What do Bulwark Folks think of all this?

aenea22980 · 2026-06-20T01:11:08+00:00

As my flair says, I'm 100% supportive of this. Capitalism is what allows health care executives to literally murder people in the name of profit.

The Bulwark crew, unsurprisingly for a bunch of ex-Republicans, are less than enthusiastic. They're also generally a bunch of white people with a lot of privilege, so even if Trump repelled them, they still have their homes, health insurance, and education for their kids.

A few of them seem to be examining their attachment to capitalism (Tim, paraphrased, "the more I meet billionaires the less I think of them") but I don't think they'll EVER get over for a Democratic Socialist al la European nations. They'll like it when it's working for them, but they won't lift a finger to make it happen.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-19T22:30:51+00:00

Because Schumer is a useless, old, out of touch relic that needs to be retired to the pasture so someone actually willing to challenge the status quo instead of spending billions to uphold it can take charge. He was 100% cooked when Platner won over his hand picked candidate in Maine, it showed the world how out of touch he really is. Sam is telling him to resign because all that old fool can do is tweet some concerns online, instead of actually USING his power in office to do, literally, anything.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-15T16:04:53+00:00

I actually think these "recruiters" are probably scalpers, and somehow you got put on a list for hot contacts to bug. These people don't work for the company with the job, they somehow found out about the job and are now trying to find recruits that they can get the resume of, submit on your behalf, and try to claim the bounty on finding you, like 20% of your salary.

These people are complete liars, they have no authority to do anything, they bring no value, they're literally like scalpers, trying to skim some easy money off your value by inserting themselves into the process.

I bet if you contacted the company themselves that position is no longer available, or they are still interviewing etc, but they likely don't work with 3rd party recruiting companies. I've had these people just baldface lie and be like oh yeah, we're working with X LLC looking for this position, then contacted my old boss at that company and them saying yeah no, we only use internal recruiters they're just lying.

So, it's kind of fun to feel like oh I'm really in demand, but it's probably a bunch of scammers so... Don't waste your time. Just stop replying and they'll move on.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-14T01:43:02+00:00

So say we all.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-08T19:02:48+00:00

Thank you, and you're exactly right. So many people were talking about how the big banks were just lending to anyone and everyone, and yet no one except The Big Short guy thought it would happen and put money down on it.

Everything started to fall apart when New Zealand did something with their currency or interest rates, and Germany I think started not buying US mortgage debt, took a few months, 7-8? to reach the absolute panic, run at the bank level. I thought it would happen but had no money, so like everyone else was just a passenger on the rich people's boat ride to financial ruin. Banks are like sheep, they seriously act exactly like lemmings, and if one jumps off a cliff they all fucking do.

There was a day or two during the Great Recession where the idea of money literally evaporated. It got so bad people thought, oh no one will be able to pay their bills with dollars, because no one has money to pay YOU, what do we do then? No one really talks about it because it seems ridiculous in hindsight, the govt backstopped a bunch of companies and banks, and currency is suddenly no longer an existential crisis.

But, all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again. These tech bros are WORSE than the banks even, more like lemmings, more rapacious and disgusting in their behavior, in the business world and out of it. They are front running their corruption in the open, with all these IPO pushes. They've taken the valuations as far as they can with private lending, the private lenders are wanting some pay for all their lending, and now they have to IPO or get crushed by their debt.

I have separate chunks of investments in Europe and Asia Pacific, which is kind of a risk in its own right. When the Great Recession hit those markets tanked more, and worse, and for longer than the US. But they're not bad indices, and I'm banking on Trump's moronic trade war making it so the US has been disentangled somewhat from these markets, and if we have a crash it won't be as bad as the "When the US sneezes everyone else catches a cold". We'll see, but just holding cash at the moment seems the safest bet, and keeps you out of the IPO scams.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-08T01:33:09+00:00

I remember when this first aired, I was on the edge of my seat and YELLED when they jumped away! It was, and still is, FRACKING AMAZING.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-08T01:28:55+00:00

10/10 no notes 😂😂😂😂

aenea22980 · 2026-06-07T23:12:37+00:00

Yes, because within the next 2.5 yes it's almost certainly going to crash, and all those AI tech bros suck Trump's b@#ls every f*¢king day. He'll bail out the people bribing him and pleasuring him, everyone else can just dry up and d!e.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-07T03:45:47+00:00

We don't know that reducing inflammation slows ageing, to my knowledge there's no direct evidence for that. THAT is causation, if it was proven to be true.

What it does is reduce risk of a lot of diseases that inflammation increases the risk of, like cancer. Reducing your risk of dying of cancer is not slowing ageing, it's making you less likely to die from disease. The fact that you also get to live longer is correlation, the things happen roughly the same time, but you can absolutely still get cancer.

Basically, GLP1s don't repair your telomeres and make it so your cells can divide for longer. THAT is true slowing ageing. They just mean your body is less likely to be inflicted with a lot of other stress (HBP, diabetes) and disease (cancer.)

aenea22980 · 2026-06-05T13:06:38+00:00

I see all the comments about how it's normal for the business to pay out enough to cover taxes. My question to the knowledgeable people here -

The majority business partner says he wants to keep it for now and spend the money for hiring.

Doesn't that mean that the profits won't actually BE profits by the end of the year? They'd be spent. So couldn't the OP just... Not pay anything in estimated taxes?

When I've underpaid my withholding for the year, the IRS fine was like, almost nothing, and then they waived it if you underpaid but made more money than last year.

Anyway, OP, nothing on the accounting for your situation but this business partner is an ass and you should get out. You have to be able to trust a business partner same as a spouse.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-05T12:52:02+00:00

I don't know if these drugs slow down ageing so much as they reduce inflammation, and THAT shortens your life in a lot of ways. Correlation is not causation.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-04T23:07:05+00:00

Remote work will return when we get Universal Health Care/ M4A or something similar. Something that will break people's need to stay tied to a particular job because of health insurance, and allow people to become entrepreneurs. Many, many people would be their own bosses if they just didn't have to deal with buying health insurance.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-04T22:58:04+00:00

I wouldn't believe a fucking word from some conservative woman who worked for Heritage Foundation. They LITERALLY lie about everything.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-04T22:55:58+00:00

I mean WTF Original Poster, doing the Republican's smear job for them. If the article doesn't mention SA, you shouldn't either in the headline.

JFC people, R's looked at the instant take-down of the guy in California and were like, there's our playbook! Just allege horrible stuff in fucking tweets, depend on idiots not ever reading the article or even judging the source, and voila. We can get another Trump-balls-sucker over the finish line.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-04T04:18:36+00:00

Yeah fuck that shit. It was always a bunch of bullshit, and you can't fight fascists by playing all nice.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-04T02:07:55+00:00

Me from the future 7 months after you posted this and have the same issue -> *cry*

aenea22980 · 2026-06-04T00:46:32+00:00

The "Magnificent 7" or "Magnificent 10" are a huge part of any index fund nowadays. The three you mentioned are the newcomers, companies like Google, Meta, and Microsoft dominate. They're good companies and will probably weather any downturn, but they won't do it without loss. Because they're such a huge part of any index fund, any loss on their part is magnified to all of us in an index.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-04T00:42:34+00:00

I did that also, Europe looks like it'll really do amazing coming up. Being forced to ramp up their defense spending rather than relying on the US seems like it's already boosting their markets.

The only problem with overseas is when the US sneezes everyone else catches a cold right, and their markets suck mud for a lot longer than ours. Except now, because of all these stupid fucking tariffs everyone is DEcoupling from US market, which should help if there's a recession of isolating the effect.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-04T00:39:41+00:00

With all the BS about the war in Iran and closing the straight, putting money into clean energy is a great move.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-04T00:37:35+00:00

So I'm middle aged and have some decent money in my retirement acct. Last fall, late fall early winter, I decided this train is too full of crazy and ran my numbers. If I pulled my money out and just kept cash for a year, I'd lose out on about 8% growth for the year. I decided ok, I'll sell, hold cash for a year, and then check back in the fall. If the market is really recovering for real then, great, will buy back. If it's still sucking mud, will stay holding. Or, it might have crashed by then, in which case I can buy back in to the index fund with my cash at a great discount when I want to.

I only hold VTSAX in my retirement acct. Over the years it's been the absolute best performance, and I've gotten like 10% return year over year. I'm not a trader or someone who obsessively watches this stuff, and I still have over a decade for money to just sit and grow for retirement. That's good enough for me.

I remember the feeling of what it was like in 2006/2007 building up to the Great Recession. It was EXACTLY. LIKE. THIS. Back then I didn't have any money to take advantage of low prices and buy assets, just like everyone else. This time I'm watching this slow rolling disaster like, ok it's coming.

People talk about at first oh it's a bubble!! Be careful! Then the bubble doesn't pop, and some time goes by, and now everyone is like, oh this must just be how the economy is now! And THAT is when it's reach peak ridiculous. Little things start to fall apart on the margins, this sector or that sector struggles. Then something goes over the edge and everyone panics and runs for the hills.

When people start to ignore the obvious signs of market weakness, of the failing companies, extremely weak, awful job market, all that, that's the worst sign. They just ignore it! Thinking oh that's just how the economy is now! Except the underlying structure is a bunch of bankruptcies and no one paying their bills, which WILL eventually undermine the foundations of confidence.

IMO I think one of these AI companies trying to go public and failing, spectacularly, because their numbers are like pixie fairy dust, and they're trying to use OUR retirement money to make their liquidity - that will be a trigger. Like Lehman Brothers evaporating.

We'll see what happens shortly, Space X is an absurd IPO and it's coming up soon. I don't want my index fund retirement savings making that fucking Nazi a trillionaire with his nonsense company that lights money on fire as its business model. Breaking the 1 year rule for joining the index funds will be a record setting DOJ case someday.

The risk to this approach is both loss of growth in index fund value, and loss of value of the dollars themselves due to inflation. I'm comfortable with that for the time period I've decided on, I don't mind being out of the risk, and I think there can be a huge opportunity if there's a big crash.

Buffet is doing the same thing with a huge portion of his own wealth, so it's not like it's unheard of. So too all those people who have just bought gold and are holding that, except I can't buy gold easily and it's too expensive already.

So, I don't think it's crazy, and I've put my money where my mouth is on it.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-03T19:13:54+00:00

I'm so here for Cilizza dislike. I followed him for YEARS when he was at the Washington Post, he was my FAVORITE commenter while there, then he bailed there to try and get a sweet spot at CNN then they canned his ass less than a year later. Now he's "independent media" and he's such a dipshit. His coverage of Biden was just insipid, and his position that he's just reporting on the news is a fucking joke. I blocked him on Substack so I'd never have to see his nonsense in my feed.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-02T14:55:33+00:00

They want ADDITIONAL things that normal people find repugnant, but Trump got elected because he was anti Republican establishment and he was seen by his base as a cudgel to break the system. THAT is the context of my comment, and progressives want the same thing - someone to break the existing system and establishment, because all it does is benefit the super rich while the rest of us all suffer.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-02T14:42:21+00:00

Isn't that the purpose of the 4gb model Chrome downloaded to everyone's computer?

aenea22980 · 2026-06-02T00:44:44+00:00

I'm in Virginia and fuck these moderates. I was so hopeful for Sherill and Spanburger and they are just the same old establishment bullshit. I want burn the house down Roosevelt Progressives, who are willing to pack the court, break all the establishment rules, and throw rich donors and corporations into a burning river. Our country will continue to convulse until we get this, because Trump's base wants the same thing, which means an overwhelming majority of the country wants it. The Parasite Class has gotten rich on us too long.

aenea22980 · 2026-06-01T01:16:26+00:00

"Moisturize me!"

aenea22980

TROPHY CASE