tshile

Huh? That’s not what that article says. Disney did a bunch of things just before the takeover of the district, which essentially severely limited the districts control over things. The deals shifted decision making from the district board, to the company. the state sued. Disney settled by agreeing all those deals are null and void. That they’ll go back to the 2020 comprehensive plan, and that decision making is restored to the board (which the state now runs) if anything this is Disney giving up. I’m not seeing where the state gave up anything. All the concessions are on Disney’s side. I imagine because they don’t have a case.

Um. I’m not an economist but I dont think that’s how that works? there are times when the fed lowers rates to deal with liquidity traps caused by an economic crisis. The QE’s and the financial/housing melt down being the most recent. otherwise I believe interest rates are tied to the freds stated desire to target 2% inflation. I believe rates went up to combat inflation. I also believe the fed is generally concerned about creating a big shock, and over the years expressed concern that their interest rate moves were not having the impact on inflation they expected. I don’t think it’s simply a sign of a good/bad economy last thought - people have been spoiled by low rates during QE. I believe big picture we still have interest rates lower than historical average post-gold standard. People want 2.75% mortgages and 0% new car auto loans. They got used to them. So now what they see are horrific rates, when in reality it’s on the lower end of historic averages. And of course when I hear average people talk, they blame Biden for higher interest rates 🤦🏼‍♂️ you can be driven mad listening to what average people have to say about what’s going on, why, and whom to blame. especially given our current culture where if you try to participate in the conversation and share the real data and situation, you’re viewed as an elitest talking down to them and are ignored and viewed as an enemy of the state. 🤦🏼‍♂️

two children in daycare out the outskirts of NOVA ran us almost 30k a year. not a fancy daycare. And we looked at places inside NOVA so they’d be closer to my wife’s job and those prices were even more outrageous. in-home nanny options start at 30k/year (we looked…) cost of food also plays into this, when you’re shopping for a family of 4+. all our extra circular stuff is more expensive. And of course you have the cost of college always in the background. if you’re making 60k a year, and you see what you have after taxes and then realize daycare costs 25-30k. Yeah, that drives critical decisions like “am I going to keep working, or should I be a stay at home <whatever>” The median household income here is 110k but that’s dragged up by all the big earners working in nova that move here. You’re talking roughly 1/4 of household income going to daycare. Plus taxes and healthcare, and your mortgage. There’s not a lot left after it all. 15-20% of your income goes to taxes, 25% goes to childcare, and suddenly you have people making what should be decent money - deciding working isn’t worth it cause your paying a lot to have other people spend more time with your kids than you do.

It’s baffling. Totally baffling. Voters have short memories and don’t pay enough attention. I have no other explanation. But I’m right there with you (and others) on this.

i operate a 24’ inboard. Most people think of personal board as outboards or even inboard/outboards, in the sense that a prop hangs off the back and moves back and forth and is your steering. An inboard operates more like a large ship - the screw is fixed and doesn’t move, a rudder is behind the prop, the rudder turns the ship. my small boat, in ideal conditions on a lake, becomes incredibly clunky to maneuver at low speeds. You basically have to learn how to time quick, short thrusts to get steering with allowing your momentum to carry you. It’s a huge pain in the ass, not overly complicated or impossible but you do have to come to grips with the reality of your controls and how to use them. If I have no propulsion I’m basically ****ed. A little wind or current will totally outsize whatever control I have with a rudder and no propulsion. And that’s a 24’ boat that weighs about 5500# on a lake… it’s just a fundamental flaw with that design. when wind or chop gets bad, pulling into the boat slip gets tricky. I can only imagine a larger ship, with all that weight, dealing with tides and wind. It’s like asking loaded semi to have the braking and maneuverability of a civic. It just doesn’t work like that. With propulsion it’s tricky enough - without? You’re at the mercy of wind and current, and if your backup system isn’t working… you’ve got no options.

I think we are too. but I don’t think this is all stupidity. The price increases outlined are real. Given how many people live paycheck to paycheck, this makes total sense. I think you fix it by being honest about it instead of doing victory laps with a “you don’t get it” “you’re just stupid” mentality. 🤷‍♂️ ultimately it doesn’t change my vote. Again, I don’t personally blame Biden. In fact, I blame republicans for most everything right now because their whole shtick is to create more dysfunction for the government. but… that’s not necessarily how the public feels, thinks, or votes. And THAT is how the Biden team should handle it - yeah we got a lot more work to do, numbers look good, but day to day life is much harder, and here’s a list of reasons why republicans have made it harder …

Another suggestion: maybe we shouldn’t have ships that big. I get it - it makes things cheaper if we can move more at a time. but how does that long term work out when we factor in the cost of the bridge? Or the cost of the other problems we see when something happens to a large ship (oil in particular)? If we net it all out, are we coming out a head when we compare the day to day cheaper widgets with the problems outsourcing has created here at home, and all the costs associated with this? We’ve lost a major port until further notice and have to spend billions on a new bridge. How’s that math work out? And it’s just one incident. if we have ships that can take out our bridges because ship growth has outpaced infrastructure upkeep, maybe we shouldn’t let the ships be so big? if only we had some system with people that would be charged with keeping track of this sort of stuff, and be proactive and thoughtful instead of reactive and complacent. (and a voter base that cared about such things enough to demand it)

right and it had income caps and it expired I don’t disagree with any of that. I follow the same economic news you do - I see the same thing you do. the difference is I understand why people have such a negative outlook. From the original article: the Biden admin wants to do victory laps on the economy, but day to day people are seeing those price increases. if you can’t see why that’s not working, I don’t know what to say. This is like falling in a guys combine numbers when on Sunday he just doesn’t play well. As with all statistics and metrics and analytics - they are meant to be one tool to inform and help advise. no one gives a **** about jobs reports and inflation numbers falling when rent is 20% higher, food is 21% higher, etc. do I personally blame Biden for that? Of course not. But I recognize how it translates into how voters feel and ultimately vote. And I understand why doing victory laps is a bad idea. It’s like when we watch a player celebrate a tackle in the fourth quarter when their team is down 20 and the game is over. Oh. I wasn’t trying to crap on the article. I was furthering the conversation about the disconnect and how the Biden team is (not) handling it. that’s all. Sorry if the way I worded things suggested otherwise. From what I see in economic news, there is at least some effort put into understanding the disconnect. But it doesn’t seem to be across the board, and it certainly doesn’t seem to be happening with the Biden team. (Although as I said earlier - I’m not a political strategist and a good one might very well think I’m an idiot and that my preferred way of them doing things would cost them the election 🤷‍♂️)

What is it we’re missing? I see it saying the Biden admin team doesn’t understand the negative perceptions (what we’re talking about) I see it break down how prices are significantly higher during the last 4 years (what we’re talking about) I see where it talks about some good numbers from a broad picture - which is not something we are contesting. I see a section that asks whether this is because the news is negative, or if the news is just reflecting how people feel, and that the evidence they have is inconclusive as to which one is to blame. What is in the article that has an impact on what we’re saying, in a way that’s supposed to refute what we’re saying? I see a lot that aligns with what we’re saying?

I absolutely do love that aspect of it, I was sort of raised on it, and I especially love what the bay has to offer. It’s always struck me as crazy how Virginians seem to be totally clueless about how they have an amazing thing in the bay. The oysters crabs and rockfish are some of the best in the world. The bay is genuinely awesome and it seems Marylanders get it and Virginians don’t 🤷‍♂️ but outside of that, I’ve never spent time in Maryland and thought - how cool, I wish I lived here. I’ve done that with numerous other places though 🤷‍♂️

So I didn’t read this before the other posts. So, I see you understand the point being made. in the larger context is it going to turn into Trump winning? No idea, there’s so much baggage with that guy and it seems impossible to understand what that translates to, at least for me. I personally, would prefer the Biden team stick to their real accomplishments, point out how the republicans are hampering the government and making it dysfunctional, and be more honest (or at least more connect to how people feel) when it comes to talking about average people’s lives. im also not a political strategist and one might look at me and think I’m an idiot for thinking that way 🤷‍♂️

Not run around talking about how awesome everything is, and complaining that the rest of us “don’t get it” ? Thats what started this conversation. We have economic indicators that say one things and a society that mostly seems to feel the other way. No one gives a **** about the unemployment rate or the inflation rate when day-to-day they see a significantly more expensive life than how they felt about things a few years ago. Telling them they’re “wrong” because they don’t appreciate the latest jobs report, is the definition of being disconnected from the majority of the people. most people can’t disconnect the stock market performance from the health of the economy, you want them to table what’s in their face day to day because economists have formulas that say this number is better today than it was a few years ago? There is a total disconnect here. That’s the point we’re making. Some of us have been making it for a while - dating back to when the Biden admin foolishly used the Covid recovery to try to pitch that they belong in the history books for creating the best economic situation. my wife and I have doubled our income since Covid first started. Even we see the impact of all that inflation, labor wage increases, supply crisis, chip crisis, etc. I can only imagine how a household with a closer to stagnant income growth is feeling. I know some outspoken, long term dem supporters that like to talk about the numbers. Everyone else I know is complaining about how expensive it is to do basic stuff anymore. What anyone thinks about the republicans is irrelevant - the issue is how people feel about the current situation, which translates into how they feel about Biden, and it seems to not be great, and then the Biden admin and dems basically take the approach of telling everyone that is unhappy that the real problem is “you all just don’t get it” this is a problem.

Short side note: this is something that seems obvious to me but no one is doing much about it. One side adheres to trickle down policies where they pump money into the top under the guise it’ll trickle down to everyone else. The other wants to give people more money (minimum wage increases, various welfare programs, etc) to me the best thing the govt could do is tackle significant cost of living expenses that have an outsized impact on the economy because it drives critical decision making at home. Child care and health care expenses are the biggest. We have people giving up careers, or putting them in serious pause, or making other significant decisions based on how much it costs for childcare. The government should subsidize that. To me that’s the best approach - instead of trying to put more money in peoples pockets, and dealing with the various side effects of that type of move, tackle cost of living areas that target damn near everyone and handicap many when it comes to significant decisions in their household.

they keep pointing to numbers and missing the fact that life became significantly more expensive lately and people are still unhappy about it. it’s a shortcoming in economics. Always idealistic and forever bound to a numbers-only approach. They’re like sports fans that are overly into analytics, forgetting sometimes what you see in action is more important than the numbers on a chart.

Makes total sense

I agree with you. and it’s dangerous making any real argument when it’s this early. The reporting is just wrong. I saw one report early morning they were “detecting submerged cars with sonar” and now we know there were no cars on the bridge. That’s just one example from this once innocent but the overall list of **** reporting early on is miles long. There have been some reports that my gut says mean the ship was having problems before it got to the bridge. It’ll be interesting if that turns out to be true, and what the investigation uncovered. It’s certainly possible it’s “**** happens”; but it’s also possible some bad decisions were made that caused a situation to turn into a bridge collapsing.

if you listen to the dispatch on the YouTube video linked earlier - one officer was racing across the bridge to stop traffic on the other side. The bridge collapsed before he got very far. but if he drove faster or left 10 seconds quicker or the ship impact was 10 seconds later, him and his cruiser are in the harbor with the bridge. crazy how quick things happen

Someone close to the experts. I only know what they share and what makes the public news. they successfully got a reinsurer to pay out enormous money because they left an incredibly important fill-in-the-blank on the policy empty 😂 you know what you don’t want happening? you don’t want a judge or jury deciding what it means when you forget to fill in a blank.

I can tell you from real case examples that it theoretically works that way. but that’s why you can have years long, expensive litigation when it happens. Then every word in the contract is analyzed. and believe it or not - sometimes people make mistakes. Like leave the cap space on the policy blank 😂 when **** like this happens it’s case by case because everything is up for grabs to be scrutinize. Someone messing up on routine paperwork can take what appears like an obvious situation (like you saying they have a cap) and create some wild results.

I work for a place that litigates large scale international reinsurance cases with ships. It’s entirely possible that we work this one - though I have no reason to believe it’s likely. Certainly no one mentioned that we may be involved yet, but they don’t exactly tell me that sort of stuff. I have no idea if we have ties to the ship owner or insurance company. And at my old job one of our clients was one of the bigger reinsurers. Talked to him a lot about his business. He convinced my wife and I to bail on our plans to buy a beach house in Puerto Rico. Far from an expert but I think I know a little more about it than most average people 🤷‍♂️

Re: Biden saying fed govt will pay to rebuild bridge I would think some, if not all, of that cost could be recovered from insurance. There is insurance for this. But you can’t wait for all the litigation to go through to start rebuilding it.

Yeah think that comes with the job. the initial call… ”the whole bridge just fell down. Start… whoever… everyone, everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed” Another thought. I’m sure the people on the ship had 20-30 seconds of realization what was about to happen. As others have outlined - you’re not stopping or controlling a ship like that very well, if at all. And they knew that. There was some significant moment of time where they realized they were going to collide with the bridge. I imagine they had an idea the bridge wouldn’t be able to withstand it, even if they were hoping it would.

The idea of surviving the fall into that water alone is nuts. The frigid temps at 1:30 am in the darkness - even more so. All of that while a bridge is falling into the water with you? Good lord.

Just adding: where we are with the moon cycle means stronger tides than normal 😕 (according to one person on the news)

It would be hard to survive for long in that cold water even if you have a life jacket. You’ve got a few hours at best before hypothermia takes you. trapped in a car? Yeah you’ve got minutes. You have to get out of the car. btw the best way out is via window. You cannot open the door in that situation. You should always carry a seatbelt cutter and window breaker in your car. anyone not already rescued is almost absolutely dead by now. Random weird stuff happens sometimes, so they’ll keep looking, but you’re in <1% survival probability and probably hit that point somewhere around 3 am…