If there was a government-mandated monopoly on coffee and it was sold in L/s, we probably would.

Oh man, don’t stop

You got it! Here’s some other consumer protections the administration has introduced recently:

• Direct filing with the IRS
• Price limits on asthma inhalers and insulin for seniors
• Requiring ISPs to provide consistent up-front information and pricing
• Restrictions on college junk fees and disallowing witholding of transcripts

Hungry for more? Check this out:

White House Statement on Junk Fees

That’s from October, so some of it overlaps, but among other stuff there’s still a “Click to Cancel” rule working its way through the FTC.

Sadly Biden has been spending a bunch of time on lame crap like climate change, human rights, health care, infrastructure, election integrity, etc., so it might take a bit longer for him to single-handedly usher in consumer utopia.

This seems entirely opposite to my observation. I’d say Biden and his administration are unusually focused on unfair or annoying business practices. In just the past two weeks the Biden administration:

• Set clear rules requiring cash refunds for flight delays
• Banned non-compete clauses
• Set new rules on “junk fees” for credit cards
• Increased the minimum salary for overtime exemption
• Expanded fiduciary duty to retirement “advisors”
• Announced a lawsuit against Live Nation (TicketMaster)
• Re-instated net neutrality

Funny running across this article after reading https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

Spoiler: the author does not have a high opinion of Raghavan.

If there isn’t a clear “yes, let’s do it at this time” it’s always a no.

This is also worth understanding in case someone asks you out. If they invite you to some undesirable activity (e.g. a sport you are not interested in) with just the two of you, then declining will be taken as a more general lack of romantic interest. (Disclaimer: asking you to an activity alone is not 100% sign of romantic interest).

This will often be followed by a significant change in behavior towards you (e.g. less joking / flirting). This is not them being angry or trying to get back at you. They are trying to respect your lack of romantic interest, and possibly handling their own emotions of rejection, disappointment, and such. If you do lack romantic interest, this is mostly unavoidable; people will always be sad when the person they like doesn’t like them back.

If you do have romantic interest, then try to suggest alternative activities and be extremely blunt that you do want to date them. Make sure you have a concrete day you will do something together, even if you don’t figure out exactly what it is. If you can’t even settle on a day, set a date on when you’ll talk next about a date.

This dilemma is why flirting is so complicated. Basically two people are trying to slowly build confidence that they like each other, while maintaining total deniability about it. I know this sounds challenging, but it’s much harder in practice.

For this reason, Azzu’s suggestions are absolutely correct.

Expanding on “be graceful when rejected” – make sure you are prepared for a “no” answer. One small help here is an alternative activity planned for yourself, so that you have something to look forward to either way.