15,000 empty apartments in Manhattan.

[Mac-7]

How did that happen? The companies moved. The people moved. It was Atlas Shrugged, for cities.

In the case of detroit the companies moved to other cities

I see the argument for decentralization

with internet shopping, distance learning, drones delivering packages and so forth the necessity for large inner cities with towering skyscrapers and millions of people seems less urgent

but it can only go so far


Seattle serves a purpose and should not be allowed to rot

after all there is not guarantee that only stupid libs who caused all the trouble will remain in the city and only good people will immigrate

so we could be spreading the disease to other places

 

[sealybobo]

...

Azog said he’d be depressed if he only made $100,000 and he has two kids. He lives in Boston. Does he know you make less than $80,000? Are you even middle class?

You have never been to Brookline, have you?

No why?

 

[sealybobo]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

It is way too expensive to live in nyc. People who worked in nyc but now work from home have moved to places where their salaries go a lot further.

Shuli on the Howard stern show moved to Alabama. With what he makes he’s rich in Alabama. If you can work from home why live in a city where $100,000 a year is not a lot?

And whose fault is that?

You jack up taxes, jack up regulations, jack up housing policy, jack up the police so that crime is everywhere, which increases costs on the city.... and then you say "It's too expensive to live there" as if that just fell out of the sky randomly.

No it didn't. Bad policies caused this.

And by the way, they could have had thousands of well paying jobs in NYC when Amazon built an HQ there, but AOC drove them out. Brilliant.

Hey, if you want to live or do business in ny you have to pay. Otherwise go to Alabama. Use their ports and tear up their roads.

Well that's kind of my point. They are not, and they leaving.

People are leaving NYC. That's the point. This is true everywhere.

When France implemented their wealth tax... they said the same thing. "Hey, if you want to live and do business in France, you have to pay!"

and you know what happened????

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They left! They were packing up their wealthy, their businesses, and their families, and leaving.

Famously in Jamaica, when PM Manly passed all his socialist crap.... he said openly "There are six flights a day to Miami"... and people started taking the flights to Miami. They left.

You can't hurt the rich. Only yourself. It was poor people of Jamaica that end up dealing with the joblessness and high crime.

The rich left.

Same in NYC. The rich are leaving. The poor are stuck jobless, and victimized by the criminals.

So, yes.... they will leave.

Then don’t expect America to be great again. Not if you are middle class. The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.

If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

I actually don't believe that America was ever not great. At least thus far. America has never ceased being great.

The only people who think that America has declined, are the fools who have never lived, or been elsewhere, or know people who live elsewhere.

I do. I've been to Europe. I know people who live in Europe right now. And if you think America is not better than Europe, or the rest of the world, you are crazy. You don't know what you are talking about.

People in Europe live lower standards of living, universally. Smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller appliances, less spending money, less entertainment.

There is no possible way to measure the standards of living in the rest of the world, and compare to the US, and not have the US be better.

Why do think we have millions of people trying to get into this country? It's one of the most baffling aspects of Left-wing contradictions, that you want open borders to let people freely come into the country, and at the same time claim the country is declining and everything is terrible, and America is racists and evil.

Those are mutually exclusive positions. People don't risk their lives, to get into places that are terrible.

The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

No, I don't buy that. You show me one person who walked the exact same path as their parents, and is worse off.

I'm not making the same money as my parents, but that's because I am not in the same career as my parents.

I have relatives, where their parents were wielders. Their son, became a wielder too. Their son is make more money than his parents did, when they were his age.

I know engineers, and they make more money in engineering than their parents who were engineers.

And as far as the standard of living.... no you are still crazy.

My standard of living today, is better than my parents when they were my age. By quite a bit too.

My house is bigger, than the house they had at my age. I have had central air conditioning since I was in college, in 1999. My parents didn't have air conditioning until they were in their late 50s. Microwaves, internet, computers, instapots. My parents didn't have cable TV until they were in their late 50s, and in fact, didn't even own a TV until they were in their late 40s.

I've had all of that, and smart phones, and GPS driving directions, and on and on and on.

We today, are miles and miles beyond where are parents were at the same age. You are crazy if you think otherwise. Absolutely crazy.

The poorest WORKING people today, have a higher standard of living, than the middle class of the 1970s. By a MASSIVE margin.

Now if you are living off welfare and unemployment, and not working consistently full time, then yeah, they are falling way behind, and need to get off their butts, and work for what they want.

But the poorest working people putting in full days work every day.... no they are way beyond where the middle class was in the 1970s, or even 1980s.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.
If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

Social Security was going broke before Trump was even running for office.

You are fool if your retirement plan is to depend on Social Security.

Before any of this Covid nonsense happened, SS was going broke. Before Trump was ever elected, SS paid out so little, that you were basically going to live in poverty until you die, if Social Security was your retirement plan.

Anyone who plans to retire on Social Security is an idiot. You need to be saving for your own retirement out of your own income, like everyone else should be doing.

Social Security is the most poverty creating program in US history. Don't be stupid. Save for retirement.

We don’t have to be worse than Europe. Maybe we’re still better but not as much as we were before Reagan bush and trump.

And when I say we’re not better than we were before I mean the middle class. The rich are doing great.

Half of me is working class and half is investor class. As a worker I disagree with you. As an investor I partially agree with you. And when I agree I certainly don’t agree on your suggested remedies.

Again, factually speaking, we are way better off after the 1980s, than before.

If you telling me that the working class, TODAY.... is worse off, than the working class of the 1970s.... or before.... you are crazy. You are factually incorrect sir.

We are way way way better off than the people in the 1970s or before.

The middle class TODAY... is better off than the middle class of the 1970s.

And yes, investors are better off too. You know who is an investor? Likely.... 70% of the population?

55% of people have investments in the stock market.
65% have property investments.
15% have pensions, which are in fact investments, typically in the stock market.

And there are millions with annuities, and those are typically invested in stocks too.

And by the way, there is a connection between investment and labor. Most jobs wouldn't exist without investment.

So while someone might claim "The investor class is doing well, but the working class is not".... really? Because without the investments, hundreds of millions of jobs wouldn't exist, and those workers would be far worse off.

Honestly I grew up in the 70s and 80s in metro Detroit. Back then a guy could graduate high school and go find a job that would support a family of 5. One income. One bread winner.

Today to do as well you have to go to college and how much does that cost? So blue collar are not better off today and back in my day college was $5000 a year. I worked in the summer and saved most of my tuition. Maybe my dad had to chip in $1000 a year so I didn’t need student loans.

And honestly, for years I had a college degree but wasn’t doing as well as my dad did. I am now but that is common now especially for millennials. First generation who won’t do better than their parents.

I may make more than my dad ever did but am I better off? Fuck no. My dad has great retirement benefits through ford. And a pension. He took the buy out.

Oh yea and me. I make $100k a year give or take now. Have for the past 5 years. I’m 49. So let’s say I’ve got to at least work till I’m 62 to collect social security and Medicare. If they let me retire with those things at 62 I will I don’t care how much I lose for retiring early.

BUT. If I would have went to work at ford when I graduated highschool at 17, I’d already be getting a 30 year pension 2 years ago. At the age of 47. So even though I’m balling and have no debt, I’m still going to have to work 15 more years than if I would have just taken that union job at ford.

plus i wouldn’t have spent that $20,000 on a bachelors degree.

If I only made $100k per yr I would be depressed.

Why should people who make $60k and have $100,000 in student loan debt vote republican? You probably like that th3 ceo makes 300x what they make right?

But you, if you really make more than me, you should vote republican. But if you don’t you shouldn’t.

Arent you that fat foreign guy? Maybe I’m confusing you with someone else?

I vote Republican because Democrats tell me that men may identity as women

Ha! I was just telling a guy name unkotare how they use gay to con poor and middle class Americans into voting republican. Without these wedge issues like guns, racism, abortion these people would have no business voting republican. Republicans are not pro labor. Period.

That's a dumb statement. That's like saying "Without all the clear cut reasons to vote Republican.... people wouldn't vote Republican.

Yeah... so?

If the parties policies hurt your pocket book, you don’t vote based on wedge issues.

Americans made this mistake in 2000. They didn’t realize how much worse republicans are to the middle class but they found out in the 2000s. They took Bill Clinton and al gore for granted and thought how bad could bush possibly be? Things were going so great. How could he fuck it up?

Sent all our best blue collar jobs overseas. Our most important jobs. Manufacturing jobs.

They convinced you Walmart and China were great. You loved the cheap shit.

And they convinced you that illegals were only doing jobs Americans won’t do. And again, do you want to pay more to get your grass cut?

Republicans fucked the middle class in the 2000s and I’m not buying trump even though he’s very clever

This is not the Bush Republican party nor is it the Clinton one. Duh.

Not buying trumps con game same way I didn’t buy Reagan’s. I see the con.

You never told me what state you live in. One more time

I have told you 10x. Don't play coy and it says so in my bio. Too. You're such an asshole. Do you have dementia? We have conversed multiple times.

Medium household income in Boston is $71,000. Medium income in Oakland county, mi is $80,000. So isn’t that probably a lot of two earner households only making $71,000?

I live in Brookline and "income" doesn't take into account stocks, RE value, and retirees.

Brookline, MA | Data USA

In 2017, Brookline, MA had a population of 59.2k people with a median age of 34.1 and a median household income of $111,289. Between 2016 and 2017 the population of Brookline, MA grew from 59,180 to 59,246, a 0.112% increase and its median household income grew from $102,175 to $111,289, a 8.92%...

datausa.io

.

Well even if you lived in Michigan, $100,000 with two kids is not a lot of money. Now consider most families of four make less than me.

I’m looking into your claim. Did you know in 1970 60% of Americans were middle class and in 2019 it was 49%? Did that percent go up on trumps watch or is the middle class still disappearing?

49% in the middle class. 19% upper class and 31% lower class. in 1970 60% were middle class. what’s happening to the middle class?

I read a single guy living by himself Making 6 figures is upper class. I’m upper class. But have 1 kid you move into middle class.

It is shrinking. My AGI last year was ~$600k...am I middle class or upper class by that operational definition?

Upper

 

[sealybobo]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

It is way too expensive to live in nyc. People who worked in nyc but now work from home have moved to places where their salaries go a lot further.

Shuli on the Howard stern show moved to Alabama. With what he makes he’s rich in Alabama. If you can work from home why live in a city where $100,000 a year is not a lot?

And whose fault is that?

You jack up taxes, jack up regulations, jack up housing policy, jack up the police so that crime is everywhere, which increases costs on the city.... and then you say "It's too expensive to live there" as if that just fell out of the sky randomly.

No it didn't. Bad policies caused this.

And by the way, they could have had thousands of well paying jobs in NYC when Amazon built an HQ there, but AOC drove them out. Brilliant.

Hey, if you want to live or do business in ny you have to pay. Otherwise go to Alabama. Use their ports and tear up their roads.

Well that's kind of my point. They are not, and they leaving.

People are leaving NYC. That's the point. This is true everywhere.

When France implemented their wealth tax... they said the same thing. "Hey, if you want to live and do business in France, you have to pay!"

and you know what happened????

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They left! They were packing up their wealthy, their businesses, and their families, and leaving.

Famously in Jamaica, when PM Manly passed all his socialist crap.... he said openly "There are six flights a day to Miami"... and people started taking the flights to Miami. They left.

You can't hurt the rich. Only yourself. It was poor people of Jamaica that end up dealing with the joblessness and high crime.

The rich left.

Same in NYC. The rich are leaving. The poor are stuck jobless, and victimized by the criminals.

So, yes.... they will leave.

Then don’t expect America to be great again. Not if you are middle class. The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.

If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

I actually don't believe that America was ever not great. At least thus far. America has never ceased being great.

The only people who think that America has declined, are the fools who have never lived, or been elsewhere, or know people who live elsewhere.

I do. I've been to Europe. I know people who live in Europe right now. And if you think America is not better than Europe, or the rest of the world, you are crazy. You don't know what you are talking about.

People in Europe live lower standards of living, universally. Smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller appliances, less spending money, less entertainment.

There is no possible way to measure the standards of living in the rest of the world, and compare to the US, and not have the US be better.

Why do think we have millions of people trying to get into this country? It's one of the most baffling aspects of Left-wing contradictions, that you want open borders to let people freely come into the country, and at the same time claim the country is declining and everything is terrible, and America is racists and evil.

Those are mutually exclusive positions. People don't risk their lives, to get into places that are terrible.

The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

No, I don't buy that. You show me one person who walked the exact same path as their parents, and is worse off.

I'm not making the same money as my parents, but that's because I am not in the same career as my parents.

I have relatives, where their parents were wielders. Their son, became a wielder too. Their son is make more money than his parents did, when they were his age.

I know engineers, and they make more money in engineering than their parents who were engineers.

And as far as the standard of living.... no you are still crazy.

My standard of living today, is better than my parents when they were my age. By quite a bit too.

My house is bigger, than the house they had at my age. I have had central air conditioning since I was in college, in 1999. My parents didn't have air conditioning until they were in their late 50s. Microwaves, internet, computers, instapots. My parents didn't have cable TV until they were in their late 50s, and in fact, didn't even own a TV until they were in their late 40s.

I've had all of that, and smart phones, and GPS driving directions, and on and on and on.

We today, are miles and miles beyond where are parents were at the same age. You are crazy if you think otherwise. Absolutely crazy.

The poorest WORKING people today, have a higher standard of living, than the middle class of the 1970s. By a MASSIVE margin.

Now if you are living off welfare and unemployment, and not working consistently full time, then yeah, they are falling way behind, and need to get off their butts, and work for what they want.

But the poorest working people putting in full days work every day.... no they are way beyond where the middle class was in the 1970s, or even 1980s.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.
If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

Social Security was going broke before Trump was even running for office.

You are fool if your retirement plan is to depend on Social Security.

Before any of this Covid nonsense happened, SS was going broke. Before Trump was ever elected, SS paid out so little, that you were basically going to live in poverty until you die, if Social Security was your retirement plan.

Anyone who plans to retire on Social Security is an idiot. You need to be saving for your own retirement out of your own income, like everyone else should be doing.

Social Security is the most poverty creating program in US history. Don't be stupid. Save for retirement.

We don’t have to be worse than Europe. Maybe we’re still better but not as much as we were before Reagan bush and trump.

And when I say we’re not better than we were before I mean the middle class. The rich are doing great.

Half of me is working class and half is investor class. As a worker I disagree with you. As an investor I partially agree with you. And when I agree I certainly don’t agree on your suggested remedies.

Again, factually speaking, we are way better off after the 1980s, than before.

If you telling me that the working class, TODAY.... is worse off, than the working class of the 1970s.... or before.... you are crazy. You are factually incorrect sir.

We are way way way better off than the people in the 1970s or before.

The middle class TODAY... is better off than the middle class of the 1970s.

And yes, investors are better off too. You know who is an investor? Likely.... 70% of the population?

55% of people have investments in the stock market.
65% have property investments.
15% have pensions, which are in fact investments, typically in the stock market.

And there are millions with annuities, and those are typically invested in stocks too.

And by the way, there is a connection between investment and labor. Most jobs wouldn't exist without investment.

So while someone might claim "The investor class is doing well, but the working class is not".... really? Because without the investments, hundreds of millions of jobs wouldn't exist, and those workers would be far worse off.

Honestly I grew up in the 70s and 80s in metro Detroit. Back then a guy could graduate high school and go find a job that would support a family of 5. One income. One bread winner.

Today to do as well you have to go to college and how much does that cost? So blue collar are not better off today and back in my day college was $5000 a year. I worked in the summer and saved most of my tuition. Maybe my dad had to chip in $1000 a year so I didn’t need student loans.

And honestly, for years I had a college degree but wasn’t doing as well as my dad did. I am now but that is common now especially for millennials. First generation who won’t do better than their parents.

I may make more than my dad ever did but am I better off? Fuck no. My dad has great retirement benefits through ford. And a pension. He took the buy out.

Oh yea and me. I make $100k a year give or take now. Have for the past 5 years. I’m 49. So let’s say I’ve got to at least work till I’m 62 to collect social security and Medicare. If they let me retire with those things at 62 I will I don’t care how much I lose for retiring early.

BUT. If I would have went to work at ford when I graduated highschool at 17, I’d already be getting a 30 year pension 2 years ago. At the age of 47. So even though I’m balling and have no debt, I’m still going to have to work 15 more years than if I would have just taken that union job at ford.

plus i wouldn’t have spent that $20,000 on a bachelors degree.

If I only made $100k per yr I would be depressed.

Why should people who make $60k and have $100,000 in student loan debt vote republican? You probably like that th3 ceo makes 300x what they make right?

But you, if you really make more than me, you should vote republican. But if you don’t you shouldn’t.

Arent you that fat foreign guy? Maybe I’m confusing you with someone else?

I vote Republican because Democrats tell me that men may identity as women

Ha! I was just telling a guy name unkotare how they use gay to con poor and middle class Americans into voting republican. Without these wedge issues like guns, racism, abortion these people would have no business voting republican. Republicans are not pro labor. Period.

How so?

Because republicans are against employees unionizing. Their way brought wages down.

Because republicans won’t go after illegal employers. So they arent really trying to kick illegals out. A wall. Ha!

Because trumps fixes to nafta and trade with ch8na did nothing to help labor. And only american companies a little. Only enough for trump to claim a victory.

Youre being conned

Unions are stupid. Republicans are for lower taxes and fewer regulations. You’re uneducated by your own admission so please stop trying to sound smart.

Republicans are against paying labor more too. Driving wages down. How? By sending jobs overseas and hiring illegal workers

Not true at all. Fewer regulations equates to more business openings and expansion and more jobs. Trump brought jobs back and halted corporate inversions.

More jobs but lower paying.

But I’m not so against lower wages anymore. As long as it’s not my wages. You and I make more than the average american with two kids. I’m not worrying about them anymore

but remember you admitted that if you made what they all make, your be depressed. So why should they vote like you vote when you’re for lower wages for them?

lower pay?? how so?

Look at companies like Toyota and Honda Compared to ford and gm. More temps than full time employees.

That’s just one example.

Do you even have to ask?

Republicans applaud companies who’s CEOs make the most but employees make the least.

PROOF PLEASE--you just babbled..how about some facts and figures--FOR ONCE!!!!

Look it up

We have looked it up. There is no example of lower pay.

You show me the example of lower pay. You show me the wielder that in 1970 was earning $50/hour, and today is earning $10/hour.

There is no such example anywhere. None. Zero. Even adjusted for inflation, no such example.

We have looked it up. You are wrong. This is why we are asking you to look it up, so you can educate yourself on your false beliefs.

Ford scores higher in 6 areas dummy. Overall rating, career opportunpities, work life balance, senior management, culture and values and % recommended to a friend.

Big three workers make $27 hr Toyota $25.

Keep in mind Toyota only pays what they pay because if they didn’t their employees would unionize.

Engineers at ford make $37 hr Toyota engineers make $32

Ford has 3400 temp workers. I’m looking at an article about Toyota extending plant shutdown and will stop paying 5000 temps.

 

[sealybobo]

Notice how desperate the brainless Democrat shill is to promote the bullshit notion of a class war. The Democrats always need some kind of ‘war;’ class, race, religion, anything will do as long as they can try to use it to disrupt and divide Americans. The problem for them is, Americans know there is no class warfare. America is the land of opportunity. People who are not wealthy want the opportunity to become wealthy, whether they ever do or not. Resentment is part of what Democrats want to impose in the minds of the weak just like every other notion they have ever promoted.

So why did we go from 62% of americans being middle class in 1970 to 49% today? What happening to the disappearing middle class?

Azog said he’d be depressed if he only made $100,000 and he has two kids. He lives in Boston. Does he know you make less than $80,000? Are you even middle class?

People have moved UP.... UP from the middle class to the upper class.

This isn't a negative.

I knew you would say that. What percent of the 13% who are no longer middle class do you think moved into the upper class?

 

[Unkotare]

...

Azog said he’d be depressed if he only made $100,000 and he has two kids. He lives in Boston. Does he know you make less than $80,000? Are you even middle class?

You have never been to Brookline, have you?

No ...

That’s obvious.

 

[harmonica]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

It is way too expensive to live in nyc. People who worked in nyc but now work from home have moved to places where their salaries go a lot further.

Shuli on the Howard stern show moved to Alabama. With what he makes he’s rich in Alabama. If you can work from home why live in a city where $100,000 a year is not a lot?

And whose fault is that?

You jack up taxes, jack up regulations, jack up housing policy, jack up the police so that crime is everywhere, which increases costs on the city.... and then you say "It's too expensive to live there" as if that just fell out of the sky randomly.

No it didn't. Bad policies caused this.

And by the way, they could have had thousands of well paying jobs in NYC when Amazon built an HQ there, but AOC drove them out. Brilliant.

Hey, if you want to live or do business in ny you have to pay. Otherwise go to Alabama. Use their ports and tear up their roads.

Well that's kind of my point. They are not, and they leaving.

People are leaving NYC. That's the point. This is true everywhere.

When France implemented their wealth tax... they said the same thing. "Hey, if you want to live and do business in France, you have to pay!"

and you know what happened????

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They left! They were packing up their wealthy, their businesses, and their families, and leaving.

Famously in Jamaica, when PM Manly passed all his socialist crap.... he said openly "There are six flights a day to Miami"... and people started taking the flights to Miami. They left.

You can't hurt the rich. Only yourself. It was poor people of Jamaica that end up dealing with the joblessness and high crime.

The rich left.

Same in NYC. The rich are leaving. The poor are stuck jobless, and victimized by the criminals.

So, yes.... they will leave.

Then don’t expect America to be great again. Not if you are middle class. The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.

If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

I actually don't believe that America was ever not great. At least thus far. America has never ceased being great.

The only people who think that America has declined, are the fools who have never lived, or been elsewhere, or know people who live elsewhere.

I do. I've been to Europe. I know people who live in Europe right now. And if you think America is not better than Europe, or the rest of the world, you are crazy. You don't know what you are talking about.

People in Europe live lower standards of living, universally. Smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller appliances, less spending money, less entertainment.

There is no possible way to measure the standards of living in the rest of the world, and compare to the US, and not have the US be better.

Why do think we have millions of people trying to get into this country? It's one of the most baffling aspects of Left-wing contradictions, that you want open borders to let people freely come into the country, and at the same time claim the country is declining and everything is terrible, and America is racists and evil.

Those are mutually exclusive positions. People don't risk their lives, to get into places that are terrible.

The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

No, I don't buy that. You show me one person who walked the exact same path as their parents, and is worse off.

I'm not making the same money as my parents, but that's because I am not in the same career as my parents.

I have relatives, where their parents were wielders. Their son, became a wielder too. Their son is make more money than his parents did, when they were his age.

I know engineers, and they make more money in engineering than their parents who were engineers.

And as far as the standard of living.... no you are still crazy.

My standard of living today, is better than my parents when they were my age. By quite a bit too.

My house is bigger, than the house they had at my age. I have had central air conditioning since I was in college, in 1999. My parents didn't have air conditioning until they were in their late 50s. Microwaves, internet, computers, instapots. My parents didn't have cable TV until they were in their late 50s, and in fact, didn't even own a TV until they were in their late 40s.

I've had all of that, and smart phones, and GPS driving directions, and on and on and on.

We today, are miles and miles beyond where are parents were at the same age. You are crazy if you think otherwise. Absolutely crazy.

The poorest WORKING people today, have a higher standard of living, than the middle class of the 1970s. By a MASSIVE margin.

Now if you are living off welfare and unemployment, and not working consistently full time, then yeah, they are falling way behind, and need to get off their butts, and work for what they want.

But the poorest working people putting in full days work every day.... no they are way beyond where the middle class was in the 1970s, or even 1980s.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.
If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

Social Security was going broke before Trump was even running for office.

You are fool if your retirement plan is to depend on Social Security.

Before any of this Covid nonsense happened, SS was going broke. Before Trump was ever elected, SS paid out so little, that you were basically going to live in poverty until you die, if Social Security was your retirement plan.

Anyone who plans to retire on Social Security is an idiot. You need to be saving for your own retirement out of your own income, like everyone else should be doing.

Social Security is the most poverty creating program in US history. Don't be stupid. Save for retirement.

We don’t have to be worse than Europe. Maybe we’re still better but not as much as we were before Reagan bush and trump.

And when I say we’re not better than we were before I mean the middle class. The rich are doing great.

Half of me is working class and half is investor class. As a worker I disagree with you. As an investor I partially agree with you. And when I agree I certainly don’t agree on your suggested remedies.

Again, factually speaking, we are way better off after the 1980s, than before.

If you telling me that the working class, TODAY.... is worse off, than the working class of the 1970s.... or before.... you are crazy. You are factually incorrect sir.

We are way way way better off than the people in the 1970s or before.

The middle class TODAY... is better off than the middle class of the 1970s.

And yes, investors are better off too. You know who is an investor? Likely.... 70% of the population?

55% of people have investments in the stock market.
65% have property investments.
15% have pensions, which are in fact investments, typically in the stock market.

And there are millions with annuities, and those are typically invested in stocks too.

And by the way, there is a connection between investment and labor. Most jobs wouldn't exist without investment.

So while someone might claim "The investor class is doing well, but the working class is not".... really? Because without the investments, hundreds of millions of jobs wouldn't exist, and those workers would be far worse off.

Honestly I grew up in the 70s and 80s in metro Detroit. Back then a guy could graduate high school and go find a job that would support a family of 5. One income. One bread winner.

Today to do as well you have to go to college and how much does that cost? So blue collar are not better off today and back in my day college was $5000 a year. I worked in the summer and saved most of my tuition. Maybe my dad had to chip in $1000 a year so I didn’t need student loans.

And honestly, for years I had a college degree but wasn’t doing as well as my dad did. I am now but that is common now especially for millennials. First generation who won’t do better than their parents.

I may make more than my dad ever did but am I better off? Fuck no. My dad has great retirement benefits through ford. And a pension. He took the buy out.

Oh yea and me. I make $100k a year give or take now. Have for the past 5 years. I’m 49. So let’s say I’ve got to at least work till I’m 62 to collect social security and Medicare. If they let me retire with those things at 62 I will I don’t care how much I lose for retiring early.

BUT. If I would have went to work at ford when I graduated highschool at 17, I’d already be getting a 30 year pension 2 years ago. At the age of 47. So even though I’m balling and have no debt, I’m still going to have to work 15 more years than if I would have just taken that union job at ford.

plus i wouldn’t have spent that $20,000 on a bachelors degree.

If I only made $100k per yr I would be depressed.

Why should people who make $60k and have $100,000 in student loan debt vote republican? You probably like that th3 ceo makes 300x what they make right?

But you, if you really make more than me, you should vote republican. But if you don’t you shouldn’t.

Arent you that fat foreign guy? Maybe I’m confusing you with someone else?

I vote Republican because Democrats tell me that men may identity as women

Ha! I was just telling a guy name unkotare how they use gay to con poor and middle class Americans into voting republican. Without these wedge issues like guns, racism, abortion these people would have no business voting republican. Republicans are not pro labor. Period.

How so?

Because republicans are against employees unionizing. Their way brought wages down.

Because republicans won’t go after illegal employers. So they arent really trying to kick illegals out. A wall. Ha!

Because trumps fixes to nafta and trade with ch8na did nothing to help labor. And only american companies a little. Only enough for trump to claim a victory.

Youre being conned

Unions are stupid. Republicans are for lower taxes and fewer regulations. You’re uneducated by your own admission so please stop trying to sound smart.

Republicans are against paying labor more too. Driving wages down. How? By sending jobs overseas and hiring illegal workers

Not true at all. Fewer regulations equates to more business openings and expansion and more jobs. Trump brought jobs back and halted corporate inversions.

More jobs but lower paying.

But I’m not so against lower wages anymore. As long as it’s not my wages. You and I make more than the average american with two kids. I’m not worrying about them anymore

but remember you admitted that if you made what they all make, your be depressed. So why should they vote like you vote when you’re for lower wages for them?

lower pay?? how so?

Look at companies like Toyota and Honda Compared to ford and gm. More temps than full time employees.

That’s just one example.

Do you even have to ask?

Republicans applaud companies who’s CEOs make the most but employees make the least.

PROOF PLEASE--you just babbled..how about some facts and figures--FOR ONCE!!!!

Look it up

We have looked it up. There is no example of lower pay.

You show me the example of lower pay. You show me the wielder that in 1970 was earning $50/hour, and today is earning $10/hour.

There is no such example anywhere. None. Zero. Even adjusted for inflation, no such example.

We have looked it up. You are wrong. This is why we are asking you to look it up, so you can educate yourself on your false beliefs.

Ford scores higher in 6 areas dummy. Overall rating, career opportunpities, work life balance, senior management, culture and values and % recommended to a friend.

Big three workers make $27 hr Toyota $25.

Keep in mind Toyota only pays what they pay because if they didn’t their employees would unionize.

Engineers at ford make $37 hr Toyota engineers make $32

Ford has 3400 temp workers. I’m looking at an article about Toyota extending plant shutdown and will stop paying 5000 temps.

an article???!
scores???
that is bullshit--not statistics

 

[Andylusion]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

It is way too expensive to live in nyc. People who worked in nyc but now work from home have moved to places where their salaries go a lot further.

Shuli on the Howard stern show moved to Alabama. With what he makes he’s rich in Alabama. If you can work from home why live in a city where $100,000 a year is not a lot?

And whose fault is that?

You jack up taxes, jack up regulations, jack up housing policy, jack up the police so that crime is everywhere, which increases costs on the city.... and then you say "It's too expensive to live there" as if that just fell out of the sky randomly.

No it didn't. Bad policies caused this.

And by the way, they could have had thousands of well paying jobs in NYC when Amazon built an HQ there, but AOC drove them out. Brilliant.

Hey, if you want to live or do business in ny you have to pay. Otherwise go to Alabama. Use their ports and tear up their roads.

Well that's kind of my point. They are not, and they leaving.

People are leaving NYC. That's the point. This is true everywhere.

When France implemented their wealth tax... they said the same thing. "Hey, if you want to live and do business in France, you have to pay!"

and you know what happened????

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They left! They were packing up their wealthy, their businesses, and their families, and leaving.

Famously in Jamaica, when PM Manly passed all his socialist crap.... he said openly "There are six flights a day to Miami"... and people started taking the flights to Miami. They left.

You can't hurt the rich. Only yourself. It was poor people of Jamaica that end up dealing with the joblessness and high crime.

The rich left.

Same in NYC. The rich are leaving. The poor are stuck jobless, and victimized by the criminals.

So, yes.... they will leave.

Then don’t expect America to be great again. Not if you are middle class. The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.

If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

I actually don't believe that America was ever not great. At least thus far. America has never ceased being great.

The only people who think that America has declined, are the fools who have never lived, or been elsewhere, or know people who live elsewhere.

I do. I've been to Europe. I know people who live in Europe right now. And if you think America is not better than Europe, or the rest of the world, you are crazy. You don't know what you are talking about.

People in Europe live lower standards of living, universally. Smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller appliances, less spending money, less entertainment.

There is no possible way to measure the standards of living in the rest of the world, and compare to the US, and not have the US be better.

Why do think we have millions of people trying to get into this country? It's one of the most baffling aspects of Left-wing contradictions, that you want open borders to let people freely come into the country, and at the same time claim the country is declining and everything is terrible, and America is racists and evil.

Those are mutually exclusive positions. People don't risk their lives, to get into places that are terrible.

The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

No, I don't buy that. You show me one person who walked the exact same path as their parents, and is worse off.

I'm not making the same money as my parents, but that's because I am not in the same career as my parents.

I have relatives, where their parents were wielders. Their son, became a wielder too. Their son is make more money than his parents did, when they were his age.

I know engineers, and they make more money in engineering than their parents who were engineers.

And as far as the standard of living.... no you are still crazy.

My standard of living today, is better than my parents when they were my age. By quite a bit too.

My house is bigger, than the house they had at my age. I have had central air conditioning since I was in college, in 1999. My parents didn't have air conditioning until they were in their late 50s. Microwaves, internet, computers, instapots. My parents didn't have cable TV until they were in their late 50s, and in fact, didn't even own a TV until they were in their late 40s.

I've had all of that, and smart phones, and GPS driving directions, and on and on and on.

We today, are miles and miles beyond where are parents were at the same age. You are crazy if you think otherwise. Absolutely crazy.

The poorest WORKING people today, have a higher standard of living, than the middle class of the 1970s. By a MASSIVE margin.

Now if you are living off welfare and unemployment, and not working consistently full time, then yeah, they are falling way behind, and need to get off their butts, and work for what they want.

But the poorest working people putting in full days work every day.... no they are way beyond where the middle class was in the 1970s, or even 1980s.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.
If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

Social Security was going broke before Trump was even running for office.

You are fool if your retirement plan is to depend on Social Security.

Before any of this Covid nonsense happened, SS was going broke. Before Trump was ever elected, SS paid out so little, that you were basically going to live in poverty until you die, if Social Security was your retirement plan.

Anyone who plans to retire on Social Security is an idiot. You need to be saving for your own retirement out of your own income, like everyone else should be doing.

Social Security is the most poverty creating program in US history. Don't be stupid. Save for retirement.

We don’t have to be worse than Europe. Maybe we’re still better but not as much as we were before Reagan bush and trump.

And when I say we’re not better than we were before I mean the middle class. The rich are doing great.

Half of me is working class and half is investor class. As a worker I disagree with you. As an investor I partially agree with you. And when I agree I certainly don’t agree on your suggested remedies.

Again, factually speaking, we are way better off after the 1980s, than before.

If you telling me that the working class, TODAY.... is worse off, than the working class of the 1970s.... or before.... you are crazy. You are factually incorrect sir.

We are way way way better off than the people in the 1970s or before.

The middle class TODAY... is better off than the middle class of the 1970s.

And yes, investors are better off too. You know who is an investor? Likely.... 70% of the population?

55% of people have investments in the stock market.
65% have property investments.
15% have pensions, which are in fact investments, typically in the stock market.

And there are millions with annuities, and those are typically invested in stocks too.

And by the way, there is a connection between investment and labor. Most jobs wouldn't exist without investment.

So while someone might claim "The investor class is doing well, but the working class is not".... really? Because without the investments, hundreds of millions of jobs wouldn't exist, and those workers would be far worse off.

Honestly I grew up in the 70s and 80s in metro Detroit. Back then a guy could graduate high school and go find a job that would support a family of 5. One income. One bread winner.

Today to do as well you have to go to college and how much does that cost? So blue collar are not better off today and back in my day college was $5000 a year. I worked in the summer and saved most of my tuition. Maybe my dad had to chip in $1000 a year so I didn’t need student loans.

And honestly, for years I had a college degree but wasn’t doing as well as my dad did. I am now but that is common now especially for millennials. First generation who won’t do better than their parents.

I may make more than my dad ever did but am I better off? Fuck no. My dad has great retirement benefits through ford. And a pension. He took the buy out.

Oh yea and me. I make $100k a year give or take now. Have for the past 5 years. I’m 49. So let’s say I’ve got to at least work till I’m 62 to collect social security and Medicare. If they let me retire with those things at 62 I will I don’t care how much I lose for retiring early.

BUT. If I would have went to work at ford when I graduated highschool at 17, I’d already be getting a 30 year pension 2 years ago. At the age of 47. So even though I’m balling and have no debt, I’m still going to have to work 15 more years than if I would have just taken that union job at ford.

plus i wouldn’t have spent that $20,000 on a bachelors degree.

If I only made $100k per yr I would be depressed.

Why should people who make $60k and have $100,000 in student loan debt vote republican? You probably like that th3 ceo makes 300x what they make right?

But you, if you really make more than me, you should vote republican. But if you don’t you shouldn’t.

Arent you that fat foreign guy? Maybe I’m confusing you with someone else?

I vote Republican because Democrats tell me that men may identity as women

Ha! I was just telling a guy name unkotare how they use gay to con poor and middle class Americans into voting republican. Without these wedge issues like guns, racism, abortion these people would have no business voting republican. Republicans are not pro labor. Period.

How so?

Because republicans are against employees unionizing. Their way brought wages down.

Because republicans won’t go after illegal employers. So they arent really trying to kick illegals out. A wall. Ha!

Because trumps fixes to nafta and trade with ch8na did nothing to help labor. And only american companies a little. Only enough for trump to claim a victory.

Youre being conned

Unions are stupid. Republicans are for lower taxes and fewer regulations. You’re uneducated by your own admission so please stop trying to sound smart.

Republicans are against paying labor more too. Driving wages down. How? By sending jobs overseas and hiring illegal workers

Not true at all. Fewer regulations equates to more business openings and expansion and more jobs. Trump brought jobs back and halted corporate inversions.

More jobs but lower paying.

But I’m not so against lower wages anymore. As long as it’s not my wages. You and I make more than the average american with two kids. I’m not worrying about them anymore

but remember you admitted that if you made what they all make, your be depressed. So why should they vote like you vote when you’re for lower wages for them?

lower pay?? how so?

Look at companies like Toyota and Honda Compared to ford and gm. More temps than full time employees.

That’s just one example.

Do you even have to ask?

Republicans applaud companies who’s CEOs make the most but employees make the least.

PROOF PLEASE--you just babbled..how about some facts and figures--FOR ONCE!!!!

Look it up

We have looked it up. There is no example of lower pay.

You show me the example of lower pay. You show me the wielder that in 1970 was earning $50/hour, and today is earning $10/hour.

There is no such example anywhere. None. Zero. Even adjusted for inflation, no such example.

We have looked it up. You are wrong. This is why we are asking you to look it up, so you can educate yourself on your false beliefs.

Ford scores higher in 6 areas dummy. Overall rating, career opportunpities, work life balance, senior management, culture and values and % recommended to a friend.

Big three workers make $27 hr Toyota $25.

Keep in mind Toyota only pays what they pay because if they didn’t their employees would unionize.

Engineers at ford make $37 hr Toyota engineers make $32

Ford has 3400 temp workers. I’m looking at an article about Toyota extending plant shutdown and will stop paying 5000 temps.

What does any of that have to do with anything?

You made the claim that people are paid less today, than they were yesterday.

Are you saying that Toyota Engineers were making $37/hour and now they are making $32 an hour?

I'm not asking you if some employees are choosing to work for a company that pays less money.

Which employee was making $37/hour yesterday, or last year, or last decade, and today is making $32/hour?

Unless they suck. I've known some engineers, that honestly were not worth $15/hour.

How much was Toyota paying engineers 30 years ago? Is more... or less... than how much engineers are paid today?

And honestly, Toyota Engineers are paid $32/hour? Oh my bleeding heart..... oh the horror....

You know that German automotive engineers in Germany right now, earn less than that?

Automotive Engineer Salary in Germany in 2024 | PayScale

The average salary for an Automotive Engineer in Germany is €58,172 in 2024. Visit PayScale to research automotive engineer salaries by city, experience, skill, employer and more.

www.payscale.com

Evidence my friend. Evidence. You are complaining about better working conditions than other first world countries offer.

Engineers come here from Europe, and earn more working for Toyota.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Compare/Ford-Motor-Company-vs-Toyota-North-America-EI_IE263-E3544.htm

I do not even believe you honestly.

Figures about pay scales are horribly easy to mislead with.

No two engineers are identical by any stretch. One engineer can have 10 years of experience, while another might have only 3 years of experience. Another engineer might have 15 years of experience, but in a field where there are dozens of engineers, while another engineer with only 5 years of experience might specialize in a field that few others do.

Just saying "well this group of engineers collectively is paid less or more than another group" is just ridiculous. You don't know what experience they have, what they specialize in, or anything.

They are not significantly paid less than people at Ford. If they were, no one would work there.

Overall, wages have gone up.... PERIOD. They have gone up, and what you posted doesn't contradict that.

We have the highest wages, and then highest standard of living in the world, and people need to be less spoiled, less complaining, and more grateful for what we have.

 

[Andylusion]

Notice how desperate the brainless Democrat shill is to promote the bullshit notion of a class war. The Democrats always need some kind of ‘war;’ class, race, religion, anything will do as long as they can try to use it to disrupt and divide Americans. The problem for them is, Americans know there is no class warfare. America is the land of opportunity. People who are not wealthy want the opportunity to become wealthy, whether they ever do or not. Resentment is part of what Democrats want to impose in the minds of the weak just like every other notion they have ever promoted.

So why did we go from 62% of americans being middle class in 1970 to 49% today? What happening to the disappearing middle class?

Azog said he’d be depressed if he only made $100,000 and he has two kids. He lives in Boston. Does he know you make less than $80,000? Are you even middle class?

People have moved UP.... UP from the middle class to the upper class.

This isn't a negative.

I knew you would say that. What percent of the 13% who are no longer middle class do you think moved into the upper class?

Most if not all. You gotta remember, that people are moving up and down the income ladder constantly. People move up and down the distribution non-stop.

There is no two years ever, where all the people in group X-income-group, are the same people the following year. Some people earning $50,000 this year, will earn $30,000 next year. And some people earning $30,000 this year, will earn $100,000 next year. And some people earning $100,000 this year, will earn $50,000 next year.

But in generally, people are moving UP the income scale. All the evidence shows this.



Go to 11:15 on the clip.

Here's a screen shot since you don't like anything but spoon fed facts.

Simply put all the data shows that the size of the bottom income earners has declined. The middle income earners has declined, and the top income earners group, has increased.

The middle class has declined as a percentage of the public, like the lower class. Both have moved to the upper class. More people as a percentage of the public, are more wealthy today, than in the recent or distant past.

 

[sealybobo]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

It is way too expensive to live in nyc. People who worked in nyc but now work from home have moved to places where their salaries go a lot further.

Shuli on the Howard stern show moved to Alabama. With what he makes he’s rich in Alabama. If you can work from home why live in a city where $100,000 a year is not a lot?

And whose fault is that?

You jack up taxes, jack up regulations, jack up housing policy, jack up the police so that crime is everywhere, which increases costs on the city.... and then you say "It's too expensive to live there" as if that just fell out of the sky randomly.

No it didn't. Bad policies caused this.

And by the way, they could have had thousands of well paying jobs in NYC when Amazon built an HQ there, but AOC drove them out. Brilliant.

Hey, if you want to live or do business in ny you have to pay. Otherwise go to Alabama. Use their ports and tear up their roads.

Well that's kind of my point. They are not, and they leaving.

People are leaving NYC. That's the point. This is true everywhere.

When France implemented their wealth tax... they said the same thing. "Hey, if you want to live and do business in France, you have to pay!"

and you know what happened????

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They left! They were packing up their wealthy, their businesses, and their families, and leaving.

Famously in Jamaica, when PM Manly passed all his socialist crap.... he said openly "There are six flights a day to Miami"... and people started taking the flights to Miami. They left.

You can't hurt the rich. Only yourself. It was poor people of Jamaica that end up dealing with the joblessness and high crime.

The rich left.

Same in NYC. The rich are leaving. The poor are stuck jobless, and victimized by the criminals.

So, yes.... they will leave.

Then don’t expect America to be great again. Not if you are middle class. The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.

If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

I actually don't believe that America was ever not great. At least thus far. America has never ceased being great.

The only people who think that America has declined, are the fools who have never lived, or been elsewhere, or know people who live elsewhere.

I do. I've been to Europe. I know people who live in Europe right now. And if you think America is not better than Europe, or the rest of the world, you are crazy. You don't know what you are talking about.

People in Europe live lower standards of living, universally. Smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller appliances, less spending money, less entertainment.

There is no possible way to measure the standards of living in the rest of the world, and compare to the US, and not have the US be better.

Why do think we have millions of people trying to get into this country? It's one of the most baffling aspects of Left-wing contradictions, that you want open borders to let people freely come into the country, and at the same time claim the country is declining and everything is terrible, and America is racists and evil.

Those are mutually exclusive positions. People don't risk their lives, to get into places that are terrible.

The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

No, I don't buy that. You show me one person who walked the exact same path as their parents, and is worse off.

I'm not making the same money as my parents, but that's because I am not in the same career as my parents.

I have relatives, where their parents were wielders. Their son, became a wielder too. Their son is make more money than his parents did, when they were his age.

I know engineers, and they make more money in engineering than their parents who were engineers.

And as far as the standard of living.... no you are still crazy.

My standard of living today, is better than my parents when they were my age. By quite a bit too.

My house is bigger, than the house they had at my age. I have had central air conditioning since I was in college, in 1999. My parents didn't have air conditioning until they were in their late 50s. Microwaves, internet, computers, instapots. My parents didn't have cable TV until they were in their late 50s, and in fact, didn't even own a TV until they were in their late 40s.

I've had all of that, and smart phones, and GPS driving directions, and on and on and on.

We today, are miles and miles beyond where are parents were at the same age. You are crazy if you think otherwise. Absolutely crazy.

The poorest WORKING people today, have a higher standard of living, than the middle class of the 1970s. By a MASSIVE margin.

Now if you are living off welfare and unemployment, and not working consistently full time, then yeah, they are falling way behind, and need to get off their butts, and work for what they want.

But the poorest working people putting in full days work every day.... no they are way beyond where the middle class was in the 1970s, or even 1980s.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.
If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

Social Security was going broke before Trump was even running for office.

You are fool if your retirement plan is to depend on Social Security.

Before any of this Covid nonsense happened, SS was going broke. Before Trump was ever elected, SS paid out so little, that you were basically going to live in poverty until you die, if Social Security was your retirement plan.

Anyone who plans to retire on Social Security is an idiot. You need to be saving for your own retirement out of your own income, like everyone else should be doing.

Social Security is the most poverty creating program in US history. Don't be stupid. Save for retirement.

We don’t have to be worse than Europe. Maybe we’re still better but not as much as we were before Reagan bush and trump.

And when I say we’re not better than we were before I mean the middle class. The rich are doing great.

Half of me is working class and half is investor class. As a worker I disagree with you. As an investor I partially agree with you. And when I agree I certainly don’t agree on your suggested remedies.

Again, factually speaking, we are way better off after the 1980s, than before.

If you telling me that the working class, TODAY.... is worse off, than the working class of the 1970s.... or before.... you are crazy. You are factually incorrect sir.

We are way way way better off than the people in the 1970s or before.

The middle class TODAY... is better off than the middle class of the 1970s.

And yes, investors are better off too. You know who is an investor? Likely.... 70% of the population?

55% of people have investments in the stock market.
65% have property investments.
15% have pensions, which are in fact investments, typically in the stock market.

And there are millions with annuities, and those are typically invested in stocks too.

And by the way, there is a connection between investment and labor. Most jobs wouldn't exist without investment.

So while someone might claim "The investor class is doing well, but the working class is not".... really? Because without the investments, hundreds of millions of jobs wouldn't exist, and those workers would be far worse off.

Honestly I grew up in the 70s and 80s in metro Detroit. Back then a guy could graduate high school and go find a job that would support a family of 5. One income. One bread winner.

Today to do as well you have to go to college and how much does that cost? So blue collar are not better off today and back in my day college was $5000 a year. I worked in the summer and saved most of my tuition. Maybe my dad had to chip in $1000 a year so I didn’t need student loans.

And honestly, for years I had a college degree but wasn’t doing as well as my dad did. I am now but that is common now especially for millennials. First generation who won’t do better than their parents.

I may make more than my dad ever did but am I better off? Fuck no. My dad has great retirement benefits through ford. And a pension. He took the buy out.

Oh yea and me. I make $100k a year give or take now. Have for the past 5 years. I’m 49. So let’s say I’ve got to at least work till I’m 62 to collect social security and Medicare. If they let me retire with those things at 62 I will I don’t care how much I lose for retiring early.

BUT. If I would have went to work at ford when I graduated highschool at 17, I’d already be getting a 30 year pension 2 years ago. At the age of 47. So even though I’m balling and have no debt, I’m still going to have to work 15 more years than if I would have just taken that union job at ford.

plus i wouldn’t have spent that $20,000 on a bachelors degree.

If I only made $100k per yr I would be depressed.

Why should people who make $60k and have $100,000 in student loan debt vote republican? You probably like that th3 ceo makes 300x what they make right?

But you, if you really make more than me, you should vote republican. But if you don’t you shouldn’t.

Arent you that fat foreign guy? Maybe I’m confusing you with someone else?

I vote Republican because Democrats tell me that men may identity as women

Ha! I was just telling a guy name unkotare how they use gay to con poor and middle class Americans into voting republican. Without these wedge issues like guns, racism, abortion these people would have no business voting republican. Republicans are not pro labor. Period.

How so?

Because republicans are against employees unionizing. Their way brought wages down.

Because republicans won’t go after illegal employers. So they arent really trying to kick illegals out. A wall. Ha!

Because trumps fixes to nafta and trade with ch8na did nothing to help labor. And only american companies a little. Only enough for trump to claim a victory.

Youre being conned

Unions are stupid. Republicans are for lower taxes and fewer regulations. You’re uneducated by your own admission so please stop trying to sound smart.

Republicans are against paying labor more too. Driving wages down. How? By sending jobs overseas and hiring illegal workers

Not true at all. Fewer regulations equates to more business openings and expansion and more jobs. Trump brought jobs back and halted corporate inversions.

More jobs but lower paying.

But I’m not so against lower wages anymore. As long as it’s not my wages. You and I make more than the average american with two kids. I’m not worrying about them anymore

but remember you admitted that if you made what they all make, your be depressed. So why should they vote like you vote when you’re for lower wages for them?

lower pay?? how so?

Look at companies like Toyota and Honda Compared to ford and gm. More temps than full time employees.

That’s just one example.

Do you even have to ask?

Republicans applaud companies who’s CEOs make the most but employees make the least.

PROOF PLEASE--you just babbled..how about some facts and figures--FOR ONCE!!!!

Look it up

We have looked it up. There is no example of lower pay.

You show me the example of lower pay. You show me the wielder that in 1970 was earning $50/hour, and today is earning $10/hour.

There is no such example anywhere. None. Zero. Even adjusted for inflation, no such example.

We have looked it up. You are wrong. This is why we are asking you to look it up, so you can educate yourself on your false beliefs.

Ford scores higher in 6 areas dummy. Overall rating, career opportunpities, work life balance, senior management, culture and values and % recommended to a friend.

Big three workers make $27 hr Toyota $25.

Keep in mind Toyota only pays what they pay because if they didn’t their employees would unionize.

Engineers at ford make $37 hr Toyota engineers make $32

Ford has 3400 temp workers. I’m looking at an article about Toyota extending plant shutdown and will stop paying 5000 temps.

What does any of that have to do with anything?

You made the claim that people are paid less today, than they were yesterday.

Are you saying that Toyota Engineers were making $37/hour and now they are making $32 an hour?

I'm not asking you if some employees are choosing to work for a company that pays less money.

Which employee was making $37/hour yesterday, or last year, or last decade, and today is making $32/hour?

Unless they suck. I've known some engineers, that honestly were not worth $15/hour.

How much was Toyota paying engineers 30 years ago? Is more... or less... than how much engineers are paid today?

And honestly, Toyota Engineers are paid $32/hour? Oh my bleeding heart..... oh the horror....

You know that German automotive engineers in Germany right now, earn less than that?

Automotive Engineer Salary in Germany in 2024 | PayScale

The average salary for an Automotive Engineer in Germany is €58,172 in 2024. Visit PayScale to research automotive engineer salaries by city, experience, skill, employer and more.

www.payscale.com

Evidence my friend. Evidence. You are complaining about better working conditions than other first world countries offer.

Engineers come here from Europe, and earn more working for Toyota.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Compare/Ford-Motor-Company-vs-Toyota-North-America-EI_IE263-E3544.htm

View attachment 389136
I do not even believe you honestly.

Figures about pay scales are horribly easy to mislead with.

No two engineers are identical by any stretch. One engineer can have 10 years of experience, while another might have only 3 years of experience. Another engineer might have 15 years of experience, but in a field where there are dozens of engineers, while another engineer with only 5 years of experience might specialize in a field that few others do.

Just saying "well this group of engineers collectively is paid less or more than another group" is just ridiculous. You don't know what experience they have, what they specialize in, or anything.

They are not significantly paid less than people at Ford. If they were, no one would work there.

Overall, wages have gone up.... PERIOD. They have gone up, and what you posted doesn't contradict that.

We have the highest wages, and then highest standard of living in the world, and people need to be less spoiled, less complaining, and more grateful for what we have.

Was all this true on Obama's watch or only after Trump got into office?

I'm grateful. I make $100,000 a year.

I'm talking about these people: the median weekly earnings are $933, or about $48,516 per year.

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

It is way too expensive to live in nyc. People who worked in nyc but now work from home have moved to places where their salaries go a lot further.

Shuli on the Howard stern show moved to Alabama. With what he makes he’s rich in Alabama. If you can work from home why live in a city where $100,000 a year is not a lot?

And whose fault is that?

You jack up taxes, jack up regulations, jack up housing policy, jack up the police so that crime is everywhere, which increases costs on the city.... and then you say "It's too expensive to live there" as if that just fell out of the sky randomly.

No it didn't. Bad policies caused this.

And by the way, they could have had thousands of well paying jobs in NYC when Amazon built an HQ there, but AOC drove them out. Brilliant.

Hey, if you want to live or do business in ny you have to pay. Otherwise go to Alabama. Use their ports and tear up their roads.

Well that's kind of my point. They are not, and they leaving.

People are leaving NYC. That's the point. This is true everywhere.

When France implemented their wealth tax... they said the same thing. "Hey, if you want to live and do business in France, you have to pay!"

and you know what happened????

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They left! They were packing up their wealthy, their businesses, and their families, and leaving.

Famously in Jamaica, when PM Manly passed all his socialist crap.... he said openly "There are six flights a day to Miami"... and people started taking the flights to Miami. They left.

You can't hurt the rich. Only yourself. It was poor people of Jamaica that end up dealing with the joblessness and high crime.

The rich left.

Same in NYC. The rich are leaving. The poor are stuck jobless, and victimized by the criminals.

So, yes.... they will leave.

Then don’t expect America to be great again. Not if you are middle class. The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.

If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

I actually don't believe that America was ever not great. At least thus far. America has never ceased being great.

The only people who think that America has declined, are the fools who have never lived, or been elsewhere, or know people who live elsewhere.

I do. I've been to Europe. I know people who live in Europe right now. And if you think America is not better than Europe, or the rest of the world, you are crazy. You don't know what you are talking about.

People in Europe live lower standards of living, universally. Smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller appliances, less spending money, less entertainment.

There is no possible way to measure the standards of living in the rest of the world, and compare to the US, and not have the US be better.

Why do think we have millions of people trying to get into this country? It's one of the most baffling aspects of Left-wing contradictions, that you want open borders to let people freely come into the country, and at the same time claim the country is declining and everything is terrible, and America is racists and evil.

Those are mutually exclusive positions. People don't risk their lives, to get into places that are terrible.

The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

No, I don't buy that. You show me one person who walked the exact same path as their parents, and is worse off.

I'm not making the same money as my parents, but that's because I am not in the same career as my parents.

I have relatives, where their parents were wielders. Their son, became a wielder too. Their son is make more money than his parents did, when they were his age.

I know engineers, and they make more money in engineering than their parents who were engineers.

And as far as the standard of living.... no you are still crazy.

My standard of living today, is better than my parents when they were my age. By quite a bit too.

My house is bigger, than the house they had at my age. I have had central air conditioning since I was in college, in 1999. My parents didn't have air conditioning until they were in their late 50s. Microwaves, internet, computers, instapots. My parents didn't have cable TV until they were in their late 50s, and in fact, didn't even own a TV until they were in their late 40s.

I've had all of that, and smart phones, and GPS driving directions, and on and on and on.

We today, are miles and miles beyond where are parents were at the same age. You are crazy if you think otherwise. Absolutely crazy.

The poorest WORKING people today, have a higher standard of living, than the middle class of the 1970s. By a MASSIVE margin.

Now if you are living off welfare and unemployment, and not working consistently full time, then yeah, they are falling way behind, and need to get off their butts, and work for what they want.

But the poorest working people putting in full days work every day.... no they are way beyond where the middle class was in the 1970s, or even 1980s.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.
If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

Social Security was going broke before Trump was even running for office.

You are fool if your retirement plan is to depend on Social Security.

Before any of this Covid nonsense happened, SS was going broke. Before Trump was ever elected, SS paid out so little, that you were basically going to live in poverty until you die, if Social Security was your retirement plan.

Anyone who plans to retire on Social Security is an idiot. You need to be saving for your own retirement out of your own income, like everyone else should be doing.

Social Security is the most poverty creating program in US history. Don't be stupid. Save for retirement.

We don’t have to be worse than Europe. Maybe we’re still better but not as much as we were before Reagan bush and trump.

And when I say we’re not better than we were before I mean the middle class. The rich are doing great.

Half of me is working class and half is investor class. As a worker I disagree with you. As an investor I partially agree with you. And when I agree I certainly don’t agree on your suggested remedies.

Again, factually speaking, we are way better off after the 1980s, than before.

If you telling me that the working class, TODAY.... is worse off, than the working class of the 1970s.... or before.... you are crazy. You are factually incorrect sir.

We are way way way better off than the people in the 1970s or before.

The middle class TODAY... is better off than the middle class of the 1970s.

And yes, investors are better off too. You know who is an investor? Likely.... 70% of the population?

55% of people have investments in the stock market.
65% have property investments.
15% have pensions, which are in fact investments, typically in the stock market.

And there are millions with annuities, and those are typically invested in stocks too.

And by the way, there is a connection between investment and labor. Most jobs wouldn't exist without investment.

So while someone might claim "The investor class is doing well, but the working class is not".... really? Because without the investments, hundreds of millions of jobs wouldn't exist, and those workers would be far worse off.

Honestly I grew up in the 70s and 80s in metro Detroit. Back then a guy could graduate high school and go find a job that would support a family of 5. One income. One bread winner.

Today to do as well you have to go to college and how much does that cost? So blue collar are not better off today and back in my day college was $5000 a year. I worked in the summer and saved most of my tuition. Maybe my dad had to chip in $1000 a year so I didn’t need student loans.

And honestly, for years I had a college degree but wasn’t doing as well as my dad did. I am now but that is common now especially for millennials. First generation who won’t do better than their parents.

I may make more than my dad ever did but am I better off? Fuck no. My dad has great retirement benefits through ford. And a pension. He took the buy out.

Oh yea and me. I make $100k a year give or take now. Have for the past 5 years. I’m 49. So let’s say I’ve got to at least work till I’m 62 to collect social security and Medicare. If they let me retire with those things at 62 I will I don’t care how much I lose for retiring early.

BUT. If I would have went to work at ford when I graduated highschool at 17, I’d already be getting a 30 year pension 2 years ago. At the age of 47. So even though I’m balling and have no debt, I’m still going to have to work 15 more years than if I would have just taken that union job at ford.

plus i wouldn’t have spent that $20,000 on a bachelors degree.

If I only made $100k per yr I would be depressed.

Why should people who make $60k and have $100,000 in student loan debt vote republican? You probably like that th3 ceo makes 300x what they make right?

But you, if you really make more than me, you should vote republican. But if you don’t you shouldn’t.

Arent you that fat foreign guy? Maybe I’m confusing you with someone else?

I vote Republican because Democrats tell me that men may identity as women

Ha! I was just telling a guy name unkotare how they use gay to con poor and middle class Americans into voting republican. Without these wedge issues like guns, racism, abortion these people would have no business voting republican. Republicans are not pro labor. Period.

How so?

Because republicans are against employees unionizing. Their way brought wages down.

Because republicans won’t go after illegal employers. So they arent really trying to kick illegals out. A wall. Ha!

Because trumps fixes to nafta and trade with ch8na did nothing to help labor. And only american companies a little. Only enough for trump to claim a victory.

Youre being conned

Unions are stupid. Republicans are for lower taxes and fewer regulations. You’re uneducated by your own admission so please stop trying to sound smart.

Republicans are against paying labor more too. Driving wages down. How? By sending jobs overseas and hiring illegal workers

Not true at all. Fewer regulations equates to more business openings and expansion and more jobs. Trump brought jobs back and halted corporate inversions.

More jobs but lower paying.

But I’m not so against lower wages anymore. As long as it’s not my wages. You and I make more than the average american with two kids. I’m not worrying about them anymore

but remember you admitted that if you made what they all make, your be depressed. So why should they vote like you vote when you’re for lower wages for them?

lower pay?? how so?

Look at companies like Toyota and Honda Compared to ford and gm. More temps than full time employees.

That’s just one example.

Do you even have to ask?

Republicans applaud companies who’s CEOs make the most but employees make the least.

PROOF PLEASE--you just babbled..how about some facts and figures--FOR ONCE!!!!

Look it up

We have looked it up. There is no example of lower pay.

You show me the example of lower pay. You show me the wielder that in 1970 was earning $50/hour, and today is earning $10/hour.

There is no such example anywhere. None. Zero. Even adjusted for inflation, no such example.

We have looked it up. You are wrong. This is why we are asking you to look it up, so you can educate yourself on your false beliefs.

Ford scores higher in 6 areas dummy. Overall rating, career opportunpities, work life balance, senior management, culture and values and % recommended to a friend.

Big three workers make $27 hr Toyota $25.

Keep in mind Toyota only pays what they pay because if they didn’t their employees would unionize.

Engineers at ford make $37 hr Toyota engineers make $32

Ford has 3400 temp workers. I’m looking at an article about Toyota extending plant shutdown and will stop paying 5000 temps.

What does any of that have to do with anything?

You made the claim that people are paid less today, than they were yesterday.

Are you saying that Toyota Engineers were making $37/hour and now they are making $32 an hour?

I'm not asking you if some employees are choosing to work for a company that pays less money.

Which employee was making $37/hour yesterday, or last year, or last decade, and today is making $32/hour?

Unless they suck. I've known some engineers, that honestly were not worth $15/hour.

How much was Toyota paying engineers 30 years ago? Is more... or less... than how much engineers are paid today?

And honestly, Toyota Engineers are paid $32/hour? Oh my bleeding heart..... oh the horror....

You know that German automotive engineers in Germany right now, earn less than that?

Automotive Engineer Salary in Germany in 2024 | PayScale

The average salary for an Automotive Engineer in Germany is €58,172 in 2024. Visit PayScale to research automotive engineer salaries by city, experience, skill, employer and more.

www.payscale.com

Evidence my friend. Evidence. You are complaining about better working conditions than other first world countries offer.

Engineers come here from Europe, and earn more working for Toyota.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Compare/Ford-Motor-Company-vs-Toyota-North-America-EI_IE263-E3544.htm

View attachment 389136
I do not even believe you honestly.

Figures about pay scales are horribly easy to mislead with.

No two engineers are identical by any stretch. One engineer can have 10 years of experience, while another might have only 3 years of experience. Another engineer might have 15 years of experience, but in a field where there are dozens of engineers, while another engineer with only 5 years of experience might specialize in a field that few others do.

Just saying "well this group of engineers collectively is paid less or more than another group" is just ridiculous. You don't know what experience they have, what they specialize in, or anything.

They are not significantly paid less than people at Ford. If they were, no one would work there.

Overall, wages have gone up.... PERIOD. They have gone up, and what you posted doesn't contradict that.

We have the highest wages, and then highest standard of living in the world, and people need to be less spoiled, less complaining, and more grateful for what we have.

Was all this true on Obama's watch or only after Trump got into office?

I'm grateful. I make $100,000 a year.

I'm talking about these people: the median weekly earnings are $933, or about $48,516 per year.

Who are these people? Do you know any?

 

[Andylusion]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

It is way too expensive to live in nyc. People who worked in nyc but now work from home have moved to places where their salaries go a lot further.

Shuli on the Howard stern show moved to Alabama. With what he makes he’s rich in Alabama. If you can work from home why live in a city where $100,000 a year is not a lot?

And whose fault is that?

You jack up taxes, jack up regulations, jack up housing policy, jack up the police so that crime is everywhere, which increases costs on the city.... and then you say "It's too expensive to live there" as if that just fell out of the sky randomly.

No it didn't. Bad policies caused this.

And by the way, they could have had thousands of well paying jobs in NYC when Amazon built an HQ there, but AOC drove them out. Brilliant.

Hey, if you want to live or do business in ny you have to pay. Otherwise go to Alabama. Use their ports and tear up their roads.

Well that's kind of my point. They are not, and they leaving.

People are leaving NYC. That's the point. This is true everywhere.

When France implemented their wealth tax... they said the same thing. "Hey, if you want to live and do business in France, you have to pay!"

and you know what happened????

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They left! They were packing up their wealthy, their businesses, and their families, and leaving.

Famously in Jamaica, when PM Manly passed all his socialist crap.... he said openly "There are six flights a day to Miami"... and people started taking the flights to Miami. They left.

You can't hurt the rich. Only yourself. It was poor people of Jamaica that end up dealing with the joblessness and high crime.

The rich left.

Same in NYC. The rich are leaving. The poor are stuck jobless, and victimized by the criminals.

So, yes.... they will leave.

Then don’t expect America to be great again. Not if you are middle class. The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.

If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

I actually don't believe that America was ever not great. At least thus far. America has never ceased being great.

The only people who think that America has declined, are the fools who have never lived, or been elsewhere, or know people who live elsewhere.

I do. I've been to Europe. I know people who live in Europe right now. And if you think America is not better than Europe, or the rest of the world, you are crazy. You don't know what you are talking about.

People in Europe live lower standards of living, universally. Smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller appliances, less spending money, less entertainment.

There is no possible way to measure the standards of living in the rest of the world, and compare to the US, and not have the US be better.

Why do think we have millions of people trying to get into this country? It's one of the most baffling aspects of Left-wing contradictions, that you want open borders to let people freely come into the country, and at the same time claim the country is declining and everything is terrible, and America is racists and evil.

Those are mutually exclusive positions. People don't risk their lives, to get into places that are terrible.

The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

No, I don't buy that. You show me one person who walked the exact same path as their parents, and is worse off.

I'm not making the same money as my parents, but that's because I am not in the same career as my parents.

I have relatives, where their parents were wielders. Their son, became a wielder too. Their son is make more money than his parents did, when they were his age.

I know engineers, and they make more money in engineering than their parents who were engineers.

And as far as the standard of living.... no you are still crazy.

My standard of living today, is better than my parents when they were my age. By quite a bit too.

My house is bigger, than the house they had at my age. I have had central air conditioning since I was in college, in 1999. My parents didn't have air conditioning until they were in their late 50s. Microwaves, internet, computers, instapots. My parents didn't have cable TV until they were in their late 50s, and in fact, didn't even own a TV until they were in their late 40s.

I've had all of that, and smart phones, and GPS driving directions, and on and on and on.

We today, are miles and miles beyond where are parents were at the same age. You are crazy if you think otherwise. Absolutely crazy.

The poorest WORKING people today, have a higher standard of living, than the middle class of the 1970s. By a MASSIVE margin.

Now if you are living off welfare and unemployment, and not working consistently full time, then yeah, they are falling way behind, and need to get off their butts, and work for what they want.

But the poorest working people putting in full days work every day.... no they are way beyond where the middle class was in the 1970s, or even 1980s.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.
If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

Social Security was going broke before Trump was even running for office.

You are fool if your retirement plan is to depend on Social Security.

Before any of this Covid nonsense happened, SS was going broke. Before Trump was ever elected, SS paid out so little, that you were basically going to live in poverty until you die, if Social Security was your retirement plan.

Anyone who plans to retire on Social Security is an idiot. You need to be saving for your own retirement out of your own income, like everyone else should be doing.

Social Security is the most poverty creating program in US history. Don't be stupid. Save for retirement.

We don’t have to be worse than Europe. Maybe we’re still better but not as much as we were before Reagan bush and trump.

And when I say we’re not better than we were before I mean the middle class. The rich are doing great.

Half of me is working class and half is investor class. As a worker I disagree with you. As an investor I partially agree with you. And when I agree I certainly don’t agree on your suggested remedies.

Again, factually speaking, we are way better off after the 1980s, than before.

If you telling me that the working class, TODAY.... is worse off, than the working class of the 1970s.... or before.... you are crazy. You are factually incorrect sir.

We are way way way better off than the people in the 1970s or before.

The middle class TODAY... is better off than the middle class of the 1970s.

And yes, investors are better off too. You know who is an investor? Likely.... 70% of the population?

55% of people have investments in the stock market.
65% have property investments.
15% have pensions, which are in fact investments, typically in the stock market.

And there are millions with annuities, and those are typically invested in stocks too.

And by the way, there is a connection between investment and labor. Most jobs wouldn't exist without investment.

So while someone might claim "The investor class is doing well, but the working class is not".... really? Because without the investments, hundreds of millions of jobs wouldn't exist, and those workers would be far worse off.

Honestly I grew up in the 70s and 80s in metro Detroit. Back then a guy could graduate high school and go find a job that would support a family of 5. One income. One bread winner.

Today to do as well you have to go to college and how much does that cost? So blue collar are not better off today and back in my day college was $5000 a year. I worked in the summer and saved most of my tuition. Maybe my dad had to chip in $1000 a year so I didn’t need student loans.

And honestly, for years I had a college degree but wasn’t doing as well as my dad did. I am now but that is common now especially for millennials. First generation who won’t do better than their parents.

I may make more than my dad ever did but am I better off? Fuck no. My dad has great retirement benefits through ford. And a pension. He took the buy out.

Oh yea and me. I make $100k a year give or take now. Have for the past 5 years. I’m 49. So let’s say I’ve got to at least work till I’m 62 to collect social security and Medicare. If they let me retire with those things at 62 I will I don’t care how much I lose for retiring early.

BUT. If I would have went to work at ford when I graduated highschool at 17, I’d already be getting a 30 year pension 2 years ago. At the age of 47. So even though I’m balling and have no debt, I’m still going to have to work 15 more years than if I would have just taken that union job at ford.

plus i wouldn’t have spent that $20,000 on a bachelors degree.

If I only made $100k per yr I would be depressed.

Why should people who make $60k and have $100,000 in student loan debt vote republican? You probably like that th3 ceo makes 300x what they make right?

But you, if you really make more than me, you should vote republican. But if you don’t you shouldn’t.

Arent you that fat foreign guy? Maybe I’m confusing you with someone else?

I vote Republican because Democrats tell me that men may identity as women

Ha! I was just telling a guy name unkotare how they use gay to con poor and middle class Americans into voting republican. Without these wedge issues like guns, racism, abortion these people would have no business voting republican. Republicans are not pro labor. Period.

How so?

Because republicans are against employees unionizing. Their way brought wages down.

Because republicans won’t go after illegal employers. So they arent really trying to kick illegals out. A wall. Ha!

Because trumps fixes to nafta and trade with ch8na did nothing to help labor. And only american companies a little. Only enough for trump to claim a victory.

Youre being conned

Unions are stupid. Republicans are for lower taxes and fewer regulations. You’re uneducated by your own admission so please stop trying to sound smart.

Republicans are against paying labor more too. Driving wages down. How? By sending jobs overseas and hiring illegal workers

Not true at all. Fewer regulations equates to more business openings and expansion and more jobs. Trump brought jobs back and halted corporate inversions.

More jobs but lower paying.

But I’m not so against lower wages anymore. As long as it’s not my wages. You and I make more than the average american with two kids. I’m not worrying about them anymore

but remember you admitted that if you made what they all make, your be depressed. So why should they vote like you vote when you’re for lower wages for them?

lower pay?? how so?

Look at companies like Toyota and Honda Compared to ford and gm. More temps than full time employees.

That’s just one example.

Do you even have to ask?

Republicans applaud companies who’s CEOs make the most but employees make the least.

PROOF PLEASE--you just babbled..how about some facts and figures--FOR ONCE!!!!

Look it up

We have looked it up. There is no example of lower pay.

You show me the example of lower pay. You show me the wielder that in 1970 was earning $50/hour, and today is earning $10/hour.

There is no such example anywhere. None. Zero. Even adjusted for inflation, no such example.

We have looked it up. You are wrong. This is why we are asking you to look it up, so you can educate yourself on your false beliefs.

Ford scores higher in 6 areas dummy. Overall rating, career opportunpities, work life balance, senior management, culture and values and % recommended to a friend.

Big three workers make $27 hr Toyota $25.

Keep in mind Toyota only pays what they pay because if they didn’t their employees would unionize.

Engineers at ford make $37 hr Toyota engineers make $32

Ford has 3400 temp workers. I’m looking at an article about Toyota extending plant shutdown and will stop paying 5000 temps.

What does any of that have to do with anything?

You made the claim that people are paid less today, than they were yesterday.

Are you saying that Toyota Engineers were making $37/hour and now they are making $32 an hour?

I'm not asking you if some employees are choosing to work for a company that pays less money.

Which employee was making $37/hour yesterday, or last year, or last decade, and today is making $32/hour?

Unless they suck. I've known some engineers, that honestly were not worth $15/hour.

How much was Toyota paying engineers 30 years ago? Is more... or less... than how much engineers are paid today?

And honestly, Toyota Engineers are paid $32/hour? Oh my bleeding heart..... oh the horror....

You know that German automotive engineers in Germany right now, earn less than that?

Automotive Engineer Salary in Germany in 2024 | PayScale

The average salary for an Automotive Engineer in Germany is €58,172 in 2024. Visit PayScale to research automotive engineer salaries by city, experience, skill, employer and more.

www.payscale.com

Evidence my friend. Evidence. You are complaining about better working conditions than other first world countries offer.

Engineers come here from Europe, and earn more working for Toyota.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Compare/Ford-Motor-Company-vs-Toyota-North-America-EI_IE263-E3544.htm

View attachment 389136
I do not even believe you honestly.

Figures about pay scales are horribly easy to mislead with.

No two engineers are identical by any stretch. One engineer can have 10 years of experience, while another might have only 3 years of experience. Another engineer might have 15 years of experience, but in a field where there are dozens of engineers, while another engineer with only 5 years of experience might specialize in a field that few others do.

Just saying "well this group of engineers collectively is paid less or more than another group" is just ridiculous. You don't know what experience they have, what they specialize in, or anything.

They are not significantly paid less than people at Ford. If they were, no one would work there.

Overall, wages have gone up.... PERIOD. They have gone up, and what you posted doesn't contradict that.

We have the highest wages, and then highest standard of living in the world, and people need to be less spoiled, less complaining, and more grateful for what we have.

Was all this true on Obama's watch or only after Trump got into office?

I'm grateful. I make $100,000 a year.

I'm talking about these people: the median weekly earnings are $933, or about $48,516 per year.

This was true, before Obama was born. Read the graph. It's pretty clear.

Trump and Obama have nothing to do with wages going up. Provided they don't do anything to screw up the economy for decades on end, which thankfully Obama's Sub-prime fiasco only did temporary damage.

I'm talking about these people: the median weekly earnings are $933, or about $48,516 per year.

So there are a couple of things here.

Lets say that me and my wife, both make $60,000 a year. That's $120,000 household income. Over the past 10 years, we both have gotten raises. So our income was lower before, and now is higher.

So if you were to graph "Household income" the graph would show us starting at I don't know.... $60,000 ($30K each), and going up over the years to $120K.

Now, during those 10 years, we have 6 children together. For the next 5 to 10 years, our six kids get part time jobs, and each start making $5,000 to $10,000 each, while living at home, plus both me and my wife, get another $10,000 raise each.

So on a graph, our household income is now up to around $200,000.

Then something magical happens. Our kids start moving out, and getting their own apartments, or getting married, or going to college.

All of sudden, that graph is going to drop, and pretty quickly, down to $140,000.

But here's the kicker. These are statistics. Which are averages, or median incomes.

Well SIX new households exist. Our six children each got their own place. And they are not going to be earning $70,000 a year, like me and my wife.

So they are going to start at the bottom.... $15,000, $20,000 to $30,000. They are not starting at $70,000, or with a wife/husband making the same amount, for a $140,000 household income.

So if you put the median or average household income on a graph.... it's going to go up and up as me and my wife get raises, and then drop dramatically as our six children move out, and start at the low end of the income ladder.

The same exact thing happens on a society level.

You end up with waves through the age levels. Tons of people in the 19-29 age group, means that wages will be lower, because people in those age groups earn less, because they have no experience. More people in the 30-39, and 40-49 age group, means higher wage averages.

Equally, you also have to consider immigration. More immigrants, and specifically illegal immigrants, means more people at the lower wage rates.

So, as I said before, there are some ways that you can increase wages, if that's your goal.

As with anything, the value of labor is determined by supply and demand.

So we can either work to reduce the supply, or we work to increase demand.

The way you increase demand, is by making it more profitable to employ people at the low income level. One way is to reduce the corporate tax right, thus creating the incentive to hire people here in the US. Another is to reduce regulations and other requirements that make it expensive to hire US labor.

The other way, is to reduce the supply of low wage labor. How do you do that? By either creating incentives for people to get trade skills, or college degrees IN USEFUL SKILLS... not art history, or gender studies....

And the other side, is to reduce immigration and welfare. Both of which create an artificial pool of low-skill labor.

That is how you fix that problem.

 

[Unkotare]

....

I'm grateful. I make $100,000 a year.
......

There is no "class warfare" no matter how badly the democrats want it.

Your shrink is doing a piss-poor job. You can't go half a day without gassing on about how 'rich' you think you are. You are pathologically shallow and insecure. What a poor fucking excuse for a human being.

 

[sealybobo]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

It is way too expensive to live in nyc. People who worked in nyc but now work from home have moved to places where their salaries go a lot further.

Shuli on the Howard stern show moved to Alabama. With what he makes he’s rich in Alabama. If you can work from home why live in a city where $100,000 a year is not a lot?

And whose fault is that?

You jack up taxes, jack up regulations, jack up housing policy, jack up the police so that crime is everywhere, which increases costs on the city.... and then you say "It's too expensive to live there" as if that just fell out of the sky randomly.

No it didn't. Bad policies caused this.

And by the way, they could have had thousands of well paying jobs in NYC when Amazon built an HQ there, but AOC drove them out. Brilliant.

Hey, if you want to live or do business in ny you have to pay. Otherwise go to Alabama. Use their ports and tear up their roads.

Well that's kind of my point. They are not, and they leaving.

People are leaving NYC. That's the point. This is true everywhere.

When France implemented their wealth tax... they said the same thing. "Hey, if you want to live and do business in France, you have to pay!"

and you know what happened????

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They left! They were packing up their wealthy, their businesses, and their families, and leaving.

Famously in Jamaica, when PM Manly passed all his socialist crap.... he said openly "There are six flights a day to Miami"... and people started taking the flights to Miami. They left.

You can't hurt the rich. Only yourself. It was poor people of Jamaica that end up dealing with the joblessness and high crime.

The rich left.

Same in NYC. The rich are leaving. The poor are stuck jobless, and victimized by the criminals.

So, yes.... they will leave.

Then don’t expect America to be great again. Not if you are middle class. The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.

If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

I actually don't believe that America was ever not great. At least thus far. America has never ceased being great.

The only people who think that America has declined, are the fools who have never lived, or been elsewhere, or know people who live elsewhere.

I do. I've been to Europe. I know people who live in Europe right now. And if you think America is not better than Europe, or the rest of the world, you are crazy. You don't know what you are talking about.

People in Europe live lower standards of living, universally. Smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller appliances, less spending money, less entertainment.

There is no possible way to measure the standards of living in the rest of the world, and compare to the US, and not have the US be better.

Why do think we have millions of people trying to get into this country? It's one of the most baffling aspects of Left-wing contradictions, that you want open borders to let people freely come into the country, and at the same time claim the country is declining and everything is terrible, and America is racists and evil.

Those are mutually exclusive positions. People don't risk their lives, to get into places that are terrible.

The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

No, I don't buy that. You show me one person who walked the exact same path as their parents, and is worse off.

I'm not making the same money as my parents, but that's because I am not in the same career as my parents.

I have relatives, where their parents were wielders. Their son, became a wielder too. Their son is make more money than his parents did, when they were his age.

I know engineers, and they make more money in engineering than their parents who were engineers.

And as far as the standard of living.... no you are still crazy.

My standard of living today, is better than my parents when they were my age. By quite a bit too.

My house is bigger, than the house they had at my age. I have had central air conditioning since I was in college, in 1999. My parents didn't have air conditioning until they were in their late 50s. Microwaves, internet, computers, instapots. My parents didn't have cable TV until they were in their late 50s, and in fact, didn't even own a TV until they were in their late 40s.

I've had all of that, and smart phones, and GPS driving directions, and on and on and on.

We today, are miles and miles beyond where are parents were at the same age. You are crazy if you think otherwise. Absolutely crazy.

The poorest WORKING people today, have a higher standard of living, than the middle class of the 1970s. By a MASSIVE margin.

Now if you are living off welfare and unemployment, and not working consistently full time, then yeah, they are falling way behind, and need to get off their butts, and work for what they want.

But the poorest working people putting in full days work every day.... no they are way beyond where the middle class was in the 1970s, or even 1980s.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.
If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

Social Security was going broke before Trump was even running for office.

You are fool if your retirement plan is to depend on Social Security.

Before any of this Covid nonsense happened, SS was going broke. Before Trump was ever elected, SS paid out so little, that you were basically going to live in poverty until you die, if Social Security was your retirement plan.

Anyone who plans to retire on Social Security is an idiot. You need to be saving for your own retirement out of your own income, like everyone else should be doing.

Social Security is the most poverty creating program in US history. Don't be stupid. Save for retirement.

We don’t have to be worse than Europe. Maybe we’re still better but not as much as we were before Reagan bush and trump.

And when I say we’re not better than we were before I mean the middle class. The rich are doing great.

Half of me is working class and half is investor class. As a worker I disagree with you. As an investor I partially agree with you. And when I agree I certainly don’t agree on your suggested remedies.

Again, factually speaking, we are way better off after the 1980s, than before.

If you telling me that the working class, TODAY.... is worse off, than the working class of the 1970s.... or before.... you are crazy. You are factually incorrect sir.

We are way way way better off than the people in the 1970s or before.

The middle class TODAY... is better off than the middle class of the 1970s.

And yes, investors are better off too. You know who is an investor? Likely.... 70% of the population?

55% of people have investments in the stock market.
65% have property investments.
15% have pensions, which are in fact investments, typically in the stock market.

And there are millions with annuities, and those are typically invested in stocks too.

And by the way, there is a connection between investment and labor. Most jobs wouldn't exist without investment.

So while someone might claim "The investor class is doing well, but the working class is not".... really? Because without the investments, hundreds of millions of jobs wouldn't exist, and those workers would be far worse off.

Honestly I grew up in the 70s and 80s in metro Detroit. Back then a guy could graduate high school and go find a job that would support a family of 5. One income. One bread winner.

Today to do as well you have to go to college and how much does that cost? So blue collar are not better off today and back in my day college was $5000 a year. I worked in the summer and saved most of my tuition. Maybe my dad had to chip in $1000 a year so I didn’t need student loans.

And honestly, for years I had a college degree but wasn’t doing as well as my dad did. I am now but that is common now especially for millennials. First generation who won’t do better than their parents.

I may make more than my dad ever did but am I better off? Fuck no. My dad has great retirement benefits through ford. And a pension. He took the buy out.

Oh yea and me. I make $100k a year give or take now. Have for the past 5 years. I’m 49. So let’s say I’ve got to at least work till I’m 62 to collect social security and Medicare. If they let me retire with those things at 62 I will I don’t care how much I lose for retiring early.

BUT. If I would have went to work at ford when I graduated highschool at 17, I’d already be getting a 30 year pension 2 years ago. At the age of 47. So even though I’m balling and have no debt, I’m still going to have to work 15 more years than if I would have just taken that union job at ford.

plus i wouldn’t have spent that $20,000 on a bachelors degree.

If I only made $100k per yr I would be depressed.

Why should people who make $60k and have $100,000 in student loan debt vote republican? You probably like that th3 ceo makes 300x what they make right?

But you, if you really make more than me, you should vote republican. But if you don’t you shouldn’t.

Arent you that fat foreign guy? Maybe I’m confusing you with someone else?

I vote Republican because Democrats tell me that men may identity as women

Ha! I was just telling a guy name unkotare how they use gay to con poor and middle class Americans into voting republican. Without these wedge issues like guns, racism, abortion these people would have no business voting republican. Republicans are not pro labor. Period.

How so?

Because republicans are against employees unionizing. Their way brought wages down.

Because republicans won’t go after illegal employers. So they arent really trying to kick illegals out. A wall. Ha!

Because trumps fixes to nafta and trade with ch8na did nothing to help labor. And only american companies a little. Only enough for trump to claim a victory.

Youre being conned

Unions are stupid. Republicans are for lower taxes and fewer regulations. You’re uneducated by your own admission so please stop trying to sound smart.

Republicans are against paying labor more too. Driving wages down. How? By sending jobs overseas and hiring illegal workers

Not true at all. Fewer regulations equates to more business openings and expansion and more jobs. Trump brought jobs back and halted corporate inversions.

More jobs but lower paying.

But I’m not so against lower wages anymore. As long as it’s not my wages. You and I make more than the average american with two kids. I’m not worrying about them anymore

but remember you admitted that if you made what they all make, your be depressed. So why should they vote like you vote when you’re for lower wages for them?

lower pay?? how so?

Look at companies like Toyota and Honda Compared to ford and gm. More temps than full time employees.

That’s just one example.

Do you even have to ask?

Republicans applaud companies who’s CEOs make the most but employees make the least.

PROOF PLEASE--you just babbled..how about some facts and figures--FOR ONCE!!!!

Look it up

We have looked it up. There is no example of lower pay.

You show me the example of lower pay. You show me the wielder that in 1970 was earning $50/hour, and today is earning $10/hour.

There is no such example anywhere. None. Zero. Even adjusted for inflation, no such example.

We have looked it up. You are wrong. This is why we are asking you to look it up, so you can educate yourself on your false beliefs.

Ford scores higher in 6 areas dummy. Overall rating, career opportunpities, work life balance, senior management, culture and values and % recommended to a friend.

Big three workers make $27 hr Toyota $25.

Keep in mind Toyota only pays what they pay because if they didn’t their employees would unionize.

Engineers at ford make $37 hr Toyota engineers make $32

Ford has 3400 temp workers. I’m looking at an article about Toyota extending plant shutdown and will stop paying 5000 temps.

What does any of that have to do with anything?

You made the claim that people are paid less today, than they were yesterday.

Are you saying that Toyota Engineers were making $37/hour and now they are making $32 an hour?

I'm not asking you if some employees are choosing to work for a company that pays less money.

Which employee was making $37/hour yesterday, or last year, or last decade, and today is making $32/hour?

Unless they suck. I've known some engineers, that honestly were not worth $15/hour.

How much was Toyota paying engineers 30 years ago? Is more... or less... than how much engineers are paid today?

And honestly, Toyota Engineers are paid $32/hour? Oh my bleeding heart..... oh the horror....

You know that German automotive engineers in Germany right now, earn less than that?

Automotive Engineer Salary in Germany in 2024 | PayScale

The average salary for an Automotive Engineer in Germany is €58,172 in 2024. Visit PayScale to research automotive engineer salaries by city, experience, skill, employer and more.

www.payscale.com

Evidence my friend. Evidence. You are complaining about better working conditions than other first world countries offer.

Engineers come here from Europe, and earn more working for Toyota.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Compare/Ford-Motor-Company-vs-Toyota-North-America-EI_IE263-E3544.htm

View attachment 389136
I do not even believe you honestly.

Figures about pay scales are horribly easy to mislead with.

No two engineers are identical by any stretch. One engineer can have 10 years of experience, while another might have only 3 years of experience. Another engineer might have 15 years of experience, but in a field where there are dozens of engineers, while another engineer with only 5 years of experience might specialize in a field that few others do.

Just saying "well this group of engineers collectively is paid less or more than another group" is just ridiculous. You don't know what experience they have, what they specialize in, or anything.

They are not significantly paid less than people at Ford. If they were, no one would work there.

Overall, wages have gone up.... PERIOD. They have gone up, and what you posted doesn't contradict that.

We have the highest wages, and then highest standard of living in the world, and people need to be less spoiled, less complaining, and more grateful for what we have.

Was all this true on Obama's watch or only after Trump got into office?

I'm grateful. I make $100,000 a year.

I'm talking about these people: the median weekly earnings are $933, or about $48,516 per year.

Who are these people? Do you know any?

Medium income is $47,000 a year. That’s what I imagine most Americans are working with.

And even though it’s probably tough to raise a family on that, $47,000 isn’t that bad. I don’t think the masses should all be making more than that.

The more I talk to you guys the more I realize things probably aren’t as bad as I think. But I don’t like how labor no longer has a seat at the table. And I don’t want government cutting my social security no matter how much I make. I’m going to want that extra $300 a month when I’m retired. Cutting my social security 20% would not be cool and that’s what republicans want to do.

And before you deny it, don’t lie. Like yesterday trump said he doesn’t want to do away with pre existing conditions but we know that’s a fucking lie

In the end, you and I are doing well so fuck it right?

 

[sealybobo]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

It is way too expensive to live in nyc. People who worked in nyc but now work from home have moved to places where their salaries go a lot further.

Shuli on the Howard stern show moved to Alabama. With what he makes he’s rich in Alabama. If you can work from home why live in a city where $100,000 a year is not a lot?

And whose fault is that?

You jack up taxes, jack up regulations, jack up housing policy, jack up the police so that crime is everywhere, which increases costs on the city.... and then you say "It's too expensive to live there" as if that just fell out of the sky randomly.

No it didn't. Bad policies caused this.

And by the way, they could have had thousands of well paying jobs in NYC when Amazon built an HQ there, but AOC drove them out. Brilliant.

Hey, if you want to live or do business in ny you have to pay. Otherwise go to Alabama. Use their ports and tear up their roads.

Well that's kind of my point. They are not, and they leaving.

People are leaving NYC. That's the point. This is true everywhere.

When France implemented their wealth tax... they said the same thing. "Hey, if you want to live and do business in France, you have to pay!"

and you know what happened????

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They left! They were packing up their wealthy, their businesses, and their families, and leaving.

Famously in Jamaica, when PM Manly passed all his socialist crap.... he said openly "There are six flights a day to Miami"... and people started taking the flights to Miami. They left.

You can't hurt the rich. Only yourself. It was poor people of Jamaica that end up dealing with the joblessness and high crime.

The rich left.

Same in NYC. The rich are leaving. The poor are stuck jobless, and victimized by the criminals.

So, yes.... they will leave.

Then don’t expect America to be great again. Not if you are middle class. The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.

If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

I actually don't believe that America was ever not great. At least thus far. America has never ceased being great.

The only people who think that America has declined, are the fools who have never lived, or been elsewhere, or know people who live elsewhere.

I do. I've been to Europe. I know people who live in Europe right now. And if you think America is not better than Europe, or the rest of the world, you are crazy. You don't know what you are talking about.

People in Europe live lower standards of living, universally. Smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller appliances, less spending money, less entertainment.

There is no possible way to measure the standards of living in the rest of the world, and compare to the US, and not have the US be better.

Why do think we have millions of people trying to get into this country? It's one of the most baffling aspects of Left-wing contradictions, that you want open borders to let people freely come into the country, and at the same time claim the country is declining and everything is terrible, and America is racists and evil.

Those are mutually exclusive positions. People don't risk their lives, to get into places that are terrible.

The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

No, I don't buy that. You show me one person who walked the exact same path as their parents, and is worse off.

I'm not making the same money as my parents, but that's because I am not in the same career as my parents.

I have relatives, where their parents were wielders. Their son, became a wielder too. Their son is make more money than his parents did, when they were his age.

I know engineers, and they make more money in engineering than their parents who were engineers.

And as far as the standard of living.... no you are still crazy.

My standard of living today, is better than my parents when they were my age. By quite a bit too.

My house is bigger, than the house they had at my age. I have had central air conditioning since I was in college, in 1999. My parents didn't have air conditioning until they were in their late 50s. Microwaves, internet, computers, instapots. My parents didn't have cable TV until they were in their late 50s, and in fact, didn't even own a TV until they were in their late 40s.

I've had all of that, and smart phones, and GPS driving directions, and on and on and on.

We today, are miles and miles beyond where are parents were at the same age. You are crazy if you think otherwise. Absolutely crazy.

The poorest WORKING people today, have a higher standard of living, than the middle class of the 1970s. By a MASSIVE margin.

Now if you are living off welfare and unemployment, and not working consistently full time, then yeah, they are falling way behind, and need to get off their butts, and work for what they want.

But the poorest working people putting in full days work every day.... no they are way beyond where the middle class was in the 1970s, or even 1980s.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.
If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

Social Security was going broke before Trump was even running for office.

You are fool if your retirement plan is to depend on Social Security.

Before any of this Covid nonsense happened, SS was going broke. Before Trump was ever elected, SS paid out so little, that you were basically going to live in poverty until you die, if Social Security was your retirement plan.

Anyone who plans to retire on Social Security is an idiot. You need to be saving for your own retirement out of your own income, like everyone else should be doing.

Social Security is the most poverty creating program in US history. Don't be stupid. Save for retirement.

We don’t have to be worse than Europe. Maybe we’re still better but not as much as we were before Reagan bush and trump.

And when I say we’re not better than we were before I mean the middle class. The rich are doing great.

Half of me is working class and half is investor class. As a worker I disagree with you. As an investor I partially agree with you. And when I agree I certainly don’t agree on your suggested remedies.

Again, factually speaking, we are way better off after the 1980s, than before.

If you telling me that the working class, TODAY.... is worse off, than the working class of the 1970s.... or before.... you are crazy. You are factually incorrect sir.

We are way way way better off than the people in the 1970s or before.

The middle class TODAY... is better off than the middle class of the 1970s.

And yes, investors are better off too. You know who is an investor? Likely.... 70% of the population?

55% of people have investments in the stock market.
65% have property investments.
15% have pensions, which are in fact investments, typically in the stock market.

And there are millions with annuities, and those are typically invested in stocks too.

And by the way, there is a connection between investment and labor. Most jobs wouldn't exist without investment.

So while someone might claim "The investor class is doing well, but the working class is not".... really? Because without the investments, hundreds of millions of jobs wouldn't exist, and those workers would be far worse off.

Honestly I grew up in the 70s and 80s in metro Detroit. Back then a guy could graduate high school and go find a job that would support a family of 5. One income. One bread winner.

Today to do as well you have to go to college and how much does that cost? So blue collar are not better off today and back in my day college was $5000 a year. I worked in the summer and saved most of my tuition. Maybe my dad had to chip in $1000 a year so I didn’t need student loans.

And honestly, for years I had a college degree but wasn’t doing as well as my dad did. I am now but that is common now especially for millennials. First generation who won’t do better than their parents.

I may make more than my dad ever did but am I better off? Fuck no. My dad has great retirement benefits through ford. And a pension. He took the buy out.

Oh yea and me. I make $100k a year give or take now. Have for the past 5 years. I’m 49. So let’s say I’ve got to at least work till I’m 62 to collect social security and Medicare. If they let me retire with those things at 62 I will I don’t care how much I lose for retiring early.

BUT. If I would have went to work at ford when I graduated highschool at 17, I’d already be getting a 30 year pension 2 years ago. At the age of 47. So even though I’m balling and have no debt, I’m still going to have to work 15 more years than if I would have just taken that union job at ford.

plus i wouldn’t have spent that $20,000 on a bachelors degree.

If I only made $100k per yr I would be depressed.

Why should people who make $60k and have $100,000 in student loan debt vote republican? You probably like that th3 ceo makes 300x what they make right?

But you, if you really make more than me, you should vote republican. But if you don’t you shouldn’t.

Arent you that fat foreign guy? Maybe I’m confusing you with someone else?

I vote Republican because Democrats tell me that men may identity as women

Ha! I was just telling a guy name unkotare how they use gay to con poor and middle class Americans into voting republican. Without these wedge issues like guns, racism, abortion these people would have no business voting republican. Republicans are not pro labor. Period.

How so?

Because republicans are against employees unionizing. Their way brought wages down.

Because republicans won’t go after illegal employers. So they arent really trying to kick illegals out. A wall. Ha!

Because trumps fixes to nafta and trade with ch8na did nothing to help labor. And only american companies a little. Only enough for trump to claim a victory.

Youre being conned

Unions are stupid. Republicans are for lower taxes and fewer regulations. You’re uneducated by your own admission so please stop trying to sound smart.

Republicans are against paying labor more too. Driving wages down. How? By sending jobs overseas and hiring illegal workers

Not true at all. Fewer regulations equates to more business openings and expansion and more jobs. Trump brought jobs back and halted corporate inversions.

More jobs but lower paying.

But I’m not so against lower wages anymore. As long as it’s not my wages. You and I make more than the average american with two kids. I’m not worrying about them anymore

but remember you admitted that if you made what they all make, your be depressed. So why should they vote like you vote when you’re for lower wages for them?

lower pay?? how so?

Look at companies like Toyota and Honda Compared to ford and gm. More temps than full time employees.

That’s just one example.

Do you even have to ask?

Republicans applaud companies who’s CEOs make the most but employees make the least.

PROOF PLEASE--you just babbled..how about some facts and figures--FOR ONCE!!!!

Look it up

We have looked it up. There is no example of lower pay.

You show me the example of lower pay. You show me the wielder that in 1970 was earning $50/hour, and today is earning $10/hour.

There is no such example anywhere. None. Zero. Even adjusted for inflation, no such example.

We have looked it up. You are wrong. This is why we are asking you to look it up, so you can educate yourself on your false beliefs.

Ford scores higher in 6 areas dummy. Overall rating, career opportunpities, work life balance, senior management, culture and values and % recommended to a friend.

Big three workers make $27 hr Toyota $25.

Keep in mind Toyota only pays what they pay because if they didn’t their employees would unionize.

Engineers at ford make $37 hr Toyota engineers make $32

Ford has 3400 temp workers. I’m looking at an article about Toyota extending plant shutdown and will stop paying 5000 temps.

What does any of that have to do with anything?

You made the claim that people are paid less today, than they were yesterday.

Are you saying that Toyota Engineers were making $37/hour and now they are making $32 an hour?

I'm not asking you if some employees are choosing to work for a company that pays less money.

Which employee was making $37/hour yesterday, or last year, or last decade, and today is making $32/hour?

Unless they suck. I've known some engineers, that honestly were not worth $15/hour.

How much was Toyota paying engineers 30 years ago? Is more... or less... than how much engineers are paid today?

And honestly, Toyota Engineers are paid $32/hour? Oh my bleeding heart..... oh the horror....

You know that German automotive engineers in Germany right now, earn less than that?

Automotive Engineer Salary in Germany in 2024 | PayScale

The average salary for an Automotive Engineer in Germany is €58,172 in 2024. Visit PayScale to research automotive engineer salaries by city, experience, skill, employer and more.

www.payscale.com

Evidence my friend. Evidence. You are complaining about better working conditions than other first world countries offer.

Engineers come here from Europe, and earn more working for Toyota.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Compare/Ford-Motor-Company-vs-Toyota-North-America-EI_IE263-E3544.htm

View attachment 389136
I do not even believe you honestly.

Figures about pay scales are horribly easy to mislead with.

No two engineers are identical by any stretch. One engineer can have 10 years of experience, while another might have only 3 years of experience. Another engineer might have 15 years of experience, but in a field where there are dozens of engineers, while another engineer with only 5 years of experience might specialize in a field that few others do.

Just saying "well this group of engineers collectively is paid less or more than another group" is just ridiculous. You don't know what experience they have, what they specialize in, or anything.

They are not significantly paid less than people at Ford. If they were, no one would work there.

Overall, wages have gone up.... PERIOD. They have gone up, and what you posted doesn't contradict that.

We have the highest wages, and then highest standard of living in the world, and people need to be less spoiled, less complaining, and more grateful for what we have.

Was all this true on Obama's watch or only after Trump got into office?

I'm grateful. I make $100,000 a year.

I'm talking about these people: the median weekly earnings are $933, or about $48,516 per year.

Who are these people? Do you know any?

Just because you don’t know anyone making the medium average income doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And yes, I know lots of people who make less than $50,000 a year. Some have college degrees and work white collar jobs.

I worked at a big company in the 2000s. A lot of people were making 6 figures so the company doubled the sales force. Next thing you know most of us were making $50-$65k a year. The company was able to double their manpower and pay the same as before.

When I got hired where I work now I took the job for $40,000. I didn’t know what everyone else made. My boss asked me what the minimum I would need to take the job. I didn’t want to ask for too much I needed the job. After doing a great job year one the boss gave me a $5000 raise. Year two he gave me another raise put me to about $55,000. I told another salesperson I was insulted because of how much I was selling. He eventually became president and gave me an appropriate raise so now I make 6 figures. So companies don’t pay you what you are worth they pay you as little as they think they can get away with. He thought I might leave so he paid me what I was worth but only after he feared I might leave. This is how most companies operate. In fact, most companies will let you go rather than pay what you are worth because they don’t think we are worth as much as we are worth. The company was Thomson Reuters. A lot of people there make $46-$50k and most of them have college degrees.

So this woman I worked with who did everything found out how much I was making and it turned out she too was only making around $50,000. She complained and they let her go. They hired two women to do her job. I don’t know what they each make I would guess $40k Each?

Now I find out that most of the people I work with only make around $50k.

 

[westwall]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

It is way too expensive to live in nyc. People who worked in nyc but now work from home have moved to places where their salaries go a lot further.

Shuli on the Howard stern show moved to Alabama. With what he makes he’s rich in Alabama. If you can work from home why live in a city where $100,000 a year is not a lot?

And whose fault is that?

You jack up taxes, jack up regulations, jack up housing policy, jack up the police so that crime is everywhere, which increases costs on the city.... and then you say "It's too expensive to live there" as if that just fell out of the sky randomly.

No it didn't. Bad policies caused this.

And by the way, they could have had thousands of well paying jobs in NYC when Amazon built an HQ there, but AOC drove them out. Brilliant.

Hey, if you want to live or do business in ny you have to pay. Otherwise go to Alabama. Use their ports and tear up their roads.

Well that's kind of my point. They are not, and they leaving.

People are leaving NYC. That's the point. This is true everywhere.

When France implemented their wealth tax... they said the same thing. "Hey, if you want to live and do business in France, you have to pay!"

and you know what happened????

Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France

Edouard Philippe defended President Emmanuel Macrons' new tax break for the wealthiest, saying it is needed stem the increasing flow of the richest leaving France.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They left! They were packing up their wealthy, their businesses, and their families, and leaving.

Famously in Jamaica, when PM Manly passed all his socialist crap.... he said openly "There are six flights a day to Miami"... and people started taking the flights to Miami. They left.

You can't hurt the rich. Only yourself. It was poor people of Jamaica that end up dealing with the joblessness and high crime.

The rich left.

Same in NYC. The rich are leaving. The poor are stuck jobless, and victimized by the criminals.

So, yes.... they will leave.

Then don’t expect America to be great again. Not if you are middle class. The middle class is struggling big time. Compared to our parents most of you are lower middle class actually.

The middle class is getting smaller. If you are securly in the middle class and doing well and you’re ok with a 20% cut to your social security, vote republican.

If you are going to need your social security, you’re a fool being a republican.

That’s why homelessness is higher in New York, California, Oregon and Washington. Democrats have made it impossible to buy a home in those state. The cost of property and rent are too high.

It’s one reason. What about the fact that homeless people in Alabama go to LA because it’s warm year round? If you talk to homeless people in LA you’ll learn most of them came from other states

Ummm, Alabama is pretty warm year round too.

 

[sealybobo]

....

I'm grateful. I make $100,000 a year.
......

There is no "class warfare" no matter how badly the democrats want it.

Your shrink is doing a piss-poor job. You can't go half a day without gassing on about how 'rich' you think you are. You are pathologically shallow and insecure. What a poor fucking excuse for a human being.

If the rich lobby politicians to cut social programs so they can get tax cuts, that’s class warfare stupid boy.

If the rich in the 80s start hiring illegals to avoid paying American wages, that’s class warfare you idiot. This has cost the middle class billions and profited corporations billions every year fool.

If they send our highest paying manufacturing jobs to mexico, that’s class warfare dummy.

If they break unions, that’s class warfare

And now it’s all secretive because of citizens united.

 

[blastoff]

Anyone know if NYC still has apartment rent control policies?

Never could figure out how city government could force property owners to charge rents below what the market would naturally determine.

 

[Oldestyle]

Has the mayor figured out how to blame Trump yet ?

The number of empty rental apartments in Manhattan nearly tripled compared with last year, as more New Yorkers fled the city and prices declined.

There were more than 15,000 empty rental apartments in Manhattan in August, up from 5,600 a year ago, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The inventory of empty units is the largest ever recorded since data started being collected 14 years ago, the report said.

Manhattan rental market plunges, leaving 15,000 empty apartments in August

Hopes for a rebound in the fall or the end of 2020 look increasingly unlikely. Although rental prices have come down, the discounts are not steep enough yet to lure new renters back to the city.

www.cnbc.com

Some people in Manhattan can afford multiple houses. It's an unfamiliar concept for most red states....unless the houses have wheels.
When the city locks down, there is little reason to continue living there and paying rent on an apartment. Once it opens back up completely, the city will once again be the envy of every red state low-life.

You mistakenly think that most Red State residents want what New York City has, Candy. They don't. They like living where they do. You know what they don't like? When liberals from places like New York and California move to a Red State and set about trying to destroy their new homes like they did their old ones.

 

[Oldestyle]

Gotta wonder about how real estate is going in the other big cities that are experiencing the riots and destruction, it can't be good. And have they hit bottom in NYC or do they have further to drop? Those blue cities and states are in pretty big financial trouble, aren't they?

I don't know about real estate elsewhere, Task but I know that the market here in Florida is red hot. People want out of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Michigan and they're snapping up property here as soon as it hits the MLS books!