Jeff (@Jefftopia_) header
Jeff (@Jefftopia_) profile picture

Catholic Coder. Fin-tech. Plant-based. Urbanist. Distributist. Pro-life. Woodworking. Microfrontends - Braid.

Joined August 2012
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Ideas that sound good but have repeatedly backfired: - Rent control (reduces supply and raises rents) - Price controls (leads to rationing) - Home loan subsidies (increases defaults and causes market crashes) - Extremely progressive tax brackets (high earners have much higher income variance, sometimes going negative, so a bad year leads to massive budget shortfalls and debt) - High capital gains taxes (too many investments fall below the zero-risk return rate, stalling the economy) - Increasing the money supply (compounding inflation decreases purchasing power) Indisputable economic and historical evidence shows these policies do not work. Yet politicians who know this keep promising them, and voters keep falling for it. I can’t blame educators or the media, as even they tell voters these policies do not work. What’s the solution? I don’t believe in making people pass an Econ test to vote, but how many times do we let them drive into a wall?
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When being just and honest comes at a price, pay it. When forgiving seems like a defeat, forgive. When everyone tells you to think of yourselves first, do not be afraid to put yourselves in the last place. Be willing to give up time, money, comfort and plans to serve others. May those who see you find themselves asking: “Why do they live in this way? Where do they get this freedom? Why do they love one another so much?” #ApostolicJourney #Uruguay
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BREAKING: Protect Kids Colorado declares VICTORY on all three of their ballot initiatives: 1. Protect girls' sports 2. Ban sex change surgeries for kids 3. Life in prison for sex trafficking of kids They were outspent by more than 18 to 1 and they still won during a blue wave.
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Money doesn't buy elections Billionaires don't rule America Swing voters exist Persuasion works
There's a lot to focus on right now, but "The richest man to ever live just spent $200 million to support the Republican Senate candidate in Texas, and his man lost by double-digits in a statewide wipeout" is a completely insane sentence. Put another way, the most expensive US Senate race before 2020 was $200 million. *One guy* spent that amount in Texas, and it doesn't seem to have made any difference. It might have hurt in a kind of Streisand effect way, in that the spending level was seen as obscene to people sympathetic to the argument that billionaires shouldn't "buy" elections. The implications here seem pretty interesting! Especially re the limits of billionaire political power and/or the diminishing returns of money in politics.
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One of Trump’s greatest moves as a candidate was escaping the bonds of having to defend two unpopular Republican wars by calling them stupid and promising to never do stupid things like that again Then he went and did a stupid thing like that again
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Bad policy, bad character make bad politics: erratic tariffs, impulsive Iran war, blanket pardons, apparent corruption, weaponized justice, ICE brutality, mountainous deficits, hiding Epstein, abandoning allies and coddling enemies. Hoping for a course correction, for the country and for my party.
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With the loss of governors races in Texas, Ohio and Georgia, there will be only one state of the top ten most populous states with a Republican governor: Florida.
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Thank you @RonDeSantis for speaking the truth. The biggest political blunder in living memory was the GOP nominating Trump instead of this man.
Governor DeSantis SLAMS Trump for taking us to war in Iran and gaslighting voters! “He obviously ran saying he wasn't going to do a middle east war and they did. So we had some of our voters who've checked out because they're like I didn't want any more middle east wars and now we're doing it And what's happened is it's kind of an open-ended conflict and it's having a direct impact on people's finances. Gas is higher. It hurts people, working class people and it's higher because of this conflict. That's just a fact. If you can't admit that to voters then you're gaslighting them and they're not going to listen to you on other things.”
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Governor DeSantis BLASTS Kristi Noem for bungling mass deportations and turning it into a shit show for her own glory. DeSantis BLASTS Congressmen like Byron Donalds for making millions on the stock market. DeSantis BLASTS Alina Habba for getting a $10 million government contract and securing a presidential pardon for her boyfriend. “If the people in office don't display some civic virtue about public service as a sacrifice. It's not to use the public office for private gain. I declined the pension in Congress. I declined the health care. I didn't trade the stocks. And I believe in congressional term limits. I mean, imagine if you went to the American people and actually tried to get that done. That's not right or left. That's something that a lot of people realize.. These guys work for themselves. They should be working for you.”
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J.R.R. Tolkien, holy cow this hits
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Narrative violation
1. More billionaires are associated with less poverty. 2. Increasing billionaires per capita by ten fold lowers poverty by 43 percentage points. 3. Sweden has more billionaires per 10M people than the U.S. (34 vs 30) 4. Correlation is fairly strong (R-squared of 0.6 for two variable cross-section data) 4. Since the graph is only a correlation, what do you think is the cause? 🔗in🧵
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🚨 UPDATE: Kaylub Giamanco, the dad who killed the Bend, Oregon school shooter, gives credit to the unarmed TEACHER who fought the gunman with her BARE HANDS 👏🏻 "I want to recognize HER. SHE gave me the opportunity to make my shot without losing my life...That's a real TRUE hero, to not have a weapon and to put yourself in between your babies and a firearm." This man is pure selfless. Give him a medal of freedom! Police say she threw her PHONE at the 16-year-old gunman, then tackled him and fought for the gun. That gave Giamanco the shot he needed When the gunman went for his weapon again, Giamanco fired two more times "to make sure that he couldn't move" He saved countless lives, and he's still apologizing: "I want to apologize for not saving their babies." 💔 Man, this guy is a hero with a heart of gold. 🇺🇸
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SIXERS COME BACK FROM DOWN 24 AT HALF TO BEAT THE CAVALIERS 114-106 TYRESE MAXEY WITH 32 POINTS JOEL EMBIID WITH 24, JAYLEN BROWN 21, AND LEBRON JAMES 17 2-0 TO START THE SEASON PLAY THE SONG
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Churchill could have shortened WW2 by years if he had just “done a deal” with Hitler. George Washington could have done a deal to end the American Revolution. Zelenskyy is in good company.
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Hate to say it but they're both right
BREAKING: Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner are reportedly blaming each other for the GOP's midterm meltdown, with Miller calling the Iran War "Jared's folly," and Kushner pointing out that Republicans were gaining Hispanic voters until Miller turned ICE into a "US Gestapo."
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France has spent more than it has taken in for the past 52 years. The problem is not lack of spending.
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Awful story out of Six Flags. Amusement parks are weird because we're entrusting our lives to the safety and maintenance standards of random low paid park employees. Carnivals are even worse in this regard. Not sure the risk-reward calculation really works out in our favor.
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Gemini 4 Argon VS Opus 5.5 🚨🥶 you guys choose the winner
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Infant care is wildly expensive to subsidize and rarely parents’ first choice. “During a child’s first year, 69 percent of [NYC] families would like for a parent to be able to provide care… 6 percent want a child-care center” nytimes.com/2026/10/08/nyreg…
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I'm confident that neither Tylenol nor childhood vaccines is the cause of the increase in autism because there has been no increase in the prevalence of autism, it's entirely changes to diagnostic criteria and there's nothing to explain. slowboring.com/p/the-dangero…
Replying to @mattyglesias
Autism is vaccine overdose. Prove me wrong.
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