381–390 of 512 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's no wonder that people vote for less government influence in the US. They just never had a good experience with it so they want to get rid of it as a band-aid solution.
Government Can Do Nothing Right has been the propaganda line of the right-wing of the American business community since the end of WWII. A lot of the business community resented the social democratic reforms of that time (those ’50s white picket fence times) and so they sought to first argue that government was useless, and then later prove it through their government-sucks politicians.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This happens whenever something bad happens to someone else, be it a car accident or a major illness or being the victim of a crime. People want to think it wouldn’t happen to them, so they go through all the reasons they would have been able to avoid the situation so that they don’t have to fear it happening to them. People really don’t want to admit to themselves that there are a lot of things outside our control t…
People don't want to have to care about anyone else. They are so burdened with looking out for themselves they only see caring about anyone else as just another burden that they shouldn't have to bear, instead of seeing it as an avenue of shared and thus relieved burden. So, any excuse to make it so they don't have to care about any other misfortune than their own.
If people did not care, they wouldn’t read and comment, would they? We can observe there is enough attention and salience for this other person’s situation to achieve some level of “care” in other people’s minds. Maybe the caring involved is a more distant and superficial sort? Maybe it is the kind of caring that comes out of avoiding one’s own cares.
I use this thought personally to observe when I care enough to type in a comment, and which of my own cares I am avoiding when I do so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, I'll bite - what should they be investing in if their investment horizon is 12 months? The stock market is in the middle of a correction, and there's no telling when that will end.
> This guy has less than 20 grand to his name and he's investing in I-Bonds? That's the real tragedy. That was the shocking bit for me too, although I suspect (hope?) the author has more money outside that bank account. I wouldn't recommend anyone with only $20k invest it or at least not entirely. Sure they have (probably) the best risk-adjusted return right now but Savings I Bonds aren't a great emergency fund becau…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Instead, custom on-screen keyboards are attempts to thwart keyloggers. Commercial malware doesn't work this way. The term "keylogger" is a misnomer. "Keylogging" without context provides an unintelligible stream of garbage that might have well be from a random number generator. Most malware that I've seen either directly target the browser or the operating system, but in both cases they're looking for an unencrypte…
> Commercial malware doesn't work this way. The term "keylogger" is a misnomer. I don't know about commercial malware, but at least in the 90s (which is when these kinds of on-screen keyboards started to appear), it was not unusual to find on a computer "infected" with malware a text file containing every key that was pressed since the malware was installed. Yes, nowadays malware tends to be much smarter: also captur…
Basically an ordinary HNer saw that article posted here about I-bonds, and like a typical HNer, probably thinks they're a lot smarter than they actually are, so they went and tried to buy a financial product they didn't fully understand, made a mess of it, and now blames the UI.
Another time, I was using a public restroom and it contained a very large red button with a very large sign that read "ATTENTION DO NOT PUSH RED BUTTON UNLESS IT IS AN EMERGENCY"[1]. I did not push the button and my curiosity about remains unsatisfied.
Point is, just because the Federal government ordains that the limit on series I bonds is $10K purchased electronically plus $5K purchased with tax refund per tax ID[2] per calendar year, you shouldn't expect the web site itself to enforce this limit. There's all sorts of ways you can accidentally or intentionally exceed limits, sometimes systems will catch them, but sometimes not.
In prior years, you could even apparently get away with exceeding the limit with no more than a stern warning not to do it again[3].
I'm fairly confident OP misinterpreted the emails they got from Treasury Direct, and that the Treasury will refund the excess amount of the purchase, not full transaction amount. At this point, they own $10K in Series I bonds and will receive a refund for the excess $10K. I'm curious if they'll get the refund as a single transaction for $10K, or as two transactions of $25 and $9975.
[1]: https://imgur.com/jAKRPQt
[2]: You can use "Entity Accounts" to purchase additional bonds. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/help/tdhelp/help_ug_292...
[3]: https://old.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/na13f/exce...
I've been in the US for 4 years and it seems like the government is just like a computer that you cannot talk to or get issues fixed somehow. It's like, if something goes wrong you're fucked. If USPS loses your documents or even your car's title, or your immigration approval notice, you're fucked, you might need to wait 2 months, or 6, or 8, and nobody cares, nobody will help you. There's no one that can help you. At…
The only difference is there are less opportunities for the bourgeois who are willing and able to pay to be on the other side of the velvet ropes
> Recently I learned that the US government offers a little gift called I-bonds, and that this is the month to buy them. Basically an ordinary HNer saw that article posted here about I-bonds, and like a typical HNer, probably thinks they're a lot smarter than they actually are, so they went and tried to buy a financial product they didn't fully understand, made a mess of it, and now blames the UI.
Edit: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds...
Doesn't explain why may is too late.