'Murica! (249 Viewers)

swag

L'autista
Administrator
Sep 23, 2003
84,749
What a cushy job it must be. Come into work a few times a year, watch people yell at each other, and MAYBE vote on something every now and then.


Of course :p. But China aside, even if it's Russian buying a 6th property to park money in, or a German consortium looking to hedge against risk somewhere else, it's the concept behind it. We're talking about half of your monthly income in the case of renting, and much higher mortgages in the case of buying.
Living in Lisbon, I see the pros and cons of international property investment. (And that includes China, or at least Hong Kong.) Rents go up, property values go up, and locals can't afford the best parts of town anymore. But then again, there are fewer abandoned buildings, fewer alleyways filled with drug users, and the buildings are no longer falling apart. The food options are way more diverse and better, but the pricing is closer to what tourists can pay. And local stores and markets give way to ice cream shops and idiot booths selling cork flags and bottle openers... stupid tourist crap.
 

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AFL_ITALIA

MAGISTERIAL
Jun 17, 2011
31,784
Living in Lisbon, I see the pros and cons of international property investment. (And that includes China, or at least Hong Kong.) Rents go up, property values go up, and locals can't afford the best parts of town anymore. But then again, there are fewer abandoned buildings, fewer alleyways filled with drug users, and the buildings are no longer falling apart. The food options are way more diverse and better, but the pricing is closer to what tourists can pay. And local stores and markets give way to ice cream shops and idiot booths selling cork flags and bottle openers... stupid tourist crap.
:agree: Here too, this city is almost unrecognizable from my youth. A block in a shithole neighborhood where my Grandfather was robbed at gunpoint while doing work for his private sanitation company now houses brunch spots, "trendy" bars, and new condos. Though here people just throw all of this under "gentrification" rather than distinguish the actual causes of these changes, perhaps because it's easier. For as much shit as the maligned "BLM crowd" as they're called here would get for hating it, it's important to try to mitigate the negative aspects of these changes with the positive. In my non-expert opinion I think major American cities can do just fine dealing with just our own speculators and investors, maybe lessen the impact.
 

king Ale

Senior Member
Oct 28, 2004
21,689
You bold my part about Tulsi Gabbard the went on a rant about a shit cop? What are you, 11? The only joke here is you. Nothing beats someone coming to our country and tell us why we are wrong. You don't like my opinion, I don't like yours so why continue discussion if your just popping into a thread from time to time to find the post (posters) you don't agree with?

You call others a piece of shit? You aren't any better than any of us, Hoori. Get off your imaginary pedestal. I went back to your post probably 3 times to see if I missed something. Nope. Nothing about the riots, Floyd, corrupt shit cops. Get over yourself.
1. Only one sentence in my post was addressing you. There's nothing about Tulsi that you like except for her occasional attacks on Hillary.

2. I'm not fleeing anyone or anything. I'm a free person who chooses where to go and where to stay. I'm not telling you why you are wrong. You have elected people that have invaded countries, killed and displaced people to tell them why their way of living is wrong and you are objecting to an individual voicing their opinion on an online forum? I live in this country. Policies impact my life and the life of people I care about. To the extent that I'm given the right and privilege to have a say, I will. Deal with it.

3. Ironic that you find my calling someone a piece of shit so abhorrent but ignore the post of his I quoted. Name one other person who launches personal attacks the way he does, dismissing points by targeting who one is as a person, where they come from, what their accent is. Then look up "ad hominem" and see who has used the term most. He used to be the farthest from this bs.

4. You don't need to walk upon a pedestal to see this.
 

swag

L'autista
Administrator
Sep 23, 2003
84,749
:agree: Here too, this city is almost unrecognizable from my youth. A block in a shithole neighborhood where my Grandfather was robbed at gunpoint while doing work for his private sanitation company now houses brunch spots, "trendy" bars, and new condos. Though here people just throw all of this under "gentrification" rather than distinguish the actual causes of these changes, perhaps because it's easier. For as much shit as the maligned "BLM crowd" as they're called here would get for hating it, it's important to try to mitigate the negative aspects of these changes with the positive. In my non-expert opinion I think major American cities can do just fine dealing with just our own speculators and investors, maybe lessen the impact.
I hear you. Gentrification is a tough one. You gut the neighborhood from the foundations that made it great to begin with and replace it with a soulless group of profit-seeking transients.

But at the same time. who really wants to live next to a firebombed shell of a house? An abandoned building? Drug dealers on the corner?

It's complicated. One of my favorite tropes is how cities on the West Coast like Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles are example failures of Democratic mayors because of homelessness and people taking a dump on the streets. And yet what they don't connect is those are the direct outcomes of neighborhoods where locals have been priced out of growing rents, accelerating home prices, and high-paying jobs. The people with moderate means get chased out, priced out, and move away. The people without means get stuck there and don't make it out with that tide. They end up being the poor who can't afford the rising rents with few job prospects in a changing economy ... if not also with mental disabilities and addictions they can't kick.

So then you get these goobers who are like, "Don't send yer Democrat politics out my way and ruin my city with homeless people!", as if to suggest that rising property values and higher paying jobs are the horrible evils of communism that must be kept away.
 

Bjerknes

"Top Economist"
Mar 16, 2004
115,935
Tell us more of your jokes Cameron.



He tells them about having Covid, a respiratory disease, for like 900 times? He tells them right there that he's got difficulty breathing. And the guy handles him by making sure he can't breathe. Go ahead and mention what percent of whom commit what percent of crime [yawn], that death is unjustified p e r i o d. Racially motivated or not, should not have happened and the person who did it has to be punished accordingly. He may not, we will see, but what people have been protesting (and why the protests have become bigger in size and support) is essentially exactly the lack of accountability. If the unjustified murders (of whites and blacks) by police officers had been punished justly (you know like the way black on black murders or everyone on everyone murder is punished), no one would be in the streets protesting and on one would even get the quite possibly wrong idea that this is a race thing.



The disgusting piece of shit you have turned into.

- - - Updated - - -



Thanks for reminding me why you are beyond repair.
In spite of all the repairs I need, I'm still doing well and think I live a pretty good life, so I'm fortunate (even if most friends and family are pretty liberal ;) ). You on the other hand, lecturing everyone on morality while ending friendships over political disagreements... somethings tells me you're the one with problems, honey.
 

Snobist

DareDevil
Apr 16, 2017
13,287
Hey, man. For all the American boasting about "freeeeedumb!!!", let me tell you what it's financially like being an expat outside of the country. It's not just that the US will tax you anywhere you live in the world, even if you earned no income in the US.

But also because of FACTA, nobody who offers financial services outside of the US can touch me. They literally cannot take my money as a US citizen other than pretty much a zero-interest bank account. Any investments I do have to all go through US accounts.

The US has super tight butthole financial monitoring on Americans all around the world, and they strong arm the rest of the world's financial services orgs to comply with their demands to not touch their citizens. It's like having your finances monitored the way that Russia monitors all the data held on its citizens. We're talking Stasi-level Big Brother.

Free country, my ass. No other country in the world does this.
This will break you. Since im not a us citizen, I can earn money from an american firm example facebook, get paid in an American bank, and not pay any taxes :lol:
 

Snobist

DareDevil
Apr 16, 2017
13,287
Do work for an American firm for example Facebook and get paid in an American bank and not pay any taxes?
FB, Amazon, Google. Actually I have to fill up a w8 form which i state that im not american citizen and i pay taxes in my country but still its unfair that he has to pay taxes back in US. I heard that swiss is making italians who live in swiss to pay taxes for their properties in Italy.
 

ALC

Ohaulick
Oct 28, 2010
46,526
FB, Amazon, Google. Actually I have to fill up a w8 form which i state that im not american citizen and i pay taxes in my country but still its unfair that he has to pay taxes back in US. I heard that swiss is making italians who live in swiss to pay taxes for their properties in Italy.
is Switzerland making them pay or is Italy making them pay? Idk why Switzerland would care
 

Hust

Senior Member
Hustini
May 29, 2005
93,703
In spite of all the repairs I need, I'm still doing well and think I live a pretty good life, so I'm fortunate (even if most friends and family are pretty liberal ;) ). You on the other hand, lecturing everyone on morality while ending friendships over political disagreements... somethings tells me you're the one with problems, honey.
Nailed it.

In any case, if I didn't know better I would have though she wrote this.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/american-passports-are-useless-now/ar-BB17XtvC
 

Ronn

Mes Que Un Club
May 3, 2012
20,865
US proposed a resolution to extend Iran's arms embargo. That seemed like a very reasonable proposal given how shitty the Iranian government is, but this happened: only one member voted with the US.
 

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