151–160 of 166 posts
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It's sad to see HN users just downvote something they don't agree with instead of responding to the arguments made berg. berg, what other options do we have besides capitalism? We saw how millions of people died of starvation with communist/socialists societies.
As an American, I'm furious that we (American people) failed these people. I want to help - I've been blessed with a great job and I want find a way to help these people. The food bank in my region is distributing 2x the food they did last year. The director of the site mentioned how important it is to find ways to reach those who are food insecure in dignified ways. Find me more groups that want to/are helping with…
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> Passing a bill you know is dead on arrival is pointless. Actually, its often a significant part of the political process of building popular and, thereby, legislative support for a solution (which will ultimately often be a compromise from the DOA proposal.) And, in a bicameral legislature, taking up a measure on an issue that is unacceptable in the form the other house passed it in, and amending it to the form tha…
I'm curious if you'd say the same about Republicans repealing Obamacare dozens of times, knowing the bills would go nowhere. To me it looks like a bad-faith effort and a waste of everyone's time.
I would have said it the first time, at least.
The House didn't pass HEROES dozens of times.
More Americans are shoplifting everything . Crime is up across the board this year. In my locale, it's an open secret that most retailers will not detain you if you shoplift. And it's widely known that you wouldn't be prosecuted if they did anyway. So yeah. Shoplifting is up.
I weirdly found the micellar water under lock and key a few weeks ago at CVS. They lock the deodorant and tide detergent because those are highly shoplifted items. Didn't know makeup remover is now also included in that subset!
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I live in an area elsewhere with essentially zero crime, 24x7 security, cameras, and a well-lit parking garage. Someone stole the catalectic converter off my 2008 Prius last week, a part whose street value is only worth ~$100 and that requires equipment and professional-level skill to steal, likely by someone whose day job generates $70-90/hr. Gotta be pretty damn desperate to risk a felony for a little over an hour'…
I thought it required a hacksaw and a bad drug habit. Impressive they got under a Prius, usually they go for small SUVs for the high clearance.
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In the Bay Area there has been a big uptick in thefts and break-ins. My sources are local people and first-hand knowledge (such as seeing broken glass everywhere on the street). I'm in the Oakland area, but friends in other places have experienced and witnessed some crazy things this year. It just blows me away that (part of) Congress has stonewalled any attempts to get people money, given the lockdowns. Reportedly t…
I live in an area elsewhere with essentially zero crime, 24x7 security, cameras, and a well-lit parking garage. Someone stole the catalectic converter off my 2008 Prius last week, a part whose street value is only worth ~$100 and that requires equipment and professional-level skill to steal, likely by someone whose day job generates $70-90/hr. Gotta be pretty damn desperate to risk a felony for a little over an hour'…
Source; fellow 08 Prius owner.
This Walmart has at least 10-15 checkout lanes that are always empty and instead have a handful of people "Keep watch" of the self checkout lanes in an effort to keep the bare minimum amount of people employed.
Most of the time they are too busy authorizing Alcohol and helping people to actually notice if anyone isn't scanning sometihng. In fact one time one commented to me that "They don't pay me enough to care about shoplifting" after I "accidentally" forgot to scan something.
I don't really feel any pity for Walmart though, they have a bad system and have taken into account that the amount of money lost through shoplifting is less than it would cost to employ more people.
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Savings rate is a function of income. What if your income is zero because you've lost your job due to a pandemic?
If incomes were going down, you’d expect decrease, not increase in savings rate.
At the same time, personal savings rate is through the roof: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT and household debt service costs are lowest in recent history: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TDSP People have received thousands of dollars in stimulus checks. Thanks to extra $600/$300 that the feds have added to federal unemployment, those that lost their jobs received in many cases significantly more that t…
The appropriate statistics aren't savings rate, but poverty rate, unemployment, workforce participation, evictions (mostly though not all ilegal or undocumented presently), and similar indicia of how many people and families are living beneath sustainable fundamental minima.
If there's clearly a problem yet your indicator, diagnostics, or data don't indicate a problem, the failure isn't reality, the failure is your indicator.
Rising poverty + rising savings rate -> rising net inequality QED
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Mortgages, rent and utilities are all suspended almost everywhere No, they are not. Not even close to almost everywhere. Evictions are theoretically suspended in many places, but rent is definitely not and many suspect land / property owners are evicting people despite moratoriums on them due to local governments that are severely underfunded, understaffed, and/or overwhelmed that are not enforcing the moratoriums. U…
This doesn’t make sense to me. Typically evictions are enforced by the local government and not the landlords. You have to apply and eviction then it’s the police or sherif that actually kicks the person out.
In smaller communities, it's not uncommon for the local government to enforce their own interpretations or rules placed at the state and local level.
In short, evictions are happening, even if they shouldn't be in many cases. And as moratoriums expire in the near future, we should expect many more Americans to become homeless or evicted due to the failure of primarily the federal government but some local and state governments as well.
Washington State, as an example, has publicly spoken out about unlawful evictions and has warned to pursue legal action against property owners that violate the state's moratorium on evictions. For example, just one example from April 2020:
https://www.q13fox.com/news/washington-attorney-general-dire...
Washington State's moratorium is currently set to expire in December:
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/states-eviction-moratorium-...