Jump to content

KYHorn

Certifiably Surly
  • Posts

    4522
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

Everything posted by KYHorn

  1. There's a really rare cultural practice called fraternal polyandry that is still practiced today in a remote region in India. One girl marries all brothers of a family. Pretty fascinating. Sweet dreams are made of these. Who am I to disagree?
  2. There are really no significant tax breaks for marriage. If you both make somewhat similar incomes there is not really any tax benefit or drawback to marriage. There used to be some benefits, but there also used to be some penalties. Both of these have mostly been leveled out. The most significant issue remaining is probably the marriage penalty for the earned income tax credit and, more significantly IMO, the marriage penalties for qualifying for government programs.
  3. That'd be interesting but nearly impossible to get sufficient data. It's already quite difficult to get a strong and unbiased sample size for polyamorus married couples.
  4. Yeah, it requires an extremely high functioning relationship. Trust has to be through the roof and both partners need to be excellent communicators and emotionally intelligent. It's also much easier to make it work if the relationship starts as polyamorus rather than develops into it in some way.
  5. It differs depending on the definition that's used but the divorce rates are much higher in polyamorus couples. Men and sexual minorities are also much more likely to engage in or desire to engage in polyamory.
  6. Yeah that type of jabbing has definitely caused some issues.
  7. There's some of that for sure, but women report wanting far more children than they actually have. To me, that indicates there is room for policies to make childbearing and raising children easier. Of course there are many other factors involved, including the difficulty of finding marriageable men and fathers.
  8. Great news: jet pack guy is dead!
  9. What could be behind this uptick in "friendly" fire on Russian aircraft? Is hacking possible? Sabotage, lack of radar or other equipment due to attrition, or an increase in incompetence?
  10. You also get extra discounts by using scan and go. They don't advertise the sales that I'm aware of, the discounts just show up as you scan. Sam's just announced that they're doing away with the receipt checks altogether by using AI and cameras to check the products in your cart.
  11. An economist I subscribe to provided some additional info on the jobs revisions and commercial real estate issues in relation to the likelihood of a recession in 2024. He includes links to sources and additional readings that are also helpful. I'll try to spoiler judiciously: Many labor economists also are concerned that job openings data, which remain elevated versus pre-pandemic levels, aren’t accurate, and that both the string of downward revisions to the jobs figures (all but one month in 2023) and recent declines in labor force participation indicate a cooler labor market than may first appear. For you data nerds, part of the problem is the “complete disconnect” between the payroll survey (where we get the topline jobs number) and the household survey (unemployment rate and participation). The latter is looking much more pessimistic than the former: What Will Happen to Commercial Real Estate and the Banks Supporting It? Another reason to pause the soft-landing parade is also another big thing I’m watching closely in 2024: the commercial real estate market. As the Wall Street Journal just reported, in fact, almost 20 percent of major metro office space was vacant at the end of 2023—a new record dating back to the late 1970s: Much of this is, as we’ve discussed (and podcasted), driven by remote work, housing costs, and other quality-of-life issues. Yet contrary to what you might think, the hardest hit commercial real estate markets today aren’t in expensive coastal metros like San Francisco, D.C., or New York (which have certainly struggled, too). They’re mainly in the South (“the three major U.S. cities with the country’s highest office-vacancy rates are Houston, Dallas and Austin, Texas”) where the aforementioned post-pandemic issues fuel fires already burning from earlier decades of commercial overbuilding and where they make a big turnaround less likely. As one real estate pro explained, “The bulk of the vacant space are buildings that were built in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s”—and good luck getting that space rented in today’s still-strong remote work environment. Converting these properties to much-needed residential housing could help with this problem (especially since older properties are typically easier to convert), and conversions are popping up around the country. But not all properties can be converted, and the ones that can likely need two big things: 1) buy-in from local regulators and voters (to revise building codes, zoning rules, and other regulations—see this new paper for a glimpse at the regulatory burden commercial properties face); and 2) a big haircut from current owners to make the conversion numbers work without massive government subsidies. Here’s one recent example of types of price cuts that may be needed:
  12. They may not be as ready as we assume either US intelligence believes Chinese missiles are filled with water instead of fuel This is reported by Bloomberg. Because of the huge scale of corruption in the Chinese missile forces and the country's entire defense industry, U.S. officials now believe that Xi Jinping is unlikely to risk staging large-scale military operations in the near future, according to the publication.
  13. If it helps, they're worth about $10k now I kid I kid
  14. Different angle. Update below Non life threatening injury:
  15. Well this was brave
×
×
  • Create New...