1796

The guy’s saying he’s gay

1797

I watched that ad twice now. There’s a lot going on there. Interesting production values.

The spokeswoman’s name is Ryan. A traditionally male name that only in recent decades has become gender neutral.

No pronouns necessary. Bob Dole would be pleased.

Of course Ryan is white and blonde, duh. But the white clothing on the white background really emphasises the overall whiteness. But Ryan is wearing ripped jeans, so edgy, a rebel!

Clearly Ryan is the eye candy for the men to join, but you got to throw something at the ladies so at least you get a few actual women on it. Thus we get to Paul. Hey girls! He’s 6 foot tall! Um, but over 2000 miles away? And those are the two base metrics you show? Height and distance? What, no income? And Paul, really, try to smile maybe? Take off the goggles. Are you worried of putting up a picture of your face on the internet because law enforcement is looking for you?

One of the options for the profile on the screen they show is “favorite liberal lie”.

Then Ryan fills in the prompt for “Alexa change the _____” and fills in “president”. Oh, conservative humor you are just so spontaneous and unpredictable.

Of course Ryan has a picture with Trump.

Ryan is wearing a cross at the start, but it disappears midway through!? Clearly Paul made Ryan renounce Jesus. Huh, seems about right really.

I assume the app doesn’t support dark mode.

1798

I thought it was soybeans and pronouns.

1799

Her husband really has the worst excuses.

1800

Ah, OK. To me a 401k fits into the pension category. It’s roughly the same as what’s called a self invested pension plan over here. And other than the self invested bit, the economic effect is similar to a defined contribution pension.

1801

There was another one called “MAGA Mingle” that I think already failed.

1802

So what is the excuse for non - white males, non-white everything else…?

1803

For certain groups who are considered public employees there is a specific set of odd rules. I know it applies to some teachers (depending on state and specific school district) and some railroad workers. I assume it applies to other people. It is not quite as simple as your government pension replaces SS.

These jobs specifically do not pay into SS but instead have a mandated retirement plan that serves as a SS replacement. In my case, a teacher in such a district, I have a state teacher pension plus the SS replacement retirement account. Other teachers in GA might be the same or they might have the TRS pension plus SS. This leads to two complications; windfall elimination and pension offset.

Windfall elimination says that if your system didn’t pay into SS you basically get nothing from them. You don’t get benefits under your name nor can you drawn spousal benefits. There are additional rules based on whether your last school system pays into SS or not at least according to some friends that specifically retired from a SS system so that they could get spousal benefits. While the spousal benefits seem to be a weird twist the idea of windfall elimination isn’t that big a deal as the school district plan was supposed to replace it.

The government pension offset extends that to mean that you can’t get survivorship SS money either even though normally someone who hasn’t paid into SS would qualify for survivorship payments after a spouse has died.

Sorry for being pedantic about this.

1804

No apology necessary! I suspect the windfall elimination makes sense in a lot of cases, but I can easily see lots of cases where it wouldn’t – and the spousal survivorship stuff looks like there are a whole lot of cases where it’s just blatantly unfair. Thanks for the info!

1805

That service sounds awesome and I am glad you are able to take advantage of it and that it is helping. Stay safe and be healthy and happy my friend!

1806

Both my parents have federal pensions — my Dad military, my Mom GSA — and those pensions offset their social security benefits. I would be very surprised to learn that private pensions or state / local government pensions work that way.

1807

Railroad is unique I think, the industry is so old and was so powerful back in the day they negotiated out of SS in favor of their own pension plans.

1808

San Diego city employee pensions worked that way until about a decade ago, when the city eliminated its defined benefit plan. Then there was a decade of wrangling about it until the state had to step in and allow city workers to get social security benefits:

1809

Failing upwards

1810

Details are light on what Flow actually is, or how it would address the housing crisis. Its website is essentially a blank splash page, but Andreessen writes that it will aim to let “renters receive the benefits of owners,” and rethink “the entire value chain, from the way buildings are purchased and owned to the way residents interact with their buildings to the way value is distributed among stakeholders.”

what?

1811

Your house on the blockchain guestures vaguely…and profit!

1812

Several states have teachers or public employee retirement systems that work that way.

Mine does. I had to pay the medicare portion of social security taxes, but not the full regular amount and the agency I worked for did not have to pay ss for me as well.

1813

WeWork, but you can sleep in your cubicle!

1814
1815

You’d think at a minimum part of the process Whole Foods would have for retaining attorneys or employees in general would be to at some point drop “arugula” into the conversation and see how they react.