If one or the other is better in different circumstances, then they are not *exactly the same*

Yes. SS and voting remotely is allowed as long as you remain a US citizen.

Correct me if I am wrong but companies have to actively approve dividends each year?

Thanks. I have 3 downvotes though 🤷‍♂️

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The only thing I can figure out is to conserve water or eat less meat which uses more water per edible calorie compared to vegetables.

This is a succinct explanation. It is offensive because it is wealth hoarding. Currency does not provide value to society unless it is in circulation. Hoarding is a disease born from fear.

This is true but many companies include stock as compensation, releasing it over the years to retain staff using ‘golden handcuffs’. So it does have a way to may it back to the staff

No.

You cannot be a citizen in 3 months, not unless you get in on a particular type of program (generally having a lot of money that you're going to promise to invest...generally a quite sizeable sum.) or getting married to a citizen, etc

For Switzerland, say, you will have to live there for 13 years and not just be there on repeated tourist visas because you don't accumulate 'citizenship time credits' that way. Which means you'll have a have a job for that long which means you'll need a sponsor or sponsors.

There is an interesting wrinkle to the Swiss situation where even if you live there there long enough your neighbors can still vote to not let you become a citizen.

>Keep in mind that US citizens living abroad still pay federal income tax to the US.

Which is crazy to me. Do you guys get to vote in US elections and receive social security from the US in the foreign country?

I was reading recently about a company that is working on a seedless cherry developed via CRISPR.

https://www.fooddive.com/news/a-pitless-cherry-pairwise-uses-crispr-to-change-produce-dna/584743/

Some other EU countries are offering “golden visa” solutions right now. Greece, comes to mind.

What are you going to do, not take the flight?

I might occasionally say something to myself but if I do so I will tend to use the same voice that I would use with others - for example if I have made a silly mistake I might grumble an expletive, or I might use a joyous tone if something is funny. I do not think I ever whisper to myself.

For the most part, however, my thoughts stay in my head.

I'll keep that in mind next time I'm out Yew berry scavenging!

You can't "just" become a citizen, in most countries. There's usually a process, requiring clearing hurdles like being a resident for a specific length of time, working, etc. Differs by country. Most, because some countries sell citizenships to those rich enough (EDIT: Malta, which is in the EU, offers full citizenship for around $1million, lol).

As for travel, you (US citizen) can reside for up to three months visa-free within the Schengen area (the borderless zone within EU and close partners). Outside of it, it'll differ country by country. If you need more details about visas and traveling in Europe, there are plenty of official online resources, including advisories on your government websites. I suggest looking at those and NOT relying on "some guy who went to Europe 5 years ago told me", because these things have a tendency to change. Stay up to date or risk nasty surprises.

>It means the company has so much cash that it doesn’t even know what to do with it. So they buy back stock.

Or the company has so much cash and no incentive to lower prices or improve employee compensation. There only incentive is to improve profit.

In the before time the highest tax brackets meant that at some point a company made enough then the company could pay 10000 in taxes or raise compensation by 8000. The company could then choose to pay their employees or pay the government.

The companies still made huge profits but there was incentive beyond just rewarding shareholders.

Fair, but the 3.5mm headphone jack is over 70 years old and was made incredibly popular by the portable WalkMan cassette player released 40 years ago. Airlines installing unpopular or proprietary plugs in 25 year old aircraft still seems absurd.

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A lot of these answers are incomplete.

Let’s say you run a profitable publicly traded business. Each year you will have some of your profit leftover after you pay for the costs of running the business and what not. Now you can try to reinvest all that cash back into the business in the hopes of increasing future returns and growth. Give employees raises and open new stores, research new production methods and tech, etc.

At some point you really can’t effectively reinvest in the business. Not every dollar reinvested will have a good return. So what do you do with the money? You can pay out a dividend to shareholders, buy back your own stock or purchase another business. Each of those have upside and downside and a good management will consider all of those before choosing one. Dividends used to be much more popular but the perception has changed over time. Some people don’t like the idea of having to pay taxes on this money instead of letting it grow. Buybacks are a middle ground. By decreasing the outstanding shares, the other shares become more valuable as their piece of the pie becomes larger. They aren’t taxed on the gains since they haven’t really received them. One issue with this is that buybacks when a stock is overpriced is not usually prudent and probably would have been better distributed as a dividend.

I believe the negative perception of stock buybacks has to do with an incomplete understanding of free cash flow from productive businesses and the limited options they have to use this money intelligently

I mean, we basically do clone apple trees to avoid any differentiation in the fruit. Not something the plant intends or plans around though.

I felt the truth of the last part of this statement.

What are seeds? They are the babies of the plant.

What is fruit? It's how the plant disperses its seeds.

What is a seedless fruit plant? Sterile. It can't distribute its babies.

How do you make more seedless fruit plants? You clone them.

What is the disadvantage of clones? They don't change.

What happens to plants that don't change? Something that does change evolves to exploit them.

Yes, all naval orange plants are clones.

> and the media is predominantly leftist

lol

Generally speaking, no.

If you have a spouse of that area and/or job with the ability to support yourself, maybe, but you still have to jump through several hoops.