Andrew Tenga ⏹️

I wrote a new bio; what happened next will shock you.

[Andrew Tenga ⏹️ @atenga]

When verbally giving a website, the word you want for the diagonal character is “slash,” not “backslash.” It is 2020 now and you should all know this.

[Eva Navratilova @EvaBalikova]

This is deeply emotional for us.🥹

Scarlet Deer Inn, our dark medieval folk tale with physical embroidery, is OUT NOW on Steam!

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us on this journey.

Retweets are hugely appreciated! ❤️

[Andrew Tenga ⏹️ @atenga]

Incredibly blessed to have dodged some of the metrics pointed out in this essay.

[Johann Kurtz @JohannKurtz]

https://t.co/TqtDrW0D8X

[Andrew Tenga ⏹️ @atenga]

Can vouch

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Sour candy can actually help halt a panic attack in its tracks.

Mental health experts explain that the extreme, shocking tartness serves as an instant grounding tool: the intense sensation yanks your focus away from racing thoughts and anchors it firmly in the here-and-now taste on your tongue.

This sudden shift can break the spiral of anxiety, while the chewing motion and flood of saliva trigger the body’s natural calming signals, giving you a quick sense of control when everything feels overwhelming.

It’s not a substitute for therapy or medication, but it’s a simple, portable sensory trick that many people find remarkably effective during acute panic.

Clinicians at Utah State University and elsewhere often recommend keeping a few pieces of very sour candy on hand as part of a grounding toolkit. That said, if panic attacks are frequent or severe, professional evaluation and treatment remain essential.

[Utah State University Extension. (2023). "Managing Anxiety with Grounding Techniques"]

[Andrew Tenga ⏹️ @atenga]

Adam really does ruin everything

[Andrew Tenga ⏹️ @atenga]

Woody is the villain of the Toy Story movies.

[Ethan Brooks @alt_w_v_g]

Ran the US Government through a standard PE due diligence framework and it is genuinely the worst deal I've ever seen

But every distressed company has a turnaround plan if management has the spine for it

Here's the CIM:

Revenue (Tax Receipts): $5.2 trillion
Total Expenses: $7.0 trillion
EBITDA equivalent (surplus/deficit): ($1.8 trillion)

The company is EBITDA-negative

We haven't even gotten to the balance sheet yet and this is already a pass

But let's keep going

Debt Profile:
- Total debt outstanding: $38.6 trillion
- Blended interest rate: ~3.2%
- Annual interest expense: $970 billion (FY2025)
- That's the third-largest line item in the budget, behind Social Security and Medicare
- Projected to exceed $1 trillion in 2026
- Projected to hit $2.1 trillion by 2036

Leverage:
- Debt / Revenue = 7.4x
- Debt / GDP = ~100%
- Any PE fund that underwrote a 7.4x leverage deal with negative EBITDA would lose their LPs by lunch

Debt Service Coverage:
- DSCR = Operating Cash Flow / Debt Service
- Operating cash flow is negative
- DSCR = negative
- The company cannot service its own debt from operations
- It borrows to pay interest
- In credit analysis, this is a going concern flag

Cost Structure (the real problem):
- Social Security: $1.6 trillion (22.4% of spend)
- Medicare: $987 billion (14.1%)
- Medicaid: $669 billion (9.6%)
- Net Interest: $970 billion (13.9%)
- Defense: ~$900 billion (13%)

Mandatory spending + interest = $5.07 trillion

That's 72% of total spending on autopilot

Revenue: $5.2 trillion

So after mandatory obligations and interest, there's ~$130 billion left

To fund $1.9 trillion in discretionary spending

Including the entire military

The government is structurally cash-flow negative before Congress votes on a single dollar

Growth Trajectory:
- Revenue growth: ~6% YoY
- Mandatory spending growth: ~7-8% YoY
- Interest expense growth: projected fastest-growing category over the next decade
- By the end of the decade, interest is projected to rival Medicare as the second-largest line item
- By 2036, interest consumes 25 cents of every tax dollar collected

Sensitivity:
- 50bps rate increase on $38.6T = ~$193 billion additional annual interest
- 5% revenue decline (recession) = ~$260 billion hit
- Combined = ~$453 billion swing
- None of these are unlikely. Both have happened in the last 5 years.

Now here's where I put on the operating partner hat

Because in PE, we don't just diagnose problems

We fix them

If this were a portfolio company, here's the turnaround plan:

1. You don't grow your way out of a cost problem

Revenue (tax receipts) is at 17.3% of GDP — exactly the 50-year historical average

The government doesn't have a revenue problem

It collects more than it ever has

$5.2 trillion

The issue is that spending has decoupled from revenue entirely

Spending is 23.1% of GDP vs. a 50-year average of 21.2%

Closing that gap to the historical average would save ~$570 billion per year

That's not austerity. That's reversion to the mean.

2. Restructure the cost base

In PE, when 72% of your cost structure is fixed and growing faster than revenue, you restructure

You don't raise prices on your customers and hope the margin problem goes away

Every dollar of additional tax revenue that gets absorbed by mandatory spending growth is not a solution

It's a delay

The private sector learned this decades ago: you cannot tax your way to profitability

You operate your way there

3. Let the market work

The US Government spends $7 trillion a year and has never once been required to demonstrate ROI on a single dollar

No IC. No IRR hurdle. No exit timeline. No accountability.

In the private sector, every dollar of capital deployed has to earn its way back plus a return

That discipline is why private enterprise creates wealth

And why government, by definition, consumes it

4. Stop borrowing to fund operating expenses

The US has run a surplus exactly 4 times in the last 50 years

The last time was 2001

No PE-backed company in history has survived 24 consecutive years of operating losses

Not because the market is cruel

Because the market is honest

The Conclusion:

The US Government doesn't need higher taxes

It needs an operating model that any first-year analyst could build:

Spend less than you collect

The free market enforces this daily

Companies that don't are restructured

Capital is reallocated to better operators

That's not ideology

That's math

The same math that built the most productive economy in human history

Not because a committee planned it

But because a market demanded it

Plz fix. Thx.

Sent from my iPhone

[Ovidiu Muca 🇪🇺 @OvidiuMuca]

The 7.62 mm SCAR-H assault rifle proposed to 🇷🇴 by the 🇧🇪 FN Herstal. In this video, we see how the weapon fires after being submerged in water and covered in mud. The 🇷🇴 Army wants to purchase 240,000 individual weapons for €440M, products must be manufactured in Romania

[いっちー@バーチャル精神科医 @ichiipsy]

アーティストのDanaël氏が作ったケバブ屋にある「あの肉回すやつ」を楽器に改造した『ケバブ楽器』。
回転する串をバイオリンの弓で弾いてアンビエントミュージック奏でるとか、発想が狂ってて最高に好き。

[Internet Slop @GimmickSlop]

Don’t

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 JUST IN: President Trump is formally TERMINATING the Obama-era rules that forced car makers into putting the infamous "START-STOP" into vehicles

The start-stop would stay on no matter WHAT, turning the car off at lights and frustrating Americans. It also wore down the car

People had to manually disable it every time they got inside

GOOD RIDDANCE!

[exQUIZitely 🕹️ @exQUIZitely]

Descent II is widely considered the best of the three main Descent games (Descent 1 in 1995, Descent II in 1996, and Descent 3 in 1999).

One of its most impactful additions was the Guide-Bot, which helped players navigate the maze-like mines. It also had the best soundtrack and the strongest single-player mode of the three. The original Descent innovated with its six degrees of freedom, and Descent III had the best graphics, but neither matched the immersion and “feel” that Descent II achieved.

Fun fact: The Omega Cannon was so frame-rate dependent and network-flooding that it was universally banned from competitive multiplayer games to prevent server crashes.

Also, escaping the mine after the self-destruct sequence was activated still triggers PTSD…

[internet archiva @internetarchiva]

How modern logos would look in 1984

[Andrew Tenga ⏹️ @atenga]

If you don’t have at least 30 tattoos, do you even get that Trader Joe’s job interview?

[Sasquatch Unfiltered @sasquatchvlogtv]

When virtue signaling goes wrong 😅

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Learn how to tie your shoes like a pro with a secret technique.

[📹 girlyglamfiles]

[I,Hypocrite @lporiginalg]

Yellow people posting Ws

[Keith Foskey @YourCalvinist]

The Denominations Go Shooting: Part 2

[Keith Foskey @YourCalvinist]

The Denominations Go Shooting: Part 1
(Originally Posted Jan 2023, reposted got those who haven’t seen it).