While I agree in principle, it's prudent to remember that "worth" in the context of these ego stroking assessments (stroking the egos of the assessed quote obviously and of common punters who feel smug in the knowing of it, less obviously) is often mostly made up of equity (shares, ownership stake in businesses).

Why and how is that relevant? Because it's not that's why. It's kind of measure of, how much cash someone could drum up if they sold all that equity off. With the one unspoken caveat that because they have so much, any such sale would have a huge impact on the market, and likely see the value of that same equity plummet.

How it is useful is, that it's high time the US (and others) implemented wealth taxes not just income taxes (possibly in lieu of income tax). That is you pay tax not based on your revenue, but based on your "net worth". That is, you have sell off 10% of that equity to the tax man per annum ;-). Old church tithe leveles ;-). Tee hee.

The argument against that is always made by the wealthy and always shallow.

Whatever you think about Hitler and Trump, the comparison breaks down a little when we examine the context of nationalism.

Germany at the time was on the tail of the Great War, and is a mostly land-locked emergent nation with long cultural, language and other ties on its conscience, and a feeling of having been robbed of much land and liberty (under the hefty reparations demanded by Versailles), So Hitler was decidedly expansionist.

The US of today is on the tail end of a push to global imperialism, with endless losses and embarrassments, global critique holding the largest most well funded and equipped military the earth has ever seen and Trump by huge contrast to Hitler is a fort holder (building walls and bringing the boys back home - let them fight their own wars).

Further, Hitler emerged in an essentially nascent nation, with an evolving system of governance. Trump by contrast is in a very stable nation governed by generations of status quo conservatism, and oligarchic tendencies to governance and stands wholesale among the worlds democracies as arguable one of the more feeble efforts at aspiring to democratic ideals.

Trump in that context is a breath of fresh air (metaphorically, as in reality I can't help but suspect he has atrocious halitosis ;-)), and hence his popularity. I mean, how else do you explain it? He's egotistical, rude, sexists, a spoilt brat in a suit basically, no respect for anyone or anything, prone to tirades, and party to one of the most aggressive allusions to a coup the US has seen in modern history.

And here's the deal. In all honesty, what US democracy really needs, is a wake-up call, and Trump provides one. I actually can't help but wonder if, it's not better for the US and the world, if he does get reelected. I mean if only to show how broken a system the US has, that it's even possible, but also perhaps to push it even harder, and force the hand, ultimately, of the military (invariably the deciders in insurrection scenarios). There's no reason to believe the military or any sufficiently frightening part of it in the US would actually side with an insurrection (though I may well be wrong there) and ever reason to suspect they might stand strong in insisting on democratic reforms to improve the sense in the population of participation in their own governance (there are a load of tiny little things that couple be improved overnight, like non-expiring ballots, moving election day to a Saturday, encouraging and enabling everyone to vote, but the list is not short).

In short, it's a fascinating theatre on the world stage that the US is playing out for us, and I suspect few of us on the outside would feel passionately pro or anti trump, but much rather watch with bemusement at how this banal phenomenon is the product of the system, and how it threatens to shake the system up, with of course the attendant risks of instability and worse .... interesting and frightening times really.

Practice flirting. It's not hard.

In a nutshell, only two skills are needed, and I'm sure you can learn both:

1. How push a social boundary by a negligible margin
2. How not to push it any further unless reciprocated.

The only trick is to define a negligible margin. And that does require a little social savvy, but not much. It relies simply on learning what subtlety is, small things, nuances.

Blunt is all good and well, but not a lot of fun ;-).

Loved reading this.

And great to find some Mastodon users not replicating the curse of other social media platforms sharing such info as a screen-shot. Boo to Daniele Pantaleo on that front.

Why "he/his"? Just curious.

More generally why would you discriminate, the whole point if there is any point at all to this anal tradition is that at least the folk in the neighbourhood interact a little and why would you want that interaction to be anything less that warm, nice, welcoming and nice-to-meet you ... which is all a bit of dress up and theatre is intended ultimately to promote.

I'm with you, though. I have 10-year-old embarrassed to dress up and have fun with his 6 year old sibling. He's afraid of appearing childish methinks. And yet there are adults here wandering around with troops of kids dressed up too. It doesn't rest well with me, this odd shame the 10 year old has picked up, presumably from peer groups.