My wife and I earn well beyond the threshold for getting a stimulus payment.

Not only did we keep our jobs through the entire Covid thing, we got to work from home rather than drive to the office and bonuses were paid out.

Our investments had a remarkably good year.

I am very grateful. Very.

I won't be complaining one bit about the $600 or $1200 stimulus payments. Not. One. Bit.

As for school taxes... educated kids lift the economy, and by extension, we all benefit.

Frankly, anyone that can afford a $5000 toy that amounts to a box that bats around a steel ball should evaluate carefully before complaining.

Ha Ha! Blackbeard will love this...
No stimulus!
Our Lameduck in charge wont sign.
He wants $2000, per person.
Lameduck is to busy pardoning the scum of the earth today.
I would buy a nice vintage turntable.
Not gonna happen.

nope, Trump threw cold water on that crap. Sent that 6000 page stack of doodoo back to congress. Said $2000 to every American and cut the foreign shit out.

Why wasn't "cold water" thrown on this 2 weeks ago when it actually would have made a difference?

Typical.

If I just decided to abandon my job for 6 weeks to stand on a soap box with a tin foil hat on, and then suddenly showed up at work demanding changes to a project that was already done in part by a team I'm supposed to be in charge of, security would escort me out.

Didn't think about that one but I do have a turntable in mind to go with my new speakers from last stimulus

It’s gonna get vetoed and nobody gonna get anything

Not sure if I'm getting the check. If I do, I'll put it in the car parts account. There's always something that goes wrong with old cars.

Was going to buy a topper but seems I’ll be $400 short.

From some news site:

"In a series of Monday night votes, the House easily passed the mammoth, 5,600-page legislation through two separate votes on a bipartisan basis. Shortly after, the package advanced in the Senate, 92-6, and now heads to President Donald Trump for his signature."

Sounds like the bill is veto-proof.

Sorry for politics but it's more about the system here.

Pocket veto and there is no override as they will be adjourning.

From some Senate site:

"The Constitution grants the president 10 days to review a measure passed by the Congress. If the president has not signed the bill after 10 days, it becomes law without his signature. However, if Congress adjourns during the 10-day period, the bill does not become law."

So he can kill 10 days, more if he vetos on day 9 and forces Congress to override rather than allowing it to become law at day 10. Also forces Congress to remain in session.. would they do that to override?

Edit: saw this: "If the president doesn’t sign the legislation by Dec. 28, government funding would lapse after midnight that day." So there is another deadline of sorts. Meanwhile the Dems are readying a bill to crtl-c $600 and crtl-v $2000 to the original bill. Looks to be an interesting week!

Actually not looking at vintage however looking at the Pro-Ject T1, love the acrylic platter, cuts down on vibrations

He has 10 days from the time it hits his desk, Congress has until the 2nd of January and the new Congress takes over.

I agree, going to be interesting, wonder if Pinball prices will go up on the used market if people get 2K LOL

My stereo receiver needs replacing. Looking at the Marantz NR1200; I could put $599 on that and coin up a LZ pin with the leftover $1 if I ever see it on location...

merry xmass..i have 2 sons..one makes good money..one does not..my son who makes the good money put $600 bucks in his brothers stocking as surprise..im proud of him to think of this , as his brother could use the money more than us..i put my $600 in his stocking also and is gonna be worth every penny when we see the look on his face.

Give me an F'n break. I am not going to argue that I need the $600, I don't and I could not care less if I get it or not.
But to say small business owners didn’t need or deserve help is a load of bull shit.
I have used the tax break to hire more employees and pay the ones I have more money.

Way too much division in this country,
Those of us that built up a small business and do well for ourselves are not the enemy.
It takes a huge monetary and personal sacrifice to build a business from scratch.
I went a long time with almost no pay so I could pay vendors and employees and spent many long days in the office missing important events in my kid's life to build the business I have.

I deserve everything I have earned - so F.... .....

Now Trump is saying 2k, 4k per family.
Now you get a pinball

And you can get a pinball

And you can get a pinball

Stimulus here wiped out my small collection.
Now I have a showroom model and a NiB.

A good time to sell.

What happened to the preemptive no politics by a mod?

Seems to be the flavor of the day....doesn't it?

All depends on who is posting them.

Tax breaks?!@ SHUT UP DUDE>

Own a small biz levi, then talk and assume shit you know nothing about.

I had a particular file i had worked on for well over two years. I have to fly to different states for legal matters. I sold 6 different properties and brought in over 4 million dollars for this one particular file. I was the executor/lawyer for it and was due a commission.

I paid myself a whopping $140k for this file in executor commissions set by law (well, it was actually two files). It will probably be my best "bonus" of my career and a rare event that will likely never happen again.

YOu know how much Uncle Sam siphoned off? 45%. YES FORTY FUCKIING FIVE PERCENT. 15% or which is SOLEY due to the fact i'm labeled a "professional fiduciary" as a lawyer!!!!!!!!. FUCK. THAT. I'm dicked over bc of my profession. ANYONE CAN BE A FIDUCIARY/EXECUTOR (and not get charged the extra 15%)

Now before you start bitching and moaning that i should be happy with 140k LESS 45%, (i am), i worked my ASS off over the course of 2 years for that payout only to have just about HALF taken.

Dont talk to me about my fucking TAX BREAKS. YOU DON"T KNOW WHAT YOU"RE TALKING ABOUT.

I pay for a LOT of lazy ass, people in this country, along with some people who really need the help.

And this one: in my early days of my career i used to represent some serious criminals. My first questions "what do you do for a living?" 8 times out of 10 the response is "i'm disabled and get disability". And it's just about always a young, able-bodied person in front of me.

If you cannot see that this Country has a serious issue and it bothers you, you aren't the one getting screwed over.

In before the lock!

I'm going to give my $600 to Blackbeard.

I like this idea.

In all seriousness, it's not the $600. It's more the principle for me. I'm just getting tired of always funding others and rarely getting a benefit for doing so. The hard working taxpayer, who does the right thing in this Country is the one always getting screwed over.

I'm alive and well, so i should just quite bitching already. And I own a sweet Millionaire.

So he can get a better accountant? Anybody conflating tax withholding with taxes paid probably needs professional tax help.

Pretty sure if you send him $330, he will be okay with it.

In all reality, $600 doesnt really help the people that need it most. Its better than nothing, but people were counting on it several months ago. Now the need is even greater.

Amazing!!!

A few years ago I walk into a corner market downtown Pittsburg with my GF and her young son. The boy starts nagging "I want a popsicle" and I say no, it's too expensive (it was like $3 for one popsicle). Then this guy standing there says "I'll buy him the popsicle, I have food stamps." Politely I say "no". Then a light goes off in my head. Shit, I pay for his food stamps. So I turn to him and say, "ok, thanks".

He pays for the popsicle with his food stamp debit card, and when we get outside the store he says to me "I have a construction business. We do fencing, painting, remodeling, whatever you need around your house. He asks for my phone number to follow up. I give him a fake number and walk away."

That's where your tax dollars are going.

I see this ALL. THE. TIME. in my job.

Spot on.

I dated a single mom on foodstamps back in the day. She had 3 kids. She'd get $600.00 a month. She told me she never comes remotely close to using it all and basically lets others use her card for the surplus. And how did she get so much? Waitress who claims $0.00. (tried telling her good luck with social security some day).

Couldn't stand it and bailed.

Safety net programs typically constitute about 9 percent of the federal budget. This category includes all aid programs for low- and mid-income families that are not a part of Social Security or the major health programs.

Examples include:

Unemployment insurance
Food stamps
Low-income housing assistance
Programs for abused and neglected children

with 2000 I can add a little to it and get 4 1/4 ounce gold eagles. Small gold is good when you have to pay for something.
In the old days they used nippers to cut "Bits" from an ounce coin, too messy.

Fun fact- we pay the same, if not more, on interest for existing debt, then we do to safety net programs.

I know it isn't sexy and doesn't have a cool story to blanket stereotype things, but if you are interested in how our tax money is spent on a federal level, here is a nice light read-
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go

Because yesterday was the day a "look over here, shiny!" was needed to distract from the pardons being handed out.

2.3 trillion dollar proposal; Pushed through with minimal time for review, and asked to be passed in very short time. Reports thus far are an hour for congressman to review and vote.

The bill is said to be nearly 6000 pages long.

$600 to 331 million Americans (of which all do not even qualify). $900 billion of said deal was for slated for covid relief.

That adds up to 1.986 billion of 900 billion marked for economic relief of citizens.

Please take some time to research and review these facts. This may alter your opinions.

As an unemployed pilot (8 months now) with no job market relief in sight, I still suggest this bill needs to be cancelled and reworked. I am at risk of losing my home in the near future.

I remember getting 800 from George Bush (can't remember if it was SR or jr) and bought a stove with it. Just replaced it the other day. Like to purchase material assets with windfalls instead of quickly blowing it.

Hey raise your hand if you read this dumb rant I’m it’s entirety.

Anybody?

Raise your hand if anyone is tired of your condescending bs attitude.

Anybody?

Can we hangout?

Let me be the first to thank you for doing so. Merry Christmas.

download (resized).jpg

Just another chance for redistribution of wealth and pork payoffs for political purposes.

Fucking lawyers

Never quite understood the need to go after one another on a personal level. We obviously all have differing opinions of things, but are brought to Pinside thanks to our shared love of Pinball.

It would also seem when given the chance to physically meet one another, friendships develop.

Makes me sad to read the vitriol in the above posts. We are all in this together in some form.

Life is short, make the best of it while you can.

I think a lot of the vitriol stems from other forms of social media use: we are used to algorithms telling us what to see and who is in our circle. If you're not in my circle, you're against me.

For example, as a liberal asshat, my social media threads are filled with the pros of defunding the police, Bernie Sanders socialism and news about Trump's latest blunder.

As a conservative, I assume the curated thread FB sends is about gun ownership and safety, ANTIFA ruining everything, and how neopronouns are used by the LGBTQ+ community 100% of the time and how they want to take away freedom forever.

When we run into somebody with a differing view on Pinside, our little brain says, 'well they believe this ONE thing, so they must believe ALL these things,' because our other online interaction in social-media-world has curated those beliefs. In reality, there is a lot of space between these two camps that is not discussed, but platforms that generate billions of dollars don't get paid for sensible conversation, they get paid to push your eyeballs further into the screen, and radical ideas do just that. Therefore, we don't have the experience or tools to build online relationships based on sensibility and nuance.

The cool thing about Pinside is that we get to escape the algorithms and have real conversations, even if it's just about pinball. Unfortunately some people can't see outside of their "feed" and use this opportunity in a positive way.

Or: maybe you met each other at a convention and you hated each other. Who knows.

Calm down everyone. Unless a few of you here are upper 2-3 digit millionaires or billionaires, we are all in slightly different rooms of the same arcade.

Mr. Moneybags over here with a boat with rooms.