manxu

I think that’s the key. We attribute to them special qualities because we like to think in terms of cause and effect. But they all seem to have just been there at the right time with the right people and the right thing.

They show us there is nothing special about them every time they try to do something new and miserably fail. Think the money Meta spent on VR, or the way Musk alienated users and advertisers on Twitter.

We are basically beholden to lottery winners.

Million, not billion. But the 20% deductible probably means that insurers can’t get that money, because the way it’s stated they’d have to pay out more than 20% of their (total) premiums for coverage to begin.

Reminds me somewhat of when Paul Bremer, Bush Jr’s “vice-roy” in Iraq, decided to disband the Iraqi Army overnight, leaving tens of thousands of heavily armed Iraqis stranded without a job or source of income. IIRC, that’s how the Iraqi insurgency started.

Please, consider donating to archive.org. They are under assault right now, and they are the only outfit that records everything that might get lost otherwise.

Sort of. A unilateral tariff generates a trade imbalance in favor of the economy imposing the tariff. By applying commensurate tariffs in the other direction, you keep the trade balance you had before the tariff was imposed.