation, GE hasn't been this poor since the mid-80's.

Great story. I had a similar one with my French uncle. Home Depot blew his mind.

I think that guy's point was that it isn't cheaper to eat junk than to eat "good and healthy" food.

I think that this is big distinction between USA/Canada.

> Greens, veggies, decent fruits, meat, fish

Potatoes are cheap because we have an industrial supply-chain for potatoes that developed and grew for a hundred years. This is linked to the whole "Anglo-Irish" thing. Potatoes are also cheaper to grow and store.

Greens and fruits are super-perishable and require lots of packaging and protection.

> Making those your main source is highly unhealthy.

I hope nobody is eating green onions as their main source of food. (I am being faceous)

Civilizations have since the dawn of time had some kind of staple cereal crop that provided the majority of the caloric intake. It can be rice, millet, maize, wheat or potato. If you don't use one of these as your main source of calories -- yeah, your grocery bill is going to be expensive in any place and in any time.

For sure -- food price inflation has gotten way more expensive this year and I have no idea how anyone lives in Toronto at the median household income. I think I agree with you, but maybe we have a different way of expressing things.

communist

Have you gotten your Redwings resoled? Assuming you live in a 1st world country, how much did that cost? How much did you pay for the pair of Redwings?

Goodyear welted soles are expensive. You can buy 6 pairs of workboots from Walmart or hiking shoes from Decathlon at the same price. Resoling welted shoes cost more than double compared to going to buying a new pair of cheap Timberlands on discount.

As a kid from that era, I disagree.

> To me, a classic car from the 80s, or even early 90s is a far nicer vehicle to be in and drive, and provides a far better subjective experience, both in and out of the car, so in a sense, modern cars are "worse" for me.

Just to get this point out of the way: I believe that you are talking about enthuiast cars and not the the Oldsmobile, Taurus, and Chevy Calvaliers I rode around in as a kid.

If you are talking about a "fun-looking car", and you miss the 3-series from the 90's vs those today, buy a mini cooper. That's basically what they are now.

If you want to give up safety, reliability, affordabilty, and fuel efficency, you can still buy a 911. Move up the price range and you can buy Lambos and Masseratis.

Except that, materially, those in the "USA sphere" -- even those with pro-US dictators forced upon them -- are better off comparatively than their neighbours or a comparable country.

Just to look at the countries you listed and their GDP per capita:

1) Asia

Taiwan vs Mainland China South Korea vs North Korea Indonesia (under Suharto) vs Indonesia (under Sukarno)

2) Europe

Spain & Portugal vs Eastern European countries (These two are weird. They were originally old facist countries that stayed neutral during WWII. They were also rural and not industrial compared to every other Western European country until recently)

3) South America

Guatemala vs Nicaragua Brazil vs India (This is tough, since no country can really compare itself to Brazil in South America. I think Indonesia is probably most similar, but they are also on the list. India was more Soviet-aligned) Argentina & Chile vs every other Spanish-speaking South American country.

It's not all rainbows and sunshine, but everybody struggles to some degree during the cold war. Those that the CIA kept propping up are much much better economically than those that didn't receive US funding and arms. I can't believe I am defending the CIA in 2023. But here we are.

Just did a trip to Loblaws in Toronto yesterday. I disagree. Organic groceries -- sure -- median income people can't really afford it.

The traditional, raw items common to the Anglo-Irish diet like potatoes, corn, flour, butter, cabbage, etc are super cheap in Canada. Meat pricing has been super challenging since the pandemic started.

Canada don't really have the same kind of agricultural subsidies that the United States has. Buying a bag of doritos isn't cheaper than a bag of potatoes. Nor, a big mac cheaper than raw ground beef.

Ipad or ChromeOS?

This is not a helpful comment to the OP's question.

There has been multiple articles written in many major newspapers about the issue.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/opinion/southwest-airline...

From what I have read so far, it seems like SWA uses a homegrown scheduling system for their plane, employees, and flights. The suggestion is that it is about a generation older than other American airlines. Their competitors uses a third-party software system. When this is combined with SWA's point-to-point business model, a large, disruptive event -- like a big snow storm in the Eastern Seabord -- it ripples through their entire system.

They have already admitted that the software system has failed and they have resorted to manually re-scheduling flights. Employees trying to update the company on where they are being put on hold for 9-10 hours (1 employee has a screenshot of waiting for 17 hours.)

Movements and attitudes are not like concepts and inventions. I think you hit upon the problem of "periodization".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodization

Well, no. Those two things go hand-in-hand. Even tho "unemployment" is a percentage, increasing the denominator doesn't mean that you're holding the numerator steady. If anything, you are probably holding the total number of workers steady.

Unless you know and are practised at shorthand, most people type much much faster than they write by longhand --- even a fairly slow typist can do about 30-40 wpm vs writing is something like 30-40 characters per minute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute

I still personally prefer using a fountain pen, but I am maybe writing a few words as a mnemonic device.

Fractional reserve banking -- from my economics class -- the difference is that the government or/and an independent central bank acts as a backstop.

I think it is normal to setup a new board after an acquisition -- usually with all the people that help finance the deal and maybe an independent director or 2.

A "sole director" in a multi-billion dollar company is strange.

If an autocratic country isn't doing well, how would you know? Who would loudly say anything?

Please also note that many forms of non-democratic government. Some work better than others.

If you look at even absolutist monarchs in Europe, they have constituents (lobbying groups) they have to listen to, the peasants and townfolks to appease, the nobility to seek support from, powerful breakaway independent Lords to manage, potential rival claimants inside and outside the kingdom.

Politics still happens outside of democracies.

The difference is just that our system of government, the "People" is given a formal primacy. Corruptions and short-term thinking happens with or without elections.