Pidesco

I suspect that a significant percentage of current public debt in US came from bailing out big companies, tax cuts, especially corporate ones, and projects with low return on investment like the border wall. The first two go by and large into dividends to shareholders, which means it is money that will never reach the broad economy, thus not affecting growth or wealth creation significantly. Infrastructure projects help a bit more, but the border wall was a good example of a project where the money doesn't go back into society, like schools, roads, hospitals, or pretty much whatever. As in everything, it is not so much the amount you spend but how you spend it.

They really got a bum rap. I mean they did some terrible stuff with A Song of Ice and Fire, but it wasn't any worse than what Martin has put out. I mean the first book was middling, the second book was better, and then the third book was atrociously written. Everything I have read about the subsequent is that they have gotten worse and more bloated. I'd argue they were faithful to the original work. Worse and worse as it goes along is an apt description of both the series and the books. Also, the first season was certainly better than the first book.

As far as I know, that discrepancy between the housing prices' growth and real wage growth is the same across the vast majority of the developed world, especially in larger cities. I'd be surprised if the situation isn't by and large the same in Australia. It sure is throughout western Europe, at least. While the specifics of the phenomenon vary by region(here in Sweden dubious lending practices have had an effect, back in Portugal foreign speculators and very low wages did not help) the main cause for the phenomenon appears to be ever widening income inequality and eternally low interest rates. Just to say housing is a problem everywhere, so it wouldn't be a reason not to move to NZ.

https://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2021/03/17/tussauds-waxworks-in-san-antonio-removes-trump-figure-because-people-keep-punching-it

I did not know Wittgenstein was the philosopher of philosophy hipsters. Aristotle was indeed always wrong.

Actually the ecological impact of a new human roaming around for years is much bigger than that of a condom, so those kids are stupid.

Just name the telescope Star Citizen and declare the Kickstarter project complete.

I have it on good authority Beforeigners is more accurate. Time travel is a huge social issue in Norway.

The inflection point was actually the economic crisis. It, with a little help from the refugee crisis, basically allowed right wingers everywhere to lean on foreigner scaremongering. "your life is in the crapper and it's their fault, vote for us"

There's a clear case to be made regarding Hungary, I'd say. While it is not fascist in the strictest sense of the word, Orbán seems to be making an active and successful effort in making Hungary less democratic. I've seen his government called "soft fascism."

While India is not a fascist country, Modi's actions since elected are worrying for the state of democracy in India. It wouldn't be out of line to call him India's Orbán.

I'm Portuguese and I have always started counting with my index finger.

My impression is that Americans (and I assume Canadians) have larger houses than Europeans but not necessarily more rooms, so the hiding possibilities are the same. I mean the individual rooms are large, but not so large that one can hide behind the horizon. Looking for houses in, say totally randomly, Irvine, CA on Zillow there are hundreds of houses for sale that seem to have more than 2400 sq ft. For us normal SI units people that's 220 m2. Some houses are like 800 m2. This is pretty damned huge by European standards. For reference, in my local area of residence, there are 4 houses for sale that are more than 200 m2. That's out of 85 current listings. The largest is 300 m2. I assume American families don't have 11 children on average or something, nor do I assume that most American households have a bowling alley next to the kitchen. I understand that bountiful land has always been a characteristic of the US, so you guys can unironically say that, I dunno, 10m2 feels too small for a full bathroom.

I was thinking more of the square footage involved than anything else. Americans like their houses huge. Here in Sweden, only rarely do normal houses go for above 1 million.

What does "modest house" mean in your context?

Santa Clarita Diet is one best shows I have ever watched.

That's a lot of electricity. Last month I used 3132 KWh. I guess your house's insulation truly is godawful. My house isn't as ancient as yours but it is still 60 years old and the walls haven't been fully renovated since, so my house isn't exactly well insulated. It does have a new roof and good windows, though.

It doesn't include transfer. That was the first shock when I bought a house here in Sweden, but oh well. still beats paying rent around these parts.

My contract is 5 euro cents. Here it varies depending on your contract. There are also some heavy taxes on top of that, especially if you own the building for which you have your contract.

Ok, all this talk of utilities cost can't be right. Are you sure you are not talking about SEK instead of euros? I'm paying 349 SEK monthly, so more or less 35 euros for my 250Mb fiber internet, although that's with a discount. Without the discount the same service would cost 50 euros. As for my electricity bill, which includes heating, the last monthly bill was for 2500 SEK(250 euros)which is a lot by my standards, but keep in mind that I keep the at temp around 23 degrees during the day, and the central heating is powered by a decades old electric heater. Also, this has been the coldest weather(-16C today) I've had since I live in this house.

In the US specifically raising minimum wage on its own is a limited measure, because of extreme deregulation and general government opposition to unions, especially from the GOP. Still, raising wages stimulates spending, and hence the economy. It's not like inflation and high interest rates are problem these days. Wage growth in the US has been decoupled from productivity, and this is mostly a result of deregulation and the economic policies espoused by the two center right and right parties in the US. https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ The moderate left wing that formed in the center right party in the past 20 years has failed to make any headway with this, mostly due to disinformation and lack of support in their own party, plus an archaic government system that is beginning to require some real amendments for it to even moderately function in any way. The slow turning of the constitution into infallible dogma, has made any such change very unlikely.

Thanks for the heads up, but not quite that cold here, yet. Temperatures really go down as one goes further inland. Supposedly we'll get -12 at night in the next few days, but today wasn't that bad. Additionally, the car port helps a lot with the car. Just parking the car with the front towards the house makes a definite difference to how cold the car gets.

While you guys are far behind the rest of the developed world, due to self inflicted idiocy, the sources of electricity generation are slowly and inexorably changing: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Electricity_production_by_source,_EU-27,_2019_(%).png