Please wait...
But then again, back then we had 3 branches of government. Now
we have something like 1.25
Some would argue that we have three but they're all controlled by ${THOSE_PEOPLE}
Fill in any value you want for the variable.
But if they are all controlled by a single entity ( not disagreeing ).. Are they really branches?
Mon Nov 10 2025 18:25:02 UTC from IGnatius T FoobarBut then again, back then we had 3 branches of government. Now
we have something like 1.25
Some would argue that we have three but they're all controlled by ${THOSE_PEOPLE}
Fill in any value you want for the variable.
Its not a 100% 1:1 comparison.
For a tree, the branches are not truly 'controlled' by the trunk and operate mostly autonomously. They do get 'support' from the trunk, and supplies from the ground since the trunk has the roots to collect it, but they also generate their own food via their leaves, and they grow however they want, based on sunlight, winds and physical barriers .. But no ' control of function'. And in some cases, they can even grow their own trunk and roots...
I think comparing fingers on a hand to be closer.. There are similarities in that the brain does not control their growth, but any action, it does.
Tue Nov 11 2025 13:59:37 UTC from IGnatius T FoobarA tree has branches, and they are all controlled by the tree. Are they really branches?
News blurb
"1/3 of American households make 150k or more a year" Which means absolutely nothing. But, its food for the ignorant 'tax the rich' crowd. Not sure how to do it, but we really need a 'purchasing power' metric, not just numbers that inflation and cost of living increase negate.
Wed Nov 12 2025 16:08:32 UTC from IGnatius T FoobarAlso it's probably not even true.
My household makes more than double that. Shhh. Let me assure you - it is NEVER enough. Your expenses rise to greet your income. And I get it - you may be figuring out how to buy Pizza Rolls for your kid for lunch while I'm figuring out how to buy 4 new Michelin Super Sport tires for my BMW M4... and that seems different... Maybe it is.
But from my perspective - it is still stressing about how I'm going to make ends meet and living "paycheck to paycheck," while carrying too much interest on my cards. Now I've got friends who have 5 Corvettes, a Viper, a McLaren - and they're like, "why are you driving around in that peasant BMW?"
If I could give any advice - it is stop competing with whoever you're trying to keep up with. Our society causes so many problems "trying to keep up with the Jonses." Enough is never enough.
Not that i'm in the same range so its not a 1:1, but mine never have.
Always have lived about the same regardless of what i was making. ( other than those couple of years in the 90s after i screwed up badly and learned to never jump unless you have a landing pad, basically ). More breathing room and less concern about 'what if', but never really changed my lifestyle.
I suspect if i was suddenly handed a job with 3x income, or handed a winning lotto ticket, my base life style would still not change. Still be driving a 40 year old car, and a 20 year old jeep.. Still have a smallish house ( tho i WOULD get the f-out of this area and back into the woods ). No fancy clothes, eat the same foods. Still do things myself instead of paying for help. Be the same "me", just with even less worry about the future.
Sat Nov 15 2025 06:08:25 UTC from ParanoidDelusions
Your expenses rise to greet your income.
Key to happiness. Live within your means - and live where you find you are content. But most of us, the more we make....
When I was an up and coming IT engineer in Northern California making $120,000 a year in 2001 and putting my wife through her UCD Master's Degree in 1998... I wanted a TAG watch - so bad. Our RECEPTIONIST in our Bay Area software company had one, he drove a brand new Thunderbird - and lived in a studio apartment in S.F. with 4 other people who had their scheduled time shifted so they could all sleep in a 1 room rental. But I was so jealous of his TAG. Right?
So a few years ago, my wife got me a Redbull F1 limited edition TAG watch. It wasn't cheap. But... she had also bought me a Gulf livery F1 Tag copy from the Philippines on a trip for $50 a few years earlier.
I think I like the fake one better. You can't TELL. I mean, I can't, you can't... a jeweler struggles - they're REALLY good now, the clones.
But the difference is like $3450. They're the same. Same factory - smuggled out. Copied somewhere else.
I've got too Folex watches too... I had a kid at the Paddock Club at F1 who knew his watches check my Submariner out. Either he was kind - or he was fooled. Who knows. It took my jeweler 20 minutes to determine it was a fake.
So why do we chase "authenticity" when the illusion is so close to the reality? I don't know.
I've got a friend with 3 real Rolexes - whenever we go out, he always has to point out if I am wearing my Folex. Because... that is why you have the real thing right - to say, "That thing looks and works as good as mine, but it is fake, so mine is worth the $20,000 more I paid for mine."
I could have a real one. I kind of want a real one. But part of me does go, "Why? Your fake works EXACTLY the same."
Sat Nov 15 2025 15:56:09 UTC from Nurb432
I suspect if i was suddenly handed a job with 3x income, or handed a winning lotto ticket, my base life style would still not change. Still be driving a 40 year old car, and a 20 year old jeep.. Still have a smallish house ( tho i WOULD get the f-out of this area and back into the woods ). No fancy clothes, eat the same foods. Still do things myself instead of paying for help. Be the same "me", just with even less worry about the future.
I've got a friend with 3 real Rolexes - whenever we go out, he always has to point out if I am wearing my Folex. Because... that is why you have the real thing right - to say, "That thing looks and works as good as mine, but it is fake, so mine is worth the $20,000 more I paid for mine."
Funny you mention that now. My daughter was going through some stuff tonight, and pulled out a small cat-shaped brooch pin encrusted in something sparkly. My wife said to her, "that belonged to Aunt Grace, so those might be real diamonds." And that was the thing about my great-aunt: she had so much good high-end stuff, that she could pull off a decent fake and no one would question it.
I suspect if i was suddenly handed a job with 3x income, or
handed a winning lotto ticket, my base life style would still
not change. Still be driving a 40 year old car, and a 20 year
old jeep.. Still have a smallish house ( tho i WOULD get the
f-out of this area and back into the woods ). No fancy
clothes, eat the same foods. Still do things myself instead of
paying for help. Be the same "me", just with even less worry
about the future.
Have you heard that old-school IT saying, about programs expanding until they take up every available resource, no matter how many unused resources you had at the begining? I think a whole lot of people is like that with their finances, and that speaks very badly about them.
The issue with expanding your lifestyle until it uses all your available income is that you can't contract afterwards if you need to. Meanwhile if you are a cheap bastard who lives frugally and spends close to no money, the day you feel like breaking bank you can do something crazy (like having some vacation or whatever have you) and you are still in a good position. And since you are not spending you are never in crisis.
Oh no, this, EXACTLY. And it is the... I've come up from the very bottom - and every time I climb a social level - I find now I am hanging out with people who have so much more than me that "making it," feels like "being at the bottom."
I have a 2021 BMW M4 Competition, an M235i, a Denali Dually 3500, and a Razor Side by Side in my garage - and as far as my friends go - I've got the welfare garage. They've got Irocs and C8s and C7s and rare Vipers and McLarens and Blackwings are their daily drivers and I feel... insignificant when we all go to car shows.
But the truth is - when you hear about wealthy people having 35,000 square foot homes - they've got a 2000 sq. foot WING of that estate. Their "bedroom" is bigger than most houses. But the rest of the house, there is ALWAYS something going on, always strangers wandering through their house, being entertained, doing events - they have landing pads for helicopters in their yard because - people are flying in, in helicopters - to do things at their place. Their life isn't their own. When they go on "vacation," in their private jet, the flight there is about business, and a huge part of their "vacation" is business - because they're OWNED by whatever their thing is that made them rich. They're just a cog in this thing that exists AROUND them.
When I was in my 20s, I wanted a TAG watch and a Porsche Boxster before I was 30. Now I'm 50+, I've got 2 TAGs and I've turned down buying a Boxster twice and I want a Rolex and a GT3 RS - and an Aston Martin and ZR1 C8 - a Porsche and a TAG seems like "failing".
I mean, my *rational* mind goes, "Drive your BMW, enjoy your TAGS, and STFU, dumbass...."
But the group I hang out with - I'm the poor kid.
It is why Hollywood types lose site of what it is like to be "normal". You can't keep hanging out with the people back there when you're spending $1200 per plate at some exclusive dinner. They can't come. It isn't that you don't WANT them there.
I know Chino, from the Deftones - sorta personally - like - I've partied with him and the whole band. They're a level beyond all of my current friends - they can't hang out with us - we couldn't all go out to a club... it would be chaos. They'll never invite me to their things - I can't hang out with - I dunno... probably Ke$ha and Jelly Roll and maybe Mick Jagger - I'd be inconvenient. I wouldn't say we're friends, or every were friends - but I have friends who are still "on talking terms" with them as friends - and THEY don't get invited either - because Deftones became rockstars, and multi-millionaires. They party with James Hetfield and Axl Rose. The rest of us are excluded.
The other thing, I talk about this with my Nephew who grew up in this same scene in Sacramento - we both say, "we don't talk about this to people much anymore - because they dismiss it, laugh, and do not believe it. I get why that is. It sounds like bullshit. It isn't. Chino chased me out of a party once in 1992 with a .22 midnight special and shot it over my head as I jumped into the back of a Hyundai s-coupe. Sounds like fantasy, right?"
Tue Nov 25 2025 19:25:57 UTC from darknetuserHave you heard that old-school IT saying, about programs expanding until they take up every available resource, no matter how many unused resources you had at the begining? I think a whole lot of people is like that with their finances, and that speaks very badly about them.
The issue with expanding your lifestyle until it uses all your available income is that you can't contract afterwards if you need to. Meanwhile if you are a cheap bastard who lives frugally and spends close to no money, the day you feel like breaking bank you can do something crazy (like having some vacation or whatever have you) and you are still in a good position. And since you are not spending you are never in crisis.
Dunno the details or how wide spread. But seems up in town they are 'piloting' a 'basic income' scheme. ( 6k a year or something )
While i wont say we need to ignore the needy that actually need help, this is not the answer and all it does is make matters worse. Cost of living goes up more than the handout is, and we all pay the price.
Local grocery. Sale isle
6 pack of bottled coke ( the little bottles ) 9 bucks. wtf. Not that i want to get any but still wtf.
"in many areas, private equity firms own 20% of more of the housing"
You will own nothing, serf. Now, get back to work.
Have you heard that old-school IT saying, about programs expanding
until they take up every available resource, no matter how many unused
resources you had at the begining? I think a whole lot of people is
like that with their finances, and that speaks very badly about them.
That's what every finance teacher points out first. If income=outgo you're going to be beyond broke quickly. The advice to "pay yourself first" is fundamental.
A lot of it is psychological in nature -- put the money where you don't see it, and you won't be tempted to spend it. I have portions of each paycheck automatically distributed into a regular savings account, a long term investment account, and several retirement vehicles (including a whole life policy which is growing nicely). If there's even a small taboo associated with drawing down savings, the savings account will generally grow.
Everything was working great until the hyperinflation we had a couple of years ago. That did some damage. But the accounts are starting to recover.
If you're married it's important to see eye-to-eye with your spouse on financial strategy too, otherwise at best you get resentfulness and at worst the strategy doesn't work.
Also, NEVER eat at Olive Garden. It may not impact your finances but it destroys your soul.
If you're married it's important to see eye-to-eye with your spouse on
financial strategy too, otherwise at best you get resentfulness and at
worst the strategy doesn't work.
That is not a problem for me, and by the looks of it, never will.
My strategy is to funnel everything into agressive investments and never withdraw (unless it is to pour it into a more agressive invesment). My target is to have 4k liquid at most (because I might need to renew stocks for some of my half-baked businesses), everything above that is invested in some overseas company.
It is working great for me so far. Among my friends, I am the one who nominally makes the less money from work/wages, but I am also the only one who could purchase a house with no mortage from savings only. Around here that is massive.
Kids these days just don't know how to administrate their money. My cousing is scrapping by doing temporary crappy jobs that don't pay, and instead of saving what he can he goes and buys stuff he can't afford. Everybody these days has an 8k TV and goes on vacation abroad. Then they complain they don't have a dime.
