anachronist
@anachronist@midwest.social
- Comment on Raise Wages? No Need — McDonald’s Is Hiring Inmates Instead 1 month ago:
Yeah the 13th amendment has a carve-out for prisoners
- Comment on More than 28% of Americans are now searching for a new job — the highest rate in a decade 2 months ago:
US Chamber of Commerce doesn’t exactly seem like the most impartial source…
- Comment on A millennial couple who make $250,000 say they can't find a home in their budget: 'We refuse to become house-poor' 2 months ago:
doctor who owns a nice house 2 cars and maybe a rental property has more interests in common with an oil baron
Yes he does and what’s more, he knows it! He’s not loyal to the baron because he’s an idiot. He’s doing so because he knows how his bread is buttered.
Yelling at him that he has “nothing to lose but his chains” won’t work because he has a lot to lose besides his chains. In fact he probably suspects (rightly) that his rental property, his medical practice and his fancy car will all be torched in the revolution long before anything happens to the baron.
- Comment on A millennial couple who make $250,000 say they can't find a home in their budget: 'We refuse to become house-poor' 2 months ago:
The middle class is real and was originally identified by Engels.
The important distinction for Engels is that the middle class’s interest are aligned with the upper class. Importantly: they don’t think their interest s are aligned. Their interests really are aligned with the upper class. If you’re a solicitor or, say, hat-maker to the king in 18th century England, you owe your social position to upper class largess.
In the 20th century the idea developed that with organizing, the middle class lifestyle is attainable for everyone. This began the era of the “broad middle class” or what Piketty called the “patrimonial middle class.” Engel’s original middle class in this society was the PMC.
In the late 20th and early 21st century the upper class started a class war, first targeting organized labor. But with that deed done they are now focusing on the ranks of the PMC, which they see as bloated, and they’re going through and evicting as many people as they can from it.
- Comment on Consumer, we have detected that you are above the poverty line. The 99¢ price printed on this Arizona tea can only applies to those below the poverty line. Your total comes to $3.67. 2 months ago:
Saw an interview with a guy (on Bloomberg actually) who explained that “ability to pay” and “willingness to pay” are two different things and that the pricing system doesn’t target people who have a lot of money (“ability to pay”) but rather people who have fewer options.
Like, if the app knows that you don’t have a car and this is the only grocery store you can walk to, you will pay a higher price.
- Comment on Consumer, we have detected that you are above the poverty line. The 99¢ price printed on this Arizona tea can only applies to those below the poverty line. Your total comes to $3.67. 2 months ago:
I shop at Jewel (which is currently under threat of being taken over by Kroger) and they’re now doing this thing where there will be, for instance, peaches, under a huge sign showing an incredible deal. Then you look at it and realize that the price isn’t discounted at all unless you install a “Jewel App” and use it to “claim” a “digital coupon.”
- Comment on A millennial couple who make $250,000 say they can't find a home in their budget: 'We refuse to become house-poor' 2 months ago:
The middle class historically was the loyal servants of the upper class, whose expertise was needed to maintain the system. While they worked for wages they were allowed income sufficient to accumulate surpluses, property, and a facsimile of financial security.
In the 20th century it seemed possible for labor organizing to grant the privileges of the middle class to everyone in society. People who were definitely working-class were able to live like the middle class.
In the 21st century the rich seem to be starting to operate on the idea that, not only can labor be broken and the working class cast back down into hand-to-mouth poverty, but that vast numbers of people in the professions have been misclassified as essential loyal servants and they, too, can be cast down into poverty. I think the end state is that the middle class is squeezed down to the size it was during the gilded age and return to being an afterthought rather than the central focus of our politics.
- Comment on These 100-year-olds say working beyond retirement age is what keeps them going: 'I'll work for as long as I can' 3 months ago:
This is neoliberal lies.
- Live expectancy for people nearing retirement age has not increased much since the 1930s. The main reason life expectancy has gone up is due to childhood mortality going down.
- Life expectancy for blue collar workers has gone up even less, in recent years it is declining. To the extent that people live longer in retirement it’s almost all white collar and wealthier people. Most people I know who work with their bodies are completely exhausted by the time they get to 62.
- Social security is completely financially sound. It is the most sound retirement plan there is because it is not tied to the wall street casino.
- Any projected shortfalls can be eliminated by raising the FICA contribution limit and taxing the wealthy a little more.
- Comment on Be still my beating tastebuds 3 months ago:
Lets play spot the hidden corn syrup.
Modified Maize Starch
There it is!
- Comment on Be still my beating tastebuds 3 months ago:
Not a myth. CAN-OLA came from a lab in canada.The rapeseed article on wiki has a section about it.