Jesus, Trump thinks he’s Walter White. I mean, Trump is a malignant narcissist, egomaniac, who is simultaneously a pathetic loser and a dangerous, power hungry, psychopath, but at least Heisenberg knew chemistry. Mr. White was at least educated, and he could run a successful business. Does Trump even know what chemistry is?
Occidental says the captured carbon will be stored in rock deep underground, but its website also refers to the company’s use of captured carbon in a process called “enhanced oil recovery.” This involves pushing carbon into wells to force out the hard-to-reach remnants of oil — allowing fossil fuel companies to extract even more from aging oil fields.
Well, they have to sell the carbon they capture to make money. If you suck up carbon and put it underground, where’s your revenue stream? The ground ain’t paying you to stuff it full of carbon. These big vacuums ain’t free, they have to pay for them somehow.
"Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy
Taking shape? Like it’s new? Like it’s only now just emerging? Jesus Christ, Biden…
Fucking neoliberal trash.
I hope by now everyone understands that you don’t need to be especially intelligent to be a multi billionaire.
The biggest factor pushing up egg prices is a wave of avian flu, which began in early 2022 and led to the culling of millions of egg-laying hens. With demand remaining steady, the reduced supply has caused prices to rise.
Supply and demand, folks. Supply and demand. Demand high, supply low? Price goes up. Supply high, demand low, prices goes down.
While prices are expected to ease from late 2024 highs, they will likely stay above pre-outbreak levels through 2025.
Or indefinitely. Once people get used to paying a higher price for eggs, what’s to stop the stores from keeping the prices relatively high, even if the wholesale price goes down? If a store can increase their profit margins on eggs, why wouldn’t they? Especially if the store is a large corporation, always looking to maximize profit and return for shareholders.
Some people might say, “competition will bring the price down. Once one store lowers their price to gain a competitive edge, other stores will have to follow or risk losing customers.” To this I say: who the hell comparison shops for eggs? Look, I’m sure some people do, but, if most people are like me, they’re not going to multiple stores to see who has the lowest price for a dozen eggs. I go to one store, my favorite store, and I just get the same eggs I’m used to getting. Even if I did want to comparison shop, not all stores are going to sell my preferred eggs (I know a lot of people will say, eggs are eggs, but I like cage free eggs even though it’s probably bullshit I like to think my eggs aren’t coming from chickens who are stuffed into those little wire cages all day), so it would be hard to do an apples to apples comparison.
Plus, as more and more stores become consolidated into fewer and fewer major retailer chains, even the theoretical idea of price regulation through competition goes out the window.
Because there’s plenty more where he came from.
Then after all the research and actual peer-reviews (not just for-profit journals having a say), policies would be made to support what makes for a better society.
Policies would be made by whom, though? The people, or democratically elected representatives of the people, can choose to make policies informed by peer-reviewed research, but they can also choose to ignore peer-reviewed research entirely. Here in the US it’s done all the time. Many of our politicians, and the people who vote them into office, often reject evidence and research based information that they find inconvenient or which runs counter to their world view.
I think this is very true, but how do we organize a society around science? Science can tell us many important things, but it can’t necessarily tell us what we should value or what is moral. There are very intelligent, educated people trying to develop moral and ethical frameworks, using critical thinking and reasoning, but how do we ensure those frameworks become the basis for society? Even in a democracy, the people can choose to adopt those moral and ethical frameworks (assuming the people are even aware they exist), but they can also choose not to. Of course that’s true of any ruler, so I’m not saying that’s unique to democracy, but I’m just saying that democracy doesn’t necessarily solve the problem of rulers ruling unethically.
There’s technocracy, but for a technocracy to function, wouldn’t the technocrats need to have a fairly significant amount of power? I don’t necessarily think that technocracy is completely antithetical to democracy, but the technocrats would need the authority to override the people, whenever the people would try to implement some policy that was unscientific, making the technocrats, not the people, the ultimate authority.
Probably jobs that didn’t need to exist in the first place. Unfortunately, people need the money, even if the jobs themselves aren’t necessary. It’s like in the Soviet Union where they would create superfluous jobs so that everyone could have a job, and an income.
His only comment on grocery prices was during his interview with Time magazine for his man of the year article in which he admitted that there isn’t much he can do to bring grocery prices back down to the levels of 2019. Economically, the only thing that will do that is a strong recession that no one wants.
This is what folks don’t seem to understand: prices only go back to where they were five or six years ago if there’s a recession, and a severe one at that. The Fed is trying to get inflation under control, but even if they’re successful, that doesn’t mean prices will come down, that only means prices won’t go up as quickly. Getting inflation under control means prices go up 2% per year instead of 2.5% or 3%. Trump can’t change any of this, and many of the policies he says he plans to implement would likely make it more difficult to get inflation down to the Fed’s 2% target.
TLDR, shit ain’t getting any less expensive unless there’s a pretty bad recession, and Trump can’t change that.
I suppose I’m happy for the economy. I mean, I’m glad it’s doing better than ever, I guess, but I’ve got my own issues. Sorry if that sounds selfish, but it’s just hard for me to get too excited for the economy when I’m stressed about my own situation.
All I’m saying is I don’t think the age verification requirement, in and of itself, is unreasonable. I’m not necessarily in opposition to better, more privacy-respecting verification methods, nor am I necessarily opposed to, for instance the age verification requirement being lifted until better age verification technology can be developed. All I’m saying is I personally do not find the age verification requirement itself to be unreasonable. That’s it.
I never said that it could.
Are you suggesting that it should be legal to sell alcohol to children so long as it’s not a lethal amount? Should a kid be able to buy a single beer? It’s not like it’s going to kill them.
What about selling physical media pornography in a store to children? Should that be legal? It’s not going to kill them. Should a kid be able to walk into a porn store and slap down his allowance for a copy of Hardcore Anal Superstars 2?
might want to get the fuck out of the USA pronto
Probably not a bad idea in general.
Several U.S. states have enacted laws requiring pornography sites, such as PornHub, to implement age verification to prevent minors’ access
Doesn’t seem too unreasonable. When I buy alcohol I have to provide verification that I’m over 21.
The thing is, how do they enforce it? People in those states can still access pornhub through a VPN. Plus, what about all the other many, many porn sites?
I get what they’re trying to do, but I think there are some logistics that haven’t really been thought out.
I don’t know why you think they give a rats ass about morality or democracy. I suppose because they say they value those things? I guess you’ve never heard of this thing people do called lying.
It would not collapse.
I don’t know how you can be so certain, but you could be right. It doesn’t make any difference, though, because that’s not what’s happening. Trump isn’t going to prison. If there’s something you think you can do to change that, go for it.
I think the political establishment is more concerned with maintaining stability than pursuing justice. They’re desperately trying to hold together a system that, as you point out, is falling apart. It may very well be a futile effort, but I understand why they’re doing it. Especially since our system was never really set up to prioritize justice in the first place.
I get that a lot of people are ready for the whole thing to just burn to the ground, and that might have always been inevitable, but if/when it does happen, it’s going to suck. A collapse of the United States wouldn’t be pleasant.
I would.
I know, but clearly not everyone would, and those are the people making the decision.
Society? Nature? It’s all just capital, to economists.
The creation of “value” requires destruction. You can’t have wood for tables and chairs and houses without cutting down the forest. You can’t have electric devices without copper or gold or quartz, that have to be mined from the Earth. And you can’t have any of it without energy. No value, NO VALUE, can be created without energy. And the majority of the energy we need to create value comes from fossil fuels that must be extracted from the Earth, and that emit gases that change the composition of our atmosphere.
Destruction is necessary for the production of the things that we value. That being said, it is possible for that destruction to be made sustainable. For instance: don’t cut down trees faster than new trees can grow. It is possible for value to be created sustainably, but NOT under an infinite growth paradigm. There is no such thing as sustainable infinite growth. Infinite growth, by its nature, is not sustainable. Infinite growth requires infinite energy and materials, and we DO NOT have access to an infinite supply of either.
We’re going to learn this lesson, one way or another.