You will never make more interest on an investment than you will get charged interest for the same amount as a loan.
The historical S&P500 average is 11.88% annualised. Unless your interest rate is above this, you’re better off investing. In reality it’s more complex as there are tax considerations, liquidity, risk, opportunity cost etc to calculate. If your interest rate approaches this, paying down debt is indeed the best course of action.
“We should halt all aid to terrorists and terrorist states.” - very easy policy most people will agree on.
That and the sheer audacity to have a concert right next to Gaza was a recipe for disaster that Israel took advantage of for its own ambitions.
It’s not like the Israeli government intentionally set up a music festival next door to Hamas to get participants killed. Your implication is incredibly nefarious. This was a privately run festival full of people who were advocating for Palestinian rights, set up more than 3km away from the border. How much of a buffer zone between Gaza and Israel are you suggesting there should be? 5km? 10km? For context, the width of Gaza is as narrow as 4.5km.
They’ve been mostly locked in place since 8th October. There’s no way for them to regroup and refortify with Israel dropping bombs on anything which looks like a terrorist. A ceasefire would let them regroup in civilian buildings, which I think we all want to avoid. They have to qualms with using children as human shields, so we need to keep the terrorists pinned down and get away from those children.
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-767951
The Jerusalem Post can now confirm based on verified photos of the bodies that the reports of babies being burnt and decapitated in Hamas’s assault on Kfar Aza are correct.
The photos were shown to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his visit to Israel by the Public Diplomacy Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office.
It happened. Are you willing to amend your position now?
Both of those statements are congruent. The fact that you think they’re not is a damning indictment of the American school system.
Sure they do. They can move away from the terrorists and allow Israel to kill them. Most of Gaza is farmland. There are lots of places to go where there aren’t terrorists.
The majority are children how can they leave?
Most of their parents are either terrorists or support terrorists. They’re currently using their own children as human shields. What do you propose we do about that? Forcibly remove the children from Gaza? I’m sure terrorists sympathisers like you would be perfectly happy with that plan.
At least you could read the source you cite.
Facing mounting international calls to ease or lift their blockade in response to the Gaza flotilla raid, Egypt and Israel lessened the restrictions starting in June 2010. Israel announced that it will allow all strictly civilian goods into Gaza while preventing weapons and what it designates as “dual-use” items from entering Gaza.[100] Egypt partly opened the Rafah border crossing from Egypt to Gaza, primarily for people, but not for supplies, to go through.
Additionally, any Gazan my leave by ship at any time.
We don’t have enough houses and schools for everyone as is. If you’re saying we need even more, no one is arguing with you. We’re arguing that, given reality, adding more unskilled and illiterate migrants makes all of our problems much worse.
You argue that protecting the border is impossible, and I couldn’t disagree more. Countries have been successfully protecting their borders for millennia. If you’re arguing that Germany just happens to be the most incompetent country in all of history, I strongly disagree. This is only a matter of political will. It’s only a matter of time until AfD is elected, because successive governments have refused to protect the border. When they’re in power, they’ll reduce the refugee quota to zero and expel everyone who illegally immigrated. Then they’ll restrict migration from countries from which migrants are overrepresented in crime and unemployment. People will cheer.
Germany (and most Western countries) have a few short years to make realistic concessions to their people before AfD and other far right parties take charge entirely. Decide if you want compromise, or the worst possible outcome. Those are your only choices right now.
That’s not a dictionary, friend. That’s an advocacy website. Do you not understand the distinction?
Merriam-Webster: a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence
Princeton: a person who comes to a country where they were not born in order to settle there
Cambridge: a person who has come to a different country in order to live there permanently
They will have a higher literacy level than someone fleeing Afghanistan. It’s pretty fucking obvious.
For the second time, no one is conflating economic migrants with refugees except you. I’m merely explaining that they’re both immigrants, as per all the reputable dictionaries.
I haven’t asked them to leave. I’m explaining that being friends and sharing homes with baby-murdering psychopaths makes them bad people.
You appear to be conflating economic migrants with refugees. I expect you to understand that both of those are immigrants. Are you just disagreeing with the English language now that it’s not convenient?
That definition of a refugee is perfectly compatible with the definition of a an immigrant. As per the definition, all refugees are immigrants. Not all immigrants are refugees.
Refugees are indeed immigrants.
immigrant: a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence
Biden has confirmed the reports. Is Biden a shill too?
It depends on the nation. The UN collects data. Afghanistan is 62.7% illiterate, for example. Further, Almost all refugees to Denmark have zero Danish language reading and writing skills. They must learn all of these. Slightly more (but shockingly few) have any English reading and writing skills.
Surely it isn’t surprising to you that refugees have limited European language skills?
Because supporting people makes things worse?
No. Reducing the capacity of already strained social services makes them worse. WTF is wrong with you that you want to remove social services from struggling people??
Well, I mean, they could stop cutting the heads off babies. That would be a good start, right? Maybe then they could enter peace agreements instead of starting wars, which they’ve done repeatedly for 70 years.
I also feel the need to provide a history lesson, because Palestinians are not natives. Certainly no more than the Israelis are.
Before Israel, there was a British mandate, not a Palestinian state.
Before the British Mandate, there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Ottoman Empire, there was the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, there was the Ayubid Arab-Kurdish Empire, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Ayubid Empire, there was the Frankish and Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Kingdom of Jerusalem, there was the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, there was the Byzantine empire, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Byzantine Empire, there were the Sassanids, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Sassanid Empire, there was the Byzantine Empire, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Byzantine Empire, there was the Roman Empire, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Roman Empire, there was the Hasmonean state, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Hasmonean state, there was the Seleucid, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Seleucid empire, there was the empire of Alexander the Great, not a Palestinian state.
Before the empire of Alexander the Great, there was the Persian empire, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Persian Empire, there was the Babylonian Empire, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Babylonian Empire, there were the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, not a Palestinian state.
Before the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, there was the Kingdom of Israel, not a Palestinian state.
Before the kingdom of Israel, there was the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, not a Palestinian state.
Before the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, there was an agglomeration of independent Canaanite city-kingdoms, not a Palestinian state.
Actually, in this piece of land there has been everything, EXCEPT A PALESTINIAN STATE.
Dates:
1937: Arabs reject the Peel Commission to create a Jewish and Arab state.
1947: Arabs reject the UN partition plan to create a Jewish and Arab state. Wage war against the new nation of Israel. Lose more land than the partition gave them.
1967: Israel wins yet another war against its Arab neighbors, conquering Gaza, the West Bank and Sinai in a defensive war. The Arab League declares the “three no’s”: No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. Israel voluntarily hands control of the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism back to the Islamic Waqf, and made it illegal for Jews to pray there.
1979: Israel voluntarily hands the Sinai back to Egypt, returning land conquered in a defensive war.
1993: Israel recognizes the sovereignty of the Palestinian Authority over the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the Oslo Accords. Yasser Arafat uses it to support terrorism.
2000: Israel offers Yasser Arafat recognition of a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 94% of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its Capital. Arafat rejects it and launches the Second Intifada.
2005: Israel pulls out of the Gaza Strip, dismantles all its settlements, and forces Jews to leave their homes.
2006: The Palestinian people DEMOCRATICALLY votes hamas into power as its governing body
2008: Israel offers Mahmoud Abbas once again recognition of a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 94% of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its Capital and even offered to dismantle all their settlements. And once again, the Palestinians reject it.
2010-2021: Hamas launches periodic rocket attacks against the state of Israel and builds terror tunnels in order to kidnap and murder Jews while using the people of Gaza as human shields against the IDF.
2023: Hamas commits the worst act of mass murder against Jews since the Holocaust.
My condolences.