Stimulus checks.

[monsta666]

I can say with confidence if your parents are rich enough then you don't need to work nearly as hard. In my line of work I see many of the rich simply live off the proceeds from their investment funds which was setup by their parents.

The piglets can start their projects using funds from the family wealth but whether it succeeds or not is immaterial. They are set for life. That extra cushion also allows the piglet to take bigger risks so if they do strike gold they can really make it big. Got to remember there is a cottage industry now in managing the family portfolio of the uber wealthy. Banks make ham by luring the pigs into their books. It really is that easy for the very rich.

People just don't want to admit it and would prefer to think your level of wealth is reflective of your moral character. That is a load of bollocks.

[K-Dog]

People just don't want to admit it and would prefer to think your level of wealth is reflective of your moral character.

They easily justify their excess.  It begins with imagining that, and being told that, things are fair.  There were excesses in the past doncha-know, but we are civilized now.

Who wants to look at the man in the mirror.  That is a challenge few choose to take.  Delusions are comfortable.  We are all special flowers.

[Goldernen Oxernen]

I can say with confidence if your parents are rich enough then you don't need to work nearly as hard. In my line of work I see many of the rich simply live off the proceeds from their investment funds which was setup by their parents.

The piglets can start their projects using funds from the family wealth but whether it succeeds or not is immaterial. They are set for life. That extra cushion also allows the piglet to take bigger risks so if they do strike gold they can really make it big. Got to remember there is a cottage industry now in managing the family portfolio of the uber wealthy. Banks make ham by luring the pigs into their books. It really is that easy for the very rich.

People just don't want to admit it and would prefer to think your level of wealth is reflective of your moral character. That is a load of bollocks.

Maybe 'moral character' should subsume Intelligence, political beliefs, religious beliefs and other personality traits. Those are not linnear relationships though.


The trust or fund managers you speak of managing money of an idle heiress would be useful in countering the chinese belief in one generation building a fortune and the next squandering it. Maybe its the third generation, I forget. It was explained to me by my chinese flatmate. A foreign student with wealthy parents who had indeed built up wealth from scratch. He had a nice car for a student and I would hear him arguing with his mother on the phone in chinese, for more money. no free face to face over internet then, those 'trunk' calls going half an hour were 4$ a minute. Interstate calling was 2$/minute. For perspective, rent in the 2 bedroom apartment was 70$/week.
He would gamble on soccer matches and other chinese guys in the complex would get him further and further into debt. When I said he should just stop and pay them off week by week, his answer was this chinese generation of building it and generation of blowing it.

There are still a lot of off the boat immigrants who both send money home and save and invest, then end up with a Mercedes and mansion. They have community and rely on it for crowded accommodation, not one person per apartment in the initial building stage. Then they hit their kids in the head with a text book if they get an A for average.

I asked one young guy under 25 if he knew much about buying crypto and he said no idea. Not coincidental hes spent thousands on tatoos, is Anglo and buys his lunch at shops.

Its definitely getting harder by the month now with runaway inflation to save anything, let alone sleepwalk into the American Dream, but there is a hell of a lot many people could do to have more later and less right now.

 Everyone paying 15-20$ a week gym memberships to walk on a treadmill or lift light weights can walk on the ground or do pushups, chinups and situps. buy or borrow weights if you want to be hulk. People with new cars every 3 years can keep them going 30 years and invest the money saved on car payments. Look at all the nail salons, where the skinny asian asses doing the gluing and painting are going to end up ahead of the fat asses sitting across from them.

[TDoS]

You must have forgot to take your Alzheimer's meds.

That would be my mother, not me.

Every time you talk about my fictional silver spoon you regale us with your poverty filled childhood.

So let me get this right...you paid for passage or airline flights, and then hotels/hostels and food while traipsing to Europe, Brazil, Australia, from your paper route and doing everything you could with odd jobs where all the money was going to helping your mother make it in the Big Shitty? 

That is beyond frugality it seems like, more like childhood saint.

[TDoS]

And my silver spoon means I can pay for my coffee and croissant on the way to work in only twenty minutes after I get there.  But that does not stop him from bringing up the expensive carz he alleges I have.

I don't recall claiming they were expensive, but I did imply along the way that to folks of our advancing years, the Mercedes you say you buy for household members were once status symbols, meant to imply wealth and success to those who need to advertise their...socio-economic status.

What's funny is nowadays German taxicabs aren't the hot cool thing, Lexus bumped them out of that catgory some time ago, and it's just us old farts who remember the Benz as status symbols days.

Your mentioning of your cars, and a pic! I sure didn't make it up.

I still have the car and it is actually reliable.  Cruising around Washington State in it is fine.  There are thousands of Mercedes here.  Montana is a different story.  If something goes wrong with it in the middle of nowhere you are screwed.  At the time there was only one Mercedes dealership in Montana and it turned out to be the end of a strip mall with one car on display and something about as big as a Jiffy Lube to work on customer cars.  It would have taken weeks to get it fixed in Montana before I could get it home.

This one is a 2008 mine is a 2007.  Mrs. Dog has a 2008.  They are both black.

Sorry the pic didn't carry over. But it was a Benz. But I never claimed old cars were expensive, even old Benz, and it makes sense considering the luck you've had trying to cross country with them.

I recommend 'MURIKAN!!! Plus it has a tow hitch, and doesn't break down between either the Atlantic or Pacific. Yet anyway.

[Goldernen Oxernen]

Bitcoin was 70$ when my alterego told us it was the future.  investing 400$ then would be a million now. never too late..

Sure.  And if you invested in Amazon with Nick Hanauer you would be a Billionaire.  Or Google in 1996.  etc etc etc.

Im not 100% sure, but i think Elon may have been born a ♀️ woman. Those people are connected to the super wealthy to begin with. Family backgrounds are just cover stories.

Doubt he was born as a woman.  He has 13 kids.  Trannies are sterile.

Billionaires generally come from upper class families who got start up capital from dad like Bill Gates, Elon and Trump.  That + good connections gets you in the door with Investment bankers who set up IPOs.

RE

Did Nick Hanouer put out the tip before or after though..

A woman can have 13 childerns. With the billionaire bucks you mentioned for genetic engineering and us not privy to the method of fertilization, even a woman with a prosthetic penis who has taken testosterone from before puberty.

I want to attach a foto but don't see any attach button?

[TDoS]

My general rule is that whatever the median income is, you need to make about double that to join the Investor Class.
RE

Does that rule apply even in the modern 401k world? I mean, I know it doesn't apply universally but we aren't allowed to talk about...you know....IRL experience or family....but what the ODDS your rule applies within the context of modern 401k rules? 95/5? 50/50?

[Goldernen Oxernen]

I recommend 'MURIKAN!!! Plus it has a tow hitch, and doesn't break down between either the Atlantic or Pacific. Yet anyway.

Didn't you have a Volt or Bolt?

[RE]

what the ODDS your rule applies within the context of modern 401k rules? 95/5? 50/50?

I have no idea what the odds are of having a 401K if your salary is $30/hr.  However, these are passive investment strategies which generally yield around 6-7% in a "balanced" portfolio.  How much you can actually accumulate over your working years depends very much on the vicissitudes of life, when emergencies come up people dip into the 401K.  If you're fortunate, you'll finish with a couple $1000/mo supplement to your SS check and have a more comfortable than average retirement.  It's not a substitute for SS, it's a supplement.

RE

[K-Dog]

My general rule is that whatever the median income is, you need to make about double that to join the Investor Class.
RE

DOGE staffers are making bank as they wage war on the federal government, often from the same agencies they're cutting.

Jeremy Lewin, a DOGE staffer assigned to the General Services Administration who helped lead attacks on the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the National Institutes of Health, is pulling in $167,000 per year.  Kyle Schutt, a software engineer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is making a salary of $195,200, the maximum annual salary that a "General Schedule" federal employee can make, including bonuses. And Nate Cavanaugh, 28, whose work for DOGE comprises interviewing GSA employees, makes over $120,500 per year. That's close to what the average GSA employee, who typically has been with the agency for 13 years, earns per year at $128,565.

X = ($167,000 + $195,200 + $120,500 + $128,565.) / 4
X = $152,816

The median annual salary for U.S. workers in 2023 was approximately $48,060.

Y = $152.816 / $48.060
Y = 3.17

These DOGE staffers are making 3.17 times the U.S. median salary.  Musk is helping America invest!

Why these dudes still suck air I do not understand.

[TDoS]

Didn't you have a Volt or Bolt?

A Nissan Leaf currently. And prior to that a gas/electric Ford. Sold that one last year after 180k miles.

I love my Lincoln. Had it about 3 years now, salvage title bought out of a police auction not running, leaking radiator, needed brakes, oil and radiator fluid in the spark plug holes, blown out rear air suspension, police tape everywhere including holding the doors closed (prior owner was carjacked and it sat in impound for a year waiting for the trial). Wife demanded I give it back the day I brought it home.

1000 mile day destruction testing early required a new intake manifold leading to an air leak into the intake system leaning out the mixture  (old one was plastic, and destruction testing did its job) and blew out the front left bank cat while 700 miles from home. Drove it home...it ain't a digital car that shuts you down when your tire pressures are low. So total cost of repairs to get it into current globe trotting condition was about $2500, $1500 for the new cats and $1000 for the intake manifold. Wife demanded I not fix it, and give the money to support local homeless shelters instead.

Stone axe reliable, more than I remember now 1000 mile days at 80 mph at 24 mpg, secondary road driving at 50-60 is 28 mpg, uses a qt of oil every 1500-2000 miles, 45k miles on it in 3 years, North American capable with nothing more than an oil change, and ready to tow 2 wheelers to the mountains at an instants notice.  Designed and built back in the day when MURIKA! meant something. Good ol' fashion analog car for an old fart analog guy.  Wife hates it anyway and demanded I sell it, for fear it would make neighbors think poorly of us, for bringing down property values having such a POS parked outside.

Oh....and the Level 2 charger gets installed in the garage on Friday for the Leaf. Wife has decided she is tired of trickle charging it, wants it full of electrons, wants it now. We both love the EV, and with the new charger install we get electricity for it at $0.03/ kwH between 9PM and 6AM.  $0.72/full tank of electrons, 70 useable miles of range.  4/100's of a PENNY per mile of driving.  Try that in a dinosaur juice powered ICE machine.

The wife has given up. She has decided to tell the neighbors I collect classic cars in the hopes they are fooled, and just apologizes for the POS's in our driveway.

[TDoS]

The median annual salary for U.S. workers in 2023 was approximately $48,060.

$61,984 according to Bureau of Labor Statistics, Jan 22, 2025 release here.

Still, do we have any correction factor for the median education or experience level in the US compared to the median DOGE folks?

How much more does the market value a PhD in data analytics with 2 years experience versus a carpenter with 20?

I don't have a clue on that economically perceived "value" difference. 

[RE]

Median weekly income for wage earners in 2024 was between $1100-1300 for 2024 according to that report, depending if you were male or female.  So annually, it's more like $53K.

RE

[K-Dog]

How much more does the market value a PhD in data analytics with 2 years experience versus a carpenter with 20?

Who gives two fucks what a PhD in data analytics with 2 years experience is worth?  That has nothing to do with anything here.  Nobody on the DOGE team has those qualifications, so what is your point?

You imply the DOGE team is earning it's money by claiming their bank robbery has socially necessary value?  What other point could you have.

If you are justifying DOGE, kindly put yourself in the cooler so RE and I do not have to.  Give yourself three days for being a pointless contrarian.

This is not a situation where socially necessary labor has any relevance at all.


* Median net compensation in 2023 was $43,222.81 K Average net compensation was $63,932.64 K.  Source

For someone who claims expertise in stochastics you should have known better.   I assume you did.

[Goldernen Oxernen]

You imply the DOGE team is earning it's money by claiming their bank robbery has socially necessary value?

After Nixon's Watergate and Clinton's Monicagate, I might call Trump's scandal Elongate.