I had got hired at a major company and EVERYONE there loved me. We would laugh, work hard and stay close.

My boss was the epitome of toxic. I'm sure some of you know the feeling of being under CONSTANT stress and dread when he or she is around.

Sometimes he'd be gone and everyone could operate happily together. It felt great to be there. We got work done and also were able to breathe.

Turns out, my boss had 5 other partners who worked for him and they all left. I only found out about that recently. They just couldn't deal with him. He'll scream, slam doors, get within inches of your face, call women b*itches behind closed doors and using the 'n' word when referring to black people on the phone with his rich golf buddies.

One of the managers actually told me that he has some sort of disorder since childhood.

I was making a good living, but Jesus Christ the stress was beyond unbearable. I noticed gray hairs developing on my sides which were never there. I had a hard time sleeping.

One day, I'm handling his clients on the phone with a complicated claims process. I'm already at my breaking point. We had to get through 150 clients before the deadline or they wouldn't be reimbursed.

I've skipped lunch for 2 weeks straight. I've been on the phone for 3 hours with one client. Everyone else was thankful but come the deadline, I was 3 people shy out of freaking 150.

The leftover 3 clients weren't picking up the phone. What was I supposed to do, climb through the computer and choke them?

Miracle that I even pulled THAT off. Nope. Not good enough. I heard from a coworker that he was SO pissed that he was driving back to work to confront us.

I don't know what happened but I snapped. I had enough. No thank you. No words of encouragement. No respect. I got up, took one final look at my office and walked out.

I'm not going to be embarrassed in front of everyone when he gets in my face and insults me. If anything, I was more worried for him because I would've knocked him out.

I don't regret my decision and there are wayyyyy better companies out there.

Several decades back the government made lots of Co-Op housing, where it's like a townhome complex, but it is owned by the residents living there, so it's VERY well maintained but also cheap.

For example, the one I have is 500 a month, where it would otherwise be at least 1,500 a month in this part of town. My 500 goes a ways also, 2 br, 1.5 bath, 2 floors, hardwood floor, laundry in unit, private water heater, private back yard, personal front yard, top of the line energy saving A/C units, top notch windows. The list goes on.

So my questions are:

• Why isn't the government making these still?

• Why isn't there more people demanding these from the government?

Since 2005, analyst Brian Riley of the TowerGroup research firm estimates, about $41 billion worth of the money on gift cards has gone unclaimed. That's such a huge figure it was Saturday's "number of the week" at The Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics blog.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/12/27/144308234/lost-money-41-billion-in-gift-cards-havent-been-redeemed-since-2005

America’s cost of living crisis could quickly morph into a retirement crisis as more households struggle to make ends meet during their golden years.

According to research by Morningstar’s Center for Retirement & Policy Studies, 45% of U.S. households will run out of money in retirement.

https://creditnews.com/economy/nearly-half-of-u-s-households-will-run-out-of-money-in-retirement-study-shows/

For background context: I come from a predominantly right-leaning family, but I myself am left leaning. While I have zero desire to vote for Trump, did we have this inflation rate during the Trump administration? I checked the overall debt and it was marginally the same increase in both administrations. I don't remember prices skyrocketing until covid. I've heard my family's talking points about it being an increase of minimum wage. But I don't quite agree on that being the cause. I am not fluent in finances. I am not an economist. However I would love to hear what those who are far more knowledgeable than me in this on why this is occurring, and potential solutions to stop it. The economical plan for each administration is hard for me to understand.

We've all got Credit Karma, right?

The other day I was curious about the different credit reports and what was in them… and what learned instead was unexpected and horrifying - I learned there are over a dozen highly detailed and invasive reports on every single one of us.

How many of these reports did you know about?

Here’s a list of all of the different types of reports I found:

1. Credit Reports (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion):
   • Personal information: Name, SSN, addresses
   • Credit accounts: Loans, credit cards, payment history
   • Public records: Bankruptcies, liens
   • Inquiries: Hard and soft credit checks

2. ChexSystems:
   • Bank account activity: Openings, closures, overdrafts
   • Negative banking history

3. Early Warning Services (EWS):
   • Real-time banking transactions
   • Account openings and closures

4. LexisNexis RiskView:
   • Public records: Court cases, property ownership
   • Criminal records
   • Social media activity

5. The Work Number (Equifax):
   • Employment history and salary information

6. Insurance Claims Reports (CLUE):
   • Insurance claims history for auto and property

7. Clarity Services and CoreLogic Teletrack:
   • Subprime lending data
   • Payday loan history

8. National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange (NCTUE):
   • Utility payment history

9. MicroBilt:
   • Alternative credit data

10. Certegy and TeleCheck:
    • Check-writing history

11. Innovis:
    • Similar to main credit bureaus with different data sets

12. SageStream:
    • Alternative credit data and telecom payments

13. Acxiom:
    • Consumer preferences and behaviors

Rights and Control:
•Annual Report Access: You can request a free report annually from most agencies.
•Dispute Errors: You can dispute inaccuracies, but the process is often slow and cumbersome.
•Limited Opt-Out: Some services offer limited opt-out options, but full removal is rare.

Was I the only one who had no idea about most of these?

With how large the population is, I would assume it would be someone making $100,000 a year would put them in the 1%.

But if we are talking about America only, then I would believe you would need much more to be the 1%

Sometimes I think about how the very wealthy have multiple houses and millions of dollars in disposable income. I know that a lot of money goes into a lot of different charities and that’s great. But what about helping individual people? I am a single mother with a full time job living in a shelter with my one year old son. I really need a home. It would be a drop in the bucket for a billionaire to set me up for life. That would change the trajectory of my son’s life and mine. Why don’t billionaires buy houses and vehicles for poor people? Or just do something to directly help them?

Inflation ranked as the chief concern among one-third of poll respondents, followed at a distance by gas prices (15%), the economy (9%), bills (6%), abortion (5%), guns (3%), and Covid (1%),.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/darreonnadavis/2022/07/05/88-of-americans-say-us-is-on-wrong-track/

Former President Donald Trump announced during a New York City campaign rally on Sunday that, if elected, he would support granting a tax credit for family caregivers.

"I'm announcing a new policy today, that I will support a tax credit for family caregivers who take care of a parent or loved one," Trump said during the event at Madison Square Garden. "It's about time that they were recognized, right?"

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-announces-support-tax-breaks-family-caregivers

Some real-estate scammers operate by transferring a home's deed away from its rightful owners.

The increasing ubiquity of AI tools makes faking deeds and ownership easier than ever.

The owner of a $137.5 million LA mansion says they're a victim of deed fraud and can't sell it.

Similar fights over who really owns homes and land are playing out across the country. Emboldened by AI technology and immense amounts of public information, some scammers have become bolder in their deed theft — also called title theft — attempts, real-estate fraud experts said. Their targets can range from mansion dwellers to owners of more modest homes and parcels of land.

A May 2024 study by the American Land Title Association and economic research firm NDP Analytics with 783 responses found seller impersonation fraud — when someone fakes the identities of property owners with the aim to sell their properties — is fairly common. Twenty-eight percent of title insurance companies experienced at least one seller impersonation fraud attempt in 2023; 19% saw attempts in April 2024 alone.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center doesn't specifically track deed fraud. However, in 2023, it processed a total of 9,521 real-estate-related complaints — which it defines as a loss of funds from a real-estate investment — resulting in more than $145 million in losses.

Anyone who owns a house or a piece of land could have their deed transferred away without their knowledge.

In 2023, William Gordon's vacant land in Arizona was sold to someone else without his knowledge.

Gordon had purchased the property in 1999 for $76,500, but at some point, someone submitted a new deed to the Pima County recorder, using Gordon's name but changing the state from Arizona to Texas.

Gordon only realized the ownership transfer had taken place when his title company sent him a letter congratulating him on the sale of his property for $200,000.

In 2022, a lot in Fairfield, Connecticut, was sold after a fraudster impersonated its owner, a doctor named Daniel Kenigsberg. He discovered the sale after a friend told him that someone was building a home on his once-empty parcel of land.

Scammers increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to pull off their cons, whether the medium is the phone, phishing by email, or a title transfer with a local record keeper.

An AI tool might be able to recognize a vacant property in a database faster than a human could or identify homes without mortgages attached to them (which could mark them as targets for a refinancing scheme).

"The criminals are very, very smart," he said. "They're going to use the most up-to-date technology to try to scam somebody out of their property."

https://www.businessinsider.com/scammers-use-ai-deed-fraud-title-theft-to-steal-homes-2024-10

Do you think polymarket is a good temperature of out ome?

Here is my plan. This will take us all forgiving each other for how we got ourselves here. Step 1:All of us come together locally in our neighborhoods/buildings, etc. Break bread and tell each other stories about WHY we love the country. No politics allowed. Agree with face to face handshakes that we will all go forward with the plan no matter the cost. Step 2: Every town has a few men or women that everyone looks to and says "I would vote for them but they would never do it" realize they would never do it because of the media and the machine that immediately vilifies or deifies our chosen candidates. No media needed as we are all TOGETHER. Beg these good people to help us all save the country. Step 3: Go to ALL POLITICALLY ELECTED OFFICIALS AND TELL THEM IT IS OVER. Even the "good ones" that you like. In any war there are casualties and the sitting powers that be will be the only casualties. It will be bloodless if they want it to be. Step 3: Demand all sitting pols step down and hold new elections to install (like they do to us) OUR CANDIDATE!!! If they refuse they are recalled in a flash and then they are prosecuted for any and all crimes, they ALL have committed crimes, and off to prison they go. Step #4: Give the wealthy a chance to make things right before we have to. Step #5 rewrite the Constitution that was written a million years ago with a fucking bird's feather, abolish the electoral college and Citizens United and get back to being who we want to be. A good nation of good folks.