Yeah, seems to be the carrot and stick approach. Biden provided the carrot a few years ago (subsidies for new US plants) and Trump is providing the stick (tariffs for offshore imports).

The US makes chips. Notably Intel and TSMC have US fabs.

It’s a variety of factors. With the biggest one being leaders worried that burdening their own people would just get the entire thing canned. If you talk about cutting social programs or raising taxes, people are going to get pretty pissy real quick. Leaders want to give as much as they can, without having to entertain ideas like that. To not actually enter a war footing economically. Some countries have done more than others, Poland and the Baltics come to mind. They have known the horrors of Russia for a long, long time. And they have given quite a bit to keep those horrors as far away as possible.

There is, of course, the very real threat of nukes. Where if one doesn’t boil the frog, the frog will lash out. Again, I think the pace is much too slow. Though, there is active talk of sending western troops to Ukraine and Trump has threatened to up the arms transfers and sanctions dramatically if Russia does not submit. It’s looking like that might be exactly what happens as I don’t see Putin backing down.

And to the point you directly bring up, there are absolutely people doing exactly that; people who want Russia to step on every caltrop possible instead of decisively forcing them to stop walking, thus inflicting less pain on Russia.

The reason is not singular, the reason is all of the above and many more.

Russia can retreat to their own borders at any moment. Until then, we will continue to support Ukraine to defeat the invader.

Yeah, expanding on this and to use one of OP’s examples: Sure, your brain isn’t an all remembering book, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take active measures to improve on deficiencies. If you are forgetful, take better notes and refer to them when appropriate.

It’s because it doesn’t matter; the circus will move on soon. Talking about it only continues the show.

One scummy way would be to have an artist friend paint you something. If you can get that painting appraised at a crazy high value and donate it to a valid charity, you can deduct it at the appraised value (I think, anyway.)

I would highly recommend against attempting tax fraud. The IRS does not appreciate it.

If you itemize deductions, whatever you donate will reduce your taxable income by the same amount. So, if you have $50,000 in taxable income and donate $1,000, that will now become $49,000 in taxable income instead.

The 2024 tax rates for a single (not married filing jointly) individual are below. In this case, that deduction would come completely out of the 22% bracket, ie, your $1,000 in donations will reduce your tax burden by $220.

Keep in mind the standard deduction for a single individual is $14,600. You can take this instead of itemizing deductions as described above, and it works the same as if you had itemized deductions up to that value. If you have deductions less than that value, take the standard deduction; if they are greater, itemize deductions. The standard deduction for married filing jointly is $29,200.

Do note, this only covers federal taxes, your state taxes may work differently.

I’ve lived all over the US. You won’t have any such issues. Enjoy your trip and take some nice photos!

If you get lost or need some help, say you are visiting from Germany and need some help. People will be glad to give it.

I’ve lived all over the place, it’s not going to be an issue anywhere. Some people may have opinions, but they will keep to themselves.

If they want to control the company, without outright buying it, yes. It’s the classic way to acomplish a hostile takeover. Thing is, buying half the shares on the market is often more expensive than the current market cap, as mass buying shares sends the price up quickly.

When buying a company outright (ie, your company actually owns the purchased company and both sides agreed to the transfer), then it is common to buy out all the shares at (around) current market value.

Unless someone purchases the company. Then it is common to buy out all the shares at (around) the current market price. The market cap is a good measure of how expensive a public company is to buy outright.

It probably would have worked with more than one service if they did what music did: almost everything is everywhere. If you pay for a music service, you almost certainly can find what you are looking for. (Hell, one doesn’t even need to pay for Youtube and the vast majority is there too). Contrast with streaming services where each piece of content is likely only on one service.

No, I will not be paying for more than one streaming service, if your content isn’t on the service I pay for, that is your problem, not mine.

The longer the cord is the more resistance there is; ie the more electrical load on the circuit. As long as you are pulling less than what the circuit and cord is rated for, there isn’t an issue, you will just be wasting a little extra power from the extra resistance. The plugs themselves can also have a bit of extra resistance.

Two pieces of advice that will make the biggest difference:

• Keep the total length of all extension cables used as short as is reasonable. Don’t use a 20m cable when a 4m cable will do.

• Buy extension cords with higher wire gauges (higher wire thicknesses). A 12 gauge cable (4mm²) will provide notably less resistance than a 14 (2.5mm²) or 16 gauge cable (1.5mm²). The packaging will say what gauge it is. Note, I’m talking about the thickness of the metal itself, not the thickness of the extension cord as a whole. I have seen some very, very thick extension cords with absolute trash wires inside.

If you got that 30% haircut just before you needed to sell

Yep. They key part is to invest for 20, 30, 40 years, where those consistent 10-20% gains compound and vastly outweigh the occasional 30% losses. Even if you had invested at the worst time in 2007, you are currently up 285%.

Put money into index funds every paycheck and don’t sell them for 30 years. Compounding returns are damn strong. And yes, lots of people do it, it is the most straightforward and common strategy.

Investing money generates more production and profits, it is very much so not a zero-sum game. There is good reason the average standard of living has increased dramatically over history, and it has increased faster in modern economies with strong monetary availability and movement, something investing directly contributes to.

who the heck even buys gas leaf blowers anymore

Gas blowers are about half the purchase price. And in this ‘first thing I looked up’ match up, are slightly better speced and higher rated.

Since y’all aren’t sharing a room, closing your door and speaking softly is usually sufficient. Make sure you have a mic that rests in front of your mouth, and isn’t setting far away on your desk. That way it can pick you up easily.

Yeah, Democrats have no pipeline to generate top talent. Their last candidate got trounced in the last primary she attended. Democrats didn’t even want her. They got a wake up call in 2016 and failed to fix the problem, they need to take the call this time and fix it.

Thank you for the solid points. People are dooming way too hard, simply because their preferred candidate lost this round. There is an opportunity for Democrats to improve themselves. They had that wakeup call 8 years ago, and they didn’t take it. Hopefully they will this time and strengthen the quality of the party and the candidates. Simply being ‘not Republican’, their primary strategy, isn’t enough.