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Nick Soapdish posted:https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1743264127995326644?t=uu20sAuhXdDwql-GbTinNg&s=19 With the caveat that I know that an individual president really has little sway over the short-term direction of the economy, I think a lot of people look at those numbers and think "well, that sure as poo poo doesn't apply to me." My annual pay increase didn't keep pace with inflation or the CPI and my wife and I are effectively priced out of buying a new home right now thanks to interest rates, and we are solidly in what would be the middle-class professional bracket. It's not like prices on consumer goods that went up during and after the acute phase of the pandemic are coming down, either. There's been a lot of op-eds about the "vibecession" and such (mostly with a not-so-subtle tinge of "why don't the proles realize how good they really have it?") but people are going to vote based on how they perceive their own financial circumstances, and the only place they're going to direct that toward is the incumbent president. Notice how no one's really trumpeting "Bidenomics" anymore? edit: shameful snipe, have a cozy puppy who certainly doesn't care about the rising cost of dog food and stuffies 
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Jan 5, 2024 17:24
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Crab Dad posted:They need a distraction from their activities and wasn’t this guy meddling in Israel? No, they do not. If you're going to try to speculate, at least make it based on something.
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Jan 5, 2024 17:35
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pantslesswithwolves posted:With the caveat that I know that an individual president really has little sway over the short-term direction of the economy, I think a lot of people look at those numbers and think "well, that sure as poo poo doesn't apply to me." My annual pay increase didn't keep pace with inflation or the CPI and my wife and I are effectively priced out of buying a new home right now thanks to interest rates, and we are solidly in what would be the middle-class professional bracket. It's not like prices on consumer goods that went up during and after the acute phase of the pandemic are coming down, either. There's been a lot of op-eds about the "vibecession" and such (mostly with a not-so-subtle tinge of "why don't the proles realize how good they really have it?") but people are going to vote based on how they perceive their own financial circumstances, and the only place they're going to direct that toward is the incumbent president. Notice how no one's really trumpeting "Bidenomics" anymore? A lot of it is catch-up after a few bad years. The CPI increases for the last few years are baked into the stats, current inflation being 3.1% doesn't show that prices are up a combined 15-20% over the last few years. Raw employment numbers only got back to pre-pandemic levels in late '22/early '23. The trajectory of the economy is good, a lot of people who were suffering 3-4 years ago are doing a lot better now, but for a whole bunch of the population that is treading water or worse over the last few years that's not going to matter much as far as perception.
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Jan 5, 2024 17:39
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An OG commando, veteran of the British Long Range Desert Group, died at 104. There’s quite a story: https://dnyuz.com/2024/01/05/mike-sadler-intrepid-desert-navigator-in-world-war-ii-dies-at-104/ “Maj. Mike Sadler, a World War II navigator on the trackless Sahara of North Africa, who guided Britain’s first special forces across sand seas on daring behind-the-lines night raids that blew up enemy aircraft on the ground and troops in their billets, died on Thursday in Cambridge, England. He was 104.”
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Jan 5, 2024 17:54
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pantslesswithwolves posted:I think a lot of people look at those numbers and think "well, that sure as poo poo doesn't apply to me." But we both feel broker than we did 5 years ago because everything has gotten so goddam expensive. Mind you, it's not "we need to eat rice instead of meat" broke, but its still "where did all our money go" at the end of each month. (And we are not millennials so it's not the avocado toast.) That feeling is not helped by her being in healthcare (salary, not hourly) and working her rear end off as a load bearing human in a collapsing system where it doesn't matter if she's already on hour 12 of her 10 hour day, if she doesn't review the patient's labs before she goes home he may die since there's nobody else there to review them. She's definitely said that despite making more than she did 5 years ago, the dollar per effort ratio feels shittier. So basically, the numbers can say what they say, but the vibe doesn't feel that way.
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Jan 5, 2024 18:09
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stealie72 posted:I feel this. My wife and I are making what I would have considered an extremely comfortable household income for most of my life, and probably 20% more than we made when we first moved into our current house 8 years ago. As someone who is measurably better off with my most recent job change even counting for inflation and cost of living and all of that, I still don't enjoy the current "economy" because I am one bad diagnosis away from bankruptcy and losing everything for both myself and my family. What is there to feel "good" about when it can all vanish up some healthcare CEO billionaire's coked-out nostril tomorrow? There's nothing out there for me besides what I have right now and family to fall back on.
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Jan 5, 2024 18:20
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income/wealth inequality is a bitch my favourite has to be the property "investors" saying that they're doing a public good because they buy houses and then rent them out
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Jan 5, 2024 18:24
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Yeah financially we are in good shape at home but could not really afford to move and buy a home anywhere close to the quality of the one we bought only 5 years ago. People who didn't buy in a couple years back are pretty hosed in terms of home ownership and rents have only skyrocketed here in New England. That and the general quality of almost everything is palpably worse across the board.I can confidently say we are paying a lot more for a lot less (both quantity and quality) vs just 4-5 years prior.
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Jan 5, 2024 18:35
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All that said, even if your personal financial situation isn’t great, taking a step back and deciding that voting trump is the solution is some seriously deranged thinking. And that’s where tens of millions of americans stand today.
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Jan 5, 2024 18:42
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My personal log for the fire is the Affordable Connectivity Program getting tougher standards this year. It was nice for shaving almost half my internet bill off, and where I live there is literally only one choice for internet service because Florida's infrastructure is so lovely. Only the nice, built up parts of Florida have multiple choices for internet. Everywhere else is a one company show. But I no longer qualify this year because they lowered the income level you need to be at or under to qualify for the program.
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Jan 5, 2024 18:46
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:All that said, even if your personal financial situation isn’t great, taking a step back and deciding that voting trump is the solution is some seriously deranged thinking. And that’s where tens of millions of americans stand today. That's kind of the struggle with the Biden/Democratic argument that they haven't quite figured out how to make yet. I still think this is all post-pandemic supply/demand effects (plus gouging). Having basically two years of 0% cost increases, then having one around 10-15% when demand shot way the gently caress up has really hosed with the national mood. Biden / Fed Reserve got things back to the usual 2% only recently, people are still hurting from that 10-15% year. And outside of the other stuff mentioned (like one sickness away from bankruptcy), voters vote on vibes and probably won't advance to the "trump worse" part of the argument. Or they're tired of the argument that Trump would be worse and get angry at even the suggestion of the argument. Lots and lots of that going on with the Israeli poo poo now.
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Jan 5, 2024 18:53
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https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1743268349319033025?t=7eusGyaKcQtcnQrnndiK4A&s=19 I joked a couple years ago how Trump revisionists would eventually say that George Washington was a member of the Trump family. We're on our way.
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Jan 5, 2024 19:03
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Cythereal posted:My personal log for the fire is the Affordable Connectivity Program getting tougher standards this year. It was nice for shaving almost half my internet bill off, and where I live there is literally only one choice for internet service because Florida's infrastructure is so lovely. Only the nice, built up parts of Florida have multiple choices for internet. Everywhere else is a one company show. And that's the other thing about "the economy is great, all the signs are pointing up up up!!" It will just get used as an argument to wind down financial support for people, further slash welfare, etc. After all, things are good again! Why would we ever need things like expanded unemployment? People are just lazy and not working!
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Jan 5, 2024 19:14
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That Works posted:Yeah financially we are in good shape at home but could not really afford to move and buy a home anywhere close to the quality of the one we bought only 5 years ago. I'm in the Providence area and I'm bracing for what will almost certainly be a major rent hike this year, which would push our rent from "high, but not unaffordable" firmly into "unaffordable". Doesn't help that rents have been rising faster in RI than literally anywhere else in the country. This is going to doubly suck because the place we have now is super conveniently located for both me and my wife, and I'm really not in the mood to have to move to some bargain basement shithole out in the boonies just so I can afford to stay alive. I was hoping to buy a place one of these days but that prospect feels more distant than ever right about now.
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Jan 5, 2024 20:03
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The only real thing about the "American Dream" is that it was a dream.
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Jan 5, 2024 20:46
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CBJSprague24 posted:https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1743268349319033025?t=7eusGyaKcQtcnQrnndiK4A&s=19 God made someone who would spend all morning watching Fox and Friends, belittle anyone who disagrees with him, and forsake three wedding vows. Right.
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Jan 5, 2024 21:01
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Itchy_Grundle posted:God made someone who would spend all morning watching Fox and Friends, belittle anyone who disagrees with him, and forsake three wedding vows.
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Jan 5, 2024 21:06
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stealie72 posted:TBF, nobody said which god. Creating the most annoying human on earth is peak Roman/Greek god poo poo. It's usually a punishment for hubris too, isn't it?
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Jan 5, 2024 21:10
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CBJSprague24 posted:https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1743268349319033025?t=7eusGyaKcQtcnQrnndiK4A&s=19 This feels insane to me. This looks like a commercial from a The Purge/Equilibrium crossover.
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Jan 5, 2024 21:15
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Nuclear Tourist posted:I'm in the Providence area and I'm bracing for what will almost certainly be a major rent hike this year, which would push our rent from "high, but not unaffordable" firmly into "unaffordable". Doesn't help that rents have been rising faster in RI than literally anywhere else in the country. This is going to doubly suck because the place we have now is super conveniently located for both me and my wife, and I'm really not in the mood to have to move to some bargain basement shithole out in the boonies just so I can afford to stay alive. Yup. It's bullshit here, the house we bought 5 years ago we cannot possibly afford to live in if we were to buy it today with our current salaries. Makes all the "income is up actually" talk pretty drat hollow. Also lol our electricity is the highest in the country outside of Hawaii and gets like 30-40% increases for each winter.
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Jan 5, 2024 21:25
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Zamujasa posted:The only real thing about the "American Dream" is that it was a dream. George Carlin said that poo poo what, 20 years ago? And somehow it gets more and more true every single year.
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Jan 5, 2024 21:31
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Zamujasa posted:And that's the other thing about "the economy is great, all the signs are pointing up up up!!" It will just get used as an argument to wind down financial support for people, further slash welfare, etc. After all, things are good again! Why would we ever need things like expanded unemployment? People are just lazy and not working! It’s deeply shameful that twice as many children live in poverty as did in 2021.
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Jan 5, 2024 21:40
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Video from 2011, when Adams was a state senator https://twitter.com/mikescollins/status/1742959312220168388
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Jan 5, 2024 22:13
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Platystemon posted:Video from 2011, when Adams was a state senator
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Jan 5, 2024 22:40
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https://twitter.com/PopularLiberal/status/1743339041011937426?t=lio6g4JFZU_oQNyU68D-sQ&s=19 CHHHYNNNUHHH
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Jan 5, 2024 22:57
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:income/wealth inequality is a bitch Speaking of inequality https://twitter.com/DanielHornung46/status/1743284419446641069 https://twitter.com/arindube/status/1743311748021510399 It really feels like everyone is mostly complaining about housing. But you have to remember where this is coming from. The US more or less didn't build any housing from 2008 to 2018, but that was tolerable because millennials were doing what economists call "abnormally low household formation" and what normal people call "living with their parents after graduation or living with even more roommates than they would have liked." This is not because millennials wanted to do that, it's because the economy sucked. When the economy got better, all those millennials started planning to live on their own, and maybe even have a home office for remote work. But it turns out US more or less didn't build any housing from 2008 to 2018, and in capitalism when there's not enough stuff to go around, the prices skyrocket. For certain regions (California, Vermont, greater NYC, Oregon, Hawaii), it's even worse because they have been refusing to build housing since millennials were born. This is why the US state with the lowest homelessness rate is Mississippi, a state with crushing income inequality, racism, and drug use. Skyrocketing house prices and homelessness in the US is a sign of people getting richer, looking around for a potential new house, and discovering nothing has been built in their neighborhood since the 80s.
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Jan 5, 2024 23:00
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it also didn't help at all that a bunch of houses were bought by businesses and other "investors" ‘Swapping homes like stocks’: Wall Street-backed firm buys 264 valley homes in a day quote:A Wall Street-backed corporate landlord bought hundreds of Clark County homes in a staggering one-off residential sale in summer 2023. the lvrj is trash but you know what they say about stopped clocks
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Jan 5, 2024 23:05
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Zamujasa posted:it also didn't help at all that a bunch of houses were bought by businesses and other "investors" There are always big enough deals large corporate deals to make the news, but small investors have always been the majority of housing investors, and always have done so. When it comes to total homes bought, small investors (10 or less houses) bought over ten times as much as institutional investors did (1000+ total owned houses) this year, and have consistently done so basically every year. https://www.housingwire.com/articles/no-wall-street-investors-havent-bought-44-of-homes-this-year/ And these big institutional investors don't even win all the time. Remember when there was a massive panic over Zillow and Redfin hording houses in 2018? Well, both Zillow and Redfin got owned so hard in 2021-23 and lost so much money on housing investment that both companies closed their entire iBuying housing investment divisions, and sold off their houses.
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Jan 5, 2024 23:21
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golden bubble posted:There are always big enough deals large corporate deals to make the news, but small investors have always been the majority of housing investors, and always have done so. When it comes to total homes bought, small investors (10 or less houses) bought over ten times as much as institutional investors did (1000+ total owned houses) this year, and have consistently done so basically every year. Yeah even progressives that study land use and real estate tend to dispute the notion that institutional investors are responsible for housing prices being where they are: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/housing-crisis-hedge-funds-private-equity-scapegoat/672839/ The uncomfortable reality is that there's no incentive for homeowners (families or institutional investors) to support policies that lower the prices of homes, including large-scale development and high-density/multi-unit buildings. Because nobody who bought a house for a certain amount (with most of it likely financed) wants to be underwater on their basis or their mortgage. It's also kind of taken as a given in the US (and UK) that home ownership is effectively a form of wealth creation/a nest egg for retirement. In countries with relatively stable housing prices, like Germany and Japan, home ownership typically isn't viewed as an investment and renters aren't second-class citizens. psydude fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 5, 2024 |
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Jan 5, 2024 23:29
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Agreed. When it comes to investors buying out housing, the news complains about giant corporations, but the real action is thousand upon thousands upon thousands of rich boomers and Gen X landlords that only have a few houses to their name. In this case, it's not exciting wall street capitalists but boring main street capitalists.
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Jan 6, 2024 00:12
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It would be nice if we could just institute higher tax brackets per house owned. And just organize them from lowest value to highest value, with the highest value homes being in the higher tax bracket. Let people own a second home with no penalty, but each additional home starts organizing your homes into tiered tax brackets.
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Jan 6, 2024 00:21
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https://twitter.com/Meghann_MT/status/1743398005405786379?t=2EjwcieQv6xKExpr0-z3Tg&s=19 Lol the classic drop a big news story on Friday at close of business
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Jan 6, 2024 00:26
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MonkeyFit posted:It would be nice if we could just institute higher tax brackets per house owned. And just organize them from lowest value to highest value, with the highest value homes being in the higher tax bracket. Let people own a second home with no penalty, but each additional home starts organizing your homes into tiered tax brackets. I still like a vacancy tax, but it's probably got hidden impracticalities and snags that make it a bad idea.
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Jan 6, 2024 01:46
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MonkeyFit posted:It would be nice if we could just institute higher tax brackets per house owned. And just organize them from lowest value to highest value, with the highest value homes being in the higher tax bracket. Let people own a second home with no penalty, but each additional home starts organizing your homes into tiered tax brackets. Some states do things like this. Minnesota has really high property taxes but offers things like their “Homestead Market Value Exclusion” that gives a hefty reduction in property taxes if you live full time in the house you own. If it’s an investment property, you pay the full rate but everyone who owns and lives in a single house pays a much more reasonable amount.
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Jan 6, 2024 01:47
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Hekk posted:Some states do things like this. Minnesota has really high property taxes but offers things like their “Homestead Market Value Exclusion” that gives a hefty reduction in property taxes if you live full time in the house you own. If it’s an investment property, you pay the full rate but everyone who owns and lives in a single house pays a much more reasonable amount. It's incredible when the loving USA has a more progressive tax system than my country
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Jan 6, 2024 01:49
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:It's incredible when the loving USA has a more progressive tax system than my country It's not the USA, just specific states. My state, Louisiana, also has a homestead exemption on your primary residence. Many states do not.
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Jan 6, 2024 01:52
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Hekk posted:Some states do things like this. Minnesota has really high property taxes but offers things like their “Homestead Market Value Exclusion” that gives a hefty reduction in property taxes if you live full time in the house you own. If it’s an investment property, you pay the full rate but everyone who owns and lives in a single house pays a much more reasonable amount. Yeah Maryland does this too, and I have no idea why it's not the loving norm. I grew up in RI/SE Mass, and was incredibly poor as well. Finding affordable housing was a nightmare for my mom until she finally relented and moved us into one of the cities in RI that had a rep of "abandon all hope ye who enter here" but was mostly due to racism/classism. Housing became slightly more affordable once we moved there, but it was still a struggle. I moved away in 2010, and my mom up until she died lived in subsidized housing, but getting her into that was a nightmare in itself. Anyways, I cannot begin to imagine how hard it is now, and RI takes the cake for being stupid expensive to live in yet having a poo poo job market. Also gently caress National Grid, they make Pepco look like Doctors Without Borders in comparison.
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Jan 6, 2024 02:00
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golden bubble posted:Agreed. When it comes to investors buying out housing, the news complains about giant corporations, but the real action is thousand upon thousands upon thousands of rich boomers and Gen X landlords that only have a few houses to their name. In this case, it's not exciting wall street capitalists but boring main street capitalists. Also Boomers: "lol lol lol the value of my lovely properties keep going up because my friends and I have blocked construction of new housing supply 1990, I'm loving rich!"
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Jan 6, 2024 02:13
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MonkeyFit posted:It would be nice if we could just institute higher tax brackets per house owned. And just organize them from lowest value to highest value, with the highest value homes being in the higher tax bracket. Let people own a second home with no penalty, but each additional home starts organizing your homes into tiered tax brackets. We really need a progressive wealth tax in general, limiting property taxes to real estate is a weird distinction that only hurts the middle class. Almost all non-property wealth is financial assets held in financial institutions that are straightforward to value and track (just the 1099s the IRS already has probably get us 95% of the way there). Make it confiscatory, like 10%+ after a hundred million-ish so it becomes an indirect wealth cap, and there might be a noticeable improvement in inequality over time.
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Jan 6, 2024 02:16
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:It's incredible when the loving USA has a more progressive tax system than my country 38/50 states, plus Washington, DC have some form of property tax homestead exemption or credit https://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/rpt/201...o%20homeowners.
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