MrZee

This article is mostly talking about an economics concept of “r vs g”, which the author describes as follows:

As long as a country’s economic growth rate (g) is higher than the interest rate (r) it pays on its national debt, then the cost of servicing that debt will remain stable, allowing the government to roll it over indefinitely without much worry.

I’m not an economist, but this seemed odd to me. I suspected the author might not understand economics and the concept might more complicated than they were making it out to be.

A quick search on “r vs g economics” seems to indicate that this author has no business writing about economics. Here is the first result I clicked on, which near the start of the article states:

One approach to assess the sustainability of federal debt was popularized by Olivier Blanchard, in his speech as outgoing American Economic Association president, in 2019. That paper was written during a period of low interest rates and noted the relationship between the interest rate on government debt (R) and the growth rate of the economy (G): R less than G could imply a stable debt trajectory. However, Blanchard, as well as other economists and fiscal policy experts, recognized that the framework only holds true when the deficit excluding interest payments is small, which unfortunately is not the current case in the United States.

That makes a lot more sense to me. The economics concept applies when the deficit is small. The US deficit is not small. Regardless of R vs G, a large deficit means that debt is becoming more of a burden, even if R is less than G. Yes, R getting closer to G or exceeding G increases the burden of US debt, but R vs G isn’t all that matters like the writer of this piece in the Atlantic claims.

…At least as far as I can tell… But it’s late, I’m tired, and I’m not an economist. I’d love to hear what one has to say about this article, even if they tell me I’m totally wrong.

Interesting! When I first read your comment, I looked at the chart and thought “it looks to me like the drop starts at the end of 2022. Isn’t that before LLMs started being used broadly?”

Nope. Looks like ChatGPT was released in November 2022. It doesnt feel like it’s been around that long, but I guess it has.

What’s “flat chat”? I don’t/haven’t ever done AA. I know a lot of bits and pieces - my mom kicked the habit through AA 25ish years ago.

I had close to two years once in the past. And a year or so another time. Complacency and “forgetting” what it was like are the insidious things that led to me relapsing. “I can drink responsibly” was such an easy lie I told myself because things were feeling easy. Thankfully I’ve learned that lesson and plan to not forget it.

44 days, I take it?

The first few days and weeks were the hardest, of course, but around two months in it would also get a lot easier for me. That’s when it stopped becoming such a frequent thought and I’d even have days where drinking wouldn’t come to mind. Stay strong. Keep it up!

Thanks! You can do it!

I don’t know how many times I had quit drinking before it stuck. Never quit quitting.

I lost track of when I had quit drinking a year or two ago. I was pretty sure it was during the first quarter but couldn’t remember if I quit in 2021 or 2022. I’d tried searching through old messages and stuff but didn’t have any luck.

I just figured out that bank statements would tell me. Looking back, my last liquor store purchase was late March 2021… so I just hit 4 years sober a week or two ago.

I haven’t felt a desire to drink in a long time and it’s really really nice. I went through the worst 6 months of my life last year and worried at the start of it that I would find myself “needing” to drink. But somehow, I never even felt tempted. It kinda blows my mind. 1,465 days without alcohol. That’s a lot of days.

There’s no way in hell I’m drinking today. No question.

Per the article itself, the town voted 47% Trump, 51% Harris in the election. The article title calling that a “Trump-loving” town seems disingenuous.

I suspect the problem there revolves around “how fast can you produce hydrogen?” Generally, oversupply events (and resulting negative prices) are brief. To take advantage of oversupply / negative prices, hydrogen production (or other energy storage) needs to be able to convert energy to storage very quickly.

I don’t know much about hydrogen plants, but I would guess that they aren’t super “peaky” — meaning they don’t have the capacity to ramp up and generate a lot of hydrogen quickly like they would need to really take advantage of the situation. If that is the case, hydrogen plants can still take advantage (simultaneously helping the grid and helping to stabilize prices) but not to the extent we would like.

“Worker owned and non profit companies should have a free pass to be anti-consumer,” sounds like the less popular opinion to me.

My friends and family absolutely know and see what is happening. When I go to the park and walk, I often hear people talking about what is happening (from the angle of “this is insane; how are they getting away with this.” The lady that manages the corner store that I chat with sees what’s going on. The people I work with are very aware.

Most of the people I know are scared and feel powerless to do anything about it. Of course, some are more aware than others and some are more scared than others, but they are at least moderately aware.

BUT, I live in a very liberal city and the people I just talked about are people I choose to associate with. My sample is heavily skewed.

I also run into a lot of people that are pro Trump. Drive 10 miles outside the city and you start running into a lot more MAGA folks. There are also people that avoid politics and are good at sticking their heads in the sand. Somehow they manage to remain unaware. Ignorance seems to be a concerningly common American trait.

BTW, OP, there’s a good chance the “both sides” people you know are republicans but are embarrassed to admit it. They’re the quiet trumpers — the ones that chose to elect a criminal who tried to violently overthrow the government four years ago. Unlike the rabid, loud MAGA folks, they are uncomfortable talking about this stuff because they know people find their views abhorrent. They use “both sides” as a method to indirectly defend their views without having to admit to having them.

Either that or they’re willfully ignorant about what is going on around them. But I find willfully ignorance and Repubicanism go hand in hand.

In order:

Finished building a wood “skirt” for under my daughter’s bed frame (to prevent her cat from using Underbedland as her jungle gym in the middle of the night). Used 1x5 pine. Cut some decorative edge work on the pieces. I attached the skirt that goes on the long edge of the bed with hinges (recessed into the skirt), so that she can lift up the skirt and store stuff under the bed. I put on magnetic latches so cat can’t do the same. Stained it and finished with polyurethane. It was gold practice on finishing work.

Took apart the passenger door of girlfriend’s truck and fixed a bunch of stuff. I disassembled and cleaned the window switch (yay, the window rolls up again!). Cleaned and lubed the window mechanism. Spliced two cut wires on the door lock. Replaced some missing bolts. Rewrapped wire bundles. Wrapped loose wires. Rerouted wires so they wouldn’t get cut again, made and installed a vapor barrier (the original was MIA). After seeing how bad things were in that door, I need to do the other doors too.

Started some serious setup work on an acoustic guitar (Gibson hummingbird). Fret height was pretty variable. I leveled the frets. Started recrowning all the frets - got through half of them. Once I finish recrowning, Next will be setting neck relief, cutting nut slots deeper (first fret action is currently atrocious), adjusting the bridge down, and maybe some intonation work.

Fully disassembled a Walter Creed 9mm pistol that somehow had sand inside it. Thoroughly cleaned everything, oiled, and reassembled. I seem to have fixed it, but haven’t tested everything yet.

Designed a folding adjustable arm rest to mount on top of the center console of my truck. (Designed, not built. Yet)

9.4mm long centimeters were making my eye twitch (yeah, I’d already done the math before I looked at the comments).

Your addendum makes me feel better. Thanks for the pointing out the visual trickery!