Bucky
Bucky's Journal(Combat Veteran on YouTube) Russian State TV: Speaker Johnson is "Our Guy"!
I suspect Johnson is toying with us when he says he wants to bring Ukraine aid to a vote in negotiations. He's just fending off any "NATO-backstabber" talk.
Combat Veteran: "Russian State TV: Speaker Johnson is 'Our Guy'!"
I suspect Johnson is toying with us when he says he wants to bring Ukraine aid to a vote in negotiations. He's just fending off any "NATO-backstabber" talk.
Minimum Wage and inflation and living
I drew the following table based on the Dept of Labor's webpage on the history of the minimum wage.
year - wage - 2024 adj How low it got before changing
1949 - 0.75 - 9.84
1955 - 1.00 - 11.65 - (By 1961, that was like making 10.45 today)
1961 - 1.15 - 12.01
1963 - 1.25 - 12.76 - (By 1974, that was like making 7.92 today)
1974 - 2.00 - 12.67
1976 - 2.30 - 12.63
1978 - 2.65 - 12.69
1980 - 3.10 - 11.75
1981 - 3.35 - 11.51 - (By 1990, that was like making 8.01 today)
1990 - 3.80 - 9.08
1991 - 4.25 - 9.75 - (By 1996, that was like making 8.46 today)
1996 - 4.75 - 9.46
1997 - 5.15 - 10.02 - (By 2007, that was like making 7.76 today)
2007 - 5.85 - 8.81
2008 - 6.55 - 9.50
2009 - 7.25 - 10.55 - (By 2024, that is like making 4.98 today)
What you should note is that the minimum wage was steadily adjusted every few years: 1955, 1961, 1974, 1979, 1990, 1996, and finally in 2007. Mostly this done under Democratic congresses. But each time minimum got to about $8/hour in today's money, Congress would bump up the minimum. In the 60s and 70s, the resulting increase was to the equivalent of $12 in today's money, or about 50% greater than today's nominal minimum (or 2½ times the amount of today's effective minimum of under $5/hour).
In the 90s & aughts, that minimum was tapered down to only adjusting up to the equivalent of $9 to $10 in inflation-adjusted dollars. This was less ambitious than in the past, but was still foresighted enough to recognize that the truly poor are not quite getting by even if they're working full time. We were lucky enough to have a long ride of low inflation in America since the end of the Cold War.
But having allowed the minimum wage to go unadjusted for a decade and a half, regular old free market principles are passing up the supposed "state intervention" in protecting the most vulnerable workers. Today only 1.3% of wage workers are paid the bare minimum. The average American hourly employee earns $11.11 per hour, which is $22,000 if they're full time (and not getting paid vacations). The average one-bedroom apartment costs $1117 per month or $13,400 per year. That would constitute 61% of an average wage earner's annual salary (or 92% of a minimum wage earner's salary). Assuming you're in the average or below average counties for rental prices, of course.
As long as you don't drive around or have any hobbies or have a problem going around naked or bother to eat, that's doable.
Of course apartments are a good deal more expensive in other locales. My main point being that even with the "rising tide lifting all boats" on wages, that tide seems to be lifting the cost of living a lot faster. Wage hikes are inflationary, this is true. But they aren't the principal cost of inflation. Housing costs are only 17% of the consumer price index, but housing costs account for 40-50% of most wage earners' expenses. Only we're told housing should only cost 1/3rd of your income. But one study found...
For instance, 64% of households that earned less than $50,000 annually spent more than 30% on housing costs. That share rose to 75% for lower-earning households where the householder was younger than 30.
Of course if you're under 30, that 30% rule is kinda bullshit. It's based on the idea that you're not putting any money aside for the future (Americans' biggest financial sin) and it ignores the runaway costs of both student loans and real world housing costs. Plenty of Americans are paying up to half of their income for a roof over their heads and the student loan crisis exists because people can't wiggle out of enough expenses to pay off their loans.
A minimum wage hike won't fix this, of course. But it will be a step in the right direction. It would act as a stimulus for growth. But with inflation stubbornly hovering at over 3%, no one with any economic power wants a stimulus. The Fed is holding back growth (which is inherently inflationary). But this makes the Americans most vulnerable to pricing even more in need of relief. The economy is going gangbusters for the middle and upper middle class (and it's always a good time for the truly wealthy, so fuck them). I think it's time we just got used to 3% inflation rates and allow those at the bottom of the stack to get a 10-20% income boost. It'll accelerate automation, but that's gonna happen anyway. It'll suck to see my 2024 dollars only worth 97¢ by next year, but the real solution, creating some "artificial" deflation in housing costs (the "real" inflation in housing is also artificially boosted by pro-landlord laws), would be politically untenable.
Adam Kinsinger explains why 2 or 3 pro-Ukraine Republican's can't/won't bring a discharge petition for Ukraine aid
This is great discussion of how the few macro-crazy loons in the GOP caucus are able to Chihuahua-bully the Speaker and the rest of the Republican caucus. Starting at 8½ minutes through 15 minutes, he breaks down the group-psychology that allows the 25% to dominate the 75% by being procedural suicide bombers. You'll understand how money-based go-along-to-get-alongism among Republicans makes them so susceptible to cultish behavior and McCarthyism.
I can't decide whether to blame the east coast earthquake on DEI or Hunter's laptop.
But I think we can all agree it was instigated by FBI "ghost buses"
Watching this video is my therapy
They came for Florida's sun and sand. They got soaring costs and a culture war.
Source: NBC
Florida has seen a population boom in recent years, but many longtime residents and recent transplants say rising costs and divisive politics have them fleeing the Sunshine State.
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“So many people ask, ‘Why would you move back to Kansas?’ I tell them all the same thing — you’ve got to take your vacation goggles off,” Carter said. “For me, it was very falsely promoted. Once living there, I thought, you know, this isn’t all you guys have cracked this up to be, at all.”
Florida has had a population boom over the past several years, with more than 700,000 people moving there in 2022, and it was the second-fastest-growing state as of July 2023, according to Census Bureau data. While there are some indications that migration to the state has slowed from its pandemic highs, only Texas saw more one-way U-Haul moves into the state than Florida last year. Mortgage application data indicated there were nearly two homebuyers moving to Florida in 2023 for every one leaving, according to data analytics firm CoreLogic.
But while hundreds of thousands of new residents have flocked to the state on the promise of beautiful weather, no income tax and lower costs, nearly 500,000 left in 2022, according to the most recent census data. Contributing to their move was a perfect storm of soaring insurance costs, a hostile political environment, worsening traffic and extreme weather, according to interviews with more than a dozen recent transplants and longtime residents who left the state in the past two years.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/economics/leaving-florida-rcna142316
Boomerang immigration caused by Florida-Man-like irony, hate, inconvenience, and the corporation-friendly, consumer-screwing, denialism-enhanced, quick-buck mismanagement that makes America's penis state droop towards Cuba
You have to be at least 55 to really appreciate this
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Name: Mister ReaGender: Male
Hometown: Houston
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