The Baby-Formula Crime Ring (2018)

> He buys every new apple product on release day > He's had 3 brand new cars while I've driven my current car (my car is 8 years old now) > We can plan a family vacation 18 months out and when time comes he can't manage to pay for a He gets an inheritance and immediately posts pictures about shopping trips (it was ~$40K) while not being able to pay for flights I mentioned above > His only kid goes to a private school that he can't afford so has to be on payment plan which cost 10% more > He does "debt consolidation" then maxes out his credit cards > His household income is about ~$150K and they live in a small affordable town

Also he's in 40s and married with a kid. I think this is pretty "average" behavior unfortunately for Americans though.

I'm not sure what this means to you, but "economic precarity" is a meaningless statement without context. For example, in the US, pretty much anyone living in destitution is unwell. It's practically impossible to starve to death in the US. etc

So what this means is: economic mobility is limited for 20% of the population. That's not good, but in practice that translates to difficulty creating generational wealth, not a recipe for people starving or living in filth. Mobility would be much better, but it generally correlates strongly with level of education which is a separate chicken/egg problem. (At least until you get into massive student debt without a valuable degree, then that correlation shifts significantly.)

> Your Capital was stormed by terrorist from your own country.

What happened that day was not good, but framing it as a "terrorist insurrection" is exceedingly dishonest reporting. This is made plain by the kinds of charges that are being filed by the federal government. (Which, under the current administration, has no reason to "go soft" or brush things under the rug.)

There were a small number (single digits) of dissidents that wished to engage in... something not well thought out. There were a much greater number of people that trespassed into the capitol. There was an even larger number of people outside that were (as the FBI director put it) "rowdy".

All this because the former president insisted that he was cheated. (Which, frankly, there wasn't a lot of effort put into building confidence beyond "trust us!") Wholly inappropriate, bad, but not terrorism. We've experienced terrorism before (from other countries, from our political Right, and from our political Left) and this wasn't that. Anyone who suggests that is misinformed or leveraging it for political purposes.

> Widespread policy brutality lead to protests over the entire country, culminating in city blocks being burnt down in what, a dozen cities?

There is no widespread police brutality. Again, this is political framing. There are problems, no doubt, but nothing that could even reasonably be colored as "widespread brutality".

Just as there were problems of confidence during the election—egged on for political reasons—that resulted in an inappropriate reaction by protestors, there are problems of confidence—again, egged on for political reasons—about our police force.

Unfortunately, this resulted in significant overreaction that did, sadly, result in a tremendous amount of damage.

But do you notice the underlying theme, here? Political and media framing are largely responsible for exceedingly dangerous levels of division. It's not that Righty Rick is evil or Lefty Lane is evil.

It's a game of power by the institutions that control culture. The people are the pawns.

So yes, in that regard, we've got major problems: the elite. Not necessarily "the rich" (although they're largely complicit), but almost the whole of the elite institutions.

The people are at each others' throats not because there are rampant problems, poverty, abuse, etc. They are at it because the elites are at war. There isn't much to stand for the people engaging in a violent revolution, at least not conditionally. There is, however, if they're poked and prodded enough by the elite class.

So no, he's not being sarcastic.

So long as the interest rates on student loans is lower than the expected % return from an index fund, smart money is on not paying off those loans.

I have friends who could pay off their entire student loans amount, but why would they?

Same logic applies to why I took out a 3 year loan at 2% for my last new car.

High interest debt? Get that paid off ASAP. But I'd want to see a breakdown of interest rates of student loan debt before I start seeing gloom and doom!

> Maternal leave is by law unpaid, and few companies offer paid leave and paternal leave is virtually unheard of outside of extremely progressive companies.

This needs to change, and it is on a state by state basis. We are up to 10 states that have mandatory paid maternity leave! Still not nearly long enough in many cases, but progress is being made.

How much? What's the percentile breakdown? How does it impact their monthly income? What's their economic potential without the degree? Are you suggesting it's higher if most just hadn't gotten a degree? How many choose economically unviable degrees? Who made them do that?

You're simplifying a complex issue—and inferring a problem—without demonstrating the problem. The fact that 50% of college educated adults have student loan debt tells me absolutely nothing of substance.

I don't understand how you can make a judgement in any regard without that information.

> 0.35% of adults file for medical bankruptcy alone every year.

There's no such thing as "medical bankruptcy", so I assume you mean "bankruptcy caused by medical bills". For how many of these people is the medical bill the sole cause? A major cause? One of many causes?

Again, without identifying this in a more granular way, you're asserting some undefined "problem" which means there's no equitable mechanism to rectify that problem.

> Maternal leave is by law unpaid, and few companies offer paid leave and paternal leave is virtually unheard of outside of extremely progressive companies.

Here again stating a condition, but not identifying the problem. To what end? What's the cost to the family? To the mother? To the child? The social cost?

I can't help but feel you're just regurgitating political talking points which, frankly, aren't designed to solve problems. They're designed to emotionally hook with a voter base and ultimately get the person elected, or the newspaper sold, or whatever self-serving reason someone in power would actively choose to be so vague as to not even concretely identify a problem. It's just the notion of a problem.

I'm not saying there's no problems. I'm just saying you spent a lot of words trying to counter the parent post, but didn't say much at all. I'd like to learn more about this, but I can't find much online, and unfortunately your post wasn't very helpful.

Do you know more than you said and you're just holding it close to your chest for the sake of brevity?

The baby formula crime ring - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17009675 - May 2018 (17 comments)