The three biggest spending cetegories for the US govt so far in FY21 are Income security, social security & medicare. Combined, they account for nearly half the govt spending.
Want to reduce expenditure - start there.
You are correct - if you adjust by working age population, it drops down to approx 1 in 2 working age people paying tax (58%).
Still a very low % of the work age population paying tax though. To give you a comparison - Australia has about 87% of the working age population paying taxes.
That was the first thing I noticed as well. Approx 1 in 3 people paying taxes - that's fucking crazy.
Japan - continuing to produce 78% of the world's weird shit since 1952.
Seriously though - they are hoping it will prove an attraction and boost tourism $$ to help them in their Covid recovery. Given this news on this is now going viral, it looks like it will turn out to be a good investment.
Vote Don & Ron to get shit done!
Jack Dorsey tweeted out to download the app back in June.
Edward Snowden has also backed it.
Signal is developed by Signal Messenger LLC, whose parent organization is the Signal Technology Foundation. They've just recently tweeted:
We are a 501c3 nonprofit. We're not tied to any major tech companies, and we can never be acquired by one either. Development is supported by grants and donations from Signal users.
Currently, the Signal Foundation's board consists of only three people: Brian Acton (who left WhatsApp/Facebook in 2017), Moxie Marlinspike, and Meredith Whittaker.
As for the question of trust:
Signal conversations are always end-to-end encrypted, which means that they can only be read or heard by your intended recipients. Privacy isn’t an optional mode — it’s just the way that Signal works. Every message, every call, every time. You can confirm that the server is operating correctly and that you are communicating with the right person using safety numbers.
The complete source code for the Signal clients and the Signal server is available on GitHub. This enables interested parties to examine the code for security and correctness.
Make of that what you will.
It's the Berlin tower.
The Tarrant County Democratic Party briefly posted and then deleted an image on social media labeling all of the candidates who opposed the diversity plan as "racist."
Of course they did. They can't help themselves.
I think the problem is that they are contactors.
Not sure how things work in NZ, but here is Aus contractors have less rights than full time employees.
Notably, contractors do not have rights to apply to the Fair Work Commission for reinstatement or compensation using the unfair dismissal provisions.
They might be able to sue for breach of contract however.
Let's call them what they are - cultural terrorists.
You don't negotiate with terrorists.
3.13 trillion deficit last year.
2.3 trillion projected deficit this year.
Nearly 30 trillion in federal debt currently.
Austerity measures (financial not scholarly) are going to have to come in at some point.
I still remember sitting in the theater watching Reloaded on opening night. Like most people, I was psyched as hell. By the time the movie had gotten around to depicting Zion, the "last human city" in a technologically advanced future, as an African drum tribe of mostly brown people grinding on each other, I was done.
I remember watching this and being immediately taken out of the movie. Morpheus has literally just warned the crowd of that the machines are coming, but then it's like "nah, it'll be fine, let's have a rave." Imagine that towards the end of the original Star Wars movie when the death star was approaching the rebel base, that the rebels decided to have a dance party instead of preparing for the attack. Makes about as much sense.
That whole sequence was cringey AF.
There are white men in both the police and hostages but none of them are in focus. The focus instead is around the police chief (black) and the female diverse hostages. And the terrorists of course, who are all white.
The truly stupid thing was how Wonder Woman takes out the terrorist leader and the entire wall behind him, dumping a tonne of debris onto the cops below. In the time taken to charge up her wrist bands she could have easy disarmed him or killed him with her sword without risking the lives of the cops on the ground. It might have been interesting if they went down the whole 'snap decision leads to collateral damage' path, but nope, she just turns around and gives some insipid "you can be anything you want speech" to one of the nearby school girl hostages.
It's a perfect summary of the current state of the BBC.
It's a funny take, but he's being a little disingenuous here - the purchase of a plank of wood is arbitrary, it's his support of Home Depot that's the issue at hand. Then again the state of Twitter is a fucking joke, so it works I guess.
Good on Ben for supporting Home Depot though. More companies need to grow a spine and stand up to these bullies.
So "markets plunge" now equals a move of less than 1%? The Dow Jones dipped lower on Tuesday FFS.
Hadn't seen that before - that was gold!
Also, that guy looks like he just stepped off the set of Die Hard. :)
Completely disingenuous reporting.
Foxconn is scaling back their investment in line with Covid's effect on the world's economies, it's nothing to do with Trump.
WTF are you on about?
This started when Australia called for an independent inquiry into the origins of Covid, and China reponded with a series of trade sanctions on Australian exports (so far: barley, beef, cotton, seafood, timber, coal & wine).
It's been an ongoing dispute with China for over a year now, and this is just the latest round.
It's also the first time the federal govt is exercising new powers that basically allow it to tear up any agreements made by individual states with other countries if they are against Australia's interests.
Not sure if action movies are your thing, but a couple of movies that look ok (i.e. woke free) from the trailers: Wrath of Man - starring Jason Statham, directed by Guy Ritchie Nobody - starring Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul)
100% of people resisting arrest get shot by accident 50% of the time?
Veritas schooling CNN on how to do actual invetigative jounalism.
Not that CNN have any interest in that kind of thing anymore...
Not a US citizen, so apologies in advance if these questions come across as a bit ignorant...(probably because they kinda are):
If 80% kits are a problem because they don't have serial numbers and don't have background checks, why not just change the legislation to have them treated the same as a normal firearm so that they do require both?
How does treating a pistol with a brace as a short barrelled rifle change things in terms of the law? Does it make it illegal to own one? How does that make it worse than using an AR-15 with a longer barrel, but with a bigger magazine, larger calibre bullets, and being more accurate due to it being shoulder mounted?
Red flag laws, on their face, seem kinda open to abuse. I get that the idea is get guns out of the hands from people with mental issues, but what's to stop disgruntled family members (e.g. separated spouse) from using this to mess with someone? Or LEO's using this as a de facto method of disarming people they don't like?
If a court rules any of these unconstitutional, are they immediately struck down?
Just when you thought 2020 was the weirdest year ever.
2021: Hold my fucking beer.
IndieWire has a more 'mask off' title: https://archive.is/Elm9V