Based Jessica on X - "A NYC school teacher has a GREAT idea for billionaires leaving New York. π€£π He suggests that if the billion dollar companies leave then the regular folks should just take over their businesses.
Journalist: “What do you say to the folks who say, if you tax millionaires, they're going to leave the city and the top 1% pays 40% of the taxes in the city. What happens if they leave? What's your response?”
NYC Teacher: “We should take their business and we run it for the city ourselves.”
Journalist: “They take their business to Florida, you feel like you can keep it here?”
NYC Teacher: “They can't leave the building. They can't just bring their whole entire workforce to Florida. Right? They can't bring all of the resources that they have to build the business here to Florida. Thats where you would say we're building a real movement, right?” “To stop that, we’d make it illegal for them to actually leave. We would find them to hell if they're gonna try to abandon their property here. Because clearly people do need to work, right? People do need to make a living.”
Are they really all this stupid?? Follow:"
@RealJessica
Greg Koenig on X - "We are rapidly passing the point of civic engagement and sharing a country with vast swaths of left wing citizens. They have moved so far past the point of reality or basic understanding of how things function that nearly all of their political aims are riddled with catastrophic second and third order effects. Attempts to inform them of these, or debate them openly to come to more reasonable positions are utterly ineffective. Trump sucking all the oxygen out of the room is acting as cover for what Dem legislators and governors in blue states have been doing. I'm most familiar with Washington state where:
- Despite multiple elections where an income tax was rejected, and a constitutional prohibition, they are imposing a 9.9% income tax on anyone making over $1M. Those individuals are now fleeing the state.
- Estate taxes are now the highest in the nation, at 27%. Ok, tax the rich... sure, but these people are too incompetent to realize that every small business gets nailed with that. Owner dies? Business basically needs to die with him in order to foot handing almost 1/3rd of the enterprise to Washington state. The legislature was (of course) competent enough to block various tax schemes and corporate structures from preventing this exit death.
- They are banning CNC machines or 3D printers that do not include technologies to detect the manufacturing of firearms. This is effectively a ban on vast swaths of industrial machinery, as this technology simply does not exist. No machine manufacturers will tolerate the liability exposure in trying to make one, so they will simply exit the market. Legislators were educated about these impacts and the technicalities - they did not care.
- They passed/signed legislation that makes illegal aliens eligible to be not only sworn police officers, but also prosecutors. They have no problem allowing non-citizens with zero right to even be in this country take your rights away.
- The WA legislature and governor have just given themselves the power to oust elected local Sheriffs via a politically appointed board with no recourse. Complete subversion of the democratic process.
- Washington power companies just announced this morning that there will be a 30%, across the board rate hike for electricity and 20% for NG. Why? The Washington legislature mandated renewable energy infrastructure investments.
- Seattle is collapsing, with nearly 40% vacancy rates across all downtown real-estate. Street crime is off the charts, large businesses are leaving rapidly. Starbucks is starting a transition to TN, Microsoft is even halting expansion in the state in favor of other locations. Small businesses are closing at the fastest rate in history. One of our customers is already moving out, nearly all of our customers are in various stages of figuring out how to move anywhere else.
Washington state has some of the highest tax collection per capital of any state in the US (10th) before this legislative session. Despite this, nearly every quantifiable measure of the health of the state's economy is in the gutter - crime, business, employment, educational outcomes, etc etc. The legislation passed this session will not just accelerate these issues at much higher expense, it is already starting to collapse the economy. Washington is on it's way to an economic death spiral that will take decades to pull out of as the economic engines of the economy spin down and nobody will be willing to deal with punitive government policy to rebuild them. So at what point does our civic compact stop working? One of our two political parties is in-thrall to a voting base that is so wildly ignorant and emotional that they essentially are voting for civilizational suicide. The country can be shared by two opposing political parties when both of them genuinely and mutually agree on fundamental reality, but that is likely not possible when one party has gone totally off-the-rails with extremist policy positions that are obviously going to lead to ruin. I do not think our Constitution has the ability to remedy this situation."
le.hl on X - "I can't believe human were gifted a planet with full of trees, fruit, water, animals and sunshine and then they invented debt, capitalism and war"
Luke Leisher on X - "I can't believe humans were gifted a planet full of famine, disease, and death and invented fusion, vaccines, moon rockets, and so much food that most people die from obesity."
Thread by @PeterMoskos on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Notice in every city where crime is down (most cities), there's no reduction in poverty, no improvement in educational outcomes, no end to systemic racism, no massive increase in affordable housing. If I didn't know better, I'd think those things are unrelated to crime fighting. I really wish we could put "root causes" to bed once and for all in terms of a predictor of changes in crime. They're never mentioned as a factor when crime goes down. They're always held up when crime goes up. And by and large they're completely irrelevant to changes in crime. In 1990s NYC, murders dropped by 70%. And poverty? It increased 20%. I'd love for sociologists who insist we need to reduce poverty to reduce crime to explain this. How did crime plummet while the number of people living in poverty increased?
My point being just treat crime as something caused by criminals. That's it. It really is that simple. Then what to do is more complicated, of course. But it really is about Joe Criminal."
Yet more proof that poverty causes crime and inequality causes crime, so if you want to stop crime you need to commit to unlimited social spending
Nicole on X - "The best ever natural experiment for this theorem was the 1990 (not 1990s, 1990!) NYC subways. Nothing at all changed in 1990 about the economy, the schools, the jobs, the lead paint, the healthcare, the water, the housing, the pretty butterflies floating in the air. The ONLY thing that changed was policing on the subways. And crime fell immediately because of better policing and stayed that way ... until 2020."
Defiant L’s on X - "Final boss: “I'm a disabled trans man, but I'm also a Medicaid patient. I'm also a person who uses food stamps... I am also a person who has gone through substance use and addiction, and most of all, I am a patient of Planned Parenthood.”"
When all your poor decisions line up. Clearly, the solution is even more free money with no conditions
This person also identifies as Black and Black and Filipino-Japanese and has gone through homelessness. Sounds like it wants to collect stamps
Meme - Russ Greene: "Today's seniors demand benefits that are much more generous than any previous generation ever collected. And we have more retirees compared to workers, than ever before. This is a massive burden on the nation."
"Lifetime Social Security and Medicare benefits have dramatically increased. Inflation-adjusted benefits for couples turning 65 in 1970, 2005, and 2050
1970 - $500,000. 2005 - $1,000,000. 2050 - $2,000,000"
Nathan Carson on X - "The normal order of society has been inverted. It used to be that the old would sacrifice for their children and grandchildren so that civilization may continue to improve. Now the old insist on gorging themselves on the seed corn so their lifelong feast may never end, future generations be damned."
Team McMorrow on X - ".@MalloryMcMorrow's plan on data centers: Data center companies, not Michigan families, pay for their own energy and grid upgrades – so rates don't go up. Data centers can't harm our water, air, or environment. Data centers pay their fair share in taxes to fund our schools, roads, and communities. Data centers are built with local union labor."
Jace White on X - "“Data centers must be built with local union labor” translates to “you must pay a bribe to me and my friends.” ~90% of construction workers are not unionized, but those who are can be forced in Michigan to pay dues that wind up in Dem campaign funds. Every left wing affordability proposal is undermined by their insistence on paying off interest groups at every turn."
Emil Kirkegaard on X - "PISA and others spend endless about of time bitching about equity. Buried in their report is this plot. It shows that countries with 'higher fairness' (meaning SES predicts worse) have _worse_ overall performance. It looks like 'fairness' is bad. Or as they put it "countries and economies with higher levels of fairness by socioeconomic status are not often those with strong student performance."."
Equity is about pulling down the successful, after all
Graduate mocked after fleeing US over $60-a-month student loans - "A college graduate has been branded a “loser” and a “whiny b—h” after fleeing the US and defaulting on her student loans over her $60-a-month repayments. Amanda Lynn Tully, 37, admitted she was “never financially stable” as she revealed how she hadn’t made any repayments in seven years since moving to the Czech Republic to escape $65,000 in federal student loans. She reportedly made the drastic decision to abscond to Prague less than a year after graduating from the University of Oregon and failing to find a job with her master’s degree in historic preservation in 2017... Tully said she was on an income-based repayment plan, which would have allowed her to have the remaining debt forgiven after 20 years of making qualifying payments. Her repayment was just $60 a month, but she complained that even this amount was “psychologically burdensome”... “The payments weren’t even paying off the interest, so it was frustrating,” Tully said... Tully appeared to be wearing designer headphones in her photoshoot for the Times. “She couldn’t afford $60 a month but could afford Beats by Dre,” the X user wrote. Almost 8 million of the 40 million borrowers with federal student debt have defaulted on their loans, according to recently released figures from the Education Department."
When you make the minimum payment then complain that you're only paying the interest, while buying expensive non-essential stuff, that's proof that capitalism has failed and that student loans need to be forgiven and that not just should college be free, everyone should get a stipend to cover living costs
Climate Change Is Natural on X - "Step 1: Socialists scream tax the rich
Step 2: The rich leave
Step 3. Socialists celebrate
Step 4: Tax revenues go down
Step 5: Tax goes up on everyone else
Step 6: Socialists go broke & are voted out
Step 7: Capitalism saves the day
Step 8: Taxes go down
Step 9: Economy thrives
Step 10: Socialists scream tax the rich"
e.g. Sweden
The Maine Wire on X - "The City of Portland is now moving to fine property owners for vacant downtown storefronts, shifting the burden onto business and building owners. City officials are framing the ordinance as a revitalization effort, but the policy lands more like punishment than partnership. It also belies a more uncomfortable question: what has City Hall actually done to make Portland a place where businesses want to open, invest, and stay?"
Steve Robinson on X - "Portland will give 100 free needles to a fentanyl user, let them defecate on your store front, refuse to clean it up bc “private property,” and when your restaurant closes and has to be boarded up, they’ll start fining you for blighting the city. Progressive paradise."
D.C. sent $10,800 to dozens of new moms. Here’s how it changed their lives. - The Washington Post
Mom given $10,800 taxpayer-funded cash spent most of it on luxury trip to Miami - "A mom of three given nearly $11,000 in a taxpayer-funded program for impoverished families has admitted blowing most of it on a luxurious five-day trip to Miami — even getting a $180 glow-up to not look like a “working” mom while there. Canethia Miller, 27, was one of 132 mothers in Washington, DC accepted last year into the “Strong Families, Strong Future” pilot program designed to help those living around the poverty line... For the trips, Miller bought 15 new outfits for her children — one for each child for each day of the vacation — proudly telling the DC paper: “Every outfit they wore was new.” She also spent $180 getting her hair and nails done makeover, excitedly recalling how good she looked for the trip. “I didn’t have to look like a working, stressed mom,” she said of the pricy glow-up. Then in Miami, Miller spent much of her new cash on steak dinners, new gadgets and toys for the children and a boat tour past some of the city’s most expensive mansions. She justified her spending by saying she hoped to inspire her children and teach them that if they work hard enough, they may one day be able to afford one of the mansions... She had claimed that she needed the money because her financial situation worsened after she had her third son in the summer of 2022... Miller said she was struggling to make her food stamps last. “Groceries last us the first three weeks of the month, then it’s trying to figure out the last week of my benefits,” she explained. “It lasts, but it cuts close.” Now, she said she has opened a savings account in which she hopes to keep $50 — and insisted the government-funded program taught her how to save money for the future."
Clearly, the problem is they don't give poor people enough money. Billions for the moon and pennies for the poor
Obviously, blowing money on a trip to Miami and getting her kids new outfits every day and a makeover is a survival strategy, so she can't be faulted for all that
Does Inequality Cause Financial Distress? Evidence from Lottery Winners and Neighboring Bankruptcies - "We test the hypothesis that income inequality causes financial distress. To identify the effect of income inequality, we examine lottery prizes of random dollar magnitudes in the context of very small neighborhoods (13 households on average). We find that a C$1,000 increase in the lottery prize causes a 2.4% rise in subsequent bankruptcies among the winners’ close neighbors. We also provide evidence of conspicuous consumption as a mechanism for this causal relationship. The size of lottery prizes increases the value of visible assets (houses, cars, motorcycles), but not invisible assets (cash and pensions), appearing on the balance sheets of neighboring bankruptcy filers."
One of the biggest issues about being working/lower class that people don't talk about : r/redscarepod - "is all the fucking drama. I do obviously think that material conditions and the poverty trap is a huge and very real thing. But as someone who has lived in and around both real poverty and the comfortable middle class world the difference is pretty stark. One of the things that shocked me most moving into the more middle class, post higher education world was just how much more chill everyone is. I'm not saying it's none existent, certainly there are emotional unstable rich people or even that it's all poor people. But if you grew up poor you'll know that there's like a pretty large minority of people causing highschool level drama way into adulthood. Perceived slights spiralling into long sometimes violent feuds. The yelling matches. Constant relationship drama and issues. It's exhausting to be around and navigate. I think it's also a motivator for a lot of people to leave their surroundings. You will see it still if you were from a working class community and ever accidently go back on facebook. Women hitting 30 openly dragging their baby daddy or vague posting about "snakes" and knowing who their real friends are like they are in some medieval court drama. I'm not sure where it comes from, maybe induced by the boredom of poverty. Or being trapped in a small world so everything feels more important than it actually is. Young women having kids when they're still kids and not having space to develop emotionally. Young men never growing out of their machismo phase from their youth. Then you add alcohol and drugs into the mix and it's get's 10 times worse."
I'm surprised no one called this victim blaming
Hoops on X - "How come Japan gets cool things like suspension monorail trains, and we don't? π π"
Hayden on X - "The state of Indiana passed a law banning rail transit. Indianapolis, a city of nearly one million people, cannot have trains as it's against the law."
Transportation in Indianapolis - Wikipedia - "In 2014, the Indiana General Assembly granted Indianapolis and five neighboring counties the authority to raise local income taxes to fund public transit by referendum. As part of a legislative compromise, the bill included a provision prohibiting local governments from publicly financing light rail projects."
Left wingers can't help but keep lying and they have no idea of what happened in the past, which is why they take such an ahistorical approach to everything
Naturally, when someone pointed out the truth, he doubled down
Elizabeth Warren on X - "Today, I'm introducing my wealth tax — and more than 50 members of Congress are joining me. It’s time for the government to start working for American families, not just the ultra-rich."
Cynical Publius on X - "The idea of taxes on unrealized capital gains for illiquid assets is the stupidest economic policy ever dreamed up. It would be an economy-destroying measure that would basically eliminate the concept of privately owned companies (i.e., companies with equity not traded on the public markets). The death of private companies would result in the death of the major innovation engine that has made the USA the greatest economy in the world. Had such a scheme existed 50 years ago, Apple, Meta, Google, Tesla, Space-X, etc. etc. would never have come into being because they would never have been able to raise VC start-up capital. If this law were to come to pass, unemployment will skyrocket, innovation will plummet, standards of living will be reduced to third world levels, and capital will flee offshore. The nation will tumble into a decades-long Depression and none of the "social justice" ideas Big Chief Lizzie is speaking about will be affordable or even possible. This is the worst economic idea anyone has suggested in any of our lifetimes. But don't worry, Big Chief Lizzie will still get rich off of campaign contributions from the big banks and publicly-trade companies who will be the few beneficiaries of this nation-destroying idea."
Meme - Pink haired woman: "I want to help the poor"
Man in suit: "Then why don't you start a business and employ some of them?"
Pink haired woman: "I'd rather just give them money"
Man in suit: "I'm not sure if that's the best solution, but ok... It's your money"
Pink haired woman: "Not really. I didn't mean my money, I meant your money"
Meme - Alex Epstein @AlexEpstein: "It's hard to imagine a more dishonest graph than this one by the Guardian claiming China is bringing people out of poverty while the US is not. The US poverty rate has been so low for >30 years that it wouldn't even show up on the China graph if it had been plotted to scale!"
"China's poverty rate has declined while the US trend has stagnated. Percent of the population living on $3 per day. China. United States. Countries shown on different scales to better compare trends"
Time to ban Fox News and the Daily Mail for spreading misinformation
Brian Heywood - That Damn Mormon on X - "The Math Doesn’t Math…
- 5000 home day care centers have been regulated out of business due to SEIU backed regulations
-We now have day care deserts all over the state
-Our Day Care cost is one of the highest in the nation
-And now it Travis points out that some day care centers are receiving $1million a year in subsidies to teach 8 kids which works out to $125K per kid per year
You can’t can’t afford day care because so many have gone out of business from over regulation that the cost has gone up
You can’t afford the gas to drive your kid to day care because of the CCA tax
Olympia is talking about a payroll tax now on anyone making over $125K per year which is about what you need to make to afford day care and coincidentally about what the state is paying to suspect day care grifters….
The Math Doesn’t Math"
Starbucks 'failing its hometown' as it shuts five more stores in West Coast city after already closing 400 across US - "Starbucks plans to close five cafes in its hometown of Seattle next month – including four that recently unionized. The move has escalated tensions between the coffee giant and organized baristas as labor unrest spreads across the chain. Starbucks Workers United, which represents more than 600 unionized stores nationwide, said baristas at several of the locations recently staged a strike over what they called unfair labor practices. The latest closures come after Starbucks shut roughly 400 stores across the US last year -including 59 unionized locations. The union blasted the move to close in early April, accusing Starbucks of targeting workers who were battling for better conditions. 'If you think you can crush a movement by closing a building, you're wrong,' the union said... The closures come as Starbucks reshapes its business under chief executive Niccol, who has been cutting jobs and closing underperforming cafes as part of a sweeping turnaround plan."
Michael Arbon on X - "According to the ex-NSW Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner for Japan and Korea, Michael Newman:
π¦πΊ Australia has 140 public servants to every 1,000 people
π―π΅ Japan has 38 per 1,000 people.
π¦πΊ Employs 2.5 million bureaucrats, costing us $232 billion a year.
π―π΅ Has five times our population, runs on 3.3 million bureaucrats and spends only $270 billion.
π¦πΊ 17 per cent of the working age population is now on the government payroll.
π―π΅ Just five per cent.
π¦πΊ Bureaucrats are on bigger salaries too. Per head, Aussie public servants earn an average of $93,000 versus Japan at just $76,000.
π¦πΊ At the senior executive level, federal heads of department are raking in up to $1,000,000 Aussie dollars a year.
π―π΅ To compare with Japan, the top earning politicians in the Asian archipelago bring home about $255,000.
Mr Newman sensibly suggested that senior civil servants should be paid like private sector professionals, with a smaller base salary with performance-based rewards. As Thomas Sowell said "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.""
