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Nice Guy Eddie

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Nice Guy Eddie

  1. Hardly anyone in Houston cares about downtown or improving it. It's not a top goal to make it a local destination. However showing a picture from the 70s or zoomed in current parking spots is disingenuous. Not to mention that I'm not sure what is wrong about having ample parking for 3 professional sports/concert venues and theaters and performing arts. I like being able to park within a few blocks of the ballpark and zoom out of there quickly when it's over. Downtown Houston has even hosted Indy series races. Most of the other Texas cities has to farm out pro sports/concerts to the suburbs or exurbs because they can't make it work remotely close to downtown. As for homeless, yea its a problem here like anywhere. I'm unsure there is a solution when the feds, state and local officials can't agree on a consensus path. And they're effectively being kicked out of downtown so the neighboring areas are feeling the impact.
  2. FWIW, I’ve worn down most of molars and my dentist advises me to be as conservative as possible with crowns. As in only get one when I absolutely need it. I guess it’s possible to wait so long that they can’t put a crown on it but it would seem like that could be identified well in advance. his reasoning about being conservative was that a crown will wear down a natural tooth on the other jaw. Maybe that’s an argument to get them all replaced but I would be cautious. I don’t know about overbilling commercial insurance but it’s not hard to find stories of dentists committing fraud against Medicaid especially in poor communities. Poor parents are less likely to question the dentist or complain to Medicaid. I recall stories where dentists extract all of the baby teeth of a child or crown all of them. And end up settling govt fraud cases down the road.
  3. Many companies will true up the match for employees at the end of the year for those who maxed out early. Once again its always good to read the documents if not reach out to the plan administrator at your company. You miss out on some growth opportunity with the match being delayed but at least you receive it. Bonuses have never counted as much of my overall comp but I’ve never run across my smallish bonuses being hit with a retirement % withdrawal. I could see that being different for those more dependent on bonuses.
  4. So RFK Jr. is basically doing everything that he told the public and senators that he wouldn’t do. In any other administration we would be looking at impeaching the President over this.
  5. The chances are 100% that Trump will look to use federal agents (fbi, ice, us marshals) to deliver the Texas dems back to the Capitol. He will love to trigger the Dems to see their politicians in zip tie handcuffs and perhaps black bags over their heads. even if a court ultimately said that the feds exceeded their power, who cares if that ruling comes down after the fact.
  6. Didn't you hear that if illegals hadn't voted in 2024, Trump would have won Texas 95-5. It's outrageous that Texas has so many democrat congress members. Criminal.
  7. TIL I learned that I'm now ~5 years older than Flaco was when the Texas Tornadoes were formed. dammit.
  8. Abbott is playing games with America's democracy. It's a very bad path that we could go down if Texas, CA, NY, etc start fully rigging the districts to produce a result. Yes this has always happened to some extent but it was kept in check by the courts to stay somewhat reasonable. We could very well see a scenario where these states change their districts but then Trump physically denies the CA/NY Dems from taking their congressional seats in early '27 because he will call them fake congressmen. He will definitely threaten to do so.
  9. or our financial markets will look like Argentina's at some point.
  10. It will be interesting to see if a 24 year old can live up to those expectations. Are there individuals that are that talented to deserve that? They guy requiring $200 million over 4 yrs fell just short of being qualified?
  11. The end goal of one's life shouldn't be the numbers on a spreadsheet or ledger, back of envelope, etc.
  12. There is also a strategy to see your money put to use before you die. I can understand that someone wants to play it safe and keep funds just in case they live to 105 or the more cynical view that they want to control their heirs a bit more, but there's also the good feeling of seeing how your life's work is benefiting others either through inheritance or donations.
  13. Not to get political, because it's next to impossible to achieve that, but what will be the impact now that we will all know that the govt reported financial numbers are cooked? I know a cynical person will reply that they were always cooked but at least they followed the same formula and process, including negative #s. We now know that everyone in govt has to report good news only. Or will this be a new era that govt numbers will start to be ignored and we should count on the private sector only to report on macro economic #s?
  14. RMDs are necessary and I don’t have a ton of sympathy for someone who is pushed to 200-250k in taxable income and higher tax brackets. There was a deal with tax advantaged, retirement accounts that the owner would someday pay taxes on their accounts. Time to pay the piper. Im going to assume an older person, who doesn’t want to take RMDs, already has plenty of money and assets. And they want to avoid a >30% bracket. I get it but start spending the money, or give it away. Or is it their eventual heirs that are ticked off?
  15. Abbott and Patrick would say that counties don’t have a choice. They will tell the people who want to remain an American to leave.
  16. Can’t stand exemptions or other govt regulated amounts that are not tied to the CPI.
  17. Interesting point that while you can primarily plan on the most likely scenarios, you have to think through some of the less likely scenarios. And one person in a marriage dying before the other one is common. it also speaks to strategies about converting funds to Roth earlier, when possible. I recognize that many with large retirement funds also have higher incomes and tax brackets while they’re working. That creates difficulties in converting to Roth.
  18. “Anyone who criticizes this Administration is a liar.” - anyone who voted for Trump.
  19. The Brexit proponents like Boris or Farage still go on that it’s the poor brexit implementation that created problems and not Brexit itself. And I bet many still continue to believe them.
  20. As these small business owners are discovering, it’s almost like you want economic professionals negotiating trade deals to create the fewest negatives impacts while improving the wider economic situation for Americans and Americans importers. Instead we get the opposite with 2am tweets in deciding the tariff percentages. and how would you feel if you bite the bullet and pay that 50% tariff on that $500k grinding machine for that Montana knife company, and then Trump decides to eliminate the tariff AFTER you pay. TACO teaches us to halt purchases but that’s a problem for the Montana guy who expanded his facility and presumably wants to crank up his output.
  21. Used to work with a guy who's Houston-area vehicle constantly alternated between belching white or black smoke. The vehicle not the guy. I asked him how he passed the inspection, and he replied that there were locations that would pass any vehicle for an extra $20. He also complained about the reach of govt in our lives.
  22. I believe Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos infamy is also housed at the Bryan minimum security camp. Lately I've been watching the Tiktoks of a woman who spent 5 years in federal custody for a fraud conviction. She mentioned that when she transferred to a CA minimum security camp from a MN high(er) security, the feds drove her to MN airport and gave her a plane ticket and a $100 and told her she had X hours to report to the CA prison. She basically was on her own for the day in the middle of her sentence. I wouldn't have guessed that was an option.
  23. Our system of drawing up congressional districts is ripe for abuses. Both parties do it. The judicial system has at least tried to limit those abuses by the threat of continued denial if they're not somewhat reasonable at least at the macro level. While the system sucks, I don't see a better one. Yes I would prefer a system where we apportion the seats by a statewide vote. Say Texas goes 56%-42%-2% (2024 Texas presidential results.) That rounds to giving the seats to 21 (GOP), 15 (Dem) and 1 Ind. But who and how do we decide who gets to go to DC, and do they really represent their constituents? On the flip side, nationwide system looks to balance itself. Trump beat Harris on the popular vote 49.8%-48.3. The House is relatively close to these percentages. But if Texas goes crazy to disenfranchise Dems, then Dems need some blue states to follow like CA to disenfranchise republicans.
  24. If Texas moves forward with this plan, and then CA does the same thing in the reverse, there will be screams from the Texas GOP MAGA types about how Newsom is breaking the law.
  25. Sounds like we need to build more coal plants, just as Jesus wanted.
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