Political Discussion

www.usatoday.com

A man paid 43 cents less than the cost of a Mountain Dew. He's facing felony charges

A man was arrested in Pennsylvania and is facing felony charges after allegedly paying just 43 cents less than the cost of a soda at a store.
www.usatoday.com

Another example of hour our criminal justice system is designed to keep minorities and those in poverty down.

In PA, if you have two criminal retail theft convictions on your record, the third is a felony regardless of the value.

So a likely misunderstanding were a guy left $2 on the counter for a Mountain Dew and walked out of the convenience store is going to resulted in a felony charged, $50,000 bond and faces 3 to 7 years.

What was the miss understanding? The Mountain Dew was priced 2 for $3 for a 20oz bottle. The man likely assumed 1 would be $1.50 and left $2. But that wasn't the case. A single bottle was $2.29, not $1.50. So after taxes he shorted the store $0.43 and they called the police on him.

How about we put criminal efforts into going after the wealthy who defraud people or not pay their taxes rather than ruin someone's life over a 43 cent misunderstanding.
 
Florida is moving forward with House Bill 167. This bill is modeled after Texas new law and would ban abortions after 6 weeks. It also allows people to bring lawsuits against people who provide abortions after six weeks.

House Bill 167 is expected to pass and be signed by the governor. The most notable change from the Texas law, is that Florida's law would increase the statue of limitation for these lawsuits to 6 years. Meaning people have 6 years to file a lawsuit against someone who performs an abortion in violation of the law.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
www.usatoday.com

A man paid 43 cents less than the cost of a Mountain Dew. He's facing felony charges

A man was arrested in Pennsylvania and is facing felony charges after allegedly paying just 43 cents less than the cost of a soda at a store.
www.usatoday.com

Another example of hour our criminal justice system is designed to keep minorities and those in poverty down.

In PA, if you have two criminal retail theft convictions on your record, the third is a felony regardless of the value.

So a likely misunderstanding were a guy left $2 on the counter for a Mountain Dew and walked out of the convenience store is going to resulted in a felony charged, $50,000 bond and faces 3 to 7 years.

What was the miss understanding? The Mountain Dew was priced 2 for $3 for a 20oz bottle. The man likely assumed 1 would be $1.50 and left $2. But that wasn't the case. A single bottle was $2.29, not $1.50. So after taxes he shorted the store $0.43 and they called the police on him.

How about we put criminal efforts into going after the wealthy who defraud people or not pay their taxes rather than ruin someone's life over a 43 cent misunderstanding.
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They called the police for 43 cents? If I were a judge I'd throw that out for wasting everyone's time.
 
The House just approved a 1B deal for Israel to help fund the "Iron Defense Wall".

Why is it so hard to pass anything that helps our people or country, but approving massive defense bills, whether demosted for for foreign aid seamily always pass without much objection.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
The House just approved a 1B deal for Israel to help fund the "Iron Defense Wall".

Why is it so hard to pass anything that helps our people or country, but approving massive defense bills, whether demosted for for foreign aid seamily always pass without much objection.
Click to expand...

What do they need this Iron Defense Wall when everyone knows they have nuclear weapons?
 
arstechnica.com

New report suggests Texas’ grid was 5 minutes from catastrophic failure

It comes with a long list of recommendations for avoiding a repeat.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com


But a major problem was loss of power to the gas distribution and supply system. Apparently, Texas grid operators had taken no steps to identify natural gas facilities and prioritize power delivery to them when starting the rolling blackouts. "Most natural gas production and processing facilities surveyed were not identified as critical load or otherwise protected from load shedding," the report indicates.

This started something of a snowball effect. As processing and handling equipment lost power, the supply of natural gas dropped, which caused gas-fired power plants to shut down, cutting the electricity supply further, and potentially cutting off even more of the gas infrastructure. As of right now, the full extent of the power cuts to the natural gas infrastructure isn't clear, and it's not certain we will know by the time of the final report.
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How do I even respond to this?

Who is suppressing wages?

If you look at average household wages, median household wages, or any of the groups with that ( top 50% etc.) wages have risen over the last 50 years. Not a lot, but they have outpaced inflation. The median household income was around 53k in 1968 and is almost 68k today once you adjust for inflation.

The minimum wage was $1.60 in 1968 which would be worth $12.58 in today's dollars. The minimum wage in 1960 was only $1.00. That is the equivalent of $9.15 of today's dollars. And the poverty rate is going down. It was in the 22% range in 1960, now it is half of that, 10.5% in 2019 according to the census bureau.
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I was having a discussion about how wages have been suppressed now for about 50 years and how the middle class is becoming smaller and smaller and was told that simply is not the case. Wages are better now, there is less poverty and so on.

I have a feeling that no matter however I reply it will be they are right, I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about. Even if I can supply the data to back it up.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I have a feeling that no matter however I reply it will be they are right, I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about. Even if I can supply the data to back it up.
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No real advice here, just sympathy. I've managed to convince people but it takes a literal hour-at-best of methodically starting from a point of concurrance, usually in the early-1960s, and constructing the current situation point-by-point, bonus points if you can avoid ascribing malice generally to the people who caused it to be like this.

There are two different planets in this country right now, how I wish someone in authority would stand up and acknowledge that, but they'd never get elected.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
How do I even respond to this?



I was having a discussion about how wages have been suppressed now for about 50 years and how the middle class is becoming smaller and smaller and was told that simply is not the case. Wages are better now, there is less poverty and so on.

I have a feeling that no matter however I reply it will be they are right, I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about. Even if I can supply the data to back it up.
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Their data is bullshit. Well, it’s not bullshit per se, but it’s cherry picked to support his claim. While average income is a bit higher now when adjusted for inflation the purchasing power of those dollars have essentially flatlined. A dollar went way the fuck further in 1950 than it did today, homes, automobiles, education, healthcare, child care, food have all spiked. To wit, in the 1950s a man could fairly easily support a family of 4 (wife and two kids) own a home and a car with a blue collar factory job that doesn’t require any secondary education. Good luck trying to do that today.

www.google.com

For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades

Adjusted for inflation, today's average hourly wage has about as much purchasing power as it did in 1978. Most wage increases have gone to the highest earners.
www.google.com www.google.com

www.cnbc.com

Home prices have risen 114% since 1960 — here's how much more expensive life is today

"Rent, home prices and college costs have all increased faster than incomes in the U.S.," reports Student Loan Hero.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
 
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Here is a great video on Qanon, and how it has roots in centuries old conspiracies. And how that makes it so easy for people to fall into it's trap.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
How do I even respond to this?



I was having a discussion about how wages have been suppressed now for about 50 years and how the middle class is becoming smaller and smaller and was told that simply is not the case. Wages are better now, there is less poverty and so on.

I have a feeling that no matter however I reply it will be they are right, I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about. Even if I can supply the data to back it up.
Click to expand...

TenderLovingKiller® said:
Their data is bullshit. Well, it’s not bullshit per se, but it’s cherry picked to support his claim. While average income is a bit higher now when adjusted for inflation the purchasing power of those dollars have essentially flatlined. A dollar went way the fuck further in 1950 than it did today, homes, automobiles, education, healthcare, child care, food have all spiked. To wit, in the 1950s a man could fairly easily support a family of 4 (wife and two kids) own a home and a car with a blue collar factory job that doesn’t require any secondary education. Good luck trying to do that today.

www.google.com

For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades

Adjusted for inflation, today's average hourly wage has about as much purchasing power as it did in 1978. Most wage increases have gone to the highest earners.
www.google.com www.google.com

www.cnbc.com

Home prices have risen 114% since 1960 — here's how much more expensive life is today

"Rent, home prices and college costs have all increased faster than incomes in the U.S.," reports Student Loan Hero.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
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Basically this. Plus, most of the data they are using are averages. So it adds in the top 10%. If you look at the wages without that top 10%, you get a much truer picture. Of course your number is going to skew up if you add in a couple billionaires.
 
nolalady said:
Basically this. Plus, most of the data they are using are averages. So it adds in the top 10%. If you look at the wages without that top 10%, you get a much truer picture. Of course your number is going to skew up if you add in a couple billionaires.
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One thing I noticed as well is census data in their argument about how less people are in poverty today than in 1960.

And when looking it up, I wonder why. If you have a minimum wage job it's easy to get above the poverty line because it's so low. Making $7.25 an hour working retail in college I made more than the poverty line...
 
RenegadeMonster said:
One thing I noticed as well is census data in their argument about how less people are in poverty today than in 1960.

And when looking it up, I wonder why. If you have a minimum wage job it's easy to get above the poverty line because it's so low. Making $7.25 an hour working retail in college I made more than the poverty line...
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Isn’t the poverty line a global standard that is set kind of arbitrarily and is not sensitive to current contextual indicators?
 
Dtknuckles said:
Isn’t the poverty line a global standard that is set kind of arbitrarily and is not sensitive to current contextual indicators?
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I believe there is a global poverty line, but the United States has a federally recognized poverty line that is a bit higher than the global poverty line. Many different countries have different poverty lines as well.

What is the international poverty line?​

The international poverty line, currently set at $1.90 a day, is the universal standard for measuring global poverty. This line helps measure the number of people living in extreme poverty and helps compare poverty levels between countries.

What is the poverty line in the United States?​

In the U.S. for a family a four, the poverty line is $26,500 a year. This means that families who earn less than that cannot afford rent, food, or other basic needs. For an individual in the U.S., the poverty line is $12,880 a year, or about $35.28 per day. This poverty guideline is calculated based on information from the Census Bureau and is updated by evaluating recent price changes using the Consumer Price Index.


www.worldvision.org

Global poverty: Facts, FAQs, and how to help

Find answers to questions about global poverty, including poverty facts and statistics. Discover the progress toward ending extreme poverty.
www.worldvision.org www.worldvision.org
 
I think the poverty line is out of whack in the United States. It's nowhere near a living wage in much of the country.

My rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in Salem is equal to the poverty line for a family of 4. And of course I would have to make more than that because of taxes just to pay rent and that still leaves food and all other basic needs.

Even if my rent was half what it is now, there is no way I could get by on $26,500 a year.
 
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