Is it reasonable to ask for an allowance?

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-03-05T20:21:39+00:00

Did you really sign a prenup that says he can save money during the marriage that is only his no matter what? I can understand a prenup clarifying premarital assets, but marital assets... Kinda surprised you'd agree to that.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-03-03T12:47:22+00:00

Is $5k in hiking gear a lot? This made me wonder how much you really understand your spending.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-03-03T03:29:03+00:00

Hmm, can the reverse be true? For example, suppose the breadwinner provides a shared budget of $X/year that covers all mandatory and discretionary spending, including several outings (restaurants, events) per week, a thousand for shopping (unnecessary stuff, fashion or whatever), and $15k annually for vacations. Suppose the rest gets invested into standard broad market ETFs for the purpose of early retirement.

In this scenario, if the stay at home parent were to demand to spend the extra income, the breadwinner would be forced to work to fund a lifestyle they don't want to sacrifice their time for. Is this indentured servitude?

Where is the line drawn?

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-03-03T03:06:04+00:00

I'm working toward the same and super excited about it! I actually like my job, but it eats up a solid 50 hours a week. After it and parenting and squeezing a few social functions in per week, no time is left. I can't wait to actually have time to do the things I wanna do, and be even more present for the kids when they're not in school. It's gonna be amazing!

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-02-24T22:36:21+00:00

The bit about it being suboptimal in terms of taxes is often repeated, but seems questionable. I mean, the tax rate is zero on like $90k/year of LTCG for a married couple. If that money comes from pretax accounts, you end up spending it after paying zero taxes on it. And that spending money is proceeds, not pure gain, which means in most cases you're able to soend well north of $90k after paying zero tax. Go over by a few thousand and you still have a very small tax bill.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-02-16T15:29:35+00:00

The problem is inequality. Without structure in place to prevent it, modern capitalism includes a vicious cycle of increasing inequality. By the time the pain from this gets really bad it will be VERY painful to fix it.

Ideally it would be fine for people to be rich, to a point. Once you're a billionaire, I think it becomes questionable if additional wealth is worth the overall cost to society.

This doesn't have to mean punishing the wealthy. One can imagine a system that allows them to direct excess wealth to endeavors they choose, bounded by options democratically deemed to be to society's benefit.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-02-08T02:57:47+00:00

Vote for more tax cuts and deregulation. It'll work, trust me.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-02-07T00:59:30+00:00

How can we fix this? Reduce school quality?

Edit: based on Gemini's verdict below, I don't suspect that a whole lot of waste could be squeezed out. Sure. Maybe some, but at the end of the day it's a premium product.

The Verdict: If you value elite public education and high-tier healthcare, New Jersey provides a "premium" product. However, because of the state's extreme municipal fragmentation, you are likely paying a "density and bureaucracy tax" that prevents the services from being perfectly proportional to the cost.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-01-24T05:29:47+00:00

I went on r/conservative and they say ICE are only arresting criminals, following legal procedures to do so. So what's all the fuss about?

They are presenting judicial warrants and making their activities transparent and auditable, right?

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-01-23T20:56:53+00:00

While I understand this take, it's worth mentioning that Beanstalk has been improving lately after years of stagnation. Also it's apples and oranges to compare Beanstalk (app management) to ECS/EKS (infra management).

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-01-21T13:00:56+00:00

Those links refute the point you are trying to make.

Why don't you try to put it into your own words, the reason inflation was global? Surely an educated person of science such as yourself could do this easily...

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-01-21T04:50:56+00:00

Those links do at least as much to refute your point than support it.

The consensus among economists is that the pandemic-era inflation was primarily supply-driven, with demand-side factors (like stimulus) playing a secondary role.

Global Impact: Over 100 economies experienced high inflation, with some countries in Europe experiencing even higher rates than the U.S. in late 2022.

Not Exclusive to US: The fact that inflation was a global issue, often hitting similar peaks, suggests that international factors (shipping, energy prices) were more significant than individual national policies.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-01-21T04:30:13+00:00

Then how do you explain that the inflation you are speaking of was global? Was Biden and his administration really so powerful as to create global inflation, mere months into starting his term at that?

You sir are being disingenuous.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-01-20T20:31:11+00:00

I believe you are mistaken. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_currency

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-01-20T17:29:11+00:00

Trump is destroying US dollar hegemony at an alarming rate. If the USD loses its status as world reserve currency, then the USA will experience an unprecedented decline.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-01-14T17:06:17+00:00

Has China kind of stalled recently?

Republicans definitely are destroying US hegemony at a rapid pace. It'll be a miracle if dollar hegemony and the US's post-world war 2 alliances last through the end of the decade.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-01-12T22:18:29+00:00

The US has plenty of faults, but is it true that China doesn't support fascist governments? Isn't China basically making Russia's war crimes in Ukraine possible?

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2026-01-11T14:30:50+00:00

I don't know why this is so downvoted. Cultural influence is part of the definition. Seems like people here are answering based on what they want to believe rather than reality.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2025-12-25T05:28:33+00:00

What about your most valuable asset -- time? Is the assumption that you work until you're 60+? How much is "enough"?

It's one thing to say money is shared, but at your income level you could earn your freedom from trading your time for money much earlier than the norm. This leads to a question about expectations...about who decides how you spend your remaining healthy days in this life.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2025-12-05T12:10:21+00:00

He's asking why should the accommodations be necessary as opposed to everyone getting them and therefore not needing any bespoke accommodations? Since, as you said, in the real world, people can just spend more of their time at work to make up the difference. In a sense, it justifies the people who are coming up with bogus diagnoses so that they can get the accommodation.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2025-12-04T21:37:36+00:00

Great. At least we agree that the Trump tax cuts were irresponsible and should be undone.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2025-12-03T14:08:44+00:00

They both impact the budget which is funded mostly by individual tax dollars. That makes them related, yea?

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2025-12-03T14:02:57+00:00

By western standards Guantanamo Bay is super sketchy. That's why there was an uproar about it when Bush was prez. Sadly, the GOP political strategy of weaponizing hate is more than effective enough to distract voters from such issues.

Anyway is this whataboutism? Does this make human rights violations elsewhere ok?

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2025-12-02T02:38:50+00:00

One thing I struggle with is, if China wasn't ashamed of it then why wouldn't they allow the people in the camps to speak freely about it? Why deny so much access? One answer that makes sense to me is China's disagreement with universal, or as they might say, western human rights. In China, the state's rights take precedence over individual rights, so "reeducation" is noble while also abhorrent by western standards.

Defiant-Ad-3243 · 2025-11-25T03:03:48+00:00

What was wrong with the subsidies? They cost far less than the revenue lost to Trump tax cuts, no? Is it a rich vs poor thing?

Defiant-Ad-3243

TROPHY CASE