The Riverfront Times was founded in 1977 as St. Louis's alternative newsweekly. Since then, we've cultivated an audited weekly circulation of 55,000. Because of the pass-along nature of the RFT, our weekly reach is near 200,000 readers.
You mean the old clown who straight up quoted his favorite fiction book and referred to Christianity multiple times in his opinion is a Christian fundamentalist?! Who could have imagined this!!
What must it be like? To be so immensely mediocre, and think you are ordained by a deity? I imagine it's actually a lot scarier than they lead on. And that's why they freak out about literally nothing. They have no idea what the fuck is going on around them, but they are just aware enough to know those around them expect them to lead. They are dumb animals acting out of pure flight instincts, but they're privileged enough that the systems around them won't let them fail. It's hilarious and maddening.
Can anyone explain how all of these people aren't being sent to prison for straight up treason? Isn't blatantly and loudly stating that you're intending to overthrow the united states government an enormous crime?
You'd think so, wouldn't you? People have been locked-away for treason after lesser acts than Jan 6. Treason laws in the United States . If the feds won't prosecute, I'd hope the state AGs would start to look into these kind of public displays of insurrection.
They sure are given that their standard of living keeps getting better each and every year. Sadly same can't be said for people living under western regimes.
The government continued to stifle criticism of its policies and actions and discussion of topics considered sensitive through increasingly pervasive online censorship. Government critics, human rights defenders, pro-democracy activists and religious leaders and practitioners were among those subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention. Systematic repression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet continued. Authorities attempted to prevent the publication of an OHCHR report documenting potential crimes against humanity and other international crimes in Xinjiang... Despite some positive policy commitments, including to increased use of renewables, China’s CO2 reduction targets were rated as “highly insufficient” and coal production increased.
China remained the world’s leading executioner, although the government continued to classify statistics for executions and death sentences as “state secrets”. The death penalty remained applicable for 46 offences, including non-lethal offences that do not meet the threshold of the “most serious crimes” under international law and standards.
The late-night talkshow host John Oliver has offered to pay Clarence Thomas $1m annually – as well as give him a $2m tour bus – if the Republican judge resigns from the US supreme court.
The British-born, progressive comedian’s offer came after a steady drumbeat of media investigations in the previous several months established that Thomas failed to disclose that political benefactors bought him lavish vacation travel and real estate for his mother.
Thomas also failed to disclose – as required – that he allowed school fees for a family member to be paid off and had been provided a loan to buy a luxury motor coach, all after openly complaining about the need to raise supreme court justices’ salaries.
He also recently listened to arguments over whether Donald Trump can be removed from states’ ballots in the presidential election after the former president’s supporters – whom he told to “fight like hell” – staged the January 6 attack at the US Capitol in Washington DC.
The host suggested that Thomas could upgrade his “favorite mode of travel” by signing a contract requiring him to step down from the supreme court in exchange for $1m annually from Oliver along with the tour bus, which is outfitted with a king-sized bed, a fireplace and four televisions.
Oliver joked that Thomas possibly feared that making such a trade might attract negative judgment from one of his top benefactors: the Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow, who was reported to have maintained a private collection of Nazi memorabilia that included a pair of paintings by Adolf Hitler.
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When analysts at the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, a nonprofit research center focused on lower- and middle-income families, measured what they call the "true rate of unemployment" in October, it was 23.6%, more than six times higher than the official number.
If somebody could politely explain to me, why is the economy doing well but my paycheck provides less and less each month? I feel like these numbers are divorced from my everyday experiences. Does the inflation of goods not factor in?
The economy booming means that shareholders make big returns. It doesn't have any connection to workers. Worker benefits are rarely connected to how well economies or companies are doing. It doesn't really relate to inflation. It's just a measure of how well businesses are doing. They are doing well thanks to taking more out of your monthly.
Jobs that dont pay enough to afford a house, rent, healthcare or basic living standards. Also its probably a lot of people who got hired for a second or third job
Usually in reports like this there are mentions of job growth (ie new recorded hiring) unemployment going down and average income levels rising.
Ok so yes, jobs are created, wonderful.
But lots of things arent recorded as job losses.
Generally speaking, if you dont file for unemployment, or dont qualify, but still lost a job, you dont show up without doing far, far more exhaustive research than these headline numbers illustrate.
And any prole has either had this happen to themselves or someone they know by this point, at least amongst people I know.
Or, if you are out of the workforce due to an injury, illness and/or esrly retirement, that usually doesnt show up as a job loss, but does show up as 'not in the workforce'.
And, if youre not in the workforce, you are not considered unemployed, as you are not in the pool if possibly employable workers.
So, wonderful, that not in work force number is still high compared to historical norms, as a proportion of the whole population. Its going up.
Income. This one is easy.
Thats usually always a headline of average income.
Cool. Averages dont mean dick in an economy where the vast number of people earn little, and only a few earn a lot. So what did we learn in basic statstics hopefully?
5 5 5 5 5 has an average of 5
1 1 1 2 20 /also/ has an average of 5.
Further compounding things, Americans are now drowning in personal debt, so much so that even quite a lot of people who /appear/ to be well off actually have as much net worth as many who appear not well off.
The maths and data on that is /way/ more complicated, but the rough breakdown is:
1/4 of Americans have significantly negative net worth, ie -5000 or worse.
1/4 of Americans have roughly 0 net worth.
1/4 of Americans have roughly positive net worth, ie up to 10k.
Then the higher you go from there its an exponential scale of less and less people having more and more money.
Ending up with something like the richest 1% of Americans have more net worth / wealth than the bottom 60%.
The confusing part is that for incomes below basically about a quarter mil a year, there is again actually significsntly wide variance in the relationship of yearly income to net worth.
Many people of modest means are actually in financially better positions than many people who would basically be their boss, or bosses boss...
But can you imagine that the richer ones either hide this and lie about it, or act like its fine and not a problem for them, but it /is/ a problem for those of lower income, and /they/ are irresponsible and need personal austerity finances, while they (the higher incomed folks) dont?
So anyway, there ya go, theres /some/ explanation of whats going on from someone with a bachelors in econ, specialty in econometrics and environmental econ, and another bachelors in poli sci.
For me to actually lay all this out with proper cited studies and data sets would basically be a phd thesis, im tired, go away.
Basically the title of this thesis would be 'How the American Economy Enforced And Solidified An Economic Caste System Structure Following the 08 Financial Crisis' and would focus heavily on how income mobility has been extremely reduced for large segments of society in the past 15 years.
Hilariously I cant afford to pay for a PHD, so whats the fucking point rofl.
EDIT;
2 other major factors: Rent and Healthcare.
Both of those are absolute shit shows right now, and vaaaaastly take more proportional income from a poorer person than a richer one.
Remember when most people owned homes by their 30s?
Haha, yeah, good one, me neither.
EDIT 2: Alternative spicy title for the PHD Thesis would be:
"An aggregate, ends justify the means, moral argument for the justness and validity of,
at best,
letting all the baby boomers die scared and alone in old folks homes with poorly trained and paid staff who will abuse them until they die painful, terrifying, lonely deaths,
or, at worst,
why we should actually just start killing /enough/ of them that it scares the rest of them into selling their barely-not-foreclosed-on second homes they are renting out based not on actual market rates but on the prices dictated by their mortgage payments... why we should kill enough of them that they sell these properties for about 1/4 of what they think they are worth."
Low unemployment and rising wages means it's a good time to find a new job that pays more. The absolute best time to get more money is to get a new job. Staying in the same job for a long time almost always means your wages will stagnate, most companies don't reward loyalty, they abuse it
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