They’re part of the consumer price index, a measure of inflation which in turn impacts the fed interest rate. A high rate means a high cost of borrowing which is bad for business (especially small business / start ups).

For most people it just contributes to the cost of living crisis but it has greater implications on the economy as a whole.

Trump has promised a reduction in interest rates this year while nearly all of his policies are designed to worsen inflation in the short term.

They are half the cost in Canada right now due to better supply management and taking public health a bit more seriously (only 6% of Canadians chickens are infected vs 14% of American chickens).

This might be too complicated for the average consumer at CVS, which tends to skew towards an older demographic.

Colonialism is essentially theft with a pretty red ribbon on top to make it look good so we can all unequivocally say fuck colonialism.

But my point is beyond that. It’s that the progress that’s been achieved through those ideas you’re celebrating was predicated on theft from and suffering of people in developing countries. In a sense those in developing countries have an ownership stake in Western industrialization and China is the first previously developing nation that’s coming to take back what is, in part, theirs. The West needs to come to terms with the fact that they won’t be the last to do so.

‘Investment’ is a nice way to put it. A more apt description would be that the developing world invested in the West’s industrialization (or the West stole it, whatever floats your boat) and the Western world chose to give essentially nothing back to its investors, directly contradicting the new capitalist world it had created.

Which is why many in the developing world feel that China’s rise to prominence is the West’s chickens coming home to roost.

A Kenyan official once said: ‘When China visits we get a hospital. When Britain visits we get a lecture’

It’s hard to beat a network with an already established user base (Meta, Google)

Not sure how this is feasible unless you’re certain your audience is going to use a VPN too. Seems like a risky way to lose views ie. your revenue stream.

It does work. You have to be selective though. There’s a lot of cheap crap that people buy on amazon that are available on TEMU for 5 to 10x less.

Also you have to have low expectations. Just like when you buy cheap shit on Amazon. It’s more for little trinkets that you can get by without but may be useful.

The free shipping and free 90 day returns helps with the product not living up to expectations.

There are also American retailers on the site. I recently got an Anker wireless battery charger for $5-6 less than Amazon.

The only major downside is shipping. Nearly everyone is accustomed to one or two day shipping now. Temu shipping almost always takes 4-6 days.

From personal experience, the vast majority are practicing out of scope. It would cost them a ton of money in overhead to have a cardiologist deny a claim for cardiology related testing or treatment so they just wing it. In some cases it’s not even a physician, it’s a nurse, NP or PA.

This is where government needs to step and regulate but we all know that isn’t going to happen.

Any examples?

Early to mid mollenial here with the same experience. It all went downhill when Facebook and flip phones with cameras came out ie. around 2006.

Bill Gates’ net worth has grown substantially despite his philanthropy, rising from $126.8 billion in early 2023 to $156 billion in December 2024.

Regarding COVID-19 vaccines, Gates actively opposed patent waivers and influenced Oxford University to privatize its vaccine through AstraZeneca rather than keep it open-source. He pushed for maintaining intellectual property rights through COVAX, despite public funding supporting vaccine development.

Not a good guy by any metric.

I find that in many cases, if you actually click the link to find the sourced information, it’s not there. I’ve experienced this with nearly every LLM front-end platform.