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Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

This class action lawsuit against the National Realtors Association (and others) seems like it could be a pretty big deal.

https://www.inman.com/2019/03/08/what-the-bombshell-buyer-side-lawsuit-means-for-realtors/amp/

Based only on a 5-minute article... I think the plaintiffs might be right. But also, I'm not sure I want them to succeed. This all sounds not so good. Though, I'm not sure the nuking of the entire infrastructure is the result if they win. The world is complex, laws are more complex, and there's always some breathing room. Hopefully the court can find it.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

No. It is a classic example of something that sounds lovely and has exactly zero actual value in the real world.

You would be better off just lighting the dollars on fire. At least the recipients would be warm then.

Sometimes bullsh-t is just bullsh-t. "Just say no." "Thoughts and prayers." And this. Magical thinking.

So what do you do instead if it doesn't work?
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

So what do you do instead if it doesn't work?

F-ck if I know, son. I'm from the Old Way.

Either most people simply don't work anymore or we invent new things for them to do. Maybe we'll invent a religion where you have to pray for your ancestors 40 hours a week or they burn in eternal hellfire. People are good at praying, especially the ones who aren't good at anything else.

Killing each other is another very popular choice from history. Not in wars -- machines will be much better than we in wars from now on. But just think of how many people we could occupy if some people started randomly murdering other people. Then we'd have people whose job it was to find them and kill them first, and people to report on them, and people to invent ways of predicting them, not to mention people to get themselves blown up.

The more I think about it the more this idea has promise.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

F-ck if I know, son. I'm from the Old Way.

Either most people simply don't work anymore or we invent new things for them to do. Maybe we'll invent a religion where you have to pray for your ancestors 40 hours a week or they burn in eternal hellfire. People are good at praying, especially the ones who aren't good at anything else.

Killing each other is another very popular choice from history. Not in wars -- machines will be much better than we in wars from now on. But just think of how many people we could occupy if some people started randomly murdering other people. Then we'd have people whose job it was to find them and kill them first, and people to report on them, and people to invent ways of predicting them, not to mention people to get themselves blown up.

The more I think about it the more this idea has promise.

Maybe let's call that Plan B
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Based only on a 5-minute article... I think the plaintiffs might be right. But also, I'm not sure I want them to succeed. This all sounds not so good. Though, I'm not sure the nuking of the entire infrastructure is the result if they win. The world is complex, laws are more complex, and there's always some breathing room. Hopefully the court can find it.

It's an interesting question as to whether buyers and sellers are helped or hurt by multiple listing services. It does basically fix rates at 5 or 6 percent of the sales price. But there are, I think, some benefits to multiple listing services.

First, I think they can protect against monopolies. It would be pretty easy for a large company to lower it's commission to drive the small independents out of business, and then turn around and raise the rates when the competition is gone. Also, without multiple listing, your home would basically only be shown by the broker you listed your house with, and not all of the realtors in town. Once it's on the MLS, each realtor (whether they had the original listing or not) is going to try to show the house because they will split the fee with the original listing broker if a sale occurs (I think). But if everyone just lists with a broker, and if there is no MLS, you basically only have your own broker out there trying to sell your house.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Job training may not have been as successful as possible...but that's on individual motivations, the implementation, and not the concept. And the dole is an important positive, but it just puts a few more dollars in the pockets of those left behind...not help them move forward.

No. It is a classic example of something that sounds lovely and has exactly zero actual value in the real world.

So what do you do instead if it doesn't work?

Just to be clear, the concept of job training does work.

Like most aspects of government, its being cut and therefore doesn't get the resources to address individual motivations and be executed properly. I actually saw the article Atlantic's mislabeled 'The False Promises of Worker Retraining' prior to my post. That article does not claim that jobs training can't work...but rather is not designed properly. Here are all the premises it advances:

'Workers who have been laid off through corporate downsizing or because their jobs were shipped to a foreign country don’t want to dedicate the time and effort needed to go through retraining without the pledge of a sure-fire job with the same or a better paycheck.' - Sounds like an individuals decision or motivation issue

'Federal retraining programs remain rooted in the industrial era in which they were created.' - Sounds like an execution issue

'For many dislocated workers it’s often easier to collect unemployment or other cash benefits that come along with training and then either remain jobless or patch together work that doesn’t require learning a new skill or acquiring a college degree.' - An individual motivation issue

'Employers don’t want to expand or relocate without the availability of an already-skilled workforce' - learn computer programming. Done. Oh, you don't want to do that?

'Dollars delivered to the states through the federal government’s primary workforce-retraining program have been slashed by 22 percent since 2009, and in his first budget earlier this year, President Trump proposed further cuts.' - Sounds like execution

“Higher education is usually seen as being inflexible to the needs of students.” - Execution

https://www.theatlantic.com/educati...e-false-promises-of-worker-retraining/549398/

...and what do we say about the US failure on guns? Look at other countries. Why don't we do that on jobs retraining? The following is an article that shows how others in the world have figured this out, but the US hasn't in large part to diversity and large part to govt. cuts:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-co...n-can-teach-the-world-about-worker-retraining

Indeed, while Sweden's federal unemployment agency also runs retraining and counseling schemes, the industry-union councils do a better job of tracking which jobs and skills are most in demand, and they can adapt more quickly to market changes, Melin says. One council, TRR Trygghetsradet, had a success rate of 90 percent last year, and 34 percent of those re-employed workers found jobs that paid the same or more than their former ones.

Other countries show how the concept of jobs training can work with the right programs...
 
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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

UBI, obviously. Because it worked so well in Finland. :p

I think we can all agree that representative democracy failed in the Classical Greek and Renaissance Italian city states and thus, thankfully, has never been attempted again!
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Private/Public partnership problems in a Twitter nutshell:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Hi Steve, like previously stated, Dunkin Donuts is responsible for opening the doors in the morning at Hamilton station. NJT has spoken to the vendor multiple times. If you would like to file a formal complaint, use the link below. -TB <a href="https://t.co/XKn7GOjKzM">https://t.co/XKn7GOjKzM</a></p>— NJ TRANSIT (@NJTRANSIT) <a href="https://twitter.com/NJTRANSIT/status/1108702325693124608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Private/Public partnership problems in a Twitter nutshell:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Hi Steve, like previously stated, Dunkin Donuts is responsible for opening the doors in the morning at Hamilton station. NJT has spoken to the vendor multiple times. If you would like to file a formal complaint, use the link below. -TB <a href="https://t.co/XKn7GOjKzM">https://t.co/XKn7GOjKzM</a></p>— NJ TRANSIT (@NJTRANSIT) <a href="https://twitter.com/NJTRANSIT/status/1108702325693124608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Yep. No shock here. Just more America pumping the handcart to hell.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

The yield curve just inverted.

It’s been threatening for months but it finally happened. It’s not a perfect predictor of a recession, but it has only been wrong twice since 1966. The average length to a recession has been about a year. If you have a recession a year from now, November 2020 will be a bloodbath.
 
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Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

The yield curve just inverted.

It’s been threatening for months but it finally happened. It’s not a perfect predictor of a recession, but it has only been wrong twice since 1966. The average length to a recession has been about a year. If you have a recession a year from now, November 2020 will be a bloodbath.

We can't have a recession. We had a huge corporate tax cut that was going to finally unshackle this economy and get it humming at 4% GDP a year.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Another deficit record. Glad to see Netflix raising monthly prices after the record tax savings

“The record deficit comes as the government paid back more corporate taxes than it took in, losing $669 million. Overall, corporate taxes for the year were down $14.3 billion in comparison to the same period last year.”

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/...IinuJhksxhKcf-TGduhC_AjpBhF8paCYu_ahxjpJf1zzw
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Another deficit record. Glad to see Netflix raising monthly prices after the record tax savings

“The record deficit comes as the government paid back more corporate taxes than it took in, losing $669 million. Overall, corporate taxes for the year were down $14.3 billion in comparison to the same period last year.”

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/...IinuJhksxhKcf-TGduhC_AjpBhF8paCYu_ahxjpJf1zzw

There's no deficit. With the corporate rate cut and the economy humming at 4% GDP, AND all the money Ghina is giving us from the Tariffs we're ROLLING in DOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

The yield curve just inverted.

It’s been threatening for months but it finally happened. It’s not a perfect predictor of a recession, but it has only been wrong twice since 1966. The average length to a recession has been about a year. If you have a recession a year from now, November 2020 will be a bloodbath.

Yeah, and don'tcha know us Demorats (sic) just cheer it on! :rolleyes:
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

The upgrade to version 1.0.

This is... entirely unacceptable. There shouldn't be a single beta or unfinished feature on something that is critical to life and safety. Or let's be honest, anything to do with commercial flights.
 
This is... entirely unacceptable. There shouldn't be a single beta or unfinished feature on something that is critical to life and safety. Or let's be honest, anything to do with commercial flights.

Their fix, while obviously an improvement over the plane flying itself into the ground, still leaves the pilot with a plane that has the tendency to want to pitch up too high. Seems to me the root issue that needs to be fixed are the sensors that seem to be not even close to reliable enough.
 
Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Their fix, while obviously an improvement over the plane flying itself into the ground, still leaves the pilot with a plane that has the tendency to want to pitch up too high. Seems to me the root issue that needs to be fixed are the sensors that seem to be not even close to reliable enough.

I'm not sure that's the problem. Wasn't the whole root cause the fact that they extended the fuselage and they had to adjust how the automated flight controls work? I don't recall exactly what it was, but I could have sworn I heard that somewhere.

If you need the computer to make the adjustments, your plane isn't airworthy. That's the kind of stuff they build into fighter jets. They can be inherently unstable because they need maneuverability.

I could be pulling all of this straight out of my a-s though, so YMMV.

Edit: Wiki has the following:
Boeing 737 MAX aircraft have engines mounted higher and further forward than previous 737 models. This engine relocation and the new nacelle shape cause an upward pitching moment. In order to pass Part 25 certification requirements, Boeing employed the MCAS to automatically apply nose-down trim when the aircraft is in steep turns or in low-speed, flaps-retracted flight. When the angle of attack (AOA) exceeds a limit that depends on airspeed and altitude, the system activates without notice to the pilot. The system is temporarily deactivated when a pilot trims the aircraft using a switch on the yoke

That's the one. The plane's design causes it to have an upward pitching moment. Isn't that a problem that shouldn't need to be fixed with another computer system?
 
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