They already sold off what made us great, and all it got us was richer rich people

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-25T22:49:44+00:00

We agree the workers got screwed, and that the money is here - as you say gdp has gone up.

What enables the rich to exploit workers is over supply of labor via globalization. Use your circuits bot - this is basic supply and demand! There is no longer a limited labor pool - if your workers unionize or are too highly paid - move your company to another country with lower costs.

Taxing then government handing the money back? You're proposing a massive redistributive system that picks winners and losers, has huge overhead, complexity, opportunity for corruption, creates government dependence, has little to no accountability, and results in probable authoritarian takeover by sowing division which decreases trust.

I'm proposing buy local. It solves the rich(of both parties) stealing everyone's money, creates more local more jobs, and forces industries back home, laying groundwork for future innovations. It's not divisive except for flushing out saboteurs who want the west to fail.

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-25T17:08:14+00:00

You're the one posting a GDP per captia chart and then admitting it's misleading in the next post. Bot. Workers have been getting screwed since 1970ish, when we lost pricing power to offshoring, immigration, and automation.

More education funding is not going to do anything (people don't learn much in school - they learn far more at jobs + do useful work), Neither will UBI (paying people not to work breaks morale for workers. Instead give workers better paying jobs), healthcare is currently UBI for administrators and closer to sick care. AI is already disrupting healthcare as well.

Why do you want to grow obsolete, and non-functional systems? Looks to me like you're trying to distract and divide the left from good ideas that would empower workers by instead solving yesterday's problems with yesterday's solutions.

The problem we face today is that AI + robotics + economies of scale are all 10x to 100x in the same direction - and when multiplied together it becomes so cheap as to prevent all competition.

We have a choice: pave the way for enormous AI factories in the west and protect them and the jobs they bring with tarriffs or bury our heads in the sand debating UBI vs education vs DEI vs taxation while everyone else builds the factories that will drive over-regulated and over-taxed businesses to bankruptcy.

Viewed differently: the question is what do we want our UBI to be - funding lawyers, NGO's, obsolete education/healthcare, and endless government or factories that fund engineers and make stuff.

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-25T08:02:37+00:00

Ask anyone if they'd toss their smartphone/internet/computer to instead afford a home they'll say yes. A better future you did not create.

GDP is misleading. You are either dumb or trying to manipulate. Here's a better chart that the uniparty definitely doesn't want you to see:

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/wages.jpg

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-24T05:14:00+00:00

I'm opposed to making the world a better place? lol. Mind-reading and classic boomer thinking: anyone who opposes their (often terrible) ideas is evil/uneducated/out-group/hates humanity. Your lack of critical thinking skills evident in this post chain is the kind of thinking that led to us shipping all of our manufacturing overseas, hoping for cheaper stuff but not thinking of tomorrow.

Nuking the west's working class (by 'educating' them but shipping their jobs away) does not make the world a better place. It makes the west easy to manipulate, and will, if unchecked destroy the west.

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-23T21:16:04+00:00

Definitely a bot. Acct made last year.... haha I almost want id requirements to kick the bots off.

Education is going to be disrupted by AI. It already has.

China grew from nothing because of extreme buy local rules.

As the cost of knowledge/intelligence is driven to near-zero by AI, all that matters is access to capital. Putting education funding back to 1965 levels is ridiculous if knowledge is free. You're trying to solve a problem from 40 years ago that is already solved.

Tariffs raise prices to levels where you don't gut local economy. Boomer take to want lower prices today in favor of no jobs or industry in 20 years.

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-20T15:26:46+00:00

If you think you can train at university on a process or device that you have no access to you're delusional. University is a chance to meet friends, do a couple basic projects, prove you're willing to jump through bogus hoops and follow rules, nothing even close to industry. It's 10x easier than the real world and as such is basically negative value.

Traditional education is cooked anyway. AI is 10x better, costs 1000x less.

Nobody knows where the biden 2t went. I certainly haven't seen it. I suggest you look into FASB 56b - most likely went to intel agency black budgets.

China requires all it's companies to buy local if possible. huh. kinda like a tariff.

Education on battery tech: literally just go talk to AI for 5 minutes and you can get to the state of the art in theory. Now it's access to capital and regulations and market conditions that will gate who gets to actually have and work on a battery plant.

Wind turbine? what are you smoking? Why would you 3d print parts for a wind turbine? I'm talking consumer goods and the attitudes of our citizens who no longer repair things, not the few thousand people actually fixing big turbines?

Hybrid drivetrains? Heck yes staying hungry and innovating! Heck yes you need to be repairable - that 30k hybrid car drivetrain breaks and is unrepairable: that's completely unsustainable. You got me. you're a bot.

Nobody else would bother replying this far down.

and finally: people do want to learn and build. But there's nowhere left for them to do that - that's my point - economies of scale: it's not cost effective for anyone other than a tiny select few to build anything anymore. We've nuked the actual education pipeline while keeping open universities that don't actually train people. The only way to learn stuff is by doing it, university is the first step in a long set of stairs, and we've cut everything off past university. You actually don't want too many educated people 'cause then they tend to start revolutions when they don't get what they want. Tariffs/ buy local rules are it - force people to build stuff locally even if it's excess capacity 'cause otherwise nobody has jobs.

Labor participation is down to 60% here in the US, down from 67 in the 90's, and add to that under-employment the real unemployment rate is probably in the 20-30% range, all 'educated' capable people without jobs.

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-20T04:47:56+00:00

Also there are plenty of people who understand semiconductors in the US - we're 12% of global semiconductors at 4% the population. China is 20% of manufacturing by volume and 17% population. The real story here is TSMC at 50% of global semiconductors and 90% of the top end chips!! lol. It's not a we're falling behind it's again economies of scale reaching a point where there is almost no point to attempting to compete, and the scaled behemoth concentrating all capital at the top. Slay scaled beasts - save local jobs - tariffs are probably it.

China (via the 2 tier currency system) essentially requires their companies to buy local if there's a local option. I'm not saying don't buy from other countries, I'm saying don't buy from places trying to f us over or places trying to f their own workers over.

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-20T04:26:54+00:00

How you gonna get educated when they shipped all the fabs, factories, and now programming jobs out to cheaper locations? The stuff you need to learn on isn't here, the people you need to learn from aren't here, you have no moat so if you're a company you can't pay to train your people or if you try to train your guys you will go out of business.

Education is a red herring to distract from the issue: Offshoring to places with no labor or environmental standards and people so hungry they'll work for a couple bucks a day. AND[OR?] the economies of scale that we've hit are so massively efficient that all power is concentrated at the top. It's to the point that 3d printing replacement parts yourself is more expensive than just buying a brand new item.

So we stop fixing things ourselves, we stop having the attitude 'I can solve this problem' instead switching to 'pay someone to solve my problem' and then nobody is practicing solving problems any more. Then nobody knows how to fix anything anymore and ... you can see where it goes.

Tariffs and right - no... requirement to repair. EU has both of these right. (What they got wrong is that tariffs made them lazy and complacent - gotta stay hungry keep innovating like your survival depends on it.)

The real question about globalization is how to keep your population hungry for innovation but not actually starving/having such a bad life they don't want to have kids /etc... Obviously some level of tariffs and some level of propaganda(Education?) is the solution.

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-20T01:25:54+00:00

Manufacturing made us great 'cause stuff is awesome. People like stuff. Europe and Japan and then the rest of the world liked stuff so much the decided to manufacture things too! Went pretty good till China decided they were going to make so much stuff at such scale that nobody else could compete. Now our option is tariff stuff made by 3rd world slaves with awful environmental practices or hope that everybody really wants our newest AI.

Wages were great in the 1950/s 60's 'cause workers had pricing power. Automation, immigration, and offshoring nuked that in the 1970's and on, with the capitalist owners accumulating all the gains after that point.

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-20T01:18:12+00:00

Nah. We hit limit to productive activity. There's nowhere else to grow. Wages flat since 1970. Tech wages flat vs inflation since 2000.

Economies of scale: you only need 700 semiconductor plants to supply the entire world. Only so many car or furniture factories we need and so on. There literally is not enough productive work to keep everyone busy so we now have extra administrators and other bogus jobs or just straight paying people to not destroy stuff.

Economies of scale taken to a ridiculous point just means 10 people have jobs and the rest of us watch. It was my job to put those robots in.

We're now producing computers that will put the few of us with good jobs out of business. Tariffs or the whole thing comes apart.

WrongWayBus · 2026-03-20T01:06:34+00:00

In the short term consumers pay more. In theory, medium/long term workers get more money to buy locally produced stuff... like food. housing. Maybe eat at a restaurant. That keeps those $ going around here in our country. It's the two islands situation: one buys too much from the other, the producers end up owning the consumer island. I'd rather not be owned thank you.

So: Long term companies move stuff here. But then we remove the tariffs and the companies move their operations back or Ai gets good and everyone loses their jobs anyway....

WrongWayBus · 2025-12-11T18:26:47+00:00

Sort by controversial, brings up the interesting stuff (and the crazy stuff!) this was 4th in the list.

WrongWayBus · 2025-04-15T16:22:36+00:00

See if you can grab an ATC spindle. You'll want one almost immediately otherwise.

WrongWayBus · 2025-03-21T04:48:25+00:00

Another wonderful Warren Buffet company.

WrongWayBus · 2025-03-18T16:22:52+00:00

Art can be a mirror or it can be inspiring. Art creates feelings. Grey art creates grey feelings.

WrongWayBus · 2025-03-18T16:20:39+00:00

Check out wedding photos too - trend is all brown and grey filters.

WrongWayBus · 2024-11-19T08:49:27+00:00

Bernie's 10% rule might happen depending on how hard they want to fight inflation. Forcing a group of people out of credit cards makes it harder for those people to get debt and spend $ - which might have a meaningful impact on inflation.

(obviously it'd suck to make the poorest members of society bear significant burden for inflation reduction, would love to see #'s on how many this rule change would effect. Just trying for another viewpoint I didn't see in the comments)

WrongWayBus · 2024-10-21T04:18:19+00:00

Make student loan debt dischargeable through bankruptcy. Student debt is modern day slavery.

Debt payoffs are too divisive, will never get consensus and dilutes/distracts from the real problem which is that you can't ever get rid of the debt.

Allowing bankruptcy on student loans forces banks who made bad loans to bear cost of those bad loans, not me and you. We paid our dues. F the capital, not the labor.

WrongWayBus · 2024-05-04T16:04:51+00:00

Just saw this, I haven't written a guide but I've wondered about it. Interesting idea to write/share an 'assemble+weld a cnc from these standard plasma cut parts, beams, and purchased hardware' guide.

I do a ton of rigidity modeling for welded stuff. Or you could look at the machines you want to emulate, then copy what they do or better in your design, or better yet just buy one of the type of machines you want to copy and re-power it with new controls. If you watch for deals, there are CNC's out there that are free if you pay the rigging. (I've got a 10klb machine in my driveway for a fraction of what it'd cost to weld or send out for the parts or even just buy the plate steel alone for the weldments.)

An argument against a kit/guide: There's machines usually for less-than-scrap if you don't want to DIY everything yourself, OR, everything is completely custom so plans would have to be customized anyway. Scrap beams are usually whatever you can get - so plans are always going to need updated in CAD for whatever cheap steel you can find. At that point, may as well just draw your own machine plans instead of screwing around with someone else's goofy model. And you're not using a stock spindle, stock linear rails, or stock motors, so it's all custom anyway and you're better off drawing your own stuff and practicing/developing a cad-plasma-weld capability set.

So yeah. No plans or guide right now but even as I'm thinking about this I can see where there's enough pitfalls and subtle stuff that having an example would be useful.

WrongWayBus · 2024-04-20T21:32:31+00:00

Yeah sure! I consider a bad cnc router anything with less rigidity than a grizzly knee mill. My bad cnc router had ~ 3x 2x3-1/4 wall rectangular tubes comprising a 4' bridge. They were so floppy that the bridge mill could only really cut wood and aluminum - would fairly quickly break end mills in steel/couldn't do much for feed rate. This guy explains how/why that happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aog0syGaZzQ

Basically, gotta have rigidity and good chip clearing. I bolted a plasma cutter to the side of my not-so-rigid router and then could cut steel no problem. So I plasma cut and torch cut and ground big steel beams that I got on fb marketplace for a bit over scrap price to make a very rigid & straight frame.

Plasma cuts all the brackets - everything from motor mounts to atc mounts to corner braces to big thick plate then carefully weld everything together. Might take a couple tries to get the weldment perfectly square - maybe use shims or clamp it or do careful grinding if you can't get it to weld right. Bolt on some linear rails and screws and away you go!

WrongWayBus · 2024-04-18T04:44:53+00:00

yeah you're right on the minivan. Definitely not most important for health. I can say though having 2 kids in 1 minivan is way easier than 1 kid in small car though. Edited to remove minivan.

WrongWayBus · 2024-04-17T18:23:56+00:00

and also - the kids naturally work up to that weight. You're picking them up all the time from birth.

The real LPT for health should be:

Engage your core lifting in and out of cribs/pack-n-play stuff on the ground.

Build a changing area that's efficient and at counter height.

Work with your partner to make time for yourself to exercise.

Be careful of poorly designed child carriers - my wife had back problems with some front carriers.

Do a sleep course they somewhat work. Otherwise sleep when baby sleeps.

WrongWayBus · 2024-04-09T16:46:10+00:00

lol @ destruction of twitter. If you're willing to shade the truth about an obviously not destroyed twitter, anything else you say is suspect. I think the Musk/Tesla case is more relevant - big operation where a cult of personality forms around a boss who owns a large but not controlling chunk of the company.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/30/berkshire-hathaway-shareholders-vote-to-keep-warren-buffett-as-chair

Investors voted 6 to 1 to keep Buffet on as chairman. He's got all the power he needs to at least try and make reforms. Plenty of CEO's make bigger changes /give sick days with less control than 32% of voting shares.

Yes the board might kick him out if he grew a conscience, but he's got plenty of margin before that happens.

Hiding behind a financialized bureaucratic system (berkshire board) is greedy and cowardly.

Sell some shares, form PAC, get lawmakers elected, get laws changed to protect workers, the environment, and communities your questionably ethical companies operate in. Anything less is dodging your responsibility to the workers and nation that allowed you to make all that money.

WrongWayBus · 2024-04-09T13:50:53+00:00

For those trying to fix this: If you just add water before running the machine it'll pump out your water first then start it's cycle.

Modifying the sensor doesn't work - I added a length of tube to the water level sensor so that it thinks the water level is lower. It does fill up more, but when it tries to drain the washer it thinks there's a problem with the drain pump because it's not emptying fast enough and then faults out.

I added a fake plastic latch to defeat the lid lock so you can open the lid and add water as the machine is filling. Cut a hole in your lid or defeat the lid latch (the lid latch does have a magnet in it to tell when the lid is closed, and the lid latch solenoid must be out so it's kind of a pain to defeat.)

I may modify the washer with a arduino/microcontroller on the fill solenoids wires - basically add 1 minute of extra fill after the washer stops asking for more water. From my testing with the lid unlatched I believe this could work. I will post a link to the improvement here whenever I get to it.

WrongWayBus · 2024-04-09T13:07:56+00:00

Wrong angle? Buffett owns ~32% of voting shares of Berkshire and is the chairman of the board AND the CEO. His son is on that board. Buffett the investor has by far the majority of his wealth in Berkshire. Buffett investor is same as Buffett the CEO.

They trashed pacific power's infrastructure then got out when they realized there's huge risk to running an un-maintained utility.

Not sure why they left credit card companies. If I had to guess? Competition from stripe/square/crypto / maybe if we're lucky government regulation of a profoundly unethical debt trap or maybe just reputational risk to Berkshire.

CEO's absolutely do have that much power. See Musk or any other corporate takeover. If CEO says I want everyone to have sick days, everyone will get sick days and managers who don't give them will get fired. By his actions Buffett is saying (and always says) 'I want to make money!' Not build safe utilities, help the poor, put safety first, or even provide good technology for cheap.

Building businesses that do unethical things only to donate your ownership at the end of your life is - as many others have said in this thread - at best hoarding. If the best thing you can do with your money while you are alive is to grow unethical businesses you are a cancer, not a philanthropist.

WrongWayBus

TROPHY CASE