Mike Thompson

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@alt_w_v_g Sure, but when Bonnie Blue does it on OF, she doesn’t get a trophy, she gets shamed. 😂🤣

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@MrsEthanBrooks This may be the best post in the history of the internet! May homeowners in planned communities throw off the yokes of their petty despots, and enjoy the liberty of backyard gardens and chicken coops.

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

I’m a megafan of @NASAAdmin @rookisaacman, and sincerely hope he has the opportunity to make good on this pledge. But I have just about as much hope that Artemis III will fly on time and on budget.

[NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman @NASAAdmin]

People say @USMNT winning the World Cup is impossible.

People said landing humans on the Moon was impossible. Americans did it 6 times. No one has done it since. And, we’re doing it again.

The U.S. has a rich history of achieving the near impossible.

So, when you guys defy the odds, we’ll send the @FIFAWorldCup ball and one of your jerseys with the signatures of the @USMNT to the Moon. 🌕🚀🇺🇸

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@dogwoodblooms What an unchivalrous thing to say about you. Speaking on the aesthetic beauty of a woman who’s spoken for is ungentlemanly. That said, Dolly Parton (now widowed and fair game) has been a standard of aesthetic beauty for six decades, and is as hillbilly as it gets.

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@MrsEthanBrooks I mean, that headshot practically screams “poster child”.

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

Nobunaga-San, every one of the original ten amendments in the Bill of Rights corresponds to a tyrannical abuse by the British government that was spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. The Founders understood that the best defense Americans had against future abuses was the government living in fear of an armed insurrection by the citizens it swore to serve.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I'm not trying to start a fight.
I'm trying to learn history.

Japanese schools don't really explain
WHY the Second Amendment exists.

I only see shouting online.

Can someone explain it calmly —
like you're talking to a curious coworker,
not a debate opponent?

What does it mean to ordinary Americans today?

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@StraightFlorida Legacy Minnesotans have surrendered their state to a Somali legislators, a Communist executive, and Sharia judiciary. They’ve become second class citizens in a third world state.

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

Yes, because as SCOTUS just reiterated this week, non-citizens have no constitutional rights, including congressional representation.

[SaltyGoat @SaltyGoat17]

Stephen Miller is actively litigating to exclude illegal aliens from the Census which will remove possibly more than a dozen House seats from states like New York and California....

Everyone ok with this?

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@ApexSeeker_ I would be much more concerned about the Chinese response, since they’re already probing your defenses.

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@dogwoodblooms @WBSApparel They do! It’s the pointy bit on the top right. Sic’em, Queen! 😂🤣

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

“We want to maximize the epigenetic potential of our cows, so we’re feeding them things they don’t normally eat so they’ll get fatty liver disease.”

Sounds yummy, Zuck.

[Jack @Jackkk]

Mark Zuckerberg reveals he's feeding his cows beer and macadamia nuts

“On the ranch, one of my projects is I'm trying to create the highest quality beef in the world”

“It's very low stakes, I’m not selling it but I'm very into the genetics of the cattle. We're trying to figure out how do you make it so that you basically can deliver the highest density diet to them”

“We started growing macadamia trees because that kind of nut is extremely dense and they will eat a lot so they will put on weight and become fat quicker and become delicious”

“The macadamia nuts have a lot of oil so you need to actually roast that. So now we need to design this whole process to roast the nuts so that way you can give them to the cows”

“You want them to eat more. So then it's like how do you get them to eat more? Well it turns out alcohol is great for that because alcohol induces appetite”

“That's actually why very high-end beef, they're fed beer. But okay, what's the right balance of beer versus water? I don't know. Let's let them choose. They get either as much cold beer as they want or as much room temperature water”

“So now we're brewing all this beer and we're putting it out”

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

“Progressives” obsess with memory hole initiatives because so much of the worst parts of our history were their fault. The Stars and Bars have no power that our own minds don’t give them, but failing to acknowledge that they were part of NC’s history in an exhibition with that exact purpose is infantile bed wetting.

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

Works exactly as designed to keep seniors who rely on it voting for Socialists of both parties.

[Ethan Brooks @alt_w_v_g]

A deal came across my desk this week

Largest revenue-collecting enterprise in America:
> 71M customers
> 185M people funding it
> Mandatory participation
> No competitors
> No churn

On paper it's the best business model I've ever seen, so I ran diligence

It's Social Security

Put my analyst on the financials:
> He came back in 4 hours
> He did not look well

Started with the revenue model:
> 12.4% of every dollar you earn
> 6.2% withheld from your paycheck
> 6.2% paid by your employer, which is your money taking a longer route
> Applied to the first $184,500 of income, then it stops

That's the collection engine

Then I traced where the money goes

First finding:
> Nothing was set aside
> The money comes in from workers and goes out to retirees the same month
> The surplus got spent the moment it arrived
> The "trust fund" everyone talks about is $2.56T of the government holding IOUs from itself
> It has paid out more than it took in every year since 2021
> Last year the shortfall hit $160B
> I asked him where the actual money was
> He said "it already left, sir"

Second finding:
> The model only works if the people paying in can cover the people cashing out
> In 1960 there were more than 5 workers for every person collecting a check
> Today there are fewer than 3
> In 20 years there will be fewer than 2.5
> And 4.1M Americans are turning 65 every year right now
> The largest wave of retirements in the country's history
> My son was at the table
> He looked at the chart
> He said "so fewer and fewer people are paying for more and more people, and at some point it stops working?"
> I said "that's the structure, yes"
> He went back to his cereal
> My analyst looked up from his laptop
> He said "sir, with respect, this looks like a pyramid scheme"
> I corrected him
> A pyramid scheme is illegal
> This one is mandatory

Third finding:
> The headline says the money runs out in 2034
> Then my analyst found the footnote
> It is not one fund
> The old-age and survivors fund and a separate disability fund, kept apart by law
> The 2034 number blends them
> Un-blend them and the retirement side, the one almost everyone is counting on, goes first
> Not someday. Not a generation from now
> The fourth quarter of 2032
> After that the math only allows it to pay 78 cents on every dollar it promised
> A 22% cut. Automatic. No vote required.

What it would take to close the gap:
> Raise the 12.4% payroll tax to roughly 16.8%
> Cut every benefit by more than 20%, immediately and permanently
> Or some combination of the two

A remediation plan that's actually passed: none.

Pulled the cap table:
> The first person ever to collect a monthly check was a woman named Ida May Fuller
> She paid in $24.75
> Her employer paid another $24.75, which was also her money
> She collected $22,888.92
> More than 460 times what went in

The model front-loaded its winners

My wife read it over my shoulder

She did not argue with any of it

She never does

She just looked at me, then looked at the ceiling, and said nothing

She thinks I take things too far

She also thinks I'm right

Here's my diligence conclusion:
> Took your money for 40 years
> Spent it the month it arrived
> Set nothing aside
> Built a model that runs on demographics it no longer has
> Left a 22% cut to trigger in 2032
> Has no fix that ever passed

In any other deal we'd have a word for this

In this one we call it your retirement

I'm not saying anything

The economic model is saying it

Make common sense common again

Plz fix. Thx.

Sent from my iPhone

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@bscholl A “highest, best use” mentality is one of the many reasons Boom will take off, so to speak.

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@Handre While I agree with the thesis of the OP, I had one of the best white tablecloth meals of my life at the Hotel Stadt in East Berlin on US Thanksgiving Day, 1985.

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@MrsEthanBrooks An appreciation of good political satire should be in the bone marrow of the new algorithm. Though every day, it gets harder to outsatire reality.

Make common sense common again.

Plz fix. Thx.

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@dogwoodblooms @M0derate762 I know when they started calling it “Fort Liberty” or whatever, I was mispronouncing it as “Fort Bragg”.🤣😂

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@elonmusk @ianmiles @SawyerMerritt Starfall reentry hereinafter shall be called “Astroglide”.

[Mike Thompson @mjaytommy]

@EthansAnalyst