Credit card companies (Visa, Discover, MasterCard, AMEX) make their money through transaction fees. They make their money when you spend money using the card, regardless of any debts involved.

The banks that issue cards are a different matter. They also make some money when you use the card (some of which goes towards those credit card rewards you get, which is how they can do stuff like offer % back) but mostly they make money by letting you spend just enough money so as to be perpetually in debt. Your bank wants you to carry a balance. They want you to be paying them tens of percentage points of interest each year. The credit limit they give you isn’t the amount they want you to spend in one purchase, it’s calculated to be the maximum amount you can afford the running payments on, which will do nothing to touch the principal.

Sure, you can discharge the debt if you go bankrupt, but consider as well that your bank has a couple of other advantages. First, they get to see all your spending. They know how you’re spending your money, where, when. They also usually get to see your other information. They know how much money comes into your balance accounts each month, they know how much your rent/mortgage costs, they know how much money is coming in from Venmo when you borrow from family to cover debts you can’t pay, how much money you spend on food delivery apps, how much of an emergency fund you keep. They know how much money you’re spending on things that you don’t have to be, which is money you could be giving them instead, if it becomes a running balance. And at 25% interest, they only need this scheme to work for 4 years before they make as much money as they’d lose if you default on your entire balance. Plus, when you do have money in the bank, they get to use that money for other things while it’s with them. If you have a $100,000 credit limit, odds are pretty good you have an account with them holding a few tens of thousands of dollars. They get to use most of that until you ask for it back.

For the free (no-interest) versions, it’s a bullshit legal loophole in the US credit laws, or at least it was a few years ago. May have been more strongly codified since, though I bet almost nobody who could close it realizes the gap is there. The whole scheme is out of Australia, but I have no idea what their legal setup is.

The US requirements are basically:

• You can’t charge fees to host the plan
• You can’t charge % late fees, only fixed
• You can’t have more than 4 installments, meaning no more than 5 payments if you include an optional down payment
• You must not deny customers for means-based items, or using credit data. You can give them an effectively meaningless approval value though.

You as a customer pay late fees if you miss a payment, but they make most of their money by charging the merchant a higher transaction fee. So, it’s theoretically free for the customer, meaning it can fit into the loophole. Legally it isn’t a credit product.

The TL;DR is “because the law is full of holes and bullshit, and if it’s making people money then it’s not likely to change”

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You’re locking in on the wrong thing.

In 60000 miles, the above poster reports one gallon of gas was saved. That’s 0.05% assuming 30mpg. We don’t need hundreds or thousands of changes that each net us tiny results, we need big changes that can happen quickly and net tens of percentage points of improvement. Yes, small changes are not literally nothing, but solutions need to look like “40% fewer cars on the road” sorts of things if we want to actually accomplish anything at all.

The world doesn’t have time or space for us to make these minor, rounding-error changes. I know the argument will be “every little bit helps” but we collectively need to start making massive changes, and stop thinking of this as an incremental problem. We should still make improvements and strive for better efficiencies, but the practical reality is that those changes are too small, too slow, and too late.

While I certainly agree with your overall point, I’d guess that firefighters have someone who’s job it is to start the engine/truck while their fellows are donning their gear.

Oregon legalized self-service a couple years ago, though stations still have to have attendant service too.

“Base” is the number of distinct integers you have in play. In Base 10, there are ten of them. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. You can think of the numeric representation 10 as “1 ten, and 0 ones.”

In Base 2 (binary) the only two digits available are 0 and 1. The first four binary numbers are 0, 1, 10, 11, which represent zero, one, two, and three. In Base 2, “10” means “1 two, and 0 ones.” But, “Base 2” can’t be written in binary, there’s no concept of 2! Indeed, the way we reflect two in binary is 10. Which means, when we’re talking in binary, “Base 2” is written as “Base 10.”

This holds true for EVERY base. In Base 4, we have the digits 0, 1, 2, and 3. So if we want a value of four, we need to write it as 10. “1 four, 0 ones”. So, when we’re talking in Base 4, the way to say “Base 4” is ALSO by saying “Base 10”!

The trick behind it is that numbers written don’t have context-free meaning. You can’t communicate what “10” means without knowing how many distinct digits your conversational partner is working with. Most people have centralized on base 10, but there’s no inherent advantage to doing things that way. Indeed, it’s kind of awkward in lots of ways. Consider Base 12 (the digits of which are most often 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, as an aside). In Base 12, you can easily divide your base numbers by 1, 2, 3, 4. That’s SUPER handy, since we obviously break things up into groups of 3 and 4 pretty often in our daily lives, but that’s pretty painful in Base 10 because you immediately run into the need for fractions.

Pretty sure it’s Make America Horrible Again

There are a number of compression algorithms that prioritize decompression speed, usually at the expense of higher compression times.

While it’s <10% across the entire population, LGBTQ identification rates are at 23% for GenZ. https://news.gallup.com/poll/656708/lgbtq-identification-rises.aspx

But the reason it’s an issue for many is that people don’t really say “normal” to refer to things like sexuality, gender, etc. in a “statistically most likely” way, they use it specifically to exclude the other group from being considered normal as something lesser. Or, to put it another way…

Let’s be honest here. a high percentage of the time that someone categorizes something (implicitly or explicitly) as “abnormal” it is done with intent to label the subject as something undesirable. It’s pretty safe to say that if a term is very often used in a negative way in a specific context, then we can reasonably assume that default definition when that’s the context we’re in. I don’t understand why people are so often afraid to acknowledge that we don’t live in a world of pure definitions, and rather must exist in a situation where the context of a statement is relevant.

On the bright side, this probably means you could refuse to turn over ANY footage to the police by Pleading the Fifth.

Let’s not, the idiots running the show in the US will just rename it to the Gulf of Patriotism or some dumb bullshit.

It’s not saying “gender dysphoria is not a diagnosis that exists anywhere” it’s saying “believing yourself to be transgender is a substantial enough mental illness and flaw in character so as to preclude military service.”

This claims that having gender dysphoria is some sort of deficiency, and not just a non-standard identifier. This invalidates the identity of trans people, and calls into question their legitimacy.

Of course not, that would provide legitimate status, and would allow them to leave their husbands. Best to connect their presence here to the man so that their leaving is under threat of deportation.

I mean, saying that it’s a fight for “basic human rights” is a positional statement within the context of the time when the fight is needed. There are white supremacists (as individuals, not as a rule) out there who genuinely feel as though their rights are being “infringed” upon by anyone who’s skin lacks a perfectly porcelain pallor. In America at present, it’s being (disingenuously) claimed that squashing trans people is in the interest of the rights of women and children. Those pushing that agenda don’t believe that, but many of the followers do. If trans people are eradicated, it would be framed as a win for basic rights in the future.

More than that though, you’ve applied context to the poster above your that isn’t present in their original post, nor in the OP. Limiting the point to “basic human rights” has sort of set up the claim “all historical fights involving justified topics were justified.”

The top 10 states by voter participation are: Minnesota Colorado Oregon Washington Wisconsin Maine New Hampshire Michigan Iowa New Jersey

Those above as well as Virginia, Montana, Massachusetts, Vermont, North Carolina, Florida, and Connecticut have participation rates above ~70%. While a few swing states are in there, it’s certainly not overwhelming given that I’ve listed about 40% of the states.

He got more votes than Harris, but less than 50%.