Since we (as old Rummy said) do not know what we do not know, we cannot be certain about the extent of cyber attacks and what they might have influenced, and may not know these things until discoveries decades later, if ever.
I believe the popular sentiment is that when they hacked the DNC they found a handful of things that would provide bad optics for the party. But the RNC? They found so much evidence of criminality that near to the entire party flipped positions on issues related to Russia. So we have 2x successful hacks, one of which yielded some bad press for the Dems, and yielded an entirely compromised party in the Repubs who now are being actively blackmailed.
Or maybe it's that our archaic system was designed so that some people's votes literally matter more than others, and more than half the country does not have a meaningful voice in our Federal elections.
> more than half the country does not have a meaningful voice in our Federal elections
There is almost certainly an election on your ballot every time that is meaningful. Relinquishing that civic duty is how we get Trump. People to lazy, stupid or proud to vote absolutely bear responsibility for this mess.
I agree to an extent but I have a hard time blaming many in the LGBT community/supporters of Palestine for sitting out when Harris and co so thoroughly abandoned them in the general. They stood behind Biden in 2020 then watched as the democrats gave in on trans rights and did nothing to stop Israel’s campaign. Now they’re watching Newsome and folks gleefully accept trans erasure going into the mid terms/next election, so they’ve been validated in many ways.
Is it tactically sound? No. Is it what I did? No. But I’ve had enough conversations with folks that I get where they’re coming from, even if I thought it was the wrong decision.
I vote in local, state, and federal elections. I have volunteered with multiple campaigns and causes, and given substantial time/labor to the EFF. I have been harassed by Trump supporters while filming protests and other civic action. Please do not presume to know me.
I get you’re angry but you’re swinging at the wrong person.
Good. But the parent was blaming Trump on disinformation propaganda, and it is important to point out that the remaining 1/3-rd of the country is not some kind of idiot army that replaced their brains with FB propaganda. They voted for this actively.
Also, in a democracy you don't get to disavow 1/3rd of the population that didn't vote with you.
Clearly you do, since Donald Trump has been aggressively doing this for his whole political career. I agree that it's a morally problematic thing to do, and it can be bad tactically depending on the situation. Practically, it does happen without consequences.
Not if the election was stolen. There was a smattering of evidence after the election but the speed with which is disappeared was truly something to behold.
> Someone is trying to get the message across that Italy has decided to suspend the use of bases for U.S. assets.
> Something that's simply false, because the bases are active, in use, and nothing has changed.
> The Government continues to do what all Italian Governments have always done in full adherence to the commitments made in Parliament and to the line reiterated in the Supreme Defense Council as well, in continuity with all previous Councils over the decades.
> International agreements clearly regulate and distinguish what requires specific Government authorization (for which it has been decided to always involve Parliament), without which it is not possible to grant anything, and what is instead considered technically authorized because it is included in the agreements.
> A minister only has to ensure they are respected.
> There is no third option.
> Finally, I want to reiterate that there is no cooling or tension with the U.S., because they know the rules that have governed their presence in Italy since 1954 just as well as we do.
> no cooling or tension with the U.S., because they know the rules
Not to add to the fake news cycle, but since the US seems fine in abandoning international agreements (at least for climate and nuclear weapons,) this comes across as blue-eyed or disingenuous.
Is this really true in 2026? Even 10 year old cars are simply big now, and not that expensive. I could believe it in 1990 maybe.
I have 3 babies (ages 0, 2, 4 when we started) in a 2016 Subaru Outback for 1.5 years now and it's been mostly fine. I have 2 "slim" seats from Clek, one is a booster, and it's really not a big deal. I cannot imagine deciding to give up a child because of a minor inconvenience like this.
Buying slim car seats is just not that expensive compared to buying a new car, so we did that. It's hard to believe that people who really want 3 children cannot make it work.
As mentioned it’s an attempt to note the pressure without doing direct interviews.
And not to disparage you or cast aspersions, but if you think about why you do not have a fourth kid it’s likely that “have to get new vehicle” could be part of it.
Of course, when you come around from the other end (fourth is on the way, what do) you then change the equation and work it out.
To test the theory presented in the study, we should issue minivans with car seats to new parents; since they have a vehicle large enough they should statistically have more kids than the median.
> I cannot imagine deciding to give up a child because of a minor inconvenience like this.
I don't think the article was suggesting that parents sit down together, ask each other "hey, should we have a third kid?" and one of them says, "well, I would say yes, but the only downside I can think of is that fitting a third child seat will be really hard, so let's not do it."
Parents who decide not to have the third kid certainly have other reasons for not wanting one, and the difficulty of a third car seat is a contributing factor, not the only consideration.
He's made a lot of predictions: Apple will acquire Disney (recent), Microsoft will acquire Yahoo (mid 2000s), we'd have a "hard landing" in 2023/2024. None of these have turned out true. It's especially hard to meaningfully evaluate claims of crashes.
Well, if I remember correctly Microsoft was very close to acquire Yahoo.
So it means it made sense to do it. Even if you correctly predict the economic, political currents, sometimes it is up to the actions of individuals that are very hard to predict.
Even if there was a 29 style crash, assuming you can hold for 20 or so years, less than the length of most home mortgages, you would still come out ahead. Not that it wouldn’t be painful for seniors and those who are middle age and not well diversified, but it’s hard to not see a US crash as a buying opportunity for international capital.
A 1929-style crash was accompanied by mass unemployment (~25%), meaning people were often forced to sell at the bottom precisely because they had no income. You can't "hold" if you're selling assets to eat. Also just because it recovered in the past doesn't mean it'll follow the same trajectory in the future.
"A 1929-style crash was accompanied by mass unemployment (~25%), meaning people were often forced to sell at the bottom precisely because they had no income. You can't "hold" if you're selling assets to eat."
That's the evil thing about economic crises. People with enough capital usually can sit them out and often even benefit. People with less capital often lose everything and when the recovery comes, they have nothing that could benefit from it.
I am close to retirement and I often think how quickly your reserves can be wiped out in a long enough crisis.
How was the GFC worse? Not in unemployment rate. Not in losses to bank depositors, either. (As a kid, my mother lost money in a bank that went down in the Great Depression.) Not in business bankruptcies.
It was worse because we bailed out the banks, because they were too big to fail, teaching them the lesson that they can do stupid shit and not really pay and consequences. There's no number on that to compare to a different situation, but thems the breaks.
right. And because we know of the crashes of 2022, 2008, 2001, etc. the market is showing a lot more resiliency. Which is good, but it will take longer to have a correction. Which may be bad by itself.
Stabilizing from those crashes were all about the injecting liquidity and faith and credit in the US Treasury. Hoover didn’t handle the events subsequent to 1929 well, but more out of ignorance than malice.
In 2026, the POTUS, his family and friends are looting the treasury with brazen acts of fraud. The government is buying losing futures contracts to manipulate oil and other markets, and “mysterious people” are buying securities before scheduled, secret events to profit from it.
The US assassinated the leaders of a hostile power after they essentially gave in to our demands.
We eliminated the governments experts in a variety of strategic topics including oil, and installed toadies to run the fiscal service that disburses government funds.
People are working on undermining the FDIC and decapitating social security.
So a crash now is really disturbing. Nobody can have the level of confidence in the faith and credit of the United States as we did in 2008. The people who understand the complex issues have been purged by the government, and the rest of the leadership is complicit in criminality and is counting on loyalty to secure pardons for later. So you should be anxious.
I definitely don't think it's a case of more market resiliency but rather a case of central banks willing to act much more aggressively to respond to these things. This is often what Ben Bernanke argues, given he wrote his thesis on the '29 crash, and how he handled the '08 crisis.
Most people who have significant savings in the stock market don't have the lifespan to ride out a 25 year recovery cycle. And those young enough to have the time usually don't have much in savings yet.
I guess it depends what you call "significant". I am 40 and have over 200k in my 401k, which I think is significant. And I could most likely expect to live 25 more years. If there's a crash tomorrow, my money wouldn't grow the way I am hoping it will over that time, but I should come out ok considering that I will be getting discount stocks while the market recovers.
It is significant if you remain healthy and employed with income.
But it is basically nothing if you get laid off at age 56, and you can't find another job due to age discrimination, your COBRA runs out after 18 months, but you are not 65 years old yet for Medicare . Obamacare may be completely neutered by then, so private health insurance may cost $30k/year for a 57 year-old. You still have a mortgage, you can't afford health insurance, so you take a risk and decide to skip it, because you are healthy. Then you get pancreatic cancer, and without health insurance, your chemotherapy completely depletes your 401k in one year. Then you die of cancer at age 59, because you cannot pay for the treatments anymore.
Given your government is trying very hard to relive the global demand for the US dollar and thus repatriate the trillions of dollars held outside the US that seems very unlikely.
If you're only expecting to live to 65, you would be trying to time your 401k into a roughly 5 year window (assuming you wait until 59 1/2 to begin withdrawl).
What's more important is that before the crash there was a period of crazy market growth. So averaged out over ~10 years it didn't look all that bad. Especially accounting for deflation that happened in the same time.
Arguably people who got caught in 1970s bear market had it worse.
On the other hand, in 1970s no one got hungry - in 1930s they totally did - but it had very little to do with the stock market, agricultural crisis was because of unexpectedly quick recovery of European crops after WWI and consequential overproduction of US farms (i.e. production that they assumed will be easy to sell to Europe, found itself without market), that precipitated crisis of bad debt, attempts to compensate prices with quantity, even more bad debt as a result, and ecological disaster due to overexploitation of soil - but stock market had nothing to do with it.
A 29 style crash would be accompanied by a 29 crash in other countries. Besides most countries (besides Argentine) suffered, some more some less. The US market wouldn't necessarily be a bigger bargain than others.
On the other hand, the best way to improve your capabilities is to use them frequently.
The Russian army assumed a state of readiness for the Ukraine invasion that turned out to be, well, less. Their special forces floundered, their logistics were (are still!?) unpalletized - using bespoke metal containers and wooden crates! Whereas the US military learned an awful lot from its (mis)adventures over the last decades.
This is essentially what Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO) was predicting a few months ago. Incumbents in most software spaces will probably see a lot of short and medium term benefits from the new tooling as being trustworthy and truly understanding the problem space.
Where was this kind of movement when Russia invaded Europe in 2022?
I think Europe's inaction in 2022 will go down as the greatest moral failing of the century. You can't say "they didn't act because Russia is a nuclear power" - the same is true here.
I think most people in Europe figured the US would oppose Russia invading as that's mostly what has happened for decades. In the Denmark case I don't know if they can count on the US opposing the US invading.
It wasn't until that thing with Trump and Vance shouting at Zelensky in the oval office that Europe figured the US had kind of flipped and it was on us to support Ukraine.
Plenty of bots try to modify public opinion. Someone hacked the DNC in 2015/16, the result of which also alleged attempted manipulation in 2008:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_National_Committee_...
Since we (as old Rummy said) do not know what we do not know, we cannot be certain about the extent of cyber attacks and what they might have influenced, and may not know these things until discoveries decades later, if ever.
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