Yeah...it was a bad joke based on similar statements said in all seriousness by right wing representatives bragging about how easy they made development, and how much they were pro business. Now that deaths are reported, I retracted it. I thought the building was empty when I wrote it.
That said, if it is a 'failure to meet code' issue, then at least the 'code enforcement' part would be on point, even if in extremely bad taste.

12 cm is huge if only some parts sank and others didn't. That's why I always found downtown Houston scary, all those high rises built before 90 are sinking at different rates. They have tunnels connecting some that were flat when built and now are all ramps, some too steep to use! Yikes!

Says who though? That's a narrative, fed from the media, tightly controlled by the CCP. Yes, people's lives are in general getting better materially. But people knows they have little freedom to criticize the government in public, but that doesn't mean it's "part of the bargain." There's just no means to disagree with the CCP without risking life & limbs. But those that got treated so badly that they felt there's nothing left to lose? Oh they do "rise up", whether you can hear about it, that's another matter entirely.

Chinese (as a whole people) don't "rise up (at least enough)" beause they see the financial benefit of China's explosive growth, and in general, you won't get into the CCP radar/ire if you're a regular citizen just going on your day. But the vast majority of Chinese knows they're far from catching up to anywhere near the G7/10 standard. So their focus is on that (the financial end), not toppling the CCP. They're more pragmatists than idealists.

Make no mistake, the G7 is ALSO part of the problem by enabling the CCP due of the immense financial gains and just pay lip service to "human right abuses" in China to score domestic points.

The Chinese (and the CCP) saw what happened to the U.S.S.R. and they don't want the "Western world" to "rescue" them. As they know the one thing the Western World does best is Abandonment.

Derp.
I've seen dozens of reports of increases in the 1000-1500% range, and millions just dropped with nothing....but even your lowball +30% per year is still impossible to absorb and insane increases.

Water damage not hurricane related include flooding from sea level rise and more powerful storms outside hurricane season.

You ijit....more and stronger hurricanes ARE a component of global warming, as are flood events not from hurricanes, stronger storms, and higher flood tides.

Dummy.... Of the top 5 years with the most hurricanes on record since 1851, 4 were since 2005. Absolutely there are more hurricanes on average since 2000. You need to learn how to read a graph, and to not cherry pick data by discarding any you don't like or stopping the tally before major changes started. More dishonest Bob.

If it's from the dollar dropping (no where near 50%, the dollar index went from 110 -90 since 2000, CPI from $1722-$2634) why didn't they explode under Bush when it dropped as low as 72, and why didn't they drop when Obama brought that back to 102?

Answer: because you're totally full of it, as usual.
The company's themselves say it's from higher payouts due to more, stronger storms causing more damage....Many abandoning the market for other states....not because the dollar is weak. That's nonsense.

Remember that time you said if climate change and sea level rise were real, insurance in places like Florida would skyrocket or disappear. Guess what.

Not only has it skyrocketed like I told you was happening back then, but many companies have now just left places like Florida altogether because it costs them far too much to payout over flooding and extreme weather events that are now regular occurrences.

My guess....you'll ignore what you claimed, ignore what the companies say, and ignore the data that's undeniable and blame liberals for faking the insurance fiasco and faking constant repeated flooding and extreme weather decimating many areas, especially coastal and low lying areas....or you'll just deny things are demonstrably worsening.

What I know for certain, you won't admit you were/are wrong, and won't accept any responsibility for dragging your feet and obstructing vital progress with unending stubborn denial of reality and making the situation exponentially worse and the time to mitigate it exponentially shorter.

Where you start greatly impacts where you end up.

One party wants to offer 4 more years of public education, and your party is dead set against it.

Yes, there are plenty of poor white people, but far more poor blacks per capita by race.

The fix is multi fold with many unknowns, but an equal justice system where black defendants aren't 10 times more likely to go to prison based on the same evidence and circumstances would be a great start. Many fathers are MIA because they're in prison for minor drug offences while white defendants of similar charges usually get probation.

Pay better attention, the issue now is people don't want those low paying jobs and companies can't fill them, not a lack of them.

Lack of roads and bridges and electricity and an educated work force kill jobs and GDP. There are more than enough infrastructure jobs to do to jot only keep the entire construction industry busy for decades, there are constantly more as infrastructure ages. They may be part time projects, they are full time permanent jobs.

Look at GDP last year, fool. Under those tax cuts we had the largest drop in GDP ever. Holy fuck! The total rise in GDP under Trump is barely 1% in 4 years, disastrous, not flourishing.

Your dad didn't go to prison for fitting the description.

Just like not all those white kids had all those head starts, not all black kids have none. They needed to work harder and overcome more in almost all cases to be successful, and had to defend their right to success repeatedly, just ask one. Sports superstars are under what, 2000 people, not all of which make millions. Exceptions often prove the rule.....Remember his question about going to school on a non athletic scholarship? Relegating people to one or two professions they are allowed to be successful in based on race is definitely racist.

Edit: Studies show professional whites make about 1/3 more than blacks and even more compared to Hispanics even as lawyers, and whites make up over 85% of lawyers and 60% of the population while blacks are about 5% of lawyers and over 18% of population.
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/a_law_degree_provides_a_larger_earnings_boost_to_whites_than_minorities_res
https://www.mycase.com/blog/aba-2019-report-lawyer-demographics-earnings-tech-choices-and-more/
The head starts never end.

The people working minimum wage hated it enough that they aren't going back and businesses can't find low wage employees....so.....

Wow, we agree on your last point. Your party, and definitely Trump absolutely disagree 100%. Their agenda is to ensure that is never the case but instead (successfully) argue that affluenza should excuse even murder and should definitely shield them from any lesser charge.

@bobknight33, does it make you feel manly posting these highly edited videos making fun of an old man for having mostly overcome a speech impediment? A man who, despite this impediment and growing up poor managed to earn a law degree and rise to the most powerful position on earth. IMO, it doesn’t make you sound manly.
What made you that way?
Why did you choose ignore far worse from Trump when, from him, it was not a speech impediment but a mental disorder and character flaw, but now seem to believe a slight stammer is something to ridicule?

BTW @bobknight33, his statistics are pure bullshit, totally made up figures, pure *lies.

For instance, the actual divorce rate is 39% or less and dropping, not 67% and rising. In 2019 divorce rates hit a 50 year low, and are expected to drop precipitously when 2020 statistics are released.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/marriage-divorce.htm
https://www.businessinsider.com/alarming-facts-about-divorce-in-the-us
https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-us-divorce-rate-has-hit-a-50-year-low

It follows that, with the easiest statistic to verify so incredibly wrong-not just nearly doubled but he also got the trend totally backwards, every statistic he quotes is certainly made up in the same dishonest way with zero factual basis.....Like most everything you post.

Bob, why are you such a constant liar? Everything you post is, at best, total misrepresentations of fact and far more often, like this, pure hateful lies coming from a place of weakness and infantile hatred for anyone not a conservative white male. What happened to you that makes you abhor truth and facts along with women and non whites? No, really....what happened? It must be a good story to have this kind of impact on you.

I'm regurgitating the numbers Dr Birx used, and comparing our outbreak to other nations that took it seriously like S Korea and New Zealand. If we had used the same serious action S Korea had, our death rate per 100000 would be an astonishing 1/60th of what our death rates were in the first 6 months or so. Just universal mask wearing would have cut our deaths by an estimated >1/4, 130000 fewer deaths, and slowed the rate of new cases significantly, but Trump fought against them.

Here's the link on that data...., granted slightly dated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/23/how-many-coronavirus-deaths-are-truly-attributable-trump/

Remember, the Whitehouse said 100000-240000 possible deaths, around the same time Trump said deaths would never rise over 20000, using the lower of those numbers and blaming Trump's policies for the excess we are >80% his fault now, using Trump's promised numbers over 96% are blood on his hands.

There's also the fact that after knowing about the uncontrolled epidemic in WuHan Trump let over 40000 people (just not Chinese nationals) back in the country from that region with no tests available and no quarantine except for those obviously extremely sick. An immediate and actual travel lockdown could have made our deaths zero, and definitely would have made them exponentially lower.

Then there's the dismantling of the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit he closed that likely could have identified the outbreak in China much earlier and again, made our numbers zero. It's exactly what they were created to avoid.

I honestly feel 80- 90% was being generous, in fact there's a real possibility that a thoughtful adult president would have made any number of intelligent decisions, any one of which could have avoided the pandemic altogether or minimized infections enormously, even minimizing the Chinese epidemic.

I do agree, Biden is doing much better at taking it seriously and acting like rapid vaccination is important, but still isn't doing enough. I would prefer an enforced national mask mandate, mandatory social distancing, school closings until vaccination saturation, etc until we have herd immunity....not half assed measures like 50% capacity at bars and restaurants, with few business shutdowns and zero enforcement, pretending it's over every time infection rates dip.

Way I see it, while Trump is a major contributor to USA Covid-19 deaths, yes, but the MAIN reason is the overly libertarian, short-term economics driven policy and false "human right/freedom" anti-masking rhetoric that caused the rise of the pandemic to the levels countries like the USA & Brazil is at. There are many levels of government, people's behavior and economic factors to blame, not just Trump.

Just calling it the "China virus" doesn't solve the pandemic, nor absolve Trump of blame, he hardly ever tried to get things under control.

All Trump did was letting 0%/low tax paying Wall street mega-corporations profiting handsomely during the pandemic, while the mom & pop main street stores & its staff going under. You know, because MAGA!

The kool-aid drinking fanaticism on both sides is crazy.

Donald Trump: 'I Could ... Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters'

The exact same could be said about Biden, and you morons would argue at least it wasn't Trump...

Biden's quote would be more like : Hmheenmeh shoot mehehenhebu 120 years in senate boobolblb watch hair rise meheh sniff sniff.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9441641/Biden-wants-RESTART-construction-Trumps-border-wall-plug-gaps-DHS-head-Mayorkas-says.html

You Americans are really the entertainers of the world. Mabe you guy's should stop being clowns and become mimes, then atleast you would shut up for a change.

Bob, as much as this'll surprise you, I totally agree with what you're saying. The distribution of the stimulus money to couples making up to $150,000 is friggen ridiculous -- and I'm in that category. I will do what I did with the last two checks: give to local charities helping the homeless and communities of color (as much as I hate that term).

The worst part of this is that it sets up a liquidity trap. The Fed can't reduce buying crap debt (that BBB dogshit is at 4% should terrify anyone who understands how debt and the rating agencies work), nor can they allow rates to rise (thus totally screwing responsible savers). This is the cusp of a financial disaster that blew past 1929 on 9/17/19 and is now approaching the cataclysm of the South Seas Company collapsing. As far as I can see, this is a total melt-up in the markets because there's no stable returns and everyone is now in speculation mode.

Were it my call, I would scale the money along income (or non-income) lines: $10k for the lowest incomes, sliding scale from there. I'd also set up government-backed savings accounts that pay 10% for those people and only those people. I'd also pay off/down student debt along the same income scales.

I do not begrudge the wealthy for their wealth. But capitalism can't be a winner-take-all system. We live in a society, and society will always have winners and losers. The least we can do is ease the burden for those at the bottom by taking some from the top. I'm tired of the homeless camps and mentally-ill people wandering the streets of Seattle. They are the least of us and thus should be the ones who get the most help.

It bears noting that more people are born here than left, even when you subtract deaths the population is still growing. Note, there's a housing shortage of near 4 million according to them, if California was the failed state they pretend it is, there would be a housing glut.

It also bears noting that with all the "anti business" regulations California remains the fifth largest economy in the world. Note how many billionaires that made their fortunes here are in the exodus crowd, California produces billionaires like a product.

I lost count how many times they mentioned Austin as a main destination, but I know Texans, and especially Austonians, HATE Californians and for decades have complained that Californians have ruined Austin, over regulated everything, and made it nearly uninhabitable. It also bears mention that one reason the state went dark and dry is they privatized their utilities with little oversight and predictably those companies deferred repairs and upkeep. That's pretty bad for business....so is the less skilled and educated workforce.

Don't let these dishonest people fool you, San Francisco is not representative of the state, and using it as a measure of housing costs is as dishonest as can be.

I noticed, most people leaving make under $100000 per year and can expect to make less where ever they go, while most moving here make over $100000 a year and can expect their earnings to rise.

This piece was incredibly biased.

Sorry to be the little grey raincloud on this Hate The Hedges party, but you might want to understand the implications of what just happened

Y'know that fund that's getting all attention, Melvin Capital? Yeah, fuck them, right? Fuckin' shorters all shortin' and shit -- they played, they paid!

There's a reason they were bailed out and with all due haste.

Here's the issue: they were VERY good at the shorting game. So good that they actually had to turn away business. They made money like horses makes shit. When clients couldn't get in at Melvin, they went elsewhere. That opened the door to a lot of other firms basically mirroring exactly what MC was doing, which included shorting the fuck outta GME.

Fuck those guys too, right? It's their money, so why should I care?

Let's go back a few year, shall we, to the glorious chapter in finance and economics that was the 2008 Crash. Remember when Paulson lost his shit because he realized that in about 36 hours, the basic system called Western Capitalism was going to shit the bed; the bedroom; the whole house and pretty much every surface above the ocean within a planetary radius? This is sorta like that. Only worse.

The thing about short squeezes is that the losses can be infinite, and that's exactly why WallStreetBets did what they did. They knew if they bought and held -- diamond hands -- the stock would have to rise as the shorters had to cover their bets. Melvin Capital and a shit-ton of other, smaller firms had to do that and ran out of liquidity long before GME was even at $50. For every share of stock they shorted, they need to cough up another share at a higher value -- and they HAD to actually have the higher-priced share.

And here's where things get VERY ugly.

Shorting GME was such a sure thing that a huge number of shorts were placed. In fact, more shares of GME were shorted than actually existed. Oops. But hey, SURE THING, BABY and what's the worst that can happen?

Yeeeah, y'see where this is going now?

So these firms, not only are they broke, they don't have the shares, either. They need to come up with shares, pronto, at any price, because contractual obligations are a motherfucker in the finance world. But again, more shorts than there are shares and the people who have the shares, WSB and 4chan's /biz/, aren't letting them go. The longer they hold, the higher the price will go as short after short faces having to cough up the shares they borrowed.

A lot of people are about to lose a LOT of money -- the kinda losses that have so many zeros attached that looking at the number bores the eyes.

Back to 2008: the reason the whole world almost started Mad Max LARPing back then is that a narrow number of highly-important financial institutions were a wee bit thin on liquidity because they were having to pay it out by the boatload. That's bad. What would be better is if risk were more distributed, and how could that little plan POSSIBLY go wrong? Maybe a Black Swan event involving a huge amount of money that needs to be paid out by all of them due to this annoying bird.

That's where we are now, but no one even remotely knows what that figure is going to be. Again, (potentially) infinite losses multiplied by 150% times the number of shares actually available, multiplied by the dogshit risk factor on the loans and the leveraged payouts -- your best case scenario might be a loss of about $500 billion. Someone has to come up with that money, be it the Fed or other banks/investors, but that latter group has to come up with the money themselves, which is generally accomplished by selling profitable holdings. We all know what happens when a lot of people have to sell, right?

I always wanted to live in interesting times, thus proving what an utter fuckwit I am.

Trickle up. A rising tide lifts all boats.