But …
But …Trickle down economics!
Capitalists:
The capitalists do trickle down onto the rest of America, it just isn’t prosperity. Even worse, we export our sociopathic market capitalist behavior, encouraging other nations to treat their citizenry like disposable capital batteries for their elites… and our multinational oligarch leeches.
I feel shame for what we’re doing to the world every damn day, spreading market capitalist hypergreed and tools of mass death like a fucking virus.
Chappelle’s show for those wondering
The best time to join a union was ten years ago.
The second best time is now.
You can’t gatekeep basic necessities that people need to live and then call the same people free.
It’s simply not true. We’re slaves to capital and to those that control it.
Communism is the only way humanity survives.
I mean.
I guess I could sell my car and commute entirely by ebike 30 miles a day. I’d technically make it eight weeks if I did that. Wouldn’t even lose my trailer! Might even be able to eat!
commute entirely by ebike 30 miles a day.
Is that at all feasible?
Like, kind of? That’s both ways, so 15 miles one way means I could use a decent level of pedal assist. Regulations mean my ebike can’t go faster than 25mph, but as long as I’m not on the highway that’s fine.
Also, I’d be taking mostly farm-to-market routes. Lots of 35mph roads, mostly gravel (fortunately I have mountain bike tires and shock absorbers so gravel isn’t really that bad). I’ve done this a few times, but doing it every day… forever because I sold my car would be seriously challenging. Especially in bad weather! I’m in Iowa, it snows tons out here!
Ah, see, turns out we are in similar situations, including climate wise. Hence the original question
I mean not in pedestrian and bike hostile places. But in Germany I was commuting 30km each way daily on an analog bike, no problem.
For reference, 30km is 18.6 miles.
30 miles would be 48km.
It’s feasible, but it’s a pretty significant time investment!
Not just a time invesent – if you’re biking 18 miles you’re going to need a shower where you’re going, or you’re going to need a job where you can show up drenched in sweat.
And that’s not factoring in rain or snow or having to transport large objects or people.
I mean considering people drive a hour each way in many places…
Yeah like, I’ve done it. It’s not terrible.
If the weather is fine.
I wouldn’t want to do it in blowing snow lol
Same, would sometimes hit the Schauinsland on the way back home just for fun
I know a guy that did that. Used the work gym showers before starting day.
Crud, I don’t have those
Actual financial literacy is crucial to success as an adult. You can complain about The System all you want but it will likely still be in place after all of us are bones in the ground, so make use of the resources you can achieve something with.
Condescending shitheads talking down to poor people like they have a FRACTION of the ability to stretch a dollar. Self flattering scolding that does nothing but justify a system that produces unlivable outcomes.
I will say it’s also easier to stretch a dollar when you have more money. There are some things that everyone needs where if you have more money up front you can buy something that will last longer and save you money over a period of time. Meanwhile if you’re living paycheck to paycheck you may not have the money up front and need to go with the cheaper option and ultimately spend more money over time than the wealthier person. But again it’s hard to even think about that let alone act on it when doing so could jeopardize being able to pay rent (which can in itself be an example of such a thing compared to owning a home,).
Codified as the Sam Vimes “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness
Ding ding ding!!!
You can complain about The System all you want but it will likely still be in place after all of us are bones in the ground
Genuinely curious why you think this is the case. Do you think the current US Empire and other decaying Imperialist powers are sustainable, or at least enough to last the next 40-80 years?
Yes of course it is sustainable. We have the resources to do everything we need for hundreds of years here in the USA without any external dependencies. The disaster recovery and continuity plans and infrastructure are already in place to ensure that the US government will continue through a variety of apocalyptic scenarios.
you have no fucking clue how brittle systems like electronics production, or oil supply are. USA, from a systemic point of view, is the most coupled and fragile production system in the world except maybe some micro-nation in the middle of the ocean.
You have no fucking clue what I know about, actually.
I’m not talking about resources, but the entire Imperialist Economic Mode of Production, ie dying Capitalism. The US is largely de-industrialized, it makes most of its profits off of Imperialism, ie export of Financial and Industrial Capital. The US doesn’t produce what it needs, generally, because it is more profitable to hyper-exploit the Global South.
The US Empire will bring about its own ruin.
Sure thing Lenin, and I am the walrus.
Do you have any logical basis for rejecting what I’ve said, or are you just running on vibes and magic?
I could ask you the same thing, and it would be bullshit to me, just as whatever I reply with would be to you. From my perspective you’re in some dumbass communist fantasy based on the internet ramblings of children.
I dunno, you tell me where this is bullshit.
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Over time, Capitalism trends towards monopolization. We see this with mergers, “daughter companies,” and other alignments as groups coalesce into syndicates
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Financial Capital, ie Banks, begin to control Industrial Capital through aquiring large amounts of shares and including conditions in loans, resulting in large-scale mergers of Capital
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Companies seek to export Capital, both industrial and financial, to the Global South where resources and wages are cheaper, so as to increase profit margins tremendously.
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Countries in the Global North generally divy amongst themselves different areas of the Global South
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Underdevelopment due to expropriation of resources drives countries in the Global South against the Global North, cutting off revenue
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As a consequence of deindustrialization combined with countries kicking out the Imperialist Powers, these countries in the Global North face crisis
Which do you disagree with?
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You’re not wrong but generally it’s very difficult for anyone to develop financial literacy unless they already have financial stability. Real hard to learn about the details of contributing to a Roth when you are already struggling to meet basic needs.
Anyone who has access to the Internet can begin learning the basics of financial literacy right now. That is the only barrier, other than being literate.
Here are some basic tips that could get someone with zero financial literacy started:
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Don’t use credit cards unless you can pay them off before interest accrues at the end of the month, otherwise you are wasting money and entering the Debt Trap.
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Don’t use Doordash and other expensive delivery services, pick up your own food or make it at home.
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Make a budget, which should at least consist of a list of your monthly expenses such as housing, food, utilities, etc, and keep track of what you spend on it.
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Subscriptions are leeches, don’t subscribe to anything that you can avoid.
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If you have an employer provided retirement plan, always put in what they will match so that you get the full match (free money).
Wow such a genius, after following this simple 5 bullet points I can now afford a house!
Well I’ve lived through poverty and the Debt Trap and worked my way out of it into success and stability, but if you want to ignore my advice that’s your problem. My financial literacy allowed me to buy a house and land.
Survivorship bias
It really seems like you’re trying to blame people in poverty for being in poverty and that if only they’d follow these simple steps they wouldn’t be poor so clearly it must be their own fault for not educating themselves. It’s so simple and easy, just don’t doordash your avocado toast and put some money in your 401k!
Poverty begets poverty. It’s not a personal failing. People can’t make a home cooked meal after a 12 hour shift on minimum wage. People can’t just decide to not take on credit card debt when their car they can barely afford needs maintenance because it’s the only way they can get to work every day to make enough money to keep barely scraping by. Systemic issues trap people in a cycle that literally destroys their bodies and minds.
It really seems like you’re imagining a bunch of things I never said anything about, because you want to get on your soapbox and talk more about poverty. Everything I suggested is completely achievable by many of those in poverty, to which I speak from personal experience.
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No. You just suck at managing your money.
How do I know? These statement applies to like 60% of Americans. Their within that braket the top and bottom earners are probably separated by a factor of 1.5.
You, an average anon, probably make at least 20% more than some other really unfortunate anon, who still manages to live “paycheck-to-paycheck”. So, you absolutely could save 20% of your income every month. Just in a year it would get you to your 10 weeks runway.
It coincidentally proves that a union magically forming and bargaining you a 20% raise will not result in you actually saving that money, don’t fool yourself. Corpos might be greedy, but you just live recklessly and order random credit cards online instead of budgeting.
It’s really sad to see how well the right is brainwashing a new generation of adolescents.
It’s a classic tactic to illustrate how people with less can survive. Living and being alive aren’t synonymous. Living paycheck to paycheck is capitalist extortion: work or die. So claiming you’re 20% above someone literally being threatened isn’t the freedom you think it is.
A union doesn’t “magically” earn you more money. They are most effective at advocating for the lowest earners against the most egregiously overpaid upper management: the extortioners who take home hundreds if not thousands of times the wages of the people they extort.
If the money simply wasn’t available, so be it. Enduring a famine from bad weather is one thing, enduring a famine because the regency holds 98% of your crop in a vault is another.
I don’t know the exact meaning of you 10 week runway statement, but I bet it’s some alphamale bullshit about needing only 10 weeks to successfully launch your highly successful business. The majority of startup businesses fail, and do you know who is responsible for a lot of it? Big corpos throwing their dicks around. Dropping prices in your local area until you bleed dry, then surging the price again to absorb the loss. Opening a mega-store to eat up market share until you can’t pay rent, then closing down and moving out of city limits to avoid municipal taxes. Hell, just owning the company that owns the company that owns the company that owns the damn building you rent and driving to costs up to drive you out.
And lastly — and I am now realizing you may be a foreign nationalist with only a romanticized idea of America — no one is ordering credit cards online randomly. Like, its not even a thing you really can do. You might as well be accusing people of buying too many MacDonalds and Coca-Colas.
Your both overthinking this. It’s the avocado toast, always has been. Just stop eating that and suddenly you’ll be a millionaire
It’s really sad to see how well the right is brainwashing a new generation of adolescents.
It’s generally not brainwashing. Ideas come from Material Conditions, the ideas that are popular in society come from the world around you, not through the Marketplace of Ideas or anything.
Fascism and Socialism/Communism are on the rise in Western Nations because Imperialism, ie Capitalism at its highest stage, is crumbling. Without being a class reductionist, you generally see fascism arising as a link between the petite and the full bourgeoisie against the Proletariat along nationalist lines, as a way to “turn the clock back” to a less decayed point in time.
Two things can be true, kumquat
I got 2 weeks.
ngl, the main reason I have a car is a weird sense that it’s an interim step/backup before I hit real homelessness…
buy something with a roomy back seat… just incase
Hatchback. The back seats fold down, so should be comfy enough 👍
I mean they are correct. You should try to save up enough money to be able to live 2 ( or even 3 ) months without salary. Regardless of your political opinion on how a system we live in should be you should try to do that just for your own benefit and safety sake.
Besides one statment dosent exclude the other. Once again regardless of your opinions abut the system we live in pepole should have basic financial literacy to know that they should save up some money and not use credit cards as much as possible and other basic stuff ( you would be suprised how many pepole have no idea how it works or why you should save money instead of treating credit cards with horrendus intrest rates as you emergency fund )
The response here to “people must be financially illiterate if they can’t live without income for months!” is no, they aren’t illiterate, they live in an economy designed to keep a ton of people in precarity.
Everyone understands it’s nice to have some money set aside for rainy days. It’s such a simple lesson that calling it “financial literacy” is almost condescending. The problem isn’t that people haven’t heard of saving, it’s that decent-paying jobs aren’t common, basic costs like housing and healthcare are rising rapidly, and even if you do everything right there are a thousand ways to get a fat bill dropped on your lap that takes you back to square one.
No . Pepole do not understand that. Pepole are dumb as f. Not everyone but there is more than sufficient number of pepole that have nothing saved up to call for better financial literacy. There are pepole living from paycheck to paycheck that make more than a hundred thousand dollars per year without any money saved up. Like i said the rapid cost of living crisis and the financial literacy are not colleralted. So long as there are pepole dumb enough to spend money in the casino or even worse on gachas so long there is not enough financial literacy. Is it to simple to call it financial literacy. Frankly speaking yes , it should be called something like personal finances but thats the term that everyone uses and i really dont give enough f about the name. Are there financialy literate pepole that have fallen on due to bad circumstances. Yes. Of course they are. Particulary young pepole that just dont have enough time to build their war chest . But it dosent change the fact that those pepole due to their better ability to deal with their personal finances have better chance to recover. It just as simple. Does that solve the underlaying systematic problem. Not really. But it allows pepole to better deal with said problem. Better is the enemy of good.
Issue is, salaries are not enough, some credit cards give great benefits and cashbacks, and sadly the credit system is being exported to other countries, it is no longer an US only problem.
First time I tried to get a mortgage, I got rejected by multiple banks due to my “inexistent credit footprint”, which was just the local flavor of a credit score. The banks even offered to give me credit cards, encouraging me to use them and NOT pay them off to prove I had a good payer behavior. Got lucky and found a credit union who didn’t ask for any of that but had higher interest rates, so lose-lose situation.
Just save up more money. If i remember correctly saving 20% was always standard where i live. Also there is no way bank would wilffuly advise you to not pay off your credit card. But yeach mortages suck. Actually cost of homes suck. Ina country where i live developers apparently have something like 30 to 40% profit margins which is crazy.
The predatory credit cards in the US should be not legal. They are exploiting people who don’t have so called “financial literacy” and encourage wasteful spending.
In Europe the US style credit cards don’t really exist and people just have debit cards. Also there is a social safety net, so people don’t have to rely on keeping money in the bank for when they become unemployed.
Suddenly a millionare after reading this!
