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I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

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Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#471

Post by 0des »

drewcoo wrote: post #426
Brian_K_White wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Humans are social animals. How do you reconcile that?

This is the second comment I've come across today where I read it and immediately think "what an odd comment", and both times it was from your account. I'm curious, now that I am here and experiencing this, what about your day today has tickled the spidey sense. First was the comment about what we look like wearing thongs, another was about 'medicalizing diversity'.

If you don't mind getting analytical, what about today, in your life, is different about today than other days? Just curious. My day has been the same as others, good sleep, waking up easily, tasks in line for the day, no coffee, so I am willing to assume something about your life patterns today is bringing you under my nose.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#472

Post by Chris2048 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #470
emteycz wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mostly because luck is only one very small component. The years and years of hard work are much more important. Yeah you need to be "lucky" to find a good opportunity - but everyone is lucky in that way, but most people do nothing about their opportunities.

So it's not luck being born in the US instead of North Korea? It's not luck being born without birth defects, being healthy, and still being alive to this day?

Sure, but what % of the world falls into those categories? And do we include every unfertilized egg as another unlucky human?

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#473

Post by jamal-kumar »

mindslight wrote: post #316
jaimehrubiks wrote: post #308

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…

In general, the solution to your problem is to hire an attorney. They're expensive and overkill for most things, but they know how to "talk" to the government. And just as you'd expect from Vogons, it's painful to watch. Otherwise you're effectively left as your own lawyer, having to know tricks of how to communicate/escalate and doing online research to find out. In general if you can get a government agency on the…

Similarly why it's often a great idea to get an accountant to do your taxes, as this is also an interface with the government you can just hire someone to do

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#474

Post by drdeca »

Chris2048 wrote: post #472
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's not luck being born in the US instead of North Korea? It's not luck being born without birth defects, being healthy, and still being alive to this day?

Sure, but what % of the world falls into those categories? And do we include every unfertilized egg as another unlucky human?

Maybe “No, but we do count fertilized eggs which fail to bum plant in the walls or whatever”?

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#475

Post by [deleted] »

skeptikal wrote: post #440
UncleEntity wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, Canadians usually correct me by saying ‘Canada is in America too’ when I tell them I’m ‘Mercian.

I have never heard a Canadian say that, in fact as a (also) Latin American immigrant it was made clear to me that “Canada is not America you retard” in high school. I agree with Latin Americans, for what its worth. USA is “United States of America” not “United States, America”. But its a useless fight. In Spanish Ill be precise.

[deleted]

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#476

Post by [deleted] »

misiti3780 wrote: post #286
todd8 wrote: post #279

Roughly the same thing happened to me on a much much bigger scale. I was making an estimated income tax prepayment (as required by law) on the ridiculous IRS direct pay site. There was no way to undo my error that I could find on the IRS websites. I foolishly thought that when the IRS web page said something like “system problem try again later” meant that I should try again later. I feel like the agencies should jus…

you get that money back in 2-3 weeks though.

[deleted]

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#477

Post by discardedrefuse »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #437
discardedrefuse wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those times never existed for the vast majority of people. Minorities, single women, most men...... None of them had this rose colored past. I don't know about that. My minority, immigrant, non-English speaking grandparents and their siblings (several are still alive and in their 90's) all own their homes and are still collecting pensions from their blue-collar private sector jobs. Some of them worked in factories…

>I don't know about that The majority of people never were in a pension plan, and even now a lot of people in pension plans don't work for that employer a full career, only getting partial payouts. Currently the main source of retirement funds for most retirees is Social Security. So all those supposed people in wonderful pensions from the 1970s and so on either don't exist or make so little from those pensions that…

"By yearend 1960, pension plans covered 23 million persons, about one-half of all private sector workers."

"By yearend 1977, total employer contributions to defined benefit pension plans had risen [...] covering nearly 35 million active employees." [More than half.]

https://www.bls.gov/mlr/1991/12/art3full.pdf

https://www.thebalance.com/the-history-of-the-pension-plan-2...

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USPRIV

Add to that, the public sector workers that were (mostly) all pension and you have more than a majority of workers on pension plan during that time period. No one is wearing rose tinted glasses.

Yes, obviously today, pensions have been removed from (almost) all private sector work places and are rapidly disappearing from the public sector too. Everything has been converted to some kind of investment plan; to pump money into to Wall Street. And we saw how great these investment plans worked out for the poor folks that had planned to retire around 2008.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#478

Post by emteycz »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #470
emteycz wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mostly because luck is only one very small component. The years and years of hard work are much more important. Yeah you need to be "lucky" to find a good opportunity - but everyone is lucky in that way, but most people do nothing about their opportunities.

So it's not luck being born in the US instead of North Korea? It's not luck being born without birth defects, being healthy, and still being alive to this day?

North Korea is one of the very few places that you can't move away from, so I grant you that. All other people who can move freely around the world - yes, it was not luck, it was hard work.

Moving into the US - or being born there - really doesn't make you successful, you'll find yourself grinding daily if you want some success. Actually, you may find it's much harder for you there than elsewhere (where you might find less outrageous success, but with much less hard work).

> It's not luck being born without birth defects, being healthy, and still being alive to this day?

Exactly, that's modern medicine - thank scientists, doctors, engineers and insurance bankers for their hard work. Gods and fate have zero part in it.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#479

Post by justusthane »

busyant wrote: post #429

I did something analogous ?/similar-ish recently. I tried to pay my parents' credit card balance (let's say it was $1000). I went through the process and received an automated email saying, "Thank you for paying $1000 on the credit card." Got a call from my father a few hours later telling me he spent another $300 and could I please pay the extra $300...? So, I signed in again and paid another $300. Only thing is, un…

They will almost certainly refund the $40 if you call and ask nicely. I have a couple times called (various credit card companies) and said, "Look, I've been a cardholder for years, I pay off my full balance every month, I just forgot this time. Can you please refund the $70 interest fee and the $25 late payment fee"?

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#480

Post by Brian_K_White »

adolph wrote: post #383
Brian_K_White wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmm, not certain if I agree with that. It may boil down to defining “care.” 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 o…

It is an ambiguous term on it's own.

I didn't provide enough context to illustrate that my point was about selfishness and avoiding feelings of obligation or guilt?

I am not immune myself even though I levelled the charge. I only get through the day by generous application of denial.

If I can't avoid seeing someone hungry, then plan B is figure out a way to conclude that it is within their own power to feed themselves, and so not my problem.

Failing both of those, then I have to deal with it. I either have to share my food with them or I have to consciously decide I'm ok with keeping mine and ignore their misfortune.

Obviously, intellectually, academically, I know that the world is one big continuous stream of unbelievable tragedy, and I can't actually live even one second for myself if I were to try to treat all of that the same way I do when my own partner suffers so much as a headache. So I don't. I pretend everything is fine by arranging things so that mostly everything I see is fine, and when I see something else I mostly rationalize some sway to ignore it. I drive right by that guy standing at the intersection with the sign, etc.

I just at least try to be self aware that I'm doing that and not confuse a sanity/survival strategy, however justified and necessary, for reality.

I'm saying that a lot of people don't seem to do even that last little part.

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