Hello. I protected the ranch from the invading aliens.
But stuff still happened.
So what's up?
The iron must have been hot because the strike worked.
Hell yeah. Still got it.
Yeah, so the United Auto Workers, they are at three tentative deals with the three big automakers
to get a lot more money.
As a very quick summary, the United Auto Workers, who represents 150,000 auto workers
from around the US, have been increasingly going on strike across the big three automakers,
Ford, Stellantis, and GM.
As those corporations have made record profits, they have not been doing record raises.
For some reason, weird. I wonder why that didn't happen.
But since the company didn't pay their due, the workers went on strike.
And now it looks like they might win big.
The full details of the deal are not out yet and union workers have yet to actually vote on it,
but it's looking pretty good with raises up to 150% for starting workers.
Really raises across the board, even for tenured workers and better retirement and more everything,
including additional jobs.
Like they were going to cut jobs, but the union was like, nah, you're going to give more jobs.
Here's the weird part.
When the workers were like, hey, you should pay us better and give us stable jobs,
the companies were like, oh, we just can't do that.
The money is just not there.
And then now somehow the money is just there.
Weird how they continue to lie as if we don't know what's going on.
Anyway, massive props to UAW president Sean Fain,
who has been an absolute badass throughout this whole thing.
I hope everything works out and I hope all those workers get what's theirs.
I'm going to need your help with this next one because I am lost.
A man was found dead in a woman's bathroom at an amusement park in Colorado.
He was carrying a semi-automatic rifle,
handgun, magazines for both and several improvised explosives.
It very much appears that this guy was planning to carry out a mass killing at this amusement park
after breaking into it overnight and waiting for it to open up.
Thankfully, he ate his own bullet before that happened.
Investigations are still ongoing, but it's noted that he was wearing body armor,
tactical gear and had patches and emblems that indicated,
quote, association with law enforcement.
I have to assume that means that he was one of those cosplayers that like
wears thin blue line patches and Punisher logos and thinks he's really cool.
Sorry, thought he was really cool.
Anyway, here's my question.
This is what I'm hung up on.
This guy was planning to do a mass killing, but instead killed himself first.
Does that make him a good guy with a gun or a bad guy with a gun?
Hey, let's talk about fiscal responsibility.
The Republican hallmark.
Newly elected speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has put forward a proposal
to fund military aid to Israel by cutting more budget from the IRS.
14.3 billion dollars of aid specifically.
This is in response to Biden's request for all that aid to go out to Ukraine and Israel.
But Johnson's like, now let's just focus on Israel right now.
This is a top matter of national security.
So let's cut funding to the IRS and give that money to Israel for war.
That'll absolutely help balance the country's budget.
Now, look, I don't stand the IRS, but they're not necessarily at the top
of my list of government agencies that you're probably be getting less money.
Their operating costs are already pretty low and they're already pretty underfunded.
It's also noted by the CBO that for each dollar of budget that's given to the IRS,
they can bring in five to nine dollars of income.
And the less money the IRS has, the less rich people they can prosecute for avoiding taxes.
And so it's a very convenient way to both use taxpayer money to fund foreign wars,
while also making it easier for rich people to avoid paying taxes.
What a great proposal.
And I want to be clear, the Democrats also want to give this money to Israel.
They just don't want to cut it from the IRS.
This is your reminder that the United States does not have a left-wing party.
Democrats are center-right.
That is not a hot take.
That is just international standards.
Anyway, both of these parties want to send billions of dollars of aid to Israel
to further their ethnic cleansing, which by the way,
it recently came out that Israel's government literally has a document
outlining a proposal to eject citizens from Gaza into Egypt.
All of them.
And that's not an exaggeration.
Israel has literally said, oh yeah, we have that document.
Don't worry about it.
It's just a proposal.
Don't worry about it.
I do want to note, because I think it's important that you know,
that there was a recent CBS poll that showed that
public sentiment on the whole Israel thing is shifting.
A majority of Americans are not in support of sending military aid to Israel.
The only group that goes against that grain are Republicans.
57% of Republicans do want to use taxpayer money to fund wars in Israel.
53% of Democrats and 55% of independents would rather not.
Instead, a majority of Americans are in support of providing humanitarian aid to the region.
So, I mean, that doesn't translate to the actions of our government,
but public sentiment is different.
Anyway, my point is maybe give us health care.
All right, this isn't really a news segment.
This is a news segment about an article that I saw, and I just can't believe this exists.
I just want you to, I want you to see what's on.
I want you to see what's on here.
Okay, because it's out of control.
Publication The Economist has a whole ass article, unironically entitled,
What a Third World War Would Mean for Investors.
This is a real quote from the article.
The scenario would, of course, place financial damage way down on the list of horrors.
Even so, it is part of an investor's job to consider exactly what it would mean for their
portfolio. Very normal train of thought, very healthy.
On this day in 1604, William Shakespeare's Othello was performed for the first time
at the Whitehall Palace in London.
Exactly seven years later, on this day in 1611,
Shakespeare's The Tempest was performed for the first time at the Whitehall Palace in London.
What I'm getting at is this.
I hope you brought a script to perform at the Whitehall Palace today,
because I sure as hell did not.
I'm really going to need your help on that one.
Lightning Round.
Twitter has dropped an eye-watering 56% in value since its original purchase
for $44 billion, down to $19 billion.
That is deeply overvalued in my opinion.
YouTube is pushing forward with their work to block ad blockers,
and will now begin, for some people,
blocking entire videos if they detect that you're using an ad blocker.
You can of course still get around this with various programs and whatnot,
but for the average user, it's going to start being a problem.
And it's gotten to the point that popular ad blockers are starting to really struggle
to win this fight.
But we'll see.
Never underestimate the power of people not wanting to see ads.
Speaking of dumb technology decisions,
Microsoft's Xbox will now reject unauthorized third-party controllers.
If you plug in a controller that they didn't approve of,
you'll get a pop-up saying stop it.
Very thoughtful of them, for accessibility controllers and whatnot.
More dumb technology bullshit.
Microsoft had an AI-generated poll appear next to an article about a woman who died.
The poll was like, hey, how do you think she died?
AI truly changing the world.
According to reports, WeWork is on the brink of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
After fetching that asteroid sample and bringing it back to Earth,
NASA is having some trouble opening up the capsule.
They're only allowed to use certain tools that have been approved for use in the clean environment,
and the tools they have are not cutting it, literally.
And finally for today, Destiny 2 developer Bungie has laid off a whole bunch of staff,
including really highly tenured people and their lead composer.
They reportedly missed their earnings projections by 45%,
and they have pushed out the next Destiny expansion by several months,
and their next upcoming game has been pushed out to 2025.
This never would have happened if Zavala and Eris could just understand
that they are fighting for the same side.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening,
and to Stuff Keeps Happening.com for online sources, bonus content, and unbelievable fashion advice.
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It helps a ton. I very much appreciate it.
Appreciate it. My name is Endeavorance. I'll be back on Friday. Take care and be well.