Matthew Miner's Basic-ish BlogMatthew Miner's Blog

Deprecated: ParsedownExtra::blockSetextHeader(): Implicitly marking parameter $Block as nullable is deprecated, the explicit nullable type must be used instead in /home/public/blog/grav-admin/vendor/erusev/parsedown-extra/ParsedownExtra.php on line 241

Deprecated: Parsedown::blockSetextHeader(): Implicitly marking parameter $Block as nullable is deprecated, the explicit nullable type must be used instead in /home/public/blog/grav-admin/vendor/erusev/parsedown/Parsedown.php on line 715

Deprecated: Parsedown::blockTable(): Implicitly marking parameter $Block as nullable is deprecated, the explicit nullable type must be used instead in /home/public/blog/grav-admin/vendor/erusev/parsedown/Parsedown.php on line 853

There's a lot of talk about student debt forgiveness. (And not the forgiveness of PSLF for public service.) On the campaign trail Biden promised to forgive $10,000 of each student loan debtor, although this promise has seemingly been broken. Currently he's just extending Trump's pause, seemingly waiting for elections to pass. People who are further left even want a one-time forgiveness of all student loan debt.

Student loan debt is a huge issue. Currently public student loan debt totals...

Continue Reading…

If you're anything like me, you've spent the last week or two getting spam notifications on Google Drive almost every day. These typically say something about how hot local singles just want you so bad and come with porn images to try to lure men with zero willpower into clicking some link that I'm sure eventually leads to you letting some person on the other side of the world do horrible, malicious things to your computer.

You know Google doesn't care about you at all and there's no chance yo...

Continue Reading…

Citi has recently announced that it will pay its employees' travel costs for them to get abortions. This is in response to the recent Texas Heartbeat Act, which allows private citizens to sue each other for having an abortion, effectively outlawing abortion in Texas. While I think the Texas law is in direct contradiction of Roe v. Wade, I also think Roe v. Wade is wrongly decided, both from a legal perspective and from a LONANG, moral perspective. No matter how cowardly or underhanded...

Continue Reading…

The IRS has announced that Tax Day 2022 will be April 18, instead of the usual April 15. At first blush, you would think this is because of Good Friday obviously, the holiday celebrating Jesus' death for our sins. Other news sites are falsely reporting this as the reason. However, a little bit more thinking would give you pause. You would think, "Wait a minute, Good Friday isn't a federal holiday." Which is correct: it isn't. I've never gotten work off for Good Friday. So why would the IRS,...

Continue Reading…

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act added 26 USC § 199A, which gives a 20% deduction for taxpayers' "qualified business income." This was intended to give small business owners a deduction to match the corporate tax cut. However, it does not apply to all small business owners, and reading the law and determining who qualifies can be quite confusing.

There are many nuances with this law involving earnings caps, business types, and other random things that you should go over with your accountant and/or...

Continue Reading…

Nobody likes inflation, but it is occurring. As of February 2022, the US has seen 7.5% inflation over the past year, as judged by the Bureau of Labor Statistics's Consumer Price Index. This is the highest it's been since the early 1980s recession. This means that the average consumer is spending 7.5% more money overall for the same things now than they were this time last year. Not everything has gone up 7.5%—some things like dairy, medical care, alcohol, housing, mechanics, and air fare haven...

Continue Reading…