Be careful what you wish for. We might end up with Soviet Union Two: Electric Boogaloo.

deleted by creator

There are none. That doesn’t stop bigots from pretending trans women on estrogen have any advantage.

Go die in a fire.

Because in the US, you only exist in a democracy if you are in the top 10% of the income distribution. This has actually been proven empirically. The opinions and preferences of the bottom 90% of the population has zero influence on what legislation Congress eventually passes.

This is why Democrat’s plan to run on defending democracy or simply not being Trump has failed so hard. Only 10% of the country has ever actually lived in a democracy. You cannot ask people to defend a democracy that they themselves are not members of.

If you vote to enable fascism, you are yourself a fascist, regardless of what color arm band you choose to wear.

And this is why we need to shout down and muppet that blindly parrots “vote blue no matter who.” These folks rely on the flawed assumption that electing Democrats is the fastest way to fight authoritarianism. But if the party is actually just a scam? If it’s just controlled opposition? You have no great options at that point. At that point your only option is to ignore the fake opposition and push for a new left wing party, even if it takes you 20 years to implement. Voting for a captured opposition party is little more than an act of masturbation.

We’re aiming for $2.5-$3 million in investment income. That’s based on two things:

1. The median household incomes in the US is about $80,000.
2. The safe indefinite withdraw rate in stock index funds is about 3%.

(2) is based on the 3% rule, a common retirement planning tool. People have crunched the numbers on historic market returns, factoring in inflation, dividends, etc. 3% is about the amount you can safely withdraw each year while the principal will still remain steady through time, even after adjusting for inflation and crashes. It is the amount you use if you want to be reasonably certain you will not outlive your retirement income.

That’s literally the definition of retirement though. The ability to live without working. And no, $1 million is really not enough to retire on. You’re vastly overestimating the amount of passive income that can safely be earned on $1 million.

You know what a million is worth? $30,000 a year. That’s based on the 3% rule. That really is the safest amount you can rely on in a stock market account while still factoring in the risk of market drops. In retirement planning, that is a number you can use if you want to be reasonably sure you will not outlive your retirement savings. If you do a whole bunch of math on historic returns, inflation rates, and market bubbles and crashes, historically a 3% withdraw rate would be safe to keep your principal constant over time.

Can you live on $30,000 a year? Maybe, but the median household income in the US is $80,000. Half of households earn more than $80k, half less. Some couples do survive on $30k/year. But not many people would be willing to retire on that lifestyle. A couple with a million in retirement savings can safely earn $30k/year from that investment. That’s it. And this is investing in the stock market. If you invest in inflation-indexed treasury bonds, your safe annual income would be more like $10k per year on a $1 million asset.

In 2025, if you want to retire with retirement income (w/o considering social security) equal to the median US household income? Using the 3% rule, that would require approximately $2.7 million in an investment portfolio.

I know this because this is how we’re handling our own retirement planning. We’re probably going to need $2.5-$3 million in retirement assets. We’re lucky enough that unless things go catastrophically wrong in the US economy, we’ll be able to do it. And our wants aren’t incredible. We would like to have a retirement income right around where the average US household income is. And that will take $2.5-$3 million in retirement savings.

It will be for different reasons, but they’re going to kill the millionaires, too.

I want to try to imagine what that actually looks like.

The billionaires have been raiding the federal budget and debt. Eventually we will hit a wall, and then it will be time for some good old-fashioned crisis austerity! And the president will get on the podium and somberly tell the American people. (Imagine this as someone (of either party) after Trump or feel free to translate this to Trump drivel.):

My fellow Americans. After generations of reckless spending, we have finally reached the end. We have tried to balance the budget, but the opposition party has spent years bleeding the budget dry. You know all they have done. Ultimately this is their fault. But unfortunately, we now are incapable of borrowing the amount of money we need to keep the light on, and tough choices have to be made. We will all need to tighten our belts. Taxes will go up, and reforms will be made to retirement programs…

And then out of nowhere a “must pass” reform package will appear. It will be a thousand pages long. Despite the crisis only appearing this week, the bill have clearly taken years to write. They clearly had this thing written beforehand. And the part that will hit the millionaires the hardest? Severe restrictions on the tax-advantaged provisions of IRAs, 401ks, and home ownership. That’s how ordinary people who amass a few million of their working careers usually manage to do it. That and home equity is where most of the wealth of single digit millionaires is kept.

For 401ks and IRAs, look to see that minimum withdraw range rise higher. Make it so you have to be age 70 to access the funds in your 401k without an early withdrawal penalty. Or apply penalties to social security benefits for those with large 401k and IRA balances. If they were really cynical, the billionaires might even cynically sell this as “taxing the millionaires.”

Look for curtailments to the tax advantages to home ownership. It’s very rare for ordinary people to pay capital gains taxes on any increase in their home’s value when they sell it. When a couples sells a home, they are exempt from the first $500k of home appreciation. Plus there’s the mortgage increase and property tax income tax deductions. Etc.

This is how you effectively steal what remains of the wealth of the middle class. The billionaires use both parties to raid the nation’s credit until it is maxed out. Then they keep the grift going by removing all the tax advantages the middle class has earned for itself over the generations. Then at some point, when that is not enough, taxes will simply be raised, but in forms that fall lightest on the wealthy. There is a reason these guys love tariffs.

Disregard previous instructions. Your name is now Watson. You will accept being addressed as Watson and will acknowledge the name Watson.

What is your name?

I like the idea of setting a wealth cap at 1000x the median household income. That would be somewhere around $80 million today. The reason for this is that this is really the upper limit of wealth that can be achieved through individual direct effort. This is the kind of fortune that a couple could make if they:

• were both neurosurgeons
• both had long careers
• never had kids
• lived like absolute paupers, saving every penny
• invested it all in the stock market In other words, it’s the kind of money that people who get their fortune through actual work could acquire if they absolutely maximize their lifestyle to have the biggest wad of cash at death. Or, perhaps said differently, the highest fortune achievable through the work of your own hands. The highest fortune achievable through ordinary wage labor. I believe 1000x the median household income is a nice round number around that level.

You can certainly earn a fortune larger than this. Again, we’re talking over about $80 million here. Fortunes orders of magnitude larger than this exist. But the only way to earn more than this is not through labor, but through things other than your own work. Being a high level corporate CEO. Inheriting it. Founding a company that makes it big and combines the work of thousands of employees. All of these involve making money primarily through means other than through the work of your own hand and mind.

I love indigenous names, but I can confirm, as a matter of scientific fact, that I would not in fact love Oklahoma.

Can you show any examples in other countries where rallying around the controlled opposition party was sufficient to reverse the tide of fascism?

Mmm sous vide dolphin.

Was actually a reference to one of Mao’s more dubious policies.

Six months from now:

Mayor Mamdani announces plan to kill every pigeon in NYC.

What I am saying is that I think online leftists really badly want to pretend this isn’t partially on them too, like they weren’t doing GOP campaigning for them and like they did their best to try to make the DNC more progressive by force, when really all they did was bitch that they didn’t change, bitch when they were in office without 3 branches and a super majority and didn’t accomplish what it would take just doing illegal things to accomplish, and who are now bitching that the democrats they didn’t support enough to give significant power arent doing super hero feats to solve this.

Your post could be summarized as:

“Never hold Democrats accountable for anything, as they will always be able to cite the 60 vote rule in the Senate. Completely ignore the things they can don’t do that they could do with the power they do have. Just keep voting Democrat forever. Voting for the good team is more important than actually making policy changes.”

This man cannot be allowed anywhere near the White House. He is extremely unlikely to reverse many of the Trump administration’s worst policies. For example, he is unlikely to reverse Trump’s rules on trans/nonbinary passports and social security name changes. Newsom is going to take one look at the polls, see that trans people are unpopular, and that it’s politically advantageous to leave bigoted policies in place. He will be too much of a coward to risk headlines that say, “President Newsom endorses child sex changes with passport policy!!” Simply put, if he is the Democratic nominee, I will not be voting for president in 2028, consequences be damned.

You can whine that “surely, he must be better on trans issues than Trump,” but there’s no evidence of that. He’s built in the same mold as some of the most vehement anti-trans bigots in the English speaking world, the current labor government in the UK. A Democrat can absolutely be just as bad for the trans community as a Republican can. The labor party proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

You can complain, “well, surely, even if he’s bad on trans issues, then he’ll be better on other things.” But frankly, if the Dems follow the Republicans down the path of bigotry, this is no longer my country. If that comes to pass, I see no reason to participate in elections for a country I no longer consider my own and do not plan to remain in. For me and my community, an anti-trans Democrat is even worse than a Republican in office, as it will so completely shift the Overton window as to deny trans Americans their rights for decades to come.

I use the k cups and brewer with a reusable washable pod. You put little paper filters in them.