I would recommend reading Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell if these types of thing concern you. A relevant passage:
"First, I would never provide my home address on any application or W-9 form. This should only be your PO Box, UPS Box, or PMB address. Your employer likely does not care much about where you live, unless the job has residency requirements, such as a police officer. The IRS does not object to the use of a mail box address. They just want their money."
It just adds an extra step that keeps the general public away from your PII. The post office knows who owns that PO box and where that person actually lives. A simple subpoena makes that information available to whatever arm of enforcement needs it.
Yeah, I know. It's disturbing to say the least. The thinking with PO Boxes is just left over from a time when it was possible to use them as an extra layer of protection. It's barely an inconvenience to anyone who wants to get your address, anymore.
I've been using PMBs for about 20 years. If you don't own real estate it can definitely help anonymize your location, even to the government. You rent one home, get a PMB using that location as your home, then move. Use the PMB for everything and never give out your new home address.
If you own real estate it's much harder, especially now that companies have to report their owners and directors.
At the very least PMBs help protect your home address from companies and the public.
PO boxes have stricter address information requirements but there are other services that are more lax and can pass with a utility bill from a previous rental address. Thus, obfuscating the real address.
Does this work in practice? Historically my actual residence is needed for tax reasons, i.e. properly tracking what state I owe income tax in for cash compensation and stock options.
Yeah I don't see how this works. Got a mortgage, you're going to report info that lead them to your financial institution who knows the address and so on. Insurance, any other financial service that did some data checks / credit checks.
I don't buy into the idea that you can magically hide your home address, this info is already out.
Krebs on Security talked about this. He kept getting death threats and swat'd.
You setup corporations who own your shit. The mortgage and house ownership is handled by the corp. You own the corp, and in some cases there is an umbrella corp that owns other corps.
The corporation then rents you your house. Mortgage and related points back to the corpo address, and you use a PO Box for personal stuff.
Ditto for phones, domains, etc. -- run through the company.
It might help obscure your physical address in public records and keep private companies from finding it as easily, but yeah, it's not going to keep the government-wide database from locating you.
You can concoct these make believe hypotheticals, or you can look at countries where this is the reality (South Korea; high elderly poverty), and how there is no "elderly employee accident crisis". Whether it is right, moral, just etc. is the issue. I would just say to not wait until retirement to "live your life".
What does the unemployment statistics say about craftsmen in the age bracket 60-70 ? Or any other line of work ?
Many craftsmen in Denmark are working contracts where they get paid more the faster they finish the job, and nobody wants a 70 year old dragging down their hourly wage just because they can't keep up, so the 70 year old will just have to "keep up", either making mistakes along the way, or wearing out their already worn out bodies some more.
There are options for "early" retirement at 70, provided you've spent 46 years employed. That means you started working at 24 at the very latest, and was not unemployed for longer periods.
Saving up for your own retirement is also hard with low to medium income wages in a country where you pay 40-50% income tax, 25% sales tax and retirement funds are taxed at deposit (meaning capital gains will be lower).
It is interesting that you selected South Korea as your example. There are as rich as Japan, but have much worse social benefits, including national pension. I don't understand why.
I think South Korea is just a horrible example for almost everything in general anyways. There are South Koreans still alive that remember when it was still 90% peasant farmers living a 15th century lifestyle, that basically did a single skip through industrialization, and it is now one of the most technologically advanced countries on Earth. And it is still plainly evident by all the fairly unique major social and cultural problems they face today.
This is at best misleading, but basically disinformation. Here is a better explanation that is also specific to US/CAN trade under USMCA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZvDhayPHxs
The video you posted is itself misleading. For example, the video claims that if the United States were to implement reciprocal tariffs in the same form that Canada places upon the United States that Canada would not pay any tariffs either. Sure, technically if you don't export you won't pay any tariffs. But a reciprocal quota would be devastating for Canadian exports. To avoid equivalent quota tariffs Canada would need to reduce their exports to the U.S. by some 90%. That video completely sidesteps this reality and largely ignores the real effects these supply management quotas have on trade.
I agree, but struggle to find fiction books to read. Most of my reading just consists of a historical period / event that I find interesting and read more about. From that I sometimes come across an "alternate history" type fiction book, but not much else. What do you do for discovery?
Walk into a library or bookstore. Pick up something that looks interesting (LITERALLY judge a book by its cover for this) and start reading right then and there. If the book doesn't capture your interest immediately, maybe skim a little bit, or just move on to the next book. Also, ask trusted friends that know you well for suggestions.
You have to first know what your own particular tastes are, and afterwards, do the harder steps of understanding why you like what you like, and expanding your horizons. Once you get to the point where you both know what you like and start to know why you like it, discovery just solves itself. Eventually, you'll be able to tune into any random discussion about a book or author, and discern from context whether or not the works in question are for you, even if you don't share the opinions of those you're listening to.
I'm currently in a big fantasy phase so what I've done is search for "best fantasy series", "most underrated fantasy series", gone through r/fantasy, and "books similar to X" type of searches.
I've also listened to some YouTube channels who review or go through books they've read. Of course it's important to find someone who have similar taste to you or you'll have a bad time.
On the point of "alternate history" I'll throw out "Matt's fantasy Book Reviews" YouTube channel where he also has some alternate history type books he brings up from time to time.
An interesting barometer of the tensions, is by looking at Canadian grocers website. All that I have seen, have "buy Canadian" and "produced in Canada" plastered onto most products. Even Walmart has a "made in Canada" tab.
I wouldn't read too much into this. I wouldn't read too much into this. A few years ago it was "black businesses", but I doubt anyone was actually basing their purchasing decisions on it. It's just businesses trying to ride the current thing.
I live 20 minutes from the Canadian border. We get the best reception from Vancouver radio stations, so we listen to lots of Canadian radio.
It's not just businesses. Literally half their radio content is about buy Canada, avoid the US, Trump is bad for Canada, etc. This content is produced by every group: political ads, government PSAs, advertisements, the talkshow hosts, people calling in...
My county is very dependent on Canadians driving down to buy American goods and we are getting hit hard. I'm not excited for the local economic effects of this trade war (or anything else about it).
You seem to be talking about a USA social phenomenon that happened in USA?
You are gravely misunderstanding what is currently happening. Now that the depths of American treachery and bloodthirst have been laid bare, the mood in Canada is similar to January 2022 Ukraine.
>You seem to be talking about a USA social phenomenon that happened in USA?
Corporations cashing in on the current thing is hardly something limited to the US.
>You are gravely misunderstanding what is currently happening. Now that the depths of American treachery and bloodthirst have been laid bare, the mood in Canada is similar to January 2022 Ukraine.
Putin spent a long time saber rattling before he invaded Ukraine. I guess they shouldn't have been concerned back then because nothing horrible started happening yet?
No, because the same is true. At least about half of Americans are angry at America too. And if you look specifially at the administration's stance towards Canada, if you believe polling a sizable majority are as angry and baffled as you are.
Most of your produce and groceries are made in America. It just isn’t worth it to ship broccoli from China. In Canada, it’s mostly foodstuff and soft goods also that is being discriminated against for being American, farmers, distillers, food processors, etc… are going to be the most effected.
Could you write your comment better than this? It's pretty obvious you are baiting someone into asking "why?". But your comment by itself adds nothing to the conversation.
Does anybody know how that would work? I know of the 3 ways of measuring GDP in econ basics (All income, All expenditure, All value add). I assume they only use one method and just pull out government? I assume it's expenditure method, but what would it mean for income method. Ignore incomes of gov employees? But then what about contractors. At what point do we start to view the number shifting as untrustworthy like China and Russia.
"First, I would never provide my home address on any application or W-9 form. This should only be your PO Box, UPS Box, or PMB address. Your employer likely does not care much about where you live, unless the job has residency requirements, such as a police officer. The IRS does not object to the use of a mail box address. They just want their money."