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If your wife tells me you drove off to work an hour ago, and your commute is half an hour, it is reasonable to assume you actually are at work.

The thing is, you sign up as a Republican, and on the way to work, the company who employs you suddenly turns into Trump University, and then one day, like Morning Joe, you announce to the public: "you know what, I'm just not into working for Trump University even though I'm going to continue to be a Conservative".

Now, it is true that a blind partisan Democrat can be assumed to still be a Democrat ten years later (even if they did nominate loathsome Hilary), but do we really know the guy ticked off "blind" and "partisan" and "until death do us part" on his original Democrat Vow of Perpetual Allegiance?

I'm sure there are many Obama Democrats who signed up because of Obama, and then checked out of politics during the last election cycle when the Dems nominated a previously-owned, pant-suited, Wall St toady (if they hadn't already checked out halfway through Obama's first term, when he proved to be a colossal disappointment in standing up to the financial sector).

Furthermore, we have strong evidence of the great Democrat check-out in the form of Trump's ghastly victory. We're not even sure he could have won this election running against a ham sandwich, although he did win this election running against "crooked" Hillary. Even though Trump personally thinks Hillary is infinitely worse than a ham sandwich, he still finds time to brag about his victory as a meaningful achievement.

Hillary: high bar or low bar? Pick one.

For myself, the most effective thing I could do politically would be to register with my regional party on the right (I'm not American) so I could help nip against the darling single-issue candidates of the Christian Right in the bud at the nomination stage. This affiliation wouldn't be too hard for me to pull off, because I actually believe in the good half of Libertarianism—compassionate Libertarian wouldn't even be that far from the truth (though my opportunities to fully align myself are thin on the ground).

Then I would be, by American standards, a registered Republican. I'd be happy enough and it would all go swimmingly until Scaramucci shows up, and only then, I would totally blow my cover.

Anthony Scaramucci in 2010: Wall Street feels like a 'pinata'

There are hapless Greenpeacers on the left who say equally ridiculous things (splitting desk with head ridiculous), but they're into Volvos and macrame and other mostly harmless things, whereas Scaramucci is a spoiled child of privilege, and I just can't stand fucktards who defend their ridiculous views by pointing at their bank accounts—in a disgusting show-boat of glitzy ad hominem argument (the good half of Libertarianism believes that all men are created equal, the bad half of Libertarianism believes that all dollars are created equal; a die-hard Conservative is someone who conveniently neglects the difference when ideology hits the ballot box).

People are complex.

America's hidden philosophy — 18 July 2017

Rational choice theory therefore had to be elevated from an empirical theory covering certain empirical contexts into a normative theory of the proper operation of the human mind itself. It had to become a universal philosophy. Only then could it justify the US' self-assumed global mission of bringing free elections and free markets to the entire world.

I didn't like this article much, but it did make one or two good points. Rational choice theory has long aligned itself with reductive analysis.

All that was needed was to t

Millennials also have a 5 to 6 second attention span when remembering to included the article source in their Slashdot submissions, too.

P.S. "Reader schwit1 writes..." ... is obviously the new way of expressing "copy and paste".

And companies are definitely buying this stuff. We have a bunch at our offices, not MS though but I'd imagine they cost about as much.

In any case, it's just over a hundred jobs so hardly important overall when we just heard that MS is laying off thousands of employees in other areas, in particular sales. Would be interesting to know what motivated the decision anyway though.

This is how US corporations breath. They expand and contract over time, accreting new projects and products and groups. Then the CEO gets a boner for efficiency and all the satellite offices and pet projects and stupid low volume products get axed. Then it starts all over again. Remaining employed in a large US corporation is partly a matter of not being in one of the dispensable limbs when it comes to chopping time.

And companies are definitely buying this stuff. We have a bunch at our offices, not MS though but I'd imagine they cost about as much.

In any case, it's just over a hundred jobs so hardly important overall when we just heard that MS is laying off thousands of employees in other areas, in particular sales. Would be interesting to know what motivated the decision anyway though.

Apple is sitting on over $250 billion USD in cash:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02...

I'm sure Apple can spend whatever it takes to make as many iphones as they choose.

Well, when you have justly deserved reputation of screwing over sub-suppliers, I doubt many would be willing to just take Apple's word for it that they will buy 200 million components, when they also refuse to sign a contract to pay damages if they don't.

Apple is sitting on over $250 billion USD in cash:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02...

I'm sure Apple can spend whatever it takes to make as many iphones as they choose.

McDonalds hires only the minimum number of workers to serve its business, to sack workers it would need to have a drop in sales, which isn't shown.

Or automate.

Do we get much tourism from those countries?

The "Trump Slump" is affecting all international tourism to the US.

http://time.com/money/4687114/trump-slump-foreign-tourism-us-immigration-travel/

Two things -

First, You didn't answer the question that was posed. If you had answered it I think we would find remarkably little tourism from Syria and Yemen to the US, for example. Second, the answer that you did give "somehow" omits a long running important factor in the outcome. I'll give you a hand:

2015 - Will a Strong US Dollar Scare Away International Tourists?
2016 - How the strong dollar is hurting American tourism
2017 - Strong dollar, travel ban threaten California tourism, UCLA forecast says

Your "moderate" setting seems to be calibrated a little too close to "anti."

Cutting taxes is not giving.

Taking less then.

You could confiscate 100% of the 0.01's money. Kill them for good measure. And you still would only have enough money to run the US Government for 4 months.

Really? They control 12% of the wealth in the US.

Either way that misses the point. The issue is that society is structured so that wealth accumulates. The wealthier you are the faster you'll accumulate more wealth, taxes aren't the only issue, but they're part of it

So, people play the old bait and switch: look at the evil gaziollionaires. They need to pay their fare share - and since their money isn't enough they raise taxes on everyone.

So you're playing the bait and switch of talking about government budgets.

Have you read what's happening in CT? They followed the plan of tax the rich. Ooops. How's that worked out for them?

Have you seen what US Republicans are doing right now? They're so obsessed with giving rich people a tax cut they're willing to destroy the health care market.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/06...

Do what? You just fire a bunch of people when you investigate them without proof?

Uber had the ability to track just about anyone using their service, including their own employees (which prolly got free rides on Uber's wallet.) They could correlate times of claims with location data of both victim and accused in the cases of stalking, after-delivery following, etc.

You might want to open your ears a bit more and use some common sense, assuming you have any.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/06... You don't commission an outside investigation, then fire 20 employees and have your CEO step back from the business for something that doesn't actually exist.

Uh oh one more reason for millennials to go even more wild on avocado toast #no_home http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/16...

Where Tim and Donald agree is that neither of them or their companies should have to pay US tax.

First of all, Apple paid over 8 billion dollars in taxes last year alone. How much did you pay? Apple does more to help the U.S. every year than generations of your family ever will.

As for the overseas money, Apple has said repeatedly they want to repatriate the money they have overseas, they just can't see paying the rates the U.S. current changes to do so.

Trump has said he wants to lower that rate dramatically so companies (not just Apple) can bring that trapped cash back to the U.S.

So both of them are on the same page - they want to bring a lot of money back into the U.S. and pay reasonable taxes on it.

It will happen in the next few years, so put down that hateraide and stop lying to yourself and others.

It doesn't matter that the 'muslim ban' never went into affect. People were stranded at airports across the world, people have stopped travelling to or from the U.S. because they don't know if/when it will be enacted and if/when they will be allowed home or if they will be detained. I am from Canada, and almost all high schools in my province have stopped taking trips (for band, sports tournaments, etc.) to the United States because it is not unusual to have an immigrant in a class and no school can afford to make all the arrangements for travel just to be turned away at the border. We don't KNOW we will get turned away, but with Trump's announcements and attempts at travel restrictions that's not a risk we can take.

While the stock market in the US is doing pretty well, the fact that a single message from Trump can tank a business' stock AND THAT IT HAS HAPPENED, would be really worrying to me if I were in an industry dealing with the U.S.

It shouldn't matter about enforcement of the climate accord, it is about the principal of the matter. The U.S. could have stayed on the accord even if it wasn't being enforced, or better yet, they could have opted out by making their own which had enforcement built in if that is the issue. Instead, Trump has pulled out while pledging to use more of one of the most polluting sources of energy there is, coal. It's not about backing out as much as it is about Trump sending a loud and clear message to the world that the U.S. will pollute as much as they want, wherever they want, and damn the future generations that need to deal with their mess.

Change the culture.

The head of the company stepped down, which means the culture will change. Culture really originates with top executives.

But that's what I'm really wondering - will that be enough? Should he even have bothered stepping down, if almost no riders who were upset come back? Should they even have bothered to try and fix the culture if they've already had the maximum customer loss they could anyway.

I mean obviously the culture was messed up and from an ethical standpoint it should be fixed. I am talking purely at a strategic level and cost of resources spent trying to fix the culture when no-one will care.

Also, why don't you just ask the drivers? Out of some 20-30 rides I took across the nation a few months ago, I asked every driver whether they've worked for one or both companies, and if so, which one they preferred. Every. Single. Driver. preferred Lyft

I know a lot of drivers prefer Lyft, yet a lot of them still work for Uber. Then the question is why? If I stop using Uber I am punishing those drivers that would prefer to work for Lyft but it doesn't work for them for whatever reason and they need to driver for Uber.

That, and the ACLU donation, is what ultimately made me switch.

I am going to refer back to something you literally just said:

Don't just give lip service and do damage control. It's 2017 and the public is rightfully wary of corporate bullshit.

Guess they aren't wary enough. $1M is pretty cheap to capture a groundswell of Internet Rage and turn it into switching customers. But that is the awesome power of virtue signaling combined with marketing.

The thing I find especially amusing is that supporting Lyft benefits a big Trump supporter. I am pretty sure the venn diagram of people who dislike Uber and people who dislike Trump is almost a complete overlap. Quite a trick to turn disgruntled Uber users into indirect Trump supporters.

You might inform them that Lyft is no better. The claim that democrats are just as bad as republicans some loony liberals spout makes my head hurt, but this is pretty clear: Lyft is not any better.

Also, yes, if Uber lasts more than a few weeks after this and doesn't do more shit, everyone will forget about it. It's been, what, a few hours since this guy stepped down after months of denying he's causing problems?

http://www.cnbc.com/2014/05/06...

"Speaking at a symposium at Iowa State University on May 2, the day the census came out, Vilsack said the U.S. faces an "eroding middle" when it comes to farming, and that a small number of large farm operations "produces the vast majority of the nation's food." "

"However, three quarters of all U.S. farms gross only $50,000 a year and currently account for only 4 percent of product sales. But one analyst doesn't see that as a problem."

Just 4% of farms account for almost all u.s. sales.

The definition of farmer includes many tiny and unprofitable "farms" that are really more hobby or retirement plots than real farms. It's $1000 gross sales (so you can lose money every year and still be classed as a "farmer".)

the odds of driving poorly are much higher while texting - which is very true; however just pull over people that are driving poorly.

You could use the exact same logic to argue that drunk driving should be legal.

Driving while texting may be worse than driving while drunk.

Right.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/27...

No, the comment was modded down because it's flamebait. It was modded down correctly. When you make sweeping generalizations about all people within a country, especially when you're insulting them, you're not being constructive at all. You just want people to respond angrily.

Back in November, 71% of Americans supported the Paris Climate Accords. A majority in every US state supported the Paris Climate Accords. Here are some sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/21/trump-wants-to-dump-the-paris-climate-deal-but-71-percent-of-americans-support-it-survey-finds/
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-06-01/a-bipartisan-majority-thinks-the-us-should-stay-in-the-paris-agreement
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/01/trump-leaves-paris-climate-agreement-though-americans-supported-it.html

Most Americans do support the Paris Climate Accords. Trump did not win the popular vote and won the electoral vote by a narrow majority. Russia attempted to influence the US election in Trump's favor, something that is generally accepted regardless of whether Trump's campaign was complicit in that meddling. Trump's approval rating is estimated at 39.1% while 54.8% of Americans disapprove of him. Here's a source for that, too:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

It is completely ignorant and unhelpful to blame and insult all Americans when a majority of Americans do not support Trump and a substantial majority of Americans disagree with Trump on withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords. Your post and the grandparent post are not factually correct, nor do they contribute any substance to the discussion. They're just attempts to insult Americans and evoke angry responses. That is why your post and its parent deserve to be modded down.

Furthermore, many cities and states are still making strong efforts to address climate change. California, by itself, is the world's sixth largest economy. Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement will not impede California from continuing to impose measures that go beyond what the US committed to do.

Incendiary remarks deserve to be modded down as flamebait, especially when those remarks aren't rooted at all in fact.

Agreed. There are much better ways to help the environment. Nuclear should be where our money is spent. Liquid-metal cooling and other design advances greatly reduce the chance of a meltdown. I read this earlier today: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31...

The Laffer Curve for taxation is mostly just a fraud used to justify low taxes on high earners.

What's your next guess, sparky?

Rich people aren't a stationary target. The higher you set the tax rate, the more effort they'll put into fighting back.

-jcr

And if the higher tax rates are national? Go to another country you say?

When we the USA have the lowest tax rates in the industrialized World?

If you look at business history - back to the Robber Baron Age - and you'll see that even with no income taxes,, those guys invested back into their businesses and created more jobs. A Carnegie steel mill employed tens of thousands of people - that's ONE mill.
An entire company has ten thousand people and folks today laud that company as a great job creator.

Back then, capital markets aren't what they are today. The best return on your money was reinvestment.

Today, the billionaires sit on their asses and stick their money into the financial markets - a zero sum game that does NOT create wealth. A billionaire who made his money trading in his hedge fund basically picked the pockets of millions of people: less transaction costs.

In today's World, it's much more profitable to become a parasite then create.

I have many criticisms of Elon Musk, but I will always say that he's doing things to create wealth - making cars, making rockets, making batteries,....

Now, Henry Hedge Fund Guy who is making millions off of skimming off of shit?

Or Vince Venture Capitalist who is going public with shit companies as an exit strategy?

Parasites. Pretty much all of Silicon Valley these days. Dave Packard is spinning in his grave.

The Laffer Curve for taxation is mostly just a fraud used to justify low taxes on high earners.

What's your next guess, sparky?

Rich people aren't a stationary target. The higher you set the tax rate, the more effort they'll put into fighting back.

-jcr

You'll rarely see a citation from the "they didn't earn it " crowd because actual stats don't back them up.

While current 1% have come from all socioeconomic groups the majority are truly self-made. Forbes had a sliding scale a while ago rating their top 400 (at the time) and the breakdown was roughly:

228 - started at upper middle class or below and built their wealth (about 43% of those from working class or outright poverty)
7 - given large sums by wealthy parents as jumping off point
10 - made money from a job or a (lucky?) investment they didn't actively participate in
54 - inherited a small/medium level business but grew it
43 - inherited a fortune but continue to work on it
28 - inherited wealth and have really done nothing for it

The State of California is already seriously considering placing devices on cows to capture their methane.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/17...

It's very difficult to make an actual cost comparison because we do not actually ever clean up our messes from coal or nuclear.

We've put a lot of time, effort, and money into getting ready for nuclear waste. So far, we're not making much much use of what we've built. There's some contention over plans to move forward. Agreed - We're not doing enough for a closed-loop cost comparison.

"Cleaning up the mess" from coal is an entirely different animal.

Why is it that every other headline is TRUMP DOES BAD THING instead of tech news headlines?

This is about drones, the law, and the leader who's administration brought forth that law. The exact same headline would have happened if Obama had pushed this.

None of the editors ever pointed a finger at Obama ripping the country apart

I remember in 2008 my relatives promised me civil war, utter stock market annihilation, the literal death of the country if the black guy won. Then when it didn't happen, and everyone predicted the same thing again in 2012! And yet the opposite happened both times, the country boringly kept steadily improving the entire time he was in office. Is there ever going to be an apology? Nope, just more gasping hyperbole without demonstrable evidence or citations I guess. You want to compare them? Before Obama, people always said the market was above all the most important stat, let's start with that one.

> The problem often has been that they've had a long history towards pushing proprietary formats and devices. Some of those have been successful, many have failed to catch on, and some were spectacular failures (Betamax).

I mentioned Sony's long line of failures back in 2014.

Failed Sony Formats...
* Betamax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
* MiniDisc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
* HiFD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
* SSDS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
* BroadBand eBook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
* Memory Stick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
* HDV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
* Super Audio CD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
* Universal Media Disc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...

Successful Sony Formats...
+ CD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
+ Blu-ray http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Sony's completelyfailed to understand the importance of buying digital music. Apple's iPod and iTunes wasthe digital walkman.

This is why Apple has a market cap of $800 Billion and why Sony only has a market cap $44.85 billion

--
The PS4 Pro should have been called the PS4K and played 4K Blu-Ray.

"Nothing our 280 Billion $ in the bank can't handle. Here, check out our new iPhone ..."

And everybody: "Oooooh, shiny!"

I take it you've never been to China. iPhone is a bit player and their market share is declining in China. 'Ooooh shiny' might work on stupid American teenagers, but the Chinese are a little more savvy.

Story about IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty: At IBM's annual meeting last week, shareholders agreed with a proposal to increase her salary more than 60 percent to $33 million. (May 5, 2017)

From the story:

Her $33 million paycheck this year puts her ahead of tech CEOs like Microsoft's Satya Nadella ($18 million), who is successfully steering the company back towards growth, as well as leaders at fast-growing tech giants like Alphabet's Larry Page ($1), Apple's Tim Cook ($9 million) and Amazon's Jeff Bezos ($2 million).

Rometty has presided over 20 straight quarters of declining revenue growth.

Since she became CEO in January 2012, revenue has declined more than 26 percent on a trailing 12-month basis compared to the year before she took over, and net income has fallen nearly 27 percent.

Story about IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty: At IBM's annual meeting last week, shareholders agreed with a proposal to increase her salary more than 60 percent to $33 million. (May 5, 2017)

From the story:

Her $33 million paycheck this year puts her ahead of tech CEOs like Microsoft's Satya Nadella ($18 million), who is successfully steering the company back towards growth, as well as leaders at fast-growing tech giants like Alphabet's Larry Page ($1), Apple's Tim Cook ($9 million) and Amazon's Jeff Bezos ($2 million).

Rometty has presided over 20 straight quarters of declining revenue growth.

Since she became CEO in January 2012, revenue has declined more than 26 percent on a trailing 12-month basis compared to the year before she took over, and net income has fallen nearly 27 percent.

Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove

Story about IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty: At IBM's annual meeting last week, shareholders agreed with a proposal to increase her salary more than 60 percent to $33 million. (May 5, 2017)

From the story:

Her $33 million paycheck this year puts her ahead of tech CEOs like Microsoft's Satya Nadella ($18 million), who is successfully steering the company back towards growth, as well as leaders at fast-growing tech giants like Alphabet's Larry Page ($1), Apple's Tim Cook ($9 million) and Amazon's Jeff Bezos ($2 million).

Rometty has presided over 20 straight quarters of declining revenue growth.

Since she became CEO in January 2012, revenue has declined more than 26 percent on a trailing 12-month basis compared to the year before she took over, and net income has fallen nearly 27 percent.

Story about IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty: At IBM's annual meeting last week, shareholders agreed with a proposal to increase her salary more than 60 percent to $33 million. (May 5, 2017)

From the story:

Her $33 million paycheck this year puts her ahead of tech CEOs like Microsoft's Satya Nadella ($18 million), who is successfully steering the company back towards growth, as well as leaders at fast-growing tech giants like Alphabet's Larry Page ($1), Apple's Tim Cook ($9 million) and Amazon's Jeff Bezos ($2 million).

Rometty has presided over 20 straight quarters of declining revenue growth.

Since she became CEO in January 2012, revenue has declined more than 26 percent on a trailing 12-month basis compared to the year before she took over, and net income has fallen nearly 27 percent.

Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove Rometty,Remove

(which can likely never be self-driving)

You are wrong

And in many places skateboarding, roller skates/blades, horseback riding and the rest are not allowed in great parts of the city.

Maybe he should be...

SNAP share price has dropped 20% in the past 24 hours.

According to this article, the estimated price is $21.85 per sq. ft. If you have a single-story, 2800 sf. home, and you decide to cover the ENTIRE roof with these tiles, then yeah, you're looking at $70k. Most people building new homes will go with multiple stories, so total square feet of roof space will be something less. And because of sun angle, it's likely the entire roof will not be covered. Though, if you're making that kind of investment, you better design your entire roof to be facing the sun!

That article also claims a warranty for the life of your home, not 30 years.

Story about IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty: At IBM's annual meeting last week, shareholders agreed with a proposal to increase her salary more than 60 percent to $33 million. (May 5, 2017)

From the story:

Her $33 million paycheck this year puts her ahead of tech CEOs like Microsoft's Satya Nadella ($18 million), who is successfully steering the company back towards growth, as well as leaders at fast-growing tech giants like Alphabet's Larry Page ($1), Apple's Tim Cook ($9 million) and Amazon's Jeff Bezos ($2 million).

Rometty has presided over 20 straight quarters of declining revenue growth.

Since she became CEO in January 2012, revenue has declined more than 26 percent on a trailing 12-month basis compared to the year before she took over, and net income has fallen nearly 27 percent.

Oh BS -

The CBO scored Obamcare several times - each time they "rewrote" the legislation (decreasing government funding times but increasing tax revenues) to get the CBO to score it as a "win". The whole thing was for political cover only and to get the talking points they needed "This'll save the government money! How can we lose?!" In reality the numbers mean nothing. Any budget goes wrong practically the first day it goes into affect (like any software schedule).

The truth is I know exactly how Obamacare has affected insurance and premiums - insurance carriers are exiting the Obamacare exchanges in many states because the carriers cannot sustain Obamacare plans without MORE government funding.

Did I get that from Breitbart and Alex Jones?

No - I got that from CNN

http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/1...

How about CNBC - is that too "alt-facts" for you?

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/15...

The truth is you have no idea what you're talking about.

1) Retail is dead. Probably has more to do with Amazon than anything else. I can go to Amazon, pay less, have it delivered than get it locally at the neighborhood store. Hell, I'm buying more and more stuff via Amazon simply to save money.

2) is a repeat of #1

3) is a repeat of #1

4) Atlanta FED is only one, and may be "regional". Since you didn't post a source, I don't know.

5) In my area, restaurants are booming business. I suspect that will change when Min Wage get raised and Robots take over. Any job that can be replaced by a robot probably should be.

6) Factory Orders are up, not down. http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/04... "Excluding aircrafts, nondefense orders were up 0.5 percent, the sixth straight month of positive growth. " - http://www.econotimes.com/US-f... Of course, I can cherry pick numbers that describe exact opposite of your un-documented cherry picked numbers.

7) Labor Participation rates are the lowest in 40 years. This one is on Obama, the Democrats and Republicans for not addressing during the last 8 years. Must be GWB's fault.

8) Tax reciepts are at record levels ... - http://www.cnsnews.com/news/ar...

9) We've been saying for some time that sales have plateaued at a high level, - http://www.businessinsider.com...

10) Have no idea where you get these facts.

11) "The US Economy is NOT ok " Yup, pretty much what a lot of people have been saying for the last 15 years or so. I personally blame both the D and R parties for not caring enough about the economy, and more concerned with Men peeing in the Girls Bathroom and who can marry who, and "hands up don't shoot", and just about everything else, but the economy.

IMHO, the Government should get the fuck out of the way of people who want to be productive, and work. Stop punishing success, and rewarding failure. Stop the ever increasing tax burden on middle class, and focus on actually making EVERYONE's lives better.

What sorcery is this of which you speak? How does $250 billion cash turn into a trillion?

Make that $2.6 trillion... Companies are holding a $2.6 trillion pile of cash overseas that's still growing

So if the current administration wants to characterize funding as helping "go to Mars", I'm glad to live with it given the scientific work that will be generated because of it.

Your logic sounds good. My counter is that shooting yourself in the foot makes buying new running shoes irrelevant. He is defunding research on climate change and other issues that affect us directly and immediately. How much does it cost to go to Mars? How much will ignoring climate change cost us? The good money says 44 trillion: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/18...

So by the time the Mars project starts getting off the ground, we're going to start getting into more wars and the first thing that will be cut is the Mars project.

If you say "let's do both", then I'd agree. If you say let's only do one, then I'd say there's only one that matters.

Except that Apple sued Qualcomm over royalties first (21 Jan 2017 - http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/20...) then Qualcomm counter-sued Apple over chip performance (Apr 11, 2017 - http://www.theverge.com/2017/4...)

Apple already withheld the $1billion dollars that Qualcomm allegedly owe them by not paying the royalties. Now we are learning that Apple has decided to keep withholding all royalties until the lawsuit is settled.

That's the first time I hear about that trust account. Citation?

If the rich didn't get more ways to weasel out of paying their due...

Looks like the rich weaseled their way into paying 47% of income taxes in the US. So, how much did you pay in taxes?

Do you have actual complaints about how The Clinton Foundation spends donations

Clinton Foundation was an influence-peddling scam. It was receiving money, when Clinton was a Secretary of State and seemed a shoe-in to become President. It closed down its international wing after she lost the elections.

Had it been really a charitable organization, it would have instead flourished, when the proprietors finally left the distractions of politics and could concentrate on the sincere charity work. But no, the most charitable thing you can say about this charity is that it is "at crossroads" now that they have no influence left to peddle.

U.S. citizens aren't protected from dishonesty and sneakiness. Rich corporations and people are allowed to do what they want.

There are exceptions: Volkswagen to pay $2.8 billion in US diesel emission scandal

He's switched sides on tons of other key issues (Syria anyone?). CNBC is saying he's gonna switch ("might" in journalist speak pretty much means "will", they're kinda like scientists in that regard).

So far everything he's done has been to enrich himself and his immediate family. He'll throw in for TPP and use the same tired excuse that failing to do so give China an edge (and maybe say he'll negotiate a better deal to boot). Yeah, TPP is bad for the American worker but it's _great_ for the American Economy. And that's what Trump (and the corporate Dems who pushed it) care about. After all, it'll trickle down, right?

Average student loan debt in the US is about $37,000, not too far off what the average US car loan of $30,000. And I see a lot of new cars being purchased by relatively new graduates, especially when it's their "first car" at their first post-collegiate job.

It is also well below the median income of people with a college degree, and the difference between the median high school graduate and the median college graduate is large enough that less than two years of income differential covers for the median college debt - meaning it is still a good investment.

Let's see. First we have more than one can reference on the swamp draining:
Search google for "Trump drain the swamp" and you'll find a quick 469,000 articles to reference.

As for the corporate profits, I think a quick review of his stock portfolio might shed some light:
http://www.businessinsider.com...

A quick search for his financials leads a to a whole lot more. He made a nice penny off the spike in oil last week after a little fireworks show.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/06...
http://www.reuters.com/article...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

And one of his holdings stands to make a pretty penny on replacing those little rockets:
http://www.raytheon.com/capabi...

I can find you more if this isn't enough.

Private payrolls grew 263K in March vs. 185K est.: ADP

Can the labor dept and ADP possibly be talking about the same thing?

Agreed 100%. That's is pretty standard tactic I think anymore. I even giggled at similar boasted numbers about Wish about over 150 million users, best yada yada yada on an audio ad the other day, yet I don't even know a SINGLE real person who uses it or had heard of it --- not to say it's not used in other geographic areas, but it goes to show how a company can boast millions of users in some overnight sensational movement.

I'm still had on this, though: What's there to gain from this annoucement? Snap is valued at $33 billion, so good luck fighting that, in the sense of being shewed away like a dog looking for table scraps.

This honestly just sounds like a I-left-my-last-employer-on-bad-terms-so-now-its-time-to-poo-poo-on-them event. Have fun with that.

Ford (...) isn't even making cars that sell well internationally.

I don't know where you live, but I'd say most of the world buys more Ford than you think. In fact, there's a reason why Chrysler and GM were in much deeper shit than Ford back then. It's because the rest of the world knows Ford, but not the others (I'm using hyperbole here)... and in fact, a quick Google search showed this. Granted, it's a few years old, but it does show that Ford isn't doing that badly internationally...

They did? I guess having an "expected" profit of $0.10 per share, but ending up losing $0.87 per share counts as a profit?