Read on Twitter
Folks saying that $2000 a month is the minimum someone needs, please consider that, assuming 18% tax, comes to a $14/hr full time job.
Nearly twice the minimum wage.
Nearly twice the minimum wage.
I didn't make $14/hour until I was thirty one.
SO WHAT DID YOU DO, NOME?
Well I lived below minimum. Had a shitton of roommates. Learned to cook food that was only a bit spoiled.
My weekly leisure budget for my late twenties was $18. One cheap pint night per week, and Netflix, amortized over the month.
Well I lived below minimum. Had a shitton of roommates. Learned to cook food that was only a bit spoiled.
My weekly leisure budget for my late twenties was $18. One cheap pint night per week, and Netflix, amortized over the month.
I used the emergency room as my primary care, and that sparingly. I then just didnt pay, because i couldnt.
No dentist. No mental health. No checkups of any kind.
Vacation meant unpaid days off, and car travel, with a cooler in back with sandwiches and store brand soda.
No dentist. No mental health. No checkups of any kind.
Vacation meant unpaid days off, and car travel, with a cooler in back with sandwiches and store brand soda.
Maybe, once a year, I could afford a convention or something. $100-200 that I saved up for with purpose.
And I was doing PRETTY GOOD. I was MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE than some of my coworkers.
And I was doing PRETTY GOOD. I was MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE than some of my coworkers.
I was the middle class of poor folks. The Precariat. Ready to lose it all if there was ever literally any kind of crisis.
"So people should make do with less, you did!"
No motherfucker, I *survived* less, and didn't come out the other side unscathed.
We need a certain universal standard of living. Health care, housing, food, education, leisure.
And then we need to make sure everyone gets it.
No motherfucker, I *survived* less, and didn't come out the other side unscathed.
We need a certain universal standard of living. Health care, housing, food, education, leisure.
And then we need to make sure everyone gets it.
We're certainly productive enough. If wages were about productivity, the minimum wage would be $24 an hour today.
More than enough to have a basic safe and healthy existence. As intended. https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/what-the-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/
More than enough to have a basic safe and healthy existence. As intended. https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/what-the-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/
I mean, for fuck's sake, even Rome, who gave us the word Dictator, understood you *have* to provide at a bare minimum bread and circuses.
Anyway, compost the rich in a series of well-maintained community gardens, accessible by reliable mass transit, and with localized services.
Or - hear me out - what if - hear me out - every year someone went into medical bankruptcy or died of houseless exposure,
We pick the richest person in the country, took half of their money, and beat them with bars of soap inside tube socks for twenty minutes.
We pick the richest person in the country, took half of their money, and beat them with bars of soap inside tube socks for twenty minutes.
Nothing fatal. Just incentive.
Joking aside, post-industrial or post-internet economies haven't scaled. We're looking at the evidence of our societies failing an outside context problem.
The existence of billionaires should be a warning klaxxon. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OutsideContextProblem
Joking aside, post-industrial or post-internet economies haven't scaled. We're looking at the evidence of our societies failing an outside context problem.
The existence of billionaires should be a warning klaxxon. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OutsideContextProblem
Every single billionaire represents a grotesque failure of our economy to scale to a new world. https://mobile.twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1192441706165067776
See, this is what happens when we brainstorm. No bad ideas! https://twitter.com/Philosopher_Dad/status/1345427903799025670?s=20
Okay but we're seizing wealth too right?
That's an important component. https://twitter.com/goobermunch/status/1345428954002333696
That's an important component. https://twitter.com/goobermunch/status/1345428954002333696
Anyone who worked service industry saw the shitshow that was this year coming. The folks running the show had time, and $1800 is apparently what a person needs in a year.
So I'm really thinking tube socks full of soap factor into the change we need. https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1232922661740613634
So I'm really thinking tube socks full of soap factor into the change we need. https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1232922661740613634
Anyway remember in futurama when Bender couldn't afford what he wanted with his stimulus cash and he bought the lockpicks he could afford instead?
That was a fun episode.
That was a fun episode.
