[TDoS]

A shithead like Musk who receives government welfare to build his industries and who then faces no competition from competitors is not a genius.  In Musk's situation an idiot could succeed.  And did.

So..do you know how much government welfare Musk received for his creation of the company that was sold to form PayPal and netted him $1.5 BILLION, thereby establishing him as someone deserving of his mail box money no different than you.

Or are you referring to later on...AFTER he obviously put himself in a different class of accomplishment and got noticed?

Maybe any of us, creative enough to make our first BILLION before the age of 32, could have done what he ended up doing, regardless of who helped him at the size and scale he leveraged his capabilities to later?

We all have worked for what we have K-Dog. You, me, Elon. Even RE. All in different ways I imagine, the results being mailbox money or accolades or happiness, hedonism or building a solid family in a world not necessarily making that as easy as it once was.

Life is funny, the way it turns out. So Elon got lucky, is smart, had advantages many of us didn't, and turned it into something other than what we did? Shit, I don't care about how he got his mailbox money any more than how you got yours. Just oozes negative vibes, wasted emotion and energy, hell it's going to be 60F tomorrow and I've got money in the bank and a motorcycle to ride and 2 publications in review and who gives a shit about what others have? I'm living my life, worrying or thinking about others is just...wasted energy. I'm old...I have less energy than I did when I was younger. Less energy to waste over trival shit.

Elon is a egotistical oligarch prick. <yawn> Enough thinking about him....I've got to find my helmet, hopefully you other geezers are having a good weekend doing what interests you and just letting negative energy roll off your backs.

[K-Dog]

A shithead like Musk who receives government welfare to build his industries and who then faces no competition from competitors is not a genius.  In Musk's situation an idiot could succeed.  And did.

So..do you know how much government welfare Musk received for his creation of the company that was sold to form PayPal and netted him $1.5 BILLION, thereby establishing him as someone deserving of his mail box money no different than you.

Or are you referring to later on...AFTER he obviously put himself in a different class of accomplishment and got noticed?

Maybe any of us, creative enough to make our first BILLION before the age of 32, could have done what he ended up doing, regardless of who helped him at the size and scale he leveraged his capabilities to later?

We all have worked for what we have K-Dog. You, me, Elon. Even RE. All in different ways I imagine, the results being mailbox money or accolades or happiness, hedonism or building a solid family in a world not necessarily making that as easy as it once was.

Life is funny, the way it turns out. So Elon got lucky, is smart, had advantages many of us didn't, and turned it into something other than what we did? Shit, I don't care about how he got his mailbox money any more than how you got yours. Just oozes negative vibes, wasted emotion and energy, hell it's going to be 60F tomorrow and I've got money in the bank and a motorcycle to ride and 2 publications in review and who gives a shit about what others have? I'm living my life, worrying or thinking about others is just...wasted energy. I'm old...I have less energy than I did when I was younger. Less energy to waste over trival shit.

Elon is a egotistical oligarch prick. <yawn> Enough thinking about him....I've got to find my helmet, hopefully you other geezers are having a good weekend doing what interests you and just letting negative energy roll off your backs.

All money is the same to TDOS.  Stolen money, and that earned by the fruits of labor are the same to him.  But if he disagrees, I do not have to hear it for a week.  I have had enough of his insulting shit.  Enjoy your week off TDOS.  I should altogether ban your ass permanently.  You should start your own website.  White racist cracker who worships the divine rite of kings. That would be an appropriate title for you.  You can rant about how privilege is the natural order of the universe, and how you deserve to be one of the privileged few.  One of the bullies.  One of those who think they can tell others what to do just because they can, sans any rational and compassionate considerations other than that which satisfies their ego.  Sans any consideration beyond their personal horizon.

There are about 2000 working hours in a year and in a fifty year working career that works out to 100,000 hours.  At thirty dollars an hour that works out to three million dollars.  The maximum that someone could actually earn by working.  And considering that we can't save everything, having close to that is impossible through honest labor.

Elon has not earned shit, he has created nothing of value.  Teslas are the wrong kind of car, and Mars colonization should not even be on the agenda.  Not in this century, there is too much real work to do.

Musk has shown himself to be a heartless bastard with an emotional I.Q. of zero.  Nothing more than a bull in a china shop money chaser.

* Musk became CEO of the combined company but was pushed out in late 2000 while on vacation. Peter Thiel replaced him.  Musk benefited massively from PayPal's success, but he had little to do with it.  He was just in the right place, took early risks, and held onto his shares despite being ousted from the company. Kicked out of the company he went along for the ride as PayPal' grew, he let other people make him $175 million when it was sold.

In America this is confused with earning the money yourself.  It is a common mental illness.  And from this derangement all money is seen as deserved.

[TDoS]

I have had enough of his insulting shit.  Enjoy your week off TDOS.  I should altogether ban your ass permanently.  You should start your own website.

Goodness...why? What use would a website be to me? 

White racist cracker who worships the divine rite of kings.

How rude! Sure...I was born into a crackerhood, but where do you get racist? I always thought I was an indiscriminate fact checking subject matter expert ex-hilljack and NONE of that ever involves race or gender or age or DEI category, etc etc.

You can rant about how privilege is the natural order of the universe, and how you deserve to be one of the privileged few.

Don't recall ever ranting about privilege, don't ever recall mentioning how little of that I ever was born with or grew along the way, (and according to the new forum rules I signed after my most recent comeback) can you quote me please where I said that it is the natural order of the universe?

And much like your sensitivity, I don't DESERVE what I have, like you I EARNED it. You, me and RE, we earned our current place in the world, working men all.

Elon has not earned shit, he has created nothing of value.

Would you care to define "value" as you see it? Because that isn't the same word as "work" which you defined roughly as "$30/hour for XX decades".

How does a 401k fit into your world of "work"? It isn't obvious, but aren't market investments, including purchasing real estate, fair game for everyone, including the $30/hr working man?

[RE]

Don't recall ever ranting about privilege, don't ever recall mentioning how little of that I ever was born with or grew along the way

You must have forgot to take your Alzheimer's meds.  Every time you talk about my fictional silver spoon you regale us with your poverty filled childhood.

Far as the utility of your own website goes, no cooler there.  Off you go.

RE

[K-Dog]

Don't recall ever ranting about privilege, don't ever recall mentioning how little of that I ever was born with or grew along the way

You must have forgot to take your Alzheimer's meds.  Every time you talk about my fictional silver spoon you regale us with your poverty filled childhood.

Far as the utility of your own website goes, no cooler there.  Off you go.

RE

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.

If you did not have that this would do:

How does a 401k fit into your world of "work"? It isn't obvious, but aren't market investments, including purchasing real estate, fair game for everyone, including the $30/hr working man?

Being critical of normal behavior would have done.  Reactionaries are always trying to confuse obvious issues.  Here the reactionary is exceptionally diabolical. Social security should be strong enough to make 401Ks a relic, it is an inferior retirement instrument in an enlightened socialist society.  But there is a mental trick to flip the tables at play.  Their failure as reactionaries to make the distinction between personal and private property is their stock and trade.  Trying to always put the words 'all owning property bad' in our mouths.  That is why he brings it up.  The hope is that I get pissed off and go off on a rant.  Portray myself as irrational.  Instead of:

Part of a strong social program should be allowing elective deductions with a 5% rate backed by the government.  Mention of real-estate and such you also mentioned to confuse the issue.  A working man MUST (it is a fucking right) be able to preserve some of his/hers own dead labor in an investment.  Key being his/her/it's OWN dead labor, that would earn a government backed 5% should I be king.  Society rewarding responsible behavior.  I'm down with it.

* As I toil at my McJob with the brainpower to have figured out profit sharing could double my wage in a heartbeat, I recall that I work at the end of a third world supply chain where the number of people getting screwed are countless.  I might actually be getting a fair shake if it were all balanced out.  I might be the mathematical anomaly.  Doin ok with a reasonable chance of passing through the eye of the needle.

[RE]

How does a 401k fit into your world of "work"? It isn't obvious, but aren't market investments, including purchasing real estate, fair game for everyone, including the $30/hr working man?

No.  At $30/hr there isn't enough surplus income to effectively invest in RE or the SM.  It translates to $50K/yr, which is below the median household income.  If you are a frugal person you can just about live on the median income and save a little for emergencies and medical bills.

15 years ago when I left the working world I was making $40K, the median income at the time.  I am very frugal and was able to save around $3K/yr.   If you extrapolate over 30 years of saving $300/mo invested with an average ROI of 7%/yr.  That gives you $500K in assets.  Retire, 7% gets you a retirement income of $35K.  You might just squeak by with this if you never have a big medical bill or floods, fire, tornado and your kid didn't need braces or need some help with college tuition.  This also assumes a very good average ROI.   You don't get 7% on T-bills or CDs, you need some riskier investments in your poortfolio to get there.

Realistically these days, you need to be making 6 figures before you have enough surplus to do investing.  Frankly it takes 6 figures just to afford that 1 big investment, your McMansion.  Plus the first 5 years you're not saving for retirement, you're saving for the down payment.  My general rule is that whatever the median income is, you need to make about double that to join the Investor Class.

Social Security is a means to insure the society as much as the individual.  Prior to the invention of such systems by Otto von Bismark, the cities were full of beggars who either died or got stuffed into debtors prisons.  Younger people could work faster at lower wages, so by the time they hit 60 with no job security they were on the street.  It's not an investment system to make people rich, it's society's insurance against having impoverished old people begging on the street.  That's currently all it does, for a comfortable retirement you need ADDITIONAL sources of income like Pensions & 401Ks.  You have to be a pretty high earner through most of your life to achieve that.

RE

[RE]

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

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.