President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Don't worry, UES is forever > Grigny ... and UES Moms will make sure it stays that way.

 

Beau put out a video on this, which basically consisted of 1. No, the rumor is nonsense, the EBS no longer exists and the phone test will not activate a disease or turn the vaccinated into zombies, and 2. People who have a phone that they need to conceal to keep safe (unspecified, but it felt like it was maybe someone who had been taken in sex trafficing, or was in an abusive relationship) should be certain that the phone was turned off. Off, not muted or volume turned down as those will go off anyway.

 

What does living in the "highest-income areas" mean? A resident of Beverly Hills or a homeless person a half-mile down the road? Each lives in a high-income "area."

 

Kinda timely is this higher education meander, as MommaQuant and I heard a very intriguing tale this weekend while visiting old architect friends of hers. Turns out these other old architect friends (who were very, very loosely connected to our circles) are absolutely up to their eyeballs in debt. They make an OK living ... I'd guess the two of 'em bring in a total of around $200K ... but they live in an expensive PNW city and have not been afraid to nudge their standard of living upwards with debt. (They're in their late 50s/early 60s and recently did a cash-out refi to take their mortgage payment up to damn-near $5K!!!)

Anyway, they have twins who're recently off to college. The son apparently had no great ambitions and has stuck close to home, but the daughter would not be held back. She turned her nose up at two perfectly acceptable in-state/across-town programs (in public health) so as to jet off cross-country to a private school at which the sticker price for tuition only is a cool $65K. Now I know that very few people actually pay full-freight, but still ... even at half-off, when you add in room/board/etc., you're looking at $45K to $50K. For one year. And every fucking cent of it will be borrowed.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/10/12/questions-answers-life-expectancy/

 

You can lease a McLaren for that, with enough left over for gas and 2 meals a month at In-N-Out.

https://www.ogaracoach.com/promotions/mclaren-lease-offers.htm

 

Wait, what? Why?

 

I plugged my info into the Post’s “How much longer will you live?” function and I’ve got 16 more years. That’s largely due to the state in which I live; two years less than the national number. But, if I move to Japan, I’ll live five years longer, so I might think about moving there before my time is up.

 

When I think of that couple, a paraphrase of Wilford Brimley in The Natural comes to mind: "People don't take out mortgages at your age, they pay 'em off!"

 

I was dealt a shit hand genetically, so it really doesn’t matter where I live or what I do or learn.

I’ve been living on borrowed time since my early 40s and am just doing my best to cheat as many years out of it as I can.

*Note: That reads way more nihilistic than I intended.

 

Beverly Hills:

 

Saw something on Reddit the other day where a guy who works from home is pissed because his nutty landlord is cutting power to the whole complex at midday lest the test activate some unspeakable horror on the property.

But I turned my phone off when they did this test the first time in the Trump years so I’m trying not to begrudge people their paranoia today.