He also dismantled the literal team (Global Health Security and Biodefense unit) that was supposed to help with issues like the pandemic then made it worse by going against all medical professional advice and actively opposing it on TV. If you don’t want to defend Trump, then don’t because there is nothing here to defend. He mishandled the entire thing and all he did is give major tax cuts to the rich.

Funny how Biden gets blamed for this when it’s very much Trump who caused this to happen. Obama created the best economy for Trump. We were at the height of the longest economic expansion in American history. Trump then increased the federal budget deficit by 50%, the US national debt increased by 39%, and Trump had negative job creation (downsizing the economy) whereas both Obama, Biden, and Clinton all had positive job creation. Trump lost the most jobs in the history of a president! Trump then went on to butcher Obamacare making it harder for people to fight for a higher income in the economy, then gave major tax cuts to the rich.

But yes, tell me again how Biden inheriting the fuckup that is Trump’s economy is Biden’s fault.

It was 2020. It’s honestly been interesting to see. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31348515/ is a study from before 2020 stating that 4% less of 18-20 year olds smoked when the age limit is increased to 21. I couldn’t find any specifics on Washington state though.

Nicotine is addictive and harmful to your health. It restricts blood to the brain, narrows arteries, and causes blood clots. https://www.echelon.health/nicotine-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/ there are benefits to nicotine too but they don’t it as a prescription drug because of the drawbacks.

In Washington State, it’s recently illegal to sell tobacco to anyone under 21. Placing it on the same level as alcohol or weed.

Real orphan-crushing machine-creation vibes here. Like yes, you own your body. In most developed countries you can’t kill yourself legally though, the WSJ writer is completely wrong in that. In a handful of places: 5 (out of 50) US states, Canada, and 6 (out of 27) European countries, 6 of the 7 Australian States, and New Zealand. That is not “most developed countries” that’s simply 8 countries and 2 partial countries.

They simply gloss over the most important argument which is poor people selling kidneys to rich people (or richer people) by just saying “well then just regulate it better.” We can’t even regulate our industries in the USA well enough to keep them from rapidly combining and monopolizing the entire market down to a handful of companies, you think we are going to stop the medical industry from buying kidneys for cents and charging them for thousands? Bullshit and the writer knows it.

Also, a person with just one kidney does not function just like life as normal. The other kidney left undergoes compensatory hypertrophy. It enlarges to 70% larger than normal to compensate. It’s incredibly important to stay healthy and eat very carefully for the rest of your life. If selling body parts were legal then you’d see a lot of seller’s remorse.

We should strive for a community where we don’t need to incentivize people to give up their ways of life.

Won’t be the last time either. The USA does not care about local concerns when they are in the defense of world threats. This makes completely logical sense but also the USA clearly takes it too far. The USA would invade it’s closest allies if it meant they could secure their world position a fraction of a fraction of a percent more. We do not care.

Rule of acquisition number 34. War is good for profits.

Hasn’t S&P Global Mobility been known to favor oil companies or had ties with them? I did some light searching and didn’t see a connection immediately but I thought they were tied to oil.

Either way, https://www.spglobal.com/mobility/en/research-analysis/does-the-auto-industry-have-an-ev-loyalty-problem.html is a direct link to the study. It turns out this is about luxury car loyalty and space issues.

The Bolt saw households that went for gas power mostly turning to Chevrolet SUVs and trucks.

That’s understandable as there aren’t many large cars for EVs. Something the VW ID Buzz will fix if everything they present about the car is true. I am super excited about it and I am typically not excited about cars.

In terms of range and infrastructure, I feel like one concept theory that was originally pushed around at the start of EVs almost a decade ago was replaceable batteries. Drive up to a station, swap the battery out with a full one, and drive off. That doesn’t seem like the direction we are heading but it might be a way to solve it. That said 200-250 miles with 30-minute charge times to get up to 80% should be enough for typical day driving in the USA.

That said, I also feel these studies reflect somewhat, not on loyalty for Musk but on brand loyalty. For a lot of people, Teslas are truly great and fast cars. In other cases, they are terrible. Not all of their cars have terrible build quality and there seems to be a point where build quality dropped. Equally, there are some great EVs out there including the Chevy Bolt. You can see that most Bolt owners are only switching because they need something bigger and still 63% of them would stay with an EV.

The issue is not price, range, or infrastructure. It’s a lack of choice and a lack of build quality.

Man, I didn’t know Australia was full of idiots. There was absolutely no reason to vote no to this. It was simply a group that would give feedback to the Australian Senate. Feedback from a marginalized group of the land you stole. Feedback that could simply be ignored by the Senate. It was simply giving that group a voice. How you could vote against that, I have no clue.