ChickenLadyLovesLife

Is it an increase? The article @macattack cited does not give any data on how much the IRS collected from high-income earners before this additional push supposedly funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. The article does mention that Republicans in congress recently rescinded more than $20 billion in additional IRS funding, which does suggest that the net benefit was far less than $1.3 billion and might even have been negative. It seems like the kind of breathless article the impact of which relies on people not well understanding the difference between a billion and a trillion.

Fine, revenues are $4.9 trillion. My point is that $1.9 billion is literally a drop in the bucket - hardly an example of the IRS "going after rich people".

FWIW the US federal budget for 2024 is going to be about $6.8 trillion dollars. So that $1.3 billion is about 0.019% of the total budget. I'd call that a slap on the wrist for the billionaire class except that you can actually feel a slap on the wrist.

I hate this kind of premature defeatism

This is what "the tragedy of the commons" was all about in pre-Victorian England. Rich people decried the existence of land held and used by all the people of a community, claiming that it couldn't work in practice because eventually some asshole would always take it all for themselves. Turns out they were the some asshole, seizing all the commons for themselves as private property (a process known as "enclosure"), ending many centuries of actually successful common usage of land.

1491 by Charles Mann. The book everyone should read instead of Guns, Germs and Steel which is a bunch of hooey.

How on earth do people still think Bigfoot is real? It's obviously just a Yeti in a gorilla suit.

Especially amazing because it was pretty damn rare to still be alive to receive a Victoria Cross.

I used to be a programmer and probably my best strength was my ability to talk to clients, understand their needs, and design software that satisfied those needs. There are absolutely no certifications or formal qualifications of any kind for this in the programming world and employers do not look for it or give it any weight at all when filling positions, despite its obvious importance to the success of projects.

You forget to mention that you wanted to do all this going forward.

I essentially quit the programming profession because of fucking open office plans. Just an absolute nightmare as far as actual productive coding environments are concerned.

Ironically, the modern Middle East is almost entirely a creation of WWI and its immediate aftermath when the Ottoman Empire was carved up by the victorious Allies.

During WWII in Britain, about 10% of the men drafted were sent down into the coal mines instead of being sent off to war. In addition to enduring the horrific conditions of the mines, they had to endure abuse for not fighting. For bonus points, the old-time miners would often haze these draftees by letting their elevator cages free-fall for a bit during their first trips down.