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Cake day: January 25th, 2024

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  • At the suggestion of Elon Musk […] I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” -Donald Trump

    [Trump noted] the task force would be responsible for “making recommendations for drastic reforms” to the government.

    The fact that this man doesn’t understand that our entire system of checks and balances is what makes recommendations (and implements) drastic reforms, just shows how much of a fascist he is.

    Adding Musk to his own special “task force” meant to “recommend” changes, which would, in reality, just be another avenue of control, is a clear attempt to centralize power.








  • TLDR; I want to protect against systemic risk factors, as most of my net worth will be in the market, unable to support me during a financial emergency. It could also carry possible tax benefits, and make it easier to sustain mortgage payments on a home.

    I’m mostly trying to ensure that if, for instance, my entire emergency fund is drained from a major medical emergency (or something similar) during that time, I have something I can rely on that is generally more stable to sell during that time, which will overall carry lower tax implications on sale than stocks that have already appreciated significantly more.

    Plus, once I get to the point of being close to owning a home, I want to ensure no major financial event could potentially significantly impact my ability to afford mortgage payments.

    I plan on investing as much of my income as I can to retire as early as possible, which means the majority of my liquid cash net worth will just be in my emergency fund, with a smaller additional amount in savings. I would prefer some level of extended, more stable assets, that will still grow at least a bit over time to meet my financial goals, but won’t be subject to as large drops as the whole market.

    I don’t plan on investing much of my portfolio into real estate if I do decide to go that route, only 5-10% total, more as a hedge than as a primary strategy. Most of my investing is still in comparatively high-growth index funds.




  • To be clear, I wasn’t talking about liquidations, I was talking about actual market performance. Housing is necessary, even during a financial crisis, whereas unnecessary purchases of goods from corporations become secondary. Thus, housing can stay more stable while stocks crash.

    While the market does always go back up, to some degree, I want to be at least slightly more resistant to the possibility of a major failure, (i.e. multiple major tech companies going under from some highly unforseen event) that could lead to entire stocks not existing to go back up again in the future.

    I would also theoretically be investing via publicly-traded REIT funds, which could be liquidated in the same manner as stocks.

    Wouldn’t that then mean that there would be no rental apartments available and everyone would be forced to take a loan and buy a home?

    Not exactly, first off, I mostly mean real estate that is required for survival. Housing, not including the types of places you’d use for a quick vacation stay like hotels, corporate office real estate, etc.

    If there weren’t landlords, there would be a significant decrease in housing prices, due to a few factors, namely banks now offering lower-rate loans (since the higher-paying institutional investors are out of the picture), higher supply availability (instead of investor hoarding of empty rentals for property value over use by humans), and generally larger amounts of capital available to spend on new homes, rather than rent payments going to alternative asset classes in wealthy investor portfolios.

    It also doesn’t mean no rentals would exist at all, but that properties wouldn’t exist solely for the purpose of being rented. (think someone renting a portion of their existing house, or adding an ADU, instead of buying an entire single-family home solely for the purpose of renting it as an investment.)

    Landlording is only a problem because it reduces the supply of housing available for people to own directly, and by the extent of it existing, increases housing values. If existing properties are partially used as rentals by those who have extra space to spare, any of the issues I mentioned functionally don’t exist.






  • I never meant to claim that Google hasn’t been doing any R&D that wasn’t those non-requested features. I was just stating that, for a company independently maintaining the OS, it would cost substantially less than what Google currently spends, since they would likely cut out more bloat, (and anything that’s Google-integration specific about Android development) and instead leave that to third-party developers, Google or otherwise.


  • I think Google would definitely pay to be the default search engine for Chrome, and if Android was also split, then they would probably charge Chrome to be the default installed app.

    Regardless though, I’m sure they’d be able to generate revenue from services akin to Google’s new AI features, where more “advanced” functionality is a subscription, that some users would be willing to pay, subsidizing the development cost for all the non-paying users.


  • Companies already spin off android into their own custom versions to maximize profit. Look at Samsung, for example, with all of their additional bloatware.

    Android is open-source. Closing the source code for android would be so devastating for the platform’s app development, independent security researchers, and manufacturer customization, that it would probably hurt them more to lock it down than to keep it open.

    If an alternative, entirely community-supported fork of Android were to be copied and maintained from the main branch of Android, it could still use every single APK that was available on the Play store, and every alternative app store, with no issues.

    Sure, Android would likely lose some of the Google R&D money, but what has Google used a lot of that money for? AI features nobody asked for, benefits that only come from the use of Google’s entirely separate apps on the system, and system improvements that could be worked on with relatively similar speed by outside alternative ROM teams.

    Plus, Android uses the Linux kernel, which is already supported by outside developers, and often gets security fixes that are pushed to Android without any involvement by Google in the development of the fixes.


  • If the Justice Department pushes ahead with a breakup plan, the most likely units for divestment are the Android operating system and Google’s web browser Chrome

    Hell yes. If Android is divested from Google, that would significantly reduce Google’s attempts to lock down the OS, and would probably make alternative app stores more popular as the Play Store becomes just one of many options for manufacturers that would no longer be required to provide it on all Android devices.

    And as for Chrome, about damn time. A browser with that much marketshare shouldn’t also be owned by the largest search engine and ad network. That’s just a recipe for monopolizing internet standards and access.

    Another option would require Google to divest or license its data to rivals, such as Microsoft’s Bing or DuckDuckGo

    More competition in the search engine space? Sign me up. Google has too much control over the quality of search results simply due to their size.