Order!
(A message was delivered by the Black Rod as follows:)
Mr. Speaker, His Excellency the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable House in the chamber of the Senate.
(Accordingly, the Speaker with the House went up to the Senate chamber.)
(And being returned to the Commons chamber:)
I have the honour to report that, the House having attended on His Excellency the Governor General in the Senate chamber, I informed His Excellency that the choice of Speaker has fallen on me and, in your names and on your behalf, I made the usual claim for your privileges, which His Excellency was pleased to confirm to you.
I have the honour to inform the House that when this House did attend His Excellency this day in the Senate chamber, His Excellency was pleased to make a speech to Parliament. To prevent mistakes, I have obtained a copy, which is as follows:
Throne Speech Honourable Members of the House of Commons,
Distinguished Guests and Friends,
Citizens of Canada,
As a representative of His Majesty the King, it is my honour to open the second session of the 3rd Parliament of Canada by delivering this Speech from the Throne.
This parliament, MPs from across this great nation, gather to represent their constituents and to serve the best interests of Canadians. This session represents an opportunity to meet the challenges that Canada faces head-on and immediately, in delivering for people and actively engaging with members across the aisle to accomplish real change in the lives of Canadians.
Following the start of this session of parliament, this government is committed to real fundamental change after years of lacking consultation and accountability. This government recognizes the challenges that Canadians are facing across the country, as a result of the reactive leadership style of previous governments. Not enough is being done to grow our economy, to sustain our finances, to build more homes, to fix our broken healthcare system, and this phenomenon is not restricted to just those areas of policy. This government is optimistic about being able to address shortcomings in a wide variety of areas, which will be achieved through less red-tape and responsible spending while still delivering relief to the wallets of Canadians. Canadians deserve better, and this government will deliver.
RESTORING FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
The Government will commit to a balanced budget in 2024, bringing down debt and reducing inflation.
The previous Government created the National Waste Review Commission (NWRC) with a mandate to analyze the economic and social returns of public dollars in order to identify areas of inefficiency and waste and advise on areas for improvements, and this Government continue this progress by addressing economic inefficiencies and introducing the 4-Day Work Week in cooperation with provinces.
The previous Government introduced the Fiscal Framework Act, requiring balanced budgets, limiting borrowing to necessary contingencies, balancing debt to maximize GDP growth, limiting spending increases to inflation and population growth, and establishing the Canada Sustainable Futures Fund to pay down debt and sustainably lower taxes, all of which has led to innovations that will allow this Government to save in the good times, enabling us to spend when times are hard.
MAKING LIFE MORE AFFORDABLE
The previous Government lowered the general sales tax (GST) to 4% in order to save Canadians money when shopping for everyday necessities, and this Government will continue pursuing tax relief, reducing the carbon tax to $170 by 2040.
The Government will commit to not increasing rates on any of the five tax brackets or raising the GST for the next four years.
The Government will introduce a new $1,000 Tax Benefit payable per child to families in Canada to help strengthen homes and communities, building a strong society and economy from the ground up.
The Government will establish a Guaranteed Basic Income system to replace welfare payments.
The Government will establish Universal Public Pharmacare and Dentalcare to deliver the health services that all Canadians need and deserve.
SUPPORTING SMALL BUSINESSES
The Government will Forgive CEBA Loans so that small businesses won’t be at risk of bankruptcy in coming years, regardless of provincial tax hikes.
The Government will reduce small business tax rates to 7%, making small businesses more competitive with large corporations in setting prices and hiring employees.
The Government will establish a Made in Canada Tax Credit, which will provide a refundable credit to small businesses that choose to use homegrown suppliers, refunding 50% of delivery, processing or landing fees on product shipments.
HOLDING CORPORATIONS ACCOUNTABLE
The Government will crack down on tax loopholes and prevent corporations from avoiding taxes on their income.
The Government will work with the provinces and territories to end corporate subsidies.
INVESTING IN TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
The previous Government implemented the Infrastructure Investment Incentive Act, which will simplify regulations, taxes, and deductions to cover the costs and risks of new projects in Manufacturing, High-Speed Rail, Mining, and more at no cost to taxpayers with high future payouts, requirements for indigenous consultation and partnerships, and options for public-private projects. The act has lowered the Marginal Effective Tax Rate in Canada, attracting billions in new investment, and this Government will build on this action by establish passively-owned Crowns in critical mineral and industrial sectors to deliver growth and financial returns directly to Canadians.
The Government will re-establish the Public Transportation Tax Credit that was previously axed by the Liberals, encouraging greater use of public transportation across the country.
The Government will work with the provinces to expand existing public transportation systems and encourage their use.
The Government will invest billions in public roadways. Roadway and transportation infrastructure is lacking, and our government knows the toll this takes on everyday Canadians. By keeping transportation infrastructure properly maintained, Canadians will continue to be able to rely on public transportation for years to come.
RESTORING CANADA’S ROLE ON THE WORLD STAGE
The Government will stand up to authoritarian foreign regimes looking to undermine Canadian democracy.
The previous Government banned the import of goods from Xinjiang in response to China’s treatment of the Uyghur population, and this Government will continue to take similarly strong action to oppose genocide across the Globe.
The Government will launch an independent inquiry into election interference in Canadian elections and take steps to regulate disinformation perpetuated by foreign actors online.
The Government will continue supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia, sending supplies to the country in order to aid in its defense of Ukrainian civilians.
The Government will oppose South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel.
The Government will bring defense spending to NATO’s 2% budget target by 2028.
FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE
The Government will take the carbon tax off home heating, cut the carbon charge to planned 2018 levels and build it out to 2040 as recommended by industry in 2018 consultations. Revenues will be used to cut taxes and rebate low-income Canadians to provide efficient, real relief to families while attracting diversified investment in green technology.
The Government will increase funding for researching carbon capture and its viability in reducing fossil fuel emissions.
The Government will expand consumer incentives for electric vehicles, making them more affordable for the average Canadian.
The Government will offer financial incentives to organizations that install electric vehicle charging stations.
INVESTING IN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES
The Government will commit $5 billion over the next five years to fund key infrastructure projects, focusing on roads, utilities, water infrastructure, and telecommunications that would address the many ongoing issues that indigenous communities face each and every day.
The Government will commit to lifting all remaining boil-water advisories in
indigenous communities through investments in water infrastructure on reserves.
ACHIEVING DEMOCRATIC REFORM
The Government will pursue electoral reform and explore possible options for a replacement system, such as MMP and DMP.
FIXING IMMIGRATION
The Government will reform the immigration and international study permit system so that housing and infrastructure can keep up with the influx of newcomers in Canada.
The Government will reduce the number of international students hosted in Canada per year from 900,000 to 200,000.
The Government will reduce the number of total immigrants coming into Canada per year from 500,000 to 150,000, as well as increase the share of economic immigrants in this total number.
The Government will give the Quebec government greater control over immigration to Quebec and take into account the opinion of Quebec’s premier on whether or not proposed immigration targets for Quebec are sustainable.
The Government will Invest an additional $200 million in CBSA to crack down on illegal immigration, increasing staffing and training in order to effectively manage the problem.
TACKLING CRIME
The Government will focus on illegal gun smuggling rather than legal gun ownership in order to tackle a rise in gun crime across the country.
The Government will reverse course on legislation to expand prohibited firearms, instead focusing on reducing the amount of illegal firearms coming into Canada.
The Government will invest a total of $1 billion into increased resources for municipal and provincial police as well as the RCMP, along with hiring additional border patrol staff on land and in airports with training for the recognition of suspicious entry for the purposes of distributing firearms.
The Government will increase penalties for firearm-related offenses, including firearm usage in the commission of a crime and the smuggling of firearms.
The Government will increase funding to provincial and territorial Legal Aid programs in order to ensure that more Canadians have access to government-sponsored legal services.
COMMITTING TO BILINGUALISM
The Government will increase funding for French services outside of Quebec and work with the provinces to ensure greater access to French immersion schools to promote bilingualism across the country.
REFORMING TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND BROADCASTING
The Government will aim to create more competition in the wireless sector in order to lower telecommunication costs for consumers.
The Government will work to ensure that rural Canadians have greater access to high-speed internet by getting broadband built in rural areas throughout the next term.
The Government will speed up the spectrum auction process to get more spectrum into use and apply use it or lose it provisions to ensure that spectrum (particularly in rural areas) is actually developed, with the auction revenues dedicated to the government’s digital infrastructure plan.
FIXING HEALTHCARE
The Government will tie health transfer payments increases to inflation and population growth, as well as work with the provinces to ensure that healthcare funding is being used efficiently to reduce wait times for medical care.
The Government will extend coverage for mental health services across the country, taking inspiration from British Columbia's PharmaCare Plan G. This plan provides coverage for certain mental health drugs, ensuring that individuals suffering from various mental health conditions can access the medications they need without worrying about the cost.
The Government will focus on getting chronically drug addicted individuals into treatment rather than enabling their addiction through free supply.
The Government will Implement the Addiction Care Act, which will provide transfers to provinces that mandate involuntary treatment for chronically drug-addicted individuals, providing them with funding for the necessary rehab infrastructure to maintain the program.
MAKING HOUSING AFFORDABLE
The Government will sell off 6,000 federally owned buildings to create more space for affordable housing projects.
The Government will reduce short-term demand for housing through adjustments to current immigration targets.
The Government will work to lower interest rates through inflation-reduction measures, making it easier for Canadians to obtain a mortgage.
The Government will repeal the Complete Communities Act and instead reduce transfers to provinces that do not comply with the measures laid out in the act, saving $10 billion in funding.
SUPPORTING AGRICULTURE AND AQUACULTURE
The Government will implement a new plan to restore the population of the Atlantic cod, involving much stricter quotas.
The Government will introduce an Agri-Processing Crown Corporation to deliver competitive prices to consumers, farmers, and ranchers alike.
BUILDING AN INNOVATIVE ECONOMY
The Government will establish CanUranCo to partner with projects in the Uranium industry and deliver economic growth alongside revenues to reduce broad-based taxes.
The Government will use its Crowns to partner with high-growth critical industries to collect fair returns, encourage competition, and attract new investment and jobs.
Members of the House of Commons, you will be asked to appropriate the funds to carry out the services and expenditures authorized by Parliament.
Members of the Senate and Members of the House of Commons, may you be equal to the profound trust bestowed on you by Canadians, and may Divine Providence guide you in all your duties.

Cover
Previous Chapter: Chapters 54 & 55
Next Chapter: Chapters 58 & 59
Are you new? Book 1 Start Book 2 Start Book 3 Start Book 4 Start Book 5 Start Rose Cooper Side Story Start Book 6 Start
Some books are now exclusive to Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. There are book summaries to help get you caught up if you only want to read here.
*******************
Chapter 56
Belfast, North Ireland
Monday, March 6th, 2051
The next few days proved to be less onerous, since we could get up to move for a change. Monday was a particularly nice assignment, as we took a walking patrol of the city proper. We weren’t actually on the lookout for anything in particular; the Corps and the League simply liked to let the civilians see their tax dollars at work.
We weren’t working terribly hard, to tell the truth. We were dropped in one of the more touristy sections of Belfast.
After an hour into it, Fera made a point of tucking her elbow in mine. “Kiyo, Gabby, would you terribly mind splitting up? I need to have a chat with Kasasagi.”
“Do you, now?” I asked. “I don’t think we have permission for that.”
Fera rolled her eyes. “Listen to him. He used to be so dangerous! Now he sounds like a worry wart.”
“I don’t need to be around for whatever you two want to do alone,” said Gabriella. “You two have been bickering all week, and I’m tired of things being awkward. Go figure it out.”
Fera’s response was to give a shallow bow and let out a little giggle. “As long as you understand.”
Kiyo frowned. “Be careful.”
“No worries,” I said. “Go, enjoy some sun while it lasts.”
Kiyo shook her head. “You know why I’m worried.”
“Oh, please,” said Gabriella. “This is a milk run. What are they possibly going to run into?”
It seemed that Ms. Hernandez was overly fond of tempting fate. Then again, how could she know?
We came across a quaint old cobblestone road in a section of Belfast that looked suspiciously new. The buildings looked like they were trying for an old-world ambiance, and they very nearly faked it. The narrow road was lined with stalls selling food and wares from disparate lands. The shopkeepers seemed to be just as diverse, and I wondered how many had wandered from their refugee tenements to earn a few coins.
I found myself stopping and overpaying for a meat skewer I had no use for, as I remembered who had put them there.
“Oh, sir, that’s too much!” said the rotund woman running the stall.
“I’m afraid I don’t have change,” I said, shooting her a wink.
“Thank you, Magpie Wizard!” she called after me, which made me feel worse.
“Nothing for me?” asked Fera.
“You’ve got to watch the figure on your rental,” I snarled, resentment building in my heart. I found Mariko’s touch was good for settling my moments of guilt, and I couldn’t even enjoy that anymore.
Despite those recriminations, the street was a decent spot to have it out, since the dull roar of the crowd would disguise our words. People glanced our way, but they seemed eager to give wizards a wide berth.
Once we were a good distance down the street, I disengaged from Fera’s arm. “Alright, what do you want?”
“You’re so cold, Kasasagi!” she said, her Mariko-esque pout only irritating me more.
“I can’t imagine why. Out with it.”
“Do you remember that night before you were arrested? We walked through a street market just like this one.”
“Not too well,” I admitted.
She snickered to herself. “I’m not surprised! You were pounding them away.”
“It’s called celebrating,” I said. “I’d just come back from England and a few hundred close calls! I was rather eager to put that out of mind. Something you wouldn’t understand.”
She rolled her eyes. “You frontline soldiers never respect what we spies have to put up with. Do you know how hard it was to keep months of invasion plans under wraps? One of Daddy’s rivals in the court nearly got word to the humans that we were coming for them!”
“Oh, is that where you two got the idea to sabotage that invasion of Sumatra?”
“Turnabout is fair play,” she said. “Still, you seem calmer these days.”
“Which is amazing, considering what you’ve put me through,” I snapped.
She smirked my way. “Then it’s good you have me to liven things up. Do you remember when you stole that broach from that street vendor?”
“Faintly,” I said. A few extra denarii had gotten us out of trouble. “I hope you ended up appreciating that gift. It was rather pricey.”
“Never wore it once,” she said, enjoying my irritation. “Still, what was going through your head?”
“Besides too much brandy? I can’t rightly say. It just seemed so important in that moment…”
“That’s what I mean,” she said. “I haven’t seen you steal anything the whole time I’ve been here! You used to be a right little kleptomaniac.”
“You haven’t seen my drawer,” I said, feeling defensive. “I still nick things here or there.”
She scoffed at that. “I talk to people besides you, you know. That Rafal boy says you keep bits of paper and lint around for some reason, maybe a few cheap pens, but nothing anybody would miss.”
I felt my cheeks burn, as if she’d outed some shameful secret. “What of it?”
“Kasasagi,” she said, resuming our walk, “the reason we’re in this mess is that you couldn’t keep your sticky fingers away from Daddy’s prized emblem! Hell, the whole time you stayed with us, how many lashings did you get for walking off with some dignitary’s property?”
The scars on my back ached a moment. “More than I care to count. Is there a point you’re building to?”
She stopped suddenly. “What the Hell happened to you?”
I shrugged. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do. My normal antics kept getting me in trouble, so I adapted.”
She shook her head. “It’s more than that. Are you actually… happy here? With them?”
“There are perks,” I said, enjoying how my evasive maneuvers bothered her.
Fera glared daggers up at me. This was less effective than she intended with her borrowed face. “The damnable thing is, if you’d just been able to behave before, none of this would have happened!”
“Most likely not,” I said. “But I really haven’t changed that much, deep down.”
“Who cares about deep down?” she demanded. “If you go home showing that much weakness, they’ll smell it on you! Hell, I just watched you give charity to that old woman.” She said the c-word like it was distasteful.
“Nonsense,” I said. “I simply didn’t have any small change.”
She tapped her temple. “I know whose fault this is. This one is actually proud of you. Thinks it’s gallant or some such horse shit. She’s a bad influence.”
My dismissive good humor evaporated in an instant. “You know what will happen if you harm a hair on her head.”
“Yes, yes, you’ve been quite clear about what you’ll try,” she said. “Speaking of which… you must think you’re cute.”
I flashed her a winning grin. “I don’t think I’m too bad looking.”
She waved me off. “Not that, you vain jerk. I mean you reaching out to the Divine Blade, that blonde Icelandic bimbo, and your old teacher.”
My heart stopped in an instant. “What?”
“Did I miss anybody?” she asked, her voice surprisingly sweet. “All of your actions on that PC are recorded by the League, and it was easy enough to get one of my agents to check out your online history.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, realizing what the coded messages Kiyo had reported had been about. “I’ve simply been helping Mr. Lahlou out with a spellcrafting project.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” she said, giving me a half-lidded smirk. “What’s keeping Mariko alive right now is that you haven’t been in touch with them since.”
True enough; I didn’t have another computer pass until that night. I’d hoped that a day’s notice would be enough. It seemed there would be no notice at all.
“I can see the gears turning in your mind,” she said. “That’s the thing with you, isn’t it? You don’t know when to give up.”
“It’s served me well so far,” I said.
“It won’t this time,” she said. “For Our Father’s sake, Soren! You’d think I was doing something awful to you. I’m simply setting you free to be who you were meant to be.”
“Under your thumb,” I said. “That’s no life.”
She stopped, her face turning red. “Y-you might be surprised. As absolutely infuriating as you are, this defiant streak is… interesting.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Interesting how?”
“Well, it might turn it from a political marriage to something more…” Her face burned harder and she covered her face. “Curse this body! I’m not some blushing virgin, damnit! Hell, neither is she at this point! Why can’t I get it out?”
I bent down to her level. “I know that my animal magnetism is simply overwhelming, but let me make something clear to you. You’ve spoiled whatever shreds of nostalgia I held for you. Even if I end up back in Pandemonium, I won’t be yours in any way that matters.”
Mariko’s brown eyes widened, before a smug grin split Fera’s face. “I like a challenge.”
“Oh, by the Enemy’s bones!” I snapped. “You, Gabriella, Kiyo, you all want me as soon as you can’t have me! I swear, you’re all like spoiled children who don’t want to see somebody else play with a toy.”
She shook her head wistfully. “You just said it yourself: there is something about you. Whatever the humans have been doing to you, you’ve put on some muscle, and you carry yourself with your head high. Who wouldn’t be at least a little interested?”
“Well, maybe I’m tired of it,” I said. “You said it yourself, I’m happy here, and Mariko is a large part of that happiness.”
“Aha! You admit it!” she said, crowing loud enough that we drew some eyes. We kept on our way, and she continued once we’d blended back in with the crowd. “That’s what I wanted to hear, Mr. Stiff-Upper-Lip. You’ve gone mad! You’re satisfied with this nothing human life.”
“It’s hardly nothing,” I said. “Why, I’m a bit of a celebrity hereabouts. I’m no captain anymore, but I have my whole career ahead of me.”
“Even knowing that the cause is doomed?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. Wars don’t always go the way you’d think. Either way, it beats the alternative.”
Her joy vanished, turning into a deep frown. “I thought you were only playing hard to get. You really don’t miss being back home? You were a gentledevil, the top the totem pole! Goblins and orcs at your beck and call, slaves at the ready to die for your pleasure in the gladiator games, and all the brandy you can drink. How can you be satisfied with this drudgery?”
I shrugged. “You’ve been human off and on for months. Surely you’ve noticed the difference. The long knives aren’t always out for you. You can have actual friends, rather than allies of convenience. And l-love—” Our Father Below’s guts, that word could still trip me up. “Love without artifice. Why would I want to go back to the old days? For you? I’ve had better now.”
She considered me in silence for a long moment. I’ve never seen such disappointment in a woman’s eyes before. “Just be ready to do your duty on Wednesday; I’ve already made the arrangements for our escape.”
I turned away without another word, not wanting her to see the worry on my face. I’d put on a brave front, but without those reinforcements, the King—and Soren Marlowe, for that matter—might just be good as dead.
Chapter 57
Belfast, North Ireland
Wednesday, March 8th, 2051
The Harland and Wolff shipyards had been in business, in one form or another, since the nineteenth century. Through ups and downs, two world wars, the collapse of the British Empire, and a flirtation or two with bankruptcy, the yards in Belfast had emerged as a key element of the Anti-Demonic League’s defense infrastructure. With the fall of England and Scotland, there weren’t many other places in the Atlantic for the surviving European and American warships to go in for scheduled repairs.
Or, so Fera explained to us on our way down. I was grateful for the distraction; it was rather noisy in the back of the open truck where we rode in King George’s motorcade. The vehicle was a modified civilian pickup truck with some extra armor plating and reinforcement for the driver, though it didn’t do much for us.
It was a sensible enough arrangement, as bothersome as the noise and cold were. Most spells couldn’t be cast through a solid object, so such transports were common enough for magic users. The theory was that we wizards could whip up our own magical armor in a pinch, and the Horde didn’t usually catch them off guard.
Usually.
“Didn’t take you to be interested in naval history,” said Gabriella, taking my mind off the transports I’d seen destroyed in England.
“I like to know where I’m going,” said Fera. “They’ve really expanded this place in the last few decades.”
“You almost sound impressed, my dear,” I said.
“If you won’t be interested in this mission, then I have to be,” she replied.
“God, can you two stop whatever stupid argument you’re having?” said Gabriella. “I miss back when you two were sickeningly cute all the time.”
“Tell that to him,” said Fera.
Kiyo stayed quiet through it all. Her face was an impassive mask, but I knew her tells when she was agitated. She gripped Bernadette a bit tighter than normal, and the way she kept playing with her side ponytail was plain as day to me after sharing her bed for months. Hopefully, Fera wouldn’t know to look for those tics; I needed to catch her off guard for this scheme to work.
She and Hiro, though the poor man really had no idea what he was leading his squad into. They were in the back of a neighboring truck, looking like nothing was the matter at all.
“We can hash that out later,” I said, noting that the vehicle was coming to a stop.
Even through a fog as thick as an orc’s skull, the mountainous ships and cranes had been faintly visible from a kilometer off. We’d lost sight of them as we closed in, but now we could make out the shapes again. They really hammered in just what human industrial know-how could produce. It made demonic wooden vessels look like children’s toys.
And to think the humans were still losing. Like I’d told Fera, war doesn’t always go the way you would think.
The roar of the motorcade’s engines echoed through the oddly still shipyards as we came to a stop in an equally vacant parking lot. That raised some alarms; it was smack dead in the middle of the work week. Where was everybody?
I got my answer soon enough as one of the mundane Yeomen helped the ladies down from the truck. Funny how nobody offered me a hand down.
“Just as well the King asked ‘em to clear out the yards,” he said. “What a bust of a press op. We can hardly see 3 meters in front of us!”
“Oh, he did?” I asked. It made sense, since he knew this was a sting operation.
He shrugged. “Word was some crank called in a threat. Nothin’ to worry about, in my opinion. Who’s going to try and get through us and two squads of wizards on top of that?”
Oh, Fera was glaring daggers at me when she overhead that. I pretended to be surprised.
“You’d be shocked,” I said. “There are some real nutters out there. I see why we were asked along.”
“I don’t like it,” said Gabby, scanning the shapes of ships and cranes. “If there is somebody here, there’s lots of places a sniper could hide in this fog.”
“Good luck hitting anything,” said Kiyo. “Maybe if you had a good infrared scope, or a magical assist.”
“Speaking of,” I said, “let’s make sure we’re alone. Excuse me a moment.”
I fully surrendered myself to Mimic Sight, and the whole world went dark. There weren’t any signs of magical users past the parking lot, which was encouraging. It meant Fera hadn’t been able to call in any demonkin wizards.
Mariko’s magical signature was showing signs of fraying in the same way as the major and Wendy, though it wasn’t as advanced as them. Encouragingly, Kiyo’s own outline had returned to normal after a week free of Fera’s influence.
“Well, we don’t have to worry about rogue wizards, at least.” I wondered if I’d have been able to make out Dante’s faint magic at that distance.
“A ‘mundane’ with a gun can do plenty of damage,” said the Yeoman, the word mundane dripping with sarcasm.
“Very true,” said Yukiko as she and her squad joined up with us. “We didn’t hear about the threat.”
“It was news to us, too,” said Fera. Her body language had shifted, and I could make out a bit more of the scent of sulfur as Fera acted like her normal self.
Hiro and I met each other’s gaze; he seemed more on guard than Yukiko and the rest of their squad, and I hoped that Fera wouldn’t pick up on that.
Really, I didn’t know what Fera expected to accomplish. Even if I went along with the plan and splattered the King with a Magic Bolt, there was no way we’d be able to escape unscathed with six other wizards and a group of mundane soldiers gunning for us. The lack of magical pawns on the board tilted things even further in our favor. She was no dummy, though; if she said she’d prepared for our escape, I didn’t doubt her.
King George exited his armored limo, moving with more ease than any time since my knighting ceremony. It seemed he’d taken whatever drugs could give him a semblance of strength. Unlike Hiro and Kiyo, you’d never think he was willingly walking into an ambush. He even smiled and posed for a few pictures from the small band of reporters who had accompanied him for the christening. Their cameras clicked away as they snapped whatever photos they could manage, but the fog likely spoiled the bulk of them.
A few men strode up to us from one of the few parked cars that had been waiting for us. A pair of Yeomen quickly intercepted them, letting them pass once they’d identified themselves.
“Your Majesty,” said a red-haired man in a black and gold naval captain’s uniform. “I’m honored that you’ve graced us with your presence today.”
King George nodded. “It’s always a pleasure to be with the working men.”
The captain’s smile slipped only slightly. “A shame they couldn’t be here, then.”
“It’s for their own good,” he replied. “I know you heard about that threat.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said the captain. “Still seems odd to christen the ship without the crew present.”
“I want as few young men and women to risk themselves for my old carcass as possible,” he said, his tone signaling that he was done with the conversation. “Your crew will have plenty of chances to be in danger.”
“Of course,” said the captain, losing the argument. He nodded to one of his companions, a shorter man in a three-piece suit. “I’m sure you know Reggie Jackson of Harland and Wolff?”
“They’ll be at this a while,” the Yeoman said, keeping his voice down. “Someone ought to go ahead and scout out the area. Who knows what this pea soup is hiding?”
“We’ll take care of that,” I said, hooking my arm in Fera’s. “Come, my dear, keep me company.”
“Just the two of you?” asked Hiro.
“I have Mimic Sight, and Mariko’s perfectly competent to keep me from falling into the bay,” I said, forcing a jovial tone to my voice. “If I read our instructions correctly, the king ought to be… blessing that one?”
“My, Kasasagi, you really didn’t pay much attention,” said Fera. Her attempt to step on my foot was spoiled by my combat boot. “‘That one’? You mean the H.M.S. Bermuda, and it’s that way.”
I made a show of rapping on my skull. “Of course, how could I forget? What would I do without you?”
“Wither away and die, probably,” said Fera, her voice suddenly soft and playful.
“Go back to fighting,” said Gabriella, turning back to the overly long greetings between the King and the other officials.
The fog worked out in my favor. I’d used the word recon on purpose, and Kiyo had recognized the signal. She might have evaded Fera’s sight even without her invisibility. For once, I was glad to have her tailing us.
“We don’t have long,” said Fera, breaking free of me. “Double time!”
We jogged the rest of the way down the concrete roadways between the berthed ships, rounding a corner where a temporary platform stretched along the side of one of the Bermuda. The fog was slowly starting to clear as we neared the sea, giving me a clearer look at the veseel*.* It wasn’t the largest ship in the dock, which was still a bit like being the shortest orc.
Despite Fera’s insults, I had done some research. Given the imbalance between the human and Grim Horde navies, most newer combat ships weren’t massive battleships or aircraft carriers. It would have rated as a smaller destroyer during World War II, and most of its weapons were designed to shred the rowboats and sailing vessels the Horde would employ in an attempted landing. There were a pair of larger guns in a turret to help batter down any magical defenses that a devil could raise, but that wasn’t its primary job.
None of the official stories I’d looked up said anything about the counter-jamming fabricata the king had mentioned. As we strode past it, I noticed a few stanzas of runes running along the armor plates, though I couldn’t make out the larger spell. The lettering didn’t need to be especially large to channel whatever magic was fed into it.
“Are you ready to do your part of the job?” asked Fera. “The King shouldn’t be too far behind us.”
“I’m not entirely sure you’ve done your part,” I said. “I don’t see any signs of your so-called escape.”
“I saw you looking for them before,” she said. “Unlike Daddy, I don’t like wasting demonkin wizards if I can avoid it.” She crossed her arms under her chest and shot me a sly grin. “You held out on us! Who’d have thought that you’d turn into a magical radar?”
Aha, the real reason there weren’t any wizards about! It made sense she’d figure me out; she had been riding two of the wizards who had helped me develop my talents, after all.
“The human approach can uncover some interesting quirks to magic,” I said, steeling myself. This would be a terrible gamble, but it was the only alternative I had to throwing away my humanity. “Speaking of which, I’d like to give my dear Mariko a bit of a going away present.”
Fera tilted her head. “Hm? What kind of a present?”
“Something that Moulham Lahlou was working on before we parted ways,” I said. “You saw that Alheln didn’t do Mariko’s nerves any good. He seemed to think it was because the spell was based on demonic runes, rather than on the human type. So, I’ve been busy cramming his reworking of it into my head this week. I’d like to give it a shot.”
Fera’s cheeks flushed slightly as she gripped Mariko’s ruined hand. “Ara, that certainly got Mariko’s attention! Are you sure you want to set her up for another letdown?”
“Better than torturing her with what could have been,” I said.
“Ooh, that’s a reason to say no,” she said. “The despair would be delicious.”
“If it could fix her, it would make your final moments occupying her body more pleasant. Why, your hand is twitching away as we speak!”
Fera gave me a thoughtful look. “You’re going to insist, aren’t you?”
“When will I get another chance?”
Fera let out a theatrical sigh as she spread her arms wide. “Oh, very well. Knock yourself out.”
I twisted my fingers into the familiar casting position. The visualization that let me change it from Raw Spell to True Spell was a tad different, though, since I’d added a little something extra. The magical stanza that ordered the body to sort itself into its natural shape had an extra addition: the body and soul were to return to their proper condition. It was why I hadn’t already ambushed her with the magic; refactoring and spell memorization were complex processes, and I’d had a week’s worth of long nights learning this one.
“All Heal,” I intoned, the runes swirling around my hand exploding into a brief glow that surrounded Mariko’s body.
Fera’s eyes went wide, and she let out a pained squeak as she staggered back. “What… what was that?”
“All Heal, of course,” I said.
“N-no, I’ve felt that a hundred times, that isn’t how…” Her hand shot up to cover her mouth, as though to prevent vomiting. Mariko’s dark brown eyes were wild.
My guts churned; had I managed to do some real damage to Mariko? Had Mr. Lahlou been right about the refactored spell needing those safeguards? “Fera?”
“Wrong, all wrong,” she said. “N-need to…”
Mariko’s body shone brilliantly for a moment, and I was grateful that the ship and fog were there to obscure the light show from those in the distance.
Just a moment, though. Fera’s breathing became less labored, and after that moment, the glow ceased. She straightened up, wiping a trail of drool from her delicate mouth.
Instinct took over and I closed in to check on her. “Mariko?”
“Bahadour.” It was surreal hearing the harsh demonic come out in Mariko’s normally gentle voice. There was no time to dodge or cast a counterspell. Ragged red lightning lashed out at my chest, burning through my fabricata capelet and the enchanted uniform underneath in an instant. They saved my life, though I still doubled over as the demonic magic scorched the top layer of my flesh.
“I don’t know what you did,” snarled Fera, lunging forward, “but it just about drove me out of Mariko.”
“An unintended side—” Thankfully, Mariko didn’t have much oomph behind her punch. It was still more than I could handle when I was dealing with my deeper wound, and I fell to one knee.
“As if I’d believe that,” she said. “Otherwise, why did you say her name?”
“Because a devil can dream.”
“You stubborn idiot,” she said, her expression softening ever so slightly. “You nearly made me kill you! That would spoil everything I was trying to achieve!”
“Sorry to disappoint. All Heal!” I lunged forward catching her before she could react. I’d considered turning the magic on myself, but I saw an opportunity to set up Plan B.
Fera convulsed again as the cleansing magic coursed through her stolen body.
“Y-you traitorous son of a bitch,” slurred Fera in Demonic.
“Kiyo, now! While she’s off balance!”
Thank the Dark Lord Kiyo had managed to stay quiet this time when I’d been blasted. Ms. Jones didn’t need another hint, and her footfalls echoed in the empty space. Fera’s eyes went wild as she tried to track the source of the attack, and she fired an errant Fireball that dashed itself harmlessly against the Bermuda’s hull. The fabricata lit up briefly as the magical energy dissipated.
I blinked and missed when Kiyo clamped the magical shackle on Fera’s left wrist.
“No!” shouted Fera. “*Bahad-*arrgh!” Arcs of magical energy shot up her arm, turning her own power against her.
“Gotcha!” Kiyo reappeared well out of arm’s reach with Bernadette leveled right at Fera. “Hands behind your head.”
“Alheln!” I turned the demonic variant on myself, since I didn’t care to find out that the reworked spell would vex me the same way as Fera. The pain in my chest vanished in an instant and I hopped to my feet, fingers at the ready.
Fera’s wild eyes glanced between the two of us as the gravity of her situation sank in.
“I said,” growled Kiyo, “hands behind your head.”
“Best do what she says,” I said.
I’d expected Fera to reply somehow, to object, maybe even to laugh that she was about to end Mariko. It was useful to get a wizard talking, since it would keep them from casting spells.
Fera let me down, grunting as electric sparks shot up her shackled arm.
“Nice try,” I said. “Your magic is only powering your torture. You’re stuck in Mariko’s body until it’s removed.” I prayed that she wouldn’t call my bluff.
As often seemed to be the case, my prayers went unanswered. If anything, the sparks redoubled as she struggled fruitlessly with the shackle.
“You won’t shoot,” she snarled at Kiyo. “I’ve been in your head. You don’t hate Mariko enough to do that.”
“Yeah, but I hate you enough to forget she’s in there with you!”
Fera didn’t reply, and the energy coursing from the shackle changed from the red arcs of energy to black flecks that floated away in the sea breeze.
I rushed in, cursing all the while. Mariko had managed to turn her affinity against the same shackles in the Tower, but the agony had stopped her before she could free herself. Fera seemed to have a higher pain tolerance.
I grabbed her by the right wrist, trying to force her hand off the shackle. “Stop it! Know when you’re beat!”
Fera had done enough, though, and the fabricata clattered to the concrete beneath us. There was a bright flash of light and Mariko’s eyes rolled into the back of her head. She collapsed into my arms and didn’t move again.
“Mariko!” No, not her! This was the nightmare I’d tried to avoid for weeks. A quick check of her pulse showed that she was still alive, at least, thank Our Father Below. I set her down as gently as I could, knowing I would need my hands free.
However, my distraction would cost us; I wasn’t there to intercept Fera’s soul this time.
“Magpie! No, not—” Kiyo spasmed, nearly dropping Bernadette as a familiar smirk crossed her face.
Combat is very much a game of reflexes and instincts, and mine let me down. Despite the grave danger, I couldn’t bring myself to launch a lethal spell at Kiyo. Instead, I rushed in, ready to try and drop her with Electrify, a relatively harmless spell I’d used to great effect in the past.
That was how I found myself facing down the business end of Bernadette well out of reach of Kiyo.
“Hands behind your head,” she said in perfect, aristocratic Demonic. “She’s got an armor piercing fabricata round loaded. Don’t make me deliver a corpse to your father.”
***************
As always, thank you for reading.
If you'd like to see what happens next before anybody else, consider subscribing to me on Patreon.
Also, you can get chapters emailed straight to you by subscribing to my free SubStack. https://dbfassbinder.substack.com/ (this is also a good way to be notified when I'm stricken by the plague)

Order!
(A message was delivered by the Black Rod as follows:)

Mr. Speaker, His Excellency the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable House in the chamber of the Senate.

(Accordingly, the Speaker with the House went up to the Senate chamber.)
(And being returned to the Commons chamber:)
I have the honour to report that, the House having attended on His Excellency the Governor General in the Senate chamber, I informed His Excellency that the choice of Speaker has fallen on me and, in your names and on your behalf, I made the usual claim for your privileges, which His Excellency was pleased to confirm to you.
I have the honour to inform the House that when this House did attend His Excellency this day in the Senate chamber, His Excellency was pleased to make a speech to both Houses of Parliament. To prevent mistakes, I have obtained a copy, which is as follows:
Throne Speech Honourable Members of the House of Commons,
Distinguished Guests and Friends,
Citizens of Canada,
As a representative of His Majesty the King, it is my honour to open the first session of the 3rd Parliament of Canada by delivering this Speech from the Throne.
This parliament, MPs from across the country gather to represent the interests of their constituents and to address the concerns being echoed by Canadians. This session is an opportunity to reflect on the challenges that Canada faces in delivering for its people and to actively engage with members across the aisle to accomplish real change in the lives of Canadians for the greater good.
Following the start of this session of parliament, this government is committed to real change after years of the same policies being tried and failing over and over again. This government recognizes the economic challenges that Canadians are facing across the country as a result of a lack of decisive action from previous governments. Not enough is being done to reduce spending in a responsible manner, address a lack of supply in the housing market, address the shortcomings in our healthcare system, and this phenomenon is not restricted to just those areas of policy. This government is optimistic about being able to address shortcomings in a wide variety of areas, which will be achieved through less red-tape and responsible spending while still delivering relief to the wallets of Canadians. Canadians voted for change, and this government will deliver.
RESTORING FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
The Government will commit to a balanced budget by 2025, bringing down debt and reducing inflation.
The Government will create the National Waste Review Commission (NWRC) with a mandate to analyze the economic and social returns of public dollars in order to identify areas of inefficiency and waste and advise on areas for improvements.
The Government will Introduce the Fiscal Framework Act, requiring balanced budgets, limiting borrowing to necessary contingencies, balancing debt to maximize GDP growth, limiting spending increases to inflation and population growth, and establishing the Canada Sustainable Futures Fund to pay down debt and sustainably lower taxes.
MAKING LIFE MORE AFFORDABLE
The Government will lower the general sales tax (GST) to 4% in order to save Canadians money when shopping for everyday necessities.
The Government will take the carbon tax off home heating to make energy bills less expensive for homeowners.
The Government will commit to not increasing rates on any of the five tax brackets or raising the GST for the next four years.
The Government will introduce a new $1,000 Tax Benefit payable per child to families in Canada to help strengthen homes and communities, building a strong society and economy from the ground up.
The Government will establish a Guaranteed Basic Income system to replace welfare payments.
SUPPORTING SMALL BUSINESSES
The Government will Forgive CEBA Loans so that small businesses won’t be at risk of bankruptcy in coming years, regardless of provincial tax hikes.
The Government will reduce small business tax rates to 7%, making small businesses more competitive with large corporations in setting prices and hiring employees.
The Government will establish a Made in Canada Tax Credit, which will provide a refundable credit to small businesses that choose to use homegrown suppliers, refunding 50% of delivery, processing or landing fees on product shipments.
HOLDING CORPORATIONS ACCOUNTABLE
The Government will crack down on tax loopholes and prevent corporations from avoiding taxes on their income.
The Government will work with the provinces and territories to end corporate subsidies.
INVESTING IN TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
The Government will Implement the Infrastructure Investment Incentive Act, which will simplify regulations, taxes, and deductions to cover the costs and risks of new projects in Manufacturing, High-Speed Rail, Mining, and more at no cost to taxpayers with high future payouts, requirements for indigenous consultation and partnerships, and options for public-private projects. The act will lower the Marginal Effective Tax Rate in Canada, attracting billions in new investment.
The Government will re-establish the Public Transportation Tax Credit that was previously axed by the Liberals, encouraging greater use of public transportation across the country.
The Government will work with the provinces to expand existing public transportation systems and encourage their use.
The Government will Invest billions in public roadways. Roadway and transportation
infrastructure is lacking, and our government knows the toll this takes on everyday Canadians. By keeping transportation infrastructure properly maintained, Canadians will continue to be able to rely on public transportation for years to come.
RESTORING CANADA’S ROLE ON THE WORLD STAGE
The Government will stand up to authoritarian foreign regimes looking to undermine Canadian democracy.
The Government will ban the import of goods from Xinjiang in response to China’s treatment of the Uyghur population.
The Government will launch an independent inquiry into election interference in Canadian elections and take steps to regulate disinformation perpetuated by foreign actors online.
The Government will continue supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia, sending supplies to the country in order to aid in its defense of Ukrainian civilians.
The Government will oppose South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel.
The Government will reduce international foreign aid by $2 billion, instead prioritizing Canadians who are suffering from economic downturn and unaffordability.
The Government will make efforts to bring defense spending closer to NATO’s 2% budget target.
FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE
The Government will take the carbon tax off home heating, cut the carbon charge in half and build it out to 2040 as recommended by industry in 2018 consultations, allowing provinces to develop their own systems to cover the other half of emissions required under the GGPPA. Revenues will be used to cut taxes to provide efficient, real relief to families while attracting diversified investment in green technology.
The Government will increase funding for researching carbon capture and its viability in reducing fossil fuel emissions.
The Government will expand subsidies for electric vehicles, making them more affordable for the average Canadian.
The Government will offer funding incentives to organizations that install electric vehicle charging stations.
INVESTING IN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES
The Government will commit $5 billion over the next five years to fund key infrastructure projects, focusing on roads, utilities, water infrastructure, and telecommunications that would address the many ongoing issues that indigenous communities face each and every day.
The Government will commit to lifting all remaining boil-water advisories in
indigenous communities through investments in water infrastructure on reserves.
ACHIEVING DEMOCRATIC REFORM
The Government will commit to passing the Direct Democracy Act, aimed at allowing Canadians greater freedom with regard to the holding of a referendum.
The Government will pursue electoral reform and explore possible options for a replacement system, such as MMP and DMP.
FIXING IMMIGRATION
The Government will reform the immigration and international study permit system so that housing and infrastructure can keep up with the influx of newcomers in Canada.
The Government will reduce the number of international students hosted in Canada per year from 900,000 to 200,000.
The Government will reduce the number of total immigrants coming into Canada per year from 500,000 to 150,000, as well as increase the share of economic immigrants in this total number.
The Government will give the Quebec government greater control over immigration to Quebec and take into account the opinion of Quebec’s premier on whether or not proposed immigration targets for Quebec are sustainable.
The Government will Invest an additional $200 million in CBSA to crack down on illegal immigration, increasing staffing and training in order to effectively manage the problem.
TACKLING CRIME
The Government will focus on illegal gun smuggling rather than legal gun ownership in order to tackle a rise in gun crime across the country.
The Government will reverse course on liberal legislation to expand prohibited firearms, instead focusing on reducing the amount of illegal firearms coming into Canada.
The Government will invest a total of $1 billion into increased resources for municipal and provincial police as well as the RCMP, along with hiring additional border patrol staff on land and in airports with training for the recognition of suspicious entry for the purposes of distributing firearms.
The Government will increase penalties for firearm-related offenses, including firearm
usage in the commission of a crime and the smuggling of firearms.
The Government will pass legislation denying repeat violent offenders bail, including
those who commit crimes involving weapons and abuse towards their intimate partners.
The Government will increase funding to provincial and territorial Legal Aid programs in order to ensure that more Canadians have access to government-sponsored legal services.
COMMITTING TO BILINGUALISM
The Government will increase funding for French services outside of Quebec and work with the provinces to ensure greater access to French immersion schools to promote bilingualism across the country.
REFORMING TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND BROADCASTING
The Government will repeal the Online Streaming Act.
The Government will aim to create more competition in the wireless sector in order to lower telecommunication costs for consumers.
The Government will work to ensure that rural Canadians have greater access to high-speed internet by getting broadband built in rural areas throughout the next term.
The Government will speed up the spectrum auction process to get more spectrum into use and apply use it or lose it provisions to ensure that spectrum (particularly in rural areas) is actually developed, with the auction revenues dedicated to the government’s digital infrastructure plan.
FIXING HEALTHCARE
The Government will tie health transfer payments increases to inflation and population growth, as well as work with the provinces to ensure that healthcare funding is being used efficiently to reduce wait times for medical care.
The Government will extend coverage for mental health services across the country, taking inspiration from British Columbia's PharmaCare Plan G. This plan provides coverage for certain mental health drugs, ensuring that individuals suffering from various mental health conditions can access the medications they need without worrying about the cost.
The Government will focus on getting chronically drug addicted individuals into treatment rather than enabling their addiction through free supply.
The Government will Implement the Addiction Care Act, which will provide transfers to provinces that mandate involuntary treatment for chronically drug-addicted individuals, providing them with funding for the necessary rehab infrastructure to maintain the program.
MAKING HOUSING AFFORDABLE
The Government will sell off 6,000 federally owned buildings to create more space for affordable housing projects.
The Government will reduce short-term demand for housing through adjustments to current immigration targets.
The Government will work to lower interest rates through inflation-reduction measures, making it easier for Canadians to obtain a mortgage.
The Government will repeal the Complete Communities Act and instead reduce transfers to provinces that do not comply with the measures laid out in the act, saving $10 billion in funding.
SUPPORTING AGRICULTURE AND AQUACULTURE
The Government will implement a new plan to restore the population of the Atlantic cod, involving much stricter quotas.
The Government will work to modernize the Canada Grain Act (CGA) and Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) so that it aligns with global market requirements, modern agricultural practices, and the needs of our farmers.
Members of the House of Commons, you will be asked to appropriate the funds to carry out the services and expenditures authorized by Parliament.
Members of the Senate and Members of the House of Commons, may you be equal to the profound trust bestowed on you by Canadians, and may Divine Providence guide you in all your duties.

Where to start? I am (23M) I just need some advice because I am at a loss of what to do. I know all of this is my fault. Everywhere I turn I find no help, no relief, and no guidance. This is almost how my own life has been. I know I am not the only one and there are others who have been through worse and continue to go through worse. My heart goes out to them truly. It started around the pandemic. I had a 3.9 GPA at University of South Florida. I had a full ride scholarship. I was working little part time jobs. Then the pandemic happened. I was forced to only stay home by my grandparents and I could not go anywhere. All I did was go to work, to school, and smoke pot secretly to cope. My grades were still fine and I still cared about school but my heart was not in it. I was a Civil Engineering major. Fast forward about 9 months from the onset of the pandemic, I was sick of wasting away in the house. I felt alone and awful. I then moved out in January 2021, got my own apartment and car. At the time I had 11k in savings. That is when everything went wrong. The car I had was horrible and cost me 7k dollars in repairs. I started to slip in my studies and was mostly going out every weekend partying and paying for my friends. I also got into 3 car accidents with that car. One of which is because the brakes essentially failed and the other I fell asleep from working too many hours about 20 in total that day. My car insurance went up. I also lost my job due to layoffs in the summer of 2021. I worked at Sam’s club at the time. I then was living out of my car for 2 months. I met the love of my life during the summer online and in person when I was living out of my car. I also went into crippling credit card debt which I will explain. She has supported me, helped me and been there for me as I have been there for her. She is going through it as well, having made some hard choices to come to Tampa (she is from another country) and has had a hard time to adjusting to life here. After those 2 months, I stayed with my Aunt and for a time things were ok. School was still getting paid for but I was no longer in Civil Engineering. I failed because living out of my car, doordashing in order to survive and barely having enough food to eat was terrible for my body. I was hurting everyday and angry. I was remajored into physical sciences. In 2022, I was free of car accidents and I was starting to get things back on track. I had a job that paid $18 an hour with 12 hour graveyard shifts while I went to school and I eventually got my credit card down to 2k from 10k. I eventually moved out again in August 2022 and maybe this was just the problem. I just had to many bills, my car insurance was high, and I still was not a great spender like spending $1000 a month on food. In may 2023, I got into another car accident and it was just bad luck. The semi-truck was turning into a lane I was already in. My car got totaled. I then bought another car but financed at of course a higher interest rate. I also got a double ticket on the job for failing to move over and slightly speeding. My car insurance was 1600$ a month plus 300$ car note and $800 rent, not to mention other bills like phone, and health insurance. Once I found out how much my insurance was, I dropped my apartment and am now living with my grandparents. You know what is crazy. Imagine saying another car accident helped my life. It’s crazy because I barely drive recklessly. I just have made mistakes on the roadway. Not looking over, or driving while extremely exhausted. I do have autism( Asperger’s). So yeah I totaled another car. 2 totaled cars in one year. Both were drivable cars. I did not flip. Did not run a red light. Did not even speed. This last one involved a road rage driver who was throwing things out of car (heavy stuff not just food). When we got to the light he was opening and closing his door and yelling. He also drove this giant ram truck. I kind of thought he was unstable so I did an illegal U-turn to get out of the way. A car hit me from behind going the opposite way and I got a second degree misdemeanor reckless driving which cost me around $2500 for a lawyer and court costs. But I do not have to pay $1900 dollars for a car. Crazy how honestly crashing the car into a pole may have been better for me then living my life.
So here is my situation. How do I get out of renting a vehicle. I currently rent for a vehicle at around $900 a month and I drive with NO INSURANCE. But I have to. I have nobody willing to take me to and from work and to and from school. How can I keep my girlfriend without a car. And if I do buy a beater car say for $500-2k dollars all cash. I looked up recently insurance quotes and I get quoted at $1000 a month for the lowest coverage and no collision. My current bills altogether is around $2000. 150$ phone bill, 150$ whole life insurance, 600$ food and gas, and $1100 to rent the car( 900$ monthly plus 200$ deposit). I am currently only working 3 days a week at 36 hours while I pursue school full time which I now have until February 23rd to pay out of pocket. I have to go to school as well because I was reinstated back into engineering but I have to graduate first to clear a GPA hurdle. I have this semester left And I have to go back this semester because if I don’t then I will be deactivated from the university because I have already took two semesters off. I also am 22k in credit card debt pay minimums totaling over $400 monthly and the interest is high. So yeah in crazy debt with no way out, my car insurance and all of that is crazy high and there is no way out. So what do I do? I actually have some ideas on starting a pressure washing business but I do not have the money to even buy the equipment, advertise, and register an LLC. I want to take risk now but I am afraid if I do I will just mess up more. But if I don’t take risk. Then I will be stuck forever. Any advice please???
What about bankruptcy? Should I leave the country? Should I honestly just return the rental and be without a car for a while? Should I sell every single thing I possibly own? Should I tell my credit card companies I cannot pay? Should I find a higher paying job but if I did then I am losing focus on my career. Every friend I have talked to doesn’t even know what they would do in my situation.
All I want is less bills so I can focus on building my skills.

Central Freight Lines Inc (CFL), a regional American less-than-truckload (LTL) firm based in Waco, Texas, and catering to the Southeastern and Southwestern regions of the United States, held a significant presence as the largest and most enduring freight carrier in Texas throughout its history.
However, on December 11, 2021, during an unparalleled boom in the trucking industry marked by exceptional spot prices and unprecedented LTL rates, Central Freight Lines announced its decision to cease operations.
https://preview.redd.it/eu1j11f2w2ib1.jpg?width=2320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac9244ab583375764a9dc5eb70e7042138dbde5d

Founding and early years

Established in 1925 by a young 20-year-old named William W. "Woody" Callan, the company originated as the Central Forwarding Warehouse Company. Its early focus centered on local household goods moves, relying on a sole Ford Model-T truck. The company underwent incorporation in 1927, and by 1928, it had already established regular routes connecting Dallas, Fort Worth, and Austin.
However, the enactment of the Motor Carrier Law of 1929 by the Texas Legislature, which prohibited common carriers from transporting diverse classes of goods, compelled Central to segregate its household-goods activities, leading to the birth of Central Forwarding Inc. for these services, while the general freight operations were rebranded as Central Freight Lines (CFL). Although they operated independently, they shared leadership, facilities, and equipment. CFL's growth continued, and it expanded its coverage to include San Antonio and Houston in 1933. By 1938, the company boasted a workforce of 200 employees, along with 85 trucks and 25 trailers.
The divergence in growth between CFL and its counterpart became increasingly evident by 1951, prompting a formal split. The sibling company, eventually rebranded as Central Transportation Systems, was later acquired by Spectrum Relocation Group of El Paso, Texas in 2005, operating as a subsidiary within Spectrum's Appleton Moving Company division.By 1955, CFL had amassed a workforce of 1,100 individuals and operated a fleet of 900 trucks.
https://preview.redd.it/5jrxo5a5w2ib1.png?width=950&format=png&auto=webp&s=b1a435b71cae8943db7eda20c2ec8436d4a92b4a

Deregulation

In 1979, Woody Callan, Jr., succeeded his father, Callan, as president of the company and navigated it through a challenging era.
Throughout the 1980s, CFL faced internal pressures stemming from unionization efforts and external obstacles due to the deregulation brought about by the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. Despite these hurdles, the company managed to continue its growth, especially extending its presence into west Texas.
In 1984, Central Freight Lines accomplished significant expansions by acquiring Curry Freight Lines and Perry Motor Freight, along with taking over more than 75 intrastate routes when Red Arrow Freight Lines ceased operations on its intrastate Texas routes. In that same year, Central was honored with the 1984 American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) President’s Trophy.
Tragically, in 1987, the company's founder, W.W. Callan, Sr., who had also served as Chairman of the Board, passed away.
https://preview.redd.it/20s7i7d7w2ib1.jpg?width=1007&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ffe2a441186116c79e385c6aaf1ec456880d113e

Major Shift in the 90s

In 1991, Central obtained interstate operating authorization encompassing the continental United States. During the same year, the company embarked on expansion efforts into Oklahoma, followed by Arkansas, New Mexico, and Tennessee in the subsequent year.
Woody Callan, Jr. and his sister, Diana Callan Braswell, retired from their positions at CFL in 1992, opting to sell their shares to the company's profit-sharing and retirement plan. This shift led to the transformation of CFL into an employee-owned enterprise. At that juncture, CFL was responsible for transporting more than half of intrastate freight within Texas.
In 1993, CFL's management and its stakeholder base, which now included employee-owners, concurred to sell the company to Roadway Services Inc. (RSI), a parcel and freight logistics company based in Akron, Ohio. CFL became a subsidiary within RSI's Roadway Regional Group, focusing its operations on the Southwest.
Under RSI's umbrella, CFL initially continued its expansion, eventually extending its coverage to include the remainder of the south-Central US along with a significant portion of the Midwest.
Amidst mounting competitive pressures exacerbated by further federal trucking deregulation, the deregulation effectively curtailed the authority of the Texas Railway Commission, leading to intensified competition within the state. Adding to this, RSI, the parent company of CFL, found itself grappling with internal conflicts. While RSI's regional carriers remained union-free, the workforce of Roadway Express, RSI’s nationwide LTL carrier, were organized under the Teamsters union. Over time, negotiations conducted by the Teamsters led to compensation and benefits packages for Roadway Express employees that were notably up to 30% higher than those provided to RSI's non-union staff.
Given the tight profit margins prevalent in the LTL industry, this discrepancy resulted in Roadway Express, despite contributing over 40% of RSI's annual revenue of $5 billion, being less profitable compared to its non-union counterparts. The culmination of this situation came in 1994, when a 24-day Teamsters strike resulted in a $68 million loss for Roadway Express in a single quarter.
In August 1995, RSI took the step to divest Roadway Express as an independent entity, announcing its intention to become a publicly traded company. Eight years down the line, in 2003, Roadway Express would be acquired by Yellow Corporation, ultimately forming Yellow Roadway Corporation.
Following the completion of the spin-off process, Roadway Services underwent a name change to Caliber System on December 14, 1995. Just four days later, it revealed its plan to consolidate its regional carriers—CFL, Coles, Spartan, and Viking—into a unified nationwide carrier known as Viking Freight Inc. This transformation led to CFL formally becoming the Southwest Division of Viking in the subsequent year. This marked the conclusion of individual operations for Central Freight Lines.
However, Caliber struggled to realize the anticipated efficiencies from this consolidation. As a result, by 1997, it actively sought a buyer and began disposing of assets, including its former Coles and Spartan operations on the east coast. The possibility of a complete shutdown prompted former CFL management, including former president Joe Hall, to initiate negotiations for the acquisition of the former carrier. In 1997, they succeeded in purchasing a significant portion of the former CFL operations from Caliber.
Jerry Moyes and his brother Ronald Moyes financed the investment group that revived CFL. The Moyes family had an extensive history in trucking, co-founding Swift Transportation with their father in 1966 and overseeing its evolution into one of the largest carriers in the US. When CFL was reestablished on June 30, 1997, with Joe Hall as president, Jerry Moyes emerged as the principal stockholder, and the Moyes family collectively held a substantial stake in the new company.
Caliber was acquired by FedEx in 1998, leading to Viking operating under FedEx as a West Coast LTL carrier. Following the acquisition of American Freightways by FedEx in 2001, it was renamed FedEx Freight East, and Viking was renamed FedEx Freight West. The integration of all LTL services under a single entity took shape after FedEx acquired Watkins Motor Lines in 2006, resulting in the formation of FedEx Freight.
In May 1999, CFL unveiled plans to carry out a public offering of 5 million shares through an IPO. However, after this announcement, the company acquired Arizona-based Jaguar Fast Freight, Vecta Transportation with a focus on California and Nevada, and Texas-based Aggie Express. These acquisitions led CFL to postpone its IPO to 2000, according to Moyes.
By January 2000, CFL reported robust financial health, projecting revenues surpassing $300 million by year-end. Later that year, Joe Hall, who played a key role in CFL's resurgence, stepped down as President due to personal reasons. He was temporarily replaced by board member Ronald Moyes.
https://preview.redd.it/0p8j48c9w2ib1.png?width=1174&format=png&auto=webp&s=50cab093ffc118838bb547488c511444615d985f

21st Century

In 2002, CFL purchased Utah-based refrigerated trucking service provider Simon Transportation Services (and subsidiary Dick Simon Trucking) while under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Renamed Central Refrigerated Service, it promptly forecasted profitability with approximately $200 million in annual revenues post-acquisition. The turnaround was largely attributed to the divestment of over 30% of Simon's tractors and trailers. Before 2002 concluded, Central Refrigerated Service was spun off as a separate entity fully owned by Jerry Moyes, who later sold it to Swift in 2013.
On December 1, 2003, after a three-year delay, Central Freight Lines finally went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the symbol CENF. This IPO raised $127.5 million. In 2006, the company reverted to private ownership under Jerry Moyes.
Moyes faced challenges, including being ousted as chairman and CEO of Swift in October 2005 amid an SEC investigation into insider trading allegations involving the Phoenix Coyotes NHL team. Around the same time, Moyes stepped down from CFL's board reportedly due to conflicts with the Teamsters Union, who claimed Moyes was rerouting freight from CFL to his other companies. Despite these changes, Moyes entities still owned 31.5% of CFL in January 2006, and he extended an offer to purchase the remaining shares.
As part of this arrangement, CFL absorbed one of Moyes' other carriers, North American Truck Lines. While Moyes initially planned to maintain CFL as a publicly traded entity, he later modified the agreement just before its completion to avoid financing requirements. This resulted in the complete privatization of the company. CFL's stock was delisted on November 27, 2006, and the ownership transition concluded on the 28th.
After this restructuring, CFL focused on growth through acquisitions, including the purchase of Circle Delivery Service of Tennessee in 2013, the LTL operations of Georgia-based Drug Transport Inc. (DTI) in 2014, and the acquisition of Wilson Trucking Corporation in 2017, expanding its presence in the Southeastern US. This expansion increased CFL's network to 80 terminals across the nation. In 2020, CFL acquired Volunteer Express, an LTL and FTL carrier headquartered in Nashville.
https://preview.redd.it/vzoq6xpbw2ib1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=711a5d055aa352aca5b62a7a3aeecbdbbb2030f7

Closure

In December 2020, Moyes took on the role of interim CEO and president to address the company's financial difficulties, accompanied by significant changes to the executive team. In September 2021, CFL sold its Waco headquarters facility to local investors and continued to utilize the facility through December 2022.
On December 11, 2021, CFL's President, Bruce Kalem, confirmed that the company intended to wind down operations from December 13th due to prolonged operating losses, inability to service debt, and outstanding bills. The announcement revealed that CFL had around 2,100 employees, including 1,325 drivers. During the wind-down process, Estes Express Lines expressed interest in hiring many of CFL's drivers and extended offers for some of CFL's equipment.
CFL's closure marked the largest shutdown in the trucking industry since the closure of Celadon Group in 2019. According to Kalem, the challenges that led to CFL's closure began with the loss of a major customer in 2016 amid a debt-financed four-year fleet replacement that concluded in 2017.
CFL operated across 76 terminals in 16 states, including 20 in Texas.

The bankruptcy of freight company Yellow and the elimination of 30,000 jobs is a major assault on the working class. It is the largest layoff this year and the largest industrial mass firing since 2009, when General Motors laid off 47,000 employees.
Yellow’s bankruptcy carries significant lessons for the working class. A nearly 100-year-old company which has served an important role in the country’s transportation infrastructure is being cannibalized by Wall Street, which will make money out of Yellow’s destruction and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. Their ability to do this hinges upon the suppression of opposition from the working class by the Teamsters bureaucracy.
The liquidation of Yellow will be a financial bonanza for Wall Street. Yellow has over $2 billion in assets that can be sold off to satisfy its debt payments. Lead investor Apollo Global Management is in pole position to take control through a debtor-in-possession plan (DIP) that will make it first in line to be paid.
Other investors are aiming for first place, however. Boston-based hedge fund MFN bought 40 percent of Yellow’s stock before the bankruptcy to offset any losses should Yellow recover from its collapse, reducing the value of its investments in Yellow’s competitor XPO.
Yellow’s liquidation appears almost certain, though, and common stock holders would be in last place to receive payouts from the sale of assets. In order to counter potential losses, MFN is reportedly putting together a bid to take over Apollo’s position in a DIP program with “much more favorable” terms, according to Yellow attorney Pat Nash.
Regardless of the outcome, 30,000 employees have been made to pay the price for Yellow’s mismanagement and to maintain profit margins of some of Wall Street’s biggest firms.
The Yellow bankruptcy is a warning to workers everywhere. The collapse of Yellow is in line with the policy of Wall Street and the Biden administration to force workers to pay for corporate profits and suppress wage growth.
For the past year the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates with the explicit goal of keeping down wages by triggering a rise in unemployment. The federal government, which is one of Yellow’s major creditors since it bailed out the company with $700 million in 2020, has spent trillions to save the banks, corporations and major investment firms but has not lifted a finger to prevent the destruction of 30,000 jobs.
Not only is there potentially $2 billion to be made from Yellow’s demise, but the sudden surge of 30,000 people looking for work will act as downward pressure on wages across the industry.
Behind Yellow’s debt
Yellow’s $1.6 billion in debt has been building for nearly 20 years. In the early 2000s, Yellow purchased rivals Roadway and USF, taking on billions of dollars of debt in order to expand its market share. But the financial crash in 2008 triggered a collapse of the freight market. Yellow began rapidly running out of money, losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the aftermath of the crash.
Over the next ten years Yellow would continuously take on debt and, through the assistance of the Teamsters bureaucracy, enforce massive concessions from workers to pay its bills.
In 2009, Yellow was forced to file for bankruptcy. To remain in business it agreed to a debt-for-equity swap with investors worth $470 million. Debt-for-equity swaps are an arrangement for creditors to trade company debt for shares of the company. Yellow issued a massive number of shares that wiped out the holdings of existing shareholders, including employee share holders, and gave creditors control of 94 percent of Yellow’s common stock.
This became a way of life for Yellow management. It swapped another $400 million for equity in 2011 and a further $300 million in 2014, as part of a restructuring on $1.1 billion in debt. Still crippled by debt, Yellow would take on a $500 million loan from Apollo in 2019, which then used its connections with the Trump administration to secure a $700 million dollar loan from the United States Treasury.
Despite all of the loans and equity swaps, Yellow still remained highly indebted. By 2023, investors were becoming impatient with Yellow and insisted that the company must rapidly force through its One Yellow restructuring, which would eliminate facilities and force drivers to work the docks, before they would loan the company anymore money.
Unable to extract enough value from workers quickly enough, Yellow rapidly ran out of cash before it could secure additional funding....
Read the rest here.

On Sunday, July 30th, Yellow Corp seemingly ceased all operations in preparation for their 99 year old company to file for bankruptcy in early August. Yellow is the nations 3rd largest LTL carrier with roughly 12,700 tractors, 42,000 trailers, and around 300 facilities in North America.
Yellow Corp

The History of Yellow

In 1906, Cleve Harrell started what would become Yellow Cab Company of Oklahoma with a horse-drawn hack and a Model T Ford. Founded by Cleve and A.J. Harrell in 1924 they ventured into bus lines and founded Yellow Transit Freight Lines in 1929.
Over the years, ownership changed, and in 1968, the company became Yellow Freight System Inc. The 1980s saw significant restructuring for better customer service. In 1992, they rebranded as Yellow Corporation with Yellow Transportation, Inc. as the leading division.
Roadway Acquisition

Roadway Acquisition

In December 2003, Yellow Corporation, the second-largest LTL carrier in the US, bought Roadway Corporation for $1.05 billion. A new holding company, Yellow Roadway Corporation, was formed. This bold move created a major shake-up in the industry, as Yellow Roadway's revenue surged to over $6 billion, leaving competitors like FedEx Freight and Con-way in the dust at around $2 billion. The merger faced scrutiny, but it proved to be a game-changer, redefining the LTL landscape.

USF Acquisition

In 2005, Yellow Roadway acquired the US-based LTL carrier, USF Corp., and its subsidiaries for US$1.5 billion, boosting its revenue to $9.9 billion in 2006. The acquisition led to profit increases from $40 million in 2003 to a high of $288 million in 2005. Yellow Roadway also restructured itself, forming a new subsidiary called YRC Regional Transportation, headquartered in Akron, Ohio. The international market saw expansion in China through strategic investments in Chinese freight-forwarding companies.

YRC Worldwide

In 2006, Yellow Roadway Corp. became YRC Worldwide after its international investments. However, financial troubles led to significant net losses in 2008 and 2009. YRC narrowly avoided bankruptcy by persuading bondholders to exchange their notes for shares. A financial restructuring in 2011 erased shareholder equity, and employees took substantial pay cuts to keep the company afloat. Yellow Transportation and Roadway merged to create YRC Inc. in 2009, and Yellow Canada merged into YRC Reimer. YRC Worldwide sold part of Glen Moore to Celadon in 2011 and rebranded its operations as YRC Freight in 2012.
YRC/Yellow $700M CARES Act Loan

2020-Present

In July 2020, the U.S. Department of Treasury announced an emergency loan of $700 million to YRC Worldwide (now Yellow Corporation) under the CARES Act. In exchange, U.S. taxpayers obtained a 29.6 percent equity stake in the company to safeguard public funds. A Congressional report in October 2020 questioned the justification for providing the loan.
In February 2021, YRC Worldwide reverted to the name Yellow Corporation, refocusing on North American LTL operations as part of a larger restructuring plan. The company received a $700 million federal loan during the COVID-19 pandemic in return for a 29.6% stake held by the U.S. Treasury.
Now that leads us to the final chapter of the Yellow Corp saga, as the company starts is chapter 7 liquidity. Over 30,000 employees are now jobless, from truck drivers, to dock workers, and office workers.
Yellow Terminals

Facilities

According to Yellow's annual report for the year-end of 2022, the company was operating a total of 308 transportation service facilities throughout North America. Among these facilities, 166 were owned by Yellow, while the remaining 142 were leased.
The combined number of freight servicing doors across all these facilities was 19,100. The size of these facilities varied, with the smallest having only three freight doors, and the largest boasting 426 doors. The top 10 service facilities, ranked by the number of doors, had a collective total of 2,520 freight doors. Out of these top 10 facilities, seven were owned by Yellow, and three were leased.
According to a report from Stifel analyst, there were perceived opportunities for competitors to upgrade their facilities into larger and more advanced ones. Additionally, well-capitalized LTLs (Less Than Truckload carriers) could potentially acquire terminals as part of their growth strategy.

After Hours Summary: HBI +8.7% higher on guidance; LC +4.4% on guidance and plan to streamline ops; SPCE +16.3% as it updates leadership structure and commercial spaceline ops are on track
After Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: HBI +8.7% (guides Q4 revs above prior guidance; also CFO to step down), LC +4.4% (guides Q4 revs in-line; also to streamline operations, including a 14% workforce reduction)
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: SPCE +16.3% (updates leadership structure; commercial spaceline operations on track for 2Q23), ZYME +2.7% (EcoR1 Capital, a large shareholder, discloses it purchased additional shares), ATOM +1.7% (to collaborate with Arizona State University), FLR +0.4% (joint venture selected for roadway project in the Netherlands), BBBY +0.2% (talking with potential lenders that would finance co during bankruptcy, according to Bloomberg), COP +0.2% (in talks to sell Venezuelan oil in the US to recover close to $10 bln it is owed, according to WSJ), GOOG +0.1% (Verily unit to cut workforce by 15%)
After Hours Losers:
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: None
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: SCLX -8.7% (stock offering by selling shareholder), ARCC -3.1% (stock offering), VICI -2.3% (stock offering), COIN -1.7% (aware of login issues; has identified the root cause and is working on a fix), TA -1.7% (signs 30 new franchise agreements in 2022), PRPL -1.4% (rejects unsolicited acquisition proposal from Coliseum Capital), DUK -1% (reaches agreement with all parties in South Carolina for its rate review request), HUYA -0.4% (amends license agreement re broadcasting rights for League of Legends Matches), AAPL -0.1% (CEO Tim Cook will take a 40% pay cut in 2023, according to Bloomberg)

Hi I've been struggling trying to figure out what's busted on my transmission, was driving just fine and on a start up it threw up a million lights on the board so I got the codes read and it came out to these several codes below
I have no power steering, ABS, speedometer, traction control, passenger airbag, drivetrain malfunction, blind spot monitoring, doors don't lock when in drive, and my cameras stay on at all speeds.
I can tell the car isn't in limp mode because it still has full power and drives perfectly fine except for the no power steering and such. Transmission shifts great still. Apparently I'm the only F10 in the world to have this issue because I can not find it anywhere on the internet. I have changed the front wheel speed sensors out and doing the rears tomorrow hopefully it's the cause but I'm not 100% sure on it.
If any of you bmw wizards can figure this out before I take it to a service center and declare bankruptcy fixing it I would greatly appreciate it!
There are also other codes but these are the main codes that made the other ones come up
421482: Vehicle Speed: Locked Braking Detected At A Higher Speed Via A Gradient Violation At The Output Speed Signal When The ABS Function Failed
CF1601: Message (Actual Wheel Speed, Unsecured, 0×254) Missing, Receiver EGS, Transmitter DSC
CF16C1: Message (Group Fault 2 - Effect On Driving: Possible) Receiver EGS, Transmitter DSC
CF16D1: Message (Group Fault 3 - Effect On Driving: None): Receiver EGS, Transmitter DSC
CF2FC2: Signal (Longitudinal Inclination Of Roadway - Indicates A Poor Quality Useful Signal, 0x163) Invalid, Transmitter ICM

It’s long bothered me as a truck driver the narrative of artificial intelligence on road ways.
I recall one time near Erie, PA on i90 headed north to Buffalo, a car in the left lane going roughly 55mph in a 65 or 70zone. I was approaching from behind in the right lane at 60 (2 lane highway).
These people are the danger on the roadways. Going unnecessarily slow is the most dangerous thing a driver can do. You become the obstacle. Slow vehicles result in congestion and a greater threat of a multi vehicle pile up.
Of course we were driving in a moderate snow squall that is typical in the Great Lakes region. These squalls can be absolutely dangerous but this was mild comparatively. Visibility was good and no ice on the road, just slightly slick conditions.
As I was approaching this car there was another truck to my left going about the same speed as I was trying to pass me. Driving a 40ton vehicle, it is imperative to look ahead and manage the roadways for the dipshits all around you. 1 ton vehicles don’t realize how many times they’ve endangered their lives slowing down in front of loaded trucks. Plenty of other truck drivers are recklessly inattentive and must be cared for as well. This truck driver was one of them.
Realizing the driver next to me was swiftly approaching the car driving 55 in the left lane I made a quick decision to begin slowing down. At this point the car was maybe half a mile ahead. This preemptive action allowed the truck beside me to get in front of me. It prevented him from needing to slam his brakes in slick conditions. My awareness around myself prevented a potential accident.
Artificial intelligence in trucking is far from reality. The most advanced tool in my 2016 truck was a radar system that dangerously slammed my brakes for no reason occasionally and went offline often due to the grime build up of the road. 2020 trucks didn’t have anything extra either.
Artificial intelligence requires uniformity of systems. Yes the situation I presented earlier is very programmable. It’s higher order thinking that just begins to scratch the surface of what a truck driver does.
I’ve spent years in the tanker industry, loading and unloading vegetable oils, chocolate, liquid oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. Let’s take the food industry for example. If I take a load of corn oil to the frito lay plant I have to wait for space in frito lays corn oil tank. I then unload and need a clean tank trailer. This usually involves dropping the dirty trailer and allowing the tank wash to clean it before picking up the next load and beginning a new cycle.
There is no uniformity to allow for artificial intelligence to take hold of this industry. AI is not something that can be tested at large scale in the trucking industry. It is too cost intensive in both time lost and updating to some AI system. There are too many fractional players in trucking. 30% roughly of the industry is owner operators. Then you get into all the small plants and factories. Many of which perpetually restructure and lack any capital to install fancy automated unloading systems if they even existed. Then you get into the wash stations. There are so many players that would have to cooperate.
AI is the newest tech bubble. Far from reality and absolutely far from taking the jobs you think they will take.
As a driver I’ve gotten stuck in a trailer yard in Chicago that was a sheet of ice. The only way out was to pull out chains and manually free myself. In the tanker business we deal with seals and gaskets. My job is not just to drive. I am the operator of the tank. Seals get worn. Hoses need to be hooked up. Pump speed needs to be managed. One of the first rookie experiences I had was running a pump too fast as I was delivering chocolate. The hose burst and I was covered in fresh chocolate. All of these things can be automated. All involve independent facilities that have their own cost structure and debts. All interacting with many different trucking companies with their own cost prohibitive business structures.
It isn’t artificial intelligence’s lack of capability holding it back. It is the cost prohibitive nature and capital structure of our economy holding it back. The independence of businesses and their balance sheet constraints will limit AI development in many industries and protect blue collar workers the most.
Cathie Wood blatantly ignores these principles. I will give her one thing. Given the reckless bailouts of corporations. If the government continues feeding stimulus straight to capital markets she may turn out to be right quicker than I think possible.
The future of AI looks like this:
For transportation it requires smart roadways. Tesla and Lidar systems will never be safe enough by themselves. If roads connect to the cars miles ahead and behind and communicate the data to allow cars to know road conditions far in advance, it would allow for blind systems essentially. Echolocation if you will. The road navigates the vehicle.
This is possible only through 5G. The bandwidth accessible would allow the increase in data transmission required. There will be 5G nodes all along the highways like there would be cameras and other devices. All communicating to the cars directly. This would decrease capital constraints of auto manufacturers and leave the expense of maintenance and implementation to governments.
This requires government action to create uniformity of system. Yes self driving car technology will need to advance but primarily the solution is far simpler and less profitable than auto manufacturers make it out to be.
You want to have a selfdriving parking lot as a restaurant, you set up the 5G nodes and through software (this is where the future money is) design how your smart lot communicates with the cars. The cars don’t think, the parking lot tells it what to do.
Nokia is working on this I believe. Iirc it’s the V2X platform.
This is how computers work. They are machines that require orders. Even “artificial intelligent” systems today like IBM Watson and others are just following command prompts. They aren’t truly thinking for themselves and we don’t have to fear that unless some dumbass programs them to think in a destructive manner.
My point here is that AI systems on the roadway will require government unification to create a system safer than the one we have now. It isn’t until this software system and structure is presented that AI is inevitable in trucking.
This technology is possible today but slow to be realized. Once presented, trucking companies become obsolete. The global food corps like mondelez and frito lay will monopolize and implement these AI systems throughout their business chain to increase margins. They will buy the trucks, the tank washes, the software etc.
This sounds inevitable? Lmfao. Think of how much money does not want this to happen. Microsoft or google provide the software. Nokia does the 5G infrastructure along with Verizon maybe. Daimler Chrysler, paccar produce the trucks utilizing a proven autonomous communication system. Specialty engineering company for the loading and unloading automation and tanks. The food corps buyout and buildout the entire automated infrastructure.
This process is cutting out a multi hundred billion dollar industry that hires and pays the largest consortium of consumers in this country (trucking). Cuts out independent food manufacturers. Kills all the small towns that depend on trucking and truckers.
You think the race to automation is actually wanted? Billions of dollars is lost in this process from individual salaries to the trucking companies. And consumers won’t have jobs to support high demand for production. It’s highly deflationary. This doesn’t mean profits expand. It means the economic system we falsely call capitalism implodes.
The future requires coordination. Capitalism has already died. Corporate socialism is smacking you in the face with its limp dick. The first step is free money.
The first jobs to be destroyed by AI were manufacturing. Highly routine jobs. The next were white collar finance industry jobs. High frequency trading is essential and has eliminated many very high paying jobs. The next are accountants and basic programmers. You better have some creative ideas if you know how to program. There’s too much supply and you cost too much not to be eliminated.
The basis of universal basic income are in place. Nobody wants to go back to the office when you can work from home, have your life and not spend an hour in traffic everyday. This kills the economy. Kills consumption. Kills profit margins everywhere. Stresses the banking system as they reduce lending. Kills commercial real estate values which kills urban real estate values.
We have begun the cycle towards automation. It doesn’t involve excess profits but rather mass bankruptcies. It involves consolidation of industry. The only entities getting bank loans right now are massive juggernauts of industry. Not because they are going to increase in value in the short term but because they will survive the incoming deflationary bust of small businesses, commercial real estate, construction, and other sectors. You see for the large corporations to be worth their present value they must consume the dead lifeless corpses of their competitors. For them to grow and implement the necessary advancements for margin growth and shareholder value priced into their business, the world around them must undergo systemic default.
What we are witnessing today in the stock market is not exponential growth. It is a shift of money into the only entities that will survive the next decade. It is desperate unknowing bettors vying for a chance that their dollar isn’t devalued into oblivion.
The stock market can crash the same time as the dollar. It’s what happened post y2k. What we are witnessing is simply the panic buying before a financial cliff of insolvency. The next wave down is what the big players want. They are well capitalized. They need this collapse for AI to truly succeed.

Trouble In Paradise

Oh what a great and beautiful thing economic growth is. The problem is that it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. At least, not the kind you can buy at the store.
MERCOSUR, led by Brazil, has spent the last half decade promptly about-facing its protectionist economic policies in place of rapid growth, rapid modernization, and rapid integration. By all accounts this should be a good thing - right? And for the most part of course it is. However, the bloc’s primary focus has been almost solely on economic growth up to now and without proper internal reforms to the mission of MERCOSUR itself, the strain on the organization is now at a boiling point. For better or for worse, the South Americans seem to have finally reached a critical inflection point in their continent’s history.
And of course it was finally fired off by the Americans.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is a common household name among nearly every South American family - and that’s a really bad thing. Not since the days of CIA influence and Delta Force overthrowing Panama has South America been as terrified of the northern superpower. Well, most of them. You see, the truth is that South America is a very large place with dense jungles and massive mountain ranges. Even with great feats of engineering to bind the continent together over land there is no way to mitigate how much more important oceanic trade and faraway relationships with superpowers are to Santiago, Buenos Aires, or even Caracas than closer relationships with the small, ethnically and linguistically different neighbor a hop, skip, and a jungle trek away.

At a glance: The Sins of Brasilia

At Brazil’s beck and call, MERCOSUR’s roster grew to include every South American country save the tricky Venezuelans and the less-than-enthusiastic Guyanan-Surinamese duo. The diverse range of countries were able to pool decently large amounts of capital for pet projects of integration, but now as more “smoke and mirrors'' dissipate, many of these projects are finding themselves not a little behind schedule.
Frankly put, that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. A tunnel falling behind schedule doesn’t cause massive geopolitical shifts. Politics do, though.
MERCOSUR’s shared regulatory framework and open labor market decimated light manufacturing in the uncompetitive smaller and more left-leaning countries. The nations of Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia have all seen net interbloc immigration while Boliviaria, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Paraguay have seen drastic net interbloc emigration. What’s worse, although wages are higher in these countries for immigrants and nationals alike, labor standards have dropped drastically. The average workweek among MERCOSUR workers has catapulted from around 35 hours to 41.2 hours per week. Working conditions have similarly plummeted in most net-immigration countries, where per capita worker deaths, reported quality of life, and worker job satisfaction have taken drastic nosedives.
Many of these issues would be called an “ill of the capitalist mode of production” by your average internet leftist, but as top Brazilian labor research firm Ans Pesquisa e Recrutamento concluded in a landmark research paper on the topic, the trends indicated appear to stem from widespread political corruption favoring corporate interests due to the extensive impact of bribery, graft, and nepotism in the political decision making process of these countries. Simply put, it’s easier for a Chilean manufacturer to screw over Boliviarian immigrant workers than it is for those workers to receive the protections they need.
The lack of labor protections has led to an exacerbated feeling of disinterest and dismissal of the bloc among large populations in each country - however it is not the sole cause. Although many brazilian politicians bid the bloc to new entrants as “focusing on economics to preserve national identity” as a way to soothe nationalist sentiments, now that very nationalist sentiment has come back to bite them in the butt. MERCOSUR’s organs for cultural integration are substandard at best, and in many places flatly nonexistent. Not only does MERCOSUR itself lack a good face to the population of its own bloc, but many of it’s own bureaucrats have begun to express worry that its sole focus on economics may soon be its own demise.
That isn’t to say it has all been bad - far from it. Equitable trade agreements with the Eurasian Economic Union and European Union have fundamentally resulted in good results for the people of South America and trade between blocs has been boosted nearly fivefold in many industries. But nonetheless, that’s a small positive compared to the total lack of cultural unity and proper regulatory procedures and, frankly put, it’s not hard to argue that the same agreements could have been reached with those blocs by MERCOSUR’s member states as independent entities.
Going forwards, extremists on both sides of the aisle will be able to capitalize on MERCOSUR’s structural flaws to substantial effect in their countries. Reform is, as we will mention, still possible - but it’s no longer going to be easy sailing for Brasilia and what strong “Pro-COSUR” allies it can bring into the fold.

Brazil - Too much dip on your chip, chief

Brazil is not a global power. It is a strong regional power which rules over and resides on the geostrategically least important inhabited continent on earth. It’s ambitions are effectively vetoed whenever Washington remembers South America exists, its naval force doesn’t really scare anyone, and it’s economic reach has, up to very recently, been limited.
Brazil’s recent shift towards free trade and localized integration has certainly improved this position, but at a cost.
The EU-MERCOSUR FTA called on Brazil to cut its production of petrochemicals and other pollutants. At the same time, the EAEU-MERCOSUR FTA allowed the Russian gas giant Gazprom to construct a state-of-the-art regasification facility in Brazil proper and begin exporting. Petrobas, the incredibly important Brazilian national petrol company, was crushed by the agreement and subsequent LNG market increase. Petrobas is unable to compete against dirt cheap Russian LNG exports due to a ceiling on production and the stringent environmental agreement with the EU prevents them from trying to find markets abroad. The company has been forced to lay off a massive 5,000 people since both agreements have been signed, and Brazilian exports have tanked. Petrobas finds itself holding on for dear life, and the brutal truth of it is that in the name of free trade and a sexy EU agreement, Brazil - the most petrol rich country in South America - will become a net energy importer within the next few years. Petrobas’ remaining workers are nearing the point of striking if something is not done - but what is there to be done? Brazil was bullied into the EAEU FTA by Lima and can hardly leave the agreement unilaterally without rendering MERCOSUR moot. The same goes doubly for the EU FTA - sure Brazil could play the risky game of simply breaking the carbon cap, but would Europe notice enough to do anything? Breaking either agreement risks billions in bilateral trade and will have massive shock-repurcussions on continent-wide supply chains. Is it time for Brazil to give up on it’s drive to be an energy superpower?
And then it got worse. Beijing is unhappy about recent environmental regulation failures pertaining to crude oil quality and soybean pesticide regulations. Or, they’re pissed about a MERCOSUR-TAIWAN deal. Your choice. Anyways, China has decided to ban further import of these products from Brazil at all, crushing over $30Bn of Brazilian exports. This shock may be enough to not only break Petrobas, but also turn the Agroindustrial industry of Brazil against both the ruling Party as well as MERCOSUR itself.
It doesn’t end with gas and exports. Brazil isn’t just a net receiver of interbloc immigration, it is the net receiver. Brazil accounts for nearly 60% of all MERCOSUR worker and permanent relocation migrations. What happens across the bloc with immigration is doubly so for Brazil. Rising inequality has bred rising extremism, as both Communist and Nationalist (totally not quietly able to use the forbidden F-ism here) political parties have surged in popularity due to the multitude of cultural, economic, and inequality related issues in the country.
All of this has exacerbated Brazil’s internal politics and brought serious criticism against Brazil’s recent expeditionary foreign policy decisions. Antagonizing Russia in Ukraine was not well received by Communists and Leftists back home. Bombing Afghanistan wasn’t supported by anybody. Nobody from the government can explain to the unemployed, underemployed, and underpaid Brazilians why they’re building intercontinental missiles. And with whispers of potential intervention in Venezuela going about the streets of the capital, the resounding emotion among the population is not just no, but an absolute Fuck no. Antiwar sentiment has compounded among other issues within the country to the point where late 2026, no less than 17 protests around the country - the largest being a 50,000 person gathering in Rio to protest Brazilian military interventions abroad. Peacekeeping continues to be highly supported by Brazilians - nearly 92% support UN-backed peacekeeping ops anywhere on earth. But unilateral Brazilian expeditions will not be very well liked among an increasingly weary population.

Argentina - Nominally Abnormal

Argentina is the absolute golden boy for stable government, normally operating democracy, and liberalism in South America. If you are on hard drugs. The reality is that Argentina is unstable by nature, but generally follows the same trends as Brazil. They are being hit by the same issues of racism, extremism, and vast inequality, although they are buffered by Argentina’s traditional issues of racism, extremism, and vast inequality. Argentina’s political system has grown close to Brazil and they could be considered as close of an ally - both practically and ideologically - as Brazil is going to get for major powers on the continent.
With that said, issues pertaining to Argentina and MERCOSUR still exist. Argentina is not a fan of the idea of political unification - although they could come around to it if proper reform and institutions were put into place. Argentines are fiercely proud of their nation but have benefitted quite handsomely from membership in the bloc. The largest difference in viewpoints between Brasilia and Buenos Aires center around foreign policy -- Argentina allies quite closely with Brazil’s pacifist factions.

Chile - Second Thoughts

Santiago made the choice to join the MERCOSUR trade bloc over independently joining TPP, and since then has grown to regret the decision. After a bout of having a Communist Party leader, the right wing was able to rally support against leftist policies and win the 2025 election. These issues have all been discussed at depth so far but Chile’s path has now led it firmly Pro-US and anti-communist for as long as the right wing stays in power. This presents a radical problem to MERCOSUR, because Chile wants something.
Chile wants a US FTA.
The Chilean President has made firm comments about his party’s stance towards the trade bloc, and as the most developed country in South America it expects the trade bloc to listen to its stance. Chile is unapologetically anti-Venezulean, pro-United States, and its President has even gone so far as to publicly suggest that, had the United States bombed Peru and Bolivia, the continent would be “far safer and more developed even after [the attack] than with that shit floating around”. The tensions are high and the stage is set. Chile is using its markets and its geography - after all, it’s a serious maritime country, not a land one - as a lever to pull the strings it wants pulled. MERCOSUR’s options are to negotiate the FTA, which there is no guarantee of an inward turning America joining, not negotiating, and potentially seeing Chle leave, or just outwardly waiting and hoping (influencing?) that someone else’s party wins in 2029.
The loss of a geographically peripheral country such as Chile would not mean death to the trade bloc, and Chile was not even an original founder. However, the loss of Santiago means that the bloc will lose a large number of it’s highly developed technology and manufacturing firms. So, which way will it be?

Uruguay & Paraguay - Bright lights, dim tunnel

Uruguay and Paraguay have integrated very well into the greater South American project, and their economic gains from deepening MERCOSUR have entirely offset the negative results. Brazil and Argentina now rank as #1 and #2 for trade value turnover between the -guays, and the MERCOSUR flag is proudly flown in wealthy, urban areas.
The largest cleavage arising in both countries - and this is very much anecdotal, as no reported trend backs it - came after, among all things, a football match. The Unified Team of Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay was absolutely railroaded by what was referred to as a “out of focus and out of form” Spanish national team. The embarrassment, a 5-1 home whomping, was intensely covered by the press and for a brief time of approximately twelve hours on the internet anti-unification memes were rampant. South Americans may take football seriously, but this specific event is as anecdotal as they come. Other than that, the Guays have seen economic fortune at scale from remittances and trained laborers returning from Brazil, and are wholly ready to embrace future integration pathways.

Boliviaria - The New Vanguard of the Revolution?

The unified country of former Peruvian and Bolivian land has etched itself out as the vanguard of leftism in South America. This has made it both a natural target and an ardent power on the continent - every South American “pink tide” movement now looks to Boliviaria, not to Venezuela, as their role model.
Of course that made it a natural target for the American Right-Wing. The Marjorie Taylor Greene event will not be quickly forgotten by Boliviarians, and Lima has made it clear that any attempt to sign economic agreements with the United States will be wholly vetoed.
Ike may be gone, but the presence of a growing Communist power in South America will certainly bring mentions of “Domino theory” back from the dead. The young nation has to make a landmark case for its place on the continent and must be able to mitigate fears of sudden and rapid communist revolutions, lest the idea of intervention permeate Bogota, Brasilia, or, worst of all, Washington.
Or…. maybe they don’t. Boliviaria has land borders with every single MERCOSUR nation with the exception of Uruguay, and much of this is either deep jungles or impassable mountains. Interconnected roadway systems as well as less-than-optimal economic conditions in the country mean that Boliviarians constitute the largest MERCOSUR working migrant population in every country within the bloc with the exception of Brazil and Uruguya - and even here, they are second. Should Lima decide that South America should have a more pink flair to it, and should it use the appropriate facilities provided to it by MERCOSUR, it has a large and growing informal network of support and fans across the continent. One that not even a 2000 pound JDAM can stop.

Ecuador - wait, I know how this one ends!

Brazil was hit hard by the EU carbon production requirements, but Ecuador was beheaded by it. Ecuador’s primary economic drivers for the past decade have been Foreign Direct Investment and, more importantly, petroleum exports. Ecuador is finding itself unable to compete in many industries as European high quality goods decimated valuable industries and Russia’s war inflation has outpriced Ecuadoran goods abroad.
One of the main culprits of Ecuador’s ongoing economic woes is the Suro. The currency’s value most directly translates to economic conditions of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile - the three largest members of MERCOSUR. As the three largest countries, they’re also the three most economically diverse and robust - and for what it’s worth they’re able to weather the storm of rampant free trade far better than tiny Ecuador.
This exact scenario has happened before. Ecuador finds itself unable to print its own money to spur inflation and must execute massive austerity and debt-spend programs in order to stave off politically destabilizing large scale economic failure. Ecuador’s 10 year bond rate is already beginning to rise, seeing a jump in 2026 from 4% to 7%. Should the government need to issue more debt, and should that rate continue to grow, Ecuador may find itself insolvent and declare bankruptcy - crushing its financial institutions and doing god-knows-what to the increasingly intertwined South American financial system.
Something must be done. If ignored, the Ecuadoran economy will be crushed. Economic collapse, even among a small member, will likely tank the Suro’s value as investors see the continent as unable to secure a stable investment environment. Parties and factions across Ecuador have proposed radical responses to the crisis from austerity measures to the seizure of private property. Some have even floated the idea of abandoning the Suro outright and finally forming Ecuador’s own currency.
Of course, Ecuador’s internal political situation is likely just as worrisome to MERCOSUR as its economic situation. Any unpopular reform - and there must be reform - may kick start an uprising by populists on the right or left. Austerity measures would likely result in mass protests and even violence, while attempting to seize private assets would result in reactionary antigovernment action as well. Ideologically minded actors, perhaps like Ecuador’s southern neighbors, will be readily able to exploit any such shift in the wind’s course for their own strategic gain.

Colombia

Colombia has seen quite a good result from their membership in MERCOSUR. Investment, infrastructure projects, and a boost in trade have all contributed to a positive view of the trade bloc among Colombians and Bogota itself. Colombia also likes Colombia - there is very little interest in political unification with portuguese-speaking Brazil or the economically backwards Boliviaria.
And that goes doubly so for the stinky commies in Boliviaria.
Colombia is, generally, a centre-right middle power with strong informal and formal ties to the United States. Colombia was the first South American country to become a NATO Partner and views the West in a very positive light. Colombia has come out of its domestic conflict against FARC on stable footing and with plenty of room for growth, but very very weary of anyone holding a hammer and sickle embroidered flag. Relations with their newly combined neighbors to the south have grown exceptionally terse over what Bogota considers “ideological exports” among Colombia’s Boliviarian immigrant workers. Colombia, far more tactful and quiet than Chile, was rather calm about the American almost-bombing of Lima and it doesn’t take much to deduce the country’s opinions on regime change in their southern neighbor.
The push for leaving MERCOSUR is small in Colombia. Tiny, in fact. but it exists. Corollaries to the disastrous effects of Brexit are often drawn as a quick and easy way to shoot down those who mention the idea. Put bluntly, Brasilia has no worries about Colombia leaving the bloc - but resistance to political unification is admittedly quite strong. Colombia’s experiences with the FARC conflict and it’s US/NATO tilt help to enforce a sense of individual identity among Colombians that should be difficult to press against if MERCOSUR were to trend closer towards a federalized entity.

Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname - The Other Guys At The Table*

Then there’s the other South Americans. The hard shell against membership between Guyana and Suriname has begun to decay as bilateral political integration has stalled and become cast to the wayside. There isn’t much else interesting to talk about in regards to them.
Venezuela matters, so let’s talk about them.
Fools believe that dictators have hearts. The Maduro regime has managed so far to avoid any serious commitments to democratization or liberalization, and have fallen brutally behind on the commitments they have made. And why wouldn’t they? All of Latin America is aware of the antiwar protests striking Brazil - and America’s increasing internal stratification hardly makes them Venezuela’s main concern. The rise of a larger Socialist power on the continent has additionally boosted Maduro’s resolve to simply ignore the pleas of Brasilia or even, annoyingly, Havana.
[S]
Privately, Venezuela is greatly interested in closer cooperation with Boliviaria - with Maduro seeing Lima as a great potential ally to help keep him permanently in powe- er uh- overthrowing the ah, evil capitalist somethingoranothers. Venezulea will begin a massive private diplomatic campaign to win over Lima as a friend and strategic partner with the hopes of further shaping the continent’s politics. Havana’s idiotic decision to leave Venezulea friendless in the Americas has left a lasting impact, and they are willing to make a high number of concessions to secure Lima’s favor.
[/S]
That isn’t to say Venezuela is doing well. Despite broad popular support for Maduro remaining - and being bolstered by Brazilian pressures - Venezuela is functionally the same from an economic standpoint as it was before. The shortages and lack of productivity is largely blamed on American sanctions and even if that were entirely true there isn’t much room for Venezuelan businesses nor institutions to evolve around them. Maduro is now just 64 years old - there is plenty of life left in the President and he has no interest in relinquishing power any time soon.

Tesla Future Product Plan: What I’d Like To See
Submitted February 26, 2021 at 12:44PM by TurboK20 https://ift.tt/3uJ8247
via /teslamotors ---- Content:
Future Product Plans: What I Would Like to SeeLet me start this out by saying this is part rant, part wishlist for future Tesla products. If you are a really huge Tesla fan, some of the things I say in this post may offend you, however they need to be said and I say them as someone who wants to see this brand prosper and improve itself. I have no doubt it will be downvoted by a lot of you who disagree that Tesla needs to improve upon any facet of their brand. Anyway, here we go…. This is a long post.After seeing the recent Model S and X refreshes, I was really disappointed. I was not amused by the removal of essential physical stalks that always remain in a fixed place for tiny buttons that move as the wheel turns, nor did I find the yoke to even be believable on a production car. I honestly have been hoping that these are just short term changes to drum up media coverage and sell some more units of these 1st generation models until an all new S and X are finished being developed. Tesla needs new flagship models that are better in every way. The fastest accelerating sedan or MPV doesn’t really matter to most people. Most cars sold will be the entry level versions of each model. The Plaid+ range estimate and acceleration figures are irrelevant to most car buyers, not only because most people aren’t spendng $140,000 on a car, but also because they don’t care about driving that fast. The S was Tesla’s first real car. It was a bit of a hodgepodge of old Mercedes interior bits, cobbled together with custom Tesla bits. It has been on sale for 10 model years. Not only does that make it the oldest luxury sedan for sale in its price range that I know of, but the few updates that have been done since production started in 2012 really haven’t done much to make today’s car that much different than the original. Yes, under the skin they’ve improved cell chemistry, increased range, improved the motors, and efficiency, but the exterior and interiors have been holdovers. That continues to the refresh Model S and X, except now the new interior in my opinion and to most of the people I personally know, is that the new interior is worse than the old one. It may be new, but it’s not an improvement. Not a single person I have spoken to in person such as friends and family (including multiple Tesla owners) have thought removing the turn signal or gear selector stalks was progress, nor did anyone even like the idea of the yoke for a multitude of reasons. The landscape screen is an improvement, but nobody said the new interior looks like it belongs in the same price range as a Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7-Series, or Audi A8. It’s just not the interior I would envision if I was spending $45K-$100K more than a Standard Range Model 3. I don’t see it.My aunt really wanted a Tesla because she’s very environmentally conscious, she doesn’t drive long distances that often, and she never really loved her current car, a Volvo XC60. So I let her test drive my Model Y. She was a bit surprised it didn’t have a heads up display and that you couldn’t even get one if you wanted. She asked if any Tesla had one and I said no, but the S and X do have a more traditional instrument binnacle in front of the steering wheel. She said she could live without a HUD if she had to, but she’s so used to it l that looking to the right at the screen to read navigation instructions or her speed is just not comfortable. She also asked if she could get surround-view cameras, another feature her Volvo has, and I said no.So we start out on the test drive and twice within 5 minutes she went to change lanes and got honked at by other drivers. When she asked why the blindspot monitoring wasn’t working I explained it was on, and that Tesla doesn’t offer the useful visual warning every other company offers that provides a clear cue when there’s someone in your blindspot. I told her she had to check her mirrors, then if someone was there hopefully they’d show up on the screen visualization and if she began to move over the car should show a red line and a red car icon, but that in my own experience it wasn’t very reliable. I explained that also meant it had no cross traffic detection, front or rear. She wanted to know why were these features missing from a brand new car that costs over $55,000. I told her Tesla doesn’t use the industry standard radar based blindspot monitoring. At that point she said this car would cost about $10,000 more than she paid for her 2018 Volvo XC60, but she felt like she would be downgrading and missing a lot of features she actually cared about if she bought a Model Y. She said her Volvo’s cross traffic alert had saved her 5-10 times from getting hit by another car she couldn’t see when she was backing out of an alley into a road that had cars lined up completely obstructing any view of the road left or right. Even though nothing was visible in the rearview camera, the car could detect other cars coming towards her, preventing her from continuing out into the road. As someone who has had that feature myself on various other cars dating back 6 years, it’s also a huge disappointment to me that Tesla still hasn’t incorporated that into their cars. On Model S and X, it’s downright egregious. What bothers me most is Elon’s constant “Tesla is the safest car you can be in” line, but in reality it’s just not true. Maybe it’s the safest car if you are in a wreck, but I want a car that’s not only the safest in a wreck but also most likely to prevent a wreck from occurring. We don’t only drive forward, and we don’t only drive on freeways. The majority of accidents occur within a few miles from home. That typically means you’re on a city street. A lot of these types of collisions are preventable, and the very sensors Tesla/Elon refuses to add to their cars are the ones that likely get used the most on every other brand of car. My home’s driveway is very hard to leave for the average person visiting. Even for me it’s a challenge sometimes. Whereas my Audi will provide me clear audible and visual warnings if someone is approaching from the left or right that I cannot see with my own eyes or in the camera, our Teslas do nothing. Anyone that thinks the cameras will be able to see in any condition or at any roadway is just wrong. Come to my house and back out of my driveway and tell me how well the car’s fender repeaters or b-pillar cameras can see what’s coming. I guarantee they can’t see anything until it’s too late.When I saw the new S and X still hadn’t been upfitted with any substantial hardware improvements I was shocked. At anywhere between $90,000-$145,000, it is hard for me to believe anyone is willing to accept a car that lacks basic features found on cars that cost less than $25,000, such as a Nissan Sentra, Hyundai Accent, Kia Soul, VW Jetta, or Honda HR-V. No, those cars aren’t able to accelerate to 60MPH in under 2 seconds. I’ll give you that, but the average Model S I see driving has an old man behind the wheel and they’re going below the speed limit. I rarely see any Tesla driving fast (other than my own, lol).Elon has said multiple times how many things he would like to change about the way the S and X are designed and manufactured because they are too expensive to produce, too complicated to easily build and they are both heavier than they have to be. If they would design the S and X today, I guarantee they would be much different cars. I don’t see why they’d invest the money in the recent refresh when they could’ve invested in all new models instead. Tesla still doesn’t have offerings in most of the high volume segments. Tesla still needs a competitor to the BMW X1/Mercedes GLA and GLB/Audi Q3, and the BMW X5/Mercedes GLE/Audi Q7.The Model X is similarly sized to the X5 and GLE, but it costs as much as the substantially larger BMW X7 and Mercedes GLS. I know many people who have refused to buy a Model X for either the way it looks or the falcon wing doors. Add in the fact it is missing out on most luxury car features those flagship SUVs have and I am amazed they’re able to sell half as many as they do. If Tesla had ditched the falcon wing doors I wonder how many thousands of dollars could be chopped off the price. Not only would removing them reduce cost, but it would drastically improve the structural rigidity, improve crash safety, improve handling and ride quality, and reduce weight. On top of that it would immediately rid Tesla of the most problematic feature found on any Tesla. The falcon wing doors to this day are still problematic. Door sensors that think something is in the way and thus won’t close, or doors that won’t open all the way because they think something is going to hit them, or doors that do open up into other cars. It’s just a lot of useless complexity on what is essentially a glorified minivan.In my ideal future for Tesla these are the products they desperately need to grow their sales well beyond 1,000,000 units. I am starting to think Tesla may need two different brands or model lines: a luxury brand, and a mass market brand. Everyone from Toyota, Nissan, Honda, VW, GM, Ford, Hyundai, and FCA have mass market brands, and luxury brands. I don’t know of any brand that has been able to move large volumes of both luxury and mass-market cars under one brand.———————————— Future Tesla portfolio:A traditionally styled Model Y alternative (think of a BMW X3, whereas Model Y is more akin to an X4). The X3 outsells the X4 by a multiple of 10. I think the same thing would be true if Tesla had a more traditional looking crossover. In my mind it would outsell the Y by 5:1 if they got the styling right. BMW, Mercedes and BMW all charge more for their “coupe SUVs” even though I find them all to be hideous. Without the steeply sloping rear, Tesla could offer much better luggage volume, push the third row seats back 6-8” so it would actually be usable for children that aren’t double amputees, and it would likely improve rear visibility. Rear visibility is poor in the Y. They need to add more equipment to these cars as I’ve already laid out. That’s true for any car I mention in this list.If they could get entry level prices down to the high $30s for a RWD model with ~300 miles of usable highway range it would be flying off the lot so fast your head would spin. A lot of people are turned off by the Y’s exterior styling, especially the front end that appears quite bulbous and much like a bloated Model 3. Just like 3, the interior’s minimalistic styling is something you can either live with or you hate it. I believe Tesla can keep the simplistic overall scheme while increasing the feeling of quality, luxury and the feature content that is expected to be found on any luxury SUV in the 2020s. For Tesla to meet its goal of becoming the 21st century equivalent of Volkswagen, Toyota, GM or Ford, they will have to broaden the appeal of their cars beyond that of just what Tesla fan-club members find acceptable on current cars. That’s just reality. Little stuff like not offering Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, SiriusXM, radar based blindspot monitoring with cross traffic alert, 360° cameras, or a gauge cluster or heads up display directly in your line of sight are things people expect to be able to get in a new car. Not offering those things doesn’t increase Tesla’s desirability. I want Tesla to have the most desirable cars possible so more people buy them and we transition to EVs faster. As someone who has deep ties to the automotive world, I can assure you some of these features really matter to a wide percentage of the car buying public. While you may not care about them, many people do.I have seen a lot of people on Reddit, Twitter and various other forums that are really hoping to like the VW ID.4, Nissan Ariya or Hyundai Ioniq 5. Many of them looked at the Model Y but just didn’t find it suited their tastes, or their budget or lacked features they deem essential on any new car that price. With so many new EVs getting ready to flood the market, Tesla cannot allow themselves to lose out on so many customers for features that are relatively inexpensive to engineer into the cars, or just involve software changes.———————————————A subcompact crossover (Mercedes GLA, BMW X1, Audi Q3)———————————————Midsize SUV to compete against BMW X5 / M-B GLE / Audi Q7. Entry level pricing around $55K for a 300 mile RWD model.———————————————ALL NEW Model S that cranks up the luxury features, styling and technology to match its 6-figure price and to knock the socks off the upcoming EQS sedan, Taycan and Audi e-tron GT.———————————————All new Model X to battle the GLS, X7, Rivian R1S, Lucid’s future EV suv, etc.———————————————Tesla Sub Brand:Maybe Tesla could buy Nikola’s name out of bankruptcy for a few hundred dollars and call it that. Lol. These cars would likely have to wait for the 4680 cells to be at their peak production rate and lowest cost possible to make them profitable, however as Tesla increases their sales they will ultimately lower their costs through economies of scale. So, anyway, here’s my mass market list of must-haves to sell a ton of cars:Compact crossover like Hyundai Kona, Kia Niro, Honda HR-V, Nissan Rogue Sport, Toyota C-HR, upcoming VW Taos.Midsize crossover: Honda CR-V, VW Tiguan, Toyota RAV-4, Hyundai Santa Fe Sport, etc.Full-size SUV: VW Atlas, Honda Pilot, Toyota Highlander, Hyundai Palisade/Kia Telluride, Ford Explorer, etc.Compact sedan like a Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic.MAYBE… a family sedan, but the market is shrinking as more people move into SUVs. Maybe things will change as we transition to EVs, but I’m not sure about that.Pickup - TRADITIONALLY STYLED, true F-150/Silverado 1500/Ram 1500 rival. Think Rivian R1T, not Cybertruck, in terms of styling inside and out. I personally don’t know how the Cybertruck will be able to hit the specifications Elon claimed at the prices he quoted unless it’s delayed 3-5 years. I also think the exoskeleton is going to be a huge PITA. Paint is applied to every car, truck and other road going vehicles for a reason. Either paint it, or use plastic/carbon fibefiberglass exoskeletons instead of that steel. I can just see the steel turning colors, getting scratched and stained and being a complete nightmare to fix. While Cybertruck may have some appeal to Tesla diehard fans, and a small subset of people (Hummer buyers, for example), I don’t think it will ever be fighting the F-150 for best selling truck.Ways to make this possible…Companies like Audi are able to build all of their sedans and wagons (A4/A5/A6/A7/A8) plus their SUVs (Q5/Q7/Q8/e-tron, plus Porsche Macan, Cayenne, VW Touareg, Bentley Bentayga and Lamborghini Urus) all on one shared platform, called MLB. VW group sells around 10,000,000 cars per year. Of those, 95% of them are built on just two platforms… MLB and MQB. VW has now developed the MEB platform for their affordable electric cars like the ID.3, ID.4, ID.6, future VW Bus reboot, and various Seat and Škoda variants of each model, and Audi will use it to underpin some of their lower end EVs too. Like VW, Tesla could develop two cutting edge EV platforms that could underpin up to 10,000,000+ cars a year. The premium platform would be designed around double wishbone front suspension, better isolation from the road, a focus on luxury or performance, and may make use of higher percentages of aluminum, or even composite and carbon fiber elements to reduce weight, increase rigidity and improve efficiency. Weight is the enemy of efficiency.The affordable mass market cars would be fine using McPherson strut front suspension with multilink rear on largehigher trim cars, while some of the lower end cars may make due with torsion bar rear suspension to reduce costs. It will be interesting to see how future affordable EVs are driven, either FWD or RWD as the standard single-motor layout. VW has decided to go back to its roots and go with RWD on the MEB.VW’s platforms singularize the placement of things like mounting points for engines/electric motors, wiring harnesses, suspension components, infotainment systems, interior switchgear, computers, accelerator and brake pedal placement, and distance between the front wheels and the steering assembly. That way they can use similar steering racks across various models. Making everything have a high degree of commonality reduces cost, complexity and allows any car that rides on that platform to be built on the same line. They just adjust the wheelbase to suit the varying requirements of the model being sold. Tesla may even be able to standardize the Model 3/Y architecture and scale it up and down as needed in size, or it may not be flexible enough to do that. I honestly don’t see why it couldn’t be.I do know that for Tesla to hit the goal of selling MILLIONS of cars per year, they have to expand the lineup and offer a wider range of cars that appeal to more people. Tesla also has to rapidly improve their shoddy service experience, make it easy to get an actual person on the phone if you need to call the service center for any reason, improve on their poor build quality, and stop releasing half baked cars that haven’t been fully engineered before they’re put on sale. Tesla has been successful with Model 3, but the car is now 4 years old. Future Teslas need better styling, nicer interiors, and additional features in order to appeal to a broader car market. I also think Tesla needs to stop advertising full self driving until it has an actual product that is capable of doing what they claim. I personally don’t believe it will be possible for any existing S3XY to be a true autonomous vehicle as we were sort of led to believe by Elon. I believe this will end up haunting Tesla the longer it goes on and the more money they take from people without delivering on the promises. Elon has promised now going on three years that by the “end of this year it will be feature complete” but we aren’t anywhere remotely near your car being able to drive itself somewhere. Without additional sensing capabilities I see a real impossibility for them to deliver actual FSD as the name implies.P.S. If they try to remove the gear selector and turn signal stalks from all their cars I will never buy another Tesla.

https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report/how-self-driving-star-fell-course - Paywall
SAN FRANCISCO — On a rainy December afternoon, Anthony Levandowski sat on a stool near the front of a coffee shop, engrossed in his phone.
He scrolled through pictures on a website that dares users to discern the difference between images of humans generated by artificial intelligence and actual photos of humans. For the uninitiated, it’s a crapshoot. The more time spent staring at the images, the more convincing the fakes appear. Doubt seeps in. The more unnerving the game becomes.
For Levandowski, more skilled in separating what’s real from Silicon Valley creations, spotting the telltale signs of images designed to deceive is an easier task. A small discoloration. A stray hair. He has aced six in a row, and his enthusiasm spills over as he gains momentum.
“Look, look at the freckle on the side,” he exclaims, pointing to an otherwise innocuous blemish.
While he examines images with dermatological care, he’s oblivious to the gawkers and passersby captivated by the presence of the self-driving pioneer whose stints at Google and Uber remain daily news fodder. With his 6-foot-7 frame, thinning hairline and boyish smile, there’s no doubt the real deal sits a few feet from the counter where they await their lattes.
What they make of Levandowski remains a murkier question. In a region known for turning its technology wunderkinds into outsized caricatures of themselves, nobody cuts a longer shadow than the one prosecutors say stole trade secrets from one Big Tech behemoth and brought them to another.
He’s a visionary. As a college student, Levandowski entered a self-driving motorcycle nicknamed GhostRider into a Department of Defense competition designed to stimulate interest in autonomous vehicles. A technical mistake at the start spoiled the undertaking, but the chutzpah necessary to enter a motorcycle in the first place impressed friends and future employers.
He’s an opportunist. In 2011, when he led hardware development for Google’s self-driving car project, he engineered the sale of two companies, 510 Systems and Anthony’s Robots, to Google. Many members of the project were unaware Levandowski owned them.
He’s the personification of Silicon Valley’s more unseemly impulses. He’s flouted regulations in multiple states, allegedly endangered a colleague and a member of the public during self-driving testing, rankled others with an abrasive management style and hopscotched from his job at Google to Uber with at least one confidential document in hand.
Levandowski, now 40, has heard it all.
“There’s a whole narrative about me,” he tells Automotive News. “I got branded as an asshole if I said, ‘Here, how do we build something that succeeds?’ Everything comes down to this: Ideas should be challenged. Conversations about our ideas are healthy. And ultimately, we’re here to make a product.”
Over the past two years, those conversations often occurred inside a courtroom. Waymo, Google’s self-driving car unit, accused Uber of absconding with proprietary knowledge of the company’s essential lidar technology, via Levandowski, and of using those documents to accelerate Uber’s self-driving progress. The dispute was settled in February 2018, with Waymo receiving a stake in Uber worth approximately $245 million at the time.
For Levandowski, legal reverberations continued. The judge presiding over the civil suit recommended him for criminal prosecution. Last summer, Levandowski was indicted on 33 felony counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets. One national magazine called the case “the most prominent federal trade-secret criminal prosecution in Silicon Valley history,” one that pitted a brilliant engineer against a multibillion-dollar company and a government emboldened to use new legal tools to deter corporate espionage.
A case some observers characterized as Big Tech’s turn against innovation itself, the United States of America v. Anthony Scott Levandowski reached its crescendo this month. For all the potential implications and precedents, the outcome underscored one point: In Silicon Valley, things may not always be as they appear.
Early tensions
Following the foundational events sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, known as DARPA, that brought Levandowski and other roboticists together in the Nevada and California deserts during the mid-aughts, Google in 2009 launched Project Chauffeur. That was the first iteration of its foray into self-driving developments.
Ambitions were grandiose. Through the mass deployment of self-driving vehicles, Google promised nothing less than a wholesale transportation revolution, one with potential to eradicate more than a million worldwide traffic deaths every year and end the monotony of driving for everyday commuters.
DARPA alums Sebastian Thrun and Chris Urmson served as early leaders of the project, and Levandowski, who had worked on Google’s Street View project since the DARPA challenges, soon joined them as director of the team’s hardware division.
During his stint at Street View, Levandowski started a side company, 510 Systems, that engineered tools that helped turn camera-based images into data. By 2011, the same underlying technology was needed to boost Google’s self-driving car program. Whether through entrepreneurial cunning or genuine interest in helping, Levandowski engineered the sale of 510 Systems to Google for $20 million.
He sold another company, Anthony’s Robotics, to Google as well. At least initially, most Google employees didn’t understand the connections. Levandowski says he was forthright about his motives.
“I didn’t do that to cash out,” he says. “I did it to scale up.”
The acquisitions nonetheless left uneasy feelings on both sides. Once Google acquired 510 Systems, several employees of the startup were dismissed while others slotted into subordinate roles at Google. Levandowski says he regrets not advocating for the 510 Systems staff in a more aggressive manner. But for the time being, Levandowski retained the backing of Google’s senior leadership, and he and his colleagues coexisted.
That changed in the summer of 2013, following a seminal moment for the self-driving car project. Google entrusted some employees with its fledgling autonomous system for road tests, with the caveat that they understood they were responsible for monitoring the system to ensure safety. Quickly, those employees trusted the system so completely that one fell asleep behind the wheel.
Alarmed, Google scrapped its entire approach to introducing autonomous technology. No longer would the company pursue a path that included interactions between human and machine. Humans, the company concluded, must have no role in the driving process. From Levandowski’s perspective, the company learned the wrong lesson.
Levandowski reached the opposite conclusion. From his perspective, the company learned the wrong lesson from the slumbering driver.
“To me, it was perfect because it showed that we had achieved trust,” he says. “You don’t go from a great product to a hard pivot. You say, ‘Let’s fix that. Let’s detect that.’ But they’re going to take this science project that we’re doing to cure one disease, and saying, ‘No, no, let’s pull that until we cure all diseases.’?”
Tensions mounted. Soon after, he says, another project met a discouraging end.
Spawned from a need to find reliable transportation around its hometown, Mountain View, Calif., Google started its own ride-hailing network on a small scale, Levandowski says. It was called Freebird, and it resembled in spirit a San Francisco startup just beginning to upend transportation.
A new path forward
Had the project been allowed to flourish, Levandowski laments, perhaps Freebird would today be as ubiquitous as Uber. Instead, he says, Google leaders viewed the network as a distraction and shelved the project.
For the first time, Levandowski had doubts about his future at the company. He had disagreed with the self-driving-or-bust pivot, been passed over in favor of Urmson when Thrun departed and now seethed as a novel project was shuttered. Frustrations boiled. The feelings were mutual.
“With his manipulations and lack of enthusiasm and commitment to the [self-driving] project, it became clearer and clearer that this was a lost cause,” Urmson told lawyers during an August 2017 deposition at the outset of Waymo’s civil suit against Uber.
The final straw came in the summer of 2015, when Levandowski approached colleagues about joining him at a new startup dedicated to developing self-driving trucks. Word leaked. Urmson was livid. In an email to his bosses sent Aug. 4, 2015, he was blunt: “We need to fire Anthony Levandowski.”
That didn’t happen. But his departure came soon enough. By that December, Levandowski held discussions with then-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who would later tell Bloomberg that self-driving technology was “basically existential” for the ride-hailing network’s long-term survival.
On Dec. 11, 2015, Levandowski downloaded approximately 14,000 documents from a password-protected Google server, according to court documents. A month later, he announced his departure and the creation of autonomous trucking startup Ottomotto, known as Otto. Discussions with Kalanick continued, and in August 2016, Uber acquired Otto for $680 million.
Google was furious.
Meanwhile, Levandowski had charged into his first chance to run his own self-driving program, with little regard for obstacles. In May 2016, Nevada’s top transportation official warned Otto officials they did not have permission to conduct a driverless test on the state’s roads. Levandowski greenlighted a test run anyway.
Over the summer, company documents indicate, Otto tested a “self-driving system” in “self-driving mode” on California public roads. That was problematic because state regulations prohibit the testing of autonomous vehicles with a gross weight of 10,001 pounds or more. In December 2016, a public dispute erupted with California Department of Motor Vehicles officials after Uber, which had placed its entire self-driving program in Levandowski’s hands, began testing AVs on public roads without obtaining the necessary permits. The state ultimately revoked the registrations of Uber’s test vehicles.
“He has a willingness to take risks to advance his cause in near total indifference to what others may think of him and his endeavors,” said Randy Miller, a friend of Levandowski since their days at the University of California, Berkeley and member of the GhostRider team. “He’s a really, really smart guy who’s always been different than everyone else. He’s the hardest worker I know, and he’s completely fearless. That hasn’t served him well all of the time.”
Two months after the spat with California regulators, Waymo filed suit against Uber, alleging patent infringement and violations of the Defend Trade Secrets Act, a law passed in 2016 that allowed corporations to file civil suits against competitors. The long fall of Anthony Levandowski had begun.
Trade secrets take center stage
In June 2018, about 14 months before Levandowski’s personal legal battle would begin, prosecutors from the U.S. District Court of Northern California charged six executives from wearables company Fitbit with stealing trade secrets from a former employer. Between the Waymo settlement with Uber and now these cases, engineers throughout Silicon Valley suddenly felt vulnerable to similar accusations.
But when the first of the Fitbit cases reached trial in January 2020, a federal grand jury took less than two hours of deliberation to acquit the defendant, Katherine Mogal, of all charges, ending what one attorney called “a five-year nightmare.” Charges against the remaining defendants were subsequently dropped.
Evidence in the Mogal case centered on documents on her personal computer. In an era when so many people work remotely and outside traditional business hours, jurors could not determine what constituted stolen documents or ones that employees had merely saved on home devices in the normal course of their work.
“Companies think that if they keep information confidential, that it’s a trade secret, and that’s absolutely not true,” said Sharon Sandeen, director of the Intellectual Property Institute and professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minn. “Just because you downloaded these documents, that doesn’t mean they’re trade secrets.”
In the civil case between Waymo and Uber, Levandowski’s lawyers argued the approximately 14,000 documents downloaded in December 2015 were part of automatic and regular transfers to his home computer. Waymo engineer Sasha Zbrozek, who designed the server that held the documents, had told lawyers during the course of the investigation that the files were “low value,” according to court filings.
Separately, Zbrozek would say that conducting a “checkout” of documents was common practice and that “it makes me uncomfortable that lawyers are trying to ascribe suspicion to it.”
Sandeen says there are three distinct requirements for information to be considered a trade secret: It must be a secret, not a generally known bit of knowledge; it must have economic value because of its secrecy; companies must engage in efforts to maintain that secrecy.
Further, provisions in trade-secret law allow employees to bring general knowledge with them to new jobs. Silicon Valley overall has thrived for decades with a culture that promotes such movement.
“The problem is, you have a situation like this, with some new technology or initiative, and all the sudden there’s a switch in culture,” Sandeen said. “People start getting more proprietary, and open-innovation norms that existed don’t exist anymore.”
The government’s defeat in the Fitbit trial and subsequent retreat from further cases served as a backdrop to the conclusion of Levandowski’s case. Levandowski reached a plea agreement with the same Northern California prosecutors on March 19. Headlines in publications across the country noted his guilty plea, but they did not capture the substance of the agreement.
He faced 33 felony counts related to theft and attempted theft of trade secrets. Thirty-two of those counts involved accusations related to Google’s internally developed lidar — receiver schematics, motor designs, circuit boards, calibration instructions, etc.
In the end, he pleaded guilty to a charge that had almost nothing to do with the technology Google described as a business differentiator.
Levandowski confessed to downloading 20 documents, including one called “Chauffeur TL weekly updates – Q4 2015.” Stored on Google Drive, the document was an ongoing status report of Google’s self-driving car program, containing quarterly goals and weekly metrics, according to his plea agreement. It contained his team’s OKRs — objectives and key results — and summaries of technical challenges faced by the overall program.
It was not lidar secrets, but it still carries substantial consequences. He admitted to taking the file to use for his own benefit and that he intended to use the weekly update for “the economic benefit of somebody other than the owner” with the knowledge that it would injure Google’s economic position.
“Mr. Levandowski’s guilty plea in a criminal hearing today brings to an end a seminal case for our company and the self-driving industry,” a Waymo spokesperson said. “We are successfully protecting our intellectual property as we build the world’s most experienced driver.”
In a separate hearing two weeks earlier, an arbitration panel had ordered Levandowski to pay Google $179 million in damages, upholding a ruling that he engaged in deceptive and unfair practices when he siphoned Google employees to his trucking startup. He then filed for bankruptcy.
An uncertain future
At the coffee shop in December, Levandowski declined to discuss the specifics of the charges against him. That was partially tactical; the case was ongoing. But beyond the advice of his lawyers, it seemed Levandowski viewed the wringing over his own particular fate as a distraction from a larger concern — a self-driving industry beset with problems and delayed deployment time frames.
Uber shut down its self-driving trucks division in July 2018. Cruise Automation, the General Motors subsidiary, indefinitely delayed its timeline for launching a robotaxi service in 2019. Waymo runs some autonomous vehicles without human safety drivers aboard in a geofenced area of metro Phoenix, but those are a small part of overall operations, of which the company has not disclosed the scope.
Industry lobbyists have blamed a patchwork of regulations that vary from state to state as a contributing factor to the delayed rollout of self-driving technology. But Levandowski defends the regulators he once circumvented.
“Regulators are a scapegoat,” he says. “The real problem is that it’s not ready.”
In 2008, as part of his efforts at 510 Systems, he conducted the first autonomous pizza delivery, using one of the company’s Toyota Priuses, with a police escort, to travel from the San Francisco waterfront, across the Bay Bridge and to Treasure Island. A dozen years later, he laments that not much has improved.
“I’m disappointed,” he says of the industry he helped create. “We’re far out. There’s a fundamental breakthrough that’s needed. This is not that ‘we built an airplane, and we’re figuring out the wing configuration.’ This is, ‘we built an airplane, and we don’t know how to make it fly.’?”
Such a view may not be widely accepted, but it’s no longer an outlier. This month, Toyota Research Institute CEO Gill Pratt told IEEE Spectrum that the gradient of progress has diminished and that it’s getting more difficult to solve remaining challenges. Along similar lines, Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, outgoing CEO of the now-defunct self-driving truck company Starsky Robotics, says supervised machine learning “doesn’t live up to the hype.”
Billions have been spent. Millions of testing miles have been driven, the value of which is increasingly scrutinized. Thousands of employees have been devoted to readying self-driving technology. Fully autonomous vehicles remain a bold and ambitious project, but in the meantime, there’s an intermediate step with lifesaving potential. Instead of waiting for self-driving cars, traffic deaths can be addressed today with advanced driver-assist systems.
In July 2018, Levandowski co- founded Pronto.ai, a company developing driver-assist systems tailored for the trucking industry. He stepped down as CEO when the trade-secret indictment arrived. But over the past year, his faith in driver-assist systems has only grown more resolute.
Levandowski has been accused of disregarding safety over the years. Most notably, a New Yorker article alleges a 2011 incident in which he was behind the wheel of a Google self-driving test vehicle, which boxed in a Toyota Camry. The Camry subsequently spun out of control along a California roadway, and in swerving to avoid it, the article says, Levandowski injured a colleague who was his passenger.
He bristles at the idea he’s cut safety corners, arguing he’s doing more to save lives today than those focused solely on a fully driverless tomorrow.
“Everyone who says they’re building self-driving cars for safety reasons, they’re whitewashing their efforts,” he says. “If you replace a driver, that’s a moneymaking opportunity. If you think that’s happening next week, go work on that. If you think it’s not happening for another 10 years, look at these incremental systems that are saving lives today.”
No limits
Frustrations with the pace of self-driving developments aside, Levandowski remains bullish on the long-term prospects of artificial intelligence.
When Uber fired him in May 2017, he turned his attention toward that future, diving into his self-appointed role as dean of the self-created Way of the Future, a church devoted to the worship of AI. Outsiders thought it was a prank or perhaps a means to shelter his fortune. But he says his intentions are genuine.
“AI has amazing potential that will surpass humans,” he says. “I don’t think there’s a limit to how good it will be, and I want that to be beneficial for society. The whole reason it’s a church is that it strips away financial motivations. It turns a primary motivation of ‘How can we make money?’ to ‘How can we use this to solve problems and potentially take care of the planet?’?”
If exploring those far-reaching impacts of AI are part of Levandowski’s future, he cannot yet escape the present. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 4. Federal guidelines suggest he will spend 24 to 30 months in prison.
“Mr. Levandowski is a young man with enormous talents and much to contribute to the fast-moving world of AI and AV,” Miles Ehrlich, his attorney, said in a written statement. “We hope this plea will allow him to move on with his life and focus his energies where they matter most.”
Recently divorced, bankrupt and an admitted thief, Levandowski has seen much of the legacy he created now in tatters. One small part remains intact: GhostRider, the self-driving motorcycle that launched his career, resides in the Smithsonian Institution.
Miller, his friend, laments all that has been squandered. But he’s reassured by the beliefs it’s only served to invigorate Levandowski and that a long road ahead remains.
“Certainly, he made a mistake with the files that has cost him a few years of his life already and will probably cost him a few more,” he said. “In a certain way, that’s humbling. At the same time, he is who he is. He’s not going to get out and take a job at a coding desk. Day one, he’s going to be right back at it. Knowing him, I don’t think this is the final chapter at all.”

US Markets End of Day Snapshot

• US stocks sold off, moving lower from open until the session closed; the risk-off sentiment that drove the sell-off is rooted in concerns over the health of the global economy
• The S&P500 closed today at a level last seen in April, it is down almost 3% year to date in price return
• The S&P 500 finished down 1.91%, Nasdaq Composite is down 2.26%, and Russell 2000 is down 1.53%
• According to analysis by Bank of America, US mutual funds have seen close to USD$2.72 billion in outflows since the start of the recent sell-off in the S&P 500 in October – the second biggest exit since this type of data started to be recorded
• Today, the Ifo-Institute, a premier German economic institute, projected lower growth of the German economy in 2019 with a projected GDP growth rate of 1.1%, the previous estimate was 1.9%
• European Central Bank head Mario Draghi reinforced negative sentiment with comments on a slow down in global growth and decelerating economic data in China
• Chinese retail sales growth of 8.1% in November is the lowest 15 years and industrial production of 5.4% in November is the lowest in 10 years
• European auto stocks are dropped following a report showing a sharp drop in new car registrations in November
• US retail sales rose 0.2% in November, above 0.1% expected
• US industrial production in November rose 0.6%, above 0.3% expected
• Real Estate (-0.21%), Utilities (-0.26%), and Materials (-0.82%) stocks were the top performers in the S&P 500 today
• Energy (-2.38%), Tech (-2.48%), and Healthcare (-3.37%) stocks were the worst performers in the S&P 500 today
• Investor sentiment for US stocks finished negative with the advance/decline ratio for the S&P 500 closing at 0.14x
• 24 stocks in the S&P 500 hit 4-week highs while 96 stocks reached 4-week lows
• 12 stocks in the S&P 500 closed overbought while 47 stocks closed oversold according to the 16-day RSI Measure
• 27 stocks in the Nasdaq Composite hit 4-week highs while 319 stocks reached 4-week lows
• 96 stocks in the Nasdaq Composite closed overbought while 655 stocks closed oversold according to the 16-day RSI Measure
• The VIX finished flat at 21.16 after closing at 20.65 yesterday

Stocks Trending in the News

Abbott Labs (ABT) increased its quarterly dividend today to 32 cents per share, a 14% hike to its payout. Abbott Labs has increased its dividend for 47 consecutive quarters. This is the 380th consecutive quarterly dividend paid by Abbott Labs. Abbott Labs is rated “Neutral” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas.

• Adobe Inc. (ADBE) reported sales guidance for the current quarter that pleased investors, although analysts are highlighting that M&A costs may cause short-term margin contraction. Adobe sees revenue for its current quarter, ending 2/28/2019, at USD$2.54bn while analysts’ consensus calls for USD$2.52bn. After Adobe’s guidance, Bernstein told investors, “Another strong Q,’ while pointing out, “slightly weaker,” margins due to the acquisition of Marketo, which, “should take some time to normalize.” Adobe is rated “Top Buy” in our US Large Cap Global Top Stock Ideas and “Neutral” in our US Information Technology Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Instacart will no longer make deliveries for Amazon’s (AMZN) Whole Foods starting yesterday. Instacart will not deliver any longer as Amazon uses its own delivery service. The separation will take months to complete. Amazon is slowly transitioning to its own delivery service as it no longer sees Instacart as the most efficient way to make the deliveries. Amazon is rated “Neutral” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas and “Attractive” in our US Consumer Discretionary Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Apple (AAPL) will push through a software update to its iPhones in China in an effort to satisfy a local court injunction granted to Qualcomm (QCOM). Apple said it was taking the action to assure its compliance with the court order there. Apple’s update will address the Qualcomm complaints over patents. Globally, Apple and Qualcomm are in a legal battle over the fees Apple pays Qualcomm pays for use of its chips. Apple presently is not using Qualcomm chips. Apple is rated “Top Buy” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas and “Top Buy” in our US Information Technology Global Top Stock Ideas. Qualcomm is rated “Unattractive” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas and “Neutral” in our US Information Technology Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Costco (COST) reported earnings that topped the highest estimates. Costco reported 1Q EPS of USD$1.73 while consensus was for USD$1.51-1.67. Costco 1Q revenue of USD$35.07 billion came above USD$34.8 billion expected. Total sales excluding fuel grew 7.5% in constant currency.
• Dominion Energy’s (D) USD$7.9 billion takeover of South Carolina utility Scana was approved by regulators. Dominion Energy agreed to rate cuts as part of the deal to compensate ratepayers for past rate hikes for a nuclear reactor that was never built. Scana spent USD$4.9 billion to build the reactor and then walked away in the middle of the project. Dominion Energy is rated “Attractive” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) shares are trading lower by double-digits after a Reuters report said that the company has known for decades that traces of asbestos could exist in its baby powder. In July, a court ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay USD$4.69bn to a woman who claimed that asbestos in their products resulted in her developing ovarian cancer. Johnson & Johnson is rated “Attractive” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas.
• LVMH (ENXTPA: MC) is acquiring luxury hotel operator Belmond Ltd. (BEL) in a USD$2.6 billion deal. The deal will push LVMH further into luxury services, with a chain where USD$2,000 per night rooms are common. LVMH is offering USD$25 per share, a 42% premium over last night’s close. LMH is looking to catch a portion of consumer’s spending on luxury services. LVMH is rated “Attractive” in our European Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas. Belmond is not rated in our Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Merck & Co. (MRK) has agreed to acquire Antelliq Group for 2.1bn euros (USD$2.4bn) in an effort to bolster its animal-health business. As a part of the acquisition, Merck will assume the debt of the privately held manufacturer of animal-monitoring tools. Merck is rated “Attractive” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Monster Beverage (MNST) is being downgraded at UBS from neutral to sell. UBS also pulled back its price target for Monster to USD$48/share, which implies a 16% decrease from yesterday’s closing price. Monster Beverage maintains an average price target of USD$61.47/share among 19 analysts. Monster Beverage is rated “Top Buy” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas and “Attractive” in our US Consumer Staples Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Pfizer (PFE) announced a new USD$10 billion share repurchase program that is in addition to its outstanding USD$4.9 billion in its present program. Pfizer also announced an increase of its dividend to 36 cents per share from 34 cents. Pfizer is rated “Attractive” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Sears Holdings (SHLD) only needed bankruptcy to boost sales-Sears saw same-store sales grow 4.3% in the last quarter amid liquidation sales at its stores. Sears recently closed 28 Kmart and 73 Sears stores, over the last 9 months 100 Kmart and 138 Sears stores have been closed. Sears’ largest shareholder ESL Investments has offered to buy 500 stores and keep them open. Sears Holdings is not rated in our Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Shopify (SHOP) shares are plunging after announcing plans to conduct its second equity capital raise this year. Shopify announced intentions to sell 2.6mm Class A subordinate voting shares after conducting a sale of 4.8mm shares earlier in 2018. Shopify is rated “Top Short” in our Canada All-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Southwest Airlines (LUV) saw a human heart left on one of its planes in Seattle. The heart was left on a Southwest plane by a courier who was delivering it to a tissue bank, its valves were being harvested for a donation. Despite the delay, the heart arrived within time to be used by a recipient. Southwest Airlines is rated “Unattractive” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas and “Neutral” in our US Industrials Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Starbucks Corporation’s (SBUX) CFO Patrick Grismer said that same-store sales growth in China could be as low as 1% over the long-term, a statement of concern for one of the coffee brewer’s most important markets. The 1% projected long-term same-store sales growth in China is much slower than the 3%-4% same-store sales growth observed by Starbucks in the US and the rest of the world. Additionally, Starbucks guided that it expects 6,000 total stores in China in 4 years. Starbucks is rated “Top Buy” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas and “Top Buy” in our US Consumer Discretionary Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Tesla (TSLA) employees at the company’s solar-panel factory in Buffalo, New York are launching a campaign to unionize. Tesla thwarted similar efforts made by the United Auto Workers at its only car plant in Freemont, California. More than 300 solar-panel factory employees are involved in this campaign. Tesla is rated “Top Short” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas and “Neutral” in our US Consumer Discretionary Global Top Stock Ideas.
• Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA) was downgraded by Goldman Sachs today to sell from neutral. Goldman Sachs cut the price target of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc to USD$68 from USD$73. Goldman does not believe Walgreens’ initiatives to grow sales through better use of its retail footprint will deliver enough growth to offset declining core growth. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc is rated “Attractive” in both our US Large-Cap and US Consumer Discretionary Global Top Stock Ideas.
• XPO Logistics (XPO) has announced a USD$1 billion share buyback program to be funded with existing cash. XPO Logistics dropped 32% yesterday after well-known hedge fund short-seller Spruce Point warned in a note of “dubious financials” at XPO Logistics. XPO Logistics is rated “Neutral” in our US Large-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas and “Attractive” in our US Industrials Global Top Stock Ideas.
• YRC Worldwide Inc. (YRCW) shares are spiraling after the US Department of Justice announced that they are suing the company, along with Roadway Express and Yellow Transportation, for allegedly overcharging the government organization by millions. According to the US Department of Justice, the weights they were charged to ship items were, in reality, lighter than for what they were charged. YRC Worldwide is rated “Unattractive” in our US SMID-Cap Global Top Stock Ideas and “Top Buy” in our US Industrials Global Top Stock Ideas.

US Treasuries

• US 2-Year Treasury Notes are higher with yields down -3.1 basis points to 2.731%
• US 5-Year Treasury Bonds are higher with yields down -2.39 basis points to 2.7306%
• US 10-Year Treasury Bonds are higher with yields down -2.18 basis points to 2.8913%
• The US Treasury 2s-5s Spread has widened 0.71 basis points to 0%
• The US Treasury 2s-10s Spread has widened 0.92 basis points to 0.16%
• US Treasury 5s-10s Spread has widened 0.21 basis points to 0.16%

Currencies

• EUR€ is down 0.493% against the USD$ in after hours to 1.1305
• GBP£ is down 0.49% against the USD$ in after hours to 1.2581
• CHF is down 0.437% against the USD$ in after hours to 1.0017
• JPY¥ is down 0.22% against the USD$ in after hours to 113.38

Commodities

• WTI Crude is down -2.62% to USD$51.2/bbl with the Brent-WTI spread up USD$0.33 to USD$8.07/bbl
• Gold is down -0.28% to USD$1238.49/oz

Hello guys, I'm looking for people to fund my project. I need $10 million to start and I'm looking for investors. I'll soon open my website to start for pre-orders. I'm going to use the loophole that involves in pre-orders (basically I won't fulfilled your orders) but I will continue to advertise that I will deliver your eye contact to make more money until people stop pre-ordering. I will later on file for bankruptcy of course after I send my millions to another country....
Please support my project and no negative comments please. I will be using the same practices that Plastc and Scott Brusaw use for solar roadways (which is impossible to do as you can't see led at day light). Also the "roadways" raised 220% more than their goal and it was about $2.2 million on a project which is more complicated and more expensive than Plastc yet Plastc couldn't even start the project. But don't worry my eye contact will be a better project and I will succeed. I have a plan.
Thank you!
(This is how I deal with my anger right now, with sarcasm and being illiterate )
I honestly think there should be a law for this loophole. Plastc is not the only company to do this. Many projects raise money and never deliver but get to keep the money for themselves.

Lurking this sub for awhile. I've noticed that the users hold fairly consistent positions regarding the problems millennials face. I'd like to get some kind of resolution (for myself if no one else)
My TL;DR Position: Economy needs to be stable and booming for 1 generation for an investment in education/career track to make sense. All the problems with unemployment/UBI/debt etc are caused by a deeply sick and dying economy.
This is the first thread I will make and it is regarding the role of education in an economy. I'd like to split them off into their most common positions (I'm sure there's overlap/other variations but brevity is the soul of wit). I will list the position then the contradiction I see in it.
They seem to go as follows:
Position 1. The "Assembly Line Argument": People who believe that university is necessary due to a "modern economy" that requires high skilled jobs. No degree = economy won't function. The problem for millennials is that it's too expensive/too much debt.
Response: I call this the assembly line argument because it is the exact same one that industrialists used to justify the necessity of Primary School in the late 1800's: "The modern industrial economy can't function if we don't have an educated workforce!" (asking any adult on the street to add two fractions will quickly demonstrate the relevance and necessity of K-12 education).
Highschool aside, the problem with this is reasoning is pretty simple: We have an oversupply of degrees. If anything there is a shortage of jobs for those degree holders to take.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth
With 277,000 STEM positions open, and 11,400,000 STEM degree holders working outside of STEM the argument that the economy runs on Bachelors Degrees is frankly B.S. (gettit?).
To further illustrate we've added 450,000 waiter and bartending jobs since 2014, and 0 manufacturing jobs. Why do we need engineers if we don't make anything?
https://s23.postimg.org/skk4vcuzf/waiter_bartender.jpg
https://s30.postimg.org/r6y23xqch/waiter_bartender_vs_MFG_since_2007.jpg
The second part of this: The idea that the price of a degree is the problem is also factually true, but trivial. Yes the current debt loads are unsustainable. Yes the price of college is insane. But people are still willing to pay for it regardless.
A more pertinent statement would be that the belief that degrees are necessary is what causes the price to be so high.
The response to this is pretty predictable so let's continue:
2. University is not strictly necessary, but it provides an advantage to "out-compete" non-degree holders for employment prospects.
Response: Call this the "Hindu Caste" or "Virtue Signaling" argument. In Hinduism, you're basically stuck in your caste until you reincarnate. You can descend from a higher to a lower caste but can't go up. College is supposed to simultaneously divide people based on "merit" into the haves and have-nots. Certain personality types are attracted to this notion but its based on a fantasy world.
The idea is that degrees give you +15 Charisma to HR algorithms and will allow you to pass an increasingly fine mesh of people. The problems with this line of reasoning are numerous:
First: University and College are guaranteed costs. Investing in a degree has never been more expensive either. Yes I said "Investing". This is because degrees are not lifestyle choices or status symbols unless you're already a wealthy person.
Degrees essentially are business investments and getting one makes the student a "psuedo-entrepreneur". The issue then becomes that while an entrepreneur might do considerable market research before making his investment, most Universities do not treat their programs as such. This has led to considerable ignorance on the part of the students paying for them and thus has made the statistical probability of seeing a return on their tuition less and less likely.
Second: It operates on what I call the "Shrinking Pie" or "Malthusian" premise. I'll get into this more in my second thread (millennial unemployment) but the idea here is that there is a shrinking amount of resources in the world and you have to compete for them in order to survive.
This idea has been discredited for over a century and its most recent permutation was panned by most scientists and economists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb#Restatement_of_Malthusian_theory
Applied to the job market this is actually a bizarre inversion of Overpopulation because being short on oil or food is a theoretical possibility (we're in a commodity bust right now so we're quite oversupplied on both)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/behind-the-commodities-bust/2015/08/26/a56b35d4-4c07-11e5-902f-39e9219e574b_story.html?utm_term=.204a435cf72a
But what this idea suggests is that there is a limited number of jobs to do. This is simply wrong. There has never been more jobs that needed to be done with or without degrees. You can't run out of "work". That doesn't even make sense. Everyone is born with a mouth and a belly. As long as people are alive they will need things to be done and things to do them with.
The U.S. infrastructure is crumbling, its internet and telecom infrastructure lags behind developed nations, and the exploration of space basically has been stopped since the 1970's while NASA's budget has been bled white:
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2959544/lan-wan/u-s-internet-connection-speeds-still-lag-behind-other-developed-nations.html
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/jul/27/america-infrastructure-roadways-highways-funding
https://www.vice.com/en_dk/article/america-is-collapsing-a-brief-look-at-the-us-infrastructure-meltdown-130
Having high unemployment with simultaneously crumbling roads are a paradox, and suggest not overpopulation, but epidemic levels of financial mismanagement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/business/dealbook/dallas-pension-debt-threat-of-bankruptcy.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/07/18/detroit-isnt-alone-the-u-s-cities-that-have-gone-bankrupt-in-one-map/?utm_term=.5053514c0206
The point here is not that the iceberg is not shrinking, but that making a six figure investment for what amounts to a lottomax chance at return is a sign of pathology because:
Third. In high unemployment environments (stagflation), hiring is essentially done at random. The costs of finding the "best" employee go up the more resumes you have to sift through. That's why they're now mostly done by algorithms which has led to a whole host of other problems which have a lot of this has to do with the nature of 20th-21st century employment in general but most of it can be summarized by the statement:
Resumes Suck: Here's the Data

On average, participants guessed correctly 53% of the time. This was pretty surprising, and at the risk of being glib, according to these results, when a good chunk of people involved in hiring make resume judgments, they might as well be flipping a coin.

No logical business person would spend six figures, with zero revenue for a coin flip chance at a return on investment. (the fact is that the numbers are a lot worse than that).
https://www.experience.com/alumnus/article?channel_id=technology&source_page=additional_articles&article_id=article_1173383927084

The terrifying reality regarding your resume is that for all the many hours you put into fine-tuning, you've got 30 seconds to make an impression on me. Maybe less.

This frequently leads to another line of reasoning:
Position 3. The "Generation Screwed" argument. People who believe university is not worth it (unnecessary) due to the price vs poor returns that are made, combined with the few jobs that are available.
I'm a big believer that predictability is the most important feature of an investment and if education that someone has to pay up front is regarded this way then being able to predict the job market over the course of ones life is one of the most important parts of choosing a career. And the job market is basically dead on arrival:
Nearly 95% of all new jobs during Obama era were part-time, or contract
Canada gains 44,000 jobs, driven by boom in part-time positions
The people who are lost due to the wild fluctuations of the current economy usually fall into two categories which aren't mutually exclusive. Both are essentially pragmatic ways to reduce risk to the job seeker:
A) Technical Certificate/Trades Solution
Getting a technical certificate or entering a trade is probably the best decision from a risk management perspective. The problem I have here is that like the prospect of getting a degree, it seems like more of a Fabian strategy. In short, unless the overall economy is traveling in a direction that is both healthy and predictable for at least a few decades, tying oneself to a particular trade seems like a recipe for disaster.
No recovery in sight for Canada’s 100,000 unemployed oil workers
Jobless in Alberta: Tens of thousands of energy professionals are out of work and out of hope
This is the part of the discussion where it becomes difficult to discuss training for the economy without the discussion becoming completely about the economy or unemployment (which is why I will be making a series of three threads). In short, trades are good if the economy is stable for at least a generation (25 years). At the very least you will be getting paid while getting an apprenticeship.
B) Universal Basic Income Solution
This is a popular discussion on this sub but I don't hear much discussion beyond it being "the only answer". I don't expect many people to do much disinterested research in economics but the truth is that this is actually a good solution in a sense. The truth is that velocity of money is currently the lowest it has been in recorded history:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Money.jpg
As you can see the situation is the worst its ever been, to the point that even non-economists can feel that the problem is a fundamental shortage of money.
My problem with universal basic income is that it transfers power in a way that is invisible to the recipient. Being paid for a job allows you to negotiate or protest things such as working conditions, pay, and benefits with a visible party. When a centralized authority issues compensation to the population, the ability to negotiate is for all practical purposes eliminated.
I think this underlines a few deeper problems that I will use to conclude this thread and lead into another:

1. Workers don't feel they can or should be able to negotiate. I mean really what leverage does a Wal-Mart worker have?
   
2. Companies almost cannot give workers what they would demand anyways. Workers are now turning to the government to act in their interests. The problem is that even the largest companies are in very rough shape:
   

Wal-Mart to close 269 stores, cutting 16,000 jobs
McDonald’s is closing hundreds of stores this year
Even if these companies were inclined to give employees what they want, I don't believe they would actually be able to. This leads me to my main points:
Conclusion

1. The health of the economy is the cause of problems with the training of the labor force. In boom times, companies can afford training. In busts, employees have to foot the bill for a shrinking piece of pie leading to a "mania" regarding post-secondary training. People will tend to associate unemployment with the lack of training of the workers when in reality companies trained employees to do these types of jobs in the past:

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/about-delta/business-programs/training-and-consulting-services/pilot-training.html

1. Investing in a degree or certificate that doesn't guarantee either a return for at least 1 generation is a bad investment. I think that the low birth rates are caused by people not understanding that you can't raise a family when you don't have secure employment, and you can't be constantly re-training while simultaneously supporting ones offspring.