Nonsense. US Per Capita Median income is $42K. And for sure if you make $25K you aren't paying 30% in taxes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Exhaustion of the trust fund is NOT the end of SS. There is still enough income to pay some 3/4 of the benefit just from ongoing receipts assuming that there is no change in the current law.

Usually what happens when there are issues like this on the table is the law is changed; on such change is the idea you suggested.

The real issue is Medicare funding. The ACA helps a little with that, but there will be more and fairly drastic changes needed for that.

I use a similar methodology. You might be interested in the web site bogleheads.org which seems to collect asset allocated passive investors.

Slashdot does have problems that way.

Signed -

Just turned 64, already retired.

well sure, but better to just remove the weird bugs in the first place than have some weird workarounds from 20 year old operating systems messing everything up..

IPO shareholder or other shareholder information is the text where it says that the company exists to lobby for benefit of shareholders?

watf? is this again the same shit about how "a stock company has to be doing 100% and use all the dirty tricks to get maximum profit or else they're illegal since stock companies by the law have to try to do that" shit?? a stock company can exist for variety of purposes and goals, "making profit at any cost" is rarely in their stated goals or strategies.

(and since googles famous tagline for this is "do no evil" one could easily argue that if they engage in "evil" lobbying to benefit just their shareholders then they are in fact committing fraud against shareholders. and by the way if schmidt is using googles resources to lobby for exemptions for him then he is actually engaging in fraud... against other stockholders)

Hundreds of billions sounds like a gross overestimate. Most estimates of US proven reserves are around 30B barrels.

US student loans have various humiliating processes you can use to get some deferments, but if you never actually start making money with or without your degree you still have to pay them back eventually and they never go away and if you have outstanding student loans you can't close escrow on a home, or do some other important things.

Luckily Audi has a lot of experience dealing with corrosion, having produced an all-aluminum car in 1994 with the A8. Lots of warnings in all the service documentation about not using the wrong fasteners, about only using tin-plated ring terminals, etc. Unintentional grounding is a problem anyway... but only if you're not intentionally grounded, through a compatible terminal.

I have no love for Healthcare.gov, but honestly just about every site is sending out notices that people may want to change passwords. Heck, Yahoo *made* me change my password.

Like everyone else they don't know if anything was taken. And frankly, Heatbleed is probably the least of the security issues Healthcare.gov has... I'd be way more worried about backbend systems, and then it doesn't matter what your password is.

Well, ok, but then again, in Europe, you don't need a car. Not even to "get away".

I've lived there. Yes, you do. You can get around any U.S. city just as well by public transport, but you can do a LOT more with a car in the U.S. or the EU...

The expense of food in the Netherlands is what prompted me to post...

I was living in Amsterdam for a few months a few years ago and I thought food was damn expensive (raw or otherwise) compared to the U.S. Perhaps in the 90's that was true but I think taxes have gone up substantially since then, also the fuel costs used to transport the food.

So you're confirming his point that starting out in a civilized country

You mean the ones with statues in every square commemorating one of the many wars you guys have constantly had?

Perhaps one of the ones that is constantly rioting because basic services can no longer be provided by the government...

OK then.

You know, not having to pay for college does wonders.

For everything except your education. And your job prospects...

Although costs for school in U.S. now are so out of hand I would warrant you are better off in Europe since you can easily supplement education for very little, whereas the geas a huge student loan places upon you is nearly unrecoverable even after decades.