The large U.S. carriers have plans that are, I think, $20-30 a month and you get the newest phone as soon as it comes out, apple or Samsung. They also partner with manufacturers for discounts and trade-in deals, especially when a new model comes out. My last phone was 2 years old but when they offered me the newest one for something like $120 after trade-in (I think that was almost $1100 off, I don’t remember all the details) I upgraded everyone on my plan. I think they did the same thing this year but even with those discounts the pain in the ass of upgrading plus the price, even though it’s low, wasn’t worth the small year over year change. Probably next year or the year after. Assuming similar deals, that makes it $40-$60 a year to get a new phone every 2-3 years.

Edit: You do have to stay with the carrier though. If you leave in less than 24 months you have to pay back a prorated part of the discount. Or at least the part that comes from the carrier, I think you keep the enhanced trade-in from the manufacturer.

I can only speak for myself, but as a Star Wars fan, I’m very aware it’s fantasy. Shit man, it’s got wizards.

I wonder what John Oliver is going to buy?

I thought about that. Apparently the short interest was so high they were charging shorts crazy interest rates to borrow it. You’d have to bet on a huge drop in a very short amount of time. I can’t be bothered to look it up but I think it was something crazy like 40-50x a normal rate. One of the only reasons to hold was to charge short sellers interest, for a sane person anyway.

The 52-week high is just under $80. That would be intra-day though, maybe it never closed above $65.

He didn’t fuck with anything. For them it was money well spent. Think of all the things that used to be coordinated and all the information shared on Twitter. That’s gone, or at least seriously degraded, that’s what they bought.

Lingua franca dude. I’ve never heard “hit the wall” used outside the man-o-sphere. Maybe not exclusively incel, but incel adjacent at least.

Yeah, they kind of had a point until they busted out the incel-speak at the end.

Shit, I don’t even think it has to be subtle. People emigrate all the time for a variety of reasons. And most of them are much less compelling than “I’m surrounded by people who might decide to murder my entire family any day.”

They have no responsibility to stick it out and take the risk just because other people, including myself, don’t want to see the settlers win.

A person would only drop a couple points over time. 80s, and especially 70s, would be significantly impaired.

Yeah, this is easy. Find a house, airplane, or mega yacht that costs just over 100mm, offer 100mm cash today, then wait 29-30 days for your billion.

Ban or severely restrict abortion.

Ban or severely restrict porn.

Ban or severely restrict contraception.

Ban or severely restrict divorce.

When do we start hearing them question the concept of marital rape? That shit was legal in every U.S. state until the 70s and not made illegal nationwide until '93.

As much as I loathe the guy, I think we all dodged a bullet.

If he died of natural causes last month I don’t think the MAGAts would have rallied behind Desantis, or whomever got the nomination. I’m not saying they wouldn’t have voted for them, just that the excitement wouldn’t be there.

If this has succeeded, the supporters would have transferred and been even more pumped up. And sympathy from those weird fuck undecideds could make the difference, not just in the presidency, but both chambers of Congress, and for their policy goals too.

Riding the wake of an assassination the draconian shit they would push through could have been far worse than anything Trump would have been able to accomplish in a second term.

Take civil rights legislation in the 60s; a lot of what LBJ accomplished was credited to the national feeling after the Kennedy assassination. Would JFK have been able to accomplish all that if he had served eight years with public sentiment toward civil rights being divided?

It sucks that this is boosting his chances in November. But a martyr, a new figurehead, and a more energized base could have been far worse.

There were normal diplomatic disagreements that all allies have. And consider the source of that statement. Yeltsin’s critics would have included any anti-democratic groups. This was a period of unprecedented cooperation and trust that was growing until Russia turned its back.

Before Russia did their heel turn in the aughts, they almost joined NATO after a period of significant cooperation. Russia seeing the U.S., or it’s allies, as enemies is a symptom of Putin turning a fledgling democracy into a dictatorship, not the natural state of affairs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–NATO_relations

Go to the “Development of post-Cold War cooperation (1990–2004)” section and check out “NATO-Russia Founding Act”, “NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council”, and “NATO-Russia Council”.

Back then the talk was pearl clutching over NATO with Russia being seen as some racist white alliance against China, MENA, India, and others in the global south.

Russia only sees us as enemies because Putin needed to create enemies to seize and consolidate power.

Nominal is more than inflation so real is above 0.

Real just has to be above 0 for inflation adjusted wages to be going up.

I still call bullshit though without knowing where the increases are. All the increases could be in the top 10% with everyone else going down and only the average is above 0.

Edit: I was wrong, the growth is actually weighted toward the lower end.

I make a little more than double the cap. I’m in favor of increasing or eliminating the cap but that would double my check in the future. (Not quite, I haven’t made double the cap my entire working life, but it would increase it a lot.) That would still help a bit because not all of our withholdings go to basic social security. Some goes to disability, spousal benefits, etc. Increasing taxes and benefits proportionally, which is the way benefits are structured now, doesn’t solve anything.

I believe social security has a lot of value so I’m in favor of not just fixing the funding, but expanding it as well. But if you want to make it healthier just with payroll taxes they would have to be progressive, like income tax, without increasing benefits.

I guy I work with owned two condos in a development. The HOA passed a rule banning short term rentals. There were a lot of units being advertised on Airbnb and similar services so he put them on the market when he heard the rule was being proposed to beat the rush.

He managed to sell one at market but the second one didn’t sell before all the other Airbnb landlords listed their places too. He had to take about 10% below market for the second one.

Now those two places are owner occupied, and one of them got a nice deal (I don’t know about the ones sold by other people). And everything that sold in that area probably went for a little less for a while due to the glut on the market.

Making renting less profitable works. People aren’t landlords because it’s fun. They do it for the money. Take away the money and you have less landlords.

It’s a shitty headline made worse by a deleted word in the post title. The firm was found responsible for the death in a separate incident at a different plant from the one where they were found employing minors.

The thing these arguments never take into account is a fate worse than death.

That’s the point you’re missing.

Think about why someone would prefer the much more likely bear mauling to the much less likely worst case scenario with a man. If you can wrap your head around that, then consider why these women had that answer ready to go with very little thought. Considerations of a fate worse than death is something that women live with from the age where they first notice grown men noticing them. That averages 11 or 12 years old by the way. Maybe younger if their parents were a little more candid with them than the generic “stranger danger.”