I always thought the pledge of allegiance stood out as a bit of a strange brainwashing exercise for the free and fair democracy the United States seeks to be. In fact IMO the nationalism it represents and instils in Americans opened the door to MAGA.

Yes I did. Your point is simply “but… more money!!!” Ignoring that bigger numbers are not the whole story.

It has only been 6 months. The effects of this administration will not appear in tables of budgets and salaries yet. Although in simple terms it will probably still look ok, it is far less attractive.

Cost of living matters too. From simple things like how much broadband costs (uk: £30 pcm, usa: $78 pcm) to an ambulance ride (uk: free, usa:$2000). The higher salary is an illusion.

I also note that every company in your list is a tech company. Researchers in other fields are probably not going to be as lucky.

Buying in instrumentation is also now more expensive due to tariffs so your research budget was effectively cut as well as being actually cut. Scientists with approved grants for equipment have had them revoked. Universities are advising not spending funds to provide contingency funds.

Is it not simply a matter of contract anyway? The states agree to pay the federal government in exchange for the security and cooperation that the federation brings. If the federal government is no longer holding up it’s end of that agreement no matter the reason, why should the States be obligated to remain in that agreement?

Disagree, every ruling the scotus makes that overturns a lesser court judge makes their opposition to established law clearer. If cases went straight to scotus, it would appear that legal opinion was unanimous and not that scotus have a politically motivated agenda.

Pretty sure that Musk has realised he alienated his prior fan base by courting this government so publicly and passionately.

Now he is trying to reclaim his former status by attacking the Trump admin thinking the left will love him for it. Trouble with that is, petulent is not a good look, nor is appearing not to have an allegiance to anything but money. His mask has slipped and that won’t be forgotten, he did a nazi salute twice on the international stage ffs. No one is going to see Musk as a champion for the left or the environment again.

Not only has he screwed Tesla by making them unfashionable, he’s now screwed SpaceX by pissing off a major source of income.

But we are still to believe that the guy is a financial genius and not just lucky, right?

Amazon 1 year after launch: Unfortunately, the space needed for robots in the van means that the van has to return to base 5 times more often to reload with the actual packages and the extra weight of robots more than doubles the weight of the van being lugged around in the form of heavy robots. So that’s why we are having to charge more for delivery and why it is taking longer for you to get your packages. But at least we can pay fewer salaries.

To make matters more complicated i believe (but may be wrong) in Japan Tokyo and Osaka have opposite conventions. So it can even come down to the city level.

Winner winner, mystery dinner.

“It’s not the product it’s the marketing” - Dems (probably)

All children are different just like adults. There are many adults I could describe as obnoxious, entitled assholes, but that doesn’t make me write off all adults. The last thing I would describe my 3 year old daughter as at Disneyland was obnoxious. If anything she was better behaved because she was so happy and realised we had done something nice for her by taking her there. She was spontaneously giving us hugs when there which she doesn’t normally do. Sure, she got tired and a little cranky at the end of each day but it was far outweighed by her good behaviour and she was never even close to obnoxious by anyone’s standards. Caveat: I am her biggest fan and you can feel free to write off my comments as biased but I expect you to anyway because you exhibit all the signs of prejudice.

For the record, I did see some kids acting a bit entitled and obnoxious, but I’d say that they were in the minority and it was a fleeting moment as you passed them by so who is to know if you didn’t just witness the one instance of bad behaviour in their whole day.

When you are prejudiced against something though you take on the evidence that reinforces your view and ignore the evidence which contradicts. I expect if you were at disneyland or anywhere else surrounded by children behaving well your mind would not acknowledge that, I.e. You’d simply ignore or not notice well behaved children. But any time there is one child in your vicinity who is not behaving well I bet you do notice and take note and think “See? All children are obnoxious little shits”

Reasons why you don’t have children no.1: you don’t like them.

Reasons why you are obnoxious no 1: you think it is funny or clever to imply you have at least 78 reasons to not have children and in doing so show us that you are fine with judging whole groups on the behaviour of a few of its members.

It may have helped them shrink the workforce by convincing them to do it, but that does not also mean that it was a positive and permanent action.

Will it stimulate the downturn in shipping demand by making it harder to get work as the USA pushes itself and the rest of the world into recession.

They can’t admit it because it’s an echo chamber. Trump tells them what they want to hear. They feel smarter for being validated by the president so they ignore the nagging voice that things aren’t going to plan because the only possible explanation is NOT that they were wrong and don’t understand these complex issues, but that even though they can’t see the full picture, they were right. Then all the other people in the same position agree that 4D chess is being played and they all voted a smart vote and the endorphins flood their brain again

I have to take him at his word. If he thinks it is going well, that means the chaos is what he wants.

He is either gaming the stock market for profit, or trying to harm the world economy.

The very slim possibility is that he is being told by others with an agenda that things are working as planned.

I’m not seeking to defend FPTP, butf the two party system is inevitable, how come the UK has 393 political parties? It’s true that one of two parties usually wins, but against that backdrop, the SNP was able to flourish in Scotland. In America you literally have Republican, Democratic parties and Independents. It is not inevitable but it certainly isn’t a good system for the modern age.

Profit like a motherfucker day.

You think he doesn’t have someone buying the stocks he tanked just before his announcement.

That is the attitude that proves the point. I’m not as sure as you are about the profit.

It does not cost much to make a/an _______

We tend to oversimpliy and ignore other things that need to be paid for. A short list of things that the markup has to cover that I can think of if the top of my head… IT infrastructure and support for ~80,000 employees worldwide. Rent for stores, salaries and benefits for the staff that work in them. Furnishings, signage and maintenance of stores. Shipping of product to stores. Distribution warehouses. Logistics planning and execution staff and software. Corporate level sales management staff and software. Marketing including sponsorships, TV spots, billboards, etc etc.

Each pair of shoes has to contribute to each of these things and all the others I can’t think of right now or don’t even know are needed.

I don’t mean to say that they don’t make (good) profit, but it’s probably no where near as big as you imagine.

You can argue whether or not a all of that corporate machinery is needed as well, but Nike clearly thinks it is right now or they wouldn’t spend money there for no reason because that doesn’t make the line go up unless there is a payback for that spending.

So we oversimplify and say the markup is huge, they can afford to pay more to make their product and still be profitable… But it probably means job losses in other parts of the company a good number of which are probably American jobs that Nike currently does offer.

That’s not what they think. They think that employees in the US would get good wages and the cost of goods wouldn’t change. They don’t understand the simple economics behind moving a factory to a country with a low manufacturing overhead.

They would be the first to complain that Nike wages are too low and/or Nike trainers now cost too much. Nike would be accused of price gouging even when they would probably struggle a lot more to be profitable.

Is a have your cake and eat it situation. Oh and it’s also worth noting that I expect almost all of the people who complain about manufacturing being overseas and not in the USA would not consider the jobs they want to bring home.

“There are plenty of other Americans who would do them, but i am destined for greater things than that”