Trump Wants to Work on Deporting US Citizens

[Aoi]

Reason why Gen Z can't work for shit usually boils down to millennials being cheapskates because of their impoverished 2000-2010 lives and they love pushing it on the lower class spectrum because they need to work like it's the recession and the pay matches it.


Even though some of the issues Gen Z has is self-induced due to a lack of self-control and responsibility (because there is no recession making them realize everything is not a given) and have grown addicted to technology (validation, recognition, dopamine hits, friends) and need everything now now now. Same thing with generations past that but with school, etc. While it is the fault of past generations for allowing social media and technology to take hold of both our lives and our complete development growing up, it's also at the fault of the person suffering under this to not pick themselves up by their bootstraps and anylze themselves.

"Why am I unhappy? Why am I stressed? Why are my friends superficial? Maybe it's because I have self-induced adhd because mommy and daddy didn't love me and gave me everything and or did anything to shut me up and keep me happy and filled, maybe it's because I browse social media, internet, and get stressed out constantly over every detail of what's going on in the world, while also subjecting myself into believing the mainstream on what's cool, how people should be, are, etc. Maybe it's because all my friends are posers who like me, have been brainwashed by the mainstream social machine.


It's everyone's fault and it'll take some heavy action to fix this at anytime, because the world is currently too fucked societally for anyone to want to go off their phones.

If it isn't politicians and police officers who's lack of sanity rivals the worst-off meth head, it's the absolutely warped parenting and understanding of eachother that makes everyone extremely superficial and extremely narcissistic.

Right now affording food is harder than before because of these tantrum tariffs. Do we need them? No. Is it induced because people are stupid, and the ones in high places are absolutely ripe for assassination?

Yes, yes they are.

 

[Houseman]

Don't worry. I won't make you watch this video since I know I made you watch two already. Basically, the TL;DW is that the lower and middle class of today's generation are working so many hours but are still getting fucked by super high medical costs, super high insurance rates, super high education costs (which, by the way, cannot be removed with bankruptcy thanks to semi-recent laws), super high food prices, ridiculously high housing prices, high credit card interest rates, and to top it all off, wages have, comparatively speaking, barely risen. ALL this money and work is now getting demanded from the lower and middle class... So where is all that demanded money and productivity going then, Houseman? As we've established, it's clearly not going to the lower and middle class, or only a trickle of it is. And with those two classes gone, there's only one answer left...

The lower and middle class are not dying of hunger because they cannot afford food or suffering homelessness because they cannot afford housing. People who are in this state likely have other problems that the economy did not cause. Until we see mass malnutrition and mass homelessness, there is no problem, since evidently, people are able to work for and afford the basic necessities of life, and that's the purpose of the system.

You're right. I don't see a problem, because there is no problem.

Money isn't "going" anywhere. It's not "distributed". It's not being split up between the "upper" and "lower" classes. You're still stuck on this fallacy that the economy is a zero-sum game. It's not.

The upper class.

By the way, no, I'm not a communist. Never have been. My position is simple. There needs to be more regulation and taxation of these corporations and upper class earners (and this is NOT a new thing whatsoever as they were taxed heavily even in America's golden years as I just showed in an earlier video), and there needs to be more of a welfare net to ease the financial pressure off the lower and middle class.

I already covered this in post #12. The "upper class" hid their money from the government in tax shelters, because rates were so high. When the tax rates fell, they felt more comfortable using their money, and so even though rates were lowered, revenue increased.

Higher tax rates does not automatically equal higher tax revenue.

You may not be a communist, but you are infected with Marxist ideas, such as the idea to "distribute" wealth.

I've also read Chapter 10 as you requested of Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics and watched the short clip of him you linked. My take on it all is that Thomas seems to be stuck in the 2000s or even earlier, and the studies he cites are equally outdated. It's 2025 now.

This is some kind of fallacy that presumes that modern man living in the year 2025 is automatically more intelligent and more enlightened than the cavemen from the year 2000, or god forbid, the late 1900s. What a ridiculous concept.

He doesn't cite "studies", he cites history. He writes about data that can be plainly seen from the economic records of the time. All of what you're complaining about and all your problems and solutions have answers in the data from decades ago. Raise taxes? We've tried that, we can see what happens. Lower taxes? We have the data. More welfare? Less welfare? The data has the answers.

Your solutions aren't based on data, your solutions are based on what sounds good. As seen here, you actively reject the data as "too old" when it tells you something that you don't want to hear.

but one of the whole points I'm trying to make here is that it's becoming so incredibly difficult nowadays to move up in class due to all this financial pressure from all these different factors to just break even at the lower and middle classes, which is where most people are starting.

And what makes you think that? Because that's what your Marxist propaganda youtube videos tell you?
Even by just searching the term "class mobility", you're using Marxist language and therefore will received biased results due to that frame of reference.

You can look up graphs about income by age, and that will get you better data. It is obvious that an 18-year-old will be earning less than a 50-year old at the height of their career. When you're comparing the "lower class" to the "upper class", you're forgetting that the "lower class" is mostly kids, or people just getting started in their careers, and the "upper class" are people who're on the brink of retirement.

The chapter that you've claimed to have read should have taught you this already.

What are you going to say then when housing prices become untenable, even more jobs get outsourced to AI and H1B employees who work for pennies, and food prices become so high that even any kind of meat is seen as a luxury? Are you still going to demand that Americans just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? That they're still too lazy and ignorant? When will it be enough for you to say that the bargaining power of workers for workers has crashed to new lows, and the current state of affairs is now unacceptable, and that we need real change here?

The only solution to mankind's problems is God's Kingdom. The various systems that humans have created to manage themselves have always been imperfect, and some of them are more imperfect than others. Capitalism is the worst system of economics, apart from all the others.

It's just that your solutions are worse, are based on dreams and fallacies, and are easily disproven by historical data. Best case scenario, it will just forestall these problems. Worst case scenario, it will hasten them.

 

[Arnox]

You're right. I don't see a problem, because there is no problem.

I just gave like three different videos, ALL with their own many and varied statistics to back their claim up (and I could even give much anecdotal evidence regarding this too, but I'll be fair and not include it) that there are huge economic problems in the US for the lower and middle class of today due to a wide variety of impacting factors, and you are still denying this current state of affairs because you read a book on basic economics once. I expected better of you, Houseman. But not because you're not agreeing with me, but because your argument seems to hinge on completely ignoring all the statistical and logical evidence I am giving you. Sanctuarians do not dismiss a plethora of evidence out of bias or our own inexperienced views.

I think what's going on here is that you are afraid of any amount of extra government control or even the appearance of communism, so you are vehemently denying any appearance of a problem. Perhaps you think this is all "an invasion of the leftists" to control the narrative, but you and I both know that this is extremist thinking. "If it's from the right/left, it can NEVER be correct!" What you should actually be focusing on is what we've always been focusing on here. What the TRUTH is. Nothing more and nothing less. And the truth can come from either the left or the right. It is not a respecter of persons. It just is.

And right now, the evidence HEAVILY suggests that there is a huge fucking problem with the United States, economically speaking. Or at least, a problem for the lower and middle class. And no, not everyone is dying in the streets, Houseman, but are you really asking for tons of people to start suffering and dying before you will finally take notice?

Money isn't "going" anywhere.

Money is economic power, and economic power "flows" constantly like a river from a source to a receiver via transactions. When I buy goods and/or services, I exchange my money or economic power in exchange for goods or services. I gain the goods or services, yes, but that itself is not money, and more or less money may be demanded to obtain such goods and services. So don't you think that it's possible that TOO much money may be demanded for essential (for living) goods and services due to greed?

What if, just for example, one entity or a group had enough control over one or some essential goods and services and used that power to demand money FAR in excess of what is needed, but the rest of the people are forced to pay such prices because that entity is the one who supplies it all or even just most of it? Do you even comprehend the concept of greed? Do you think corporate executives are completely immune to collusion, greed, power grabs, and extortion? Do I have to explain the concept of corporate and government corruption to you?

Or hey. Maybe prices for essential goods and services slowly but steadily rise just due to raw economic momentum. Because those goods and services are essential, the industry for those essential goods and services as a whole raise prices slowly just to see how each seller in that industry can go. Or maybe prices rise to an extreme degree due to terrible laws impacting supply.

I'm sorry... I'm trying not to sound condescending. I'm just... Truly baffled here. If you disagreed as to how to best solve the problems before us here, I would totally understand, but to go way beyond that and deny that there's even a problem at all... I'm at a loss for words.

The "upper class" hid their money from the government in tax shelters

That's getting into talk about solutions. And we can talk about that, but right now, I just want to clarify at very least that there IS a problem that NEEDS to be solved before it gets worse.

This is some kind of fallacy that presumes that modern man living in the year 2025 is automatically more intelligent and more enlightened than the cavemen from the year 2000,

It has nothing to do with that at all. I'm stating that the economic and political considerations and factors of 2025 as compared to 2005 are very different. Different enough to change how one looks at the current problems of today. In 2005, things were far better (although there were starting to be cracks showing in the entire system if one looked) for the lower and middle class than now. Just one example is the internet. At the time, it was some great positive thing, but little did we realize at the time just how much it would be taken over by large corporations and abused.

Because that's what your Marxist propaganda youtube videos tell you?

Because they are using statistics and logical arguments, Houseman. And again, it also personally checks out for me considering what I've seen in my immediate economic surroundings.

Even by just searching the term "class mobility"

What? That's what you were talking about, not me. The ability and/or likelihood for people to move up or down from class to class. That's all class mobility means. You were talking about how lower and middle class distinctions aren't valid because lots of people are constantly moving up the income ladder as they grow older and get an opportunity to be in that upper class as well. But that upward motion requires financial leeway and economic opportunities to do so (such as the opportunity of reliable and consistent promotions with higher wages), and right now, both of those things are getting far more scarce. Again, something that the videos I posted already covered.

The only solution to mankind's problems is God's Kingdom.

That is a religious topic and wholly irrelevant right now. I am being professional and not putting my own pagan views into this discussion, so you should do the same. (Although, you are, of course, still certainly free to do so. I wouldn't recommend it.)

Best case scenario, it will just forestall these problems.

Laws can only ever forestall corruption. It can never completely halt it. Sooner or later, no matter what government or economic system we use, the power will eventually come into the hands of those not worthy to have it. Good laws hold that off as long as possible.

 

[Houseman]

I just gave like three different videos, ALL with their own many and varied statistics to back their claim up

The statistics aren't the problem. The problem is the story that propagandists are telling with these statistics, and the fallacies they use while doing so, such as money/wealth/the economy being a zero-sum game. They show you a graph or some number and tell a story designed to outrage you. The graphs and the numbers themselves do not contain anything worthy of outrage, it is entirely the storyteller causing you to feel emotions.

you are still denying this current state of affairs

I am simply unconvinced that these claims (that there's some huge problem) are true, or in the case that these claims are true, that there is any problem worth worrying about.
Is it a huge problem that LeBron James makes over 1,600 times more than the highest-paid $15-hr ball boy? I don't think so. Do you? If so, why?

but because your argument seems to hinge on completely ignoring all the statistical and logical evidence I am giving you.

I have given thorough replies to every statistic and every piece of evidence you have given me. If you think I've missed something, please feel free to post it again. I didn't spend all that time watching and replying to your videos for nothing.

And right now, the evidence HEAVILY suggests that there is a huge fucking problem with the United States, economically speaking. Or at least, a problem for the lower and middle class. And no, not everyone is dying in the streets, Houseman, but are you really asking for tons of people to start suffering and dying before you will finally take notice?

Where is your line for what constitutes a "problem"? Let's say that my line is people dying in the streets. Where's yours? What negative consequences are people actually suffering, that you can point to and say "look, a problem exists?"

Is "inequality" itself, the problem? That some people have a lot more than others, that this itself is a fundamental problem that needs to be solved? Because a CEO has 5 yachts, while someone is homeless, that itself is the problem?

I don't care if a CEO makes 500x more than the janitor that cleans his office. That in itself is not a problem. As long as the janitor can pay his bills, why should we be alarmed? Where do you see the problem?

Money is economic power, and economic power "flows" constantly like a river from a source to a receiver via transactions. When I buy goods and/or services, I exchange my money or economic power in exchange for goods or services. I gain the goods or services, yes, but that itself is not money, and more or less money may be demanded to obtain such goods and services. So don't you think that it's possible that TOO much money may be demanded for essential (for living) goods and services due to greed?

When you buy a good or service, you exchange something you value less (the money) to receive something you value more (the good or service). When you work, you are exchanging something you value less (your time), to receive something you value more (money).

There is no such thing as "economic power". You are merely making a deal and exchanging things that you both want. When you buy something, you are not giving the other person power, nor do you gain power when you receive something, or, to put it another way, "power" does not exist in the money, "power" exists in everything. "Power" exists in your human capital, in the value of YOUR time, it exists in food, it exists in anything that is "valuable" to someone else.

Say that you exchange a large sum of money to buy a house, or a car. Have you lost "power"? No, that "power" still exists in the value of the house or the car, and in some cases, it can even increase in value, or "power", as someone might be willing to pay more for that house or car, and buy it from you. Money is not the only thing that has value, "things" have value too.

In the case of consumables, such as food, it is what you need to function, so it is like gas in a car, or electricity for a computer. It is a necessary "operating cost" to maintain the thing. It is not wasted, it is upkeep and maintenance so that the valuable thing (yourself, your car, etc.) can continue to be valuable.

On the subject of greed, it is not worth much consideration. Things are "worth" what people are willing to pay for them. There is no "objective true value" for anything. In a free economy, this is a self-correcting problem, since alternatives will quickly rush to present alternatives and compete for the lowest price, and the "greedy" and "overpriced" competitors will either adapt or go out of business. Because of this pressure, prices are never arbitrary. This only really starts to become a problem if monopolies or cartels make competition impossible.

What if, just for example, one entity or a group had enough control over one or some essential goods and services and used that power to demand money FAR in excess of what is needed, but the rest of the people are forced to pay such prices because that entity is the one who supplies it all or even just most of it? Do you even comprehend the concept of greed? Do you think corporate executives are completely immune to collusion, greed, power grabs, and extortion? Do I have to explain the concept of corporate and government corruption to you?

Yes, as mentioned above, this is an example of a monopoly or a cartel, and this is where government intervention is helpful and necessary, assuming they are competent in recognizing when monopoly conditions truly exist. Basic Economics has a chapter on this.

Or hey. Maybe prices for essential goods and services slowly but steadily rise just due to raw economic momentum. Because those goods and services are essential, the industry for those essential goods and services as a whole raise prices slowly just to see how each seller in that industry can go. Or maybe prices rise to an extreme degree due to terrible laws impacting supply.

That's not what has happened. Prices for many essential goods and services have in many cases fallen over time, as technological advances and economies have scale has made making these available easier over time. Look at the common crops (after adjusting for inflation), wheat, soybeans, corn, the prices have all fallen sharply since the early 1900s, in part due to government subsidies. Gasoline and milk have slightly fallen too. TVs are now WAY cheaper than we were kids, we both know that.

No, the producers of essential goods and services are not conspiring together to gradually raise prices on everything to "see how high they can go", the economy does not work that way. Competition drives prices down, not up. Price fixing can certainly happen, but we have no evidence of this happening here.

That's getting into talk about solutions. And we can talk about that, but right now, I just want to clarify at very least that there IS a problem that NEEDS to be solved before it gets worse.

Well you've been failing hard on that front.

I'm stating that the economic and political considerations and factors of 2025 as compared to 2005 are very different.

They're really not. These 'problems' we're facing only look new if you're ignorant of history. The problems have been seen before, and solutions have been tried, which is why we have books about them. Whether it's online shopping or the invention of the automobile, the fundamentals of the economy remain the same.

Because they are using statistics and logical arguments, Houseman.

They're lying with statistics and using fallacious arguments, and I have pointed out exactly how they're manipulating you, beginning with the fact that the economy is not a zero-sum game. Let's discuss this point specifically. Do you think that the economy is zero-sum? Why or why not?

What? That's what you were talking about, not me. The ability and/or likelihood for people to move up or down from class to class. That's all class mobility means. You were talking about how lower and middle class distinctions aren't valid because lots of people are constantly moving up the income ladder as they grow older and get an opportunity to be in that upper class as well. But that upward motion requires financial leeway and economic opportunities to do so (such as the opportunity of reliable and consistent promotions with higher wages), and right now, both of those things are getting far more scarce. Again, something that the videos I posted already covered.

I'm just explaining how you won't get good search results if you search "class mobility".

"Upward motion" does not require "financial leeway". You can move "upward" by doing a good job and getting promoted at your job, or by getting hired elsewhere, or by getting married, or by inheriting wealth from a relative that passed away. None of these things require "financial leeway". You are probably thinking of someone gathering enough money to quit their dead-end job and start their own business. That is only one option out of many.

"These are getting far more scarce"
You have no evidence for this claim and none of your videos contained any such evidence.
If you disagree, repost the video and the timestamp that contains that evidence.

 

[Houseman]

 

[Arnox]

View attachment 645

Don't worry. On Monday, I will respond, come hell or high water. Today and tomorrow are just rather busy.

 

[Lost-Zeneration-99]

Monday Monday debate fight. Come catch the big comeback, will Arnox bring out a new point or side step the next round of debates? Or will houseman win by his opponent not showing up? Tune in Monday to find out!!

 

[Arnox]

money/wealth/the economy being a zero-sum game.

It's not a zero-sum game, but just because something is not a zero-sum game doesn't mean it's not still a game or even that the winner can't take everything, or at least, much more than the other players.

The graphs and the numbers themselves do not contain anything worthy of outrage

The graphs and numbers themselves indicate a problem of wealth distribution. And not because the wealth distribution is unequal at all, but that the current system MASSIVELY favors those with wealth to the point where some of the wealth that would normally go to the lower class is now going to those who are already rich. I definitely don't think class defines everything, Houseman, and again, I'm not a damn communist, but there does come a certain point where the opportunities of the lower class become fewer and fewer, and surviving is becoming harder and harder.

And even THEN, that doesn't necessarily mean there's an issue of wealth distribution since a regular depression would hit the rich as well as the poor, but that is not what we're seeing. Quite the opposite actually, and it's quite simple. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. A tale as old as time. And further, that trend doesn't seem likely to change without some intervention.

Is it a huge problem that LeBron James makes over 1,600 times more than the highest-paid $15-hr ball boy? I don't think so.

No, I don't think it's a problem. Per se. I do think it's a problem though when that $15/hr job is barely sufficient pay to just... Exist in the modern world. And in many cases, that $15/hr job is not even sufficient at all. (And these claims are all extensively proven in the videos I posted.) Also, this is talking about someone who doesn't have any school debt which, let's be honest, is not that many people right now since employers are constantly demanding a fucking degree for even simple and relatively unskilled jobs. (That is, when they're not just laying off US employees altogether and demanding a bunch of H1B visas so they can get almost slave labor. See: Microsoft)

Where is your line for what constitutes a "problem"? Let's say that my line is people dying in the streets. Where's yours? What negative consequences are people actually suffering, that you can point to and say "look, a problem exists?"

I have no firm line, but in my opinion, this actually all started to be a problem a long time ago when we started to see regulatory capture. At that time though, everyone ignored it because the lower and middle class weren't suffering under harsh economic conditions just yet. Even with the 2007 recession, I feel things were still at least reasonably workable. But then these fucking executives started to realize what they could actually get away with.

So they started pushing things more. Buying up most of their competitors, increasing prices to ridiculous amounts, taking control of housing and turning them into investment opportunities, making products harder to repair, shipping work and manufacturing off to third-world countries, denying warranties, not increasing wages... And then they pushed them more. And even more... Until we're in the corporate shitpile of today.

Is "inequality" itself, the problem?

No.

There is no such thing as "economic power". You are merely making a deal and exchanging things that you both want.

Ok, man. Money is a form of power. I'm gonna quote my waifu for this one.

Revy:Let me ask you something. See this? And this? What would you say these two things are?

Rock: The first one's an old skull, and that's some sort of medal.

Revy: That's where you're wrong. Both of these are just things. As soon as you strip away their meanings, then that's all they really are. Just things and nothing more. And if you're gonna give these things any kind of meaning again, they won't get any other value because of someone's precious memory. Their value will be determined by the one thing everyone agrees on. And that's money.

Money is DEFINITELY economic power. It is, in fact, the most pure form of economic power that there is today. With money, I can create housing, destroy it all, sway stock markets, buy up and own competitors, pay for product R&D, pay for luxuries, have others work for me. I can obtain mercenary work, buy drugs, and even buy politicians! :) Yes, there's QUITE a lot of things for sale, Houseman. Even some things that its original owners may not ever think of selling but would if its owner was presented with enough money. So let's not waste time talking about how "economic power doesn't exist." What a ridiculous statement.

"power" exists in everything. "Power" exists in your human capital, in the value of YOUR time, it exists in food, it exists in anything that is "valuable" to someone else.

Yes, those things also have power indeed, but ultimately, as Revy has said, just economically speaking, the value of all those things will be determined by the one thing everyone (or at least, 99% of people) agree on. And that's money.

Say that you exchange a large sum of money to buy a house, or a car. Have you lost "power"? No, that "power" still exists in the value of the house or the car, and in some cases, it can even increase in value, or "power", as someone might be willing to pay more for that house or car, and buy it from you. Money is not the only thing that has value, "things" have value too.

But that's the problem, Houseman. What if I don't have that large sum of money to buy a house? What if I don't have enough money to buy ANY house? "Well, just earn more," you might say, but oh, whoopsie! Expenses are WAY up and wages have merely stagnated. Promotions are few and far between now, assuming you don't just get laid off altogether one day.

I should say, it's not IMPOSSIBLE to acquire wealth enough to move up the class ladder nowadays of course, but it is MUCH harder as, again, opportunities for such get lesser and lesser every year it seems while expenses just continue to increase due to """inflation""" and """unprecedented times."""

In the case of consumables, such as food, it is what you need to function, so it is like gas in a car, or electricity for a computer. It is a necessary "operating cost" to maintain the thing. It is not wasted, it is upkeep and maintenance so that the valuable thing (yourself, your car, etc.) can continue to be valuable.

It's not wasted, but the money used to pay for such upkeep continues to increase and increase.

In a free economy, this is a self-correcting problem, since alternatives will quickly rush to present alternatives and compete for the lowest price, and the "greedy" and "overpriced" competitors will either adapt or go out of business.

Yes, absolutely. In a FREE economy. We are not in a free economy anymore, generally speaking. In fact, I don't even think we're in a true capitalist society anymore. Capitalism implies competition, and many industries are dominated by oligopolies and especially some of the ones most vital to the modern world such as chip companies. This creates economic bottlenecks. Trusts. (A combination of firms or corporations for the purpose of reducing competition and controlling prices throughout a business or industry.) And due to regulatory capture, nothing is done about this on the government side.

Louis Rossmann did a video semi-recently where a company in Oregon blatantly violated the state's right-to-repair laws. The case was sent to the attorney general. The attorney general put out a piss-poor statement and did fuck-all about it. Does that sound like a fair market, Houseman? I remember when companies like ASUS just started to blatantly ignore warranty laws and if it wasn't for Lina Kahn's administration at the FCC, they would have actually completely gotten away with it. (Oh, by the way, she's gone now. Trump made sure of that.)

and this is where government intervention is helpful and necessary

But, oh, whoopsie! That's not being done anymore as pointed out above.

Look at the common crops (after adjusting for inflation), wheat, soybeans, corn, the prices have all fallen sharply since the early 1900s, in part due to government subsidies.

That's the commodities market. That's not reflective of what people actually pay at the till in the end right now.

TVs are now WAY cheaper than we were kids

That's due to a variety of factors, but TVs are now also getting shittier and are also now spying on you. Yes, believe it or not, this is a thing.

These 'problems' we're facing only look new if you're ignorant of history.

Of course these problems I'm pointing out aren't "new". Doesn't mean they aren't problems though, or even aren't huge problems. They are huge problems. Like, trends-pointing-to-a-very-bloody-insurgency problems.

The problems have been seen before, and solutions have been tried, which is why we have books about them. Whether it's online shopping or the invention of the automobile, the fundamentals of the economy remain the same.

Some of these problems were fixed in the past, yes. Perhaps the most equivalent to our time is the Industrial Revolution and all the massive problems that brought. But due to regulatory capture and unchecked corporate shit, those problems are starting to pop right back up again. For full details on the current state of things, see my posted videos.

You can move "upward" by doing a good job and getting promoted at your job

Remember how the devs of Hi-Fi Rush made a really successful game despite many things going against them? And then they all got laid off for their troubles? Sorry, I know I keep pointing to Microsoft for examples but they are just... So bad. They make themselves a very nice example for describing exactly what's so terrible about the current economic climate.

or by getting hired elsewhere

Applying for a job nowadays is a HUGE pain in the ass with very low success rates even with a good resume. It massively helps if you know someone in your target industry but... Give me a break.

or by getting married

"You have lots of money! Marry me because I'm poor!"

In fact, if anything, the upper class sometimes heartily disapprove of marrying someone who is poor due to a variety of reasons, not all of them entirely unreasonable.

by inheriting wealth from a relative that passed away.

Sorry, but I don't think it's good economic policy for a nation as a whole to rely on sheer fucking luck to pass large sums of wealth down to others who don't have it.

"These are getting far more scarce"
You have no evidence for this claim and none of your videos contained any such evidence.
If you disagree, repost the video and the timestamp that contains that evidence.

22:21

 

[Houseman]

I'll just post these here as a reference:

Fallacy	Description
Zero-sum fallacy	The economy is not a zero-sum game. Just because someone has more, it does not mean that something is taken away from someone else.
Distributed wealth fallacy	Wealth is not distributed. It is not divvied up between people. Nobody decides that 90% of the GDP should "flow" to the rich, or whatever.
Bound-class fallacy	People are not bound to the classes they were born into. A graph will say that the lower 40% earned so much income, and you will be tricked into believing that this represents an individual. It does not. Individuals move up or down between "classes" or income brackets, and the graph will not reflect that.

It's not a zero-sum game, but just because something is not a zero-sum game doesn't mean it's not still a game or even that the winner can't take everything, or at least, much more than the other players.

That the "winner" can take "more" than the other players is inconsequential. Who cares if some CEO has five yachts? That doesn't take anything away from you. You don't have less just because someone else has more.

If the economy is not a zero-sum game that means that "the winner can't take everything". You don't have to worry about that, because the economy doesn't work that way.

The graphs and numbers themselves indicate a problem of wealth distribution. And not because the wealth distribution is unequal at all, but that the current system MASSIVELY favors those with wealth to the point where some of the wealth that would normally go to the lower class is now going to those who are already rich. I definitely don't think class defines everything, Houseman, and again, I'm not a damn communist, but there does come a certain point where the opportunities of the lower class become fewer and fewer, and surviving is becoming harder and harder.

And even THEN, that doesn't necessarily mean there's an issue of wealth distribution since a regular depression would hit the rich as well as the poor, but that is not what we're seeing. Quite the opposite actually, and it's quite simple. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. A tale as old as time. And further, that trend doesn't seem likely to change without some intervention.

I've said before that you have been fooled by propaganda and have fallen for fallacies.
The first fallacy was discussed above. This is the second fallacy: that wealth is distributed.

Wealth is not distributed. Please stop referring to it as such.
Like I said earlier, you can have a distribution of ages, but that does not mean that ages themselves are distributed, as in "handed out" to people. No, you simply are the age that you are, and when put in a group and measured a certain way, your age can be plotted on a graph to create an "age distribution". Do not confuse one meaning of the word "distribution" with the other.

With that in mind, there is no problem of "wealth distribution", because as we covered while discussing the first fallacy, the economy is not zero-sum. Just because someone else has more, it doesn't mean he's taking anything away from anyone else.

There is no wealth that "would normally go to the lower class", because nobody is flipping levers and redirecting the "flow of money". Wealth isn't distributed. That's not how it works.

Again, there's nothing here worth outrage unless you fundamentally misunderstand how the economy works.

No, I don't think it's a problem. Per se. I do think it's a problem though when that $15/hr job is barely sufficient pay to just... Exist in the modern world. And in many cases, that $15/hr job is not even sufficient at all. (And these claims are all extensively proven in the videos I posted.) Also, this is talking about someone who doesn't have any school debt which, let's be honest, is not that many people right now since employers are constantly demanding a fucking degree for even simple and relatively unskilled jobs. (That is, when they're not just laying off US employees altogether and demanding a bunch of H1B visas so they can get almost slave labor. See: Microsoft)

That $15/hr job is going towards a "ball boy". Emphasis on boy. It's a kid who lives at home with their parents. What living expenses does the kid have? Probably none, and so if this boy were paid a "living wage", they would get paid nothing at all.

But let's talk about minimum wage in general. Is it "sufficient" to "exist in the modern world?" Well, obviously yes, because if it weren't, everybody who gets paid minimum wage would have died off, and companies would pay people more so that they can have living employees. How do people survive on minimum wage? They get roommates, or live with their parents, or otherwise reduce their expenses so that $15/hr becomes a "living wage" to them.

I got paid $8 an hour once. I lived with my parents. I saved up and bought my first car. I took out a government loan and went to a community college. I learned skills. I got a job with those skills. I "moved up" from $8 to $65 an hour, and quickly paid back my loan. A majority of that was done while saving money and living at home. No wife or kids to take care of.

I have no firm line, but in my opinion, this actually all started to be a problem a long time ago when we started to see regulatory capture. At that time though, everyone ignored it because the lower and middle class weren't suffering under harsh economic conditions just yet. Even with the 2007 recession, I feel things were still at least reasonably workable. But then these fucking executives started to realize what they could actually get away with.

So they started pushing things more. Buying up most of their competitors, increasing prices to ridiculous amounts, taking control of housing and turning them into investment opportunities, making products harder to repair, shipping work and manufacturing off to third-world countries, denying warranties, not increasing wages... And then they pushed them more. And even more... Until we're in the corporate shitpile of today.

You not having a line that something becomes a "problem" once it passes the threshold just allows you to make vague, whiny complaints about everything. That's what this sounds like.

If you can afford it, there's no problem. If you can do without it, there's no problem. If you can participate in society and the economy (i.e you aren't homeless), there's no problem. If you disagree, then you're going to have to define what constitutes a problem to you, then we can talk about it.

But that's the problem, Houseman. What if I don't have that large sum of money to buy a house? What if I don't have enough money to buy ANY house? "Well, just earn more," you might say, but oh, whoopsie! Expenses are WAY up and wages have merely stagnated. Promotions are few and far between now, assuming you don't just get laid off altogether one day.

I should say, it's not IMPOSSIBLE to acquire wealth enough to move up the class ladder nowadays of course, but it is MUCH harder as, again, opportunities for such get lesser and lesser every year it seems while expenses just continue to increase due to """inflation""" and """unprecedented times."""

That YOU can't buy a house is besides the point. My point was about "money being power" or not. I was illustrating that when you exchange money for a house, the house itself retains the value of that money, and sometimes even increases in value.

But in your case, you're just blaming your problems on a graph. "I can't buy a house because this chart says that wages have stagnated!"
Here again, you are being fooled by propaganda, and are falling for a fallacy: People are not bound to their "classes". People can be born into the poorest household, and die at the top 1%. Those graphs that the propagandists show you do not show that.

Just because "wages in general" have stagnated, that says nothing about your wage. You can earn more than the median (half do!), or less than the median (half do!). And of course, we have to consider the age of the workers that make up those statistics. If they're 18, they're going to be making minimum wage. If they're 40, they're going to be making close to the peak for their career. The propagandists don't want you to think about that.

"Boo hoo it's hard", I don't care.

Yes, absolutely. In a FREE economy. We are not in a free economy anymore, generally speaking. In fact, I don't even think we're in a true capitalist society anymore. Capitalism implies competition, and many industries are dominated by oligopolies and especially some of the ones most vital to the modern world such as chip companies. This creates economic bottlenecks. Trusts. (A combination of firms or corporations for the purpose of reducing competition and controlling prices throughout a business or industry.) And due to regulatory capture, nothing is done about this on the government side.

Louis Rossmann did a video semi-recently where a company in Oregon blatantly violated the state's right-to-repair laws. The case was sent to the attorney general. The attorney general put out a piss-poor statement and did fuck-all about it. Does that sound like a fair market, Houseman? I remember when companies like ASUS just started to blatantly ignore warranty laws and if it wasn't for Lina Kahn's administration at the FCC, they would have actually completely gotten away with it. (Oh, by the way, she's gone now. Trump made sure of that.)

If there are Trusts, then there are also Anti-Trust laws. If laws are not being enforced, and trusts are engaging in price-fixing, then that is a problem.

But, oh, whoopsie! That's not being done anymore as pointed out above.

To say that it's "not being done anymore", is a broad generalization. Price-fixing is not defacto legal. Looking at one website, there are three anti-trust case filings this month.

Remember how the devs of Hi-Fi Rush made a really successful game despite many things going against them? And then they all got laid off for their troubles? Sorry, I know I keep pointing to Microsoft for examples but they are just... So bad. They make themselves a very nice example for describing exactly what's so terrible about the current economic climate.

Pointing to one example of someone not getting rewarded for their success does not mean that nobody ever gets rewarded for their success.
My point is still true: class mobility exists, and people move up and down between income brackets for a variety of reasons. Your graphs don't show that.

Your arguments to the contrary are just whining "but it's hard to get a job!"

This is not evidence that opportunities for upward economic mobility are getting more scarce. This is a graph of income after tax.
First, recall fallacy #3: people are not bound to their classes. This graph does not track the income of individuals over time. Someone who is in the middle or the bottom one year might be in the top 1% the next year, or vice versa. The graph does not represent this.

So, once again, you have no evidence for your claim that economic opportunities for the lower classes are getting "more scarce".

 

[Arnox]

I'll just post these here as a reference:

Fallacy	Description
Zero-sum fallacy	The economy is not a zero-sum game. Just because someone has more, it does not mean that something is taken away from someone else.
Distributed wealth fallacy	Wealth is not distributed. It is not divvied up between people. Nobody decides that 90% of the GDP should "flow" to the rich, or whatever.
Bound-class fallacy	People are not bound to the classes they were born into. A graph will say that the lower 40% earned so much income, and you will be tricked into believing that this represents an individual. It does not. Individuals move up or down between "classes" or income brackets, and the graph will not reflect that.

That the "winner" can take "more" than the other players is inconsequential. Who cares if some CEO has five yachts? That doesn't take anything away from you. You don't have less just because someone else has more.

If the economy is not a zero-sum game that means that "the winner can't take everything". You don't have to worry about that, because the economy doesn't work that way.



I've said before that you have been fooled by propaganda and have fallen for fallacies.
The first fallacy was discussed above. This is the second fallacy: that wealth is distributed.

Wealth is not distributed. Please stop referring to it as such.
Like I said earlier, you can have a distribution of ages, but that does not mean that ages themselves are distributed, as in "handed out" to people. No, you simply are the age that you are, and when put in a group and measured a certain way, your age can be plotted on a graph to create an "age distribution". Do not confuse one meaning of the word "distribution" with the other.

With that in mind, there is no problem of "wealth distribution", because as we covered while discussing the first fallacy, the economy is not zero-sum. Just because someone else has more, it doesn't mean he's taking anything away from anyone else.

There is no wealth that "would normally go to the lower class", because nobody is flipping levers and redirecting the "flow of money". Wealth isn't distributed. That's not how it works.

Again, there's nothing here worth outrage unless you fundamentally misunderstand how the economy works.



That $15/hr job is going towards a "ball boy". Emphasis on boy. It's a kid who lives at home with their parents. What living expenses does the kid have? Probably none, and so if this boy were paid a "living wage", they would get paid nothing at all.

But let's talk about minimum wage in general. Is it "sufficient" to "exist in the modern world?" Well, obviously yes, because if it weren't, everybody who gets paid minimum wage would have died off, and companies would pay people more so that they can have living employees. How do people survive on minimum wage? They get roommates, or live with their parents, or otherwise reduce their expenses so that $15/hr becomes a "living wage" to them.

I got paid $8 an hour once. I lived with my parents. I saved up and bought my first car. I took out a government loan and went to a community college. I learned skills. I got a job with those skills. I "moved up" from $8 to $65 an hour, and quickly paid back my loan. A majority of that was done while saving money and living at home. No wife or kids to take care of.



You not having a line that something becomes a "problem" once it passes the threshold just allows you to make vague, whiny complaints about everything. That's what this sounds like.

If you can afford it, there's no problem. If you can do without it, there's no problem. If you can participate in society and the economy (i.e you aren't homeless), there's no problem. If you disagree, then you're going to have to define what constitutes a problem to you, then we can talk about it.



That YOU can't buy a house is besides the point. My point was about "money being power" or not. I was illustrating that when you exchange money for a house, the house itself retains the value of that money, and sometimes even increases in value.

But in your case, you're just blaming your problems on a graph. "I can't buy a house because this chart says that wages have stagnated!"
Here again, you are being fooled by propaganda, and are falling for a fallacy: People are not bound to their "classes". People can be born into the poorest household, and die at the top 1%. Those graphs that the propagandists show you do not show that.

Just because "wages in general" have stagnated, that says nothing about your wage. You can earn more than the median (half do!), or less than the median (half do!). And of course, we have to consider the age of the workers that make up those statistics. If they're 18, they're going to be making minimum wage. If they're 40, they're going to be making close to the peak for their career. The propagandists don't want you to think about that.

"Boo hoo it's hard", I don't care.



If there are Trusts, then there are also Anti-Trust laws. If laws are not being enforced, and trusts are engaging in price-fixing, then that is a problem.



To say that it's "not being done anymore", is a broad generalization. Price-fixing is not defacto legal. Looking at one website, there are three anti-trust case filings this month.


Pointing to one example of someone not getting rewarded for their success does not mean that nobody ever gets rewarded for their success.
My point is still true: class mobility exists, and people move up and down between income brackets for a variety of reasons. Your graphs don't show that.

Your arguments to the contrary are just whining "but it's hard to get a job!"

View attachment 647

This is not evidence that opportunities for upward economic mobility are getting more scarce. This is a graph of income after tax.
First, recall fallacy #3: people are not bound to their classes. This graph does not track the income of individuals over time. Someone who is in the middle or the bottom one year might be in the top 1% the next year, or vice versa. The graph does not represent this.

So, once again, you have no evidence for your claim that economic opportunities for the lower classes are getting "more scarce".

Ok... You know what, let's try a different approach here. We're gonna, financially speaking, follow a hypothetical person that just graduated high school. Let's see now what's happening with this person in 2025. And by the way, I'm going to base my numbers on the rates in Topeka, Kansas since Kansas is basically the most "average" state in the US.

Spoiler: Lots of Math

Alright! We're fresh out of school! Time to get a job! We'll just walk down to the local McDonald's and ask- Oh, whoops! That's long since been invalid. You are now FORCED to apply online unless you know someone in that company. "Fine... I guess I'll just fill out an application online and... What the hell? Now you get to deal with some random-ass chatbot AI that now makes hiring and firing decisions. Fine. Whatever. So you fill out the application- Oops! Looks like your details just got leaked by that same chatbot AI. Wonderful. We haven't even STARTED talking about finances yet. :)

Fine. Let's say you get past the bullshit AI and you actually get a job at McDonalds in Topeka. So you're going to be making $14/hr. Kansas has an individual income tax rate of 3.1-5.7 percent. Let's just be generous and assume it's only 3.1 percent. Not too bad at all, though Kansas also has a lovely 6.5% sales tax. Now let's look at federal income tax. Now I know that income is taxed in chunks AKA brackets and not all at once, but just for the sake of computational convenience, we'll say that we're paying about 11% in federal income tax.

Ok, we got our raw numbers. Let's say now that we work 20 hours a week. We'll make $280 as gross income per week, or $1,120 as gross income per month. Alright, now let's find our net income per month. Both tax amounts should be calculated on the gross. So, for state tax, we'll take out exactly $34.72. For federal income tax, we'll take out $123.20. So for just taxes for a bottom-of-the-barrel minimum wage job, we're paying $157.92. Already, 14.1% of our check is just going bye-bye immediately.

Fine. Whatever. So for 20 hours, we're making 962.08 per month. Let's look at some apartments now. Just doing a cursory glance, looks like you're gonna be paying about $500 a month for a one-bedroom or studio apartment. Hopefully your neighbors aren't going to be assholes. But wait... Oops! They require you to make 3x the rent amount. Looks like you're either working 30 hours now for $1,680/month, minimum, or you're living with your momma. That is, assuming your parents aren't abusive and you didn't just escape (or get booted out of) their household like it was a warzone. And let's be honest here. I would hazard to guess that this is happening to at least 10% of kids nowadays. It's probably more like 20%.

Fine. Let's take the 30 hours then. (Assuming they'll hire you for that.) $1,680x0.141 is $236.88. That leaves you with $1,443.12 in net income. You get the apartment. Let's say all utilities are included along with internet. Oh wait though! Don't forget electrical. Let's say you're using anywhere from 500 to 900 kWh depending on the time of year. We'll just average it out to 700. For Topeka, average residential rates are $0.107/kWh. That's $74.90 for your electric bill. $1,443.12-500.00 is $943.12. $943.12-74.90 is 868.22.

Hey! We're doing pretty good so far. 30 hours at Mickey D's isn't that fun, but it's not so bad. But hold on now. We can also leverage food stamps. Let's say we get $100. (Now, I have no idea if this is the actual amount you might get in Kansas for food stamps, but hey. I'm feeling generous. Let's roll with it. That means that we'll just subtract $100 for food from our current net income of $868.22 which is 768.22.

With that, there's one more mandatory expense... Health insurance. Now, let's go and apply for Medicai- Oops! Under Kansas law, since you're childless, non-disabled, non-elderly scum, you don't qualify for any Medicaid regardless of how much (or little) you make. Looks like it's the Mickey D's Health Insurance special for y- Oh wait, nope, you don't qualify for that either. At least not for the first year. That means you'll need to use healthcare.gov plans. Let's be generous and say you pay about $50 for a plan from there. So $768.22-50.00 is $718.22.

Now, $718.22? That's pretty damn good. Problem is though, while you'll be getting a fair amount of money for take-home each month right now, you're riding the shitty bus. The bus life is doable, but you REALLY should get a car if you can. Let's check out the classifieds. Ah, here we go. A Honda CR-V EX for $9,720. Reputable brand. Not a bad year. Manufactured in Japan with 24 MPG. Easy to repair. Even has four-wheel drive... It does have a lot of miles though for sure. For your first car though? Eh. Whatever. So forgive me here, but I'm gonna pull a number out of my ass for the monthly car payment and car/rental insurance. $300. That's quite a chunk out of our $718.22, bringing us down to $418.22.

So working a minimum wage job at McDonalds for $14/hr in Topeka, KS for 30 hours gives us $1,680.00. Minus all expenses (including a used car valued at ~$10,000), you're only bringing home about $418.22. That SOUNDS fine. On the surface. But perhaps you need to make possible medical payments due to injury or disease. Those are QUITE nasty. What if you made a dumbass mistake in your life and have a kid? Another nasty expense. What if you get in an accident and your car insurance rates go up $100? Likely, considering you're just starting out driving. Hopefully you didn't get a drug, alcohol, or cigarette habit in high school. You didn't, right? Right... ?

Oh, and we haven't even STARTED paying for college yet. If you didn't do absolutely amazingly, prepare to get turned down for scholarships. Well, at least you can just rely on the Federal Pell Grant. Well, except you can't because your parents are probably going to make too much. Which means you get to go into major debt! Which means how much you bring home is now even more at a razor's edge. Any hard negative shift in finances could mean you not being able to pay even basic bills. I guess you could work 40 hours at McDonald's, but think about that for a moment. 40 hours of minimum wage work absolutely REQUIRED just to exist, Houseman.

And sure, student loan debt payments are very variable depending entirely on how much you can pay, but by the time the four years are up, you're going to have a total debt of ~$100,000 for a four-year engineering degree. Just 1% of that is $1,000! Even if you made $30/hr at your job after you acquired a degree, you'd still get slammed with student loan repayments. All said and done then, there's something seriously fucking wrong here.

 

[Houseman]

Alright! We're fresh out of school! Time to get a job!

First of all, not really, that's a very suboptimal life-path, especially since this is high school we're talking about. Graduating high school just means you've met the bare minimum standards of education, and so you will be earning the bare minimum amount of pay. What you should be doing is enrolling in some form of higher education or training so you can be worth more than just unpaid labor. And no, you don't have to take out a huge loan in order to do this. I'm not suggesting you go for a Master's degree in Business at a top tier university, it could just be an woodworking apprenticeship or something at a community college, like I did.

Starting your "career" as an unskilled laborer is pretty much the worst thing you can do. So we're off to a good start. The reason why this poor person will inevitably remain poor at the conclusion of this hypothetical is because of his own bad choices.

This is bad choice #1.

Fine. Let's say you get past the bullshit AI and you actually get a job at McDonalds in Topeka. So you're going to be making $14/hr. Kansas has an individual income tax rate of 3.1-5.7 percent. Let's just be generous and assume it's only 3.1 percent. Not too bad at all, though Kansas also has a lovely 6.5% sales tax. Now let's look at federal income tax. Now I know that income is taxed in chunks AKA brackets and not all at once, but just for the sake of computational convenience, we'll say that we're paying about 11% in federal income tax.

Does this take into account the various deductions? For example, one source I'm looking at says that, thanks to Trumps "Big Beautiful Bill", the standard deduction for singles is $15,750. The standard deduction for Kansas state taxes is $3,000. That's $18,750 in income that he does not have to pay taxes on. At the end of the year, he may even get a "tax refund", which may amount to thousands of dollars.

Let's say now that we work 20 hours a week

WHY? If he's starting his "career", he should be working full-time.
Even if the McDonalds nearest him is not hiring full-time employees, he should turn them down and seek full-time employment elsewhere.
"Oh boo hoo, I can't afford to live because I'm an unpaid laborer who doesn't even work full-time", yeah no wonder. It's not the economy's fault or capitalism's fault that he's lazy.

This is bad choice #2.

Fine. Whatever. So for 20 hours, we're making 962.08 per month. Let's look at some apartments now.

Bad choice #3. If you're a part-time minimum wage worker, you SHOULD NOT be thinking about renting an apartment. You should be living at home with your parents. If your parents died in a tragic golfing accident and you've just been kicked out of the orphanage, then you should be looking for roommates to split the costs with.

Why do you think that someone who doesn't even work full-time is entitled to an apartment? You can't possibly be that disconnected from the world around you. Are you subscribed to r/antiwork or something?

I would hazard to guess that this is happening to at least 10% of kids nowadays. It's probably more like 20%.

That's not the economy's fault. That's the fault of individuals making bad choices and choosing to be alcoholics, drug addicts, or just plain violent and abusive parents. It's unfortunate, and it's not the fault of our hypothetical bad-choice-making hero if he was raised in such an environment, but the sweet, innocent economy is not to blame here.

With that, there's one more mandatory expense... Health insurance.

It's not mandatory. At first, under Obamacare, the ACA, you would get a tax penalty if you didn't have health insurance. That was changed some time ago. Now there isn't.

That means you'll need to use healthcare.gov plans. Let's be generous and say you pay about $50 for a plan from there. So $768.22-50.00 is $718.22.

Why would he be paying $50? I pay $0 for my health plan from healthcare.gov and I make more than he does. Technically, I only pay about $10 for month for my dental plan (but those are luxury bones).

You're probably just looking on the number on the site that says that the average monthly premium is $106, and slashing that in about half.
That's misguided, because you have no idea what the average level of income (or household size, dependents, veteran/disability status, and all other variables) that make up that "average" number. But you're assuming that he's slightly below that.

No, he would probably get over a thousand dollars of tax credits to use on health care plans, which would cover perhaps even the best Platinum plan available to him. Do you not have personal experience with how much you get? Why not? Hey, I don't care if you're still somehow mooching off your parents insurance, or you bought some sort of college insurance that they force you to buy before enrollment.

But this doesn't matter, none of this matters.

Now, $718.22? That's pretty damn good. Problem is though, while you'll be getting a fair amount of money for take-home each month right now, you're riding the shitty bus. The bus life is doable, but you REALLY should get a car if you can. Let's check out the classifieds. Ah, here we go. A Honda CR-V EX for $9,720. Reputable brand. Not a bad year. Manufactured in Japan with 24 MPG. Easy to repair. Even has four-wheel drive... It does have a lot of miles though for sure. For your first car though? Eh. Whatever. So forgive me here, but I'm gonna pull a number out of my ass for the monthly car payment and car/rental insurance. $300. That's quite a chunk out of our $718.22, bringing us down to $418.22.

Bad decision #4, financing the purchase of your first (used) car from a dealership, when you're still an unskilled part-time McWorker.
You should be saving your money and buying it with cash from Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or wherever individuals arrange transactions. I watched my bible student, fresh off the boat from Ecuador, buy a used two-seater with fewer than 100,000 miles for his girlfriend for only $2,000. Of course, I live in a state with a population that may as well be a rounding error, so your "mileage" may vary.

Our boy is an absolute fool. regardless.

What if you made a dumbass mistake in your life and have a kid?

Then that's your own fault, not the economy's fault. You can't blame the economy when you make bad decisions and then suffer the consequences. "Oh if only the greedy CEOs would share their profits with me, then I wouldn't be suffering in self-inflicted poverty!"
What do you expect me to say? "Oh, you're right, maybe there is a problem with the economy if a crackhead single mother to 3 kids is suffering in poverty?" No, that's ridiculous.

If you didn't do absolutely amazingly, prepare to get turned down for scholarships.

Apart from scholarships, the kind that give you free money based on your objective academic performance, there are other kinds of scholarships called "grants", which give you free money just for the asking, perhaps even based on your ethnicity, family history, or lack thereof.

. Which means you get to go into major debt! Which means how much you bring home is now even more at a razor's edge

Thanks to the previous bad decisions, deciding to live on your own at 18, yeah, I would imagine so! Maybe he should have stayed at home with his at-least-middle-class parents that make too much money for him to qualify the Pell grant!

I guess you could work 40 hours at McDonald's, but think about that for a moment. 40 hours of minimum wage work absolutely REQUIRED just to exist, Houseman.

Yeah, absolutely required if you're an idiot who makes bad decisions.

Let's say the absolute worst things happened to this person through no fault of his own. He has abusive parents who are well-off, but kicked him out of the house at 18. Now he's forced to find work and a place to live. Let's ignore why he didn't start preparing for independence earlier, and just chalk that up to the short-sightedness of youth. Instead of blaming this guy for his bad choices, let's give him advice on what he could have done better to improve his lot in life.

1) Get roommates. Seek other relatives. Get married. Move to an area with a lower cost of living (you've been kicked out anyway). ANYTHING to reduce costs.
2) Get FULL-TIME employment. Not 20 hours a week. Not 30 hours a week. Get two part-time jobs if you have to. 40 hours is the MINIMUM.
3) Do not finance a used car, especially as your first.
4) Invest in yourself, even if you have to go into debt to do so. Your top priority, other than satisfying your immediate physical needs, is to gain a skill so that you are worth more than an unpaid laborer. This does not necessarily mean getting a four-year degree.

And sure, student loan debt payments are very variable depending entirely on how much you can pay, but by the time the four years are up, you're going to have a total debt of ~$100,000 for a four-year engineering degree.

This may or may not be bad decision #5. You don't need to get a four-year engineering degree, but even if you do, the income you earn may be worth it. I don't know, because although I quickly made $30/hr at my first job after graduating from community college, my loans were literally a tenth of that. Due to other factors, like continuing to live with my parents, I overpaid my loans and finished them off quickly.

If I can make the same money with a 2-year degree as someone with a four year degree, seems like the person who went and got the four-year degree made a comparatively bad decision.

All said and done then, there's something seriously fucking wrong here.

No, our boy just made a series of stupid decisions. Perhaps the "average person", makes a similar amount of stupid decisions that ruins him financially. So? Should the economy be built around saving people who make stupid decisions?

 

[Arnox]

First of all, not really, that's a very suboptimal life-path, especially since this is high school we're talking about. Graduating high school just means you've met the bare minimum standards of education, and so you will be earning the bare minimum amount of pay. What you should be doing is enrolling in some form of higher education or training so you can be worth more than just unpaid labor. And no, you don't have to take out a huge loan in order to do this. I'm not suggesting you go for a Master's degree in Business at a top tier university, it could just be an woodworking apprenticeship or something at a community college, like I did.

Starting your "career" as an unskilled laborer is pretty much the worst thing you can do. So we're off to a good start. The reason why this poor person will inevitably remain poor at the conclusion of this hypothetical is because of his own bad choices.

This is bad choice #1.



Does this take into account the various deductions? For example, one source I'm looking at says that, thanks to Trumps "Big Beautiful Bill", the standard deduction for singles is $15,750. The standard deduction for Kansas state taxes is $3,000. That's $18,750 in income that he does not have to pay taxes on. At the end of the year, he may even get a "tax refund", which may amount to thousands of dollars.



WHY? If he's starting his "career", he should be working full-time.
Even if the McDonalds nearest him is not hiring full-time employees, he should turn them down and seek full-time employment elsewhere.
"Oh boo hoo, I can't afford to live because I'm an unpaid laborer who doesn't even work full-time", yeah no wonder. It's not the economy's fault or capitalism's fault that he's lazy.

This is bad choice #2.



Bad choice #3. If you're a part-time minimum wage worker, you SHOULD NOT be thinking about renting an apartment. You should be living at home with your parents. If your parents died in a tragic golfing accident and you've just been kicked out of the orphanage, then you should be looking for roommates to split the costs with.

Why do you think that someone who doesn't even work full-time is entitled to an apartment? You can't possibly be that disconnected from the world around you. Are you subscribed to r/antiwork or something?



That's not the economy's fault. That's the fault of individuals making bad choices and choosing to be alcoholics, drug addicts, or just plain violent and abusive parents. It's unfortunate, and it's not the fault of our hypothetical bad-choice-making hero if he was raised in such an environment, but the sweet, innocent economy is not to blame here.



It's not mandatory. At first, under Obamacare, the ACA, you would get a tax penalty if you didn't have health insurance. That was changed some time ago. Now there isn't.



Why would he be paying $50? I pay $0 for my health plan from healthcare.gov and I make more than he does. Technically, I only pay about $10 for month for my dental plan (but those are luxury bones).

You're probably just looking on the number on the site that says that the average monthly premium is $106, and slashing that in about half.
That's misguided, because you have no idea what the average level of income (or household size, dependents, veteran/disability status, and all other variables) that make up that "average" number. But you're assuming that he's slightly below that.

No, he would probably get over a thousand dollars of tax credits to use on health care plans, which would cover perhaps even the best Platinum plan available to him. Do you not have personal experience with how much you get? Why not? Hey, I don't care if you're still somehow mooching off your parents insurance, or you bought some sort of college insurance that they force you to buy before enrollment.

But this doesn't matter, none of this matters.



Bad decision #4, financing the purchase of your first (used) car from a dealership, when you're still an unskilled part-time McWorker.
You should be saving your money and buying it with cash from Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or wherever individuals arrange transactions. I watched my bible student, fresh off the boat from Ecuador, buy a used two-seater with fewer than 100,000 miles for his girlfriend for only $2,000. Of course, I live in a state with a population that may as well be a rounding error, so your "mileage" may vary.

Our boy is an absolute fool. regardless.



Then that's your own fault, not the economy's fault. You can't blame the economy when you make bad decisions and then suffer the consequences. "Oh if only the greedy CEOs would share their profits with me, then I wouldn't be suffering in self-inflicted poverty!"
What do you expect me to say? "Oh, you're right, maybe there is a problem with the economy if a crackhead single mother to 3 kids is suffering in poverty?" No, that's ridiculous.



Apart from scholarships, the kind that give you free money based on your objective academic performance, there are other kinds of scholarships called "grants", which give you free money just for the asking, perhaps even based on your ethnicity, family history, or lack thereof.



Thanks to the previous bad decisions, deciding to live on your own at 18, yeah, I would imagine so! Maybe he should have stayed at home with his at-least-middle-class parents that make too much money for him to qualify the Pell grant!



Yeah, absolutely required if you're an idiot who makes bad decisions.

Let's say the absolute worst things happened to this person through no fault of his own. He has abusive parents who are well-off, but kicked him out of the house at 18. Now he's forced to find work and a place to live. Let's ignore why he didn't start preparing for independence earlier, and just chalk that up to the short-sightedness of youth. Instead of blaming this guy for his bad choices, let's give him advice on what he could have done better to improve his lot in life.

1) Get roommates. Seek other relatives. Get married. Move to an area with a lower cost of living (you've been kicked out anyway). ANYTHING to reduce costs.
2) Get FULL-TIME employment. Not 20 hours a week. Not 30 hours a week. Get two part-time jobs if you have to. 40 hours is the MINIMUM.
3) Do not finance a used car, especially as your first.
4) Invest in yourself, even if you have to go into debt to do so. Your top priority, other than satisfying your immediate physical needs, is to gain a skill so that you are worth more than an unpaid laborer. This does not necessarily mean getting a four-year degree.



This may or may not be bad decision #5. You don't need to get a four-year engineering degree, but even if you do, the income you earn may be worth it. I don't know, because although I quickly made $30/hr at my first job after graduating from community college, my loans were literally a tenth of that. Due to other factors, like continuing to live with my parents, I overpaid my loans and finished them off quickly.

If I can make the same money with a 2-year degree as someone with a four year degree, seems like the person who went and got the four-year degree made a comparatively bad decision.




No, our boy just made a series of stupid decisions. Perhaps the "average person", makes a similar amount of stupid decisions that ruins him financially. So? Should the economy be built around saving people who make stupid decisions?

Now this post you made, I like a lot more. I'll re-evaluate things based on your answers, though I can say at least right off the bat two things. For one, the economy was more lenient back in the day to where if you kept your expenses and shelter costs low enough, you totally could live kinda comfortably on 20 hours a week. (If I recall correctly.) And second of all, keep in mind, this is in the mind of a dumbass kid at 18. They may not make the smartest decisions at first, Houseman. Nevertheless though, you are probably correct in that some expenses I cited may not be nearly as bad, depending.

Do you not have personal experience with how much you get? Why not?

No hints.