complianceowl

I disagree. I think radical ideologies, fatherless homes (e.g. broken homes, divorce), big pharma and their minions (doctors) who over-prescribe pharmaceuticals to the American population, boys who are given no guidance on how to become a man and interact successfully with the opposite sex -- I think those things are fundamentally responsible for gun violence.

But as I read in a book about systems: it's a lot more comforting to think that the problem is somewhere "out there", rather than confronting the fact that our system is setting up people to fail.

It's a lot easier to point at guns and say, "let's get these off the streets!", rather than confront the more difficult reality of everything I mentioned.

I don't know why I'm even responding to you -- but, the decision to isolate ourselves in pursuit of status, career obsession, and a life full of materialism -- is completely our own doing. And in other Capitalistic societies, like Mexico, the tight-knit, community-oriented culture is still alive and well, as is the case in many other countries that are also capitalistic. Your ideology has blinded you.

> This is a wrong characterization and makes it look like it's the Fed fault all along. Government bonds still have risks (ie: The government not paying) but more importantly, they are tightly linked to the main interest rate. Their prices can fluctuate significantly and do all the time.

The government controls interest rates, therefore the fact remains: it has in-fact been the feds fault all along. When you lower the cost of money (interest rates) so, so low, you send a signal to the market that says, "Hey, everyone -- invest, invest, invest!". That signal makes it look as if a lot of things are a good investment, thereby causing malinvestments all over the economy that eventually go bust.

> Wrong. This is corruption. Janet is picking winners and losers. Some people are losing their deposits and some are not. You are systemic if you had dinner with Janet yesterday.

When the government sets up a borrowing program and immediately shells out 300+ billion to banks, and when they bailout the 16th largest bank in the US to the tune of 100+ billion, Janet is certainly picking winners and losers, but at that scale, I think an argument could be made that fiscal policy is loosening, just like it was loosening when Bush and Obama handed out their bailouts.

Politicians are addicted to cheap money.

Bro -- what a fantastic article. So real, relatable, and informative. I just embarked on learning how to edit, so this was very rich. Thank you!

Thank you for your words! It definitely helped me get a better understanding of where I stand.

That's good to hear. This definitely helped me understand everything a little bit better.

That's great to hear. I appreciate your insight! For me, hearing it from someone like you who's actually in the trenches makes all the difference.

With all due respect, that's a very narrow way of thinking. As I mentioned, I work in Compliance. I already have a degree and career, and simply want to add to that. So, to answer your question, no, not having a degree in engineering would not be worse. It's an option I voluntarily pursued by my own initiative.

Thank you for the insight!

Facebook offered me $1.2M base pay, $500k in options, and $220k in relocation -- for a Sr. Front End Dev position. I sit down. Mark himself walks in, looks me straight in the eye and says, "Honey, Honey". I'm like, "What the--"

That's when I woke up and my wife was telling me, "Honey, Honey, you're going to be late for work."

I think this issue is extremely complex and not something we can just address by saying, "You make more money. You're better off." It's factually correct to say we live in much more materially-abundant times today. In that respect, I think that the easiness of life has caused many to become more mentally weak. I don't think the solution is to go back to scarcer times. I think we need to recognize this and voluntarily introduce challenges into our lives; dare say I, a little bit of adversity.

My second thought is that we have weaker homes today than we did in times past. No, I don't think our ancestors were perfect. I could go on and on about how we've improved so much on many things. But homes were more stable in the past -- and that too is factually correct. I also think this weakens a teenagers support system and overall sense of love and security.

My third thought is that even if someone comes from a good home, great parents, and well-off, today -- we have social media. Anyone can recognize the mental struggle this has catapulted humanity into. That too is factual. And for teens, they probably have it worse than anyone because the need and desire for acceptance is at the absolute strongest during these years. And being excluded or bullied is a harsh reality for many teens; not to mention being in relationships, introducing social media, and combining that with a lack of real education, experience, and emotional maturity.

I don't have the answer, but if teens are offing themselves, something is wrong. And those of us who have already passed through that age should reach out and help.

I see what you did there...

I'm perfectly fine with this. Many times, I don't need the energy later; I need it right now.

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but your line of thinking is very detached from reality. The Dominican Republic doesn't need economic improvements. Sure, every country could always improve their economy. But the quality of life in the DR is good, healthy, stable. Haiti has refused to step up to the plate and improve their country. They don't work their land.

Only Haiti stands to benefit from any "unification". And more importantly, the Dominicans should be the only ones to determine their destiny; not academics who think "improving economic status" is a valid reason for merging one country with another -- without any regard for the preservation of culture, ethnic makeup of the country, history, national identity -- and most importantly: values.

My pleasure, friend. You mentioned you are 23. When I was 19, I told myself: If If I don't have a girlfriend by the time I'm 23, then my life will have passed me by. Now in my early 30s, I just laugh at how detached I was from reality.

I'm about ten years older than you. Being 23 years old is like having a superpower -- in terms of time, physically, the likelihood of having less obligations and responsibility.

You got this! You don't even have to rush. All you have to do is put in a small chunk of work in a consistent fashion, and in maybe two years, you'll be light years ahead of most people; can't even imagine how much you'll accomplish by the time your 30.

Put in the work and always keep purpose, priorities, and quality of life at the forefront. It's not how much you accumulate or even accomplish. It's about the quality of your life.

If you find one--that is coming from someone who actually lives in the Dominican Republic--let me know. I'd be interested in hearing it.

As someone who has a large amount of Dominican family and friends, they would never want that. They are so far apart in terms of their culture, values, standards, and overall way of life. Dominicans want nothing to do with Haiti. Haiti wants nothing to do with setting standards for themselves.

I 100% relate to your question and feeling. I too am in my early 30s, and overcame those same thoughts. Those thoughts plagued me from about 26-years old to about 30-years old.

I remember endlessly googling, "Is 26 too late to start programming?", "Is 27 too late to get rich?", etc., etc. Now, my age doesn't worry me one bit. My perspective has changed dramatically when I truly realized a couple of things:

1. 30s is not old. If you live until you're 65 or 70, that means a career change right now would amount in 30+ years in that field. I felt like my life had passed me by at 28. Now I look at a 28-year old and think, "That dude doesn't know how young he is." So now, I have enough experience to know that right now, I am very young, within the grand scheme of things.

2. My thinking was heavily influenced by social media. All it takes is seeing a kid who is 10-years younger than you making double or triple your salary for you to feel like you're too behind. The reality is most people are not making those types of salaries.

3. Do research on people for whom success came later in life -- there's a bunch of them. And we're only talking about public cases; not cases of late success that never made it into the public eye, which I'm sure there's even more of.

4. I've learned to focus on my quality of life (health, financial security, relationships, learning, growing, pursuing things that I'm into, traveling). My goals are not "getting rich", but rather, getting to a point financially where I don't have to work. That will probably take me 10 - 20 more years, and I'm okay with that. I just don't want to have to work when I'm 65.

5. When we find ourselves in this situation, feeling that life has passed us by, we have to throw time out the window. The problem is, we start thinking of ways we can "remediate" the situation quickly. But progress takes time. So do your best to just stop thinking about doing something quick, and really try and change your thinking to putting in the work daily (even if just a little bit), but being consistent.

I feel like I'm ranting, but I relate a lot to this question, and after really coming to an understanding of my personal situation, I was able to truly free myself by coming to grips with the truth.

This comment was f-in poetic.

This is ridiculous. Hacking by these groups needs to Finnish.

Hypocrites. Leftist one percenters love to live in and impose their misguided, holier-than-though, race-baiting, inflammatory ideological fantasies on society; the socialist, progressive fantasy that they assured everyone would lead to utopia has led to San Fransisco becoming a third-world city.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmOIQv0yu-U

You get it.

I think the Federal Reserve/fiat system is at the heart of a lot of our problems.

So true. Thankfully, I've found refuge in social media companies; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram? Pfffff! Beacons of free speech and truth bro.

The mistake you make is assuming that your supposed 'noble intentions' justify what you are proposing; they do not. Your noble intentions are absolutely hypocritical and fake. If you really cared about the poor, you would voluntarily donate money from your own pocket; you don't need a law for that. Instead, you want to use the legislator to compel the others to the involuntary distribution of their hard-earned money.

A nation can just as easily 'accidentally help someone' to its own demise. What happens when you incentivize idleness on a national scale? What happens tax rates have to keep going up and up to fund the benefits of the idle? What about all the vast social welfare programs we already have in place here in America? What about the worker shortage that unemployment benefits caused just recently during the pandemic? A worker shortage I saw everywhere, first hand. Whatever country you're from, you're doing a bad job representing it.

fsdfsd

I see people the politically-correct term, "human-caused". I am a gentleman; feel free to use "woman-caused climate change".

What is a good place to seek out those shows?

Uhh, no -- although your politics have driven you to salivate at the sight of an unvaccinated person in a deathbead so you can scream, "I told you so!", no -- I will happily go to the hospital if I need to. Why? Because "I'm willing to take the risk" does not mean that accepting death is a requirement (unfortunately for you).

Oh, and getting COVID and needing hospitalization absolutely does not mean that I will be taking away a bed from someone who needs it. You're so desperate to spew your hate that you actually made that strawman assumption; that's laughable. If you were actually honest, you would know that after the shortage of beds and ventilators, hospitals are now much, much better prepared to handle spikes in hospitalizations.

It appears the only ignorance here is yours, buddy.

Thankfully your idea of "perfectly reasonable" is not, and most likely will not, be law. And if it is, I will happily move to a state where it is not.

It is scary what some societies throughout history have defined as "perfectly reasonable".