Whenever i face difficult circumstances or uncomfortable feelings, meditation seems to help.

me_irl

Please respond

The US has arguably been fascist since the 1940s.

Fascism always comes in the flavor of the country it installs itself in, because it always has some tie to “traditional values” and/or origin myths. And note that if your values have been about fair redistribution and equality and social justice for 50+ years or more, that’s almost 2 generations, so also “traditional” and may also be used for the purity tests that become so frequent in fascist societies e.g. “Oh, you didn’t go to the anti-<whatever injustice> protest? You just don’t care about improving as a nation.”. Then comes the very common “with us or against us” trope and of course, the most relevant element of them all, the enemy. Those who are not to be considered human and are stopping the country from reaching its full potential.

Right now for the US right that would be maybe illegal immigrants and maybe whatever ethnic/sexual/gender minorities and vulnerable populations there’s a conservative moral panic about.

For the US left of today that would be white males, the rich, right wing extremists, and maybe people who support the nation of Israel.

Fascism is already in the US. It’s just bipartisan.

Office Politics

If the money eventually hits your domestic bank account, you got an income you -should- be reporting. In the US “Depositing a big amount of cash that is $10,000 or more means your bank or credit union will report it to the federal government.” (source)

Some people might open a Swiss bank account online, sell the crypto on some offshore exchange that does not report to the IRS, such as, oh, I don’t know… and then withdraw to the Swiss account. The Exchange will, however ask you to verify your identity in order to withdraw money, which will leave a paper trail, but since we’re talking offshore exchanges in Asia, it’s unlikely that your transactions there will end up in the hands of the IRS.

Then you send yourself the money from the Swiss account to your US account in sums of less than $10.000

However, if you later buy anything expensive like a pricey car, real estate or a business and your reported income has no way of justifying an expense of this magnitude… you might run into an audit (or worse).

If you plan on moving large amounts of money, it gets a lot more complicated and you’ll probably have to pay some kind of tax at some point, but say you start an LLC in Florida and another company in Switzerland, each with their own bank account in each respective country. You could transfer from your personal Swiss account to your business Swiss account, the Florida LLC could issue a large invoice to the Swiss company for “trustmebro consultancy services” and then the Swiss company could legitimately wire the cash to your Florida account with 0 state sales tax…

But then your LLC would show a profit and you’d have to pay federal income tax as a person over that profit… Unless the Swiss company in issued an invoice to your US company for “Fiat dry cleaning Services” which could be accounted for as a accounts payable vs expense and simply never get paid, thus cancelling the federal tax effect of the profit.

HOWEVER… To do all this suddenly you need an accountant for both companies, you’re committing tax fraud, accounting fraud and could possibly be charged with money laundering. And for what? To save 20% on an already astronomical amount?

Plus the IRS will DEFINITELY audit any company which only has transactions with only 1 company in any tax haven cause that’s like the reddest of red flags in corporate tax “planning” (fraud).

And guess what? If your bank has some kind of anti money laundering algorithm and all those small less-than-$10k-transactions happened to get reported to -not the IRS- the FBI, because possibly funding/getting funded by terrorism… guess who’d be in deep shit?

So i guess what I’m saying is PAY YOUR FUCKING TAXES, ASSHOLE.

Much love. <3

“Growing hurts… but it’s always worth the pain.”

-My sister

I think it’s both horrible and inevitable.

I found this record of their expenditures (filtered by word “consulting” in recipient’s name).

At least 1 million dollars’ worth in the 2024 election cycle, which is 4 years.

• Source.

So that gives us 250k a year. This is only accounting for expenditures in companies with the word “consulting” in their names.

A political consultant wins on average, 100-190k a year. That would give us one to two full time consulting jobs.

However, consulting firms tend to keep their senior consultants always (you can’t pull a good consultant out of thin air), and rely on the hiring or firing of their analysts, usually entry level, to do the extra grunt work that comes with increased activity… So your question about how many consultant-class type jobs it created would likely have an answer of 0 or close to 0. Entry level analysts, on the other hand, would cost 75K a year, giving us a total of 3 or maybe 4 if they’re super cheap.

It would be important not only to take into account the other companies that may be consulting firms, but what other objects of expenditure may have had to hire consulting services due to increases of activity… For example in the top paid companies within the 2024 expenditures we see the Democratic Party of Kentucky receiving $3.5M, some of that may have gone to consulting too.

It would also be wise to assume these full time jobs of analysts are only required for 1 year of the election cycle… which would quadruple our results, suggesting 16.

So if I had to guess?

20 maybe.

I’m very sorry you feel this way. I’ve had my share of dark times and they’re not a great place to be. I understand you must be in deep pain and I truly am sorry. <3

Sorry if this is unwelcome, but maybe don’t be so hard on yourself? In my experience, when dealing with self loathing/hatred, looking at the way I talked to and referred to myself and trying to guide it towards more compassionate and empathic ways was super helpful.

And if you’re still mad at or ashamed of yourself, something that worked for me to process those emotions was asking myself if I would hold the people I actually love and care about to the same standard, if they did/were what I considered unacceptable for myself to do/be… It wasn’t easy and took some time but eventually I learnt to care about myself and treat myself like a human being.

You sound like a sensitive person that cares about the people around you to me, and I think that is very valuable. You may be having a real hard time right now, and these people might have to do a bit of extra emotional work here and there, but if they’re choosing to be nice and to stick around… I would guess that they see something in you that maybe you don’t?

Life’s weird, friend. Sometimes in the depths of the abyss where there is nothing but darkness, you find things that still matter to you, even when gazing deep into the despair… And when you find one of those things, you acquire something that many people consume their entire lives seeking unsuccessfully: meaning.

There is a way out. I promise. And you can get there. I believe in you! And I love you for sharing this and making yourself vulnerable out of care about the people around you. If you could do me one favor, just please try cutting yourself some slack! You’re worth it! <333

If you ever need to talk to someone and would like to do so privately, feel free to drop me a dm whenever.

I’m not the guy to ask. That was taken yesterday.

If you find out, let me know, please. :)

The most serious issue seems to be that it’s in italian.

Ok, hear me out… Minotaur sausages.

1. Somewhat, but nothing remarkable.
2. Recently, yes. Usually, no.
3. Somewhat unique, but nothing wild.

I see the spirit of your position now, and appreciate you taking time in explaining it to me. I hope you’re right, too.

Vietnam and Afghanistan may like to have a word with your first argument. I understand your second point, but i don’t see supporting arguments backing the clear trend of authoritarian governments eroding their military forces by their very nature you are so convinced about.

A bad economy will definitely weaken military strength in the long run,just like the diplomatic and trade sanctions that often are imposed on authoritarian or anti US/West regimes will. However, do you really think if we isolated these effects, the war efforts of an authoritarian government with full control over its population and production is inherently worse off than a functional democracy with broad civil rights? You may argue that this effect isolation is a hypothetical fiction, but then we’d just be talking about economies vs economies… which wasn’t my point.

Look, friend, I’m in no way saying “therefore China wins the arms race”. I’m saying authoritarianism, in the short term, by its nature has the possibility of assigning and coordinating way more resources to war efforts than a democracy. Given 2 identical counties neighboring each other, on any given day, put a totalitarian regime on one, and a democratic government on another… Which do you think has the advantage?

I hope you understand I’m presenting my position and arguments from a place of good faith and respect.

You seem to be under the impression that a stronger army will succeed in invasion of foreign territory by default. Also, are we not going to address how the west has been preparing Ukraine for such invasion for the same period of time? The only reason why Ukraine is NATO is for exactly what’s happening. Buffer warzone between Russia and the west.

I can appreciate your arguments, but I think complete conviction is unwise.

You sure about that? China and Russia hiked their way up to the top 3 in what… 15 years?

Agreed. The economy and well-being of countries definitely suffer from authoritarian regimes in the long term, but…

What about their armies?

Good for you! Horrible habit.