thirdwave

Github Mirror

Week 2

Andersen: "Back in the 1930s and ’40s, there had been very left-wing Democrats with serious national prominence and significant political bases. Franklin Roosevelt’s own vice president Henry Wallace was one, as most notably was Senator Huey Long of Louisiana, who introduced bills in the 1930s to enact a 100 percent income tax on earnings over the equivalent of $20 million and a wealth tax of 100 percent on everything over 1 billion dollars. Which made the president seem moderate when his 1935 'Soak the Rich Act' raised the tax on income over 2 million to 55 percent. 'Political equality,' FDR said in 1936, is 'meaningless in the face of economic inequality.' In what he pitched as a Second Bill of Rights, he proposed guaranteeing all Americans 'the right to earn enough' for 'a decent living' and 'a decent home' and to have 'adequate medical care' paid for with 'a tax [on] all unreasonable profits, both individual and corporate.' That was 1944, Peak Leftism for Democrats on economics"

A side-effect of WT would be asset prices falling, bcz the rich would look to sell some of the assets to cover the tax bill, if enough sell, price falls, and that is good for the low-to-moderate-income folk.

States should pass Wealth Tax proposals, federal one needed too to close the 34 trillion dollar federal debt hole.

US median home price is nearly half a million freaking dollars. This is insane.

Multi-generational mortgage.. the real message here is house prices are that high.

What a daft son of a bitch. Brexit was a scam, migration did not stop and there is still inequality. Instead of adressing the problem they talked about stuff like this.

The Independent: "[2022] Boris Johnson wants ‘multi-generational’ mortgages so parents can pass on debt to children"

Bitcoin turned into an asset; enough people believe in it, which creates some liquidity. Hell If the wealthy sink their money into that instead of housing that cld be a good thing, would be a small change surely but it cld help. BTC itself though is far away from its ideals which was supplanting fiat currencies, instead it became a plaything for the ultra rich. Look at their stupid commercials and endorsements for this thing, all those promoters are loaded, they dont know where to put their f-ing money anymore so they latch on to anything that has some liquidity behind it.

The Companies Profiting from Israel’s 2023 Attack on Gaza

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Al Monitor: "US government employees plan walkout over Biden’s Gaza policies.. Organizers of the effort told Al-Monitor they expect hundreds to join in their walkout after securing commitments from individuals at 22 federal agencies"

NYT: "Yemen’s Houthi militia, shaped by years of civil war, says that it welcomes a battle with the United States and that strikes will not stop its Red Sea attacks."

Al Monitor: "Yemen strikes unlikely to end Houthi threat to shipping"

Techcrunch: "Hyundai, Nikola, Bosch and others are seriously pushing fuel cells, but why now?.. There’s political will, and money. Federal investments in green hydrogen and refueling infrastructure — two big obstacles to widespread adoption — are giving HFCVs a boost"

The Doobie Brothers - Mamaloi #music

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"‘UK’s largest’ hydrogen hub gets green light from local authority"

"@shuttersparks@qoto.org

This tracking stuff on the Internet is past ridiculous. I notice that when I pull up my Orders page on Amazon, uBlock blocks 133 items. When I pull up Accuweather for my town, it blocks 273 items.

Here on Mastodon, both uBlock and Privacy Badger read zero. Funny how that is"

Working for private sector does not equal being a good capitalist either. You are asked to manage a plant, or work as an accountant, you are still in a bureucracy, not completely exposed to the market forces outside your own corner. You are asked to do certain things, you judge how long they would take, ask for resources, give a timeline. This is technical, bureucratic work. You are not operating a lemonade stand waiting for customers yourself. You are the guy behind the scenes, working in the lemonade bureucracy.

People subconciously, rougly will vote for a person who would be a good manager, someone likable enough to tolerate as a boss. That's not the same thing as being a "good capitalist".

"Voters vote for a good capitalist, they will reward such a person"

The Lever: "How Boeing Bought Washington... Before the recent Boeing disaster, the company and its parts supplier Spirit AeroSystems spent years lobbying to boost production and weaken safety regulations"

CNBC: "Sanctioned Western tech is still entering Russia and powering its military machine, new analysis shows"

"@jasongorman@mastodon.cloud

The purpose of junior developers is to grow into senior developers. Replacing them with "A.I." is like replacing all your unripened tomatoes with pasta sauce. There'll be a shortage of ripe tomatoes - and pasta sauce - come next season"

"Head to head approval match-ups" do not capture the whole story. It's not easy to beat an incumbent (party) after its first term (easier after the second).

How low Biden's approv has to be to lose his advantage in the general? With 2% GDP growth if net approval goes to -30% then the challenger has an advantage. It is getting there.

Biden's approval numbers fall and fall.. 

app = u.biden_approval()
app = app[app.index > '2023-01-01']
app['net'].plot(title="Biden Net Approval")

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The Times of Israel: "UK Labour’s ex-chief Corbyn joins South African delegation to ICJ case against Israel"

F24: "South Africa accuses Israel of breaching Genocide Convention as ICJ hearings open"

The Guardian: "Hearings to begin at The Hague in case claiming Israel’s Gaza war is genocide.. International Court of Justice will hear complaint brought by South Africa"

There was some kind of DDos attack on Codeberg, the main site of this blog. The mirror is usually few days behind, and whenever there are problems I update the mirror immediately, if problems continue, will continue publishing on the mirror. FYI.

Al Jazeera: "Iran seized a tanker with Iraqi crude.. in retaliation for the confiscation last year of the same vessel and its oil by the United States"

Satellites reveal 75% of world's industrial fishing vessels are 'hidden'

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FuelCellsWorks: "China Unveils Its First Civilian Liquid Hydrogen Tank Truck In A Major Technological Milestone"

According to Andersen's great work low taxes on the rich and unregulated business and weak unions and a weak federal government "were portrayed as the only ways back to some kind of rugged, frontiersy, stronger, better America", and "a winsome 1950s actor in a cowboy hat" was the frontman for that sale. There aren't that many Western movies now.. I wonder what replaced them as a marketing vehicle for this "frontier mentality".. Superhero movies maybe..? Look at Batman - he is like Ronald Reagan with a hero suit. He seems to inhabit a non-governmental world where he "fights bad people" whenever he wants, without asking the government. A crime-fighting enterpreneur.. A disruptor. Sometimes the movies touch the subject of vigilantism / government explicitly of course, but maybe they "put a hat on it", making the propaganda into a story so they can continue the propaganda.

What is wrong with those extra 9 people in US? They likely have psychological problems, they don't want to help anyone, just like to order people around, want workers around to fetch them coffee put a stupid hat on during "Christmas sale". Coo-coo

The number in Ireland, Japan sounds normal. You dont want too much enterpreneurship.

"Enterpreneurs in US is 1 in 10, in Ireland and Japan it is 1 in 100"

"@claytoncubitt

Who wants to go in with me to buy William Wegman's studio in Chelsea? I figure it'll only take 1,000 of us"

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"@claytoncubitt@mstdn.social

If I had a time machine I would simply be a Boomer artist"

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Because this suboptimal idea was promoted by the First Black President™, it became Democrat canon, part of the party plank (Bam had to have contributed something legendary, something with a big L legacy), from there MSM dipshits with zero critical thinking ability parroted the idea, and since other countries of the world copy US for any tech fashion, they went along, and if there is demand, China will build it which they did. This is how we ended up here. Cascading foolishness, made in America.

"Batteries being built in China" is not a good criticism of this tech. The real problem is that batteries are being built at all.

It's true.. that's why battery-electric flight is impractical too, the battery weighs too much.

Nikki Haley: "Electric vehicles are heavy, our roads and bridges wouldn't be able to handle that weight"

Still double-digit lead for Trump there

That debate wasn't half bad #Iowa

FuelCellsWorks: "Denmark Announces Alliance On Green Fuels In India Including Green Hydrogen"

FuelCellsWorks: "Hydrogen Solaris Buses Also Heading To Düsseldorf"

FuelCellsWorks: "Busan City Expands Hydrogen Refueling Infrastructure Amidst Growing Demand"

The rest of the world should stop following all UNSC resolutions until ISR starts following this one.

Wiki: "UNSC Resolution 2334 (23 December 2016) called for an end to Israeli settlement building."

"@miguel_pacheco@masto.pt

Hydrogen from the deep layers of the Black Sea water:

Gert Wilden and Orchestra - Follow me #music

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CBS News: "United Airlines has found loose bolts on multiple 737 MAX 9 aircraft, it said Monday, referring to the Boeing model that has been grounded after a panel blew off an Alaska Airlines-operated plane in mid-flight over the weekend... United found discrepant bolts on other parts on at least five panels that were being inspected following the accident"

"@andrewdessler@mastodon.world

feedback loop:

  1. cut taxes & regulations
  2. rich people become much richer
  3. they take their riches to capture politicians
  4. go to step 1"

H2 Insights: "Equinor and Linde to jointly develop 1GW blue hydrogen project in the Netherlands"

#AGI #Sandwiches

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"@burgerdrome@aus.social

[.. My] smart TV.. died, got repaired, then died again, within the space of 3 months... the bad smart TV has been replaced with a very large (42 inch), non-smart, monitor instead which is a fucking dream and simply pipes audio and video out of my media centre without trying to sell me shampoo at the same time. I will never buy a smart TV again as long as I live"

CTV News: "Last year was the planet's hottest on record by a substantial margin and likely the world's warmest in the last 100,000 years, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Tuesday"

CNBC: "Apple shares slip on report U.S. government preparing antitrust lawsuit"

The Nation: "Even when Ackman wins, America often loses. In the fall of 2011, for instance, Pershing Square acquired 14 percent of the stock of Canadian Pacific Railway, becoming its largest shareholder. The company carried grain, coal, chemicals, forest products, and consumer goods across a nearly 15,000-mile network.. After buying the stock.. [Ackman installed] a new chief executive, E. Hunter Harrison.. Harrison had developed a system of precision scheduling.. Based on Canadian Pacific’s example, precision scheduled railroading (PSR) became the norm across the freight industry. The result was reduced work crews, long hours, cutbacks in time for sick leave..

The calamitous derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials that occurred near East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3, 2023, was caused in part by the reduction in work crews mandated by PSR"

Reshare

Mondoweiss: "The reason Israel’s die-hard supporters in the United States have tried to ban, or even criminalize, the campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) is not that it is illegitimate or anti-semitic. It is precisely because boycotting, sanctioning ,and divesting from Israel may be an effective strategy to help bring down its genocidal, expansionist, and unaccountable regime"

If Houthis were easy to crush they would have been crushed already during their conflict with Saudis via plenty of US supplied weaponary to them. That didn't happen, they are still around. The easier thing, the smart strategy to follow here would be ISR ceasefire, sustainable peace in Palestine.

"Iran backed Houthi rebels launch largest ever attack on Red Sea"

Informed Comment: "CNN Admits its Policy of Submitting to Israeli Censorship Has Been in Place for Years.. A spokesperson for the network confirmed to The Intercept that its news coverage about Israel and Palestine is run through and reviewed by the CNN Jerusalem bureau - which is subject to the IDF's censor"

For those who want to geek out on policy

MIT: "The literature provides conflicting guidance about the appropriate time-matching requirement between electricity consumption by electrolysers and contracted variable renewable energy (VRE) for qualifying hydrogen (H2) as ‘low carbon’... We argue for starting with annual time matching in the near term for the attribution of the H2 US production tax credits, where conditions resemble the ‘non-compete’ framework, followed by phase-in and subsequent phase-out of hourly time-matching requirements as the grid is deeply decarbonized"

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Pro Publica: "An elderly, ultra-secretive Chicago businessman has given the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history — worth $1.6 billion — and the recipient is one of the prime architects of conservatives’ efforts to reshape the American judicial system, including the Supreme Court"

#Taxes #Hamburg

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@fuck_cars_bot@botsin.space

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"@jasongorman@mastodon.cloud

Writers and artists should run the MS Office binaries through a de-compiler and train an LLM with the source code to create free office productivity software on demand.

Fair use, right?"

Oil Price: "The new material, a lanthanum hydride compound modified with strontium and oxygen, allows high-rate conduction of hydride ions at room temperature. This development overcomes previous limitations requiring water and continuous hydration in hydrogen fuel cells, simplifying design and reducing costs"

Australians have an expression "done like dinner". It's good.

D/troit - Do Your Thing #music

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For those who want to use code shown here, still assume import util as u for u.. Every year has its own util.py btw, the one for this year is under mbl/2024/. It is a code maintanance trick, code from earlier years is migrated as needed, so unused stuff automatically stays behind, in a way deleted. Data for the UA/RU frontline is under mbl/2024/ukrdata, as simple json files, human-readable text.

"@SwiftOnSecurity@infosec.exchange

There is a massive disconnect between the kind of attacks security professionals imagine by resourced attackers just like them, and what dipshit teenagers with more time to waste than God in an empty universe actually try for weeks"

"@BrentToderian@mastodon.online

A new 5 yr Belgian study shows the BIG impact of increasing vehicle weight on road deaths & injuries. When a person on a bike or walking is hit by a pick-up, the risk of serious injury increases by 90% compared to a car. The risk of death goes up by 200%"

"The dean of America’s Russia experts, George F. Kennan, had called the expansion of NATO into Central Europe 'the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.' Kennan, the architect of America’s post-World War II strategy of containment of the Soviet Union, believed, as did most other Russia experts in the United States, that expanding NATO would damage beyond repair U.S. efforts to transform Russia from enemy to partner"

Kennan was the supreme strategist. What did he say on NATO?

You would not expand NATO if you cared about strategy, as in "a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim for one's country". This shit was never good for any country, especially for United States. It can only be good for war. War - who is it good for?

BA led the charge against the Harvard president leading to her ouster and the claim was she had plagiarized some of her work, well it turns out Ackman's supergenius wife was a plagiarizer as well.

CNN: "Bill Ackman’s wife is accused of plagiarizing part of her dissertation"

Reshare

The Nation: "Who Is Funding Canary Mission? Inside the Doxxing Operation Targeting Anti-Zionist Students and Professors.. Americans who give money to Canary Mission are potentially committing a serious crime by acting as agents of a foreign power.. Canary Mission [is] a massive blacklisting and doxxing operation directed from Israel that targets students and professors critical of Israeli policies, and then launches slanderous charges against them—charges designed to embarrass and humiliate them and damage their future employability"

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Losing 1/3 of ur wealth.. is that a big deal for the ultra-wealthy? Losing one Lamborgini out of three. Ten houses out of thirty. It can be ok.. one can learn to live with it. The alternative is gov cutting services and later pitchforks.

Gov debt and wealth - the trends track pretty closely. 

df = u.get_fred(1990,['GFDEBTN','WFRBLT01026', 'WFRBLN09053']).interpolate() / 1e6
u.two_plot(df['WFRBLT01026'] + df['WFRBLN09053'],'Top 10%',
           df['GFDEBTN'],'Government Debt')

Slash Insider: "Isuzu and Honda are conducting public road tests in Japan for the Giga Fuel Cell, a hydrogen-powered heavy-duty truck developed jointly. Testing until September 2024 will gather data and address technical issues. The companies aim to achieve carbon neutrality in heavy-duty truck transportation, with plans to launch a production model in 2027"

"@castarco@hachyderm.io

Lurking through #Reddit content can be a bit 'scary'.. I used the word.. on purpose: except for a few brilliant exceptions, new generations of developers won't be able to maintain today's systems. They're having trouble with the most basic stuff and don't know how to search, how to ask, how to investigate by themselves...

They are being caught in a web of products that appear superficially simple but are incredibly complex on the inside.

And meanwhile they are forgetting the basics, or just skipping that step altogether.

All for the benefit of big corps that will be able to charge them for stuff that used to be cheap and trivial for the previous generations"

Article has words like "countering", "being decisive".. whats not mentioned is FN dragging itself into an unnecesary membership in an area RU had no claims anyway but now has an excuse to be a pain in your ass.. have no doubt nato expansion was always strategically stupid but it creates a certain kerfuffle which was profitable for the private "complex". That's how we ended up here.

Politico: "Finland counters Russian border gambits in the high north"

Politico: "Clyburn: I’m 'very concerned' about Biden’s standing with Black voters"

Or make sure government has a big stick, that's better.

But it does.. excessive wealth does not sit still, it seeks places to be invested, that can be housing, raising their price, purchase price effects rent price, which raises your rent. If you are spending more on rent, you are spending less on eggs and bread. Grab your pitchfork.

"But other people's wealth does not effect me, that money does not chase after my eggs and bread, it doesn't concern me"

Post 80s neoliberalism not only argued for certain choices, but after "winning" it even took certain choices out of the dictionary. People cannot even think, know some solutions even exist anymore. Nixon instituted price controls. Eisenhower (a Republican remember) kept high tax rates he inherited from the New Deal. Today such high rates, price controls cannot even be pronounced. Same is true for Wealth Tax.

That hole cannot be plugged any other way. Printing more money will make more debt. 

df = u.get_fred(2020,['WFRBLT01026', 'WFRBLN09053','WFRBLN40080','WFRBLB50107']).interpolate()
(df['WFRBLT01026'] + df['WFRBLN09053']).tail(2)

DATE
2023-04-01    96918785.0
2023-07-01    96365876.0

Every debt is balanced out with someone's credit. If there is debt somewhere, directly or indirectly, someone else is holding that debt. Last I checked the US Top 10% has 96 trillion dollars of wealth. There is your money. Take it.

"US federal debt is 34 trillion dollars. How do you pay that back?"

Politico: "Major political financiers who have gotten behind Haley in recent weeks include billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, metals mogul Andy Sabin and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a Democratic megadonor. Citadel hedge fund founder Ken Griffin and Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, have also expressed interest in backing her campaign"

BRICS leaders are meeting in Crimea which will help legitimize Russia's stance on the peninsula.

Sputnik: "A major diplomatic move from BRICS countries, it means an emphasis of their recognition of Russia's annexation of Ukraine. Sputnik Crimea Authorities Express Readiness to Receive Leaders of BRICS Countries.. This year marks the 10th anniversary of Crimea's reunification with Russia"

Politico: "[A]n exit panel blew off from the airplane mid-flight late Friday, another black mark for Boeing’s MAX fleet"

"@twipped@twipped.social

Amtrack has no fucks left to give"

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"@djsundog@toot-lab.reclaim.technology

[N]ew rule: if your company puts a LLM bot on the front lines of your customer support effort, your company should be legally bound to adhere to whatever the LLM bot states on your behalf... oh, you put a lying machine at the front door and it's telling people your product does things it doesn't actually do? and now you're stuck making your product do these things? maybe you'll think twice about deploying lying machines"

Post-2020 inflation in the West occured bcz of limited-time direct payments to people, that money came and went, so inflation naturally came down. People who said inflation was transitionary were right.

The FED likely wanted asset prices to come down IMO (stocks, housing) through its rate rises but it failed to achive that objective. I believe they realized that now, and changed course. Inequality is the culprit. Usual mechanisms are not working. Govs need to take out the big stick if they want to avoid pitchforks later.

Judging recent econ events through inequality prism via Stevenson; covid payments to people, even it went to them direct, still contributed to inequality because everything they spent ended up with the rich anyway (through corps they own, operate, have shares of). Now govs are in more debt and the rich are richer because on top of their existing wealth they ended up with the covid money as well. Direct payments were necessary but govs always "forget" the next step of such an action, taxing the rich to plug their debt.

Stevenson prediction on house prices was their prices would not fall in a way that would make a difference even with higher rates, because the wealthy, with their huge stash, could still buy homes without needing a mortgage, either directly or through various investment vehicles, so demand stayed high, prices did not fall.

#MajorityReport #Pakistan

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NYT is not messing around..

IEEE: "The battle between copyright holders and generative AI companies is heating up, and The New York Times leading the charge. The publication recently filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft that claims copyright infringement, trademark dilution, and unfair competition. And it’s not pulling its punches. The suit seeks not just monetary compensation but also the destruction of all the defendant’s LLM models and training data, as well as a halt to unlicensed training on the publication’s articles"

CNBC: "Microsoft, OpenAI sued for copyright infringement by nonfiction book authors in class action claim"

via @mikemathia@ioc.exchange #tutu

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