The younger generations don’t want to work, and they don’t want the responsibility, maybe true, but they do understand that they are being undermined by big business and big government, I don’t really blame them, culture tells them to jump through all the hoops and the government shits on them, I only worked as hard as I did because I knew there was a payoff, these young people see no payoff, just indentured servitude.
I actually hired a few guys out of college recently and I was quite surprised with what they are dealing with out there. These talented American computer science grads are having a very tough time even getting interviews! I've been super happy about what these guys bring and you're telling me that they are getting completely shut out in favor of H1B hires?
WTF is going on??? We keep this up for much longer and I'd think we should bring back the guillotine.
In this day and age, you're not going to nickel-and-dime or bootstrap your way into a house. Even a down payment requires tens of thousands in one big-ass chunk if you want a Merely Crippling monthly payment instead of an Even More Crippling one.
I myself have decided not to buy a house until and unless I can do it in a way that doesn't leave me either house-poor or an hour from work. Which, as I figure it, will require at least $200,000 a year. My boomer dad doesn't get it on at least one level.
But! But! But!...What about EQUITY? What about The American Dream?
What about living on instant ramen and rainwater just to say I'm a homeowner? What about putting 20,000 miles a year on my truck commuting?
Getting rid of the illegal aliens would maybe loosen the housing situation, and it’s much worse in Canada. when I was working, I never lived more than 15 minutes from work, and I considered my coworkers who lived an hour and fifteen minutes away from work less paid than I was, ten extra hours a week and not getting paid for it…
I don't know how much lending parameters have changed in the last 10 years. In 2015, I bought a house with only 5% down. That was a good decision because the payment was less than rent and it was much closer to my job. Although it didn't appreciate in the first 5 years (not a concern to me), it was also very low maintenance in that time period.
I do know many people in my neighborhood bought their houses in the past 5 years with under 10% down. That really shouldn't be a challenge unless you are making minimum wage (in which case your problem is your job, not the housing market. Probably highly correlated) or you live in a stupid area of the country. I wish I could live in LA but I can't see tolerating the costs.
There are places in the country where you can get a good but not fancy house for $300k or less, have a payment near or less than rent, and not have a horrific commute.
Do you think it's that they don't want to, or that they don't see the payoff? Four years of school, possible debt from that, then trying to break into whatever field you chose.
They see only doom, dei, and importing the third world to lower wages, and the government will help you if you have the right skin tone, but will shit all over you if you are not imported.
i dont know anyone that doesnt want to work and ive only heard that from the older generations. nobody can afford anything and everyone is hiring foreigners. what are the actual citizens supposed to do?
They don’t want to work as slaves, Farley says mechanics are making 100k, yeah, maybe one in fifty, and the manufacturers are making difficult to repair vehicles, also difficult to troubleshoot, I know car mechanics that quit the dealer scam.
And I should add, they are only slightly worse than the lies about “a shortage of engineers” that I have endlessly heard for more than 40 years. And to make that worse, f***ing academia has been spewing that BS even more than the corporations.
Government contractors. Not civil service. The contractor is on the hook to provide someone of a certain skillset in a short time period. They will hire a white man if that is what is required.
That's wrong in at least one case I know personally.
I have a 22-year-old co-worker who not only puts in 50-60 hours a week, he's constantly hitting the gym AND forever bringing in sculptures of cartoon characters he made himself, with surface finishes so flawless that I, a man who's been building model kits for almost 45 years and have a refined eye for molding quality and surface detail, genuinely thought were airbrushed, polished plastic instead of baked clay.
He's less than half my age and he legitimately inspires me.
If one were a young person (roughly high school grad to recent college grad) with some ambition, they could survey the landscape of their peers and see how lazy and unprepared the labor competition was. And then outdo them.
I went to an abysmal public school system until college; I was forced to: My mother was the curriculum director, and her father was on the school board.
Have to go one step further to the parents. What kind of parent would let their kid rot with bad teachers and schools? Or rely on any school to teach their children all the most basic skills?
A ton of people don’t have the ability to readily move to a district with good schools. And a ton of people are poorly educated themselves and don’t really know what’s going on. And even if they are paying attention, do they know that this year’s B is the 1990’s D? Do they know that most school districts in the country take in between $15-20k per year, per child? There is so much money in the system, and such poor outcomes.
My parents willingly sent their children to poor schools; it was the only local option, other than the snake handling, unaccredited Christian school that graduates 2-3 students a year.
The schools remain poor 20 years later, even with aggregate county property tax receipts that are 2.5x now what they were then.
I agree that the economy and housing is incredibly discouraging for young people. At the same time it’s probably never been easier to distinguish yourself amongst a hoard of discouraged low T pot head, SSR eyes zoomers.
There’s a price point at which cars should pretty much only be paid for in cash. Let’s arbitrarily call that $100k. If you can service the loan of a $100k car, you really should just save for a few months and buy a cheaper car outright. I’m not that debt averse, but a loan on a $100k+ car?**
And on that same note, a toy (which presumably no one is buying a $100k+ Corvette as their only car or daily driver) should always be bought in cash. Finance your DD, sure, there are practical reasons for that, but your toys? Buy them outright.
*yeah yeah I know, arbitrage on interest rates and all that, but come on man.
"There’s a price point at which cars should pretty much only be paid for in cash. Let’s arbitrarily call that $100k. If you can service the loan of a $100k car, you really should just save for a few months and buy a cheaper car outright. I’m not that debt averse, but a loan on a $100k+ car?**
And on that same note, a toy (which presumably no one is buying a $100k+ Corvette as their only car or daily driver) should always be bought in cash. Finance your DD, sure, there are practical reasons for that, but your toys? Buy them outright."
Morally, I agree.
Practically, I could not agree less. A $100k car is no big thing now. Suburbans and Tahoes cost $100k. Ford Super Duties cost $100k. I hate it, but there you go.
Now let's look at the argument for a toy. We won't even use big numbers or high-end Corvettes, because that makes it too easy for me to argue my side. Let's say you are 45 years old in 2018 and you are thinking about financing a new 2019 Stingray at the base MSRP of $55,900. Instead you decide to save for it over the next six years.
You arrive in 2024 and now the 2025 Stingray costs $69,995. The $55,900 you saved up no longer does the job. You need to save for two more years. But meanwhile the Stingray has increased in price six percent to $73,995. You are now 53 years old. And you spent the last eight years of your life not owning a Corvette. Now your body hurts in ways it didn't hurt before. Now your kid needs help with a down payment on a house, and your wife is sitting you down saying, "What's more important -- you having a sports car, or Brayden having a home?" Also, you have gone from a 7-speed manual car with reasonable operating costs to a fake Ferrari with an automatic transmission.
You decide to take the middle path and give Brayden half your $75k nest egg. Now you have $37.5k and the 2028 Corvette is $78k. It will increase in price approximately $4500 a year from now on. If you can save $10k a year this math will resolve for you in the year 2036, when you are 63 years old.
Congratulations! You're another old man limping in and out of a Corvette and rubbing it with a diaper. On the way to the show-and-shine you got passed by some 45-year-old in the same new Corvette. He appears to be having a lot more fun than you are, but you can't figure out why. After all, you own your car.
It's not an extravagant toy, by any means, but I have had the thought that I won't be able to ride my Suzuki V-Strom when I'm 70 years old. Much more than 10 years out for me. It does help me appreciate it now.
Comment of the month easily. And let’s not leave out the fact that you might not even make it through the six years. A good friend was 6 weeks short of his 53 birthday when his time was up. So there is at least some merit to living today.
I have a picture of me at a BMX race in 1994 with three fellow racers, all around my age. I'm the only one left. I am 54 years old. It can be sobering.
My dad had a *rough* upbringing. He's worked tirelessly since he was like 14. Has never taken more than a few days off here and there over the course of the next 50 years. He isn't great with money so there isn't a whole heck of a lot saved up, but he has always made sure that we are provided for. A car for the kids when they needed one, undergrad degrees, insurance until the government said no more, etc.
He went to a family friend's funeral about 7 years ago or so. This family friend was in his mid-50s or so before passing on. My dad and I were standing next to each other, an he took one look at the body in the casket, turned to me and said something to the effect of "ya know, you can't take any of it with you. I'm going to buy the car."
So he traded in his Scion tC and got a Fiat 124 Abarth, of all things. He has since put over 70k miles on it with literally zero issues that I'm aware of. He drives it every day unless the snow is deep, in which case he will take my mom's car. He loves the thing. It makes him very happy, and it's nice to see him happy. He has a bad back and bad knees, and despite the discomfort it gives him he still happily grimaces with pain to get in and out.
While I don't much like thinking of mortality, I won't end up with any real inheritance. Which, honestly, is fine to me. It's my parents money. They should use it as they see fit while they are alive. But the little Fiat will be mine one day; it will be my honor to take care of the thing he dreamed of and cared for.
Good for him. My father keeps giving up stuff he wants, based on the idea that I should inherit. I know better than that. Not at the modern rate for end of life costs.
I can't perfectly align "isn't great with money" to generously providing for his family in ways that really matter. Great story, though. I, too, am glad he has that car.
Ok yes your argument is clear.. But why does our hypothetical man need a NEW Corvette? Why not buy a low mile used 2019 7MT in 2024 for... idk, 45 grand? 50 grand? Wouldn't that be a more enjoyable car for him anyway?
Playing devils advocate: why let some other dude fart in the seats for six years then pay for his deferred maintenance? Why not take out a loan and go to Bowling Green for delivery?
Or adjust your expectations. I’m hardly the poster child of deferred gratitude, but I desperately wanted an F355 Ferrari, Porsche 993, or Acura NSX when I was a kid. Those things were tantalizingly close for a while but have since spiraled out of attainability (and honestly out of desire; at some point they just don’t have any appeal at the prices they command). So I adjusted my gaze and landed on a sports car that I love and can afford. Wanting what you have and all that.
Also possible to fail at something due to inadequate housing, an excessive commute, malnutrition, shabby clothing (anti _Dress for Success_), or humiliation / burnout / depression / lack of incentive. Something Dave Ramsey (a fraud and a false teacher who has harmed many), and never mentions.
I was doing some consulting at his HQ in Franklin TN last year. It definitely has a distinctive corporate culture. Many companies talk about it but they walk the walk.
I had never met so many people who relocated to take a job. Their recruiting process is epic. Even I as an outside consultant had to sit down with two HR people and just talk about myself. I guess I passed some test? It was just this side of a cult but in fairness there were many bright and hard working people there.
IANAA but I thought the real juice for an expensive lease was getting the corp to pay it pre tax.
Also on residential real estate, Blackrock buying it. A few pols are talking about banning this and it's high time. Data centers too. Fuck those things.
You sound like my accountant. Maybe you should try being a fun accountant.
20+ years ago, I made my son a partial owner of my business when he was in HS, so I could hire him, pay him a dividend as a means of saving for college, and not have to pay work comp on him. He was the best help I ever had, and made bank... as did the business because we were a stripped down lean, mean money-making machine. It was pretty great.
When it came time for college, I went to my accountant and said, "he's an owner -- I think a mechanical engineering degree is a deductible "continuing education" expense." I thought I was brilliant.
He (like you, no doubt) did not agree. Killjoys, all of you. ;)
0-“I believe … that governments are rarely more efficient than markets”
Since when?
1-“The reality of the situation is that our government has stacked the deck against employing Americans for more than twenty years now. Compared to an American worker, an H1-B costs less to hire and less to employ. He is also unable to participate in most labor protection schemes and/or complain to the DOL about what you do.”
All of those displaced, REAL American workers are freed up to (1) do something that the drone / worker bee replacements cannot or will not do OR (2) enjoy Eudaimonia.
You say this all the time as if saying it enough times will make it so. What should all the American IT graduates do if they find the jobs they thought would be available when they started college four or five years prior are filled by immigrants? Should every American start their own company and hire their own H1-bs to do the actual work? Should they all network with rich and connected people in college so they have the inside track to a top tier firm and introductions to potential clients? What exactly should tens of millions of Americans do?
The only bright side I see is that the Big banks including Goldman Sacks are now offshoring more of the junior and middle level investment jobs to India.
Just had lunch today with a newly retired buddy of mine who said that AI use on my old job was hollowing out the knowledge of the specialized teams like I used to work on.
I could see something similar 20 years ago where we had new hires who had never worked on a trading floor like I did, and they lacked all the skills I had gained from working face to face in a tense environment. They could never glean those skills with client contact only through email and phone calls. I had an intuition for certain situations that they just couldn’t pick up on.
Now, of course, none of this matters anymore. The most successful youngsters going forward will be in the trades or in government jobs with pensions.
It's still really odd for me to come to grips with the fact that by choosing (in 1981) to "throw away" the native intelligence that was my birthright and pursue a life in the skilled trades, rather than head to State U -- that I was actually falling up, rather than down.
It's very strange how things work out. I'm exceedingly grateful.
Yes: they should hustle! From the moment one lands at an American airport, one should be besieged on all sides by dozens of young highly-skilled Americans selling you counterfeit watches, tours, drugs, prostitutes, and tuk tuk rides, and begging. IOW, just like the Subcontinent!
0-I have never advocated for people to study something “vocational” in college that closes potential doors, eliminating optionality. I always encourage people to study something enduring at a quality school (reasonable heuristic is endowment per undergrad capita and then career placement) instead.
1-Every American cannot start a business that will provide them a higher quality of life than they could get from the JERB they’d like to have, but if I were feeling squeezed by the presence of immigrants who were (somewhat) second class non-citizens, I’d pretty quickly find a way to turn that bug into a feature by profiting off of their vulnerabilities.
2-Relatedly, the sooner one learns that connections and relationships tend to matter more than “I am very smart,” the better. Tight knit groups of immigrants have built up powerful flywheels for themselves by doing just that, right?
3-Investment banks have long been willing to offshore non front-office jobs, but the “real” banking jobs (i.e., you have clients (senior), talk to clients (middle), or work for those above you (junior)) are more at threat from AI, because it’s an apprenticeship model. You learn the job by osmosis from the people above you. If there’s no apprenticeship, there’s less of a future.
Regarding (2): This was made illegal by the Civil Rights Act, so all of us MONSTER TRUCK/COCK bros in our echo chamber would be litigated into the ground if we engaged in the same behavior as the immigrants you admire. Our gov’t prevents the freedom of association that you rightly note as valuable to success. Side question for our resident Truck Mandarin: am I allowed to drive wife’s HUGE dually to town,that she uses to pull a horse trailer? If she does truck things with her truck, do I need to apply for a special dispensation to use it for non truck things?
Point (2) goes far beyond JERBs. If I can do anything to help the esteemed membership of ACF, it will be to move them off the “plantation” of the JERB mindset.
I would not be caught dead driving a truck unless it were in use for a task necessitating a truck, personally.
'0-“I believe … that governments are rarely more efficient than markets”
Since when?'
My whole life. I believe in the sane application of market forces to pricing and availability, with as little government intervention as necessary to ensure a modicum of fairness. Not because it's so great to be fair, but because otherwise you get Robespierre.
You, on the other hand, use the word "market" the way swingers use "lifestyle" -- as a neologism to refer to a perverted philosophy where everyone gets fucked in weird ways and the social fabric is rent permanently asunder. You stand in the middle of a concentric ring of governmental and societal defenses designed to tilt the playing table in your favor, and deceive yourself that you eat what you kill or vice versa.
Let me tell you the day you will be on your knees along with the Dollar General crowd: the day the petroyuan overtakes the petrodollar and the daddy of the Fed can't pump enough fake money into the machine to make your fake investments produce fake returns. You are a parasite gnawing on the corpse of a system set up with blood and treasure two generations ago, and your glee is indistinguishable from that felt by the people in the ghetto who briefly used "the Chase money glitch" to buy new sneakers.
I had forgotten about the Chase Infinite Money Glitch.
“You stand in the middle of a concentric ring of governmental and societal defenses designed to tilt the playing table in your favor, and deceive yourself that you eat what you kill or vice versa.”
Christ Alive is this untrue! I am a contrarian and am on the wrong side of the consensus in almost everything I do, particularly of late. You should know enough personally to connect the dots, and know why I can’t / won’t memorialize anything further.
“The day the petroyuan overtakes the petrodollar and the daddy of the Fed can't pump enough fake money into the machine to make your fake investments produce fake returns.”
If this happens - and it could - the world will be so fucked that you’ll have to take a number and stand in line to step off the roof of a sufficiently tall building to ensure death upon impact. So I don’t spend much time worrying about it.
“You, on the other hand, use the word "market" the way swingers use "lifestyle" -- as a neologism to refer to a perverted philosophy where everyone gets fucked in weird ways and the social fabric is rent permanently asunder.”
You are about to inspire me to enter the virtuous and wholesome fields of check cashing and methadone clinics.
You *should* work in check cashing for a while. You should work in a system that explicitly exploits the vulnerable so you can recognize the signs of that exploitation when they occur in industries with better PR and flashier offices.
I like to help vulnerable people, like the millions of female content creators who can continue to make a living on Onlyfans (because of me), rather than prey upon them.
When I lived in Japan I understood that I was a guest there. However, being a guest, I knew that it was their country, not mine. I was not and am not entitled to any of the fruits of their labor no matter how much I contributed to their society or how hard I tried to fit in. I don't see how this is so hard to understand: the natives of a country ought to be in charge of who their neighbors are. They ought to be able to decide who to let in and how many of them. They ought to be able to bar immigration completely.
I like globalism (and I might be the only one here who does). I have a great wife from a foreign country and all our kids were born there. I love traveling back there whenever I get the chance. Thanks, globalism! But I'm not blind to the realities of living in a foreign country being surrounded by the natives and only being able to barely scratch the surface of their culture. If the H1B crowd is solely here to make money we're better off without them as they'll make no effort to fit into our culture or bother to understand it in any meaningful way. That is an important point beyond just the economic reality and ignoring helps no one.
"I don't see how this is so hard to understand" A certain extremely populous culture tends to not promote critical thinking or empathy. I recall one recounting a corporate training session:
Instructor: "Make sure your necktie is clean & pressed."
Student (raises hand): "But here in India we do not wear neckties."
Instructor: "Yes. As I was saying, make sure your necktie is clean & pressed."
Also, enjoying other, distinct cultures (especially Japan), is the opposite of globalism. Globalism is about destroying all worthy cultures and replacing them with third world slop.
Kaman = Ovation. They made some super interesting stuff in the '70s, I once had a Magnum 1 bass and it was a very nice instrument. Deacon and Breadwinner guitars aren't priced sky high last time I checked. I don't care about the bowl back acoustics, they are probably their bread & butter, but seeing how I rarely play anything with more than four strings....
I hope I die before I see a 'Guitar Center Wangcaster 9000' or 'Guitar Center DonkDonk Precise Bass' :
0) go into, or out of production (due to poor sales or whatever)
1) if actually made, fetch five figures on the vintage/collectible market
I have owned and played a bunch of Ovation (and Applause!) acoustics, both USA and Korea.
I can't believe... and I mean CANNOT BELIEVE... you didn't mention the man who used an Ovation Magnum II bass to sell 11.9 MILLION COPIES of ONE SINGLE ALBUM!!!!!!!
I will not subscribe to the “stick it to (x)”. I don’t want billionaires paying higher property taxes because I don’t want anyone paying property taxes. NYC budget is absurd and abusing their billionaires is at best a short term fix. Manhattan, being an island, has limited space. It will always be expensive. It’s not expensive because 10,000 rich people own property their for when they are in town.
I saw the TX H1-B story and wondered how long it would take to show up in ACF and the answer is not long. Based on Jack’s comments about the significant Indian readership I am wondering do any of them comment?
The flip side of how H1-B hurts American citizens is how it exploits those who take part as if they are indentured servants. At this point H1-B should be eliminated and immigration completely overhauled to a merit system and fixed numbers allowed per year based on the needs of the country.
Either way what we learn in TX is that when demand decreases so do prices. This is quite the breakthrough and I hope someone realizes what has been discovered and advocates for it to be tried other places.
I made the mistake of going to a city reach out meeting trying to drum up support for renewing the 2%lot tax on retail, restaurants and building supplies.
I was being fed so much bullshit I had to walk out. They were saying they need it to fix roads. Only 38% of the homes in the area are primary residences. They also say "locals" only pay 34% of the total generated by the LOT. They were flabbergasted when I asked what total property tax revenue was paid by the 62% of homes (I don't know the breakdown when you add in commercial property) that are only occupied a few months out of the year.
I would be good money the total value of those homes is much higher than the 62% of lots they represent vs. 38% fully occupied.
Locals pay 100% of the LOT tax they pay. It would hurt less and soak second home owners more to just raise property taxes. It is also as regressive of a tax as I can think of.
This is a moral issue for me- I see property taxes as immoral and evil. Why is it legal to tax someone forever on something they bought? We are supposedly an ownership society.
Working on my WV ancestry I discovered property owners in the late 19th century were expected to devote a certain amount of time working on the county road running along their farms.
I pay 20% fewer $ in property taxes, on a home that is 5 -6 times the value (estimate sale price not assessed value) here in Idaho than in NY, for a public school that beat the snot out of the public and Catholic school available where is was.
It's supposed to buy us an educated society with educated voters, but no longer fulfills its purpose. I would be delighted to pay more property tax for those results. In my state, VT, that's in the category of "not going to happen."
My wife was just talking to a tradesman whose son got into Norwich University on a full ride scholarship, in part for athletic ability and in part for his excellent grades in a VT high school, from which he graduated early. Then he goes to Norwich, they find out he cannot write a paragraph, and he has to spend a year in remedial classes before doing college-level work. Good thing VT, in 2025, had the second highest per pupil spending in the country. At least he is going to a college that won't let him graduate without actual skills; it could have been worse.
VT's high but unavailing education spending also freezes out needed spending on roads, both at the state and municipal level. I could go on, but will instead go to bed.
Michigan exempts primary residents from paying school millages. "The State" apparently makes the school districts whole. Our school district is fine. The kids are all based. My son and his friends make fun of the CNN clips their history teacher plays.
One thing that was not heavily emphasized in the Bloomberg H-1B article is that Texas, which is among the three Sunbelt states (along with Tennessee and Florida) that does not collect state income taxes, has rather elevated property taxes. And then also elevated home insurance rates.
I’d rather pay a reasonable state income tax than a property tax over which the homeowner has no control.
There are other factors in the pockets of softness in the North Dallas market: Huge growth post-COVID (many remote workers); high (and growing) property taxes. Other DFW markets (e.g., Highland Park) remain rock solid in terms of pricing.
Yeah the “Texas is super awesome” crowd hasn’t convinced me especially because the property taxes. Ohio Republicans seem hell bent on driving down all taxes except property taxes and making them huge. This has to be sheer laziness on behalf of politicians since a decent portion of people will go vote for property tax levies “for the kids” without any analysis of where the money is going and how it is being spent.
Highland Park is an extremely affluent part of Dallas. It would take financial Armageddon for it to lose value. There is no shortage of people who want to live there.
No. Income taxes end when you stop earning. That is a good thing.
Property taxes never end and are dictated to you, you do not control them. Hence why I think they are immoral, you can be taxed out of your ability to otherwise afford to live in property you own.
Income tax is a massive burden which makes it much harder to own property or retire because it vaporizes income so much right out the gate before you have even used it. In this scheme you don't even own your full earnings. A far greater financial abuse since most states then levy consumption taxes on money that has been taxed.
Property tax is complaining about a much much smaller and downstream issue, imo.
Well I’m not a fan of income taxes, but to me they are less evil than property taxes. I would prefer to eliminate all taxes and shift to sales tax for a lot of reasons including one very simple reason- the government at all levels (city, county, state federal) employs many many people to make the tax system work. All those jobs could be eliminated by sales tax, which is a simple calculation on purchases. This would reduce the size of government and the cost of government.
Maybe. Maybe it's nice to have some diversity in thought though.
It can get stale when half of the discussion threads end up with all involved agreeing that yes obviously anyone to the left of Ronald Regan will murder you and your family in their beds, and/or discussing which shade of Brown is doing more to genocide specifically White American Catholics Males.
It is not an uncommonly held view that the 14th was maliciously misinterpreted to justify mass anchor babies and birth tourism. It was for recently freed slaves and a few distant edge cases. It just hasn't been successfully challenged.
It does seem to be the most poorly-drafted clause in the entire Constitution. Note that it wasn't applied to Amerindians until the 1920s.
What I haven't read a lot about is that there are so many possible levels of legality for the parents:
* Diplomats
* Invading armies
* POWs (I have heard a lot about German POWs stationed in the US: many stayed in the US)
* Illegal aliens ("invading armies" in plainclothes?)
* Student visas (Kamala Harris / Vivek Ramaswamy*)
* Temporary foreign worker visas
* Permanent residents
* Non-citizens by virtue of their ethnicity (enslaved Africans in the Civil War Era) <--- [The direct intent of the law]
* Citizens
* Claims to be pro-life. Ergo "life begins at conception." Was conceived IN INDIA by TWO INDIAN CITIZENS about 8 months before their "temporary" arrival in the US. Ergo not an American.
I remember working at radio shack in the mid to late 90s where "realistic" and "Optimus" house brands went from about 50/50 designed and made by X Japanese company to just being literally name plate changes on car stereo head units. Fun times.
The most telling thing about Mamdani was basically starting that the city/renters/trusts would own apartments. The plan goes like this: tell landlords to fix up their units, or else. Oh, and btw you can't go up on rent either. If you as the landlord can't make a profit, that's not our, the city's, fault. Communism in action!
I'm a free market guy, but the H1B stuff has been getting out of hand. All these layoffs and yet companies are still getting H1Bs. I'm not opposed for companies subjected to federal labor laws getting a moratorium on H1B workers. Especially in tech sectors, they act like the people they are laying off can't be trained.
I had a pair of in house designed Optimus bookshelves with the 360 degree ribbon tweeter. They sounded great but they were easy to fry (which I did). I also had an awesome sounding Optimus above rear deck 3 way( true three way) speakers that were an easy replacement for Toyotas weird 8x7 back speaker.
In my basement is my dad's old Realistic radio/receiver and a double tape deck. There's also a record player to complete the set, but I fucked the head up in a failed attempt to upgrade 7 years ago. The receiver needed a new speaker output switch but it still works great. I use a bluetooth to RCA adapter plugged into the aux input, and it plays thru some decent Klipsch towers. Forget exactly which model.
I'm in tech; more so due to my up bringing (both micro and macro) and less due to a stint at 'the shack. My father, whom we fondly refer to as "Sparky" - is an electrician by day and a tinker-er / mad scientist at night. Given his influence and my coming of age on the early internet, it was natural to adopt tech and when old enough to work, end up at Radio Shack (or Circuit City!).
My father was very adamant (and proud) that I go to college, the first in the fam. He didn't want me working hard outside in holes like he did.
Funny how things have come full circle. The excitement and promise of tech and the early internet have given way to fractured disillusions. For my own children I struggle if college will be worth it for them.
Perhaps my son will be an electrician, Sparky Jr. has a nice ring to it.
I understand your concerns about the value of college. Yet I'm also terrified of what happens if Heritage Americans* listen to "Mike Rowe" and "Dave Ramsey" and abandon the "commanding heights" of society more than we already have.
Oh man; I actually forgot about those! I was there for that; though the stores I operated out of didn't sell a ton in their markets. (Mostly I focused on selling Compaq computers and Sprint PCS phones - as that was where the spiffs were!)
Haha, that sounds about right. I raced those things so hard they wouldn’t even last the warranty period. The local managers I’m sure hated me for that.
My first business was selling motors for them. I was ordering motors from Tamiya and taking apart Crest toothbrushes and selling them at a markup.
RS was really a Mecca for a kid into electronics. And as annoying as pushing the cell phones was, I never had a bad experience going through them for a phone.
...that's also an elected official ostensibly a "public servant" - essentially using the power of his office to target a private citizen because... uh, we don't like him? "Your papers are not in order, comrade... you don't live here"... Bernie Sanders also owns a house he doesn't live in... I bet virtually every member of Congress owns real estate they rarely live in... but of course they're allowed to while CEO whoever is not.
Nevermind the oppressive precedent of the state taxing assets you've paid for, thus ensuring all you do is rent them from the government... the useful idiots of NYC think they've empowered a system for "justice", but all they've done is simply empower a system. That's the ultimate grift of socialism, you vote for it thinking it's going to work for you, but it's designed to work for the political class.
'...that's also an elected official ostensibly a "public servant" - essentially using the power of his office to target a private citizen because... uh, we don't like him? "Your papers are not in order, comrade... you don't live here"...'
Manhattan is essentially built out. There are no empty lots to build new homes. So when there are 10,000 homes with no one living in them, that means there are 10,000 residents who can't buy a home and who are forced into relationships with BlackRock and/or other firms that purchase real estate then rent it back at exorbitant rates.
The fallacy of the beard applies a bit here. It would be awful for the mayor of New York to direct public ire at a sanitation worker or restaurant employee. This person, by contrast, has obtained about $200 million dollars -- that is two hundred MILLION -- of real estate appreciation on homes he does not use and which directly cause other families to not have a home. Period point blank.
'Nevermind the oppressive precedent of the state taxing assets you've paid for, thus ensuring all you do is rent them from the government... '
That precedent was set in the Book of Domesday from 1086. It is settled. All we are doing now is arguing over implementation.
By the way, if you apply this tax to the average American home at the same rate that it's being applied to this man... you get $312.50.
By that rationale, there are millions of people who are in desperate need of a reliable car for transportation. Anyone who has more cars than they need should surrender their spare cars to the government. When should a state official stop by and take one of yours?
...at any rate, the delusion is that taxing CEO whoever will then house a bunch of sanitation workers or restaurant employees. If that was true, then California would be the easiest state to own a home...
"By the way, if you apply this tax to the average American home at the same rate that it's being applied to this man... you get $312.50"
Again, you've got plenty of vehicles to spare, right? You won't mind if the state just takes one?
As always, funding socialism is always the burden of someone just a little richer than you are...
Of course I don't object to all taxation, and never said otherwise... I was in the military, so a federal employee paid by the taxes paid by American citizens...
...and that's my point. Taxes should serve a direct interest for the taxpayer. I'd be completely fine with higher taxation if the benefits were immediately returned to me...
But it doesn't work like that in reality. It's always a grift... or effectively a ponzi scheme that always... always... always fails. Every time. See Social Security.
...and ultimately this isn't about enabling some greater productivity or serving the taxpayers with the taxes the city will collect... this is about punishing success and empowering a political agenda.
"By that rationale, there are millions of people who are in desperate need of a reliable car for transportation. Anyone who has more cars than they need should surrender their spare cars to the government. When should a state official stop by and take one of yours?"
If I let one of my vehicles sit inoperative outside for six months, the township will tell me to demonstrate its use or surrender it. This sort of thing happens to poor and middle class people all the time. Buy a trailer and don't move into it... maybe because you're in jail, or working shifts out of town. See how long it takes the state to take it.
That being said, you and I are coming from the same perspective of "protect people from the state." The thing is that anyone with a $238M house has received the benefit of government preference more times than ten thousand people like you and me have.
We don't need to play this game where "if they can do it to a billionaire, they can do it to me." They're already doing a hundred things to you that aren't being done to billionaires. You and I pay ten times the effective tax rate of a billionaire. We have no security in our property or persons compared to them. Their decisions magnify misery for uncounted thousands of people. Do they deserve equal protection under the law? Absolutely. Right now they are more than equal.
So how does Mamdani's tax address the hundreds of things being done to me that aren't being done to them? What is actually going to happen now that justifies the increased tax on $5mil properties?
“You and I pay ten times the effective tax rate of a billionaire.”
People become billionaires through ownership of assets, typically assets that appreciate significantly post-purchase / creation; which is to say, investment.
The tax code in America encourages investment. Which is one of the reasons that Americans enjoy such an extraordinary standard of living.
The response to this phenomenon should not be “I want billionaires to pay more in taxes (their ‘fair share’)”; rather, it should be “I now understand the incentive structure in place, and I will respond accordingly.”
Amanda Bartolotta is amazing: https://xcancel.com/amandalouise416/status/2062182782529409460#m She has previously documented the money flows and points out that _everybody gets paid_ (brokers, lawyers, lobbyists, hiring managers (kickbacks) except the displaced skilled Americans.
At this point, there's a pretty broad "Bernie to Bannon" consensus in the public, numerous bills have been proposed, but I don't see anything really changing soon:
I drove my Boxster GTS 900 miles to Maine last week, nothing but good times. Learned that the convertible roof is kind of fake, underneath the van as is a magnesium shell that keeps things rigid and very quiet. You can't even get a convertible in a Corvette can ya?
No one is talking millionaire taxes here cause there ain't no millionaires. But we have a fake oysterman, woman abusing socialist with a concentration camp tat who is running to get on the Senate ballot.. I am having fun asking family and neighbors whether there is anything that Plattner could do that would disqualify him in their eyes? Raping a 12 year old? Ritual murder? Goat fucking? People are avoiding me a little.
Platner probably winning the seat is such an embarassment for everyone involved.
The people in general crave populism at the moment, whether that's from the left or the right, so who does the DNC push? An ancient woman who couldn't be more out of touch. The DNC is a cancer, a parade of horribles whose worldview is stuck in 2005. The party leaders are leacherous idiots, all of them.
So they get... Platner. Which, yikes.
Susan Collins SUCKS and needs to get voted out. She has been a pox on American politics for nearly as long as I have been alive. Thanks to Donny T and his own brand of cruel stupidity the GOP is polling so poorly that her ouster is basically a given.
All of that said, it is a bit amusing that many of the same people who will gladly overlook DJTs own myriad flaws and scandals will get upset about Platner. This is the exact guy that Trump has brought to the American political forefront and I don't know that there is a way back.
That's kind of funny because Collins is generally despised as a RINO. The SAVE act has popular support and I'm surprised Thune's attempt to quash it failed.
The $109,000 hybrid Corvettes is not aspirationa, a $40,000 Corvette is aspirational. Before we were unwillingly sucked into clown world a loaded Camero SS was priced a few thousand less then a loaded L-82 Corvette. We will not discuss Jack’s S600 V-12 MB but domestically a loaded Buick Electra 225 was also a few thousand less then a comparable Couoe or Sedan Deville. Memo to file: Doctors and Lawyers that could afford the Cadillac bit drive the Buick 225 because it was the right thing to do. Ok think of it as the new rich driving the Yukon XL to Costco because and Escalade would send the wrong message to their neighbors. However now with our inverted Bell Curve economy the masses are driving used Caravans and the well off are not. To circle back to the topic at hand a $110,000 Corvette is a toy for those that pay cash not something to aspire to….
What annoys me most and Mamdani and his growing legion of DSA acolytes is their audacity to declare the American dream dead before people have had the opportunity to determine that for themselves. The tone I get from them is a lot of "Trust me bro, the game is cooked, best just burn your prime working years throwing rocks at ICE Agents instead of figuring out how to actually be productive and enjoy the fruits of said productivity"
My father told me this bit of wisdom when I was just nine years old: there's a lot of money to be made in convincing someone how they're getting screwed by someone else.
Of course, little did I realize back then that the monetary rewards pale in comparison to the political power to be gained through such blatant pandering.
The younger generations don’t want to work, and they don’t want the responsibility, maybe true, but they do understand that they are being undermined by big business and big government, I don’t really blame them, culture tells them to jump through all the hoops and the government shits on them, I only worked as hard as I did because I knew there was a payoff, these young people see no payoff, just indentured servitude.
If they "don't want to work," why do so many of them seem to spend so much time studying STEM and applying to hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs?
I think they are in the minority.
there are way too many of those stem students unemployed or underemployed even from the best universities
Definite minority.
Perhaps they should’ve studied humanities or taken a SPAM-track (Social Media, PR, Advertising, Marketing) course of study instead.
If they major in the humanities like I did they can become soulless government drones like me!
No question the younger set doesn't want to have to pay their dues like we boomers did .
Luckily my son followed my lead and now owns two houses and makes 2X what I ever did .
Less bitching and more working will do it.
-Nate
I actually hired a few guys out of college recently and I was quite surprised with what they are dealing with out there. These talented American computer science grads are having a very tough time even getting interviews! I've been super happy about what these guys bring and you're telling me that they are getting completely shut out in favor of H1B hires?
WTF is going on??? We keep this up for much longer and I'd think we should bring back the guillotine.
Agreed
“John Carter” had an interesting take on this in the context of the marshmallow test a couple weeks back:
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/when-the-experimenter-fails-the-marshmallow
I don’t disagree with what he writes here.
Neither do I.
I’m starting to change my opinion about the “greatest generation” being partially responsible as well, and maybe not so great.
In this day and age, you're not going to nickel-and-dime or bootstrap your way into a house. Even a down payment requires tens of thousands in one big-ass chunk if you want a Merely Crippling monthly payment instead of an Even More Crippling one.
I myself have decided not to buy a house until and unless I can do it in a way that doesn't leave me either house-poor or an hour from work. Which, as I figure it, will require at least $200,000 a year. My boomer dad doesn't get it on at least one level.
But! But! But!...What about EQUITY? What about The American Dream?
What about living on instant ramen and rainwater just to say I'm a homeowner? What about putting 20,000 miles a year on my truck commuting?
Getting rid of the illegal aliens would maybe loosen the housing situation, and it’s much worse in Canada. when I was working, I never lived more than 15 minutes from work, and I considered my coworkers who lived an hour and fifteen minutes away from work less paid than I was, ten extra hours a week and not getting paid for it…
I don't know how much lending parameters have changed in the last 10 years. In 2015, I bought a house with only 5% down. That was a good decision because the payment was less than rent and it was much closer to my job. Although it didn't appreciate in the first 5 years (not a concern to me), it was also very low maintenance in that time period.
I do know many people in my neighborhood bought their houses in the past 5 years with under 10% down. That really shouldn't be a challenge unless you are making minimum wage (in which case your problem is your job, not the housing market. Probably highly correlated) or you live in a stupid area of the country. I wish I could live in LA but I can't see tolerating the costs.
There are places in the country where you can get a good but not fancy house for $300k or less, have a payment near or less than rent, and not have a horrific commute.
He is essentially correct.
His use of the marshmallow test in his analogy is spot on.
A most excellent piece.
The smaller marshmallows especially hit home with all the shrinkflation going on the past decade.
There’s a website out there that tracks the shrinking package size of supermarket items.
Do you think it's that they don't want to, or that they don't see the payoff? Four years of school, possible debt from that, then trying to break into whatever field you chose.
They see only doom, dei, and importing the third world to lower wages, and the government will help you if you have the right skin tone, but will shit all over you if you are not imported.
The younger generations saw through the scam.
i dont know anyone that doesnt want to work and ive only heard that from the older generations. nobody can afford anything and everyone is hiring foreigners. what are the actual citizens supposed to do?
They don’t want to work as slaves, Farley says mechanics are making 100k, yeah, maybe one in fifty, and the manufacturers are making difficult to repair vehicles, also difficult to troubleshoot, I know car mechanics that quit the dealer scam.
Yeah, the corporate lies about those mechanic jobs are nauseating and infuriating.
And I should add, they are only slightly worse than the lies about “a shortage of engineers” that I have endlessly heard for more than 40 years. And to make that worse, f***ing academia has been spewing that BS even more than the corporations.
Yep, and pay them pennies for warranty repairs they are forced to perform..of which there are PLENTY.
Sure, at a Mercedes dealer in a major metro area.
Work for the government? Ironically, government contractors in my field are severely restricted from hiring H1Bs.
those are sometimes not even open to white men here
Government contractors. Not civil service. The contractor is on the hook to provide someone of a certain skillset in a short time period. They will hire a white man if that is what is required.
That's wrong in at least one case I know personally.
I have a 22-year-old co-worker who not only puts in 50-60 hours a week, he's constantly hitting the gym AND forever bringing in sculptures of cartoon characters he made himself, with surface finishes so flawless that I, a man who's been building model kits for almost 45 years and have a refined eye for molding quality and surface detail, genuinely thought were airbrushed, polished plastic instead of baked clay.
He's less than half my age and he legitimately inspires me.
Sounds like a rare craftsman.
If one were a young person (roughly high school grad to recent college grad) with some ambition, they could survey the landscape of their peers and see how lazy and unprepared the labor competition was. And then outdo them.
Easily.
How much of this blame are we going to lay at the feet of the teacher's unions and their abysmal schools?
Not much, imo.
I went to an abysmal public school system until college; I was forced to: My mother was the curriculum director, and her father was on the school board.
Despite your ability to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, I’m not sure you’re actually disputing my point.
Have to go one step further to the parents. What kind of parent would let their kid rot with bad teachers and schools? Or rely on any school to teach their children all the most basic skills?
A ton of people don’t have the ability to readily move to a district with good schools. And a ton of people are poorly educated themselves and don’t really know what’s going on. And even if they are paying attention, do they know that this year’s B is the 1990’s D? Do they know that most school districts in the country take in between $15-20k per year, per child? There is so much money in the system, and such poor outcomes.
My parents willingly sent their children to poor schools; it was the only local option, other than the snake handling, unaccredited Christian school that graduates 2-3 students a year.
The schools remain poor 20 years later, even with aggregate county property tax receipts that are 2.5x now what they were then.
That sounds like conservative boomers telling young people to go get married by 25, as if a compatible mate is just waiting for you down at the store.
Telling young people to get married is the last thing I would ever say, it’s not a fair trade, the man gets screwed 9 times out of ten.
I agree that the economy and housing is incredibly discouraging for young people. At the same time it’s probably never been easier to distinguish yourself amongst a hoard of discouraged low T pot head, SSR eyes zoomers.
If some of these zoomers were given an SSR as their primary vehicle, I suspect their use of SSRIs would end.
1800 a month for a lease of is ridiculous. Resale be damned. Yet again i am cheap
... which is why you're a zillionare (or gonna' be one).
I still feel broke
feel broke to get rich
or whatever
on that billionaire grindset
Objectively, I'm doing fine but looking at what the wife spends every month is driving me mad at the moment.
There’s a price point at which cars should pretty much only be paid for in cash. Let’s arbitrarily call that $100k. If you can service the loan of a $100k car, you really should just save for a few months and buy a cheaper car outright. I’m not that debt averse, but a loan on a $100k+ car?**
And on that same note, a toy (which presumably no one is buying a $100k+ Corvette as their only car or daily driver) should always be bought in cash. Finance your DD, sure, there are practical reasons for that, but your toys? Buy them outright.
*yeah yeah I know, arbitrage on interest rates and all that, but come on man.
"There’s a price point at which cars should pretty much only be paid for in cash. Let’s arbitrarily call that $100k. If you can service the loan of a $100k car, you really should just save for a few months and buy a cheaper car outright. I’m not that debt averse, but a loan on a $100k+ car?**
And on that same note, a toy (which presumably no one is buying a $100k+ Corvette as their only car or daily driver) should always be bought in cash. Finance your DD, sure, there are practical reasons for that, but your toys? Buy them outright."
Morally, I agree.
Practically, I could not agree less. A $100k car is no big thing now. Suburbans and Tahoes cost $100k. Ford Super Duties cost $100k. I hate it, but there you go.
Now let's look at the argument for a toy. We won't even use big numbers or high-end Corvettes, because that makes it too easy for me to argue my side. Let's say you are 45 years old in 2018 and you are thinking about financing a new 2019 Stingray at the base MSRP of $55,900. Instead you decide to save for it over the next six years.
You arrive in 2024 and now the 2025 Stingray costs $69,995. The $55,900 you saved up no longer does the job. You need to save for two more years. But meanwhile the Stingray has increased in price six percent to $73,995. You are now 53 years old. And you spent the last eight years of your life not owning a Corvette. Now your body hurts in ways it didn't hurt before. Now your kid needs help with a down payment on a house, and your wife is sitting you down saying, "What's more important -- you having a sports car, or Brayden having a home?" Also, you have gone from a 7-speed manual car with reasonable operating costs to a fake Ferrari with an automatic transmission.
You decide to take the middle path and give Brayden half your $75k nest egg. Now you have $37.5k and the 2028 Corvette is $78k. It will increase in price approximately $4500 a year from now on. If you can save $10k a year this math will resolve for you in the year 2036, when you are 63 years old.
Congratulations! You're another old man limping in and out of a Corvette and rubbing it with a diaper. On the way to the show-and-shine you got passed by some 45-year-old in the same new Corvette. He appears to be having a lot more fun than you are, but you can't figure out why. After all, you own your car.
This. On certain things in life you need to look 5 or 10 years out.
It's not an extravagant toy, by any means, but I have had the thought that I won't be able to ride my Suzuki V-Strom when I'm 70 years old. Much more than 10 years out for me. It does help me appreciate it now.
Never mind
Comment of the month easily. And let’s not leave out the fact that you might not even make it through the six years. A good friend was 6 weeks short of his 53 birthday when his time was up. So there is at least some merit to living today.
I have a picture of me at a BMX race in 1994 with three fellow racers, all around my age. I'm the only one left. I am 54 years old. It can be sobering.
Here's a fun, somewhat related little anecdote:
My dad had a *rough* upbringing. He's worked tirelessly since he was like 14. Has never taken more than a few days off here and there over the course of the next 50 years. He isn't great with money so there isn't a whole heck of a lot saved up, but he has always made sure that we are provided for. A car for the kids when they needed one, undergrad degrees, insurance until the government said no more, etc.
He went to a family friend's funeral about 7 years ago or so. This family friend was in his mid-50s or so before passing on. My dad and I were standing next to each other, an he took one look at the body in the casket, turned to me and said something to the effect of "ya know, you can't take any of it with you. I'm going to buy the car."
So he traded in his Scion tC and got a Fiat 124 Abarth, of all things. He has since put over 70k miles on it with literally zero issues that I'm aware of. He drives it every day unless the snow is deep, in which case he will take my mom's car. He loves the thing. It makes him very happy, and it's nice to see him happy. He has a bad back and bad knees, and despite the discomfort it gives him he still happily grimaces with pain to get in and out.
While I don't much like thinking of mortality, I won't end up with any real inheritance. Which, honestly, is fine to me. It's my parents money. They should use it as they see fit while they are alive. But the little Fiat will be mine one day; it will be my honor to take care of the thing he dreamed of and cared for.
Raising my glass to your dad!
Good for him. My father keeps giving up stuff he wants, based on the idea that I should inherit. I know better than that. Not at the modern rate for end of life costs.
I can't perfectly align "isn't great with money" to generously providing for his family in ways that really matter. Great story, though. I, too, am glad he has that car.
Ok yes your argument is clear.. But why does our hypothetical man need a NEW Corvette? Why not buy a low mile used 2019 7MT in 2024 for... idk, 45 grand? 50 grand? Wouldn't that be a more enjoyable car for him anyway?
Playing devils advocate: why let some other dude fart in the seats for six years then pay for his deferred maintenance? Why not take out a loan and go to Bowling Green for delivery?
Or adjust your expectations. I’m hardly the poster child of deferred gratitude, but I desperately wanted an F355 Ferrari, Porsche 993, or Acura NSX when I was a kid. Those things were tantalizingly close for a while but have since spiraled out of attainability (and honestly out of desire; at some point they just don’t have any appeal at the prices they command). So I adjusted my gaze and landed on a sports car that I love and can afford. Wanting what you have and all that.
Yeah Jack, buy the car if and when you want it. I don't recall ever seeing an armored car following a hearse.
So sell my house and daily a Huracan?
Yes.
Is home equity loan and Huracan an option?
"Now you have $37.5k..."
Where I thought this was going is that a low mile 2019 Stingray still costs $55,900.
There is that as well. While you're saving, the dollar is falling and the new car you wanted is now an expensive used car.
I'm not one of these people, but I have seen some of my friends buy stuff they can't afford, and then step up their game.
Now that I think of it... I guess that was me. Have a crazy expensive house that made me raise my rates.
Also possible to fail at something due to inadequate housing, an excessive commute, malnutrition, shabby clothing (anti _Dress for Success_), or humiliation / burnout / depression / lack of incentive. Something Dave Ramsey (a fraud and a false teacher who has harmed many), and never mentions.
I was doing some consulting at his HQ in Franklin TN last year. It definitely has a distinctive corporate culture. Many companies talk about it but they walk the walk.
I had never met so many people who relocated to take a job. Their recruiting process is epic. Even I as an outside consultant had to sit down with two HR people and just talk about myself. I guess I passed some test? It was just this side of a cult but in fairness there were many bright and hard working people there.
NYC needs to become a 51st state, cut it off at the Tappan Zee bridge and see if it can become self-supporting.
Lol, they won't even let SI secede.
Give them their independence
Give them to New Jersey.
cruel and unusual
While totally impossible, love the idea.
The amount of financial parasitism that NYC exerts on the Federal Government would be illegal but for who the beneficiaries are.
Fark that. I’m not giving away two Senate seats to a permanently disfunctional. We already have California and a few others for that.
Yes. That is right.
OT - It just occurred to me today, don't know what took me so long:
AI data centers ARE the paperclip maximizer problem. And we didn't even get real AI first.
IANAA but I thought the real juice for an expensive lease was getting the corp to pay it pre tax.
Also on residential real estate, Blackrock buying it. A few pols are talking about banning this and it's high time. Data centers too. Fuck those things.
It goes on your w2
Not if its a business expense.
Yes it does. Well. It should. If you work for a major corp and you get a car, that perk is taxable
You sound like my accountant. Maybe you should try being a fun accountant.
20+ years ago, I made my son a partial owner of my business when he was in HS, so I could hire him, pay him a dividend as a means of saving for college, and not have to pay work comp on him. He was the best help I ever had, and made bank... as did the business because we were a stripped down lean, mean money-making machine. It was pretty great.
When it came time for college, I went to my accountant and said, "he's an owner -- I think a mechanical engineering degree is a deductible "continuing education" expense." I thought I was brilliant.
He (like you, no doubt) did not agree. Killjoys, all of you. ;)
What about for small S/C corps?
I would kill to have a data center in my town. Our local electrical co-op would be a government profit center, pay for 2 new schools.
0-“I believe … that governments are rarely more efficient than markets”
Since when?
1-“The reality of the situation is that our government has stacked the deck against employing Americans for more than twenty years now. Compared to an American worker, an H1-B costs less to hire and less to employ. He is also unable to participate in most labor protection schemes and/or complain to the DOL about what you do.”
All of those displaced, REAL American workers are freed up to (1) do something that the drone / worker bee replacements cannot or will not do OR (2) enjoy Eudaimonia.
You say this all the time as if saying it enough times will make it so. What should all the American IT graduates do if they find the jobs they thought would be available when they started college four or five years prior are filled by immigrants? Should every American start their own company and hire their own H1-bs to do the actual work? Should they all network with rich and connected people in college so they have the inside track to a top tier firm and introductions to potential clients? What exactly should tens of millions of Americans do?
The only bright side I see is that the Big banks including Goldman Sacks are now offshoring more of the junior and middle level investment jobs to India.
And they’ll wonder in five years why they dont have experienced bankers. Accountanting is doing this too
Just had lunch today with a newly retired buddy of mine who said that AI use on my old job was hollowing out the knowledge of the specialized teams like I used to work on.
I could see something similar 20 years ago where we had new hires who had never worked on a trading floor like I did, and they lacked all the skills I had gained from working face to face in a tense environment. They could never glean those skills with client contact only through email and phone calls. I had an intuition for certain situations that they just couldn’t pick up on.
Now, of course, none of this matters anymore. The most successful youngsters going forward will be in the trades or in government jobs with pensions.
It's still really odd for me to come to grips with the fact that by choosing (in 1981) to "throw away" the native intelligence that was my birthright and pursue a life in the skilled trades, rather than head to State U -- that I was actually falling up, rather than down.
It's very strange how things work out. I'm exceedingly grateful.
"start their own company"
Yes: they should hustle! From the moment one lands at an American airport, one should be besieged on all sides by dozens of young highly-skilled Americans selling you counterfeit watches, tours, drugs, prostitutes, and tuk tuk rides, and begging. IOW, just like the Subcontinent!
e.g., Michael Palin : https://youtu.be/aHeYRI0KHmY
Recently from a motorcycle (20s): https://youtu.be/TvjrqR3wzd0 (Full song; RIP Stephen & Audun: https://youtu.be/5mKX21of0sM)
Some good points:
0-I have never advocated for people to study something “vocational” in college that closes potential doors, eliminating optionality. I always encourage people to study something enduring at a quality school (reasonable heuristic is endowment per undergrad capita and then career placement) instead.
1-Every American cannot start a business that will provide them a higher quality of life than they could get from the JERB they’d like to have, but if I were feeling squeezed by the presence of immigrants who were (somewhat) second class non-citizens, I’d pretty quickly find a way to turn that bug into a feature by profiting off of their vulnerabilities.
2-Relatedly, the sooner one learns that connections and relationships tend to matter more than “I am very smart,” the better. Tight knit groups of immigrants have built up powerful flywheels for themselves by doing just that, right?
3-Investment banks have long been willing to offshore non front-office jobs, but the “real” banking jobs (i.e., you have clients (senior), talk to clients (middle), or work for those above you (junior)) are more at threat from AI, because it’s an apprenticeship model. You learn the job by osmosis from the people above you. If there’s no apprenticeship, there’s less of a future.
Regarding (2): This was made illegal by the Civil Rights Act, so all of us MONSTER TRUCK/COCK bros in our echo chamber would be litigated into the ground if we engaged in the same behavior as the immigrants you admire. Our gov’t prevents the freedom of association that you rightly note as valuable to success. Side question for our resident Truck Mandarin: am I allowed to drive wife’s HUGE dually to town,that she uses to pull a horse trailer? If she does truck things with her truck, do I need to apply for a special dispensation to use it for non truck things?
Point (2) goes far beyond JERBs. If I can do anything to help the esteemed membership of ACF, it will be to move them off the “plantation” of the JERB mindset.
I would not be caught dead driving a truck unless it were in use for a task necessitating a truck, personally.
'0-“I believe … that governments are rarely more efficient than markets”
Since when?'
My whole life. I believe in the sane application of market forces to pricing and availability, with as little government intervention as necessary to ensure a modicum of fairness. Not because it's so great to be fair, but because otherwise you get Robespierre.
You, on the other hand, use the word "market" the way swingers use "lifestyle" -- as a neologism to refer to a perverted philosophy where everyone gets fucked in weird ways and the social fabric is rent permanently asunder. You stand in the middle of a concentric ring of governmental and societal defenses designed to tilt the playing table in your favor, and deceive yourself that you eat what you kill or vice versa.
Let me tell you the day you will be on your knees along with the Dollar General crowd: the day the petroyuan overtakes the petrodollar and the daddy of the Fed can't pump enough fake money into the machine to make your fake investments produce fake returns. You are a parasite gnawing on the corpse of a system set up with blood and treasure two generations ago, and your glee is indistinguishable from that felt by the people in the ghetto who briefly used "the Chase money glitch" to buy new sneakers.
I had forgotten about the Chase Infinite Money Glitch.
“You stand in the middle of a concentric ring of governmental and societal defenses designed to tilt the playing table in your favor, and deceive yourself that you eat what you kill or vice versa.”
Christ Alive is this untrue! I am a contrarian and am on the wrong side of the consensus in almost everything I do, particularly of late. You should know enough personally to connect the dots, and know why I can’t / won’t memorialize anything further.
“The day the petroyuan overtakes the petrodollar and the daddy of the Fed can't pump enough fake money into the machine to make your fake investments produce fake returns.”
If this happens - and it could - the world will be so fucked that you’ll have to take a number and stand in line to step off the roof of a sufficiently tall building to ensure death upon impact. So I don’t spend much time worrying about it.
“You, on the other hand, use the word "market" the way swingers use "lifestyle" -- as a neologism to refer to a perverted philosophy where everyone gets fucked in weird ways and the social fabric is rent permanently asunder.”
You are about to inspire me to enter the virtuous and wholesome fields of check cashing and methadone clinics.
You *should* work in check cashing for a while. You should work in a system that explicitly exploits the vulnerable so you can recognize the signs of that exploitation when they occur in industries with better PR and flashier offices.
I like to help vulnerable people, like the millions of female content creators who can continue to make a living on Onlyfans (because of me), rather than prey upon them.
When I lived in Japan I understood that I was a guest there. However, being a guest, I knew that it was their country, not mine. I was not and am not entitled to any of the fruits of their labor no matter how much I contributed to their society or how hard I tried to fit in. I don't see how this is so hard to understand: the natives of a country ought to be in charge of who their neighbors are. They ought to be able to decide who to let in and how many of them. They ought to be able to bar immigration completely.
I like globalism (and I might be the only one here who does). I have a great wife from a foreign country and all our kids were born there. I love traveling back there whenever I get the chance. Thanks, globalism! But I'm not blind to the realities of living in a foreign country being surrounded by the natives and only being able to barely scratch the surface of their culture. If the H1B crowd is solely here to make money we're better off without them as they'll make no effort to fit into our culture or bother to understand it in any meaningful way. That is an important point beyond just the economic reality and ignoring helps no one.
"I don't see how this is so hard to understand" A certain extremely populous culture tends to not promote critical thinking or empathy. I recall one recounting a corporate training session:
Instructor: "Make sure your necktie is clean & pressed."
Student (raises hand): "But here in India we do not wear neckties."
Instructor: "Yes. As I was saying, make sure your necktie is clean & pressed."
Also, enjoying other, distinct cultures (especially Japan), is the opposite of globalism. Globalism is about destroying all worthy cultures and replacing them with third world slop.
THANK YOU
Kaman = Ovation. They made some super interesting stuff in the '70s, I once had a Magnum 1 bass and it was a very nice instrument. Deacon and Breadwinner guitars aren't priced sky high last time I checked. I don't care about the bowl back acoustics, they are probably their bread & butter, but seeing how I rarely play anything with more than four strings....
I hope I die before I see a 'Guitar Center Wangcaster 9000' or 'Guitar Center DonkDonk Precise Bass' :
0) go into, or out of production (due to poor sales or whatever)
1) if actually made, fetch five figures on the vintage/collectible market
I have owned and played a bunch of Ovation (and Applause!) acoustics, both USA and Korea.
I can't believe... and I mean CANNOT BELIEVE... you didn't mention the man who used an Ovation Magnum II bass to sell 11.9 MILLION COPIES of ONE SINGLE ALBUM!!!!!!!
Did it on purpose
I will not subscribe to the “stick it to (x)”. I don’t want billionaires paying higher property taxes because I don’t want anyone paying property taxes. NYC budget is absurd and abusing their billionaires is at best a short term fix. Manhattan, being an island, has limited space. It will always be expensive. It’s not expensive because 10,000 rich people own property their for when they are in town.
I saw the TX H1-B story and wondered how long it would take to show up in ACF and the answer is not long. Based on Jack’s comments about the significant Indian readership I am wondering do any of them comment?
The flip side of how H1-B hurts American citizens is how it exploits those who take part as if they are indentured servants. At this point H1-B should be eliminated and immigration completely overhauled to a merit system and fixed numbers allowed per year based on the needs of the country.
Either way what we learn in TX is that when demand decreases so do prices. This is quite the breakthrough and I hope someone realizes what has been discovered and advocates for it to be tried other places.
Speeds indian.
made me lol
SAAR MIATA BEST CAR FOR MUMBAI ROADS
I made the mistake of going to a city reach out meeting trying to drum up support for renewing the 2%lot tax on retail, restaurants and building supplies.
I was being fed so much bullshit I had to walk out. They were saying they need it to fix roads. Only 38% of the homes in the area are primary residences. They also say "locals" only pay 34% of the total generated by the LOT. They were flabbergasted when I asked what total property tax revenue was paid by the 62% of homes (I don't know the breakdown when you add in commercial property) that are only occupied a few months out of the year.
I would be good money the total value of those homes is much higher than the 62% of lots they represent vs. 38% fully occupied.
Locals pay 100% of the LOT tax they pay. It would hurt less and soak second home owners more to just raise property taxes. It is also as regressive of a tax as I can think of.
This is a moral issue for me- I see property taxes as immoral and evil. Why is it legal to tax someone forever on something they bought? We are supposedly an ownership society.
Working on my WV ancestry I discovered property owners in the late 19th century were expected to devote a certain amount of time working on the county road running along their farms.
For the time that seems reasonable.
I pay so much to fund the public schools i refuse to use
I pay 20% fewer $ in property taxes, on a home that is 5 -6 times the value (estimate sale price not assessed value) here in Idaho than in NY, for a public school that beat the snot out of the public and Catholic school available where is was.
No kids, so no use of public schools for us, either
It's supposed to buy us an educated society with educated voters, but no longer fulfills its purpose. I would be delighted to pay more property tax for those results. In my state, VT, that's in the category of "not going to happen."
My wife was just talking to a tradesman whose son got into Norwich University on a full ride scholarship, in part for athletic ability and in part for his excellent grades in a VT high school, from which he graduated early. Then he goes to Norwich, they find out he cannot write a paragraph, and he has to spend a year in remedial classes before doing college-level work. Good thing VT, in 2025, had the second highest per pupil spending in the country. At least he is going to a college that won't let him graduate without actual skills; it could have been worse.
VT's high but unavailing education spending also freezes out needed spending on roads, both at the state and municipal level. I could go on, but will instead go to bed.
Michigan exempts primary residents from paying school millages. "The State" apparently makes the school districts whole. Our school district is fine. The kids are all based. My son and his friends make fun of the CNN clips their history teacher plays.
THIS
One thing that was not heavily emphasized in the Bloomberg H-1B article is that Texas, which is among the three Sunbelt states (along with Tennessee and Florida) that does not collect state income taxes, has rather elevated property taxes. And then also elevated home insurance rates.
I’d rather pay a reasonable state income tax than a property tax over which the homeowner has no control.
There are other factors in the pockets of softness in the North Dallas market: Huge growth post-COVID (many remote workers); high (and growing) property taxes. Other DFW markets (e.g., Highland Park) remain rock solid in terms of pricing.
Yeah the “Texas is super awesome” crowd hasn’t convinced me especially because the property taxes. Ohio Republicans seem hell bent on driving down all taxes except property taxes and making them huge. This has to be sheer laziness on behalf of politicians since a decent portion of people will go vote for property tax levies “for the kids” without any analysis of where the money is going and how it is being spent.
Highland Park is an extremely affluent part of Dallas. It would take financial Armageddon for it to lose value. There is no shortage of people who want to live there.
Property taxes are problem because home values are a problem.
It's a home. You live in it, not an investment. It should not appreciate at the rate it does.
Liberal counties inevitably using that as a cash cow for their pet projects is a symptom, not the core problem.
The market will determine home values. Home values are not a problem, the government is the problem (99% of the time).
Property in certain, high profile parts of Texas has appreciated tremendously of late (before taking a leg down).
One wonders how expensive those houses would be without the overhang of high property taxes and insurance to curb them.
How would you propose funding the government? I'm no more a fan of taxes than the next guy, however that money has to come from somewhere.
Sales tax. Make groceries (excluding junk food, pop and snacks) and baby supplies tax free.
I tend to agree. At least that makes everyone have some skin in the game.
It disproportionately burdens those with lower incomes. I am not saying they should have no skin in the game, but it isn't awesome.
It would also be ineffective in many rural areas.
Property taxes go to local funds that do things like build and maintain every day infrastructure. They are one of the less bad taxes.
It would be better to be rid of income tax entirely and shift to consumption tax.
Instead we'll get all three!
No. Income taxes end when you stop earning. That is a good thing.
Property taxes never end and are dictated to you, you do not control them. Hence why I think they are immoral, you can be taxed out of your ability to otherwise afford to live in property you own.
Income tax is a massive burden which makes it much harder to own property or retire because it vaporizes income so much right out the gate before you have even used it. In this scheme you don't even own your full earnings. A far greater financial abuse since most states then levy consumption taxes on money that has been taxed.
Property tax is complaining about a much much smaller and downstream issue, imo.
Well I’m not a fan of income taxes, but to me they are less evil than property taxes. I would prefer to eliminate all taxes and shift to sales tax for a lot of reasons including one very simple reason- the government at all levels (city, county, state federal) employs many many people to make the tax system work. All those jobs could be eliminated by sales tax, which is a simple calculation on purchases. This would reduce the size of government and the cost of government.
Just because you're not earning doesn't mean the police stop patrolling or the fire department stops coming to your house.
I can't imagine you thinking that your electric or water bill should be zero just because you retired.
A number of Indian commenters have been run off by the “they took our JERBs crowd,” I fear.
no way they could be chased off that easily
On a few occasions it has been pretty rough in here for those from India
Apparently they were told the same "You'll be welcomed as liberators" lie that Bush & the Neocons told our men headed to Iraq.
https://xcancel.com/amandalouise416/status/2062182782529409460
https://superstore.wnd.com/whistleblower-digital-version-october-2025/
And most joyfully undertook the assignment: https://xcancel.com/WallStreetApes/status/2040998821216600208
“I came here on H-1B Visa in 2004, everybody was Americans — fast forward now, you don't see any Americans” (big smile)
bet you any money im blocked by several people lol
A lot of thoughtful, interesting commenters in general seemed to have been turned away to preserve the echo chamber.
Thoughtful and interesting perhaps, but for the most part stamping off in a huff of ad hominems.
Maybe. Maybe it's nice to have some diversity in thought though.
It can get stale when half of the discussion threads end up with all involved agreeing that yes obviously anyone to the left of Ronald Regan will murder you and your family in their beds, and/or discussing which shade of Brown is doing more to genocide specifically White American Catholics Males.
I haven’t seen any comments from BOOM in a while. What ever happened to him?
i hope hes doing well
Miss him for sure. Good auto insight and a fellow engineer from what I could tell.
Agreed
absolutely sharp as a tack
Too busy moving to Atlanta :)
I have considered moving to Texas, actually.
Have another business I want to get off the ground and the putative co-founder will be living (and smoking ~10 cigars every day) in Texas.
Do it! Sounds like a great opportunity.
Plus a new community to network in.
Let me know if you need your GT3 exercised while you’re away :)
bro is a chimney
H1B's need to be banned. Period.
I updated my thought on that as well, I meant to say eliminated but limited ended up being posted.
Rescind birthright citizenship while we're at it
Agreed, that change is 50 years out of date.
What's a practical method to get there? I agree with you but fear it needs a constitutional amendment, which is not likely.
It is not an uncommonly held view that the 14th was maliciously misinterpreted to justify mass anchor babies and birth tourism. It was for recently freed slaves and a few distant edge cases. It just hasn't been successfully challenged.
Supreme Court case pending as we speak.
It does seem to be the most poorly-drafted clause in the entire Constitution. Note that it wasn't applied to Amerindians until the 1920s.
What I haven't read a lot about is that there are so many possible levels of legality for the parents:
* Diplomats
* Invading armies
* POWs (I have heard a lot about German POWs stationed in the US: many stayed in the US)
* Illegal aliens ("invading armies" in plainclothes?)
* Student visas (Kamala Harris / Vivek Ramaswamy*)
* Temporary foreign worker visas
* Permanent residents
* Non-citizens by virtue of their ethnicity (enslaved Africans in the Civil War Era) <--- [The direct intent of the law]
* Citizens
* Claims to be pro-life. Ergo "life begins at conception." Was conceived IN INDIA by TWO INDIAN CITIZENS about 8 months before their "temporary" arrival in the US. Ergo not an American.
Yes, along with a bunch of other visa categories.
These lizards always find loopholes to ruin everything in a rules based society...
I remember working at radio shack in the mid to late 90s where "realistic" and "Optimus" house brands went from about 50/50 designed and made by X Japanese company to just being literally name plate changes on car stereo head units. Fun times.
The most telling thing about Mamdani was basically starting that the city/renters/trusts would own apartments. The plan goes like this: tell landlords to fix up their units, or else. Oh, and btw you can't go up on rent either. If you as the landlord can't make a profit, that's not our, the city's, fault. Communism in action!
I'm a free market guy, but the H1B stuff has been getting out of hand. All these layoffs and yet companies are still getting H1Bs. I'm not opposed for companies subjected to federal labor laws getting a moratorium on H1B workers. Especially in tech sectors, they act like the people they are laying off can't be trained.
I’m still rocking a pair of Minimus 7s in the garage. These are branded RCA though.
I had a pair of in house designed Optimus bookshelves with the 360 degree ribbon tweeter. They sounded great but they were easy to fry (which I did). I also had an awesome sounding Optimus above rear deck 3 way( true three way) speakers that were an easy replacement for Toyotas weird 8x7 back speaker.
I had those as rear speakers in my VW Quantum wagon because the stock ones sucked.
In my basement is my dad's old Realistic radio/receiver and a double tape deck. There's also a record player to complete the set, but I fucked the head up in a failed attempt to upgrade 7 years ago. The receiver needed a new speaker output switch but it still works great. I use a bluetooth to RCA adapter plugged into the aux input, and it plays thru some decent Klipsch towers. Forget exactly which model.
Government-issued indentured servant permits are not the free market, they are a subversion of the free market.
not just a moratorium but a total reversal
"Millions must go." -- Rupert Lowe
Ex-radioshacker here as well. End of high school and into college. Turn of the century (very late 90s, more so early 2000s).
All things considered, for being retail, it wasn't too bad.
Did you subsequently go into something related to technology, or follow a completely different path?
I'm in tech; more so due to my up bringing (both micro and macro) and less due to a stint at 'the shack. My father, whom we fondly refer to as "Sparky" - is an electrician by day and a tinker-er / mad scientist at night. Given his influence and my coming of age on the early internet, it was natural to adopt tech and when old enough to work, end up at Radio Shack (or Circuit City!).
My father was very adamant (and proud) that I go to college, the first in the fam. He didn't want me working hard outside in holes like he did.
Funny how things have come full circle. The excitement and promise of tech and the early internet have given way to fractured disillusions. For my own children I struggle if college will be worth it for them.
Perhaps my son will be an electrician, Sparky Jr. has a nice ring to it.
Thanks for the reply. I had forgotten that we had previously chatted; there's a DM for you here at Substack.
I understand your concerns about the value of college. Yet I'm also terrified of what happens if Heritage Americans* listen to "Mike Rowe" and "Dave Ramsey" and abandon the "commanding heights" of society more than we already have.
* https://firstthings.com/what-vivek-gets-wrong-about-citizenship/
Were you there for the Xmods era?
Oh man; I actually forgot about those! I was there for that; though the stores I operated out of didn't sell a ton in their markets. (Mostly I focused on selling Compaq computers and Sprint PCS phones - as that was where the spiffs were!)
Haha, that sounds about right. I raced those things so hard they wouldn’t even last the warranty period. The local managers I’m sure hated me for that.
My first business was selling motors for them. I was ordering motors from Tamiya and taking apart Crest toothbrushes and selling them at a markup.
RS was really a Mecca for a kid into electronics. And as annoying as pushing the cell phones was, I never had a bad experience going through them for a phone.
...that's also an elected official ostensibly a "public servant" - essentially using the power of his office to target a private citizen because... uh, we don't like him? "Your papers are not in order, comrade... you don't live here"... Bernie Sanders also owns a house he doesn't live in... I bet virtually every member of Congress owns real estate they rarely live in... but of course they're allowed to while CEO whoever is not.
Nevermind the oppressive precedent of the state taxing assets you've paid for, thus ensuring all you do is rent them from the government... the useful idiots of NYC think they've empowered a system for "justice", but all they've done is simply empower a system. That's the ultimate grift of socialism, you vote for it thinking it's going to work for you, but it's designed to work for the political class.
I guess we'll just never learn...
'...that's also an elected official ostensibly a "public servant" - essentially using the power of his office to target a private citizen because... uh, we don't like him? "Your papers are not in order, comrade... you don't live here"...'
Manhattan is essentially built out. There are no empty lots to build new homes. So when there are 10,000 homes with no one living in them, that means there are 10,000 residents who can't buy a home and who are forced into relationships with BlackRock and/or other firms that purchase real estate then rent it back at exorbitant rates.
The fallacy of the beard applies a bit here. It would be awful for the mayor of New York to direct public ire at a sanitation worker or restaurant employee. This person, by contrast, has obtained about $200 million dollars -- that is two hundred MILLION -- of real estate appreciation on homes he does not use and which directly cause other families to not have a home. Period point blank.
'Nevermind the oppressive precedent of the state taxing assets you've paid for, thus ensuring all you do is rent them from the government... '
That precedent was set in the Book of Domesday from 1086. It is settled. All we are doing now is arguing over implementation.
By the way, if you apply this tax to the average American home at the same rate that it's being applied to this man... you get $312.50.
By that rationale, there are millions of people who are in desperate need of a reliable car for transportation. Anyone who has more cars than they need should surrender their spare cars to the government. When should a state official stop by and take one of yours?
...at any rate, the delusion is that taxing CEO whoever will then house a bunch of sanitation workers or restaurant employees. If that was true, then California would be the easiest state to own a home...
"By the way, if you apply this tax to the average American home at the same rate that it's being applied to this man... you get $312.50"
Again, you've got plenty of vehicles to spare, right? You won't mind if the state just takes one?
As always, funding socialism is always the burden of someone just a little richer than you are...
Is your position to object to all taxation on principle? Is there any form of taxation that you don't consider "socialism?"
Of course I don't object to all taxation, and never said otherwise... I was in the military, so a federal employee paid by the taxes paid by American citizens...
...and that's my point. Taxes should serve a direct interest for the taxpayer. I'd be completely fine with higher taxation if the benefits were immediately returned to me...
But it doesn't work like that in reality. It's always a grift... or effectively a ponzi scheme that always... always... always fails. Every time. See Social Security.
...and ultimately this isn't about enabling some greater productivity or serving the taxpayers with the taxes the city will collect... this is about punishing success and empowering a political agenda.
"By that rationale, there are millions of people who are in desperate need of a reliable car for transportation. Anyone who has more cars than they need should surrender their spare cars to the government. When should a state official stop by and take one of yours?"
If I let one of my vehicles sit inoperative outside for six months, the township will tell me to demonstrate its use or surrender it. This sort of thing happens to poor and middle class people all the time. Buy a trailer and don't move into it... maybe because you're in jail, or working shifts out of town. See how long it takes the state to take it.
That being said, you and I are coming from the same perspective of "protect people from the state." The thing is that anyone with a $238M house has received the benefit of government preference more times than ten thousand people like you and me have.
We don't need to play this game where "if they can do it to a billionaire, they can do it to me." They're already doing a hundred things to you that aren't being done to billionaires. You and I pay ten times the effective tax rate of a billionaire. We have no security in our property or persons compared to them. Their decisions magnify misery for uncounted thousands of people. Do they deserve equal protection under the law? Absolutely. Right now they are more than equal.
So how does Mamdani's tax address the hundreds of things being done to me that aren't being done to them? What is actually going to happen now that justifies the increased tax on $5mil properties?
“You and I pay ten times the effective tax rate of a billionaire.”
People become billionaires through ownership of assets, typically assets that appreciate significantly post-purchase / creation; which is to say, investment.
The tax code in America encourages investment. Which is one of the reasons that Americans enjoy such an extraordinary standard of living.
The response to this phenomenon should not be “I want billionaires to pay more in taxes (their ‘fair share’)”; rather, it should be “I now understand the incentive structure in place, and I will respond accordingly.”
People have been saying the younger generations don’t want to work for decades. It’s an embarrassing trope.
theyve been saying it so long the younger generations have since retired
A couple of general work visa comments:
GBNews Expose (30 min): https://youtu.be/IyimKb7Ku6
Update yesterday from Kayleigh McEnany: https://xcancel.com/kayleighmcenany/status/2063312981090328755
Amanda Bartolotta is amazing: https://xcancel.com/amandalouise416/status/2062182782529409460#m She has previously documented the money flows and points out that _everybody gets paid_ (brokers, lawyers, lobbyists, hiring managers (kickbacks) except the displaced skilled Americans.
13 AG's (Indiana, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota) commented in support of some minor H-1B reforms; it is noteworthy that they repeated, weakly, some of the primary concerns with the program: https://image.subscription.in.gov/lib/fe2e11747364047b721071/m/1/e5a0bae4-8928-470f-b6c7-87c56571d2d1.pdf
At this point, there's a pretty broad "Bernie to Bannon" consensus in the public, numerous bills have been proposed, but I don't see anything really changing soon:
https://xcancel.com/BTT1024/status/2063004500198084734
https://xcancel.com/SanDiegoKnight/status/2062631715802365971
I drove my Boxster GTS 900 miles to Maine last week, nothing but good times. Learned that the convertible roof is kind of fake, underneath the van as is a magnesium shell that keeps things rigid and very quiet. You can't even get a convertible in a Corvette can ya?
No one is talking millionaire taxes here cause there ain't no millionaires. But we have a fake oysterman, woman abusing socialist with a concentration camp tat who is running to get on the Senate ballot.. I am having fun asking family and neighbors whether there is anything that Plattner could do that would disqualify him in their eyes? Raping a 12 year old? Ritual murder? Goat fucking? People are avoiding me a little.
Canvas not van ffs.
Ps I don't know about HB1S but Indian guys can play a great tennis game.
I thought they were into cricket.
Vijay Armitraj! (he's the only Indian tennis player I know and only because he was in a Bond movie)
Platner is a real peach.
“But but... remember that time we canceled Al Franken?!”
Could have had Harvard Lampoon in the Senate and running r/jackhole (D-ME) instead.
*Edited for correct Lampoon
No more rotten than most of those in DC.
Platner probably winning the seat is such an embarassment for everyone involved.
The people in general crave populism at the moment, whether that's from the left or the right, so who does the DNC push? An ancient woman who couldn't be more out of touch. The DNC is a cancer, a parade of horribles whose worldview is stuck in 2005. The party leaders are leacherous idiots, all of them.
So they get... Platner. Which, yikes.
Susan Collins SUCKS and needs to get voted out. She has been a pox on American politics for nearly as long as I have been alive. Thanks to Donny T and his own brand of cruel stupidity the GOP is polling so poorly that her ouster is basically a given.
All of that said, it is a bit amusing that many of the same people who will gladly overlook DJTs own myriad flaws and scandals will get upset about Platner. This is the exact guy that Trump has brought to the American political forefront and I don't know that there is a way back.
That's kind of funny because Collins is generally despised as a RINO. The SAVE act has popular support and I'm surprised Thune's attempt to quash it failed.
She's despised on both sides!
The $109,000 hybrid Corvettes is not aspirationa, a $40,000 Corvette is aspirational. Before we were unwillingly sucked into clown world a loaded Camero SS was priced a few thousand less then a loaded L-82 Corvette. We will not discuss Jack’s S600 V-12 MB but domestically a loaded Buick Electra 225 was also a few thousand less then a comparable Couoe or Sedan Deville. Memo to file: Doctors and Lawyers that could afford the Cadillac bit drive the Buick 225 because it was the right thing to do. Ok think of it as the new rich driving the Yukon XL to Costco because and Escalade would send the wrong message to their neighbors. However now with our inverted Bell Curve economy the masses are driving used Caravans and the well off are not. To circle back to the topic at hand a $110,000 Corvette is a toy for those that pay cash not something to aspire to….
$5000 used Caravans or Town and Countries are looking pretty good to me these days...
What annoys me most and Mamdani and his growing legion of DSA acolytes is their audacity to declare the American dream dead before people have had the opportunity to determine that for themselves. The tone I get from them is a lot of "Trust me bro, the game is cooked, best just burn your prime working years throwing rocks at ICE Agents instead of figuring out how to actually be productive and enjoy the fruits of said productivity"
My father told me this bit of wisdom when I was just nine years old: there's a lot of money to be made in convincing someone how they're getting screwed by someone else.
Of course, little did I realize back then that the monetary rewards pale in comparison to the political power to be gained through such blatant pandering.
The Man is holding you down!