Deflation would be bad, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that debt defaults, both public and private, would skyrocket. So, no, we don’t want lower prices, as that would certainly mean a significant recession, if not depression.

What people, desperately, desperately need is for their income to AT LEAST keep up with inflation. Any household that doesn’t see their yearly income increase at least as much as the rate of inflation, are getting a pay cut. And when you consider that housing, a ubiquitous, universal human need, has increased in price much faster than the overall rate of inflation, really people probably need their income to increase much more than the base inflation rate.

Yeah, Trump’s an idiot, but the American people are bigger idiots for voting for him, twice.

I really think we’d be better off just reducing GHG emissions as quickly as possible. I realize we’re not doing that, but that fact doesn’t necessarily make solar geoengineering (or solar radiation management, whatever you want to call it) a better idea. In fact, it might make it a worse idea. Geoengineering should only be done (if at all) in conjunction with rapid reductions in GHG emissions and carbon capture and sequestration. Doing geoengineering without GHG emissions reductions and carbon capture is at best a complete waste and at worst a total disaster.

And the neoliberals/libertarians/anarcho capitalists cheered. Of course people who worship the “free market,” and who believe that governments can only ever do harm and that taxation is theft, want the government to be dysfunctional. Because, ultimately, they don’t want the government to function, at all. Why would they? Why would someone who adamantly believes that governments are always bad want a functioning government?

Probably someone who lives in the southern US, where it rarely snows. This wouldn’t be unusual for someone living in many northern states, especially those around the great lakes. But to a southerner, this might as well be a different planet. They will close schools and businesses even for relatively light snow in the South. It frightens and bewilders them.

I know. I was siding with Rand Paul here.

A deal to end the 41-day government shutdown is running into turbulence, thanks to a single Senate objection: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

Senate Republican and Democratic leaders say they need to resolve Paul’s objection to a provision in the government funding package before they can accelerate consideration of the bill. The provision would restrict the unregulated sale of intoxicating…hemp-derived products like Delta-8 at gas stations, corner stores, or online without federal regulation.

I mean, do we really need this provision, right now? I’m not necessarily opposed to federal regulation of Delta-8 products, but can’t we address that at a later date? Let’s get the government open and worry about Delta-8 later.

I don’t think ARM based hardware makes much sense for a desktop, even a mini PC. There are plenty of x86 based mini PCs that are doing just fine. But, ARM based makes so, so much more sense for mobile devices, and just anything that runs on a battery, like a laptop. I would love to see an ARM based Steam deck, for instance. Sure, it wouldn’t necessarily be as powerful, but it would be lighter, quieter, and the battery life would be much better.

People who believe strongly in hierarchy, especially what they believe are “natural” hierarchies, are, obviously, opposed to democracy. Democracy is inherently egalitarian, because all voters have exactly the same number of votes: one. In a democracy, the billionaire CEO and the $30,000 a year cashier, have one vote each. No more, no less. The billionaire CEO is more likely to dislike this arrangement because it doesn’t properly respect his “superiority.” It’s ludicrous to the billionaire CEO that a mere cashier should have the same number of votes as him. He might even believe that it is “unnatural,” because he believes that his superiority is something that is innate. He was born superior and he will die superior, and his greater financial success is proof of that innate superiority, and it was inevitable, in his mind.

People want validation not advice, even if that advice could fix their problem.

How do I know this isn’t just a pic someone snapped of guy in parking lot crying because he just lost his job, or because he was just informed that his mom died?

It’ll get worse.

In his memo, Gates wrote that global warming “will not lead to humanity’s demise”. This misunderstands climate scientists’ warnings, said Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy.

“I have not seen a single scientific paper that ever posited that the human race would become extinct … it’s a straw man, the way he’s proposing it,” she said. “He’s speaking about it as if scientists are saying that, and we’re not: what we are saying is that suffering increases with each 10th of a degree of warming.”

The memo from a “very influential person who controls a lot of money” hinges on “inarguably a false binary” between a world where everything is fine and “literally the end of the world”, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“In reality, there’s a whole hell of a lot of bad things that can happen in between,” he said.

Exactly. So many people act like there are only two possibilities: climate change is a hoax, everything’s fine and growth and prosperity will not be affected by global warming. Or climate change is real and it’s going to kill us all. Neither of those two scenarios are likely. We’re not going extinct, but everything isn’t just going to be hunky-dory, either.

The thing is, no one can tell you exactly where we’ll be by 2100, because that depends on what we do between now and then. If we get our act together and bring down emissions rapidly, we will be in a better spot in 2100 than if emissions remain elevated for longer.

Personally, I think the most likely scenario is that emissions will stay elevated for a while. I don’t see us decreasing our GHG emissions significantly any time soon.

EV adoption in the US is going to suffer as a result of the industry being dominated by tech bros. It’s unfortunate that buying into the EV industry in the US also means buying into a toxic culture. I just want a car that happens to be electric, I’m not interested in joining a techno-utopian cult.

If you’re a right wing libertarian or neoliberal who believes that governments are always corrupt, inefficient and incompetent, the best way to prove yourself right is to ensure that the government is always corrupt, inefficient and incompetent.

If I’m wrong then democratic socialist candidates should do well across the country in coming elections, so I would love to be wrong. We’ll just have to wait and see.

“I’ve been a DSA member for over 10 years,” said 40-year-old health department worker Will, at the Fort Greene party. “This just shows that our politics are not radical, that New Yorkers actually think what we believe is sensible, and maybe the rest of the country is ready for sensible, commonsense, Democratic socialism.”

I doubt it.

I still consider myself a democratic socialist. I left the DSA a few years ago but my ideal is still democratic socialism. I still believe in democratic socialism, but believing in something doesn’t make it true or viable. I think the chances of viability would increase significantly if a majority of Americans believed in it too, but that’s just not the case. Now, maybe that’s just because the American people have been conditioned by propaganda into opposing any form of socialism, and that may be true, but I don’t know how to overcome that.

But while democratic socialism remains a relatively fringe ideology, I think that social democracy is much more mainstream and I think it can become much more popular again. And, unlike democratic socialism, social democracy has actually been implemented at a national level and has a good track record. It’s still capitalist, but at least it attempts to mitigate some of capitalism’s more harmful elements and provide a solid social welfare base for the country. Social democracy definitely seems much more viable, at least in the near term. Though, getting a majority of Americans to embrace social democracy again will probably still be a tough row to hoe, due to decades of entrenched right wing libertarian and neoliberal conditioning.

Hoping’s fine just don’t hold your breath.

And if capitalists cared about inequality, I’m sure they’d be very worried about this.

My day’s already off to a good start.