Jubbergun wrote:
Protip: Get the fuck out of the city.
One hour drive each way into or out of Boston (or Cincinnati) covers a distance of about 30 aerial miles, probably much less. In and out is a gallon or two of gas each way. Three gallons of gas is $12. Twenty days a month, that's $240. More if you include the greater need to drive for non-work related reasons and even more if you include the cost of a car.
Cars are a shitty buy period. This is also why I am a firm believer in mass transit as a social equalizer. When a man can go wherever he pleases and has twice as much disposable income, he's in a lot stronger position. When everyone can, you have a truly free, democratic and prosperous nation.
Me personally, yeah, that wouldn't solve my problem, it would only compound it. Being a supercommuter only makes financial sense if you are a Bay Area professional pulling down a six digit figure. Otherwise, urban mass transit is a much better buy.
Jubbergun wrote:
You know, I'm pretty sure he explained that situation at least six times here on these boards, and you still get it wrong. "The Gummint" didn't want to uphold their end of a contract its agents willingly signed (and education benefits as part of a military enlistment contract are not uncommon, and as such do not represent any sort of "outrageous condition") so "The Gummint" let him out of his end of the contract so they wouldn't have to fulfill their obligations. "The Gummint" never paid for his education at all, which was the point of the story. Letting "The Gummint" tell you to bugger off and forget the whole thing is hardly "deserting."
His explanation is bullshit.
First off, enlistment is typically done by a staff sergeant - a non-com. Non-commissioned personnel do not have legal authority to represent the government. That is the difference between being commissioned and not being commissioned. That staff sergeant could sign a piece of paper saying the government owes him a million bucks and it wouldn't mean beans.
Even if it was not a non-com but a commissioned officer who signed off on that garbage, it still wouldn't matter, because it's illegal to make claim on an illegal contract (i.e., racketeering). If the terms of the contract can't be reconciled with outstanding laws and regulations on compensation then the extraordinary elements are void - but the remainder remains in force.
And come on. It's the fucking National Guard. Expecting extraordinary rewards for the easiest government job there is outrageous and contemptible. The government never owed him shit because he did shit.
If a crazy guy walks into the Social Security office, says his welfare check isn't enough and hectors the employee until he says, "fine, we'll send you another, go away", then complains because it doesn't arrive in the mail, what would you say to that? What, one welfare check isn't enough?
Your attitude boils down to all the entitlement of welfare - except because it involves funny costumes and silly walks it is now okay!
Jubbergun wrote:
Even if he is, like too many federal employees (and he wasn't, to the best of my knowledge, a government employee, he worked for a private company), a waste of space and a paycheck, getting your ass out of bed in the morning and heading to a pretend job to do make-work bullshit is still more respectable than being some moocher than sponges off his parents even while bad-mouthing them for being terrible people and not letting him mooch more or in a way more to his liking.
Quote:
There are three kinds of people in this world: Competitors, customers, and employees. Competitors are to be crushed ruthlessly, customers indulged, and employees strictly supervised.
Independent contractors are a myth. They want to be paid better than employees, but treated like customers. Never trust one who calls himself by that title.
Eturnal was...a defense contractor. You want to talk about the absolute worst combination of business and government, that's it. You want to say he has a "make-work" job, fine, so do I, reading books, playing video games, arguing on the internet and doing whatever else I please with my time. Many of which Eturnal did while working at his "job".
Jubbergun wrote:
Someone's mother dying isn't "luck," at least not the good kind.
You're right, it's not luck. It's an inevitability. A major financial gain with that inevitability is certainly quite a bit of luck.
Jubbergun wrote:
I doubt being stuck with an asset that you'd be hard-pressed to liquidate, that you're forced to use-or-lose, and comes with all sorts of memories and emotional ties is as wonderful as you'd like to think.
Um. Yes it is. It's better than nothing. In this case a LOT better. $1000 a month better.
Jubbergun wrote:
You use your family, who you openly disdain, to gain an economic advantage, but think Eternal--who unlike you is at least putting in some of his own effort--is a loser for taking advantage of the opportunities his familial relationships can provide. It's not that you don't appreciate your "luck," it's that you do nothing with it other than exist and spread delusional hate and discontent.
Bullshit. If Eturnal "made effort" he wouldn't be out living it up at gross expense while his house sinks deeper into the debt swamp. He would make sacrifices to correct dangerous problems he has the means to solve but chooses not to.
I'll say it again. I could be back in Boston, with a lot less stress, a lot less personal debt, and I wouldn't be sleeping on the floor because I couldn't bring the cot along. He has family connections resulting in conveyance of dollars, fine, so do I. Mine are less reliable and less profitable, and I'm willing to do what I must to maximize the yield.
