#having the means for financial independence and a social safety net should be someone everyone has

[poolsidescientist]

I think one of my biggest fantasies in life is being able to live somewhere/with someone that I can come and go as I please. Have my own car, not have to rely on other people or explain why I can’t be home of take care of people/the dog/etc. at all time. People think I’m greedy for wanting a well-paying job but having to take care of people you’re dependant on is really shitty and money would 100% solve this problem.

[100dad]

100 things that made me America’s Dad

#1 I had Sex. It is tough to be a Dad when you do not have a kid. Full credit due for invitro dads, for adoption dads, and stepdads. I am not trying to bash on anybody’s parade. I just did it the old-fashioned way. Had a lot of fun. It is a natural talent.

#2 I got my priorities in the right order.  It is not about me anymore. Faith. Wife. Kids. Then me. My hobbies take a back seat. The gym became less important.

#3 I made my marriage a priority.

#4 I made sure I could financially provide. Check income. Track expenses. Budget.

#5 Financially prepared for the future. College. Retirement. Big Purchases. House. Cars. Etc.

#6 I made sure I had a Will.

#7 I made sure I had Life Insurance.

#8 I recognized that I am now a role model. I should at least act like it.

#9 I stayed optimistic about everything. Because pessimism sucks.

#10 Made sure Mom and Dad are on the same team.

#11 My discipline game was on point. Strong, Firm, Reasonable.

#12 I protected my family.  From physical harm, spiritual harm, emotional harm, evil.

#13 I am thankful for everything. Where I was born. The people I have met. That guy that gave me an idea. The guy that said I couldn’t. The ones that said I could. To authors. To haters. To supporters. Everything. Everyone.

#14 I provide. A roof, food, and water. Stable home. Education. Unconditional love. Discipline. Consequences.

#15 Not rigid. I stay flexible. Not only in the sack. I’m not going to be rigid in my parenting. Times change. Kids have different personalities. I adjust accordingly.

#16 I shouldered the responsibility. And the blame.  All of it. I can handle it.

#17 I set the tone at home. It’s what a leader does.

#18 Made sure our family name means something in our community. How we carry ourselves and how we treat others.

#19 A good home life was more important than faking it on social media.

#20 I made sure our house was a home.

#21 I kicked ass at work. I tried to be the best. Because that is how you succeed.

#22 I prepare my kids for the real world. Age appropriately, of course.

#23 My values and morals are firm. I do not compromise on those.

#24 I put in the effort. Because this is too important to wing it.

#25 I became good at relationships. It’s amazing what being nice, reliable, and offering help will do for your reputation.

#26   Humbled myself because I realized my ego will be my downfall.

#27   Perspective was everything. I learned to put myself in other people’s shoes.

#28 Taught my kids about guns. If I am going to have them, we might as well make sure safety is taught and they do not become forbidden fruit.

#29 I reassessed who I hung out with. I wanted to elevate myself not be held back.

#30 This is who I took advice from. People who actually did what I wanted to do. Good Dads. Good businessmen who built from scratch.

#31 Time. Quality and quantity. I recognized its importance in raising a family. Time is everything.

#32 Let my kids be them. Not what I wish I had been. My Values and morals are firm but I let their personalities and talents bloom.

#33 I read books to my kids. Good bonding. Good teaching moments.

#34 I Play with my kids. Both when it was fun as they get older and when it was boring when they just laid there.

#35 I remain Calm under pressure. Cool heads prevail over emotional drama queens.

#36 I build up my kids’ confidence. Because self-esteem does not result from being crushed all the time.

#37 I give them frequent reality checks. If I’m going to be humbled…so will they. This isn’t a fairy tale.

#38 Created a stable home environment. Rules, routine, predictability.

#39 Realized how much these kids see and absorb…..and modified my behavior.

#40 I hated negativity. Still do.

#41 Vices – not for me. I can say no. I can handle stress. Drugs, alcohol, gambling, porn, tobacco….I make sure my mind is more powerful than temptation.

#42 My secret formula. Hard work + Good Decisions + Faith =Success

#43 Failing does not bother me. In fact, it oddly is fun for me.

#44 Plowed thru fears. Pushed forward. No, what-ifs.

#45 Live without regret. I do not want to be 90 wishing I had been a better dad or tried to make something of myself.

#46 Not afraid to make the unpopular decision because I know it is the right decision.

#47 I do not get painted into corners. If A and B are the only options. I find or create an option C.

#48 I am not afraid to get weird and step outside my comfort zone.

#49 I did not say the things I wanted to say when I was angry. Because I knew I would regret it and once those things are said they never really get taken back.

#50 Loved taking those scary leaps toward opportunities.

#51 Gave my kids independence and freedom as they earned it.

#52 I am not a helicopter dad. But I do verify the trust and freedoms I have allowed are worthy.

#53 Comparison was motivation, not depression. I was never envious, just inspired.

#54 Our house had RULES. Because structure is important.

#55 I refused to sacrifice my family to excel in my career.

#56 I let my kids fail…. a lot.

#57 Became okay with asking for help…. letting go of that ego thing.

#58 Actions were more important than words…. anybody can say the words.

#59 I didn’t make excuses, I just got things done.

#60 Willingness to do what others would not. I found there is much value in doing the things others find demeaning or too hard.

$61 I found the best balance is balancing over longer periods of time. Not day to day or even weekly. More seasonal.

#62 I gave myself reality checks. Check that ego.

#63 I realized how good I have it. And I did my best to soak in that contentment.

#64 Recognized my kids’ genetics and focused on their talents, skills, and personalities.

#65 Respect is important. Earning it & Giving it.

#66 Bravery is important. Super important. Stand up for what I genuinely believe in.

#67 Raising my kids to be fully functional adults.

#68 I used short-term tactics with long-term visions.

#69 Pushed my kids to be better, braver, stronger.

#70 Teach my kids everything I can about life, so they are prepared when they enter the real world without me.

#71 Recognized how important dads’ role is in the family.

#72 I document a lot. It’s great for memories. Reflection. Appreciation.

#73 I controlled my kids' influences. What they see, experience, hear.

#74 Strong man- Kind heart.

#75 The secret to a good life is simply being happy.

#76 I do my best. Give my best. Because effort is huge!

#77 Realized my wife was insanely important to our life.

#78 I drive our family value home repeatedly. No one and done. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

#79 Started my own businesses giving us control of our lifestyle.

#80 Worked close to home because I hated the idea of traffic instead of family.

#81 Made big efforts to be incredibly involved in my kids’ lives. Even the not so fun things.

#82 We switched to homeschooling. More time. More freedom. More control of influences.

#83 Knew my priorities in life. Faith. Family. Work. Friends.

#84 Budgeting was a huge deal. Both of us stayed involved and adhered to it. Neither of us wasted our hard-earned money.

#85 I did not borrow money. No partners. No inheritance. All on my own. No scapegoats. No crutches.

#86 Willing to do unpopular things and go against the grain. Because going along with crowds seems so…. basic.

#87 Cared more about building a net worth than impressing people.

#88 Despite mediocre grammar skills I enjoy writing out my thoughts. Creates clarity and conviction!

#89 Never traveled as a kid, Limited travel as an adult= Strong desire to travel!

#90 Sold a valuable business to the right company at the right time. Luck helps. Luck seems to happen to people who work really hard and do the right things.

#91 Realized having cash and no debt gives you options and freedom and tremendous peace of mind.

#92 Set huge, big goals. Never achieved them totally. But when I came up short, I still did great!

#93 Never afraid of work…even hard work, willing to outwork everyone.

#94 My hobby was my family and work. I excelled at the 2 things I focused most on.

#95 Leaned heavily on my Faith. Put my worries, struggles, anxieties on shoulders bigger than mine.

#96 I knew I did not want to replicate the bad parts of my father …but I did want to replicate the good parts.

#97 Married a girl with the same values and morals as me. With similar goals. With similar ethics. With the same determination to work through bad times and build a good life.

#98 Looked at my ancestry and wanted to become a legend in my family. I wanted our name to really mean something.

#99 Lived a life that if someone wants to dig into it there is nothing to find. Squeaky clean.

#100 Wrote down our family values. This became our compass and roadmap.

100% Dad is currently on tour traveling the country promoting the 100% Dad brand. Townsend Russell is the Founder and Personality for 100% Dad. Townsend has been on the tour for over 15 months with his family with plans to continue until January 2023. Townsend sold his businesses and retired in 2019 and has been building 100% Dad and creating insane memories with his family along the way.

Find out more about 100% Dad on the website 100dad.com

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[gncrevan]

i said i'd make this its own post; so anyway some thoughts i would like you to consider when judging @skagra3482 's fundraiser/condition:

what stands out to me is that nobody ever produces conclusive evidence that angie is scamming. all you have is some doubts and rumours that have been addressed by her before. you’re absolutely correct that she has been raising funds for a long time, yet somehow nobody has been able to find any evidence she is a fake. it hasn’t turned out that she used someone else’s pictures, no relative or friend has come out to say her story isn’t real (in fact everyone who has come forward as having been in contact with her personally or knowing her outside tumblr has corroborated it!), nobody has found a secret blog or other social media account of hers where she’s telling a different story, all “holes” that have been claimed to exist in her narrative are either based on misunderstandings (like different diagnoses for the same symptoms meaning she’s lying) or are simply bogus (like every person on the internet with her name is her). so honestly she would have to be a really fucking good scammer and catfish, in which case she would also be more than able to avoid any of the things you criticize her for. if she is a scammer, that means she’s too clever to be found out for literal years, but if you are able to “expose” her based on her own posts that means she’s too dumb not to make obvious mistakes. you really have to pick one of the two

you all expect her to do ridiculous things like produce content or sell things when she is barely able to move, set up a live stream/youtube or go on television when she has been stalked and harassed and doesn’t deserve to have her privacy invaded like that, not to mention she cannot be expected to do the amount of work necessary for proper videos in her physical state. being disabled and poor and dependent on donations doesn’t suddenly mean people do not have a right to privacy anymore. would you like to turn yourself into a zoo exhibit? it’s humiliating and dehumanizing to show others how bad you’re doing. i wouldn’t go online and share videos or photos of myself during a flare, when i can’t wash myself properly, when my flat is a mess, when i feel disgusting. it’s absolutely vile to demand that angie should do this, especially considering you could still claim the material is fabricated. who stops anyone from making their flat a mess, making themself look a mess, lying down in bed and filming that? are you expecting her to show how she’s being cleaned or something similarly humiliating and invasive? seriously.

i don’t know if none of you ever had a family member or friend who needed round-the-clock care, but i did, and it’s expensive. i live in germany, which has a social security and health insurance system far far superior to that of australia, but even here barely anyone can afford in-home care. the only way to get it at least partly financed through insurance is by going through a lot of bureaucracy to apply for a certain level of care (Pflegestufe), but it’s incredibly hard to prove you need it. my grandma was unable to dress herself, go to the toilet, shower on her own, get out of bed on her own, walk more than a few steps, and was completely disoriented and a potential harm to herself due to dementia, as well as suffering constant neurological pain much like CRPS, but we never got her to the level of care where all her disability expenses were covered. nobody paid for travel to or from doctors, we still had to pay most of the fee for the nursing home she stayed at. why? because she sometimes had a good moment when the investigating people from the insurance visited, or because they simply thought she was exaggerating. we tried for years. her entire retirement fund was spent on the care, and her children still had to pay a lot more, and my mum drove her to doctors on her own charge. do you know what happens to people like my grandma who don’t have any kin to do these things for them? they die. they deteriorate and die. they might be lucky enough to go to the hospital and then die in a clean bed at least. there’s no fucking safety net if you don’t have a family or friends who pay for your care/take care of you themselves.

speaking of nursing homes: they are under-funded and under-staffed and over-crowded. the home my grandma was at had really nice nurses, but they couldn’t take care of a single patient all the time. so when the dementia became bad, and the pain was bearable for her, my grandma would undress herself and sit in the cold for hours. she would defecate in her bed because nobody took her to the toilet in time. this is not a worst-case scenario, because at least my mum visited her frequently and the nurses did check on her when they could. but there have been cases of homes leaving patients alone for days, not feeding them, giving them the wrong medicine or too much or too little or not giving them any when they needed it, physical and sexual abuse of patients, the list is long. this happens all the time. i know many people who work in healthcare and they all can tell you about such things happening. considering the amount of bad experiences and medical abuse angie has already endured, and that homes aren’t automatically equipped to deal with cases like hers, and that it would mean giving up the limited independence she has, and that there isn’t anybody who could fight on her behalf if the home does anything wrong, it is absolutely not an option for her. that is why she needs her own disability-appropriate housing and private care.

i’m multiply disabled myself, and there are so many hoops you have to jump through to get what you need, and so much help you need. i cannot imagine how i would survive without the help provided by my mother and boyfriend, especially when i have a medical emergency or a flare. it took years of worsening symptoms and months of being almost bed-bound until i even got a diagnosis and started treatment. at first i had to pay for some of my medicine out of pocket which amounted to several hundred euros in only a couple of months. i am incredibly privileged and fortunate to live somewhere with pretty good health insurance which covers all my meds by now, so i only have to pay for my supplements and whatever devices i need to make my life easier. i am also forever thankful and in debt to the people supporting me financially, socially, medically, legally. without that, i doubt i would be able to work and do my apprenticeship. and, like, my physical illness is a lot less debilitating than angie’s, but if i didn’t have health insurance and social security and people helping me privately, i’d be in immense debt and under a lot of stress that would aggravate my condition and make me deteriorate, and i wouldn’t know how to survive in the long term. so yeah, angie’s situation is absolutely dire, and the problem with any long-term condition is that you have to deal with it all your life and you don’t stop needing help and care and money. like, sorry, but i cannot imagine that anyone who is intimately familiar with the consequences of being severely and constantly disabled would think her claims don’t add up. they unfortunately are absolutely consistent with my own experiences and cases i know first-hand.

[alightwhendarknessfell]

The issue I have with Jake and Inna’s ‘Inspiration’ posts is that it’s the same stereotypical spiel that almost 99.9% of 'celebs’ and people with money, rich kids, people with dream jobs or situations they dropped on, people in financially well off and/or comfortable life styles or people who have no responsibilities, preach to the masses.They go on and on about freedom, happiness, to not worry bout life, to travel and 'expand your mind’, to go seek out the beautiful places of the world, to visit nature and so on, posting things like Inna’s 'Remove the I and want from 'I want to be happy’ and you’re left with happiness’.

Which is fine, they have every right to post and say what they like, but the truth of the matter is that people like Jake, Inna and other people who post things like this, often come from one of the situations above. People who post things like this generally have a good bit of wealth and a safety net in place and never have to worry about said safety net. We can’t begrudge them that freedom, especially if they’ve worked for it, like Jake has, however we can begrudge them the attitude that comes with it, because it is an attitude that is all too prevalent amongst people who do not have to worry about the foundations of their financial security, job security, etc.

That attitude is one which suggests you must travel, you must be carefree, you must not worry about money, your job, your home, your living situation, that to worry means you’re shallow and materialistic, vapid and money hungry and that to not do as their inspiring words suggest means you’re bad and not trying hard enough.

What they post is known as aspirational porn, which serves two purposes: One is to tantalize the viewers with a life they cannot have, and really want (Lets face it, who doesn’t want to be carefree, travel and have money?) and the second is to make the viewers feel like some sort of failure for not being able to have the same life style, yet still be drawn in and keep checking their posts.

It’s a way for the upper class, celebs and those in a cushy life style to pat themselves on the back for being able to do something that anyone with money can buy. Which is to have a comfortable life. They don’t have to worry about happiness because, despite what they try to lead you to believe, money does buy happiness. Think about it; when you can afford your rent, food, bills, clothing, etc. it keeps you happy subconsciously. You’d be pretty miserable if you couldn’t. So on that level it can and does buy happiness. Inna and Jake might preach that it doesn’t, that money is not something they care about, but if that were the case, Inna wouldn’t post about her 'real man’ buying her make-up, she wouldn’t buy designer clothing, she wouldn’t do sponsored teeth whitening ads, they wouldn’t be trying to make ÆLONIA big.

Money, despite what they say, is a key motivator. Case in point, they mentioned how Trixxy’s vet bills were expensive and they could not afford to pay for her treatment. Money very quickly became something they were concerned about. Would they appreciate their own advice of not worrying about it if someone told them the same advice they give others?

Someone who has had privilege of travelling extensively and being able to live comfortably and in decent financial security is not any better, wiser or more cultured than someone who hasn’t, or someone who can never afford to even get out of their own city. Yet Inna and Jake act like they are, because they assume that their life style is a given to anyone, that it’s people’s 'negative attitudes’ holding them back, when it isn’t. It’s entirely a game of money and access and acting as though worrying about money and not finding the 'beauty’ in your life on the part of people with less than them is some sort of trivial issue, just makes it worse.

Encouraging people to 'Worry less about things’ or to just 'Go out and live life’ to 'Follow your dreams’, 'find nature’ when you’re in a position to do as you like and damn the consequences, demonstrates a very profound misunderstanding of what worrying actually is. What the condescending celebs, musicians, rich kids etc. mean by not worrying and to 'be happy’ is they think you’re choosing to be where you are, that you’re the one who decided you needed two jobs, you’re the one who who is choosing to pay your rent over going out and seeking your fortune and dropping your responsibilities. That you could easily just drop everything and go live this perfect life where you’d be happy, but you’re choosing not to. What they fail to understand is that many of us have no choice but to make money our priority over genuine happiness, to make rent, bills, caring for families our priority because we’ve no other choice. Because if you don’t go and earn money, look after your family, etc. then you’d be out on the streets or even worse off. So them implying that people choose to be unhappy or be stuck where they are on purpose is naive and despite what they would lead people to believe, being able to drop your old life and pave the way for a new one does require money. These stories of people who claim to just go and travel to a new city with ten dollars in their pocket are rare and those people always drop lucky on knowing someone who helps them get their foot in the door by way of getting a dream job or simply being in the right place at the right time. When someone tells you a story like that, they’re no doubt deliberately missing out on key factors like people helping them out. The goal is to make it seem as inspiring as possible and to drive home the point that 'anyone’ can do it.

How many people feel inspired by those quotes they post? genuinely? Not many. Most of the people clapping for those posts of Jake and Inna’s are young and desperate to suck up to them in the hopes that they will get interaction from their idols. It might fill people temporarily with false inspiration, but it’s not a long term thing and inspiration to better yourself or your own life has to come from yourself, first and foremost. True and lasting inspiration does not come from outside sources. Outside sources might help a little in giving you a push, but ultimately you need to be your own inspiration and that is not easy to do. If it were, everyone would have killer bodies, and we’d all be millionaires on private yachts.

Everyone needs to follow their own path to financial independence and freedom, that much is true and we all achieve it in different ways. And if you’re lucky enough that path involves a lot of money, being able to travel freely and do something you love for a living or even not have a job and rely on family to pay your way, because you know you’ve got security. That’s great if you have that, and there’s no need to feel guilty over it if you do. But to encourage others to follow this very rare and privileged path makes you a dick. Because it implies the only way to gain meaning out of life is to do what Jake and Inna are doing. It’s turned their IG’s into vapid inspiration blogs that only apply to a tiny percent of the population who have the money to go out and do what they keep saying. It’s time to stop with the vague, passive-aggressive inspirational quotes that Jake sometimes starts with 'I suggest you do and [insert thing you should do here]’. It’s time to stop saying things like: ’What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.’ Like one of Inna’s pictures says further down her IG page. It’s incredibly naive and an incredibly privileged attitude.

Similarly, it’s easy for Inna to tell girls to  not worry about social stigma, because she knows she is slim, attractive and has a near perfect body by society’s standards. Again, another example of aspiration porn.

And both Jake and Inna and all those other celebs who do the same can say that this is mean, that my post is wrong until they are blue in the face, but it still does not change the fact that they are preaching from a position of financial security and privilege. If they truly believed what they posted and preached, Inna and Jake would of both acted very differently and not attack their fans. Given that Inna has posted the following quotes:

'I know, sometimes it’s not easy because there are many people who will try to provoke you on the negative reaction, who will bring up your worst inside of you. But always try to wear somebody’s shoes and try to practice non-judgment because you never know what those people are going through and who they really are. Who are we to judge somebody? We can’t do that. But we can understand and forgive. Understanding is the key to forgiveness, to love, to inner peace and happiness.’

'Remind yourself that the greatest technique for bringing peace into your life is to always choose being kind when you have a choice between being right or being kind.’

If they really believed this, they’d not have acted how they did to the recent out bursts, nor would Jake of threatened to hit someone and their gender does not make hitting them or wanting to hit them acceptable.

'Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them.’

Please tell this to the families of Robin Williams, Heath Ledger, Jimmy Sullivan, Kurt Cobain, and the multitude of 'successful’ people in life who have died, committed suicide, struggled with addiction, abuse, etc. Please tell Corey Taylor who was raped as a child and a drug user this. Please tell all the multitude of people who can’t get over something in their past which holds them back, because it has mentally destroyed them. Please tell that to my friend who was raped when he was younger, to the point where it’s not crippled him in terms of relationships. Please tell them all how it was their attitudes and lack of positivity which caused them to be how they are. I’m sure it will go down REALLY well.

This is a perfect example of someone who is in a position of wealth and security, not understanding how humans in general work. Is Inna telling us that no matter what happens you must stay positive? Would she tell someone that after a family member died? What about if a friend told her they were raped? Would she tell them to look at the positives about it? Doubtful. It’s another issue with people with this type of attitude; they often lack empathy, because they think anyone who has anything bad happen to them has brought it upon themselves. And that is a dangerous attitude to have, because when you get knocked off your pedestal, it’s one hell of a fall.

Submission: This post should be mandatory reading. You got it 100%!!!!

[bethanyblackblog]

“The thing is” They begin “The young have voted for free stuff, with no idea how to pay for it” they continue “But they’ll have to pay for it eventually.” They conclude.

And thus spoke various right wing political commentators since the General Election last Thursday.  Already sticking to the bias they particularly want confirmed. Young people are stupid and just want free stuff repeat the generation who voted in favour of Brexit and have benefited most from the introduction of the welfare state in Post War Britain.  

That’s a particularly broad stroke, and not everyone who’s annoyed at the youth voting for Labour is older.  Clare Foges who wrote the article for The Times entitled “Let’s stop treating the young as political sages” is 35, and made her career in her late 20’s as David Cameron’s speech writer.

She falls well within the age cohort to be considered a Millennial, I at the age of 38 am right at the very top end of that cohort according to some measures, I sure feel like I’m in the middle of it.  

 Others Like Godfrey “Godders” Bloom are more in the middle of your stereotypical age grouping for this sort of opinion. The received wisdom is that young people don’t understand economics, they just want loads of free stuff, and that the Labour Party cheated by offering them a better future, when the over 40’s recognised “there is no magic money tree”.

The problem is that as The Independent shared yesterday, The Labour Party won 50% of the 35-44 year-old vote.  People who are mid-career, people who in previous generations would have been most of their way through a mortgage and starting to think about how they were going to pass that on to their children, these are people who naturally tend to drift rightwards in order to protect their money and see the Conservatives as the party who will protect that.

Times have changed.

 In the 1980’s when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan came to power and implemented the Milton Friedman, Chicago School of economics pretty much destroyed the manufacturing base in both the UK and the US, it signalled the death knell for various industries and left us in a situation where full employment could never happen again.  A lot of the low skilled and unskilled jobs went out of the country, that combined with mechanisation led to fewer people needed to do the same jobs.  Whilst this was a tragedy for the people whose jobs were lost it was fine for the Conservative government who were able to cut taxes by selling off public utilities into private hands and hoping that private business and entrepreneurship would fill the gap left by the previous industries, and if it didn’t then it was the fault of the people who weren’t clever or motivated enough to save themselves. So far, so “Atlas Shrugged”.  The problem is this is bollocks, and it doesn’t work that way.  Free-Market Capitalism is nice in theory, but in reality it doesn’t work.  It doesn’t take into account that most people aren’t “Rational actors” not everyone acts out of benign self-interest.  People are not rational, we have motivations that do not necessarily result in our self-interest at all, some of us are excessively altruistic and some are excessively selfish, the unfortunate problem with this brand of economic Darwinism is that it doesn’t balance out.

Anyway, jump forward 30 years, The Labour Party has gone a Third Way, accepting that in the UK’s political system the only way to get enough votes to translate to enough seats to be a majority in parliament is to appeal to those voters who sometimes vote for the Conservatives.  Tony Blair winning landslides in 1997 and 2001 mean that it moves into the received political wisdom.

The rise of the internet has changed the way people work and where people have to be to work, the economy has been built on ever increasing house prices, personal credit and the Square Mile in London which is home to Europe’s investment banking industry. Some reports put that square mile as responsible for 60% of the country’s GDP, any talk of anything that taxes them higher or closes loopholes is seen as economic suicide.

 Then 2008 happens.

 The world banking crisis happens quickly and suddenly someone like me who’d been blissfully unaware of how economics worked at all finds that it’s the biggest and most important subject to know anything about on a daily basis.  I’d just finished getting a university degree and was starting out on my career, about 8 years later than everyone else I grew up with because, well I had problems that are better expressed elsewhere.

I really resented having to learn about economics.  It didn’t interest me and seemed like it was “for cunts” as I’d have said at the time.  But I did, I read and I learned and here we are nearly 10 years later and I feel like I’ve got a bit of a grasp on it.

 I know that because I naturally lean leftwards I consider morality to be based entirely in whether it causes harm physically, emotionally or mentally, rather than if it causes harm to authority or social order.  So as a result certain narratives play better to me; less Milton, more Keynes.

 Anyway, in order not to go into bankruptcy like in the great depression the banks were bailed out, austerity was introduced, and the housing market was propped up allowing this bubble to artificially continue to grow.  The Bank of England dropped the base rate almost to zero and Quantitative Easing (The only magic money tree that matters) came into effect to help try to kick start the economy.  Of course, the people who work at the top level in the investment banks are not rational actors, they fall slightly to the “massively selfish money hoarder” side, as they have to in order to do their jobs properly, so rather than trickling down the economy it stayed at the top, and pushed wealth inequality to ever higher numbers.

 Ten years after the credit crunch that preceded the big crash and interest rates are still nearly zero. Most people in their mid 30’s still can’t afford a house and are paying ever increasing rents for ever dilapidating properties, people like me who’ve been out of university for 10 years and should really be in the middle of their careers who still struggle month to month on pay check to pay check, with massive personal debt just from trying to exist.

 No wonder Labour did well with everyone who wasn’t settled before 2008.

 But, free stuff.  Free stuff.  Free stuff.  That’s what this young and entitled cohort wants to vote for isn’t it?  Is it?

With interest rates as close to zero as they’ll ever be, any government borrowing and investment in infrastructure right now would be as close to a free loan as it’ll ever be, in turn it’ll create a lot more jobs, lots of younger and unskilled people working, earning, paying back in tax and spending the money.  Unlike those who were aided through quantitative easing, they’re less likely to hoard their money, and around that new businesses will spring.  With the increased money coming in it’ll be easier to pay down the debts run up, and easier to live within your means. A lot of my generation has learned that sometimes in order to survive you live beyond your means now, and then pay down that debt when you’re financially more able.

 A Keynesian model helps a Friedman model work, it’s only when there’s a social safety net that people really are in control of the right to sell their own labour for a good market rate.

 Those under 45 know that it’s not free stuff, it’s an investment in themselves, and an investment in their future because Thatcher was wrong, there Is such a thing as society, and there is such a thing as a societal good, and better educated people freed from personal debt make better choices that are in the best interests of everyone.

[neptunecreek]

Social Distancing, The Digital Divide, and Fixing This Going Forward

Social distancing, work from home, shelter in place—these are all strategies employed in response to the COVID-19 epidemic. Americans who have jobs allowing them to engage in social distancing are very dependent on their Internet connection. That dependence is only going to grow as time goes on. As parents depend on the Internet for homeschooling, as businesses depend on employees being able to work from home, and as everyone depends on the Internet for public safety information, we need to recognize that our current Internet ecosystem is failing many Americans. And any infrastructure recovery effort that comes out of this situation should address the digital divide at its source: policy decisions that have left us at the mercy of a few, giant companies whose business concerns don’t include all Americans.

For however long this emergency lasts, an untold number of us will be forced to deal with the failure of our telecom policies to produce universally available, affordable, and competitive high-speed broadband options. Families with children who must simultaneously handle school closures and remote education while also working through video conferencing and cloud computing will reside in the two different Americas for broadband access. American households who reap the benefits of competition among ever increasing speeds with lowering prices and Americans who are forced to rely on obsolete infrastructure built from a bygone era or worse yet, have no broadband options at all. Those two Americas being split between what we call the "digital divide" and its existence in 2020 is a clear sign of failure in our current approach to broadband. It is imperative that we take it upon ourselves to forcefully bring an end to the inequality of access as part of any infrastructure recovery effort.

We Are Seeing the Digital Divide at Work, and Its Lines Are Drawn Where Fiber Access Exist

It could not be more clear: where there are upgraded networks—meaning networks that can deliver gigabit connections—those homes are able to handle the increase in Internet usage that social distancing requires. Where those networks do not exist—where Americans do not have choices for high-capacity services—social distancing is much harder on people if not outright impossible.

Upgraded networks generally have had fiber infrastructure built by new, local, independent ISPs from both private and public providers.  This new competition forced the old ISPs—often the usual suspects of AT&T, Verizon, and so on—to improve their own networks to keep pace. Not only did competition improve the quality of Internet service, it also improved the price.

But there are many Americans who don’t have meaningful access to choice for high-speed broadband. Some have no choice at all. Communities that rely on decades-old Internet infrastructure lack access to an Internet connection that can handle the demands of social distancing. And the fault of this will lie with the ISPs who used record profits and tax cuts on everything but upgrading their services. The fault will also lie with our federal and state governments, which failed to promote fiber through laws pushing universality or funding to simply have someone besides the large incumbents build it.

Those relying on older networks are those who can least afford to: low-income and/or rural Americans. The most expensive part of starting an ISP is the initial construction cost. The legacy ISPs serving low-income and/or rural populations with older infrastructure have long since paid off that cost, but they still charge through the nose because their customers don’t have alternative choices. And the number one reason people do not subscribe to broadband at all is excessive price. Because no one is offering better service, at a better price, there is no reason for these companies to upgrade their networks, leaving many Americans without the high-speed, reliable, competitively priced Internet service that we absolutely need, especially now.

The differences between competitive markets in the United States and noncompetitive ones is stark. Aside from higher prices and inferior infrastructure, even the COVID-19 oriented relief packages are dramatically different. For example, AT&T is waiving overage fees (a fraction of the excessive bill most people pay) and Comcast is offering 25 mbps/3 mbps for free for two months to low income users, but a fiber competitor called Sonic in San Francisco (a city with a fairly decent amount of competition) is offering free gigabit service for three months to families and seniors regardless of their income status.

High-Speed Affordable Broadband Is Essential for Everyone—and That Makes it a Sound Investment

What is tragic about the digital divide is that there are no good reasons for it to exist, let alone continue. It is profitable to serve all Americans no matter what major incumbents like AT&T and Verizon may say. If the major ISPs universally converted their older networks over to fiber to the home, they would be net profitable in the long run. Contrary to assertions that smartphones and wireless plans alone are sufficient, nothing can truly substitute for a high-capacity connection in the home. As we are seeing right now, the more and more we do online, the less and less our phones and our outside the home options will be compelling replacements.

Our own analysis of the world’s fastest ISP demonstrates how the financials work for fiber networks. That ISP is located in the United States, built and run by the local government of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Once a portion of their network had subscribers, their revenue from $70 a month for gigabit service outpaced their costs for the entire network. In other words, after they reached a certain number of customers, their profits grew faster than their costs. That profit allowed them to stretch the network further and further. In fact, because of the unique nature of fiber wires, they were able to upgrade to a 10 gigabit network with only a tiny additional investment. Unfortunately—and predictably—the old ISPs stepped in and got states to ban local government broadband, crushing further expansion by this successful competitor. Extending fiber networks is perfectly doable, blocked only by the refusal of the big ISPs to do it themselves and their successful campaign to erect legal barriers to stymie alternatives.

But even that hasn’t worked entirely. Because we need the Internet. And in a reversal of the classic movie quote, we’re already there, so we will build it. In the state of Utah, where residents had been left behind by incumbent ISPs, and where the state law banning community broadband remains, a handful of cities collectively started building universal open access fiber as a workaround. To butcher another movie quote, we will not be ignored.

Rather than build broadband, they built fiber infrastructure, and allowed small private broadband companies to sell services off the network. Demand is so high for the services from these neglected communities, that more than enough money is being made. In fact, they’ve made enough to pay for the entire construction effort. This is allowing the network (called Utopia Fiber) to rapidly expand and complete universal fiber deployments on schedule, all while giving people nearly a dozen broadband options at competitive prices. In response to COVID-19, they are currently experiencing a record number of new subscriptions from the people of Utah who need more capacity to stay home for long periods of time. Everywhere in the country we continue to see isolated pockets of success from the 7,000 member People’s Rural Telephone Cooperative in Kentucky to nearly 100+ other small rural cooperatives deploying fiber to the home.

All of this shows not only that building fiber networks could have been done everywhere, for everyone, years ago, but also that it would have been profitable. So why have our big ISPs failed us?

The answer lies in their investor expectations and lack of willingness of these companies to engage in long-term investments versus faster short-term profits. Fiber networks are big investments that generally need 10 years or more to fully pay down the construction costs. Similar to when you buy a car, it comes with a big down payment, but eventually you have paid it off and just have maintenance costs. The difference here is that unlike your car, which depreciates after you buy it with higher maintenance costs over time, a fiber network will grow in value and usefulness because advancements in technology will allow it to get faster without any new down payments for construction. It is also expected to be useful for around 70 years after it is built. It’s a future-proof investment—the old ISPs just lack an interest in the future.

Since the old ISPs have proven unwilling to invest in what we need, no relief package or infrastructure package should defer to them on what to do. We should conclude that after billions in tax breaks and federal deregulation by the FCC that they are content with leaving people using decades-old infrastructure forever. After all, it is not like companies like AT&T are afraid of spending money when it comes to buying other companies, as their merger debt is an eye popping $171 billion (which is less than it would cost to give every single American a fiber connection). 

Ending the Digital Divide Depends on Federal and State Infrastructure Plans That Deliver High-Speed Internet to Everyone

The unnecessary hardships many Americans face to maintain their daily lives are the inevitable result of relentlessly low expectations pushed by the big, old ISPs. They’ve set the bar so low in hopes that the public and their government would just accept a fraction of what Americans deserve from the broadband carrier industry. This has resulted in too many policymakers engaging in rhetoric about the importance of broadband, rather than put forth policies that would give every American affordable 21st century-ready Internet access as a matter of law. It is time for policymakers to back up their rhetoric with action.

EFF supports universal deployment of fiber optics and open access policies that would promote competition and affordability not as a pipe dream, but because we’ve seen the proof. Other countries are further along, giving us proof of concept.

So here’s what we know: we need to be willing to invest both in dollars and in our laws a goal of connecting everyone by a specific date. We need to also refocus our laws in remedying the lack of competition in the broadband access market. Our own engineering analysis shows that a broadband access network that is all fiber will be more than ready for advances in applications and services for decades to come, including massive increases in usage needs. Countries like South Korea that long ago completed their universal fiber build did so because the government’s telecom policy drove that result.

As we noted in comments to the federal government and in our home state of California, the absence of a policy effort from government to push for guaranteed universality of fiber will continue the digital divide problem and worse yet replace it with a "speed chasm" of broadband choices. That means allowing the current state of affairs in the United States to continue is a choice. Let the hard lessons we are learning in real time today be the reason we finally commit to getting everyone connected in the aftermath.

The absence of universal access to high-speed, affordable Internet has made social distancing, work from home, remote education for children, and connecting with loved ones unnecessarily difficult. As Congress, the state governments, and local governments work to provide relief to Americans and the economy, any Internet infrastructure spending needs to remember this lesson.

  from Deeplinks https://ift.tt/2wwuPXr

[cryptnus-blog]

Blockchain & Welfare: Peer-to-Peer Charity Would Lower Administrative Costs

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/06/blockchain-welfare-peer-to-peer-charity-would-lower-administrative-costs/

Blockchain & Welfare: Peer-to-Peer Charity Would Lower Administrative Costs

(Pixabay)

It allows for peer-to-peer charity and lower administrative costs.

Americans have long stood out for their willingness to give generously to support their less fortunate neighbors, as famously noted by French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s. But this spirit of community care began to erode in the 1930s with the rise of the welfare state. Americans still give, but the idea that person-to-person charity will meet social needs has been greatly diluted by government welfare programs that provide aid via cold, faceless bureaucracies.

What if we could cut government out of the process and restore a stronger connection between donors and the people who benefit from their donations? What if we could provide a helping hand to people in a way that produces better outcomes for recipients, greater accountability, and more substantial personal connections for the people who put up their hard-earned money?

Imagine a welfare system in which people contribute voluntarily, sometimes because they know the people who benefit from the donation. Imagine, also, that the people who benefit are more accountable because they can spend the money only on certain items and under certain conditions. Finally, imagine that none of this requires a government bureaucracy, saving the billions of dollars presently lost through government overhead and red tape.

We believe blockchain technology can help fulfill that vision. At its simplest, a blockchain is an electronic means of making and storing a record whenever money changes hands. Each transaction made on a network that uses blockchain technology is stored as a block of data that every individual on the network can see. With access to a complete historical record, everyone on the network can verify the exchanges everyone else makes, ensuring that no one can exchange something they do not own.

Blockchain technology has the potential to make life better for individuals and their communities and reduce administrative costs for stores, health-care providers, and government agencies. It is already fundamentally changing banking, data storage, real estate, crowdfunding — indeed, nearly every industry that involves exchanges of goods, services, or money. It can do the same with government welfare, if only we choose to use it.

The greatest benefit of this technology is that it can eliminate the need for the third parties we use in our interactions. For example, we rely on banks and their credit cards to verify many transactions. The credit card lets a merchant know that a customer can be counted on to make good on a promise to pay. In real estate, we rely on our broker to hold our title or escrow throughout the transaction. In welfare programs, we rely on the government to distribute our taxes to the needy.

Blockchain technology uses “smart contracts,” which are simple computer programs, uploaded to a network. Like many computer programs, they do one thing only if certain conditions, laid out in the program, are met. (Think of your chip-enabled credit card; it authorizes a purchase only if the card issuer verifies your creditworthiness.)

Experts in the financial sector, retailing, and other parts of the economy herald blockchain as a great disruptor. And one place where disruption is desperately needed is in the governmental distribution of welfare. The official welfare apparatus has long been seen as the lesser of two evils, an inefficient safety net that is better than no safety net at all. Still, welfare programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (known more colloquially as food stamps) are often accused of fostering dependency rather than independence and are burdened by hefty administrative costs at each stage of the program. Blockchain technology could address both dependency and inefficiency, if government and society were willing to embrace the fundamental restructuring of welfare it will allow.

Some proposals have already shown how blockchain technology could secure welfare participants’ personal information, verify eligibility for programs, and otherwise make recordkeeping more accurate and useful. We at the Idaho Freedom Foundation propose a system that fully uses blockchain technology for a more fundamental change.

Modern welfare programs could be replaced by plug-and-play smart contracts that operate on a blockchain network. This smart contract would be the programmable digital mechanism to replace the role played by government entities.

Private donors, such as businesses, individuals, or churches, would voluntarily put their own money into a smart contract to be used by a person in need. Governments could encourage donors by giving them tax credits, since the tax money would no longer be needed to administer existing programs.

A donor could program various conditions into the smart contract (such as “complete a session in nutritional counseling”) as well as its terms (“disburse the money on the first of each month”). Once predetermined conditions are met, the smart contract would calculate the amount each program participant should receive. After calculating the proper amount, the contract would automatically transfer the money directly to the digital wallets of the intended recipients.

Blockchain programs could vary based on the needs of each participant. Each person would have a unique digital wallet, allowing them access to donor money.

Rather than receiving dollars in their digital wallet, participants would receive a blockchain token, with each token representing a dollar. The tokens allow for more control over how the funds are spent. Cash can be spent on anything, including something contrary to the wishes of the donor, but a smart contract can lay out rules for how its tokens can be used. Thus, a blockchain can ensure that tokens can be spent only on healthy food, appropriate housing, or whatever the donor specifies.

Merchants such as grocery stores would have to modify their point-of-sale systems to accept these blockchain tokens. But then they could automatically exchange the tokens for the original dollars held by the program. Charity recipients would walk away with the goods or services they need; the providers and stores would walk away with dollars.

This new blockchain framework would have many benefits over the current welfare system. First, it would be highly customizable. Current welfare programs are monolithic, forcing all participants into a one-size-fits-all solution. The new charity-care program would allow donors and participants to find the best solution for the challenges they are trying to overcome. For instance, a nonprofit could address a specific client’s difficulty sticking to a budget by programming the wallet to dispense supplemental welfare only once the participant has presented proof he adhered to last month’s budget.

By encouraging greater peer-to-peer charity, we could return to a society built on private giving, reduce inefficiency, and promote better outcomes for all.

Second, this new framework would reduce the overhead costs that are lost in the current welfare system. Before welfare recipients ever receive a benefit, the money cycles through numerous layers of government — the IRS, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, state treasuries, state departments of health and welfare, etc. With each layer, money that is earmarked for the poor and the needy ends up diluted. This new framework, by contrast, would require just a fraction of the operating costs, paid for by taking a small percentage of each donation.

Third, blockchain tokens could reduce the need for audits and inspections, freeing up even more money for the needy. Because the information on the blockchain is distributed across each individual on the network, committing fraud would be nearly impossible. Trafficking in the tokens — akin to someone selling food stamps for cash — would be curtailed by the security measures that could be imposed on each recipient’s digital wallet. These security measures could include biometric identification for each purchase and limits on what items may be bought.

Finally, the most important benefit of a blockchain approach to welfare is a moral and social one. With monolithic government welfare programs, private individuals lose their involvement in the lives of those around them. This new charity-care framework, on the other hand, would ensure that benefits are available to those who currently rely on government welfare programs, while establishing a personal connection between donors and recipients. This personal connection would give recipients someone to thank other than a faceless government bureaucracy. And donors would be able to invest more in someone’s life than just money.

Blockchain technology is disrupting countless industries, cutting out the middlemen from our daily exchanges with one another. There are few places where cutting out the middlemen would be more beneficial than in providing financial help to the needy. By encouraging greater peer-to-peer charity, we could return to a society built on private giving, reduce inefficiency, and promote better outcomes for all.

— Phil Haunschild is the policy researcher at the Idaho Freedom Foundation. Janae Wilkerson serves as the assistant to the president at the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

[polymomo]

Marriage (and why I’m not a big fan)

I am married, but I really don’t like the idea of marriage. It puts a lot of pressure on a single point in your life, and this one relationship to make you happy forever. Some people are fortunate enough to find that and I am always happy to see a couple that’s been together for 60 years, but I also think that kind of pressure can be why some relationships fail. When a relationship isn’t perfect every day and people get divorced because they think it needs to be perfect.

I hate that little girls watch these awful shows like “Say Yes to the Dress” and they see these women spending $30k on JUST a dress. My entire wedding was under $10k and I think the dress cost $120 and honestly, that was too much. Society put so much pressure on them. The only way you’ll be happy is if you spend $100k on a huge party while everyone you know watches you agree to love someone else forever and ever and if you ever don’t love them any more that means someone failed and you have to start all over again!

Even just watching Disney movies where there is a princess who is swept off her feet by a handsome prince and they ride off into the sunset. Basically every movie, TV show, book or story that kids see growing up is about one man and one woman falling in love and living happily ever after. 

Whether you’re monogamous or polyamorous, I think that’s just too much pressure. It’s got an added layer of complication when you’re polyamorous because now one partner has an official title that’s recognized by the government and the other person is just your boyfriend. It doesn’t carry the same weight in society.

“Can my girlfriend come too?”

I have a friend who once told me after breaking up with his boyfriend that sometimes people are the right person for you at a certain time in your life, but aren’t meant to be with you forever. I think that can be very true. I know multiple people, including myself, who were in relationships that have since ended, good relationships that benefitted one or both people, relationships that ended because those people changed in some way. As much as my ex made me want to stab him with a butter knife, I’m glad I dated him. I grew as a person because of that relationship. Here’s the kicker, we were engaged. 

After you get married all of a sudden it goes from “I broke up with my boyfriend” to “My husband and I got divorced.” After one, your girlfriends take you out to get wine drunk and talk about how you don’t need no man to be happy! After the other you’re a statistic that needs to hire a lawyer. 

After you get married you’re expected to save the relationship at all costs.  If I had gotten married, I might not have broken up with him. In fact he’s the one who broke up with me. I wanted to save it, but he, for all his faults, realized it shouldn’t be saved and I thank him for that. It’s important to know that some relationships just need to end, but as a society a lot of us get married before we’re really ready and for the wrong reasons and the second we’re married everyone tells us we have to save the marriage at all costs.

My husband’s brother got married, went into 10s of thousands of dollars in debt and was divorced within a year. Multiple people cautioned him that he should wait but he was getting older and had been dating her for a while and that’s what you do. The wedding wasn’t the culmination of their love, it was the culmination of societal pressure on him to propose and her to have the perfect white wedding. Now he’s engaged again because his girlfriend got pregnant. I was actually just invited to spend a weekend with a friend of mine at a once in a lifetime event, but it’s the same weekend as this wedding (which obviously isn’t a once-in-a-lifetime event...) and I’m having a really hard time telling myself that I should go to the wedding. I care about my brother-in-law, but he’s only getting married because society says he should marry the mother of his child. I’m expected to miss a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because my brother-in-law’s girlfriend refused to go on the pill because she didn’t want to get fat.

I know, I’m kind of a selfish bitch sometimes...but my point still stands. This guy now has a fiance who has never had a fancy white wedding so she of course wants one. It probably won’t be as expensive as the last one, but he’s just now getting himself out of debt and it’s going to happen again. If you’re really marrying someone because you love them, why do you need an expensive ring and an expensive party?

I’m not saying “don’t get married.” There are legal benefits and and social benefits, I get that. Especially given that not everything works out, if you have children or leave a career to be a stay-at-home parent or spouse, it’s good to have some forced legal protections should your spouse up and leave you or pass away suddenly. When you’re married and your spouse passes away, you’re the beneficiary. You get life insurance and assets all without much of a legal battle.

I’ve personally chosen to live my life in a way that I’m protected. No, I’m not some man-hating crazy-woman. I read something in a college philosophy class about a “feminist” who thought that all men were inherently evil and that all women who get married should hide money so that when they are inevitably left by their evil man that they’ll have a safety net. That’s some crazy, sexist bullshit right there and if that’s her attitude I bet everyone she marries does end up leaving her...who wants to be married to someone who thinks they’re inherently evil? 

No, I don’t think all men are evil...but I do think that shit happens. I think that people feel like when you date someone for so long that you get married, so they get married. I think that even if they love each other at that moment, that sometimes it lasts but sometimes people change. I think that life is crazy and the world is crazy and there’s so much stuff going on at any point in time that it’s impossible to say what the world will hold for us next week, let alone in ten or twenty years. I choose the path of independence. I ensure that I am happy with myself and can take care of myself financially and emotionally so that if something unexpected happens that I’m not left in the cold. That doesn’t mean squirreling money away because I expect my husband to leave me, it means having the ability to support myself if I need to. It’s the difference between having an emergency kit with some bandaids and bottled water and building a bomb shelter filled with tin foil and bowie knives. 

<Updated to include a better gif #priorities>

I guess when I think about the legal protections it’s not so much that I’m against marriage in itself, I’m against the pressures put on people by society when they get married. There’s a big difference. Marriage also has this whole religious connotation that I don’t like even though the religious ceremony and the legal document are different things. They have the same name so people get confused. They say same-sex marriages are wrong because their god doesn’t like gay people. Ok fine, then they won’t get married under your god but they can still apply for the government license that provides the spouse protections under the law. Calling that system “marriage” confuses people. Preconceived notions of “marriage” by that specific term also end up preventing a lot of variations. Ideally I think marriage as a legal entity would go away and be replaced by a series of contracts that allow for unique contingencies and riders. You could still have a basic contract available at the courthouse that mimics the current standard marriage which would allow those people who can’t afford lawyers to draw up a contract the ability to get the basic one for free. But why not? Why not call it a social partnership contract where we agree that if one of us dies, the other one gets our stuff? We can declare in that contract if we are monogamous or polyamorous and potentially allow for amendments if additional long-term partnerships are formed? We can bake terms for a partnership ending into the contract (divorce) and if the partnership doesn’t end according to the rules, we go to court but if everyone is agreeable, we simply amend the contract. Then if you want to go to your church of choice and get married and have a ceremony, you can still do that, but the rules of that religion should have no basis on your legal contract between two or more people.

So get married, be happy, but be smart and be prepared. Don’t get married because you think that’s what you’re supposed to do. Don’t get married because you want to have a wedding or because you want a bigger ring than your friend. Get married because you love someone. Get married for legal protection if something happens to that person. Get married because it’s what you really should do, not because everyone else tells you it’s what you should do.