The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
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User ID: 174
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1hr ago
The guy who chanted "Bomb Iran" to the tune of "Barbara Ann"?
To be fair, just about everyone of a certain age has to be tempted to do that when the subject of Iran comes up. If the regime falls, the new regime would be well-advised to ask the country be called "Persia" again just to break that association.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
8hr ago
Some things really are difficult. And it's often not all about building knowledge and skills; some, or most, people just won't get it.
With trading it's also true that learning is absolutely punishing; you can only get so far learning by "play" trading, because of your own psychology, and real trading means losing real money.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9hr ago
The models are not mostly correct. The IPCC report includes out a whole bunch of estimates... which have on some occasions ALL been high, but just the fact that there are a lot of them suggests chicanery. Unless the same model consistently hits, which is not the case.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9hr ago
I've never seen an earnest accounting of solar with storage accounting for (1) seasonal variation and (2) a full transition to heat-pump heating.
And electric cars. (and ranges and water heaters, though those are likely insignficant) "Get an electric car, bro, you can just charge it at night when demand is low, bro." "Now with solar power electric supply is low at night too bro, you can't charge your car bro".
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9hr ago
Certainly solar can provide power at scale. But unless your demand is variable-on-demand, or you have truly massive amounts of storage, it's not adding capacity, it's just reducing fuel costs. Because not only does solar only work part of the time, those parts of the time are well-correlated.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9hr ago
There's one particular plastic -- clear polyethylene -- for which recycling makes sense, and recycled material costs MORE than virgin (presumably because of government incentives to recycle).
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
20hr ago
And there are the obvious ones like not being reliable when the sun don't shine or the wind don't blow, which are real but have had engineers and scientists working on them for decades now with some good work arounds.
They still get handwaved and/or completely ignored in most treatments of the subject outside the trade press. Don't play a drinking game with a rule of "take a drink every time they compare fossil and solar nameplate capacity as if they're equivalent" if you value your liver.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Much like in comedy, timing is everything. That's a thing most people think can't be done. They'll parrot platitudes like "time in the market beats timing the market" and talk about how it's basically impossible to do it.
And much like comedy, most of them are right that they can't do it and neither can their audience. Timing is difficult. I don't think I could do it consistently, which is why I don't day trade. I DID buy as much as I could scrape up (which wasn't much) during the 2008 crash, but that was kinda playing on easy mode.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
· Edited 1d ago
Landman* really is that popular, huh? Battery tech has only gotten better and cheaper, and the LCOE of renewables even with storage added is competitive with or better than fossil fuels, yet public opinion is backsliding.
I don't believe this. This particular document is clear nonsense. It is assuming only 4 hours storage. Which means you're going to need a LOT of fossil fuel standby capacity -- almost the same as your solar capacity. All you're saving is fuel. If you want to save any capital costs at all, you either need enough battery to cover the longest dark period, or you need to spin up your generators before your battery gets low (which lets you save somewhat on capital costs, but gives higher fuel costs)
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Income comes and goes, is the thing. Your income is never guaranteed, credit is an illusion of the false world which will disappear when you need it most, and expenses can scale infinitly.
Nothing is guaranteed. Unless your wealth is in non-perishable food, weapons, and the loyalty of fighting men, you're already in a finance world rather than a primitive physical one -- anything dollar-denominated is. In that world -- which is fortunately the one most of us live in, because it's a lot less harsh than the primitive one -- you don't need any particular amount to not be poor.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Isn't it the more logical view, though?
No. First of all, the idea that those with the most "moral worth" should be the wealthiest is bizarre. You then connect moral worth to "need", which is also rather strange (I guess this borrows from Marx). Then the resulting system is incoherent; as long as you're working you should be wealthy, but if you dare to retire you should not be. You could certainly build a (totalitarian) system based on these ideas, but I don't think the thing would be called "wealth" -- it would be a form of status granted by the state, not an accumulation of value.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
If you don't have the income you can't save yourself rich. Contrariwise, if you do, you don't need $75,000 or anything to not be poor -- though you CAN spend yourself poor at any income.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
For example, a lot of San Fransisco 50 year olds made way too much money in a software boom, often being head button style changer for Google for 10 years. I don't see this as entitling them to the $1 million they probably saved from that career. Yes, it's how they made their money and got it to be legally recognized as theirs, but morally they did nothing to „deserve“ it.
Since this seems like the subthread for this sort of thing, I'll point out that if they only saved $1M from 10 years at Google, they were absolutely terrible with money.
But also, if you don't think people deserve the wages paid for their labor, you're basically at odds with almost everyone. Even Marx wouldn't say workers didn't deserve their wages.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
You could make money on Iran by selling oil futures when they spiked; I think there were several spikes which dropped within a day.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
My point is that including the "Biden boom times" in this makes it less likely to be true politically motivated gloating and more likely to be false politically motivated gloating.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Funny, my real net worth dropped during the "Biden boom times" and increased significantly during the first year of Trump's second term, enough that I retired in January.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
The previous Iran leadership at least played lip service to working relations with it's Arab neighbors.
The previous Iranian leadership apparently told the KSA and the other Gulf states that if they were attacked by anyone, they'd attack the Gulf states. This was supposed to get those states to discourage attacks by the US, but it apparently had the opposite effect, since the various princes and emirs are not France.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
Enough Communism can hold any people down, though. Fortunately Vietnam (unlike North Korea) had insufficient communism.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
and then have the gall to get upset that people are thinking its some kind of NeoNazi thing.
Read the thread: He's not upset; he's trolling and winning at it.
I love shooting citizens for lawful reasons
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
· Edited 3d ago
The US used to be "we don't think of you at all" with respect to the EU -- they would do dumb stuff which harmed us but harmed them more (non-tariff barriers, messing with tech companies, buying Russian gas, etc) and the US really wouldn't react much. Under Trump II it's become a more openly adversarial relationship. Spain is almost an open enemy now (and has been since the Madrid bombings) and France is headed that direction.
ETA: Things are changing fast, France is now an open enemy if Bloomberg headlines are to believed.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
That Trump's trying to negotiate is certainly the way to bet. But the Euros totally walked into this, and the most basic Trumpology could have told them that.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
Vietnam? Sure. Japan... not so much.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
Yes, the conservative realizes this and wants to change it by changing incentives.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
How are Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and all those other third world countries doing after your carpet bombing?
We never nuked any of them, carpet bombing doesn't work as well. Vietnam's doing pretty well. Iraq... well, better than under Saddam Hussein. Syria's on Putin's plate, and Libya on Europe's.
Agreed, but I don't think it's really 4d chess; it's not a really sophisticated strategy. He doesn't want them to make an offer that sounds reasonable.
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