Thanks to the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017 (hey, 1 out of 2 ain’t bad), we basically do not subsidize mortgages anymore though, unless you are carrying a massive loan with massive interest.  Prior to that, about 30% of taxpayers itemized, now it’s about 10%. 

I get that burn rate is a thing and happens in many businesses (my wife started her own business that took 2 years to turn a profit), I guess it’s the sheer blindness and stupidity that VC’s or PE’s or Saudi princes dump $$$$ into businesses that are run like a total S-show.  Lordstown Motors, Nickola, that 3-wheeled…

“I wonder what their cash burn was vs capital...”

Same, we had a 5-something in Richmond, VA, maybe 15 years ago and I was driving and missed the entire thing! It was centered in New Jersey but we felt it. We then had another, centered near Charlottesville, I was in my office for and it shook pretty good. I cannot imagine the terror of being in a “real” earthquake…

Bro, disrupting door handle functionality is all the rage! Sure, a few people get locked in their Corvette or Tesla now and then and die as a result of this overcomplicated nonsense, but didn’t you hear, it’s disrupting. DISRUPTING!!!!

It’s almost like this complexity and obfuscation is by design, so that when the music stops, everyone is pointing fingers at someone else, until the real owner is traced back to a parakeet with a PO box in Panama.

So the Works Progress Administration 2.0? This country can’t do anything big or forward thinking anymore, it’s beyond its Sell By date. Selfishness, greed, anger, and fear have ruined it.

I mean, the UN projections on China’s population is a decline of 100 million people by 2035, and further decline of between 300 million to 500 million by 2100, but don’t let that get in the way. China’s 25 years of 1-child policy, coupled with urbanization, modernization, and wealth have dramatically altered it’s…

The color I always paint my stolen 911 knock-off in GTA-V - Lava Orange

Wait, was he praising the string quartet for caring about others...or denigrating them for not caring about themselves enough? 

Hopefully lots?

Like that guy who stole a tank years ago, although eventually a highway Jersey barrier got him.

I merged on to I81 on my way to work in the morning twilight today, and spied ahead of me a vehicle with crisp tail lights and a round logo I could not place. I made my way up close enough to see it was an Ocean, the first I have ever seen. It was fantastic looking! Too bad everything else about this thing seems like…

There is a significant business interest in this country to make immigration - or even green cards - difficult to get, because that keeps people exploitable. Construction, restaurants, and especially big agriculture, are supported by a vast array of people who are easily exploitable due to fear of being deported. It…

I hope the readers here take note of the surnames and ancestry of the road workers who lost their lives here. Almost a year ago to the day (March 23, 2023) 6 workers were killed on another part of the 695 beltway when a car crashed through a work zone, and most of those workers were also from central America,…

I think the wine analogy was a psychological one. Because higher priced wines (typically) are better (whatever better means, I’m no sommelier) price & quality are a bit more linearly related, whereas as a higher octane in an 87-octance engine does literally nothing, yet people perceive higher price = better.

Not at Donny’s Discount Gas!

That’s...actually a perfect suggestion! I had one years ago as a loaner, and was shocked at the woeful noise:acceleration ratio of the CVT. It was S.L.O.W. slow. However, I also saw one last fall parked in the woods during a gravel biking expedition, covered in bike racks, stickers, and with a mild lift and I thought,…

This is a good demonstration of why the US should publish separate metrics for passenger vehicle safety: a death total for belted and unbelted, and we should only care about the belted. Data shows seatbelt use is about 90%, and yet unbelted people account for about 50% of deaths. Those 50% should be removed from the…