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[nenjin]

American government workers should just pay interest on loans for paychecks they should be getting but aren't because their boss is a fucking asshole. That seems totally fair and reasonable.

[JoshuaFH]

Is this this generation's "If they don't have bread, why don't they eat cake?"

Expect incoming tidal wave of corruption among government employees.

[Kagus]

Expect an upsurge in popularity of novelty cigar guillotines.

[ggamer]

Cohen postpones testimony, claiming that Trump and Giuliani are threatening his family.

Committee just subpoenaed Cohen, so we'll see how this plays out. Politics makes for great comedy once you get jaded enough. I don't remember who said it but there was a quote along the lines of "Everyone on capitol hill thinks they're in House of Cards, but really they're in VP," which accurately describes how I feel about the great American Political Black Box.

[EnigmaticHat]

Is this this generation's "If they don't have bread, why don't they eat cake?"

Expect incoming tidal wave of corruption among government employees.

"If they don't have bread, why don't they just lease bread?"

[nenjin]

I love how the attitude is "Broke and no control over your own paycheck? The only responsible thing to do is enrich our banks, then. Shame on you for not taking on debt, think of the banks!"

[Teneb]

I love how the attitude is "Broke and no control over your own paycheck? The only responsible thing to do is enrich our banks, then. Shame on you for not taking on debt, think of the banks!"

*laughs in capitalism*

[McTraveller]

I like to ask a probing question like, "If you don't have money to buy bread, what is preventing you from making your own bread?"

This is both a facetious and a real question: why is our system set up so that it's so difficult for people to self-sustain if they have no other options?  Why is that you have to have a job to get by, instead of work for yourself?

The follow-on would be: what would it take to put in place provisions so that if you "lost your job" it would be really easy to immediately switch to self-provision (or even better, self-employment)?

[Kagus]

https://gizmodo.com/one-mans-nearly-impossible-quest-to-make-a-toaster-from-5794368

And for self-sustainability beyond that, probably should look at Doomsday Preppers or somethin'.


I remember seeing a video on YouTube of a shaggy man in the forest claiming he'd managed to synthesize nitric acid using readily-available/scavengable materials, and he confirmed that he knew it was nitric acid because it "smelled like it".

I wouldn't necessarily recommend following his videos for self-sustainability.

[nenjin]

The only thing that basically isn't locked down by businesses, state and local governments is food production. Everyone would need their own garden plot at a minimum. Which, considering how much people in the US don't want to work for mere subsistence, and how infeasible it would be for people in cities to grow their own food to live off of.....we're basically at the mercy of the system when it simply tells us to go fuck ourselves.

As for "working for yourself"....it assumes everyone has a skillset for which there is opportunity to independently practice it, that their skill set is desireable and that it will earn them enough money to survive. Ask any creative or independent contractor how well that works versus having an actual job. Plenty of people do it and make a living. Can EVERYONE do it and make a living? Because that's the implication of such a statement.

But whenever anyone goes "why don't "they" just make "x" themselves" I always like to ask "When was the last time you made "x" for yourself." To which the reply almost always is "I don't have to, so I don't."

There's these little things called production chains that give us the life we currently enjoy. Do you know where to source grain? Mill it? Bake it on a scale to feed a family? Where you gonna find time for that while also being self-employed.

It's a facetious question.

[MrRoboto75]

I like to ask a probing question like, "If you don't have money to buy bread, what is preventing you from making your own bread?"

This is both a facetious and a real question: why is our system set up so that it's so difficult for people to self-sustain if they have no other options?  Why is that you have to have a job to get by, instead of work for yourself?

The follow-on would be: what would it take to put in place provisions so that if you "lost your job" it would be really easy to immediately switch to self-provision (or even better, self-employment)?

The cost of buying all the ingredients (flour, eggs, etc) is more than the cost of just buying a dollar loaf of bread.  Not to mention bread takes like a couple hours to rise and bake, which isn't time everyone has.  Homemade bread will probably lack the preservatives of store-bought, so the loaf will need to be consumed and replaced faster.

Not to mention not everyone has the skill necessary to start a proper worthwhile business.  Working for yourself is no easier than "getting a job", no matter how "being your own boss" is sold to you.  Most small business fail in the first year or so anyways.  Not to mention you have to cover your own ass in terms of insurance and retirement, which probably isn't any cheaper solo compared to sucking off a major corp.

[PTTG??]

👏Universal👏Basic👏Income👏Is👏The👏Only👏Way👏To👏Provide👏Universal👏Freedom👏

[Teneb]

I like to ask a probing question like, "If you don't have money to buy bread, what is preventing you from making your own bread?"

This is both a facetious and a real question: why is our system set up so that it's so difficult for people to self-sustain if they have no other options?  Why is that you have to have a job to get by, instead of work for yourself?

The follow-on would be: what would it take to put in place provisions so that if you "lost your job" it would be really easy to immediately switch to self-provision (or even better, self-employment)?

The cost of buying all the ingredients (flour, eggs, etc) is more than the cost of just buying a dollar loaf of bread.  Not to mention bread takes like a couple hours to rise and bake, which isn't time everyone has.  Homemade bread will probably lack the preservatives of store-bought, so the loaf will need to be consumed and replaced faster.

Not to mention not everyone has the skill necessary to start a proper worthwhile business.  Working for yourself is no easier than "getting a job", no matter how "being your own boss" is sold to you.  Most small business fail in the first year or so anyways.  Not to mention you have to cover your own ass in terms of insurance and retirement, which probably isn't any cheaper solo compared to sucking off a major corp.

Making your own bread can be cheaper under very specific circumstances. But usually it's not the case.

The circumstances being when you can't eat regular bread (like me, as I've discovered an allergy to wheat).

[McTraveller]

Dammit I had a response all typed up and fat-fingered a keyboard shortcut. WTF chrome does not even have an option to enable warning before closing a tab if you have entered content!

trying to recreate...

So yeah - the "ingredients costing more than the finished product" thing is what I meant by systematic issues.  Economies of scale work great when you are "part of the economy" and terrible if you aren't, because the barrier to entry to getting enough resources to take advantage of that scale are terrible.

I'd be up for community gardens - something like a mandated 10 acres out of every single square-mile grid for community garden. Anyone can work it, get 75% of their produce, the remaining 25% goes to maintain the place.  Plan it so there are rolling crops so you don't have to wait a full crop cycle to get any food.

For UBI - sounds good as long as you can find a way to do it that isn't essentially circular logic.  I'd be fore this whole-hog scheme, I think I've posted it before:  basically everyone keeps 50% of their income, is taxed 50% of the rest.  60% of that 50% is distributed equally to every citizen on a straight per-capita basis. The remaining is used like regular taxes.  So you still have about 20% GDP as taxes.  The uber-poor get 30% of per-capita income.  The uber-rich get 50% of their earnings plus 30% of per-capita income.  No deductions, no tax credits, nothing.  All income is personal, abolish the concept of corporate income, depreciation, all that crap - just make it all zero-sum cash basis.
 
This incentives everyone to want to increase per-capita income.  Right now the ultra rich don't care about per-capita income because they don't benefit from it.  The only way a super-rich could minimize their tax burden in this proposed scheme is if everyone in the country made the same amount of money, instead of playing with accounting loopholes.

[Dorsidwarf]

He did later clarify (Or pretend to clarify) that he was referring to how allegedly some banks are offering 0% interest stopgap loans