ViperMan

Pure ignorance.

Maybe I can get ChatGPT to do this for me. I don't want to waste my time... Copy timeout. Valid.

Had no luck when I tried with a FSDO. They straight up told me "we don't do those anymore." I was like "What??? How does a government office literally just shed one of their stated duties?" I was not given a satisfactory answer. $85 to the DPE it was.

Diversity would be A-cups bro. This ain't diversity.

When is anybody's guess, and it's a fool's errand to try to predict crashes. I hear what you're saying re: offsetting effects through the rest of the economy, but there is a reason why your average asset has become so decoupled in price from other goods. For example, I can still buy a pretty decent car for $20K. That was true in 2000. I could buy an amazing home in 2000 for $500K. Now? Don't even think that'll get you a shack in certain areas. This decoupling is what I'm talking about. The money class figured out a way to inflate the price/cost of anything that can be used as a vehicle to pass on wealth and has pushed it out of reach for your average American - this is a humongous social problem in the offing. So sure, don't buy the stealth crash. It was meant as a metaphorical way to simply describe what I've laid out above - which is that if you try to buy anything right now that is going to hold value indefinitely, you're out of luck. Americans have been split into two classes by the last 15-20 years of monetary policy. Or perhaps a better way to say it is where the "slice" between the classes cuts, has moved waaaaaaaaaaaay to the right. Not good.

I think a closer analogy would have been someone ala Jeffrey Epstein's Ghislaine Maxwell - i.e. the lady who sold a bunch of young girls down the road into sex slavery. Yeah, no one deserves it, but if it had to happen to one person, I think we could agree that she'd be a fair candidate.

This is where you just have to look. Look at the housing market. Can you afford a new house? Can a working family afford a house almost anywhere in this country anymore? Look at the level of capital it take to purchase an asset now-a-days (i.e. something that's going to hold value). The degradation has begun. If you need to see a "crash" to have the point proven to you, well you may wait for eternity. But I'll just point to the above fact again. We didn't need a crash to cause housing to be unaffordable, and yet if no one can afford a place to live, how is your QOL doing? If you define a downturn as stock prices crashing, then sure, maybe that's not going to happen, but if you can't buy a house to live and thus you have to work forever, then I'd say the crash was a stealth crash. It didn't look like what you were expecting, but the affect has been the same.

That process is beginning now, IMO, but there are many naysayers out there whose job is to spout rainbows and keep people in denial. Read a book called "The Coming Generational Storm." It points to the size of generations and how accounting needs to be internally balanced. The baby boom generation has written more checks than they can cash, now, smaller generations below them who are less productive are going to have to make up that productivity gap and pay those bills. This, combined with the flattening (redistribution) of productivity to many other parts of the world are going to lead to tougher economic conditions for those who don't have the means or wealth to support themselves and their families. Current housing prices are probably the thing that is going to cause the most people to wake up - that they may never come down again, combined with flat wages, is going to mean many people must permanently work.

I dunno dude. I feel like when you advocate for policies that will inevitably lead to this happening to the people she represents, you most certainly do deserve it. In fact, I can't think of anyone who would be better placed at the top of that list. Poetic justice if you ask me. The ones who didn't deserve it were her kids. Who knows, maybe some of them will grow up to be cops and state prosecutors. Here's to hoping they do. Maybe that's how the cycle functions.

None of those bugs are being used to fear-monger and bludgeon our society into all manner of ridiculous behaviors, so apples to oranges much? I'm sure if there were politicians out there beating the war drum over the four horsemen of the yearly flu, you'd have the hypothetical response you're sarcastically looking for. As for me, I'm not confused by this. The powers that be have used the COVID event to shuttle in all manner of onerous policies and shove our economic system off a cliff. In the future, I hope our dollars are worth what we're all saving them for. I hope the trillions of dollars that were printed, someday find the productivity they stole from the future. Flu and Malaria don't make money. COVID does. Your sarcasm is misdirected, and you clearly don't understand what people are pissed about. "Unscorable @ 9, 2".

Voting in the next election isn't going to solve anything. There will be no candidates that are middle of the road that could actually undo the fracture within our society. The outcome is going to be one thing: one group will lose big time, and the other group will hold the reigns of power for four years. Our current cultural moment is one in which when one party wins, the other loses. We are not going to have a candidate that is going to offer any middle ground. Your vote isn't going to change that most basic fact. It didn't always used to be that way, either.

Based on what you wrote, it's safe to say we have diametrically opposed views on who and what Snowden is and we will not likely reach agreement. I think he is a sock-puppet Russian spy who was specifically designed to take advantage of a certain element within the American psyche that looks to defend the concept of liberty and has a certain default level of distrust in the government - all of which I can understand to some degree, and which I can support given our country's founding on July 4th. It makes him the perfect psyop. You can also look at the precipitous slide in relations between major world powers in the last 10 years (i.e. since 2013 when the revelations happened) and the theft of other computer-hacking tools from the CIA/NSA/etc, which have certainly been used against us to unknown effect and draw a not-so-indistinct line between the idea that a "patriot" traitor inspired other people in positions of trust within our government to betray it. How were those tools "stolen"? Do we even know? Are they being used against us right now? The bit about how the program was used for personal gain/vendetta carries the same structure as the "guns kill people" argument from the left. Any tool can be used or abused by people with an agenda - that doesn't negate the necessity of the tool. And in any case, the NSA isn't collecting a database of your dick-pics. Even if they were, based purely on volume, they'd only be able to look at a single pic for no more than .000069 seconds. You call what he did whistle-blowing. I call what he did treason. I don't think those NSA programs were illegal. I think the Russians/Chinese/terrorists, probably already had some general idea that they were going on, but the net effect was to inspire a distrust in the US institutional apparatus...how's that working for us today? So yeah, when Vivek says he would pardon Snowden, he loses me - because it shows me his level of discernment/big picture SA. He has missed the point of Snowden - which was to inspire distrust of our government - not to disclose government programs that basically amount to the government collecting data that everyone was willingly giving to there phone-service provider anyway.

Vivek loses me when he supports Snowden being pardoned. Who, for the record, is a Russian counter-intelligence professional. A spy who did more damage to our national security than anyone else I can name, except for maybe the Rosenbergs. He has fell, hook, line, and sinker, for a Russian op. Having him as President would be good in some dimensions, and catastrophic in others. Maybe he'll wake up, time will tell. I think his heart is in the right place overall, but he is woefully misled in certain areas.

By your logic nuclear submarines and M1 Abrams tanks are "jets". Turbine-powered does not equal jet.

The government discussing aliens "seriously" is officially the moment our government jumped the shark.

You are correct. The AOTC is the one that is 100% up to $2000. https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/aotc

As other people said, use the Roth version of the TSP. Shelter as much of your future income as possible. Not necessarily a financial strategy, but there is something she's probably eligible for, called the lifetime learning credit. Even if she just takes personal interest courses, I'd rather have my $2000 spent on me than some social project. https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/llc

If you're not getting injected right now (sts) it's already too late...

@BashiChuni, your previous two posts have been attempts to change the subject. i.e. they are tacit admissions that you've lost the argument. Can you explain for the crowd why Russia would agree to all those treaties and agreements that placed no limit on NATO's expansion and why you argue that in fact it is, provocative, Russia didn't know what they were signing up for at the time, or something to that effect? Or are you just going to continue to rage white?

You never got in a fist fight as a kid did you.

No dude. See my opinions on the Iraq war, COVID, affirmative action, abortion rights, etc. I am pointing out that you have a position that is inconsistent with reality. That primary fact being your argument rests upon something even Russia does not hold to be true: namely that they agreed there would be no limits to NATO expansion and have publicly and formally ratified such notions. Your argument rests upon a counterfactual that is not true. If you want to spout off with something that contravenes that which is obviously true for anyone who does even the most basic homework, then you need to articulate why for the crowd. All you've done so far is shout at clouds. Feel free to point at me and say that I'm "getting on board with the government" - odd since our government's current form (form of: Joe Biden's government) is one I almost wholly disagree with, top to bottom - to any casual observer though, it is you who is not engaging with the facts. The Big Lebowski GIF is funny and cute (and sometimes appropriate) but in this context it actually does constitute failure to engage with the argument - which is frankly a very "liberal" thing to do. So I'll leave you with this: You need to answer why Russia would agree that there would be no limits to NATO's expansion and also agree with the proposition that all nations should be free to form whatever alliances they want, while simultaneously explaining why NATO expansion constitutes provocation. I'll leave that as homework. Seems challenging to me, but that's the corner you've painted yourself into.

@BashiChuni, it's like you don't listen dude. That, or you're just fact-immune. Your argument rests on this presupposition that "buh we provoked Putin". As laid out for you back in September, this is not the case. But, to humor this argument, even if it was hypothetically true, that does not justify Putin invading an independent third-party nation. Your argument is without merit. How you can literally not see how he has used this meme as a pretext for something he wanted to do anyway is baffling. I have to assume you are being intentionally dense in order to frustrate other posters on this board. "NATO expansion became an excuse post facto..." for Russian militarism and autocracy. "The ability of countries to determine their own foreign policy and their alliances, is written into the UN Charter...written into the 1975 Helsinki act...written into the 1990 charter of Paris for a new Europe...written into the 1997 NATO-Russia founding act...Russia's signature is on every one of those documents. Moscow signed the UN Charter, it signed the Helsinki final act...signed the NATO-Russia founding act that places no limits on NATO expansion..." etc, etc. Russia's signature is on every one of those documents. Russia's signature is on every one of those documents. Russia's signature is on every one of those documents. Get on board dude. You spouting Russian propaganda is not a good look for someone who represents themselves as a military officer.

This is an internet message board used to exchange ideas / thoughts; let's not avoid the subject by trying to come up with a fully fleshed-out, 40000-page tax code that addresses all your nitpicks. I think my broader point is clear. There is a sizable portion of this country that provides no input into the coffers, yet is gaining an increasing share of political power and is able to exercise say over how money is directed. That is moral hazard, and should not be a thing.

Sorry, should have been more specific. Income taxes.

The real solution is to limit voting rights to people who pay taxes. No skin in the game is the root cause of the out-of-control moral hazard we are currently mired in. I don't think there is a way out of this until you get rid of that systemic misalignment. Said another way: there's likely no way out.