65% of Americans are homeowners. It’s really not that luxurious, especially with a mortgage.

And what is he to downsize to? Renting? He should just subjugate himself to the whims of landlords while on a fixed income if he wants to retire? In a lot of places $28k a year is barely enough for a one bedroom and a car. I lived in a cockroach infested studio with no car when I made that much. It wasn’t even in a major metro area and I’m young and can walk everywhere.

You’re getting mad at a guy that almost managed to play the game right and scrape by instead of the game that fucks most of us over.

It’s incredibly normal to get mad at a 67 year old wanting to retire but not being financially secure enough. What are you talking about?

Oh yeah he should just cash out the 401k, owe a third of it to the government in income tax just for the hell of it, then start renting and live at the whims of landlords all because some internet socialists are mad an old guy did what most Americans do to retire. If he happens to make it to 80 when he’ll run out of money he can just start working again np.

Just canned the remainder of my fiddlehead harvest for the year with ground sumac from last summer and fresh picked mustard garlic. I hope they end up okay.

I was on a Vonnegut kick for a bit and read Mother Night and Jailbird. Both are a little nihilistic but quite funny. It makes me wonder why Slaughterhouse Five was the only Vonnegut I was exposed to in school because it was assigned multiple times and imo it’s just not that good.

“AI” has been a consumer product for less than two years. I think it’s actually quite easy to remember a time without it assuming one’s brain isn’t smoother than mirror.

Imagine being in a place with ten thousand years of culinary traditions through dozens of cultures and still going to the McDonald’s.

Can’t wait for the economic crash caused by too many people defaulting on the loans they used to finance their Stuffed Crust MeatZZas

Iirc in many countries young men are becoming more right wing while other young people are going further left.

It can vary. The effective federal income tax rate is around fifteen to twenty percent for most earners. There’s another 7.5 percent or so for federal benefits (Medicare and Social Security). State income taxes vary from zero in a few states to thirteen percent on the highest income bracket in California, but probably average out to five or six percent. Most (or all?) states require employees to cover some burden of their unemployment insurance as well. Some municipalities also have income taxes.

Americans also usually pay taxes on their homes, cars, and sales tax.

Tbf probably between a third and half of America is rationing or rapidly running out of water because all of it got sold to big agriculture.

Personally I carry an electric portable bidet with me though.

They also don’t actually work sixty hours. They might be at work for sixty hours but they don’t work for sixty hours. People actually working sixty hours a week is how we got early 20th century labor unrest.

My few experiences with Trots:

1. I tried to talk to some SA people, all they wanted to do was sell a newspaper, even as I was asking about their platform and what joining might look like. Once I bought the paper they were a little bit friendlier but that was all I needed to experience to not want to be involved.

2. Two different Trotskyist groups injecting themselves into every vaguely left thing in town. One of the groups was straight up disruptive while the other one would just try to recruit people.

3. A Trot that somehow snuck into a union organizer position ghosting me and my coworkers when we tried to organize. I found out he quit from someone else in the labor movement a few months later.

4. Over the last year I’ve been introduced to a number of people who had interest in an ideology that is a weird blend of Trotskyism and anarchism and most of those people and their ideas are absolutely cursed.