This is like choosing to take a knee in field goal range because if we kick a field goal the other team might try to score points. Like what are we even talking about here.
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I am still amazed that Trump didnāt issue everyone giant novelty checks with his smarmy face on them. Real missed opportunity there.
The man doesnāt have an imagination honestly. He doesnāt even do narcissism well.
If America is a dystopia by your definition Iād hate to see you travel the world to some true dystopias.
Did you read the economic analysis today arguing the stimulus will be the single biggest lift of children from poverty ever in America?
If you want to call that a little duct tape ok. We will agree to disagree.
zz has traveled around at least India and if he took a ship to get there it was a cargo ship, not a cruise ship. I donāt think his India tour was a sanitized version.
Then calling America a dystopia is really odd. This is silly debate. Some people canāt seem to admit anything can ever be good for some reason. As if doing so is somehow an affront to the poor even when that good thing helps those same poor people.
Also, I am sure loving how every post now, by so many posters, has to point out either Iām some mr burns rich guy or not American so anything I say can be ignored. Thatās a nice trend.
the biggest lift of children from poverty might get us close to child poverty levels of other wealthy nations, which of course is amazing but we live in a pretty dystopian society where child poverty was allowed to reach these levels
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No, they absolutely do not.
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All republicans who consume news from the usual RW sources will know is that
-Biden increased the debt and is ruining our economy.
-Liberals have cancelled Dr. Seuss, Mr. Potato Head, and Pepe Lepew.
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Right, Fox News will whine about cancel culture or birth certificates or some other shit no matter what the Dems do. We might as well score some political points out of this.
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It absolutely is duct tape and it absolutely is a dystopia for an increasing number of people. I get itās not dystopia to you, because youāre insulated from it. Sorry if it offends you to point out the obvious fact that youāre a well off person, but I do know enough about your life to assume you have never come remotely close to real struggle like the bottom third of the US experiences every day.
You want to celebrate the āwinā so you can feel better and pretend the wheels arenāt coming off in a way that might eventually affect you directly. Nobody ever wants to hear from the doom and gloom crowd no matter how true our observations are. Sorry to piss in your Cheerios, but things are really fucked up, consistently getting worse, and there is no reason to expect they will improve. The fact alone that the US government is desperately throwing trillions at problems it doesnāt even understand should clue you in to how unstable and unsustainable things are.
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You are simply empirically wrong. Things got measurably better for the poorest people in America last week. They did just. Itās a fact not up for debate. Iām not going to pretend otherwise to fit into some weird doom club. Nobody is claiming the world is a utopia and there are no poor people. Iām claiming as fact that the world is a little bit better today than it was last week. Not for me but for the poorest Americans
Anyway Iām done with this argument.
Also fuck you on claiming because Iām middle class I donāt care about the poor. Seriously fuck you. Iāve had it with this. Your inability to make a good argument has nothing to do with my annual income.
I see weāve reached the part of the discussion where clovis takes great personal offense at something that was absolutely not said or implied. Never gets old, not even after the 500th time it happens.
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No just that I had no idea how the bottom third lived because im too rich. For the record the bottom third in America earn a median income of close to $26,000.
I first earned more than that when I was 33 years old and lived on far less than $25k/year for all my teen and 20s.
So how about you stick to making an argument and not personal attacks about my life which you know nothing about.
I2i made the same claim about me earlier and micro took a shot at me as if Iāve never been anywhere not on a cruise.
Iām not taking it anymore. Make an argument with facts not personal attacks.
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Now we get the old guy doesnāt understand inflation bit along with total cluelessness with regards to the skyrocketing costs of housing/healthcare/education
Good fun
You could respond, āperhaps we shouldnt make assumptions about each otherās life when we donāt know much about it. Either way it has nothing to do with the argument at hand and is only included to disparage him so maybe we should stick to the facts of the debateā
But nope instead you insult me by suggesting I donāt understand inflation.
Got to go with clovis8 here. The COVID bill is a big win for progressives.
To appreciate the concrete significance of the ARP for ordinary Americans ā and, by extension, the significance of having 50 Democratic votes in the Senate versus 49 ā here are a few of the ways life in the U.S. is about to change as a result of a unified Democratic government coming to power:
ā¢ The average household in the bottom quintile of Americaās economic ladder will see its annual income rise by more than 20 percent.
ā¢ A family of four with one working parent and one unemployed one will have $12,460 more in government benefits to help them make ends meet.
ā¢ The poorest single mothers in America will receive at least $3,000 more per child in government support, along with $1,400 for themselves and additional funds for nutritional assistance and rental aid.
ā¢ Child poverty in the U.S. will drop by half.
ā¢ More than 1 million unionized workers who were poised to lose their pensions will now receive 100 percent of their promised retirement benefits for at least the next 30 years.
ā¢ Americaās Indigenous communities will receive $31.2 billion in aid, the largest investment the federal government has ever made in the countryās Native people.
ā¢ Black farmers will receive $5 billion in recompense for a century of discrimination and dispossession, a miniature reparation that will have huge consequences for individual African-American agriculturalists, many of whom will escape from debt and retain their land as a direct result of the legislation.
ā¢ The large majority of Americans who earn less than $75,000 as individuals or less than $150,000 as couples will receive a $1,400 stimulus check for themselves and another for each child or adult dependent in their care.
ā¢ Americaās child-care centers will not go into bankruptcy en masse, thanks to a $39 billion investment in the nationās care infrastructure.
ā¢ Virtually all states and municipalities in America will exit the pandemic in better fiscal health than pre-COVID, which is to say a great many layoffs of public employees and cutbacks in public services will be averted.
ā¢ No one in the United States will have to devote more than 8.5 percent of their income to paying for health insurance for at least the next two years, while ACA plans will become premium-free for a large number of low-income workers.
ā¢ Americaās unemployed will not see their federal benefits lapse this weekend and will have an extra $300 to spend every week through the first week in September.
This is a small sampling of the COVID-relief billās consequences (more comprehensive accounts of its provisions can be found here and here). But it is sufficient to establish that something has dramatically changed in the Democratsā approach to wielding power.
The article goes on to explain how the COVID bill marks a conceptual difference, more emphasis on full employment, none of the trapezoid tax break as benefit programs that were the hallmarks of the neoliberal Democrats. Itās not solving everything but itās a definite win and a shift in the right direction
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If youāre saying a 25 year old living off of $20k/yr in Canada thirty years ago is equivalent to a family living off of that in America today, then Iām not the one insulting you.
You are only off on my age by 15 years but I can see why you are so convinced about my life history.