• TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      The really frustrating thing is nobody seems to want to do anything about it.

      Like so many things in America, education is very unequal. We have world class schools, and we have very poor and inadequate schools. The people who live in the areas with the very good schools think the people who live in the areas with the very poor schools should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and fix their own damn schools, and if they don’t, well, that’s a them problem not a me problem. Unfortunately, it actually is a you problem, because, turns out, all of us are likely to be negatively affected if large numbers of Americans are fucking morons.

      • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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        4 days ago

        Dude, I have a small business to run, it’s my first season, and I’m swamped. And I had to quit my decent job and start this company because I was so burned out working with trumpers. Most of us are just trying to get by right now. Now that I finally actually have the freedom to participate in resistance, I can’t afford to miss a days work anyway because my budget for necessities is so damn tight. Like don’t have health insurance running a landscaping business tight. So it’s kinda frustrating to hear people calling for others to go first. I don’t have it in me, as badly as I would like to, by design of our culture. If you do, and can do the initial heavy lift of organizing and planning, I’ll be your footman 100%. But if you aren’t out there organizing and planning, don’t pass that blame on to others who’s situation might not be compatible with resistance at the moment.

        • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          So it’s kinda frustrating to hear people calling for others to go first.

          That’s not necessarily what I’m calling for. I want us all to go together. But we can’t all go for a solution until we all agree on the problem.

          • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
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            4 days ago

            Half the country wants this, and some of those are disappointed in trump, but not for what you would think. They’re disappointed he didn’t actually build the wall, they’re disappointed he didn’t nuke iran yet, they’re disappointed some of the people picked up by ice were able to sue and get released.

            This is a democracy and the majority wants fascism, there’s nothing to fight unless you want to fight the average american who is disappointed with trump for the first time ever because of gas prices.

            • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              This is a democracy and the majority wants fascism, there’s nothing to fight unless you want to fight the average american

              I think this is the important takeaway here. You may think “obviously, the majority of people want the same things I want”, but you’d be wrong. At this moment in time, fascism is in fact popular in the US. Personally, I’m incredibly disappointed in the American public, but I have to accept that this is the reality.

              I am not white, so I have to come to the conclusion that I am not actually welcome here (and more importantly, may not be safe here). But given this state of affairs, I think for all of us the question to ask right now is “what’s next”, for me, my family and for my community? I have a few friends who have moved to another country. That’s a legit option, but it sucks leaving friends and family behind, it sucks to start fresh somewhere new. Without leaving, what other options do we have? Succession? Civil war? Passing legislation that erodes federal powers completely? Truthfully, I don’t know. I do know that civil war isn’t pretty.

  • Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org
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    4 days ago

    My entire life has been a constant trend of prices going up, wages staying flat. That’s now spanned across like 7 different administrations for me.

    Some have been dramatically worse, like Trump, others just mild, but the trend has been the same for decades and it really all ties back to Reagan. Since then it’s been a steady decline for 99% of Americans and a steady increase for the 1%.

    But everyone keeps voting to help the 1% while simultaneously bemoaning the costs and pointing fingers at each other. It’s wild.

    • HubertManne@piefed.social
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      4 days ago

      yup. My father who never finished junior high raised seven kids on a single income and paid off a 5 bedroom home with massive yard near a major city with a good pension. I have a masters a dual major bachelors in stem and many certs and am barely holding onto a 2 bedroom condo with no kids (I mean the no kids is the way I want it). There is obviously something different thats been occuring between the 70’s and now.

      • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I’m in the same sort of situation. My parents both started college and dropped out after 3+ years. Then raised 3 kids and bought two houses while paying off two college tuitions with no degrees to show for it all on one secretary’s income. Me and my wife both have college degrees and both work full time and can barely afford the tiny house we bought after 10+ years of saving. We would like children but I just don’t see how we could afford it. How my parents did it financially seems like straight science fiction.

        • HubertManne@piefed.social
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          3 days ago

          they did it because wealth disparity was not so high back then. so like companies actually worked to make products rather than buying assets like single family houses.

        • HubertManne@piefed.social
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          3 days ago

          even if I was young and won the lottery I would not. maybe adopt or foster. at my age if I won the lotter I would not even do that. In the past I would have been looking at charities but at this point im likely to fund progressives. Not going to win the lottery as the tickets stopped being a paltry expense to get once in awhile.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      it doesn’t surprise me. most people are incredibly petty and bitter towards other people who have slightly more or less than them. and it only ever seems to get worse. they only want themselves to get more, and want everyone else to get less.

      and if you say you are for broad-based economic growth, people just straight up hate you. it’s socially unacceptable to desire this. you have to want others to suffer.

      i have worked in public policy for 5 years after college. the one thing i learned, is EVERYONE hates fair economics and good economic policy, because they feel it’s only ‘really fair’ if they are winning and other people are losing.

      you have to remember, the vast majority of people operate purely on personal feelings. that includes the wealthy and elite-educated who think they are ‘above’ the rest of the population.

      • Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org
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        3 days ago

        Yeah, for real. It’s like kids fighting over a giant bag of candy and they rip the bag open and spill it all so no one gets any. They could have shared and everyone would have been happy and content and had candy to spare, but now no one gets any. Meanwhile the wealth hoarders have countless billion more bags of candy EACH and have it all locked away in warehouses and being traded around. Meanwhile now the 2 kids have no candy at all and are hungry and angry at each other and neither wants to address the fact that the 3rd kid has billions of bags hidden away from them when all 3 kids have the EXACT SAME RIGHT AND HAVE CONTRIBUTED THE EXACT SAME LEVEL OF EFFORT INTO THE SYSTEM TO EARN THE CANDY!!!

        And yet people keep voting against more candy for everyone and give all the candy to the one fat kid with diabetes that isn’t even working to earn the candy anymore.

        Ahhhhhhhhh!!!

    • lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      But if you’re heavily invested in the stock bubble market, your net worth has never been higher. the economy is only bad for the bottom half. that’s why trump is still in power - the well-to-do aren’t hurting and the elites are getting everything they ever wanted.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        But if you’re heavily invested in the stock bubble market, your net worth has never been higher

        As long as you’re on the inside track that gets told right before the Mango Mussolini makes an announcement

        the economy is only bad for the bottom half 90%

        Fixed it for you.

        the well-to-do aren’t hurting and the elites are getting everything they ever wanted.

        Most of the well-to-do are hurting but in denial and/or doing pathological levels of sunk cost fallacy based thinking.

        Only the richest .1% and the ones in the innermost circle (between which there’s obviously a lot of overlap) are going to come out of the next couple years unscathed.

        And that’s naively assuming that they’re going to obey the constitution wrt presidential term limits and free elections.

      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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        4 days ago

        LOL…kids…we went through all this in 2007…all the boomers retired early and the markets were too big to fail.

  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    There was no war in the Persian Gulf until that Israel bootlicker started one.

    And a 42 percent plurality of Trump voters said the U.S. should continue the conflict even if it pushes prices higher

    Victims of scams frequently double down on the scam to save face and avoid having to face the reality that they were scammed. There is also the sunk cost fallacy.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Yeah, a good chunk of Trump voters made Trump voter their whole damned identity.

      It’s really tough to walk away from something you made your identity. The threat of ‘I told you so’ is just unbearable for some folks.

  • rayyy@piefed.social
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    4 days ago

    Everyone is lucky to be eating mac & cheese and it costs over a hundred bucks to fill up the Chevy, but we sure are hurting those “others” so it’s a win, right?

  • BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 days ago

    I had to pull from a retirement fund to just pay for expenses that didn’t line up as well as car repairs. This trend has been going on for longer than Trump, he’s just made it faster.

  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Tariffs are a federal sales tax and sales taxes are the most regressive of taxes vs income taxes and corporate taxes that hit the rich more.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      I tend to like VAT-like taxes as they can convey how much money companies have marked up their product. It lays bear if their costs have actually risen or if they’re actually doing crowdsourced price fixing.

      That said you’re 100% correct. Corporate, wealth and stock market trading taxes are way better ways to actually slow down accumulation and corruption.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      It’s usually 35-40% approval when comes to the negative stuff. 40-50% when asked if they’d still vote to F the country all over again with another republican.

  • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    Its because obama and biden left the economy in shambles. Trump is just cleaning up the mess…

    THE DOW IS OVER 50000…

    Did you even say thanks???

    • Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org
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      The DOW has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of everyday living expenses or our incomes. That is strictly a measure of how well the corporations and the elite rich are doing. Why people even use that as any measure of good or bad is insane. It’s like saying it’s really cold on Neptune today so you should turn your heater on.

      Also, if corporations are making more profits that very likely means that the people (you and me) that work for them are making even less of a % of what value we create for them than before. (I.E. wage theft by underpaying all their employees and refusing to raise wages to even keep up with inflation at a MINIMUM)

      If your wages don’t automatically go up with each years inflation be numbers by default then you got a pay cut that year.

      And if the DOW does amazing or terrible has absolutely zero impact on your day to day. Unless you are a day trader or something.

    • backalleycoyote@lemmy.today
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      3 days ago

      46% living their neo-Confederate wet dream and 1% that were already billionaires but are now in the running to be the first trillionaire.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      A single digit percentage are doing quite well even in this economy. Another single digit percentage are older boomers that lived through the stagflationary era under Carter in the 70s, but are now long since retired and have decent living as the last generation that received pensions and fully funded Social Security so they too are doing better than the earlier time in their life when they had even less money.

      I have no idea who the other 25-ish percent are though.

      • some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world
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        Yeah the pensioners I know were definitely shaped by the last time it got this hard, and they were raised by people who experienced the depression… They will be perfectly happy living off Vienna sausage and toast or whatever other cursed preservative-laden calorie loaf lives in their pantry. (Store-brand potato salad once a month, as a treat.)

        Meanwhile the cash will continue to roll in. They often have fantastic supplemental health insurance built into their pension from a retirement in the 00’s on top of Medicare. A policy so generous it can no longer exist. Would make a millennial’s eyes water. Those any younger could spontaneously combust upon viewing gam gam’s health allowances.

        The smart ones have investments on top of all that, which taken alone could passively guarantee a comfortable life. Throw that bitch in a trust and - slaps the side - that right there’s a durable multigenerational wealth vehicle off a normal person’s very average career from 50 years ago.

      • the_armchair_potato@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        They other 25% are people who don’t like the current systems and want to watch it all burn down. Trump is burning everything down…that is the only conclusion I can come up with 🤔

  • Disaffected Scorpio@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Other than the gas hikes of the mid-70s and the garbage associated with that (which I was also alive for) this era is worse. Very much worse.