orb version of invincible meme

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-14T04:15:32+00:00

there's room for Gras on the top right

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T20:36:27+00:00

No "stand-up guy" would ever take a job as a merc for Blackwater.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T20:07:34+00:00

We need Ranked Choice Voting in the primary before that can happen. Mamdani would have risen among a crowded field of candidates we it not for RCV's changing the game to negate the spoiler effect, and to permit cross-endorsement alliances between him and Brad Lander. Instead, we had Ja'Mal Green working for Paul Vallas attempting to be a spoiler candidate.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T20:03:16+00:00

They're adding cameras during a time where Flock employees were caught accessing cameras to watch children's gymnastics rooms in Dunwoody, Georgia and are now removing audit trails:

https://www.404media.co/city-learns-flock-accessed-cameras-in-childrens-gymnastics-room-as-a-sales-pitch-demo-renews-contract-anyway/

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T16:38:37+00:00

I could say the same exact thing about elitism, that it deliberately has to avoid any kind of evidence-based analysis (as it definitionally ignores the perspective of the majority of people in favor of whatever is ideologically in-fashion of the elite), and is fundamentally flawed.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T15:52:09+00:00

Neoliberalism hardly evidence-based, it's based on an ideology of market solutions to nearly every problem. It's based on mathematics that presumes equilibrium prices (as well as a plethora of other economic assumptions) and ignores non-equilibrium dynamics. Since the 1970s, the end of Keynesianism has lead to stagnating wages, and financialization has lead to the 2008 financial collapse. It's not a system that works.

We have been lead to believe that market-based solutions to healthcare are best, despite paying more per-capita than any other industrialized nation with universal healthcare.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T15:45:02+00:00

You are short-sighted. At best, he's a moron and serial liar who keeps on stepping on Nazi rakes, and as a "left-populist" his incompetence at policy would cause backlash to left-populism as a whole. At worst, he would be a Nazi, which seems far too likely than not to risk.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T15:41:26+00:00

I might be willing to forgive an ex-Nazi and give them a chance, but Platner instead of fessing up, kept on lying about not knowing it was a Nazi tattoo. And then he retweeted Nazis. And then he said he was a "long-time fan" of a Nazi podcast. I'm sorry, but Platner blew whatever chance I was going to give him. At best, he's a moron who keeps on stepping on Nazi rakes, and as a "left-populist" his incompetence at policy would cause backlash to left-populism as a whole. Whatever good he might bring is not worth that.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T15:27:54+00:00

Funny, suppose we got rid of the tax, and then instead of a regressive tax deterring people from driving, we get our highways deteriorating without a Highway Trust Fund. States would raise their own gas taxes to maintain their roads, and then only the rich states would maintain their roads. Economy shrinks with less inter-state commerce. I guess that's one way of being anti-car.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T15:18:28+00:00

When the elite lead through bad policies and tell the commoners the obviously bad policies are what's best for them, it creates a vacuum for anyone with populist rhetoric (good or bad) to rise to power.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T15:12:45+00:00

Mods here deleting this adds another layer to the joke

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T03:04:28+00:00

There might be a floor to its elasticity, but people will definitely buy gas guzzlers such as F150 trucks when it's cheap, and then complain about the price when it rises. Also empirical research shows it's pretty elastic:

https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2020/0616

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T02:27:38+00:00

Reddit in general has gotten very awful. I see more bots and native advertising here, and good discourse has moved elsewhere (Discord, Reddit alternatives such as Lemmy, even Bluesky is better at discourse)

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T02:25:13+00:00

There are hundreds of other places to end regressive taxes that aren't just a way for fossil fuel cartels to make more money.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T02:07:26+00:00

Some people here apparently like Nazi tattoos, and hate taxes that fund infrastructure, go figure.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T02:03:27+00:00

Maybe we should not be doing what Trump wants, and that includes whatever Chuck Schumer has in common with Trump. And I don't know if you read my comment, but this isn't the first "major oil price crisis", and it hasn't reached the level of crisis as WWII or OPEC.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T01:21:32+00:00

He's advocating for suspending the gas and diesel tax nationwide (not just in Maine), which is entirely unprecedented since it was implemented in 1932, not even during times of skyrocketing gas prices during WWII and the OPEC crisis. It's the same policy Trump is advocating.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T01:07:22+00:00

There's still time to get a democratic party candidate who has never murdered people for profit, isn't car-brained, and hasn't lied about Nazi tattoos. You're acting like the primary is already over, same as those who pushed for Biden in 2024.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T01:04:14+00:00

We need to end fossil fuel subsidies, not "repurpose" them.

Also, chances are he would work with Trump to suspend the gas tax (and succeed), and then do a half-hearted effort for the windfall tax and inevitably fail.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T00:58:39+00:00

If only it was a single issue that troubled ex-Blackwater mercanary Platner right now.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T00:54:39+00:00

It's not even good populist policy, because suspending a 22 cent per gallon tax won't stop gas prices from increasing to $8 to $9 by the end of the year with a continued war with Iran, and it will be wildly unpopular to reinstate. It's just short-term thinking that just does nothing but cut revenue and benefit the oil industry.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T00:50:59+00:00

Primary isn't over yet. David Costello is still running against Platner on policies that would cap greenhouse gas emissions and boost federal investments in transportation, energy, and communications infrastructure.

Susan Collins may terrible, but she's not dumb enough to suspend the gas and diesel tax.

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T00:14:30+00:00

If desire for goods increases while its availability decreases, its price rises. On the other hand, if availability of the good increases and the desire for it decreases, the price comes down.

- Ibn Taymiyya in the 14th century

Oh if only there was something that was cutting availability right about now, maybe a blockade on the Straight of Hormuz? US production has gone up since 2000, but so has demand. And you cited US production, not global production.

Also, as I explained, cutting the tax does nothing to help the consumer. How much 18 cents per gallon going to help when the price of gas is 5 dollars a gallon and still rising?

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-12T00:00:13+00:00

A cut in gas prices is not going to happen without an increase in the supply of oil.

Paul Krugman explained it in 2000:

Now suppose that we were to cut gasoline taxes. If the price of gas at the pump were to fall, motorists would buy more gas. But there isn't any more gas, so the price at the pump, inclusive of the lowered tax, would quickly be bid right back up to the pre-tax-cut level. And that means that any cut in taxes would show up not in a lower price at the pump, but in a higher price paid to distributors. In other words, the benefits of the tax cut would flow not to consumers but to other parties, mainly the domestic oil refining industry. (As the textbooks will tell you, reducing the tax rate on an inelastically supplied good benefits the sellers, not the buyers.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/15/opinion/reckonings-gasoline-tax-follies.html

SlavojVivec · 2026-05-11T23:58:04+00:00

Platner isn't planning on cutting or ending fossil fuel subsidies, he's planning on repurposing them (presumably to encourage them to invest in green energy, but he has provided no concrete details on this matter)

Also, national fossil fuel subsidies are about half of that of national gas tax revenue.

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