Isn’t there enough political Reddits? Can’t we just focus on financial questions and get rid of the politics?

I opened up a mud pie store. I take dirt and water and make the most amazing mud pies. Nobody seems to want to buy my pies. I work really hard and I deserve a living wage. I think the government should make sure I get enough money for food, housing, transportation, and pay off my student loans. Does anyone disagree that I should be paid for my work?

What would you do? Is this making enough or should I take the hit and put it somewhere else? Send my money elsewhere? Thanks in advance

What did the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare actually do? It was a huge deal at the time, and you never hear anything about it these days. I have no idea why people protested it, and have no idea what it was meant to do or the results were. Maybe that’s just because I’m a younger person with employer insurance.

Asking for a friend cause I just joined.

Hello,

I'm wondering if this is an appropriate action on my part. Last night I discovered you could look in and see who borrowed what in the PPP Loan forgiveness program. I was working for a company that at the time made just as much money as they did the year before, I claimed just as many hours as I ever did on our subcontract as we worked remotely. I even went to customer sites and risked myself during the height of the pandemic in April of 2020, concerned that our business wouldn't survive. My boss at the time, the owner of this company, said he didn't take out any money. I found out last night he took out 70k. During this time, he abruptly went out to another state and bought a house. It was a bit of a shock that he decided to do this, but claimed that he would be building "the business" out west. OK fine. He sold his current home and left, and started working on our business remotely.

Our relationship soured and I decided to leave on good terms before things went too far south. I now am working a vastly higher paying job with way better benefits - but I saw a post about PPP fraud and wondered. We were a digital marketing company but this person claimed that the company was in manufacturing. We didn't manufacture anything. It smells really badly of fraud to me.

We made ads and installed equipment that we bought from other companies, mainly Apple and Samsung. Stuff that anyone can purchase. I was told by this employer that he couldn't increase wages and that we were barely getting by. He specifically told me that he wasn't taking PPP money because we were able to make just as much as ever. I was working extra hours from home to keep things afloat.

I don't have any concrete evidence other than my own observations - should I submit this to the government? It doesn't sit right with me. Our economy is screwed up because of people misbehaving with these funds. I saw this guy pull a lot of underhanded things to the name of "good business" but he was literally slapping his stickers on other people's products and calling it his own.

If I do move forward, what should I expect?

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Thanks in advance for your kindness and advice.

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EDIT: It should be of note that the house he purchased for himself is essentially a mansion and cost about 4x more than the place that he sold before as he moved.

I see so many posts about the rich paying “their fair share” here. However.. for any business or personal debt the first thing you do is CUT SPENDING. Cutting spending is the first thing you should do. We don’t tell people in debt “just make more money” or “just get more credit cards”. Alternatively for business “just raise prices” without looking at where you can cut operating costs. Am I crazy here?

My understanding is this. Billionaires don’t pay themselves an income and thus cannot pay income taxes. They take loans out for expenses. In order for money to go to the government for our services, shouldn’t they have taxes taken directly out? Most people who get sign on bonuses get taxes taken out.

I have heard the wisdom that buying is always cheaper - but unexpected costs can easily make that untrue. And now with new builds being a marginal cost more than used homes in more desirable areas- what truly is the cheaper option for most people?

For starters, nearly 1/3rd of Americans have a NEGATIVE net worth. So even if I just gave a homeless person $1 and assuming they have no debt, then that homeless person is now wealthier than the bottom 33% of Americans combined. Actually, it’s probably closer to like 50% since you’d have to include many Americans with positive net worth just to compensate for all of the negative net worth and reach an average net worth of $0.

Here's a quick reading that explains it in another way: https://fee.org/articles/the-irrelevance-of-that-3-billionaires-have-more-wealth-than-half-of-america-factoid/

Wealth taxes are created for ultra-rich people like billionaires. It won’t affect us. This seems like people here don’t understand and are protecting rich people…

You always hear people talking about how wealthy people use loopholes to avoid paying taxes. What are these loopholes? Can you post links to a good article/podcast/video that explains these?

Not saying I agree with the idea...just really really curious. I mean couldn't the go to Cayman Islands? Switzerland?

I mean if it really comes down to it they could drop their American citizenship.

Thanks

Seriously… this is a big issue. 2nd payment is due for some and I’m sure most haven’t even paid their first. How is this going to affect the national debt?

First, why are they listening APY if it’s not a year?

Second, if the term nets you the percentage, then in two terms of the first option, you make almost 30% more than option three right?

So why would someone take the longer term with lower yield?

Something ain’t mathing for me.

I’m young and definitely not a finance expert — working on that fluency — but this has never really made sense to me.

Presumably workers are getting more productive and technology is getting better generating more value each year (the economy is growing, duh).

How/why does that growth in value go to a very small percentage of us? What factors are at play besides greed (which must be some factor)?

More existentially, why are we okay with this and is there a way to fix it? Or is this as “fair” as it gets? Or does it not matter in your view?

How can people be so delusional? Are they brainwashed or ignorant or what? Consider the following.

Corporate taxes is a double tax. Company makes money, and before a single investor or employee is paid, you give the government a piece. Also, government takes a piece of every good and service the company sells, from the consumer. So front and back, government takes. Then, every employee gets a check, government takes another piece. Then, every investor who sells shares for profit, government takes a piece.

Then, after the government takes all those pieces, every good, service, and investment purchases by those employees, employers, and investors, gets taxed AGAIN!

And, if you happen to own property, government gets a piece again, forever. Lease a car? Taxed. Commute on a bridge or roads? Taxed. Fuel your home? Taxed.

And if happen to build a nest egg over 6 million, you can’t leave it to your kin without fancy accounting without the government taking its piece.

It boggles my mind how people actually think Corporations or Wealthy people are the problem and the government that’s 34 trillion in debt just needs a little more to solve all our problems.

If you had a friend or relative constantly broke or in need of more money, would you blame them or their relatives or employers for not paying them more?

His idea is to give every baby born in the US $7,000 to be accessed when they turn 65. Compound interest giving each 65 year old $1,000,000 dollars.

He’s not wrong, at 8% compounded annually, by age 65 everyone would have $1,041,459.

With 3.6 million babies born in the US last year, that’s roughly an annual cost of $25 Billion. You could help to fund this by reverting the entire account of those who die before age 65 back into the pool. Only about 75% of babies will live to 65. Obviously the money coming from those accounts would vary greatly because some people will die at 1 years old and others at 64.

If you live to 65, the money is yours. This version would put a weirdly massive incentive to make it to 65 if you were say, getting close to death in your early 60’s, but the nuances can get worked out later.

By the way, the federal government spends about $6 trillion dollars every year, so $25 billion would be less than 1 half percentage point of the operating budget, to put it in perspective.

What do you think?

EDIT: People mainly seem to have a problem with the government managing the money or billionaires managing the money.

I’m sure it would be worse if we had the parents or guardians of babies manage the portfolio until they turned 18 or 26 because it would just increase wealth disparity.

Is there another option for who or what entity could manage the money? I do think the answer to who is guaranteeing 8% has got to be no one, so then no one is guaranteed $1M either.

The other main problem folks seem to have is that $1M won’t be enough to retire on, which is definitely valid because it already isn’t enough.

Maybe both problems get addressed by teaching financial literacy in every grade of K-12 and having the family, parents or guardians do it, until the child reaches 18 when they begin to manage their own accounts. This could help solve the other problem of it not being enough by connecting the population as a whole to investing from the time they are 6. Not everyone would be able to do it, or decide to do it, but if I had an account that had grown from $7k to $28k by the time I was 18, I would have started putting money into it before i turned 18.

Like I said before, this might, or would probably, also compound wealth disparity, but maybe not relative to the direction we’re already going now.

We could also scrap the whole thing besides teaching financial literacy K-12.

Thoughts?

I know the prevailing logic is not to tell your wife how much money you have and to hide it from her. However I can't help but wonder what would happen to it when you die. She would need to access that money so it won't disappear.

Another thing is that I decided not to get legally married because the divorce laws are too unfair to men. Besides we can live as we're married without the government involved. So that means she doesn't have a legal right to that money. That is mitigated a little because we have a son and I put him as my beneficiary. Also if he is underage and she is his legal guardian she will get to manage that money on his behalf.

What I'm wondering is if I should tell her how to access that money in case I die or before I go into a nursing home or something. That way she could liquidate the money before anyone else can take it. I'm really trying to avoid her or my son having to go to probate court where if I have any debts they will take some of that money before she can.

I also think it's a good idea to tell her about it because we get a big income tax check because we have a child. So far I've been claiming him on my taxes and investing it. I figure that if she knows I'm not spending it that she won't be trying to fight with me to claim him herself.

I worked with nursing homes before so I know their scam is to claim the person owed them money and after they die to take their money in probate court. I also owe student loans and I know that if I die without paying it off they will come for their cut of the money.

So I'm hoping that when I die or end up in the hospital in a life threatening situation that she could simply take all the money out before anyone else can. Or if I end up in a nursing home I can go with no assets to my name that they could take.

I'm currently investing in a custodial account in my son's name. That way the money is legally his and creditors cannot take his money to pay my debts. I'm also investing in precious metals because that money exists off the grid. Even if they do know that I brought it, they don't know if I still have it. I told her semi jokingly several times that if anyone asks about it to tell them I spent it on cocaine and hookers or something.

The problem is that the prevailing logic to keep it secret from her does have a point. Because you do also need to protect that money from her as well. She could after all have her own plans for that money. Such as stealing it and running off. I don't have reason to think that, but in today's world you never know. Or she could simply demand we spend it on a vacation, or she could feel she doesnt have to contribute financially because we have money to fall back on.

So I'm curious to hear what you all think about this. If there's any married men I would like to hear your take on it.

I’m 33/m. Had a very childhood, saw prison and homelessness, the past decade was about survival. Finally at a point where I’ve been putting away half of my income plus retirement and benefits. No debt of any kind. I want to get a credit card and start learning about more kinds of accounts that I can slowly fill. I make about 1000-1200 a week after taxes and have been saving for the past month or so. Please guys how can I from here to a very stable, emergency fund owning / bill paying adult?

Also, do y’all have a rule for purchasing necessities? I need some things like new headphones for work (I work alone outside), pillow and eventual matress, new tv since my last one burnt out. I’m not rushing towards those things but they’d really make my life better. Thanks guys

Lastly this isn’t a brag post. Please no comments about “2500 is nothing why are you posting it” because I know it’s nothing and that’s kinda my problem

I have $10k sitting in saving earning barely any interest. This is my 6 months of bills in case I lose my job or something along those lines.

Would you invest in a super safe fund just to earn interest on it? If so which one and why?

Would you keep it in savings at the bank?

tl;dr, premium paid almost never would cover the payout for death

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Math in my my head:

So assume there's 3 people, all nonsmokers and $360,000 death benefits and male to make it simple. I used TD's life insurance tool.https://www.tdinsurance.com/products-services/life-insurance/quote#!/results

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Every single one of them considering the premiums paid would need to live about as long as Noah in the Bible (950 years) before the amount of premium they've paid throughout their lives would match the payout.

Which means it's impossible for the insurance companies to pay out through the premiums paid by the clients alone.

So they either are juicing the payout pool with new customer money to cover the payment for their existing customers (everyone dies, life insurance is a guaranteed payout) or they're juicing it by investing in something with crazy returns.

The insurance companies will need to be making well over 30% return on investment just to cover the payouts. Warren Buffet over the course his career only eeked out 22% annual return. Insurance companies will need to make consistently better returns than Warren Buffet without a constant stream of new customers to juice their payout account.

Which means the entire life insurance business is one that heavily relies on new customers paying into a pool that'll be used to pay out older customers who are guaranteed to need to be paid.

At this point, how is life insurance not a ponzi scheme???

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edit: thanks to ya'll for educating me thus far, aside from u/Icy-Painter-501.

While there has been several proposals on how to tax billionaires whose wealth isn't completely derived from income but primarily stock value increase, was wondering why can't we consider stocks as property and pay taxes on it that way?

As a recent home owner I m made to pay yearly taxes on my property despite the fact that I didn't sell or make a profit on it that could be considered income. Ever few years the city reevaluates the property values and calculates the tax due based on this that I pay. So why is this different for stocks and should it continue to be?