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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

It would have been weird if Truman had gone "screw this war, I always thought it had been a mistake, anyway" right when the US was about to win it. And of course, no Truman doctrine. Also, saving atomic bombs for a rainy day, or something.

Alternatively there's an entire Hollywood movie about the 09 crisis that explains what a short is and is called The Big Short. Go watch it. It's really good, educational, and quite funny.

Oh, well. Thanks, anyway.

Austrian Economics follows praxeology, which means it rejects empiricism, which means it's not scientific, so it's not actually economics. https://mises.org/wire/do-austrians-really-reject-empirical-evidence

I thought it was well established that the Austrian school of economics is a bunch of nutters following an agenda, with little basis in actual science.

At least as far as Europe is concerned the further north you go the worse the food gets.

That Project Cars 2 is calling to me. Is it still available?

Thanks Amentep.

It all depends on how the sign is adopted and interpreted by the population at large. If it's one guy with a sign, one time, it doesn't mean a whole lot, if neonazis start using a previously innocuous sign in a more systematic fashion then you have a problem.

I know it's a problem because of these sorts of situations. I assume it's also a common symbol in sign language. But then there are these guys:

It's more than understandable not to like it, and there's a bunch of contexts where the OK sign was(is?) widely and helpfully used. However, this is how language works. Meanings are defined and are changed by everyday usage. If you have a bunch of white supremacists actively using a previously innocuous symbol in order to "troll the libs", the meaning of that symbol may become indelibly associated with white supremacism. It should be interpreted as such if it is intended as such.

The meaning of hand gestures changing is just a thing that happens. Just look at the Bellamy salute for an obvious example. The case of the OK hand sign turning into a white supremacist symbol is terrible. While it started out as a stupid 4chan joke, it eventually started being used by actual white supremacists unironically. It was used by some Trump supporters at the Capitol, for example, and by the Christchurch mosque shooter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_adoption_in_Europe While the situation is a lot better than some years ago, there is still a long way to go. As examples your own country doesn't permit adoption, and Hungary explicitly banned LGBT adoption just last month.

Secular: "not connected with religious or spiritual matters." "of or relating to the worldly or temporal" "of or relating to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred" "not pertaining to or connected with religion" "concerned with nonreligious subjects." "not having any connection with religion"

Trump was anything but an every man.

Uh, that didn't answer my question and that's not what secular means.

Care to specify which specific beliefs and opinions you might be referring to, religious or secular?

Including that.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Norway and Denmark have rather low numbers of cases per capita, compared to other European countries. Norway in particular has been doing exceptionally. Sweden is rather average, not good but not terrible, and this is compared to other countries who went all in on masks and lockdowns.

No one really knows if it is a failure. It didn't "went". It's still ongoing and it's way too early to draw any encompassing conclusions. Europe is hitting a new spike right now due to the holidays and things will get worse before they get better. I guess there's one thing that can be said was a failure. Namely protecting the elderly in care homes at the start of the pandemic. It was terrible, and the Swedish authorities have admitted as much. Sweden right now is in process of setting up more restrictions, after passing a temporary law giving some emergency powers to the government. To begin they are limiting the number of people in businesses to 1 per every 10 square metres. Also children from the 7th grade up are being sent home, where schools have the resources in place to teach remotely. This is in addition to a requirement to use masks in public transport during rush hours.