The error was caused when officials overvalued some of the systems sent to Ukraine, using the value of money it would cost to replace an item completely rather than the current value of the weapon.
But, hold on—this stuff was in the U.S. inventory and now it’s been sent to Ukraine, and presumably will be staying there if it isn’t expended or destroyed. So to preserve readiness of U.S. forces, it will have to be replaced, and that is, by definition, its replacement cost, not “current value”.
So this “discovery” is more like “Hey, here’s an accounting trick we forgot that we can use to hoodwink congress and the taxpayers.”
How long until the equivalent reaches the west? Have the wrong political leanings or improper beliefs and you’ll get the equivalent of a scarlet “C” following you around, plus your home address revealed so the mob can peacefully protest there
The other piece of the puzzle is the introduction of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), the first toe in the tree chipper of which is scheduled to roll out in July 2023 as the “FedNow” payment system. In China, WeChat already includes a payment function and has widely replaced cash even for small transactions such as bus fares. Once the payment system is in place, if you’re insufficiently highly rated or flagged as undesirable, literally “your money is no good here”, and if you can’t spend it, it isn’t your money. On the other side, disfavoured businesses, for example gun stores and ammunition vendors, can be “de-banked” and unable to receive payments for products they sell. This already happening: this one is from yesterday.
The introduction of FedNow will make it easier to impose and much more difficult to work around. China is, of course, far in the lead in this form of tyranny.
Another fun fact is that SpaceX just successfully completed its 34th launch of 2023 today. Counting 10 Merlin engines (9 booster and 1 upper stage) for each of the 32 Falcon 9 launches and 28 engines each (9 on each of the core and two side boosters, one on the upper stage) for the two Falcon Heavy launches, that’s a total of 376 SpaceX engines which have launched orbital payloads so far in 2023.
This is the table of favourability for pubic figures from the Harvard Center for American Political Studies / Harris poll, based on an online survey of 2004 registered voters [PDF] on May 17–18, 2003.
On 2023-06-18, Swiss citizens will vote in federal elections on three measures:
Adopting the OECD/G20 15% “minimum corporate tax” on multinational companies
Adopt a federal law on climate with the goal of achieving “net zero” by 2050
Amend the COVID-19 law to extend the extraordinary powers granted to the federal authorities in response to COVID-19, which would otherwise expire
Here is a summary from Swissinfo of all of the federal measure on the ballot.
The Federal Council (executive branch of the Swiss Confederation) and both houses of parliament recommend a “Yes" vote on all three of these items, all of which are expected to pass.
The climate bill is opposed vehemently by the Swiss People’s Party, which Swissinfo describes as “right-wing”, while noting that it is the largest single party at the federal level in the country. All of the left and “centre right” parties are on board.
The multinational tax bill is opposed by some politicians of the Socialist party, who argue it sets the tax rate too low and unfairly favours cantons in which many multinationals are headquartered at the expense of those with lots of cows.
Here is the official voter information publication [PDF] by the federal government, including an explanation of each item, the full text of the proposed modifications to the laws, and arguments for and against.
This is another in a long series of initiatives and referenda in which Swiss voters are “progressively” voting the “Old Switzerland” out of existence, “harmonising” its once exceptional legal regime with the totalitarian European Union in areas such as privacy, border controls, taxation, vaccine mandates, firearms ownership, and membership in international organisations. In each of these, part of the opposition argument is usually that another of the things that made Switzerland exceptional and contributed to its peace and prosperity over centuries is about to go down in the interest of “harmony” and virtue-signaling by federal politicians. And almost every time the opposition loses.
Target is selling kids’ swimsuits with labels stating “light binding effect” and “tuck-friendly construction”.
Edit: The video is misleading. The swimsuits shown are sold in adult sizes only. However, Target did remove this kids’ swimsuit from their website (link is to the internet archive), which included the description, “Thoughtfully fit on multiple body types and gender expressions”.
