They’re looking for yes-men, who will be loyal to them in even the worst possible situations. Heiling is just a test to weed out anyone else.

Also, the heiling gesture came a little too natural to them.

Please remain seated until the seat belt sign is turned off.

Math is off.

He makes 30% more than her. If she makes 100, he makes 130. The total income is 230.

Her income is 43% of that (100/230) and his is 57% (130/230).

Why does it have to be static in the first place? Why not just let them contribute what they can, when they can, since the money’s not tight?

Who is to decide when and what they can pay then?

It’s also as much about determining the disposable income. If she has a different opinion on what is reasonable to spend on other things that could easily become a can of worms.

“This is what you need to contribute to the household, whatever you do with the rest of your money is not my issue” is much better than: “Hey, I know you’re low on cash but maybe if you cut back on lattes, avocado toast, gambling, booze and cigarettes, we would be able to pay the bills.”

In reality, the fixed amount isn’t very fixed anyway. If one part can’t pay, it’s still unlikely that the partner would kick them out. But as long as money isn’t that tight, it’s simply better to allocate a fixed amount to the household, so the money isn’t disposable for random spending, so they don’t risk overspending or increasing expensive habits.

This isn’t just to curb the costs, but also to avoid the situation in which one part becomes financially dependent on the other, which is also a recipe for disaster for both parts.

Only the cool kids know where to get FOSS.

You wouldn’t download a Lemmy

I was at a Chinese restaurant on Rhodes about 15 years ago, where they served food windows update style.

We ordered off some menu written in Chinese and Greek letters and in a probably wrongly translated German too, so we had no idea of what we actually ordered. Just accepting the terms, right?

Then they started serving food.

We ate through 3 dishes and was about being full thinking this was a great deal, but then they just served another meal, and like, okay… let’s have a taste, and then it just kept coming in table servings instead of individual servings. Every time we emptied a plate theyd bring in something else. We never asked them for anything though.

A few servings in we realised how we’d misinterpreted the menu and said, ok enough is enough, and they were like “but you must have the dessert, it’s part of the price, you already paid” (we hadn’t actually paid then, but I suppose they meant"included") and so well we ate another three rounds of ice-cream, sugar-fried dumplings and fruit, to the point where I had to stand up and say “No more food! Please no more!”, and the waiter was “More food yes coming up!”. We stopped her and just stood up, throwing a bunch of money on the table according to our order and hoping it was enough. The waiter then came back with change.

Microsoft wouldn’t return your change.

Anyway… epilogue. I get it now. Chinese custom is to leave food when you’re done and an empty plate is a request for more. I was on Rhodes 2 years ago, and tried to find it again, but the restaurant seemed to be gone. There was a kebab shop instead.