Faced with the disaster of the fall of the USSR and the multiple disasters communism and socialism have engendered across the world, since, the left had to discover something very wrong in the free market.
And as usual when they can’t find anything, they invent something. And then try to convince everyone it’s a huge issue.
I’m always puzzled by the duckies who immediately fall for it.
For the last… oh, thirty years, they’ve been screaming at the top of their lungs about “inequality.” (Oh, lack of diversity and inclusion too. But sit down and wait the turn of those craptastic concepts. We’ll get to the full DIE IED that they’re trying to bomb our culture with soon enough.)
If you think it hasn’t been that long, you ain’t thinking. Actually all the way back in the eighties, as the right (ish) started to fight back, they started howling about how we were becoming a society of the “haves and have nots.” I remember this scaring the living spit out of me, as Dan and I were both kind of hanging loose, on our own, trying to make it by the skin of our teeth, me in a country where my hard fought-for credentials meant nothing, he in a job where no one he knew or was related to could give a boost. And both of us could expect exactly no financial help from parents. (Though over time my parents did help, here and there, where they could, and particularly with things for the boys, like their first cars.)
Weirdly, the doom they forecast didn’t come upon us. Yes, there are people who are ludicrously rich and people who are very poor. But to the extent there is any injustice to that (and there is, mostly for the young because they hit a world where the ladders had been pulled up before they got here) it is not because of the free market but because of government rules, regulations, tariffs, taxation, the left’s blinkered attempts to FORCE the unwilling into unions and oh, yeah, the vast importation of cheap labor without a by your leave or any legality. If you removed all that, there would still be vast gulfs of inequality, sure, but here’s the question: WHY DO YOU CARE?
I’ll wait while you finish gesticulating and sputtering, shall I?
No, there is no obvious reasons why you should Give A Rat’s Ass (GARA.) The image the left — knowingly — conjures is something like South America, where people wallow in massive riches, while others live in abject poverty, with no running water or toilets or electricity. But the countries where that happens are inevitably under the boot of a form of socialism or another.
In America… well, we’re different, you know? I heard the media publicizing that some mean billionaire who is mean said that making only 400k a year was a shame, and he couldn’t understand how any man could endure such a thing.
Bah. We will never even come close to making that. And?
I presume someone making that leads a certain kind of lifestyle, which involves not doing a lot of things we do for ourselves, some of which we even enjoy (cleaning the house is my exercise program, for instance. And I like refinishing and repurposing old furniture. I’m finally getting a sewing area in order, to do other stuff, too.) And it involves not having the two-three hours together in the evening we have where I’m usually doing next day’s blog while semi-watching a movie Dan is watching. (It’s not a sacrifice. I fall asleep if all I do is watch a movie.) And it probably involves few walks in the park. Few home cooked meals. And a lot of travel. (I hate traveling.)
All of which boils down to, yes, he makes vastly more money than we dream of, but you know what? We have a snug house, which has the miraculous ability to keep us hot or cold depending on what’s needed, so we enjoy comfort year around. We have enough to eat and can even go out occasionally. And if it weren’t for various health issues could buy ready-prepared meals that are tasty and of decent quality pretty much all the time. We have appliances that make the house cleaning a trivial chore, instead of the monster that ate our foremothers’ days.
Lifestyle wise everyone but the utterly poorest Americans (and in those cases there is usually some impairment involved, either addiction or mental issues. Which frankly we could help with much more if so much chaff weren’t thrown into the air about equality) we live like the very rich of the early to mid twentieth century. Heck, in many things we live massively better. No money could buy things like new treatments for medical conditions, or being able to communicate around the world in the blink of an eye.
Yep there are people living massively better. But we have all the necessities and more for the amount of work and effort we’re willing to put in. And so do the vast majority of people who didn’t arrive in the country yesterday claiming to be dispossessed. (If you think those won’t be counted in “inequality” you’re an optimist.) So, why should we care about the rich?
In the nineties, I read a massively flattering bio of Eva Peron in some magazine, and one of her quotes baffled me. She apparently couldn’t rest knowing that there were rich people in the world. Her solution (like all socialists) was to rig things so only she and her cronies were allowed to be rich, of course.
Look, at the time I read that we were somewhat beyond broke. How beyond broke? Well, we were paying on two houses, having moved to where husband could actually get a job. (The wobble of 91.) But the job didn’t pay great, so we were coming up $200 short every month on fixed expenses. This didn’t, of course, include food or car repairs (both cars were terminal.) Among the fixed expenses were paying back for the emergency cesarean which happened on COBRA (And MIGHT have been cheaper with NO insurance.) The house we were renting was in Columbia SC, built in the fifties and HAD NO AIR CONDITIONING. With an infant in the house. Think on that a minute.
So, we were barely surviving; life was a miserable slog, and we didn’t know if we’d ever manage to crawl out of the hole.
…. to be fair, I still don’t know how we managed, except by very strict discipline (“You buy a paperback, we eat pancakes for a month.” (Actually rice with some spices. Rice is CHEAP by the 50lb bag, from Asian grocery stores. Yes, we gained 100 lbs each. Next?) and moving to Colorado, and working insanely hard.
That’s not important to the story. Important to the story is where we were at the time, with the black dog explaining we might never rise above that level.
Yet reading that quote BAFFLED me, because I liked thinking there were rich people in the world. And so so people, enjoying themselves, and people well off enough to enjoy beautiful things and places. Look, at the time our two major indulgences we probably shouldn’t have done but did, were when Dan blew $40 we really didn’t have to get me a large coffee-table book of Leonardo Da Vinci’s art. Why? Because looking at the pretty pictures soothed my soul, and he could see that. (I was looking at it in the store. I didn’t ask. He went back in and bought it.) And when we could scrape together money (mostly carefully husbanded birthday money sent by my parents) we would get burger king’s grilled chicken sandwich (I was dismayed recently by finding out they no longer have it. It’s been so long on low carb and never having fast food I didn’t realize) and then park our car in this beautiful neighborhood that had ornamental lakes and gorgeous houses, and eat our sandwiches while soaking in the beauty.
It’s not that I’m a saint, okay? Or don’t have any envy in me. I have sin-level envy of certain things, including but not limited to people who can take a few weeks by the sea every year. (Time mostly. Though money doesn’t help.)
It’s just that being in beautiful surroundings helped, and I liked that other people had the money to live there, so I could enjoy a little bit of it now and then.
To think everyone was as poor as myself, and the world an unending grind for everyone would make everything worse, and make me wonder why be alive.
So– Why is inequality a problem?
I can only conceive of inequality being a problem where it’s inequality before the law: The law treats you differently than everyone else. OR where it’s brought on by “Planners” from above trying to “make things equal” and screwing the vast majority of the population.
They always do screw the vast majority of the population, and it’s not surprising, because you really can’t make people equal UPWARDS. For one, where is the uncreated wealth going to come from? And why would those working very hard to create wealth going to continue doing so if they don’t get the rewards? You can’t add a foot to everyone’s legs. The best you can do is cut the legs of the tall person, and make everyone equally short, metaphorically speaking.
Because it is true that much greater wealth requires work. Even now, even when the state gives advantages to connected and “upper class” people. Oh, there are some lazy skating grifters at the higher levels, particularly the politically connected and venal (coff might or might not sound like “Biden”) because well connected and venal. But outside those circles, if you want to be rich, you pay for it.
How? Well…. the year Dan made a lot of money and we were “rich” we paid for it in his never being home (it was a traveling job) and my having the full care of two elementary school boys with no backup. And us going out to eat a lot when he was home because I didn’t want to spend time cooking when he was actually there. And us buying a lot of things I’d otherwise make/figure out because we didn’t have time. At the time he’d doubled his salary, but after all the stuff we had to do for it, we were barely 10k a year better off. It wasn’t worth it.
I will bet you even in a semi-free system, a lot of the super-rich are living what you and I would consider a crazy lifestyle, and not because they get all the wonderful stuff. Most of what you see on TV is a lie.
By and large, and despite all the efforts of those at the top to make it not so, people who are doing massively better are doing so because they work/do stuff for it. Now it might be stuff they enjoy and I consider unpalatable. (Like have meetings. GRRR. Or sell…. anything.) But that’s because we’re not the same.
And that’s the crux of the problem. If you have “vast inequality” and the system — like ours — is even minimally free? It’s because people are vastly different.
Now I do realize that our system has been changing and become increasingly more and more rigged — largely by those who claim they’re imposing “equality” from above. — and that in many ways we’re indeed becoming a society of the haves and have nots, while the vast majority strive — and FAIL — to get anywhere. But that’s not free market. That’s socialism imposed via a veritable cat’s craddle of regulations on everything from labor to how the labor is performed to who and how you can sell, etc. etc. etc.
The more regulations are imposed — regardless of the objective of the regulations, btw — the more it favors the wealthy and connected, while the poor, young and striving are left unable to do anything to improve their lot.
Take a “minor” thing of all the taxes, and how they’re calculated, and how stupid-difficult it is to calculate sales taxes, if you sell to people in multiple states.
I have this dream — for which I probably have no time, but I could carve out some — of making various fantasy stuffed animals and selling them. I have the materials, I could find the time (mostly a day a week. A change is as good as a rest) and I could figure out how to market them. What am I lacking? Well, my husband already does the taxes for my business, which eat the majority of his free time, or time he could be doing his own writing in. So– Am I willing to sacrifice more of his life on the altar of taxes? Well no. I still want to do it, but I’m holding back.
Now, for us, that money is not a necessity. And stuffed fantasy animals aren’t going to improve the world. But how many people aren’t building and selling widgets, or growing a crop of some kind in their backyard, (Shush. though it’s legal in some states. And yeah, the taxes make it impossible) or making crafts to sell, or whatever which would MARKEDLY improve their condition? And ours too.
BUT they can’t do it because of all the regulations, some of them well-intentioned, others just bloody stupid, which make it impossible to strive and work for a better position.
Then you really have a two-tiered class system, the “haves” and “have nots” and a VAST and deep gulf in between.
Every time the government tries to impose equality from above this is what happens: You get a TINY percentage at the top living very well indeed, and everyone else living in unacceptable conditions.
We’re not there yet. There are still paths to climb and strive. It’s just massively harder than it should be, and often takes a network of family and friends to get anywhere.
So, if you think inequality of results is a problem? Lobby to stop lawfaring for equality. Lobby to get rid of all possible regulations on labor and production. Lobby for much, much, much simplified tax code.
And then accept that the rich will always be with us. And the poor too. Because people aren’t alike.
It’s just in a minimally free system, everyone is richer, and even the “poor” live with endless bounty.
According To Hoyt 
Even our poor know wealth that the very wealthiest people from the past would never even dream.
https://thewriterinblack.com/2019/03/14/benefitting-from-prosperity-originally-the-poor-get-poorer-a-blast-from-the-past/
We have air conditioning. Up until the early 20th century, kings didn’t have air conditioning. We can walk into a store and buy an air conditioner for a few hundred bucks. We can buy a 60″ 4K HDTV with a week’s pay. ‘The Poor’ didn’t accomplish that, the Dolists didn’t contribute to such wonders, but they reap the benefits. ‘The Poor’ have smartphones the world’s richest elites couldn’t have obtained with all their fortunes combined 50 years ago.
In the Glorious Soviet People’s Republic, 400 people would stand in line for 2 days on a rumor that the local store was getting a shipment of 5 refrigerators.
Haves and have nots was what the Dems were forced to use to go after Reagan. By 1984 it was indisputable that the country was in better shape, and people were better off. So the Dems started declaring that “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.”. According to the Dems, only the rich people were doing better under Reagan, and the people at the bottom were supposedly even worse off.
The subsequent election was the most lopsided landslide since Washington ran, which should tell you how well that message was received at the time…
It’s the playbook they’ve run since the French Rev. It worked so many times before, why shouldn’t it work on those rube, redneck Americans?
Using same “rich people getting richer, poor getting poorer” on President Trump’s 4 years too.
Ironically this is true only under President Biden’s current, and last 2 years (took a bit for his policies to bite, less than a year, but still took a few months).
Since the low end of “poor” is always zero, while the “rich” end can be expanding endlessly, the only time the gap between rich and poor actually shrinks is when the economy is
collapsing.
Hmmmm. Now who would want -that-…..
I’ve always wanted to be wealthy.
By which I mean labor truly to make my living, living modestly within my own means, and not caring how much more someone else was making.
The ‘rich fair share folks’ don’t like the independent businessman who brings in enough work to pay the bills, and have a little extra? Instead, I want to be that guy.
They talk about helping out the more challenged, but my experience is that they made things financially more difficutl for me.
Progressive taxation is effectively tax farming of the poor. The costs of regulation, and the costs of taxation will always impact the ‘less fortunate’ more strongly, because of less negotiating leverage to shift the effects elsewhere.
It is a ‘squid farms on mars’ problem. We cannot know what did not happen, and could have.
Perhaps a very limited income could have gone a lot further had not the communist so strong an interest and ability to destroy so much wealth.
Perhaps a very limited ability could have bought more income if employers and customers had a smaller regulatory hazard when it comes to new employees or vendors.
It’s the ‘mansion on the hill’ disparity.
‘Progressive’ sees a mansion on a hill, compares it to his own life and seethes with resentment. “Some day I’m gonna go chop that asshole’s head off and burn his mansion to the ground!”
‘Conservative’ sees the same mansion. “Some day I’m gonna have an even bigger mansion than that asshole!”
Actually “that mansion on the hill”? My response is “why?” Too big to clean and maintain without, a lot of, help. Property taxes are going to be a lot more. So, again. Why? Now a modest house on acreage where I can have horses, we’ll talk. But a mansion on the hill? No. Thank you.
Compared to shantytown or a farm hut, your “modest” is the aspirational mansion of about 4 Billion humans.
“All i want is a room somewhere
far away from the cold night air
with one enormous chair.
Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly?”
It took 4.5 months (due to a fabric mixup) but this week I finally got my dream chair delivered – a simple Lazy Boy rocker/recliner. It is the only piece of upholstered furniture in the house that is less than 25 years old. ;-)
It’s truly loverly!
Exactly, the purpose is opposite.
“What can this house do for me” as opposed to “what does having this house say about me?”
For example, I’d like a mansion of some sort. A living room at lease twice the size of the one we have, and a mother in law apartment, plus a lab room that locks.
…that’s because we are a horde and that would be a design that works for us to live in the house more comfortably.
Exactly. Current house is 2260 sq ft. We’d like to downsize the house, but not the lot (which is a problem locally). Downsize to 1500 – 1600 sq ft.
Single story, still 3 bedroom, 2 bath (one part of main suite), small family room, living room, dinning room, galley kitchen (have to see the desired plans to understand) with small pantry, in house utility room, oversized 2 vehicle garage, with a hidden room (again, have to see plans). Split floor plan (main on one side behind the living room on one side of family room, other two bedrooms behind the garage on the other side of family room, kitchen running between the dinning room, and family room, kind of shotgun style. Hidden room reorganized part of oversized main bath and oversized main closet. Guess what goes in the hidden room instead of the designated spare bedroom office’s closet?) I’d post the one we like but the builder no longer lists it on their web site.
I enjoy looking at some of the houses if they are 1) attractive, and 2) fairly traditional.
But yes, I know who would dust, vacuum, tidy the collections of stuff, mop the floors, pay the utility bills … And having helped someone move into a house with lovely, thick, white wool carpet in the kitchen (!), I have become rather opinionated about floor coverings that I want to deal with.
Yes. I want the carpet Gone. At this point means full replacement, even the square tile laminate we did < 10 years ago. Should have gone with high end vinyl plank laminate then, but it was relatively new to the market. Replacing also gets rid of grout (it is easy to clean, but grout) and (at this point) 3 layers of flooring (no way should we add a 4th). We wanted wood. Glad we couldn’t find one we wanted. Moving everything around to get it installed will be a major PIA. Did it in 2001. Do not want to do so again. These days we can’t even move the couches out, let alone a few other things. Which means we’ll have to pay to move them out, and then back in. Regardless the two couches upstairs are not coming down, period, until they need replacing (dismantled to remove. Getting them up the stairs had the deliverers scratching the oak stairs; they are not coming down intact.)
Luxury vinyl. Seriously. We should have done this years ago.I can clean ct stupidity in one pass, with neutralizer before. I SHOULD have done this years ago.
Yes. Luxury vinyl. In our defense we don’t like fake wood looking, anything. We are both foresters. I can find something we both like.
But wood floors? With a dog and 5 cats? Nope. Nope. Nope. And not a chance. Not even if we win the lottery. Which since we don’t play the lottery, would be an epic miracle.
Hey, grandad was a carpenter. I wanted wood. But unless it’s hermetically sealed with arine polyurethane, it lasts a month. next time we have a geriatric cat with a UTI or a kitten who is derp, or– Yeah.
You know the struggle.
We haven’t had a dog in 30 years and that was short lived and we found her another home, because I was pregnant and couldn’t cope. BUT we’ve had so many cats.
We put in Luxury vinyl before we moved. It looks like wood and Dan liked it. If we move again or are still here in ten years, we’ll do it again.
Replaced the wall-to-wall carpet with wood laminate about 5 years back, after a multi-year campaign to sell my wife on the idea. There was bad news and good news. Bad news: we had to box up and palletize a couple thousand books and store them on the patio (thank you, Texas summer) to make room, AND do some heroic decluttering. For a month. Good news: my wife loves the new floors AND the whole house has been (heroically) decluttered.
We replaced all the carpet (with carpet) in 2001. What you describe is exactly what we did. Two parts. Upstairs (already empty because of work being done), and bedrooms, were phase one. Moved everything back in. Phase 2 was the rest of the house. Couldn’t move anything outdoors, without cover (rain season). Not enough room in garage for entire house.
Moving/storage while renovating: You can get a container dropped on your driveway from PODS or Pack-Rat, etc. Load it up, work, put stuff back, repeat. They are not hurricane proof, but the ones I have used would shrug off a typical thunderstorm. Basically, a small portable one car garage or biggish shed.
Still have the “move the stuff” issue, but much shorter distance.
I know. Neighbor had a POD when they added on.
Hurricanes, tornadoes, and bad thunderstorms, are not a problem in our area. They’ve happened, just really rare. As in we’d all be staring at the tornado pointing “Is that a Tornado?” We get thunderstorms (wildfires) but nothing compared to east and southeast. I’ve been in both.
PODS is what we used when we had to repier the house in 2022.
And some of us look at that mansion on the hill and think, that’s a lot of rooms to dust, but think of All the books I could store! /looks left. /looks right. Don’t judge me.
Don’t forget all the CDs and video disks! 😀
My CD collection is approaching 1,200. Movies and TV series are well over 1,000.
Nope, no judging, we’re right here on the lust for book and movie storage….
Yup. “Why do you need a two bedroom apar—” Choir member upon seeing stacks of books in front of full bookshelves, and book-covered desk. And books in the kitchen, and books in the living room which was the office area, and books in the closet and …
I need bookshelves….
Yes, all of this.
In my defense, I had been training in European equitation (lots of books) and was a history grad student (even more books), plus everything that had been following me from flying job to flying job to flying job. Furniture? Not so much. Books and music CDs? Oh goodness yes!
Biology, ecology, history, fantasy, SF, book research, survival stuff, more book research….
(I should dig out my copy of Eating Through the Zombie Apocalypse again, I know I have it somewhere….)
As my mother used to observe, “The bigger it is, the more of it there is to clean.”
As for myself regarding mansions, my own wants are fairly modest – 1,500 square feet, enough room for the books and pets, comfortable without too much upkeep … years ago, I went to a Christmas party for the volunteers at the public radio station where I had a parttime job. One of the other volunteers had a simply huge mansion on a tall hill, outside city limits, with a pool, guest cottages and a view of the city lights – and that was where the party was. Lovely house, lovely party – but the place was so huge that 50+ people were quite comfortable, nibbling on goodies, drinking and talking and generally having fun. But I kept thinking how empty the place would be, with only the hostess and her husband rattling around in it. My god, someone could break in at the other side of the house, and you wouldn’t know it for hours.
I was so happy to come home, and settle down in my own upholstered chair, in my tiny, cozy cottage,,,
You want to go deeper. Have it built as a library, for the weight of the books, and then set it up to be living quarters, too
So, a huge, luxurious library, plus a closet with a cot and an alarm clock. Got it. 😀
Kitchen too. After all, you don’t want to waste valuable reading time driving somewhere to eat.
Half greenhouse, half library, with a bathroom tucked away somewhere.
You also want a bedroom and a kitchen
Everything I like takes up room…
I’ve also heard it said that quality of life plateaus somewhere around 60-100K. After that your life isn’t getting better, your toys are just getting fancier.
I’m something of a car guy. I can have a blast driving that Mitsubishi Lancer that I picked up for just under $6000. Could I have more of a blast driving a Ferrari 812 GTS? Probably. But would I have 80 times as much of a blast? Sincerely doubt it.
I don’t have to be a billionaire, or even a millionaire, to have a pretty good life. And I have no interest in weaponized envy.
money can not buy me happiness.
It can pay my bills, or buy stuff, about which I can choose to be happy.
I’m not going to have time to learn all the things anyway. So, I can buy pretty cheaply the books that contain the stuff that I have time to learn.
For all the challenging things we can point to, this is a really amazing time to be alive. Even a mere twenty years has made some significant practical differences in the ease of collecting information.
All envy can due is harden my heart to the murder of relative innocents, whose loss also would impoverish me financially. That, and eat some of the joy I could take in life.
Correct – in principle. That “plateau,” though, has gained quite a bit of elevation from inflation.
Also depends, of course, on where you are. Before I retired, I took over the payroll software maintenance at my employer, and while doing that, I went to LA to work with the developer that had that task before (he was leaving for a job with a 20% higher salary).
Met his family, visited his home. They had three children, same as me, and about the same ages, give or take a year or two. His salary was TWICE mine, in Tucson. Actually, $25k higher than the person who was our BOSS (also in Tucson). His wife also worked full time, although I don’t know for how much. (Mine wasn’t working at the time; we were paying for her to go back to school to add on teaching degrees and special ed certificates.)
Yet… I had a house a third larger than theirs. A yard about FIVE times the size. Income enough (as noted) that I was the sole earner, and the wife was actually costing more than just “maintenance.”
We were both “okay” – but I was definitely more “okay” than him.
Where you live makes a HUGE difference, yes.
/Cost of living has entered the chat
In some ways, I get a kick out of reading posts from FedGov workers who live / “work” in the DC Metro area, complaining about “how can anyone live and work in DC on a GS-9 salary? Woe is me!” They chose to work in an area with a crazy-high cost of living because it puts them closer to TPBT.
Then the discussion turns to how the locality pay adjustments don’t factor in cost of living expenses. Because that’s not what they’re for, they’re there to try to attract / keep people working in certain areas (it’s why for the same GS level I’m at, the pay in Hawaii is ~$8k/yr LESS than I’m pulling in, in Detroit.)
Am I jealous / envious of people with bigger houses, nicer cars, the ability to go on vacations every other month? Maybe a little. BUT comparatively speaking I’m not doing badly, I’ve got a nice house, a nice car, a camper, and enough discretionary funds to support several hobbies, and we can still make bills every month without worry.
So when these yahoos wail about “inequality” and “haves and have nots” and start claiming to have the solution? I tighten my grip on my wallet that much more, because sure as shootin’ their “solution” is to take more of my hard-earned money, take their 75%+ off the top and then feed what’s left into their “foundation” that pays them a hefty salary…
And do absolutely none of the things they claim it does…
Nah, usually it’s because they looked at the gross pay after the cost of living adjustment… and neglected to remember it’s a cost of living adjustment.
Most of the folks I know who work for the Feds have zero desire to be closer to their theoretical bosses, but it’s not uncommon to do a year or two as basically a temporary bachelor because the pay is so good if you don’t need to spend 75% of it to keep family from being shot.
Yup, LA is the land of tiny houses with tiny yards. And Beverly Hills is the land of slightly larger houses with slightly larger yards.
I mean, I can think of thousands of local-to-me houses that are bigger and nicer than the houses of the stars. Fewer toys, less artwork, maybe less elegance,but not really any substantial difference.
That said, I could be persuaded to have major artworks in my house. But prints are also nice.
I get some *awesome* spam from Zillow, because I like to go and look at their pretty houses.
Example of a search here.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3098-Sandy-Beach-Rd-NE-Solon-IA-52333/76769109_zpid/?
Holy crap those are CHEAP! They’re -so- cheap compared to Canada. And so nice!
I am very green with envy now. ~:(
Come to our side of the border, friend. The socialism is not as thick.
I know you tried before. Try again.
Otherwise supposing we start turning it around in November (miracles happen) sooner or later a party of USAian fighters is going to have to perform and extraction!
I have purchased GTFO transport, should the SHTF here in Canuckistan. (Canada is only bubbling just yet, not at a full boil.)
Without giving too much away, it involves 2 wheels and 100+ hp. Think Steve McQueen jumping over the wire, but making it.
I could be convinced to visit a con graced by the USA-ian Faction. What is your most northerly destination this year Fearless Leader? ~:D
I actually have no idea. We’re only doing one more con this year: Probably Son of Silverson. (Liberty maybe, but it’s not…. looking likely.)
We lost our last reason to go to Ohio last year. Connecticut, maybe, at some point. (Family, not con.)
Sad face. ~:(
We of Chez Phantom are one day’s drive from Connecticut, about an hour and a half from Buffalo.
Son of Silvercon, hmmm, Nevada in July is pretty toasty for a bike.
I promise nothing, but I will think upon it.
Update, that isn’t looking too bad for possibilities, really.
Further cogitation needed.
Establishing a habit and practice of cross-border travel might be useful in the future, especially if one uses both indirect/scenic and direct/practical routes.
The more comfortable you are doing something, the more likely you will do it -soon enough- in a crisis.
…and they’re expensive (well, mid-range) by my standards.
I live in WA*, and if you can locate away from the Interstates prices are fairly reasonable. There are lots of vacant houses standing empty and giving the lie to the politicritters who bray about a “housing shortage”. But they’re not in the Caves of Steel nor along the Interstate so they don’t count.
I grew up in a 900-sq-ft house built around 1900. The house I’m sitting in as I type this, matterafact. The taxes keep going up and up and up, until it’s looking like we may have to mortgage it just to pay the taxes. (Which is insane. It’s been paid off for like forty years.) This is probably partly due to being just a skosh too close to the Interstate.
And in closing, let me add: Inslee delenda est.
*WHERE I WAS BORN, arrrgh….
Your 100 year old 900 sqft house in my town is north of $600K in bad shape with a small lot on the main road. Prices head north from there for nicer places. 40 minutes to Hamilton, hour and twenty to Toronto downtown with no traffic. Meaning three AM.
Taxes? $300/mo++ plus utilities, which are about the most expensive in N. America.
Toronto has nothing for less than a million. Your 900 sqft house in Toronto, in the crappy part, is $1.5 million with no garage, postage stamp yard, and street parking.
Houses don’t drop under $500k until you get north up nearly to Sudbury.
House in Longview WA property taxes, county, city, and school district, were < half than house in Eugene OR, county and school district only (we’re not city), in ’88. We still own the house in Eugene. Longview house sold summer ’89. Comparable values and size (Longview house is 1/3 smaller). Lot size for Longview house was larger, then. But then Longview, Cowlitz county, while not far off I-5, is definitely NOT greater Seattle or Olympia.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/111-Canyon-View-Dr-Longview-WA-98632/67028953_zpid/
Looks like property taxes are 1/3 higher than what we pay here. Appears that taxation is based on full real value (about the same), but they halved the lot from 1989, and now smaller lot than Eugene house lot.
Here in Eugene is based on taxable value (1990 basis with 3% increases of house value, currently $220k, and 3% tax increase limitation, again 1990 basis. 3% increase year to year add up.) We sold the house in Longview in ’89 for $79k ($68k + what we put into it.) Current house was purchased in ’88 for $78k. Can’t tell if the Longview house has sold since ’89.
I like the ones that are HUGE instead of the ones that are expensive– more things to look at. 😀
I like the ones where you can’t see the neighbors because its too far away.
I’d prefer one where you can’t *hit* the neighbor’s property with a 20mm fired at a 35-degree angle because it’s too far away. 😉
Don’t have any major works of art. Do have one of a kind original works of art. Great-grandma’s art may be worth something (selling artist late 1800’s before marriage, have no way to determine value). Cousin, once removed art, is worth something (she sold her art, baby gift). Cousins art is worth something (she sold original art, and I paid her for the custom piece). Grandpa’s and sister’s art, no value, other than it is original oil paintings. Everything, selling artist or not, is ever bit as good, and a whole lot better in some cases, as anything on the market IMO.
Oh, don’t dismiss the possibility that Grandpop and Sis paintings might fetch millions someday. You never know in the insane art world!
True that. Son or grandchildren (or at this point, great-nieces/nephews since son is being stubborn) will benefit. Not us.
On my first day of driving lessons back when I was a teen in rural-to-suburban New Jersey, my instructor pointed out Bruce Springsteen’s house as we drove past. It was on the large side, but nothing too crazy. Certainly closer in kind to the homes you speak of than to the mansion on the hill.
The more money you have, the more it can make sense not to stick out too much.
Yup. A $20 watch tells time. Does a $50,000 Rolex do a 2,500 times better job? Does it add a single second to your days?
I laughed when the Democrats made a stink about some Eeevul Republican’s $50,000 Rolex and it turned out to be a $50 knock-off. 😛
(Smiles). My favorite watch is a $16 Casio that a) tells time, and b) is kind of thin. Had to replace its predecessor when the rubber watchband (kind of narrow) broke, but I got good timekeeping for $8 a year.
Mike Royko did a column about fancy & expensive watches. To paraphrase his take: “I was listening to him expounding on his fancy watch. I raised my eyes a bit and looked over his shoulder to see the time on the clock on the wall. That’s enough for me.” I do enough outdoors that I want a watch, but fancy? Nope.
An article in Sky & Telescope considered how well a cheap digital watch kept time. Plotting it for a month (against WWV or such) it showed that it kept time fairly well. But the big deal was that the error was consistent. It gained about a second day… and the error line was almost perfectly linear.
Or the author put, a navigator of old might would have loved to have such an amazing device.
Yes, I calibrate the computers to (more or less) NIST, via the sntp program. (It’s approximate because of the satellite lag, so it takes work to get to a small fraction of a second. (It’s for Ham radio’s JS8Call). The watch is about 5 seconds off (couldn’t persuade myself to get it tighter, and it holds quite well.
I have a smarter watch, maybe twice the price, but it doesn’t have a sweep second hand, which I find essential for therapeutic stretching. OTOH, I can have the digital section running on UTC with the hands displaying $CURRENT_TIME.
One route for improvement is to do other jobs– if you want them.
Thus, the “Smart” watch.
I like my smart watch more than I would ever like some fancy jeweled thing. Mine is quite useful.
What was that short story about “everybody being equal” because the Government “handicapped” above-average people?
I remember reading it but can’t think of author/title.
Harrison Bergeron?
Yep, that’s the one, written by Kurt Vonnegut. Published around 1961.
Harrison Bergeron – Wikipedia
OMG I hated that story. I still remember hating it. Like Omelas. Where’s my orbital kinetic strike when I really need it?!
Retcon “The Equalizer” as a Communist villain.
(grin)
Beloved Spouse was asked to help out a few years ago (paid job, though not very much) an acquaintance who did houseplant maintenance, some for companies but mostly for folks rich enough that they hired someone to water their houseplants.
She said the very large, very nice rich folks huge houses were always effectively open, with various troops of people tromping in and out all throughout all day to maintain this and improve that, and a manager paid to walk around and supervise everyone. She said the few times family was there when she and the boss were doing the plants the family were basically in the way of all the tradesfolks, and were inevitably late for somewhere they were racing to roar off to in their nice cars.
Sorry, that would drive me nuts. I don’t even like it when the power company has to go in my backyard to fix something. People tromping through my house all the time? No way.
Same.
Ditto. Ugh!
Same. Especially if we aren’t home. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not happening.
A cleaning lady coming in once every other week or so might be nice. People wandering around the house on a daily basis – no, thanks!
I know it’s religious, but it ties directly into the equality point, so I’m going to pull this (long) excerpt from a review of Angel Studio’s Cabrini and beg everyone to read it, please! It backs up everything our hostess said and it started (legally) with the 16th Amendment but germinated in the early 20th century along with eugenics.
Here is the link: https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/how-mother-cabrini-saved-america-5605038?src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign
And here is the excerpt:
**The result was a model for the world, a vast network of charitable institutions run entirely off voluntary donations and administered by highly competent women who had committed their lives to serving the Christian faith. America, with its surplus wealth provided by expanding industry, proved that it was possible to be both capitalistic in its economic system but also fund a huge sector of education, health, and social services run by ideals and not some top-down system of socialism.
When watching the movie, one cannot help but wonder: what happened to all of this? How did this robust network come to be replaced by a brutal welfare state that is so expensive, funded by taxes, and staffed by impersonal bureaucrats inhabiting permanent positions in cruel agencies? This is the part of the story that the movie does not tell.
The end came in three parts.
First, if you look at any social science literature at the time—we are speaking of the Progressive Era from about 1910 to 1925—you discover that the system that the nuns had established came under vicious assault by secular and progressive intellectuals. They denounced their methods and forms as unscientific, replete with mysticism, and wholly dependent on the contingencies of donations and belief systems.
In a more sinister vein, the intellectuals truly resented how the order of sisters was working to make the lives of the poorest better rather than joining in the fashionable push for eugenics that they wanted to deploy to reduce their numbers. The Catholic Church stood strongly against these efforts and rightly so.
Inspired by the rantings of the intellectuals, cities themselves established public schools, hospitals, and orphanages that ended up crowding out the demand for religious institutions to provide the same. Once medical care came to be regulated and secularized, the sisters were pushed out. Same with orphanages. Eventually the same happened with education.
Second, the income and inheritance taxes that were passed in 1913 robbed the well-to-do of surplus income that they had previously used to fund organizations like the Missionary Sisters, as well as churches and other arts institutions. Philanthropy was reduced to a fraction of its previous size. Once again, this move was said to be consistent with modern science.
Third, in the second half of the 20th century, religion itself came under assault from without and within. The traditional orders of nuns were told to replace their customary garb with modern dress and adopt modern ways, while getting rid of religious discipline. The liturgies were translated into the vernacular and the old forms were swept away. The convents were eventually closed and the enormous properties were sold, leaving what one critic has called a “windswept house.”
The end result was to pummel and nearly destroy what Mother Cabrini and many other orders of nuns and many other religious institutions had sought to build. In the 21st century, people absolutely ridicule the idea that government provision could be wholly replaced by something else growing out of philanthropy.
How in the world could this happen? Well, I’m here to tell you that it did happen. The trouble is that no one is alive today who remembers. Not having experience with this means not being able to imagine that it is possible. This is why this movie is so crucially important. It draws attention to a world and a reality that really did exist but about which people know very little.
As we struggle to rebuild a broken world, let this wonderful film be an example to all of us and the world over. Anything is possible with enough vision, love, and passion for the cause. Mother Cabrini would not take no for an answer and you shouldn’t either.**
I am alive and I remember watching it happen in my town. My first two children were born in a Catholic hospital run by nuns. The bill for delivery and 3 days “confinement” for the first in 1980 was $315.00 the second son, two years later, $350.00. The third son was born in the same hospital that was no longer run by nuns or named after a saint and THAT bill was $1011 for delivery and a turfing out the next morning as soon as hubby could get a break from work to come get us.
But the time #6 was born, the bills were in the thousands.
So, yeah, turning healthcare over to “non-religious” non-profit corporations was the beginning of the end of affordable healthcare.
Needless to say, all you youngsters have witnessed the further destruction done by turning what’s left over to the government.
It is by design, I believe.
“So, yeah, turning healthcare over to “non-religious” non-profit corporations was the beginning of the end of affordable healthcare.”
But it sure helps limit the population, doesn’t it? Too expensive to have children – look at the medical bills alone! You want to be in debt all your life with so many hungry mouths to feed and little bodies to clean?
Envy was a big part of smashing it, but so was eugenics. If you control the hospitals, you can control the population. If you close orphanages and send kids to foster care, you can make money off that; if you break the religious’ spirit, you can get their property. And on and on and on and on…. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
I am too young to remember it. But darn it, I want it back!
Don’t remember the co-pay for our son. Emergency c-section + 3 days (4 nights), 1989. We had no problem paying it, or I’d remember. What we couldn’t afford was infertility treatments. Did take one, ~$10k/year, that increased our odds, but the “extreme” treatments, at $5k+/month, were not happening. Standard insurance pays, now (not medicare advantage type plans). Even adoption would have been a struggle (looked into). Sister & BIL got of inexpensively at $15k, private open adoption. Know of coworkers who paid out $25k – $30k, each for, closed adoptions through the state, parental rights terminated. Same time period, -ish.
The Catholic Schools are still mostly in business out here, though rather than serving just the poor or even everyone equally, they are college prep bastions for those wealthy enough to pay for private schooling over and above taxes for public schools.
Quite a different mission, eh Sister?
Yeah, because now government schools serve the poor. Oh, and you can’t hire Catholics to teach anymore, not even religion class, even if you ARE a Catholic school. That’s discrimination. Have nuns run your school? Le gasp! The horror!
Not that the orders are what they used to be, now that many of them wear secular clothes instead of habits. The ones with habits have SOME schools, but between the loss of religion and the removal of religious discipline in favor of being hip…… ARGH. :headdesk:
Most Catholic schools have two prices: one for non-parishioners, and one for parish members. (And often there’s a third price for anybody really poor, which often is free because somebody in the parish is paying for tuition scholarships.)
Usually the price goes down, according to the number of kids in a family that are attending the school.
And usually there’s an official hand-me-down service for uniforms (like the jumper dresses for girls in the school plaid), or a really cheap way to get clothes that count for the uniform.
The Nashville Dominicans and the Ann Arbor Dominicans are still teaching orders, and there’s a few others.
A lot of the old teaching orders changed over to being administrators of various NGOs, which was really dumb. (Especially if they had their own teaching colleges already, so that certification was really cheap and easy.)
When I lived there, New Orleans had more private schools than public. Most people, if in any way possible got their kids into a private school, even those “of low income.” Some were very much College prep, but even the lowest cost were somewhat like that, because they were teaching kids better than they got in the Public Schools. Basically NOLA went with quite a few Charter Schools in the public system to compete for bodies. Even those who were wards of the State were often going to a private school.
I’d a girlfriend going to Seton when we first met, while she was living in a home for girls. Seton at the time was considered quite good, but even so, the Advanced Literature for seniors textbook was my 6th or 7th grade English textbook. Compared to the Public schools it was far better, though. A quick glance at Maps shows a lot of the private schools are still there.
The same thing happened in France first, to the large network of charitable organizations founded by St. Vincent de Paul, and his large group of well-to-do donor ladies who ran them.
His concept of cozy school/job training dorms and healthy recuperation areas for the poorest poor, to get them on their feet and into their own jobs and homes, was taken over after his death by the French royal government, and turned into workhouse prisons.
And so on, for every charitable organization that got taken over by the royal or the revolutionary governments.
(Interestingly… Cardinal Richelieu thought very highly of St. Vincent de Paul and his charities, and intended to set up a financial foundation to keep them independent. This was thwarted of completion by Richelieu’s death, although his heiress/niece (the Duchess d’Aiguillon) did a ton of funding for them until she passed away.
(Cardinal Mazarin had some kind of weird personal problem with St. Vincent de Paul. But mostly he didn’t like him because the queen picked St. Vincent to be her father confessor and spiritual advisor. Vincent didn’t like it because it took so much time away from all his other work, and involved him in so much annoyance. Also a duchess once threw a chair at him.)
Said duchess must have had either a really good arm, or that was a light chair. Go figure on both revolutionary AND royal French governments taking over his charities. Sticky fingers are sticky fingers, doesn’t matter who has them. Do you have a source for this info? I’d like to take a look at it, if so.
from what I’ve read here and there, St Vinny was the type to cause many to want to toss a chair at him. Much like Galileo, he had issues . . . crotchety sorts.
I did a weekly commute NY to Chicago for three years. It was better than the semi weekly London to Hong Kong, I had done before that. The kids never saw me and the wife said “there’s more to life than money”. Which came as a surprise to me since I’d been focused on it for a good 20 years by that point. I took a huge cut in pay, started working 40 hours a week rather than the 60-70 + travel I’d been doing. Best thing I ever did. Probably saved my life and hopefully made a difference for the children. I still do fairly well since there’s people who will pay me for what I know, but none of my old colleagues can understand why I “pissed it all away.” Fools, it’s just stuff. People matter, stuff don’t.
We made a conscious choice for hubby to request (demand?) non-overtime jobs, when our son was born. This minimized daycare early on, and really minimized it during school years (unless counting actual school as daycare, which wasn’t quite that bad then, besides we kept a firm hand on school). Dad’s limited to 8 hours (including lunch) meant he did coaching, scouts, etc., K – 8. (Scouts through HS graduation. Golf in HS.) Didn’t start working OT jobs until he was forced to work up in Randle (since not home anyway, why not), and after transferred home (extra money went to savings for college).
We, combined, not individually, grossed annually over $100k, maybe 5 times, over our combined working years. Taxable over $100k, maybe twice (well under $400k). Either I wasn’t working, or he wasn’t (retired), or my salary was low. Ironically now that we are both retired, me 8 years, hubby 12 years, between SS, hubby’s pension, my pension (which barely counts), and what we pull from IRA’s to make monthly shortfall (not required, yet, and yes, thanks Biden), we did go over $100k gross, and taxable (that is 6x’s in 45 years of marriage). Just a taste of what is to come for 2025 when required IRA distribution kicks in for hubby (I have another 5 years, then it gets worse).
Yeah. It’s why Dan quit.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to quit, but when the whole “return from COVID” thing started, I told my boss I couldn’t do the whole road warrior thing any more. No one had an issue.
Have one niece whose job requires commuting regularly during the year to Europe. She’s single. Every trip she takes she also takes a few days to see something else. That does not count the side trips her European co-workers arrange as working tours, which she also does for them when they are in the states. Her work pays for her airfare, both directions, her accommodations and food, until she takes off on her own. Plus since she pays up front, and they pay her back, she gets to keep any earned mileage or other benefits. Why the heck not?
Working at a job that’s killing you, regardless of how much you’re making, is almost always a self destructive behavior. It’s fine if you do it for a limited period of time, for a specific short term goal; but that’s not the right thing to do in the long run.
Hooah!
(Said proudly from the comfort of my IT desk and ergo-chair.)
You know what you never hear people say when they’re getting ready to pass into the next life? “I wish I had spent more time at work.”
“…park our car in this beautiful neighborhood that had ornamental lakes and gorgeous houses, and eat our sandwiches while soaking in the beauty.”
Yeah. See the nice houses, nice lawns, nice cars, and say to yourself “someday.”
That’s what normal people do. They say “someday, I will have such a nice car.” They may wonder what that guy who lives in the nice house does for a living, in case it might be something they can do too, and therefore -earn- the nice house. And maybe they feel grateful that they can enjoy the nice location, and that they have a car at all.
I remember when I was poor as sh1t back in the Dark Ages I would often walk or ride my bike through the nice neighborhoods of Toronto. To enjoy them. They’re nice, right?
Leftists look at such things and feel nothing but hatred, envy and greed.
I’m okay with that. A life of hate, envy and greed is a PUNISHMENT. Every time you do it, that horrible feeling you get is the Almighty taking a swing at your head to smarten you up.
I’m no saint, I certainly have my moments. But at least I feel the punishment and try to stop being a jackass.
Also, I think of the reception waiting for guys like the fruitbat Leftists we see in the news, when they finally shuffle off this mortal coil. Imagine showing up at the Pearly Gates with baggage like that. 0.o What I’m dragging is bad enough thanks.
Some of those “nice house, nice car, nice life” folks are in debt up to their ears. They are debt peons in Khakis.
“Small but debt free” is the way to live. You can then grow it bigger.
This.
And the trap in places home prices are so crazy high, like Silicon Valley, is for the kids starting out who land a well paying job out here to just spend what they get on new cars and phones and video game consoles, because they will never be able to save up the traditional 10% down on a $1.2 million starter house.
There’s no incentive for thrift, so no habits of thrift for eventual retirement and such. Add on the crushing burden on those kids of student loans stretching out forever as far as a 25 year old is concerned and you get lots of consumption, and panic when the inevitable layoffs hit.
It takes massive self discipline to fight those temptations.
Nieces who live in Portland. Sure, their individual income does not match each of their fathers, yet. Each is well above what either hubby and I made combined, ever. OTOH their expenses are higher too. Rent, and house and vehicle, owning expenses, are higher in Portland/Vancouver than Eugene, but not that much higher. Nor percentage compared to our income when we bought, either of our homes, to our income. Just the numbers “look” worse. Interest rates are still less than what we had in 1980 (not much) and again, in 1988 (a lot). OTOH all 3 nieces who own, got < 3% rates.
My parents paid 13% for a mortgage in 1979.
The Reader had a 12.5% adjustable in 1982. We were relieved when it ‘adjusted’ to 9% in 1985.
Less than a year after we bought in ’88, we refinanced to < 10%. Subsequent refinances have gotten us down to 3.3% (now 12 years of a 30 year). Should have refinanced, again, in 2021/2022. The bank we are with would have paid us to refinance down to < 2%. Problem was, I did not want another 30 year (little over half current required payment), and hubby was fine with that. Could have done a 15 year (slightly less than current payment). But we talked it to death and missed our window.
I honestly do not remember what our interest rate was in ’80 (I think 9%). I do remember being shocked with the 13.5%, 5 year Adjustable, in ’88. We has scored a lower east coast bank rate, but while we qualified (credit score), the house qualified (house appraisal < loan amount), the neighborhood comps did not qualify. Screeching halt to loan as we had to come up with 20% + difference in neighborhood appraisal. Which even if the house in Longveiw had sold, we were still short. Took a west coast bank, thus the loan terms, to research than values were at least 10+ years out of date. After our house closed, it was like a domino effect and houses started closing right and left, increasing the neighborhood average value. We did have an out, to get back our deposit, as our terms included getting a loan. But we had a different time crunch. Our rental had been sold out from under us (yes, we put in an offer). No way were we lucking out for another rental, not with an elderly German Shepard, and 4 cats (5 cats before we actually moved).
(Pets, and rentals. I get it. I really do. We tried allowing pets in Longview, in ’85. Learned that lesson. Just frustrating when one is not one of those pet owners. Note, in ’85, no way were we selling. Housing, thanks to the mountain, and the owl, had $300k+ houses down E and W Canyonview, selling for 1/3 their value, or less. No one was even looking an < $100k houses, which ours was. Not until housing became tight, around late ’88 and later. We could afford to wait, as long as it rented. Only regret is we did not turn it over to the professionals from the start.)
One of my biggest weaknesses I can think of in my personality is that I hope the karma for those of the Left is significantly worse than my own. I try not to indulge in that kind of negativity very often, but I do have my moments of weakness.
One of the themes in my books is that while Evil exists, it is not our job to punish it.
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the moral people of this world are janitors. We clean up the garbage, wash the floor, fix the broken drains, all that. There’s no sense in hating the dirt and trying to take revenge on it. You clean it up and move on to the next mess.
We mortals are not smart enough to do the big job of divine punishment, we leave that to those qualified.
Another theme is that while self defense sucks, dying sucks more.
Taken together, we defend ourselves from the evil in the world and fix all the broken sh1t the evil leaves behind. Just getting on with that is the most anybody can really expect, or so I think. Try not to be an asshole and it’ll probably be okay. ~:D
Karma by its own definition is brought on by one’s own actions. I enjoy watching karma in all it’s splendid glory. Because it is by their own hand that they are being destroyed, yes by their own karma. No guilt there at all, you had nothing to do with their actions. Unless they are a child too young or of the feeble minded, relishing in others karma is not a sin. It is a cautionary tale in watching one’s own karma, lest it strike you as well. In life you get what you earn, both good and bad. Sucks sometimes, but that is the essence of karma.
What happened yesterday to AOC and the democrats party is a prime example of karma.
Am I Eeevul for wishing Tony Bobolinski would get fed up and say, “That IS the answer; it’s not my fault you’re too stupid to understand it.”
I thought he did say exactly that. Well not so much in those exact words. But it sure showed in body language. Then too, more than a few commenters translated it that way. But, agree, he should have just said those exact words.
I loved watching him pin her ears back. What a slapping that was.
I think we need to change AOC from Occasional-Cortex to Absolutely Omitted-Cortex
Always On Crack works, too.
Hoping for bad people to have worse karma is a variation on the sin of pride. But it’s not as bad as actually taking joy in their bad karma. It’s probably okay to see it and think, FAFO.
The government can’t create prosperity; we can only hope they will refrain from destroying it.
The government can’t turn failure into success, but they sure can turn success into failure.
Concentrating power into a few hands inevitably devolves into corruption, abuse and tyranny.
The government rewards failure and punishes success. What results do they expect?
How can imperfect people create a Perfect World? How could imperfect people live in a Perfect World?
All you Perfect People out there, raise your hands.
Now keep ’em up so we know who to shoot.
That is in essence much of what the federalist papers said.
As to taxation…
The current system is heavily influenced by Marxist agenda, that is , “destroy the middle class via taxation and inflation”.
Note how our hostess could easily make some side-money and better herself, but the tax monster eats too much, so she doesn’t. Anything she saves though thrift or side gigs, and missed by taxation, gets eaten as if by rats through inflation.
Side gigs and cottage industry are a sure fire way to rise in economic power and status, and have been the secret to American upward mobility for four hundred years. Anyone can make an extra buck or three, and thus slowly but surely prosper. Thus the marxoid monsters want it prevented by any means necessary. If you can rise up economically, you wont rise up as a Communist “revolutionary” and crown your betters as Master.
Side gigs for the entertainment industry were massively torpedoed by California iirc. That state would be ever so much better if they had a French Revolution and executed everyone in their government. Sure, the end result would be chaos for a while, zero trust, and zero services. Adn your point would be? ;-)
”…chaos for a while…”
How would we tell?
(Plays, loudly, “Bastille Day” by Rush.)
At this point the “better myself” would be “rent a little cottage by the sea for anytime from a week to a month depending on how much I made between April and September,depending on location.”
I mean, not needed, but it sure would be nice to have. (We’d have to work there, too, but we could walk by the sea once a day.)
An old brick lighthouse, a cool breeze on a warm summer day, dusk as you and your love walk on the beach to strains of Bobby Darin singing, “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” as you enjoy the golden sunset. That is something to work towards.
I only require three things, money, an old brick lighthouse, and the love of my life. Meh, at least I still have dreams. Oh, and it has to be flat sand so I don’t stumble and fall, not too many rocks either, too hard with a cane. 😎
I’ve heard quite a few people recently talking about how we’re in “end stage capitalism” or “late capitalism.” Makes me want to grab them by the shirt front and shake some sense into them.
As for their “end stage,” a massive Marxist infection is what we’re in the end stage of.
Capitalism…meh. I’ve actually come to hate that word. Everyone forgets that it was invented as a foil for Marx’s utopian lunacy. (Okay, not literally invented; it was invented in the 16th century as a portmanteau and brought out of obscurity later by the Marxians.) It was _meant_ to be impossible to defend. It’s a territory occupied by monopolistic plutocrats and crony socialists, and chosen for us by our enemies. So if capitalism is dying of Marxism, well, that’s fine. Poetic, even.
A free market is what we’re really after, not capitalism. And socialists are enemies to all humanity no matter which words we use.
Same here – it was “Oh, Late Stage Capitalism is just like that…” from someone notionally not political on YT and I thought “Well, haven’t you just internalized that Arrow of History thing completely?”
And note how the phrase “Late Stage Marxism” or more softly “Late Stage Socialism” is not in the lexicon? You know, the part where bread on the shelves is rarer and rarer, the electricity keeps going out, you just heard your clever uncle managed to escape with his family to somewhere not nearly so utopian, and the experts in charge still live like kings?
Because everyone know the underpants gnomes list goes
People like that have absolutely no clue what any of those big words mean. I’ve had detailed discussions with idiots who throw phrases like that around and it basically boils down to them believing Socialism/Communism just being nice and generous, so Capitalism must mean you’re just mean and stingy right? Also I think the term “late-stage Capitalism” has probably been around for a century or more which is hilarious.
Also they blame absolutely everything bad that exists, from homelessness to hangnails, on “the failures of capitalism”. I came across one particularly bizarre leftist circle-jerk one day where try were all bragging to each other about how they bake their own bread instead of buying from the store (whith store bough flour?) and that meant they were sticking it to the Capitalist Man…somehow.
I can argue that baking your own bread is not less expensive than buying a loaf of bread. Tastes better. Not less expensive. (The ingredients, then count the power, and your time to make, then bake it.)
Arguably, depending on where the flour is from, far healthier as well. .
Hey I have nothing against doing your own baking, I can make a pretty mean banana bread myself, I just found it absolutely bizarre they just HAD to turn it into some sort of struggle session about baking was an act of resistance against the evils of Capitalism or some shit.
All inside the State, nothing outside the State. Or The Cause™, in this case. You can’t just have fun tinkering with a recipe or blending your own spices.
I bake our dinner rolls (family recipe) too sometimes. But I know I am not necessarily saving money doing so.
Taxes are particularly galling when you are trying to work your way up the ladder. It feels like there is at least a 50 percent marginal rate for me, and I am still below median income, still young, but it makes it really hard to look at making a little extra money and then cut it in half.
A new person on my team, having received his bonus (his first as a working person), was annoyed it was way less than stated by Boss. I had to explain a bonus is taxable income. The State was the one that short-sheeted him, not the Boss.
Not only that, bonuses are taxed as if you get paid that much every week. Got a $500 bonus? You’ll be taxed based on an additional $26,000 a year, and be lucky to keep $300. It’s evil.
Oops, wasn’t clear — that’s what they withhold. At the end of the year you’ll only be taxed on the actual amount, but they mandate withholding as if you get that bonus every pay period.
Speaking of haves/ have nots. I got a great commitment from a young couple last night. They announced they just closed on their house. But said when they get older they want to be like me and my wife. Because we are well off and have it together.
It is weird, while the bank account has grown I don’t consider myself in the haves. Still working on the mortgage and bills. But the house is well maintained. And we do occasionally host a gamer pot luck dinner where we provide the meat dish.
Equity always requires the imposition of the Procrustes’s solution.
I just got a work e-mail notice this morning that Medisolv was giving a brief seminar on Healthcare Equity. They laid the slides out and the first thing that jumped out at me was the starting premise that healthcare was unfair, and the second step was to gather information to prove that it was unfair. There was no unbiased question and honest investigation at all. And, of course, that company was going to provide the solution to the problem that they swore you already had.
Which isn’t really surprising because that’s exactly what the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been shoving out of the manure spreader at us for the past several years.
Rush’s song The Trees is an apt description of what “equity” means: “For the trees were all kept equal, by hatchet, axe and saw”.
Also part of the problem on selling crafts? Etsy has apparently decided they make more money selling ad space than, you know, making the site good for sellers. Since they started their big ad push (and reporting your sales even near $600 to the IRS), I haven’t sold a single item there.
I finally quit trying to sell on Etsy a couple of years ago. They kept changing their search ranking algorithms, to the point where it was impossible to tell why my items (plenty of sales, great reviews) had gone from top ten down to page three.
Some shop that had only three items for sale (which were no great shakes) and had done nothing visibly different with the listing itself that I could see, would pop into the top of the rankings and stay there, and everybody else got shoved down. Nothing I did could change it, and nobody had any solid advice on it, either. And that’s in addition to less than half the top page being organic results vs. ads to start with. And I’m not interested in paying for ads so that I can have the privilege of attempting to game anybody’s ad system.
Couple that with an influx of cheap, mass-produced junk in the niche I was in (from sellers that had “production partners,” aka crap factories in China), and it was no longer worthwhile. More time gaming their system was less time doing the crafting & creating I enjoyed, and constantly wondering how to squeeze a few more bucks out of it meant that I enjoyed the crafting less in turn. Fortunately, I didn’t need it. A few years ago, the couple thousand bucks a year I made from the Etsy shop made a sink-or-swim difference in my finances, but I have a much, much better job now.
Not surprising to hear that it’s turned into “pay up or go nowhere” over there.
Sigh. I keep debating whether or not to close my store over there; renewing listings doesn’t cost a lot, but if nothing’s being bought…. Grump.
FWIW my shop has been doing fine. Though I did figure out a trick which significantly increases interest: always run a sale of 25% or higher, which boosts you in the algorithm. I have is set to apply to 5 or more items, which fits with my business model anyway.
Inequality before the law certainly exists. We’re all living it right now with politics. But it also exists in ordinary life. Someone who cannot afford the best lawyers gets different results. I always said that the OJ trial was not actually about race, but wealth and class. If you can afford Johnny Cochrane et al, you get a far different result than an ordinary shlub (sp?). Unfortunately, I don’t know of any solution to that.
How is this anything other than an invasion:
https://nypost.com/2024/03/21/us-news/migrants-break-barriers-and-rush-border-guards-in-el-paso/
Because it’s not an “invasion” invasion.
H/t Whoopie Goldberg
Sarah, when you say there’s a Grande Salide happening, could you come to Texas and show us an example? Because we just flat don’t see it.
You are at the swirling point. More are coming in every day, so you can’t see the ones leaving, but they are leaving. You can mostly tell by the “don’t leave” measures the left takes, like moving them far from the frontier (before the shipping to sanctuary cities.)
We’re not losing the worst, more’s the pity.
The worst are being sent. Like the Cuban Merielitos that were sent to get them out of the gov’t’s hair (and prisons) many of the worst are being sent from the prisons and are certainly not going to go back unless they can without ending up back behind bars.
The rest of the worst are not from the prisons because they’ve been sent by the gangs/cartels or come to do their ‘jobs’ in a new untapped/less plundered market.
Which is why Mexico is having kittens about them being dropped back into Mexico, instead of just going through and leaving money as they pass.
Both the caught-criminals and the organized crime types are going to find the US difficult to adjust to; they’re wrong genera savvy, and the cities that artificially copy what they’re use to are getting less comfortable. Mexico is a lot closer to what they’re use to.
A lot are actually going back… to Mexico. Which is why Mexico is now trying to close its SOUTHERN border. There was an article about the people going back to or choosing to stay in Mexico. And Mexico’s little bravado has collapsed.
Yeah, I can see a Venezuelan released from Prison deciding NYC or Denver is too fricken cold, would likely feel better suited to Mexico
The poorest poor, dumb bastard is always naked, hungry, and cold.
Income inequality means not everyone is, and that’s a good thing.
Inequality is baked into the human condition because people are not equal.
Some are smart, some are stupid (some are so stupid they stretch the meaning of the word); some are industrious, some are lazy; some are competent, some are…not; some are responsible, some are negligent; some are honest, some are liars, some are corrupt. A few are outright psychopaths.
To pretend that a stupid, lazy, incompetent liar should be given equal pay and status with a smart, industrious, competent, responsible, honest worker would be utter idiocy — but that is the standard we are condemned for opposing. Equity uber alles! Ve haff vays off makink you Equal!
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It takes a LOT of Education to make somebody that stupid.
My theory is that ultimately the left wants everyone equally dead.
There’s a definite sense of nihilism about the edges of the Left, isn’t there?
My theory is that the progressives organize worry about issues to hobble Republican candidates. The whole “income inequality” thing links to Romney’s run. When I search for charts on it, a whole lot of them date from Romney’s first run.
Remember when the US was turning into a theocracy? That was George W. Bush. (stop laughing.)
For mansion sightseeing, check out the Wall Street Journal: https://www.mansionglobal.com
If I had to guess, I’d say it was the power imbalance. We saw it with the Covids. The economic-ruling caste could, and did, use their outsize financial resources to surf the wave and mostly survive the panic. The little guys lost their homes, their businesses, died deaths of despair, saw their kids’ educations crater… The tippy top are back to business as usual, and the comfortable middle are hanging on by their teeth.
So like a lot of this nonsense it’s a stand-in for something real.
Remember, climate stasis is dumb as a sack of rocks, and the means to enforce it have a good chance of ending life on earth, as we’re all carbon-based and powered by the sun. Nonetheless, industrial-age and chemical pollution are dangers that all attention and money, and energy and human inventiveness ought to be pointed at. Which they aren’t.
Something real to fear, a fake problem subbed in, and a solution worse than the problem and hey-o the human-bean haters are golden.
By the way Mrs. Hoyt, did you get my email about Liberty Con?
Oh. Yes, but I was in the middle of dramaling about soemthing else, meant to answer never did.
At any rate, we probably can’t make it this year (one tiny shred of hope remains) and don’t know anyone looking for memberships/rooms.
Sigh.