long_time_gone

> Even if you only count the downpayment, $2400 a year on $90k is a 2.6% return; you therefore are getting the majority of your return from appreciation.

I would also getting the increased equity in the house as each mortgage payment lowers the total loan amount.

> If you pocket 500 per month, you are looking at around 35 years to break even on a $200k down payment.

Not sure your definition of break even. After 30 years, I will have paid off the entire house.

This isn’t really a source though, it’s requiring the other commenter to prove the point you made.

Anecdotally, I know people who buy single family homes and rent them for profit. My 3 bed, 2 bath single-family home has a $3,000/monthly mortgage, I could easily rent it for more than $3,500 (closer to $4,000). Take out 10% for maintenance fees, and I net $200 a month.

I didn't decide not to count anything nor have I used the term collusion. Are there particular excerpts in the letters that prove the campaign didn't work closely with Russians? Because the report provides plenty of evidence that they did.

Did we ever find out why Manafort gave Konstantin Kilimnik polling data from the campaign? Did we ever learn why he worked for "free" on the campaign? just to come full circle, he went to prison, in part, for his fraudulent actions helping the Russian government (attempt to) destabilize Ukraine.

> Also, the word is "its" not "it's".

Thanks for that, hope it wasn't too confusing. FYI, the period should be inside the quotes for "it's."

> Yes, the article didn't explicitly say he was a Manchurian Candidate, but that's the implication, and it's a bad read.

The article is inconsequential, the report it is describing (and the evidence within that report) is the thing you keep dancing around. The report lays out in great detail all of the activities and connections.

> Someone can commit a crime without being a Russian agent.

Another thing nobody claimed. You have failed to engage in any of the substance. It's just deflection after deflection.

> The core issue here is thinking there's some real moral difference between left and right. There isn't. Think of the political spectrum in absolute value terms. People in the middle are the best people. People on both wings are the bad people.

Sounds like you've figured it all out. No need to continue.

> But, no, Trump isn't some clever Manchurian Candidate taking over our country on behalf of another country.

A claim neither I nor the article made. The Trump Campaign, however, had many ties to Russia (Manafort, Rick Gates) and clearly served Russian interests (changing the party platform on Ukraine, ghost written op-eds). Some of them even went to prison for it and you are still trying to claim it never happened. Did we ever figure out why his campaign manager gave campaign polling data to a Russian oligarch?

> Sure, they can dig up stuff about Trump's behavior with Russia. Along the same lines, there are tons of stories across decades painting the Clintons as pretty terrible people.

Whatabout-ism in plain sight.

> The difference here, and this is important, is that outlets like CNN do have a massive bias in favor of Democratic candidates.

It was a PBS article, so this is not relevant comment. Even so, the article was referencing a release from the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee. Why would they repeat Democratic talking points?

I didn't see where you developed the bulletproof case that GDP was a bad measure. If you've proven that at some point, I'm happy to adjust my understanding. In lieu of that, I'll go with the economic experts who regularly study, use, and rely on GDP for real world analysis.

> you're the only one that had to read it twice, we talked about it now, good talk.

The lack of punctuation and choice of verb tense made it difficult to understand, no need for the condescending tone.

Maybe it's a by-product of the broader trend towards distrust of experts?

> It has limitations in its ability to measure that

Nobody has denies this, so why is it a talking point?

> as we both agree it’s not a good indication of any individual persons experience

Which is why I use it for what it is instead of complaining about it not being something else. Any one individual is influenced by their own bias and experience, which creates an entirely different problem.

I don't follow, can you please clarify?

Edit: Reread and understand now...

The point is that GDP is a measure of how much the economy in the US grows or contracts, just as CPI is a measure of how much prices in the US grow or contract. You shouldn't view GDP as a personal indicator of economic growth, just like CPI isn't an analysis of costs on your personal spending. Treating it as such feels like distorting the purpose of the measure to suit a narrative.

If GDP goes up 5%, but you only get a 3% raise does that make GDP a bad measure of the economy?

> Quite a lot of people are starting to say

Who? What are their credentials? What improved measure have they created?