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You apparently haven't been paying attention to what's actually happening in China. They have none of these advantages anymore. The one thing they had going for them was being the world's workshop...but that was economics planned by central committee. It came at many costs, one of them being technological innovation, and it's over. They are in the process of a demographic collapse thanks to 40 years of the one child policy. Even if they implemented a national breeding campaign, it would take 30-40 years for them to reap the economic benefits...and they haven't. The wage 'advantage' is no more. Mexican labor is cheaper by almost three times now. Mexican production quality is ALSO better. China may be able to make things, but they can't do it cheaply anymore (their middle class wages have skyrocketed) and they can't produce anything of high quality. What's more, they never had a national unity advantage. Everything their government does it to control their people, not dominate the world. We don't have to do anything to beat the Chinese economically besides wait. Militarily, all we'd have to do is close the Strait of Malacca and watch them starve in the dark, as they import so much food and energy. Oh-by-the-way guess what kind of weapons we just leant to the Australians in Darwin: Cruise missiles that can hit ships in the strait of malacca from over the horizon. As for national debt? You think we're hurting? Go google Chinese hyper financialization. The dollar may or may not remain the reserve currency, but the Yuan will NOT be taking it's place in our lifetime. Yes, the Chinese are great at long term intellectual planning, but NONE of their execution has followed any of that planning. They are screwed and all we have to do is not save them. Multiple historians, demographers, and geopolitical analysts have reached the above conclusions. Ray Dalio would be one exception, but reading his work it's clear his love of china is underpinned by strong emotional ties that clearly color his analysis. But even he doesn't paint a very rosy picture for them, specifically because of their economics and debt. Don't listen to the rhetoric, look at the details and facts.

-Not talking estate tax. Just the mechanics of technique. The heir pays the debt rather than allowing the estate to cover it, which makes it gone and frees the burden from the estate and allows the step-up trick to work. Got it. I don't care at all about your last point.

Passed over Capts and Majs in the Silverback lounge are basically pilot warrant officers.

Estate tax is levied on net assets. Passing the $2000 of stock and $1000 loan on your assets to an heir would be taxed the same as passing $1000 to an heir. So the capital gains that were "borrowed" don't get hit by the estate tax either. Then, once the heir gains the assets, their basis resets. Plus, regardless, it entirely negates the tax during the life of the individual. Estate taxes exist no matter what. Income and/or capital gains are supposed to exist before said person dies. Additionally, even if you don't believe that this is possible and they will be hit by some tax at some point, you seem to agree that they can defer taxes. There is always a benefit to paying taxes later in the time value of money.

I do. My point is that the executor of the will must pay off legitimate debts before distributing inheritance. Those debts are paid from the assets of the estate. The kiddos don't get anything until the debts are paid.

Pretty fucking good? Best economy in history? One of the greatest increases in QoL ever seen in history? You mad you have to pay $50k of taxes on your $200k salary so that you can still take home more than 99% of the rest of the world? Also, good luck funding the Manhattan project or global military without an income tax. If you want to go back to pre-1913 US, I hope you're equally ready to experience the significantly lower quality of life that comes with not having a funded government or military that can wield national power. Frontier living wasn't that sweet. Double edged sword here (regressive policy) that hurts the working class more. Billionaires need low interest loans to keep wealth they don't need. Workers need it to purchase essentials like housing, transportation, and food. Raise the interest rates and the only people that actually may starve are poor people. Sure it does. Want to talk about ethical frameworks? From a utilitarian approach, it is beneficial to the group (society) and only marginally affects people who are entirely way too well-off, therefore it is most likely in the best interest for the largest number of people. There's an ethical argument. From a common good approach, it seems to make sense that people with means that are significantly greater than others should contribute to their fellow citizens. There's an ethical argument. Now you can argue that it is unethical from your point of view or from a specific framework. But in the end it's all just feelings. That's ethics. Ethical arguments do not have to take into account second and third order consequences, but I would love to talk to some of them if you'd like. I will point out that your statement about Democratic legislation also can easily be applied to Republican legislation - it's a useless statement with no evidence or warrant. But you always throw some baseless point in your arguments about the dems being the problem (with essentially no proof or evidence). If you are saying the US government, as in the federal government that has existed since the 1930s, is ineffective, then I agree and disagree. If you are saying that this is a Biden problem, I'll disagree. I do agree that you have to lock your currency to something that doesn't let the government devalue it. But once you've left, you can't go back. Have you seen the government operate even on a CR where they don't get their 3% increase? The Air Force modernization folks damn near shut down. If you lock the currency now, you are effectively stating that you will significantly curtail spending in every single government expenditure for the next 50+ years. Which, sure, might be necessary, but not if you want to maintain the quality of life you have or the benefits of the American empire. The natural progression of fixed currencies to fiat systems has been seen for millennia in countless societies from the Romans to the Chinese to the Dutch to the British to, now, us. While you are correct that it is partially driven by the ultra-wealthy, it is also driven by populist governments and the middle class and working class demanding their lives be improved. When you run out of real growth, you have to create it with Fiat. So you as the government decouple and you pump money into the system to continue the growth. There is literally no stopping this in the natural cycle of nations. Show me one example. Obama did quantitative easing. Trump did a shitload of quantitative easing. Biden is actually tightening, which is a laudable act, but there's still $7T on the balance sheet. https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm It's the old saying hard times strong men, strong men easy times, easy times weak men, blah blah blah. Well we are in the weak men times. And you are the weak men. And I am a weak man. I EXPECT to be paid $250k a year for a job that lets me telework part time. It's actually absurd. But I expect to be paid that because my fellow countrymen have equally ridiculous expectations. I can't get fast food now without paying $15. This is a positive feedback cycle that cannot be fixed in a pretty way. You either have the country explode into revolution to do what you said, or you choose slow relegation to a shit economy like the UK has been seeing the past 50 years. No, it's not. You don't understand stepped up basis. This is what is done. 1) Buy: buy an asset and have it appreciate. Say you spend $1000 on a stock and it is now worth $2000. This is $1000 in capital gains 2) Borrow: instead of selling $1000 of stock and paying capital gains tax on $1000, pledge $1000 of stock as collateral for a loan of $1000 that you can spend as you see fit 3) Die: keep holding the stock and loan until you die. Your heir can sell the stock for $2000 with no capital gains due to step-up basis rules. Look at this rule, this is what you don't understand, and I didn't understand for a long time. Using the new basis, pay off your $1000 loan, and have $1000 leftover in cash (the original value of the stock) https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stepped-up_basis Stepped up basis allows inheritors of a stock to change the basis to the value at the time a person inherits it rather than the value of it when it was originally purchased. No capital gains are paid on inherited stock. You have spent $1000 on a stock, used $1000 of the gains to buy stuff with, and passed the original $1000 to your descendants without ever paying taxes on those gains in your lifetime. They happily go into your estate intact and with no capital gains tax due.

That’s the best idea I’ve heard in years!

G48 with a vortex defender is my carry gun. Put a better trigger on it to really up the awesomeness. I’ve also had good luck with Shield Arms S15 mags…31 rds on me at all times, even in shorts and t-shirt.

By this logic if you have a family member or two that's gay is it safe assume your whole family is a bunch of homos?

im not listening to the russians dumbass

What evidence is there that a nation can ever defeat the cyclical pattern of natural rise and decline of great powers? How will our economy, whose workers demand to be paid 3-5 times as much as an equivalent Chinese person, remain competitive? How will we deal with wealth inequality again? You guys want the nice solution of what FDR did for America in the 30s, or do you want the more likely solution resembling the French guillotine? Oh, right, no one wants either. Well history says it’s between those if you want change. You can’t fight and defeat China forever, so it’s probably advantageous to not destroy our blood and treasure in trying to stop them from harnessing their natural advantages of population, wages, and national unity that we just don’t have. Why not acclimatize to the idea that a multipolar world is an eventuality, and we only get to prolong what we have if we don’t destroy it all in a war? If we’re spending 4-5 times as much on the military as China is and not able to impact them effectively, there is no winning move. We overextended. We got too comfortable. We allowed the rich to take too much. 122% debt to GDP, $1.8T deficit, $34T debt. The dollar will cease to be the reserve currency within our life times. Only way out is for the American people to simultaneously stop infighting, accept a significant cut to current QoL (think ~40-50% reduction in salary expectation), and to gut any gov spending that doesn’t provide ROI. We can’t do that. We can barely even have a civil discussion between military officers about politics when they disagree. That’s pragmatism.

Silly

I run the Glock 48 MOS. No red-dot yet. Handy and dependable. I debated between one of the 365 models (likely the macro) or the G48. In the end the budget won out as I got a nice military discount on the 48. $450 out the door while the 365 macro was over $800 at the time. Still want to get the sig, but I also have teenage kids to feed. Choices.

Yes it’s the Russians that are gonna tell you the real truth. You know you are literally a vignette characature we have to do annual training on for insider threat? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lawman, your problem is you have righteous belief in government institutions who have been PROVEN to lie, deceive, and manipulate. Blind belief. maybe even extremist belief. and the ironic thing is you can't see how blind you are, yet you accuse others of being blind. you have been so perfectly perfected by propaganda you're unable to have original thoughts, ideas, and analysis. in short: you are a useful idiot.

The show feels like a form of sleep hypnosis. I don’t understand how my full cocaine and redbull rockstar energy child can somehow sit still for something with this pace. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I didn’t tell you not to watch wrestling I told you it was fake. You somehow seem to take that as “well I can’t know unless I watch it” which is an absolutely preposterous bit of logic you’ve committed yourself too. Same is true for a bunch of Russian hacks with a long history of BS statements being presented by one of our more flamboyantly in the bag characters as “the real story on the ground.” Two of us knew how bogus that claim was, we provided you with easy verifiable examples of it… but you, like a child, need to stick the key in the wall socket to find out it will in fact be a negative experience for you. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Mike Hayden, former CIA director, now analyst for CNN Jim Clapper, former director of national intelligence, now CNN pundit John Brennan, former CIA director, now analyst for NBC and MSNBC Thomas Fingar, former National Intelligence Council chair, now teaches at Stanford University Rick Ledgett, former National Security Agency deputy director, now a director at M&T Bank John McLaughlin, former CIA acting director, now teaches at Johns Hopkins University Michael Morell, former CIA acting director, now at George Mason University Mike Vickers, former defense undersecretary for intelligence, now on board of BAE Systems Doug Wise, former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director, teaches at University of New Mexico Nick Rasmussen, former National Counterterrorism Center director, now executive director, Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism Russ Travers, former National Counterterrorism Center acting director Andy Liepman, former National Counterterrorism Center deputy director John Moseman, former CIA chief of staff  Larry Pfeiffer, former CIA chief of staff, now senior advisor to The Chertoff Group Jeremy Bash, former CIA chief of staff, now analyst for NBC and MSNBC Rodney Snyder, former CIA chief of staff Glenn Gerstell, former National Security Agency general counsel David Priess, former CIA analyst and manager Pam Purcilly, former CIA deputy director of analysis Marc Polymeropoulos, former CIA senior operations officer Timothy D. Kilbourn, former dean of CIA’s Kent School of Intelligence Analysis “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.” - Sen Chuck Schumer

Definitely don’t do that. You realize that psycho has tiger skin curtains in his house.

Do you go around telling people they shouldn't be watching pro-wresting? I bet you do. If someone wants to watch it and find out for themselves, why not? Who made you the fact-check police? At least a dozens times I've said it might be false, it might not be. You might be right, you might be wrong. It's impossible to know 100% without first hand experience. No one here needs some little busy-body like yourself up in everyone's business telling them what they should and shouldn't be listening to because you don't like who their friends with. I've never met anyone else on BO.net whose behavior more resembles that of a teen girl.

Do you need to watch professional wrestling to know it’s fake, or has enough been demonstrated to meet the expected threshold to dismiss the idea it’s real? At this point you just want to be contrarian to any evidence presented about these guys and their show and you’ve ignored all of it or dismissed it as “that doesn’t count because…” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here's a simple logic test: So the reason you won't make any attempt to defy something someone says is because they have demonstrated a lack of integrity. But in order to know that they've lied, you would have to listen to what they lied about. You keep saying you're not willing to do that an no one else should, either. This brings us back to my earlier point that you don't have any original thoughts, you have to rely on what someone else thinks who did listen. How do you know that the stories are fabricated if you haven't listened? You keep bragging about how you're only willing to consider infomation that meets your personal standard for acceptability. That means you consume and process a fraction of the information I do, because I want to hear all perspectives and I'll do the sorting myself. You're intentionally being ignorant and trying to justify it to me. I don't think that's very smart.

Grab a 'plastic' gun and smash yourself in the skull. Tell me how it turns out. Also, obligatory quote

How about a win-win and just abolish both? Obviously that would also entail firing everyone that currently works for both organizations with a life-long ban of those individuals ever working for the federal government again. The country would be a better place. Send the Capts to a spring break destination of their choice for the entire month of March and watch retention skyrocket and have zero loss of learning.

XDS Mod 2 for normal carry, LCP for summer work out shorts carry. XDS is a good tradeoff between weight, bulk, capacity, accuracy, and firepower for me. LCP because a 380 with buffalo bore ammo is better than nothing if you wouldn't have otherwise carried. I am looking at a truck gun and that Ruger PC Charge is interesting. But I already have two of the previously pistol brace Form 1s that I'm looking to mod into a folding stock if any of the companies that make bufferless uppers or BCGs would ever have those things in stock.