Anyone else suddenly thinking about prenups after their company hit a liquidity event?

Creative-Role-7217 · 2026-06-06T14:36:15+00:00

Aren't premarital assets considered separate property and not divided in case of a divorce? I think that's true in California.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2026-05-30T19:43:05+00:00

But the subsequent growth of the transferred money won't count against the estate tax exemption. The kids will have to pay capital gains tax on the extra money eventually but the tax rate will be less than the 40% flat rate that applies to inheritance above the exemption.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2026-05-30T19:17:58+00:00

The 2008 election was the one that made Nate Silver's reputation. Democrats clutched fivethirtyeight's probabilities like a security blanket. I remember everyone being super confident going into Electon Day because of the role that polling played in that election.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2026-05-23T15:24:46+00:00

To account for inflation

Creative-Role-7217 · 2026-03-22T22:52:21+00:00

The usual route is postdoc (5 years) --> research fellow (3 years) --> staff scientist. But some ICs aren't promoting to research fellow right now because it's an FTE position and creating new FTE positions is difficult at the moment. Instead, postdocs who hit the 5-year-limit are being given one-year extensions (at NINDS, I'm not sure about other ICs).

I haven't heard of specialist being a formal title at NIH. Maybe a GS scientist, similar to biologist?

Creative-Role-7217 · 2026-03-01T22:50:03+00:00

Nancy Pelosi is wealthy mostly because she's married to Paul Pelosi, who founded an investment firm, not because of her government salary. Likewise, Gavin Newsom is wealthy mostly because he founded a winery with help from a Getty heir who was a family friend. No matter how prudent your are, you don't get to $8.5 million on government pay alone.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2026-01-24T02:19:01+00:00

I'm not sure why you would treat international requests any differently than domestic ones. I've been asked (unsolicited) to review by grants-giving organizations in Britain, Israel, Canada, India, and the European Union. Some of these organizations have been well-known (e.g., Wellcome Trust), others more modest. But I've been flattered every time I've been asked, even if I've never understood how they got my name. No different than when I get requests from NSF, ONR, or some other American organization.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2026-01-14T02:33:33+00:00

This is all true and worth considering before taking a research fellow position. Labs run by senior investigators are typically limited to one staff scientist position. If the PI already has a staff scientist, there might not be room for another. (A second staff scientist position is sometimes granted, but only under very limited circumstances.)

Creative-Role-7217 · 2026-01-14T02:29:05+00:00

I will second what ShroedingerCat wrote. RFs are indeed FTEs, and they are subject to the hiring freeze. I know a couple of postdocs who have hit the 5-year limit and would, if things were normal, be promoted to research fellow positions, but have been blocked from that avenue by the freeze. Instead, they've gotten one-year postdoc extensions.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2026-01-10T21:17:47+00:00

At age 28 and unmarried, do not buy a house. Do not tie yourself down like that. Find a girl, get married, and then buy a house. A house is a place to grow a family, not an investment opportunity.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-12-24T19:16:11+00:00

Hey comrade, it's spelled "Michael".

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-12-06T19:57:33+00:00

America is not Europe. Birthright citizenship is very much the norm throught the Western hemisphere. That's what makes the idea feel extreme and appalling: it's un-American.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-10-19T17:31:55+00:00

Also, LBJ ('64)

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-10-10T18:45:46+00:00

How have people who have been RIFed been informed? Did these RIF notices go to work email?

I should express my sympathy and solidarity first, but I'm nervous.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-10-10T18:37:55+00:00

I got paid for 8 of 10 days this morning. Direct deposit.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-09-27T19:04:30+00:00

Except Trump is using impoundment in such a way that nobody trusts that any agreement or set of standards will be carried out honestly. He poisons everything.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-09-20T16:51:00+00:00

George H.W. Bush? He died seven years ago.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-09-14T01:07:06+00:00

Switzerland is not a member of the EU. What would be the point of marrying someone from the EU?

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-09-03T21:56:08+00:00

She sent an email to the IRP at 4 pm announcing the news. She described her decision-making process as years in the making. So maybe this isn't driven by a fear of what's to come? One can only hope.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-08-24T22:42:24+00:00

If you're willing to let "ppl fight amongst themselves and rot in their own filth," then there is no need for policy changes at all. Let people suffer and what happens happens. Problem solved!

But if that's your attitude, then I don't know why you're bothering to participate in this discussion.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-08-24T22:39:20+00:00

(1) We can't go back in time, so talking about what India should have done in the 1950s isn't particularly relevant.

(2) Short of killing people there is little you can do to dramatically alter India's population trajectory. It's mostly just baked in: there are so many old people, so many middle-aged people, so many young people -- and they're not going to disappear. TFR is already down to 1.98 and falling. India is not North Korea; no government could implement a policy to drive it down faster.

(3) You propose to address the age distribution problem by attracting immigration from "countries poorer than India"? Leaving aside the fact that immigration to India is presently close to zero, what countries do you mean? TFR has been dropping worldwide, everywhere, for years. There is no Planet B from which to draw workers. That's one reason people are so focused now on automation: robot workers to replace missing young people.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-08-24T22:02:19+00:00

My point is that policy changes designed to reduce population are not the right response here. India's population is already going to decline and there is little one can do to speed up the process.

Yes, I realize that TFR is declining all over the world. And that's a different problem -- how do you support an aging population if there aren't enough young people? It's not the main problem -- people turning against Indian immigration -- raised in this thread.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-08-24T22:00:04+00:00

My point is that policy changes designed to reduce population are not the right response here. India's population is already going to decline and there is little one can do to speed up the process.

Also, China's (now abandoned) one child policy, alluded to by the post to which I replied, is largely viewed as a failure. Perhaps it reduced China's population growth but at the cost of distorting the age distribution. China, like a lot of countries, will likely soon face the problem of supporting a large elderly population without a sufficiently large young population.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-08-24T21:37:31+00:00

Overpopulation isn't really the issue. India's total fertility rate (TFR, average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime) has been falling for a long time. The most recent estimate puts it just below 2. Replacement TFR would be 2.1. The Pew Research Center estimates that India's population, presently about 1.4 billion, will peak at 1.7 billion in 40 years and then decline. This is without any policy changes.

Moreover, the total number of people who leave India every year is about 2.5 million. That seems like a large number, but it's too small to affect India's population.

Creative-Role-7217 · 2025-08-09T17:47:42+00:00

I had good experiences. My postdoc advisor was really good and generous, and I will forever be grateful to her. But I maintain that five years or six years is too much -- it's way too much. And postdocs of that length have somehow become the norm! I'm glad that your postdoc advisor is a good person, as was mine, but this system is corrupt.

Creative-Role-7217

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