sp3ctr4l

Conversely, roughly 10%+ of the US has a negative net worth, ie, they owe more debt than they have assets.

https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p70br-202.pdf

And I say 10%+ because this is from 2022, and in general, credit scores have been nose diving and car/home loan delinquencies and tenant evictions have been skyrocketing, since 2022.

We've also got roughly ~40% at least using BNPL for something.

We also know that ... having a negative net wealth is, while not exclusive to poorer people/households in terms of their yearly income... it is much, much more strongly correlated with that.

Though this may change in 'fun' ways now that the housing market is collapsing, bye bye remnants of the 'middle class'!

So anyway, I think a more realistic number for uh... people who are worse than living paycheck to paycheck, people who are actually living paycheck to loan repayment...

Its somewhere between ~10% and ~40%.

... Which is still really fucking bad, as that means something aporoximating a quarter of society sre now just literally debt slaves.

...

So basically, we have:

A ~20% debt slave class,

A ~50% exploited and struggling worker class (who is often in total denial about this being the case),

A ~25% petitie bougeois, decently paid worker / small business owner class (who routinely gaslights and belittles everyone below them, and aspirationally sucks off and praises those above them),

A ~5% capitalist owner class, that gets astonishingly more powerful and wealthy as you increment up each percent and then tenth of a percent, etc.

The SP500 hitting highs is a lot less good news when you realize most of that is simply due to the dollar devaluing against other international currencies.

That isn't asset appreciation, it's currency devaluation.

EDIT:

I m on mobile and don't have the ability to make my own chart with DXY and SP500 normalized to each other, but uh...

https://portfolioslab.com/tools/stock-comparison/%5EDXY/SPY

Look at this in YTD, then in 1Y, then 5Y.

Normally, these two things move in the same dirrction, though the SP500 tends to grow much more when the DXY grows a little.

Well, now, basicslly since Trump took office, they're moving in the opposite direction.

So, yeah, this is now what is called a 'melt up', where stocks climb higher, but not because of any kind of underlying fundamental strength of the US economy but because the USD has lost about 10% of its value compared to the currencies it most often is traded against.

Yeah, I am not only currently in a very, very unwalkable city...

I also literally cannot walk, not much further than uh... half a kilometer, without extreme pain, and that is using a cane and braces.

Fortunately my physical therapy is yielding good results in terms of regaining range of motion and stamina, but it is slow and painful.

That being said, a year ago, I was in a wheel chair.

So the improvements are real.

Hopefully by either the autumn or winter I'll be mostly back to my previous level of mobility, and able to rent a car or moving truck or something and move to a less shitty area.

...goes SCHWAH SCHWAH SCHWAH

I know it was meant as a joke, but unfortunately, yes, its kind of based on false premises.

Very, very broadly speaking:

A patent typically pertains to some kind of invention, some kind of unique and novel design of a machine or process.

A copyright typically pertains to some kind of created work, like a song, book, visual artwork.

A trademark typically pertains to a brand name, marketing slogan.

All 3 of these together comprise the category of Intellectual Property, IP Law.

https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/difference-copyright-patent-trademark/

The actual law on all this stuff is actually extremely esoteric and complicated... and it is probably also worth noting that I am describing and more well versed in US IP law, not that of the Netherlands, which may be substantially different ... I am not Dutch, I don't know much specifically on that, but I did study US IP law back during getting my Poli Sci and Econ degrees.

Again, the entire subject is... exceptionally tedious and complicated lol, I totally do not blame you for not knowing the details, the vast majority of people don't, lol.

I mean, yes, I agree with you that the entire state of essentially the entire legal system is up in the air, dubious at this point given recent Supreme Court rulings and Executive Orders...

But if we are to pretend/assume that... the law actually exists as is written, that precedent and the way that proceedings generally play out over the history of US law is not all now completely arbitrary...

Then the Prosecution has to actually file their subpoena to, in this case, Aetna, with the actual Judge/Clerk in the case, so that the Judge, the Court, and the Defense Counsel actually know what is going on with the case.

To subvert this process is to subvert the right of a defendant to a fair trial.

Your example regarding ICE essentially self-authorizing themself is widely, widely derided by all manner of lawyers and legal figures across the country as being a dubious violation of this kind, which functionally means they are violating the law every single time they do that.

Yes, I get that the on the ground reality and the legal framework are not at all the same thing in this era of modern facism, but that is because the facists just brazenly and repeatedly violate the law in their own supposed execution of the law.

If you can find me an example of a prosecuting counsel flagrantly fabricating the notion that they have filed a subpoena with the judge/clerk of the court, and this being allowed and the case proceeding without consequence for this behavior, I will be more inclined to believe that this will also be allowed in this Luigi case, but I will remain convinced that such would still represent an egregious miscarriage of justice in the sense of destroying the defendant's right to a fair trial.

There were no cops that issued or used a grand jury subpoena in this specific instance.

Luigi's Defense Counsel is asserting that the Prosecution Counsel issued a fradulent subpoena by way of sending Aetna a letter.

Yes, technically an officer of the court executes a subpoena directly issued by the judge in the course of ... dealing with some kind of misconduct pertaining to the actual proceeding of a case, thats true, that category exists and happens...

But I was responding to a specific comment that specifically cited a stack overflow link, which included many examples of... not that category.

Though the Prosecution acts as an officer of the court, the Prosecution are asserted by Defense to have simply made up that Judge/Clerk signed off on a subpoena to Aetna... and then the Prosecution, again, not being an officer of the court, fraudulently 'executed' that subpoena.

By my reading of New York criminal law, yes, a District Attorney may issue, as an officer of the court, a subpoena pertaining to an ongoing case... but they must also follow all the procedural rules as described in greater detail by New York civil law...

And in New York civil law, it is clearly explained that the Prosecution would have had to actually file that subpoena with the judge/clerk.

They did not do this, because if they had, the court date cited in the Prosecution's subpoena to Aetna... would have actually existed in the court's records.

It does not.

The core of the idea is that you own the copyright to your own face.

I don't think anyone is proposing any kind of system that would allow you to hold the copyright of anyone else's face.

Also, copyright != patent.

Put at least one of them in a microwave.

Pretty neat light show!

Technically, kind of, you are... burning the disk, in a sense, lol.

Yep, years ago now, Ross got particularly irked by Ubisoft's The Crew being... well, at that point in time, at risk of being shut down, at some point in the future.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8KZwcHOSRgQ

Yeah, 7 years ago, fuck lol.

I've been watching Ross since before SKG, before the Game Dungeon... even before Mind of Freeman, when he was doing basically MetroCop skits in I think Garry's Mod?

I genuinely recommend him as just a normal type of good, underrated (untill extremely recently lol) just uh, guy who reviews weird old video games, with wit, humor, critiques, praise, and often interesting insights into what the message of a game says as real world social commentary.

Well shit, that'll work.

Trump sides with MAGA from ~3 days ago, agrees Bondi should take his fall for him.