I feel like they’ve missed a key part here. Sure, tax-advantaged savings accounts are great - if you have the money to invest in them. The people most reliant on Social Security generally don’t have spare cash lying around, though.
It’s not a “defense budget”, and has not been one for many years.
It’s a “We want more bombs and stuff so we can attack countries and steal their resources” budget.
Plus a smattering of sending money to the Epstein Class.
Except, apparently, stockpiles of that stuff are dwindling and there was no planning around that.
It’s a grifting budget where tens/hundreds of billions can be given to preferred admin friendly companies on no-bid, no-audit contracts. And maybe we’ll consider re-stocking on bombs on stuff, too. Or even paying the troops or funding the VA. You know, if there’s any money left over, after the Musks and Thiels of the world get theirs
Warren Buffet had some good advice on where to put your money if you are over 70 (and have any).
From memory, his recommendations were:
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Keep about one to two year’s worth of spending in a checking account that offers some amount of interest.
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Keep some of it in short term (no more than two yeas) US Savings Bonds.
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Keep the rest in [S&P] Index Funds.
Orange, huh?
That’s a pity, the whole T-Phone scam excursion. I would really have liked to have one or two, as long as there were no strings attached. Like an uncancellable Trump-Phony-Phone-Service-Contract. I would even have paid real money for the collector’s item. Say, five US$. OK, make it seven. My last offer. Alas! It will remain a dream. Probably better that way.
For a small time period, Colorado allowed county governments to opt out of Sociial Security, and chose their own investments.
Those investments being picked by a board of employees. So they have got skin in the game. An employee could chose just how much risk they want.
Two counties in Colorado did this. Mine that I worked for for 33 years and just retired from was one of them.
It worked out quite well. It still came out of your paycheck to be invested no matter what.
How it started: Deport all the Venezuelans
How it’s going: Give every Venezuelan US citizenship
“We’ve taken people that were dead, and started them on this drug. And the person became better.”
“I eat the best foods. Maybe they are the best foods. Who knows what the best foods are? Maybe junk food is good and the other food is no good.”
“We thought the Kurds were gonna give us weapons. but the Kurds disappointed us. The Kurds take take take.”
“Every person is gonna have autism. That’s what’s happening. What is this thing that’s happening? It’s spiked so much. Anything having to do with medical, I always bring it autism.”
“I was the hunted, now I’m the hunter. These are bad people. That’s why we call them the dumbocrats. We have a new name. Because they’re dumb. They’re dumb people.”
“You’ll speak not too long because I am being waited on by a large group of generals. That’s also important. Having to do with the absolutely country of Irun. That’s the way they pronounce it.”
“I must say, I shouldn’t admit this, but the first time I really about the fertility was through Katie. I became the father of fertility.”
Can I ask how such statements are being received in America? You post these all the time, so it’s not like these are one-offs taken out of context. Are people denying that Trump is having cognitive issues? Do they just not address it? Were all the concerns about Biden purely partisan? Is ANYBODY in politics or the media sounding a serious alarm?
Numbnuts is now proposing a suspension of federal gas taxes. Oh yes, federal aid for road projects isn’t nearly as important as trying to improve his poll numbers.
Concerns about Biden were like most things in America: 100% political. Republicans in America will tell you that Trump is a genius, and it is your own cognitive limitations (they won’t say it using my own brilliant terms!) that prevent you from seeing that.
Then they’ll wear diapers to rallies.
Yes, of course there exist such people.
The trick is, are there sufficient such people and are their words and warnings actually getting to enough ears? And if they are, are the connected brains, of whatever limited function they have remaining, actually taking heed?
We have a problem with that part.
There’s always been a significant fraction of the American public who have never really paid attention at all. “Both sides are the same”. “It doesn’t concern me”. Etc. That really hasn’t changed.
Decades of right wing misinformation and brainwashing means a significant portion of the remainder get their news primarily from sources that are basically state propaganda and would never show that stuff verbatim if they could help it. Worse, even when they do let the slightest thing slip, the folks watching will often actively deny it and declare it false. See above about people literally wearing diapers. And otherwise, breathlessly proclaim genius, even as he says some of the dumbest shit imaginable.
That leaves the others who do know the cheese has slipped fully off the cracker (if it was even on there in the first place) but the rational, not brainwashed, informed portion of the American public is a distinct minority of the total.
It’s one of the weaknesses of a democracy. If enough people vote for ‘bread and circuses’ or don’t care to fight against it, the rest are going to have a hard time of it, one way or another.
Not entirely but a lot of it was. A lot of Dems were certainly concerned but it’s also a mistake to think of US Democrats as an organized political party. They’re really more of a coalition of several different parties and interest groups. That’s why it’s sometimes frustrating to see so many “what the Democrats should do” threads and posts, like they are some sort of monolithic, unified party when they clearly are not and haven’t been in several decades, if ever. And concerns about Biden were certainly more a thing among some wings of the party than in others.
What I’m asking, since I’m living just over the Canadian border and don’t see US media, is what the discourse is like. Here, it’s pretty clear that Trump is a wildcard who just has to be dealt with, and Americans can’t be trusted the way they could be up until 2025. On this message board, Trump is clearly seen for what he is. It’s pretty clear that large swathes of Americans are as tuned out as ever, and large swathes see the status quo and loathe it.
What I don’t know, and don’t have an easy way of finding out, is whether prominent Republicans and news anchors in the mainstream media are still normalizing things, or whether people outside the fringes are beginning to comment on the Emperor’s lack of clothing.
“I wasn’t sleeping, I was resting my eyes!”
Ah, well, the answer is “yes, they are still normalizing things”. They may report on things happening elsewhere but their reactions will range from “these things are happening, here is the official White House response” to “Trump is a genius and things could not possibly be going better”.
When they do slip (and it does happen), they are quick to correct themselves.
Thanks: that’s useful but seriously depressing information.
The “blinking” defense might have made sense in an age of only-still-photography. (‘You just took the photo while he was blinking, you miscreant!!!’) But in an age of video… uh-uh.
Unless they’re now going to claim that because Donald is so superior a being, his blinks last five or six minutes apiece…
I don’t know much about Slovakia, or our relationship with them, but surely they deserve better than to have Doug not all religions are created equal "Mastriano as our ambassador to their country. He’s in a write-in campaign for PA governor, so I guess they don’t have much faith in him.
I’m wondering who these enemies, and people, companies, and Countries [sic] he’s referring to paying back. Since Americans pay the tariffs, is that how he views us?