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Inflation Is About Expections, Not Only Reality


In this new era of stagflation it's important to remember that inflation is caused by expectations as much as by reality. If people and companies expect prices to go up, they'll start charging more for their products and services -- which is inflation. Inflation will only abate when expectations change.

So when we see a chart like this one it's not only that President Biden's policies created inflationary conditions, his policies also created the self-fulfilling expectation of inflation.

Presidents Obama and Trump spent boatloads of borrowed money and ran up the deficit, but something about President Biden (and, of course, the global environment) really spooked people.




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Friendly Reminder: "Prices don't drop when inflation eases"

Many people I talk to are eager for "prices to get back to normal", but that's not how inflation works. Medora Lee does a good job reminding us of that.

When talking about inflation, it's important to remember that inflation is a rate that measures how fast prices are rising. If the consumer inflation rate drops from its 40-year high of 8.6% in May, prices are still rising - just not as fast.

Consumers won't feel immediate relief even as the inflation rate slows because many of those elevated prices are likely here to stay, said Michael Ashton, managing principal at Enduring Investments in Morristown, NJ.

"The price level has permanently changed," said Ashton. "Until your wages catch up (to inflation), it will continue to hurt."

Even when inflation returns to target 2% levels, prices won't return to "normal" 2019 levels. Prices will continue to grow, but at a slower and more predictable rate.

"Once core prices go up, generally they don't come down," Roussanov said. "In the last 40 to 50 years, we've never seen deflation in core goods. Most durable goods and services don't really come down in price."

And deflation is more dangerous than inflation because it can lead to a total economic collapse. When people believe that their money will buy more in a year than it will now, they stop consuming and just wait.

Additionally, modest, predictable inflation is seen as a sign of a growing economy. It incentivizes people to spend money now rather than waiting, allows wages to increase either in line or above inflation to boost the standard of living and makes it easier for businesses to plan, according to the Federal Reserve and IMF.



  • Business & Economics

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"There are already thousands of people alive, right now, in Texas who would have been aborted."

Ross Douthat says that this fact is the heart of the abortion issue, and I agree. Our tolerance, acceptance, and promotion of at-will abortion is a shame and humiliation for our generation and civilization. Our descendants will look back on this era with horror and disgust, much like we view slavery and the Holocaust. They will ask, how could any people kill a million of their own children every year? How did they talk themselves into accepting the slaughter of the weakest and most vulnerable among them? How did they dehumanize the unborn, to be exterminated like insect infestations?

As is often the case, the solution to abortion -- and the general mistreatment of children and other vulnerable people -- won't be found in laws or courts. The solution is for each of us to honor the divine spark in each other. To recognize that we are each made in God's image, and each uniquely valuable because of that likeness.

Deuteronomy 27:19 -- 'Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

Exodus 22:22 -- You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.

Psalm 68:5 -- Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.




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"Sex must be taken seriously. Men and women are different."


Louise Perry writes that she was betrayed by the lies of the sexual revolution. As a father of daughters this is heartbreaking to read.

It's precisely because I'm a feminist that I've changed my mind on sexual liberalism. It's an ideology premised on the false belief that the physical and psychological differences between men and women are trivial, and that any restrictions placed on sexual behavior must therefore have been motivated by malice, stupidity or ignorance.

The problem is the differences aren't trivial. Sexual asymmetry is profoundly important: One half of the population is smaller and weaker than the other half, making it much more vulnerable to violence. This half of the population also carries all of the risks associated with pregnancy. It is also much less interested in enjoying all of the delights now on offer in the post-sexual revolution era. ...

The new sexual culture isn't so much about the liberation of women, as so many feminists would have us believe, but the adaptation of women to the expectations of a familiar character: Don Juan, Casanova, or, more recently, Hugh Hefner.

It's almost as if our ancestors were wiser than we realized.



  • Society & Culture

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"5 Gallons of Wind Turbine"


This is quality.

As John Hinderaker helpfully explains, The "Green Revolution" Is Impossible due to constraints on input materials (among other reasons). Courtesy of Professor Simon Michaux:

The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels, is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls.

All this posturing is about control, not the environment or the earth. The long-term future of energy is space-based solar and nuclear.

(HT: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)



  • Science
  • Technology & Health
  • Society & Culture

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"We will never be slaves and simple consumers at the mercy of financial speculators"


Italy's new prime minister Giorgia Meloni explains why so many people are afraid of her victory. American newspapers categorize her as "far-right", but Italian newspapers call her "center-right". Let's see what she does.




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DnD situation is a symptom of a larger problem: our insanely long copyright protection (life of the author + 70 years!)


(I posted this to the DnD subreddit also: link.)

The Open Gaming License fiasco with Dungeons & Dragons producer Wizards of the Coast is a symptom of a larger problem: our insane Intellectual Property system that currently protects material for the life of the author plus 70 years. As a comparison, patents generally only protect inventions for 20 years.

The purpose of intellectual property laws is to balance public and private interests. IP law is an agreement between society and creators: the creator is guaranteed an exclusive right to their creation for a period of time, and in exchange the public gets rights to the creation afterwards. It's intended to be a balance of interests, but the balance has gotten completely out of whack thanks to (obviously) lobbying throughout the 20th century by major copyright holders like Disney.

In my opinion, the current copyright term, life of the author plus 70 years, is grossly unfair to the public. I believe that the internet era has demonstrated that creators would be incentivized to create even without such a long period of exclusivity. Think about it: would you create less stuff if your great-grandkids didn't get exclusive rights? I doubt it.

Listen: creators should be able to make money from their work. I don't think copyright should go to zero, but why not bring it in line with patent protection with a 20-year term?

Disney, DnD, and many other creations are part of our generation's cultural legacy, part of a 10,000+ year inheritance that has been handed down through time to our grandparents, our parents, and now us. It's morally wrong for our ancestors and corporations to lock our inheritance away from us.

Copyright protections must be re-balanced to protect both creators and the public. This problem with WotC shouldn't be just about a license, it should be about the IP laws that grant them exclusive rights to creations that are over 50 years old. Our generation should re-open these negotiations and come up with a fair copyright term.



  • Law & Justice

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Princess of Wales's annual carol concert to focus on 'how much we need others in difficult times'

The Princess of Wales will host her Christmas carol concert this year, reflecting on "how much we need each other, especially in the most difficult times of our lives".




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Watch: Drone footage captures Kentucky explosion damage

An "unknown" explosion at factory in Louisville, Kentucky injured 11 people on Tuesday.




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'It's not all doom' - Heston Blumenthal on bipolar diagnosis

The celebrity chef announced he was diagnosed with the mental health condition earlier this year.




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Cars 'covered in plastic wrap' in Spain as residents brace for another storm

Some people in Spain appear to have covered their cars in plastic wrap ahead of another approaching storm.




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Church of England 'not a safe institution' and others may need to resign, bishop says

The Church of England's deputy lead bishop for safeguarding has said it is "not a safe institution" in some ways - and that others may need to step down following the Archbishop of Canterbury's resignation.




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Picnic cottage enjoyed by Queen Victoria restored to former glory

A picnic cottage enjoyed by Queen Victoria during her visits to Balmoral has been restored to its former glory by the National Trust for Scotland.




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Actor Timothy West - who held roles in major soaps and was husband of Prunella Scales - has died

Actor Timothy West has died peacefully in his sleep aged 90, "with his friends and family at the end".




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Redox runs on RISC-V, boots to GUI login on Raspberry Pi 4

Another month lies behind us, so another monthly update from Redox is upon us. The biggest piece of news this time is undoubtedly that Redox now runs on RISC-V – a major achievement. Andrey Turkin has done extensive work on RISC-V support in the kernel, toolchain and elsewhere. Thanks very much Andrey for the excellent work! Jeremy Soller has incorporated RISC-V support into the toolchain and build process, has begun some refactoring of the kernel and device drivers to better handle all the supported architectures, and has gotten the Orbital Desktop working when running in QEMU. ↫ Ribbon and Ron Williams That’s not all, though. Redox on the Raspberry Pi 4 boots to the GUI login screen, but needs more work on especially USB support to become a fully usable target. The application store from the COSMIC desktop environment has been ported, and as part of this effort, Redox also adopted FreeDesktop standards to make package installation easier – and it just makes sense to do so, with more and more of COSMIC making its way to Redox. Of course, there’s also a slew of smaller improvements to the kernel, various drivers including the ACPI driver, RedoxFS, Relibc, and a lot more. The progress Redox is making is astounding, and while that’s partly because it’s easier to make progress when there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit as there inevitably will be in a relatively new operating system, it’s still quite an achievement. I feel very positive about the future of Redox, and I can’t wait until it reaches a point where more general purpose use becomes viable.




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Windows Server IoT 2025 released

Today, Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Server IoT 2025. This new release includes several improvements, including advanced multilayer security, hybrid cloud agility, AI, performance enhancements, and more. Microsoft claims that Windows Server IoT 2025 will be able to handle the most demanding workloads, including AI and machine learning. It now has built-in support for GPU partitioning and the ability to process large datasets across distributed environments. With Live Migration and High Availability, it also offers a high-performance platform for both traditional applications and advanced AI workloads. ↫ Pradeep Viswanathan at Neowin Windows Server IoT 2025 brings the same benefits, new features, and improvements as the just-released regular Windows Server 2025. I must admit I’m a little unclear as to what Windows Server IoT has to offer over the regular edition, and reading the various Microsoft marketing materials and documents don’t really make it any clearer for me either, since I’m not particularly well-versed in all that enterprise networking lingo.




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Notepad gets “AI”

Nothing is sacred. With this update, we are introducing the ability to rewrite content in Notepad with the help of generative AI. You can rephrase sentences, adjust the tone, and modify the length of your content based on your preferences to refine your text. ↫ Dave Grochocki at the Windows Insider Blog This is the reason everything is going to shit.




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Kampanie fałszywych SMS-ów ze złośliwym oprogramowaniem Flubot

Korzystając z zainfekowanych telefonów, przestępcy rozsyłają wiadomości SMS z informacją o konieczności podjęcia działań wraz z linkiem do złośliwej strony. Jeśli użytkownik zgodzi sie na pobranie i zainstalowanie aplikacji to po uzyskaniu odpowiednich uprawnień przejmuje ona kontrolę nad urządzeniem i wykradać dane z telefonu.




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Ataki socjotechniczne

Cyberprzestępcy często kontaktują się z potencjalnymi ofiarami telefonicznie. Na początku rozmowy przedstawiają nieprawdziwą sytuację, która wydaje się pilna i wymaga szybkiego działania. Pochopne działanie może jednak prowadzić do utraty środków pieniężnych.




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"Nie klikaj w podejrzane linki" - czyli jak nie ostrzegać przed zagrożeniem

W ostatnich latach temat cyberbezpieczeństwa zyskuje coraz większą popularność. Przy okazji pojawiają się różne rekomendacje związane z tym zagadnieniem. W tym artykule skupimy się na wytłumaczeniu dlaczego „kliknięcie w link" nie musi być niebezpieczne oraz przedstawimy argumenty za tym dlaczego porada przestrzegająca przed „podejrzanymi" linkami nie jest klarowna i wymaga więcej wyjaśnienia.




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Podatność w bibliotece lua-http

CERT Polska otrzymał zgłoszenie o podatności w bibliotece lua-http i nadał jej numer CVE-2023-4540.




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Podatność w bibliotece class.upload.php

W otwartoźródłowej bibliotece class.upload.php wykryto podatność typu Stored XSS (CVE-2023-6551).




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Rekomendacje dla wzmocnienia ochrony systemów OT

CERT Polska wydał rekomendacje w związku z obserwowaną zwiększoną liczbę ataków na przemysłowe systemy sterowania (ICS/OT) dostępne bezpośrednio z internetu.




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Podatności w otwartoźródłowym projekcie Phoniebox

W ramach badań własnych CERT Polska znalazł 2 podatności (CVE-2024-3798 oraz CVE-2024-3799) w otwartoźródłowym projekcie Phoniebox.




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The Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market was is expected to grow US$ 17.43 Bn by 2030, as per Maximize Market Research.

(EMAILWIRE.COM, October 24, 2024 ) The oligonucleotide synthesis market is experiencing significant growth due to its applications in diagnostics, therapeutics, and research. North America holds the largest market share due to established research infrastructure and strong demand. Asia Pacific...




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Phishing Protection Market Size, Share, Top Emerging Trends, Growth and Business Opportunities 2028

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The Not-So-Small Business Administration

Under the new guidelines, for instance, a travel agency with annual revenues of $20.5 million qualifies as a small business, and so does a family clothing store that brings in $38.5 million a year. In some industries, a business is still considered small if it employs as many as 1,500 people. Companies classified as small businesses can compete for government contracts, and can access SBA loans, which are often cheaper than private alternatives.

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These Are The 16 Hottest Startups That Launched In 2014

2014 was a great year for consumer tech, so we decided to take a look at the best startups that launched this year.

When looking at the best startups, we took into account factors like funding, revenue, growth, and investor interest

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Dos and Do Nots of Small Business

For those just beginning, knowing what steps to take first can be hard to figure out. It can be even harder to tell which steps you should not take.

While a business might be a complex thing to fathom sometimes, Dr. Rebecca Reuber, professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto, believes that all of them need to share a simple start: An idea you believe in.

Once you get that, though, it gets more complicated.

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Small Business Boot Camp: How to Identify Your Target Market and Create Customer Personas

Having a clear vision of your expected customer base will increase your business chances of success. Clearly defining your target audience — whether it is senior citizens, busy moms or millennials in California — can help answer a lot of questions and overcome obstacles that may be plaguing you as you kick-start your online store. Some of the business questions you will be addressing include:

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Protect Small Business from Health Care Rules

Walk around any town in Indiana and you can see it: Small businesses are the lifeblood of our state and the engine of our economy. And yet, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is set to implement a rule that would harm Hoosier small businesses.

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5 Things Millionaires Do That Most People Do Not

Who wants to be a millionaire? A popular game show has asked its audience that question for years. Truthfully, the vast majority of the population would jump at the opportunity to join the elite ranks of the millionaires in this country.

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Cast Your Vote for Your Top Small Business Influencer Pick

You nominated them and now it’s time to cast your vote to support your pick. Small Business Trends and Small Biz Technology bring you the Small Business Influencer Awards 2015. Here’s a chance to celebrate the people, businesses, and even apps that have made an impact in the small business market.

Even if you missed the nominations, you can still jump in and vote for your favorite. But you might want to hurry. There is less than a week left to vote!

To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

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Why Are Not More Small Businesses Using SEO?

For more than a decade, thousands of businesses have enjoyed the benefits of high rankings in Google searches (and searches on competing engines) thanks to their SEO efforts. Larger corporations pour hundreds of thousands of dollars and allocate entire departments to gaining more online visibility, but even small- to mid-sized businesses can use a fraction of that budget to get more traffic and sales.

However, according to a recent survey by the Small Business Authority (SBA), less than 50 percent of small business owners in the United States think of inbound traffic from search engines as an important source of future business. Another 14 percent declared themselves unsure.

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2016 Social Media Trends Businesses Need to Take Note of

Social media has become a necessary business tool for companies big and small. There are now more than 2 billion active social media users around the world, according to a LinkedIn article about upcoming social media trends. More people are now regularly using social media than the populations of the United States and China combined, and the number is growing at a clip of 25 percent a year.

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5 Things NOT to Do When Running a Small Business…One Business Owner Tells All

Years of experience have taught me that running a small business is a challenge, especially when you are providing a service. Your expectations for success may not match your results, because simply providing excellent service within your field is not always enough. When I first started running my business, I naively assumed that because I was a master at my profession, my business would flourish. I failed to realize that my business skills were equally important and some of those lessons took hard tolls on me before I fully understood them.

Luckily, many of the lessons that I learned were due to mistakes that are actually quite easy to avoid. While learning these lessons won’t make you a business genius overnight, they will help you avoid rough spots that many small business owners encounter.

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Brands Small Business Owners Recommend and Some They Do Not

To trust or not to trust. That is a question small and medium-sized business owners often find themselves asking when it comes to relying on certain brands for day to day business operations and other needs.
Keeping their interests in mind, Alignable, a Boston-based platform for local businesses, has launched the SMB Trust Index. It measures companies based on an assigned Net Promoter Score, submitted by contributors on the Alignable platform.

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Three Small Business IT Security Solutions You May Not Have Considered

Everyone by now is well aware that IT networks are subject to various cyber threats, and small and medium size businesses (SMBs) must protect against them just as larger enterprises do. But these threats are not limited to the online world. SMBs also have to protect the IT equipment itself from physical dangers.

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50 Thoughts That Can Motivate You to Do Anything

Motivation can be hard to come by, especially in the face of challenges or difficult work. When you are thinking about implementing that new idea, or starting that new company or beginning that new regimen -- this is the new year, after all -- it is easy to talk yourself into procrastinating. Or worse, avoiding your goal altogether.

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Small Business Startup Checklist: Do Not Overlook These Items

Some people think starting a business will be this great thing to do and then as they move forward with the process quickly learn it is not always rainbows and unicorns.

Sure, it has it perks - you become your own boss, choose your own hours and the clients you would like to work with along with how much to charge them. Then, theres one of my personal favorites - you choose the dress code!

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