I completely tune out anyone whose message is, “There’s no point expressing outrage, nothing will change, and nothing can be done.” If it were true that nothing could be done, there’d be no reason to keep yapping. Just go hide under a pillow and leave the rest of us to discuss what to do.

1. we are getting over priced, fragile, ineffective weapons, that benefit the manufacturers more than the actual users. Decisions are made more for political than what’s best. Simplicius The Thinker articles are terrifying. The 10x casualty rate reported has shocked me, with a Ukrainian army that had 8 years to prepare. Russians are conducting industrial warfare, and the West does not have the infrastructure for this type of fight anymore.

2. The betrayal in forced jabs by the leadership. This is impacting recruitment.

3. Woke policies. Impacting recruitment, retention, and effectiveness. Lieutenant’s in Russia can call in artillery, in the us it takes an hour and at least a colonel, but often a lieutenant general.

4. Cdr salamander on the naval side posits China is playing the long game methodically building up their navy. Using modern manufacturing techniques and incremental improvements.

5. Purchasing effectiveness vs dollars is a better proxy on spending. Basically a dollar buys more in China, than in the US.

For years I have had that xkcd comic taped to a picture frame above my desk as a visual aid to help avoid the temptation of the sucking maw that is Internet opinion and the hubris that what I think matters.

a — disagree. at best, median government compensation should be slightly lower than the median for the same job. It is relevant to note that current government compensation is the highest it has ever been, and the growth in US$200k-plus jobs has, for the last 10y or more, been greatest in the Federal government sector.

The Fed currently pays, on average, FAR more than the private sector. This CLEARLY leads to the expansion of bureaucracy, as it makes it far far easier to hire still more government employees which is one of the prime functions of any bureaucracy — expansion of things under its control.

b — government pay should generally be such to exact a preference to be in the private sector, as those are the ones whose efforts pay to support the government hack. Every mouth feeding at the government (local, state, federal) trough is one more body NOT putting food in said trough.

c — noting it should not be at the bottom of the salary range, only below the median by a reasonable amount, lest you only collect the most incompetent (note that being incompetent at government work is not always a bad thing, however — it just depends on what the “work” involves).

d — government unions should be abolished. Who are they fighting against? Other government people?

}}} I’ve engaged with you in good faith, without snark. Not only that, I’ve spent some time collecting information in response to your questions. Perhaps I need to think harder about how and with whom I put in that kind of time

Don’t ever consider yourself to be engaging the person you’re having an argument with… think of yourself as making your case publicly vs. them making their case — with many many lurkers sitting there considering those arguments. 😉

This keeps you from solely being in the unjustifiable XKCD position.
(https://xkcd.com/386/)

Snark can be ok, as long as it’s not the central part of the argument. You do need to be wary of trolls looking to waste peoples’ time, but that’s a different issue.

tl;dr: It’s about convincing all the lurkers, not your opposition. 😉

You say this as though it is a bad thing?

}}} Already corrected my numbers for inflation. If anything it’s the other way around. Median family income in 1956 was $4,800 which is $52,800 today, but in 1956 a color television was the equivalent to about $10,000 today. Correcting for inflation, 1956 salaries go a lot farther today than they did in 1956 because stuff is a lot cheaper (quite aside from technological advance) in real dollars.

Ah, a fan of Carpe Diem, I see? 😀
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/08/adjusted-for-household-size-real-income.html

Also relevant: Much of what does cost more does so because it provides considerably more functionality — cars are far safer and go much farther while needing far far less maintenance. Tires are good for more than 10000 miles without a blowout. Homes have far more amenities and closet space. And most families are far smaller, leading to far more income-per-person at a given family number.

Food is much cheaper, and would be cheaper still if not for Archer-Daniels-Midland and the $#@%@#% ethanol mandate, as well as the Covid/Biden influence on food costs.

Unfortunately, this may well mean absolutely nothing. I have commented many many times on the primary quality of Liberals being an abject incapacity for Wisdom (learning from experience, vs. intellect, learning from books).

Liberals are the eternal 3yo — 3yo are self-excused by having no experience. Liberals, have the experience, they’ve never managed to process it into life-lessons, and so are indistinguishable from any 3yo.

This is how they retain insane concepts no matter how often the facts are shoved in their faces.

If there was a “WQ” to match the IQ, then liberals would cluster in the bottom 1/3rd of the normal curve.

It also ties into the Liberal Midnight Reset Button® :
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/04/30/the-real-war-on-women/#comment-2621473