Having lived through it, it really does feel weird though. I (mostly) missed the gasoline crisis (I was a child). It's hard to imagine gas pumps all over the US being out of gasoline, and mile long lines waiting for a tanker to show up so you could get gas. It's pretty much impossible to imagine staple rationing (butter, sugar) during wartime in modern US. I certainly didn't live through it - having the TP aisle empty during covid doesn't quite match that. And the actual (1930s) depression. I suspect those folks would consider the crashes of 87 99 01 08 and 20 minor annoyances - a bad Tuesday - compared to what they lived through.
Think of this, though - you have Covid. Okay we have Covid. That's a world-wide event with life-changing implications for so many. And, we can hope, we don't get another pandemic event of that magnitude in our lifetimes. And a decade or two from now you can lord it over some kid who was born in the last 3 years and just "doesn't understand" that "closing school for three days because the flu is so bad" is not a pandemic, and that they just don't understand what a game changer Covid was. ;-)
I mean, that's a weird-ass AI prompt. But if fascism wins and you voted third party, yes - it's partly your fault unless you're too stupid to understand how first past the post voting works.
conditionals against massive fascist party majority states notwithstanding.
Well, since the original patties have always been 0.1lb precooked weight and the quarter pounder has always been (checks notes) 0.25lb precooked weight, I'd say shrinkflation is one thing that hasn't come to McDs. Actual inflation? Oh, yes - $4 for a double cheese burger (with 0.2lb of beef) is straight up insane. That's $10 for a half pound burger - nearly the same cost per ounce of burger as a Five Guys standard burger, which isn't even in the same league.
The property tax was separate, and it happens regardless. The 15% is the long term capital gain rate - if the value of an asset increases (say 300k-500k) I have a 200k gain. I don't pay tax on that 200k until I sell, but if there were an in-process gain tax, I would. So instead of owing taxes on my profit/gain when I sell, I would pay the gain each year (and carry over a loss if the value of the house decreased). Coming up with 30k (200kx15%) would be a tough think to do simply because my neighborhood got popular in the Real Estate market.
YES! And this is the problem with profit based taxes. You should be taxes on what you have (property taxes) and what you receive (gross receipt taxes). The ebb and flow of commerce does vary, but the overall work and wealth is more stable. It also makes taxes harder to dodge as there are no deductions for expenses or other items. My local business tax is this way - I pay a couple percent in fixed assets tax, plus a (I think it's less than a) percent on my gross receipts - take what your paid, multiply it by 0.012, send that amount in. Simple, effective, and relatively consistent. It also, in a very simple way, reflects that government services are not a bonus the town gets when you make a profit but a cost of doing business. My power company charges me whether I make a profit or not, as does my web service, my copier maintenance plan, etc.
You know, even if they were stolen I think my outrage meter would not have moved. Our representatives should be held to a higher standard than the average person when it comes to gifts/conflicts of interest, and any kind of (accepted) preferential treatment should be grounds for expulsion.
"imagine the shitshow if you had to pay extra every year if you owned a house outright but the property values kept going up"
Like property taxes, then. ;-)
Realistically, I understand the issue. If I had to pay taxes on the increase in price on my house (say from a $300k valuation three years ago to a $500k valuation after the market bubble), I'd be fucked to find 15% of that overnight. Of course, if they allowed that to be offset by the primary residence exemption, it would be a zero cost. Without that, it would still be a non-issue for 95% or more of US taxpayers because most people simply don't own an illiquid asset that increases in capital value (much less an international one), and if you exclude secondary real estate that non-issue number probably increases to more then 99.9%.
From a technical perspective, this is why a colder than average winter will affect (air-source) electric heat pumps more than resistance or fuel sourced heat. As the outside temps go down, the efficiency decreases in a heat pump, so the curve is non-linear. For electric resistance and fuels, the outdoor temperature has a near zero effect, making the increase in cost linear.
Not that it matters too much. Electricity costs in most of the US are relatively stable whereas fuel costs can swing by a factor of five or more from year to year ($2/MMBTU to over $12/MMBTU in the last decade). Oil doesn't play much into heating anymore, but it can also swing by more than a factor of two (From a low of $2/gal to over $5/gal in the last decade). Electric, though, is up by 25% over the last decade (on average) and varies by less than a a couple percent from year to year, slowly increasing at around a 2% average rate.
It took me searching the blacks to notice. Where I play there's usually enough glare I wouldn't get good blacks if you swapped the LC layer for vantablack.
Interesting that I learned 32.2 ft/s, but only 9.8 m/s - one less significant figure, but only a factor of two in precision (32.2 vs 32 = .6%; 9.81 vs 9.8 is only 0.1%). Here's the fun part - as a practicing engineer for three decades, both in aerospace and in industry, it's exceedingly rare that precision of 0.1% will lead to a better result. Now, people doing physics and high-accuracy detection based on physical parameters really do use that kind of precision and it matters. But for almost every physical object and mechanism in ordinary life, refining to better than 1% is almost always wasted effort.
Being off by 10/9.81x is usually less than the amount that non-modeled conditions will affect the design of a component. Thermal changes, bolt tensions, humidity, temperature, material imperfections, and input variance all conspire to invalidate my careful calculations. Finding the answer to 4 decimal places is nice, but being about to get an answer within 5% or so in your head, quickly, and on site where a solution is needed quickly makes you look like a genius.
CCRC buy-ins/contracts are for life. I used to design the buildings for them, I still do design work on existing facilities. I've also gone over a contract with my own parents. You essentially pay full price for a residential "unit" and as you require more care you are moved, without additional cost, into a higher care location. The owners than re-"sell" your previous unit to the next resident. When you die, there is no equity that your heirs will receive - in that way it's like a lease. The contract is for life with an annual escalation for maintenance and service.
Okay - you lease a car that includes gasoline and all maintenance. The agreement is that you get to drive it until you die. You pay $80,000 up front for the car and $100/mo for the maintenance, which can increase per the lease. You go along for 4-5 years, and each year your maintenance increases, maybe to $130/mo today, because of the cost of gas and parts needed. You can leave at any time, but if you ever leave or die, you don't get to keep the car - it still technically belongs to the leaseholder. You forfeit the $80k.
Well, the company sold and the new owners can't find enough people with $80k lying around to buy in, so they decided they'll just change the model to include the cost o the car - and charge $650/mo for the service. You get a letter that at your next annual increase, the monthly fee is going to from $130 to $650 because they've changed what constitutes "maintenance" as part of their terms and conditions. You can either stay with the package and pay $650/mo or you can leave and have no money to go find a new car. Oh, and you have no job and are on a fixed income because you're 75 years old.
From the article it sound like there was no maintenance escalation clause limitation - they bought in for, say, $750,000 with a payment of $1000/month in fees, per their contract. Each year the contract maintenance increases (since costs increase) and it had gone up to $1300...then, all of a sudden, the owner decided that they weren't getting enough people with $750k to drop up front and added a $6.5k/month option with little or no buy in. When these residents rolled to their annual renewal, instead of the normal 3-6% increase, they were "upgraded" to the new rental-based prices - $6.5k.mo. Their contract is still valid, and they can still stay there, but based on the lawyers these people have gone to about the increase, it's all 100% legal because there is no limit in the contract on how much the fee can increase.
Having lived through it, it really does feel weird though. I (mostly) missed the gasoline crisis (I was a child). It's hard to imagine gas pumps all over the US being out of gasoline, and mile long lines waiting for a tanker to show up so you could get gas. It's pretty much impossible to imagine staple rationing (butter, sugar) during wartime in modern US. I certainly didn't live through it - having the TP aisle empty during covid doesn't quite match that. And the actual (1930s) depression. I suspect those folks would consider the crashes of 87 99 01 08 and 20 minor annoyances - a bad Tuesday - compared to what they lived through.
Think of this, though - you have Covid. Okay we have Covid. That's a world-wide event with life-changing implications for so many. And, we can hope, we don't get another pandemic event of that magnitude in our lifetimes. And a decade or two from now you can lord it over some kid who was born in the last 3 years and just "doesn't understand" that "closing school for three days because the flu is so bad" is not a pandemic, and that they just don't understand what a game changer Covid was. ;-)