If you want to convince me, you’re going to have to do one hell of a lot better than that silliness. He clearly went to the right wing propagandist school of YouTube even though he seems to imply he’s a liberal.

I’ll tackle one…the bread price fixing claim. He worked for a consulting company, the companies that are hired by failing and struggling businesses to suggest solutions and often that means cut their staffs in half to try to save the company…bad ones then sell all the assets, bankrupt the companies intentionally, and escape any obligations to the employees. There’s no indication the company he worked for did that (that I know of). They did apparently consult for a grocery store chain that, also apparently, was involved in bread price fixing at or near the same time his company was being consulted. It’s ridiculous to believe they REPORTED that crime to the outside consulting firm they hired.
Trying to tie one corporate customer’s unrelated crimes to Pete because you can string a tenuous thread between them (with many pegs between) is pretty damn dishonest. So is saying Pete never answered questions about it, he absolutely did…it was in the video.

Massive layoffs….I didn’t get that far, stopped around 7 min in…but that’s what consulting firms often do. If companies are failing because they’re way over staffed, they suggest layoffs to save at least 1/2 the jobs. Not always successfully.

I don’t know what ICE is if it’s not immigration cops, and I don’t know what he would have to do with it, but I’m not going to keep listening to these convenient edits and hyperbolic claims in the video. I can’t stand the narrator, nor can I trust him.

I’m not claiming Pete is perfection incarnate. I’m saying it would be nice to have a president who’s driven to public service, is insanely intelligent, is well spoken and polite, likeable, and young enough to have to live with the consequences of their own leadership, and that those are all positive traits we’ve been lacking of late.

If youre a normal country you are always living on credit, if for no other reason, then because it is super easy and cheap to borrow. Also you have to, to make it to the next pay check (tax collection). First your subjects have to produce and sell, then you can collect taxes.

You dont base the value of the dollar on anything. You offer it as a commodity to the market. If your economy sucks or you print too much money the dollar goes down, which can help the economy. Printing money doesnt automatically help the economy though, it just creates space and time to make it possible for the economy to improve.

Improving the economy means creating more or better products and services that are in demand at a competitive cost. Governments in non-dictatorial countries cant really do that directly, they can only create the conditions for this to happen.

Moderate inflation hardly plays a part, except as a moderator (is that a pun?) of shocks. Deflation (and a strong gold standard in a developing economy IS deflation) is deadly, it makes the economy less flexible, less able to adjust.

If you never improve your ecomomy, all you will have left will be to bitch about inflation.

What is too much debt, too much inflation, too much intervention? I wish economics was a science.

Theoretically the economy can get to be so bad that the structure collapses, there are countries which have notoriously bad historical records, and yet every time they restart they have to borrow money to get things going again. Reserves in general are useless. Production, services and a functioning market, recursive production of valuable goods and services which freely and easily find customers is the only thing you can consider a reliable pillar of civilization. Currency is one of those goods and services.

If for any reason yor currency cant freely circulate (see China or the USSR errr... Russia) you can hardly be a superpower, at least not in the economic sense.

Adopting a gold standard so strong that it would destroy the international dollar standard has no advantage for the USofA or for any developed first world country. Even just having the Euro wreaks havoc in weaker European countries economies, but that is another can of worms.

A lot of what is wrong about the gold standard would apply if a country decided to adopt bitcoin as its sole currency btw.

So, time to end the subsidies and tax breaks for Tesla then. No more government handouts for them.

They’re not going to be so dominant when actual competition is available, coming soon from every maker. (High demand, low inventory, double sticker price gas cars aren’t a fair comparison.).
They also wouldn’t be so profitable if they paid taxes.

It was not a good move to program the self driving unit to run stop signs. (Yes, they programmed it to just “rolling stop” at stop signs recently which is not just illegal it’s also dangerous.). That’s the kind of upgrade you get with Tesla, without warning. How many recalls now?

Also not a good move for Elon to admit he’s far right, pro corporate subsidy, anti tax. It alienates most of his customers.

They should subpoena his customer list. He’s selling burglary tools, and not just to first responders (should be limited to actual police/fire departments and locksmiths IMO)….and putting out videos describing how to break into businesses.
If there’s a sudden rash of business break ins with no door damage he should be charged as an accomplice. I can’t believe he sells multiple burglary tools on his site, I thought he just proved how bad most padlocks are, I never saw him do a breaking and entering how to before. Yikes!
It should be noted, just getting caught with burglary tools can be a 6 month sentence in California.

*doublepromote

oh and i made a custom thumbnail if anyone has any ideas how to swap these - keep getting invalid file name or type or blah blah i dont care enough anymore here's the link. (tried gif bmp and jpg all with different file names, dunno)

https://imgur.com/a/PiHrRHM

Mate, if those two got any closer together, that LIGO would be detecting the birth of a new black hole somewhere in the Sol system.

I used to love Church: a dinner of Taco Bell burritos, a wooden pew, and the word of Christ. Clench, lean 15 degrees to the left, relax your sphincter and PUSH! The silence that is golden will last about 10 seconds before the retching and piling out the doors brings an end to today's sermon. That's when you snatch the collection plate and bolt out the back door.

I lost a major source of income when I became an atheist.

Did you know Taco Bell delivers? At least in Seattle they do. I have to wonder what life choices lead to the terminus of hauling two dollar food between source and the customer 25 miles away. Yeah, that $5 tip will more than pay for gas, upkeep, insurance and oil changes on that riced-out K car you've been driving since The Pet Shop Boys were still popular.

Also, "...blahblah whining and such..." -- look, if I want unfair criticism of a job well-done, I'll ask my clients to pay up. That's primo Gonzo humor you're tut-tutting and you paid exactly nothing to enjoy it. Y'know who else was a cheap ingrate? HITLER! Why ya gotta by like Hitler, Moonsammy -- IF THAT IS YOUR REAL NAME. I have my doubts on this topic, by the way.

Hey, what's Bob up to? I always enjoy a cheap laugh at the expense of the less fortunate.

(seriously dude -- I can hold 1:1 with a Clydesdale for an hour and have enough left in the tank to draw a standing ovation at Centurylink Field.)

Well-the customer is also saying--isn't he?--that it's the wrong lumber load? he wanted 4x4s and it's a load of 4X6s??

Your video, Mechanic Takes Customer's New C8 Corvette on 148mph race, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 48 Badge!

was gonna post this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5DEGa0_AAo

...but thought it was appropriate in the discussion.

it's a public safety issue. easy to see if one looks at the actual reality of the situation.

Here are a few of the values listed in the Denver Police Department Operations Manual*...

- Integrity: Faithful performance of our duties and always doing the right thing for the right reason
- Accountability: Demonstrating responsibility in all activities
- Respect: Treating others as we would like to be treated
- Customer Service: Exceeding our customers’ expectations

... so if they ask employees in retail to wear masks, factory workers for drug tests, or a hairdresser to pass hygiene training - it's not a stretch to ask a cop to get a vaccine. their own handbook calls for getting vaccinated.

again, public safety.


Can y̲o̲u̲ respect that?


* http://kpm106.com/LEO/LeoDocs/04-15book.pdf

That shit's "funny" online, but dealing with meth addicts in real life sucks more than you can ever possibly know. Potheads can be annoying, acid casualties are scary, cokeheads are cunts, drunks are a fight waiting to happen, but meth addicts are their own level of the abyss. Take raving paranoia, mix in terrifying levels of potential violence and remove any semblance of sanity and you've got your average meth addict going off the rails. I never used to carry a gun when I was on about my business ventures back in the 80s, but once meth showed up, I changed my tune on that matter. The pot business was handshakes and smiles, but the assholes dealing meth were always trouble and the more meth they were dealing, the more likely violence was. The only time I was ever involved in murder was because of a meth dealer. These assholes are ALWAYS trouble. They're trouble, their customers are more trouble than that and the guys who supply them are worse than the first two combined. I fucking hate meth and everyone involved with it.

https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-pay-1-million-blind-passenger-arbitration-discrimination-ada-2021-4?amp
> Uber employees who investigated possible incidents of discrimination were "trained ... to coach drivers to find non-discriminatory reasons for ride denials" and even to "'advocate' to keep drivers on the platform despite discrimination complaints."

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-uber-lawsuit-cruising-cap-20190920-5uvfu3q6czgyndcxbbgcxite74-story.html

Fuck UBER! deplorable and despicable company! Not just what was mentioned in this video, but also everything their CEO and management have done, encourage drug use, creating environment which tolerates and encourages sexual harassment, doxing reporters, doxing victims of rape by uber drivers, creating software to spy on customers, drivers, celebreties, gov't officials, drivers of competing services, etc etc etc

Don't know this Stossel guy (seems like a tool), but was always a fan of Mike Rowe, and also his initiative to get more workers in the trades.

I've seen plumbers (2-yr degree + certification) with higher hourly rates than lawyers (8-yr degree + bar exam). I also know a guy who makes more now as a general contractor than he did as a DBA (B.S. in Computer Science).
I think part of this is supply & demand- not as many tradespeople so the wages go up to hire those willing, and the cost of higher wages gets passed on to the customer.

But the point of this video isn't "should you go to college?", it's "the liberals want hard-working people to pay for college for all these liberal students", which is a false premise and why I can't upvote it.

I think community college should be taxpayer-funded for those students who want more than just high school. (but they should have to maintain certain GPA to remain free)
As far as other private Universities, they should be able to charge for it. Colleges that receive Federal or State money should have a cap on the rate that tuition can increase per year (maybe based on inflation). Over the past 20 years, most college tuition has gone up way more than inflation or wages.

Rather than student-loan forgiveness, I'd rather see a federal program that will help those students who couldn't finish school go back and get their degree (where it will pay for itself) or get a different degree. Most of this sub-$10k student debt they talk about is for students who never got their degree.