3998

Because I have doubts that there’s inequality decrease, rather than the lower boats ever so slightly rising, that probably sink again as the water rises. Both figuratively, as in inflation and debt, but, why not, the cost of dealing with AGW too.
As to what to take of that, well, I was going to put in the Virginia thread apropos the messaging, but not really conclude anything, so I didn’t. I still think it’s a data point to what voters might think of policy objectives.

3999

One of my themes is that Democrats, don’t appreciate the power of federalism, certainly on the forum and I think in general. So for instance Seattle spent a lot political capital on raising the minimum wage to $15 /hour. While ignoring a major source of inequality the 10.25% sale taxes that’s the most regressive tax out there. It pretty crazy that, Mr Bezos, Mr. Gates, and all the highly paid tech workers in the area are taxed at the same rate as McDonald’s workers.

If Washington really wanted to address inequality replacing their high (or at least lowering) sales tax with income tax like neighboring Oregon has would go a lot further than minimum wage hike. They should be ashamed they are the most unequal state in the country, behind Texas. Democrats out number Republicans by a wide enough margin to do it. Plus some working class Republican may even support it.

There was big push by Democrats to extend the eviction moratorium and provide more funds for it. Republicans pointed that many states hadn’t spent money that was allocated. In this cases, Texas is either best or 2nd best with ~40% of the funds distributed compared to NY with 1%.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2021-08-25/states-lag-in-rental-assistance-distributions-as-millions-struggle-to-pay-rent

What it’s even more infuriating is the top ranked goggle results on the subject is these guys.

Which to me nicely summarize my frustration with Democratic party, there is way too much emphasis on policy, and not nearly enough execution.

It’s great that Democrats fought for and got $50 billion in rental assistance for people impacted by Covid. It is a good public policy and worthy of campaigning. The fact that 15 months later only $5 billion was actually in the pockets of needed people sucks. It’s hard to look at the map and say blue states are better than red states in distributing the money. Even if they have much higher policy scores. Democrats can campaign about how wonderful their policies are, but if they don’t actual help people in timely fashion it is not worth shit. Which, unfortunately, is a legitimate concern about the infrastructure bill.

4000

In the case of Washington State, lawmakers are hamstrung by the State constitution that specifically bans graduated income taxes (it’s more complicated, but that’s the affect.) Just this year, Democrats have pushed multiple proposals to deal with the regressive system in the State. In every case, they’ve been opposed by Republican lawmakers and interest groups.

This isn’t a NIMBY situation that Ds don’t want to address as much as it’s a system designed to make it damn near impossible to change.

4001

I think you have something there, succinctly stated. There’s certainly a fair amount of handwaving about how to actually make things happen in the real world. It’s not totally unlike the messaging problem. I’ll have to think on that.

4002

Strollen, there is actually a reason that the Washington state tax situation is so screwed: there’s an old State Supreme Court case based on the state constitution that forbids progressive taxation. I forget all the details, but it’s been well-discussed on that other forum where many of the Seattle-area former-QT3 folks ended up.

I can see about finding a link for you, but some googling should get you the info.

The Dems/Liberals in Washington state have been trying to work around this for decades but the GOP and the NIMBY Dems keep blocking them.

Keep in mind, I have almost as much fury at the NIMBY Dems in these scenarios as I do at the GOP - they may be less persistently awful but damnit they should know better! Grumble.

Edit: @John_Doyle beat me to the punch.

4003

Looks like the John Deere strike is over, and the UAW won bigtime.

4004

Did they? Time to find an article!

4005

Oh, the everyday problems of ordinary people in the working class.

4006

Am I seriously going to have to explain “eat the rich” to my daughter before she’s ten damn years old?

4007

Train em young, but wait to explain praxis until she’s older. ^_^

4008

that has to be performance art of some kind. It can’t be a real genuine person.

4009

Meanwhile…

4010

Someone doesn’t understand the value of good cookwear.

4011

The people who supported spending hundreds of millions of public dollars for Trump to go golfing, Pence to leave a football game and countless other examples of bullshit have strong opinions on how someone spends their own salary on durable products that will likely last a lifetime.

Edit:

4012

It is not like all of Trump’s golf, and Pence football games weren’t well-publicized by the media. Plus the detail of the cost of secret service protection was always highlighted. I think GOP twitter, missed an opportunity to talk about the cost of her secret service protection,during her shopping trip.

It seems to me that $375 is for serving dish and $160 frying pan is excessive I know bought a set of pots and pans and Costco for about as much as her frying pan, not that long ago.

Partisan media is going to be partisan.

4013

No one can convince me that Market Watch is a sincere publication and not a new stealth-launched Onion vertical.

4014

Thing is that I’ve always heard snippets from Marketwatch on NPR and its always seemed to be at least decent. Usually pretty solid analysis and informative.

I mean it certainly has a specific perspective, being an insider stock market news, but its never struck me as being this far up its own ass when I hear it on the radio. maybe its that I don’t commute these days so have missed the crazification factor recently.

4015

Don’t know if they’ve only recently decided to troll the shit out of their audience, but I do know this much, they have definitely decided to really lean into it:

And based off the article referenced above and this one I just linked I’ve written them off as someone I won’t pay any attention to whatsoever going forward. I’ve developed a really thin skin for being trolled and feel about the same way I do pretty much every decision the NY Times has made in roughly the last decade.

4016

I don’t understand why you think you are being trolled?

I literally have read 1-3 of these stories a month for the last 20 YEARs on financial/early retirement forums. A couple, between 40 and 65, who’ve accumulated a net worth between 3 and $10 million and sometimes more wondering if they can retire.

There are more than 20 million millionaires in the country, and even taking narrower view folks with million-dollar excluding their house, aka accredited investor , there are estimate14 million of them.

4017

Marketwatch seems like no fun to listen to.

I wonder if it gets confused often with Market Place? Now that is a far better series of Shows.