I’m sorry you feel patronized, that wasn’t my intent. It seemed like you were just really ignorant, I didn’t realize you were pretending not to understand. Now I don’t understand how you pretending to be ignorant brings a semblance of reality to anything, that seems very counterintuitive to me.

In a democracy it is possible to democratically elect an anti-democratic leader. It’s one of the ironies and paradoxes of democratic political systems. I think if you study history some more the world should start making more sense for you.

200k per year, maybe. I have a heavy wool sweater like something a North Sea sailor in the 1800s would wear, I can’t handle it without a thick long sleeved shirt underneath because of how rough and itchy it is. It’s also incredibly warm. Sleeping in that thing would be like having a full time job every night.

That is the downside, FZROX is only available to Fidelity customers. There’s also a potential risk it won’t track total market performance as well as predicted because one of the ways they keep the expense ratio at zero is by only purchasing what is supposed to be an equivalent subset of the total market to keep their transaction costs down. I don’t remember the specifics but I think they leave out lots of tiny companies and its not a significant risk because they couldn’t actually move the needle one way or the other.

If you have an account with Fidelity, FZROX should be a better choice than VTI. Unless you enjoy investing or want to really get into it, either do a target date fund for the easiest and lowest risk, or a total market fund like VTI, or an S&P500 fund like VOO. You really don’t need to overcomplicate beyond that, except to potentially start buying bonds when you are nearing retirement if you didn’t choose a target date fund.

What specifically are you invested in? That chart doesn’t look right if you are investing as you describe.

When restaurants have booth seating where you can feel the person in the booth behind you moving around in their seat.

That logic doesn’t work because the official duties of the VP are both narrow and distinct from the President. Its not obvious that legal powers confer from the President to the Vice President in any way except under predefined circumstances. The VP would need to wait until those circumstances occurred, for example if the President was sedated for a medical procedure, and then do the official act while they have the actual powers of the Presidency behind them.

Sometimes yes, and I tend to get deja vu very often, occasionally its even recursive where I’m having deja vu of having deja vu.

If you are talking about federal income taxes, they are actually progressive. The vast majority of the money collected comes from the top 50%, the 1% pays something like 25% of the total just by themselves. Its why Republicans and billionaires bitch about it so much and want to eliminate the federal income tax. In reality poor people are mostly impacted by sales taxes, and that’s because of the basic economics involved that make sales taxes inherently regressive.

I’m not sure I would. If I could have avoided the bullshit or done the things that would have optimized my income and wealth, I don’t think I would have ended up where I am now. The risk doesn’t seem worth it, I would be a completely different person with a completely different life.

“Everything is good, thanks. Staying busy with work…” and then either get back to work or stare at them until it gets awkward. Its possible they have trouble with social cues and you seem friendly or nice or whatever, people are weird and being a new employee is stressful so trying to latch onto someone who comes across well can be a thing that happens. I try to redirect people like this to the topic of work and answer any personal question with something boring. What did you do this weekend? Laundry. If they have any self awareness they will eventually only talk to you about work. Stay professional and don’t be rude while making it clear you are at work to do work and have no interest in their personal life or sharing any details of yours.

It may be unlawful but I have over $100 in useless gift cards because the companies went out of business before I could use them. Cash is inherently superior. Although both cash and gift cards have the problem of being potentially tacky or offensive to give as a gift, depending on the context.

If it keeps getting hotter and the storms keep getting worse, we will find out. At the very least, property prices anywhere still liveable will likely become even more unaffordable.

People have been trying to make modular housing work for awhile, with limited success. For various reasons, it’s a lot more challenging than it seems like it should be. One of the problems is that the US doesn’t really have a single national regulatory regime for building codes, they are mostly local and regional. You can’t really design a house that works everywhere so the economics are a lot different than selling something like a car or a washing machine.

Yes, if friends. Unless they are repeating themselves, I’m going to be interested at least a little. Coworkers, no. I’ll be polite and sympathetic but if it is not related to work I am unlikely to be interested and will try to bring the conversation back to work topics or end the conversation as soon as I can without being rude. Randos, maybe but probably not. I’ve met lots of interesting people and am always kind of interested in hearing about the human experience from anyone who want to share theirs, but really I think I got too old or jaded for that. I avoid interacting with random strangers if its a choice now, and am always at least a little skeptical of whatever bullshit someone I don’t know has to say to me. I try not to be rude expressing my disinterest but I will be if it feels appropriate or necessary.

Impossible to say but Harris is winning the popular vote for sure. I think however it goes there’s going to be some chaos and violence, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s blatant attempts by MAGA cultists to sabotage what they can and drag out the vote counting and electoral processes. Its probably going to be a shitshow, and possibly a horrorshow. I don’t expect it to be called on election night unless its a significant and obvious win, which currently seems very unlikely. I would be less surprised if there was a terrorist attack on election night than a clear and obvious conclusion to the election.

Congress I think Dems are likely to outperform, the RNC is no longer what it was and doesn’t have the ground game they used to. All their money and resources have been sucked into the black hole of Trumps campaign.

Listening to an audiobook helps me in those situations. Ideally something a little boring but still engaging enough to keep me distracted.

I think yes, but not to a significant degree. Likely more or less would be absorbed depending on the fluid.

Stick a finger up its butt and the leash will get spit back out? I think I read that somewhere, not sure if it works.