A higher paid salary has negotiating power when being asked to work over time. Want me to stay late for a couple days no problem. Want me to work overtime for a couple weeks? Then I need to be paid at least straight time for every hour worked past 40.

So far I haven’t had any issues with this approach. They either pony up or suddenly it’s not that urgent. Have yet to be fired, but I don’t get asked to work overtime unless it’s truly needed now.

It would make sense since that regional adjustment system already exists that they could apply it to everything. I’m sure there are some macro economics that would affect but I’m too lazy to put that much thought into it.

I think people underestimate how many civilians work alongside our men and women in uniform. Walk out to any hangar on a base in the US and it will be close to half and half. If it’s test facility it may be more civilians.

This is the answer.

This is the same as me. I also have a policy on both my kids. It’s $10k and it’s so I don’t have to worry about funeral costs.

There are also plans like that and turn into a college fund but it’s probably just better to use a 529 for that.

But ultimately, in my opinion, it’s better to have a one on the bread winner of the family. But some people feel they are never necessary.

If you die young you don’t need insurance because your spouse is still hot and can re-marry easily. If you die older your children are out of college and can take care of themselves.

Everyone take or don’t take insurance policies for their own reasons and it’s hard to know exactly why unless they make it plainly obvious.

It depends. It makes it a lot harder to claim but not out of the question.

Yup, and that’s the exact use case for the Portal.

I pre-ordered mine back in September. Those of us who game from multiple rooms in their house this thing is amazing. Or those who have to share a TV with people who don’t use the PS5 connected to it.

But we spend nearly $200 billion just paying salaries. We spend the most because we are also an expensive country to live in and that means paying the folks who volunteer a decent wage.

We would have to significantly downsize the military personnel and pretty much operate as homeland defense only.

This comment doesn’t even make sense. For example, the USA government spent 37% compared to the GDP.

If you mean 10% of government spending towards science then that question makes sense.

The USA spends about $75billion of the $800billion defense budget on R&D. It spends another $120billion on non-defense R&D.

Which is about 1/31 of federal spending for the US.

Sounds like you have a “low premium” high deductible plan. I had one of those. Where I paid every dollar until I hit $3.5K and then 20% until hit $7k and then paid nothing. I can see where you could get to $86k. I’d start looking for a job that comes with a better health plan. I now pay $400 a month and $20 co-pay here and there.

That’s a symptom of our system. There’s so many different plans and options, and it’s further obfuscated behind your company doing all the negotiating that it’s not actually a free market. We would be better off going to a single payer system.

And Healthcare in the USA is between 18-20%.

That’s not the problem with the healthcare in the US, because that eventually flips and you hit your deductible every year.

The problem is you lose healthcare if you need to quit your job and you pay more than any other country. And I attribute that simply to the middle man, aka the health insurance companies. They don’t seem to provide any benefit other than contributing at least 10% for pure profit reasons to the $3.4 trillion we spend every year on healthcare.

It’s for the opposite of what that person said. It’s for the people who also want their neighbors to maintain their property. Whether that’s through hiring contractors or doing it themselves.

I think this works for some job positions, and probably most.

I’m looking for an engineer right now. I’ll take a young one to train up, but I’ll also take an experienced engineer that I don’t have to do anything.

That pay range is pretty broad.

TVs have improved in quality since smart TVs we’re introduced. However, it’s kind of like everything else. They have stopped producing the old dumb stuff.

It’s another reason why I advocate that we should compensated anytime our personal information is used or harvested.

The most harmful aspect is the unrealistic expectations it can set. In general, sex in porn is nothing like real life sex between two folks in love.

But that can be solved by decent sex education.

I get what you’re saying. The money from $60k to $100k just goes into the things you should be able to afford at $60k.

At $100k you can afford to contribute to your 401k, start a small contribution towards your children’s college fund, pay random bills, afford a Toyota Camry instead of a Corolla, moderate vacations, etc.

I had the same experience and it was humbling. But you also slowly forget exactly how tough it was looking at your bank account and knowing there was a bill not getting paid that month.

I don’t know about the UK but in the USA slavery was abolished in the 1865, but equal rights weren’t granted until 1965. All the states were not in full compliance until the early 1970s. You could easily argue there are people still alive today directly affected by slavery.

Making slavery illegal doesn’t mean everyone suddenly starts hugging in the streets and bigotry is abolished. I’m sure these same sentiments persisted in UK but hopefully not as long as it did in the USA.

What’s wrong with Signal besides requiring a phone number?