I haven't personally looked for housing lately, but my adult son just found a new apartment a couple of months ago. It's a nice, new complex, he got a 2 bedroom apartment for $1,400 a month. It was not at all hard.

If you're looking for a low-interest mortgage, then no, you're out of luck. The days of 3% mortgages are gone. On the other hand, when I bought my first house in 1999, the interest rate was also over 7%. So in the context of history, not so bad.

Yes, I have looked for a job recently, and although it wasn't as easy as 2021-2022, I was still able to land several actual interviews, in my field, leading to a pay increase.

Your experience may be different, depending on your specialty, or your specific location. But the overall numbers do point to a job market that isn't as great as it once was, but still not bad.

The only difference between "privatization" and "using the private sector" is the starting state.

I would counter your argument by noting that the government is absolutely terrible about managing money when the goals are not quantifiable. I'd suggest they are even worse about this than the private sector. If you have no quantifiable goals, you will absolutely waste money.

Thankfully, JPL is not such an institution. It has very quantifiable goals, that's why it's been so good at producing new technologies.

I'll buy it. https://www.wsj.com/cio-journa...

The tech job market isn't as white-hot as it was in 2021-2022, so it feels really bad right now. But 3.8% tech unemployment is still a very, very good rate. Maybe you live in California? In other places, the picture is much better.

Yeah, the Valley is a tough place to try to get work right now. In other parts of the country, like Houston, Dallas, and Austin, prospects are much better.

Here's a source: https://www.wsj.com/cio-journa...
"Tech Unemployment Ticks Up to 3.8% in April Amid AI-Driven Layoffs"

So according to this WSJ article, unemployment in tech is up a bit, but 3.8% is still very, very low.

Pew Research says "For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades."
https://www.pewresearch.org/sh...

What this means is that, compared to inflation, people make about the same as what they made decades ago. Not more, but also, not less.

Maybe you live in a depressed area, that would explain your perception. Where I live, in Houston, jobs are plentiful and wages are good, plus the cost of housing is low. That's a pretty good combination.

There are some actual statistics on this. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York tracks underemployment of college grads...college grads who are working in jobs that don't require the degrees they earned.
https://www.newyorkfed.org/res...

The rate in March 2026 was 41.5%, about average compared to the past 40 years.

Maybe your particular town doesn't offer a lot of skilled work? Maybe you live in a small town? It is certainly true that underemployment varies greatly by location.

Be careful, that kind of optimism isn't tolerated around here!

I do live in the US, so my life is even more adversely affected by what happens in Washington than you. But the reality is, life is hard everywhere, just in different ways. I choose to focus on the wonderful people who live near me, who work with me, and who go to church with me. I volunteer regularly, an activity that gives me more happiness than anything I ever buy for myself.

If you look for evil and gloom in the world, you will find it, and you won't want to prolong your existence in this hellscape. But if you look for good and joy in the world, you will find that too, and it makes life worth living.

There's always one.

No, time zones are not idiotic. People for centuries have considered noon to be when the sun is straight overhead, and midnight is the midpoint between dusk and dawn. That's not idiotic.

Why should I have to go to a new city and ask, "What hour is midday here?" "What are office hours here?" No, *that* would be idiotic. Standardizing on certain time conventions, makes life easier to manage. It's only travelers who have to deal with time changes most of the year.

If you look at the actual data from the 1974 experiment staying on DST all winter, those who talk about the dangers to children, cherry-pick the data. Florida, for example, had 8 deaths that year, compared to 2 the year before. Sounds awful, right? So why aren't nationwide numbers cited more often? Well, because the nationwide numbers did not correlate with Florida's experience.

The fact is, children get on school buses in the dark all over the country, all winter. Extending the number of in-the-dark boardings by a few weeks, isn't going to quadruple the number of student deaths. Some studies, in fact, show that the dangers to children did not increase that winter. It's all about how you focus the statistics, you can make them say what you want them to say.

This bill doesn't kill DST. It allows states to make it permanent, if they want to.

The entire subject here, is whether JPL should be public or private. It doesn't matter which direction it goes (public to private or private to public). The question is only, should it be public, or should it be private.

Did I suggest that the two are equivalent? No I did not. You invented a straw man.

My point was to illustrate that "Privatization is inherently bad". The reality is that, it depends.

UBI still doesn't work, from an economic point of view.

We can't even find the will to balance the US budget *now*. Why on earth does anybody think we can add another huge government expense, that dwarfs current spending, and succeed?