the only thing worse than a tired nurse or doctor is no nurse or doctor at all.

you can cancel a flight or a truck shipment (not great but feasible) -- you can't quite just cancel patients that are in the hospital.

It's not solely a total cost decision but it's also OpEx vs. CapEx, what can be depreciated based on that, etc.

Are you really talking about the couple thousand dollars that people received during the pandemic? In most of the country that might have paid your rent for a month or a few weeks of groceries or if you're fortunate maybe one luxury good.

It's more like when you flatten production, but steady consumption, by having people get paid for work without producing anything, you produce a mismatch between the dollars and the goods they are chasing that results in Inflation. If you drop money out of helicopters and people spend that money instead of working you get inflation

IMO one nice (un?)intended consequence of the liquids restriction is limiting liquid spills on the floor of the plane i.e. somebody can't spill a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew or IDK, a gallon of laundry detergent on the plane (Sure there's the beverages on the plane or whatever you can buy post-security but they're usually not that large either) -- there's enough mess without having to deal with people porting around whatever amount of liquid they please.

The point isn't really whether its a net benefit or not, the point it's a "luxury" of tens to several hundred dollars per month that is almost universal at this point that is not really comparable to any other discretionary purchase historically.

Is it a luxury though? Almost everyone needs a phone, and many businesses and other organizations basically assume that you have a smartphone nowadays, or at least have internet access, and a smartphone is one of the cheaper ways of accessing the internet, especially if you need a phone already.

A smartphone is not an absolute requirement in life, but what is? Food and water. Other than that, not much. After all, there are homeless people. But we wouldn't say that a home is a "luxury item" or "discretionary purchase".

More direct correlation of discharge in the sense of a weapon or firearm.

"Discharged a gun", "Fired a gun"

You play your cards right, you could be in the three-comma club, too. But probably not. But you could be. Probably not.

That's the thing I don't get: the vast majority of people are not rich, and will never be. Why do they fight so bad to help the rich people pay less taxes?

I'm Ron Burgundy?

How are these bills now worthless? I can't go to Zimbabwe today and get 100 trillion dollars (2.6 billion USD) from the currency that they printed that is supposed to be worth that amount?

Many countries that suffer hyperinflation keep the historical name of their currency, but establish some exchange rate between the "old" and "new" money. Zimbabwe went through four cycles - currency codes ZWD, ZWN, ZWR, and ZWL.

Per Wikipedia: "The final redenomination produced the "fourth dollar" (ZWL), which was worth 10^25 ZWD (first dollars)."

The ZWL itself was subsequently largely abandoned, too. I believe you'd have more luck transacting in foreign currencies.

Somebody from 1930 might posit the average American today is rich (if not famous) based on the average household with private bedrooms, air conditioning and central heat, multiple vehicles, multiple TVs, computers and electronic gadgets, kitchens stocked with food and gadgets, closets full of clothing, etc. Sure people have problems and poverty still exists but at baseline its a pretty comfortable lifestyle.

Mostly bemoaning about not being rich and famous comes down to desiring better (or perceived to be better) versions of items listed above -- or the ability to have "fuck you" money and the fantasy that buying people off will isolate you or solve all your interpersonal problems.