Clever Hans (German: der Kluge Hans; c. 1895 – c. 1916) was a horse that was claimed to have performed arithmetic and other intellectual tasks. After a formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reactions of his trainer. He discovered this artifact in the research methodology, wherein the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who was entirely unaware that he was providing such cues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

Cats are perfectly happy eating mice and lizards for their entire lives. Would you eat those?

Don’t compare their eating habits with ours.

$10 to $50 million in assets can support $400K to $2 million in spending. Also there’s extra tax benefits from owning your own house, vacation house, etc. so you spend less money and owe less tax comparatively.

You may actually “spend” very little if you own a farm for fresh food, own a few houses to live in and vacation at, etc. Your “spending” may actually make you money, since you can rent your vacation home when you’re not there, sell the fresh food you don’t eat. Decorating your house with art and collectibles may make you money.

10% deflation would lead to job losses. Companies make less money and start firing people quickly. This causes more deflation since everyone is scared of losing their jobs.

10% inflation is a big pain in the ass. 10% deflation is a potential layoff.

Heavier cars cause more wear and tear on the road, increasing the road maintenance costs. They also have larger tires. Tire dust is a large component of microplastics.

Your one specific example is not the “gotcha” you think it is. Larger vehicles use more energy. That’s just physics.

Trump is not going to win. His name drives turnout, but most of it is against him.

But Europe should be able to defend itself. I read an article about the drone attack on the US base in Jordan recently. It said that when they found out that a few Americans had died, the Iranian militias in the area ran away from their bases.

That’s how afraid they are of a potential American response. Yesterday the Air Force sent two planes from the US to destroy several groups command centers and drone storage areas on the other side of the globe. And they sanctioned some Revolutionary Guard commanders and cyber attacked at the same time.

Imagine an enemy that is so powerful it lets you attack it, like you’re a child, because it would be unfair if it used all its power. That’s what fighting the US is like. Europe has the potential to be like that if it gets organized.

That’s not evil. Lots of dogs were bred for thousands of years to hunt small animals. It’s like asking you not to like eating ice cream.

Interesting points. Although endless growth may still continue, because eventually robots will be more affordable than human workers. Not because robots become cheaper, but because humans are more expensive.

I’m not some pie-in-the-sky future nut. I know the main issue is the short term problems. Like what do we do for the unemployed worker who can’t afford somewhere to live and has no investments? How can we deal with negative externalities like pollution and climate change?

These are the real challenges. Robots that talk to you and perform tasks are easy by comparison.

“Baghdad Bob” memes

Those didn’t exist. You’re confusing “memes” created by individual people and media bias.

we glossed over how precarious and unsustainable our charge into the center of Iraq had left the US military

The US military destroyed the Iraqi army, almost too well. The army was disbanded and former members joined the insurgents. Militarily it was a huge success. The failure was not gaining the consent of the governed, which is necessary in any modern country.

News reports are not “trying to present Russia as weak”. They legitimately are weak. Do you think the US or NATO would have any trouble rolling Ukraine if it only had Russian support? No troops would be on the ground but Kiev would be rubble within two weeks.

Well that’s mainly because of “recognition”. Few countries recognize Hamas as a valid leadership organization of Gaza. That’s the difference between an army and a terrorist group. The army belongs to a recognized country.

The US did that with pallets of cash in Afghanistan, but that was explicitly money for warlords. No one tried to hide it. It was completely different.

The long term effects are going to be serious whiplash. The monetary regime would go from severe inflation to super low inflation (below what Argentina needs). They will essentially be using Argentinian Government funds to buy US dollars, thereby helping the US keep its inflation under control.

That’s good for the US, but Argentina may fall into a recession. Growing economies need a growing money supply or businesses will not be able to borrow money to expand. By essentially hitching their economy to the slower growing US economy, Argentina is ensuring that their businesses pay high interest rates to borrow money. The US government is paying you 5%, risk free. Why tf would anyone loan money to Argentina less than 10-15%?

Remember how US tech companies all fired people at the same time when the Federal Reserve increased interest rates (it happened)? That’s what will happen to many companies in Argentina at the same time.

Edit: lol, he was just lying about “dollarization” for votes because it’s nuts:

He added no dollarization was planned in the short-term, as fiscal and monetary stabilization were need, the first source said.

https://news.yahoo.com/finance/news/milei-economic-team-led-former-175214678.html

Building housing 15 or 20 years ahead of time isn’t a good thing. When people move in, the places are already old. Apartment buildings deteriorate over time even with no one living in them. It’s clearly wasteful to build them that early and there’s definitely a huge property bubble in China.