Political Discussion

RenegadeMonster said:

Conservatives once again putting their foot in their mouth. Aren't they supposed to be all for less regulation and less government intervention in private business? Here is a case of them trying to go totally authoritarian on Disney.
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that's only for publicity. When it comes to 'do what i say', they're all for the power of big government and jack-booted thugs etc etc. abortion? cakes for gays? porn bans, gay wedding bans, don't read books, don't say gay. it's why i can't take anyone who call themselves a republican and a conservative seriously. it's one or the other, it ain't both.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
Diagnosis are automatically shared with the state's health department. This is a legal requirement and doesn't violate any laws as it is the law. It's for the states health official records and is shared federally as well I believe. It's not publically available nor provided to private companies.

However, in the case of the DMV, the health department now has a legal requirement under law to report sleep apnea diagnosis with the DMV, another government agency.

So, no laws are being broken, but rather followed as designed in this situation. What you think is confidential isn't truly confidential.
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Yeah, as someone who used to do public health surveillance, there are certain diagnoses that health systems are legally obligated to report to appropriate government agencies. I used to do STI surveillance until I moved over to child special health and did birth defects surveillance.
 
Lee Newman said:
We are so fucked:
apple.news

A New Guns Ruling Could Make Families Less Safe — TIME

The Fifth Circuit issued a decision that it was unconstitutional to deprive those under restraining orders of their guns
apple.news apple.news
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Missouri Republicans vote to allow children to carry guns

“While it may be intuitive that a 14-year-old has no legitimate purpose, it doesn’t actually mean that they’re going to harm someone. We don’t know that yet,” said Rep Tony Lovasco, a Republican from the St Louis suburb of O’Fallon.
 
yukbon said:
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Missouri Republicans vote to allow children to carry guns
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At least it's not as bad as it sounds from the headline. It's not that they voted to allow children to carry guns, it's that a bill banning them from carrying guns failed to pass. And they are only talking about carrying guns on public land. AKA hunting without adult supervision.

This is let's allow children to carry guns to protect themselves from the next school shooting, which would have been terrifying.
 

The median cost of renting an apartment in Manhattan was $4,097 in January. That’s up 15.4% from a year ago and up 1.2% from December.

A one bedroom had a median rent of $4,000, up 14.3% from last year, while a two bedroom had a median rent of $5,532, up 11.8%.
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Rent continues to climb in Manhattan as well as many places across the country. Looking at these numbers, rent increases are pretty substantial and outpacing inflation.

How are people able to continue to afford these rents, as most people's salaries are not keeping up with inflation.

Rent is only expected to go up at an even faster rate this year. Home affordability is out or reach for millions of more Americans as the Fed's interest rate hikes have priced many out of being able to afford/obtain a mortgage. Thus, driving more people to rent and increasing demand.
 
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RenegadeMonster said:



Rent continues to climb in Manhattan as well as many places across the country. Looking at these numbers, rent increases are pretty substantial and outpacing inflation.

How are people able to continue to afford these rents, as most people's salaries are not keeping up with inflation.

Rent is only expected to go up at an even faster rate this year. Home affordability is out or reach for millions of more Americans as the Fed's interest rate hikes have priced many out of being able to afford/obtain a mortgage. Thus, driving more people to rent and increasing demand.
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The amount most of my friends are paying for tiny apartments in the Atlanta area is insane to me. Two to three times my mortgage in some cases for a fifth of the space. Something really needs to be done to curb landlord greed.
 
Also, can't remember if I posted this here yet or not. But Boston has now surpassed San Francisco becoming the second most expensive city to live in just behind NYC. Saw this reported in January. I suspect it's based off of last years numbers.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
First step, make algorithms that maximize rent for landlords illegal.
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Honestly this is the biggest single argument against universal income. If you give everyone, whatever, let's say $1000/month, all you're going to really do is raise rent $1000/month. But of course, every business out there will know that theoretically everyone's income just increased by $12k/annual so eggs will get even pricier, but you will still have the same amount of money in your actual pocket that you did last month, so....we're switchin' to powdered eggs, kids. Or oatmeal grits for breakfast.
 
Can we just agree that capitalism has failed us and is only currently working because we are giving corporations a ton of government subsidies in the form of tax breaks, “bail out” money usually in the form of government contracts, and income/medical supplements for workers that these corporations are underpaying?
 
nolalady said:
Can we just agree that capitalism has failed us and is only currently working because we are giving corporations a ton of government subsidies in the form of tax breaks, “bail out” money usually in the form of government contracts, and income/medical supplements for workers that these corporations are underpaying?
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Was just in a conversation about government subsidies for housing. Every apartment complex in Salem has a certain number of units available as "affordable housing". And you qualify for them based on income and waiting list. Only thing is they are by no means affordable.
One bedrooms are only discounted by a couple hundred bucks. 2 bedrooms by like $400. And just like every other unit in the building, rent goes up by about $100 each year when you renew your lease.

I don't know for sure, but what I think is going on is that these units are subsidies. And that subsidy is provided as a discount to the rent. Rent still goes up, because, that's what it does with capitalism. And that these subsidies barely put a dent in rent because they haven't been updated in years.

People on fixed income living in these "affordable housing" units are being priced out and can't afford the price increases each year on their fixed income.
 
yukbon said:
Honestly this is the biggest single argument against universal income. If you give everyone, whatever, let's say $1000/month, all you're going to really do is raise rent $1000/month. But of course, every business out there will know that theoretically everyone's income just increased by $12k/annual so eggs will get even pricier, but you will still have the same amount of money in your actual pocket that you did last month, so....we're switchin' to powdered eggs, kids. Or oatmeal grits for breakfast.
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Less of an argument against Universal income and more an argument for a complete restructure of our economic system. But your point stands, one can't go without the other.
 
Dtknuckles said:
this is just a thought experiment, but I wonder what would happen if landlords were only allowed to charge a fixed percentage of your income as rent.
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This would mean that a powerful lobby group would pressure other powerful lobby groups to increase workers wages. It would also be hugely opposed by debt lobbyists, like credit card companies and payday loan lenders because people would carry a lot less debt in general.

It ultimately would be good for the masses and terrible for the 1% that have built their thrones on interest payments from debtors. If you go back in history, you find that civilizations with huge population debt loads that create inequality, are unsustainable and must end with a redistribution event. In older cultures, this was largely achieved non-violently with a debt jubilee where debts were erased. However, in the western world, debt forgiveness is a dirty word so often the redistribution event is violent.
 
nolalady said:
This would mean that a powerful lobby group would pressure other powerful lobby groups to increase workers wages. It would also be hugely opposed by debt lobbyists, like credit card companies and payday loan lenders because people would carry a lot less debt in general.

It ultimately would be good for the masses and terrible for the 1% that have built their thrones on interest payments from debtors. If you go back in history, you find that civilizations with huge population debt loads that create inequality, are unsustainable and must end with a redistribution event. In older cultures, this was largely achieved non-violently with a debt jubilee where debts were erased. However, in the western world, debt forgiveness is a dirty word so often the redistribution event is violent.
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Also any kind of debt jubilee wouldn't stand up to the courts. Government and law enforcement also wouldn't allow it to happen. With our capitalist economies such a thing would never be allowed without violence to overthrow the powers that be to make the system. Our system doesn't allow for fixing the inequality / debt forgiveness and the thought to do so is extremist and unamerican.
 
Was another Spy Balloon shot down over Alaska today? Rumors are it was yet another Chinese Spy Balloon. Officially, the White House has only said "high altitued object" so far. But confirmed the military shot it down out of abundance of caution and keeping Americans safe.
 
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This spy balloon crap is getting me stressed. Not because of the balloons, but because the coverage and the surprise/outrage I'm seeing. We spy on so many other countries, and it's a given that they're spying on us (in general I'm not specifically pro-China or pro-USA, but it frustrates me so much how we Americans like to point out terrible things China does when they're not so far off from the terrible things we do). So I detest the "look what China's doing!" of it all. I worry it could escalate, or that the fervent attention on it belies people's desire for the situation to escalate.
 
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