https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAMtgyiUhIo
Kamala Harris's actual research materials for when she discusses the Ukraine Russia conflict
Kamala Harris's actual research materials for when she discusses the Ukraine Russia conflict
The image is correct, but it also applies to capital gains tax in general. You pay tax for something whose actual value in terms of purchasing power hasn't changed. The government has devalued the dollar by 97%, and every one of those percentage points is taxed as if it was caused by assets going up in price.
Even income taxes -- To keep up with prices rising you needed a 20% raise, meaning you might end up in a new tax bracket, so you're paying more tax on what is effectively the same income and the government acts like they're doing you a favor.
Even income taxes -- To keep up with prices rising you needed a 20% raise, meaning you might end up in a new tax bracket, so you're paying more tax on what is effectively the same income and the government acts like they're doing you a favor.
Some people are like "yaaaay" not realizing that rate cuts could be in response to stuff really hitting the fan.
Even if someone has done good acting work recently, so what?
If someone makes a good steak, or runs a mile really quickly, or drew a pretty picture, it does not follow that they now have a reason to tell me their political opinions. Same with if they pretend to be a space wizard really well. Or a psychopathic clown. None of these things suggest their political opinions are any more informed than anyone else.
In fact, if there's anything most actors are really good at, it's being handed some fictional lines on a card and convincingly delivering them. So I guess that's on brand.
If someone makes a good steak, or runs a mile really quickly, or drew a pretty picture, it does not follow that they now have a reason to tell me their political opinions. Same with if they pretend to be a space wizard really well. Or a psychopathic clown. None of these things suggest their political opinions are any more informed than anyone else.
In fact, if there's anything most actors are really good at, it's being handed some fictional lines on a card and convincingly delivering them. So I guess that's on brand.
One positive thing on the inflation front is that cell phone plans seem to be getting much better this year. That's particularly good because they seemed to get much worse for a long time.
No, they wanted to use the facehuggers to create the ultimate life form so they could performatively abort it.
Most people don't realize that because they just fall in line with what the media tells them to think instead of thinking for themselves.
Compare Donald Trump to Bill Clinton, and Clinton is by far the more right wing candidate in terms of the policies he actually had and actually implemented.
Donald Trump is the first president to run on a platform of maintaining gay marriage, whereas Bill Clinton signed the defense of marriage act which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Every Donald Trump budget maintained the same level of functionality for federal welfare systems, Bill Clinton by contrast signed bills that dramatically limited Federal welfare spending such as introducing work requirements to welfare. Many people focused on Donald Trump's treatment of illegal migrants, apparently everyone forgets Elian Gonzalez being seized by the federal government and forcibly returned to Cuba. Donald Trump signed laws that relaxed punishments for criminals, Bill Clinton was extremely tough on crime. Clinton signed the bill deregulating the banking industry that led to the 2008 financial crisis. Bill Clinton promoted free trade which at the time was considered a conservative policy, whereas Donald Trump supported protectionism of us industries.
Indeed, If Bill Clinton was a Republican president today he'd be treated as a far right extremist monster. That's not because he was (he was a centrist Democrat), but solely because things have become so partisan that anything but giving the far left every single thing they ask for exactly how they ask for it is considered far right. The Democrats themselves are paying the piper for this Faustian bargain with the far left right now, since protesters outside the DNC are now telling the "fascist" Democratic party to "go home".
Compare Donald Trump to Bill Clinton, and Clinton is by far the more right wing candidate in terms of the policies he actually had and actually implemented.
Donald Trump is the first president to run on a platform of maintaining gay marriage, whereas Bill Clinton signed the defense of marriage act which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Every Donald Trump budget maintained the same level of functionality for federal welfare systems, Bill Clinton by contrast signed bills that dramatically limited Federal welfare spending such as introducing work requirements to welfare. Many people focused on Donald Trump's treatment of illegal migrants, apparently everyone forgets Elian Gonzalez being seized by the federal government and forcibly returned to Cuba. Donald Trump signed laws that relaxed punishments for criminals, Bill Clinton was extremely tough on crime. Clinton signed the bill deregulating the banking industry that led to the 2008 financial crisis. Bill Clinton promoted free trade which at the time was considered a conservative policy, whereas Donald Trump supported protectionism of us industries.
Indeed, If Bill Clinton was a Republican president today he'd be treated as a far right extremist monster. That's not because he was (he was a centrist Democrat), but solely because things have become so partisan that anything but giving the far left every single thing they ask for exactly how they ask for it is considered far right. The Democrats themselves are paying the piper for this Faustian bargain with the far left right now, since protesters outside the DNC are now telling the "fascist" Democratic party to "go home".
I mean, the party that wants to defund the police seems to love the police when it's the police arresting their political enemies, so they don't seem to know exactly what they want...
There's layered irony there. An anti-natalist ideology's convention giving free vasectomies and abortions nearby is a manifestation of that irony.
The anti-natalist ideology will ultimately die out from its own ideology, that's one layer.
But a other layer is that they think that they are going to not having any children of their own, and that they are going to inherit our children. That might seem unusual given that those children will be raised with a set of values that is different from there, but another layered irony is that they are cultural chauvinists, and so they believe that their culture is so inherently Superior to everyone else's that children will naturally be drawn towards their superior culture. Ironic given that they're the first to attack cultural chauvinism as a deontological wrong.
Something that isn't ironic at all is the fact that they want someone else to do the work of birthing and raising children so that they can swoop in and get the benefit of the children who were born. I don't dispute the fact that there are certain socialists and certain threads of socialism that actually envision a world where everyone contributes and everyone pulls out of the system, our modern iteration seems to be exclusively populated by people who want to pull from the system and have someone else do the work.
I guess it does matter that there are different factions within the Democratic party, and while I'm referring to the faction within the far left I do accept that there are likely moderates within the party still who are more reasonable but are somewhat silenced by the extremists. I mean, I think there's still for example a lot of blue collar union workers who still believe their jobs rely on support from the Democrats regardless of the reality of the past 50 years.
The anti-natalist ideology will ultimately die out from its own ideology, that's one layer.
But a other layer is that they think that they are going to not having any children of their own, and that they are going to inherit our children. That might seem unusual given that those children will be raised with a set of values that is different from there, but another layered irony is that they are cultural chauvinists, and so they believe that their culture is so inherently Superior to everyone else's that children will naturally be drawn towards their superior culture. Ironic given that they're the first to attack cultural chauvinism as a deontological wrong.
Something that isn't ironic at all is the fact that they want someone else to do the work of birthing and raising children so that they can swoop in and get the benefit of the children who were born. I don't dispute the fact that there are certain socialists and certain threads of socialism that actually envision a world where everyone contributes and everyone pulls out of the system, our modern iteration seems to be exclusively populated by people who want to pull from the system and have someone else do the work.
I guess it does matter that there are different factions within the Democratic party, and while I'm referring to the faction within the far left I do accept that there are likely moderates within the party still who are more reasonable but are somewhat silenced by the extremists. I mean, I think there's still for example a lot of blue collar union workers who still believe their jobs rely on support from the Democrats regardless of the reality of the past 50 years.
I love me some BASIC.
FBXL.NET was a domain related to FreeBASIC for over a decade before a single subdomain showed up.
My second book is going to be a guide to FreeBASIC that mixes in computer science and computer history.
Why FreeBASIC instead of C? Because FreeBASIC in my view effectively takes C and humanizes it. You get all kinds of nice string manipulation and stuff built right in, as well as access to a a lot of C libraries, but it's also just structured like a human being might speak. It might not seem like a big deal but not having to think in codes and symbols is nice. The latest versions also include neat features like object orientation and threading, and it uses gcc to compile behind the scenes so you get all the benefits of that compiler.
FBXL.NET was a domain related to FreeBASIC for over a decade before a single subdomain showed up.
My second book is going to be a guide to FreeBASIC that mixes in computer science and computer history.
Why FreeBASIC instead of C? Because FreeBASIC in my view effectively takes C and humanizes it. You get all kinds of nice string manipulation and stuff built right in, as well as access to a a lot of C libraries, but it's also just structured like a human being might speak. It might not seem like a big deal but not having to think in codes and symbols is nice. The latest versions also include neat features like object orientation and threading, and it uses gcc to compile behind the scenes so you get all the benefits of that compiler.
Randomly walking down the street and saw a yard sale selling an Amiga 500. I've always wanted to play with one of these, so I picked it up basically without thinking, especially since the price was virtually nothing.
Looks like an Amiga 500, the bottom bay has a card I couldn't immediately identify since it's just a big plate of steel but my understanding is that those tend to be memory expansions.
Included seems to be a Amiga A520 which is a modulator that can produce a composite signal or an RF signal on channel 3 or 4.
There's a second disk drive with it, made by phoenix. Seems to take 3 1/2 inch floppies (I never had an amiga so this is all new to me)
There's a mouse that plugs into the joystick port.
One really neat thing that comes with it is a midi interface that plugs into the serial port.
One major thing I'm missing is obviously a power adapter.
So I guess I'm in it now, I've got a new power supply and gortek USB to floppy adapter coming in next week, and a RGB2HDMI board coming in someday from across the pond. I've had a pi zero forever, so that's not a problem.
I'll probably need to dig up my torx bits and open the guy up shortly to see if there's any jackpot surprises inside in terms of bulging caps or the like, but I'm pulling for the little guy.
Incidentally, I managed to get another buy from the same yard sale, an old 80s boom box with short wave radio support, up and running almost immediately.
Looks like an Amiga 500, the bottom bay has a card I couldn't immediately identify since it's just a big plate of steel but my understanding is that those tend to be memory expansions.
Included seems to be a Amiga A520 which is a modulator that can produce a composite signal or an RF signal on channel 3 or 4.
There's a second disk drive with it, made by phoenix. Seems to take 3 1/2 inch floppies (I never had an amiga so this is all new to me)
There's a mouse that plugs into the joystick port.
One really neat thing that comes with it is a midi interface that plugs into the serial port.
One major thing I'm missing is obviously a power adapter.
So I guess I'm in it now, I've got a new power supply and gortek USB to floppy adapter coming in next week, and a RGB2HDMI board coming in someday from across the pond. I've had a pi zero forever, so that's not a problem.
I'll probably need to dig up my torx bits and open the guy up shortly to see if there's any jackpot surprises inside in terms of bulging caps or the like, but I'm pulling for the little guy.
Incidentally, I managed to get another buy from the same yard sale, an old 80s boom box with short wave radio support, up and running almost immediately.
I saw some of the excuses people were giving for that Australian lady, and they all sound like Burnt Face Man. "I may have a burnt face, but that hasn't affected my ability to fight crime!"
Appeal to authority is always fallacious because people aren't right because of "who" they are, but because they were themselves able to present a compelling argument.
We don't know general and special relativity are true because Albert Einstein came up with them and we know Albert Einstein is really smart. We know they're true because the model he created explained gaps we already had in our understanding of Newtonian physics. And he wasn't right on all things, he was wrong on a lot of quantum mechanics, so being an expert who is really smart obviously didn't make him correct all the time. At the end of the day, reality is what chooses who is correct in science, not authority.
For an example of authorities who were consensus but were also wrong, the ancient Greeks were held as high authorities on many topics and they drove the consensus, and many of the theories they presented were simply wrong -- bile theory in medicine, elemental theory in the composition of matter, many other things, they were factually incorrect and led people down the wrong path, but because they were so respected their ancient analysis was the consensus.
Epistemologically there are limits to what can be known in general, but appeals to authority can cloud this reality. "Oh, an expert said it is true, they must know" -- but a lot of things we can't know for certain until the future comes and we can see what predictions comes true and which do not.
In the media, there's actually a surprising number of times that a "doctor" says something, and later it turns out that person was a chiropractic "doctor" (something that takes a couple years study at a private institution to become and is not a licensed medical doctor) -- and so the "expert" isn't one and is just saying something the media agrees with but isn't necessarily true.
We don't know general and special relativity are true because Albert Einstein came up with them and we know Albert Einstein is really smart. We know they're true because the model he created explained gaps we already had in our understanding of Newtonian physics. And he wasn't right on all things, he was wrong on a lot of quantum mechanics, so being an expert who is really smart obviously didn't make him correct all the time. At the end of the day, reality is what chooses who is correct in science, not authority.
For an example of authorities who were consensus but were also wrong, the ancient Greeks were held as high authorities on many topics and they drove the consensus, and many of the theories they presented were simply wrong -- bile theory in medicine, elemental theory in the composition of matter, many other things, they were factually incorrect and led people down the wrong path, but because they were so respected their ancient analysis was the consensus.
Epistemologically there are limits to what can be known in general, but appeals to authority can cloud this reality. "Oh, an expert said it is true, they must know" -- but a lot of things we can't know for certain until the future comes and we can see what predictions comes true and which do not.
In the media, there's actually a surprising number of times that a "doctor" says something, and later it turns out that person was a chiropractic "doctor" (something that takes a couple years study at a private institution to become and is not a licensed medical doctor) -- and so the "expert" isn't one and is just saying something the media agrees with but isn't necessarily true.
You're not wrong, you can get 5.5% annually from a risk-free ETF that sells money to the Fed at no risk. My point was more about the diminishing value of the title "millionaire".
I don't know who needs to hear this, but a million dollars isn't really that much money. You can be a millionaire if you have a paid off house and a modest 401(k). People can do it on a blue collar wage. It doesn't happen overnight, it takes sacrifice every payday because you end up living well below your means, and a little bit of luck to invest in the right things, but it's quite doable.
I should also mention that not every blue collar job is a path to be a millionaire. If you're barely making enough to make rent, it just isn't in the cards. But there's still people working blue collar jobs wind up retiring as millionaires. Not even boomers, millennials (the oldest millennials are only in their 40s, but many are well on track to being millionaires)
So if you want to study the habits of a lot of millionaires, you're going to be looking at people who are living modestly. They are people who could be living much more extravagant lives than they do, but instead save for tomorrow. A lot of millionaires drive old beat up cars because shiny new vehicles are a waste of money. Also, a lot of millionaires are old because they've been working for a lifetime, saving for a lifetime, paying down debt for a lifetime and that's how they became millionaires.
But the other thing to remember is that every year being a millionaire means less. Just in the past few years, even if you accept the official numbers, a millionaire with exactly a million dollars in net worth is 20% poorer than they were. So it's kind of an arbitrary measure that's taking on a greater and greater portion of earners until one day a can of coke is a million dollars.
Another important point is that every 401(k) millionaire is going to be paying working class taxes for every dollar they take out of that financial instrument. Anyone telling you that they are going to magically avoid the taxes doesn't know how those taxes work.
The tax implications also mean something important for the big staters slathering over the wealth of many millionaires -- most of those millionaires will be getting taxed at normal rates for income and they'll be using it to retire not to act as sinister political forces or to exploit others -- they paid their dues (sometimes literally for union jobs) for decades and now are using their accumulated wealth to life for a few decades before they pass away (and get hit with inheritance taxes)
I should also mention that not every blue collar job is a path to be a millionaire. If you're barely making enough to make rent, it just isn't in the cards. But there's still people working blue collar jobs wind up retiring as millionaires. Not even boomers, millennials (the oldest millennials are only in their 40s, but many are well on track to being millionaires)
So if you want to study the habits of a lot of millionaires, you're going to be looking at people who are living modestly. They are people who could be living much more extravagant lives than they do, but instead save for tomorrow. A lot of millionaires drive old beat up cars because shiny new vehicles are a waste of money. Also, a lot of millionaires are old because they've been working for a lifetime, saving for a lifetime, paying down debt for a lifetime and that's how they became millionaires.
But the other thing to remember is that every year being a millionaire means less. Just in the past few years, even if you accept the official numbers, a millionaire with exactly a million dollars in net worth is 20% poorer than they were. So it's kind of an arbitrary measure that's taking on a greater and greater portion of earners until one day a can of coke is a million dollars.
Another important point is that every 401(k) millionaire is going to be paying working class taxes for every dollar they take out of that financial instrument. Anyone telling you that they are going to magically avoid the taxes doesn't know how those taxes work.
The tax implications also mean something important for the big staters slathering over the wealth of many millionaires -- most of those millionaires will be getting taxed at normal rates for income and they'll be using it to retire not to act as sinister political forces or to exploit others -- they paid their dues (sometimes literally for union jobs) for decades and now are using their accumulated wealth to life for a few decades before they pass away (and get hit with inheritance taxes)
Inertia more than anything. They seemed like a good idea back in 2002, and I tend to renew 5 years at a time so for the most part I'd just keep renewing.