DJT

Did Bono release him?

I understand what you were saying, but you’re just repeating a war hawk talking point to justify our involvement (along with the “great intel” we get about Russian military by letting them to prolongedly and continually slaughter Ukrainians). The talking point of “we are sending weapons we would’ve destroyed” is no longer valid. You didn’t acknowledge this on the other thread, so here we go again… These were the estimates back at the end of 2022 to replace the weapons we had sent to Ukraine, and we have since sent many more. Outside of HIMARS, we have some serious issues to overcome in replenishing our inventories. In the past decade we have increased the average shelf life of missiles from about 7 years to over 22 years. The “expiration date” for the stingers we have and those sent to Ukraine is 2030, though, they still have a minimum .92 success expectancy after that, and the shelf life could be extended further. The intention was to phase out stingers and to start producing its next generation replacement by 2027, but that is not going to happen now. Regarding artillery, there have been moves to “recycle” D563 artillery to produce training rounds (M1122) which replicate M795ME’s, as the more expensive combat munitions continue to have longer shelf lives, making them unavailable (or wasteful) for training purposes.

I was responding directly to your federal funding per capita, which is precisely opposite of what you think (I was a bit surprised… I figured it’d track with median incomes). Again, what this shows is that there is a very small percentage of taxpayers in blue states that pay a whole lot of taxes (California median income of $32k sure isn’t paying much of anything). Hell, the pro athletes alone in California probably pay more federal taxes than the whole state of Mississippi. With our progressive tax code, it only follows that states without high-paying jobs will have far lower receipts both on individual income tax (52% of federal revenue) and payroll taxes (33% of federal revenue)… for reference, only 10% of federal revenue is corporate income tax. And, if we really want to get into the dirt, let’s not forget that the South was burned to the ground, its economy was completely upended, and forced to reinvent its society. We will spend 1000x more (inflation adjusted) on rebuilding Ukraine than we did on the South, and we wonder why the Southern states are still so far behind.

At what point do we start feeling like we’re getting played by Russia/ China/ Iran? Russia has slow-walked this war, bleeding our weapons inventories by hunkering down and drawing our artillery and sending $1000 Iranian and Chinese drones to be shot down by our $150k HIMARS, $200k javelins and $500k stingers. Bumbling Joe already let it slip that we’re down to our critical levels (no more to give away without putting the US in harm’s way), and everyone in the world knows we have a labor “shortage” (labor participation rate is at a 50 year low) making it slow going (and/or prohibitively expensive) to replenish our inventories, and military recruitment problems (Missing targets by 25%+ forcing the reduction of active duty personnel). If I were China, I’d be getting ready to take Taiwan. If I were Iran, I’d be getting ready to attack Israel. If I were Russia, I’d just keep doing what I’m doing.

False. 9 of the top 10 federal aid per capita states are blue. Wyoming is the outlier, due to the extremely low population, the Native American population and the whole state being a National Park. The bottom 10 are quite very red… New Mexico is a little purple. Before you go saying “cost of living” yada yada… The median income of Connecticut ($38k) is 150% that of Mississippi ($26k), and they get 250%+ the per capital federal aid. What this really shows is that the .1% in the blue states pay more than their fair share of taxes. Now let’s not even get into the left’s boogeyman of “corporate welfare” that’s not figured in, which undoubtedly affords that .1% to opportunity to attain such earnings to be taxed and carry the weight for the rest of the individuals in those blue states. Not to pile on, but another interesting thing to mention is the amount of state debt. The top five (very blue) states - New York ($156B) California ($144B), Massachusetts ($77B), Illinois ($65B), New Jersey ($64B) - have more state debt than the other 45 states combined.

Not to dredge this back up, but according to a study by the (bipartisan) Center for Strategic and International Studies, for the US to replenish its weapons inventory, it's going to take 4-7 years for artillery, 8 years for javelins and 18 years for stingers. It seems apparent that this has become more than "we're just sending Ukraine 'expired' weapons". https://www.csis.org/analysis/rebuilding-us-inventories-six-critical-systems

Lest we forget, if climate scientists came out and said they’ve concluded humans can do little or nothing to change the direction the climate is going, they’d be out of their jobs (along with the hundreds of millions in grants). Obviously, we need to be better stewards of our planet, but the alarmist approach isn’t the right way to affect change. The push for “green” energy and “net-zero” is illogical and lacks efficacy. There are much pragmatic ways to spend that money. In the end, it doesn’t matter what we do in the US, when China is permitting 100 coal power plants/year, which will be online for decades to come. Again, I highly recommended giving the podcast I posted earlier a listen.

Color me envious…

With the writers striking, I’m volunteering to write the Yellowstone series finale. I figure we’ll have five minutes of calf roping, Luke Combs sings a song, a ten minute chick fight, North Koreans parachute in and kill Kevin Costner, Matthew McConaughey shows up shouting “wolverines!” and saves the day then hooks up with Beth, setting up the spin-off, 2024. Sounds workable… who needs the writer’s guild?

“I didn't have to. I proved that you're wrong, and if you're wrong, I'm right.” … now I want to watch Thank You for Smoking for the hundredth time.

Every day there is another article on Yahoo with some 30-something year old with $100k in student loan debt who feels betrayed or helpless due to the “forgiveness” being quashed. Obviously, not everyone owes that much, and, honestly, I’m not really sure how much $10-20k would help those specific people, anyhow. As far as cars go, there is an impending crisis ahead with auto loans, specifically due to the 20-29 and 30-39 age brackets being 90 days or more past due on $20 Billion in auto loans. This will undoubtedly go up when student loan repayment kicks in. I haven’t once criticized this current “forgiveness” plan. I simply stated, if it is to fix an error, great. If it’s to pull “a fast one”, not so great. I meant to stick with my fictional performance art history, but you got art history in my head. Either way, do those numbers show the whole picture? Are they average salaries for all art history majors or are they the average salaries for people with jobs that require an art history major? Are the art history degree jobs invariably in high cost of living markets? It shows the highest average salary being in SF at $84k, where the average house costs over $1.28 million. Raw numbers here alone do little good; they would need to be weighted and compared accordingly. Lastly, does the country need more art history majors at this time? Are there already 10,000 people with art history degrees but only 1,000 available jobs? I don’t know. This is all information that’s out there, and someone who loves statistics and making algorithms could definitely compile all of this and come up with a method for more mindful lending practices, both for the benefit of the borrower and the country as a whole. To close this out, I’m more interested in actual solutions to the student loan problem, not just throwing good money after bad. Forgiving $10-20k isn’t even a bandaid, and there would be repercussions to doing so, from increased inflation to increased interest rates on student loans in the future, as loan servicers will have to factor in their lost revenue and the potential (likelihood) of further forgiveness and lost revenue in the future. Student loan forgiveness isn’t victimless- Jobs will be lost and lives upended.

Are you siding with Elon on this? He is a big proponent of increasing the Earth’s population, and using the increased brain power to solve the world’s problems.

That’s where not allowing exemptions on the paycheck come into play. I agree with making sure you owe at the end of the year, though. Obviously, there are a lot of kinks to work out in the plan, which would be to address the exceptions (self-employed, business owners, etc.), not the majority of taxpayers. It’d be stupid to scrap any idea just because it wouldn’t work the same in every case 100% of the time. Start with the big picture and carve out caveats, not the other way around.

First off, I said performance art history, sort of assuming it isn’t even a real degree. I should’ve just said under water basket weaving to be clear, I just meant a degree without a high enough earning potential to warrant $130k of debt. Second, I have no idea about this loan forgiveness. If they are trying to address a government f’up, well, that’s a good thing. If they are doing creative accounting to make it appear there was an f’up (or cover more than the actual f’up), then that’s not a good thing. Again, I have read nothing about this. My “loan forgiveness” is more of a universal idea, aside from whatever the current thing is. Third, I do think it is insane to loan someone as much money for an art history degree as for an engineering degree. There is a ridiculous amount of information out there (that the government has undoubtedly already collected), that could be analyzed to come up with some sort of lending algorithm. Base it off the median salary of holders of specific degrees and the country’s need/ the job outlook for people with those degrees.

I actually am being sincere, though, I haven’t worked out every little detail, as this is a wrestling message board posting, not a public policy graduate thesis. And, no, I don’t mean to just single out student loan borrowers for blowing tax returns, as most people are guilty of this. But the ones buying $65k Teslas because they have a $7k tax rebate, will be paying that rebate toward their loans. As far as those without refunds, first, their exemptions would be set to zero, so they would inevitably have some amount “returnable”. The less they make, the less they’d owe, the less they’d pay toward their loan… much like the income driven repayment plans that already exist. … and if the IRS was busy dealing with student loans, they won’t have as much time to target conservatives.

By forgive, I meant just put the whole student loan balance into the individuals’ tax accounts (not the federal deficit) with the IRS, and they don’t receive any sort of refund until the tax account is settled. That account would accrue interest in the meantime. I’d also propose doing the same with all student loans in the future. Why not use the existing “infrastructure” that we already have, shifting student loans to the IRS? It’s the taxpayers who are guaranteeing these loans, so it does follow for it to be in the IRS’s wheelhouse. This method would also automatically implement an income driven repayment, and no college graduate will ever have to worry about a $200, $400, $600 monthly bill… they just won’t get that check of “free money” every spring to blow on shit they don’t need while bitching about not being able to pay their student loans.

If you just posted this, rhetorically, I’d agree wholeheartedly.

The author is from India, so not sure why he’d have a bias for a Chechen.

Definitely worth the listen. Logical realist commentary on the push for green energy.

Got a new one: Dwarves are now “magical creatures”… I’m not sure what Peter Dinklage was hoping for… https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12298801/EXCLUSIVE-Snow-White-Seven-Politically-Correct-Companions.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=social-twitter_dailymailus

To be fair, all those idiots who owe $130k for their Performance Art History degrees were going to vote for Biden, anyhow. There certainly is a large difference between the student loan promise and other campaign promises. The promise of cancelling student loans targets a very specific voting block. If you want to compare it to running on tax reform, it would be like promising Californians that the federal government would pay their state income taxes for them.

Sounding a bit like Black-n-Gold there… forget to sign into your other account?

A lot of people say we need to reduce the world’s population… they are just feeling out the public’s appetite for genocide.

I would’ve told her to bring in a note from her physician… and have her film the interaction.