Alarich II

Several reasons: 1. Military reasons: Masses without leadership mean nothing - espcially in todays integrated, combined arms operations, you need to train the conscripts and you need sufficient officers and NCOs to actually lead these soldiers in the field. This requires massive training facilities that are hard to come by. It requires a lot more material than Ukraine has and it requires even more logistics that Ukraine also doesn't have. Also the deployment zones for large attacks have to be quite far beyond the front-line, because in the age of drones, fast, real-time enemy recon and artillery strikes will destroy those gatherings of men an material. Enemy engagement starts at distances when there is still a lot of ground to cover before your poorly equiped, poorly trained conscrips can even see the enemy. This is why you need APCs and many of them. And this ties into training - planning and leading an armoured attack column under enemy fire across minefields right up to the enemy trenches, dismounting, entering the trench system for CQB requires a lot of coordination, many different specialists working together like a clockwork. Masses on foot would just get slaughtered on their way to the battle. So you need to train and you need leaders. Social reasons: In a democratic state, institutions face public scrutiniy. A military/political leadership that wastes their own citizens as mere cannon fodder will come under huge pressure. As it is, the war against Ukraine is supported by a large majority of the population, but it is questionable wether is support would remain if meat-wave tactics were the new norm. Especially since these people are not existing in a vacuum - they are already contributing to the war effort, in factories, as drivers in logistics, in hospitals, schools etc.; what this basically means is that you are shifting more ressources to the front, where they are much less effective in their contribution to the war. And that would be hard to justify. Also from a practical POV, if this approach fails, then you have no reserves left - not in the military and not in society as a whole; i.e. a failure would have catastrophic consequences.

Not American; 42yo; my strategy is basically three pillars - 1. My own firm: I will sell half of it this year,and what remains after taxes will first be used to pay off the mortgage and whatever remains then will go into the portfolio I've been saving. Upon retiring, I will sell the other half. That's (hopefully) going to be just luxury money, for whatever hobbies and travels my wife and I will want to do or maybe a little house in Tuscany or southern France. It's too far ahead to tell, maybe it'll all crash and burn before and nothing will come of it. 2. I put monthly savings into a portfolio of different ETFs. 20% are American and European property ETFs, 80% goes into a diversified stock portfolio; The portfolio consists mainly of an ETF on the FTSE All-World (70%) and some additional ETF on Developing Countries (5%), Europe STOXX 600 (10%) and in equal parts (3* 5%) Dividend Aristocrats ETFs from Northern America, Europe and Asia. Parts of the saved the mortgage payments will go into this as well. About 5 years before retirement I'll start reallocating more of it into high yield ETFs and the payments from those will be used for smaller indulgences or necessities should we need care for example or just additional help in the house. The portfolio itself may have to be liquidated to renovate/upgrade the house so that we can have in-house care, should we come to need it later on in our retirement. 3. I have to pay into a compulsory pension fund scheme which is basically German CPAs Pension fund. From the looks of it, we are quite well funded and in theory, without the mortgage, with the kids having finished university, and with my wifes pension this should suffice to live comfortably, if not in great luxury. Our kids will inherit their parental home and about 6.5 acres of land, some family trinkets and history, a good education and (hopefully) the mental fortitude and preparedness to make their own way in life. And whatever money we couldn't or wouldn't consume ourselves.

I also screwed that bit up, because being unaware of the ambush, I ambushed the party myself, right after joining. This however got me the pixie at least. So when I got to the last light inn, the game was back on track. I also screwed up (I think) by doing the dark justiciary/nightsong quest before infiltrating moonrise towers, so when I got there, all the rescue side-quests could not be finished. Oh well. My ranger is the canary, I've already started two new games just for the sheer fun of the different playing/companion options.

Last week, half of my meadow along with 9 fruit trees an a walnut tree that I planted over the last 5 years, burned down. It was dry and hot during the last weeks, but that alone is rarely enough to start a fire. We suspect that a careless smoker among the road construction team that worked in the vicinity didn't properly extinguish his cigarette. But we cannot prove anything. So it remains a suspicion. Our wild berry hedge (blackthorn, juneberry, elderberry and hazelnut) is also gone, only a thicket of wild plums survived partially. The older fruit trees will hopefully make it, but most of the fruit is already starting to fall off. I guess I can now install a proper drip irrigation and redraw some of the plans that didn't really work out as hoped. But I must say, this kind of setback is upsetting. I had plans for my first blackthorn liqueur and making some elderberry syrup this year but these plans are all smoke and ashes now

Blowing up the dam was probably only a matter of time; it's what the NKWD did in 1941 to stop the Germans and what the Germans did in 1943 to stop the Soviets. Basically the defenders are creating a huge swamp downriver for a couple of weeks which basically frees defensives forces that were tied to the defence against a possible river crossing. In this case the Russian forces on the lower left bank.

We harvested our apples and pears during the last three weeks, unfortunately all the plums have terribly suffered from the draught, so there was nothing there. And the same for elderberry. But our pears were glorious, big, sweet and plenty of them. The apples were 50/50 - the old trees (60 years and older) did still get some water; especially our old Boskoop had huge, but not very many, apples. The others had many, but small apples The biggest part of the apple and pear harvest went into our mincer and from there to the juice squeezer. From the juice I made a batch of apple must and a batch of perry and a batch of juice for the kids. The perry was a bit lacking on the acid, of which the apple must had plenty, so after 10 days, I made a 50/50 blend of the two. Which tastes so good, that I'm afraid it won't even last until christmas. The rest went into pear jam and jelly, apple purée, dried apples, pear compote and other stuff, which will (hopefully) last us until the end of next spring.

That's not correct. The monthly 1% is considered regular income and such it is subject to both regular taxation and social security contributions. That depends on the ratio of private to company use, the age of the car, the car brand etc. Even if it was "a bit low" it is still more than any other kind of employer-paid transportation.

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding in how the tax system works. Let's first exclude all business-owners and self-employed, for whom a car is a necessary part of their business to provide their services or goods - there is no factual base to say that their car is somehow "priviledged", if they can deduct any other COGSS, then the cost of their car is no different. So let's have a look at employees, because I feel like this is the main debate going on here. Any employer can provide a car, including maintenance and petrol, to the employees and depending on wether private use is permitted or not, the private use is considered part of the salary and thus you'll have to pay income tax and social security for the private use. The amount of private use is either estimated (1% Bruttolistenneupreis per month) or calculated using a detailed vehicle log. Now many people say that this is unfair, because the estimate 12% per year is not enough to reflect the true private use, but this is speculation, because it depends entirely on the real private use and company use. Consider sales- or technical service people who have to drive a lot of long distances versus people, who drive 7km from home to work. Our tax system works with these kind of flat estimates, to reduce bureaucracy and allow for easier calculation of the tax burden (just like any employee can claim up to 1.200EUR in tax deductible expenses without having to provide any kind of proof). I have many clients who prefer the flat estimate over having to keep a detailed vehicle log, even though it is disadvantageous for their tax burden. However fair or unfair this method is, the fact remains, that the private use of a company caris added to the base of taxation (and social security) one way or another, you cannot (legally) avoid it. But is it a priviledge still? Well, to say that, we'd have to look at how the private use of any other transport/mobility provided by the employer is taxed in comparison: - Bikes: For any bike, not considered a motor vehicle, that the employer provides on top the regular salary, is tax and social security exempt. - Ticket for public transport: As long as it is paid on top of the agreed salary, the private use of the Jobticket is completely free of income tax or social security. Now, we could argue, that you can't use your bike or your public transportation ticket to drive to Italy on holidays, and you can't take your kids and family with you, which is at least in case of a bike also true. But you can still use it privately and you don't have to pay taxes for it (unless your employer is a dummy and doesn't do it right). But in terms of taxation, there is no priviledge. Maybe you feel that the car is a superior means of transportation and is therefore priviledged and we can certainly make the case that in many areas of city planning and allocation of public ressources, the car is priviledged, but in our taxation system, it isn't.

I have yet to see a usecase beyond organized crime, money laundering and scamming that really needs crypto to work. To me, it's a colossal waste of energy so far, because what I see is a lot of people betting on speculative gains but very few are actually investing in a business model. If I absolutely had to invest into crypto, I would invest in the trading platforms like coinbase, because they at least have some kind of business model.

The thing is - and most market studies show this - that individuals very rarely "beat" the market and that includes most professional, active fund managers. Which is why I am highly sceptical of actively managed funds, stock-picking strategies or cluster strategies (like niche-ETFs). Either they are bascially index-hugging strategies or they are taking disproportional risks to beat a much more diversified market index, which is a bad risk/return ratio.

Wrt the OP: I have 3 main Investments: 1. My own practice of which I hope to sell 50% next year, the other 50% when I retire, the liquidity from the first 50% goes in parts into paying off the rest of the mortgage for 2. our house, including 6,5 acres of land of which 4 acres are unser lease to a local farmer (I need to renegotiate this year, but he seems not very interested in a discount for organic farming, so I'll just take a surcharge for conventional farming). 3. regular monthly savings as well as surplus liquidity that isn't needed for the emergency fund or paying off debt goes into a portfolio of different ETFs: - Indices are FTSE All-World and MSCI ACWI (75%) - MSCI World Small Caps and MSCI EM IMI to spread a bit more into small caps and EM (10%) - 3 different Dividend ETFs (USA, Europe, Asia), mainly for tax purposes and to counter the overweight of Tech titles in the "world Indices" (15%) No Crypto as long as there's no convincing use case besides organized crime.

You are 17 and that's not really an optimal age for getting a dog. Especially a large one. Dogs will tie you down wrt to housing, moving, vacation, going out etc. Between commitments like school, college, first jobs and an active social life, your dog will come second more often than is probably healthy - especially for a pup that will grow very quickly into a big animal that needs proper training. Add to that the maintenance costs (vet, food, etc.) and I believe you should seriously reconsider and wait maybe 4 to 5 years. Or if you must, get a smaller, active breed like a JRT - clever dogs, active, receptive to strict training and much easier to transport than a medium to large dog. My aunt got one and that guy is not one of those annoying, endlessly barking rubber balls, but a serious mouser with a calm attitude.

It was legal here until the end of the 90ies, so my parents boxers still had a docked tail, but ears already uncropped. The origin of the tail docking afaik is that the Boxer was bred as a service dog, that could be used in the Police. So the docking was done, because tail wagging (which they are prone to do) in close quarters can break the tail when it smashes agains a wall or a tree. Now that I got used to the look, I prefer them with the tail, it kind of gives them a more "complete" look.

Three male boxers! That's going to be one lively household!

Very sweet, our boxer bitch Jojo is almost exactly the same colour, just less white (completely dark face). I really like it. We had two Boxers (both bitches) when I was a kid, and I loved it. But but occasionally they would get into massive fights, so I'm kind of torn on the issue. Besides, we can barely fit the travelbox and two children into our car, so a second dog would require a new one.