The cost of living will just keep going up because inflation is necessary in our current, debt based monetary system. The Fed tries to keep this under control by not allowing the rate of inflation to go much beyond about 2% a year. The recent inflation issue we’ve been having wasn’t about inflation suddenly happening where it hadn’t been happening before, it was about the rate of inflation increasing beyond the Fed’s 2% target. When they talk about inflation getting back under control, they’re talking about the rate of inflation getting back to near 2%. But make no mistake: prices are still going up - they have to, that’s how the system works - and they will keep going up every year, seemingly indefinitely. For this reason, a cost of living raise equal to at least the rate of inflation is absolutely essential, otherwise workers are getting a pay cut.

But this is further complicated by the fact that the core inflation numbers are very broad. Housing costs are exploding. Core inflation would be much lower if not for rising housing costs. But the way housing costs increases are measured is by averaging housing costs across all markets, meaning the cost of housing in low demand areas is averaged with the cost of housing in high demand areas. This means that if you live in a high demand area, the core inflation rate doesn’t necessarily capture the true cost of living in your area, and that the cost of living in your area is going up much faster than the national average. Therefore, many workers need an annual cost of living increase that is much greater than the national inflation rate.

As far as I know, there is no national law requiring companies to give cost of living raises every year. Many companies do, but many don’t. A mandatory, annual cost of living raise is something that unions can negotiate, once again showing the value of unions.

This is why Europe must take control of its own defense. Europe doesn’t want to be a mere vassal of the US for precisely this reason.

They need our labor to make their profits. Fuck their profits.

The United States is currently experiencing a shortfall in the number of immigrant workers. This has exacerbated service disruptions and labor shortages in vital industries that rely on immigrant workers, like leisure and hospitality. However, the impact of this shortfall extends beyond just the industries in which foreign-born workers perform a significant share of the labor. For example, immigrants also help counteract the slowing growth rate of the U.S. population, which helps drive the expansion of the labor force and contributes to overall economic growth.

Foreign-born workers are more likely to participate in the labor force than their native-born peers. As a result, immigrants have helped power the U.S. economic recovery by returning quickly to work, despite being disproportionately affected by job losses during the pandemic.

The importance of foreign-born workers will only continue to grow over time, as these workers remain vital to sectors that drive economic innovation and competitiveness. For example, jobs in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), which rely on the contributions of immigrants, are projected to continue growing faster than other occupations. Similarly, foreign-born workers are vital to the care industry, shouldering a significant share of the work performed by home health care and child care workers. Immigrant workers, a significant share of them women, are also helping to meet the growing demand for caregivers as the overall population ages.

Article

Am I the only one who finds this kind of disturbing? We need immigrants because Americans aren’t willing to do certain jobs, for the amount of money that companies want to pay, and because Americans aren’t having enough babies? We need immigrants because we don’t do a good enough job developing talent and competency in STEM fields? We need immigrants because our people don’t want to do home health care or child care work, for the amount of money those companies are willing to pay? It sounds like immigration is necessary due to our own failures.

That’s not good, and I don’t think immigration really solves the problem. In fact, I think it makes it worse, because it allows us to continue to not invest in our own people the way we should. Plus, what happens to those other countries? If we have all their talented and hard working laborers, what are they going to do?

Sounds like the moms are to blame. Moms need to be less forgiving of their sons, to better prepare them for their future relationships.

We got all these fucking players making all this fucking money, where the fuck are they?

Fuck

Do you mean the Democrats? If so, yeah, the Democrats do seem willing to accept anti-Trump conservatives into their party.

The Democrats really want to be a big tent party. They’ll take just about anyone within a certain ideological range, centered around the American political middle. This definitely includes many conservatives.

I question the effectiveness of this strategy, though, as when you include too many opposing ideologies in a single party, it can be difficult for the party to choose a clear path to take. It’s often the case that when you try to appeal to as many different people as possible, you end up not appealing to very many people at all.

This really isn’t that surprising. The Republican party has become a cult of personality around Trump, putting it at odds with actual, ideological conservatives.

I don’t know what Trump’s ideology is, or if he even has one. He seems to only believe in his own ambition, for wealth, power, and control.

However, conservativism does lend itself to people like Trump rising to power, because it promotes a central authority and/or aristocracy that preserves tradition, culture, and the established social order. Conservatism doesn’t just tolerate social hierarchies, like class, it promotes them, and, in fact conservatism believes that such hierarchies are not only necessary, but natural and essential. It makes sense that malignant narcissists would take advantage of such a system to try and take their “rightful place” at the top of the hierarchies, because they believe that they are inherently superior to everyone else.

Over the past few years, about 4 in 10 young women between the ages of 18 and 29 have described their political views as liberal

I wonder how the other 6 in 10 young women would describe their political views. While 40% isn’t a majority, I would think liberals are a plurality. Still, it’s a little disheartening that there isn’t a clear majority in the US. It would be nice if a majority of Americans could reach a consensus.

Global sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles rose by a yearly 20% in August, driven by record high sales in China…Increased subsidies in China for drivers trading in more polluting vehicles helped drive the EV sales jump in August

Of course parents not taking appropriate precautions doesn’t absolve the companies of responsibility. Unethical behavior is unethical behavior, even if there are things consumers can do to protect themselves from it. After all, the precautions wouldn’t be necessary if the companies didn’t engage in this behavior in the first place, so these precautions aren’t really solutions only mitigations.

I don’t truly understand why the option is between someone who might be reasonable, and a convicted predator con artist who, at every turn, keeps demonstrating how they’re more racist and incoherent than your great grandpa

I think our system of politics as day time talk show style entertainment is part of the reason why the convicted predator continues to be a seemingly viable candidate.

In a system where a single person gets full executive authority,

Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it. No single person should have that much authority. But, regardless, does this debate platform really tell us all that much about how a person is likely to perform as chief executive? I’m not so sure. I think a person can do relatively well in a debate performance and still end up being a poor president.

I can’t vote for policies.

But you can vote for a representative (two, actually) who can vote for policies. That’s where our focus should be, I think. I’m not really sure why we need a president, to be honest. A single individual with that much power, who isn’t even elected by popular vote, seems undemocratic to me.

I used to advocate for Linux, because I wanted more people to use it, so that more software devs would support it. I care a lot less about that since proton came to prominence. Linux still doesn’t get all the support from devs that I want, but there’s so much great software available now, both open source and proprietary, that I don’t really worry about non Linux users anymore.

So use whatever OS you want, folks. I don’t really care.

Politics shouldn’t be a sport. Critical thinking and data driven analysis are much better methods for determining the best policies than an arbitrary contest of who had the best quips or who totally owned their opponent more. Our future as a country shouldn’t be determined by the political equivalent of a rap battle.

Well, Mr. Cat Burglar. You’d like to get in here, wouldn’t you? There’s just one little problem-- thirty-six years ago, some lady gave birth to a man named HomerJ. Simp-- Oh, my God! Underage kids drinking beer without a permit!

I am so happy with how our o-line has played in this game. Jordan Mason has been running like a stud. The defense has made some big plays and gotten some stops. We just need our QB and skill players to make some more plays and we’d be running away with this thing.

RIP Lt. Zogg

The irony is, something like this probably would have been a lot less expensive to make, while also appealing more to fans. It’s funny how so many people in the movie business are not very good at, you know, the movie business.