If you know you can’t be evicted unless you stop paying rent and the rent is cheap enough, it’s not a bad idea to renovate it a bit. I told my friend he should quietly renovate his rental apartment because he hated the kitchen and all the flooring. He was paying $2k under market price, had rent control, and because it’s a corporate landlord, they can’t evict him unless he misses rent a lot or harasses other tenants.

My friend opted to buy a condo instead, so while his mortgage is more than his rent was, at least he’s earning equity and a rising housing market.

I’d argue that any accused criminal should remain unidentified until proven guilty or if there is an important reason why their name should be released.

My girlfriend is a cat whisperer. When she meows, the random cat comes over to her 90% of the time.

Can you explain why you think his staff’s well-being is in jeopardy or in which ways his employees’ working conditions need to be improved?

They also print the weight and number of pieces on the package, which they had to update. Since the packaging is otherwise identical, shoppers will buy it without reading the weight of number of pieces because it looks exactly like the old package.

Obviously, No Frills wanted to keep the price at $10, so they reduced the amount of fish in the package. That’s shrinkflation. If the goal were to keep customers informed of the change, they would have made more noticeable change to the package.

That’s the first thing I thought when I heard about his death. He should have known that Putin would likely want him dead, so pretending to board a plane that gets shot down is a pretty good way to fake your death. Does he use his fake death to plot revenge or to escape, never to be heard from again?

Your basic needs can only ever be met because other people are doing the labor to make it possible. It’s only fair that you contribute your labor back for other people. Because we can’t barter our arbitrary labor for any other arbitrary labor we might need, we have currency to fill the role of a generic bartering tool.

So no matter how you look at it, you’re working for money.

Landlords must exist because people need to rent housing, and it sure sounds like you’re doing it right. Some landlords (and some tenants) are awful human beings who should not be landlords while others are good people.

A bigger problem is happening in areas with housing shortages. Housing prices have been skyrocketing for 10+ years and home owners have been leveraging themselves with their home equity to buy other homes. On a large scale, that eats up a lot of housing supply, increases prices, and makes it more difficult for people without existing real estate equity to buy a house.

In the city where I live, owning a house is essentially not possible for middle-class people unless their parents give them a down payment. Even my girlfriend and I, who combine for more than triple the average household income in the city, are taking years and years to save for a $300k+ down payment that’s needed to bring the mortgage payment down to $6k/mo.

Landlords didn’t create the housing shortage, but I can see why someone who’s struggling to buy a house while watching landlords buy multiple houses can develop a hatred for them.

Lots of rich people are workaholics with a high tolerance for risk.

To be completely fair, Netflix basically invented the successful tv replacement streaming business model and it’s not their fault that every media ruined it by starting their own. Media companies screwed us, not tech companies.

how do you value the work of others? It used to be done by bartering. Or perhaps people did it because they were good at it, and didn’t mind helping out. People worked together.

You’re romanticizing an era that never existed. Even if we can build such an economy, it’s absurdly impractical in a modern, complex world. Sure, if we only had to build homes, hunt, and make babies that’s fine, but too many modern necessities, such as sanitation, require a reward beyond being good at it or helping out.

An early meme in a more modern format is this one.

I don’t think getting seals out of your home is part of marine biologist training. He might be better-equipped to identify the species of seal and lecture on its mating habits.

I have a recurring service appointment every two weeks where I drop off the car and throw a stack of money at them.

Actually, it’s a reliable car, but the previous owner ignored a few big service items. Now that those are done, it’s cheaper to maintain than you might think.

I hope the Chinese do a better job at it than the Vietnamese have. Vinfast cars are awful.

Communists should take a long, hard look at how well communism has worked elsewhere. Capitalism has many problems, and wealth inequality is one of them, but it’s the economic system that has worked best so far. The fact is that my surgeon should earn a lot more than my gardener.

That’s why I bought an 18-year-old Porsche. I’m a sly one.

People already pay double, and more, for business and first class. They get a much better experience than economy fliers. The problem with flying economy is that it’s a race for the cheapest ticket, so they’ll keep cutting service and comfort as long as people still buy tickets.

If people stopped buying economy tickets because the experience isn’t acceptable, then it would improve.

Japanese style toilet seats

That’s what most people in the USA mean when they say bidet. They’re bidet toilet seats or washlets.

Lots of cars have electronic door releases, and they all have manual handles as well. Tesla’s are not difficult to find or use.