whirlpoolbrewer

joined 2 months ago
[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago

I have no clue what all it does or doesn't do. I suspect my time on Lemmy has gotten marginally better, but to what degree, I'm not sure. Good call out though

[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

As someone who would love more production in America, I largely agree but might add a caveat to this. China makes a bunch of cheap crap, and at the same time that is exactly what our society demands. "I want something that does X at the cheapest possible price" is what the average US citizen wants. Roughly 77% live paycheck to paycheck, so them wanting the cheapest price makes sense. They can't afford quality and China is happy to lower the quality for them.

On the flip side China makes iPhones. People who buy those phones demand top quality, and China delivers there too. China is capable of quality, but most people don't actually want quality. This sounds counter intuitive to me at first, but at the same time, we elected Trump twice so I think I'm just out of touch with a large group of our country.

If you want the cheapest possible option, which is what the majority demand, China will do that. American made goods are expensive and that isn't what the majority want or can afford. This is not me saying, "nobody wants quality." I want quality. I want American made. I will pay the higher price. I just also understand that most people in America don't actually want that.

[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This was news to me and super helpful! In the Voyager app, go to Settings > Filters & Blocks. There will be a section called "Blocked Instances" and a button that says "Add Instance". Click the button, and there is a search suggestion box, so you just type "hil" and the first result is "hilariouschaos.com" and you can just click that result and you're done!

[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No, you can't go back to Constantinople

[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 6 points 2 weeks ago

These are people who come from wealthy families and spent their whole lives paying tutors to help them cram just enough to get their degree. They had family friends working at big companies who hired them based on who they know not qualifications. They go to expensive bars and clubs together and all that matters is who you know and how wealthy and well known your family is.

That is who the trump family is, and it describes a large portion of these financial institutions. I'm citing Gary Stevenson as my source for this.

[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Around 77% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/survey-reveals-majority-of-americans-still-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-302257819.html#%3A%7E%3Atext=SAN+ANTONIO%2C+Sept.%2Cin+a+competitive+hiring+market.%22. They don't have the spare money to throw in the market. Even if they had the money, they don't have the expertise to invest wisely. They cannot afford to throw money away on pump and dump stocks. 77% of Americans are screwed.

[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

The working class and middle class will continue to work and provide value to investors, because they have to. No work means no food, no home, so people will continue to work and investors will still have that value coming from the working and middle class. Their lives will suck, but that's not a rich person problem. Ideally, for the rich, the working class and middle class will sell off their assets at fire sale prices so that they can survive and the rich will get valuable assets on steep discounts. Homes that foreclose will be bought up and renters will be put in them and the return for investors will be incredible.

Recessions are when rich people get much wealthier in a short period of time. This is deliberate and the rich will be using their money to "invest" while the working and middle class produce more value for investors at their jobs and sell their assets to the investors.

There is no such thing as a recession being bad for the wealthy. The only thing bad for the wealthy is taxes and regulations. Even if their net worth drops, it only drops on paper temporarily and as long as they don't sell while the value is down it's like it never happened. If it ever gets really bad that's when companies are then deemed "too big to fail" and the government bails them out.

It's intentional and they're all excited about the recession.

[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

First, thank you for the thoughtful and detailed comment. It was really well thought out and really hit on some excellent points. This is the feedback I was hoping for. I'm a software developer by profession, not someone who writes legislation, so the whole proposition is basically spitballing until something usable comes out.

You make some really good points and I agree with them for the most part. I'm going to sit and think on this some and get back to you after I've had some time to digest it more.

 

First I would like to provide some context for my question. I live in a suburb in a "flyover state" and also see wealth inequality as the problem to solve for. For more information on why I feel this way, see just about any video by Gary Stevenson: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXuOBKrmFYbKytq9mkcd62sJPb6w12vpU.

I think it is safe to assume that in the next 4 years, wealth inequality will not be addressed even verbally at the national level. I suspect most states will not attempt to address this issue either. I think suburban city councils are absolutely an option for near term changes and could even be a perfect place to start. I think the odds of a major company or billionaire showing up to protest any local changes in a smaller town are relatively small.

I propose that we as a society should be able to attend a city council meeting and suggest legislation similar to the following:

Any single family home owned by either a company or an individual who does not live in the same state should have a large property tax applied to it.

My thinking is that no company should ever own a single family home (if you're a builder making a new home give them a window of like 1 year to sell it or something similar). If there are companies owning homes, they would be incentivized to sell the property. Large numbers of properties being dumped by businesses would lower housing costs locally. This would in turn lead to more locals having money to spend (hopefully locally, but you never know). I think the locality of their spending should probably be emphasized in a sales pitch to a city council. Businesses who refuse to sell will be paying large local taxes that the city could spend on the countless things that a city needs to operate but is currently underfunded. I guarantee you the local government has projects they want to do but can't afford. Here is their solution. I do think that if businesses are refusing to sell, that means they are charging tenants the increased tax, and the property tax was set too low. The tax has to be high enough that businesses sell the property or else I don't think this works.

The number of businesses or individuals affected by this new tax is probably really low for any given city. If you imagine a small town there are only going to be so many companies owning single property homes (less than 10?) same story with wealthy out of state home owners (less than 20?) The total number of homes in the area is going to be much larger though so there should be a sizeable and noticable impact. I use out of state as the qualifier for individuals as it is pretty easy to ask for a local driver's license as proof you live in the state, and to my knowledge states don't let you carry IDs from multiple states. You only live in 1, you only have 1 ID, and you always have it with you so it should be easy enough to enforce.

People/businesses who don't comply could have their property foreclosed on, then auctioned off to a state resident with proceeds again going to the city. I think the pushback would be that this is anti business. To which I would agree and say yes, businesses have no business owning single family homes, that is what citizens do. These citizens will have more money to spend locally which will attract more businesses and pay more local taxes. Money from local citizens going to major businesses who pass earnings on to investors is how local money gets exported out of the community and is not business we want owning our homes. It also diminishes the ability of locals to spend at local businesses.

My hopes is that Lemmy can help poke holes in this plan and provide solutions to the holes. Perhaps you see a better way to present this idea. Perhaps better ideas are proposed. Perhaps you see a smarter solution. Something needs to change, and I want the best odds of successfully bringing about change for the better. I want my kids to be able to buy a house some day. At this rate, that won't happen. We need a solution, and maybe this is a start.

[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 48 points 1 month ago

When you understand that crashing the economy makes him and wealthy investors richer, it makes sense what he's doing. The sane washing is because the people telling you it makes sense are owned by people who stand to make a lot of money. If people lose their homes, that building doesn't just disappear. It gets bought by investors for cheap who then rent it out. Collapsing economies is how wealthy collect more assets and passive income. A great explanation here by Gary Stevenson: https://youtu.be/XCnImxVWbvc

[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, I'll give Samba a try as that seems to be a free option for me to dabble with. If it seems to work well, maybe I'll explore this further. Samba seems like a good starting point though. I appreciate all the help with this! I may ask for more guidance later depending on how things go

[–] whirlpoolbrewer@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Tailscale does sound pretty cool, and could be an option. It sounds super easy to setup which I like. I have Comcast as my service provider, so I'd have to see what they offer DNS and Static IP addresses.

I have not looked at what all my fileshare options are but doing a bit of digging it sounds like maybe I should look at Samba and see if that would work. They don't mention mobile device support, but it is free open source software, which I love. I wonder if having a Samba service just for local network file sharing is a security issue. I would assume it is not, but I could be wrong. I'm willing to bet I'd need to be cautious with the configuration of Samba.

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