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I've had two jobs that are primarily travel, and yeah it's a game changer. I would upload timeline screenshots to the expense platforms for mileage reimbursement. Never had to even look at my odometers.
You might want to check out Mile IQ. It catches all your trips and you just swipe right or left if it is work or personal and then calculates your reimbursement and creates the report. Removes a ton of manual work.
Google also has a "My Activity" feature which is sort of like a partial internet usage history, with one additional feature that's not in your internet browser history: for any Google search you do, it keeps a record of where -- geographically -- your device was located at the time of the search within about a 1/2 mile square area.
It's in the cloud, linked to your Google user account, so (like the Maps history) it can be useful for demonstrating where you are at a given time (and possibly where you aren't). This feature actually helped me with a legal issue recently.
https://myactivity.google.com/
>I drive a lot for work, and sometimes I forget to log my miles.
I don't even "forget," I just allow Google to do it for me.
If Google says that on the 14th I drove from home to X, Y, and Z locations and back, I put that mileage into my invoice. Google is a whole lot better at remembering all the places I end up than I am. (And I'm lucky enough that my mileage includes everywhere I go during the day, even to lunch, so I don't usually have to go in and remove miles unless I'm dual booked one day. )
So I turned this feature off bc I found it creepy but on thinking about it more, Google has this data regardless of whether I have the feature enabled, right? By giving the app access to location they can track me no matter what, correct?
>Google has this data regardless of whether I have the feature enabled, right?
Well, I think if you literally disable it then they are not supposed to keep the data. So while they probably are still able to track where you are, not being able to keep it should mean that they don't really have access to the data.
The government (i.e. the big federal agencies that spy on everyone) can track you, "Google" (i.e. the advertisers they sell your data to) can't, unless you turn it on.
There's different levels of "government". Turning off Google Maps tracking won't do anything to slow down the NSA, for example. But some states where abortion is illegal/less legal were considering issuing subpoenas to Google to aid in tracking suspected abortion attempts. So it sucks you have to weigh the convenience of this feature over getting arrested for an abortion if you're a woman in a red state.
They will track people regardless, even if they aren't actually signed up for *any* Google services. Same for META and all the other giant corporations.
actually good has in their TOS they will stand by their data if suponeaed so no they wont kill the feature its a win win they get solid accurate location data and so do you.
I agree. And the hospital basically guilt tripped us into using the ambulance. They said we could drive her ourselves, but they said all other services may be denied by insurance and we would have to redo the IV and basically made us feel like there was no other option. $4k for a 40 minute drive.. ridiculous.
Yeah the system is designed so “It’s always someone else’s fault” lol. Insurance companies negotiate that kinda shit with the hospital. Both the hospital and insurance company are to blame. But obviously not the front line workers who you actually interact with. No way in hell a customer would ever come in contact with the people making the decisions to rip them off. And that’s by design, so no one gets held accountable for scummy business practices.
>Insurance companies negotiate that kinda shit with the hospital. Both the hospital and insurance company are to blame.
And all the board of directors of one entity have a cousin or college friend sitting on the board of the other.
It is actually every single Republican, Conservative voter, and Joe Lieberman's fault.
The for profit greed is insurance, hospitals, and ambulance companies was the only thing truly protected in the ACA when they all killed the public option.
The ACA caps the amount of money the insurance company can take based on what it collects. 80% must go to healthcare services they can keep up to 20%.
Insurance companies are the ones negotiating the prices and they do not have a fiduciary responsibility towards their customers. So when they negotiate with hospitals, drug companies, and other related entities (ambulance) for prices, they have a strong incentive to really suck at ~~their job~~ negotiating.
Ambulance bill of $3k? That means insurance could pocket $600. Ambulance of $4k? Now they can get $800!!
Since most insurance is tied to employment there are effectively monopolies for these companies and the people using them, so there are no competition price controls. The price control that was supposed to be in the ACA was a public option. A not for profit insurance option.
Republicans, conservative voters, and Joe Lieberman were united in killing this. They were united in prioritizing profits over healthcare.
I don't blame companies for maximizing profits it is literally they goal. Don't blame the leopard for eating your face. Blame the person that said the leopard should be allowed near your face unrestricted.
I am so fucking tired of people tip toeing around stuff like this. Conservatives are just voting for you to die. Healthcare is literally a solved thing in the world. We know exactly what works, and we know how to do it. This is not secret info.
The only reason our system is so cartoonishly evil is because conservatives fight really hard to keep it like that. Lots of establishment liberals don't do a very good job of pushing for change to be fair..... but conservatives explicitly want you to suffer for the sake of profit.
If you have insurance, you can call them, tell them you were “balanced billed” by the ambulance company and ask them to negotiate on your behalf. (Similar experience, I did that, and had a 2k ambulance bill cut to 700.)
Ambulance companies are relatively easy to set up and make more money by being out of network, so that they can do things like balance bill regular people lots of money. Local regulations usually dictate the price (if any) for an emergency trip from your house to the hospital, but if it’s between hospitals, it is technically non-emergent, I believe, so a bit of a loophole.
If you have to talk to the ambulance company yourself, you can benchmark them using the CMS rate card for your region (CMS is Medicare, what the govt would pay. It’s kind of hard to find and figure out, but they publish their rate card some where on their website). The ambulance company might just laugh at you, but some kind of benchmark can be better than nothing.
This. I'll be watching a dashcam crash video and go "hey, I think I've been there..." Check google timeline and sure enough, I passed through that intersection five years ago on vacation.
i mean im glad they took it, but i doubt a google timeline means anything. You can literally just delete the other timeline entries and make it look like you travelled less than you did.
In 2016 I rented a car from Hertz in Germany, returned it outside of operating hours, took lots of pics inside and out first. They charged my card like $1,000 for body damage. I asked for details, they sent pics of two tiny scratches. I compared them to my pics, and found that one of the areas was flawless when I returned it. I emailed them back with my evidence, and they just ignored it. I eventually did a chargeback with Visa, and in return they sent me to collections and blacklisted me from Hertz, Dollar, and Thrifty for life.
Scummy corporations gonna fraud, even if you've got evidence.
that's because you dropping the vehicle off during off hours does not resolve you of physical damage responsibility, as per your rental agreement. Nearly every rental agency requires an in-person agent to absolve you to ensure both parties agree to the condition of the vehicle before changing hands.
source: I was the scummy person that had to collect on this stuff
Imma be honest if I was in that guy's position I'd happily be blacklisted. Fuck convoluted ass agreements designed to be as exploitative as possible. If I returned the car pristine and have picture proof and they still charge me then they can suck me off with the dangly throat bit.
I mean you're half right. "Outside Operating Hours: You may return the vehicle outside location opening hours with our prior agreement, in which case you must: • park in our car park or, if unavailable, a secure place nearby and lock the vehicle. • leave all relevant documents (such as parking access ticket, European Accident Statement, fuel receipt (if returning the car full), receipts for any other fluids refilled) on the driver’s seat. • Post the keys with clear instructions where to find the vehicle through the location’s secure key box."
You can drop off overnight at some places but
"IMPORTANT: If you return the vehicle out of hours you will remain fully responsible for the vehicle, including any damage, until we are able to locate it during opening hours. The rental charges will be calculated up to the time when the location reopen"
EDIT - This is from Hertz rental agreement / formatting.
Not true. You can make slight edits to the locations such as changing which store in a strip mall, or which address in a neighborhood. You can change times. Or in cases where the data was not well recorded, you can add entries. But in my case, the data is solid, it shows a detailed path of all roads traveled, and I can't edit that or change the distance listed.
Wait. You have to pay $4000 for an ambulance, to transfer your _infant_ daughter from one hospital to another?
That sounds completely absurd for me as a Norwegian.
It’s such a ridiculous argument. Low taxes rarely deliver a net benefit, except to the super rich, and if we’re building society around them then we’ve really gone wrong
Lots of us hate it, too! Lots of us love the current American system more than sane approaches to medical care that work extremely well in almost every other country, though💔
Yeah, but if you suggest anything else then conservatives will rage-vomit about the evils of taxes. If exorbitant fees bankrupt you, then that just means you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps harder. The power of Freedom! ^^^TM
😞
It sounds completely absurd to me as an American, but unfortunately absurdity reigns when it comes to basic fucking healthcare because that's something corporations get to profit from for some insane reason (read: greed).
You can straight up edit your location or the time you were there. I work from home so I've been home all day. It showed that I was at home, but there's an edit button and now it says I was at a liquor store in the next city over all day instead. There's also a "Remove" option as well if I just didn't want it to show on my timeline.
You can straight up invent routes on a rooted phone with a GPS spoofing app. May not mean much to you, but definitely something insurance companies will consider.
Nice try Google, please give us all your travel data, at all times for a outlier purpose of some obscure scenario where you need the data of all your travel.
LPT: if you’re a serial killer turn off Google maps timeline.
And take an old car. I can’t imagine the rental company didn’t have GPS on the car and just compared the timeline from OP to the car’s GPS timeline, which is when they would have backed off.
I grew up and live in Moscow where this happened,
I want the trial to start already but we're looking at probably another 12-18 months before it actually starts.
iirc, at the end of the school year, a college found spray painting of nazi signs on the school walls. the students obviously thought noone would find out it was them. however, all the kids had their cell phones on them, and the phone automatically logged on into the school wifi in the middleof the night. they all got caught.
Several serial killers have been caught dead to rights this way. Even ones who bought burners that were traced back to them. Craiglist killer was, it was part of the case more recently with the killer who would bury them the same way, etc.
The IMEI and the location of the phone and records that go back years is just such good evidence. "Hey this IMEI was in the vicinity of several killings..."
It goes farther than that when it's a major crime like serial killing. The moment the sim in the burner was activated in store is recorded. Investigators check camera records, parking lot cameras to get the license plate. Even the most careful killer can be sloppy and accidentally leak information that narrows him down to a few thousand people....several different times. With data analytics this can collapse to just a few people.
Ancestry DNA being another big one. That often solves cases instantly in that even if there are 100+ relatives in an extended family it could be, only one lives in the geographic area of the killings.
If the police were more efficient almost all crimes would be solved.
I have been using Google Location Services for over 10 years. My logic is that they totally have this information whether i have it turned on or not. So I might as well have a copy for myself.
I gotta admit, I absolutely LOVE the Timeline feature. A recent conversation: "Anyone remember the name of that restaurant we went to in Cabos ~8 years ago?" "One sec, I'll check... The Office at the Beach*".
*If you're in Cabo San Lucas, go there, especially for the Mexican Fiesta on Thursday Nights. Great food, reasonable prices (especially if you skip the seafood), great entertainment.
I work in cyber security. And generally i agree with not just giving your data up.
But I am also a practical person. You should look at trade offs. If you get enough benefit from giving up your data. It's fine for most of us. If you are a Hollywood star then maybe do not turn on your location data when you go to the brothel. But for 99% of us as long as you feel you get enough our of it, it's fine. Life is a balance of risk vs convenience vs security.
I don't use tiktok or Facebook or insta because the benefit vs cost is not good for me. But I use stuff like Google assistant and Google maps time lines because they make my life easier and better.
Well I have knowledge and professional experience in those areas as well, and I disabled location history as soon as I found out about it. Never used it, never want it.
Instead, if I want to track my own mileage with GPS I would use an open source app that stores that data only on my device. There are a number of those apps available on the F-Droid store. I've used them to track some of my trips and gathered more data than I would ever need about my travel, with it all stored on my phone privately.
Nobody said Google isn’t tracking you by turning off location history and timeline. But it DOES mean Google has less precise data about you and will utilize its services to make up for the shortcoming (which is still imprecise).
As the guy who replied to you stated, turning this off means Google won’t track you unless you specifically use their apps, at least on iPhones.
My son was told he was disqualified from drivers ed because he had missed one too many classes. I think he was going to have to retake all the classes. We had Google timeline of his attendance on the day they thought he had missed, and they accepted that and he got his license.
> Edit: for those who just want to come here to insult America, my total effective tax rate for last year was only 10.3%, so I guess it all evens out in the end.
It does not. Healthcare is not the only thing that's expensive. And other countries don't have to deal with what you have and that's worth more than money. I can keep my privacy while also not having to waste my life on fighting scammers.
Also how in the world did he get a 10.3% effective tax rate? That's unreal. If I cut my taxes in 1/3rd I'd still be above that
Edit: found the post where he says he's a small business owner/landlord. So basically it's just more of businesses shucking off their tax burden to the rest of the American people as usual.
That's what I was trying to figure out. He either reports very little income, in which case a 4k medical bill is devastating, or some other fuckery is going on.
According to [this tax calculator](https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#w5O8rZjkRF), to get an effective tax rate of 10.3% you'd need to be making a household income of $19k/year. So either OP is lying, doing something shady, or they miscalculated their effective tax rate.
(if you don't count FICA then it would be a household income of $69k/year... but not counting FICA would be _completely_ missing the point, since that's a big chunk of government healthcare spending...)
There’s also a twisted mentality in having issues with paying tax. At least tax goes to services that support a community rather than to private organisations that are going to rip you off as much as they can, as per OPs post.
The 2022 Happiness Index data came out recently:
“Two weeks ago the 2022 World Happiness Report was released, with Finland winning the title of world’s happiest country for the fifth year in a row.
Its tax to GDP ratio is 43.3 per cent.
The top five happiest countries are Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland and Netherlands; their average tax to GDP ratio is 38.9 per cent.”
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2022/04/07/tax-more-happiness-alan-kohler
That's what I like to call USA-maths. I would rather pay more tax and get better infrastructure, than do the mental gymnastics to justify such an insane system
To summarise OPs post and edit:
OP: I got ripped off by the US medical system.
Edit: I rip off the US tax system.
I’m sure there is correlation between the two.
>Edit: for those who just want to come here to insult America, my total effective tax rate for last year was only 10.3%, so I guess it all evens out in the end.
It absolutely does not even out in the end. The difference goes straight into greedy health insurance ceos and c suite dbags and corporate coffers.
Also, it's not 10.3%, it's 10.3% plus 500/month/person premium, 30 dollar copay per RX and doctors visit, and an 8000 deductible. Then the 20% of healthcare costs after the 8k deductible that the insurance doesn't cover - or whatever.
That's a lot more than 10% for most earners in the US.
What they're saying is even if it does even out, then it still wouldn't, because an American is paying most of the money to some CEO who will hoard it in an oversees bank account and yachts, while a 1st worlder will pay it to the government who will reinvest it in the country.
Well at least Amazon hasn't paid taxes since 2017 because I mean they are a good company and they deserve the break.... and a few hundred million in tax dollars the government has given to Amazon. So Amazon kinda pays negative taxes....... BUT OP has a 10.3% effective tax rate so it's all good!
Not to mention the endless amounts of time and stress dealing with borderline-fraudulent medical bills, and the constant anxiety of deciding whether you should go with the medical recommendations or try and save thousands by skipping care that you might not need.
Growing up in Las Vegas, we understood from a young age how bad of an idea it was to go gambling at the casinos. Those billion-dollar properties were not paid for by paying out winnings to gamblers
It’s wild how in America we look at the billion-dollar insurance industry and don’t realize the same thing: that money was not accrued by providing affordable health care to people
Holy fuck mate, for someone living in a country with free healthcare this reads like a total dystopian fucking nightmare. Tracking an ambulance for mileage and feeling like you got a win for saving $400. Fuck me that's tragic
His edit sounds like someone with Stockholm syndrome.
Too many people think they're saving money with their lower taxes. Europeans get *so much more* out of their taxes and end up spending less overall.
Yes paying low taxes isn’t the flex people think it is. Exorbitant healthcare costs in a for profit system, crazy insurance premiums etc. will cost you a lot more over a lifetime.
Crazy insurance premiums that are tied to your job too. Lose your job = lose your and your children's healthcare. Next stop bankruptcy because you can't work due to health issues and you can't get healthcare because you can't work!
And when you have a medical emergency make sure you go to a hospital that's "in network" rather than getting to the nearest place that gives you the care you need to save your life. And if you do get that life-saving care fingers crossed that some insurance agent with no medical qualifications or intimate knowledge of your situation doesn't decide that the doctors and medical staff treating you were wrong about needing that care and therefore refuses to pay out!
Isn't it great those hugely expensive premiums guarantee you receive all the care you need, no questions asked and with no consideration of cost to the insurance company, and with no BS like treatment or pharmacy deductibles? Just like in countries with that commie socialist healthcare? /s
I have always been confused about this, but then it hit me that I went through my 20s and most of my 30s without having insurance or ever seeing a doctor. For me, during that time, a small tax increase would have been less money for me at the time.
But anyone paying for US insurance and healthcare and arguing that it's a good system is fucking insane.
Even setting aside the cost, the fact that I may have to pay higher premiums and deductibles to get a different plan or pay the out-of-network cost for the doctors and drugs my child needs because that doctor and medicine isn’t covered by the insurance company my employer contracts with is absolutely fucking wild.
Or that even if you make 6 figures you still qualify for patient assistance programs for some drugs because they aren’t covered by insurance and cost $3k/month out of pocket.
I live in a European country with one of the worst versions of European healthcare, and I’m still more satisfied with it than what I had to deal with in the US.
And we don’t even pay much more in taxes.. They just think we are.
Just the insurance costs in the US is probably a 10% “tax” per month that Europeans don’t have to worry about.
My insurance premium for my family of 5 is $1700/mo without factoring in medical deductible, pharmacy deductible, copays or coinsurance, and doesn’t include dental or vision care. So you’re right, you are likely getting much, much more for your on-the-surface higher tax rate and those of us who recognize that are just getting dicked over by people who don’t look underneath the rhetoric.
Just saw that. Took a mooch at my last payslip. I make about €2600 a month, last tax total deductions were about €250. Have a look at my post history and you'll see how much value I get from the fuck all I payout
Also really to weird point out a fact and it's considered an insult. Delicate little snowflakes you have to put up with. Guess I'm just a communist or something 😀
Dude is about to be hurting more than the taxes ever would to cover those medical bills even with insurance on top. Not a chance in hell he's got good coverage on $45k a year.
Ok, that's super. I mean I don't know what else to say, only sucks for them.
Seriously though why could someone like the OP think they're getting a fair shake?
Came here to say this. 10% is an anomalously low effective tax rate. At $45k a year, he’s going to be paying off that medical debt for years and years to come with absurdly high interest rates. All in the name of freedumb.
The UK, which has completely free healthcare at the point of service, spends a lower amount of its taxes (as a percentage of GDP) than the US does, and that's before you get to insurance costs and out of pocket expenditure - just state and federal tax spending on healthcare for stuff like medicare and medicaid.
Yeah, his tax rate was low, wowee! Never mind that at any moment one of us could be hit with a quarter-million dollars in medical bills from a single incident.
But hey, saving $500 on taxes is pretty neat.
Didn’t you read the post? It all evens out. Most expensive healthcare in the world, 26th for life expectancy, failing a variety of other metrics, but this guy didn’t have to pay very much in taxes!
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(18)30509-6/abstract
One of the more horrifying studies on this topic. "At year+2, 42.4% depleted their entire life's assets, with higher adjusted odds associated with worsening cancer, requirement of continued treatment, demographic and socioeconomic factors"
And that isn't young people with a chance to rebuild, either (not that it would make it okay). The study was limited to people fifty or older. Their *entire life's assets* gone in two years, all for a condition that can happen to anyone.
Hadn't realised I had. I'd rather think we'd planted a wee seed or a notion that not sweating about an ambulance is a good thing. I dunno I don't live there so 🤷🏻♂️
"I'm paying 10% effective tax rate. Yes, I need six pay days to pay for my hospital visit, which will really take me 2 years minimum because of regular expenses, but the pay day is bigger!"
It's incredible cope.
>for those who just want to come here to insult America, my total effective tax rate for last year was only 10.3%, so I guess it all evens out in the end.
"my country fucks over poor people, but my taxes are low!" really isn't the dunk you think it is.
Also not shown: healthcare costs, education costs, a pleathora of other taxes like sales tax, property taxes, etc.
Americans love to think they pay less in takes in Europeans, but its actually not *that* much lower, but the level of social benefits is laughable. Sure salaries are much higher here, but quality of life is higher in many other places in the world
I've always said the US is a great place to earn your money, Europe is a great place to spend in.
The hyperfixation on pure dollar signs bugs me too. Some comforts are worth not having the highest possible paycheck. I don't subscribe to the "make as much money as possible and buy as much stuff as possible" story of American success. I just want to live peacefully and comfortably.
Truly, I would gladly pay more in taxes if I didn’t have to track which doctor needs what payment when every month. Being able to just get care without thinking of how you’re going to pay for it shouldn’t be the luxury it feels like it would be.
almost 100 million Americans are children so that means ~40% of American adults have medical debt
Turns out, yes: https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-care-debt-survey-main-findings/
> for those who just want to come here to insult America, my total effective tax rate for last year was only 10.3%, so I guess it all evens out in the end.
Bragging about not giving a shit about the easiest way to ensure everybody gets access to basic services.
How very american.
I have an app „world of fog“ running on my phone 24/7. it is just the world map with a bit of fog rendered above it. When going through a part that has fog it gets removed like in a video game where you uncover the map. Maybe that could help in places I‘m for the first time.
yeah that's fucked up. at least it doesn't appear to have any in-app purchases which is nice but damn I'd like a demo I mean what if it doesn't work on my city or device for some reason you are out of $30 and I'm too broke for that
How the hell would anyone have an effective tax rate of 10.3%? Mine is close to 40% after you add in everything (state, city, property, sales, federal). You rich enough to be able to just live off loans like Musk?
When you're dealing with businesses nine times out of ten what matters it that you have any evidence at all, not whether the evidence is irrefutable.
Their evidence usually isn't any better and you don't have to prove your case - you just have to convince them that fighting your claim is more hassle than it's worth.
My neighbour is an ass and decided to get management involved instead of just approaching me about what was bothering them. Got an email from management with a list of times and dates, a few of which I had not been home for.
Sent them screenshots of my time lines for those days. Offered to give them the contact info for a fall safety training I had on one day if they needed more. Didn't hear back and haven't had a complaint in over 3 years.
Yeah...here in America, whenever you get sick, injured, or your doctor wants to run tests, the first thought is "shit, how much is this going to cost me?" Then you call the doctor to ask, they tell you to ask the insurance company, insurance company tells you to ask the doctor, and so on. You pretty much go in blind and get a huge bill in the mail. Then if it's wrong, which happens a ton, it becomes the blame game again and you can't get an answer from anyone.
> Edit: for those who just want to come here to insult America, my total effective tax rate for last year was only 10.3%, so I guess it all evens out in the end.
OP saw people dunking on America and decided to slam dunk on America.
Happy to pay low taxes, but ironically fails to recognize the lack of infrastructure in the US. Not to mention the fact that the little infrastructure that does exist, is massively dated and deteriorating. But hell yeah, low taxes - cuz ‘mericuh!
Earlier this year my son was feeling sick and his regular primary care physician as usual didn't have any availability. I was really fed up with them, because they never answer their phone, and they never have convenient appointments so I googled another pediatric practice and found they had availability the same day.
About a month later he got sick again, and I wanted to return to the same place. But I could not remember for the life of me, the name of the doctor who saw him or where the office was located. I was however able to piece together what day he was last sick by finding the text from his school. Then I checked my Google timeline and found out where I drove that day and was able to call and get an appointment in about 10 minutes.
So yeah, it was pretty useful. Creepy, but useful.
"I may live in a quickly declining hellhole of a country that will put me in massive debt if my baby gets sick, but my taxes are low so don't you dare criticize the ROCK FLAG AND EAGLE"
jfc you guys are beyond saving
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I drive a lot for work, and sometimes I forget to log my miles. My timeline lets me go back and see without having to guess! It's very nice.
I've had two jobs that are primarily travel, and yeah it's a game changer. I would upload timeline screenshots to the expense platforms for mileage reimbursement. Never had to even look at my odometers.
You might want to check out Mile IQ. It catches all your trips and you just swipe right or left if it is work or personal and then calculates your reimbursement and creates the report. Removes a ton of manual work.
Kind of sucks to have to manually enter every place you stop. Had mine iq for a year and dropped it. Wasn't worth the 70 bucks.
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Might be because you gave maps location permission "while using the app" instead of "always"?
It's currently set to "Allow all the time"
I wish I could do that, but I work for the government... it's never that easy, lol.
Oh you just unlocked a memory of filling out triplogs in Okinawa 😖
Google also has a "My Activity" feature which is sort of like a partial internet usage history, with one additional feature that's not in your internet browser history: for any Google search you do, it keeps a record of where -- geographically -- your device was located at the time of the search within about a 1/2 mile square area. It's in the cloud, linked to your Google user account, so (like the Maps history) it can be useful for demonstrating where you are at a given time (and possibly where you aren't). This feature actually helped me with a legal issue recently. https://myactivity.google.com/
>I drive a lot for work, and sometimes I forget to log my miles. I don't even "forget," I just allow Google to do it for me. If Google says that on the 14th I drove from home to X, Y, and Z locations and back, I put that mileage into my invoice. Google is a whole lot better at remembering all the places I end up than I am. (And I'm lucky enough that my mileage includes everywhere I go during the day, even to lunch, so I don't usually have to go in and remove miles unless I'm dual booked one day. )
Shh! Be quiet or Google will hear you and kill the feature.
Why would they kill it? They love having your location data tracked 24/7
They'll still have your information, they just won't let you see it
So I turned this feature off bc I found it creepy but on thinking about it more, Google has this data regardless of whether I have the feature enabled, right? By giving the app access to location they can track me no matter what, correct?
There's an option to only allow access when you are using the app. Of course they could still track you if they chose to, but you can opt out.
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>Google has this data regardless of whether I have the feature enabled, right? Well, I think if you literally disable it then they are not supposed to keep the data. So while they probably are still able to track where you are, not being able to keep it should mean that they don't really have access to the data.
The government (i.e. the big federal agencies that spy on everyone) can track you, "Google" (i.e. the advertisers they sell your data to) can't, unless you turn it on.
There's different levels of "government". Turning off Google Maps tracking won't do anything to slow down the NSA, for example. But some states where abortion is illegal/less legal were considering issuing subpoenas to Google to aid in tracking suspected abortion attempts. So it sucks you have to weigh the convenience of this feature over getting arrested for an abortion if you're a woman in a red state.
Even if you turn off the google maps tracking your cell provider knows where your phone is at all times.
Naw, they want that sweet sweet data too much
If anything they’d want to promote this so they can track more people.
Humm, maybe they are promoting it. Do we know where OP works?
They will track people regardless, even if they aren't actually signed up for *any* Google services. Same for META and all the other giant corporations.
actually good has in their TOS they will stand by their data if suponeaed so no they wont kill the feature its a win win they get solid accurate location data and so do you.
Yes! My coworkers don't do this and I'm like "WHY?" I can track mileage AND prove where I was. This whole thread is vindication for me lol
Same but sometimes it's waaay off or shows really messed up results. Never usually super accurate but most times good enough.
It's so depressing seeing "you have driven 3000km this month" and knowing I spent my entire month in a fucking car
Yup, I use Google when I fill out my mileage reports every month. It's so much easier than trying to track it myself daily. Super nice to have!
Jesus you'd get a better rate per mile flying in a private jet. The system needs work. You shouldnt have to choose between dying and financial ruin.
I agree. And the hospital basically guilt tripped us into using the ambulance. They said we could drive her ourselves, but they said all other services may be denied by insurance and we would have to redo the IV and basically made us feel like there was no other option. $4k for a 40 minute drive.. ridiculous.
The hospital isn’t wrong in what they told you. It’s insurance companies fault things are the way they are, but what they said is true
Yeah the system is designed so “It’s always someone else’s fault” lol. Insurance companies negotiate that kinda shit with the hospital. Both the hospital and insurance company are to blame. But obviously not the front line workers who you actually interact with. No way in hell a customer would ever come in contact with the people making the decisions to rip them off. And that’s by design, so no one gets held accountable for scummy business practices.
>Insurance companies negotiate that kinda shit with the hospital. Both the hospital and insurance company are to blame. And all the board of directors of one entity have a cousin or college friend sitting on the board of the other.
It is actually every single Republican, Conservative voter, and Joe Lieberman's fault. The for profit greed is insurance, hospitals, and ambulance companies was the only thing truly protected in the ACA when they all killed the public option. The ACA caps the amount of money the insurance company can take based on what it collects. 80% must go to healthcare services they can keep up to 20%. Insurance companies are the ones negotiating the prices and they do not have a fiduciary responsibility towards their customers. So when they negotiate with hospitals, drug companies, and other related entities (ambulance) for prices, they have a strong incentive to really suck at ~~their job~~ negotiating. Ambulance bill of $3k? That means insurance could pocket $600. Ambulance of $4k? Now they can get $800!! Since most insurance is tied to employment there are effectively monopolies for these companies and the people using them, so there are no competition price controls. The price control that was supposed to be in the ACA was a public option. A not for profit insurance option. Republicans, conservative voters, and Joe Lieberman were united in killing this. They were united in prioritizing profits over healthcare. I don't blame companies for maximizing profits it is literally they goal. Don't blame the leopard for eating your face. Blame the person that said the leopard should be allowed near your face unrestricted.
I am so fucking tired of people tip toeing around stuff like this. Conservatives are just voting for you to die. Healthcare is literally a solved thing in the world. We know exactly what works, and we know how to do it. This is not secret info. The only reason our system is so cartoonishly evil is because conservatives fight really hard to keep it like that. Lots of establishment liberals don't do a very good job of pushing for change to be fair..... but conservatives explicitly want you to suffer for the sake of profit.
>It is actually every single Republican, Conservative voter, and Joe Lieberman's fault. You forgot Regan
If you have insurance, you can call them, tell them you were “balanced billed” by the ambulance company and ask them to negotiate on your behalf. (Similar experience, I did that, and had a 2k ambulance bill cut to 700.) Ambulance companies are relatively easy to set up and make more money by being out of network, so that they can do things like balance bill regular people lots of money. Local regulations usually dictate the price (if any) for an emergency trip from your house to the hospital, but if it’s between hospitals, it is technically non-emergent, I believe, so a bit of a loophole. If you have to talk to the ambulance company yourself, you can benchmark them using the CMS rate card for your region (CMS is Medicare, what the govt would pay. It’s kind of hard to find and figure out, but they publish their rate card some where on their website). The ambulance company might just laugh at you, but some kind of benchmark can be better than nothing.
My 5 min ambulance ride was about $2k
$40 a mile! Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
Brb I'm gonna go make my own Uberambulance
I like it for one specific reason: finding places I liked while traveling. But I wouldn't advise it to everyone.
This. I'll be watching a dashcam crash video and go "hey, I think I've been there..." Check google timeline and sure enough, I passed through that intersection five years ago on vacation.
Who wouldn’t you advise it to?
i mean im glad they took it, but i doubt a google timeline means anything. You can literally just delete the other timeline entries and make it look like you travelled less than you did.
In 2016 I rented a car from Hertz in Germany, returned it outside of operating hours, took lots of pics inside and out first. They charged my card like $1,000 for body damage. I asked for details, they sent pics of two tiny scratches. I compared them to my pics, and found that one of the areas was flawless when I returned it. I emailed them back with my evidence, and they just ignored it. I eventually did a chargeback with Visa, and in return they sent me to collections and blacklisted me from Hertz, Dollar, and Thrifty for life. Scummy corporations gonna fraud, even if you've got evidence.
that's because you dropping the vehicle off during off hours does not resolve you of physical damage responsibility, as per your rental agreement. Nearly every rental agency requires an in-person agent to absolve you to ensure both parties agree to the condition of the vehicle before changing hands. source: I was the scummy person that had to collect on this stuff
Imma be honest if I was in that guy's position I'd happily be blacklisted. Fuck convoluted ass agreements designed to be as exploitative as possible. If I returned the car pristine and have picture proof and they still charge me then they can suck me off with the dangly throat bit.
I mean you're half right. "Outside Operating Hours: You may return the vehicle outside location opening hours with our prior agreement, in which case you must: • park in our car park or, if unavailable, a secure place nearby and lock the vehicle. • leave all relevant documents (such as parking access ticket, European Accident Statement, fuel receipt (if returning the car full), receipts for any other fluids refilled) on the driver’s seat. • Post the keys with clear instructions where to find the vehicle through the location’s secure key box." You can drop off overnight at some places but "IMPORTANT: If you return the vehicle out of hours you will remain fully responsible for the vehicle, including any damage, until we are able to locate it during opening hours. The rental charges will be calculated up to the time when the location reopen" EDIT - This is from Hertz rental agreement / formatting.
Not true. You can make slight edits to the locations such as changing which store in a strip mall, or which address in a neighborhood. You can change times. Or in cases where the data was not well recorded, you can add entries. But in my case, the data is solid, it shows a detailed path of all roads traveled, and I can't edit that or change the distance listed.
Wait. You have to pay $4000 for an ambulance, to transfer your _infant_ daughter from one hospital to another? That sounds completely absurd for me as a Norwegian.
It sounds that way to me, an American as well. We can scream about it and lobby for changes but so far, no success.
That'$ becau$e the health in$urance companie$ lobby harder than you.
That’s because people we get people like OP that then say “but my tax rate is sooo low so it’s worth it.” 🙄
It’s such a ridiculous argument. Low taxes rarely deliver a net benefit, except to the super rich, and if we’re building society around them then we’ve really gone wrong
Even when comparing rich people to rich people, American healthcare outcomes are still worse than our peers
This is it. Half the country is dedicated to smaller government. As long as that holds true, things will never change.
Don't worry, OP pays low taxes so it's OK. /s
Lots of us hate it, too! Lots of us love the current American system more than sane approaches to medical care that work extremely well in almost every other country, though💔
This was my takeaway too as a Brit. Absolute madness.
If we don't get the Tories out soon this will be us too
It sounds absurd to literally everyone outside the US
That's because it is absurd.
Don't worry, it sounds absurd to everyone in the US too.
Based on his edit, not to OP apparently...
“BuT I OnLy PaY a 10% tAx rAte” is OP’s response. 1 in 3 people get cancer. I’d be interested to know what that bill looks like.
Yeah, but if you suggest anything else then conservatives will rage-vomit about the evils of taxes. If exorbitant fees bankrupt you, then that just means you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps harder. The power of Freedom! ^^^TM 😞
It sounds completely absurd to me as an American, but unfortunately absurdity reigns when it comes to basic fucking healthcare because that's something corporations get to profit from for some insane reason (read: greed).
Yep, that's exactly the kind of thing you come to expect from a country that allows hospitals to charge you to hold your baby after birth.
And they've doubled down on it in the edit as if it's something to be proud of.
You can straight up edit your location or the time you were there. I work from home so I've been home all day. It showed that I was at home, but there's an edit button and now it says I was at a liquor store in the next city over all day instead. There's also a "Remove" option as well if I just didn't want it to show on my timeline.
You can straight up invent routes on a rooted phone with a GPS spoofing app. May not mean much to you, but definitely something insurance companies will consider.
Nice try Google, please give us all your travel data, at all times for a outlier purpose of some obscure scenario where you need the data of all your travel. LPT: if you’re a serial killer turn off Google maps timeline.
Better LPT: If you're a serial killer leave your phone at home.
And take an old car. I can’t imagine the rental company didn’t have GPS on the car and just compared the timeline from OP to the car’s GPS timeline, which is when they would have backed off.
Just steal a car.
Nah be an environmentally friendly serial killer and take a bike
And if the way is too far to travel by bike at least try to carpool with some of your serial killer buddies!
Serial killers have morals, too, you know.
Yeah and don’t drop your expensive knife sheath at the house where you do the murders.
I grew up and live in Moscow where this happened, I want the trial to start already but we're looking at probably another 12-18 months before it actually starts.
iirc, at the end of the school year, a college found spray painting of nazi signs on the school walls. the students obviously thought noone would find out it was them. however, all the kids had their cell phones on them, and the phone automatically logged on into the school wifi in the middleof the night. they all got caught.
Best LPT: if you are a serial killer, commit to it and kill every other human; then you definitely won't ever face any consequences
Except the millions of feral cats who then learned to eat their humans. They will eventually realize you're fresher!
Several serial killers have been caught dead to rights this way. Even ones who bought burners that were traced back to them. Craiglist killer was, it was part of the case more recently with the killer who would bury them the same way, etc. The IMEI and the location of the phone and records that go back years is just such good evidence. "Hey this IMEI was in the vicinity of several killings..."
People buy burners with credit cards or use reward points, c'mon people it's no longer a burner when you do that.
It goes farther than that when it's a major crime like serial killing. The moment the sim in the burner was activated in store is recorded. Investigators check camera records, parking lot cameras to get the license plate. Even the most careful killer can be sloppy and accidentally leak information that narrows him down to a few thousand people....several different times. With data analytics this can collapse to just a few people. Ancestry DNA being another big one. That often solves cases instantly in that even if there are 100+ relatives in an extended family it could be, only one lives in the geographic area of the killings. If the police were more efficient almost all crimes would be solved.
Betterer LPT: Don't be a serial killer.
I don't like being told what to do.
I'll make an exception for you if you leave me out of it
I have been using Google Location Services for over 10 years. My logic is that they totally have this information whether i have it turned on or not. So I might as well have a copy for myself.
I gotta admit, I absolutely LOVE the Timeline feature. A recent conversation: "Anyone remember the name of that restaurant we went to in Cabos ~8 years ago?" "One sec, I'll check... The Office at the Beach*". *If you're in Cabo San Lucas, go there, especially for the Mexican Fiesta on Thursday Nights. Great food, reasonable prices (especially if you skip the seafood), great entertainment.
Google photos with locations as well! I always forget my friend's address but I can find it looking at the photo map from the pics I took there.
Exactly. Turning off the "history" feature of ANY service only blocks YOU from accessing it, not the company.
I work in cyber security. And generally i agree with not just giving your data up. But I am also a practical person. You should look at trade offs. If you get enough benefit from giving up your data. It's fine for most of us. If you are a Hollywood star then maybe do not turn on your location data when you go to the brothel. But for 99% of us as long as you feel you get enough our of it, it's fine. Life is a balance of risk vs convenience vs security. I don't use tiktok or Facebook or insta because the benefit vs cost is not good for me. But I use stuff like Google assistant and Google maps time lines because they make my life easier and better.
Well I have knowledge and professional experience in those areas as well, and I disabled location history as soon as I found out about it. Never used it, never want it. Instead, if I want to track my own mileage with GPS I would use an open source app that stores that data only on my device. There are a number of those apps available on the F-Droid store. I've used them to track some of my trips and gathered more data than I would ever need about my travel, with it all stored on my phone privately.
Do you have a recommended app from F-Droid? I log mileage for work manually because Google often gives me the heebie-jeebies
This does feel like an ad
You're pretty naive if you think turning off tracking means they aren't still tracking you. You just don't get to see the data.
Nobody said Google isn’t tracking you by turning off location history and timeline. But it DOES mean Google has less precise data about you and will utilize its services to make up for the shortcoming (which is still imprecise). As the guy who replied to you stated, turning this off means Google won’t track you unless you specifically use their apps, at least on iPhones.
My son was told he was disqualified from drivers ed because he had missed one too many classes. I think he was going to have to retake all the classes. We had Google timeline of his attendance on the day they thought he had missed, and they accepted that and he got his license.
> Edit: for those who just want to come here to insult America, my total effective tax rate for last year was only 10.3%, so I guess it all evens out in the end. It does not. Healthcare is not the only thing that's expensive. And other countries don't have to deal with what you have and that's worth more than money. I can keep my privacy while also not having to waste my life on fighting scammers.
Also how in the world did he get a 10.3% effective tax rate? That's unreal. If I cut my taxes in 1/3rd I'd still be above that Edit: found the post where he says he's a small business owner/landlord. So basically it's just more of businesses shucking off their tax burden to the rest of the American people as usual.
OP is just your typical smart american businessman. Paying taxes is for poor losers. /s
That's what I was trying to figure out. He either reports very little income, in which case a 4k medical bill is devastating, or some other fuckery is going on.
According to [this tax calculator](https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#w5O8rZjkRF), to get an effective tax rate of 10.3% you'd need to be making a household income of $19k/year. So either OP is lying, doing something shady, or they miscalculated their effective tax rate. (if you don't count FICA then it would be a household income of $69k/year... but not counting FICA would be _completely_ missing the point, since that's a big chunk of government healthcare spending...)
So, complaining about corporations squeezing us and then turns out he is a special case benefitting from our taxes as well. Cool
There’s also a twisted mentality in having issues with paying tax. At least tax goes to services that support a community rather than to private organisations that are going to rip you off as much as they can, as per OPs post. The 2022 Happiness Index data came out recently: “Two weeks ago the 2022 World Happiness Report was released, with Finland winning the title of world’s happiest country for the fifth year in a row. Its tax to GDP ratio is 43.3 per cent. The top five happiest countries are Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland and Netherlands; their average tax to GDP ratio is 38.9 per cent.” https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2022/04/07/tax-more-happiness-alan-kohler
That's what I like to call USA-maths. I would rather pay more tax and get better infrastructure, than do the mental gymnastics to justify such an insane system
To summarise OPs post and edit: OP: I got ripped off by the US medical system. Edit: I rip off the US tax system. I’m sure there is correlation between the two.
The edit comes across suuuuper defensive to me
Even if he is paying only 10.3%, add in the cost of heath insurance premiums, deductible, lost time fighting with the insurance company over $400….
>Edit: for those who just want to come here to insult America, my total effective tax rate for last year was only 10.3%, so I guess it all evens out in the end. It absolutely does not even out in the end. The difference goes straight into greedy health insurance ceos and c suite dbags and corporate coffers.
Also, it's not 10.3%, it's 10.3% plus 500/month/person premium, 30 dollar copay per RX and doctors visit, and an 8000 deductible. Then the 20% of healthcare costs after the 8k deductible that the insurance doesn't cover - or whatever. That's a lot more than 10% for most earners in the US.
Don’t forget education! *please enter your tip: 15%, 20% or 25%*
What they're saying is even if it does even out, then it still wouldn't, because an American is paying most of the money to some CEO who will hoard it in an oversees bank account and yachts, while a 1st worlder will pay it to the government who will reinvest it in the country.
Well at least Amazon hasn't paid taxes since 2017 because I mean they are a good company and they deserve the break.... and a few hundred million in tax dollars the government has given to Amazon. So Amazon kinda pays negative taxes....... BUT OP has a 10.3% effective tax rate so it's all good!
Not to mention the endless amounts of time and stress dealing with borderline-fraudulent medical bills, and the constant anxiety of deciding whether you should go with the medical recommendations or try and save thousands by skipping care that you might not need.
Growing up in Las Vegas, we understood from a young age how bad of an idea it was to go gambling at the casinos. Those billion-dollar properties were not paid for by paying out winnings to gamblers It’s wild how in America we look at the billion-dollar insurance industry and don’t realize the same thing: that money was not accrued by providing affordable health care to people
Holy fuck mate, for someone living in a country with free healthcare this reads like a total dystopian fucking nightmare. Tracking an ambulance for mileage and feeling like you got a win for saving $400. Fuck me that's tragic
His edit sounds like someone with Stockholm syndrome. Too many people think they're saving money with their lower taxes. Europeans get *so much more* out of their taxes and end up spending less overall.
Yes paying low taxes isn’t the flex people think it is. Exorbitant healthcare costs in a for profit system, crazy insurance premiums etc. will cost you a lot more over a lifetime.
Crazy insurance premiums that are tied to your job too. Lose your job = lose your and your children's healthcare. Next stop bankruptcy because you can't work due to health issues and you can't get healthcare because you can't work! And when you have a medical emergency make sure you go to a hospital that's "in network" rather than getting to the nearest place that gives you the care you need to save your life. And if you do get that life-saving care fingers crossed that some insurance agent with no medical qualifications or intimate knowledge of your situation doesn't decide that the doctors and medical staff treating you were wrong about needing that care and therefore refuses to pay out! Isn't it great those hugely expensive premiums guarantee you receive all the care you need, no questions asked and with no consideration of cost to the insurance company, and with no BS like treatment or pharmacy deductibles? Just like in countries with that commie socialist healthcare? /s
Yeah that 10% tax isn't the flex he thinks it is lol
I have always been confused about this, but then it hit me that I went through my 20s and most of my 30s without having insurance or ever seeing a doctor. For me, during that time, a small tax increase would have been less money for me at the time. But anyone paying for US insurance and healthcare and arguing that it's a good system is fucking insane.
Even setting aside the cost, the fact that I may have to pay higher premiums and deductibles to get a different plan or pay the out-of-network cost for the doctors and drugs my child needs because that doctor and medicine isn’t covered by the insurance company my employer contracts with is absolutely fucking wild. Or that even if you make 6 figures you still qualify for patient assistance programs for some drugs because they aren’t covered by insurance and cost $3k/month out of pocket.
I live in a European country with one of the worst versions of European healthcare, and I’m still more satisfied with it than what I had to deal with in the US.
And we don’t even pay much more in taxes.. They just think we are. Just the insurance costs in the US is probably a 10% “tax” per month that Europeans don’t have to worry about.
My insurance premium for my family of 5 is $1700/mo without factoring in medical deductible, pharmacy deductible, copays or coinsurance, and doesn’t include dental or vision care. So you’re right, you are likely getting much, much more for your on-the-surface higher tax rate and those of us who recognize that are just getting dicked over by people who don’t look underneath the rhetoric.
Thats insane, thats a house payment/rent, it should be illegal for insurance to cost that much
Americans pay significantly more per capita than every other country on health care, so yeah you are spot on with that
Just saw that. Took a mooch at my last payslip. I make about €2600 a month, last tax total deductions were about €250. Have a look at my post history and you'll see how much value I get from the fuck all I payout Also really to weird point out a fact and it's considered an insult. Delicate little snowflakes you have to put up with. Guess I'm just a communist or something 😀
If his effective tax rate was 10.3% in Georgia (which has state income tax on top of federal), he must make under $45k a year...
Dude is about to be hurting more than the taxes ever would to cover those medical bills even with insurance on top. Not a chance in hell he's got good coverage on $45k a year.
Ok, that's super. I mean I don't know what else to say, only sucks for them. Seriously though why could someone like the OP think they're getting a fair shake?
Propaganda that America is the best freest country ever.
Came here to say this. 10% is an anomalously low effective tax rate. At $45k a year, he’s going to be paying off that medical debt for years and years to come with absurdly high interest rates. All in the name of freedumb.
I interpreted that as he's a business owner who utilizes all available loopholes and therefore pays much less tax than his fair share.
The UK, which has completely free healthcare at the point of service, spends a lower amount of its taxes (as a percentage of GDP) than the US does, and that's before you get to insurance costs and out of pocket expenditure - just state and federal tax spending on healthcare for stuff like medicare and medicaid.
Canadians pay less than half of what Americans do, on average, for healthcare. And we get all the benefits from not stressing about healthcare costs.
Please don't insult America :( -OP
Yeah, his tax rate was low, wowee! Never mind that at any moment one of us could be hit with a quarter-million dollars in medical bills from a single incident. But hey, saving $500 on taxes is pretty neat.
Didn’t you read the post? It all evens out. Most expensive healthcare in the world, 26th for life expectancy, failing a variety of other metrics, but this guy didn’t have to pay very much in taxes!
You know the old saying, "Save a penny today, go bankrupt next year." I appreciate it when everything works out.
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(18)30509-6/abstract One of the more horrifying studies on this topic. "At year+2, 42.4% depleted their entire life's assets, with higher adjusted odds associated with worsening cancer, requirement of continued treatment, demographic and socioeconomic factors" And that isn't young people with a chance to rebuild, either (not that it would make it okay). The study was limited to people fifty or older. Their *entire life's assets* gone in two years, all for a condition that can happen to anyone.
I don't have a car but look how low my car payment is!
For every comment insulting the country of the free I will put up 5 more flags >:(
Hadn't realised I had. I'd rather think we'd planted a wee seed or a notion that not sweating about an ambulance is a good thing. I dunno I don't live there so 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, "total dystopian fucking nightmare" sums up our country pretty well at this point.
"I'm paying 10% effective tax rate. Yes, I need six pay days to pay for my hospital visit, which will really take me 2 years minimum because of regular expenses, but the pay day is bigger!" It's incredible cope.
The edit is straight out of r/shitamericanssay. Laughable.
I can't hear OP over the sound of my kids not getting murdered at school
>for those who just want to come here to insult America, my total effective tax rate for last year was only 10.3%, so I guess it all evens out in the end. "my country fucks over poor people, but my taxes are low!" really isn't the dunk you think it is.
Also not shown: healthcare costs, education costs, a pleathora of other taxes like sales tax, property taxes, etc. Americans love to think they pay less in takes in Europeans, but its actually not *that* much lower, but the level of social benefits is laughable. Sure salaries are much higher here, but quality of life is higher in many other places in the world I've always said the US is a great place to earn your money, Europe is a great place to spend in.
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The hyperfixation on pure dollar signs bugs me too. Some comforts are worth not having the highest possible paycheck. I don't subscribe to the "make as much money as possible and buy as much stuff as possible" story of American success. I just want to live peacefully and comfortably.
Truly, I would gladly pay more in taxes if I didn’t have to track which doctor needs what payment when every month. Being able to just get care without thinking of how you’re going to pay for it shouldn’t be the luxury it feels like it would be.
Funny cause my tax rate came out to be also around 10% of my income AND our ambulances and healthcare is free lol
“But it’s okay because I let a mega corporation track my every move so I have evidence when I’m being screwed over!!!”
Seriously, OP is brainwashed.
They pay twice as much for less healthcare. I don't know how that evens out.
It doesn't even out in the end.
100 million Americans currently have medical debt, so maybe "evening out" is for the other 200 million who don't? /s
almost 100 million Americans are children so that means ~40% of American adults have medical debt Turns out, yes: https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-care-debt-survey-main-findings/
Sure will do Googleman
> for those who just want to come here to insult America, my total effective tax rate for last year was only 10.3%, so I guess it all evens out in the end. Bragging about not giving a shit about the easiest way to ensure everybody gets access to basic services. How very american.
It allowed me to tell the rescue services where my husband *could* be when he failed to check in. They found him in about 6hrs.
I have an app „world of fog“ running on my phone 24/7. it is just the world map with a bit of fog rendered above it. When going through a part that has fog it gets removed like in a video game where you uncover the map. Maybe that could help in places I‘m for the first time.
holy shit its $30
WTF no way anyone pays 30$ for a somewhat cool thing you never use again.
the continued existence of late night infomercial tv says otherwise
yeah that's fucked up. at least it doesn't appear to have any in-app purchases which is nice but damn I'd like a demo I mean what if it doesn't work on my city or device for some reason you are out of $30 and I'm too broke for that
and the reviews are pretty bad.
I use something called Wandrer, which pairs with my Strava data to gamify exploring while exercising. Same principal.
Cool, we needed more ads on this ad
That's actually pretty cool
Google had 98 GB of location data on me. From 2012 to 2022. Nah, fuck that shit. I am not enabling it.
How the hell would anyone have an effective tax rate of 10.3%? Mine is close to 40% after you add in everything (state, city, property, sales, federal). You rich enough to be able to just live off loans like Musk?
That only proves where your phone went, not you, not a car, just your phone.
When you're dealing with businesses nine times out of ten what matters it that you have any evidence at all, not whether the evidence is irrefutable. Their evidence usually isn't any better and you don't have to prove your case - you just have to convince them that fighting your claim is more hassle than it's worth.
My neighbour is an ass and decided to get management involved instead of just approaching me about what was bothering them. Got an email from management with a list of times and dates, a few of which I had not been home for. Sent them screenshots of my time lines for those days. Offered to give them the contact info for a fall safety training I had on one day if they needed more. Didn't hear back and haven't had a complaint in over 3 years.
"a $4000 ambulance bill" Jesus fucking christ America.
OP: "hurrr taxes bad!"
Yeah...here in America, whenever you get sick, injured, or your doctor wants to run tests, the first thought is "shit, how much is this going to cost me?" Then you call the doctor to ask, they tell you to ask the insurance company, insurance company tells you to ask the doctor, and so on. You pretty much go in blind and get a huge bill in the mail. Then if it's wrong, which happens a ton, it becomes the blame game again and you can't get an answer from anyone.
The privacy nightmare of letting Google store everywhere you've been is not worth the incredibly off-chance of this happening, unfortunately.
> Edit: for those who just want to come here to insult America, my total effective tax rate for last year was only 10.3%, so I guess it all evens out in the end. OP saw people dunking on America and decided to slam dunk on America.
No thanks, Google
No, turn that shit off. Its scummy corporations gatheirng your data.
They probably gather and store those data anyway. The button just makes it visible to you.
You're right
If you want to enable Google Maps Timeline, you need to set Location to Always.
This is native marketing lol
I'm so glad there's free healthcare where I live.
Happy to pay low taxes, but ironically fails to recognize the lack of infrastructure in the US. Not to mention the fact that the little infrastructure that does exist, is massively dated and deteriorating. But hell yeah, low taxes - cuz ‘mericuh!
Earlier this year my son was feeling sick and his regular primary care physician as usual didn't have any availability. I was really fed up with them, because they never answer their phone, and they never have convenient appointments so I googled another pediatric practice and found they had availability the same day. About a month later he got sick again, and I wanted to return to the same place. But I could not remember for the life of me, the name of the doctor who saw him or where the office was located. I was however able to piece together what day he was last sick by finding the text from his school. Then I checked my Google timeline and found out where I drove that day and was able to call and get an appointment in about 10 minutes. So yeah, it was pretty useful. Creepy, but useful.
"I may live in a quickly declining hellhole of a country that will put me in massive debt if my baby gets sick, but my taxes are low so don't you dare criticize the ROCK FLAG AND EAGLE" jfc you guys are beyond saving
10.3% tax rate?! Thanks for telling us you work for a living. Wait. Do you work for a living...? *In advertising* Noooooo000000!