Going back to work after my two days off.

Now I’m sad.

No. The definition of capitalism has been utterly confused by politicians who couldn’t steal and corrupt under its basic principles. Which makes it really freaking hard to explain the best practices for economics (as in what has been proven over and over again to work best overall) when every word is overlayed with a false definition. In reality democratic socialism is just a marketable name for what capitalism really is.

Capitalism is the idea that if the government doesn’t own everyone, and everyone is free to work for their own living, and (here is the key part) there are laws and regulations to prevent anyone from taking advantage of anyone else (that’s the free market part) then everyone will work together to create the best economy possible. One where there is no central planning (as opposed to a king appointing a Lord over an area), just everyone free to do whatever they do best.

Our current economy isn’t capitalism. It is too far to the right into oligarchy (which gives corrupt control to a few and everyone else is unable to participate in the market freely) to be a free market economy. We absolutely must move to the left, introducing regulations and investing in public infrastructure and education to return to real capitalism. But I doubt there is any chance of that in our lifetimes. Not without some terrible revolution and all the failures that will bring before we return to sanity.

To be clear, I am not arguing for anything you probably associate with capitalism as being good or best. I am arguing that no one ever should have associated those things with capitalism, and that the misdirection was created decades ago so the wealthy could subjugate us under a manufactured income gap and economic oppression.

Yep. This will be the next year and a half. On, off, on again. Every time he does this his tag-team of rich a-holes buys and sells stocks making a fortune.

I recently quit caffeine (a long with major diet changes and exercise, I’m down fifty pounds). I was a daily energy drink abuser. Sometimes more than one a day. I had my first Red Bull in four months the other day. That’s how I learned that the massive cramps I was getting in my hands and feet was from the caffeine.

Not everything you disagree with is click bait. This is Lemmy for hells sake. It’s not like I’m hiring myself out for a dozen clicks.

This is conversation. I have seen some really good responses, and some not so much.

ROI can be calculated to a fairly high accuracy in almost every instance. That is one that is definitely not a soft idea. Pick up a textbook.

From what I’ve gathered you get banned if you use a VPN. If not immediately, eventually.

I see I failed here. Damn that autocorrect. But I will take the consequences of my failure. My shame is bitter. (Yes I’m talking out of my ass here, but not in my criticism of Marx) Give me a mathematical equation or economic law proposed by Marx. Not a stump speech, but something that uses math that can be proven or disproven.

For example, ROI on government investment (which includes tax cuts) can be calculated quite accurately. Anything under a 1.0 is a loss. The projected ROI can be checked with the final ROI and economists propose theories as to why it was incorrect using new mathematical models that then have to be proven or disproven. I don’t remember seeing anything like that in Marx’s work. His was all stump speech that evokes strong feelings of camaraderie and unification. But I am always open to learning. Provide me the math he proposed and its results (the accuracy of those predictions). Not just ideas.

Yep. That’s pretty much exactly how I feel. American economics ispl pretty far from capitalism, having too few balanced regulations and allowing extremely one sided (wealthy) dominance of the market. Which is the exact opposite of a free market (one where every party in a transaction has equal and fair power in the negotiation. Free market has absolutely nothing to do with that nonsense about being free from regulations or government interference).

Mark’s had a lot of emotional ideas with almost no mathematical theories that could be proven or consistently relied upon. It’s all “this feels like it should be right” and no calculations. He got a lot right about how people feel, but a lot wrong about how policy will accurately affect economies.

I think it is worth considering that every single b-rated movie has a huge pile of things they had to cut that probably made them cried for days and will regret cutting for the rest of their lives. Movies cost a fortune to make, and every single element costs more than you can imagine. At a certain point it is the choice between shitty sound or abandoning big enough plot points to kill the whole project.

Excellent analysis. I often remind people that every economy that has allowed the wealthy to rule unrestrained for long enough has undergone a socialist revolution, which resulted in horrible conditions. The only exception was England, which adopted a new economy invented by Smith (capitalism, the most misunderstood/misrepresented economic concept on the planet right now). We don’t have capitalism in the US, we have slid back to what it replaced, which is a class system ruled by autocracy and oligarchy.

I think people often fail to understand just what they are asking the wealthy to give up. Yes, they should give it up, and never should have gotten it. But they have the power to prevent the government from taking it away from them, and that blinds them to the dangers of revolt. For them those changes would feel similar to how the average person would feel about inviting a random homeless person into their home. Sure, most of us could make that work. We probably have the room even if it is a squeeze, and it might even benefit us if they help around the house (my parents used to take in homeless people and give them off jobs in the hotel I grew up in. They usually stayed for a few weeks to a couple of months. They paid for their room and board, gave them free meals at the restaurant next door, and an hourly wage). But most of us will never do that (including me) for a number of reasons. Same with the wealthy. They could give up their profits, they definitely have enough to never need another dime. But the concept is so abhorrent to them they will never even consider it.

That idea alone is sort of impossible. There is no pure communist or pure capitalist economy. Hell even capitalism is one balanced region between four points of varying qualities: authoritarian vs libertarian, and market driven vs planned economy. Communism is an authoritarian planned economy.

One of the first economic rules is that it is impossible to have a pure economy. Purely market driven or purely planned. The closer an economy gets to it the more it all falls apart. Right wing totalitarianism is the closest thing to an opposite of communism, and it absolutely sucks. Several former Soviet nations went that way after the fall. They became so anti-communist that they had to become totalitarian regimes (pseudo democracy where there is an election, but only one party, with only one candidate, because they illegalized all opposition). RWT is as destructive to economies as communism was. I admit that perceptions of how communism performed is filled with controversy and misinformation on every side. But no matter how you slice it, communism failed mostly because it placed duty to community above basic needs like food and shelter. Or, more correctly, managers of production had no incentive to perform their best, so they performed at lower and lower levels until the whole economy was so depressed that it could not feed everyone while food was spoiling in the fields unharvested.

There is a reason why China switched to a capitalist economy, even though they still call themselves communist the way Burger King calls themselves “King.”

Oh, bum deal.

(I knew a guy who said that to a kid with obvious debilitating hemorrhoids by accident once. I’m sorry for being crass)

Go to experience the location. That means being in an unfamiliar place not expecting things you are used to. I grew up in Yellowstone and the worst tourists always expected things like Walmart and 24 hour services. They thought like they were the main character. The best tourists always looked at everything like it was part of the experience. They soaked in whatever the locals did and how everything worked, not just the sights they came to see.

My biggest recommendation is the Old Faithful area, the lodge and the surrounding trails. Second is the Canyon area. A secret treasure is the a fountain Flats drive.

I’m down fifty pounds. My mobility and flexibility are steadily improving, as is my strength. And best of all, I have cured my prediabetes, and very possibly my fatty liver disease.

No.

My guess would be your Windows ID. Did you use the same Microsoft account when setting up the new laptop as your old one? I know Brave should eliminate that but from what I’ve heard it just doesn’t. It’s all lies. You mentioned using Edge, and I am thinking that Microsoft and Google are both so heavily intertwined at this point that they are basically the same data cesspool.

Of course that is assuming it was a PC and not an Apple or Linux based device (again, you mentioned Edge). Other options would be a Samsung, HP, Acer, Google, or other manufacturer accounts. Google for sure. If you signed into Google anywhere else on that thing with your ID I would just assume your data was being beamed straight into every computer watching for it in existence.

The chances of lasting go way up if you are able to hide it in your car. If it doesn’t need to be started or run, there are a whole lot of places that won’t get checked without taking the engine apart. Upper and lower radiator hoses are the first to come to mind. Oil and transmission pan are the next options. There is often even room under the intake.

I would suggest considering completing the licensing before moving. I have seen just way too many times when people jumped the line in similar ways and it ended up biting them in the rear eventually.

You may end up wanting to return in a couple of decades. Or it could streamline something if you move again to another country. Or you could end up being needed while traveling. Or being offered a position that needs that license for some online work without ever moving back. You could have a death or illness in the family that forces you to return. Or any of a million other reasons that you would want that, and not getting it now could mean eliminating options in the future. I knew a guy who’s wife was a doctor in another Mexico for years before immigrating to the US, and she had to start over from scratch. Just something to consider.

Happy Easter my friend.