Or put another way, have the unemployed been able to afford to eat at Chipotles up until this point? Strong doubt.

The beginning of the end.

• they have mobility needs that are incompatible with local transit and/or make typical cars more expensive.
• they have family/other needs that mean they need a safer, more reliable car.
• they will lose their job if they are ever late, so need to prioritize reliability.
• they work multiple jobs, and/or have other requirements (child care, elder care, etc) that are incompatible with transit in their area and/or cannot be out off while a car is getting repaired.
• they are unable to DIY repair older used cars, cannot accommodate potentially extreme repair bills, and can’t assess if an older car is reliable to buy in the first place.
• the financing company will not give them a loan for something that doesn’t have enough value to avoid depreciating past the point of recouping losses over the life of the lease.
• the insurance company will not insure older cars at a rate that is doable for the driver.
• they don’t have the lump sum savings to buy a car outright, and loans are the only way to go to be able to continue to live and meet their life demands.

The truth is, I’m making ragù.

Or as useful.

Schwarzkopf didn’t stay away from military matters completely, however. In 2003, the retired four-star general spoke out against the invasion of Iraq under President George W. Bush.

There you go folks, Pete just said you can criticise the president.

95% of the income is concentrated in 10% of the population

New feudal overloads: “Seems about right!”

Hello kiddo!

Yom HaZikaron!

It’s a fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-Flavour Bomb!

This has been a great, unifying distraction from the Epstein files

Llike all men of power, when he talked of prices worth paying, you could be sure of one thing. Someone else was paying.

Pull on the new flesh like borrowed gloves and burn your fingers once again.

a divided US appeals court

…

… the law on this point has been clear for nearly a century.

Good gravy, what a mess…

Isn’t this just a tax? Probably a badly designed one, and I’m sure it breaks the Constitution, but otherwise what’s the big deal?

Is the issue then that college is useless? Or that it is just too expensive?

Very good point. It seems crazy that this keeps happening, right? My current favourite hypothesis is from “Power and Progress” by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson:

If everybody becomes convinced that artificial-intelligence technologies are needed, then businesses will invest in artificial intelligence, even when there are alternative ways of organizing production that could be more beneficial.

Add to that sunk cost (these firms invested in this tech, and maybe fired the paralegals that used to do this work, so they need to use the tech), and fundamental attribution error (those other lawyers failed using AI because of something fundamentally a part of their selves, I am only fail when there are external factors getting in the way of my self) and you get a recipe for seemingly irrational behaviour on repeat.

Now, if your lawyer (because they fired their paralegals) asks ChatGPT something while working on your case, can their queries be used against you?

Ah, but those Americans are mostly Democrats so they aren’t really Americans and are gonna lose their citizenship and be deported soon anyway. /S

Almost everywhere these days sadly. If there are exceptions, I’m not aware of them. Tax codes are globally under fire because companies see them as an impediment to profitability, and not the foundation for how society functions and thus allows business to function.