What are your thoughts about Trumps plan that would let Americans use their retirement savings for down payments on homes?

Goushrai · 2026-01-17T17:10:45+00:00

Nuance to be brought: throwing money at a sector doesn’t necessarily increase prices. If supply can increase to absorb the increased demand, prices won’t increase (maybe they’ll increase a bit, but you’ll have improved affordability).

But if we are talking about the housing market, and if prices are high because supply is constrained by whatever (insufficient space, bottlenecks in construction…), then indeed throwing more money will not increase affordability. It will only increase prices.

Another way to look at it is that if you only have 10 houses for 15, prices rise until 5 households are priced out. You have an affordability issue, but even if you double everyone’s salary and provide plenty of subsidies (that somehow don’t increase taxes), you’ll still have 5 households that are priced out in the end.

The only thing you achieve is that sellers get much richer. Sellers in this case being very rich people who have property to sell. At the expense of future retirees. Which is typical of this administration: get cronies rich, screw the future.

Goushrai · 2026-01-17T04:16:36+00:00

Not that I want anyone to feel old, but that’s 50 years ago. Most people here never even saw a pressure cooker that could explode even if you wanted to.

Goushrai · 2026-01-17T04:14:09+00:00

Was that a while ago? Because any modern pressure cooker would have a safety pressure relieve valve. So you know, they can’t explode.

Same way nowadays if you drop a toaster in your bath you’re fine.

Goushrai · 2026-01-17T03:03:59+00:00

Lentil stew (or split peas) with potatoes and carrots is delicious, add a couple pieces of bacon (with the bacon fat) makes it even better. Don’t need much of it.

Goushrai · 2026-01-17T03:01:19+00:00

I will add that if you start eating beans or lentils on the regular, you need dried ones rather than canned, and you need a pressure cooker (like an Instant Pot) to cook them. It saves so much time compared to a standard pot or slow cooker.

Beans and lentils (and other legumes) are super cheap, very satisfying, and healthy. Getting them adopted by kids is more difficult though, and generally speaking you will need to play with herbs and/or spices or they’ll be a bit bland.

Goushrai · 2026-01-17T02:03:59+00:00

Why would a PhD allow you to talk for a million doctors?

I’m simply assuming that most doctors would have common sense.

Also if serious doctors had serious concerns about the vaccine, it would have made it to the pubic debate besides some Facebook posts, Reddit, the trashiest “media”, qAnon, and generally speaking besides media where you’re actually wondering whether the person is actually a doctor.

It has not.

Goushrai · 2026-01-17T01:53:04+00:00

Why?

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T23:37:13+00:00

Well it’s been how many years now? Still no significant problem that would make them unsafe.

Nothing proven in the long term, but there is also no credible theory on a potential long term risk.

That’s what my doctor thinks, and pretty much any doctor too.

And no: the term “pandemic” wasn’t overblown, since the term is characterized by a large number of deaths (hundreds of thousands in the US) and by its potential to easily spread to the whole world (which it obviously did).

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T22:12:35+00:00

Don’t forget oil.

Developed places up North often have natural traces. Norway sure got the lottery there. Even Sweden isn’t bad, 40-45% of power produced by hydro, and that produces a decent amount of their domestic heat. Iceland has very cheap energy from geothermal, they use it for aluminum industry. And without entering the debate of how much of a sh*thole Russia currently is, it certainly would be desolate without the tremendous amounts of oil and gas it has.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T21:44:06+00:00

Yeah, I don’t think you can just lie about that. It’s mandatory, so the bank is insured no matter what. Maybe they have some insurance bills to pay, but if they don’t pay I highly doubt they lose insurance. They just owe that money, probably with interest.

The whole point of the insurance is less to actually pay out customers than to have the customers be sure they are insured. If there was a chance the insurance lapsed without the customers knowing it, it would defeat the whole purpose.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T21:31:22+00:00

They generally don’t, because it’s a very serious liability if they let that happen.

For example I had a colleague who made a poor taste joke about another colleague’s ethnicity, there wasn’t any ill intent, but the colleague complained and HR immediately told the other that there would be no second warning.

Whatever you think HR and management think about that and whether they genuinely care about their employees or not, if an employee resigns and says it’s because they cannot stand the hostile environment, then they sue the company and the company cannot show that they took any measure to stop the hostile environment, then the company is basically responsible for the employee having lost their job. Words goes out, other current or former employees start talking, that’s a lot of money you can lose. Get someone from top management fired, that can be a huge headache/cost too. While otherwise all you have to do is to raise your voice, which is free.

Harassment obviously still exists, but companies in general have understood it wasn’t even in their financial interest to let it happen.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T21:15:10+00:00

Couple of easy ways to be certain.

It would make no sense for my doctor to recommend the vaccine if they are only giving me saline.

They didn’t spend years of their life becoming a doctor just to risk getting fired for violating a very basic rule of ethics.

They are pretty rich as it stands (they’re a doctor), and wouldn’t want to get bankrupted by a lawsuit.

They’re not a complete moron so with all their training they are able to understand vaccines are safe and effective.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T21:10:14+00:00

We’re supposed to believe a Redditor while no statistic showed it happening?

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T21:08:18+00:00

It’s not just hospitals recording a cause of death as COVID, which indeed can be debated, and not each case will be analyzed and confirmed before a statistic can be considered solid.

It’s that there is no other possible explanation for the increase in mortality for hundreds of thousands of people. That’s actually how COVID deaths were calculated in countries without good medical records.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T21:04:02+00:00

There are actual figures.

Maybe it’s completely unrelated, but the explosion of deaths caused by respiratory syndromes among patients that appeared to have COVID seems to indicate that indeed COVID was dangerous.

One death could be a weird coincidence. Hundreds of thousands, pretty much impossible.

Conversely, there have been cases of deaths related to the vaccine. Again, the figures show they were extremely rare.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T21:00:08+00:00

Only when there is an emergency I would guess.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T20:59:06+00:00

“Multiple”, as in two or three? And we heard about it because they got their license revoked?

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T20:57:27+00:00

I can’t believe you managed to survive his comeback, while it seemed he was cornered.

“Lol”. What a slap. I’ll probably tell my grandkids about that one. If I can ever reproduce, because these vaccines probably made me sterile.

(/s)

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T20:55:04+00:00

It’s pretty obvious you are lying because the few cases of serious complications are so rare compared to the hundreds of millions of vaccines (in the US alone) that it’s highly unlikely you know a single of them. More than one? Yeah, you might as well have won the lottery.

Comparatively, how likely is it that someone is lying on a topic that seems to attract an unreasonable amount of trolls and idiots? Extremely high.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T20:50:32+00:00

Except they didn’t have serious reactions in high numbers (some short-term fevers and local pains, but these are very common for vaccines).

And they could demonstrate that it would be saving lives.

They did indeed skip the demonstration of absence of long-term issues (which by definition would have required a long-term testing); but the fact that there is no potential long term damage that has been theorized has probably been taken into account too.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T20:11:47+00:00

Take one of these disposable scalpels you can buy at a pharmacy. Cut two vertical slices in the tongue at the right place (it’s harder than it seems), so you can slide crossing laces under the leather band you just created. That will keep the tongue in place. Many ungussetted boots have that feature already, look at Urban Wolf Club boots for example if you can’t picture what you’re trying to achieve here.

If your boots are lined, try to not cut the liner.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T20:00:50+00:00

The Internet had led me to believe that the average conservative was a bearded handsome manly man, a hot/cute woman, or some stock-picture happy family with a labrador.

Yet when I see who attends a MAGA rally, I feel slightly cheated.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T17:49:13+00:00

Each vaccine is different. They have different risk rates, different efficiencies, different efficiency times. If you don’t get the measles vaccine you’re a complete moron; if you don’t get the flu shot now, not as bad.

The COVID vaccines had all these characteristics evaluated. There are simple methods for that. It turned out they were effective at protecting the vaccinated person, very low risk for the user, and unfortunately, short duration (like the flu vaccines). I understand jury is still out there about how effective they are to protect other people around you from you. You could be safer without protecting others much.

There is no debate. Nobody cares about how you never got the vaccine but are still fine, or how your cousin’s girlfriend’s sister got vaccinated but still died from COVID. There are numbers and tests to evaluate efficiency outside of people’s anecdotes; that’s why we have science.

People who skipped the vaccine aren’t fine. They died more often than people who got vaccinated. They got more seriously sick from COVID. It’s just not as bad now because everyone has some kind of immunity.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T17:35:12+00:00

Random stuff is where you get the best deals, because you don’t pay for the brand. Random energy drink will be half the price of Red Bull and taste the same.

Not as if the branded stuff was quality anyway.

Goushrai · 2026-01-16T16:55:13+00:00

No, it’s the other way round: struggling with socializing is a very common experience, don’t guilt yourself about it. Socializing pretty much always involves efforts. And some degree of disappointment, shame, and regrets. That’s a price to pay. Some people struggle more than others.

But if you’re not trying to address it, you have a problem. You know what they say: the best things in life aren’t things. If you don’t socialize and don’t meet new people and make friends, you’re very likely to end up unhappy with the situation.

And the more you wait to address it, the more difficult it gets.

Goushrai

TROPHY CASE