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Unemployment numbers are a bit worse off today than they were when Obama took office, regardless of which measure you look at. So Obama didn't really "fix" anything. Here's an article from CNBC where they explain the differences in the various measures of unemployment and why the number mentioned in the OP isn't terribly meaningful.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/02...

Thank you for the measured comment; I'll return some thoughts in kind.
My wife and I are 35. We've been waiting to have kids until we could "afford" to do so. We've run out of time. It's now or skip it, which is utterly heartbreaking.

On the subject of school - I worked 2 jobs through college while taking as many classes as I could (to get the max value out of my tuition dollars). I don't think I slept more than 5 hours a night ever. I graduated on the Dean's list with two majors and a minor (STEM, Finance and a foreign language).

We've been looking for better work. We've been crawling our way up. I've not taken more than a week of vacation at any of my jobs since graduating (3 of them), getting my vacation days paid out when I switched. I've evolved my career with each switch. My wife has done much the same.

And here's where we're at with all of that. Having gone to a middle-of-the-road school (with academic scholarship help and some need based grants) I'm 3 years from paying off my student loans. We cashed out my IRAs from the first two jobs and rolled them into a cheap duplex at the bottom of the housing crash - fairly shrewd move since the IRAs only ever lost money and it got us away from paying rent. We cook at home. Travel really isn't something we can afford, so we never do.

All that, and we don't have savings that would last us four months. As far as I ever hear it out of politicians' mouths, "retraining" is a propaganda euphemism designed to distract from how screwed we are. Compared to buying power, housing costs are still out of whack by maybe 40%. Medical costs are ... horrifying. College is also horrifying.
http://www.mybudget360.com/the...
http://www.thebubblebubble.com...
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/16...

At this point, I don't have much of anywhere to go with this. I'm pretty fucking tired of being told that where we're at is my fault.

You were +5 at one point? Is meta-moderation broken?

Your post is factual, insightful and at worst partisan and alarmist. But definitely not trolling.

I would argue that it's not partisan and possibly not alarmist either.

What exactly does a totalitarian President look like anyway? They're unlikely to have a funny little moustache and bark like a dog. Personally, I'd have thought suggesting Muslims wear badges, attacking the media and asking for 'brown shirts' to intimidate voters gave more of an indication than Hitler gave before he got a foothold in power. So how can it be alarmist?

It's not partisan because most of the educated world agrees with you. 65% of Germans say they're literally afraid of a Trump Presidency. And a big part of their culture is making sure Hitler never happens again:

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04...

C'mon! What's your next comedy prediction?

Trump Foundation admits to self-dealing (i.e. fraud).
Trump University settles fraud lawsuit for more than half of initial amount.
DJT Promotes business interests in political meeting.

Though being a monopoly is not illegal, using one's monopoly position in one market to break into another is. That was the goverment's claim against Microsoft, which was (alleged to) using their monopoly in desktop operating systems to break into web-browsers... We all cheered the government's prosecution of the company here.

Now, Google are using their monopoly in search-engine market, to gain in the market of cellular phones and associated services... And we are supposed to give them a pass?

self evidently wrong (scalping).

Scalping is not at all "self evidently wrong"...

They are charging too much for their broad offering of products

"If Apple's cash hoard was its own company, it would be the 11th largest company in the S&P 500, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indice."

They have a shit load of cash.

A Western democratic society that is based on free speech and the right defend oneself. Bannon already is correct, it is already becoming uncivil. Tech companies are already doing exactly what you would expect in China or North Korea. Google censoring and an Iranian born venture capitalist is actively trying to break CA away http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09... .

That would't make business sense. I think this move is a strategically great move of Microsoft.

The price of operating systems is steadily approaching zero. macOS updates are free and the OS comes with the hardware. ChromeOS is free. Microsoft already provides the license for free for smaller devices. PC sales are slowing and that's what moves OS licenses. People have fewer reasons to upgrade. What Microsoft realized is that hardware and services are the future, not operating system licenses. And to capitalize on that, they need their software to run everywhere. That means Visual Studio for Mac and SQL Server for Linux.

So no, I really don't believe helping the WINE project is a bad move for Microsoft at this point. Anything that increases adoption of Microsoft software and services is what matters now.

I suspect he may be channeling Peter Thiel.

I bet you're a loser in real life. Don't forget the house and senate going red which makes an even broader base of conservative support. When the people who were afraid to back him in 2016 vote in 2020 his margins will be better.

A few things to keep in mind...

First, the historical pattern has been that the President's party loses seats in midterm elections. So, the house and senate may not stay red in 2018.

Second, majorities of voters disliked both Clinton and Trump. That means there were many people who did not like Trump but voted for him anyway, largely as a protest against the status quo. In four years, he will be the status quo, so he'll have to run defensively. It's not clear that the same protest-voters who held their noses when they voted for him this time will do so again.

Next time, drop the ad hominem and wishful thinking, and go for some logic.

http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/31...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Meanwhile, there were 7M fewer democrat votes for Pres than in 2012. But about the same for republicans.

Maaaaaabye, it was something else.

Indeed it was. Majorities of voters intensely disliked both candidates. No need to provide details here -- that has already been done ad nauseum.

Clinton appears to have carried the popular vote, but Trump has won the all-important electoral college. How did this happen? I have heard various reasons:

- Trump connected to deep anger and frustration in the white working-class electorate
- Clinton failed to maintain support from the Obama coalition
- In the post-primary season, Clinton neglected the "blue firewall" in the rust belt, particularly Wisconsin
- Many people were fed up with the status quo and wanted change, even if it meant Trump in the WhiteHouse

Both candidates had their flaws. IMHO, Trump's were far deeper than Clinton's. But his campaign carried the day because of the above.

"I am an economist."

Not trying to be insulting, but... the odds of you being right are about the same as a coin flip...

https://www.scientificamerican...
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/21...
http://www.governing.com/topic...

Incidentally, Trump's expenditures per vote were about half of Hillary's. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09...

That's a story that Slashdot doesn't want to cover since they still want to paint this as Trump "buying" the election.

Trump didn't have to spend as much: he got free media coverage.

If you want your story to make the frontpage of /., you are welcome to submit it. There are enough Republicans here to promote it if they find it newsworthy for the /.ers. And if it doesn't make it to the front page, you don't have to turn it into a conspiracy theory, there is a much simpler explanation: sometimes /. is still "News for nerds".

Commit Sepuku in your hoodie Zuckerberg.

The platform that you built to limit the flow of information to the population and as a way to make advertising revenue for yourself and Hillary backfired on you.

Incidentally, Trump's expenditures per vote were about half of Hillary's.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09...

That's a story that Slashdot doesn't want to cover since they still want to paint this as Trump "buying" the election.

I heard the election was rigged.I can't remember who said that though. Oh yeah, the guy that won.

Funny, but Hillary actually sent out a department-wide memo to tell staff to not use personal e-mail because it was insecure. Somehow her personal e-mail was different though, right?

Here's a photo of some real pirates: http://fm.cnbc.com/application... These are actual dangerous criminals that actually hurt people and steal things. This is who the MPAA and RIAA are equating people who commit copyright infringement with. Isn't there some way we can collectively laugh the MPAA and RIAA out of court?

Really? There is an entire microsite on microsoft.com that details what they collect, and how it is used, and it specifically tells you no personal information is collected at any time (name, address, credit card information, blah blah blah). It's all about the OS and statistical data on how it's used so that Microsoft can make a better product. Feel free to google it and read it. Oh heck, here you go, so you don't get lost on the interwebs:

The only way to ensure your data isn't compromised is not to send it in the first place. Microsoft's empty promises - even if they're true to their word - in no way imply that they're the only ones exploiting telemetry. http://www.cnbc.com/2013/12/30/nsa-hacks-microsoft-error-messages-report.html

For those for whom NSA is not an adversary, consider that Russian and Chinese APT groups are no doubt doing the same thing.

You're right: mankind won't go extinct. This is obvious hyperbole but sadly gets taken literally too often, by both sides.

You're wrong: there will absolutely be huge trouble for humans, even if by "short adaption period" you mean a few centuries. You think adaption is free? It'll cost us many trillions. You think developing countries can afford that? It'll hit them hardest.

It is up to you to demonstrate there is evidence of a 'problem'. A statistic that simply says that there are less women than men in a given area is not evidence of a 'problem'. You've suggested there is a 'hostility' to women working in a given field...PROVE IT.

OK, start with these:

  http://www.unwomen.org/~/media...

  http://www.marieclaire.com/car...

  http://www.salon.com/2014/10/2...

  http://journalistsresource.org...

  http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/19...

The reality is that Apple makes more money servicing its products than from selling Macs. Macs are an also-ran inside the company, probably kept around for nostalgic and developer purposes only.

Speaking of brown shirt and hunting the opposition.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/16...

That's a long winded way of saying 'trickle down economics is great!!' while ignoring that it's already been proven not to work.

While spewing things like "real double digit unemployment numbers" while ignoring that Bush sent it sky high & Obama brought it back down to earth. Research U6 unemployment rate for actual info.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/04...
Even while it ironically goes back under 10%.

FUD at it's best.

If you don't war a nuclear war vote trump according to putin

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/13...

.. and I don't feel like I am being made to "pay for everything", nor do I feel like I'm being fucked over in any way.

Maybe ask someone who used to be middle class and now isn't, just because that isn't you or me doesn't mean they don't exist

The top 1% income earners pay 50% of all of the federal income taxes."

Except Trump who pays zero. So what happens to your country if the other 1%ers follow his lead?

The USPS is not losing money as a result of its own operational costs vs income.

Yes it is.

the money the USPS is "losing" is being paid into a fund to pay retiree benefits for employees 75 years into the future

"the Postal Service would have lost $10.8 billion without the prefunding requirement."
- http://townhall.com/columnists...

And the USPS get lots of benefits:

"pays nothing in property tax, nothing in licensing or sales taxes for its vehicles and no state or federal taxes, even on its competitive products. It does pay federal tax on income from those products, but it pays those taxes to itself."
- http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...

pay retiree benefits for employees 75 years into the future - YES, that would include costs for employees that have not even been BORN YET.

Completely false.:

"the law only requires pre-funding of obligations to actual current and past employees."
- http://www.cnbc.com/id/4501843...

You're welcome.

You go first.

Challenge accepted:

Musk even said that he might like to go to the International Space Station and to Mars himself, but "I have to make sure if something goes wrong on the flight and I die there's a good succession plan and the mission of the company continues."

Slack is almost a 3 billion dollar company based on a recent valuation.

It's pretty fancy. And with all that revenue they made something great out of what XMPP could have been.

perhaps this is why iPhone 7 orders are FOUR TIMES the previous model (and THAT without a 3.5mm Jack!).

First, you're a known asshole, liar, troll, and disgusting Apple zealot.

And you're an ANONYMOUS COWARD. So, I win.

So, your citation free claim needs to be taken with a huge boulder of salt.

I provided a citation in another comment in this thread. But, here's a Citation. Here's another. And another. Convinced yet., COWARD?

Second, a large portion of people who buy iPhones are idiots who either don't know the jack is missing or haven't yet realized what a pain in the ass it will be.

Now where's YOUR citation, COWARD?

This is one of Apple's dick-moves that will need a great deal of time to fully materialize. After all, the phone hasn't actually landed in public hands yet. Recall the first iPhone with it's bastardized, recessed headphone jack. Typical for Apple to fuck with a known standard in order to grab more cash, but that backlash was enough for them to save face by switching back to a normal headphone jack with the iPhone 3G.

Really? All that vitriol because someone at Apple (Jony Ive?) fucked up and didn't test EVERY headphone on the market, to see that SOME headphones/earbuds had a BUNCH of plastic around the tip of the plug. It isn't like they violated some "standard" about how much room had to be left around the jack. Plus, It wasn't that they used an "abnormal" headphone jack; they just made the MISTAKE (which they corrected the next go-round) of RECESSING the jack, FFS. I've owned other equipment that has had that same problem, precisely BECAUSE there isn't a "standard" on the maximum outer diameter of the PLASTIC on a 4.5mm male.

Hyperbole much?

I'm not the one complaining about "AI and Space Nutters" in every other comment. BTW, shouldn't you be frantically writing to news outlets right now?

quote:

the Irish revenue doesn't do deals. they issue opinions to clarify, a tax situation for individual companies. but we never do deals. they have to apply the tax law, which is passed by parliament, and they have to do so without fear or favor across all companies. so I know there's general tendency to think that apple isn't paying enough tax, but our point is that if they owe tax, they do not owe it to the Irish authorities. they may owe it elsewhere, but not to the Irish authorities

Do you have any real information to suggest there's a deal?

The point is: SpaceX is cheaper than other space transport systems because it doen't sell you an insurance. When we compare SpaceX launch cost with (e.g.) ESA launch cost, we compare launch cost against launch and insurance cost.

Launch insurance is bookkept separately from launch cost. And you buy it from insurance companies. It typically costs five or six percent of the launch cost, depending on launch vehicle. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/01...

What didn't work about Obamacare?

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/17...

Millions of people who didn't have coverage previously have it

It's easy to cover millions of people with massive additional government spending. That's not sustainable.

I know it's a wasted effort on you, but what the hell... something for the viewing audience

Too big to punish

According to the latest research on the subject, the Islamic State seems to favor Android over iPhone http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/22...

I suppose Android makes for a more honest, humble jihad?

How can a taxi company with literally no expenses except for keeping a few servers running run a loss in the billions?

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is worth over $6 billion. The loss belongs strictly to the investors. The company's doing fine, otherwise.

This is why Uber is not a public company. It's a money laundering operation.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/28...

http://investorplace.com/ipo-p...

It matters because the guy running one of the candidates' campaigns is a registered fucking agent of the government that's perpetrating the cyberattacks against us.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/15/...

And that candidate's daughter is besties with Vladimir Putin's girlfriend/sidepiece.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/15...

And that same candidate's platform was recently changed to be more friendly to Russia as opposed to our ally, Ukraine.

http://www.politico.com/magazi...

So that's why it matters who the DNC leak is. Because Donald Trump is a mole.

cooperates with every evil government on Earth, as long as there's money to be made? Cooperates with muslim countries that have official policies of murdering gays, prosecuting women who are raped, etc?

Same guy who cooperates with China and others spying on their own people and persecuting them for reading the "wrong" web sites or having the wrong political beliefs?

Same guy who backs all the leftwing politicians in the US who are always talking about raising taxes to pay for social justice and infrastructure and public services, but who has publicly instisted Apple will not bring itsmoney back into the US until the government lowers his tax rate to levels he thinks are acceptable?

The man's an evil phoney. His posturing about privacy, higher taxes on the rich, and other liberal dog whistles is just intended to keep fooling morons into thinking he and Apple are "good" and that users should be willing to mindlessly pay premium prices for Apple stuff that's very high-profit because it's made by slave labor in 3rd world hell holes where employees kill themselves out of despair, and the company's global "cred" comes in-part from cooperating from evil governments.

An actual recent estimate for installing wind for Scotland is shown here to be $6.46/w installed, a far cry from the $1.50 claimed.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/23...

wind: $1.50 / .32 = $4.70 / Wc

But the most recent estimate for installing wind for Scotland is shown here to be $6.46/w, a far cry from the $1.50 you came up with. Reality is a bitch.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/23...

LA apparently turned a profit in 1984. But it's an outlier. That article also suggests there's some gain in the host country's equity markets relative to the rest of the world.

I can go to nearly any major U.S. city and find those as well. Maybe not to the degree we're seeing in Rio, but let's see how many people come out sick before we cast stones from our glass house.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/24...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
Housing is an important determinant of health, and substandard housing is a major public health issue.1 Each year in the United States, 13.5 million nonfatal injuries occur in and around the home,2 2900 people die in house fires,3 and 2 million people make emergency room visits for asthma.4 One million young children in the United States have blood lead levels high enough to adversely affect their intelligence, behavior, and development.5 Two million Americans occupy homes with severe physical problems, and an additional 4.8 million live in homes with moderate problems

Latest data

Your "latest data" is like all you latest data, out of date. Why do you always pretend?

But in addition you again ignore my original point. Nor do you disprove my other point - actually the article confirms it.

Latest data shows that Apple is falling in China The Chinese market as a whole is slowing down, and domestic manufacturers rule (Huawei, Oppo. Xiaomi all top Apple). Apple is losing in the China market - and will lose in the Indian market, and the other SE Asia markets. Their phones and iTunes/App Store are too expensive and difficult to access for the half of the world that lives in China, India and SE Asia.

This article talks about it.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/08...

More info
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/...
https://www.internetretailer.c...

I have no idea.

I have no idea.

as officially nonpolitical they are, are clearly favoring democractic/so called liberal values.

You forgot about the part of a $15 dollar an hour minimum wage being part of the Democrat platform... something both companies oppose.

So much for favoring democratic/so called liberal values.

I and millions of others make the same or less than we did 8 years ago. Many are still unemployed yet aren't counted as such because they've dropped off the radar. Many just said fuck it after years of trying.

And before you start with the Fox News bullshit this is CNBC the people who specialize in sucking Democrat dick.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/20...

I'm glad you and your friends are doing well but as I said you don't represent average citizens.