Apparently, the US government thinks there's some giant chunk of money going untaxed by Americans overseas.

Meanwhile, actual rich Americans use accountants to come up with all sorts of insane ways of minimizing their tax payments.

I thought it's because they didn't want the headache of reporting data to the IRS for American citizens. It's easier to dump those customers than to figure out how to deal with that issue.

*home-office*

Is that what you call "work from home" in the language of your people?

*so long as it includes the chance to have sex on your coffee break.*

That sounds like a Southern European employee benefit. :-P

I suspect the already happens at some workplaces, as it has at mine. The problem is when that person isn't one's significant other...

For a minute, I wondered if you mellowed out.

Nope, still out believing lukewarm types like myself. :-)

Who ever wins that seat is de facto Senator for Life like the previous holder of the seat, so it makes some sense to have somebody hold the spot temporarily until an election…

It's supposedly how you meet the dual mandate where you promise to nominate a black woman while keeping out potential candidates from having incumbency advantage. The bonus is that it keeps the black woman with lefty politics from having said advantage.

You haven't changed one bit. :-)

My employer just announced that they’re going to start accepting vacation requests for the next year in a few weeks.

I’ve already made several scribbles about how to use the days and have some idea of where to go based on that assuming that I have enough points and that there will be enough availability…

With that said, some will pay because they can afford to do so, but I wouldn’t be surprised if non-payment rates are higher than pre-pandemic. Some won’t pay out of principle, some because ruined credit is better than not being able to afford food and housing.

I suspect some people may not suffer as much if the new payment plans capping repayments pans out…

There was a part of me that wanted to stop paying but something told me to just pay it off ASAP.

That free cash flow from paid off student loans has been very helpful in our current inflationary era.

It also hasn’t helped that NYC’s economy has been somewhat depressed compared to pre-pandemic, so there’s less jobs to absorb these migrants in the first place. Most of the men now earn income either working under the table or doing e-bike deliveries, and the women and children ride on the subway selling candies.

As I’ve said before, they expected immigrants who show up, find fellow co-ethnics that secure them work and a room rental without involving the state.

Haitians, Ecuadorians, and Venezuelans showing up and asking for shelter wasn’t part of the plan. :-/

To be honest, if it’s one group of people who would be awful parents, it’s the race realists. There’s a certain coldness to them that makes me question their ability to love their own children.

As I've jokingly noted, the race realists are never in the "

have lots of kids camp". They're usually in the "I don't want to lower my living standards by having more kids" camp.

I tend to take the view that it's *both*.

As I've jokingly noted, if my dad was born 20 miles to the east and spoke Spanish, I'd be *Hispanic* and not "black". Race is something that exists in a biological sense, but the social reaction to it is the social construct.

Once we nuked industrial employment in the North, there wasn't a magical high paying job for lower class, uneducated black men, especially outside of civil service gigs, but their women were employable in low wage but growing service sector. So, something gave, and it was the usefulness of marriage to increasingly unemployable black men.

In contrast, as I've said countless times before, if the welfare state is collapsing, it screams "don't start a family". IOW, hoard as much as possible and don't marry or have children lest your have to spread your declining earnings and savings over multiple dependents.

I have a dungeon available on Long Island. $2000 per month and one hour away from Manhattan! It’s almost as good as a penthouse suite! :-)

Seriously, there’s a reason why so many adults stay at home with their parents in our area. You need six figures to move out, or your fiancé needs to make that amount to have a shot at buying a house.

Don’t they work out as well? And eat all sorts of organic stuff?

Although some of the vegan stuff just comes across as junk food with more steps…

You cheated by being black, living in Germany, married, and religious.