As long as both tribes think the other will benefit more from fiscal responsibility, there will be no agreement. We'd prefer to die together with our enemy than watch them win.

I know. I just loved to see it again. I am nothing if not vindictive when it comes to football.

Not as of yet. I’m sure that they have announcements in place, but nothing yet. We don’t sell them, but I have to wonder about a product like Zimmerman. Built by Pearl River and Hailun, then shipped to Germany, then shipped from there to the US. Would that be the 25% European tariffs or would that be the 35% Chinese?

Link to video

@Mik said in A Visualization: Interesting. The accompanying question is what do we get per dollar spent as opposed to other countries. [image: 1740659109712-51c6c021-dd8d-42d6-b501-99ba33a2614c-image.png] Toys, lots of toys.

@89th LOL. So true. One time I had to fly to Korea to "troubleshoot" an issue. The main issue was the lead person there (female, but doesn't really matter) had poor communication skills - mainly direct communication skills, wanting to avoid face to face. I had her set up a group meeting first thing in the day and last thing before we went home. (I know, not the most efficient long term, but in the short term, it worked) First meeting of the day: quick "bullet points" of what was needed to be done Last meeting: review bullet points, decide what questions/comments needed to go back to US for overnight review Next day Repeat Very simple, but getting her to improve the communication went a long way.

Did he say negros, or nigros?

The OKC bombing and September 11th unfortunately push this out of mind. But for a year, this was absolutely huge news. Even on the pop culture level. A major turning point in Stephen King’s Dark Tower epic was dealing with an artifact hidden in the lockers near the site of the bombing.

LOL, the facial expression helps

Loyalty for thee, not for me!

The "Gold Card" will replace the EB-5 visa. The EB-5 was created in 1990 by Congress. The Gold Card will mandate five to ten times the money required by the EB-5... https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/eb-5-immigrant-investor-program The Gold Card will differ from the EB-5, in that it will contain a path to citizenship. I don't know if it will have an investment component. I hope it does.

It is certainly true that in a world where AI takes over for anything requiring any strict cognitive reasoning or knowledge-based expertise, what we're left with are the "soft skills" the article hand waves as creativity, curiosity, courage, compassion and communication. I would suggest that it will be difficult for a large company to justify all those jobs for people with negligible physical and cognitive abilities, but high abilities in creativity, curiosity, courage, compassion and communication. This fanciful scenario will run up against a practical consideration of a company finding profit in the output of their thousands of creative, curios, courageous, compassionate, and communicative employees. It would make for a good Disney movie, though that script could be written by an AI, and the animations could be done with AI.

Not so fast! Putin has some questions, concerns and conditions: “We were interested in him sitting there,” Putin told Zarubin, adding that Zelensky is, in his view, “destroying Ukraine from within.” Then Putin shifted focus to his plans for Ukraine’s political future, asserting that he is determined “to bring to power people who will enjoy the trust of the people of Ukraine.” This suggests potential future moves toward installing new leadership favorable to Kremlin interests. In a further twist, Putin indirectly implied that these strategies are part of prior agreements with US President Donald Trump. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/47881 But wait! There’s still more to come: Moscow would not stop at the current contact lines in Ukraine and sought to capture the entirety of four Ukrainian regions it claimed to have annexed via illegal referendums, according to a Wednesday statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “Some say: ‘Okay, let’s leave the line of contact. This is Russian, and this is Ukrainian.’ This will not happen. We have a Constitution based on the will of the people,” Lavrov said at a press conference, referring to Moscow’s illegal referendums in Ukraine. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/47871

If it was just the word ‘racist’ then it would seem obviously intentional. But any word starting with ‘R’? What’s the point of that?

@Jolly said in RTO. Different office?: @89th said in RTO. Different office?: The thing is... Trump is an alpha leader. I enjoy that aspect about him, sometimes. He could force a prudent strategy of change if he wanted to that doesn't fall into the paralysis trap. He could say "every agency needs to cut staff by 20% over the next two years, and also provide an executive summary of where funding goes in the next 3 months so that I can figure out where it makes sense to suggest/force cuts". Now I'm sure you'll say it's totally fine just because that's the line, and I don't know your line of work specifically, but imagine if the governor came to your hospital and just fired everyone and said "Meh, gotta break things to fix things!... we'll figure out after everyone is gone what jobs are needed and re-hire new folks as needed. I'm sure you'd say... yeah, not the brightest approach." The governor did come to my hospital and he did fire everybody. Link?

@Mik said in Numbers: As work has gotten consistently more efficient You must have worked in different places to me