GalacticRobot

Yeah, the burnout is real. I keep trying to do everything I can to keep it from being ever present, but I feel without a career change and a massive risk to my financial stability that I am utterly stuck and will just keep getting fried out at the cost of keeping dinner on the table.

Don't know about you, but a $4,500 used Toyota in my neck of the woods would be an early 2000's Toyota with 200k+ miles and in serious need of expensive repairs. And those living paycheck to paycheck wouldn't have a way to put down the cash to buy even that car.

Got to love when people say 24 is young to have a child and it's a choice. Not every state allows abortion, and even with birth control and contraception, children occur.

At least in the US the average new car price is now close to $50k. That's the reason car loans now are going upwards of 7 years. A lot of the car price is more and more expensive safety features being added on cars. Add in, you are quite a lot safer in a modern new car compared to even a 20 year old car.

I used to ride, but even bikes are getting quite more expensive, and it's much dangerous to ride on at least in the US as everyone is driving bigger and bigger vehicles and more distracted as well.

Well, when you think about memes in general like much of the information around social media, rage gets clicks. People aren't sitting reading happy news about firefighters saving kittens everyday, it's unfortunately not how most people's brains are wired.

Can I vote for Cthulhu? Probably would kick Jesus's ass.

Seems overly complicated. Why not just tax based on the assessed value of the land. Undeveloped forest one one acre, basically nothing. 2,500sqft McMansion on 1 acre, worth $1 million. Own more than one home? Tax rate gets a multiplier which exponentially grows. Hell, even at a linear rate, by the time you own 100 homes, you are paying 100% of assessed value per year in taxes.

That's a big thing at least in the US when people talk about occupancy rates for homes, they often are talking about vacation homes, which are seasonal in nature and in general wouldn't be able to be lived in year round to begin with. I like the idea of simple higher taxes on assessed value for each additional home you own, with the highest assessed value home having the highest tax rates.

This doesn't make sense when you consider a lot of land isn't farmable. And if it's fixed per acre, then you aren't really taxing the value of the homes on the land either. The simpler solution is kind of what OP is saying, for each additional home you own there is a multiplier on its property taxes. Say your rate is 1% on your first home, it's now 2% for the second, 3% for the 3rd, ect. Have 100 homes/apartments, you will be paying 100% of it's assessed value in taxes each year. It would be interesting to see how that plays out and someone a lot smarter than me could run the simulations of how to disincentivize corporate land ownership without destroying people's abilities to own homes.

Not sure if you haven't noticed, but go try to by tech right now. Ask Apple how much they are raising prices regardless of where it's being sold at. Tariffs in the US absolutely will and do harm global prices, and you'd be completely out of touch to not think that. But thanks for the 'hurr hurr I am not from the US' excuse.

It already is, especially at the entry level, which is a massive problem. You went to college, have the education but don't have the skills, and an AI bot can do essentially 80% of your work, with little of the cost. Think about all the people already putting websites, marketing, images together that otherwise you would need to pay someone for. No need to pay for them, even if they do a better job, because most of the time you aren't looking for 100% when 80% will do. That's the unfortunate reality that we all live in.