Man, its amazing how confident you are about this, considering I know individual people who independently work at Visa, Mastercard, AND Apple, who have worked on mobile payments who independently confirm that none of them know any personal info and that its all pass-through.
So, are you sure you know what you are talking about?
This kind of appeal to authority [believe me because I say so!] doesn't really add much information, does it?
The report, above, is that previous transactions are visible within Apple's payment app. Apple agrees[1]. I'm willing to accept that this observation is based on reality and that it is reported in good faith.
Meanwhile, the suggestion is that Apple has no knowledge of transaction history.
Is there a way in which these two seemingly-conflicting concepts can be constructively combined into an understandable whole?
This is baffling, there's all sorts of information on my phone that Apple has zero knowledge of, why would the transactions be different?
Do you think Apple has complete copies of everything? I don't understand where this supposed contradiction is supposed to exist, unless you think that Apple has complete knowledge of all phone contents, which would require complete ignorance of the entire platform.
> This is baffling, there's all sorts of information on my phone that Apple has zero knowledge of, why would the transactions be different?
It's kind of unique. It involves finances, and reporting transactions, and it involves their app with their branding that runs on hardware that they unilaterally control. They apparently even take cut from the middle of each of these transaction.
If Apple does all of this with zero knowledge, then I am willing to accept accept that...
> Do you think Apple has complete copies of everything? I don't understand where this supposed contradiction is supposed to exist, unless you think that Apple has complete knowledge of all phone contents, which would require complete ignorance of the entire platform.
...but I'll only accept it if the functional operation can be explained.
This kind of non-explanatory browbeating doesn't further my understanding of anything at all. I have never endeavored to undertake a faith-based approach to understanding technology, and I'm certainly not going to begin doing so today.
Since 2001 the US has spent 29.7 Trillion on entitlements excluding social security vs 18 Trillion of military spending.
Of course the entitlements are useful spending - these are things people need and benefit from. Had these dollars not been spent by the US government, they would have been spent directly by the taxpayers for the same goods and services. While some money may have been saved if this spending were private, it probably wouldn't change the total economic impact by much.
On the other hand we have nothing to show for the $18 trillion burned on wars that went horrifically. If we'd put that money into useful investments such that it paid interest and stopped our defense spending, we would be running a $300 billion per year surplus right now with no cuts to any other government services, to say nothing of the potential economic advantages if the wars had just never happened.
And don't get me started on the $10 trillion lost to the Bush tax cuts and their extensions.
> 29.7 Trillion on entitlements excluding social security
Convenient to exclude SS for ... no reason other than it makes your numbers look better because its a vast majority of entitlement spending so it makes your argument look bad.
May I ask you provide numbers including all entitlement spending, which includes SS?
This is what I meant by knowing what the numbers are.
The purpose of my response was that using Friedman's quote was hypocritical when expensive wars are fought and taxes on the wealthy are cut (a point ignored). It's also unclear to what extend the undocumented are a burden on the welfare state in relation to the above. The current party in power, with the exception of Senator Rand Paul, seem remarkably unconcerned with the $40 trillion deficit.
I'll bet that is less of an issue than the issue of evacuation.
Currently, aircraft seatbelts are designed for very quick release when needed with no training or muscle memory needed, shove your hand at your waist and pull the metal flap and it immediately comes apart. This seems like it could be an issue with baby carriers, since a) you can probably expect a bit more complex arrangement of straps buckles and b) lack of muscle memory or training on presumably a different style of carrier than what you ever ever use outside an airplane.
A second issue that comes to mind, how to do seating arrangements? Imagine a parent struggling to remove baby during a emergency. Imagine a 3 seat row window side, where others are stuck waiting for parent to release baby.
Certified rigid car seats are already allowed onboard and pretty much every airline you've ever flown on has clear guidelines on which seats they can be placed in for exactly that reason.
Easy. PE 99% of the time buy businesses that were already failing and provide a lifeline. A failing business can't afford to pay for expensive medical treatments without a loan that a bank will not provide since it is failing.
People who are vehemently against PE generally do not have any idea of how the system works
That's one model of private equity, but PE has also been buying up very successful local businesses in areas like veterinary care. The PE firm keeps the name and branding of the local vet because people have traditionally wanted to take their pet to a trusted local vet, not a big chain.
They don't have to have an in-depth understanding of leveraged finance to get pissed off when their doctors start doubling prices or their own employment conditions get worse or their parents get treated badly in care homes because the staff are now overworked etc. they're mad at the outcomes they're overwhelmingly not actually trying to debate the merits of it from an exit liquidity perspective.
Strong and unpredictable early game, solid middle game, strongest late game. It also has some of the best units in the game: zerglings, mutalisks, defilers. Especially defilers, they are arguably the strongest spellcasters in the game
This is not a viable strategy in competitive play. It's a huge resource/time investment with a dubious payoff.
If you could win as Protoss by building Dark Archons, raiding your Zerg opponent's base to capture a worker, building a bunch of Zerg production and tech buildings, and attacking with a combined army... you most likely outclass your opponent, and could have won much faster using a more conventional strategy.
What you're describing is a casual game, not competitive play. And, of course, all bets are off if you're playing with additional rules like "no rush" which remove the element of tempo from the game.
Glossing over everything, but either you feel Descarte's 'I think, therefore I am', or you don't.
Singularities are interesting 'moments': places where timelines converge. One of these seems to exist at the 'Big Bang', and one seems to exist at the center of a 'Black Hole'.
This man's 'math' suggests we live in a black hole.
This is a almost entirely oversimplified take on the Great Depression to the point of meaninglessness
For a decade before Black Thursday,there had been many things that were signs that the economy was having trouble even if the "Roaring Twenties" made it seem like everything was fine.
IMO the largest issue was that American farm sector was teetering on the edge because of the dramatic drop in crop prices. This deflation screwed over farmers who mechanized with lots of debt, which because of said deflation, became impossible to pay off.
The fed also implemented rate hikes to curb speculation right before 1929 which froze up credit contributing to deflation
The problem of the Great Depression was NOT the stock market crash, it arguably wasn't even the real start, just the most "spectacular" one. The problem was that with the entire economy deflating, it caused a massive downward spiral that the Fed did not really have the tools to fix, because of Gold Standard and lack of legal authorization.
This was why the Govt went to extreme lengths to try and figure out how to raise prices, which is why you get programs to pay farmers to NOT grow food, and mass killings of pigs and cows and other farm animals, even as the farmers who raised those lifestock went hungry.
So no, speculation was not the problem, it just sparked the key issue of the fact that the economy was deflation uncontrolled, but was just hidden.
This is a complex topic and I think you have done a good job of summarizing the main issues. To add a little context:
>...that the Fed did not really have the tools to fix, because of Gold Standard and lack of legal authorization.
This was just bad policy by the Fed. The Fed had the legal authority to be the lender of last resort and could have prevented the bank failures. Many explanations have been given over the years as to why the Fed didn't provide liquidity. Because the Fed failed to supply emergency liquidity, the U.S. money supply plummeted by nearly 30% over the next couple of years, which essentially turned what likely would have been a recession into the Great Depression.
This is not to say the gold standard was not a problem. During the 1930's, leaving the gold standard was one of the few good moves done to help the economy by the federal government.
So, are you sure you know what you are talking about?
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