• 2 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • What I expect is that those people will either a) receive a form letter saying that their Medicaid has not been renewed, b) simply not receive new Medicaid card after applying and being silently rejected, or c) have a hospital administrator explain that they owe $10,000 because Medicaid will not cover their charges. Obviously, the hospital is greedy and mean.

    Unless those communications include the explicit phrase “because of Donald Trump’s Medicaid cuts,” few people will draw any connection between the mysterious, bureaucratic determination of Medicaid coverage and their ‘tells is like it is’ hero, bankrupt casino owner, Donald J Trump.










  • It’s been a while since I looked at EVs, but my (US) experience at the time was that Tesla was one of very few companies offering sedan-shaped EVs. The US market was full of crossovers & SUVs (like Rivian), and that form factor seems antagonistic to many of the things that make high performance, long range EVs: terrible aerodynamics, high body weight, poor visibility… They’re big enough to fill will batteries to compensate for the poor efficiency, but that just raises costs.


  • Don’t really have taxes at that income level. In the US, ACA pays full insurancne premium (currently, that will change if the billionaire tax cut passes), and ‘wellness checkups’ are $0 out-of-pocket by law. Most of my dinner recipes are around $2.50/serving at 900 calories. I’m able to walk most places I go, but car insurance is $100/month. Don’t feel like dating, raising kids, or making big vacations. I average something around $7-800/month on ‘entertainment’ like video games & hobby materials, which leaves $300-400 savings. $350/month is 10%, which is around 2x the US average savings rate (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT). Savings for emergencies like insurance deductible and for retirement.

    But that’s my point: my housing probably isn’t everyone’s idea of ‘comfortable,’ my diet is pretty carb-heavy and probably not everyone’s idea of ‘comfortable.’ I like it, though. It feels comfortable to me; I don’t consciously restrict any of my spending - all the numbers I’ve given you are post hoc analysis. I’ve been doing it for a decade.

    I don’t dispute people feeling like they need $150k to live comfortably. Lots of people want kids. Lots of people want to take a nice vacation time-to-time. There’s a massive propaganda machine out there trying to convince everyone that they need just a little more than they have right now to feel good about themselves, and I believe that propaganda starts wearing thin by the time you get to $150k, $200k. They’ve got to live their life; I can only live mine.