rkbabang

I predict you're wrong. Bieber is Canadian. But whatever. Us Canadians are just glad he moved to the US. He's your problem now. Make with him what you wish. Sure but that won't matter after the U.S. and Canada merger in 2038. A joke I hope... or I will be getting my guns out. I don't care either way, because New Hampshire will secede in 2029 (shortly after Texas). I will seriously living in either of those 2 states (live free or die!). But only after they secede. I have zero desire to live in the USA thank you very much. We're working on it. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/11/29/libertarians-endorse-secession/JqQmZMmkW5tci7R5hRuNVM/story.html

I predict you're wrong. Bieber is Canadian. But whatever. Us Canadians are just glad he moved to the US. He's your problem now. Make with him what you wish. Sure but that won't matter after the U.S. and Canada merger in 2038. A joke I hope... or I will be getting my guns out. Don't worry to much, Uccmal. All merger discussions will most likely eventually strand, drowned in heated and emotional discussions about the flag for the continuing entity. Change the stars to maple leafs...Done. Just don't burn it.

I predict you're wrong. Bieber is Canadian. But whatever. Us Canadians are just glad he moved to the US. He's your problem now. Make with him what you wish. Sure but that won't matter after the U.S. and Canada merger in 2038. A joke I hope... or I will be getting my guns out. I don't care either way, because New Hampshire will secede in 2029 (shortly after Texas).

I love the saying: who pays decides ("wie betaald, bepaald" in Dutch). Everyone can vote but you're vote is weighted based on your tax-payment. I'd even make it possible to voluntarily increase your tax if you so wish (maybe we can even make taxes optional like this as there is finally an incentive (other than fear of prosecution) to pay taxes?) That's even better. Make it a nice round number: you get 1 vote for every $1000 you pay in taxes.

I predict you're wrong. Bieber is Canadian. But whatever. Us Canadians are just glad he moved to the US. He's your problem now. Make with him what you wish. Sure but that won't matter after the U.S. and Canada merger in 2038.

Also localization is important. Important decisions should be made at the level of government closest to the voter as possible. The federal government should take care of foreign policy and not much else. This way you have people deciding locally on how they want to live, how they want their children educated, and what they want their government to do/not do. There should need to be a damn good reason to take power away from the town/city and give it to the state, and an extraordinary reason to take it from the state and give it to the feds. The problem is that the federal government has been growing and taking on more and more and with a population of well over 300M it is too far removed to be responsive. To expand on this. I forgot the first step is that you should need a good reason to take power away from property owners and give it to the town/city. The vast majority of decisions in any society should be made by the individual property owners on their own property, followed by the city, then the state, and finally almost nothing should be ever done at the country/federal level. Things should be constantly being pushed downward as culture/technology allows from centralized decision making to localized distributed decision making. From Federal to state, from state to local, and from local to individual property owners. In the perfect utopian world all decisions would reside at the individual level. This is a goal which may never be achieved, but should be strived for, the direction we should always try to travel in. The problem with our democracy (and all democracies as far as I can tell) is that over time they move in the wrong direction toward centralization and concentration of power. Then they become corrupt and collapse.

Funny when said like that, but pretty sure the middle class isn't actually the middle when it comes to absolute $ amounts. It's more an arbitrary group than a mathematical thing. Vast quantities of the wealth in this country are controlled by a few % of people, so if you include them in the average amount in retirement, it'll skew things a lot. I think of people in the middle class as people near the median wage. So a better way to term it is "The average of people around the median".

Don't take this personally, but I wanted to call this out because I find this is so typical. So many people are so entranced by the mainstream media mudslinging that they didn't evaluate the candidates on their proposed policies. After the fact, the elections over, and now people are saying "I didnt vote for the guy, but when I look at his proposed policies they're not that bad". How can you cast a vote and without having evaluated the candidates actual policies? Because your vote will not decide the election. It won't even decide who gets the electoral votes in your state, never mind who wins the presidency. It is a waste of effort to do a lot of research on a situation in which you are powerless to change. How much effort do you put into researching the ins and outs of Russian politics or Cambodian politics? Why would you? But you have about the same likelihood of effecting US politics as you do some foreign country's (Approximately 0%). People are doing the logical thing when they spend their time and effort elsewhere. Once someone _is_ elected however, it might be a good idea to see where he stands because that is what you will be dealing with. Edit: I just wanted to add that whenever I say stuff like this I inevitably get a response that goes something like "but what if everyone behaved like this?" The answer of course is that almost everyone does. I agree with everything you wrote and have articulated similar thoughts to people - but what's the solution? The current voting system gives everyone an equal vote irrespective of their prejudice or ignorance. As long as voting remains as easy and mindless as picking your nose, the ignorant and selfish public (George Carlin was right) will continue to vote nonsensically. It's quite apparent that a large percentage of the voting population cannot name one senator or one house representative up for election prior to entering the voting booth - arguably this is more important than the president himself. How do we solve this? Unfortunately I agree, there's very little an individual can do simply due to population size and immateriality. But it seems to me that something to the effect of a reading comprehension test designed to ensure that voters understand the system and politicians they are voting for should be a bare minimum. An exam of sorts whereby a reading prompt provides an elementary level explanation of the US government branches, explains each of the candidates views (documented and audited by multiple third parties) without naming the candidates names/genders/race/religion, and then a quiz asking very simple and basic questions about the reading prompts to verify the reader has a simple understanding of the structure of the system / candidates views irrespective of high level ideologies that excuse people from reading/thinking (republican/democrat choices). Voting should then occur based on anonymous labels consistent with the reading prompts - e.g. candidate x, candidate y, candidate z. You'd obviously get into complexities surrounding fairness - but there's no question that something IQ-independent could be developed to partially mitigate the mindlessness and ignorance surrounding the majority of the public. It's a radical idea, but I think having a population of the willfully uninformed, lazy, and ignorant is also quite radical and is unsustainable. The test would take time, two hours? Make the day a national holiday. Don't want to spend two hours to take the test? You probably fall under the bucket of the lazy citizen who doesn't want to spend time critically thinking or independently arriving at conclusions rather than having CNN/Fox fill in the blanks for you. Don't vote. Then again, this could be an arrogant and elitist view and I'm not detached from that. Happy for a reality check here if someone thinks I'm totally off base. But the fact of the matter is, it's evident that the majority of voters do not have a clue (whether it's rational/irrational to "have a clue" is a separate debate). Ultimately, I (and likely most people on this board) stand by the mantra of accepting personal responsibility and working hard on activities within the realm of individual control. I don't think doing so is mutually exclusive with watching/caring about the countries politics though. Trigger Warning: This isn't going to be politically correct. How about requiring skin in the game to vote? You must pay net taxes above $0 AND own either property or a business in order to vote. It used to be that only white male property owners could vote. I'm fine with getting rid of the white-male requirement, but a property ownership requirement could only be a good thing. If I buy one share of Sytestar does that count? LOL, I was thinking of majority ownership of a business, but maybe there could be a minimum percentage. If you owned >10% of a business with net assets of at least $1M or something. It would be just as easy to buy a small condo to be able to vote. The point is you should be a contributor to society to be able to vote. Anyone who owns a significant business or a home probably pays a net positive number in taxes anyway.

Also localization is important. Important decisions should be made at the level of government closest to the voter as possible. The federal government should take care of foreign policy and not much else. This way you have people deciding locally on how they want to live, how they want their children educated, and what they want their government to do/not do. There should need to be a damn good reason to take power away from the town/city and give it to the state, and an extraordinary reason to take it from the state and give it to the feds. The problem is that the federal government has been growing and taking on more and more and with a population of well over 300M it is too far removed to be responsive.

Don't take this personally, but I wanted to call this out because I find this is so typical. So many people are so entranced by the mainstream media mudslinging that they didn't evaluate the candidates on their proposed policies. After the fact, the elections over, and now people are saying "I didnt vote for the guy, but when I look at his proposed policies they're not that bad". How can you cast a vote and without having evaluated the candidates actual policies? Because your vote will not decide the election. It won't even decide who gets the electoral votes in your state, never mind who wins the presidency. It is a waste of effort to do a lot of research on a situation in which you are powerless to change. How much effort do you put into researching the ins and outs of Russian politics or Cambodian politics? Why would you? But you have about the same likelihood of effecting US politics as you do some foreign country's (Approximately 0%). People are doing the logical thing when they spend their time and effort elsewhere. Once someone _is_ elected however, it might be a good idea to see where he stands because that is what you will be dealing with. Edit: I just wanted to add that whenever I say stuff like this I inevitably get a response that goes something like "but what if everyone behaved like this?" The answer of course is that almost everyone does. I agree with everything you wrote and have articulated similar thoughts to people - but what's the solution? The current voting system gives everyone an equal vote irrespective of their prejudice or ignorance. As long as voting remains as easy and mindless as picking your nose, the ignorant and selfish public (George Carlin was right) will continue to vote nonsensically. It's quite apparent that a large percentage of the voting population cannot name one senator or one house representative up for election prior to entering the voting booth - arguably this is more important than the president himself. How do we solve this? Unfortunately I agree, there's very little an individual can do simply due to population size and immateriality. But it seems to me that something to the effect of a reading comprehension test designed to ensure that voters understand the system and politicians they are voting for should be a bare minimum. An exam of sorts whereby a reading prompt provides an elementary level explanation of the US government branches, explains each of the candidates views (documented and audited by multiple third parties) without naming the candidates names/genders/race/religion, and then a quiz asking very simple and basic questions about the reading prompts to verify the reader has a simple understanding of the structure of the system / candidates views irrespective of high level ideologies that excuse people from reading/thinking (republican/democrat choices). Voting should then occur based on anonymous labels consistent with the reading prompts - e.g. candidate x, candidate y, candidate z. You'd obviously get into complexities surrounding fairness - but there's no question that something IQ-independent could be developed to partially mitigate the mindlessness and ignorance surrounding the majority of the public. It's a radical idea, but I think having a population of the willfully uninformed, lazy, and ignorant is also quite radical and is unsustainable. The test would take time, two hours? Make the day a national holiday. Don't want to spend two hours to take the test? You probably fall under the bucket of the lazy citizen who doesn't want to spend time critically thinking or independently arriving at conclusions rather than having CNN/Fox fill in the blanks for you. Don't vote. Then again, this could be an arrogant and elitist view and I'm not detached from that. Happy for a reality check here if someone thinks I'm totally off base. But the fact of the matter is, it's evident that the majority of voters do not have a clue (whether it's rational/irrational to "have a clue" is a separate debate). Ultimately, I (and likely most people on this board) stand by the mantra of accepting personal responsibility and working hard on activities within the realm of individual control. I don't think doing so is mutually exclusive with watching/caring about the countries politics though. Trigger Warning: This isn't going to be politically correct. How about requiring skin in the game to vote? You must pay net taxes above $0 AND own either property or a business in order to vote. It used to be that only white male property owners could vote. I'm fine with getting rid of the white-male requirement, but a property ownership requirement could only be a good thing.

OK, I probably should shut up, but: I believe that MMM and similar early retirees have not enough allocation for medical/long term care in the old age. MMM will be fine since he's now blog-rich. But in general don't retire in 30-40s expecting great health forever. I would agree with that. The younger you decide to retire the more of a buffer you need for the unexpected. I'd probably retire at 60 with $1.5M-$2M, but I wouldn't retire at 35 with any less than $10M.

So the average of the middle? I don't know either, but I'd suspect that the average middle class retiree has a house that is paid off (otherwise they would still be working) and maybe a small pension and/or annuity, plus low 6 figures (<$300K) in savings/investments, plus depending on social security to make up the difference. That is just a guess based on people I know, but I live in the North East which is probably better off in general than much of the country.

He's likely the best US president in my lifetime. Is that because he's so good? Nah, it's just that all the other ones have been complete crap. 1 foot hurdles ;) Yes More like 2-inch hurdles.

Don't take this personally, but I wanted to call this out because I find this is so typical. So many people are so entranced by the mainstream media mudslinging that they didn't evaluate the candidates on their proposed policies. After the fact, the elections over, and now people are saying "I didnt vote for the guy, but when I look at his proposed policies they're not that bad". How can you cast a vote and without having evaluated the candidates actual policies? Because your vote will not decide the election. It won't even decide who gets the electoral votes in your state, never mind who wins the presidency. It is a waste of effort to do a lot of research on a situation in which you are powerless to change. How much effort do you put into researching the ins and outs of Russian politics or Cambodian politics? Why would you? But you have about the same likelihood of effecting US politics as you do some foreign country's (Approximately 0%). People are doing the logical thing when they spend their time and effort elsewhere. Once someone _is_ elected however, it might be a good idea to see where he stands because that is what you will be dealing with. Edit: I just wanted to add that whenever I say stuff like this I inevitably get a response that goes something like "but what if everyone behaved like this?" The answer of course is that almost everyone does.

You "think", but how do you know? I'd like to think the Blackberry investment was a learning experience as well (don't invest in a dying company because you want to save it because it is canadian and hires a lot from a college you like). I did purchase a little more last week (as well as MKL earlier this month, it doesn't have to be either/or), it seems cheap right now, but I still have questions about the strategy over all (which is probably why it is on sale).

From the article His parents pressured him to do the wrong thing and then took credit when he did the right thing. Hilarious. It kind of makes some sense. I hope I raised my son to be the type of man that would do the right thing even if it was my wife and I pressuring him to do the wrong thing. They pleaded with him to do what they said because they were worried about what would happen to him if he didn't, not because they thought it was the right thing to do. They are proud of him in retrospect.

Take cover! You keep talking like that you might accumulate as many people blocking you as already block me. Philosophy matters, but most people like to pretend that it doesn't. Mostly because they have not given much thought to the underlying philosophy at the base of their beliefs. A libertarian starts out with a philosophy and derives his policy from it (communists & real socialists do this as well), but most people just have a mish-mash of policies they support with no philosophical basis for why they feel that way. (notice I said feel not think). There is no reason that someone who is pro-abortion rights need to be anti-gun rights for instance, but we are told by the 2 party system that those go together.

The fact that poverty in India is much worse than poverty in USA does not subtract from issues of poverty in USA. Yeah, I would rather alleviate poverty in India and other super poor countries. Yeah, I mostly donate for charities outside USA. But rich rightwingers like people in previous messages who casually dismiss US poor likely haven't seen their living conditions either. It's very easy to dismiss US homeless who die in the streets as mentally unstable or addicts. A lot of them are, but there are numerous examples of normal people who lose their mobile houses (haha, let's perhaps read about BRK's Clayton again), have no employment, are buried in debt, and have no money for medicine or other necessities. Should we read about Flint again? Should we read about native American reservations? It's always possible to blame them as clearly they've had much better opportunities than people in India, but that's the common practice of blaming the victim. No one disputes that there are people out on the tail who really are in need, but throwing around numbers like 42 or 47 million is not even close to reality. The numbers of such people are very small. The fact is that those 47 million are taking resources from very few who are truly in need.

Tim you are absolutely correct. There are a few mentally ill people living on the streets because they refuse to go to the homeless shelters and get help, but for the most part no one in America is poor by historical or even current 3rd world standards. It is quite extraordinary that there are 350M people and no one is starving, even if they refuse to lift a finger to be productive or help themselves. In fact the poorest among us regularly consume too many calories not too few, while playing video games on their large screen TVs in their temperature controlled homes. We have such phenomenal abundance of wealth that it is insane what seems poor to us. I'm sure a truly poor child in Haiti would be quite amazed at the wealth of those "47 million Americans living in poverty" that rb talks of.

"Fraud is not a trade secret" WSJ: Theranos Whistleblower Shook the Company—And His Family

Not bad. Not good either. He'd like the government pay a bunch of people to dig holes so that they can fill them back in again. I know he said "hopefully in a productive way", but that is a utopian dream that I wouldn't bet on.

An interesting take on it. http://rare.us/story/how-president-trump-will-make-politics-better-for-gay-americans/ "Trump is the first president in US history to enter office supporting gay marriage... Obama didn’t embrace same sex marriage until 2012, reversing his earlier opposition. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage,” Obama said in 2008. Hillary Clinton didn’t embrace same sex marriage until 2013, reversing her previous opposition."

Nightmare scenario for the secret service. Securing a few block radius of Manhattan. Maybe they can build him a replica in the Whitehouse as part of the infrastructure project. Just demolish that old fashioned white hut and build a proper White Tower there. Well, with golden T on top. Well they do need more office space the the WH. 8) It would make it easier to hit with a plane though, you have to keep that in mind. Maybe that isn't a bad thing, though now that I think about it. It is better than the terrorists targeting innocent people.

The "T" is a capital letter, but only because he wrote it in all caps and there is no apostrophe before the "s", so I doubt he means "I love Trump's hate". He shouldn't have wrote it in all caps. Capitalization is important and all caps is unclear. It is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse." and "I HELPED MY UNCLE JACK OFF A HORSE".

So you are saying he is trying to kiss up to POTUS or he is reconciling himself to a very sad event. I am saying people have a choice on how to deal with the turmoil going on in their heads. Ackman chose acceptance and a positive path forward. Others, like these, alt=Image result for trump street protestshttp://images.indianexpress.com/2016/11/election-protests-tex_kuma759.jpg[/img] chose to continue a fight with the monster they hallucinate Trump to be. "Love trumps hate" Who knew that would involve so much violence and vandalism? Not to mention the unkind things being said.