Nahvi

It isn't. That is why I mentioned my own plum tree and chickens. Was just curious if you were trying to blow smoke up my ass.

there’d be no invasion to defend against in the first place if not for the military power of genocidal war criminals like Putin

I completely agree though with a caveat. I can't imagine a just way we would completely eliminate people like Putin.

The only way I could imagine is becoming the most oppressive and dominating force and pointing our weapons at anyone that glances at other territories. Incidentally, I think this pretty much what we did for 40 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, which explains the era of relative peace we are coming out of. Not that there was ever true peace, but mostly the world powers only played their proxy war games in much smaller nations.

I also think that Zelinski is finding emergency war powers a very useful tool to suppress political opposition and otherwise further his own political power.

I have been noticing the same.

Interesting. New Zealand seems like an odd choice for a prepper bunker. I'm sure it is wonderful to live there now, but that seems irrelevant if civilization collapsed. I have been working under the assumption that there were billionaire bunkers littering the Rockies and Appalachians.

Personally, if I was a billionaire, I would go full Fallout and build several sustainable vaults of various kinds that could each hold enough people to rebuild the human race from. That and dump every spare dollar possible into an off-world colony.

not what profit margin they're making.

True. You said profit and I even responded profit margin, but I was still thinking you said revenue.

do you honestly think their profits are lower than what they can pay their workers?

From second hand knowledge they did pretty good this year and the first year of covid, but had rough goes in between. I don't know if it makes up the difference or not.

Without workers there is nothing to sell, so you must pay the workers, but there is a real issue that investors will bail out if they aren't seeing returns. That said, I have a hard time believing the federal government would ever let the big three collapse, though they have already had to bail out GM once in the last couple decades. Hopefully, it does not become a repetitive issue.

Is it fair to assume you have those trees growing outside your house?

Personally, I have a flock of chickens running around the yard, but only one sad little plum tree that has a couple years yet before I will have enough extras for neighbors or canning. Thinking about putting some potatoes in the ground in the spring though.

I have no idea what sort of profit margins the auto companies are working on. I do think profit sharing is a pretty decent idea though. I am surprised the UAW isn't asking for something like that. Maybe it is too unstable for wage workers in case of a recession.

Presumably their part of the building is holding up fine. We certainly aren't seeing a lot of rich people flee the US so far.

Incidentally, not that it really matters, the holes in the floor were not meant to indicate the building itself was rotting away, just that the layers had worn through and need to be replaced. Basically everything after the first post has just been shoe-horned into the analogy on the fly.

but that’s debatable.

Do you think Zelensky thinks military power is a useful tool? Do you think he and NATO are doing evil by defending Ukraine?

Putting my cards on the table; I am not the biggest fan of the US getting involved in another overseas war, even if it is only providing weapons. I am curious though how a defensive war fits into your "military power is evil" mindset.

Organised murder isn’t free speech

Having a military does not mean you have to participate in offensive wars.