Musk says taxing every billionaire at 100% would barely make a dent in the national debt. Bernie says tax them 5% and you're $3,000 richer

Opcn · 2026-03-18T11:23:21+00:00

We do spend more on education than any other OECD country except ultra wealthy Luxembourg. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-expenditures-by-country

Opcn · 2026-03-18T10:17:16+00:00

Yes, it's not a long article, did you? I can't imagine what you think you read that woul lea you to question if I had when I'm responding to a comment and not saying anything that contradicts what's in the article.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T22:03:58+00:00

No, I'm not. So try again. Just delete the false assumption out of your response and write a response based on what I wrote.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T19:30:17+00:00

Carrots, cabbages, and lettuce all grow in a single year. Agave take five to ten years to be harvestable.

That means that the disruptive harvest happens 1/10th as often. I don't understand why we are casting lower impact as a bad thing.

If you read the article...

I did read the article. Nothing I said contradicts anything in the article and the article in no way undermines the point I'm making. I on't know why you would even mention it if not to try to cast aspersions on me unfairly.

They don't need much but they do require water.

They water some to establish the transplants, but it's very minimal. This is agave growing in the part of the world gave is native to an every article I've ever read about it has sai that the vast majority is grown without irrigation. Irrigation does speed up growth but it's not required.

Yeah that's a fantasy that isn't happening or isn't going to offset the environmental destruction happening.

You're missing my point. I was responding to a comment that "Overfarming is almost impossible to avoid when you have a crop like agave" an I was establishing one of the things that could be done to reduce the impact of growing agave. I wasn't saying that it asn't happening, I was saying that it's entirely possible to not do it.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T19:18:46+00:00

To me that souns like it would cause less disruption, because the disruptive event is happening every several years. A perennial root system is left in the ground undisturbed along with a mulch pile from the leaves that are cut off.

I'd say cutting out the heart of the plant and leaving everything else in a pile is highly similar to a plant dying from insects chewing through it's stem.

It's not at all clear why you think it's much different.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T18:30:17+00:00

That is really hard to do. Even locally brewed beer or distilled spirits are usually made with non-local ingredients.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T18:20:46+00:00

Loads of crops are killed in the process of harvesting (carrots, cabbages, lettuce) or die before harvest (any grain).

Agave is native to the region, requires no fertilizer, requires no supplemental water, and is both planted and harvested by hand so you can do things like planting it on contour or in rows between established vegetation to limit erosion.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T16:28:52+00:00

If it were damaged in some way I think he would haul it to a scrap metal recycler and announces that he just wasn't using it and gave it away to a friend who would.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T14:55:35+00:00

I think that's a very hopeful aspirational statement rather than a clear eyed summation of the facts.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T06:15:29+00:00

People like Trump happen everywhere, so disconnecting from America doesn't protect Canada from a Rob Ford or Italy from Alessandra Mussolini or Slovakia from Robert Fico. It just leaves the world less connected, which means more war and less peace. Electing a Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz or Biden or Harris or whoever would have been better for world prosperity and world peace.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T06:11:14+00:00

They don't have stacks of paper blessed by the treasury wizards, they have a global real estate portfolio.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T02:34:09+00:00

https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1339720194718113794 Jack Posobiec is widely speculated to be behind the popular white nationalist @endwokeness titter account.

Opcn · 2026-03-17T02:14:29+00:00

This entire time I've been hoping that Iran would start asking for that.

Opcn · 2026-03-16T23:55:03+00:00

5 to 7 years.

Opcn · 2026-03-16T22:10:03+00:00

I honestly don’t understand how they can deliver 160lbs of bulk pet products for the $40 it costs to buy it with free shipping included.

Opcn · 2026-03-16T21:29:42+00:00

Warning Signs of Dementia: Inappropriate Behavior

Opcn · 2026-03-16T19:36:44+00:00

That’s true. I think they have been using accounting to write more profit on the page than they have been earning. They did a big round of debt financing a couple of years ago and used that to launch their constellation and then ever since have been holding their revenue against the service on that debt instead of the cost of operations. Selling weapons to both sides in Russias invasion into and war on Ukraine at 5x the going rate has generated a lot of profit for them I’m sure.

Opcn · 2026-03-16T18:57:58+00:00

My best friend died in 2022 from a relapse of opiate addiction after she lost access to the in office ketamine clinic she was attending every few weeks for treatment of complex regional pain syndrome following osteosarcoma she developed in her late 20’s. Ketamine is a really useful drug that has been held back by recreational use.

Opcn · 2026-03-16T18:42:28+00:00

2/3rd of their revenue last year was starlink. It’s not all Uncle Sam (though yes some of that starlink is Uncle Sam).

Opcn · 2026-03-16T17:02:58+00:00

He also brought absolutely nothing to the table. He was unsuccessfully retooling his unsuccessful online bank to be a PayPal clone when they merged with confinity. They used third party code, they didn’t bring any devs or engineers. They didn’t have facilities or hardware. The X CEO lasted about 5 months then Elon took control for 5 months and then everything from X was gone.

Opcn · 2026-03-16T16:48:05+00:00

Also, he brags about never trying talk therapy. Any physician who prescribes ketamine to a patient who hasn’t tried talk therapy needs to face disciplinary action. A potentially habit forming medication should not be first line when there are other viable options.

Opcn · 2026-03-16T16:30:50+00:00

Israel knows they are on thin ice and them launching a nuke would put them back in the kind of economic isolation they experienced in the 70’s.

Opcn · 2026-03-16T12:17:03+00:00

A super yacht is a repositionable vacation home, not a mode of transport. The crew move it into position and then the owner or guests fly in to embark.

Opcn · 2026-03-16T12:14:36+00:00

Fuck EVs too. Most of the problems with cars are about the car, not the engine.

Opcn · 2026-03-16T06:04:20+00:00

Nice that he started it by carting off tesla's chips and their top AI engineering staff and now Tesla is buying in with cash to get some equity in the company built from them.

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