Wages need to be increased and the best way to do that is to stop businesses undercutting wages by hiring cheap foreign labour.

Urban density increases the efficiency of public services. Wage rates do not.

Trying to keep populations small and fragmented does nothing to improve domestic quality of life. And rising domestic populations don’t hurt overall household incomes. Cartelized labor markets are what do that.

Inflation is largely a global issue.

Prices vary enormously by local regions. And price gouging is increasingly difficult over large distances.

Inflation is most commonly a consequence of local commodity monopolization, not global price trends.

Am I denying the existence of a branch of international foreign intelligence dedicated specifically to Lemmy.world?

Yes. 100%. Absolutely.

It’s pure paranoia.

tax cuts on the poorest people in society

Are functionally no different than higher wages. But without public infrastructure - housing, education, health care, etc - what does an extra couple grand actually buy?

We’ve seen this in the US for decades. A pittance of tax cuts pitched as a percentage of income is presented as this enormous boon. But then wages stagnate, prices skyrocket, and debts soar in the face of new privatization.

And then we’re worse of than when we started.

The tax cut doesn’t buy anything in an inflationary economy

Other positions are easier to flip blue

Not under the current gerrymander.

I think helping everyday working class people is a good thing

Just cut taxes bro. Just one more time dawg. I promise it’ll work this time, dude. Just one more tax cut. One more time bro I promise. It’s going to stimulate the economy homey. This time we swear.

It’s called a Maginot Line and you build it on the German border

It’s foxes all the way down. Just a question whether Russians or Americans get their slice.

I hope they really don’t like the ruzzians

The European far right is increasingly aligned with Russia, on the theory that (((Americans))) have been subverting their countries with migrants and foreign debts.

Russian media pitches itself as a victim of American imperialism and asserts the European states are next to be economically gutted. And as the European economy stagnates, the message gains appeal.

So much of the current White Replacement hysteria revolves around white woman not having enough babies.

Can’t be overstated how that plays into a conservative hatred for sex ed

Candidates that inspire voters are obsequious to corporate interests.

Texas is more purple than you think.

Fool me once…

I was planning to blame Russian Internet robots

You can do this with AI now, except the computer still thinks they’re facts

We’re all going to vote for him if he’s the nominee… But he’s still going to lose…

The state of the election is such that turnout is going to tank. Libs and Cons are both very worried who the indie voter aligns with, but I’m betting a bunch of people simply don’t vote in November.

Jon Stewart

Would be extremely funny if the Dem response to Trump was to seed the election with their own brand of C-List celebrity.

But our country simply isn’t that cool.

Finally getting the Bernie/Hilary ticket everyone has been asking for

“Accused” by whom?

The British, by the look of it

You laugh, but I still have no idea what I’m going to do in November.

I’m in Texas, so it doesn’t really matter. But its not something I enjoy thinking about.

As a person who participated as a parent in the foster system in Texas, I’m here to say that its about as abusive and dysfunctional as you could possibly imagine. Kids get shuttled between foster homes at the whim of state administrators. The entire focus of the program is to minimize how much they spend. The well-being of the children is an absolute afterthought. You can and will be sued by the agency if you voice any kind of complaint or try to act in the best interest of the child in your care. And even in the middle of said lawsuit, they’ll try to assign you another kid, because their left-hand doesn’t know what their right-hand is doing.

Its a physical, financial, and emotional pain machine for everyone involved. Absolutely nightmarish.

On the other hand, you have “domestic adoption” which amounts to a bunch of expensive private agencies doing all the things CPS is supposed to be doing while CPS officials provide a rubber stamp. Significantly less traumatic for the people involved. But because the private system is entirely funded by the adoptive parents, you’re talking about spending $50-80k to cover the budgets of all these little independent agencies tasked with finding candidates, vetting households, and caring for expectant mothers.

The Texas model for adoption is the closest thing you can image to a full privatization of social services. It exists by, of, and for upper class predominantly white childless adults. I feel slimy every time I have to interact with it, and the only thing that keeps me going is the idea that I might be keeping some innocent kid out of the clutches of the disastrous public system.

Go ahead and downvote me. They’re used to it.

When you downvote me, this is who you’re really downvoting