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Today's grumblings: People who are financially better-off than you who are irresponsible with their debts.
While we are definitely a solid upper middle class family, poor financial decisions in the past combined with GothBard's 6-month unemployment means that we never have a ton of liquid assets lying around. Claiming that we live paycheck-to-paycheck is a bit much, since we have staggering amounts of credit, but we definitely have to plan major expenses carefully so as not to incur any additional debt.
Older brother, on the other hand, chose wisely in the 1980s and went into Computer Science, then retired at 35 and now works when he feels like it.
So, I manage my mother's house. I noticed that she'd failed to pay her property taxes this year. I notified older brother, who manages her money. He said, "Go ahead and take care of it and I'll pay you back."
It's a hardship, because we have our own property taxes, the kids' tuitions, and all our insurance bills, but I figured Older Brother was good for it and I could afford to outlay the money for a week or two.
So yeah, of course he hasn't paid me back for it for a couple of weeks, and now I have to start badgering him because my own bills are coming due.
If you're in charge of managing someone else's money, you should at least, y'know, manage it!!!
EDIT: I seem to be so upset that I have rent my clothing!
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Gaming friend who teaches English abroad has pointed me toward such, so fingers crossed.
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Gaming friend who teaches English abroad has pointed me toward such, so fingers crossed.
From what I've seen it's a booming industry for expats throughout Asia, but you want to do your research and choose your country well. Vietnam, of all places, is supposed to be really nice. (Yes, I've done a lot of preliminary research into good places for Americans to retire abroad, and Vietnam constantly pops up as a solid top pick, meaning they must have a lot of English speakers, and therefore a lot of English teachers, around.)
EDIT: We're doing well enough to be able to retire comfortably even in California, but current trends in health care costs make me fairly certain that our retirement accounts won't be able to keep up, so retiring in the U.S. won't be an option.
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It's Spain in our case.
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It's Spain in our case.
Spain was also on the list of top places to retire. No idea about English schools there. though.
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It's apparently got opportunity from what we were told, so we're looking into it. It's mostly a wait-and-see game right now.
Also holy hells Spain is great for trans people.
Impus Minor is in Fargo, North Dakota. His girlfriend convinced him to buy a fleece-lined denim jacket. I have never seen anything so upper Midwestern.
I have one of those.
I need to get gundam patches for it.
It's apparently got opportunity from what we were told, so we're looking into it. It's mostly a wait-and-see game right now.
Also holy hells Spain is great for trans people.
Spain is...not so great, for me.
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EDIT: I seem to be so upset that I have rent my clothing!
... theres two money making schemes depending on how you read that...
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Gaming friend who teaches English abroad has pointed me toward such, so fingers crossed.From what I've seen it's a booming industry for expats throughout Asia, but you want to do your research and choose your country well. Vietnam, of all places, is supposed to be really nice. (Yes, I've done a lot of preliminary research into good places for Americans to retire abroad, and Vietnam constantly pops up as a solid top pick, meaning they must have a lot of English speakers, and therefore a lot of English teachers, around.)
"Your English is excellent."
"Thank you, I honed it interrogating Imperialist American dogs that we took as prisoners during the war."And more seriously, I was surprised to learned about that yesterday.
Coincidentally, Vietnamese are, or at least were as far as ten years ago, the largest non-European minority in Poland.
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Impus Minor is in Fargo, North Dakota. His girlfriend convinced him to buy a fleece-lined denim jacket. I have never seen anything so upper Midwestern.I have one of those.
I need to get gundam patches for it.
Girlfriend in North Dakota?
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It's Spain in our case.Spain was also on the list of top places to retire. No idea about English schools there. though.
Used to be very popular with British and Irish expats, especially retirees, but I believe it's less popular with Brits these days. That may be a feature rather than a bug, of course.
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Yes; we find it very concerning that England, Scotland, and Ireland are our top 3 choices because language (and Scotland is frigging beautiful), but the sheer number of emigrants from Britain makes me think that maybe, just maybe, it's a much nicer place to visit than live...
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Yes; we find it very concerning that England, Scotland, and Ireland are our top 3 choices because language (and Scotland is frigging beautiful), but the sheer number of emigrants from Britain makes me think that maybe, just maybe, it's a much nicer place to visit than live...
If you plan very long-term, you might want to reconsider Scotland - despite how beautiful it is - especially if you want to buy land.
If the new government realizes its promises regarding dismantling environmental regulations, it will significantly increase risk of North Atlantic warm current destabilizing...
If comes to that... Scotland will be Scotice. Ireland and the rest of England won't be much better...
We were considering Ireland when we first started looking at emigration options, along with Canada. Both turned out to be non-viable for various reasons.
Bullet dodged, I suppose...?
I'm not going anywhere.
Yes; we find it very concerning that England, Scotland, and Ireland are our top 3 choices because language (and Scotland is frigging beautiful), but the sheer number of emigrants from Britain makes me think that maybe, just maybe, it's a much nicer place to visit than live...
I know someone that moved to Spain, the dude spoke fluent Spanish. He made it 5 years before he had a breakdown and had to move back to the states.
I had an aunt and uncle that retired to France, they moved back after 2 years.
Do not dismiss the language barrier as no big deal, it's a lot harder than a lot of people realize. Especially if you're a social person.
Speaking of moving to EU...
Apparently there is a whole Italian village for sale for mere 1 million EURO (not counting the costs of renovation).
Yes; we find it very concerning that England, Scotland, and Ireland are our top 3 choices because language (and Scotland is frigging beautiful), but the sheer number of emigrants from Britain makes me think that maybe, just maybe, it's a much nicer place to visit than live...
I know someone that moved to Spain, the dude spoke fluent Spanish. He made it 5 years before he had a breakdown and had to move back to the states.
I had an aunt and uncle that retired to France, they moved back after 2 years.
Do not dismiss the language barrier as no big deal, it's a lot harder than a lot of people realize. Especially if you're a social person.
My parents are living in UK for 18 years now, and their English is far from being perfect. They mostly socialize with other Poles that live there.
Yes; we find it very concerning that England, Scotland, and Ireland are our top 3 choices because language (and Scotland is frigging beautiful), but the sheer number of emigrants from Britain makes me think that maybe, just maybe, it's a much nicer place to visit than live...
I know someone that moved to Spain, the dude spoke fluent Spanish. He made it 5 years before he had a breakdown and had to move back to the states.
I had an aunt and uncle that retired to France, they moved back after 2 years.
Do not dismiss the language barrier as no big deal, it's a lot harder than a lot of people realize. Especially if you're a social person.
That's precisely why I'm not considering places where we have ties (Portugal) or that come highly recommended (Italy, Spain, France, Vietnam), but where language will be an issue. The U.K. is an easy choice, but the Netherlands were really really nice when we visited and English is required for all school kids there. So yeah, even as an extreme introvert (or perhaps because I'm an extreme introvert), I'm not moving anywhere where the majority of people don't speak English, because I'm abjectly terrible at learning new languages and I know it.
The other fantastic advice I've seen since the Reagan years has been, "Don't flee the U.S. because of politics. Every country has 'em; the U.S. just has the best publicist."
The only expat I know who's never regretted his decision is a Black man who had a terrifying encounter with the Oakland police and decided he wasn't safe here. He's in Europe and much happier and strongly prefers not to return to the U.S. at all, though he still owns property here so he has to come out maybe once every couple of years.
So, don't feel safe = Get out.
Don't like politics = Consider your move very carefully, 'cause wherever you land you're going to deal with people whose politics you abhor.
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It's the difference between "politics" meaning "disagreements on fiscal policy, military allotments, and taxation" and "politics" meaning "which minority group is it acceptable to abuse, kill, and put in camps".
The second is why we're trying to leave.
Between everything involving gun laws, the increasingly-violent rhetoric, and now being a semi-out trans person, the US is not a safe place to be outside of the bluest states, which are also the hardest ones to get a job in and the most expensive to live in.
We're taking the escape we can if we can.
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It's the difference between "politics" meaning "disagreements on fiscal policy, military allotments, and taxation" and "politics" meaning "which minority group is it acceptable to abuse, kill, and put in camps".
The second is why we're trying to leave.
Between everything involving gun laws, the increasingly-violent rhetoric, and now being a semi-out trans person, the US is not a safe place to be outside of the bluest states, which are also the hardest ones to get a job in and the most expensive to live in.
We're taking the escape we can if we can.
Then you fall into the "Don't feel safe = Get out" camp and I think you'll be happier moving.
Good luck to you!
EDIT: And yeah, speaking of blue states, the moment Trump's win was announced Newsom assembled a war room of lawyers to figure out how best to defend California's citizens. He may be a corrupt-as-**** S.o.B., but when decisive action is needed he's all over it. I'm surprisingly happy with him as my governor at the moment.
Yeah I envy you for that. Kelly has been a pretty good governor here, but she's hamstrug by a Republican supermajority in the state congress that regularly stifles her efforts and overturns her vetos. Kansas used to be really good about making it easy to make changes to official documents for trans and enby people, for example, until the Republican congress axed it and reverted the system back to "must use AGAB on all", and they're now pushing to force those who already had them changed to revert.
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(1) It's too expensive to pay people legally to do the back-breaking work that is required,
(2) there aren't enough legal immigrants or U.S. citizens to do the work, and
(3) we got rid of the Bracero program, which was the legal solution to this dilemma.
Years ago, one of my friends got a job as a grape picker for Gallo. The things he noticed:
(1) He was hired on the spot, no questions asked. The company was desperate to have legitimate, legal workers it could show to inspectors. So the notion that these illegals are taking people's jobs in agriculture is out-and-out wrong. If a U.S. citizen is willing to work at those appalling wages, they'll be hired in a hot second.
(2) He was the *only* non-Hispanic he ever saw working there. So there wasn't a huge competition to get the job.
So yeah, if the new administration really does purge California's agricultural workers, we, and probably the rest of the country, are in trouble.
It's the usual issue: A well-regulated, decently-run Bracero program would solve this easily. But in addition to their anti-immigration stance, the current Republican party is opposed to regulations or government oversight. So even if implemented, the program can't work. And there you go.
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I have never liked Trump from the moment I knew who he was. I have voted against him every time I have voted and I am worried I will never get to vote again. I would love for the conservative people I know to be right and that this presidency will be just another four years with the usual changes. But I don't see anything that would stop the people in power from just ignoring norms like they have for the last decade and throwing out the government for their own rule. And while the economic upheaval is going to hit me, I worry that the social upheaval is going to get to me in due time. I understand the poem and how it's going to start with the vulnerable and just work down the line.
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** spoiler omitted **
The neoliberals have been trying and failing to control Trump since 2016, it's why a number stayed out 2020 and even 2024, not backing Trump and instead focusing on smaller federal races.
The christofascists are trying to prevent the inevitable slide of the white race in this country to minority status. They don't care if there's economic pain, they will remove as many people as they can to delay that fate.
The christofascists will cut off their own nose to spite their face, and then blame the victims for their suffering. They won't care that this hurts them until it actually happens, and then they'll just find someone else to blame.
The most likely replacement for the ejected workers will be slave labor from prisons and poor people who are desperate for any job because theirs just got eliminated. When those are insufficient, arrest quotas will be raised and new groups put in the crosshairs to make up the difference. All backed up by police and potentially military violence - and Trump has already said repeatedly that anyone, military included, who tells him no is getting removed and replaced ASAP with someone who will do what he wants.
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** spoiler omitted **
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What's funny is that your political attitudes are supposed to change over time; my father always loved to say, "Not a liberal at 20? Has no heart. Still a liberal at 50? Has no head."
But ever since my teenage years I've described myself as an "anti-Republican": I believe in strong personal freedoms and strict corporate regulation, simply because individually people are nice, but once you get three or more of them in a room they become monsters.
I told NH a couple weeks back that I was gone, and for good. But I came back for a visit to see how y'all were doing, considering recent events. And I promise this will be the last time y'all read me here.
Stop illegal immigration. Seal and secure the nation's border. Prosecute criminals. Advocate for peace here at home, and abroad. And, most importantly: gut the federal bureaucracy that has unnecessarily encroached on every aspect of our lives -- costs, healthcare, food, laws, policies, taxes, . . . all of it.
That's the mandate that just got confirmed this Tuesday past. But, McConnell is already trying to undermine that effort. We'll see how that plays out.
2) I'll repeat my most recent encouragement: please, please, listen to what Casey and Calley Means have to say, no matter what. Rogan is listenable, far more than Carlson, but there are others who've done podcasts with them. If even half of what they focus on is at all true, then for the sake of each of you and your family members, hear them out.
The Means siblings were one of the links that led to the Trump/RFK, Jr. union, if not the primary one. Think and say what you will about Trump, but for someone as pro-environment and pro-labor as RFK, Jr. to endorse Trump should merit some deliberation from all of us. They might both be @$$holes, but they are trying to help. And what Casey and Calley are pointing toward isn't about politics, it's about being healthy humans.
3) The last time any citizens were encamped by force due to their intrinsic characteristics wasn't under a Republican administration.
4) Project 2025 was a 'white paper' put out by The Heritage Foundation. Consider the source. And then reflect upon the demography of how the vote went. There's little reason for that particular brainchild to define what happens in the two years ahead. Some of it's good stuff, in my opinion, but much of it can be dispensed with summarily -- the point of civil protections isn't just about preventing discrimination against people, but also discrimination for people.
I can understand some of the concerns you've voiced about Project 2025, but it seems that the true conflict revolves more around worldview than it does about actual policy. Conservative Christians clearly don't endorse some of the things many of you hold high, and the First Amendment permits both sides of those debates to speak plainly.
I have yet to hear that Trump has embraced the plan, either in part or in total. And he has very good reasons not to do so.
5) We're sixteen years, or more, overdue for some true economic pain. It's inevitable. We've faked our way through the last two looming economic crises, and we're going to see the double-bubble burst. I think it will happen sooner than later, and it won't be easy on anyone at all. Investigate homesteading, in part or in whole. If it gets as tough as I expect, we'll all have to accept a greater measure of personal responsibility for our own survival.
We all know that I fit in here even less than I used to, and I feel that I've worn out what welcome there was. I don't want to cause anger, or hate, or any unpleasantness in general. At the same time, though, I can no longer keep silent about these things that are so important to all of us. And I am a distinctly minority voice in this environment. And so, in the interest of preserving the measure of peace you all find here, I'm going to leave.
I'm sure some of you will be glad of it, perhaps more of you indifferent, and maybe a few disappointed. If any of you ever have motivation to contact me, you should be able to find my Discord ID -- the names are the same. And if these are, indeed, the last words I ever have the privilege of sharing with you, please remember:
Godspeed, God bless, and Game on.
Much love, FaWtLies. Farewell.
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Goodbye and good riddance.
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What's funny is that your political attitudes are supposed to change over time; my father always loved to say, "Not a liberal at 20? Has no heart. Still a liberal at 50? Has no head."
But ever since my teenage years I've described myself as an "anti-Republican": I believe in strong personal freedoms and strict corporate regulation, simply because individually people are nice, but once you get three or more of them in a room they become monsters.
That old truism was built on the idea that as one grows older, one grows wealthier, and thus becomes more supportive of systems designed to help the wealthy retain wealth.
That is no longer the case, and hasn't been for a while.
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Lost cause is lost, and may he reap every backfire of his economically-foolish brainwashing.
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Unpopular opinion time:
We finally watched Villaneuve's Dune Part 2 last night.
While I love the design of the ornithopters and the cinematography, honestly, it left me just as cold as the Syfy Dune/Children of Dune left me. And that was at least more faithful to the book. Villaneuve started out with the book, and then got bored and decided to remake Lawrence of Arabia instead. I got very tired of shouting "THAT'S NOT THE WAY IT HAPPENED!"
But it was pretty.
It was like going on a date with a really gorgeous, well-built person who can't stop talking about their belief in essential oils and how vaccines cause autism.
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I told NH a couple weeks back that I was gone, and for good. But I came back for a visit to see how y'all were doing, considering recent events. And I promise this will be the last time y'all read me here.
** spoiler omitted **...
So, point one, Trump never actually talked about any of that, you projected it onto him.
But, that's his thing, Trump isn't an actual person, he's just a projector, for everyone to project what they want or need on him.
He never actually says anything he just babbles on for 3 hours and lets everyone interpret what they want to hear out of it.
I'm not trying to be an a!%&~@* but I've seen plenty of his speeches over the years and I never heard him say anything that nuanced.
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When mummification goes wrong.
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And that's the issue with politics: Once the genie's out of the bottle it ends up being a floodgate. But a few points:
Until someone can tell me why they're against immigration other than, "They don't look like us, talk like us, or act like us," I consider immigration a false flag issue. I firmly believe we need immigration reform because the system is broken (for example, we need a Bracero program), but when you say, "Immigration is a problem for this country," my immediate reaction is, "In what way? What data supports your claim?"
It's kind of amazing that all these people claim absolute proof of voter fraud, yet not a single one of them has ever bothered to submit such proof to a court.
So, is it a thing to own a used car business but put one of your cars on every corner of the county, and put them up in separate craigslist listings ? Because that seems to be the business model from the guy I was trying to buy what I thought was a for sale by owner type situation.
Those stupid front consoles they started making that makes the driver sit in a straight line with their feet legs and butt all pointing at 90% is murder on people wider than the seat. I can lose all the weight I want my hips still put my knees right of the consoles.
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So close to getting all tanks to 90... then I can get back to story finally....
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So close to getting all tanks to 90... then I can get back to story finally....
I'm horrified to say I have all classes at 100, we just finished grinding all the kamuy mounts, and we are at the moment grinding all the gwib mounts...
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And that's the issue with politics: Once the genie's out of the bottle it ends up being a floodgate. But a few points:
** spoiler omitted **** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
My response, taken from elsewhere.
Based on data we are learning, this isn't a blowout Trump win. Numbers don't back it up. Not a landslide. Not a damning referendum.
Harris didn't run a terrible campaign and was not a terrible candidate. In fact impressive considering she had 2.5 months and got close in a post pandemic environment where nearly every incumbent got destroyed. She did much better than Biden would've based on internal Dem polls.
Yes, she made mistakes and Dems must improve and Biden made mistakes. All true. But Dems also picked up seats in swing states and won on abortion rights and against school vouchers.
People who had correct facts about economy, crime, immigration, inflation and trans issues overwhelmingly went Harris. Those who didn't? Trump. [B]
People are missing the post pandemic reality, the power of racism and identity politics of Trump's campaign, the failures of corporate media and influence of right wing disinformation as major factors.
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Responding to spoilers is annoyingly hard, but here we go:
This will be a post that will piss everyone off, and I welcome it but here it is.
Maybe this was from your post elsewhere. I don't know that this post will piss anyone off here.
Based on data we are learning, this isn't a blowout Trump win. Numbers don't back it up. Not a landslide. Not a damning referendum.
There's a simple number Impus Major pointed out to me: In 2016, Trump's popular vote total was 63 million. In 2020 it was 74.2 million. In 2024 it was 74.8 million. In short, his popularity had already peaked and he didn't get significantly more votes in 2024 than he did in 2020. This is important, because it means the Dems lost voters. In fact, in 2020 Biden got 81.2 million, while in 2024 Harris got 71.2 million. How did she lose over 10% of Biden's voters? And then we get into more details:
Harris didn't run a terrible campaign
Maybe it was different in California because we're well-known as a liberal bastion, but all I ever heard from the Biden campaign was student loan forgiveness and trans rights. This didn't play well even in California; "typical" people don't like the government bailing people out of debt, and think there are MUCH more important things than trans rights going on. Harris took over and we heard that she's going to secure the border (vastly unpopular in a state that depends on immigration for its agricultural labor), she had an economic plan that critics tore apart (yes, absolutely the media at work), and that Trump was an abject threat to Democracy.
Yes. Her policies were populist. But the messaging I was getting as a Californian didn't get any of that across. And since the DNC was in charge of that messaging and Harris' campaign, I blame them. But in California, I will maintain that it was a terrible campaign because the messages you point out as popular never reached me.
Impus Major put it well: If your entire campaign is, "The other person is terrible," a lot of voters are going to sit out the election. I think Harris lost a lot of Biden voters because she didn't give them something to vote FOR. In California? Securing the border? That's Trump's milieu. A detailed economic plan? I'm too lazy to care. Trump's a monster? That doesn't give me a reason to go out and vote for you.
California in 2020: 11.1 million for Biden, 6.0 million for Trump.
California in 2024: 7.2 million for Harris, 4.8 million for Trump.
Sure, Trump lost 20% of his voters. But Harris lost 35%. The campaign didn't inspire people to vote, and I consider that a failing of the campaign.
and was not a terrible candidate.
You touched on the racism aspect of it already, but the misogyny is even worse. Shiro is living in the South. Every relative he has there said a variation of, "A woman shouldn't be in charge of making important decisions." Vast swaths of voters didn't vote for Harris because of either her race or her gender. There's, "This isn't the way it should be. We're going to run her to force Americans to acknowledge that a woman can be president," and that's fine when the opposing candidate is moderate. (See Obama vs. McCain, 2008). When the opposing candidate really does seem to represent a fundamental threat, you have to acknowledge that our country is still grotesquely misogynistic and stop trying to run female candidates. I hate it, and I want the Dems to run a woman once the Republicans put up someone who isn't repugnant, but when it's important, you have to swallow "what is right" for "what will win". And over and over again, the Dems prefer to make a point rather than focus on the win. Maybe you love them for that. I would prefer they focus on keeping far right loonies out of office.
I do not believe the U.S. will have a female president in my lifetime. Which is really depressing considering that even infamously misogynistic countries such as Pakistan and India have had female leaders.
People are missing the post pandemic reality, the power of racism and identity politics of Trump's campaign, the failures of corporate media and influence of right wing disinformation as major factors.
All of this is true. The media favored stories about Trump 10-to-1, and as was said long ago, "There's no such thing as bad press." You WANT everyone to know your name. You mention racism but I think misogyny was the greater factor here. I read far too many quotes in foreign papers and heard far too many things from Shiro about attitudes in the South that voters weren't willing to elect a woman as president. And yes, the right wing disinformation is terrifying. Impus Major argues with his conservative friends daily, and his constant refrain is, "Verifiable facts don't matter to these people." It's a terrifying place to be.
EDIT: And for the record, I think Harris would be a fantastic 2028 candidate -- with Trump out of the picture and the country suffering through whatever nonsense happens over the next 4 years, it will be a perfect time to try to get a woman elected.
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Not politics but merely math...
Leave it to Europeans to be more aware of our elections than we are.
Seriously? We're still counting?
C'mon, California! Get with the program!
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It's cool, we got to talk it out.
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Responding to spoilers is annoyingly hard, but here we go:
** spoiler omitted **...
Yup, the issues here were pronouns and people feeling like the democrats wanted to give out money for student loans and the whole everyone gets 25k for a home loan so taxes were going to constantly go up. Or something. I'm not educated and it's just anecdotal from people I've personally talked to.
Syfy Dune/Children of Dune left me.
Lisamarlene,
The guild does not take your orders!