The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

Who could possibly have predicted this shockingly unexpected result of increasing labor costs via government mandate? The idea that if wages go up, demand for workers will decrease and the price of goods and services will increase is insane! No economist could have foreseen this Black Swan event! There is simply no experience anywhere in history that would predict this.

Our legislators and the professional staff that supports them are, of course, expert in all facets of economics, and have a sound understanding of basic economic laws. I am confident that they are just as surprised as the companies they are driving out of business and the formerly employed casual workers who now have no jobs.

Seattle takeout orders have reached a breaking point. Amid horror stories of $122 Thai delivery and $26 to-go coffees, the Emerald City is now considering rolling back a brand new wage law that’s causing food takeout prices to skyrocket and delivery orders to tank. It's just the latest in a series of wage laws that are backfiring this year, causing chaos for customers, restaurants, and the gig workers they were meant to help.

The true minimum wage is $0.00/hr, and any other mandated wage distorts the labor markets. That is fact. Governments have been playing fast and loose with immutable economic laws for centuries, and while they are expert at obfuscation, they cannot hide the undeniable fact of their missteps, because the data are screaming in everyone's faces!

Every minimum wage law, every legal restriction on the free exchange of capital for goods and labor restrains the natural growth of an economy. That's the obvious first order effect. But there are even more malign ones that do not appear for years. teenagers can't get summer jobs when the minimum wage is higher than their labor is worth. Who wants to pay some pimply-faced 16-year old $20/hour to push a broom around or flip burgers? So that work experience is lost to him, never to be recovered. Companies on the margin of profitability will fail, and companies that are someone's life's dream will never be created because the artificial labor market -- courtesy of our legislators who never worked an honest day in their entitled lives -- has priced them out.

Maybe that would have been the next Apple or Lincoln Electric or Carnegie Steel.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter]

Posted by: CBD at 11:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Got it

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:01 AM (N1tpc)

2 1st?

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:01 AM (9yWhg)

3 Dammit. Not first.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:01 AM (9yWhg)

4 Liberalism is the insistence that all that matters is your intentions.

ACTUAL results and foreseeable consequences are never the liberals' fault.

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:02 AM (N1tpc)

5 I culled the otters.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:02 AM (9yWhg)

6 Maybe if Seattle didn't elect out and proud Commies this wouldn't happen?

Posted by: Lizzy at April 25, 2024 11:02 AM (cCVOS)

7 OH! And people who warn about the easily foreseeable consequences are just bigotted, racist, and sexist.

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:02 AM (N1tpc)

8 What did they expect with a $20/hr minimum wage?

Soon to be a $30/hr minimum, cuz inflation... yo

Posted by: Martini Farmer at April 25, 2024 11:03 AM (Q4IgG)

9 Seattle is the "Emerald City?"

The witch must have taken over.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:03 AM (9yWhg)

10 And when those bigotted racist sexist Cassandras are proved right, there's no reason to listen to them about the next easily foreseeable consequence.

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:03 AM (N1tpc)

11 The invisible hand is slapping a lot of people right now, not just those in the junta.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at April 25, 2024 11:04 AM (vUTjU)

12 I would vote for Seattle to raise the minimum wage to $100 an hour to make up for the increased sense of greed from massive corporations driving up inflation.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, fighting kaiju with Ishiro Honda at April 25, 2024 11:04 AM (GBKbO)

13 By 2024, UBS confidently predicted in a October 2020 report, the cost of manufacturing an electric car would have fallen so sharply that it would be on a parity with the cost of a petrol or diesel car. If you have looked on Auto Trader recently you may well have been fooled into thinking that this has come true.

... UBS ? Unfiltered Bull Shirt ?

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:04 AM (RHGPo)

14 10 And when those bigotted racist sexist Cassandras are proved right, there's no reason to listen to them about the next easily foreseeable consequence.
Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:03 AM (N1tpc)

=======

Cassandra was right for the wrong reasons. Can't listen to her. Her heart isn't pure.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, fighting kaiju with Ishiro Honda at April 25, 2024 11:05 AM (GBKbO)

15 Maybe this is a sign that we need to invest in companies that make home coffee makers.

Posted by: Paco at April 25, 2024 11:05 AM (njExo)

16 In my AO I notice a lot of the local businesses have just stopped hiring people.

The person owning the business will maybe employee his relatives, I assume under the table, but they have no interest in expanding the business by bringing on other people. It just isn't worth it.

Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (ibTVg)

17 OT: Russia is now seizing $440M of JP Morgan assets.

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (exHjb)

18 $26 for a coffee ?

.. give it to em good and hard

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (RHGPo)

19
Speaking of the NY judiciary, this NY judge says the second amendment doesn't exist in NY.

Dane@UltraDane
NY Judge: The Second Amendment Doesn't Exist Here. ‘Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.'
Judge Abena Darkeh, suggesting that the Second Amendment doesn't apply anywhere she doesn't approve? What other rights don't exist in New York under Judge Darkeh's paradigm? Do defendants not have the right to representation? Is free speech non-existent?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (FVME7)

20 Huh. It's like Adam Smith's invisible pimp hand is smacking a 1000 lib twats.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 25, 2024 11:07 AM (di6C2)

21 >>But there are even more malign ones that do not appear for years. teenagers can't get summer jobs when the minimum wage is higher than their labor is worth.

At also destroys entry level job ladder. A classic from Mike Rowe who understands the economy better than most of the MSM:

“There is a ladder of success that people climb,” he continued. “Some of those jobs that are out there for seven, eight, nine dollars an hour, in my view, they’re simply not intended to be careers. They’re not intended to be full-time jobs. They’re rungs on a ladder.”

“[Those jobs] are ways for people to get experience in the workforce doing a thing that might not necessarily pay you as much as you’d like, but nevertheless serves a real purpose,” Rowe added. “I worry that the path to a skilled trade can be compromised when you offer an artificially high wage for, I hate the expression, but an unskilled job.”

Rowe’s poignant warning is borne out by the statistics. . .

Posted by: Lizzy at April 25, 2024 11:07 AM (cCVOS)

22 17 OT: Russia is now seizing $440M of JP Morgan assets.
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (exHjb)

======

Oh no.

Anyway.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, fighting kaiju with Ishiro Honda at April 25, 2024 11:07 AM (GBKbO)

23 My coffee cost around 3 cents a cup including water and electricity.

Posted by: Braenyard at April 25, 2024 11:07 AM (lCWOD)

24 I still don't get the appeal of going out to get coffee.

Yes, if you are out and about and you want a coffee sure.

But apparently every morning on their way to work a bunch of people stop by places like Starbucks to get their fetid coffee.

So you spend more time, more money, and get crappier coffee then you'd get at home. What the hell?

Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:07 AM (ibTVg)

25 17 OT: Russia is now seizing $440M of JP Morgan assets.

.. most definitely a turning point in the "special military operation"

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:07 AM (RHGPo)

26 $26 for a coffee ?

.. give it to em good and hard

Dudes, we're working as fast as we can here.

Posted by: Coffee-loving civet cats at April 25, 2024 11:07 AM (CsUN+)

27 "Lincoln Electric"

Man, there is a surprising blast from my personal past. Best summer job ever.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at April 25, 2024 11:07 AM (J6Kki)

28 The person owning the business will maybe employee his relatives, I assume under the table, but they have no interest in expanding the business by bringing on other people. It just isn't worth it.

Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (ibTVg)

That's what I'd do. My employees suddenly become my family and no one else.

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:08 AM (N1tpc)

29 My mind always runs to latterday Soviet Union situations nowadays… I know that there is no apple to apple comparisons to be made, but certain dynamics are in play, I believe..

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:08 AM (PCK5/)

30 I am stunned. Just flabbergasted the increase in labor costs resulted in an increase in prices! It’s like businesses are taking advantage here and acting as if these things are connected somehow!

Posted by: Piper at April 25, 2024 11:08 AM (ZdaMQ)

31 Judge Abena Darkeh, suggesting that the Second Amendment doesn't apply anywhere she doesn't approve? What other rights don't exist in New York under Judge Darkeh's paradigm? Do defendants not have the right to representation? Is free speech non-existent?
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (FVME7)

The laws are whatever they say they are. Just look at Trump.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at April 25, 2024 11:08 AM (di6C2)

32 22 17 OT: Russia is now seizing $440M of JP Morgan assets.
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (exHjb)

======

Oh no.

Anyway.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, fighting kaiju with Ishiro Honda at April 25, 2024 11:07 AM (GBKbO)

I had that same thought...but still...it's obvious Russia will now play tit for tat since we're seizing their assets here (the JP Morgan assets stolen are ones they hold there in foreign subs)...

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:08 AM (exHjb)

33 4 Liberalism is the insistence that all that matters is your intentions.

ACTUAL results and foreseeable consequences are never the liberals' fault.
Posted by: Formerly Virginian
=======
They are not liberals--they are leftie commies in their economics and beliefs. The whole project is designed to destroy society so any result that moves society toward destruction 'works' for them.

By Any Means Necessary is their motto to bring about a new socialist world with them on top of it.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:08 AM (/AKWf)

34 Commenting present

Posted by: Skip at April 25, 2024 11:08 AM (mb6GH)

35 "Companies on the margin of profitability will fail, and companies that are someone's life's dream will never be created because the artificial labor market -- courtesy of our legislators who never worked an honest day in their entitled lives -- has priced them out."

So Obama was right -- "you didn't build that!"

Posted by: Doof at April 25, 2024 11:08 AM (gtY/l)

36 >>OT: Russia is now seizing $440M of JP Morgan assets.

Sucks for them. Bummer!

Sadly, they're probably going to tap into the $60 billion Ukraine pkg or some other government handout and be just fine.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 25, 2024 11:09 AM (cCVOS)

37 Even if the laws of economics were suspended, a barista making $20 an hour isn't going to be able to repay the debt accumulated by earning a wymyns studies degree at $180k.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at April 25, 2024 11:09 AM (vUTjU)

38 By 2024, UBS confidently predicted in a October 2020 report, the cost of manufacturing an electric car would have fallen so sharply that it would be on a parity with the cost of a petrol or diesel car. If you have looked on Auto Trader recently you may well have been fooled into thinking that this has come true.

... UBS ? Unfiltered Bull Shirt ?

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:04 AM

Both Ford and Chevy loose $$$$ on every EV they sell. Their plan was initially to soak up the losses with their IC truck and car lines and really crank up the EV production because the Federal government told them that by 2030 all new cars sales would be mandated to be electric vehicles.

When that happened they could really jack up the EV prices and start making a fortune. Now that isn't gonna happen and they both lost big bucks betting on the EV market. Sucks to be them.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at April 25, 2024 11:09 AM (QNSds)

39 I still haven't gotten a rational answer for why if we need to raise the minimum wage we don't just set it at a true "living wage" of $30/hr or more.

I mean the people supporting this claim endlessly raising it to $15/hr has no effect so why not...$30? Hell $100?

Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:09 AM (ibTVg)

40 I still don't get the appeal of going out to get coffee.

Yes, if you are out and about and you want a coffee sure.

But apparently every morning on their way to work a bunch of people stop by places like Starbucks to get their fetid coffee.

Even more astonishingly, they'll wait in a line to give their order, then wait in another line to get their order. Sheep are more enterprising.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:09 AM (CsUN+)

41 Now, Biden is promising a massive tax increase if he is elected.

Of course, he won't be.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at April 25, 2024 11:10 AM (J6Kki)

42 It's just the latest in a series of wage laws that are backfiring this year, causing chaos for customers, restaurants, and the gig workers they were meant to help.

None of this was meant to help the gig workers. All of this was meant to help the politicians by appealing to soft-headed voters who don't understand how ANYTHING works.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:10 AM (IUd0M)

43 Some economic holes are too deep to be gotten out of… it is called downward mobility.

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:10 AM (PCK5/)

44 forty-second!

Posted by: deep thought at April 25, 2024 11:10 AM (v3pYe)

45 By 2024, UBS confidently predicted in a October 2020 report, the cost of manufacturing an electric car would have fallen so sharply that it would be on a parity with the cost of a petrol or diesel car. If you have looked on Auto Trader recently you may well have been fooled into thinking that this has come true.
Posted by: SMOD

Speaking of:
@AndyPuzder 4h
Americans don’t want EVs at levels Biden’s climate hysteria require. Ford’s EV Q1 losses soared to $1.3 billion - a ridiculous $132,000 per EV sold. All Ford’s profits came from combustion engine vehicle sales. Collectivist policies destroy prosperity.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at April 25, 2024 11:10 AM (IG4Id)

46 45 Speaking of:
@AndyPuzder 4h
Americans don’t want EVs at levels Biden’s climate hysteria require. Ford’s EV Q1 losses soared to $1.3 billion - a ridiculous $132,000 per EV sold. All Ford’s profits came from combustion engine vehicle sales. Collectivist policies destroy prosperity.
Posted by: weft cut-loop at April 25, 2024 11:10 AM (IG4Id)

=======

This can't go on forever.

But a small cadre are going to get very rich in the meantime.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, fighting kaiju with Ishiro Honda at April 25, 2024 11:11 AM (GBKbO)

47 Our legislators and the professional staff that supports them are, of course, expert in all facets of economics, and have a sound understanding of basic economic laws. Posted by: CBD

**********

Hey, you dripped sarcasm in my cynicism!!!

Posted by: Muldoon at April 25, 2024 11:12 AM (l4B/J)

48 The focus is on the lower-income "minimum wage" laws and how it's driving out workers (mostly younger workers) as companies look elsewhere for labor (mostly to automation).

But it's happening at the high end too, as more and more Americans are forced out in favor of foreign workers. In many instances, the foreign workers never leave their home countries. 90% of coding or research or STEM can be done remotely. Why would a company pay Americans $X salary and Y benefits, when it can pay foreigners in India or China or Philippines maybe 25% of that?

I recently spoke to some Stuyvesant students about future job prospects, mostly from my perspective of the legal field. These are very smart kids -- almost all foreigners, btw -- and heavy on STEM. But they see the writing on the wall, or at least their parents do.

I feel really bad for today's kid's who are gonna enter a workforce where Americans get shafted. This isn't our country any more.

Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 11:12 AM (iFTx/)

49 I had to drive through a local very wealthy, very blue city on the way to work a few years ago.

There was a starbucks on my way. And every day there was a line of luxury SUVs with "save da erf" bumper stickers idling all the way out on to the road.

Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:12 AM (ibTVg)

50 Ukraine-Israel Aid Bill Includes $3.5 Billion to Fund Mass Migration from Middle East

-
Yeah, we don't have enough kill crazy fanatics here.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:12 AM (FVME7)

51 The Lincoln Electric guys have a marvelous presentation they do at steel conferences regarding welding, weld details, what to do, what not to do--it's a gold mine of info, and the guy who does it or used to do it is hilarious. Lots and lots of weld fails.

Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 11:12 AM (z/ifB)

52 The seized [Russian] funds are held in JPMorgan’s Russian accounts and include a stake in a Russian subsidiary. This development is part of the ongoing tensions between the US and Russia, with the US Senate recently passing legislation to send seized Russian assets to Ukraine as part of its $95 million security assistance package.

Posted by: Braenyard at April 25, 2024 11:12 AM (lCWOD)

53 Both Ford and Chevy loose $$$$ on every EV they sell. Their plan was initially to soak up the losses with their IC truck and car lines and really crank up the EV production because the Federal government told them that by 2030 all new cars sales would be mandated to be electric vehicles.

When that happened they could really jack up the EV prices and start making a fortune. Now that isn't gonna happen and they both lost big bucks betting on the EV market. Sucks to be them.

Who could have predicted that what couldn't happen, wouldn't. Well, aside from everyone at this site.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:13 AM (CsUN+)

54 ... Governments have been playing fast and loose with immutable economic laws for centuries, and while they are expert at obfuscation, they cannot hide the undeniable fact of their missteps, because the data are screaming in everyone's faces!
++++
Nobody works for free, but minimum wages *will* distort the market, because any kind of price control does.

The greatest distortions happen when you have two essential but at least somewhat flexible categories and you make one synthetically expensive and the other synthetically cheap. This will cause a compound effect, and that's exactly what's happening. *Everything* is made up of (at least in terms of meta-categories) "capital" and "labor." The mix is not fixed, but everything has both.

Policy keeps the price of labor high (minimum wage, work restrictions, credentialing, etc.) and the price of capital low (interest rate repression), making a net effect of extremely cheap capital *and* extremely expensive labor. Say hello to "capital preference" in all endeavors.

In a proper market, capital and labor prices are balanced through supply and demand. In this environment, the state's thumb on the scale is a 1-2 punch against labor.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25, 2024 11:13 AM (HnUIn)

55 The invisible hand is slapping a lot of people right now, not just those in the junta.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at April 25, 2024 11:04 AM (vUTjU)

Those who have ruled that you must support them or suffer indefensible harm will never miss a meal.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:13 AM (IUd0M)

56 Even more astonishingly, they'll wait in a line to give their order, then wait in another line to get their order. Sheep are more enterprising.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:09 AM (CsUN+)

Aren't those folks by and large really just buying coffee-flavored dessert drinks?

Posted by: Doof at April 25, 2024 11:13 AM (gtY/l)

57 >> Judge Abena Darkeh,

She was co-founder and VP of the Association of Ghanian Lawyers of America. What gun rights do they have in Ghana. . .?

Posted by: Lizzy at April 25, 2024 11:13 AM (cCVOS)

58 I recently spoke to some Stuyvesant students

Was your legture delivered in a wooden tone?

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:14 AM (9yWhg)

59 So, did you hear that the junta is making internal combustion engines nearly illegal to operate, by 2030?

No law changed. It's all deep state regulation.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at April 25, 2024 11:14 AM (J6Kki)

60 13 ... UBS ? Unfiltered Bull Shirt ?

i prefer my shirt filtered by cats. can't beat a good cat filter.

Posted by: anachronda at April 25, 2024 11:14 AM (v3pYe)

61 I have rarely found any coffee served at any place worth the money. The same goes for iced tea…

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:14 AM (PCK5/)

62 *Insert Nelson Muntz laugh here*

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:14 AM (Jxvt5)

63 There was a starbucks on my way. And every day there was a line of luxury SUVs with "save da erf" bumper stickers idling all the way out on to the road.
Posted by: 18-1

Good news, everybody! We've gotten a stay!

Oh look, the UN's climate chief says we once again have 2 years to save the world from climate change or whatever

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:15 AM (FVME7)

64 Axios/Harris Poll: 51% Support Mass Deportations

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:15 AM (RHGPo)

65 59 So, did you hear that the junta is making internal combustion engines nearly illegal to operate, by 2030?

No law changed. It's all deep state regulation.
Posted by: Huck Follywood at April 25, 2024 11:14 AM (J6Kki)

======

Already state AGs are putting up lawsuits. The Raimondo case should completely end Chevron Doctrine making this sort of regulation even harder to pass judicial review.

I think it's just an election year stunt.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, fighting kaiju with Ishiro Honda at April 25, 2024 11:15 AM (GBKbO)

66 Have we spoken about Arizona? Their AG s unfortunate looking.

Posted by: Piper at April 25, 2024 11:15 AM (ZdaMQ)

67 By 2024, UBS confidently predicted in a October 2020 report, the cost of manufacturing an electric car would have fallen so sharply that it would be on a parity with the cost of a petrol or diesel car.

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:04 AM (RHGPo)

They failed to learn one lesson from the nuclear industry which said that it would make electricity so cheap there would be no reason to meter it. Of course, nuclear was destroyed by lawsuits and regulations whereas EVs are supported by them.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:16 AM (IUd0M)

68 OT: Russia is now seizing $440M of JP Morgan assets.
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (exHjb)

That's really sad.

Did Russia not have access to any more than that?

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:16 AM (N1tpc)

69 Speaking of ignoring reality in favor of your ideological fantasies.

https://tinyurl.com/duu8e68e

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:16 AM (CsUN+)

70 29 My mind always runs to latterday Soviet Union situations nowadays… I know that there is no apple to apple comparisons to be made, but certain dynamics are in play, I believe..
Posted by: tubal
-------
It is the same dynamic and largely the people--the nomenklatura of the US--that are responsible for the collapse. Walter Dean Burnham, a former commie who turned conservative, named them as the 'managers' in his Managerial Revolution book in the 40's. What he did not see back then before he died is that managerialism is no less than a mask for petty aristocrats that are basically blood sucking parasites on society and totally unnecessary for a free economy to work.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (/AKWf)

71 GAO estimated total direct annual financial losses to the government from fraud to be between $233 billion and $521 billion, based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022.

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (RHGPo)

72 66 Have we spoken about Arizona? Their AG s unfortunate looking.
Posted by: Piper at April 25, 2024 11:15 AM (ZdaMQ)

Seems like Arizona is gone. I blame California.

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (PCK5/)

73 Now, Biden is promising a massive tax increase if he is elected.

Of course, he won't be.
Posted by: Huck Follywood

From your tablet to God's iPhone.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (FVME7)

74 Oh look, the UN's climate chief says we once again have 2 years to save the world from climate change or whatever
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:15 AM (FVME7)
++++
Cool. Take it at face value.

Two years is not enough time to completely deindustrialize without a titanic body count. Given that, there is only one rational response to the coming crisis: produce. A lot. Of everything.

If we're already beyond the Rubicon - and we are, if the 2-year timeline is to be believed - then there is *zero* downside to accelerating the unstoppable trend and stockpiling resources as insurance against the future. All environmental regulation should be zeroed. All of it, without exception. Produce as much as possible while you still can, and damn the consequences. We're up against the end of the world, so the survival of the species and its organizations is paramount, so take every step possible to prevent the die-off.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (HnUIn)

75 They failed to learn one lesson from the nuclear industry which said that it would make electricity so cheap there would be no reason to meter it. Of course, nuclear was destroyed by lawsuits and regulations
Posted by: I used to have a different nic

The China Syndrome. Another gift from America's sweetheart, Jane Fonda.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (9yWhg)

76 58 I recently spoke to some Stuyvesant students

Was your legture delivered in a wooden tone?
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:14 AM (9yWhg)
___________

It should have been delivered in Mandarin. I'm not shitting you that probably 70% of the kids were Chinese. Some had strong Chinese accents still. The parents? Some barely spoke English and if they did, their accent was so thick I could barely understand them. The rest of the kids were Indian or looked Indian. White kids? Maybe one or two. Not joking.

Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (iFTx/)

77 OT: Russia is now seizing $440M of JP Morgan assets.
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (exHjb)

Gosh, when the west - not "officially" at war with Russia - decided to freeze, and then started seizing, assets of both Russian citizens and the Russian government, no one thought that Russia would respond in kind. It's so unfair.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:18 AM (IUd0M)

78 Since the US is not at war with Russia, formally, all of this asset seizing is piracy/theft and could be punished as such.

Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:19 AM (ibTVg)

79 64 Axios/Harris Poll: 51% Support Mass Deportations
Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:15 AM (RHGPo)

And another 48% do, but won't say so...

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:19 AM (exHjb)

80 74 Oh look, the UN's climate chief says we once again have 2 years to save the world from climate change or whatever

Where do they get this 2 year number ? Out of their ass is my guess

Posted by: It's me donna at April 25, 2024 11:19 AM (Akjoo)

81 75 The China Syndrome. Another gift from America's sweetheart, Jane Fonda.
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (9yWhg)

=======

The China Syndrome in combination with Three Mile Island.

The movie was released on March 16, 1979. Three Mile Island happened on March 28, 1979.

Quite a coincidence.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, fighting kaiju with Ishiro Honda at April 25, 2024 11:19 AM (GBKbO)

82 What other rights don't exist in New York under Judge Darkeh's paradigm? Do defendants not have the right to representation? Is free speech non-existent?
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (FVME7)

You'd think a black woman would be careful with that.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:19 AM (IUd0M)

83 "Seattle takeout orders have reached a breaking point. Amid horror stories of $122 Thai delivery and $26 to-go coffees, the Emerald City is now considering rolling back a brand new wage law"

this is just proof that we need communism because the evil capitalist pigs are greedy and starving people...

-- typical leftist twatwaffle

Posted by: SturmToddler at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (nXhwP)

84 It should have been delivered in Mandarin. I'm not shitting you that probably 70% of the kids were Chinese. Some had strong Chinese accents still. The parents? Some barely spoke English and if they did, their accent was so thick I could barely understand them. The rest of the kids were Indian or looked Indian. White kids? Maybe one or two. Not joking.

My nephew is in the CompSci program at GA Tech. He's literally the only non-Asian (of all types) in the program.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (CsUN+)

85 Always always always this obsession with delivery drivers and making sure delivery drivers get windfall incomes. What about all the other working stiffs? Oh yea: delivery drivers are overwhelmingly foreign and overwhelmingly illegal. This is just another subsidy that Americans pay to illegals and invaders.

Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (iFTx/)

86 9 Seattle is the "Emerald City?"

The witch must have taken over.
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:03 AM (9yWhg)

Oz was never all that great himself. You know he never did give nothin' to the tin man, that he didn't, that he didn't already have.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (oy4r9)

87 57 >> Judge Abena Darkeh,

She was co-founder and VP of the Association of Ghanian Lawyers of America. What gun rights do they have in Ghana. . .?
Posted by: Lizzy
-------
Oppressing Americans is just one more job that not enough Americans want to do but foreigners will. Way back when, the British were complaining about King John doing the same thing. Ditto in the Glorious Revolution with King James II. Ideologues find it useful always to go abroad to find people willing to oppress the native populations.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (/AKWf)

88 Uber eats delivery be expensive yo.

The idea that a fast food worker is making 25 an hour is ludicrous.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (JIdXK)

89 My late grandpa used to tell the story of how he was employed in the early 30s when the first(?) national minimum wage law was passed. The day after passage, he lost his job.

Posted by: Lady in Black at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (mupln)

90 I recently spoke to some Stuyvesant students

Was your legture delivered in a wooden tone?
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:14 AM (9yWhg)

I knew a Stuyvesant guy at Cornell who assumed he would impress people wearing his Stuyvesant letter jacket around as a freshman at Cornell. Such was not the case.

Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (z/ifB)

91 The invisible hand is slapping a lot of people right now, not just those in the junta.
Posted by: Thomas Paine

Not hard enough.

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:21 AM (Jxvt5)

92 this is just proof that we need communism because the evil capitalist pigs are greedy and starving people...

If you think take out is expensive under capitalism just wait for how expensive it is in a socialist system...while you wait in line for your ration of gruel...

Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:21 AM (ibTVg)

93 The China Syndrome in combination with Three Mile Island.

The movie was released on March 16, 1979. Three Mile Island happened on March 28, 1979.

Quite a coincidence.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison

I was thinking the order was reversed -- that TCS was a hysterical reaction to TMI. Thanks for setting me straight.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:21 AM (9yWhg)

94 I saw Fetid Coffee open for Iron Butterfly at the Monterey Pop Festival in '67.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at April 25, 2024 11:21 AM (Be/+i)

95 Now, Biden is promising a massive tax increase if he is elected.

Of course, he won't be.
Posted by: Huck Follywood

From your tablet to God's iPhone.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (FVME7)

As proved in 2020, just because he isn't elected doesn't mean "he" won't remain in power.

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:22 AM (N1tpc)

96 92 this is just proof that we need communism because the evil capitalist pigs are greedy and starving people...

If you think take out is expensive under capitalism just wait for how expensive it is in a socialist system...while you wait in line for your ration of gruel...
Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:21 AM (ibTVg)

Teach your kids how to garden, shop, and cook...someone will always want them around...

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:22 AM (exHjb)

97 I mean the people supporting this claim endlessly raising it to $15/hr has no effect so why not...$30? Hell $100?
Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:09 AM (ibTVg)

Frankly, if you don't make the minimum wage $100M/hr so that people could quickly move to a life of leisure, you're a tool of the wreckers and kulaks.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:22 AM (IUd0M)

98 93 I was thinking the order was reversed -- that TCS was a hysterical reaction to TMI. Thanks for setting me straight.
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:21 AM (9yWhg)

=======

Yeah, the movie was just largely routine anti-nuclear agitprop that suddenly became the biggest thing ever culturally for a hot minute because of that coincidence.

Without Three Mile Island, The China Syndrome would have been mostly forgotten in the sea of other activist films made at the time rather than becoming a cultural touchpoint.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, fighting kaiju with Ishiro Honda at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (GBKbO)

99 If we're already beyond the Rubicon - and we are, if the 2-year timeline is to be believed - then there is *zero* downside to accelerating the unstoppable trend and stockpiling resources as insurance against the future. All environmental regulation should be zeroed. All of it, without exception. Produce as much as possible while you still can, and damn the consequences. We're up against the end of the world, so the survival of the species and its organizations is paramount, so take every step possible to prevent the die-off.
Posted by: Joe Mannix

Easier to just get rid of the UN and quit funding it. If the UN was suddenly not getting about a third of its funding from the US, it would have to actually do something useful for a change or die.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (/AKWf)

100 The Laffer Curve is Being Proven Real in at Least Ten States

Under the progressive tax rate system, additional income earned over certain income thresholds is subject to higher tax rates, ranging from 10 percent to 37 percent. The highest‐paid Americans are charged a federal marginal income tax rate of 37 percent on each dollar earned above $731,200 (married) in 2024. The average top rate increases to 46 percent after factoring in state, local, and Medicare taxes.

When the government takes close to half of each additional dollar earned, it changes an individual’s decisions about how much to work and what type of work to do. There are at least four ways high tax rates decrease economic activity.

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (RHGPo)

101 Maybe if Seattle didn't elect out and proud Commies this wouldn't happen?
Posted by: Lizzy at April 25, 2024 11:02 AM (cCVOS)

Seattle can take a flying f**k at a rolling donut. I live over 40 miles Seattle and I still have to pay a Regional Transit Tax when I pay my car tags. I hate everything from Seattle to Olympia and if Mrs D would agree, we'd be gone.

Posted by: Diogenes at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (W/lyH)

102 GAO estimated total direct annual financial losses to the government from fraud to be between $233 billion and $521 billion, based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022.
Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (RHGPo)

...

Half of that got turned into Dodge Hellcat Challengers.

Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (z/ifB)

103 I do love the people complaining about the need for a living wage also complaining about the cost of delivery food.

You want that guy to make whatever you think a living wage is right? So...pay up @sshole.

Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (ibTVg)

104 We're up against the end of the world, so the survival of the species and its organizations is paramount, so take every step possible to prevent the die-off.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (HnUIn)
---
And yet the "elites" are taking every step possible to CAUSE the die-off, because that's what they want.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (7fElN)

105 100 When the government takes close to half of each additional dollar earned, it changes an individual’s decisions about how much to work and what type of work to do. There are at least four ways high tax rates decrease economic activity.
Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (RHGPo)

======

"Tax rates do not affect personal decisions. Also, we need sin taxes on things we don't like to affect personal decisions."

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, fighting kaiju with Ishiro Honda at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (GBKbO)

106 Latest Poll Shows 49% “Strongly” Disapprove of Biden

-
In popularity, he's coming in right behing diarrhea.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (FVME7)

107 Without Three Mile Island, The China Syndrome would have been mostly forgotten in the sea of other activist films made at the time rather than becoming a cultural touchpoint.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison
======
I prefer the Pepsi Syndrome skit on SNL back in the day to the actual movie.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:24 AM (/AKWf)

108 Technically, Three Mile Island was not a very serious accident. But the media hyped the hell out of it and convinced everyone it was China Syndrome in real time, and that pretty much killed all nuke construction in the US from that point forward.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 25, 2024 11:24 AM (oy4r9)

109 The Laffer Curve is Being Proven Real in at Least Ten States

-
That's not funny!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:25 AM (FVME7)

110 And yet the "elites" are taking every step possible to CAUSE the die-off, because that's what they want.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel
---------
They forget the immortal words issues in Children of the Corn--"He wants you too Malachai"

Stan always, and I mean always, breaks his tools on Earth.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:25 AM (/AKWf)

111 In popularity, he's coming in right behing diarrhea.

--

LOL

Posted by: Lady in Black at April 25, 2024 11:25 AM (mupln)

112 Why would a company pay Americans $X salary and Y benefits, when it can pay foreigners in India or China or Philippines maybe 25% of that?

I would argue because the people in those places, quite frequently, suck. They don't understand what they're working on and rely on badly written shit from AI get code in... but I'm not a corporate executive and didn't attend a prestigious university.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:25 AM (IUd0M)

113 I knew a Stuyvesant guy at Cornell who assumed he would impress people wearing his Stuyvesant letter jacket around as a freshman at Cornell. Such was not the case.
Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (z/ifB)
----------
When were you at Cornell?

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at April 25, 2024 11:25 AM (Be/+i)

114 Who did these whining food-delivery customers vote for? They are getting in the ass exactly what they voted for. Fuck them.

Manhattan is a short ways behind Seattle in this regard. But I already changed my eating habits to avoid sky-high food delivery fees. What did I do? I stopped using them. Fuck them and their fees.

I either cook for myself. That's very easy to do in a city where all supermarkets have aisles of good quality, ready-made food. If I want to order food, I'll get off my ass, walk the two blocks to the restaurant, and order take out. I'll save literally 30-35%.

The only time I'll use the delivery apps any more if if I have a date that I'm not cooking for. In that case, the delivery vig is worth not having to go to the place to pick it up.

Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 11:26 AM (iFTx/)

115 Easier to just get rid of the UN and quit funding it. If the UN was suddenly not getting about a third of its funding from the US, it would have to actually do something useful for a change or die.
Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:23 AM (/AKWf)
++++
LOL. Of course. But if they are to believed about the conditions, their prescription is the exact opposite of what we should actually do.

It's all bullshit.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25, 2024 11:26 AM (HnUIn)

116 I would guess that a living wage for a single person in a shithole city would be … what??… 50k nowadays?? Napkin math sez 20$/hr ain’t gonna cut it….

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:26 AM (PCK5/)

117 Never heard of Lincoln Electric before.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 25, 2024 11:27 AM (63Dwl)

118 Maybe that would have been the next Apple or Lincoln Electric or Carnegie Steel.

--
True but also another Solyndra if they have the right connections eventually.

Posted by: Ciampino - Maybe at April 25, 2024 11:27 AM (qfLjt)

119 RCP sez female secret service agent flips out: "She then began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,”"

Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:27 AM (MvF+J)

120 I would guess that a living wage for a single person in a shithole city would be … what??… 50k nowadays?? Napkin math sez 20$/hr ain’t gonna cut it….
Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:26 AM (PCK5/)
---
I don't think I could afford to live in a city these days. I make a comfortable, but not extravagant living, and some days I feel like I'm living from paycheck to paycheck just paying my living expenses.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 25, 2024 11:28 AM (7fElN)

121 OT: Russia is now seizing $440M of JP Morgan assets.
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (exHjb)

Gosh, when the west - not "officially" at war with Russia - decided to freeze, and then started seizing, assets of both Russian citizens and the Russian government, no one thought that Russia would respond in kind. It's so unfair.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic

Since the US is not at war with Russia, formally, all of this asset seizing is piracy/theft and could be punished as such.
Posted by: 18-1

Bwahahahahahahaha.
The US won't go after actual Somali pirates.
They damn sure ain't going after Russia.

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:28 AM (Jxvt5)

122 Clearly, we need a Constitutional Amendment to cap combined taxation at 50%.

Currently there are 10 states that have a combined rate at or above 50%. Under Biden plan for his 2nd term, 36 states will have combined taxation at or above 50%.

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:28 AM (RHGPo)

123 112 Why would a company pay Americans $X salary and Y benefits, when it can pay foreigners in India or China or Philippines maybe 25% of that?

I would argue because the people in those places, quite frequently, suck. They don't understand what they're working on and rely on badly written shit from AI get code in... but I'm not a corporate executive and didn't attend a prestigious university.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:25 AM (IUd0M)

If I ruled the US, it's b/c I'd be putting a 100% tax on all salaries paid to foreigners for any company which does business in the US (or more - they'd pay the equivalent salary of a US worker back to the US govt). If you want access to our lawfulness, resources, and consumers, you can pay people here to create and provide it, or pay what it would cost if you were here.

Thus, bringing back the jobs for the 90 IQ male in this country.

Yes, things would cost more. But people would be employed and entitlements would plummet (b/c getting entitlements would require work within a certain period...b/c I'd also link work with bennies)...

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (exHjb)

124 Good morning morons. Another day in clown world, enjoy life as best you can.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, Anti-Marxist, buy ammo at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (xcxpd)

125 "Seattle takeout orders have reached a breaking point. Amid horror stories of $122 Thai delivery and $26 to-go coffees, the Emerald City is now considering rolling back a brand new wage law"

-
"Emerald City"? More Puke Green City.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (FVME7)

126 RCP sez female secret service agent flips out: "She then began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,”"
Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:27 AM (MvF+J)

Our best and brightest

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (N1tpc)

127 LOL. Of course. But if they are to believed about the conditions, their prescription is the exact opposite of what we should actually do.

It's all bullshit.
Posted by: Joe Mannix
======
When the UN goes totally to virtual conferences and meetings and avoiding all those carbon spewing jet trips, I will believe it is serious. Well, probably not even then because when has the UN been right about something. There is something about collective decisionmaking that always makes it appear that the lowest possible iq in the group came up with the decision.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (/AKWf)

128 Whoa, the Dow is down 580 points. Did Joe have another "incident"?

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (CsUN+)

129 76 58 I recently spoke to some Stuyvesant students

Was your legture delivered in a wooden tone?
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:14 AM (9yWhg)
___________

It should have been delivered in Mandarin. I'm not shitting you that probably 70% of the kids were Chinese. Some had strong Chinese accents still. The parents? Some barely spoke English and if they did, their accent was so thick I could barely understand them. The rest of the kids were Indian or looked Indian. White kids? Maybe one or two. Not joking.
Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (iFTx/)

I went to Science (mumble mumble) years ago, and I was one of the few black students there. It's probably even worse now, and because of that NYC wants to eliminate the specialized HSs. It was so important for poor, smart students to get a chance at an amazing education. Now the wokies want to do to them what the $20 min wage people are doing to the workplace.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (9miN6)

130 84 It should have been delivered in Mandarin. I'm not shitting you that probably 70% of the kids were Chinese. Some had strong Chinese accents still. The parents? Some barely spoke English and if they did, their accent was so thick I could barely understand them. The rest of the kids were Indian or looked Indian. White kids? Maybe one or two. Not joking.

My nephew is in the CompSci program at GA Tech. He's literally the only non-Asian (of all types) in the program.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (CsUN+)
_________

I'm sure it's like that at all tech schools. White kids rarely go into that any more, and even if they do, they get crowded out by Asians.

Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (iFTx/)

131 126 Watch it turn out to be a M-to-F tranny.

Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:30 AM (MvF+J)

132 hiya

Posted by: JT at April 25, 2024 11:30 AM (T4tVD)

133 RCP sez female secret service agent flips out: "She then began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,”"
Posted by: gp
======
Over and under on brain fried with prior and maybe current drug use.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:30 AM (/AKWf)

134 I would argue because the people in those places, quite frequently, suck. They don't understand what they're working on and rely on badly written shit from AI get code in... but I'm not a corporate executive and didn't attend a prestigious university.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:25 AM (IUd0M)
++++
Quality is one piece. Overhead is another. Offshoring is not free. It is, in fact, very expensive. In non-real goods (software, call centers, etc.) it's less expensive, but there are very real costs involved. Telephony goes up a lot. You need real company HQ personnel onsite to keep things in line, and those guys are going to have to be paid a lot. Scheduling is very difficult and introduces operational friction. All of this can be dealt with, but it isn't a free ride.

Physical goods are worse. All of the above applies, but then so does transportation. That's all expensive and the labor can't be a bit cheaper and have the math work. The labor has to be dramatically, wildly cheaper for it to balance. This is one of the reasons why stuff is moving out of China. Eventually, the people you're offshoring to want to be paid more and the model breaks down.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25, 2024 11:30 AM (HnUIn)

135 119 RCP sez female secret service agent flips out: "She then began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,”"
Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:27 AM (MvF+J)

Ah, she feels it too.
She might even be right.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, Anti-Marxist, buy ammo at April 25, 2024 11:30 AM (xcxpd)

136 The true minimum wage is $0.00/hr, and any other mandated wage distorts the labor markets. That is fact.

It's more than a fact its axiomatic.
Like two points make a line or any politicians make a clusterfuck.

Posted by: DaveA at April 25, 2024 11:30 AM (PMJuY)

137 Now, Biden is promising a massive tax increase if he is elected.

“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”

― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:31 AM (IUd0M)

138 Thanks CBD !

Posted by: JT at April 25, 2024 11:31 AM (T4tVD)

139 107 Without Three Mile Island, The China Syndrome would have been mostly forgotten in the sea of other activist films made at the time rather than becoming a cultural touchpoint.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison
======
I prefer the Pepsi Syndrome skit on SNL back in the day to the actual movie.
Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:24 AM (/AKWf)

Classic sketch. I miss that SNL.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 25, 2024 11:31 AM (9miN6)

140 I'm sure it's like that at all tech schools. White kids rarely go into that any more, and even if they do, they get crowded out by Asians.

I'm not criticizing those kids. They've worked hard, and from my nephew's experience, continue to work hard. They'll be running the country someday. I just wish more native born made the effort to be competitive in such programs.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:32 AM (CsUN+)

141
Produce as much as possible while you still can, and damn the consequences. We're up against the end of the world, so the survival of the species and its organizations is paramount, so take every step possible to prevent the die-off.
Posted by: Joe Mannix

If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 25, 2024 11:32 AM (63Dwl)

142 128 Whoa, the Dow is down 580 points. Did Joe have another "incident"?
Posted by: Archimedes
=========
The accident is believing that the Fed would reduce interest rates by now by the stock market. We also see increasing problems with the US Treasury selling bonds (buyers demanding more yield) last week at auction.

Tells you that the Fed efforts to stymie inflation are not working.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:32 AM (/AKWf)

143 Oh look, the UN's climate chief says we once again have 2 years to save the world from climate change or whatever

Where do they get this 2 year number ? Out of their ass is my guess
Posted by: It's me donna

They prefer to call it "analysis".

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:33 AM (FVME7)

144 When the government takes close to half of each additional dollar earned, it changes an individual’s decisions about how much to work and what type of work to do. There are at least four ways high tax rates decrease economic activity.
Posted by: SMOD

There are only four ways to get rich:
1) inheritance
2) stealing
3) working really hard
4.) learn how to suck a di** like you lost your car keys in it

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:33 AM (Jxvt5)

145 I went to Science (mumble mumble) years ago, and I was one of the few black students there. It's probably even worse now, and because of that NYC wants to eliminate the specialized HSs. It was so important for poor, smart students to get a chance at an amazing education. Now the wokies want to do to them what the $20 min wage people are doing to the workplace.
Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (9miN6)

THIS.

This is what really gets me angry.

Our school system is PURPOSELY stealing the futures of poor, but gifted students.

It's not an exaggeration. Look at what the public school defenders say about vouchers- "THEN ALL THE SMART KIDS WILL LEAVE AND THE OTHER CHILDREN WON'T BE CHALLENGED AS MUCH!"

So we steal those smart children's futures to slightly raise the grades of the dumb children.

WHAT A GREAT IDEA.

(As I said, this gets me angry.)

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:33 AM (N1tpc)

146 The movie was released on March 16, 1979. Three Mile Island happened on March 28, 1979.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, fighting kaiju with Ishiro Honda at April 25, 2024 11:19 AM (GBKbO)

Fun fact... approximately zero people were harmed by radiation from TMI.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:33 AM (IUd0M)

147 Since the US is not at war with Russia, formally, all of this asset seizing is piracy/theft and could be punished as such.

Posted by: 18-1 at April 25, 2024 11:19 AM

We do it to Iran and North Korea as well. And the president can do it all by himself without any oversight from congress.

Posted by: Mister Scott (Formerly GWS) at April 25, 2024 11:33 AM (QNSds)

148 The economic hole is too deep for most.. this fact is planned. There are only 2 recourses left for most people, and in either the arrow points down for them.

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:33 AM (PCK5/)

149 Classic sketch. I miss that SNL.
Posted by: Darrell Harris
=======
Yep. It had sparks of life over the years after the brilliant original cast left until the Millennials took it over. Sad.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:34 AM (/AKWf)

150 Oh look, the UN's climate chief says we once again have 2 years to save the world from climate change or whatever

Where do they get this 2 year number ? Out of their ass is my guess
Posted by: It's me donna

They prefer to call it "analysis".
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

Anal sis. So they pulled it outta their sister's ass.

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:34 AM (Jxvt5)

151 Any word on SCOTUS and the immunity case ?

Posted by: It's me donna at April 25, 2024 11:34 AM (Akjoo)

152 Oh yea: delivery drivers are overwhelmingly foreign and overwhelmingly illegal. This is just another subsidy that Americans pay to illegals and invaders.
Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (iFTx/)

You can avoid personally paying that cost with this one simple trick...

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:35 AM (IUd0M)

153 Also... DOL's New Rule Increases Salary Threshold for FLSA Overtime Exemption Eligibility.

Currently it's at 684/wk (35.6k/yr) and goes to 844/wk (43.9k/yr) July 1 2024. Jan 1 2025 jumps to 1128/Wk (58.7/yr)

So, making less than the threshold defined by the DOL will be excluded from the white-collar exemption and, thus, will be entitled to overtime pay.

F*ck the DOL (Dept of Labor.)

Posted by: olddog in mo at April 25, 2024 11:35 AM (ViCCR)

154 Our legislators and the professional staff that supports them are, of course, expert in all facets of economics, and have a sound understanding of basic economic laws.

From what little sense I can make out - this madness began a few decades ago when the Chicago School embraced Keynesian economics.

Posted by: Its Always Been This Way at April 25, 2024 11:35 AM (+x87d)

155 "companies that are someone's life's dream will never be created because the artificial labor market -- courtesy of our legislators who never worked an honest day in their entitled lives -- has priced them out."

Exactly. I have *way* more design ideas than I have the time, or ability, to execute but I can't afford to hire (and pay all the *extra* costs of employment beyond just the salary) anyone to do that part for me. Most of the ideas are probably not worthwhile, but there are also probably a couple that would be marketable. The current system ensures I will never no which and no one else will ever benefit from what will now just stay in my head.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at April 25, 2024 11:36 AM (XjtdB)

156 The accident is believing that the Fed would reduce interest rates by now by the stock market. We also see increasing problems with the US Treasury selling bonds (buyers demanding more yield) last week at auction.

Tells you that the Fed efforts to stymie inflation are not working.
Posted by: whig

Money printer go "whiiiirrrrrrr".

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:36 AM (Jxvt5)

157 So we steal those smart children's futures to slightly raise the grades of the dumb children.

In Fairfax Co., here in NoVa, you don't even have to leave your base school for them to screw over the smart kids. Many schools have GT programs, and the teacher's unions have done their absolute best to get rid of them, and barring that, dumb them down enough so they aren't anything special.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:36 AM (CsUN+)

158 137 Now, Biden is promising a massive tax increase if he is elected.

“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”

― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:31 AM (IUd0M)

Yep. Most people have no idea who Lenin is… the best some could muster is “ wasn’t he one of the Beatles??”

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:36 AM (PCK5/)

159 ... So we steal those smart children's futures to slightly raise the grades of the dumb children.

WHAT A GREAT IDEA.

(As I said, this gets me angry.)
Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:33 AM (N1tpc)
++++
This, too, is a consequence of an open border. The Left is indeed correct that not everyone flooding over the border is a bloodthirsty savage or a lazy bum. There are in fact smart and hard-working people who come over, too. I have no idea what the ratio is, but the groups are all represented.

The open border is the "voucher system" in this comparison. If the good people all leave and just the flotsam remains behind, how will their home countries ever advance, eh? Isn't our open border really, really, really bad for the likes of Guatemala who experience the "brain drain?"

Look at Egypt and, to a much greater degree, Yemen for what happens when you suffer a proper, elongated brain drain.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25, 2024 11:36 AM (HnUIn)

160 129 76 58 I recently spoke to some Stuyvesant students

Was your legture delivered in a wooden tone?
Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:14 AM (9yWhg)
___________

It should have been delivered in Mandarin. I'm not shitting you that probably 70% of the kids were Chinese. The rest of the kids were Indian or looked Indian. White kids? Maybe one or two. Not joking.
Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 11:17 AM (iFTx/)

I went to Science (mumble mumble) years ago, and I was one of the few black students there. It's probably even worse now, and because of that NYC wants to eliminate the specialized HSs. It was so important for poor, smart students to get a chance at an amazing education. Now the wokies want to do to them what the $20 min wage people are doing to the workplace.
Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (9miN6)
_______________

There were a few black Stuyvesant students, but my guess based on their accents is that they were Nigerian or other African. It's like there were almost no Americans there of any race.

Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 11:36 AM (iFTx/)

161 Yep. Most people have no idea who Lenin is… the best some could muster is “ wasn’t he one of the Beatles??”
Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:36 AM (PCK5/)
------------
I am the walrus.

Posted by: Donny Karabatsos at April 25, 2024 11:37 AM (Be/+i)

162 157 So we steal those smart children's futures to slightly raise the grades of the dumb children.

In Fairfax Co., here in NoVa, you don't even have to leave your base school for them to screw over the smart kids. Many schools have GT programs, and the teacher's unions have done their absolute best to get rid of them, and barring that, dumb them down enough so they aren't anything special.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:36 AM (CsUN+)

The answer is to homeschool. If you do, Fairfax is one of the nicest places to live...

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:38 AM (exHjb)

163 156 The eternal thirst for more debt terrifies me. Can't we accomplish anything without making future generations pay for it?

Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:38 AM (MvF+J)

164
They prefer to call it "analysis".
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

Joe Rochefort?

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 25, 2024 11:39 AM (63Dwl)

165 Pelosi Calls Netanyahu an “Obstacle” to Peace, Demands He Resign

-
Sumbitch is against a new Holocaust!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:39 AM (FVME7)

166 Busted link in the sidebar re Weinstein rape conviction overturned.

Posted by: Jack Squat Bupkis at April 25, 2024 11:40 AM (GD2xa)

167 They prefer to call it "analysis".
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

Joe Rochefort?
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 25, 2024 11:39 AM (63Dwl)
-----------
They're not fit to polish Joe's carpet slippers.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at April 25, 2024 11:40 AM (Be/+i)

168 134 This is one of the reasons why stuff is moving out of China. Eventually, the people you're offshoring to want to be paid more and the model breaks down.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25

It’s moving out of China and in to Mexico. Even with the crazy Mexican labor laws, which they are, the delta is still so significantly less than manufacturing here. Another reason it’s moving out of China is the requirement all accounting be run on Chinese servers with Chinese products. Not a mystery why. Also, the Chinese facade is something you have to see to appreciate. You have been there, even in Shanghai hotels the tstat is fake. It’s beautiful, until you look in the back room. This is true for office buildings, etc. the bathrooms we got to use were like …Trump Tower! The employee real bathrooms? Egads.

Posted by: Piper at April 25, 2024 11:40 AM (ZdaMQ)

169 The answer is to homeschool. If you do, Fairfax is one of the nicest places to live...

My kids are grown, so I don't have to deal with FCPS anymore, but homeschooling is probably not an option for many folks (folx?) if they want to live in FC. It's too expensive for all but a very few single income families.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:40 AM (CsUN+)

170 The Heritage Foundation, Commentary, 'Jobs And Labor Obama's Union Bailout' June 19, 2012
---
WSJ Opinion: The Biden Bailout Presidency, Wonder Land: Joe Biden’s administration is willing to bail out, backstop, guarantee and subsidize just about everything. Mar. 2023

The Hill, Biden’s pension ‘guarantee’ stretches the law to bail out unions, By Aharon Friedman, Opinion Contributor, 07/14/22

Austin American Statemen, POLITIFACT, Biden's $36 billion to save Teamsters fund is largest-ever private pension bailout, Tom Kertscher, Dec 15, 2022

WSJ, Biden Bails Out the Teamsters, The $36 billion he delivered to the union’s pensions this week was sold as Covid ‘relief,’ Dec 09, 2022

The ILA, railroad workers, communications workers, teachers, certain healthcare workers...higher and higher pay and benefits. Starbucks, etc. moving to unionize.

It's not too hard to predict the path before us and who wins and loses for the foreseeable future.

Posted by: L - If they do it with you, they'll do it to you, too at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (NFX2v)

171 156 The eternal thirst for more debt terrifies me. Can't we accomplish anything without making future generations pay for it?
Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:38 AM (MvF+J)
---
The Left is all in on eliminating future generations.

Problem solved!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (7fElN)

172 Money printer go "whiiiirrrrrrr".
Posted by: rickb223
------
Either Treasury has to spend more and more on interest which accelerates the growth in the deficit or the Fed eats the bonds and prints more money on it. Both are inflationary but we are now seeing economic signs that we have not seen since the 1970's and early 80's and if and when the US ceases to be the world reserve currency then expect imports to skyrocket to nosebleed levels and inflation into the stratosphere.

If you like sci fi, An Enemy of the State by F. Paul Wilson does a pretty decent job in explaining the economics and politics of a dying welfare state. Well worth reading.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (/AKWf)

173 165 Pelosi Calls Netanyahu an “Obstacle” to Peace, Demands He Resign

-
Sumbitch is against a new Holocaust!
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:39 AM (FVME7)

I am always stunned when I think that old bitch is still alive.

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (PCK5/)

174 Whoa, the Dow is down 580 points.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (CsUN+)

As Montec likes to point out, the days when a 500 point drop in the Dow meant anything are long in the rearview mirror.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (IUd0M)

175 They prefer to call it "analysis".
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

Joe Rochefort?
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr.

Hey! If you call me out every time I steal a joke, we're never gonna get nothing done!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (FVME7)

176 Any word on SCOTUS and the immunity case ?

--

I was just reading a post over at Mooch's Mirror and someone said that the questions posed to Trump's attorney shows he's lost. FWIW....

Posted by: Lady in Black at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (mupln)

177 I have it on good authority that people never spend less on something just because the price would go up and the only reason any business would go under because of a minimum wage increase is to spite the efforts of Democrats to improve the entire economy.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at April 25, 2024 11:42 AM (iZEhM)

178 I was just reading a post over at Mooch's Mirror and someone said that the questions posed to Trump's attorney shows he's lost. FWIW....
Posted by: Lady in Black at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (mupln)

Damn

Posted by: It's me donna at April 25, 2024 11:42 AM (Akjoo)

179 RCP sez female secret service agent flips out: "She then began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,”"
Posted by: gp
======
Over and under on brain fried with prior and maybe current drug use.
Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:30 AM (/AKWf)

Biden's protection detail. Had to see his lemon party one too many times.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:42 AM (IUd0M)

180 The eternal thirst for more debt terrifies me. Can't we accomplish anything without making future generations pay for it?
Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:38 AM (MvF+J)
++++
Of course we can. but there are two costs to it:
1. It happens less quickly, because demand can't be pulled forward and consumed today (the other side of this - that future demand must be reduced - is conveniently ignored)
2. There is less margin for squeeze. There is no way that our current corruption levels could be maintained on a pay-go basis.

Initially, point 1 is more important. We can produce and develop more, and do it faster, with judicious use of debt and on balance this is a good thing. It lets you bootstrap.

Eventually, though, debt becomes uneconomic and harder to maintain. This *should* result in bankruptcy and correction, but you can also - if you're big enough, like a government - stave that off by transferring the debt to stronger shoulders instead. Everyone's happy this way, and the ability for the spice to flow grows dramatically and it creates its own demand. Until those stronger shoulders weaken and fall, anyway.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25, 2024 11:42 AM (HnUIn)

181 162 157 So we steal those smart children's futures to slightly raise the grades of the dumb children.

In Fairfax Co., here in NoVa, you don't even have to leave your base school for them to screw over the smart kids. Many schools have GT programs, and the teacher's unions have done their absolute best to get rid of them, and barring that, dumb them down enough so they aren't anything special.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:36 AM (CsUN+)

The answer is to homeschool. If you do, Fairfax is one of the nicest places to live...
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:38 AM (exHjb)

I believe that homeschooling is the way to break this education impasse. Right now, good schools are in expensive neighborhoods, and the middle class can't afford to go there (as an aside, you'll never see a stricter border policy in a blue city than the one that prevents kids from other neighborhoods to attend your blue ribbon blue school). If you're middle-class and want to gentrify an up-and-coming area, homeschool your kid there. They stay safe, get educated, and watch the property values go up around you.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 25, 2024 11:43 AM (9miN6)

182 The answer is to homeschool. If you do, Fairfax is one of the nicest places to live...
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:38 AM (exHjb)

... if you're a millionaire or bought your house 20 years ago.

Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:43 AM (N1tpc)

183 156 The eternal thirst for more debt terrifies me. Can't we accomplish anything without making future generations pay for it?
Posted by: gp
=======
Debt that cannot be repaid will not be--either they will continue with their inflate the debt away or you get formal repudiation--sometimes both at the same time.

Carmine and Rogoff, economic historians, wrote an excellent book--This Time It's Different that studies how governments have mismanaged public finances for over 1000 years of economic history and the consequences of that.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:43 AM (/AKWf)

184 *Opens Fartbook*

Very first story is how Chipotle is raising prices due to minimum wage increase.

98% of the comments are about CEO & Corporate greed. 😂😂😢

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:44 AM (Jxvt5)

185 169 The answer is to homeschool. If you do, Fairfax is one of the nicest places to live...

My kids are grown, so I don't have to deal with FCPS anymore, but homeschooling is probably not an option for many folks (folx?) if they want to live in FC. It's too expensive for all but a very few single income families.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:40 AM (CsUN+)

I said homeschooling, not private schooling. Private schooling here is $16K/kid and up. Homeschooling has cost me about $1K/kid/year, and that's usually for enrichment when they were kids, and science labs and foreign tutors for language in HS. You don't need to pay really anything to homeschool. And now VA (thanks to Youngkin) allows free Dual Enrollment for 6 credits/semester for all grade 11/12, so I no longer pay for those classes either (b/c I do have all my kids start CC classes in grade 11)...

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:44 AM (exHjb)

186 173 165 Pelosi Calls Netanyahu an “Obstacle” to Peace, Demands He Resign

-
Sumbitch is against a new Holocaust!
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:39 AM (FVME7)

I am always stunned when I think that old bitch is still alive.
Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (PCK5/)

Pelosi is Jeffries' id. She can say what he and the rest of leadership are thinking.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 25, 2024 11:44 AM (9miN6)

187 174 Whoa, the Dow is down 580 points.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:29 AM (CsUN+)

As Montec likes to point out, the days when a 500 point drop in the Dow meant anything are long in the rearview mirror.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (IUd0M)
________

Bad GDP data. Came in UNEXPECTEDLY low . . . .

Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 11:44 AM (iFTx/)

188 Hey! If you call me out every time I steal a joke, we're never gonna get nothing done!

Posted by: Amy Schumer at April 25, 2024 11:44 AM (N1tpc)

189 Forgot:

NY Post, OPINION, Biden forced to bail out a banking system (and his donors) he endangered, By Post Editorial Board, Published March 13, 2023

Posted by: L - If they do it with you, they'll do it to you, too at April 25, 2024 11:44 AM (NFX2v)

190 151 Any word on SCOTUS and the immunity case ?
Posted by: It's me donna at April 25, 2024 11:34 AM (Akjoo)
---------

I'm listening and I can't tell which way its going. The libs of course are "Lock him up" but conservatives are poking holes is prosecutions case.

Posted by: WisRich at April 25, 2024 11:45 AM (G0vdT)

191 My kids are grown, so I don't have to deal with FCPS anymore, but homeschooling is probably not an option for many folks (folx?) if they want to live in FC. It's too expensive for all but a very few single income families.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:40 AM (CsUN+)

I said homeschooling, not private schooling.

Yes, I understood you. Homeschooling requires one parent to stay home. That is not an economic reality for many.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:45 AM (CsUN+)

192 RCP sez female secret service agent flips out: "She then began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,”"

--

Maybe she's the secret service chick who said she wouldn't take a bullet or protect Trump's life while he was president.

Posted by: Lady in Black at April 25, 2024 11:45 AM (mupln)

193 It’s moving out of China and in to Mexico. Even with the crazy Mexican labor laws, which they are, the delta is still so significantly less than manufacturing here. ...
Posted by: Piper at April 25, 2024 11:40 AM (ZdaMQ)
++++
It's moving everywhere. Mexico will be a big winner (and the higher labor cost is offset to a degree by much lower transportation costs), but there are others like Vietnam and India and even the US, in certain areas. There will be no next and singular "the world's factory" like Red China. Mexico is not going to be "the world's factory." It might become "North America's factory," at least for a bit.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25, 2024 11:45 AM (HnUIn)

194 I'm listening and I can't tell which way its going. The libs of course are "Lock him up" but conservatives are poking holes is prosecutions case.
Posted by: WisRich at April 25, 2024 11:45 AM (G0vdT)

Thanks

Posted by: It's me donna at April 25, 2024 11:46 AM (Akjoo)

195 182 The answer is to homeschool. If you do, Fairfax is one of the nicest places to live...
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:38 AM (exHjb)

... if you're a millionaire or bought your house 20 years ago.
Posted by: Formerly Virginian at April 25, 2024 11:43 AM (N1tpc)

Or live in a townhome you bought 20 years ago...

Although even then, my townhome isn't worth much, even now...

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:46 AM (exHjb)

196 Cassandra was disinformation and an attack on Democracy.

Posted by: ... at April 25, 2024 11:46 AM (rAQ0h)

197 "By 2030, you will all be white slaves or otherwise wards of The State (based on your skin color), and you will be happy."

Posted by: ShainS -- Blood-Bath-and-Beyond angel investor at April 25, 2024 11:46 AM (/JOu+)

198 The eternal thirst for more debt terrifies me. Can't we accomplish anything without making future generations pay for it?
Posted by: gp

It's not the thirst for debt. It's the thirst for government to do things.

Those things cost money. Save the poor. Clothe the destitute. Free housing. Free meals. That shit costs money. Money governments don't have.

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:46 AM (Jxvt5)

199 We're up against the end of the world, so the survival of the ~~species and its organizations~~ elite is paramount, so ~~take every step possible to prevent the~~ die-off, you peasants.
---
FIFY

Posted by: screaming in digital at April 25, 2024 11:47 AM (wQXfi)

200 That s*** costs money. Money governments don't have.

Ah, but you do....for now.

Posted by: Governments at April 25, 2024 11:47 AM (CsUN+)

201 191 My kids are grown, so I don't have to deal with FCPS anymore, but homeschooling is probably not an option for many folks (folx?) if they want to live in FC. It's too expensive for all but a very few single income families.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:40 AM (CsUN+)

I said homeschooling, not private schooling.

Yes, I understood you. Homeschooling requires one parent to stay home. That is not an economic reality for many.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:45 AM (CsUN+)

It is, if you set your life up to be. No one needs a big house, or new fancy cars, or a lot of what people think they need. I have many homeschooling friends here (including myself) who fall at the median and below for Fairfax...and we make do.

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:48 AM (exHjb)

202 As Montec likes to point out, the days when a 500 point drop in the Dow meant anything are long in the rearview mirror.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic
=======
We are officially in correction territory for this year's stock market. The market hopes for the Fed to open the taps to keep Biden in office are fading while for a lot of corporations--the increase in costs are greater than the inflationary increase in revenues. The overleveraged Infotainment industry is basically a canary in the coal mine---decreased appetite for expensive infotainment and decreased ad revenues coupled with exploding costs for content and streaming.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:48 AM (/AKWf)

203 Fairfax is one of the nicest places to live...
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:38 AM (exHjb)

1. I am absolutely not advocating violence of any kind against anyone.
2. Go on vacation, explode a neutron bomb in Fairfax, wait a few months for the cleanup. Then you might be correct.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:48 AM (IUd0M)

204
I said homeschooling, not private schooling. Private schooling here is $16K/kid and up. Homeschooling has cost me about $1K/kid/year, and that's usually for enrichment when they were kids, and science labs and foreign tutors for language in HS. You don't need to pay really anything to homeschool. And now VA (thanks to Youngkin) allows free Dual Enrollment for 6 credits/semester for all grade 11/12, so I no longer pay for those classes either (b/c I do have all my kids start CC classes in grade 11)...
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:44 AM (exHjb)

Homeschooling requires someone stay home with the children.

Therefore, 1 income.

Therefore, EXPENSIVE. (Especially in NoVA)

Posted by: Amy Schumer at April 25, 2024 11:48 AM (N1tpc)

205 Having never worked a regular job or whatever, this redhead in her underwear doesn't really grok any of this:
http://tiny.cc/h4xuxz

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25, 2024 11:48 AM (HnUIn)

206 RCP sez female secret service agent flips out: "She then began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,”"

--

Maybe she's the secret service chick who said she wouldn't take a bullet or protect Trump's life while he was president.
Posted by: Lady in Black

DEI hire.

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:48 AM (Jxvt5)

207 It can be lunch time

Posted by: Skip at April 25, 2024 11:48 AM (mb6GH)

208 Cassandra was disinformation and an attack on Democracy.

Posted by: ... at April 25, 2024 11:46 AM (rAQ0h)

----------------

"Why won't you people stop Hectoring me with these Cassandra references!"

Posted by: ShainS -- Blood-Bath-and-Beyond angel investor at April 25, 2024 11:48 AM (/JOu+)

209 One of the best things you can ever do for your kids is home school them. It may be also one of the most important things you'll ever do.

Posted by: fd at April 25, 2024 11:49 AM (vFG9F)

210 @174

>>As Montec likes to point out, the days when a 500 point drop in the Dow meant anything are long in the rearview mirror.

My recommendation is to buy Tesla and NVIDIA on the dip, especially NVIDIA before it hit 3k a share.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at April 25, 2024 11:49 AM (JIdXK)

211 It is, if you set your life up to be. No one needs a big house, or new fancy cars, or a lot of what people think they need. I have many homeschooling friends here (including myself) who fall at the median and below for Fairfax...and we make do.

Understood. That's a choice. Fortunately, it's not one I have to make.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:49 AM (CsUN+)

212 Do you think the elite overlords have already calculated how many lumpen will be required to sustain them as the gods they perceive themselves to be?

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:49 AM (PCK5/)

213 It is, if you set your life up to be. No one needs a big house, or new fancy cars, or a lot of what people think they need. I have many homeschooling friends here (including myself) who fall at the median and below for Fairfax...and we make do.
Posted by: Nova Local
=====
Well said. It depends on whether your lifestyle is keeping up with the Joneses or whether it is investing in your kids.

Theodore Veblen coined the term conspicuous consumption describing the upper middle class of his era.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:49 AM (/AKWf)

214 180, 183 I had accounting courses where they taught me how to calculate the correct fraction of debt and equity to use, in order to fund projects under varying taxing regimes, and it all seems rational to me. But I have a visceral terror of debt, so the giddy enthusiasm I see for lower interest rates disturbs me, esp after so many years of accumulated ZIRP damage.

Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:50 AM (MvF+J)

215 212 Do you think the elite overlords have already calculated how many lumpen will be required to sustain them as the gods they perceive themselves to be?
Posted by: tubal
======
Men make plans and the Lord laughs.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:50 AM (/AKWf)

216 Homeschooling requires someone stay home with the children.

Therefore, 1 income.

Therefore, EXPENSIVE. (Especially in NoVA)
Posted by: Amy Schumer at April 25, 2024 11:48 AM (N1tpc)

Actually, I do have homeschooling friends who both work. Separate shifts also make homeschooling very doable, and separate shifts (be it medical, restaurant, etc - these 2 are the ones friends do, although not included are some who do FT one and PT another parent) are very doable. Again, it's what you value. If you value teaching your kids, you'll make it work.

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:50 AM (exHjb)

217 I was just reading a post over at Mooch's Mirror and someone said that the questions posed to Trump's attorney shows he's lost. FWIW....
Posted by: Lady in Black at April 25, 2024 11:41 AM (mupln)

Which just means that every future President will pardon himself and his cabinet for everything on their way out the door. It's like people can't think one step ahead.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:50 AM (IUd0M)

218 Terence P. Jeffrey: State Department: Ukraine Has “Significant” Human Rights Issues

-
You don't say?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:50 AM (FVME7)

219 Well said. It depends on whether your lifestyle is keeping up with the Joneses or whether it is investing in your kids.

I see. Anyone who doesn't make the choice to homeschool is putting luxuries ahead of their kids. Got it.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:50 AM (CsUN+)

220 213 It is, if you set your life up to be. No one needs a big house, or new fancy cars, or a lot of what people think they need. I have many homeschooling friends here (including myself) who fall at the median and below for Fairfax...and we make do.
Posted by: Nova Local
=====
Well said. It depends on whether your lifestyle is keeping up with the Joneses or whether it is investing in your kids.

Theodore Veblen coined the term conspicuous consumption describing the upper middle class of his era.
Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:49 AM (/AKWf)

To take it back to Elric Blade's initial post on this subject, the parents of those Stuyvesant kids made this choice themselves. They are sowing back into their kids.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 25, 2024 11:51 AM (9miN6)

221 "It's not the thirst for debt. It's the thirst for government to do things."

Yet consumer debt is as reckless as govt debt.

Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:51 AM (MvF+J)

222 I toyed with the idea of homeschooling our son when my wife was pregnant.

Now I can't imagine doing it. Either he or I would have ended dead by the other's hand.

Probably the same if my wife had been doing the homeschooling.

That boy could be a real handful at times.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:52 AM (9yWhg)

223 Fire them all, let their god sort them out.

Posted by: Joe Mama at April 25, 2024 11:52 AM (lZVy/)

224
Bad GDP data. Came in UNEXPECTEDLY low . . . .
Posted by: Elric Blade

MSM:
Conservatives seize and pounce on bad inflation and economic indicators.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at April 25, 2024 11:52 AM (A5kvx)

225 206 RCP sez female secret service agent flips out: "She then began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,”"

--

Maybe she's the secret service chick who said she wouldn't take a bullet or protect Trump's life while he was president.
Posted by: Lady in Black

DEI hire.
Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:48 AM (Jxvt5)
-----------
Will have to listen to Bongino this morning; he should be all over this story -- and still has numerous contacts in the Secret Service so likely some "Inside Baseball" info.

Posted by: ShainS -- Blood-Bath-and-Beyond angel investor at April 25, 2024 11:52 AM (/JOu+)

226 We are officially in correction territory for this year's stock market. The market hopes for the Fed to open the taps to keep Biden in office are fading while for a lot of corporations--the increase in costs are greater than the inflationary increase in revenues. The overleveraged Infotainment industry is basically a canary in the coal mine---

decreased appetite for expensive infotainment and decreased ad revenues coupled with exploding costs for content and streaming.
Posted by: whig

Lady that works at my wife's place is a registered massage therapist. (No hanky panky)

She took the job simply because massages, unless medically necessary and insurance paid, is a discretionary expenditure.

Most can't afford $60 a week for a massage.

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 11:52 AM (Jxvt5)

227 214 180, 183 I had accounting courses where they taught me how to calculate the correct fraction of debt and equity to use, in order to fund projects under varying taxing regimes, and it all seems rational to me. But I have a visceral terror of debt, so the giddy enthusiasm I see for lower interest rates disturbs me, esp after so many years of accumulated ZIRP damage.
Posted by: gp
--------
ZIRP only worked because the US offshored its production and its inflation to China and other third world countries. Essentially the Chinese ate the debt by buying US Treasuries at below market rates. Stupid elites believed it could go on forever; the smarter ones grifted as much as they could and departed afterwards to live the life of the generational wealthy.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:52 AM (/AKWf)

228 Terence P. Jeffrey: State Department: Ukraine Has “Significant” Human Rights Issues

-
You don't say?
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:50 AM (FVME7)

Not the least would be American taxpayers perpetuating a pointless war.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 25, 2024 11:52 AM (dGCAG)

229 Man, imagine if the Republicans had tied funding to the students and not schools when they controlled the House and Senate under the most conservative president in 100 years.

Posted by: Moron Robbie congratulates women on needing to work until they're 80 at April 25, 2024 11:53 AM (o74n0)

230 215 212 Do you think the elite overlords have already calculated how many lumpen will be required to sustain them as the gods they perceive themselves to be?
Posted by: tubal
======
Men make plans and the Lord laughs.
Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:50 AM (/AKWf)

Yes. Yes indeed. I think they perceive themselves as Pharaohs or Shahs. And did not process the history.

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:53 AM (PCK5/)

231 Actually, I do have homeschooling friends who both work. Separate shifts also make homeschooling very doable, and separate shifts (be it medical, restaurant, etc - these 2 are the ones friends do, although not included are some who do FT one and PT another parent) are very doable. Again, it's what you value. If you value teaching your kids, you'll make it work.
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:50 AM (exHjb)
---
The ability to work remotely has also made homeschooling very attractive for many families. One or both parents can work from home and also homeschool their kids.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 25, 2024 11:53 AM (7fElN)

232 It is, if you set your life up to be. No one needs a big house, or new fancy cars, or a lot of what people think they need. I have many homeschooling friends here (including myself) who fall at the median and below for Fairfax...and we make do.
Posted by: Nova Local

They way we set up homeschooling for my wife to stay home was I got a job in Southern Virginia and we sold our condo and moved to where my same salary bought a house and let my wife stay home with the kids.

In NoVA that would have been a lot harder. (But we were doing it with our first 2)

Posted by: Amy Schumer at April 25, 2024 11:53 AM (N1tpc)

233 Increase your value to your employer, increase your wage. You’re welcome.

Posted by: Eromero at April 25, 2024 11:53 AM (o2ZRX)

234 It's utterly absurd for there to be a female secret service agent.

They are DEI hires by default.

Posted by: Moron Robbie congratulates women on needing to work until they're 80 at April 25, 2024 11:54 AM (o74n0)

235 Man, imagine if the Republicans had tied funding to the students and not schools

This is the real answer, and it's simple, so naturally it won't be tried.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:54 AM (CsUN+)

236 Yet consumer debt is as reckless as govt debt.
Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:51 AM (MvF+J)

Which you will be expected to pay off.

Unless you are a favored voting bloc.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 25, 2024 11:54 AM (dGCAG)

237 219 Well said. It depends on whether your lifestyle is keeping up with the Joneses or whether it is investing in your kids.

I see. Anyone who doesn't make the choice to homeschool is putting luxuries ahead of their kids. Got it.
Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:50 AM (CsUN+)

I don't think it's that Manichean. Many people can afford to have it all - just look at the number of Manhattan parents who can comfortably send their kids to $70,000++ private schools. The issue I think is for those parents on the bubble and below. Lots of pressure to overextend yourself financially, when there's another option out there.

Posted by: Darrell Harris at April 25, 2024 11:54 AM (9miN6)

238 In NoVA that would have been a lot harder. (But we were doing it with our first 2)
Posted by: Amy Schumer

Am I sensing a sock fail here?

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:54 AM (9yWhg)

239 Do you think the elite overlords have already calculated how many lumpen will be required to sustain them as the gods they perceive themselves to be?
Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:49 AM (PCK5/)

750M. They wrote it down and published it.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:55 AM (IUd0M)

240 "It's not the thirst for debt. It's the thirst for government to do things."

Yet consumer debt is as reckless as govt debt.

Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:51 AM (MvF+J)

-------------

The emasculation and infantilization (a world sans "boundaries") of America continues apace and unabated ...

Posted by: ShainS -- Blood-Bath-and-Beyond angel investor at April 25, 2024 11:55 AM (/JOu+)

241 Lady that works at my wife's place is a registered massage therapist. (No hanky panky)

She took the job simply because massages, unless medically necessary and insurance paid, is a discretionary expenditure.

Most can't afford $60 a week for a massage.
Posted by: rickb223
--------
Personal services are going to get pinched first. I also suspect that the service industry like GrubHub, etc. where they can be replaced easily by a person's own efforts will also take it in the shorts. Fast food and casual restaurants are also likely to take a hit.

Takes awhile but eventually every inflationary period is followed by a big bust and that is what terrifies the remaining staff with a brain in big finance and the Fed/Treasury complex.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 11:56 AM (/AKWf)

242 It's utterly absurd for there to be a female secret service agent.

They are DEI hires by default.
Posted by: Moron Robbie congratulates women on needing to work until they're 80 at April 25, 2024 11:54 AM (o74n0)
++++
Eh, not entirely, probably. Not all of the Secret Service is on presidential protection detail. The agency probably has legitimate use for women in support roles or even for field work in some cases (undercover operations, for example, where a woman might needed).

But lady bodyguards? Probably not outside of some narrow roles - like following a female protectee into the bathroom.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at April 25, 2024 11:56 AM (HnUIn)

243 I sense a little homeschool virtue signal on the horizon.

Posted by: Its Always Been This Way at April 25, 2024 11:56 AM (+x87d)

244 WSJ, Biden Bails Out the Teamsters, The $36 billion he delivered to the union’s pensions this week was sold as Covid ‘relief,’ Dec 09, 2022

The Teamsters. So their pension was always a hot mess and I predict will go back to hot mess soon. They have been plagued by corruption from the word go. They would try to get companies to take on their pensions every negotiation because it was just a disaster.

If you must join a union, the one to join is the IBEW. They get it as much as any union ever will. Johnny Dougherty aside, they have an amazing training program and while they aren’t going to advertise it, they will cross a picket line.

I need to tell y’all my Johnny Doc story and the time my boss tried to get me killed. I stood up to that man in Philly having not the faintest idea who he was. All 5’1 of me, toe to toe. He is the catalyst for my nickname -Piper. My word as a Biden. I am kidding this is actually a true story.

Posted by: Piper at April 25, 2024 11:56 AM (ZdaMQ)

245 I don't think it's that Manichean. Many people can afford to have it all - just look at the number of Manhattan parents who can comfortably send their kids to $70,000++ private schools. The issue I think is for those parents on the bubble and below. Lots of pressure to overextend yourself financially, when there's another option out there.

Agreed. It's just that sometimes, homeschoolers can come across as self-righteous scolds. It doesn't help them sell it.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:56 AM (CsUN+)

246
Maybe she's the secret service chick who said she wouldn't take a bullet or protect Trump's life while he was president.
Posted by: Lady in Black

DEI hire.
Posted by: rickb223

Demon
Embedded
Individual

Posted by: Joe Mama at April 25, 2024 11:56 AM (lZVy/)

247 Google claims it is stepping up efforts to combat online “misinformation” ahead of the European Union’s parliamentary elections in June with a new “prebunking” initiative. The European elections will likely serve as a dry run for Google’s attempts to influence the 2024 presidential election.

TIME reports that as the European Union prepares for its parliamentary elections in June, concerns about the potential impact of AI-generated disinformation on the democratic process are mounting. In response, tech giant Google is launching a “prebunking” campaign across five European countries, aimed at educating voters about manipulative techniques used in online misinformation.

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 11:57 AM (RHGPo)

248 "I see. Anyone who doesn't make the choice to homeschool is putting luxuries ahead of their kids. Got it.
Posted by: Archimedes"

It sure sounds like it when you put it that way.

Posted by: fd at April 25, 2024 11:57 AM (vFG9F)

249 But everyone must earn a Living Minimum Wage™!!!!!

What necessary minimum living expenses is a Living Minimum Wage™ based on? Those of a single mother with 3 three kids who wants a new car every 4 years? Of a 17-year old in high school living at home? Who knows? That is the problem.

Posted by: Gref at April 25, 2024 11:57 AM (5fDan)

250 But lady bodyguards? Probably not outside of some narrow roles - like following a female protectee into the bathroom.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)

The Secret Service was one of the first LE organizations to have female agents, for that very reason.

Posted by: Bulgaroctonus at April 25, 2024 11:57 AM (9yWhg)

251 Man, imagine if the Republicans had tied funding to the students and not schools when they controlled the House and Senate under the most conservative president in 100 years.
Posted by: Moron Robbie congratulates women on needing to work until they're 80 at April 25, 2024 11:53 AM (o74n0)

Solving problems don't get you re-elected, son. -- Mitch McConnell (probably)

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:57 AM (IUd0M)

252 we steal those smart children's futures

NEW MATH!!

Posted by: Commissar of Plenty and Lysenkoism in Solidarity with the Struggle to maintain Moron standards at April 25, 2024 11:57 AM (i82PB)

253 Lady that works at my wife's place is a registered massage therapist. (No hanky panky)

She took the job simply because massages, unless medically necessary and insurance paid, is a discretionary expenditure.

Most can't afford $60 a week for a massage.

And also, her profession was basically outlawed by fiat four years ago.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 25, 2024 11:58 AM (/y8xj)

254 "I see. Anyone who doesn't make the choice to homeschool is putting luxuries ahead of their kids. Got it.
Posted by: Archimedes"

It sure sounds like it when you put it that way.

@ 245 Case in point.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:58 AM (CsUN+)

255 243 I sense a little homeschool virtue signal on the horizon.
Posted by: Its Always Been This Way at April 25, 2024 11:56 AM (+x87d)

Nah, just in Fairfax. As mentioned, it's an amazing place to live if you avoid the schools. Thus, if you value your kids, you'll avoid their public schools.

Other places probably don't suffer as much on that front.

Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:58 AM (exHjb)

256 (But we were doing it with our first 2)
Posted by: Amy Schumer at April 25, 2024 11:53 AM (N1tpc)

Wiki says you only have one kid.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:59 AM (IUd0M)

257 It's utterly absurd for there to be a female secret service agent.

They are DEI hires by default.

Posted by: Moron Robbie congratulates women on needing to work until they're 80 at April 25, 2024 11:54 AM (o74n0)

---------------

* Firefighting, male professional sports commentators, and the U.S. Military have entered the chat *

"Discipline is the soul of an army." -- George Washington, 1757

"High heels are the sole of an army." -- Beijing Biden, 2021

Posted by: ShainS -- Blood-Bath-and-Beyond angel investor at April 25, 2024 11:59 AM (/JOu+)

258 "No one needs a big house, or new fancy cars, or a lot of what people think they need."

Fewer and fewer peeps can afford any house, or any car. It's dire.

Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 11:59 AM (MvF+J)

259 Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 11:20 AM (z/ifB)
----------
When were you at Cornell?
Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at April 25, 2024 11:25 AM (Be/+i)

Graduated '91

Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 11:59 AM (z/ifB)

260 Not the least would be American taxpayers perpetuating a pointless war.
Posted by: BurtTC

Russia Hit By Ukraine With Long-range Missiles Secretly Provided by U.S.

-
It's a secret so don't tell anybody!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 11:59 AM (FVME7)

261 Graduated '91
Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 11:59 AM (z/ifB)
-------------
Ah. Long after I was there, then.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at April 25, 2024 12:00 PM (Be/+i)

262 Increase your value to your employer, increase your wage. You’re welcome.

These days you increase your wage by learning the skills to make you valuable to your next employer.

Posted by: Blanco Basura - Z28.310 at April 25, 2024 12:00 PM (dZVON)

263 239 Do you think the elite overlords have already calculated how many lumpen will be required to sustain them as the gods they perceive themselves to be?
Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:49 AM (PCK5/)

750M. They wrote it down and published it.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:55 AM (IUd0M)

90% kill-off. Lots of new green spaces, eh?

Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 12:00 PM (PCK5/)

264 Female secret service agents were typically assigned to daughters. Not wives or VP's. Not sure when it changed, but probably sometime around Clinton's first term because Hilary was such a shrew no man wanted to be near her.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at April 25, 2024 12:01 PM (Q4IgG)

265 Female secret service agents were typically assigned to daughters. Not wives or VP's. Not sure when it changed, but probably sometime around Clinton's first term because Hilary was such a shrew no man wanted to be near her.
Posted by: Martini Farmer

The stench was no picnic either.

Posted by: Huma at April 25, 2024 12:02 PM (lZVy/)

266 I see. Anyone who doesn't make the choice to homeschool is putting luxuries ahead of their kids. Got it.
Posted by: Archimedes
======
At this point--yes if you don't want little Jimmy and little Elizabeth to come home taking puberty blockers, and literally knowing nothing of use except sexual deviancy. Moving to a better locale for public schools used to be an answer but all of them are infected with the woke virus. A lot of private schools as well nowadays including religious ones are woke.

At this point, consider every institution in the US is broken, woke, and corrupt--corporations, political parties, schools, medicine, finance, news, etc. The timeless solution to that problem is to go minarch---base your activities on your family and small local institutions around you--your neighborhood friends, your local church or synagogue, and so on.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 12:02 PM (/AKWf)

267 bunk (noun)
nonsense:
"anyone with a brain cell would never believe such bunk"

so, Google "prebunking" is to inject nonsense before anybody else

Posted by: SMOD at April 25, 2024 12:02 PM (RHGPo)

268 If you want to send your kids to be indoctrinated by lefty nitwits, go for it. If not, go for what it takes to give them a decent education, at home or elsewhere. Some may have to give up some luxuries, some may not.

Posted by: fd at April 25, 2024 12:02 PM (vFG9F)

269 But lady bodyguards? Probably not outside of some narrow roles - like following a female protectee into the bathroom.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)

---------------

"THIS is why we need to allow men pretending to be women into women's bathrooms and locker rooms, h8r!"

Posted by: ShainS -- Blood-Bath-and-Beyond angel investor at April 25, 2024 12:02 PM (/JOu+)

270 Prices in this country are set by the police. Well, I’m sorry, but if the price mechanism were allowed to work, the shortages that happened during the coof wouldn’t have happened.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at April 25, 2024 12:02 PM (e0dkU)

271 Eh, not entirely, probably. Not all of the Secret Service is on presidential protection detail. The agency probably has legitimate use for women in support roles or even for field work in some cases (undercover operations, for example, where a woman might needed).

-

Oh, absolutely. There's bound to be paperwork or light duty jobs.

Or, like was mentioned, an occasional trip to the bathroom.

Posted by: Moron Robbie congratulates women on needing to work until they're 80 at April 25, 2024 12:03 PM (o74n0)

272 OT: Russia is now seizing $440M of JP Morgan assets.
Posted by: Nova Local at April 25, 2024 11:06 AM (exHjb)

I'd seize Jaye P. Morgan's assets!

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 25, 2024 12:03 PM (tkR6S)

273 90% kill-off. Lots of new green spaces, eh?
Posted by: tubal
=======
Not for the evil Stan tools, they will be compost as well if they try such idiocy and bunkers in New Zealand won't protect them from it any more than the Maginot Line protected France from that Man.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 12:03 PM (/AKWf)

274 Graduated '91
Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 11:59 AM (z/ifB)
-------------
Ah. Long after I was there, then.
Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at April 25, 2024 12:00 PM (Be/+i)

I am only 29 after all.

Ithaca is truly beautiful, it was great to be in that location.

Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 12:03 PM (z/ifB)

275 If you want to send your kids to be indoctrinated by lefty nitwits, go for it.

Why yes, that is my goal. Seriously, get your nose out of the air.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 12:03 PM (CsUN+)

276 The ability to work remotely has also made homeschooling very attractive for many families. One or both parents can work from home and also homeschool their kids.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel
---
I work at home. I don't have kids, but I do look after my mother (who currently needs minimal help - meals, meds, etc., - not constant supervision). Just being at home doesn't mean you're constantly available to devote attention to kids/parents. I couldn't homeschool effectively with my work-at-home job. Of course, I'll never have to, but being at home doesn't equal being available.

Posted by: screaming in digital at April 25, 2024 12:04 PM (wQXfi)

277 I'm betting female SS agents were assigned to daughters as a friend role, while actual protection remained men.

Posted by: Moron Robbie congratulates women on needing to work until they're 80 at April 25, 2024 12:04 PM (o74n0)

278 What care do our legislators have when they get paid by their big donors to tank our economy and destroy the middle class? None whatsoever.

Jefferson had the solution to where we are now. We should use that solution.

Posted by: Tracy at April 25, 2024 12:04 PM (axHFI)

279 "Russia is now seizing $440M of JP Morgan assets."

$440M of synthetic CDO derivatives. Put em in a safe-deposit box, Ivan.

Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (MvF+J)

280 Female secret service agents make good sammiches. When they're not insane.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (Q4IgG)

281 249 But everyone must earn a Living Minimum Wage™!!!!!

What necessary minimum living expenses is a Living Minimum Wage™ based on? Those of a single mother with 3 three kids who wants a new car every 4 years? Of a 17-year old in high school living at home? Who knows? That is the problem.
Posted by: Gref at April 25, 2024 11:57 AM (5fDan)

People who want this “living minimum wage” can never come up with a number.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (e0dkU)

282 Ithaca is truly beautiful, it was great to be in that location.
Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 12:03 PM (z/ifB)
------------
Yep. I enjoyed reading in the Uris Library, in the room with the bow windows overlooking the lake.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (Be/+i)

283 I am only 29 after all.

Ithaca is truly beautiful, it was great to be in that location.
Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 12:03 PM (z/ifB)

The winters suck. But pretty in the summer and early fall.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (R4t5M)

284 140 I'm sure it's like that at all tech schools. White kids rarely go into that any more, and even if they do, they get crowded out by Asians.

I'm not criticizing those kids. They've worked hard, and from my nephew's experience, continue to work hard. They'll be running the country someday. I just wish more native born made the effort to be competitive in such programs.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 11:32 AM (CsUN+)
----
I expect that most of those Asians ARE US-born. Their parents may be immigrants or maybe also native born. That's a bad term because you really mean of European descent.

Posted by: Ciampino - mirth maybe at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (qfLjt)

285 241 Lady that works at my wife's place is a registered massage therapist. (No hanky panky)

She took the job simply because massages, unless medically necessary and insurance paid, is a discretionary expenditure.

Most can't afford $60 a week for a massage.
Posted by: rickb223
__________

$60 for a massage? Where can you get a massage for $60? The last massages I got were $215 for 50 mins plus a mandated 25% tip.

Posted by: Elric Blade at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (iFTx/)

286 These days you increase your wage by learning the skills to make you valuable to your next employer.

Posted by: Blanco Basura - Z28.310 at April 25, 2024 12:00 PM (dZVON)

---------------

* A young ShainS, software developer who never lasted more than two years anywhere, has entered the chat *

Posted by: ShainS -- Blood-Bath-and-Beyond angel investor at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (/JOu+)

287 Fewer and fewer peeps can afford any house, or any car. It's dire.
Posted by: gp
--------
Depends on location on housing costs and whether one can fix up an old car and keep it running.

For people living in expensive areas without the income to support it, it often comes down to what sacrifices are you willing to make to stay there.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 12:07 PM (/AKWf)

288 "Why yes, that is my goal. Seriously, get your nose out of the air.
Posted by: Archimedes'

Your goal or not, the Left is coming for your children.

Posted by: fd at April 25, 2024 12:07 PM (vFG9F)

289 286 Required: five years proven experience with enterprise platform first released last month.

Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 12:07 PM (MvF+J)

290 The winters suck. But pretty in the summer and early fall.
Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (R4t5M)
------------
I grew up in SoCal. To my surprise, I found winter to be not too bad.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea, Radioactive Knight at April 25, 2024 12:07 PM (Be/+i)

291 I expect that most of those Asians ARE US-born. Their parents may be immigrants or maybe also native born. That's a bad term because you really mean of European descent.

Posted by: Ciampino - mirth maybe

You are correct. Thanks for that.

Posted by: Archimedes at April 25, 2024 12:07 PM (CsUN+)

292 Do you think the elite overlords have already calculated how many lumpen will be required to sustain them as the gods they perceive themselves to be?
Posted by: tubal at April 25, 2024 11:49 AM (PCK5/)

750M. They wrote it down and published it.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic at April 25, 2024 11:55 AM (IUd0M)

90% kill-off. Lots of new green spaces, eh?
Posted by: tubal

They better have waaaay more robotics than they have now. 10% world population wouldn't be enough to grow food to keep them alive.

Posted by: rickb223 at April 25, 2024 12:07 PM (Jxvt5)

293 278 What care do our legislators have when they get paid by their big donors to tank our economy and destroy the middle class? None whatsoever.

Jefferson had the solution to where we are now. We should use that solution.
Posted by: Tracy at April 25, 2024 12:04 PM (axHFI)

Seeing that America is in fact a very hate filled, class obsessed, Marxist country, maybe we should just have a class war and settle it out. Americans would really enjoy that.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at April 25, 2024 12:08 PM (e0dkU)

294 nood

Posted by: gp In The Center Of A Stool Boom at April 25, 2024 12:08 PM (MvF+J)

295 Completely unrelated.

"I’m pretty sure they showed their crotch a little bit": New Mexico high school lets man in drag dance seductively for minors at prom 🤨

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at April 25, 2024 12:08 PM (FVME7)

296 $60 for a massage? Where can you get a massage for $60? The last massages I got were $215 for 50 mins plus a mandated 25% tip.
Posted by: Elric Blade
=======
There is a reason that NYC is dying and that is one of them. You get the typical Third World city with the rich and the poor with no middle class. Other cities like San Fran are exhibiting the same tendency but NYC is a bit behind the curve but catching up fast.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 12:09 PM (/AKWf)

297 237 I see. Anyone who doesn't make the choice to homeschool is putting luxuries ahead of their kids. Got it.
Posted by: Archimedes

I see myself a little differently. I homeschool my youngest and it’s a blessing I can. We did change our lifestyle for it to happen, I had to walk away from my job going from a lot to nothing, but it’s still not what anyone would call suffering. It’s not J’s job to support me or my child. If it was just me, there is no way I could do it. I would have to work to keep a roof over our heads. I don’t get a dime from her father. He hasn’t seen her or spoken to her in almost 7 years now. I am so grateful J earns what he does that allows it, but moreover, he is willing to do it.

Posted by: Piper at April 25, 2024 12:09 PM (ZdaMQ)

298 244. Posted by: Piper

Yeah, in with the Communications workers, Bernie's folks.

The carpenters and plumbers are doing OK. John I. Kane
Senate District 9, Democrat (Term Expires: 2024) serving Chester (part) and Delaware (part) Counties. And the Teamsters, always in the mix.

Watch the Johnny Doc trial & follow the family.

Posted by: L - If they do it with you, they'll do it to you, too at April 25, 2024 12:09 PM (NFX2v)

299 283 I am only 29 after all.

Ithaca is truly beautiful, it was great to be in that location.
Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 12:03 PM (z/ifB)

The winters suck. But pretty in the summer and early fall.
Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (R4t5M)

They're liveable if you're used to any sort of actual winter. Not nearly as much snow as places like Syracuse and of course Buffalo. It's moderate compared to a lot of New England, or at least I thought so.

Buttermilk falls, Taughannock Falls, Robert Treeman--not hard to head over to Watkins Glen either but you don't need to with all the spectacular beauty right there. It's amazing.

Posted by: TexasDan at April 25, 2024 12:09 PM (z/ifB)

300 The winters suck. But pretty in the summer and early fall.
Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at April 25, 2024 12:05 PM (R4t5M)
------------
I grew up in SoCal. To my surprise, I found winter to be not too bad.
Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea,

I had to work outside in that region for years. And drive in the shit constantly. Probably skews my view.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at April 25, 2024 12:10 PM (R4t5M)

301 Judge Abena Darkeh,

She was co-founder and VP of the Association of Ghanian Lawyers of America. What gun rights do they have in Ghana. . .?
Posted by: Lizzy at April 25, 2024 11:13 AM (cCVOS)

That right there is a rayciss name. "Abeena Darkeh, but now Imma pyrson of cullor."

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 25, 2024 12:10 PM (tkR6S)

302 "I’m pretty sure they showed their crotch a little bit": New Mexico high school lets man in drag dance seductively for minors at prom 🤨
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

This is why I say that regardless now of location--all public schools are suspect in the US because the pedos and the caring educational establishment want to make your kids into deviants and druggies because teaching them useful information is contrary to what the elites in society want the plebes to learn.

Posted by: whig at April 25, 2024 12:10 PM (/AKWf)

303 "It's just the latest in a series of wage laws that are backfiring this year, causing chaos for customers, restaurants, and the gig workers they were meant to help."

Gosh - how unexpected!! By Seattle economic geniuses, that is.

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at April 25, 2024 12:21 PM (fvaUq)

304 Ever notice the hierarchy of professional economists' critiques of government policy?

First, they will oppose protective tariffs. Then oppose various taxes on the wealthy. Then price controls.

Rarely do other bad ideas come under any significant fraction of the same scrutiny. Minimum wage? Rent control? Subsidy or "private public partnerships" for stadium deals, convention centers, high speed rail?

Even if one agrees that protecting, for instance, tire makers from Chinese Rubber will raise prices on cars, suggesting that perhaps other considerations than prices might come into play will draw insults. "Comparative Advantage, you idiot! Read Ricardo! Study Bastiat!" Yes, okay. I'll do that. Now tell me why you don't attack NYC's rent control regime with the same ferocity.

Posted by: pouncer at April 25, 2024 12:40 PM (PrOMo)

305 Considering the massive amount of corporate welfare going on, and how little notice it receives on Right winger sites compared to the kvetching about minimum wage, one might suppose something weird and/or stupid was going on.

Free labor means open borders if taken to its logical conclusion. It also means allowing people to sell themselves into slavery, and organ donation.

As to no one wanting to pay a pimply faced sixteen year old 20/hr. True. No one in business wants to pay any decent wage at all---if they can get away with it. Businessmen would whine about paying a dollar an hour if the m. wage was a dollar, and the prevailing wage was such. Businessmen are like women, they whine a lot.

Posted by: Eric2 at April 25, 2024 03:06 PM (HMtpY)

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