ryathal

A lot of this is also cat and mouse about reimbursements. Medicare has cut payments for a lot of visits to the point they aren't profitable, BUT if you fill out a form and e-file and do X for a visit, then you get a bonus payment and can bill a higher code so the net return is about the same.

In my experience with government for every great example there is another where huge amounts of time an money are wasted on paperwork and audits to prove money isn't being wasted or misspent. Government is also great at creating the appearance of work or progress, but rarely delivery of true value.

A lot of the decline is down to poor incentives. Failure is often seen as a reason to ask for more money rather than stopping a program. In many ways actual success is disincentivised. If a contractor delivers on time and on budget, then they have to bid a new contract rather than extend an existing one. If a program reduces homelessness it no longer needs the same level of funding because there are less homeless. When crime is low it's hard to justify a new SWAT team.

Pizza parties and healthcare are different ends of the spectrum. Bad healthcare is simply declining an offer, it's part of the compensation package being presented. A pizza party is fine for showing appreciation (better than cheap swag), I would run from a company that adds this in their compensation package though.

Maybe if you spend that in a month and only play for a month. Whale territory isn't even affordable for average people.

Red flag laws often have some or all of these problems.

-No Due process for the accused, so guns are simply taken from innocent people and the first they know is when a cop shows up.

-No process to return taken guns or ammo after a specified period.

-Doesn't prevent acquiring new weapons.

-Little or no credibility requirements for red flags.

-These laws often don't require any sort of conviction or charge, so it's a lot like civil asset forfeiture in that it takes things from innocent people.

Banking is ripe for a tech disruption, there's honestly a lot of things that are higher tech in banks than outsiders realize. There's a very good chance in 5-10 years a tech forward bank becomes the dominant player by a lot. An already large bank could pull this off, but I'd say that's less likely since they have to completely redefine their internal culture.

The economy also isn't a monolith, different sectors grow and shrink differently. The interest rates were so low that VC was way more attractive, but as rates tick up more traditional banking products will likely become more attractive. Banks took a beating in 2008, because it was bad bank policy that crashed the market, that isn't the case this time.

Every useful technology has some level of Bureaucratic regulations attached to it. there are very few exceptions and they don't hurt any sort of growth or innovation. Cars, planes, electric outlets, the internet, radio, television, railways, and more are all regulated to some degree. There are as many examples of regulations driving innovation as there are limiting it.

That's a pretty huge leap. Just because a design existed before regulation doesn't mean you can keep making it after the regulation. I would be surprised if Apple was allowed to keep selling non-USB-C phones manufactured in winter 2024 or 2025. They will likely be allowed to sell existing inventory, maybe offer refurbished phones that aren't compliant.

It's basically nothing. Using weight for nuclear waste is largely for FUD. The volume is really small for the weight we are talking an American football field 10ft deep for the lifetime of US waste. There's no solution because there isn't a meaningful amount of waste to bother with yet.

The US navy has hundreds of reactors doing just that now...

It's really not, they just get a pass on disposal because it's not scary enough. Used windmill blades are going to be an actual problem in the near future, but no renewable company has to buy land to hold 100 years of turbine blades or solar panels.

Nuclear waste only exists as a problem to kill investment. We'd just dump it deep in the ocean, but it's too valuable for future use (unlike renewable waste).

Using my experience with a ICE Chevrolet from 20k-120k miles basically nothing big happened before 100k, especially nothing that wouldn't happen in an EV. One set of tires replaced, front brakes, and a couple tire alignments. I did transmission fluid and spark plugs at 100k, and had a catalytic converter replaced and a coolant leak after 100k. None of that went to a dealership though.

You are already miserable, what you wrote is fixed by contentment, not necessarily money. The question is the $300 now making you less miserable than using that money to pay off debt sooner or see a savings account go up again? Would you be happier in six months with $1800 less debt, would that free up more money by removing a payment?

Small stuff isn't always the problem, but for a lot of people it is. Some people need bigger changes, but those are often scary.

The problem is generally those that believe debt is an investment. It's like believing professional gambler is a long term profession. People don't get rich taking out debt, banks do. You can beat the house once in a while, but you aren't winning over a lifetime of buying things with debt. 2-3 targeted purchases, you can win, a lifetime of car payments and you lost a ton.

If every pc comes with a free live in support person then sure. You likely have better hardware than the windows 10 PC and have spent far more time an effort in the last year keeping your PC up to date, where the windows PC had none of that.

Debtors only benefit from inflation if their pay actually goes up. If you were making $15/hour 1 year ago and still making $15/hour now, you just get fucked.

There is only the vehicle space. Any sort of electric vehicle space is just a niche hobby space like drag cars or classic cars. we are just seeing the most likely scenario play out, once tesla gets serious competition from big manufacturers they start to fade. Hopefully the U.S. gets a standard charging law to force super chargers to be more open like in Europe.

Sure. Just make sure you can pay the tax stamp, the cost of the weapon, have property to put it on that is capable of storing an explosive according to local regulations, and can ship to that property which probably requires more permits.

Mental health is a talking point, but it's a really good one. The U.S. dismantled their mental health systems in the 80s. It was well justified at the time as there were a number of human rights issues around torture and indefinite detention. Now the pendulum has swung too far the other way and problematic individuals are essentially impossible to hold anywhere. There is a definite need to have facilities that can hold people for potentially prolonged periods, but aren't prisons.

Liability insurance just means rich people have guns. the people who would most benefit from guns for self defense, low income people in high crime areas, would be excluded from gun ownership due to excessive costs. The police also aren't the answer as they have no duty to actually protect you, and have shown repeatedly that they will simply wait for overwhelming force while a shooter is killing people.

Gun registrations just tell the government, or anyone who can access the registration where to get guns. Registrations don't stop anything and only serve to create more criminals from otherwise innocent people if they don't file paperwork on time. Also, in the U.S. any form of government list of people is heavily suspect regardless of guns, a vast majority of people simply don't want anything that can let the government easily track them. Social Security is barely tolerated for keeping massive amounts of seniors from starving to death, even then the creation of the SSN was hugely controversial.

That's a stupid reason to have a loan, unless you really like paying banks more than the government. It's still a loss to you with the tax deduction.

I doubt this would work. Credit reports are for lenders, and credit bureaus side with their true customer.

MI hasn't had any real budget issues for a decade. There was a brief period early in the pandemic when things were looking grim, but the feds flooded sates with money.

The problem is a lack of education more than anything. People simply believe that plastic = bad, despite the fact plastic bags should probably be about the last plastic thing banned. Plastic bags take a miniscule amount of energy to make and can be thrown away and captured in a landfill indefinitely after that. Now we get varying levels of "reusable" bags that cost more economically and environmentally and the break even point is basically non existent. "A few months" of forgetting bags means the average person likely consumed more energy in reusable bags that weren't re-used than years of plastic bags. Plastic bag bans are spending dollars to save pennies, most of these laws really just make people feel better rather than provide actual benefits.

Want to save the environment? lets focus on electrifying power tools and standardizing batteries so there is less gas used and e-waste. Let's encourage insulating old buildings. We should reward reduced packaging, more bulk purchase options. Doors should be required on coolers in grocery stores. Require greywater systems in new or renovated buildings. Mandate usage of native plant species for lawns/green areas. limit dilution of water based products.

I think there are going to be two periods remembered in 2008-2022. The 2008-2012-15 where interest rates were made low to prevent a depression and it worked. The the 2012-15-2022 period where interest rates were kept abnormally low because politicians didn't want to be blamed for hurting the stock market causing a bubble that pops when interest rates are forced to rise.

I've heard of something like this being used to buy priority for a dev team to work, but expanding a similar system to scheduling meetings would be interesting. the biggest problem would probably be "meetings" become informal things to get around the rules rather than improve practices.

Police in the US are allowed to enforce what they believe is the law, it need not have any relation to actual law.

The results of this have been pretty bad. The chosen members rarely all met, attendance was a huge problem. They delivered the final decision well past their deadline to do so, and the process went over budget. The final map changed the overall outcome from Republican favored, to somewhat republican favored. Democrats sued because majority minority districts were removed.

The election will prove the final results, but the process so far has been pretty bad to get what appear to be not significantly different results.

1) More grip options are more accessible, and allow a familiar feel between two different guns.

2) safer than trying to fight with a knife directly.

3) More convenient storage, support for differently sized people to safely use a firearm.

4) Prevent blinding flashes of light.

5) allow a suppressor to be attached which prevents hearing loss.

6) launching flares for locating without direct LOS.

7) reduced recoil for better accuracy or smaller/weaker people to safely use a gun.

8) Similar to 7.

9) similar to 1.

10) safety, accessibility, increased accuracy

These bans tend to only ever make guns more dangerous or less accessible. The fact some people may be able to also buy a gun that looks (not works) like some military forearm is irrelevant.