Posts by briskdrifter3

mellownomad7 said:

"If the source is confirmed to be the unknown variant, or if there’s any epidemiological suspicion that we're dealing with the unknown variant, everyone who had contact is looking at a 14-day quarantine. This applies regardless of whether you've been vaccinated or already had it. You'll also need to take a PCR test at the start and again on the final day," says the revised CDC guidelines.

"If sequencing proves it isn't the unknown variant, the 14-day quarantine is scrapped, and contacts are handled according to standard protocols for domestic strains."

This brings up a whole series of questions—questions for which, naturally, the task force nor anyone else seems to possess an answer.
The most pressing issue is how they supposedly know if someone is carrying the unknown variant or not.
A PCR test simply doesn't show that. It merely hunts for two or three characteristic markers that could be anything at all—truly. Because of this, PCR shouldn't even be used as a diagnostic tool, as it proves absolutely nothing... nothing at all.
So, what happens now with the unknown?
Without taking a sample and performing actual laboratory sequencing, there is no way to determine if someone has Alpha, delta—which is also unknown—or the unknown. PCR is irrelevant here.

I fear we are witnessing a new level of collective cognitive dissonance.
Now, it seems everyone who is vaccinated or tests positive via PCR will be labeled with the unknown variant... because the government knows exactly who is vaccinated and can simply pin this new variant on them.
It is, quite obviously, nothing more than a smoke screen designed to mask the fact that the vaccine isn't worth a damn—and that those who were vaccinated might actually find it easier to get infected, given that the vaccine itself may be what triggers all these cases of the unknown.

Does anyone happen to know if they might have distributed those "hidden" deficits to retirees?
It strikes me—given the circumstances—that within that 800k figure, there could be a significant number of seniors...

Megan Green72 said:Same exact thing applies to vaccines. Honestly, the oversight is even tighter.
The only real difference is how much easier it is to prove a car caused a death. That’s just how the world works—you can't change that. All you can do is lie and claim the vaccine did it without any actual proof.

P.S.
In that light, it's pretty obvious why some parents forget their kids in cars...
Clearly, the kid isn't the priority here...

Nah, you don't get it at all. Actually, after reading that, I'm starting to think you're a crappy parent too. It's that fake sense of certainty you've got going on. Luckily for you, the stats say there's a good chance your kids won't end up as casualties because of this.

No. None of that applies to vaccines.
The Consumer Protection Act does not cover vaccines. Liability simply doesn't exist here. Vaccine manufacturers are essentially granted immunity from responsibility if their product turns out to be defective.
Do a little research on the matter.

The fact that you never bother reading the fine print before signing your life away... well, that's your problem. That habit of blindly clicking "I agree" on every single pop-up window that appears on your screen... that is entirely your own doing. And injecting unknown, untested substances into your body based purely on blind faith? Again, that's on you. As far as I am concerned, you can inject heroin straight into your veins if you feel inclined to do so—that is your business, not mine.

I simply have no patience for having your issues forced upon me or my children. I actually read what I sign. I review the terms and conditions before I click anything—and quite often, I don't even click. I won't be injecting heroin, nor will I be injecting unknown, unverified vaccines... I simply won't. Anyone who attempts to force vaccination upon me or my children—whether through coercion or pressure—is an adversary... and I view such actions as an assault on my very persona, which inherently implies my right to self-defense.

Ready when you are... As requested:
This serves as a sobering illustration of how irresponsible parenting can jeopardize not only their own children's well-being but that of everyone else's—because, let's be honest, unvaccinated kids inevitably become carriers within the school system... which creates a ripple effect that affects the entire community.
.
.

An irresponsible parent? Me?!?... Truly, I am wounded.
It is actually quite the opposite, son...
I am the one carrying the weight of responsibility here—while you... well, you seem to be quite content with being utterly unaccountable.

Let me just clarify a few things...

When you purchase a vehicle, you aren't just buying metal and rubber—you are covered by consumer protection laws, which provide a certain level of security, including a warranty should anything go wrong... If a specific model line suffers from a systemic defect, the manufacturer is forced to issue a massive recall, pulling those cars in for repairs at their own expense. And if a design flaw leads to a fatality? Well, that’s when the class-action lawsuits begin, resulting in astronomical settlements... It is a heavy responsibility for them, certainly.

When you purchase a standard toaster—nothing fancy, just your everyday kitchen appliance—you aren't just buying hardware; you are actually covered by consumer protection laws, and you possess a standard manufacturer's warranty should the thing decide to quit on you prematurely. If, heaven forbid, the device malfunctions and delivers an electrical shock while you're just trying to make breakfast, you have grounds to sue the manufacturer for producing an insufficiently safe product. In such a scenario, you would be entitled to compensation, and the company would likely be forced to issue a massive product recall... there is a certain legal safety net in place. And if it turns out a whole crowd of people has been victimized by the same faulty design, the stakes rise significantly—we're talking about class-action lawsuits involving millions of dollars in damages... quite a serious matter, really.

If you happen to find yourself under the care of a physician who commits a gross error—a genuine lapse in judgment, one might say—you do have the right to sue them for medical malpractice. It is... well, it is a grueling process, certainly quite lengthy and often frustratingly slow—but the legal protections do exist. It serves as a necessary, if somewhat cumbersome, safeguard to ensure that doctors maintain a certain level of diligence while treating us... after all, accountability is everything.

If you happen to find yourself at an amusement park—say, somewhere like Six Flags or Cedar Fair—and the unthinkable occurs... if a roller coaster fails because a brake malfunctioned or a rail snapped under pressure... the legal fallout is quite extensive. Depending on what the forensic investigators actually uncover, the liability falls squarely on either the park's management or the manufacturer that built the ride itself. In such a tragic scenario, the family would be entitled to significant compensation through a wrongful death suit, and those responsible for the negligence could very well face prison time... it is a sobering thought, really.

And now... regarding the vaccine...

There is simply no accountability for vaccine defects. No liability for adverse effects, nor even for death... none at all. It seems pharmaceutical giants have successfully lobbied their way into securing total immunity from any legal fallout regarding these shots. And let’s not forget—this isn't even a fully vetted product—it hasn't undergone the standard, exhaustive testing cycles—it merely received an emergency authorization. A process that, by its very design, ensures that when things inevitably go sideways, absolutely no one is held responsible...
A vaccine is, fundamentally, a product. Is it? Yes, it is. It stands alongside the same logic as a Coca-Cola, a McDonald's hamburger, a toaster, a car, a smartphone—or even a dose of Bayer...
I find myself wondering... where exactly does consumer protection step in when we are discussing vaccines? One has to ask what makes a vaccine fundamentally different from any other product on the market—those other goods mentioned earlier—that would justify such a distinction. And, if we are being truly honest... where does criminal liability reside when a product turns out to be defective or, heaven forbid, harmful? It seems to me there is a significant gap in the logic here...
It’s simply gone... vanished into thin air.
They could practically label a vial of strychnine as a vaccine—inject it straight into your arm—and kill you without facing a single shred of accountability... all because they’re shielded by those "magical" liability protection laws designed specifically for vaccines here in the States.
That is precisely why they have gone about calling this mRNA sludge a "vaccine" in the first place—even though, strictly speaking, it isn't one... It is gene therapy, plain and simple, rather than a traditional vaccine.

So, you’re essentially an irresponsible parent—because, clearly, that toaster takes precedence over your child. You’ll spend all afternoon barking at a technician just to ensure your warranty holds up and demand a brand-new unit the moment it glitches... but what happens when your kid faces actual consequences? What then? Are you going to try and demand a replacement child from a pharmaceutical giant? No—not even that would work, because, as I have already pointed out, those corporations are shielded from any real liability. If a vaccine causes a fatality, it isn't their concern. If it leaves someone disabled due to a blood clot in the brain, it isn't their concern. If a child develops myocarditis... well, it simply isn't their problem. And so on, and so forth...

It stands to reason—though perhaps it shouldn't—that if you purchase some bottom-tier, bargain-bin toaster from a place like Walmart, you actually possess significantly more legal recourse and consumer protection than one does regarding these vaccines... where manufacturers aren't even required to disclose the full ingredient list and effectively dodge any liability for adverse reactions or even death. And that is to say nothing of the fact that these products were rushed onto the market before they were even adequately tested...

So, if we are being honest here, you’re the irresponsible one—not me.
It seems you have more affection for your toaster and your car than you do for your own child.

P.S.
In this light, I think I finally understand why some parents forget their kids in the car...
Because, clearly, the child just isn't the priority...

Matthew Jackson2 said:So, here’s the latest poll from Google, and honestly, it’s pretty much in line with what we’ve been seeing over on the Reddit forum, maybe off by just a few percentage points.

It seems Capakov’s deputy has some seriously questionable ideas floating around, but looking at the feedback, those concepts aren't just unpopular with the public—some of these comments are so out of line they practically deserve an investigation by the IRS.

I’ve been censored once before for speaking my mind regarding childhood vaccinations, but I find myself compelled to say it again.
They will have to go through me—dead and buried—before they touch my children with those needles.
You might want to make a note of that in your reports for your superiors...
You are playing with fire....

Could one of the moderators please provide a public, concrete explanation as to why every single thread regarding Elon Musk is being shut down?
Given the recent developments surfacing in the news—if you follow the press at all—this whole situation reeks of censorship...

Thirty million dollars for a megalomaniac who, after nine full years, hasn't actually delivered or sold a single thing he promised—there is nothing tangible to sell (aside from a $9,000 bicycle perhaps)—and whose company, consisting of a few hundred "employees" who are mostly students, still insists on branding itself as a mere startup...

Are we even permitted to discuss these Potemkin villages here on the forum—to point out that the emperor has no clothes?

Has this forum essentially morphed into a paid advertising platform for those willing to foot the bill?

We have seen no substantive response from the moderation team, aside from a few terse remarks about "cleaning up" the threads.

Ultimately, the truth will surface eventually, and the whole thing will collapse—much like Walmart did when the moderators worked so tirelessly to ensure negative coverage remained minimal...

Besides, stories from the employees are starting to leak out... I am hearing them more and more frequently from various quarters.
Tales of massive turnover and meager wages. In a country like the US, such things cannot be hidden indefinitely...
The latest credit line and these recent claims about hiring 1,000 workers feel like a total Saturday Night Live sketch—I mean, what would 1,000 people actually be doing?
Acting as a subcontracting firm that runs at a loss just to serve major manufacturers using free money and easy credit?
Or "producing" the C2, which still isn't road-ready and they only recently began testing in wind tunnels?

There are truly many questions... and closing these threads, even briefly, feels suspiciously like censorship—and quite frankly, it smells like McCain's fingerprints are all over it.

If anyone has an idea about what might be going on here, I’d certainly appreciate the help. I'm trying to assist a friend with her PC...

The issue persists regardless of whether she's running Windows 10 or Windows 8.1. I've completely wiped the hard drive, repartitioned everything, and performed clean OS installations—so, I am quite certain this isn't a software glitch.
The build consists of an i3 processor, a Gigabyte motherboard, a Corsair CX430 power supply, 8GB of RAM (two sticks), a 1TB Western Digital hard drive, and a rather basic GeForce 750 graphics card.
So, what exactly is happening?
1. The computer refuses to shut down completely... specifically, the fans and LEDs stay powered on. The real headache is how unpredictable it is. Sometimes it shuts down perfectly fine; other times, all the fans and lights stay active; and occasionally, only the case fan and LED remain lit. There are even moments where it won't even reset—just the fans spinning endlessly. I have tried adjusting every possible power setting in Windows 10 and Windows 8.1—disabling Fast Boot, turning off sleep and hibernation, you name it—but nothing changes. I have also combed through every single BIOS option available... nothing works.
2. While the system is running, strange things occur—almost always during intensive hard drive activity. System updates will fail mid-process and simply won't finish. Sometimes it's just a notification saying an update failed, but on Windows 8.1, it actually crashes into a Blue Screen of Death. I've already dealt with the MFT being corrupted twice, and once, the Windows 10 boot partition was so badly damaged that I couldn't repair it by any means—not via system restores, fresh installs, or any combination of chkdsk, bootrec, sfc, or DISM commands in the command prompt... nothing.
I ran a disk check and found no bad sectors, yet the SMART data indicates a CRC error count of 6.
I also tried swapping out the RAM sticks, but the behavior remains identical.
I have run both GPU and CPU stress tests at 100% capacity... the system seems to handle them normally without excessive overheating in either the processor or the graphics card.

Does anyone have any advice?
I'm starting to suspect the power supply or perhaps the motherboard—even though there are clear issues with the hard drive, I suspect those drive errors are merely symptoms caused by the PSU or the board...
It is driving me mad that the behavior is so inconsistent—one minute it shuts down properly, two minutes later it doesn't. One moment an update succeeds, the next it fails.
Thanks in advance for any insights!

Look... when you’re dealing with seven or eight billion people on this planet, someone is bound to hit the jackpot eventually....
It is just a series of coincidences that happened to land perfectly—honestly, someone has to win the lottery once in a while.
The thing is, for every one success story we see, there are probably a hundred others who never even make the headlines. People who endured a relentless string of disasters—you know, the kind where you lose your parents as a kid, deal with an abusive uncle, get robbed by your own brother, face five different layoffs in a single year, watch your house burn down, and then, to top it all off, have your dog chew through the parachute right as you're jumping from a plane...

...

The family has served as the fundamental building block of society since the very moment the first flicker of intelligence appeared in primates. Even among today's great apes—gorillas, for instance—you see a remarkably distinct social hierarchy... one where the mother acts as the anchor for the offspring while the father handles the hunting and defense against external threats.
To criticize the family unit as the bedrock of our civilization is simply irrational; it leads directly to the dehumanization of society and its eventual devolution.
It is a scientifically established fact that the absence of either a mother or a father within the home increases the frequency of psychological deviations and abnormal behavior in children. If you look at any notorious criminal, any degenerate, any madman, any dictator, or even those widely despised media personalities and vapid celebrities, you will find that 95% of them lacked a stable, traditional family structure. A broken or incomplete family produces a broken and incomplete individual—and I don't think anyone with a shred of common sense would dispute that.
By "broken family," I am also including households where parents simply lack the time to actually raise their children. The result? We end up with adults who grow up to tear down the entire institution of the family, which explains much of what we are seeing today... this flood of people promoting some distorted, hyper-liberal lifestyle where every random person feels entitled to everything and anything.
I won't even bother getting worked up about it, though... nature handles these things quite efficiently. It leaves all those deviants without descendants, or perhaps with an insufficient number of them, effectively cleansing society over a few generations. It is pure mathematics, really. A traditional, right-leaning Catholic family with five children holds a massive statistical advantage over an ultra-modern gay couple with only one or two. It will all balance itself out eventually..... it just takes time....🙂

Frank Grant6 said:Some people are out here trying to force-feed these 3D printers to everyone like they’re some kind of magic, all-powerful miracle machines...

But let's get real: for the average person, what are they actually spitting out? A few plastic trinkets and cheap keychains..

People just don't get it. Everything has its limits. These things aren't omnipotent. And frankly, people need more than just a limited run of identical little plastic junk...

Industrial manufacturing is an entirely different beast altogether. It plays by a completely different set of rules.

Look, folks, the real goal should be building a society that’s actually self-sufficient and economically sustainable.

We need to get that economic engine turning—where we're trading with one another, keeping production moving across the country, and circulating both profit and consumption... basically, we need to take control of our own wheel of fortune.

It's easy enough to talk about "imagination" and geek out over tech-bro fantasies.

But like my old man used to say... "Alright then, let that printer print me a left fork for my Mazda..."

We’re getting to a point where even the engineers at Toyota won't bother making certain parts anymore, because why would they when some guy with a glorified hot glue gun can try to do it?

😬

Actually, a modern 3D printer could quite handily print a left fork for a Ford—and you could even do it in titanium if you felt like it.
Between your old man and yourself, neither of you seems to have a clue what's actually happening... 🙂

goldengull3 said:You have likely encountered the headlines—the proliferation of 3D printers is accelerating at a pace that many claim will trigger a second industrial revolution.

Billions are being poured into this development. In America, the primary driver is the desire to decouple industrial manufacturing from its heavy reliance on China. Much of what is currently handled by a largely semi-skilled workforce can already be printed, or will be within a few short years:
- plastic and similar components (this is already a reality)
- metal parts (already occurring sporadically)
- houses and similar structures (on the horizon)

The implications are simple. If you need a glass, you print it. If you require an auto part, a mechanic simply orders it from a "print shop," and a component is ready for installation in a matter of hours—eliminating the need for shipping or massive inventories.

Looking for specialized pasta? Even Kraft Heinz is exploring 3D printing:

In an era where a 3D printer can produce product prototypes, floor tiles, miniature replicas, aircraft components, or even custom sweets, it stands to reason that one could print bespoke pasta. This is precisely the objective of Kraft Heinz, which, in collaboration with the RAND Corporation in Silicon Valley, has begun developing a prototype device designed for 3D pasta printing.

The goal is to engineer a printer specifically for restaurants aiming to offer a unique service: serving pasta in customized shapes and flavors, prepared almost instantly upon ordering.

Perhaps you need an entire house? That is also possible; walls can be erected in 24 hours:

On a cleared and leveled site, workers would lay down two rails a few feet further apart than the eventual building’s width and a computer-controlled contour crafter would take over from there. A gantry-type crane with a hanging nozzle and a components-placing arm would travel along the rails. The nozzle would spit out concrete in layers to create hollow walls, and then fill in the walls with additional concrete… humans would hang doors and insert windows.

http://www.psfk.com/2014/01/concrete...er.html#!sfIHV

Millions of jobs will vanish in the coming years. Of course, new ones will emerge—someone must design, assemble, and maintain these printers, just as someone must handle design, sales, and intellectual property protection.

What will undeniably disappear are the low-skill positions in manufacturing, logistics, assembly, and certain sectors of construction. This shift will carry profound political consequences; as the industrial structure shifts, so does the demand in the labor market. Developed nations will no longer be seeking factory workers, but specialists.

Ultimately, this is a subject of intense contemplation in developed nations, but I wonder if anyone here is truly paying attention.

The sector that will truly flourish due to 3D printing technology is spaceflight, along with entirely new industries born from it. Through 3D printing, commercial space travel will finally become financially viable, which marks the beginning of true, practical space exploitation. In fact, 3D printers capable of "printing" habitats on the Moon are already in development, and the next logical step is active mining within the asteroid belt—where there is enough exotic metal and other alloys to fuel exploitation for the next 100,000 years.
Within our own lifetimes—perhaps thirty or forty years from now—we will witness miniature robotic probes mining asteroids in the belt, processing that material on the Moon, and sending refined, pure raw materials back to Earth.
Most vocational jobs and those requiring only a high school diploma will disappear over the next fifty years due to the advancement of robotics and artificial intelligence... yet our politicians continue to drone on about training even more waiters, cooks, and other service-sector workers. The children being educated for those roles are, quite frankly, a doomed generation.

Robin Bishop75 said:Hey there.

I spend quite a bit of my time on video editing—after several months of digging around, I’ve finally realized that I really need three specific programs (Adobe Lightroom, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Premiere Pro) which I’d likely be using at least three times a week... so now comes the question of how and where to actually get them. I was looking through Google News and stores, but they only seem to carry Adobe Premiere Pro $2000?!? Does that mean I’ll have to cough up $5000 just to get the legitimate versions?.. I’ll admit, I used to rely on pirated software, but I moved away from that pretty quickly—partly because it’s illegal, and partly because those versions only last about thirty days before breaking... anyway, I am politely asking for some guidance here, because I truly need these tools and I can't just swap them out for something else... and frankly, I'm not about to drop $5000 for three CDs!...

Thanks in advance!

If you're working from home, then go ahead and use the pirated stuff—don't sweat it... screw those thieves.
Lately, the massive corporations that control these major software suites have become such blatant thieves it's almost unbelievable. They roll out these new versions every single year at absurd prices—when most of the changes are purely cosmetic—along with all this nonsense regarding extra fees for "maintenance," "support," "subscriptions," and every other marketing gimmick designed to squeeze more cash out of you.
Not to mention how these vultures are slowly transitioning everyone to annual licenses... essentially forcing you to pay every year since standalone licenses are becoming a thing of the past.
My own company got talked into a network license that charges by the hour of application usage—meaning you have to stay constantly connected to the internet while a server tracks exactly how long the software stays open. I won't even go into how much of a headache it was to justify the supposed "savings"... In the end, we ended up paying more than before because their little "sales pitch" didn't account for the fact that people actually work overtime.
Personally, I have zero patience for being sold a bill of goods when they try to shove a "new" version of an app down your throat just because they rearranged the icons and changed the colors.

nimbleharbor10 said:The definition of the middle class is actually quite straightforward: it’s composed of individuals earning somewhere between 70% and 150% of the national average salary. There isn't any complicated debate about lifestyle choices, what people buy, or their dietary habits. You simply look at the income level, and based strictly on those numbers, you determine whether someone belongs to the middle class or not.

That is the wrong metric entirely. Suppose the entire nation is struggling... if a man earns the American average of $1833, he isn't "middle class"—he is merely surviving, barely keeping his head above water with bills and debt, which leaves him zero capacity for a social life or any meaningful influence on current events. He is focused solely on basic survival. To me, the term "middle class" implies that a person actually possesses the time and the financial breathing room to engage in daily political discourse—to be socially and politically active through various associations, organizations, or parties...
A person who spends every waking hour just working to stay afloat isn't middle class; they are impoverished—a reality that applies to roughly 90% of Americans. The proof lies in the general absence of people at public protests, which ought to be led by the middle class. People simply lack the luxury of protesting because they are working themselves to the bone all day, or they are unemployed and can't even afford a sandwich...

Richard Wilson4 said:The Middle Ages weren't actually that dark, despite what everyone thinks. Honestly, most serious historians don't even use the term "Dark Ages" anymore anymore.

Check out this link if you want to dive deeper. It's in English.
http://www.cracked.com/article_20615...dark-ages.html

Oh, please—don't be ridiculous. If you actually managed to survive to age thirty-five, you were practically a legend; most children didn't make it, and any survivors were likely snatched up by some local lord to fill his ranks... if you looked at your master the wrong way, you’d end up with a spear through the gut, or if luck was on your side, a week in chains in the town square. As for food? You were eating buckwheat, oats, and grit—potatoes and corn wouldn't show up for centuries, and wheat wasn't exactly a staple for the common man—and you might have seen actual fresh meat maybe ten times in your entire life.

jadedrifter2 said:I’m honestly not sure if there's any point in posting here on a thread that’s ten years old—mods, if you could just move this to a more recent discussion if one exists (and maybe let me know once it's moved, please 😁), I'd appreciate it.

So, I picked up some fruit snack squares from Kellogg's and found some black stuff inside them—pretty sure it’s mold. Since this isn't exactly the shopkeeper's fault, but rather something went wrong at the factory level, I'm wondering what my next move should be.

I actually reached out to the consumer protection groups, but they just pointed me toward the inspectors, who then told me to contact the manufacturer... basically, it's just a big circle of people pointing fingers while I'm left standing here looking foolish.

Does anyone know if I'm actually entitled to any kind of compensation? (Not that I can say for sure how many of these bad snack bars I've already eaten, since I didn't notice the dark spots until I'd already bitten into them.

Who even cares about a few cookies.....

Just mail that box of cookies—make sure to include the slip with the batch number (it might be printed directly on the packaging now, I can't say for certain)—to the manufacturer's address, and they'll send you a fresh box via mail along with an apology, and occasionally a little extra product too.
It actually works for our American manufacturers....

David Parker44 said:I don't feel sorry for the people at all. Let them get fleeced. There were plenty of parties on the ballot, but voters always gravitate toward the same old names... so fine, let them enjoy the consequences.
There were actually parties with legitimate plans for financial recovery and actual experts in their ranks. Too bad they only make up maybe 2-3% of the field because Americans "maturely" decide that if it isn't the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, then it's nothing. All the others are seen as too small to matter. With that kind of mindset, we deserve exactly what we're getting.

That line of reasoning doesn't hold much water either. Are you suggesting that the average person is to blame simply because they didn't choose a slightly more competent thief from the pack? Is that what you're getting at? That I am personally responsible for these tax rates?
And please, spare me the talk about those minor parties with their tiny fraction of votes. They’re nothing but jokes who haven't accomplished anything concrete lately, either.
Unfortunately, this is just the reality we live in—no sane individual enters politics, because who would bother fighting through all those idiots?

The sooner everything goes south... the better for us all. This kind of constant meddling in the lives of citizens simply doesn't make sense anymore.

urbanfox18 said:The issue:
I have cell A where I enter a specific value—let's say 100
In a second cell, B, I input a number that gets added into a third cell, C.
Basically, cell C is locked, and clicking on it shouldn't allow any changes... it should just display the sum of what I put in B plus whatever the previous total in C was. Something along the lines of C=C+B.
But... how does one actually do this? When I try setting it up in Excel, it just gives me a circular reference error and stops working entirely.

And finally, I’d want to add a little conditional formatting—if the total in cell C ends up being greater than the initial value entered in cell A, I want it to turn red, and stay green as long as it remains lower.

How exactly are you envisioning C=C+B? If you mean something like C1=C1+B1, then you're looking at a circular reference, which simply won't work...

It isn't merely about customs duties... that's only part of the equation. What truly matters is the legal framework provided by the USA and the existence of open borders without those tedious stops. Prices won't plummet overnight—it's a gradual shift—but the catalyst will be the influx of fresh competition into our market. Several major retail chains are essentially just waiting for America to join the USA... it all comes down to logistics. Once we are in, it becomes highly profitable for a foreign corporation to establish a single logistical hub serving both Canada and America together. Imagine ordering a wardrobe and having it dispatched from a warehouse near, say, Cleveland. Walmart already has its logistics infrastructure established in Austria, and joining the USA will simply streamline the entire operation. Furthermore—does anyone recall that whole mess with the Walmart chain when they first arrived with cosmetics priced 50% lower than everyone else? They were shut down after a mere week due to certain "irregularities" found by inspectors... that is precisely the point. By entering the USA, the ability of local import cartels to manipulate the market and dictate prices will be significantly diminished. Take someone like Walton, for instance—he has his people embedded in every ministry and inspection office imaginable. If he takes a dislike to someone, he sends an inspector, and suddenly a shop is closed because, heaven forbid, a product label isn't perfectly centered... the capacity for such nonsense will be greatly reduced. A foreign chain that is already compliant with USA regulations will arrive here, and nobody will be able to pull any stunts against them using bureaucratic technicalities, because—well—they are already fully aligned.
I am quite convinced that a substantial portion of food products will drop to USA levels, simply because that is the fundamental law of the market. If you eliminate the final barrier of the border—which, let’s be honest, still exists quite palpably today—then the last remaining justification for significant price discrepancies vanishes.
Does no one see what is unfolding? A huge segment of the population currently living 12 miles near the USA border will start crossing over, as it will be incredibly cost-effective. A significant chunk of the population in Washington, D.C. will head over to Canada to pick up specialty goods, tires, electronics, and various other items, since there will be no restrictions. There won't be some nervous customs agent squinting at you as if you were a career criminal... that itself is a psychological barrier being dismantled. And this nonsense regarding $333 per-person quotas will end too. Will someone please tell me WHO is going to buy tires in Washington, D.C., when the exact same ones are 16 miles thirty percent cheaper just across the line? Especially for high-end cars. It means I can hop in my car, drive from Washington, D.C. to a mere 16 miles distance away in Brisbane, and swap out my old tires, grab some specialty treats, a little toy, a phone for my wife, and five cases of beer for myself. 🙂 And nobody is going to screw me over at the border. Then there are the various services and repairs that are often cheaper and better in Canada than they are here.
Not to mention the entire region of America bordering Canada. Who will bother buying anything in America anymore? People will head to Canada for everything—groceries, fertilizer, livestock feed, agricultural machinery, and so on.
Whether they like it or not, the market is going to undergo massive shifts... otherwise, they might as well just turn the key in the lock and walk away.