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Brisketexan

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Everything posted by Brisketexan

  1. Shit, I just saw this. We're all complicated souls, but in my experience, ROFL has always meant well. And he and his family sure don't deserve pain and suffering. Sheesh. Thanks for the GFM link, will chip in. Life is a hard bitch sometimes. I'm sorry it's being that way for him.
  2. The oligarchs? Not really. And, Putin did a masterful job of owning/undermining every single one of them. They really aren't much of a threat. It remains to be seen how well Putin plays geopolitics, but he OWNS internal Russian politics. He has no rivals, and no prospects for rivals or threats.
  3. But how else would you even SEE the score between Division 6 powerhouses East Dingleberry State Automotive Repair College and St. Pelicopsius Divinity School?
  4. The Russian people are entirely insignificant and always have been, save in one respect: as a source of meat to be used by their masters. Even in their brief moment of purportedly "popular" revolt 100+ years ago....they were already cultivating their next iteration of oligarchical masters. All that matters is what the oligarchy does. That has always been the case in Russia, and always will be.
  5. Sad truth: Congressman Cornholio would be a GIANT step up from this dipshit.
  6. TLDR; promise more stupid, completely unachievable shit, deliver the opposite, and then lie and say you kept your promise. Do this loudly, and often. Steal the other side's winning tactics.
  7. See, the thing is...this timeline is so breathtakingly stupid, I think the apocalypse is going to be something so utterly stupid that we can't even imagine it yet. Like "mass suicide of all humanity over disappointment in the result of a gameshow" or some shit.
  8. In so many cases, what started as contrarian has grown into full-blown insane stupidity, a banner waved proudly and with outsized enthusiasm. The stupid are 1000X more confident in their stupidity than the smart are confident in their intelligence. That is the theme of this era in history in particular.
  9. No. We're going to go with the only thing that matters anymore...... CRYPTO!
  10. First, we need a giant slug of money to funnel to the administration by renting out a block of 100 rooms for a year at MAL or somesuch. Bottom line, unless you're already an oligarch, the barriers to entry are insurmountable. I promise you, though, Elon Musk's NuXlear Energy business will be booming by the end of Q1 next year.
  11. Bingo. I've crossed paths with MANY public sector employees in a professional capacity. Like any other pool of people, there are some shitty performers and some dead-weight. But the vast majority take their jobs quite seriously (the people depend on them for some pretty essential things), and they face enormous pressure - from their superiors, from the public (which wants A+ services while paying the lowest taxes/fees). I've worked with people who were proud to have kept a critical system functioning on a shoestring budget, literally held together in some places with bolts and baling wire, because that's what the public demanded (by the way, the deferred maintenance costs ALWAYS catch up with you eventually, no matter what the public demands). Truly, I've worked with hundreds if not thousands of people in both the public and private sector. And in my experience, the percentage of dead-weight/drones/I-don't-give-a-shit folks is about the same wherever you go. Small private companies, big private companies, small public sector employers and big ones. I know this is hard to believe, but there are actually people who are really proud of the jobs they do, providing things like drinking water, electricity, transportation, and the like to their fellow citizens. They know they don't make the biggest bucks, but they are genuinely happy doing what they do.
  12. Just remember, any company that invests at least $1 billion in something will get "fully expedited approvals and permits." For nuclear facilities. What could go wrong?
  13. I found that horribly depressing, and frightening for my kids and grandkids.
  14. Replies include: Clearly shows the government drones watching the orbs, that’s exactly why they’re lying to us about it being theirs. Because then we’d ask what they’re flying them for and they’d have to explain, “oh nothing there’s these weird balls of light appearing out of nowhere all over the place shutting down our nukes but don’t worry guys we’re on it” Sigh. It's the orbs, man, and the government drone watching them.
  15. Okay, I see where you are going. Sure, it's true to some extent (and some enterprises are more nimble than others). But what you're skipping is that the reduction in the rate of spending increase was not a one-off. It was maintained for quite some time. And by the way, as a business owner....I can tell you that when inflationary pressures increase sufficiently, private enterprise too has to increase its outlay often at the expense of owner profit (at the very least, creating some lag before revenues fully catch up).
  16. Are you fucking INSANE? That's EXACTLY how they work. Where do governments get their revenue? People, and the GDP they create. The government takes in more tax revenue today than it did 10 years ago. Why? Because 1) the number of people contributing to the tax base has increased, and 2) the amount of income they make (upon which their taxes are based) has gone up over that time. 10 years ago, you had 10 people paying $10k a year in taxes based on their income. Today, you have 12 people paying $15k a year in taxes based on their income. $100k 10 years ago, $180k today. Jesus. This conversation we're having cannot possibly be real. Where in the blue fuck did you get an MBA, DeVry?
  17. Costs in real dollars go up over time, due to inflation, increases in the standard of care, and increases in the number of people who need care. Those costs go up by a certain percentage annually -- for the sake of discussion, let's say 4%. If you increase your budget every year by 4%, you are TREADING WATER. Less than 4%? You can afford less care than your previous baseline. More than 4%? You can afford more care than your previous baseline.
  18. Yes. I do assume that. You are right, it's faulty....but not for the reason you think. When it comes to the need for medical goods (drugs, equipment usage, etc.), do you think that the cost (in real dollars per patient) for the "current standard of care" has gone DOWN over the last 20 years? FFS, it's gone up. Yes, that's in part due to developments in medical science (yay science!), but still....UP, not down. To MAXIMIZE utility? Of course not. No system - public or private - functions at 100% efficiency. BUT....the level of inefficiency more often than not stays constant. So, if NHS, FedEx, or AT&T were wasting 15% of their budget last year, they're most likely wasting a similar percentage this year. This is the good old "fraud, waste, and abuse" straw man. And the straw-est thing about it is that it is a creature solely of public enterprises. I too have been in the bellies of MULTIPLE beasts, public and private. I have found two things to be true, universally: 1) every enterprise has waste and inefficiency, and 2) it's at a lot lower rate than people think it is. It does. And your employer does. Signed, an employer who has given our employees solid raises every year for decades. That is the case because as inflationary pressures go up, and the number of people to provide for goes up, SO DOES the revenue stream (both in terms of rate per person, and the number of persons contributing). We are a law firm. Perhaps we collected $200 per hour per attorney, with a total of 15 attorneys, 30 years ago. Today, we collect $400 per hour per attorney, with a total of 30 attorneys. So, YES, every employee has gotten raises over those years. Just like every budget, for functionally EVERYTHING, goes up year over year. That's not unique to healthcare or NHS. It's how money and economies work.
  19. Dude. His retirement plan is "wait on Tesla Full Self-Driving to finally become viable, and my Tesla will become a taxi that just prints money for me." So.....yeah.
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