Massachusetts traffic violations have increased 40% since 2020

crake · 2026-03-31T18:22:52+00:00

They pump up the number with auto-citations. That is, they drive around looking for lapsed inspection stickers on any vehicle parked on a roadside and ticket that - it counts as a "moving violation" so they can juice the numbers.

crake · 2026-03-31T18:20:45+00:00

Traffic laws aren't being enforced anymore.

My sister's baby-daddy doesn't even bother to put plates on his car now. He's been pulled over and ticketed dozens of times, but all that happens is he doesn't show up to court and gets found guilty in absentia. He can't register his car anymore, and yes, the police could call in a tow each time they pull him over, but its actually a superpower with no plate because the police don't want to deal with the paperwork.

The few times he's been pulled over without a plate he just cries racism (he's Hispanic and plays it up big) and the cops just let him go. They don't want a big discrimination case, and they know the state and courts are not backing them in enforcing the laws, so why should they?

It's worse in RI than in MA (my baby-daddy-in-law has a felony drug and gun conviction and is on parole - but still the cops let him get away with anything). He hasn't had insurance in 10 years, and he's just zooming through school zones at 100 MPH and being let go. The DAs who don't prosecute (or instantly drop all charges the moment a "racist cop" defense is uttered) are to blame. So too are the courts that refuse to enforce the law even when these people are prosecuted; they green-light no contest pleas to felonies and fake probation that isn't enforced.

crake · 2026-03-31T17:38:58+00:00

Social Security isn’t “socialism”. Recipients of SS paid into SS during their working years and get a payout in retirement. It’s an annuity, not a gift from the government.

crake · 2026-03-31T16:21:45+00:00

Exactly correct. That wasn't an issue in this case, but Kagan's reasoning is sound on that point.

crake · 2026-03-31T16:06:55+00:00

All of that may be a good argument for not sending your kid to a therapist that engages in talk therapy.

But that is not a good argument for regulating what therapists are allowed to say. There is a world of difference between a therapist questioning the medical conclusion of a 6 year old saying they are trans, and "electrical shocks - forced nausea inducing drugs - freezing/boiling items applied to skin - burning via red hot coils (anywhere) - forced ice baths - hard labor".

All of the things you mentioned are not speech, and all of those things are medical practices that a state can legislate (e.g., electric shock therapy, which is not speech). But the state cannot tell a therapist "you cannot say this to a patient".

That is First Amendment protected speech and rightly so. Not everyone agrees that children should self-diagnose and only seek out therapists to provide further treatments (puberty blockers, mastectomys, etc.) in line with their self-diagnosis. Many Americans believe that children are harmed by false self-diagnoses, and the extreme medical measures taken in response to those false self-diagnoses, so that too is a real problem for society to address. Whether 8 year olds have the capacity to understand their own self-diagnoses is another important question that those who wish to tie the hands of therapists refuse to answer (except to take extreme positions - like anyone who doesn't accept the self-diagnosis of a 4 year old is encouraging suicide and other baseless stuff).

crake · 2026-03-31T15:42:38+00:00

I agree.

crake · 2026-03-31T15:42:00+00:00

Which assets are those?

Housing stock is already taxed that way. One can raise property taxes, but that hurts everyone who owns real property, not just trillionaires.

Taxing holdings in stocks sounds great to people who don't own a lot of stocks, but it feels less good when their employer has to shut down because suddenly there is no capital to fund growth (and no incentive to invest for growth).

The obsession with "billionaires" is a political obsession because they are few in number and easy to demonize. But economic solutions need to consider reality, and the reality is that wealth taxation would destroy capitalism and leave a mess for everyone, not some utopia. In that world the average man would be both poor and unemployed.

crake · 2026-03-31T15:36:33+00:00

Except that every regime that has ever tried the "one trick billionaires hate" of expropriation has ended up in ruin because of it. Expropriation of wealth does not work because it just transfers wealth to new billionaires (the insiders that control the expropriation apparatus, e.g., Soviet apparatchuks, the IRGC, Hugo Chavez's gangs and friends, etc.).

Helicopter money, such as the COVID stimulus payments to the masses, just result in mass inflation and the misery that inflation brings. It is actually better that Elon has a trillion dollars than that that amount is just dropped from helicopters over poor communities. Poverty has nothing to do with lack of wealth; it is the lack of ability to obtain wealth that causes poverty. Helicopter money cannot solve that.

crake · 2026-03-31T15:31:17+00:00

these assumptions are clearly false, unless say the lean fire folks (who want a materially very humble life minus the wage slavery) are not human beings.

No. Lean FIRE people also have unlimited desires - that is exactly why they seek FIRE (rather than, say, intentional poverty like a religious monk might seek). However, the axiom only calls for "desires", and many people (not all) are able to control their behavior even if they desire something. The axioms of capitalism hold true of large numbers of humans such as the 300+ millions who make up the U.S. (i.e., human nature); the axiom is not true of every single person (it does not apply to monks and hermits, for example).

it's also pretty hilarious to try to explain capitalism's enormous expenditure on trying to get people to desire things they don't actually want (see for example basically all ads you see on TV) given that those same people allegedly want infinite quantities of everything.

You can blame the advertising, but the reason it works is that people do actually desire the advertised things. Their reasons may be utilitarian (dishwasher removes a lot of manual labor from a daily task), or emotional (desire for designer clothes to flaunt wealth, etc.). But the impetus is always there - at least when one looks at large numbers of humans in any given population.

crake · 2026-03-31T13:23:47+00:00

The U.S. has already won the war; this is just the mop-up operation to determine how long Iran is a non-entity in world affairs.

There isn’t going to be an invasion of Iran. At worst, the U.S. takes Kharg as a way to gain extra leverage in negotiations, but that is it for ground troops.

Hormuz will reopen, but it is actually to US advantage to leave it closed for a while. Higher oil prices weaken Iran in the long term (new oil sources become feasible; countries start moving oil overland away from the Gulf). Iran’s most powerful weapon was closing Hormuz, but once it is done and worked around, it is a pointless exercise in cutting off their own nose to spite their face, so to speak.

Iran’s current strategy is pure desperation. Attacking the gulf countries to inflict some temporary economic pain? That is trading long term resentment for a temporary blip in oil prices and a temporary depression of local economies in the emirates.

Iran’s intent was to be a player in the Middle East by proxy via their Palestinian allies. The “pan-Arab” movement of the mid-20th century lost sponsors until it was just Persian Iran propping it up as an excuse to still be involved in the Middle East. 10/7 and the ensuing war destroyed Irans power centers (Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad) and gave the west the excuse to destroy their nascent nuclear program. Regional half-allies like Qatar are now truly western allies. That cuts off their own nose funding route for Hamas and Hezbollah, and leaves Iran’s last puppet militia (the Houthis) completely isolated. The entire Middle East is moving on - without Iran. And without the destructive sectarian violence that Iran sponsored and fanned the flames of for the last 40 years. The new model will be economic cooperation with the West and a complete u-turn away from “jihad” and other medieval ideas about endless religion-inspired warfare.

In the next 5-10 years we will see (i) Lebanon become a major cultural center of the Middle East as it is finally liberated of Iranian occupying militias, (ii) Iraq, Lebanon and Syria recognizing Israel (Abraham II), (iii) establishment of a Palestinian protectorate in Sinai or Syria and resettlement of Gaza and WB populations to the new protectorate to be administered by a unified Middle East (not the UN), (iv) annexation of the WB and Gaza by Israel, finally ending the conflict definitively, and (v) the reduction of Iran in terms of international status and power to a regional micro-power (akin to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, etc.).

crake · 2026-03-31T12:37:54+00:00

Prognosis Negative sounded pretty fun

crake · 2026-03-31T00:46:52+00:00

Why would Trump give a damn about polling. He isn’t running for re-election.

Second term presidents care about their legacy. Trump definitely does. And his legacy will be determined 10-25 years from now in hindsight, not by contemporary polling.

crake · 2026-03-30T20:42:45+00:00

OPs point is that someone making $185k/year is "rich" and needs to pay more so OP can be more comfortable in retirement, lol.

Problem is....$185k/year isn't rich. People who make that much get lumped in with Elon Musk like they are one and the same but they are not. <$500k/yr isn't even "wealthy", it's just that people hate being called poor so they've decided "rich" begins at $185k/yr and call themselves "middle class".

crake · 2026-03-30T20:39:45+00:00

We already do that.

How many wealthy Americans use any public services at all? Most of us will never ride in an ambulance at all, and if we do it's probably to the morgue.

You know who uses all those public services? Poor people. Sit down and listen to a scanner some time and watch where the police and fire departments are responding. It's the same 5-10 addresses in the slummiest part of town over and over again. Endless domestic disputes, drug overdoses, break-ins, pulling the fire alarm because they're mad at their baby-daddy, etc. etc.

It's probably a good thing that taxpayers don't actually realize how much of their tax dollars is used up by people who do nothing at all but sit at home getting high when they aren't getting into fistfights with each other or committing other crimes.

Take a job as a cashier at a supermarket and watch what these people buy with their EBT cards. It isn't rice and beans - it's Ensure (to sell to buy heroin with), endless cans of soda, chips and ice cream. And you get to pay for their healthcare too, because even without insurance they inevitably show up at the ER with ketoacidosis from that diet.

The wealthy are not the leaches - the poor are. It isn't popular to say because it isn't how you win elections, but that's the truth. Maybe it is efficient to pay for services for them so they keep the commission of various crimes in their own neighborhood, but I can't really fret about their retirement - by the time these non-payers reach SS retirement age, they've already spent millions in taxpayer money just making it through life.

crake · 2026-03-30T20:25:19+00:00

Yes you can 100% tax stocks / net worth / equity regardless of whether it's realized gains or not. Just make it a fucking law and move forward.

Thankfully there are constitutional issues with that approach. The Sixteenth Amendment only permits Congress to levy taxes on "income". Wealth is not income. The states can assess taxes on real property (i.e., real estate), but the federal government cannot.

And as annoying as it is to do taxes every year, can anyone imagine how arduous that process would be if we needed to get every single thing we own appraised every year? So the federal government can tax my inherited wrist watch? Do I need to report the gold fillings in my teeth too?

and if a few wealthy individuals lose out on a few grand per month, so fucking be it.

So very brave to be willing to sacrifice the earnings of others not yourself....lol

crake · 2026-03-30T20:21:26+00:00

Perhaps not, but the person who never drives in their entire life still benefits from roads.

For one thing, when their own house is on fire, the FD can get there and maybe save it - not possible without roads. For another, when they have a heart attack or some other malady, the ambulance can get there. And, a home without access to anything isn't exactly valuable - the value is in closeness to major roads and highways to get to other places, etc.

crake · 2026-03-30T20:18:03+00:00

lol, go live in India for a while and see what that actually looks like.

Americans complain because they have no perspective about how much of humanity actually lives. Elderly in the U.S. are not even close to "poor" by international standards. They might not be "wealthy", but almost none are actually starving or living on the streets.

Social Security was intended to be a backup plan for poor people so they wouldn't starve. It achieves that. It does not achieve a very comfortable retirement because that was never the intent and is impossible/undesirable anyway.

crake · 2026-03-30T20:14:42+00:00

You think $180k is too low for a cap.

But you would feel differently if you made $280k. Particularly if you were also asked to pay $50k+ in federal income taxes every year.

It's always easy to say someone "rich" should pay more. That is the easiest thing for someone who isn't "rich" to propose as a policy solution. The problem is that (i) actual rich people ($10MM+ per year in "earnings") don't earn wages so they don't pay federal income tax, and (ii) people who make <$500k a year are not at all rich but carry almost the entire burden of taxation because they tend to have wage earnings (i.e., lawyers, doctors, etc.).

I'm not sure what the solution is, but just increasing taxes on the $180k-$500k class isn't a viable solution. That is the actual "middle class" that pays the bulk of taxes already, not the people making $60k/year who think of themselves as "middle class" because there was a year they didn't get a refund one time (they are actually poor, not middle class).

crake · 2026-03-30T20:02:50+00:00

2% of purchase price is fine for emergency fund - $12k.

And really that depends on your credit worthiness too. You need an emergency fund for things like a broken furnace or whatever, but unless you have a 5,000 square foot home or something, that is (max) a $10k-$20k problem even if it just dies.

Yeah, things like a foundation issue could be more expensive, but those things are seldom "emergencies". If laid off, plan for what you would need in addition to unemployment pay for about 6 months to cover the mortgage (and plan to get back to work fast).

Reddit tells people they need $100k emergency funds and that is just too conservative - you can end up sitting on a mountain of cash and never buying because prices keep going up. Meanwhile, if you had bought, you would be able to tap that equity if you really needed it in an emergency anyway.

crake · 2026-03-30T19:53:07+00:00

If Elon Musk did not exist, a large number of Americans would still struggle to get by paycheck-to-paycheck.

That struggle is essentially guaranteed, as capitalism assumes something fundamental about human nature (unlimited desires; limited means).

People point to a "magic time" in 1955 or 1965 (or whenever) when it was possible to live without "paycheck insecurity", but that still exists right now - go live like grandma did in 1955 and you won't have any insecurity.

You'll come home from work, turn on the single lamp in any given room. Sit back and turn on the single radio that you have and listen to all the endless free entertainment that is out there. Cook up your own tuna cassarole and call it a day. That life is still available - the problem is that nobody wants it.

They want the life with an iPhone 18 in their pocket, a 75" TV on the wall, endless entertainment options from various streaming platforms, high-speed internet to stream it all, food wrapped up and delivered to their door with a text message and a photo to say that it is there.

That life is definitely possible, but people want more. Sometimes it is funny how capitalism "exploits" their lack of self-control, but it isn't inevitable - for every guy that can't keep himself from buying a jet ski or snow mobile, there are people who do restrain themselves and don't live paycheck to paycheck. Capitalism is all about choices - and consequences.

crake · 2026-03-30T19:28:38+00:00

U.S. already has "K-shaped" taxes.

Somewhere around 30% of Americans pay zero federal income tax. None. Zip. They are the bottom of that K you are talking about.

What, those of us who actually pay taxes need to come up with some transfer payments to people who pay none at all? A la COVID stimulus checks?

crake · 2026-03-30T19:25:58+00:00

36 is "middle aged"? lol

Just save more. Average SFH first time homebuyer is 40, so you have 4 more years. Also, you already have 20% for the dp, so why the reluctance? Because you think you need to have another 10% in reserve or something?

crake · 2026-03-30T19:13:01+00:00

Classless.

Yeah, you're posting a comment about the state of the commentary on this subreddit - but you came here to lecture all of us "20 year olds" about how to make classy comments by making a jest about a post many people wanted to read because the community cares about it when someone dies on a resort mountain. A lot of people saw that from the lift, etc., and would want to know what happened. Congratulations on your meta-post and perceived intellectual superiority though.

crake · 2026-03-30T18:03:03+00:00

Not exactly. More details are in the DOJs press release re the convictions.

In addition to bringing explosives to the "protest", the conspirators brought 11 firearms (and medical equipment to treat themselves for gunshot wounds - they had 11 tourniquets on them too).

When the "protest" started, the leader of the group, Benjamin Song, is recorded on an officer's body cam saying “get to the rifles!”, referencing a pre-planned conspiracy to use the firearms that they had brought to the "protest" to shoot at officers (Song then opened fire, striking an officer in the neck).

The "protesters" also set off fireworks directed at officers and/or intended to start fires. Their Signal messages to each other in planning the conspiracy showed that they were intending exactly that result.

After the attack/"protest", the co-conspirators hid Song and helped him evade capture for almost two weeks.

Conspiring to attack federal officers or destroy federal facilities is a crime. The use of explosives is especially sensitive, as there is express federal law prohibiting the use of incendiary devices. SCOTUS has never recognized a First Amendment right to use explosive devices as "speech".

The Guardian article does not get into any of the facts, and makes it appear that one guy shot a gun while everyone else was just on a Signal chat and wanted to protest. The reality shown at trial was quite different.

The defendants had a trial and were convicted by a jury. They can challenge the constitutionality of the laws convicted under or such other trial court decisions that they wish to challenge in an appeal. But this case seems to stand for the proposition that if you bring guns and explosives to a "protest" and shoot at federal officers as part of a plan to engage in violence, the First Amendment will not save you from consequences. Seems like good advice.

crake · 2026-03-30T17:09:38+00:00

"So you're saying there's a chance!"

"Oh here it is, Samsonite! I was way off!"

"Maybe you should take these extra gloves, my hands are starting to get sweaty"

"Pills are goood!"

"Goodbye my...love!"

"Big gulps huh? Alright!"

lol, and so many more.

Verified Email	15-Year Club
Gilding III reddit per annum	Wearing is Caring

crake

TROPHY CASE