Rougarou

Some of these posts reminds me of the Urban Legends you'd hear growing up, as in: "Keystone Light is really just the bottom of the beer vats of Coors Light, it's the same thing just the left overs!" (another version was that Keystone Light was the mopped up waste of Coors Light, which is more damning). and "the Premium/Mid-grade gas is just regular gas, it all comes out of the same silo/barrel!"

Generic rules. The 365 brand from Whole Foods is all I buy and I have a ton of Members Mark everything. Also, the HDX generic brand at Home Depot is good and cheap for 90% of the disposable things you need on a project.

In the spirit of this thread: I actually did eat at Bill Miller's for the first time this past weekend. It was very bad. I'd prefer Dickey's over this. Great Tea though, tbh.

That Chase 4x24 thing or whatever (I think you are implying it, if you open 4 cards in 24 months you are auto-denied no matter the credit worthiness), do you or anyone else know if it applies to upgrading a card? Here is my example why I ask, I opened a Chase IHG card on the behest of the manager at an Interconintental I was staying in a year ago. It's been fine, I only use it for when I check into IHG, which is not rare by any means, but I came to find out that Chase actually has two classes of cards for this IHG card and I got the lesser one (the traveler vs. the premier). Is an upgrade to the better IHG card (the premier) considered by Chase to be an inquiry and a separate card to get that would count against the 4? I ask because I can't get a clear answer from the chatbot or the website. I know Amex would just upgrade it and let you keep the same account numbers and log-ins, etc. but JPMC is no AMEX

Just saw this; not sure I'm picking up what was being put down enough because I certainly don't share the rave reviews. It was good but ultimately missed the mark of special. Liked Get Out better.

DFW to BNA delaaaaaaayed wah wah wahhhhhh

This is exactly me; I get upgraded every 2 of 4 flights and the points/status is what makes me married to AA. i have a DFW to BNA (confirmed upgrade to 1st) on Monday and BNA to cLT to SFO on weds let’s see how it goes

I thought this thread was about the Big 4 and we were adding like Grant Thornton or something for some reason and I was gonna be like, “hey, KPMG should be demoted before we add a new member!”, but this thread is way more interesting than that. I was at The Star in Frisco a few months ago where Ross Perot Jr. was a speaker during a lunch (which was how DFW plans to grow, etc. and how it’s adopting the transplants from all over) and he got distracted and started talking about how Plano got started. It’s his and his dad (RIP) perspective, but his contention is EDS came to Dallas and asked for a ton of concessions and such to build a huge campus for Perot Systems/EDS and Dallas said no. Perot said okay I’ll buy a ton of cheap land in some country land called Plano and invest and turn that area into an economic center and Dallas called his bluff. The rest, as they say is history (and not for nothing, the Perots are super heavily investing in areas around forth worth as well currently). So short of having some home grown billionaire who invents something or another out of Longview, not sure how the Plano model is realistic. A city like Longview or Tyler (which has a UT system at least and basically gives online degrees away) could take off with the Bentonville model though. Have you guys visited Bentonville lately? It’s basically a solid second tier city in the South now thanks to Wal-Mart better than any city not named Atlanta, Charlotte or Nashville. It’s got a great airport, clean cool city, young smart people/families and all the fixin’s for entertainment, etc. With Arky being a destination school for fratty white people who are kinda smart but much better at being social and EQ over IQ and will have good careers, from Frisco and Plano — a persona who can’t get into UT anymore since the 2000’s— transplants are moving there out of college too. Longview or Tyler will need a company to own the initiative and maybe it’s not really repeatable as Walmart is the biggest company and has barely done it. Last input here is that I just read a fascinating read by McKinsey around data of cities and their growth. You can skip the first part about automation which is where the premise started it’s investigation, but essentially: “Cities and counties across the United States are entering this period of technological and labor market change from different starting points. We used a mathematical clustering method to categorize all US cities and counties into 13 archetypes based on their economic health, business dynamism, industry mix, labor force demographics, and other characteristics (download the full list of locations in each segment). This approach reveals that the differences between local economies across the country are more nuanced than a simple rural-urban divide or regional variations. Our 13 archetypes can be grouped into five segments with common patterns: Urban core. Twenty-five megacities and high-growth hubs account for roughly 30 percent of the US population and are the nation’s most dynamic places. The high-growth industries of high tech, media, healthcare, real estate, and finance make up a large share of these local economies. These cities have higher incomes, faster employment growth since the Great Recession, high net migration, and younger and more educated workforces than the rest of the country—but also high levels of income inequality. Many are experiencing congestion and affordable housing shortages. Urban periphery. These 271 counties are the extended suburbs of US cities. Home to 16 percent of the US population, they also have seen strong net migration, attracting people moving out of cities in search of more space. In most of these counties, a large share of the population works in nearby urban areas. Healthcare, retail, logistics, and local services are large parts of these local economies. Niche cities. These 56 much smaller towns and cities, home to 6 percent of the US population, have found success by building on unique features. In college-centric towns, a major research university dominates the local economy. Silver cities, many of which are in Florida, are fast-growing retirement destinations. Small powerhouses, such as Bend, OR, and Provo, UT, have built economic clusters around technology and other industries; they have the fastest economic growth rates and second-highest rate of net migration across our archetypes. All niche cities are attracting both workers and companies with a low cost of living and a high quality of life. Mixed middle. Almost one-quarter of the nation’s population is found in these 180 stable cities (such as Cincinnati and St. Louis), smaller independent economies (such as Lancaster, PA, and Winston-Salem, NC), and the manufacturing hubs that we call “America’s makers” (such as Rockford, IL, and Oshkosh, WI). Neither thriving nor in distress, these places have slower economic and job growth, higher unemployment, and workforces with slightly lower educational attainment than those in urban core cities. Some of America’s makers are on an upward trajectory, while others are in decline. Low-growth and rural areas. This group, which includes 54 trailing cities and more than 2,000 rural counties, is home to one-quarter of the US population. Many trailing cities, such as Flint, MI, and Bridgeport, CT, are former industrial towns with declining economies. Rural counties encompass somewhat better-performing places (Americana) and struggling areas (distressed Americana). In these segments, populations are older, unemployment is higher, and educational attainment is lower than the national average. Things are somewhat brighter in the 192 rural outlier counties that have found some success with tourism or mining and energy. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-in-america-people-and-places-today-and-tomorrow

It was a good run of ontime flights, but finally today was a mess. 5 minutes from the rental car drop off at IAD I get a notification that my flight was cancelled-- not a cloud in the sky at that time. Rebook at DCA, drive across town, get 5 minutes from the car rental drop off and that flight is cancelled. So now I'm driving back across town to IAD again, in rush hour traffic through DC. I have to rebook on United and connect through Denver. The flight out of IAD is delayed an hour and now I'm likely to miss my connecting flight.

Because these things are more or less secured by a service that is necessary for most people to live in society; if you don't pay rent you become homeless, if you don't pay phone, you get it cut off and same with light. Maybe more importantly, paying the basic utilities (and I'd consider internet a basic utility, a conversation for another day) could be a data point as I think you are suggesting, but because those are going to be the first things paid you really need the biggest influencer of creditworthiness in those situations to be able to see if after those bills are paid, is there any money left over to pay the loan. I think you will find a lot of people who can't get loans can't get them because once those bills they pay on time are paid, there isn't a lot of money left over and so unsecured debt is triaged as less important--and rightfully so to those people. Verifying income and seeing if someone can realistically afford to service the debt by looking at current debt load and active income should still be the main consideration as taking out a loand should be a basic math equation, but sure add the light bill and phone bill as minor data points that can help people push their credit score from 618 to the minimum threshold of 620 or whatever the decision points are.

Jeff Epstein is not listed on the anti-endorsements!!

someone really needs to report this guy, there is an almost 100% chance he will hurt people one day.

Is that the Power Rangers guy who made his money stealing creative content from Asians?

Dad?

Nice. golf clap.

This and like TwiceHorn said about the 3 year average makes a ton of sense. I was just thinking I could see a lot of people with a lot of money in the bank who are self-employed professionals, like lawyers or something outside of industry that is pretty flexible, potentially taking a year to do missionary work or pro-bono work in order to help little privilege Johnny get free school for a year or two. It sounds like the juice to defraud this thing wouldnt be worth the squeeze which means it's a great policy.

You got me all wrong; I love this and am proud of the UT for doing this and think it's nothing short of awesome. I don't care if it is or isn't for the PR, it's a great step in the right direction. I guess asking some ancillary questions about how people are/can abuse this and thinking through the entire process workflow of this policy change is a bridge too far for the ACC crowd, though.

Was just in Farmington Hills, so this hits close to home.

Wow, David being exposed here. The last two pages have been...interesting. CaptainAnt doing some real work here.

Yep the 2019 Maxima looks exactly like the same class Infiniti and probably costs within spitting distance. It's increasingly a Chevy Silverado/GMC Sierra thing it seems. All that said, I've owned 4 Nissans-- altimas and muranos-- and an Infiniti and think they are great values and have never had issues with reliability and have liked the interiors and ride.

What is the downside of emanciating an 18 year old, if you get free college out of it? It's not like they can't still come to Thanksgiving and Christmas or something.

I'm on some tax free shit by any means Whether bound to hit scheme or some counterfeit CREAM

But we are in the All-star game in the 5th inning and it's 1-0 with more K's than I've seen all season.

Oh well, not like my kids are getting into UT these days. Heck, I wouldn't make it in 2020

How does this work. Hypothetically could one just quit his job and take a sabbatical and not make more than $65k the child's senior year and then get a free ride for a year or two? What is tuition like $30k a year now for in-state? Just trying to think through (as I'm sure they have) how it would be abused and how one could catch it and avoid it.