It really depends on which state you live in whether or not you have the luxury of a protest vote. If you live in NY state that has a 20% lead for Harris, sure, some people can vote Jill Stein or something. But if you live in a state that actually might be close or not an obvious blowout, you can’t vote that way. You actually have to be tactical with your vote, not idealistic or symbolic.

I’m not making an argument about the current state of wages. I’m just saying 4.4 million isn’t as unattainable as people think. And household income gets murky when you include single income households. And the definition for this article of American Dream includes 2 kids, so if kids aren’t in your planning the 4.4 million mark is probably 1 million less if you still want to attain those other things. I think some folks see that number and think “OMG I’m never going to have that much money.” You are right, you will never have that much money all at once, but over a lifetime you may have earned and/or spent that much without ever leaving the sort of “middle” income range in America.

I agree. All I’m saying is if 50% of salaries are above that 60k mark and as a dual income you are probably getting close to hitting the dream at that level. That’s not as dire as thinking only 10% of the population can afford it. 4.4 million is a scary number, but no one is expected to have that as liquidity or even net worth. That value of spend is actually more attainable over time than it looks when seeing it as raw sticker price.

And again, “American Dream” means family with 2 kids. Not everyone wants that or needs that. If you are a single person and happy living with just a partner or without kids (DINK lifestyle is fun), this is not saying you need 4.4 million to have a decent living standard.

The inflation piece is confusing to me to, but I think it does talk about investment. It says retirement is 1.6 million based on expected annual withdraw rate. So I’m guessing that is not the contribution amount but final amount including return on investment. So does that 4.4 million number actually somehow translate into a sub 4 million dollar contribution value? Same with college. If you start investing in college funds at child birth that have 18 years of growth, is that child cost the cost basis, or accrued value at time of spend? On the other hand the home cost includes mortgage interest, but the value of the house will hopefully exceed the cost you put into it.

I disagree. Workers in trades like electricians will make that much. I think entry level electricians make like 55k. So after 5 years in that work, you will likely be earning above median salary. But for professions like teachers in school districts that don’t pay well… It sucks. Not ideal, but not as dire as some might think. And when you throw in the number of people these days choosing not to have kids, that shaves 1 million dollars off the cost of the American Dream life (but hard to say how much of that decision is based on expected income vs lifestyle values).

Tech workers I assume are making starting around 75k and getting into 100k fairly easily depending on geographic location. And depending on company and trajectory you could be getting into 200 to 300k territory in tech.

I think people underestimate lifetime earnings. Let’s assume 35 years of salary work to retire at 65 (it takes a while to get a career going an maybe a layoff and parental leave…) That would be about 125k a year. Make that a dual income family and that’s 2 people making 63k a year. It’s a bit hard to understand pre and post tax though because some of the calculations like retirement are pretax. And then factor in gains from investment…

So isn’t this calculation saying a 2 family income making median salaries can live the dream? That’s not great for 50% of Americans and probably means a lesser proportion of Americans can attain the dream than before. But that number 4.4 million actually is not crazy high. In a more just work though, dual income families making above the lowest 25 to 30% salaries should be able to afford the American Dream with some caveats around used cars instead of new, and maybe more frugal wedding and college expense due to financial aid and what not.

I guess that’s whats lost in the meme. Just because you “can” use something as collateral doesn’t mean you “are” using something as collateral. The language should be more accurate to describe actual use vs hypothetical.

So how does taxing unrealized gains work. If I purchase stock X at a specific price. If the stock goes up and I now am holding 150% of my original value. Let’s say it hovers there for 3 more years. After 3 years it tanks and is now worth only 50% of my original purchases. Are people suggesting that I pay taxes on the unrealized gain of 50%, even though I end up selling at loss and have realized negative value. Doesn’t that mean I am being taxed on losing money? How does that make sense?

Good thing the civil rights movement in the USA didn’t have church leaders involved…

Why is consensus that trump is a POS a bad thing? I hate articles like this and it always makes me wonder if this is foreign interference trying to force artificial divides.

The picture in picture scope is a weird design choice. I remember old delta force games, after moving on to rainbow six, ghost recon, or operation flashpoint, not sure why you would go back to that for scopes…

“is” or “strives to be” a monopoly? I think the value of monopoly criticism gets diluted when used to liberally to not actually describe them. I would not say every “decent sized company” out there is a monopoly…

Isn’t the point of directtv kind of anti monopoly. Satellite has no specific footprint like cable where geographic monopolies are carved out… But the real monopoly is when it’s all exclusively on ESPN or whatever Disney’s streaming service is. Like apple TV with mls being the 1 global streamer.

Can you provide a quote from the article. I don’t see anything factually wrong.

I hate this divisive bullshit. Democracies require pluralities. You need to be a big tent party to govern.

simple people over simplify answers. money was one factor. but his outreach game sucked. he embarrassed himself in nationally visible ways (fire alarm). he took hard stances on divisive political issues (Israel/Hams) when his constituents had divided opinions. he district was redrawn so he lost part of his base.

Why didn’t local democrats in his district come out to support him with more rigor? Did he forge those relationships? Did he cooperate and take time to get to know the Westchester community? If I understand correctly, the redistricting made him lose a chunk of the Bronx. Race-wise it looks like based on wikipedia change history the district changed from 30% black and 30% white to 40% white and 20% black. I am not saying this is inherently racism, but his constituency changed. He lost a pocket of his base and was required to forge new relationships and build up a new base. And his fumbles and positions on Israel did not help in that regard. Money played into it, but he redistricting and bad choices created the vulnerability that allowed them to step in.

This jezebel garbage is pretty rage baity. The NYT had a much better and informative take: What Jamaal Bowman’s Loss Means for the Left https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/26/nyregion/jamaal-bowman-squad-left.html

And

Bowman Falls to Latimer in a Loss for Progressive Democrats https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/nyregion/bowman-latimer-house-new-york.html

On the ground, though, even some of Mr. Bowman’s allies conceded that his campaign was in trouble long before the group got involved, hamstrung by unforced errors, staff churn and strategic missteps.

The biggest took place last fall when Mr. Bowman, in a hurry to get to the Capitol, pulled the fire alarm. He later apologized, but he was charged with a misdemeanor, and the timing, just a week before Oct. 7, could hardly have been worse.

Opposition researchers turned up old blog posts dabbling in 9/11 conspiracy theories and publicized video of Mr. Bowman calling reports that Hamas sexually abused Israeli women during its attack “propaganda.” (He later apologized.)

Relatively few Democrats in the area stepped up to defend him. Some explained that in four years in office, the congressman had rarely shown interest in getting to know their communities.

His district boundaries changed and he did nothing to reach out to and attempt to represent his new constituents.

Also didn’t help being so adamant dismissing claims of all sexual violence on oct 7. He didn’t understand his constituents which changed slightly in redistricting, and for some reason the Bernie and AOC rallies occurred like 10 miles outside of his district which was most at risk for primary. Probably doesn’t help referring to all people with any sympathy towards Israel as being part of a Zionist regime. Probably should have focused more on domestic issues that got him elected instead of focusing heavily on foreign policy that was divisive in his district.