I genuinely live in an area where I can at least try to do something to get the attention of 1% type people. Thats my goal, hopefully in conjunction with other local people. Even if its as simple as having QR code stickers directing to the community around town to start. I figure the name is provocative enough in practically being an oxymoron

The community at large obviously is mostly for discussion of wealth inequality, and also ideas for stuff we could do locally would be great if anyone thinks of anything.

Also, IMO, capping net worth at $12B is hardly communism. If anything its capitalism with the bumper guards up

Im surprised PBS would take the time to make anything seem more exciting than it is, considering their broadcasting is normally about as exciting as watching a wet paper bag flap in the wind. They make CSPAN look lively by comparison

Sounds like it causes tonsillitis. Ive had tonsillitis twice, never had them removed, and it feels like getting stabbed in the throat every single time that you swallow. You dont realize how often you swallow until that happens

A society goes to shit when old men start wars whose conflict they know they shall never fight in

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Why would those Dutch people be so antisemitic /s

Anyone who has ever watched a Russian dash cam video could probably tell you safety is often the last thing on their minds

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Tianeptine is not included in the federal Controlled Substances Act, which bans or restricts drugs that have no medical use or have a high potential for abuse, such as heroin, LSD and PCP

One of these things is not like the others… 🎵 🎶

Trump has to order out mcdonalds like once a week id guess. Imagine what a pain in the ass it must be for that McDonalds to be security cleared on par with the white house chef

Where I live they have not hit any hotels, but they have taken people that were riding the buses on long commutes. On average the hotels where I live are mostly staffed by people who live 1.5-2 hours away by a few buses.

Transportation is probably where they will go next. If they hit that hard then no one will feel safe taking transportation, which would have the same effect on the economy as hitting actual workplaces themselves

Either way, the average American worker who is salaried even earns less than $35/hr.

Countries with similar or slightly lower wage parity with us tend to work 30 hour weeks, have more vacation time, have universal healthcare, childcare, etc. in lieu of paying people such high wages. So they can still survive. In the US we have no supports like that reducing costs, and we also dont get paid well enough to make up for that

Yea, to afford a comfortable cost of living, as in 50% expenses, 30% discretionary, and 20% used for savings (emergency and retirement) and to pay down debts

E: Not sure why Im getting downvoted when I did not define these parameters whatsoever. This is just a reasonable calculation they did extrapolating from MIT’s barebones living wage calculations

TL;DR: skip to the graphs at the end for the meat and potatoes

SmartAsset’s calculations for cost of living in 2025 are based on a healthy financial breakdown of 50/30/20 for expenses, discretionary, and savings/debt payment percentages. Which is a level of fiscal security everyone should be entitled to IMO

Their cost of living calculations are not based on “what is the bare minimum one can survive on” where your percentages look more like 66/33/0 or 90/10/0

Really the larger thing these maps show is how all of the money has been drained away from working people over the past 70+ years. The cost of everything has accelerated, for example $35 an hour is about the amount one must make to afford the median rent or median mortgage prices in 2025, but we get screwed out of the value that our labor creates as it gets siphoned upwards. Most Americans survive on credit, which they wouldnt have to do if wages had kept up with inflation the same way that rent did since an era before neoliberal economic policy wrecked everything. If they had, then people would be making about $35 an hour. Considering we produce such massive value with our labor, it makes perfect sense. But allowing wages to stagnate is obviously beneficial to those with concentrated wealth, be it companies or individuals

If in 1958, a salary of $6,514 a year could cover the cost for a family of four then that should show you how ridiculously expensive everything has become. Modern families have two income earners and still cannot afford comfortable cost of living, which is over double what it costs for a single individual. If both of those income earners were paid at minimum $35 an hour, then families would actually be much closer to affording COL for a family of four. But they would still need additional income to reach the level of 50/30/20 comfort.

People struggle to understand just how far off the modern American worker is from the financial security that was had by the average male worker or median household in 1958. If we were to draw a direct comparison to that situation and say everyone should get paid enough to support a family of four individually, like you could back then, then everybody would have to be making like $80 an hour due to the massive inflation in costs that wages have not remotely kept up with.

Households in the 1950s had practically zero debt, in comparison to modern households which are absolutely drowning in it. Americans right now hold, collectively, over 1 trillion dollars in just credit card debt. On average each American holds over $6k in credit card debt, which would be over 10% of the average salary earner’s income ($61k). Again, just on credit card debt and nothing else. In 1950, all debt owned by the average household equated to only 2% of their income. Two percent. And people were way worse off financially in 1950 than they were by 1958

Even if the federal minimum wage were $35 per hour, on average people working for that wage would still be unable to afford to live comfortably at 50/30/20 without working a second job. Meanwhile, real actual minimum wages in nearly 10 states are still at $7.25 an hour. Let that sink in for a second. There are people close to getting paid literally 5 times less than what it costs to live anywhere near a base level of comfort. That doesnt even go into agriculture, where the federal minimum wage is even lower

Our economy is massively fucked. Were long past a crossroads point where, in order to reach a point of sustainability, we either have to pay people more or have legitimate social services like universal healthcare and childcare. Continuing down the same path is doomed to fail just based on simple logic. All of the people’s money has disappeared into the pockets of the 1%, who provide nothing with their hoarding. They create something of value by spending, but their hoarding massively outweighs their spending and will only continue to do so without intervention

47% of households, not individuals, are below the amount of income for one individual to live comfortably.

In 1958, about that same percentage of households were below an inflationary equivalent income, but the difference was that at $5k-$6k a year they were affording COL for their entire household. Being below the median of income was not such a crushing situation as it is today.

Only 1 in 44 American households made over the equivalent of $170k today, in the ultra wealthy category. Thats 2% of them. Probably 20% of households today make an excess of $170k, with a handful of them hoarding an insane amount well beyond what a household that makes $170k a year could ever feasibly hope to earn.

$170k is still $7k shy of comfortable cost of living for a family of four in Mississippi, and about half of what it costs in Hawai’i, Cali, Mass…

Therefore, most people making the equivalent of a top tier bracket income in 1958 would not be able to afford the average cost of living at basic financial security in 2025. You would have to practically have been a 1%er back then just to be comfortable today

Even the richest guy in 1958, J Paul Getty, was worth only $1B. The equivalent of a “meager” $12B or so today. Elon Musk has $433B and hes not even lonely up there.

If we capped net wealth at $12B and took away everything else above that point, there would still be 812 more billionaires than in 1958, and the US would immediately have $5T to begin rectifying the massive dysfunction in our economy

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I got a cabin out in Shenandoah one time by Luray, and all the bugs out there are frickin massive.

I’m outside making bbq, having a mikes hard lemonade of some kind. Grab my bottle, take a swig, and suddenly I have what feels like a wet piece of carpet halfway in my mouth.

So I pull the bottle away from my face and lo and behold the most massive hornet I have ever seen in my life plops down and hits the ground. Like at least two and a half inches long. Little guy was drunk as all hell after taking a swim and thankfully didnt sting me when I had his ass in my mouth

At this point I dont think anyone could fault California for taking their ball and going home. God knows the western half of the country would probably go with them, solving any potential water issues.

It feels like were headed for civil war 2.0

an FBI SWAT team smashed in a front door and set off a flashbang grenade, pointing guns at a couple and terrifying a 7-year-old boy before realizing they were in the wrong house.

The FBI team quickly apologized and left for the right place, with the team leader later saying that his personal GPS device had led him to the wrong address

Imagine breaching someones house, flashbanging them, and pointing guns at them and then just being like “ope, sorry” as if you are a pizza driver knocking the wrong door

It’s because of that new update where they fucked up the task bar. Look what youve done, Bill

This feels distinctly like one of those turning point moments in society becoming full blown idiocracy.

Anyone with half a brain can tell that social media is wrecking an entire generation of kids. The violence and vandalism it has incited in schools. Kids committing literal crimes and filming themselves doing it for clout. Social media is bad enough for people with a developed brain.

“Freedom of speech” is such a stupid argument here. I have freedom of speech, but that doesnt mean my rights are being violated if I dont get to voice my freedom of speech in a women’s bathroom. Banning kids wholesale from social media sites is not a violation of free speech unless you want to argue that they should also be allowed in bars, dispensaries, strip clubs, or on casino floors.

Go back like 100 years ago and it was normal for children to smoke, or drink beer, which is unthinkable now. Cigars were prizes at fairs for children, just like adults. Thats where “close, but no cigar” comes from.

Im sure that when people wanted to begin putting age limits on alcohol or tobacco there were plenty of people up in arms about “freedom” because they didnt want their most susceptible market taken away from them. This is literally no different to me. The government has a plenty compelling interest in protecting children by forcing them to wait until a reasonable age to engage with social media. Just like a beer or a smoke