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The difference is that the financial risk in pensions is taken by the employer, while in 401ks that burden is on the employee. Guess why a lot of the US has moved to 401k. Spoiler alert: it's not because of the return on investment.

This is exactly why stock market is not very popular around here. 😄 It requires the numbers to always go up, but that's just not how the market works. Too big a risk for my taste.

They Live (1988). I talked myself into watching this again, because I thought I must've missed something the first time when I watched it years ago. My experience now is my experience from back then: I am bewildered. From the very beginning, it's...pointedly serious, awkward, slow, and ham-fisted. There's this constant gratuitous lingering in how shots are filmed, and there's so much camera A to camera B back to camera A, repeat, repeat, repeat until what the film is trying to tell you (and it's not exactly subtle!) has been bashed into your skull. It's as if someone without even a shred of subtlety or respect for their audience directed it...or maybe the director just had a sense of humor that is completely alien to me. I want to like this, because it's John Carpenter and the premise is fun and I even like what the film is trying to say (especially in the context of when this was made, the end of the Reagan era), but...I just do not get it. I can see why people mostly seem to remember the silly pro wrestling fight. That got a snort of derision out of me. Does have a fun score, though. No, I don't think I will: I was barely "fine" with this one as it is. Fairly certain I would like any even passingly similar entries by the same filmmakers significantly less. Oh, it would be even funnier if the tagline was something they themselves made up for the cover. I honestly should've heavily questioned the film right then and there just for including that. Useless subtitles is a real pet peeve of mine as well. Why would you want to distract me from what's going on when it doesn't even aid my understanding of what's being said?

You don't get to determine how much of your wage gets offset for the pension fund, that's regulated via collective agreements and the government. What you can do is fiddle around with the specific funds that your money is placed into, high risk, low risks, specific stocks and things like that. You can save privately for pension aswell, but that is your net wage one is talking about. If it wasn't for the fact that the union is ****blocking me and my coworkers we could get a 1000$ raise (The wage of a yard jockey working in the harbour is about 1000$ higher than what I earn) and the fact that the ****ing government privatized my employer (Leading to not having access to much better pension funds) I could have afforded to spend 15% out of my pocket to save for pension. There is a guaranteed pension that you get based of the tax one which is, today, about 1000$ per month. Which honestly isn't survivable, it definetly won't be survivable considering the sociopolitical and environmental ****storm that is going to hit even way before I'm able to access my pension money. Around the 2050's, this will likely be a true newsreel

I dont get that vibe, but that doesnt mean youre wrong. Imo, besides the lunatic fringe, most US citizens are Republican or Democrat because their parents before them were. Then it becomes a matter of whos party is in power. If its "your" party, they are geniuses. If it isnt "your" party, they are a bunch of bums. Its just like with the sky wizard, monkey see...monkey do.

Different strokes. For me it hits the right notes of nostalgia and parody, like the "boy genius" who is a 37 year old man that lives in a trailer with an albino ex-gameshow host or anything with Dr. Orpheus. I have never seen a single episode of Rick and Morty but AI is consistently terrible at anything so I assume the show is worse. Just get someone to do a completely different voice and have it be a running joke.

'tween 45% and 50% goes to medicare/medicaid and social security. another 16%-18% goes to "income security" programs such as veteran's benefits, food stamps, unemployment and federal retirement. 8ish% is paying interest on loans. ~12% is national defense. the rest goes to national highways, and fda, and thousands o' other programs so varied it is impossible to list 'em all. the federal government is inefficient and anecdotal there are stories o' mind boggling stoopid spending practices. unfortunate it has been shown time and again that when government programs is privatized they do not become more efficient save as rare exceptions and typical the opposite happens. americans is extreme reluctant to raise taxes. even the tax the rich people balk when they are asked if taxes should be raised so that high income persons is paying 50% or more o' their income on taxes. the thing is, in california, ny and other places that is already the case and most americans just ain't aware.80% (and better than 70% o' democrats) don't want an inheritance increase to represent the highest single tax as is the norm in many other nations. only slight less is people who are opposed to any inheritance tax whatsoever. so... bill gates, warren buffet and a host o' other sooper rich also all agree closing the hedge fund loophole is required. kyrsten sinema singlehanded killed the most recent effort to deal with the hedge fund issue. she were green party at one time? americans, general speaking, got a huge disconnect 'bout taxes and entitlements. is another one o' those situations where the easy solutions... aren't. HA! Good Fun!

Education, smeducation. We may be ranked #11 in four year degrees (List of countries by tertiary education attainment - Wikipedia) but that seeming just produces more "educated" failures. We need less sociology degrees and more trade degrees. However were an undisputed #1 in qq-ing and self entitlement. Have you too done almost nothing to better yourself whilst also expecting to purchase your forever home? Were the land of opportunity for you.

Thanks for the reply Boeroer and sorry for the late thank you! First they took away (moved) my summer vacation and now I had to sub in yet again :(. But nwm that it's vacation time baby! Anyways I totally forgot that you can't durganize soulbounds and apparently a lot of other things. The game however has now been completed with all quests (as far as I found them), dragon, bounties etc. done. Yay for me! Iroll20s fighter abilities for paladin does indeed break the pally totally. Not much fun when you can't die but do damage slow as a... well really slow thing. Until lvl 13 anyway. Still with vanilla pally+Pallygina+Sagani it became pretty much nonstop curbstomp so I actually dropped Sagani and still rolled through the endgame content with ludicrous ease. And that was with suboptimal gear chosen more for looks (ie. st.Yddies and so on.) Kinda makes me want to roll a singlewielding wizard with sword in one hand and grimoire in the other. Or a male aumaua wearing He carries many scars and Maegfolc skull and wielding Abydon's hammer. Reminds me of a wh40k spessmarine chaplain. Regardless, thanks again and I'll be bothering ya all for Pillars II sometime later (if I have the time

See! Thats why we need UBI, UHC, UFE and UFH! The fatcats, and VAT, will pay for it all and we will enter an era of unmatched prosperity. I really like what CA did with their capital gains taxes from the sale of a house, its a good start.

I don't know. Reviews can't be trusted, as too many groups of disgruntled gamers use them to "fight the man". Pharaoh would get bad reviews just because people took offense the company may stop making Warhammer dlc if they see people aren't buying Warhammer dlc.

Here's something interesting written by Susan Neiman in Left Is Not Woke: ”Few Americans can really imagine any (other conditions). That’s because they are missing what other wealthy countries call rights: health care that pays for the drugs needed to treat diseases, sick leave that covers the duration of an illness, paid vacations and parental leave, higher education and childcare. Americans call those things benefits, granted or denied at the will of their employer – a very different concept from the concept of rights. The absence of social rights affects poorest people most: those who produce and prepare our food, deliver our packages, care for our children and elders. But even two working parents in a moderately well-off family will see their salaries eaten by the costs of education and health care, their time consumed by chauffeuring children in places without public transportation.” What this reminded me of is that every once in a while I see an American citizen lamenting their sense of hopelessness and helplessness in relation to the policies that his/her country follows. I don't know how common this experience is, of course. But every time I see it, it makes me think that the experience is probably very close to that experienced by citizens of countries like Russia.

@Zoraptor: I have a memory (on my spending some time in NZ 10+ years ago) that NZ once lost an important game to Australia, upon which there was a newspaper headline along the lines of "It's Official Now: We Suck at the Only Thing We're Good At". It's such a brilliant line that I dearly wish it was true. I can't for the life of me remember where I got this from and whether it actually refers to something that happened. I wonder if this rings any bells for you; I don't expect it to, but it would be great if it did.

The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979). Got fifteen minutes into it and was like "man, this German film sure is...German", and then turned it off. I'm sure it's O.K., but...nah, wasn't feeling it. So instead of a German film, why not go Austrian? Ich Seh, Ich Seh AKA Goodnight Mommy (2014). It starts off as a very obvious "our parent is an imposter!" kind of psychological horror film, but it's really just a cover for being a different and only mildly less obvious kind of psychological horror film. I think I liked it a little more than Martyrs, which I feel is a rather similar kind of film, if stylistically quite different. Don't know a lick of German, but @majestic, does the tagline on the poster say "The Shining for a New Generation"? Bit of a sham of a tagline if so - you'd have to be utterly daft to compare them in any way.

There is one thing in the series that elevates it to a ten for me, the use of a Swedish song as the sombre music for Raftalia when shes heartbroken.

Peeping Tom is a good movie. Been a couple of years since I last saw it though.

am recalling southerners proudly proclaiming they had stopped giving a $#@% about mask recommendations and covid in general long before the rest o' the country. DeSantis administration settles lawsuit, will disclose COVID data and pay attorneys fees At the time, a third wave of cases was ballooning in Florida and hospitalizations were rising dramatically, but the Department of Health was changing the way it reported death data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, giving the appearance of a pandemic in decline, a Miami Herald analysis found. The agency also had started launching a series of criticisms on Twitter, accusing the CDC of publishing incorrect COVID numbers, but offering little explanation. In June 2021, the health department discontinued its COVID-19 dashboard and changed to a weekly report. Lawmaker says DeSantis only settled lawsuit over hiding COVID data because he was ‘caught red-handed’ lying to the court During a similar contest over the discovery of documents relating to COVID-19 data, the health department indicated to the courts that the records sought by plaintiffs did not exist. However, the appellate court again ruled against the department and ordered the disclosure of the documents. In March 2023, the documents requested by plaintiffs were produced by the health department. ... “They were hiding this information from the public,” said FLCGA Director of Public Access Initiatives Michael Barfield in the same on-air appearance. “So taxpayers lost $300,000 and didn’t get the information that they are constitutionally entitled to.” ‘That decision cost lives’: Covid data case further deflates Ron DeSantis’s campaign The department will pay the plaintiffs’ $152,000 legal bill and resume regular posting of the data that DeSantis’s communications team insisted at the time was no longer necessary because cases had “significantly decreased” and that Florida was “returning to normal”. In reality, as DeSantis dismissed reporting on the pandemic as “media hysteria”, the Delta variant of the virus was just taking hold, and cases and fatalities spiked, to a record 385 a day in Florida by September 2021. Simultaneously, Florida led the nation in pediatric Covid hospitalizations. ... tens o' thousands o' floridians died o' covid during the delta surge alone and yet they were being told that there were no need for mask mandates and that florida should remain "open for business." desantis and other southern governors were telling citizens that the coronavirus pandemic were fading away when the opposite were true. unsurprising, a reason southerners and anybody subscribing to alt-right media/news sources were so indifferent to covid were in part 'cause they were being lied to for political reasons. HA! Good Fun!

I think the story would feel the most fitting with a young CG tiefling* bard. Or at least random sneaking animations during cut-scenes would be less irritating. Also the general body language and facial expressions. *in general, if the plot was about getting your grandma, who was exiled from Elturel, to Baldur's Gate, it would have been better. The Elturel refugees' quests seemed somehow more connected to the PC than the main story.

Continuing on with my Solasta playthrough with the Unfinished Business mod. The 6-person party is just so awesome! Exactly how the game should be played. I'm not using too many other features from the mod, mainly the option of removing attunement and including multi-classing. Difficulty has not been affected in any meaningful way. I've made a few tweaks here and there to keep the challenge balanced, and that's it. Only wish the game had more story and characters heft.

You know, I don't ever remember wanting to kill any children in BG1 and BG2, where you actually can, but all of these games where you can't, there's always at least one that I definitely did. Kind of feels like a chicken-or-the-egg situation: did they give children immortality because they realized their child characters were so annoying that they needed immortality to make sure that players weren't heartlessly slaughtering children en masse, or did they oh so smugly develop all these annoying child characters with the foreknowledge that there's absolutely nothing that the player can do about them? Regardless, I think it'd be a good idea for developers to remember that players will want to mutilate and butcher children if they're too annoying, incentivizing those developers to write them appropriately with that firmly in mind.

I didn't play much (too distracted with other games for now) but I do like the setting. It aims for pulpy adventure vibe (Indiana Jones, Mummy, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Rocketman, and probably the whole host of media those films based themselves on), and so far so good. I also don't like the mesh of turn based and real time stealth - whenever it is Baldur's Gate3 or Mutant Zero real time controls just aren't tight enough to be enjoyable. THAT said, so far Lamplighters seemed like the best implementation of the idea of the three. Honestly, I enjoyed my time with the game a lot, but reviews cooled me off a bit. Will wrap up what I have now, before diving into LL for real.

Hello! Single weapon is only good in the early game. All other styles are superior (in general) in the late game. It is better against lower-level vessels at least. In the late game a (or two) fully enchanted and "durganized" weapon is usually the best "dps" choice compared to soulbound weapons or summoned ones. Mostly due to the speed advantage of durgan steel. The best alpha strike weapon for Paladin's FoD attacks may still be the arquebus - or maybe two fully enchanted sabres against lower armored enemies. Imo the best weapon for a Paladin (in a party) is a (set of) marking weapon(s) such as Pliambo per Casitàs, Cladhaliath & Shame or Glory or Blade of the Endless Paths and Spectacular Spetum as backup. In combination with Coordinated Attacks you can make your party's fights a lot easier. If you can manage ti dual-wield Cldahaliath with Marking and Shame or Glory that would be the ultimate marking setup. If you would also be a Darcozzi Paladin that would be the cherry on top. You could boost Edér's accuracy by 45 points... With something like Blade of the Endless Paths still 35 points. Better than single wielding Steadfast I'd say. Yes, shield will hit first, then main weapon. For Full Attacks a bashing shield is better than a normal shield. For auto-attacks it's actually worse because dual-wielding speed does not apply to bashing shields and the base damage of bashes is lower than that of your main weapon, lowering your dps overall compared o using a normal shield (because your auto attacks will alternate between bash and main weapon attack insead of main weapon attack only). I'd just save the game and try it out for some time.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/how-gun-giant-remington-used-call-of-duty-to-promote-weapons-to-younger-players

The tagline reads The Shining of a New Generation. The comparison made in this way is meant to imply a work of equal significance or craftsmanship within a simlar genre or setting. Whoever wrote that seems to have been impressed enough with the film to assume it will reach a similar significance. That does seem to be exaggerated, although I must admit to not having seen the film (yet). Presumably it comes from a review or critique, but I cannot seem to find it. Googling the phrase just turns up links to the DVD version (the BR version has a different tagline). If you want to further explore films, Veronika Franz and Ulrich Seidl have collaborated before, but - and that is a major caveat - many of Ulrich Seidls films are highly disturbing at the best of times. They sometimes include unsimulated intercourse and scenes of violence. Hundstage ("Dog Days") is a good example. If you ever want to watch a film that finally convinces you that humanity has no right to exist on this beautiful planet, then go right ahead. The film follows a couple of people living on the outskirts of a large city, going about their daily lives.

I never could get in to it and I got pretty far with it (season 3 or something) I even "watched" the movie and I got the same felling as when watching the series. The new VA for Rick (Rick and Morty) sounds like it's AI generated.

It wasn't a particular state... https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-stop-coronavirus-testing-right-now-have-very-few-cases-2020-6

god bless america? HA! Good Fun!

Spy x Family 27 The Folgers run out of dog food. Foreseeing what Yor will cook for him, Bond runs away. Damian goes on a field trip. The animation quality has improved a lot, compared to season 2. Episode 3.2 was better than the entirety of the previous season as whole. We will see if it keeps like this.

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water: The Secret of Fuzzy: The Motion Picture: The End of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1991). No, really, that's the real title. Okay, wait, no, I lied, I added "The End of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water". Anyways, I completely forgot that there was a movie to end the series, though it's a film everyone says is very bad and that it's basically a scam. Well...pictures can speak volumes in this particular case, I think. This is how the show started: ...and this is how the movie's ending it: Enough said, right? It can be pretty rough sailing when they break out the D or F team to make the end to a series.

I hate those little sh†ts as much as a next person but I cannot but appreciate Bethesda's troll game when they turned the worst one from them all into a companion in FO4