“American experiment” I hate that phrase.
America is just an arbitrary area on the ground some of us were born inside. It’s not some erudite experiment and it never was. It’s five corporations in a trench coat pretending to be a country.
This is what people mean by that:
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
In its conception is very much was an experiment. “A republic, if you can keep it” so to say.
They’d already failed the experiment before the ink dried: 34 out of 47 founders owned slaves. I guess the natives weren’t too equal, either. Oops!
I mean, I agree, but that’s what people mean. And the perception of a thing is (like it or not) often just as important as the reality of the situation when it comes to how people make decisions. I’m not arguing that America was some shining city on a hill, I’m arguing that people perceived it that way. That said, I think the republic was a step in the right direction and the DOI and constitution had some really forward thinking stuff in them. I think several influential Americans really did care about doing the right thing. Nuance can exist
All governments are experiments in how we organize and order society. Some experiments (governments) lead to greater flourishing than others, like socialism and communism (in theory). We’d have better evidence that those forms of government actually bring what they promise if oligarchies didn’t shut that shit down as soon as it takes route (see South America).
Seems like it works just as intended
Isn’t it weird how half the paycheck goes to rent? It’s not like housing is a new invention, why’s it so expensive?
IMO, it’s some combination of ideologically-driven failures of town planning (the distance from buildings on one side of the street to the other is legally mandated to be ~20m wide, when it could be
), financial fuckery (investors drive housing prices through the roof by buying housing as speculative vehicles, and investors do so because investors are driving housing prices through the roof by buying housing as speculative vehicles - an ouroboros of shitfuckery) and lobbyist-driven partisanship on public transport (car companies hate trains, so they wage propaganda war against them and in support of overly-large roads with mandatory lanes for vehicle storage).US-Americans have an abundance of space. There is no need to build very densely. Atleast not in a midsized town that Anon describes.
There is so much wrong with the logic of that sentence. I’m going to start with basic economic/town planning theory:
The core function of a city is that everything is close to everywhere else - you live in a city because it’s close to your job/a hospital/a nice lasertag place/whatever, which are located there because 1) you and lots of other people are located in the area, and 2) because other businesses they rely on are located closely. The other businesses are located closely for the exact same reasons 1 and 2 (if the Obscure Thingy repair shop is 2 minutes away instead of 3 days away, then you reduce downtime and save money, etc). The more densely you build, the more these virtuous cycles are amplified. Incidentally, this is why cities are roughly circular (which maximizes the number of places close to other places), and not a 170KMx200mx500m line in empty desert.
“A midsized town” is vague as heck but the logic of the previous paragraph applies just as well to small towns - if you keep stuff compact then you make it easy to walk to places, instead of needing to constantly drive everywhere (and waste even more space on roads and redundant parking at every single destination). In fact, if you have a town of, say, 30 000 people, and you maintain a density of 30 000 people per sqkm, then guess what: literally everything is within a km, which means everything is within a 10minute walk (and statistically, 5mins or less, since 10mins is the distance from one edge of town to the opposite edge, and a naive-average trip would be half of that).
You’re technically correct that there’s plenty of room on the edge of town to build low-density housing. In practice though, people want to live close to the centre of the city, rather than on the outskirts with a 3-hour commute. The USA having “an abundance of space” on the outskirts means jack shit. Cheap rent on the outskirts just means high mechanic/fuel costs and lots of unpaid hours spent driving to/from work (or literally anywhere else in the city that you want to go - I hope you don’t have friends in the city centre that you want to see regularly).
I can’t remember the video about it all that well, but wasn’t ‘the line’ supposed to be using the concept of the 15 minute city? So, while, yes… there are very good reasons circles are city standards, if everything magically worked out and they built the thing it wouldn’t matter whether it was a line or a circle.
I hope you don’t have friends in the city centre that you want to see regularly).
So much fuck this. I have a friend who decided to go that exact route, because it put him ‘halfway’ between multiple family members and friends… and now he sees none of them because they’re all ~an hour away. Suburbs fucking suck, and the car brained society we have is so fucking foolish.
if you keep stuff compact then you make it easy to walk to places
Never going to happen in america :( I lived in a small city (2,500), and it was spread out enough that walking anywhere sucked, not even counting the horrible roads (it was a crossroads of two semi-important highways). I want to say it was 4km x 4km. The medium sized city (for the area, it’s medium sized, we’d consider 30,000 to be large [and in fact, the closest large city was ~30,000, and that’s where you had a real hospital, and all the services you would imagine a city having]) of ~9,000 was more like 10km x 10km.
Those are rural cities. Suburbs get so fucky so quickly… I think the town of 70,000 I lived in for a while was something like 9km x 18km, and that was a factory town. The not factory town suburb of 90,000 was around 15km x 20km. Just mind bogglingly spread out. The developers of an area are trying to maximize profit, and the car culture allows them to buy the cheapest land that’s far away, sell the idiot housebuyers the idea of driving down a (currently, lol, not once everyone moves in) idyllic little road with no traffic to the center of the city and have everything they could want in a 15 minute drive.
The problem with ‘The Line’ is that travelling 170KM in 15 minutes requires an average speed of 680KM/h (I wrote out why that’s insane lunacy from an engineering perspective, but I shoved it in a footnote), but you can achieve a 15-minute city of the same volume just by having an, IIRC, 13KM square with 100m-high buildings (and building 100m-high buildings is waaaay cheaper than building 500m-high buildings), built on a simple grid of normal 100KM/h trains - the Manhattan Distance of the maximum distance in a 13KM square is 26KM, which to be fair is still 36 seconds over the 15min mark even if your average speed is 100KM, but 1) it almost achieves the exact same thing as the trillion-dollar sci-fi tech, and 2) if you really care about the sharp 15-minute city premise then you can bump your trains up to run at 150KM/h (which is perfectly doable and only a little more expensive).
Anyway, point is that the only way The Line can fulfil its promises is by casually dropping a trillion dollars on a problem that may or may not be solvable, and will almost certainly be an order of magnitude or three more expensive than the bog-standard existing solution. A 680KM/h train is fucking expensive and while yes, it might be physically possible, most people want the cost of their commute to be lower than their daily wage earned from the job they commute to.
If The Line was ever built (and was cheap without subsidies somehow and became populated), then the first thing to happen after its populated would be a ton of building sideways, mostly around the midpoint/centre of The Line. Why? Because that’s the prime land that’s empty and therefore cheapest to build on, that’s closest to everything (the midpoint of The Line should be ~7.5mins away from everything at most, and would also be the most accessible spot in the city and therefore have the most desirable business locations). And new buildings would be built around there, not at the ends of The Line. They’d add extensions to the train line that turn 90 degrees out, so that people further away from The Line could access the train system. This all would continue until The Line became The Circle.
The only way The Line stays a line is with economic antigravity. Metaphorical antigravity, to be clear. Not the sci-fi tech.,
Never going to happen in america
…why? I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but half the time I see that line it’s used as a justification for why people shouldn’t demand it happen. And frankly, “never” is too strong of a word.
680KM/h isn’t even possible with a normal maglev, you’d need to either shove the maglev in a vacuum tube or build a rocket train or something equally insane just to have a maximum speed of 680KM/h. But you actually need a higher speed than 680KM/h since you start out at 0KM/h and 680KM/h is just the average - and since your acceleration is limited to speeds that won’t kill the passenger, you really do have to factor it in, one way or another. See, your train has to either permit passengers to stand (which sharply limits safe acceleration without someone being knocked over and bashing their head open on a rail) or it has to give everyone time to board and then seat (all of which takes time for boarding), and you also need a way to ensure that random dickheads won’t ignore the rules and stay standing. A boarding delay will kill your average speed just as much as low acceleration.
I think… you may need to look up the definition of a 15 minute city before expanding on this comment.
I agree with you in general, but 2m isn’t wide enough for fire truck access. Some regulations are based on the prevalence and nature of natural disasters in a given area.
I’m also not sure about your 20 meters figure because I can’t find that there is a federal minimum. 20 feet is the minimum for fire trucks though.
2m isn’t wide enough for fire truck access, sure. Why do you need to drive a giant fire truck down the alley? The standard response (besides “we need to carry water and I don’t know what a fire hydrant is”) is “we have a ladder on the top of the fire truck”, which might be relevant in some contexts but the picture is of 2-storey buildings which could be easily handled with man-portable ladders.
My main concern here is that people demand wide roads for fire access to the tall buildings (that can only be fire-fought with trucks), then demand tall buildings because “it’s the only way to build densely”, ignoring the fact that narrow roads with shorter buildings are just as dense, cheaper to build, and have lower firefighting requirements. It’s an idiotic catch-22 that people keep painting us into.
My 20 metres figure isn’t a hard number, it’s my eyeballing the 2 lanes + 2
parkingvehicle storage lanes, plus a footpath plus a nature strip plus the required building setback/front yard.Why do you need to drive a giant fire truck down the alley? […] “we need to carry water and I don’t know what a fire hydrant is”
Fire hydrants provide water, but you need to run the water through a pump to increase the pressure, and a fire truck acts as that pump. It also allows for the attachment of multiple hoses so that water can be sprayed in multiple locations.
And if all the roads are very narrow, how are you going to get a moving truck or other delivery vehicle in? What about a plumber’s van? What about a small personal vehicle? Two meters isn’t wide enough for any of those, especially not with outdoor seating. Six meters gives space for service vehicles to coexist with pedestrians, cyclists, and seating.
I don’t agree with not having tall buildings either though. If the majority of housing is dense apartments above ground-floor businesses then there’s much more open space left for nature preserves, parks, and gardens. I mean, they don’t need to be skyscrapers, just 3-10 stories maybe. You can also save a lot of space with row houses.
My husband and I are moving from California to Yucatán in April. Hopefully the cost of living there gives us a better quality of life.
you’re gonna feel real stupid when that meteor comes for round 2
We’ll wear helmets.
I just ran the numbers through a tax calculator for my province (Quebec). It says that on a salary of $18,000, I would pay about $1,200 for the pension plan and employment insurance. $0 paid for taxes, and I would actually receive a $4,000 as a tax refund.
And, of course Healthcare is free, Quebec has pharmacare so prescription drugs would be free, childcare is about $10/day if I need it, and since my salary is less than $90,000/year, I would qualify for free dental care.
There would also be a few things like the GST refund that would be about $500/year in my pocket.
Canada is not paradise, but I sure prefer living here.
Les enfants étaient un peu traumatisés quand on est allé à LA cet été. Beaucoup de gens qui se parle tout seul ou qui font dodo dans le gazon.
Immediately identified the biggest problem with Canada right there.
What do you mean?
It’s an anti-French-Canadian joke I think.
That was my guess also. I’m just surprised the bigots are also here in some capacity.
$115 a month phone/internet? Are US prices really that insane? My phone is £4 a month for unlimited calls/SMS and got an unlimited data SIM for a 4G router that costs £24/month.
Limited-time offer available to new MINTernet customers who purchase the 3- or 12-month MINTernet plan with any Mint Premium voice plan. MINTernet plan requires upfront payment of $75 for 3-month or $300 for 12-month plans (each equiv. to $25/mo) & AutoRenewal enrollment. Mint Premium voice plan requires upfront payment of $45 for 3-month, $90 for 6-month or $180 for 12-month plan (each equiv. to $15/mo). Combined equivalent is $40/mo. After introductory rate, standard rates apply. Taxes & fees extra. Fixed wireless gateway provided on loan; return of equipment required upon cancellation or subject to fee. Service delivered via cellular network; speeds vary & may be reduced during congestion after 1TB/mo for MINTernet. MINTernet service limited to registered address at time of enrollment & cannot be relocated. Premium “Unlimited” data may be slowed during congestion after 50GB/mo; video streams at 480p. Includes 20GB/mo. mobile hotspot. Not combinable with certain other offers. Terms subject to change; additional terms & conditions apply. See terms for details.
It’s not actually as cheap as they say, and what you’re getting isn’t really worth the price.
Regardless, when the thing being said is “wages are crap, things are expensive, people are trapped and can’t afford a future” it sorta misses the point to say that they could get substantially worse service for roughly half the price.
I appreciate you quoting all of the fine print, what is the actual gotcha you’re taking away from it? The biggest “gotcha” that in seeing is you have to prepay, which is mints while thing. The second gotcha I can see is that the free phone line they throw in is only good for a year? Which is fine. You’d go from $40/month to $55, still less than half of what was described in the post.
Regardless, when the thing being said is “wages are crap, things are expensive, people are trapped and can’t afford a future”
I understand that’s the point of the overall post, but I’m answering a question asking if internet and cell service is really that expensive in the US.
It’s doing a disservice to pretend like it is when there are much more affordable alternatives. Not only is the typical market price cheaper than what is mentioned in the post, but if you’re on many government aid programs, you qualify for subsidized phone and internet. Pairing the two seemingly adds up to $25/month.
How much do you pay for Internet and cell service that meets your needs?
My “gotcha” was the bit I said right after the fine print: not as cheap as advertised in the long run and not a good value.
The existence of a lower price for some people in some circumstances in some parts of the country doesn’t do much to address actual measurable statistics on us internet costs: Monthly Internet Cost: https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/internet/internet-cost-per-month/
My Internet is about $80 a month, and my phone is roughly $30 per line per month, $120 total because of regulatory fees and such. Looking at what mint typically delivers for internet they wouldn’t work for my requirements, purely for work and not considering I like my streaming to be good quality.
My “gotcha” was the bit I said right after the fine print: not as cheap as advertised in the long run
It’s…it’s a promotion. I didn’t even mention it in my post, where I said internet can typically be had for $40-$50.
After the promotion, the Internet still stays the same price, it’s the free voice line that you don’t get.
I don’t think it’s much of a gotcha worth flourishing the terms and conditions over, but…sure, you’ve pointed out that additional discounts that were never factored into my initial comment expire, so the baseline offering goes back to what I mentioned in my post. $40-$50. This is also entirely avoiding the discussion of the government subsidized internet if you’re on SNAP, etc.
It’s directly applicable when you say cheaper options are available and then link to a promotional offer where the pricing expires.
Government subsidized free Internet is currently not a thing in the US because the government is actively hostile to most of the citizenry. We still have the program to get up to $9.25 off if you make less than $25k a year though. It also requires enrollment in a program whose funding is being cut, is kicking people off , and doing everything possible to reduce enrollment.
Please read the rest of the comment I previously made where I linked to some actual averages for cost, because again: a lower cost existing isn’t the same as the average cost being low.
It’s directly applicable when you say cheaper options are available and then link to a promotional offer where the pricing expires.
Just to make sure we’re on the same page.
I said you can get Internet for $40-$50.
I linked a provider which provides a non-promotional rate of $40/month for Internet.
As a promotion, they’re throwing in a cellular line for free. This expires.
Does this somehow invalidate my claim of you can get Internet for $40-$50?
Government subsidized free Internet is currently not a thing in the US because the government is actively hostile to most of the citizenry. We still have the program to get up to $9.25 off if you make less than $25k a year though.
Yes. I never said it was free, just that it was subsidized.
Please read the rest of the comment I previously made where I linked to some actual averages for cost, because again: a lower cost existing isn’t the same as the average cost being low.
Sure - the average, non-promotional rate of $60 is still cheaper than what this post implies.
If we’re being real, in many markets (hello Xfinity/comcast) you’re oftentimes expected to be on a promotional rate more often than not. When I was living by myself, I could call Xfinity and ask for a promotional rate, and be told that I’d be eligible in x months, usually 2-4. If you live with others, you can swap who the Internet is under each year to always be getting a promotional rate.
In a country with a reputation of overconsumption, I think when someone asks with incredulity about the price of something, it’s valid to include the floor in addition to average/median/etc.
When discussing in the context of someone making little money, the floor is probably more relevant. Someone who’s barely making ends meet is not going to worry about splurging for the no data caps (fuck Xfinity) package for the streaming services he does not have.
You can get home Internet for $40-$50/month.
That’s more like $100/month once the temporary pricing ends and the bullshit fees are applied.
So the $40/month at mint isn’t a promotional rate, and the $50/month price at Xfinity says it’s good for 5 years.
I mean you can find alternatives that do exactly what you’re talking about, but I feel the examples I provided are valid, sustainable prices for Internet.
Why would you pay $30 for unlimited data and then pay another $50 a month on top of that for a second unlimited data? Unless you are running a bunch of servers for people outside of your LAN, what is the point?
Don’t know about US, but where I live, the “unlimited mobile Internet” is always “fast connection up to X GBs used, then you slow down to a crawl where loading a text-only website takes three minutes, but you’re still technically not limited and can access the Internet” kind of deal.
Not sure exactly what they go with but it’s never been a problem even downloading several big games from steam. I suppose if you want TBs a month you may want to look into the fine print.
My cheap phone plan came with 10gb of data until they throttled the speed to a crawling pace. 10gb isn’t a lot to run for home Internet.
That is pretty shit, not had a problem even after 100GB with mine.
The $30 is for mobile service, the $50 is for home Internet service.
4G can be home internet too, stick a regular SIM card into a 4G router. Probably 5G now but my setup is a few years old.
I’m laying out what I think are reasonable options that folks would want. Unlimited cell phone data for $30 paired with a steady, low latency cable line for $50 seems to be a combination that most folks could use.
It’s definitely not optimized for saving money. You could save a lot of money if you wanted to focus on that. Helium mobile has a free 3gb/month plan, no credit card needed. For home Internet you’d be at the mercy of your local ISPs, but I’m sure there are more affordable plans that could be picked.
Anecdotally: I’ve lived in the sort of place he’s describing and the internet was an overpriced monopoly. Farmers and people in larger cities both paid much better prices for better service. But the ISP had some deal where they had exclusive rights to run equipment on the power poles (or other companies needed their technicians present first or some bullshit which they would delay to the point of impracticality).
At $115 he probably didn’t get the lowest speed and could have done like $60 for internet and $40 for phone but yeah, I can believe it.
4/5G, fuck their monopoly. If people leave they will have to actually compete. It’s fine for gaming too, been using 4G for years without an issue. At some point I should upgrade my router to 5G though.
If people leave they will have to actually compete
Assuming people even have the option for a speedy, uncapped 4G/5G, or one with a very high cap. USA is known for abusive pricing on bandwidth, like “every GB used over 50GB will be charged 10 dollars”
Regional mobile companies sound crazy
Yes, in fact that’s on the cheap side for unlimited with decent speeds for both services.
that’s cheap. i oftne pay well over $150 a month for basic interent and phone plan for single person.
Oh wow, what companies do you use?
verizon for both. it’s the only choice i have.
Damn, lack of choice sucks. Have you looked into visible wireless? They’re a Verizon mvno, so they’ll have coverage wherever Verizon does. Plans are in the $20-$30 range.
No, because I need a legit full service.
Out of curiosity, what does Verizon get you that visible doesn’t? Visible plans are unlimited with mobile hotspot, which ticks a lot of boxes for basic service.
Most ISPs and cellular plans charge out the ass for arbitrary data limits and faster speeds in the U.S. Some areas have decent ISPs not trying to nickel and dime you but not super common.
Can you only get regional 4/5G plans?
It depends on the plan but for a premium you can get international coverage through most carriers that is to some extent 4G/5G?
That’s about correct, idk what everyone else is on about, but my phone costs me $70 a month, and my Internet costs $60, and those were the cheapest plans I could get. Not to mention that the reason my phone bill isn’t higher is because I had to buy my phone outright at $600.
Shits expensive here, for no reason other than corporate greed.
Phone service is only expensive because your paying for the privilege of priority. Go with MVNOs and its reasonable, just the service is slower in congested areas.
To add onto this, there are MVNOs for basically every carrier.
Visible uses verizon, and their cheapest plan is $25/month, taxes and fees included. There’s currently a promo that brings it down to $19/month for 26 months.
Mint and metro uses tmobile. Metro offers unlimited at $25.
Cricket uses at&t, they also have unlimited phone plans in the $25-35 range.
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What does Obamacare have to do with working 25hrs a week max?
Also called it Obongocare which made me immediately lose any empathy to them for the racism, but it is 4chan I guess.
99% likely they vote Republican based on the attitide also, which is the root cause of a lot of their complaints (min wage, shitty employee protections, expensive Internet [almost certainly one of the monopoly ISP areas], has to rely on a car because public transit is socialism).
Yeah, the Democratic party sucks by and large for many other reasons, but id rather live in a D city than an R one any day of the week. /end obligatory response to “but Dems”
99% likely they vote Republican based on the attitide also
Are you sure it’s real? Maybe they’re just doing the racism bit for the shock value. You can post anonymous shit in 4chan without actually having any opinions on anything, and half the point of 4chan (AIUI) is getting reactions from people.
4chan users love playing Schrodinger’s Racist, so we’ll never know for sure.
I just treat racism as racism, unless it is set up with the most obvious irony or sarcasm beforehand - this ain’t, seems like a genuine whine at their real situation.
Even ironic racists are racist. There’s no middle ground to be found there.
Same with ironic nazis just being nazis.
No middle ground! None.
Calling it obongocare is racist. Therefore, racist.
Fucking insane mental gymnastics really
I’m not saying he’s not racist, I’m saying he’s not necessarily Republican.
As a middle of nowhere failson 4chan user the odds of him being a Democrat are extremely low.
Obamacare mandates employers offer healthcare to people working 30 hrs a week. A lot of places will only allow you to be scheduled for less than 30 hours a week, even if you are able and willing to go full time. It’s stupid, but some people have convinced themselves that it’s Obamacare’s fault that their employer is shitty and the subsequent governments have been unwilling to close that loophole. It’s also worth mentioning that employers did this even before Obamacare because there are other things that full time employees are entitled to that part time employees aren’t.
Thanks. So OOP just has a shitty boss. Got it.
They just work for a typical capitalist company. They’re all like that.
OP also has a shitty mind set because he sides with the oppressor (his boss is the one denying him healthcare) and not the oppressed (everyone that can’t afford healthcare).
If he understood the situation he would not call it “Obongocare”
“Obongocare” also reeks of racism, but that’s a given- it is 4chan after all.
Obamacare didn’t start that…
From my comment:
It’s also worth mentioning that employers did this even before Obamacare because there are other things that full time employees are entitled to that part time employees aren’t.
one of them is health insurance
Also from my comment:
Obamacare mandates employers offer healthcare to people working 30 hrs a week.
even before Obamacare because there are other things that full time employees are entitled to that part time employees aren’t.
before Obamacare … other things.
one of them is health insurance
obamacare isn’t what you think it is
People often refer to the ACA as Obamacare. Obamacare did change requirements for employer provided health care, not just marketplace plans. So, prior to the ACA full time employees had certain benefits that part time employees did not. Post ACA there were changes to mandatory minimum benefits that employer healthcare packages provided. If you can articulate what the issue you are raising is, that would be helpful.
Employers definitely used it as an excuse to cut a lot of people’s hours. It was a big deal at the time
i’ve personally had more than one job that limited our hours to under 30 because of (i thought federal) laws requiring employers to offer health insurance plans to employees who work 30 or more…
in multiple states….
well before obamacare… now get off my lawn.No one said otherwise. The ACA bill lowered the amount of hours that qualified as full time, which lead to the shittier employers cutting hours again.
no it was already 30 hours
Your state may have had stricter standards than federal
Also curious about that. Why not work more and cry less?
I commented above, but in the US some employers will refuse to give you more hours to keep you as a part time employee, since full time employees are guaranteed certain benefits. Those benefits include access to healthcare. They would rather hire 2 people part time than 1 person full time. This is not Obamacare’s fault, but for some reason people in the middle of nowhere who make very little money have convinced themselves that it’s Obama who’s to blame instead of the shitty companies and their shitty owners.
I would also like to add, that it’s sometimes almost impossible to have a 2nd part time job because one or both are not regular schedules. People won’t know when they are working until the week before. If both jobs do this you will end up with scheduling conflicts.
Like it would be better if you were scheduled the same 3 or 4 days a week and had the rest of the week off.
At least then you could either chill or find other activities. But they want you at their mercy and constantly in crisis.
Like you said, All Obamacare did from a company standpoint was make people no longer reliant on their employer for healthcare. So it has no bearing on 25 hr work weeks. Although with subsidies going away, a lot of people are becoming uninsured again.
FMLA was 1993, so Clinton Required lunch breaks, etc are state laws, so not Obama OT pay and some other federal protections were pre-WW2
Oh, definitely. And having 2 part time jobs, if you can manage it, often means you end up working more hours (25+25), and are still not given the benefits of a full time employee because you aren’t technically full time anywhere. It’s terrible and for what it’s worth I do feel bad for anon here. They are drinking the right wing kook aid, which sucks, but it’s an awful position to be in. There’s comments calling them a moron or that they just have to make minor changes etc, but the reality is, especially in these small towns, there’s not a lot of options and acting like it’s the fault of individuals is really missing the point.
For what it’s worth, Obamacare did technically add to the employer burden by making good healthcare a mandatory offering for full time employees, so I understand why some people have convinced themselves it’s the ACAs fault, but employers were doing the 25 hours thing to skirt other benefits way before Obamacare.
Interesting! In summary:
Anon brags with above-average hourly wage. In the meantime, their employer will not let them work more to dodge paying social security.
Anon proceeds to cry that they don’t earn enough money, even though they’re payed above-average.
Anon‘s a moron.
We were paid 19/h doing barista work working 30-39 hours (never allowed to hit 40 because they would have to give us more rights blah blah stuff) had to live in a tiny illegal room for rent and was barely surviving. After we saved up a little bit of money we moved into a van and now we’re in EU.
Mind you, not flashily, not rich, not even making it. Had to get so much help friends and family and especially our significant other just to get here by the skin of our teeth and now that we’re here we’re struggling to even stay due to visa issues. So fucn scared to go back we literally cry almost nightly every day our last chance to stay here slips away only because we just need 1500€ euro more… hhh when will this stress end?
Damn, that sounds rough, sorry to hear - hang in there ❤️
I graduated in 1984 when unemployment was 10% and minimum wage was $3.35/hr. My friends and I all left the burbs for the inner city and we would live 5-7 of us in a house. Nonskilled jobs were more plentiful and there was public transportation. Sometimes we had a land line phone, never had cable. Plenty of parties and beer though. Don’t know if this helps anybody but it’s how we got by
Why do we pay taxes before we pay for rent? If the government won’t provide housing at least they could be nice and not ask for their cut before we get that done.
The American experiment has succeeded, because the suffering is the point and the system is working as intended.
Exactly. The wealthy are living beyond reality now and have adapted the population to working for pittance, living in squalor, and are above the law.
America is the nicest 3rd world country anywhere in the world! America #1
It’s a nation of individual freedom taken to the extreme. That includes the freedom for wealthy individuals to exploit everybody else. And Anon is on the side of the exploited. Anon does seem as a person that will always argue for complete freedom, so finally maintaining the exploitation of themselves and the situation they find themselves in.
It’s a nation of individual freedom taken to the extreme.
It is ?.Have you not lived with a HOA ?
No
Thats exactly the point they were making.
The HOA is not a government body its a group of unregulated individuals who claim damages against you and eventually take your home away as per a contract between individuals.
Why am I not free to ingest what drugs I want if we are so free?
Usually because a group beneficial to rich folks didn’t like it.
Drugs makes the chattel lazy. Can’t have that. It might hurt GDP.
Nixon wanted to legally bash up hippies and black people.
If you’re rich you can.
It’s weird to see this kind of comment and also a Ukrainian flag in the username.
It’s weird to see this kind of hypocrisy and also… no, wait, it’s the same username who thinks adult women can’t have small breasts. Kindly fuck off.
I have never made any such claims.
Wouldn’t the fix just be to patch the obamacare workaround?
There are a number of potential fixes.
Universal healthcare is one. Completely separate employment from healthcare.
Restore the tax structure we had in our most prosperous decade: 91% top-tier rate. Nobody ever paid that rate; nobody will ever pay that rate. That rate compels businesses to spend $10,000 on “business expenses” rather than keep $900 and pay Uncle Sam $9100. They get to keep $10,000 worth of tangible goods and services, purchased on the market. Or, $900 cash, that they can convert into financial instruments.
We could assign all healthcare bills to the richest person in the country. When we take enough from Musk that Bezos catches up, they can split the bill between them. When they get down to Zuck, they split it three ways. Nobody gets to be the richest. The competition switches from dollars to number of lives saved.
Or, we could roll out the guillotines again. Behead the most problematic tranche of capitalists (as evidenced by their degree of wealth). Repeat as necessary.
Besides fighting the system, a good solution in cases like this is to find roommates. You can easily drop your rent and utilities cost to a third of what you’d normally pay.
“Easily” seems like a stretch.
Most roommate situations are 2 or 3 people. So that’s either half or a third of the cost. I’d call that “easily” yes.
Getting roommates is the part I wouldn’t call easy.
If you have absolutely no standards, it’s easy. If you’re trying to filter out the assholes who will make your life hell, then you’re right, it’s not easy.
A half or third of the cost… that has been doubled or tripled due to enough space that you’re not sleeping together. I lived in a flyover town in a situation similar to the poster. A studio apartment sucks. Trying to shove another person in there is a nightmare, and getting a slightly bigger apartment balloons your rent in a cartoonishly exaggerated manner.
The more rooms an apartment or house has, the less you pay for each one separately. I paid less than €300/month living with 2 other roommates.
Maybe you’re talking about the US.
In a thread about a post about “flyover nowheresville”
In a thread about a post with the words “The american experiment has utterly failed and I hate you all”
In a thread about a post with the word “obongocare”
In a thread about a post with the concept of a healthcare crisis leaving you destitute, ruined, or dead
“Maybe you’re talking about the US”
LMAO
You could achieve high levels and acquire epic loot in your favorite MMORPG. That’s something, right?
How is Obamacare limiting your hours? Are you a truck driver?
It happened to me a decade ago before I switched careers. I did substitute teaching and once I hit 29 hours for the week they’d send me home so I wouldn’t qualify for healthcare. I was regularly told I was one of the good subs, and I loved working with the staff and kids.
I tore my rotator cuff one summer and just had to grin and bear it for a year because I had no coverage and was worried about the bills. Thanks Uncle Sam!
I was working floating hours (unpredictable shifts, can’t work second job easily) for a chain store, I did this for the promised health care plan after six months employment.
I was fired one week before my insurance was to start; I was accused of stealing by a manager (who was doing the stealing himself).
I have had the exact same thing coincidentally happen at two other shit jobs, all three times it was actually the night manager. So they all had insurance and much higher pay, and they still stole from the business and screwed over their poor coworkers who had to be available for three different shifts every day of the week (unlike them, they worked the same shift every day).
Things are much worse now, sorry kids.
Class traitors suck. People that lean into the crab in the bucket mentality is part of the reason we’re in this mess. Sorry you dealt with that.
I can’t recall the details because it’s been too long since I worked in the States, but it was something like if you work more than 30 hours per week the employer has to pay certain benefits. It’s cheaper for them to hire two 20hr workers than one 40hr worker, and then the two employees aren’t seeing any of the benefits they’re supposed to be getting. I assume that loophole is by oligarchical design.
When I worked in California I had to turn down raises/promotions because they would have knocked me past the cutoff for socialized healthcare, and the increased cost of mandated private health insurance would have been a massive pay cut.
That shit was true long before Obamacare.
While admitting that my recollection is flawed as hell, I remember it being the case that you couldn’t get a full 40 hours, but that you could easily get 30+ hours so long as you didn’t hit 40 enough times to count.
I’m not trying to agree with OOP that the ACA ruined everything, but it is a truly bizarre and flawed alternative to universal healthcare.
For some reason people thought if they used the Republican’s plan for healthcare then republicans would have no choice but to support it.
All that happened is they got a shitty healthcare plan and the Republicana had nowhere to go and nothing to offer as an alternative.
Also it turns out Republicans can oppose anything they’ve previously supported if they want. There’s no magical force that imposes consistency on them.
Pretty sure that’s universally true
Fair, but I guess beyond that it’s worth observing that the Republicans specifically have moved away from their previously declared beliefs quite fully. The ACA is the quintessential market-based solution. The Democrats have taken over the pro-market position, while the Republicans have adopted something that is somehow worse.
Before Obamacare companies had the option to not provide healthcare at all, and more often their cutoffs when they did was 39 hours. ACA moving that to 30 was an attempt to get around employers hiring two people for part-time rather than 1 full-timer. And then they also made the norm of providing health insurance into a standard requirement.
Well-intentioned, reasonable compromise, modest reform-type stuff, but with raging Republican opposition to anything ever getting better and the inevitable min-maxing of loopholes, it only got us so far. And mail multiple key provisions has been repealed by the Republicans so…
It never ceases to amaze me the way Americans are dealt such a shitty hand these days
Send military help. It took wwii to get rid of (some) of the nazis from power, and it’s looking like it’s going to be the same course of events in america. They’re starting by bullying their neighbors and wanting to take land (greenland, canada, mexico, now venezuela is actually getting attacked), and you wanna bet that we’re going to see a repeat of germany/russia’s agreement to not attack each other and split poland (the eu)?
My personal bet is that everything will kick off because trump decides to froth out enough hatred about china to have a fishing dispute escalate into military actions.
imo, everyone right now left, right, and center are all coping on the idea that things “return to normal” (ie. unsustainable ratfucking) when trump croaks.
i…don’t think this happens, what ends up happening who the fuck knows, but i doubt it’s good. personally, my guess is the people who said violence will be required to remove them require violence to be removed, but i would be happy to be wrong there.
i definitely tell you nobody from outside the US will be coming to save america though
businesses with over 50 full time employees are required under obamacare to offer minimum health insurance. it doesn’t have to be affordable. most full time workers can’t afford their company’s family insurance, and don’t qualify for any subsidies because their employer offers insurance.
some places it is cheaper to hire only part timers. other places they just get the option with the lowest employer cost share.
health insurance in the US is a byzantine maze of combinations that change radically from state to state, town to town, and business to business.
edit: so, aflac offers a supplemental insurance, so your employer can buy a high deductible plan, and aflac steps in to pay enough of the remainder to make it a low deductible plan. you have two insurance cards, and a third party insurance management firm who takes a cut just to manage it all.
Those companies would be screwing you regardless, you can’t get a company to do anything but acquire profit without government to restrain them, otherwise they run the show and would own you as a slave. Only government limits their power, which would be absolute otherwise.
Unfortunately, our government is now under the control of corporations and has been for some time (since at least “money is free speech” and “corporations are people” court victories), defeating it’s purpose. We used to break up monopolies and remove business licenses for unlawful practices! The good old days.
Hmmm, if corporations are people, and they make and employ AI, that means AI is people or something. So that’s kinda neat.
Clearly government has failed in limiting their power.
I will not consider a corporation or AI a ‘person’ until Texas publicly executes one.
