Thursday Night O/T: Good players on Bad teams
199 repliesWelcome to AG’s nightly Open Thread, drop in and join a conversation, or start one yourself.
Guys who had the misfortune to play on some really stinky Chiefs teams.
Tonight: Jack Rudnay
https://www.chiefs.com/hallofhonor/players/jackrudnay
Fourth round pick in 1969. Couldn’t play that year and missed out on the Super Bowl because of a back injury sustained in a meaningless college exhibition game. Played 144 games straight. Four straight Pro Bowls.
#58
Don’t care that they turned out to be douchebaggish, they had good sound.
Here I thought a video of our OL at a show would bring everyone away from politics.
’twas a good exchange, and if it aint Gordon Solie I don’t care 🙂
It was a great show. Hit up Whataburger after and dear lord the lines.
😃
We left around 10:15 and because outside of Hereford House the only thing open was Whataburger the lines were nuts.
no food trucks?
This is around Jackson Drive by Costco so no.
I’m out, be good.
I agree. Pomp and I have had a serious, but quite pleasant conversation. Productive in some ways as well, I think. I always taught my kids that when the voices get loud, the ears shut off, and led by example. I won’t say I never yelled at them, I’m human, but I worked to keep it to a minimum. Besides, I got more mileage out of phrasing and tone, which are much more versatile, too.
Sorry I wasn’t here yesterday. I was at the AEW show and so was the Chiefs OL.
Of course Creed is chugging a beer.
Practice – yes – but pretty stoked about what I am hearing about the receivers. MVS and Patrick making a connection – sounds promiising. Josh Gordon catching a pass – what a weapon if he is able to reemerge as a force. Love JuJu
Josh Gordon catching a pass
No. Way.
I’ve been thinking about this, on occasion and over the course of a year and more. It struck me perhaps a decade back that while Earth-like planets may be common, that leaves our one major factor when it comes to life evolving: our moon. Early on, the orbit was fast, and the tidal effects enormous. Since life did arise here, it’s safe to say that this didn’t prevent the event, but what if it was a crucial component, as massive tides rose and fell? Not to mention the oceanic hot spots finding weaknesses in the crust.
beyond that, the theory that the moon was part of the earth before a massive collision is strongly supported, well prior to life, but the connection goes waaybac
makes no sense
I bet Earth almost had a Ring but it collected into a moon
Well, a large part of the Earth could break away at any moment – depends on whether the ex sits down to quick.
hahaha
Actually, the collision theory makes a lot of sense. Plotting and running back Luna’s widening orbit was the red flag, but to your concept, while the stuff with the most mass would gather at the center, the rest of the distribution would be even, and that isn’t the case, the moon’s mass isn’t evenly distributed.
sadly neither is mine
My quick thoughts about the gas situation. Our mass transit in this country sucks. I was able to walk to work quicker than had I taken the lone bus that comes my way. Many other countries have invested well in their mass transit.
suburbia was a disaster that many warned against as it was happening.
light rail should have been part of any suburban development, instead existing lines in the cities were ripped out, courtesy of Ford/GM
Exactly!!!
Many much smaller countries, I would say. As the comparison goes, Americans think 100 years is a long time, while Brits think 100 miles is a long distance. Even Russia and Canada don’t really compare, as the majority of their populations are concentrated in regions much smaller than in the US.
Valid points both – smaller countries in Europe have excellent transit and the two you mentioned do have concentrated populations. Even if I could figure out how to take a train to Topeka, I would not be able to get anywhere there with lack of transit.
To in part reply to Pomp, I tend to agree that the effects of suburbia are a net negative, this started in an era where a higher percentage of rural people moved to cities and started careers. Such people might have tolerated apartments, but they seldom liked them, so basically a farmhouse yard without the farm (and the hard work) was ideal.
The other problem with lamenting a lack of mass transit is that it’s only as good as its least-convenient link to your destination. Since those include time, money, and availability, among others, mass transit is only practical where the population density is high enough, and even then, they have to be subsidized. A car, however, can take you to wherever you want to go, whenever you want, as long as you can afford one.
Yes, I did play SimCity a lot, why do you ask? 😉
interesting stuff
Davante Adams reveals Aaron Rodgers is reason for trade request to Raiders
*
Tom Brady doesn’t dispute reports he talked with Dolphins over future
*
Peyton Manning Discussing Broncos Equity, Advisory Role with New Owners
*
Laurent Duvernay-Tardif pausing NFL career to begin medical residency; says he is not retiring
Adam Teicher
@adamteicher
As always, interesting stuff here from @MikeClayNFL. He projects among other things 4,600 yards and 36 TDs from Mahomes this season.
You taking the over or under on those?
Over
Early guess…. 4600 yards and 38 passing TDs, 5 rushing TDs.
I think he needs 38 to tie Marino for first 6 years of play, or something like that.
just over two per each regular season game?
He’s done 50, so it’s well within his wheelhouse.
so long ago or not when the Chiefs WR’s had 1 TD catch alllllllllll season
I’m optimistically agreeing with this. I think our running game will be better this year, but I think that will help pump up passing TDs even more than rushing TDs.
Matt Derrick
@mattderrick
A boisterous and energetic final OTA workout for the Chiefs today. Patrick Mahomes and Marquez Valdes-Scantling today had some solid connections, Mahomes and Josh Gordon hit on a perfect deep ball. Nick Bolton was the defensive MVP.
Next up is mandatory minicamp.
Not politics – just FYI – Crazy
Gas by state = avg in USA is $4.97
https://gasprices.aaa.com/state-gas-price-averages/
.
Cali gas by county = highest is $7.79
https://gasprices.aaa.com/?state=CA
.
.
Californians Flock to Mexico for Cheap Gas as Prices Rise to $6 in State.
while in California, drivers are spending an average $5.9 per gallon and as much as $6.05 in Los Angeles.
At $3.96 a gallon in Tijuana, Mexico, the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Los Angeles Times reported, gas prices are a good $2 lower than in California, encouraging many to cross the border to fill up their tanks.
hahahhahahhahahahahhaha
well, I chose to laugh rather than get political
HAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Hard to find any under $6 right now, unless you pay cash, then it’s like $5.799.
Greens and NIMBYs have prevented us from building any new refineries, given their obvious motivations. Now we’re paying the price for those policy decisions.
I was told
that there was enough capacity from the Wind/Solar/hydro complex to provide all the power the US needs
IF
we built a network of storage batteries to save that created energy
you sound like Elon Musk
I no Tweet
When you’re addicted to meth, the solution to your addiction isn’t to find lower priced meth. The solution is to stop being addicted to meth.
When a society is addicted to gas and fossil fuels, the solution isn’t to try and lower gas prices. The solution is to stop being addicted to gas and fossil fuels.
I propose a narrative
Global warming will affect China badly as most of their livable land is also at threat from from sea rise
It’s 2096. A plane flies over the international metropolis of Shanghai, and 30,000 feet below is a city covered in blue – the Bund, nowhere to be found; Lujiazui, a financial district up to its knees in watery debt. The Huangpu river overflowed, drowning a city and washing away its historical roots.
It’s a grim but increasingly realistic picture that the scientific community is painting for policymakers, politicians, businesspeople and the general public alike. So, how bad is it? Scientists are indicating that up to 630 million people may live on land below projected annual flood levels by 2100 if carbon emissions remain high. Lower emissions projections still show 190 million people worldwide could occupy land that’s projected to be below high tide lines by the end of the century. With the oceans absorbing over 90% of the heat from climate change, and continuing to warm at an accelerated rate, sea levels around the world are rising – a direct result of melting glaciers.
https://www.thatsmags.com/china/post/31417/how-rising-sea-levels-could-change-life-in-china-forever
I bought a hybrid a few years ago just because I have a really short drive to work, and an electric motor works better for that. Also I thought it’d be neat to use less gas. Somebody who needs a more fuel efficient car primarily because they need to save the money on gas, isn’t going to have the money to pay for a significantly more fuel efficient car. Partly because they’re spending it on gas. Somebody who can afford a new hybrid can afford to drive whatever they happen to want, Tesla or Tahoe, regardless of gas price. Higher gas prices are a tax on people who don’t have enough money or power to stop other people from levying taxes on them. And there are a lot more people like that, and they use a whole bunch more gas, than people who have the luxury to decide Tesla/Tahoe. People who are in favor of higher gas prices as a tax/incentive know that they are hurting the people who can’t fight back. They hurt the helpless knowingly, because enough people who can fight back have already told them that their plan is wrong. There is an argument that this is a machievelian tactic to force the strong to capitulate out of sympathy for the weak. But having personally been on all sides of that kind of fight, I know that it’s even worse than that – people who knowingly hurt the weak do it just because they are the type who is too egotistical to lose, and so they just go after people who they can beat. The “cause,” whatever its merits, turns into an excuse. A human forcing other humans to do something they don’t think is right, that never works in the long run. Because we’re all humans, so even if you believe you are smarter or righter than others, no human is smarter enough than others to dictate the way they live in the long run. So, even if you have absolute childlike surety in your own rightness; if other people fight you to the point that… Read more »
I agree with your argument, but I agree that asking people to just buy EVs isn’t the answer. Yes, if you’re buying a new car you should be buying an EV or at least a smaller, more fuel efficient car.
But on a societal level we need to shift so that we’re not requiring people to own a car to get around.
You live in the Midwest. You should know that biking the distance to work, or mass transit, isn’t practical for nearly enough people in the large majority of this country.
So, what do you think we could do about that? Move people next to their work, like into some kind of arcologies like out of so many distopian stories? Take taxes from everybody to subsidize high tech transit in five or six big cities?
An active hand isn’t the answer. Not by humans against other humans. That leads to reaction and setbacks. Allow people to succeed on their own, that’s the fastest and kindest way forward.
It’s only not practical because of the way we designed our cities. Even in the midwest there is no reason why our cities have to be so spread out that you literally are forced to drive a car to work.
But even as it is that’s not necessarily true. I’ve had many jobs, and even exluding my work from home job I took the bus to most of them.
the us economy as it is is not an old thing
probably just since the end of wwII in fact
factories and jobs in say ST. louis was local
people walked to work
My grandpa walked to work. He worked on the railroad. Mostly coal cars, to power the electric plants.
My other grandpa lived at work, he was a farmer.
My dad also lived at work. He was a state wildlife area manager, we lived in the park.
My mom drove to work. She was a teacher, mostly rural schools. She is by far the most environmentalist-ic person in the family.
There’s a lot of irony in there, I think, but only because so many people’s thoughts are so different from reality.
People can’t experience reality, only perceive it, and that includes filters.
I’ve been working hard to remove my filters ever since I realized my perception was warped, long ago, but I’ve only just begun. Another lifetime wouldn’t be enough, I fear. The big downside is that doing so has made me more abrasive when laying out contrary facts to a given proposition. Sadly, AG has paid the price of that, whatever it may be, but I can’t not be me. That would nullify my efforts by putting on a mask, another filter.
Yes there is a reason. You pack everybody together, people stop being different people. Everybody starts acting the same because everbody’s daily circumstances would be the same. That would be great for societal theorists, but destroy the main strength of this country.
If you eliminated a large portion of jobs that can’t be gotten to by bus currently or in the near future, then you and every other bus rider would very shortly be out of work yourselves.
Even if you aren’t in the Midwest, biking isn’t practical. I can commute to one of my side jobs. It’s 10 miles. There is a MUP the entire way. It is so poorly designed that at certain hours (rush) or in one direction at all times it is almost un-useable.
We are so car-centric that any other form of transportation is a total after thought. In cities, we can do something about it. Slowly, but we can.
I have no idea how we overcome what you are pointing out. We are just too spread out.
It’s going to have to happen at some point, no matter what anyone wants. I’d rather get started on that path sooner rather than wait until we’re in an emergency.
i’m afraid that ship has sailed, or the light rail train has left the station, if you prefer
troof!
Fission power’s at the top of the list?
If the answer is No, I’ll know you aren’t serious.
Why are the gas prices so high in other countries, then?
gas has been artificially cheap here for decades, the rest of the world has been paying going price all along (plus the current bump)
Artificially. Taxes are the “artificial” part of prices for gas or anything else.
Not really. Gas taxes don’t cover the societal cost of maintaining car infrastructure in the US. Gas prices are artificially low in that the rest of society subsidizes car driving.
exactly
cause most countries subsidize the consumer rather than tax them
You can’t “subsidize the consumer.” At least, not with tax money. Because tax money ultimately comes from the consumer. The consumer subsidizes the government by the taxes they pay.
in many countries the government sets the price of gas and other things
so they do absorb the increases even though the cost does accumulate on the public debt
They can’t, Steve. A government literally cannot pay for anything, because a government doesn’t make money. A government is a service that citizens pay for through their industry.
The only way a government can produce “new” money is if some other country sends it to them. Foreign aid. Or, if it confiscates private industry and operates it as a bureaucracy, until of course it collapses like all such schemes have always eventually done.
wait we just sent every American like 5 Grand
I did not say America set prices but Nicarauga does and probably China
Yes, we. Americans sent each other 5 Grand. We are paying it back through inflated prices for everything. Eating our own tail.
I’m leaving now, but I hope to come back and find a lewd response to “eating our own tail.”
it’s not as bad as tentacle porn, trust me
fossil fuel industry subsidies included
Yes, by definition. Econ 101, taxes are an artificial component of price seperate from actual cost.
Gas would be useless if those tax dollars didn’t fund roads, police to clean up accidents, etc. so people could drive.
That doesn’t change econ 101. Taxes are not part of “natural” cost, and that’s why they are a dead spot on the basic return-on-investment graph.
Of course taxes are useful and needed for society. The econ 101 definition is just a reminder of why taxes should be minimized.
we like actual roads not dirt paths
This is true. It’s always been cheap here compared to what others paid. The main thing to notice about all this is we didn’t catch those countries in costs. Theirs went up, as well. Global situation, not a US one.
yep
this round of inflation is world wide
The US is the global situation. Default currency (which is extremely elevated right now in forex), and by far most influential economy (even moreso recently due to China’s zero-covid actions (which I recall many Americans praising a while back but are deafeningly silent about lately)).
We don’t dictate global gas prices. All we do is use more than any other country as a country but only 23rd per capita.
Missouri is building or re-building roads everywhere
that asphalt and construction vehicles use Oil
Asphalt – Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Asphalt
Asphalt, also known as bitumen is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a …
Ha, fine. Problems and successes in the US actually do NOT affect the rest of the world. Believe whatever blows your skirt up.
You as well. Make the whole thing our fault because that easiest for you to explain, even though you still didn’t. Gas prices. The question. Focus.
Why do you think I “make the whole thing our fault?”
Seriously, how many times did I repeat “no single cause” or a close variation of that idea? I actually said nothing but that idea.
That you can come around to saying I “make the whole thing our fault,” in the middle of me saying the EXACT OPPOSITE REPEATEDLY, kinda underscores my accusation of you believing whatever you want to believe despite evidence. Don’t it?
Anyway, inflation really spiked in early 2021, not early 2022: https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-price-index-by-category-line-chart.htm
Feb-Apr 2021 – 1.7% to 4.2%
Dec 2021 to Feb 2022 (Putin’s invasion) – 7.0% to 7.9%
But you will believe what makes you feel good. Lol, and I’m sure you’re feeling totally logical and not feelings-based at all while you do that.
Sorry for the harshness, there. But you gotta understand how frustrating it is when I say something, and you argue back as if I said the exact opposite. That pretty much ruins the whole point of convo.
No problem, but you are missing the fact that you are arguing something I didn’t say.
Again, GAS prices. Not overall inflation. NIMBY and Green politics were said to be the cause. I asked if that was the case, why was it a global issue that prices were going crazy. None of that pushed gas prices higher in other countries.
I don’t mean to be harsh, either, but if you’re going to argue stuff I’m not talking about, I’m not going to play. I will stick to the subject.
Ok, but now I don’t get how you can separate gas prices from oil prices. I mean, is that what you’re trying to do? I have no idea how that would make any sense, but I can’t see any other reason for you to give me a “focus on gas prices” rebuke when I was talking about oil.
It’s like if you were talking about the price of wooden furniture, and I said something about timber, and then you try to say timber wasn’t what you were talking about.
The price of oil shot up in Europe because they cut back on local supplies (Euro controlled North Sea). They didn’t cut back on what they needed, they just started getting it from farther away. Germany also cancelled their nuclear power, which of course increased the amount of fossil fuels they need to make up the difference. That’s the very definition of nimby, and the politics of appearances.
Our current Obama administration is trying to cut back on domestic oil transport and handling, while simultaneously asking far-away countries to export more of their oil to us and lower their prices.
Getting oil from somewhere else on the same planet doesn’t change anything about global pollution, obviously. The only way those policies make sense for making a planet-wide reduction in fossil fuels, is if Europe and the U.S. are trying to coerce their own citizens into using less by artificially increasing fuel prices through back-door policies. But then if you recognize that, then you’d have to admit that this inflation is deliberate.
I know what people want to do, as far as reducing pollution. And I’m completely behind that, maybe even moreso than a lot of self proclaimed environmentalists, because I literally grew up in wildlife parks. But the way that the political, political, environmentalists are going about it, is about as organized as diarrhea. As effective as their efforts are, it looks like a bunch of poetry professors trying to figure out how to change the oil in their own car.
As for overall inflation, that’s a combo of our government deliberately aiming for some inflation and then getting hit with an inflationary emergency (Ukraine) in the middle of their manipulations.
The politicians in charge right now are too handsy. They are the type who want to directly control. In their enthusiasm to control and manipulate society, they don’t leave enough room and enough strength in the economy to handle emergencies.
Yes, the Ukraine invasion is causing and inflation spike. But as that BLS chart shows, the huge, huge, majority of this inflation was already happening before January 2022.
Good intentions, and all that. Thing is, it’s not all good intentions…it’s a fascination with, and taking joy in, manipulating other people “for their own good.”
Emergencies, Ukraine or otherwise, always pop up. Always. Pile one of those onto the machinations of these socio-political hobbyists who are in charge now, and you get what we’ve got.
Partly because we are the most influential economy in the world by far. Default currency.
Partly beacause we were a net exporter for a brief while.
Partly, maybe even mostly, because some of those other countries made themslves too dependent on Russian energy because of their own nimby and overly academic and poltical domestic energy policies.
addiction from a different pusher?
who charges less
oil cannot be drilled everywhere, a lot of countries have no natural reserves (or viable reserves)
Germany had more options than Russia to buy from. Germany chose to stop nuclear power development.
1930’s Germany had a plan 🙁
I read a quote once, from a mid-century German author, can’t remember who. He said the German people’s biggest character flaw was their obedience… talking about how they fell into nazism and holocaust.
a human flaw, not limited to central europe, sadly
Very true, and I don’t think Germans are on the very top of the obedience scale. But, having lived there a little over a year, I would say they are definitely top-ish.
they sweep their roofs
A large Grain of truth there
Organization is a germanic trait, thus train schedules….
I am constantly pissed I cannot create order out of this chaos
25% solar now, I think.
I’m all for nuke plants
Yeah, nuclear should be developed a lot more. It won’t get safer by making it taboo.
About the only other argument I’ve heard against nuclear, besides the self-defeating argument that the tech isn’t safe or clean enough yet, is that we might be tearing apart little universes when we split atoms. Wild, and interesting, but I don’t think sensible enough to justify handing bad acting oil exporting nations more money to invade people.
hell we put most of our Navy people on small nuclear towns called ships…..
One of the Scandinavians has developed safe storage for used fuel, the biggest drawback overall. Requires proper geology and significant expense, but cheaper than 24/7 security/maintenance within 20-30 years
send an elon musk rocket on a one way mission to the sun?
Yep, waste storage I think is the big one. I know, living in the Midwest, everybody else wants to ship it here… Ha, maybe we can make light rail tracks out of it. None of us would use the train anyway, so it’d be safe.
The question I was asking was if those things caused our prices to rise, why did other countries rise as well?
Our influence? Not buying that one
Net exporter? If we were a large net exporter for a long time, maybe that’s a reason, but I don’t think our net surplus was big enough to cause a global spike in prices.
Their polices? Maybe. But their prices have always been high. They are just higher now. Even in countries who have political systems completely different to ours. In countries without strong “green” movements or energy policies that take the environment into account.
It’s not a political issue, really. A republican could be in the WH right now, and the prices would be very close. Mega-oil companies are pulling in insane profits. Greed is the correct answer.
greed of who?
Oil companies for starters. They aren’t getting those profits only off US oil consumption
a couple of years ago Oil was selling for -dollars
What is the lowest price of oil in history?
On 20 April 2020, WTI Crude futures contracts dropped below $0 for the first time in history, and the following day Brent Crude fell below $20 per barrel.
that was futures buys, cheaper to give it away than cover storage costs during lockdown.
Less than $30 @barrel, not worth pumping for petrocorp.
Future always bite us in the ass
Oil companies and gun makers always get windfalls when leftist/liberals get power. Not political, just a fact.
Ha, part of why I could afford my hybrid was simple stock trading based on that.
stupid people “(
Yes, I took advantage of them, didn’t I? I feel bad about that, but I got a hybrid out of it, and that’s helping save the earth, therefor my means are totally justified.
A question
My son told me about something
seems like 25 or so percent of the retail house market is owned by a few companies. They have a price or interest rate where they make money…
if that price/interest rate is breeched through fed action?
those companies file bankruptcy and the housing market collapses along with US home owners equity…
does that happen?
Eh. Maybe, but I doubt it. Just because people will always want their own home, nothing will destroy that demand.
The last housing bubble wasn’t about houses, it was about loans. I haven’t heard of a lot of reckless loans this time around. Although…I did just read that adjustable rate mortgages are becoming acceptable again, so that is kinda scary.
the thought is these are not Bank loans anymore
it is those companies buying houses of the market
Webuy homes types
that are apparently just Reit investment groups
“Neither Heck nor the other regulars recognized the dollar-over guy. It turned out he was with an out-of-town concern called Treehouse and had instructions to buy everything that cost less than what it would cost to build a similar house. Every house auctioned that day fit the bill.”
Moving forward, Heck tried to compete, sometimes even peeking over other bidders’ shoulders to “run the dollar-over routine on them.” But he was outmatched.
“He had a handful of cashier’s checks,” Dezember writes. “The new guys had duffle bags full.”
‘Underwater” describes how, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, corporations began buying suburban houses en masse and then renting them out, often for more than residents would have otherwise paid in rent or mortgage.
This has become so common that, while the phenomenon “didn’t exist a decade ago,” corporations bought one out of every 10 suburban homes sold in 2018.
Corporate homeownership can not only subject tenants to higher living costs, but often destroys their ability to buy these homes themselves, as companies pay top dollar to take them off the market.
https://nypost.com/2020/07/18/corporations-are-buying-houses-robbing-families-of-american-dream/
“Heck and others of B. Wayne’s bidders would gather at a Sheraton Hotel the evening before, and divvy up $20 million or so of cashiers checks,” Dezember writes.
Their mission was to buy homes near good schools that families would feel comfortable in, nothing older than 20 years or smaller than three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The industry’s ideal buyer was well-defined. Dezember notes that a company called Progress Residential, which owned around 20,000 homes, sought to provide “an aspirational living experience to tenants who were typically about 38 years old and married, with a child or two, annual income of about $88,000, less-than-stellar FICO credit scores around 665, and a hobbling $45,000 of debt. If they wanted to live the middle-class lifestyle to which they were accustomed, they’d have to rent.”
Parasites on the economy. They produce nothing of worth, just scrape out a percentage.
Steve, man, I just read up a little on what you were saying here about corporate type home buying. And yeah, you’re right, that is kinda scary.
My only hope is that there’s a lower percentage of that currently, than there was regular people who got into loans they couldn’t afford back in the last housing crash. But I have no idea if that’s true. So I am worried now. Thanks for that. 😛
Oh. Yeah, that could be bad, because more and more retirees are depending on those reits for income.
I had heard something to this effect about Zillow and buying houses in an area, increasing the projected prices as flipping. I can’t remember details and wouldn’t want you to take that as gospel. If I think about it, I’ll try to research it tomorrow
looks like a good, old school economics discussion … ahhhh, just like the old days
Not buying it. Fair enough. If you don’t want to believe a fact that basic, then no need for further convo.
Sorry. I’ll re-phrase.
Our influence is driving globally high gas prices? That’s wrong.
Better?
Do you really not think the US economy has enough influence to account for a big part of global inflation?
Or…are you thnking there’s just one cause of it all? One Big Bad to blame? Ha, that’s certainly what our politicians woul like us to believe, on both sides of the aisle. Would make us voters much easier to manipulate.
no, a confluence of events and circumstance worldwide that can be taken advantage of
Well, our inflation here is to fund the government’s debt. Direct taxes were raised as much as they could be, and then inflationary policies were put in to devalue the national debt so that our government could afford to make the payments.
Only thing we haven’t tried is to lower spending.
people do not get re-elected or promoted by spending less
hell men can’t even find a woman without spending big bucks….
They are public servants, we need to hold them to account as such.
I understand what you’re saying is completely real and practical. But it’s not only about politicians’ practical concerns. They can be expected to look out for themselves, sure. But voters have a duty to push back on that. We’re not beneath the politicians, rather we are the ones in charge. Problems happen when citizens lose sight of that responsibility, or when they’d rather not acknowledge it.
OK, we spend more on the Pentagon than the next 12 countries do, combined, on national defense, I’m all for a strong military, but…
10% of that $ could fund mental health programs and pay for school lunches
Heh, weird time to be lamenting excess military. Unless you don’t believe we should assist Ukraine with some of our excess.
non-sequiter, UK aid does not come from Pentagon budget, and ignores my point
We are sending them some equipment, besides just cash, no? And direct military service in the form of intel on enemy positions gathered by our military? That equipment and service surely came from our military budget originally. (And should’ve been more, if we’d also sent them the planes they asked for.)
Your point was not ignored, I supplied a great example of how what you consider excess actually can have practical use. Not often, but the times when it is needed, it’s pretty necessary.
$782 billion
I think we could feed the world on 78 billion dollars per year
You have a plan that the military must pay for.
Now try that again by withdrawing funds from anything else. Well, except for #1, which is paying interest on our debt, but the point is that you’ve got an imaginary target in mind, so the consequences of your intent don’t matter. That’s not a moral judgement of you, I’m describing a common mental process. You slash the budget, but what actually bleeds for you? You can’t control that, and the bureaucrats will do what you ordered in their own ways.
This is far from a simple topic, after all.
not simple, no doubt. But if $$ spent on social programs increases quality of life overall, and has been shown to actually bring economic return, it is $$ better spent imho
one of the Nodics offered free housing (tiny home/efficiency 200 sq/ft) to all homeless, after 10 yrs it was cheaper than the cost of leaving them on the street.
And it’s a good plan, but if it’s from Norway, they’re a net oil exporter, which can pay for that sort of thing.
Protip: Any plan you point to in Europe, and there are some good ones, isn’t necessarily workable at our scale. The EU, however, has made some truly odious governmental decisions at their own scale. That should tell you more than one thing.
again true, but the “greatest country on earth” solution is to put spikes under bridges and make park benches uncomfortable….
There is no weightier word in English than “if”. If you only consider the positives of a decision, how can you know the negatives won’t be worse? A year-to-year slash would involve a large impact on personnel, many of whom will not be far enough along in their post-military plans for the event.
If the best they can do is a low-wage job, many of them will need gov’t assistance, cutting into your imagined savings. I know it’ll happen, because it happened to me, back when Gramm, Rudman and Hollings declared a “peace dividend”. Left me homeless for a stretch, but I lucked into a way to pull myself out, which is never easy.
true, but I’m thinking of the vanity projects, not wages/benefits.
Military housing is very underfunded, the new jet gets more $$ when over budget and 2 yrs late, priorities are fucked up
I’m not unilaterally opposed to all your positions, and they aren’t unreasonable, but to really oversimplify, with the military, you pay for gear, or you pay with blood. So the priority would be on paying for that equipment to be developed, to be ready when the personnel became available for a reason.
Now, is that a fucked up priority? (Don’t answer if you’re too fucked up 😉 )
Your tone indicates that you are in a good space, this pleases me, gotta crash.
later
Why doesn’t Russia invade the Baltic nations? Or Poland, or Germany who they hate with a passion?
Is it because those countries shifted their excess military budget into great social programs?
Influence the world economy? Sure. Drive a global rise in oil prices? No. And that’s what the question was about.
Yes, partly. There’s not just one Big Bad, as comforting as that is to imagine.
I imagine the full answer would take at least a term paper to fully lay out, and this isn’t my expertise, but to oversimplify: shipping costs. I have to leave out commodities trading due to a complexity I don’t fully understand, but make no mistake, it’s a factor. Consider two things, the first being that Europe imported Russian oil, and that ceased with the Ukraine invasion. That’s on the commodities side, but the fact of the matter is that we primarily import oil from Mexico and Canada.
Where refineries enter in also includes commodities, since importing refined petroleum products is also run through that market, but with tariffs involved. Domestic capacity’s basically maxed out, so that’s a bottleneck we don’t control. Foreign competition for non-Russian oil basically does the rest.
Clear as mud now?
we have this stupid law
A section of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 — commonly referred to as the Jones Act — requires that merchandise transported by water between U.S. ports be shipped solely aboard vessels that are U.S.-built and owned and crewed mostly by Americans.Mar 8, 2022
so cause we don’t have the ships we have to export Texas Oil and import Oil to New England
That, too, but that’s another complex matter. Easy to call it stupid, but making it simply vanish would be dumber.
If we didn’t have that law, then we’d have to hope that whatever country controls our domestic energy transport doesn’t get in a snit and pull the rug out.
Which would mean if that country has some little unreasonable (by American standards) demands, then we give in to them, so they don’t get in a snit.
So we’d have to make sure that we never give that kind of power to a country or politicians who might get in a self-centered snit. The people who would be making sure of that would be our own politicians. Politicians policing politicians. You expect that would work out well for everybody?
So are you saying that the problem with the rest of the world is shipping, but for us it’s NIMBY politics and Green efforts? That the sudden scarcity of Russian oil is causing a rise in prices everywhere except here?
Because this is what you originally said and what I questioned: Greens and NIMBYs have prevented us from building any new refineries, given their obvious motivations. Now we’re paying the price for those policy decisions.
IF….he signs with Ravens — maybe Ravens don’t end up signing Justin Houston
The Ravens can go flock themselves, for all of me.
Right again, BRaG!
YES!!!
but Karlaftis!