CPI is a cooked up government statistic, used in contracts and agreements (including social security) that unconditionally favors the governments position. For example it does not include energy or housing costs.
They also add and remove items from the CPI index, to remove ones that inflate and add ones such as consumer electronics that deflate.
Check out the chapwood index or a different unbiased inflation metric.
The 'ponzi scheme' argument reeks of desperation when entire generations of Americans are going to witness the greatest ponzi scheme of all time, state sponsored social security, collapse.
Hey! look at this (maybe a) truck far off in the distance that might hit you while a different truck is 5 feet away from hitting you from behind.
Don't be flippant - both sides of the political spectrum work together under the facade of opposing sides. Now Trump just pulled a pied piper and led these people into the capital with which both sides will now try to use this manufactured situation to consolidate power.
How is it that everyone here is all about game theory except when it matters ? And yes, America is in distress.
speaking of jumping the shark, have you seen what governments have been up to lately ?
interest rates at a 5,000 year low, moral hazard abound & global fiat collapse imminent in the best case and in the worst case we have banks/elites/governments who are going to be looking to further enslave those in debt and forced out of business/work with some dystopian debt forgiveness scheme involving a 'vaccine' schedule and travel restrictions or whatever else (use your imagination).
the truth is that everything mentioned in these comments was an argument that had already been had years ago - the markets reflect that - but i did enjoy reading the last sentence of your original comment and thinking to myself "am I reading Time Magazine ?"
1) trying to distract the above problems by pointing out other issues doesn't make them go away
2) you talk about fiat collapse being imminent...USDT is worth far less than any fiat (see: nothing) I don't get how these ardent fiat haters don't see their entire ecosystem has been coopted by something that has infinitely less value than the thing they so despise
Seems to me like you're tacitly agreeing with GP here - you're just making a claim about which currency system you trust more! (And attempting to convince others of the same position.)
And there is the hint to the rational mind that you ought to take notice of the sector.
Why is the status quo 'elephant' saying anything at all about the crypto 'ant' ?
Let the states that will never get their way in a "fixed" elector college, secede.
To mess with the electoral college in this point in time - when its basically 49% vs 51% - and at such a level of divide in the country is not exactly a testament to how empathetic the two sides are. It would be a disaster.
Everyone thinks Trump himself is the problem but this awful idea to change the goalposts literally to win elections would do way more damage than Trump could ever do but I guess it doesn't come in an 'easy to hate' package with agenda serving talking points, etc.
I don't know where these idiots think this whole "OK - we'll follow these laws, but not those" thing is going but it is incredibly damaging and at the moment only one side is picking and choosing which laws to obey and not obey (then writing publicly about it) but soon enough the other side will be picking and choosing which laws to ignore.
Get your helmets on once we are on _that_ slippery slope.
By your logic there can never be a suitable time for democratic reform. The current political situation can only get worse until the united states becomes more democratic or more authoritarian.
That doesn’t follow. Even in recent history, most Presidents command large electoral vote majorities. In my life time, 7 of 10 elections ended in a more than 60-40 margin in the electoral college, including both Obama wins.
What difference does that make? It's either moving the goal posts so your team can win if they're out of power or it's entrenching your team's position if they have power. Either way is an outrage to someone, and so any reform comes at the wrong time.
I took the OP’s argument to mean that, even if you can get a consensus that the electoral college should be changed, people should hesitate to do so where close races mean that the change will be outcome determinative for particular races. My point is that we still routinely have candidates winning massive electoral college majorities. If people otherwise were in agreement that a change was warranted (note that more than 50% of republicans supported abolishing the electoral college as recently as 2012), there are still opportunities to change the system where it won’t change the result of the current election.
This movement predates Donald Trump by decades, I don’t really think you can paint it in that light UNLESS you are putting him up as a strawman, as the legislator quoted in the article clearly was.
> Let the states that will never get their way in a "fixed" elector college, secede.
Why has every one abandoned the idea of federalism? The whole point was that you could have your way and I could have mine; we only had to agree on the bare minimum tasks which absolutely had to be handled at the federal level.
If California wants socialized medicine and Texas does not, fine. Why can't they do it on the state level? I see no reason. This has the double benefit of allowing experimenting with different solutions before committing on a national scale.
This shouldn't be a "red state/blue state" issue. The only reason why it would be is if you are hellbent on ramming your positions down the throats of those with whom you disagree. What so many forget is that when the other side gets power, it will do the same to you. The Democrats, for instance, spent years centralizing federal authority in President Obama so he could abuse it and are now surprised when President Trump abuses it too. Maybe if we just invested less power in the executive, both sides would be happier.
It makes sense to handle the taxes for something like healthcare on the national level because people aren't going to renounce their IS citizenship to avoid their tax obligation, but they may move to a different state.
But if I want to move states and forego both the costs and benefits of socialized medicine, why would some one care? Why make some one who does not wish to work under that system do so? Again, the only reason is because you wish to force your position down some one else's throat via the tyranny of the majority.
[1] "The result is a massive run-up in debt. Though the MTA spent only $848 million on debt service in 2004, according to RPA, it is projected to spend more than three times as much, $2.67 billion, in 2014. Debt alone will eat up 17.6 percent of the MTA’s operating budget by 2014; worse, RPA says that an alternative calculation shows the 2014 debt load at 23.1 percent of the operating budget."
[3] "By way of comparison, Syria has $30.1 billion in debt. Cuba has $28.9 billion. Twenty-eight other countries, from Ecuador to Jordan, Jamaica to Kenya, have less debt than the M.T.A."
This article is about why it is so expensive to build new infrastructure in NY. Debt service comes out of the operating budget.
If the question at hand was why the MTA provides such poor ongoing service with such a high budget, debt service would be part (but only part) of the answer. However, in terms why construction costs are so horrifically expensive as compared to literally anywhere else in the world, debt service plays no role in answering that question.
Debt is part of the financing of a project, not a 'challenge in building them'.
Comparing the debt of one group to an arbitrary other doesn't help so much, because what matters are interest rates, revenue to pay principal and interest rates, stability of tat revenue, other covenants, penalties, and of course cost of capital.
FYI Jordan, Jamaica and Kenya would carry a lot more debt if they possible could.
If some agency in NYC has a huge amount of debt from credible lenders it might be a 'good sign' they they are actually worthy of it.
FYI, I think the article does a good job at it:
"“People will say to me, ‘Why are MTA construction costs so high?’ And the answer is ‘Everything,’ ” says Julia Vitullo-Martin, a senior fellow at the RPA and co-author of its 2018 report comparing New York’s construction costs to those in peer cities. “Every factor you look at is flawed the way the MTA does business, from the first step to the end.”
I love this level of candor in people who are willing to speak publicly.
When I compare (software) projects amongst different locations I worked at, things vary so so much. Making those comparison somewhat misleading at best.
I don’t see how comparing the costs between systems that have so different requirements, labor markets, legacy infrastructure, regulamentation agencies, can help much but I am not an expert on this subject by far.
I like how they try to blame subversion and propaganda on the "current divide" in politics.
Most people know good and well whats happening, its more the intellectuals who are making out well in this current environment who are doing (in good faith) the mental gymnastics to put the fault of the american media's decline on some abstract idea as if tree's didn't bear fruit.
