The Right Side of the News

I still have no earthly idea what the actual objective is at this point. I'm beginning to think that its only value is to prove to the world that the US has the political will to fight. The Russians always believed (Taliban too) that the American will and fighting spirit would be broken by protracted conflict. The only other possible reason is one of saving face in light of Vietnam's embarrassment -- that if the US cannot depose the Taliban then what was it all for? So they continue on making mistakes in an effort to correct the past mistakes.Its now conceivable that a son is going into the same war his father started 18 years earlier.

And the total population of Jews in America is not even 2% yet somehow manage to retain some of the highest positions of power in sports, entertainment, banking, etc. Its a case of nepotism. Is there a "gay mafia," as I've heard it called, operating in a similar nepotistic fashion? Probably to some extent but how is it different than any other form of nepotism? Everyone in Trump's inner circle is only there because of nepotism... but, hey, that's not really the same thing cuz Marc says so. Every journalist you listed are obviously card-carrying Democrats so your inclusion of the asterisk to denote homosexuals was superfluous. It seems clear that your adding was to hint at them being especially bad.While its probably true that most gay Americans vote democrat thats definitely not representative of all of them. There's a lot of gay Republicans -- the only difference being they tend not to make their sexual orientation the focal point of a conversation and you therefore wouldn't know unless they specifically mentioned it. You know, as much as it annoys the fuck out of me to hear people say that MSNBC and TYT aren't that biased when they obviously are, its equally annoying to hear conservatives say that FOX news isn't as biased as mainstream media. For one thing, FOX news IS mainstream media... its literally one of the Big 4. Doesn't get any more mainstream than that. Secondly, its every bit as biased, just in the direction you'd like it to be so it just seems like normal reporting to you.

Neither do I, but it still doesn't explain why you included an asterisk next to the gay lefties as if to insinuate that it denotes extra leftyness. Its entirely possible that they were selected as tokens to show to the world, "hey, were so much better because we employ gay people." The media makes lots of tokens -- token black people, token gay people, token this, token that. What? You don't think FOX news has tokens of their own? Get serious, Marc. What??? The leftwing media selects leftwing journalists to represent them?!?! Get outta town!!! Well, I for one am overwhelmed, shocked and appalled... In other news FOX selects Tucker Carlson on the basis of his conservative viewpoints. Back to you, Marc.So its scandalous if a leftwing publication selects leftwing demagogues but not scandalous if a conservative outlet selects rightwing demagogues? Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

I would agree with the economy was certainly on an upswing during much of Obama's term that has continued under a Trump Administration. But I've always found it really silly to lay such a success at any one person's feet, as if the economy is driven by presidential policy alone. I'm not suggesting that's what you're doing here but some people really are under that misguided notion. Certainly a president can implement good or bad policies and it can have some effect, but I wish standing presidents would stop taking so much credit for things they realistically have very little control over -- the entire health of an economy. Economics is incredibly variable for so many reasons. Presidential impact is negligible.

I have been officially working as of 1996. According to SSA website, this is the breakdown of what I and my employers have paid into the system so far:

quote:

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For Social Security
Paid by you: $33,446
Paid by your employers: $34,842

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For Medicare
Paid by you: $8,142
Paid by your employers: $8,142

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You have earned enough credits to qualify for retirement benefits. At your current earnings rate, your estimated payment would be:

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At full retirement age (67): $2,159 a month

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At age 70: $2,763 a month

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At early retirement age (62): $1,420 a month

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This, assuming SSA won't be completely insolvent by the time I'm eligible to draw from the pension. Of course, to be fair, this figure is only based on earnings recorded from 2018 (2019 has not been released yet even though I always file my taxes on time) and assumes that you will make the same exact wage as the last recorded year up until retirement.But even assuming a decent trajectory of exponential growth, as one's annual salary typically continues to increase and, hopefully, outpaces annual inflation, we can still surmise that we ought not rely solely on Social Security or Medicare to save us in our retirement years. If you aren't investing and supplementing the pension with a Roth IRA, 401K, have an employer pension system, investing wisely in stocks/bonds/dividends, have real estate, or own liquid assets, etc, your quality of life is gonna kind of suck...I guess the point is, invest, my friends. Cuz Uncle Sam alone ain't gonna cut it.Its interesting, SSA used to be an opt-in program when it first rolled out... Originally you could choose whether or not you wanted to pay into the system or pick your own form of retirement. I guess they realized that in order for it to work at all that they had to implement a compulsory tax at their tiered rate otherwise it would have gone belly up decades ago. Can't even imagine how Japan's federal retirement system could survive into the not-so-distant future. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : Typos

I don't know if its a lie in a traditional sense more than it is cognitive dissonance. If anything, she's lying to herself and tries to convince herself more than she is trying to convince you. It is possible to be sincere while also being sincerely wrong (inaccurate). This is also pretty typical behavior for her, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone here.

It appears you are correct. I cannot find anything that substantiates that it was first designed to be an opt-in program. I honestly have no idea where I heard that, but it must have been at least ten years ago and I failed to fact check it. Rookie mistake

I would have liked to think that she be persuaded, if nothing else, to at least tone down her fervor. I'm not looking to change her political or religious beliefs, but just to heal her from her feral suspicion of anything outside of that narrow view. Completely agree. I just meant to say that I don't believe she's a troll... if she is, wow, masterful catfish. But I think these are sincere beliefs she has. I suppose so... I don't know if its a complimentary or if its deleterious, but she has remained remarkably consistent throughout the years. From the outside looking in it looks like intransigent egoism to be that stubborn. She probably views it as an asset to prove her unshakeable faith.

I think you're right... Having been mystified by it I looked into it a little more and found an old lecture by Milton Friedman. He mentioned this and I'm pretty sure I saw the same video years ago, although I think I misunderstood it at the time to mean it was always designed to be an opt-in program versus a compulsory tax when in reality it was simply to include people previously not included.

My wife received a PhD in a Humanities field -- basically about as helpful as a course in underwater basket weaving. Couldn't find a job.... anywhere. Oh, wait, no she was offered a position in Dallas..... Dallas, Pennsylvania, that is... for peanuts. After seeing the writing on the wall she completely shifted focus and went into STEM at Stanford in a Masters program... has opened unimaginable doors.Humanities is great up to a point, but it just doesn't have very much utility. STEM on the other hand solves actual problems in the world... like the ability for us to communicate right now hundreds or thousands of miles apart.STEM fields create jobs and solves real-world problems.

Its not a mystery or a secret that humanities funding in colleges around the nation and even the globe are drying up and that interest in them is waning. Google humanities losing funding and there are tons of articles about it, mostly describing why its happening and what the implications are.This isn't a knock on Humanities by any stretch, simply an acknowledgment that because there is such little utility to them that they aren't serving a function outside of schooling. I think of the massive importance of something like Philosophy, but turning that into some kind of useable trade is difficult.This is exacerbated by the fact that schools are transitioning away from tenured positions in favor of adjunct faculty that work for half the cost -- which I think is a dangerous proposition. College, in general, just isn't what it used to be. It doesn't carry the same weight that it once did. Some say that's a good thing, that its outdated and a stupid way to determine someone's actual worth, and others say that its detrimental to a well-balanced education.What I am saying is that STEM is highly funded because it has much more practical application. It generates revenue, it solves engineering problems, and is in ever-increasing demand.

You have that backwards. The collusion was to foil a Clinton nomination. Trump has been very complimentary to Putin, Russia, and he has a lot of monetary interests in Russia. He was the safer choice.Putin despises Clinton and vice versa. Putin believed, possibly rightfully so, that Clinton would have been more likely to engage in open conflict with Russia through NATO.The shell company of International Research Agency (IRA), just another propaganda wing of Russia's GRU, was behind the cyber attacks.Russia also probably has some juicy secrets on Trump and so they use it as leverage to keep him from being a good boy towards Russia. Supporting Trump is in the national interests of the Russian Federation. That's why. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

Plus with a mortgage you are paying down an investment which, almost always, will increase in value. Real property is still one of the best investments you can make. Its only problem is its lack of liquidity.But the reason why, generally, rent increases yearly is because property taxes increase yearly. Apartment complexes pay a shit ton of property tax because of how much land they occupy, which is then transferred onto the tenants who pay that bill in the form of increased rent.But then again even with a mortgage and even with a Homestead Exemption, your mortgage is fixed for the next 20 or 30 years but the property taxes can and will increase year after year.Overall though, I agree that owning is generally the better option long-term. I have a complicated relationship with this. On the one hand I see the world in survivor terminology. Those that lived off the land are owed nothing by nature. If you cannot survive, then you won't survive. Now that we've away from the wilderness and erected societies built around cities, the same principles still apply. Nature owes you nothing. You either figure out a way to survive or you don't.But of course, that's such a harsh reality, especially if you are the one struggling to survive. I have been in some very bad financial times in my life -- the worst being having to dig ditches on the side of the road for minimum wage just to feed my family. I was absolutely gaunt -- weighing about 135 - 140 lbs because I was doing very difficult manual labor and clearly not receiving the proper nutrition to fuel it. When you go through a time like this, you tend to develop a very thrifty lifestyle even when you're out of it. I think of Warren Buffet who, although he could live in utter opulence, lives a very meager life. Still drives a piece of shit and lives in a very modest home. He lived through the Depression and post-war era during a time when Americans had real problems -- not this sorry, whiny bullshit that people complain about today. All things considered, we have it pretty fucking good and we forget that and tend to take it for granted.You're right to say that just having a job doesn't tell the full picture. If you're working at Walmart you aren't making very much money -- certainly not enough to survive on single-handedly. If you do, your quality of life is basically the same as if you were completely homeless. While Walmart is finally dipping because of the advent of Amazon, Wayfair, and other online retail markets, they are still a behemoth.We see the Walton Family each controlling billions and billions of dollars while their workers slave for crumbs. I see the inequity of it all. Its impossible not to empathize or sympathize. But its all circular, really. If you pay the workers more, the "low, low prices" are then returned in increasing prices so that other struggling families are now scrunched trying to pay for basic food items. Walmart loses hundreds of millions annually to shoplifting... those losses are then placed back into the price for some poor mother who would never stoop to thievery.So lets say that government steps in and forces Walmart and other big box competitors to pay a "living wage." First of all, what the fuck is a living wage? My living wage differs from yours. Who's to say Walmart doesn't say, fuck it, we've made billions... We're out! And overnight they liquidate their assets and shut their doors. Now millions of people are out of work and they went from a shit wage to no wage.This is what I know immutably... that life is tough, even in the modern age. There's no guarantees. You've got to hustle to survive. There's no difference whether you are foraging for food in a rainforest or trying to navigate in a city of millions where your dollar is increasingly devalued by the day.There's no great answers to any of these mysteries there's only decent answers and half the time they inadvertently create some other problem in its place... Economics is tough and complicated. I don't know what the answer it and I don't know that anyone does.

When I was younger I definitely fostered a much more antagonistic view about the world. I was much more tribal about my beliefs and viewed the world through an Us vs Them mentality. I learned over time this is a dangerous and destructive view to hold.There are elements of "the Left" that I still find unpalatable. I'm not suggesting you swallow any of it wholesale. But reducing people to the sum of their political affiliations is dehumanizing and leads to fanaticism. Its easy to write off people because they're a Republican or a Democrat but its not helpful either to you or them.

Replace the "the Left" with "the Jews" and you'll start to get an understanding of how something like the Holocaust is possible. You are way too fanatical. No, it really isn't. Crime continues to be on the decline. Levels of extreme poverty have never been lower in recorded human history. Mortality rates? Never lower. Freedom index? Never higher. There were times in human history where ritual sacrifice happened every day... in some places, like with the Aztecs, hundreds a day... Rivers of blood. Your perspective is tainted by the round the clock doom and gloom of media -- if it bleeds it leads. There was a fascinating study about this phenomenon but for the life of me I cannot recall what the name of the logical fallacy it uncovered.