#late state capitalism

[charts-for-the-apocalypse]

Someone asked me the other day why people in their 20s just don't seem happy anymore. As a mid thirty year-old fuck, let me tell you. This is why. Right here. This chart. Pass it around. Let the existential dread fill the void in your heart, or better yet fuel the flames of anger you feel as more and more gets taken, and you get less and less for your work.

If you've ever asked yourself why toil away for someone else's reward, you are not alone. You are not insane. The economy is not peachy keen. I read, pour through, and chart economic data because I cannot believe that nobody else is seeing this.

So here I am. I will share what I discover as I discover it. Tell me when I'm wrong, debate me on the reasons and causes, but never deny that the data is there for us to read for ourselves.

By the way, I did a little bit of number crunching to determine what the value of what was lost is. In today's USD the difference ranges between $5,500-9,200 per year per working American. And that's if I'm being very conservative, generous, and not topping it out around historical highs but hitting historical averages.

Are you comfortable having lost upwards of $10K/year?

Are you comfortable being a bitch?

[anurbanfairytale]

Pigeon is waiting in line to buy coffee. Capitalism trumps nature.

[muffinlevelchicanery]

[superanimepirate]

I'm going insane due to American infrastructure and lack of transportation options.

I'm trying to fly from Sweden to the Midwest with my dog.

It's borderline impossible.

The dog is a Labrador, so he's too big for the cabin and must travel in the hold. I hate this and I'm very anxious about it, but I guess I understand why large dogs can't be in the cabin unless they are service animals. Fine.

The problem is that seemingly no airlines in the US transports dogs in the hold. Apparently only European and Canadian ones do that.

Since I am in the Midwest, not many of these airlines fly that far inland.

The airport that is closest to my hometown (2 hour drive), does not have any options whatsoever.

The next closest is a four hour drive. It has 1 option. After that is one that is a 6 hour drive, and they have a few more options.

Even if I choose the 4 hour or 6 hour drive from my home town, I still have to depend on my parents being able to pick me up. Which means an 8 or 12 hour round trip for them. There is absolutely no busses or trains that go to my home town. Any busses and trains that go somewhat near there (2 hour drive from the train station to my hometown), don't allow dogs to board, even in a kennel.

I can't rent a car either. I don't drive. Even if I did, I spent 2 years I Europe, so my license would have expired.

Even if it didn't, renting is needlessly difficult and expensive. Technically you have to be 21. But if you're under 25, you get charged extra. And extra pet fees.

Don't even get me started on shipping dogs as cargo. $7,500 was just 1 quote.

[anarchywoofwoof]

i'm sorry.. what?

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia Municipal Court is resuming evictions as early as Monday, saying landlord tenant officers have now received training on use of force and de-escalation tactics.

landlord.. tenant.. officers?

"Though the sheriff has the power to serve evictions, the task is usually handled by a private force hired by a court-appointed attorney known as the landlord-tenant officer. These private security contractors — who are often armed — have long been a part of the local eviction system."

so landlords have their own private military? this is class warfare

This follows the court suspending all evictions in July after multiple tenants were shot during evictions over the past several months. In one incident in March, a plainclothes landlord tenant officer shot a woman in the head. In another incident in July, police said a woman was shot in the leg. A spokesperson for the court's Landlord and Tenant Office said evictions will now be conducted in teams of two officers who have all received Pennsylvania Constable training.

this is LITERALLY class warfare

The LTO is funded by service fees from landlords and not taxpayer money. Fees to landlords will increase from $145 to $350 to cover the additional staff, training and insurance costs.

and who the fuck do you think is going to end up ultimately paying those fees in the end? where do you think the landlords are going to get the money? you're just giving them an excuse to raise the rent. oh my god this country is a complete and total failed state.

[cbs]

[troythecatfish]

[she-is-ovarit]

I am on government insurance (Medicaid). Out of pocket, my psychologist's rate is $225 an hour. He went through a decade or more of school, obtained a PhD, and graduated with student loan debt. He didn't state how much, but I can imagine it's likely in the hundreds of thousands considering he still has this debt and graduated with his PhD in the early 2000s.

He shared with me that out of that $225 rate, he obtains about $25 from one Medicaid client's insurance company. The insurance company pockets the rest. My friend, another therapist, has a similar story. She makes $75 off of Medicaid clients usually when her rate out of pocket is $200.

Most therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists are no longer accepting Medicaid/Medicare insurances because of this reason, which people who are poor are on. Over half of mental health professionals are no longer accepting insurance, period. I think we all understand that low-income people and low-income communities struggle the most with mental health issues, and if you are a person of color in the US you are more likely to be low-income. If you are a domestic violence survivor turned homeless because you left your significant other, you are also more likely to be on Medicaid. If you are a first generation student, you are most likely on Medicaid. If you are formerly incarcerated, you are most likely on Medicaid. And so on.

Additionally, if you are a human being of the female sex, you are far more likely to seek out therapy than someone of the male sex. Overwhelmingly men don't seek out therapy unless their female significant partner pleads with them, pressures them, or gives them an ultimatum which influences them to make an appointment. What does this mean when the vast majority of mass shooters, rapists, pedophiles, and domestic violence abusers are male?

Figure 2. Percentage of adults aged 18 and over who had received any mental health treatment, taken medication for their mental health, or received counseling or therapy from a mental health professional in the past 12 months, by sex: United States, 2019

Pair all of these details with the fact that mental health professionals are in such high demand right now, that even with private insurance the wait list is anywhere from three to six months out. Insurance agencies are business, and the corruption inherent. Many focus on prioritizing coverage for acute crisis rather than treating long term underlying conditions (which in turn prevents acute crises), don't provide coverage for co-occurring conditions, are advertising that more providers are accepting their insurance than there actually are, and are solely driven by financial interest.

I wonder how much domestic violence, sexual violence, child abuse, poverty, hate crimes, generational trauma, and overall suffering within individuals and in their societies can be reduced by valuing mental health and holding insurance companies accountable for their financial exploitation.

We talk about the US healthcare crisis without talking about the US mental health crisis.

[all-socialism-is-democratic]

Project 2025 is terrifying. But when the history books talk about this period, they will point to July 1, 2024, as the beginning of the Fascist Era in the United States.

That's the day SCOTUS ruled on the perfectly-named Trump v. United States, in which the Court said the president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed in office.

In the 11 days since, Biden and the Democrats have taken absolutely no action. That's because they are not an antifascist party. They will capitulate and capitulate until fascism is complete.

The media are playing this down as something that only applies to Trump. As something not especially dangerous. As something normal.

Protest, strikes, even "rioting" (a slur for direct action) are not failures of democracy, they are integral to it. The system has failed and will not replace itself. The People still have the power to make real, substantive change and create a society that is not just not-fascist but actively antifascist. And anticolonialist, antiracist, antisexist, genuinely democratic, and free.

Voting for Democrats AT BEST delays the inevitable furthering of fascism for a short while, and AT WORST actually accelerates fascism by empowering capitulators. Want to vote Biden? Fine, waste an hour of your time.

If you want to actually fight fascism, YOU HAVE TO FIGHT.

[woodlandcreatur]

Kinda fucked that we, as Americans, have accepted that our time has no inherent value.

The discussion about minimum wage focuses too much on the value of any given type of labor. We're sitting here bickering amongst ourselves over whos job is worth more, and who deserves less... and we've completely lost the plot.

Minimum wage is strictly about the value of the time our employers take- or, at least, it needs to be. If a company demands 32 to 40 hours of your time every week, this time should have an intrinsic value regardless of the work you're doing. And, given that this time makes up most of your waking life, it should pay more than enough for you to survive in this society.

The value of our labor is what gets paid on top of that.

But here we are, acting like our work is all they're taking from us while they burn away our lives for nothing.

[intersectionalpraxis]

"if the top 1% of Americans just paid the taxes they owed. not paid more taxes. just if we collected their taxes we could raise about $175 billion dollars a year. so we could just about close the poverty gap if the richest among us just put in what they should... one of the biggest myths about poverty today is that we have to live with so much of it"

[nando161mando]

Why the US is behind schedule and over budget in returning to the Moon: Capitalism.

https://www.xatakaon.com/space/nasa-reveals-why-we-havent-returned-to-the-moon-sooner-underqualified-boeing-personnel-in-rocket-manufacturing

[lilithism1848]

[muffinlevelchicanery]

History may not fully repeat itself but it rhymes. Arms embargo now! Land back now!!

[calyxcurl]

Our US tax dollars are actively funding the apartheid state that is committing gənociḍə in Gaza. Our US tax dollars are funding the oppression and suppression of Filipinos fighting against the Marcos regime. Our US tax dollars are funding a hyper militarized police force to keep anti-black racism alive in America.

Long live international solidarity

[troythecatfish]

The greatest revelation you will ever have about US politics

is when it finally clicks for you that Republicans and Democrats are only play-fighting to give you the illusion of democracy

They are on the same side, and have been for a long time. Stop listening to their lies, and start watching their actions

They are both pushing the same policies, protecting the interests of the same donors, and both upholding EVERY oppressive system

The system will give you fascism no matter who you support