There's a tap on the roof or the window, then a few more, and you think "Oh, is that...?" and, sure enough, the taps continue, getting more and more frequent until they blend together into the soothing patter of rainfall. Now imagine that, but instead of light taps, it's a dull "phomp."
I imagine someone in an alternate universe hearing that first phomp, and running to grab a cup of tea before sitting by the window to watch the manfall.
Yeah, exactly. Many republican voters think that everyone should vote for their own goals, and that the biggest group should win, so they're terrified of not being the biggest group in any given demographic (religion, race, etc.). What they fail to realize is that most people vote for how they'd like the country itself to be run, which includes smaller groups just as much as larger ones, so losing that majority footing wouldn't impact them very much if at all.
Most republican voters I know, boomer or otherwise, simply view voting differently than most their lefter-leaning constituents. I often hear them say that the point of voting is to simply choose what benefits you the most, and that if everyone simply chooses things that specifically align with their own wants and needs, that the biggest, most important groups will get what is needed. It's not even that they understand that they're being selfish by only voting in their own best interests, they just honestly believe that considering the needs of others when voting undermines its effectiveness.
Now, it's obvious that they're wrong - smaller groups deserve just as much of a say as their larger counterparts, and the country benefits when they do - but they don't think about it that way. I believe it's also why republicans are so concerned about becoming a minority - they honestly believe that voting should specifically only benefit the largest group, and are desperately trying to maintain "their people" as the largest group.
No, I don't, "the population" does. I have control over myself, 1 teeny tiny sliver of the group that is "the population." If there's one thing "the population" is known to put the effort into doing, it's twiddling their thumbs. It's nothing more than a huge writhing mass of opinions. To expect it to coordinate effectively enough to make change happen is just as ridiculous as to expect all the molecules in a glass of water to suddenly converge on one side. "The population" doesn't make change, it buffers against it.
"Oh, all we have to do is get 8 billion people of different backgrounds, opinions, socioeconomic standards, and every other metric to agree on something. Surely that's a feasible task!"
Coldplay was one of the big popular bands back in the 2000's, and like any popular band, there were plenty of people eager to prove how cool they were by telling everyone that they hate their music. Social media was starting to get popular at the time, so people would take to Facebook to make their "Coldplay sucks" proclamations. As social media took off, the sentiment kinda got swept up with it, and so now even as Coldplay isn't anywhere near as relevant as they were back then, it's still a pretty common thing to see people say they suck online. From what I saw, Nickelback's wave came afterward, and while that sentiment reached higher popularity in its heyday, it hasn't stuck around as well.
The issue with allowing it to simply crumble away is that the last people to die will be the ones exploiting the system, as they have the resources and the power to stay alive the longest. If you want the people who would rebuild society into one that is better than what we already have to still be around when all is said and done, we need to tear it down ourselves.
Looks like a mall I'd frequent a lot in Grand Forks, ND in college. It always looked run down, but it had really nice little shops in it. Basically a haven for local small businesses that couldn't afford their own building.
Well, once the lease is over people have to sign a new one anyway, so even existing tenants can only lock in rates for so long. And when one landlord ups rent, it's usually because all the other landlords are doing it too - it seems like they do it in unison, I imagine because they don't want to have to worry about people leaving for somewhere cheaper. I'm not sure if it's illegal like price fixing or not, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in the end.
Essentially. They can't freely change rent for current tenants since they need to stay within the confines of whatever lease was agreed upon, but they can make rent whatever they want for new tenants, so it's not an uncommon occurrence for them to simply stop fixing things in a timely manner so that current tenants feel compelled to leave, and then they can fill the space, charging whatever they feel someone will pay for rent after that. It's scummy, and it's technically illegal, but everyone knows they won't really get in trouble for it.
I understand that there are solutions that could fix this, I just don't think the US government as it is now would be willing to enact or enforce them even if it went ahead with UBI. That's why my initial post said we need to figure out these things before UBI, or else we'll enact it without things like taxes for vacant units or rent control between renters, and it'll fail, killing any enthusiasm for another attempt following potential law changes to fix the issues.
Doesn't that just further validate my concerns? Prices are going up to gouge people even when a lot of people don't have the cash to pay for it. I see no reason why a landlord charging $15,000 a year won't just up it to $25,000 a year when everyone gets a $10k UBI. The government seems to care very little about preventing things like that.
I certainly hope you're right. All I picture is the dollar stores suddenly becoming $2 stores as everything just shifts to be more expensive with very few people improving their financial situation at all.
If I was buying Ritz crackers for $4 before, maybe now they're $5. I'm making more money, and it's just $1, so I might not even be paying enough attention to notice, but if everything goes up by a similar amount, then I'm spending significantly more on the same items than I was before, and might end up dropping $100 of my new UBI money on groceries without even making a change in my shopping habits.
Now, a lower income person might be buying store brand crackers that only cost $2, but now they're $3, so the same situation occurs.
These are hypothetical numbers of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if a situation like that occurred, given that every company would know exactly how much more money is now in everyone's pockets. Every product goes up just a bit, just to take a bit of that UBI pie.
Sweet! I sure hope the inflation wouldn't completely invalidate the extra income, but I still have very little faith in American capitalism allowing for there to be money not immediately being funneled into the bank accounts of the 1%.
You're right, it's not... Too bad most places have realized they can just raise prices together and share in the extra profits, rather than compete with one another. There's a reason why price fixing is illegal, and there's a reason why the government rarely enforces it.
It will, yeah, but I think people will be a lot less worried about others succeeding when they themselves are succeeding as well. But maybe I'm underestimating the country's racism. I hope I'm not.
Exactly. If a small group of people are given UBI, then they just have more money, and stores want to profit from everyone, including the people who aren't getting more money. But if everyone gets UBI, then the stores are sure that their customers can afford higher prices, and our current government has shown that it doesn't care if prices are arbitrarily inflated. I'd love UBI, but it can't function alone without accompanying laws to prevent price hiking.
I remember when the first wave of stimulus checks went out and a bunch of car dealerships suddenly raised the price on their cars by $1000. UBI would be great, but if we don't reign in the corporate-apologist economy first, every product will suddenly be more expensive so they can bleed people of that extra money.
Signtist @ Signtist @lemm.ee Posts 1Comments 485Joined 2 yr. ago
You know the sound right when it starts to rain?
There's a tap on the roof or the window, then a few more, and you think "Oh, is that...?" and, sure enough, the taps continue, getting more and more frequent until they blend together into the soothing patter of rainfall. Now imagine that, but instead of light taps, it's a dull "phomp."
I imagine someone in an alternate universe hearing that first phomp, and running to grab a cup of tea before sitting by the window to watch the manfall.