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Coming into the new year, I expect 2021 to be...
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Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind
the tree."
-- Russell Long
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Tuesday December 29 2020, @09:33PM (11 children)
For one, the general population realizes that antimaskers and covid skeptics are full of shit, and there are more calls for heavier fines and jail time. One private party here got over $400,000 in fines. Hundreds of people getting multiple $1,500 fines. It's like when seatbelt laws were first introduced. People only started obeying when the "education period " Andes and fines kicked in.
Trump is a goner. Fun to watch him twistvin the wind.
We have multiple vaccines. Vaccine skepticism means I'll get mine faster because some of those ahead of me will refuse. Silver lining time. Unfortunately I have friends who are totally anti-vaxxers. That's the dark cloud. A couple of annoying people in the neighbourhood have died from covid. That made others take it more seriously. Again, silver lining around a dark cloud. Personally, their annoying behaviour didn't bother me, but I know it got to some people, who probably could use a lesson in patience.
The economy is recovering here quicker than expected, despite the latest lockdown. People are working from home, businesses are adapting (like they had a choice ???), and most people are ignoring the governments ever-changing policies and sticking with the basics we know work - distancing, masks, washing hands. The crybabies who complain about "muh rights" are mostly being made fun of, except in the prairies, where their stupidity has led to the virus being totally out of control and calls for people to stop being shits.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Wednesday December 30 2020, @01:52AM (9 children)
At least here in Europe, I see the don't-care-about-anyone-else-but-me faction extending their don't-care-about-anyone-else-but-me behaviour as they get bored of having to pretend to care about anyone else but themselves. And it only takes a small minority to spoil things for everyone. (2 stories on BBC News presently are Brits being dicks in .ch, and Brits being dicks in .au, when I left that country decades back, I left it for a reason, and that reason is being reified presently.)
Simply on the "vaccine" side, sure, we're moving forward, but it's hard not to see the current rollouts as anything more than the testing that still need to be done. Thank Turing we have multiple candidates, and more on the way, as it would be freakish if they were all to be perfect. So, yeah, we will see some unexpected side-effects of the vacine, complications with unexpected interaction, it's not a magic "stop" button. And there's still the spectre of the long term effects of the disease that no vaccine can undo. We simply don't know yet. May the studies be done scientifically, so that we can get the highest SNR possible, and make progress fastest.
Econony - well, each country has a different story to tell. We're one of the poor men of Europe, but we punch above our weight, and our stats (e.g. no need for lockdowns yet) and fundamentals both look pretty strong. But that doesn't reassure me that the brewpub I'm a part owner of will be able to start turning a profit any time soon after we're allowed to open again. Our export market was damaged too, predictably, so income is at rock bottom. I have no idea if my life savings will slowly evaporate away if things don't pick up. I do live in a part of town where businesses appear and disappear with incredible rapidity, so I'm sure entrepreneurs will fill the gaps around me, but I'm not sure they'll turn a profit either, we're a tourism-dependent economy.
Most scarily, what happens in Westpondia will affect everyone, worldwide. If Yellen persuades Biden that continuing to print money will solve problems, then more problems will arise. The big-business owners will cream billions in safe-haven assets off the bubbles that get further inflated by the fed, and the average folk will see their purchasing power, and any savings, absolutely annihilated. The late-20s/early-30s will be here again. It will be chaos. However, that might take several years, 2021 may avoid the worst.
But I ain't a negative nancy, I went for "about the same".
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday December 30 2020, @03:19AM (8 children)
After I made my post, I got word from one of my sisters that the place I volunteer at was hit with covid. I wasn't called because I had been off for 5 days before the first person felt sick, and a week before the test results come back. Dodged the bullet because I had herniated an old temporary colostomy from the 90s.
How perversely lucky. Because I didn't feel lucky the last few weeks as it reduced.
Anyway, one of my friends who works there tested positive, so I offered to let her stay here to isolate from her hubby and stepson if she felt it necessary. Two spare rooms, separate electric heating and windows in every room, it can be made comparatively safe.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday December 31 2020, @12:55AM (7 children)
One of the things that told me I had a really great friend here in this once-foreign country (I knew basically no-one here when I moved, it was rather tabula rasa) was when I messaged him something like "Oh, shit, I proper fucked up", and his instantanious reponse wasn't "what did you do?", or laddish jokes about whether my partner had found out about something, but simply "how can I help?". My wellbeing got a huge boost, no matter what troubles had beset me.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday December 31 2020, @03:51AM (6 children)
Hard times can be good times, as they provide people a chance to do good. At least that's what I keep saying.
Then again, I'm probably full of shit thinking that. Maybe. Who knows? The world is f'ed up, news at 11.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mrpg on Thursday December 31 2020, @05:25AM (5 children)
The good thing is that you find out who are your real friends and who are just acquaintances.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2020, @08:48AM (1 child)
<sarcasm>Wait a minute. Y'all had real friends?</sarcasm>
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2020, @04:39PM
"A friend is someone you need."
- Neil Diamond in Heartlight
Turn on your heartlight. And I'll call the next time I need anything from you.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Friday January 01 2021, @06:04AM (1 child)
Q: What do you call a friend that you can't get rid of no matter what you do?
A: Family.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday January 13 2021, @06:57PM
The same is true, if they weren't family to begin with.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 27 2021, @11:46AM
This is one of the good things I see coming from such a bizarrely conceived failed coup attempt in the U.S.
I respect their right to feel as they do and I encourage them to continue screaming at the top of their lungs "I BELIEVE THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN."
It's good to know where people stand.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 04 2021, @10:56PM
Should not you have sobered already, however heavily you celebrated the New Year?
However much you hate all those healthy people who were enjoying things you could not, the belief that reducing everyone to caged and muzzled work animals in perpetuity will go so smoothly as to not hit you at least in the wallet, is too deluded even for you.