partial_accumen

The “full faith and credit of the united states government” as expressed and guaranteed in American dollars, is probably pretty safe for a while at least,

February 10, 2025 quotes from the article:

• Trump says some Treasury payments might ‘not count’

• “We’re even looking at Treasuries,” Trump said. “There could be a problem - you’ve been reading about that, with Treasuries and that could be an interesting problem.”

source

If trump decides to not pay on US Treasury Bills even ONE TIME, that’s the whole ball game. The indestructible, ever-present, no-safer-investment-literally-anywhere-in-the-world is gone forever. The USA is able to be the nation it is because we are allowed to borrow money from the rest of the entire world and unbelievably low interest rates. If we’re forced to pay higher rates on our T-bills because we aren’t trustworthy anymore we will immediately drown in our $36.22 trillion national debt.

how the market isn’t down 75% - 90% by this point.

I keep asking myself this same question as I stare at my retirement savings in what seems like trump’s crosshairs. I only have a few possible answers, and none of them are enough to explain the continued high valuations.

The only things i know are: “the market is irrational” and “time in the market beats timing the market”. How long before the crash occurs? How much gains are lost if I pull it out too early? Days? Years? Even if I were to pull everything out now, when would I know its safe to put it back in? Would I accurately be able to determine the bottom of the market and magically put it all back in to reap the spoils? If the damage trump does to our country destroys the value of the dollar, then even having pulled everything to cash would mean it would be in (at that time) worthless US Dollars.

I’m simply not that smart to execute that successfully and I don’t pretend to be.

Your 4% and 5% across the pond are about the same here stateside for what are considered “high yield” savings accounts (government protected) or money market accounts (private-based protection). These rates are largely tied to US Treasury Bill rates which echo what you’re seeing on your side too.

I’ve always thought that we should offer some kind of a credit to parents to invest in a retirement account for their kids.

Parents could do savings, but in the USA a “retirement account” is usally defined by an IRA or 401k. For an IRA, there’s actually no age restriction, but the person must have earned income. I suppose this could even be a 12 year old babysitting or lawn mowing, but the 12 year old would have to file a tax return (but they wouldn’t be charged any tax for their low income).

Nothing huge, but something that will get six decades of compound interest. Not only would that help all future generations to retire in an economically sustainable way, but it should also be a slow and steady boost to the economy.

Starting in 2024, you could rollover unused funds in 529 accounts (college savings accounts) into IRAs (retirement accounts) without any penalty. So I suppose this would check the box with what you’re asking for. Note: limit on this is up to $35k.

Unfortunately, that would be unlikely to happen in the best of times. The people who would benefit most won’t be voters for years, and won’t actually reap the benefits until the politicians passing the law are all long dead. Given the dystopian nightmare timeline we’re in now, I’d say the odds of a program like that being created are slightly lower than the odds of us trying to fund social security by invading Ireland to find their leprechaun gold.

Well beside the 529 rollover to IRA, there was a great problem called myRA which was a baby Roth IRA with no fees, no minimum deposit to open it, a guaranteed return (backed by the US Gov), and contributions could be as little as $5.

"The myRA was a “new type of saving bond that we can set up without legislation”[1] guaranteed to have a decent return, by holding an “add on” Treasury security in a Roth IRA, with contributions after taxes and lifetime growth to be tax free. The maximum annual contribution is $5,500, including any Roth and Traditional IRA contributions.[17] When a myRA account reaches either $15,000 in value or 30 years of age (whichever comes first), it will roll into a private-sector retirement account. The initial investment can be as low as $25, and one can make periodic investments for as little as $5 every time one gets paid.[18] "

source

It was closed down in 2018 because so few Americans used it. source

How many banks in the US offer that rate?

If you’re looking at parking your money in a bank for any appreciable return, you’re going to be disappointed. 7% is a moderately conservative expected return rate especially given a 45 year time horizon. The boring S&P 500 has a historical rate of return of 9% to 11%.

If you are given/get/earn $51,000 and you invest that at a 7% return when you are 21 and never save a single extra penny, at age 65 you will have $1,001,051.44.

I’m not suggesting everyone can come up with $51k at 21. This is just illustrating that the path to being a millionaire is can be more about how early you start saving rather that how much. If you start saving much later, you have to save much MUCH more to reach $1m.

why the fuck didn’t Congress make them laws

Why do you think that would make any difference? Are you not seeing the trump administration straight up ignoring laws that are in place blocking a lot of their current behavior?

So, what should I do? What does it mean to be yourself, while trying to change?

Do you normally wear giant purple fluffy hats with large feathers protruding out of them? Probably not. If you knew that the girl you were interested in specifically liked seeing giant purple fluffy hats with large feathers protruding out of them, would you acquire such a hat at approach her claiming the hat is honestly part of your normal wardrobe? Your answer should also be no.

Being yourself means not try to act like someone you aren’t to try to appeal to someone else. The main reason is that its not really a reflection of who you are, and if the girl is successfully attracted to you when you something fake, its not you they are attracted to, its the fake thing. So thats the “be yourself” part.

Now the “while trying to change” part. You don’t have to have a laundry list of your faults ready to rattle off to the girl you’re talking to for the very first time. However, as the relationship progresses, you can start to be honest about some shortcomings you have of yourself, and your actions to try to improve. Something like “By this age I should be able to pay all my bills on time, but just this last month I paid the electric bill two days late even though I had the money already. Its something I’m working on. A year ago every single one of my bills was late and my water was almost shut off from non-payment. I’m happy with my progress, but I’m not at the finish line yet”.

A note for the “trying to change”: That part should never end in your life. You should constantly try to be better version of yourself (as you define it). It doesn’t mean you should require yourself to have massive successes in life year after year, that’s just not realistic. The path should always be toward “better” though. Again, “better” is however you define it (this is part of “being yourself”). While an obvious goal might be graduating from college, another equally valid goal could be to commit and follow through practicing the guitar for 30 minutes a week, or possibly even never leaving your socks on the floor. Life will come at you and knock you down sometimes, and that may affect the short term results of your “no left out socks” goal, but its important to stand up again and get back on track.

You’ll get older and what is important will change for you too. You get to constantly re-adjust what your goals are. This is the fun part of life! Your goals are your own. What you choose has a feedback loop of defining and reinforcing the “being yourself” part.

You’re right. I corrected my post.

“excel in my work” would be using a spreadsheet. “accel in my work” would be improving your skills/effort.

edit: corrected. I was wrong.

Our “justice” system is too light on 19th-century serial killers.

There’s statistics to back this up. Go ahead and look at the prison system. Not a single 19th century killer held in custody today.

Looking back at historical incarceration rates there is a clear trend of locking up fewer and fewer 19th century criminals, until the numbers drop off altogether. This suggests a highly orchestrated plan to gradually reduce the population so at to avoid notice, and it worked. Here we are today without a single 19th century criminal incarcerated today. The data doesn’t lie. /s

Generally a company doing something bad enough to encourage a large enough boycott to affect the bottom line is making quite a bit of money. They calculate the loss of sales due to the boycott over time and can plot when the value of the bad business is lower than the boycott. Many times they continue with the bad behavior in spite of loss of business from the boycott because the business might be at the edge of viability anyway. So extracting the last bit of value out of the company is a net win before the rotting husk is sold off in pieces for the value of its assets or the brand is sold to the opposing group that actually likes the bad behavior that was being boycotted so it becomes an asset again.

alwayshasbeen.jpg

Thankfully the other two haven’t fallen as hard as Seagate has.

If you want keep thinking that don’t look too hard at Western Digital’s scandals and catastrophic drive failures of the past. In my early working days I made good money swapping out hundreds of failing Western Digital hard drives.

Large enough that management schools are forced to teach about how ever real reform won’t be enough to save you from bad actions.

Sadly, in the world of multinational business, that isn’t how management schools perceive boycotts.

Oh, I agree with that. Part of the cost of a product is how much bother the consumer will have to put forth to get their desired use out of it. That’s part of what a brand is supposed to communicate to a buyer.

Okay, I agree with you that you’re not wrong to be upset at Seagate customer service. Its also perfectly within your rights to stop using Seagate. I just want to point out that if you continue to follow your policy of “one and done”, and the continued deteriorating customer service experience all companies are providing these days, you’ll soon be left with very few places to do business with.

There are only 6 or 7 airlines that fly out of my local international airport. I’ve had disappointing customer service experiences of one degree or another from every single one of them. If I was following a “one and done” approach, I’d have no one to fly commercially with.

Specifically with magnetic hard drive manufacturers, there are only 3 left in existence: Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba

If you’ve sworn off Seagate, that means all of your future purchase have to be accommodated by the remaining two. I hope that is enough.

What was Seagate’s excuse for not honoring the warranty when you filed a claim?

My logic was that in 2008 when I bought a brand new seagate hard drive, and it was dead before I plugged it in, they refused to honor their warrenty.

If it was a new drive bought from a retailer, why didn’t you return it to the retailer?