Unemployment is low, stocks are high, Obama wins

There are several points to be made, so lets start in order...

Thanks to low unemployment, there are more fast food workers on the job 24 hours per day. Last night when I was walking home intoxicated I had the option of getting a late night meal from ANY fast food place I wanted. Back 10 years ago, under Bush, I literally only had 2 choices (taco bell or Carls Jr.).

Second point, Obama paved the way for google and amazon's big day today, and my 401K shot up massively! That never happened under Bush. Now, Obama haters are gonna hate, but things are looking damn good from my penthouse at the moment!

Third point, I have been told that during his last 2 months in office he really wont give any more fucks. He will push back against the republicans who have been constantly in his way, and then we will get REAL universal health coverage, lower tuition, and better social security services all at once. He just has to delay until the final 2 months in order to wait for the election to be done with. My last 2 votes are paying dividends (literally)

Pensions are a negligible source of income for the younger generation

401(k)s have largely displaced traditional defined benefit pensions among private-sector workers, and they will be the a major source of retirement income when the young generation becomes seniors. New data show that in 2014, pension plans are not even offered to persons aged 35 and younger. On the other hand, company matches from 401(k) plans boost retirement savings annually on average. Pension benefits and retirement account distributions are both concentrated among upper income seniors, and currently failing across the board. Therefore far more youngsters rely on contributing a good amount of tax deferred income to a 401(k) as a future source of retirement income.

401(k) and IRA distributions will grow in importance in coming years, and the amounts saved will be enough to replace bygone pensions for future retirees, who will also rely on Social Security, which they have paid into, as part of their incomes.

1%Hillary thinks working 10 hours per week will pay all bills other than tuition

Lets see... 15 years ago the dorm cost $800/month. 10 hours per week x 15$ per hour x 4 weeks = $600/month. Great math Hillary. You are 25% short using 2000 costs and 2015 incomes, and not taking into account food (yes students eat)

I just read about China's new "credit score" system, and this is insane

Everybody is measured by a score between 350 and 950, which is linked to their national identity card. While currently supposedly voluntary, the government has announced that it will be mandatory by 2020.

The system is run by two companies, Alibaba and Tencent, which run all the social networks in China and therefore have access to a vast amount of data about people’s social ties and activities and what they say.

In addition to measuring your ability to pay, as in the United States, the scores serve as a measure of political compliance. Among the things that will hurt a citizen’s score are posting political opinions without prior permission, or posting information that the regime does not like, such as about the Tienanmen Square massacre that the government carried out to hold on to power, or the Shanghai stock market collapse.

It will hurt your score not only if you do these things, but if any of your friends do them. Imagine the social pressure against disobedience or dissent that this will create.

Anybody can check anyone else’s score online. Among other things, this lets people find out which of their friends may be hurting their scores.

Also used to calculate scores is information about hobbies, lifestyle, and shopping. Buying certain goods will improve your score, while others (such as video games) will lower it.

Those with higher scores are rewarded with concrete benefits. Those who reach 700, for example, get easy access to a Singapore travel permit, while those who hit 750 get an even more valued visa.

Sadly, many Chinese appear to be embracing the score as a measure of social worth, with almost 100,000 people bragging about their scores on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.



https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/chinas-nightmarish-citizen-scores-are-warning-americans

There will no longer be any gun violence in San Francisco

The last gun shop is closing its doors. We have finally done it, everyone is safe.

http://news.yahoo.com/san-franciscos-last-gun-store-closing-doors-good-150556274.html

Russia has started bombing ISIS/coordinating with Syrian gov.

We were training about a dozen (a dozen???) anti ISIS fighters... Russia has launched its first airstrikes, and moved long range bombers into southern Russian bases. Another angle: Russia is friendly with Al-Assad and definitely will try to keep him in charge, or at the very least a like-minded replacement.

To me this looks like we just sat on our hands for too long. I do NOT want US ground troops in Syria, but we could have done a LOT more to combat ISIS than train a few dozen locals on how to shoot straight. ISIS has been committing humane atrocities and destroying world heritage sites for way too long. Now, I guess I have to root for Putin to take out the ISIS trash, even if it means he will keep Al-Assad in power.

My rant is over, I'd like to hear others thoughts on this situation...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/30/politics/russia-syria-airstrikes-isis/index.html

About that FIFA2016 XBox game that includes women soccer teams for the first time

I am not a big soccer fan, but my friend/neighbor is (he is Persian), and he was really excited about getting the game for his birthday... he is still single so plenty of time to play games in his 30s.

I go over to his house to hang out and play a little bit, and I brought up the woman's teams thing. So he and his other friends played a match with woman's teams USA vs Germany... the game developers honestly made the women players run about half the speed as the men players. And they kick about half as hard too... kind of made me wonder, wtf? Even if they can't kick as hard as men soccer players in real life, the game play could have just scaled... it led to some standard Persian male chauvinist jokes... fail FIFA

China has fake handbags (stealing trade marks), steals intellectual property (patents), now THIS

They have a fake Obama... geez china make something yourself, stop stealing our stuff

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/meet-chinas-barack-obama-impersonator-2015-09-23-71035833

fury in Crimea as Putin and Berlusconi drink 240-year-old wine