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US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

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Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#391

Post by NickC25 »

fatbird wrote: post #365
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk claimed that USAID was a CIA front as part of his rationale to gut it. A very strange thing for a defense contractor to say out loud.

I know, this makes me crazy. The response should have been "... and?! You mean the intelligence community has a worldwide network for raking local information that also accrues goodwill to the US, and you want to end that ?"

And not only accrues goodwill, it keeps American farmers growing crops that are otherwise unprofitable. US Farmers are too stubborn to keep up with the times, insist on growing crops that there's no domestic demand for (and are heavily subsidized), yet vote in jackasses that are going to take away the only market there is for their crops.

USAID somehow managed to get everyone paid and kept everyone happy. Who gives a shit if it was a CIA front?

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#392

Post by rurp »

irishcoffee wrote: post #358
runako wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I have noted during this inflationary period is that individual stores/chains are gaming pricing much more than I remember before. For example, your store might be competing for business using the headline price of eggs and making it up on milk and bread. In our city, Whole Foods was the cheapest non-warehouse place to buy eggs for a while. Anecdotally, it looks like one could save a relatively large % on v…

The problem with shopping at 5 stores to save money on groceries is that with gas prices you're probably not saving money, and if you're not moving around to various stores using any type of energy but kinetic, it is a large opportunity cost that could be spent doing other things, if you even have the time at all. There is no way I could go shop at 5, or even 3 stores a week for food, I simply do not have the time. (…

What I do is rotate through 4-5 stores but only go to one per week. I stock up on paper towels or whatever when I'm at the store that has the best prices on them, and so on for other goods.

I actually do know someone who regularly hits up multiple grocery stores every week chasing deals and that does seem crazy to me. The cost in gas and time doesn't at all seem worth it.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#393

Post by teh64 »

teh64 wrote: post #390
mgfist wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And unfortunately, America made it clear it wants to harm average Iranian. By and large this is not true. The US and Israel have hit Iran tens of thousands of times, and have never hit a pure civilian target on purpose. They've hit dual use targets, and accidentally hit civilian targets, but not ones on purpose. They could flatten Tehran if they wanted to hit civilians. > Plus its idea of regime change is to keep r…

"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" - Sounds pretty wanting to harm the average Iranian to me.

Or "We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We are going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong."

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#394

Post by NickC25 »

lorecore wrote: post #346
virgildotcodes wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The America First MAGA people fail so hard to understand that these expenditures on things like foreign bases and US Aid resulted in far greater returns for us. It's never been about altruism or the greater good. I say this as an anti-empirical leftist with no great sympathy for the effort, but for those proclaiming to put America's interests above all else it's just such an obvious and idiotic short-sighted self-own…

Investing in domestic infrastructure would generate even greater returns. Yes, through some financial hand waving, we may funnel money spent on bombs back to US military contractors, but imagine if that same money was spent on a high speed rail system. It would unlock greater efficiency and logistics with the same money staying with US contractors. That's a purely financial take and not even touching on humanitarian…

Greater returns for whom, and what would we gain geopolitically?

I don't disagree that money should be spent here. But instead of billions spent on military contractors, using some of that money in developing countries through USAID gets us some incredible returns...such as our work in the Congo securing our rights to the largest Cobalt deposit on the planet. Or our work in Namibia giving us access to the 4th largest deposit of Uranium on the planet. The top 3 countries for Uranium exports are either under the Sino-Russian sphere of influence (Kazakhstan) or are nations that could get there due to the fact that they fucking hate the US due to the genius words of Donald Trump (Canada and Australia).

You want America's sources of Cobalt and Uranium cozying up to China and giving the US the finger?

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#395

Post by orwin »

bigyabai wrote: post #374
myth_drannon wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is even worse than Russia on that matter. Before the invasion to Ukraine, Russia was heavily involved in Syria, Chechnia and other conflicts and with that experience it failed miserably. China, with all its posturing, military wise is even worse than Russia. That's why all it can do is propaganda war on social media to weaken American society.

> China, [...] military wise is even worse than Russia. Define "military" first. China's infantry is less experienced than Russia's, but so is America's infantry by-and-large. Neither country envies Russia's army, or the war they chose to fight. Arguably China got the best of both worlds by sending a limited quantity of mercenaries to study the way the conflict was fought. The war China wants to fight is in the first…

No, China military (or rather, navy+airforce), while less corrupt than Russia contrary to what GP claimed (or gggp?), is still way inferior to the US in a direct conflict (mostly because of the US air dominance + OTAN submarines and radar tech). The truth is that they don't need an army anyway, they just need to wait an economic slump and will get Taiwan politically/economically.

Thales land radar systems always perform as expected, sometime better than expected, in land conflicts. If this is the same for their naval radars, they are far ahead of the competition.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#396

Post by lotsofpulp »

jaybrendansmith wrote: post #332
tencentshill wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US oil industry is making massive amount of money directly from the people of the US on the inflated prices, since their domestic supply and refineries are unaffected. It also perfectly matches the actions a foreign country trying to harm the US would take. There's so many terrible options to choose from!

None of the Trump administrations actions look objectively different than what a foreign adversary would do to destroy the United States of America. It's staring us all in the face every day. My children will pay for this their entire fucking lives.

I bet foreign adversaries are simply throwing in the towel since the American people can do far worse than whatever they could come up with.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#398

Post by lotsofpulp »

giantg2 wrote: post #325
WarmWash wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually from what I have seen, most SWE's partners are also in tech or "white collar adjacent" making similar money. Which makes a household income of $270k, putting them in somewhere around the top ~7.5%.

I have seen some of that, but there is still plenty of non-tech partners, especially if the tech half is at a non-tech company. In my experience, the managers are the ones most likely to have a high earning spouse. It seems like most of the managers I know have a spouse making $100k+. I don't make as much as others, but I can't even imagine how good my life could be if my wife made the same amount as me so we had a c…

> Makes me wonder how many of those are retirees vs working age, and what the median household income would be for 25-55yo vs the entire population.

https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-income-by-age-percentil...

> but I can't even imagine how good my life could be if my wife made the same amount as me so we had a combined income close to $200k.

Outside of a VHCOL, $200k mostly buys you peace of mind, if you live modestly. You get to build savings to be able to say F you to your employer and maybe take time off and spend a few thousand without worry if a family member needs medical attention.

Inside of a VHCOL, $200k merely helps you get a downpayment for a half decent home.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#399

Post by AntiUSAbah »

jvanderbot wrote: post #189
AntiUSAbah wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soooo just to be clear here with your argument: The USA was doing something to guarantee that stuff can flow through it, then they start a war, now they can no longer guarantee this? Did they suddenly loose the power to protect this flow? Just because USA is war mongering, doesn't mean no one else would have stepped up or that it wouldn't be better without all of this involvment.

Everything I said was true : Bretton woods exists, and my opinion flows from that. Feel free to disregard it or correct the facts, I think that'd be a good discussion. And yeah, USA might do dumb things that put them into a bind, but ultimately the peaceful flow of traffic through Hormuz is a goal worth pursuing for the world economic health.

I'm happy to endulge in a good discussion. My argument is not that deep for sure, but you are only referencing Bretton woods.

The problem with US petro dollar is always the same: we don't know what would have been if it wouldn't exist.

But my main point was very specific to the strait of hormuz and how it was flowing without the help of the USA, now stoped because of the influnece of the USA and how the USA can't restart it.

So your point is not valid for the current state of the strait of hormuz.

You are also moving the goal post now as you state that the peaceful flow of traffic is worth it. Of course it is but now we have to do it and its not the USA helping some other country to fix their problem, in this case every other country needs to do something to fix US Americas problem they created.

USA also got very rich and powerful thanks to the petro dollar, which now shifts to China and now China is benefiting from this. This system was never fair though.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#400

Post by itronitron »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #396
jaybrendansmith wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the Trump administrations actions look objectively different than what a foreign adversary would do to destroy the United States of America. It's staring us all in the face every day. My children will pay for this their entire fucking lives.

I bet foreign adversaries are simply throwing in the towel since the American people can do far worse than whatever they could come up with.

"shock and awe"
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