Maybe tile would have been a better example for where you are at? Looking back hardwood may have a couple different meanings, but not many are doing wall to wall carpet anymore. Even some men are getting into manscaping.

Wow, are you ever showing your age. Many women spend as much time managing the other hair on their body as they do the hair on their head. Have you ever heard the expression do the curtains match the rug? Well if you keep up with trends you would know hardwood is currently in style. Ya, some may have a throw rug here or there, but others like that clean polished look too. It's not the 1970's when wall to wall shag carpet was in style. Maybe some of the women will share these secrets with each other later on in the thread and you will understand better.

When I first seen the word "Empath" it t seemed like a strange term, however after looking at it's root and also comparing other similar terms such as psychopath and sociopath I was able to start connecting the dots and it is all becoming much more clear now.

I assume you are not paying taxes then? Maybe I should try that game? At $150k I'd pay $48k in income tax, after saving that $100k I would not even be able to pay my property tax much less food, utilities, insurance, and basic needs. I would agree that I could live off $20k a year, probably alot less if my house was paid for and I did very little driving. But we must face it that $100k isn't what it used to be. I remember not that long ago when people would say if they had a million dollars they could live off the interest, but with low interest rates combined with inflation I think it would be very hard to do without a very risky investment.

After you have a few it does not matter. All tastes the same when you are drunk and that's the only reason for drinking it in the first place anyway.

This is the men's thread, not the men's locker room. Did you think we were running around naked in here ?(well maybe some are)
You looking for some bad Dad jokes? Or think we are talking about T&A? Well we are getting to that so maybe check back in later. 🤪

I had HO and O scale as a kid but never had the space for a true layout so when I was in my 20s I built an N scale and put it in a coffee table. Had a water feature and a little airplane that flew around, but after a few kids got into I had planned on doing an even better one but gave up on it. I would love to go to Z scale but that gets spendy really fast and I got so many projects going already that I probably don't need another.

It's easy to take someone out of the ghetto.
It's hard to take the ghetto out of someone.

Here is something I came across on "public school review"
A school district where 40% of the students identified as low-income would need to spend $20k-$30k per student in order to achieve average test scores. In contrast a school district where 10% or fewer we're low-income would only need to spend between $5k and $10k per student per year. That is just to bring the majority of students up to the national average level of performance. The cost to bring students up to minimum standards or acheive higher then "proficient" would be much higher or even astronomical.

So my question is what is causing poor kids to be dumber? Is it their surroundings? Diet? Not learning at home? Or the gene pool of stupid and lazy people?

The problem is the money does not go to the children, it goes to the parents of the children. The parents can use the money to buy a new iPhone (and they do) the parent can use the money to buy some crack rocks (and some do) the parent can use the money to buy a new outfit (and they do)

People who can not take care of themselves should not have children. People who can not afford to have children should not have children.

Poverty, poor, middle class all have different meanings for different people. $1000 difference between being in poverty and being poor probably isn't going to make a difference in any one's life.

Poor people (including those in poverty) are more likely to have children, and more likely to have more children. I do understand that children also bring your income status down because now you have many more expenses. I may be able to get by on $20k a year, however with a child or 3 it would be much, much harder to make ends meet. Unfortunately we can not spay and neuter people or force them to use birth control, so instead we punish their stupid mistakes by having them be poor. People who are born poor are very likely to be poor themselves in return they are more likely to have even more kids and the cycle builds while the rich and middle class are having fewer and fewer children.

Between paying for their k-12 education, the child tax credit, and whatever welfare or assistance or time in court or jail the government spends on them can easily be $300k+ by the time they are 18. And then maybe they can get a $15 hour job? That's $30k a year, somebody making $30k pays about $3k a year in taxes, if they work 50 years the government will have recovered roughly half of the $300k they spent on this person as a child in the $150k they collect in taxes. That however does not pay for anything else the government spends money on.

It's not new, but the amount, who can get it, and how it is handed out is new. It is an additional $1600 if you have a child under 6, if you have a child 6-16 you get an additional $1000. It used to be only people making $2500- $75k single or $150k joint qualified for it. Now if you make $0- $200k single or $400k joint you qualify for it. It was $1000 til a few years ago, then it went up to $2000, the new guide lines have only been passed for this year so far but may become permanent soon. They are sending out checks or doing direct deposit on a percentage each month for the rest of the year. But what people get in monthly payments will be subtracted from the total they get when they file their taxes. So some of this is new, but really it is just a change to an already existing policy.

Not everybody thinks $150k is a lot. Sorry I do not do links, but if you look up financialsamurai.com why households need to earn $300,000 a year to live middle class lifestyle. It is entertaining but also shows that different parts of the United States lives different then others and not everything is going to work for everyone.

I posted something similar a week n a half ago in the "Biden accomplishments".

And nobody truly knows what goes on in the government, not even the people who work there! It is a wonder how these people get into the positions they do, what they do when they are there, and how they get away with what they do! How do people like Trump, Hillary, Biden, and others even get put on the ticket in the first place. I mean I know the process and how it works, just tell me they truly can't find anybody else to do the job?

On the other hand I have a '70 Cougar I bought 20 years ago, built 351w 400hp with a street strip C4. Bought some '80s Pantera wide body wheels a while back cuz you need 345s on the back of a car. It still needs paint, suspension and brake work, some electric to figure out. My first car back in high school was also '70 Cougar, I like the sequential turn singles and hidden head lights. The thing is horse power is cheap in modern cars and they are built to handle it. Drove a '98 Mark viii for awhile. 300hp was a lot when they developed that motor in '93, now V6s have that all day long. My MKZ is 300hp all wheel drive and has plenty of power for what I need but still think of up grading it to the 400hp model. Not sure cuz there are so many ugly cars out there and the cool ones are not always practical cuz they are rwd 2 doors that get bad gas mileage, on top of that they no longer make most American cars so might have to go to an Audi or Mercedes or something. Not a big fan of the 2.0 twin turbo 4cyl they are all starting to use either. Seems like too much car for the motor, and too many things to go wrong.

So what kinda shampoo do you use? I use the kind with the conditioner built in, find it saves a step in the shower. 🤣🤣🤣

The problem is where the money comes from and where it goes. It all works its way back into the economy one way or another, and the economy is a very complex system anyway. The Republicans take a trickle down affect, while the Democrats take on a trickle up effect. Sooner or later it will probably end up filtering thru the same hands any way, just a matter of where and when. When the government decides to hand out 3 to 5 trillion dollars in stimulus that is not money that they just have sitting around in their top dresser drawer. Basically they are putting that money on a high interest credit card with no plan on how to pay it back. They are printing new money which devalues the money you have. When you and your employer put money into social security it does not just go into a high interest savings fund, instead it goes to a general fund to spend on whatever they want. If someone has 2 kids and makes $20k a year the government will give them money for housing, food, health care, child care, and when they pay their income tax the government will actually give them more money then they paid in. On the other hand someone making $100k a year with 2 kids will pay about $30k in income tax, $10k for health insurance, property tax, day care, food expenses etc. So in the end how much farther ahead are they then the person making $20k a year? My source was wrong and it used to be $75k/$150k for child tax credits but this year they have upped it to $200k/$400k like bastet said, so it will include many more people and make things just a little more fair for people who have children. For those who don't have children under 17 tough luck, you will have to pick up the slack.

Yes, if people are handed money they most likely will take it. I got some stimulus money but between me and my daughter we did get considerably less because of how her age landed and income, and honestly I did not lose any work or need the stimulus money. What really got me was the fact they gave it to people who were retired, what money did they lose? What really changed in their life? Maybe they could not go out as much or travel which would have actually saved them money. Now they are saying people may need a third vaccination shot and possibly follow up shots after that. The cost per shot varies on how much the government gave the drug companies before the development but it averages $15-$20 per shot partly because of the mass production. This price could increase drastically as time goes by and it does not seem like all that much unless you think about their are 8 billion people in the world! Handing money out and raising the minimum wage is just going to raise the price of everything. This may be good if you own a home and it goes up in value, however any money you have saved for retirement will be worth less because it will cost so much more to live in the future. People who are barely making it by will continue to barely make it by.

Bruce is Buddhist so not sure you are on the same page with Christ and God. We can not just do anything our mind comes up with, there are physical barriers that stop us from doing many things. I can not time travel, I can not leap over tall buildings, I can not create world Peace or equality. Some things are just bigger and more powerful then us. It seems like maybe you should spend more time in the religion section and not the science and philosophy section. If a cat is stuck in a tree you can pray it makes it down safe, you can call the fire department and hope they can get it down, or you can wait and let nature take it's course and hope it gets down with out falling to it's death. The thing about prayer is it is a very selfish act. You have done nothing to help the situation and yet if the outcome is good you take credit for saving the cat. You play the hero for doing nothing. Yes, people are what make up society so doing good, helping, and spreading positive thoughts is a good thing. But action is stronger then words. Religion is a pyramid scheme made up by people over time, it has brought good and bad. We have not gotten to where we are today thru unity and love alone, there has been much conflicts, much wrong and right, yet we will continue to exist. Religion has also enslaved people much like these corporations you talk of. Maybe you should step back and take another look on how you live your life and how you judge others for living their lives.

People making up to $75k single or $150k joint will get the full amount. After that it will be reduced down according to how much you make. The child tax credit used to be $1000 per child under 17 with income restrictions, a few years ago they upped that to $2000 per child, now for this year (has not been approved beyond that yet) children under 6 will get a $3600 tax credit and age 6 to 16 will get $3000 tax credit. Half of this will be handed out in monthly payments unless people opt out and take it in a lump sum with their tax returns. The issue is similar to the tax cuts Trump made where people had less taxes taken out each pay period, when it got to tax return time people where shocked that their tax return went down or that they owed money. They had actually gotten more money but unknowingly spent that money each month. It is a crazy amount of money for the government to be handing out, somebody has to pay for it at some point and time. $2000 works out to about $5 a day, enough to feed a child if done right. It already cost about $150k to send a child to school kindergarten thru 12th grade. Then the parents can also file head of house hold and write off the children as dependents lowering the amount of tax they pay in. So by the time a child is 18 the government may have lost $300,000 plus per child. How long would it take someone to pay that money back in taxes plus all the other things the government spends money on? Most of the time I would guess they would never recover all that money prior to start to pay out the social security for those children who would retire before paying off all the expenses the government shelled out for them. The only thing that has saved us in the past is inflation. What used to cost a $1 is now $4.50 so the amount paid years earlier is not as much relative to today. The sad thing the US has taken on so much debt, and continues to take on more debit. While in the global market the dollar is losing value because the US is buying more from others then they sell to others. People no longer have pride in what they do for a living, or a work ethic, it has become give me, give me, give me. Debit can be a good thing if done right, however the reckless spending by the government will catch up. Many people have trouble making ends meet because of the amount of taxes they pay. Then there are the hidden taxes we pay. When a corporation pays tax it's the customers that actually pay that tax. There are also many hidden sales taxes. The government is just not good with money.

If you have ever watched kitchen nightmares or bar rescue or something similar where they go in and turn a business around you would see that often times people with knowledge, experience, and wisdom get trapped in a box of disfunction that leads to failure of their business and life. While someone looking in from outside the box can often easily see what the problems are and how to fix them.

Sears and Robuck was as powerful as Amazon is today at one time. Now they are bankrupt. Not being willing to change, along with greed, laziness, and selfishness can lead to failure. Having maturity can be a draw back, that is why many of the tech companies are hiring young people. We have gotten to where we are at from taking chances, thinking outside the box, not from playing it safe due to past experience. Yes, this can lead to failure, but it can also lead to successful new ideas.

Many government's get trapped in the same way. We elect new law makers with great ideas but in a short period of time they fall into the same routine of spending money while wasting time working on stupid legislation that just leads to more disfunction. So people who think they have wisdom and experience are often just trapped in their box and don't see what is going on around them. We need people who can think outside the box even if they do not have knowledge of what they are looking at because those are the people who have the ability to come up with some really great things.

Nothing to be sorry about, that is actually 26% fewer people then last year. According to CNN the actual number killed by gun fire over this 4th of July weekend (3 1/2 days) was 233 with another 618 injured. Last year in a same time frame 314 were shot and killed with another 751 injured. The US also has a high incarceration rate compared to most countries. That does not mean people are concerned about walking down the street in most areas. The US only has about 350 million people for a very large area. Homelessness is also becoming a big issue here but it is not always clear why, or if it is just being tracked and reported on more. Not sure that the government handing out money will help this issue, in the long run it will probably actually make it worse.

The 3 officers Shot in Chicago while driving/riding survived the incident. That hardly makes the news when close to 200 died from gun fire over the 4th of July weekend, with over 400 shooting incidents occurring over the holiday weekend across the country. Biden was said to have talked to the Mayor about the incident and the other gun violence taking place in the city. He probably would not have brought up the shooting of police in a speech because it may upset his BLM supporters who are anti police. Shooting across the US have skyrocketed in the last year in a half, and guess where these shootings are happening, and who is doing the shooting? Most often inner-city and by people of color. 2 other officers in Chicago were also shot over the weekend with non life threatening injuries bringing a total of 36 officers being shot in Chicago so far this year. And they wonder why police are sometimes a little trigger happy. My idea of gun control is going to the range for target practice, most of the guns involved are illegally owned so I'm not sure how much new laws and regulations would affect things. Then you have people who are soft on crime being voted into office. People like the DA in Philadelphia who will not prosecute low level drug crimes and fire arm violations so now the police are turning a blind eye to such things.