USA Politics

Scapegoat found

Hawaii officials said Monday an employee has been reassigned after mistakenly hitting the live alert button of the state’s missile warning system, creating a wave of panic.

Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesman Richard Rapoza said in an email Monday that the worker has been temporarily moved to a job without access to the system amid an internal investigation.
 
bearfan said:
The real big problem with false alarms (not just for this, but weather events, etc) is that people might be less inclined to believe future (and real) alerts
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Skepticism is my default response to reports of absolutely insane stuff happening such as this. The Hawaii incident just confirms my instinct. If I got a phone alert such as the one that got sent out in Hawaii I'd immediately turn on the TV, radio, check the internet, etc. to see if there was any more information about what was going on before I believed it -- because I know that hoaxes and screw-ups are more likely than random ballistic missile launches.

It's incredible to me that so many people panicked based on the phone alert without trying to corroborate it. Think of the scene in Dr. Strangelove where Peter Sellers finds a radio on the air base, turns it on, and hears normal music playing instead of news reports on the Soviet attack that he's been told are occurring right that minute. Didn't those people in Hawaii have the sense to do the same?

The morning of Sep. 11, 2001 I woke up at 7AM San Francisco time (3 hrs. behind the East Coast), made coffee and toast, sat down at my computer, opened my home page (which was Yahoo at the time) and clicked on the link to my e-mail. A half-second after I clicked my email link, my brain registered a Yahoo News headline on the home page: "World Trade Center Collapses." My first thought: "Whaa ..??? Naaaah, couldn't be." I clicked back, read the article, found a couple other online news sources confirming that all that crazy stuff was actually happening, and only then accepted that it was real.
 
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AlexS said:
The morning of Sep. 11, 2001 I woke up at 7AM San Francisco time (3 hrs. behind the East Coast), made coffee and toast, sat down at my computer, opened my home page (which was Yahoo at the time) and clicked on the link to my e-mail. A half-second after I clicked my email link, my brain registered a Yahoo News headline on the home page: "World Trade Center Collapses." My first thought: "Whaa ..??? Naaaah, couldn't be." I clicked back, read the article, found a couple other online news sources confirming that all that crazy stuff was actually happening, and only then accepted that it was real.
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Understatement of a lifetime to say that was an intense day. Aforementioned grandparents had actually just made it to SFO - long story short, they ended up staying with us a while longer.
 
I think the tax bill could have been a lot better, but it is having some nice benefits ... such as making our corporate tax rates more in line with the rest of the world.

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(Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) will open a new campus as part of a five-year, $30 billion U.S. investment plan and will make about $38 billion in one-time tax payments on its overseas cash, one of the largest corporate spending plans announced since the passage of a tax cut signed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The company has been under increasing pressure to make U.S. investments since the 2016 presidential campaign, when Trump targeted the iPhone maker for making products in Asian factories.

While Apple has announced no plans to change that practice and experts say it would be economically impractical to make iPhones in the United States, the company has begun to emphasize its U.S. economic impact, from developers who sell software on its App Store to the tens of billions of dollars per year it spends with U.S. suppliers.

Between the spending plan, hiring 20,000 people, tax payments and business with U.S.-based suppliers, Apple on Wednesday estimated it would spend $350 billion in the United States over the next five years.
 
Then there's the OTHER side of that coin called Wal-Mart, which closed 63 stores and fired thousands of employees after announcing similar plans of supposed job growth and benefits.
 
They closed a bunch of Sam's Clubs ... retail stores open and close all the time. I am sure they are feeling the squeeze by Costco, Amazon, etc.
 
A friend told me a similar argument. He also pointed to the fact that they did raise their wages and the people getting fired were mostly unnecessary co-managers. BUT, they did this after saying, "We are going to ADD jobs AND pay well." almost immediately afterwards they closed those Sam's clubs (without notice) essentially firing ALL of those employees, not just managers. That was my main point.

Otherwise I agree, retail is a bitch of a business.
 
I think it is apples and oranges a bit .. the main deal with Apple is they are bringing the money back in the US ... primary reason being it is being (this year) taxed at half of what it would have been under the old tax code
 
I think the Wal Mart situation is being exploited by both sides when really it has very little to do with the tax bill. One side points to stores closing when it’s really not a good time for retail in general while another side (including WalMart) points to the bonuses and wage increases even though they were going to have to increase wages at some point to remain competitive in the job market.

I’m still in wait and see mode with the tax bill.
 
I really don't think Wal-Mart's situation was that related to the tax bill. Apple bringing their money back makes sense due to the lowered corporate rates, but it will be a lot more interesting to see what happens with the corporate contributions overall. If it goes down by a significant amount, then the Apple thing is just a one-off. If it brings a lot of money back and keeps it in the US taxation environment, it could really cushion the blow to the federal budget.
 
The wage increase was directly related to the tax break. And I respectfully disagree that it's apples and oranges, when that was one of the lauded benefits of taxing businesses less. They just look like huge hypocrites regardless.
 
The Apple deal was them repatriating money back to the US, that was clearly timed after the tax cuts

Walmart raises/bonuses probably had some impact from the tax cuts ... part PR, part the labor market is tighter and they need people/people to stay

Walmart closing Sams Clubs ... most likely related to general business conditions. Large retail opens and closes stores all the time depending on sales at each store ... the closings probably would have happened tax breaks or no
 
bearfan said:
Looks like it ... not sure how I will survive
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Well, you're not an employee of the government, nor generally dependent on their services at the average level, like most Americans. But people who do work for the government, and those who do business with those people, they are going to feel the pinch.
 
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Thanks, Obama.
 
bearfan said:
Well. They had majorities vote for it in both houses ... one party essentially fillabustered it over DACA
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Yeah, and the other party refused to compromise (which is why the filibuster exists, to force compromise). It's certainly a share of faults, but if you go back in time it was the GOP who started using the government's financial security as a weapon back under Newt.
 
Pretty much ... most of the shutdowns have nothing to do with the actual budget ... DACA is obviously unrelated
 
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