This sounds like October’s problem.

There would literally be no rentals except maybe shitty murder sex room hotel rooms.

I work serving the homeless. We spent $10 billion for one year during COVID just to include all of the students who didn’t already get free school meals to have it during that time. Unless you’re only providing cots and Porto-johns, that number might work as an annual figure, until inflation hits, or the numbers go up because once you offer free housing, more people will try to become eligible.

Sounds to me like you’re the one talking out your ass.

Elon spouts BS all the time, but $20 billion to end homelessness is some of the biggest bullshit I’ve ever heard.

I’m actually semi prepared for this. My shit paying job is working for a non-profit that distributes food to people who need it, and honestly those who work there have the first access to the resources if they are in dire need. If all of that were to fall apart, and it could, my history is in working in food service and frankly I can get a food service job as well as anyone else. I’m super qualified. It might pay shit, but if anybody can do it I can and somebody will be doing that job as long as any jobs exist.

If the economy collapses completely and there are no jobs, I’m kind of prepared for that too. I’ve got a .22 rifle with a suppressor and a crap load of ammo that I can feed my family with for at least a couple of years feeding on squirrels and cats and dogs and fuck it humans if I have to. Not that I want to eat any of those things but damn it I’m going to survive. I’m not someone who advocates poaching or breaking laws, but when it comes to survival everything goes out the window. I know how to garden too. I have crazy amounts of filtration capability for water also, not to mention you can just boil it and as long as we’re not dealing with irradiated Fallout water, I’ll be fine. I could live the next year just in a quarter of the camping gear that I own, no matter what the weather. Birds make good eating too. If everyone’s money becomes completely valueless, I’m better off than most.

Most of Oregon hates Portland these days, and I grew up in Portland. But I don’t think secession would be up to a vote, it would be decided by violence like it always has been. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be successful, but I think Portland would still be burned to the ground.

Oh I can see it. I just don’t give a fuck.

As a guy with nothing, I really couldn’t give much less of a shit about retirement accounts and the ultra rich losing money. And I already make shit wages and live on almost nothing. The only thing that is going to really hurt is the continued hyperinflation.

California’s food industry relies heavily on water from out of state, if those rivers dried up because flow got restricted to a trickle, it would be bad for their industry. None of this would happen without violent conflict though. Remember when the north burned the south to the ground? That is our historical precedent for how to respond to secession.

We’ve been heading there for a long time and much of the rest of the world has been feeding into the two-sides divide. It’s easier to see when you already loathe both sides for different reasons. But the US has been a powerhouse many would love to see taken down. Generations of work towards that are paying off, and the US working class will suffer the most.

That is definitely part of it. Some of it is also people who got married and had kids and found themselves in sexless marriages after some time, but the idea of going through divorce and splitting up belongings and assets and fucking up their kids seemed worse than just continuing their relationship with their hand. Especially as people get older, sex drive drops off for some.

A lot of married men are incels.

Exactly this. US citizens can’t trust them.

Lucky me, I’m in my 50s and don’t have any kind of savings or investments at all.

You could also simplify by saying that assuming neither of them are dead, at some point while he is 44 she will be 42. Whether or not she is actually his sister seems to be irrelevant, she was stated to be his sister, so regardless of biological data, it is being presented as a fact assumption.

The space stuff is not currently possible and can be disregarded as well.

My son could capitalize on this.

this has inspired me to never give you up

Yeah this might have been interesting if I could read it. I think I already know a handful of them.

I read that, and there was a link for more information on how it is applied but it just sends you each country’s main tax organization website where there is no obvious information on VAT. I’m left with questions, like is VAT applied to all transactions, or only to imports from other nations?

Can someone explain the VAT tax? We don’t have VAT here, I’ve heard of it but never had it explained but I’ve Heard it makes American vehicles more expensive in places like Germany.

Edit to say thank you for the responses, very helpful