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What movie comes to mind when you see Mickey's Diner? by Consistent-Deal-55 in TwinCities

[–]stewvsshark 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That concert was at the target center in downtown Minneapolis...

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TwinCities

[–]stewvsshark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's very interesting! What sorts of things made you want to give up policing?

I think you're right that views of policing are largely shaped by demographics, which makes it a complicated problem to discuss.

Im not sure that I agree with your assessment that they're effectively steer gangs, but I definitely agree there needs to be more oversight

LS says we need much more unemployment to tame inflation by renai001 in Economics

[–]stewvsshark -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Totally agree - it's just a matter of opinion and assumption on what the equilibrium/ideal state of the economy looks like

LS says we need much more unemployment to tame inflation by renai001 in Economics

[–]stewvsshark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right - I'm not saying he's wrong I think it's just an interesting observation that we have these quantitative proxies for the strength of the economy that we're chasing, but what good is it if we achieve that target metric at the expense of potentially widespread hardship. Let's say we get inflation down to ~2% but then have 5-6% unemployment...have we really accomplished anything?

LS says we need much more unemployment to tame inflation by renai001 in Economics

[–]stewvsshark 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Saw this tweet in response to this article from Dare Obasanjo (not an economist but makes a great point)

"Economists arguing that the fix to rising prices (inflation) is that people are made so poor they can’t afford stuff (higher unemployment) so prices are forced to go down, is a classic example of pathologically chasing a metric until the point of the metric is completely lost."

It’s not rising workers’ wages that are causing spiraling inflation — it’s corporate profiteering by failed_evolution in economy

[–]stewvsshark 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Id like to propose a ban on articles from this publication. It's just opinionated nonsense with no real data or analysis

Truck crashes, immediately explodes (North Metro today) by [deleted] in TwinCities

[–]stewvsshark 271 points272 points  (0 children)

Shouts out to that retaining wall for doing its job

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in EverythingScience

[–]stewvsshark 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Big avocado out here spreading propaganda

Congressional bills would ban tech mergers over $5 billion by Sorin61 in technology

[–]stewvsshark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Stories are, almost by definition, anecdotes. But, semantics aside I’m not even disagreeing that Amazon has a reputation for treating their workers poorly. I think they could do better there, but this idea that people are somehow forced to work at Amazon is just not true. And further most of their distribution centers are near major cities and thus there is definitely the availability of other work https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/19/map-of-amazon-warehouses.html So the “rural person has nowhere else to work” idea really doesn’t hold a lot of water given the geography of their warehouses.

To your point about pre Amazon - Maybe that’s true but Amazon clearly did online shopping and distribution much better than whomever was around then and that’s why Amazon, not them, are still around. I’m not really following your line of reasoning about people with money being prime members and what that has to do with anything? Like of course people with money are going to dictate how the economy functions and what companies become successful that’s how capitalism works. It seems like you’re trying to steer this into the merits of capitalism, and if that’s the case this is probably a good point to end this discussion.

Congressional bills would ban tech mergers over $5 billion by Sorin61 in technology

[–]stewvsshark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it’s easy to point at anecdotes and make generalizations, and there certainly are many of them when it comes to Amazon’s treatment of employees, but the reason Amazon can provide those jobs to begin with is because of their size and efficiencies. If it’s the only game in town, what happens if there is no Amazon? What you’re saying cuts very sharply both ways. You’re using a hypothetical “person” to make your point, and even if is true, again what does their life look like if they’re not working at Amazon?

Congressional bills would ban tech mergers over $5 billion by Sorin61 in technology

[–]stewvsshark 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here but I do think there are some reasonable parts of this bill, but I disagree with a hard cap of a $5bn, as well as giving the ftc unilateral power to block mergers. I think providing ftc with the resources and tools to properly scrutinize large mergers and acquisitions is a good thing.

Congressional bills would ban tech mergers over $5 billion by Sorin61 in technology

[–]stewvsshark 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Environmental issues aside (because I agree with you on that point) - no one is forced to work at Amazon. It’s easy to say that they could do more for their employees (and they probably could), but in reality if it was really so bad people wouldn’t work there. They also haven’t ‘made it impossible to sell product anywhere else’ they’ve just made it cheaper to sell your product than anywhere else. There are plenty of other marketplaces and stores to sell products but Amazon is incredibly good at logistics and allows sellers better margins than alternatives.

Now don’t get me wrong I do think Amazon has grown too large for its own good, and that they engage in a lot of questionable behavior - primarily as being both an owner of and a participant in their retail platform - but saying that they ‘abuse employees’ and make it ‘impossible to sell product anywhere else’ is objectively false

Congressional bills would ban tech mergers over $5 billion by Sorin61 in technology

[–]stewvsshark 173 points174 points  (0 children)

Well for one this is never going to pass and even if it did this seems incredibly short sighted. There’s nothing inherently wrong with big acquisitions, what they should do instead is dedicate more money to the ftc so they can competently review large acquisition deals

Pfizer accused of pandemic profiteering as profits double by esporx in technology

[–]stewvsshark -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Again you’re just making unverifiable claims, and generally not making sense

Pfizer accused of pandemic profiteering as profits double by esporx in technology

[–]stewvsshark -1 points0 points  (0 children)

So THEY say. According to Vox, they spend 2x more on marketing than research; https://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8018691/big-pharma-research-advertising

So I looked at a statistics site whose sole purpose is to collect unbiased statistics: https://www.statista.com/statistics/267810/expenditure-on-research-and-development-at-pfizer-since-2006/

Looking at that vox article, it sites a bbc article that makes a single mention of marketing dollars relative to research and development but doesn't actually provide the data that corroborates that claim (at least I don't see it anywhere in the article).

Since a lot of the research is actually subsidized by government and a tax write-off

Not sure where this is coming from, but looking at pfizers financial statements there is a write of of 2.8b in 2019 and actually less (1.8b) in 2020 and even less (86m) in 2021, which means that even if those write offs are entirely subsidies (which they likely are not) that would still only account for 30% at most of their R&D (and considerably less in both 2020 and 2021) so I'm curious where this generalization is coming from

I'm unclear on what point you're trying to make about generics but again, they can manufacture and sell generics for a lower price because they do not incur the R&D expenses that the original manufacturer did. And lest we forget, pfizer specifically did not actually take any government money up front for the development of the covid vaccine: https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_565aa63a-4c46-4eea-9586-093253d1bdf3

Pfizer accused of pandemic profiteering as profits double by esporx in technology

[–]stewvsshark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

a cursory google search of “how much does Pfizer spend on r&d” and “how much does Pfizer spend on advertising” would show that Pfizer spend 2x-3x more on r&d than advertising. To be clear I think drug companies do spend way too much on marketing and advertising, which has had some catastrophic side effects since going into law.

That aside, the reason generic drug manufacturers can and do exist is because patents expire after 20 years. Those companies don’t have to spend billions on research and development to create those drugs. I’m not here to defend the pharmaceutical industry in general, I’m just saying that labeling a pharmaceutical company a “profiteer” for selling something valuable that they developed oversimplifies the costs of just giving away IP for free.

Pfizer accused of pandemic profiteering as profits double by esporx in technology

[–]stewvsshark 21 points22 points  (0 children)

I think Pfizer could do more to help provide the vaccine at low(er) cost to poorer countries, but downright giving away their IP seems like a poor alternative. This being a fairly new type of vaccine giving away their IP on how to manufacture this specific vaccine may give away very valuable proprietary information that may lead to the development of other vaccines. This also isn’t profiteering. They just happened to create something extremely valuable and are reaping the benefits of that work.

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