Balikatan is a pretty standard PI-US joint drill that happens every year or every two years, just like cobra gold in Thailand. I’m pretty sure it even has its own Wikipedia page.

I’m glad your family had peaceful deaths. I think everyone deserves that.

The expensive part is important to mention too… medical expenses can wipe out money that was intended to take care of family. Not that the money is the most important thing but when the difference is between family being left with enough to cover final expenses vs being in crazy debt (which can happen in states like mine, PA, where children are on the hook for those expenses), we should let the person decide what they want.

My only concession to those against it is that I agree there should be plenty of safeguards, particularly when there is money involved. But there’s no reason why safeguards can’t be put in place and people can’t get the dignity they deserve.

That must have been tough. We had two peaceful passings, frankly. Asleep and never woke up. But years of expensive medical stuff delaying the inevitable. Someone's lifestyle slipped away and they became bitter and angry at the changes and the family more or less supported it because they were expected to. It was terrible and sad. Caregiver burnout is real.

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I’ve been there for several family members passing in hospice situations and none of it was the peaceful “end of suffering” quiet death you see in the movies. In one case, I watched a family member pass mid scream (he had cancer and died over a holiday weekend so there weren’t any nurses available to come give him iv meds to make him comfortable— but that’s a rant for another time). I think a lot of people who are against it don’t realize how brutal those deaths can be and think that they’ll get more time AND that calm peaceful departure and that’s just often not the case.

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A wild bubbler appears!

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What do you mean that immediately after the housing collapse people realized that there was a far larger debt bubble? Its a good thing we've spent the last 15 years reducing the bubble and preparing for the risk of it.... oh wait Im now being told we did none of that. Uh huh... we increased our debt... mm hm and further increased the bubble both for financial institutions and for the general populace via credit card debt.... glass-steagall would have really helped keep things in check.... no new safety net in place....

Huh so it turns out that we have a far larger, multi industry sweeping debt bubble both for individuals and for banks as banks lend out 10x their value to people and companies that operate on razors edge thin margins when it comes to risk absorption/adaptability. Add into that massive shorting from major institutions that if their valuations shift could result in significant margin calls leading to a cycle of loss.

Cycle of loss being that a heavily leveraged and shorting company would be forced to pull/sell their investments (bonds/stocks) to hold more liquidity/cash. Doing so usually results in a loss, especially with a declining market, thus resulting in lower than expected revaluations. The revaluations lead to the company being margin called as their collateral value declines, which would force them to close their shorts, which in turn would reduce their cash/liquidity, and the process repeats.

Soooo yeah turns out the government giving the banks a blank cheque by bailing them out in 2008 may have resulted in an far broader reaching economic collapse.

I just said that same thing to my wife. And added, "Let's wait to buy a house. Mortgage rates are just about to come crashing down."

edit: great advice below. I so dum. Thanks y'all

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Yup, fuck that noise.

I've got a standing order and a signed and witnessed letter in my safe deposit box stating that if my mind ever goes and it definitely isn't coming back, the bearer of the letter has permission to off me so long as it's done in a particularly humorous or ironic way so's to get the media's attention.

I've seen what dementia does, and fuck that noise. That's no way to live.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_3

Yep. Thanatophobia is a motherfucker to them, and they're terrified of the concept that their existence won't matter to anything or anyone in the end, hence why they come up with increasingly crazy and desperate theological ideas (like the Quiverfull movement) in order to see if they can feel like they left a lasting mark on the world.

With what? Last time their navy set out the boat sank.

Wow. Do you have any references for that ? I’d like to read the story.

ah credit suisse, choice of crooks, gangsters, and cutpurses the world over

With any luck the bank failings will cool the fed; then we can get back to watching the slow train-wreak that is Twitter /s

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As someone who has been responsible for property disposition (though much, much lower in cost) within the Army, I can entirely see how this happened.

Let's say you report something as broken. For whatever reason, it cannot be repaired. You are keeping it on your books until you get your replacement. The replacement comes in, and you now have the task of turning the old one in to be destroyed/decommissioned. You assume (or are told) the new one has been already added to the property book. However, the new one hasn't. For a while, the old one is retained on the property book until the new one is in the system. Whenever you do your property count (by serial number), it is noted the new one is the replacement for the old one, with the turn-in paperwork for the old one maintained as proof.

Suddenly the old one is off the books, new one isn't on it. Huh, that's odd... So you go to the records office and get the new serial number added to the system. You're done, right? Not necessarily. Just because locally it is fixed, doesn't mean it is in the centralized database.

Accountability of high value items is a pain, and in my case it was left to someone that had 2 years in the army and took a 40-hour class in security and record keeping.

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I thought that hand was for a sale for second. fuuew.

This will roil Europe and spread. Russians oligarchs are probably watching this very closely.

Thank you for the information! That's great to hear.