one currently pays as much if not more in rent than one would in a mortgage payment -- indeed, mortgage payments remain constant whereas rents continually increase.
Plus with a mortgage you are paying down an investment which, almost always, will increase in value. Real property is still one of the best investments you can make. Its only problem is its lack of liquidity.
But the reason why, generally, rent increases yearly is because property taxes increase yearly. Apartment complexes pay a shit ton of property tax because of how much land they occupy, which is then transferred onto the tenants who pay that bill in the form of increased rent.
But then again even with a mortgage and even with a Homestead Exemption, your mortgage is fixed for the next 20 or 30 years but the property taxes can and will increase year after year.
Overall though, I agree that owning is generally the better option long-term.
So indeed, just counting who has a job and who doesn't (the unemployment statistics) does not tell the entire story. What are they earning and how do their earnings cover their basic expenses? Everybody working at Walmart in the USA has a job, but most of those jobs are structured so that they work too few hours to qualify for benefits, including medical. New hires at Walmart go through the usual orientation briefings, including (in the USA) instructions on how to apply to all kinds of welfare including food stamps. You know, those things that the Trump administration is stripping away. So Walmart has to deprive its employees of basic benefits in order to survive? In the meantime, the Walmarts across the border in Canada provide their employees full benefits and do just fine.
Having a job and being able to survive on your earnings are two entirely different things.
I have a complicated relationship with this. On the one hand I see the world in survivor terminology. Those that lived off the land are owed nothing by nature. If you cannot survive, then you won't survive. Now that we've away from the wilderness and erected societies built around cities, the same principles still apply. Nature owes you nothing. You either figure out a way to survive or you don't.
But of course, that's such a harsh reality, especially if you are the one struggling to survive. I have been in some very bad financial times in my life -- the worst being having to dig ditches on the side of the road for minimum wage just to feed my family. I was absolutely gaunt -- weighing about 135 - 140 lbs because I was doing very difficult manual labor and clearly not receiving the proper nutrition to fuel it. When you go through a time like this, you tend to develop a very thrifty lifestyle even when you're out of it. I think of Warren Buffet who, although he could live in utter opulence, lives a very meager life. Still drives a piece of shit and lives in a very modest home. He lived through the Depression and post-war era during a time when Americans had real problems -- not this sorry, whiny bullshit that people complain about today. All things considered, we have it pretty fucking good and we forget that and tend to take it for granted.
You're right to say that just having a job doesn't tell the full picture. If you're working at Walmart you aren't making very much money -- certainly not enough to survive on single-handedly. If you do, your quality of life is basically the same as if you were completely homeless. While Walmart is finally dipping because of the advent of Amazon, Wayfair, and other online retail markets, they are still a behemoth.
We see the Walton Family each controlling billions and billions of dollars while their workers slave for crumbs. I see the inequity of it all. Its impossible not to empathize or sympathize. But its all circular, really. If you pay the workers more, the "low, low prices" are then returned in increasing prices so that other struggling families are now scrunched trying to pay for basic food items. Walmart loses hundreds of millions annually to shoplifting... those losses are then placed back into the price for some poor mother who would never stoop to thievery.
So lets say that government steps in and forces Walmart and other big box competitors to pay a "living wage." First of all, what the fuck is a living wage? My living wage differs from yours. Who's to say Walmart doesn't say, fuck it, we've made billions... We're out! And overnight they liquidate their assets and shut their doors. Now millions of people are out of work and they went from a shit wage to no wage.
This is what I know immutably... that life is tough, even in the modern age. There's no guarantees. You've got to hustle to survive. There's no difference whether you are foraging for food in a rainforest or trying to navigate in a city of millions where your dollar is increasingly devalued by the day.
There's no great answers to any of these mysteries there's only decent answers and half the time they inadvertently create some other problem in its place... Economics is tough and complicated. I don't know what the answer it and I don't know that anyone does.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
quote:Impeached president Donald Trump has replaced the former acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire with another acting truly atrocious selection who will also only be in the job as an acting DNI. That's because he is so bad and so unqualified for the job that he couldn't be confirmed even by Mitch McConnell's Republicans. That and Trump just likes to have unqualified temps who are loyal only to him running things.
A Washington Post analysis highlights the churn in Trump's administration, and the fact that there hasn't been a permanent DNI in more than six months. According to the Post, "Trump has kept acting officials in charge of top agencies and departments so much that they've accounted for 1 out of every 9 days in those positions." That means that in the 22 cabinet-level jobs there have been so many acting officials that they've served a combined 2,736 days, which amounts to seven years. That means that in three years' time, Trump "has had acting officials serve more than three times as much as did [President] Obama" did in eight years.
That's without counting the Obama officials that held the jobs on a temporary basis at the beginning of Trump's term for the sake of continuity. There have been three acting directors of Homeland Security, for a combined 440 days. Trump hasn't designated a permanent nominee. At the Small Business Administration, there's been an acting director for 277 days. At the Environmental Protection Agency, 234 days. At the Department of Defense, there has been an acting director for 203 days. The DNI has been acting now for 188 days, and will continue in that capacity under the odious Richard Grenell for the foreseeable future.
In previous administrations, acting directors have just been in place while a confirmation process for a permanent administrator was completed, and people generally left office because of personal and professional reasons. Not because a would-be dictator declared "off with their heads." Trump has said "I like acting because I can move so quickly,. [] It gives me more flexibility." More like it keeps things chaotic, and it keeps the people working for him freaked out and, in his warped mind, loyal.
Heard today about someone I know slightly, blue collar worker who invests his 401K, says under Obama it made him about $3000 a year or $24,000 over the eight years Obama was in office, but that under Trump in the first three years he's made $300,000, $130,000 last year alone. He credits Trump's economy.
Funny how hardly anyone ever heard about the rallies though, that's what I was talking about.
This is untrue. The only way to avoid knowing about the rallies is to avoid the news altogether.
Theodoric didn't know there was a rally in Phoenix.
You posted a bare YouTube video, no text whatsoever. Theodoric was asking which rally your video was from. The video is 6 hours 28 minutes 35 seconds long. No one's going to watch it. If you have portions you think people should watch then post the timestamps of those portions. You can also queue a YouTube video up to a specific point in time, like this for time 4:34:46:
[youtube=h4Hbj7pP3zo,t=4h34m46s]
I never hear about them either. I just happened this time to want more information and looked it up. Even the fact that Trump has rallies very frequently isn't heard. If you don't read the newspapers and rely only on the headlines that hit you in the face as you are perusing the internet the rallies aren't mentioned, or if they very rarely are it's to put the information in some kind of negative context.
I don't read the news with a microscope and I see reports of Trump rallies all the time. As a personal service to you I will post links here every time I come across a report of a Trump rally.
Which is exemplified by your list. It contains the usual denigrating headlines from the Leftist media, while the Right Side media give information about where to see the rally or something neutral like that.
You not only don't know what the mainstream media is reporting, you don't even know what the primary propaganda arm of the Trump administration is reporting.
Watch their choice of wording. Eager to mock. Trolling.
The Fox News article includes the following:
quote:President Trump, at a rally in Phoenix on Wednesday night, took shots at fellow billionaire Michael Bloomberg at the same time the former New York City mayor was in Las Vegas, taking fire from fellow Democrats during his first presidential debate. ... Then Trump took a shot at MSNBC, which televised the debate, calling the left-leaning network "MSDNC." ... Then he took a shot at former President Barack Obama, who had once claimed Trump would need a "magic wand" to make manufacturing jobs return to America.
Is Fox News's "slams" or "took a shot" somehow better than "mock" or "trolling"? Any of those terms seem appropriate, and here Fox News says Trump has been taking jabs at Michael Bloomberg:
quote:"Now they have a new member of the crew, Mini Mike," said Trump. "'No Boxes,' we call him 'No Boxes.'" The reference was to jabs Trump has been taking at Bloomberg regarding his height, including the president's previous claim that Bloomberg would need to stand on a box at the debate.
Pick your favorite term. "Slam", "took a shot," "jab", "mock", "troll", they're all accurate.
Trolling. "Criticizes" is a gratuitous word, picked out of millions.
Trump was mocking, trolling and criticizing his Democrat rivals. Here are some quotes from his Phoenix speech, first about Elizabeth Warren:
quote:"You know, I came up with the name Pocahontas too early. But fortunately, she self-destructed, anyway. Did you ever see a phony like that? She's a phony. She lost because she couldn't keep it straight on her own heritage."
Bernie Sanders:
quote:"They just came out with a poll a little while ago. Mini Mike was at 15 and Crazy Bernie was at 31. ... "And then he [Mark Kelly] said last week that he would support Bernie Sanders if he's the nominee and his socialist agenda. ... "The country's had the best year it's ever had. 'Oh, let's get a new President. Let's put in Crazy Bernie. Let's go, Crazy Bernie.' ... "Washington Democrats had never been more extreme, taking cues from Crazy Bernie Sanders. How's he doing tonight? 132 Congressional Democrats have signed up for Bernie's health care takeover of the world."
Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi:
quote:"The radical liberal Democrats from California and Massachusetts, they're pouring money into Kelly's campaign because they know that he's a rubber stamp for Cryin' Chuck Schumer, Cryin' Chuck, and Nervous Nancy Wacko Pelosi. And we're going to have a new Speaker."
Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg:
quote:"Sleepy Joe Biden, the other day, had 68 people. And now they have a new member of the crew, Mini Mike, Mini Mike."
Looks like mocking, trolling and criticizing were pretty much what Trump did.
quote:Trump claimed he had created the strongest economy ever even though former President Barack Obama oversaw the creation of 1.5 million more jobs in his last three years as president than Trump has in his first three. ... He claimed to have cut taxes by a record amount even though former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both signed larger tax cut bills.
On health care, Trump said, We’re protecting people with preexisting conditions and we always will ignoring the fact that his administration is backing a lawsuit that would eliminate that protection and that he previously pushed a bill to repeal it.
He claimed to have passed the Veterans Choice Act although Obama signed that legislation into law years before Trump took office.
He even claimed to have 25,000 attendees at his rally though the arena in which it was held, the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, only holds 15,000.
And what page were these accounts found on? If they think the negative headline will influence people they'll put it on the front page, but if they're worried that the truth about the rallies as happy celebrations of America, freedom, and all kinds of good things might have too much influence they'll keep it off the front page.
The top level page of the on-line version of a newspaper isn't really a front page these days. It's more a selection of what they believe most interesting on a variety of topics, from world, national and local news to opinion to cooking to travel to advice to puzzles and so on.
Trump held 10 rallies in 2017, 40 in 2018, 21 in 2019, and 10 so far this year. Events that happen this often aren't worthy of a news site's top level page, and he says pretty much the same things at every rally. When he says something particularly newsworthy at a rally then it will likely be on the top level page.
I put up the video for those who've never seen one just to see how orderly and happy and intelligent the people there are cuz otherwise we get mostly propaganda.
I think you can judge not the intelligence of people but how easy it is for people to be taken in by someone like Trump.
As for Vox I heard a lot of "USA" chanting by the way, didn't hear the "lock her up" chant but that's the one Vox chose to highlight cuz they think it makes him look bad. They might be surprised at how many think locking her up would be justice.
There's nothing particularly newsworthy about a crowd at a political rally in the USA chanting "USA". But a crowd mindlessly chanting "Lock her up" about a political opponent from four years ago who has done nothing wrong but oppose Trump is very newsworthy. Using a position of political power to go after political opponents is very newsworthy.
Well of COURSE anything that seems to make Trump look bad is "newsworthy." You'll never see how it's all fake news, crap news, propaganda instead of news..
quote:Case in point, O’Brien’s appearance on ABC with George Stephanopoulos where he spoke about concerns about the Russian meddling and attempted to blow them off as inconsequential.
O’Brien dismissed reports of the intelligence briefing on the Hill as coming from ‘second-hand sources’. He said he has seen no back-up for the assertions that the Russians were intervening yet again, the columnist wrote. He completely sidestepped the fact that this week FBI Director Christopher Wray stated that such interventions were underway. He completely ignored the imperative that because the Russians interfered last time, preparing for another round of attacks and disinformation campaigns would be the minimum basic step any senior U.S. national security official should be undertaking. He pretended as though the intelligence community had not unanimously concluded the Russians intervened on Trump’s behalf in 2016, and that in last year’s threat assessment their leaders had not said they expected the same or worse in 2020.
O’Brien, like all Trump officials, was addressing an audience of one. Any sense of responsibility to protect U.S. national security was absent, he charged. Any grasp of facts that are clear to even the casual observer of recent events was missing. O’Brien, like all other Trump officials who survive, has made clear that he sees his job as to serve as a kind of human cocktail of drugs for the erratic presidentpart palliative, part sedative. His job is to keep the boss calm and happy, feeling good about himself and feeling good about O’Brien.
Donald Trump's biggest rally might not be in a red state, or even in the United States. It's likely to be inside a cricket stadium in Gujarat state, in western India, packed as promised by the President's loyal counterpart.
There's nothing particularly newsworthy about a crowd at a political rally in the USA chanting "USA". But a crowd mindlessly chanting "Lock her up" about a political opponent from four years ago who has done nothing wrong but oppose Trump is very newsworthy. Using a position of political power to go after political opponents is very newsworthy.
Well of COURSE anything that seems to make Trump look bad is "newsworthy." You'll never see how it's all fake news, crap news, propaganda instead of news.
It was Trump at his own rally making himself look bad, nothing fake about it, you posted the YouTube video yourself. Here's your video again, but set at the moment where Trump calls her "Crooked Hillary" and the crowd begins chanting "Lock her up" right on cue:
And what did Trump do when the crowd began chanting? He gave them the thumbs up. It's right there at 4:41:01. It is newsworthy when the supposed leader of the free world encourages calls to lock up his political rivals.
Also, Trump's claim about Clinton spending at least three times as much money on the 2016 campaign is untrue. Clinton spent around $1400 million, Trump around $960 million about 1.5 times more. Trump exaggerated by at least a factor of two.
Trump continues on to utter the most angry, debased and delusional political tirade I've ever heard:
Crooked Hillary spent at least three times more than we did and lost. [Audience boos and begins chanting "Lock her up"]
Crooked as hell. She's crooked as hell. We have a double-sided justice. It's very unfair, what's going on, very unfair. But let's see how it all works out, folks. Let's see how it all works out. I hope you're going to be happy. I hope you're going to be happy because there are a lot of dishonest slimeballs out there, dishonest scum, dirty cops, a lot of dirty cops.
And by the way, the FBI, those guys in that are incredible, but the ones on top, they were absolute scum. Now what they were trying to do, if that happened to Obama or a Democrat or especially a liberal Democrat, they'd be in jail for 50 years, and it would have taken place two years ago already. They spied on our campaign, remember that.
And after they spied, we won, and then after we won, they tried to get us out of office. It's never happened before in the history of our country, and we can't let that happen. We can never ever excuse it. We can never let them get away with that. Never let them get away with it.
*I* have no problem with calling her "Crooked Hillary" or anything he said about her or the FBI who colluded against him, or the chant "Lock her up," the point was only that the media chose that one because they hope it will make him look bad. Apparently it was the worst one they could find. To the liberals it probably does make hnim look bad when they should get the message that he HAS been treated to a smear campaign for the last three years when it's his opponents who are the criminals..
But my point was that this isn't journalism, this isn't news, this is the usual attempt to create a negative impression of Trump. Again, it's not negative to *me* because I know she SHOULD be locked up, she is the one who used a Russian propaganda piece through a British agent to try to bring down Trump, and she's the one who really did commit obstruction of justice by erasing the evidence of her classified emails after they were subpoenaed. There are worse examples of yellow journalism for political purposes these days but there is simply no more attempt at objectivity in journalism, the whole thing is trying to create negative feelings in the audience agaomst Trump. "A Happy Crowd of Trump Supporters who Love America Thronged the Phoenix Arena" or something like that would be more objective.
*I* have no problem with calling her "Crooked Hillary" or anything he said about her...
Why are you introducing your character into the discussion? I can only respond that you must feel this way because of the type of person you are, and because you're uninterested in basing your opinions upon facts.
...or the FBI who colluded against him,...
It seems that if Trump says anything often enough that you'll believe it. You're being led around by the nose.
...or the chant "Lock her up,"...
For what?
...the point was only that the media chose that one because they hope it will make him look bad.
Trump doesn't need any help looking bad. His entire Phoenix speech made him look bad, especially that diatribe I quoted.
Apparently it was the worst one they could find.
Uh, no. Again, they were commenting on the irony. As I just finished saying, Trump said much worse things in the diatribe that followed.
To the liberals it probably does make him look bad when they should get the message that he HAS been treated to a smear campaign for the last three years when it's his opponents who are the criminals.
I know you and Trump would like to criminalize political opponents, but that's not the way it works in this country. What you're all doing is against American ideals of fairness and justice.
But my point was that this isn't journalism, this isn't news, this is the usual attempt to create a negative impression of Trump.
The media doesn't create the negative impressions - Trump does it all by himself. Nobody makes him say the things he says, he does it all by himself. Any advisor who attempts to rein him in is eventually fired.
At this point your message really goes off the deep end with respect to getting anything factually correct:
Again, it's not negative to *me* because I know she SHOULD be locked up, she is the one who used a Russian propaganda piece through a British agent to try to bring down Trump,...
The Clinton campaign never used the Steele dossier, some of which has been verified, some not. See Steele dossier - Wikipedia.
...and she's the one who really did commit obstruction of justice by erasing the evidence of her classified emails...
You keep making the same misstatements of fact over and over again, and this one is just simple common sense. How could anyone ever know whether deleted and unrecovered emails were classified or not? Why do you keep repeating this mistake?
One little known fact is that after 30,000 emails turned up missing that the FBI was able to recover 17,000 of them, probably many from the company doing the backups, Datto, Inc. The FBI report does not identify whether any emails that were classified (about a hundred originally and another couple thousand that were retroactively classified by the State Department) were from those recovered later.
One thing for sure is that much of the email on Hillary's server must have dated back to way before her time as Secretary of State because they'd had that email server for a long time. I assume that like anyone they updated the computer every few years and moved everything to the new machine. That's what I do, anyway. I've had about five machines since I started using my current email account in 2002, and I still have all the email dating back to then, maybe around 10,000 messages, not sure. Everytime I got a new machine I moved everything over, including email.
...after they were subpoenaed.
Hillary's emails were never subpoenaed. Can you never get anything right? She turned the server over to the Justice Department. Why would they subpoena what they already had? What actually happened is that a preservation request was issued before the emails were deleted by Hillary's tech guy.
There are worse examples of yellow journalism for political purposes these days but there is simply no more attempt at objectivity in journalism, the whole thing is trying to create negative feelings in the audience against Trump. "A Happy Crowd of Trump Supporters who Love America Thronged the Phoenix Arena" or something like that would be more objective.
And this happy throng expressed their love for America by responding to all the lies and character assassinations in Trump's litany of grievances with cheers. I don't believe that's who America is.
I too have heard lots of news accounts of his visit to India. That's not the same thing as his rallies here, but yes there's a way hearing so much about that is unexpected too. Oh I'm not going to "concede" about the fake news, I'm very aware of it all the time as are most of us on the right. It's quite obvious to us, odd that it's so overlooked by the other side.
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