JW

Independent but not 'consequence free', which it appears to be. Please, show me where Congress held the Fed accountable in any way at all? Who was fired, who went to prison, who was held accountable? Also, you think the 2008 bailouts were 'textbook correct'? The 2020 money printing was the right call? Which textbook? What other historical situation was handled improperly that you're comparing this to? You appear to believe that the Fed is a helpless victim of circumstance, doing the best it can in bad situations that others created? Do I have that right?

@Alf53_361 @TheChiefNerd Nonsense. The Fed is accountable to CONGRESS. It's policy choices are INTENDED BY CONGRESS to be independent. Its policy choices have been TEXTBOOK CORRECT since the 1980s, at least. You have no idea what you're talking about.

🚨 JEROME POWELL: “What's clear is that the federal government debt is growing substantially faster than our economy, and that ratio is going up … It will not end well if we don't do something fairly soon.”

The Canadian Energy Center: 'Americans don't realize how important Canadian oil is to them'. Counterpoint: 'The Canadian Energy Center doesn't understand how to represent the importance of Canadian oil to Americans'. Incomplete polls and representations like the CEC's are intellectually dishonest and lead to bad decision making.

Who Americans think is their biggest supplier of foreign oil vs the reality:

Thanks for elaborating. The diffusion of accountability that you just voiced ("the chairman is just one vote on a 12-member committee") means that the Fed will never be held accountable for committee decisions. So the organization itself is immune from any consequences from its actions. On the one hand we have an agency problem; the Fed is the agent, Congress is the principal. The Fed faces no punishment from Congress for policy outcomes; Powell testifies to Congress, faces a few sternly worded reprimands, and walks away. On the other hand we have a moral hazard problem, because the Fed's actions reduce the market's disciplining force on Congress. Borrowing costs stay artificially low, making deficits feel painless, and Congress spends more freely. Your excuse ("the Fed has little choice...") is a complete denial of accountability for any of this misalignment. When authority is granted without accountability, you have the conditions for tyranny, which is how our good friend Jerome makes his living.

The Fed has little choice but to accommodate deficit spending by Congress. Refusing to buy bonds would spike rates & increase recession risk. Powell has ONE VOTE on a 12-member committee. Powell will no longer be Chair, but he'll remain on the Board of Governors. You're ignorant & stupid.

@OJoelsen You may call it that. China calls them "beachheads".

We call this map the territories of Greenland 🇬🇱 part of the Kingdom of Denmark 🇩🇰 and the sovereign state of Canada 🇨🇦

In other words... "Other people should invent and build more things that can be taxed, so we can perpetuate the Federal Reserve's and Federal Government's uncontrolled spending habits, and continue our self-serving interventions in, and regulation of, free markets." Thanks Jerome, you're a true patriot.

NOW - Jerome Powell on the $38,990,000,000,000 U.S. national debt: "We don't have to pay the debt down, we just need to have primary balance and begin to have the economy actually growing better... It will not end well if we don't do something fairly soon."

@SonOfAristotle @TheChiefNerd Shrewd observation. Who could argue with that?

@Alf53_361 @TheChiefNerd You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

@Whiplash437 This is just evidence of how long Iran has been a known bad actor that we bribed and lived with rather than dealing with it.

That's it. I give up.. Donald Trump is a time traveler. 20/20 interview 1987. Wtf.

@CaryKelly11 Transformational! ...the Japanese.... are no longer forced to find a rock or something.

Why hasn't this caught on in the US? They've been eating self-heating food in Japan (Bento) for several years now. They are popular in train stations and convenience stores and run between $3-$13 USD. You pull a string on the side of the box. This mixes water with a chemical (usually calcium oxide/quicklime) in a bottom compartment, triggering an exothermic reaction that produces steam and heats the meal in 5–10 minutes. Popular varieties include beef tongue, curry rice, beef bowl, steak and seafood options. Who needs a microwave when you have Bento! Source: lumadeline (IG)

@Keir_Starmer "National interest" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that declaration. @grok based on his decisions and actions throughout his career, what does @keir_starmer likely believe is in the national interest of Great Britain that many Brits would find objectionable?

I will always make decisions that are in the national interest. It’s why we aren’t getting dragged into the Middle East conflict, and why we are fighting to protect your living standards. And while opposition parties have responded by dividing communities, we respond with hope and pride. Pride in our communities, and the hope of a country that’s better for our children. That’s what we’re fighting for. Vote Labour on Thursday 7 May.

Ah yes, when you’re such a disconnected elitist organization that you don’t even know which countries are part of your union.

@grok when did Belarus join the EU?

@svpino Yes. Same with judges and repeat criminals. Accountability matters. Good point Private Santiago.

Whoever uses AI to write code should be ultimately responsible for that code and liable for any potential consequences of running that code. I don't care what model you used, how you used it, or how much it helped you. Humans bear full responsibility.

@AlexH_Johnson Single variable modeling of a multi-variable environment will rarely provide accurate forecasts. ATMs were one of about 1000 changes to finance, the economy, culture, consumer habits, etc. between 1977 and each decade since then. Bank tellers don’t exist in a vacuum.

In 1977, after Citi spent $50 million to install ATMs in a bunch of its branches, people thought the idea that ATMs would replace bank tellers was absurd. Lines in Citi branches were longer, as customers avoided the new machines queued up to talk to a human. They were wrong. Between 1980 and 2000, the number of ATMs installed in U.S. bank branches exploded and usage soared, as consumers realized how convenient they are for routine tasks. Market observers changed their minds and predicted the imminent death of the bank teller as a profession. They were wrong. By 2010, economists had started to notice that the number of bank tellers had actually risen over prior three decades. Their explanation was that ATMs were a complementary technology that freed up tellers to focus on higher-value relationship banking tasks and that bank tellers would be safe. They were wrong. Since 2010, the total number of bank tellers in the U.S. has fallen off a cliff. Market observers now explain the growth of the bank teller profession between 1980 and 2010 as a function of deregulation (interstate banking, specifically) which drove a massive increase in the total number of branches in the U.S. (even though each branch could get by with fewer tellers thanks to ATMs). These observers expect that smartphones, which ushered in a completely different competitive paradigm in financial services in the 2010s and 2020s, will eventually lead to the death of the bank teller as a profession. Maybe! Or, as has happened repeatedly in this story, maybe they're wrong! In 2024, JPMorgan Chase — a company that fully understands the potential of ATMs and mobile banking and that, I promise you, is not soft-hearted when it comes to the topic of automation and job destruction — embarked on a plan to open more than 500 new branches, renovate 1,700 existing branches, and hire 3,500 employees to work in them. I share this story because, at a time when everyone is rightly worried about the impact that AI will have on the job market, it's important to remember that old William Goldman line (which @DKThomp recently introduced into the AI/jobs debate): Nobody knows anything.

@yacineMTB Yes. Like the vague posts AI makes about AI gaps.

If you are doing anything serious you very quickly see the limits of these new AI models

@ArtemisConsort Have you ever worked on a Honda engine, seen Japanese woodworking in person, or tried sushi? No surprise that Japanese perfectionism extends into social media.

The average quality of the Japanese posts now on my timeline is about 2 standard deviations higher than the non-Japanese posts. Possibly the biggest product improvement I’ve yet experienced on this app. Great stuff.

I think there’s a line from Blazing Saddles that covers this, and it ends with “but we wont take the Irish” … Ah the good old days when you could make fun of each other to show your love. French people are great in general. I like how when they put speed trap cameras on their highways, the French people immediately destroyed all of them. Overnight. Good attitude towards government overreach.

I'm glad to see US / Japan relations improve because of twitter memes Next stop is US / France. We have a lot in common. If we stopped being caustic jerks to each other for a little while, I think we would really enjoy being friendly jerks to each other x.com/magills_/statu…

@FrankLuntz Mormons are doing their part.

How can we incentivize more Americans to have children?

@JohnyTempus @TrentTelenko I wonder how well the IRGC does when it comes to identifying friendlies.

@TrentTelenko Hormuz is less inportant for Europe. Yes there are some ships. India is desparate for those. Plus India is much more friendly with Iran and Russia. Their ships will not be attacked normally. Just by mistake, so the risk is completely different.

This is an Indian example of a nation acting in its own national interests. ⬇️ Where are the EU/NATO ships protecting European merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz?

@ItsTragik @IGN Your profile description is somewhat accurate. Rage-bait engaged.

@IGN I think it's time, and I'd like to see a more diverse cast, I mean I respect the original, we all do but it's 2026, the world doesn't look that way anymore.

Rather than move forward with spinoffs that cling to the original The Lord of the Rings movies, maybe the time has come to give the franchise a full, Harry Potter-style reboot. bit.ly/4rY74wY