My grandkids use it. Gotta train them young. Thanks McD’s! (They even painted it orange)

Well, you’re going to piss off the policyholders then. State Farm is a mutual insurance company. It’s owned by the policyholders. It’s essentially a non-profit, since profits go to reduce premiums or pay dividends to the policyholders.

The thing is, the company isn’t turning a profit. When what fills the cup doesn’t match the hole in the bottom, at some point the cup will be empty. California has mismanaged the wilderness areas and allowed development without concern for potential fire danger. Climate change, high fuel loads after decades of suppressing natural fires, improperly maintained electrical infrastructure, and a lack of “Fire Wise” education are all contributing to huge wildfires and high property loss rates.

If California were to seize every insurance company in the state, they would quickly be in the same predicament - needing to raise premiums to cover the losses.

The only real solution is to reduce the risk. That’s why the NFPA came up with local Fire Safe Councils. We educate the homeowners about how to make our homes resistant to wildfire damage. Using grant money, we reduce the fire danger by clearing hazardous undergrowth. We provide resources for homeowners, like chipping programs, matching funds for tree removal, and other assistance in maintaining defensible space. We have successfully lobbied for insurance discounts when homeowners complete risk reduction measures.

Biden needs to start putting up billboards with these Trump quotes, referring folks to his “trumpsucks.com” website, which now simply redirects to the “joebiden.com” website.

Trump’s conviction isn’t going to be the big turning point of this election. What happens after his conviction will. If he continues to spew vitriol about the judge, prosecution, and jury, eventually one of his followers will commit an act of retribution. That puts Trump in a difficult spot, because his core likes this kind of stuff. He will want to show his support, but if he does, it will again show he encourages domestic terrorism. If he does anything other than condemn the attack, his support among moderates will fall away, just like it did after Jan. 6th. If he does condemn the attack, his core may protest, like they did when he changed his opinion on the COVID vaccines.

Looks like Iran’s Supreme Leader, Khamenei, wants to make sure only his son, Mojtaba, will succeed him. Raisi was the other likely candidate. Took a page out of Putin’s playbook.

I understand there’s a lot of abuse, but for some specialties there just aren’t enough trained workers. This change is going to make employers think hard about things like diesel mechanic certifications and IT certifications. And like my friend, they’ll turn to making workplace loans for the cost.

This might get voted down, but y’all should hear the counterpoint. My friend requires new hires to sign a NC that expires after 2 years. It basically says the employee may not work for another company using the same equipment unless they pay him the $3000 it costs him to get them certified. Before he did that, some employees would jump to a competitor shortly after completing the training. Now he’s wondering if he can make the $3000 an employee loan that will be forgiven after 2 years of employment.

And no, he doesn’t do the NC if the new employee was already certified. He just wants to protect his investment in their training.

This change in the law will have consequences in businesses where employees require special certifications or training for a high demand specialty. Will an auto repair shop be willing to train an employee to service EVs if they can’t guarantee the employee will remain with the shop?

He’s doing to Tesla what he did to Twitter.

So glad this guy got kicked out. The fact that it took so long makes me want to kick out the corrupt politicians who supported him as well.

It’s 50 miles from where I live to the nearest community college. So if a laid off FF worker needs to retrain via an institution, they will spend at least $20 each day in gas, assuming they can afford a car. If they attend 3 days a week, there goes $240 of their unemployment each month (gas is $5.50/gal and there is no public transit option). I don’t know what they do when unemployment runs out in six months. Maybe join the homeless? That seems to be a popular option these days.

Don’t buy into the “workforce training is not the place of companies, it’s the place of institutions” lie. If it had not been for my internship at a company prior to graduation, I would have struggled to get a job out of college. It took my friend almost a year to find a job for less than I was making. Job experience is king, and you won’t get it from an institution. School teaches the basics, and the rest is on-the-job experience.

Well, let’s see how loudly folks start screaming when AI actually gets good enough to replace the skilled workers. But they can be retrained, right? You want to convince me that progress is good, show me legislation that requires retraining as a condition of replacement. If they won’t make it a law, it won’t happen without a lot of pain and suffering for the displaced worker.

Well I guess the Pizza Hut restaurants will be investing in drone delivery then, because their delivery drivers hit the unemployment line. They are part of the cuts. They don’t have the training to be a technician, and aren’t likely to get it in 6 months of unemployment.

Fast food has spent millions making the operation as efficient as is humanly possible. The only place left to cut is the humans. That’s what’s happening. It’s not difficult to make a fast food machine. It might even make better quality food. But the machine won’t be made in the US. The workers won’t be retrained to service them - that task will get outsourced, just like fixing the existing machines is outsourced in the current restaurants.

It’s easy to talk about “capitalism at it’s best” if you’re not the one holding the pink slip, wondering how you’re paying the bills on half an income from unemployment. Thankfully, we have subsidized healthcare in California. But that money comes out of everyone’s pockets, whether they eat fast food or not.

The problem is that when minimum wage increases, that same percentage increase does not happen to ALL incomes. So businesses passing on the cost are fighting over a pot of disposable income that isn’t keeping up.

We can’t keep raising wages at the bottom unless the rest of the workers can afford the increase in prices. Otherwise it leads to cutbacks in non-essential spending and that will cause job losses as businesses tighten their belts on diminishing sales.

It’s also causing businesses to reevaluate the consequences of replacing workers with machines. The McDonalds in my rural town just did away with ordering at the cash register inside the restaurant. You now have to use a kiosk to place the order. That’s one job gone.

Bom-bom-bomb, bom-bom-Iran.

A non-amicably seceded Texas is doomed as a country. No food, drugs, or medical supplies from the rest of the country. No parts to repair their oil wells or vehicles (made by businesses in other states). Companies like John Deere would be forced to brick all equipment in Texas. Then the US government imposes sanctions on any country doing business with Texas, and businesses outside Texas are restricted from doing business in Texas. Nobody comes to their rescue when the power grid fails in an ice storm or a hurricane blows through the state.

Face it. States are too interdependent to cut ties with the rest of the country.

I use Google Maps (Android Auto). It displays the speed limit. As long as the speed limit/road database is kept up to date, it works.

In a government version, the car could download maps/limits via radio. There was once a data delivery system that did just this using commercial radio stations. Then there’s no tracking involved. Data delivery is one way. Bonus is that everyone would have updated maps with current road conditions.

Speed data could come from the car or be derived from GPS positioning. Then the car would warn the driver when they are over the limit for more than 15 seconds via lights or audio warnings. That allows for temporary increases in speed for safe passing without distraction.

If properly implemented, it could even be used to regulate traffic flow to avoid congestion. Do away with speed limit signs and their inherent maintenance cost. The limit is what’s displayed on your dash.

This should cost no more than $30 for an add-on unit without a map display that provides only warnings and a speed limit readout. $50 if it has the map display (assuming the government sells it at cost). It could probably be done via app for all cars offering Android Auto/CarPlay.