Hilariously Republicans are disproportionately more likely to have hearing problems than Democrats thanks to demographics (republicans more often work blue collar jobs which put them in contact with excessive noise far more frequently for example)
So basically those who are in the middle of studies right now can expect to be left high and dry next fall.
Oh I’m sure they’ll have plenty of private financing options with far less agreeable terms than federal student loans. Its just the federal government privatizing student loans one step at a time and thereby making college (literally the best dollar for dollar investment a government can make into its citizens) less attainable
Actually it’s a bigger problem than that. Birthrates are declining and have been below replacement rate for some time. Without another source of population (such as immigration) in the long term there will simply be more and more old people and fewer and fewer working age people to care for them.
Everyone who doesn’t die young will get old, and as your body starts breaking down from age you’re going to need help with things, and once the amount of help required exceeds being able to realistically live independently you’re looking at a nursing home. With fewer healthcare professionals these nursing homes will become more neglectful and those employees who are present will be less caring due to sheer burnout. This is a problem which will affect everyone.
Disability is the only class of people that anyone can join. Disability rights are everyone’s rights because anyone can become disabled!
See the one thing to remember is that places can be majority one party, but if consistently 60% of voter vote for one party that still means that 40% of the voters vote differently. There’s tons of moderates and Republicans in very blue areas and there’s tons of moderates and Democrats in red areas. Some of these retirees might be moderates or hold different opinions from where they live. They may even simply be folks who aren’t plugged into politics and don’t really know or care that much what their neighbors’ political opinions are.
I’m overgeneralizing here, but retirees don’t work (especially not highly physical jobs that badly require workers rights reform. They might do some independent contracting for the last place they worked as a side gig though!) they don’t go to school, they don’t have much debt with their home, vehicles and student loans all paid off long ago, they don’t rent, they aren’t first time home buyers, they aren’t raising a family and struggling with the cost of daycare. Retirees are basically just trust fund babies except they spent the last 40 years building their own trust fund. And as people are living longer healthier lives, we’re getting retirees who have been retired for 20+ years and are even further disconnected from the needs of those who are still working and raising families
My point is, depending on the person, politics probably isn’t a big deal to them when they select a low cost of living area to retire to. And in the south there’s tons of 55+ communities and communities intended for retirees that are conveniently built just outside of metro areas to reduce tax burden (because taxes are generally the biggest cost for retirees!)
A number of states specifically structured their tax policies to be super friendly to retirees, so some ran the numbers and said “oh I can afford to sell my expensive house up north, move south and buy a better/similar house for less and pay less taxes as I withdraw my retirement money? Also I don’t have to deal with winters anymore?! Sign me up!” And since they don’t have to worry about job availability they can live basically anywhere that has the amenities they want and fits their budget, thus the American south became a gigantic retirement community
some politicians are trying to distance themselves. For example Greene
Supposedly MTG was specifically instructed not to run for reelection by Trump (and defying such commands by a party leader is political suicide of course), so now she’s lashing out and trying to knock him down a few pegs, likely banking on looking better when he either passes or falls from power, whichever happens first
If that’s how you feel then I won’t be sharing any casserole with you, thank you very much!
Maybe this is being a bit too optimistic here, but if such a break happens where MAGA swears off the Republican party and the entire party crumbles it’s a good opportunity for a new party to form to the left of Democrats
I honestly can’t remember. There’s a chance I made it up, but it’s a little too perfect so I probably read it somewhere like on a reddit thread a long time ago or something
Around where I live of the homes and businesses that have perpetually had trump stuff up since 2015 no longer have any trump stuff up. I think he might be losing his base…
I live in a pretty rural area and my anecdata is I keep seeing fewer and fewer trump signs and trump merch around. Actually I’m not certain if there’s any houses I can think of that still have their Trump stuff up at all, and some of these houses have perpetually had trump signs up since the primaries in 2015. There were certainly fewer signs during the election in '24 than there were in '16, and they came down far quicker. Most of the trump signs were down within a couple of weeks just leaving folks trump flags and merch which have slowly been coming down over the last several months
So usually when I make Taco Mac I use leftover taco meat and mix it with box Mac and cheese. It’s kinda a default leftovers meal for us since the kids will actually eat it and with good taco seasoning it tastes pretty good to us grownups too
It’s like taco meat mixed with Mac and cheese but with less flavor to both. Honestly anyone’s just better off making taco Mac
Oh hospital billing is absolutely fucked up. Usually the bill you receive isn’t itemized and simply requesting an itemized bill can be enough to knock some amoint off of the bill because even the hospitals billing staff are often not entirely certain exactly how they got that number they’re now billing you for.
But yeah, anyone who does receive a large hospital bill, engage in some negotiations, ask for an itemized bill, state you will be paying the lower amount that is billed to insurance, advise that you’re in a tough financial spot and ask what discounts or community care programs are available, and once all of that is done ask if you can settle for a lower amount by paying as a lump sum. My youngest’s birth resulted in an $8k bill and ultimately the entire bill went away after a community care application (there were also some other unpaid bills that got forgiven because this hospital is horrible about actually sending bills, only ever sending statements that clearly say “this is not a bill” on them) so definitely use that bill as a starting point for negotiations!
I always see rolling a 20 or a 1 as an opportunity for rediculousness to ensue and the modifiers help decide what kind of rediculousness. Skilled swordsman rolls a 1? They have a hilarious fumble meanwhile someone who’s never picked up a sword might be stabbing themselves with disadvantage (because the goal isn’t to kill the player but to let the dice add flavor. Also accidentally stabbing yourself would probably do less damage than intentionally stabbing someone)
Person who’s never picked up a sword rolls a 20? Guess they’re now demonstrating awe-inspiring sword skill that they will never be able to match
The biggest thing insurance does is limits risk. When you have insurance and get a big hospital bill, you generally have more bargaining power with the hospital than if you don’t have insurance. When enrollment time comes run the numbers and look at the costs. You can also apply and review options on the health insurance marketplace which usually involves applying for Medicaid in the process. For kids under 18 Medicaid has a family income cap of like $8k/month so if you have kids they’re definitely covered by Medicaid
Personally, I’m not sure what I’m going to do in 2026 if the subsidy isn’t renewed. I’m an independent contractor so my health insurance options are entirely limited to the marketplace, and while I currently have a plan that costs $1250/month with the $1100/month subsidy I only pay $150/month for insurance which is quite reasonable. Every plan I saw on the marketplace cost a minimum of $900 or more per month.
I simply do not make enough (and I’m not allowed to work more hours than I currently am so that’s not an option) to be able to afford insurance if the above math is the same for 2026. My plan right now is, keep job hunting and maybe my wife starts job hunting too since my contract work can work around the kids’ school schedules (and my youngest starts going to school full time next year rather than half time) so we don’t need a non-working parent as long as this contracting lasts for, and we probably won’t get coverage through the marketplace in 2026 unless I can get it for about $400/month or less, because at that point I’m probably better off risking dumping more money into my emergency fund and hoping we don’t have any medical emergencies (and planning on negotiating with the hospital if we do) I don’t like the risk level of no insurance but we may simply be priced out of having insurance if the healthcare marketplace subsidy isn’t renewed
Some city folks are just as disconnected from the real world as the morons that insisted they need a f350 super duty to run to Costco.
Actually I live in a town of about 10,000 surrounded by farm communities so I don’t think most people would say I live in a city. I did grow up in a much larger city, and I’ve visited plenty of cities with hundreds of thousands or millions of people in them, but I’m definitely not a “city folk”
Heck I literally have to drive to the next state for some of my less frequent houseware purchases because that’s where the closest place to buy that stuff is
You’re gonna take your spouse and kids on that ebike?
I do all of my school pickups and dropoffs by bike. I hook a trailer up that the kids ride in. The trailer was $20 at a garage sale and required a $7 standard hitch that I ordered online (said trailers are sold for about $100-200 on Amazon new too) my oldest is getting a little big for the trailer so I think next season we’ll upgrade to a trailercycle for her and hook the trailer up to that.
You’re gonna do grocery shopping for a family on it?
My weekly grocery shopping for my family of 4 is about 3 paper bags worth, or two reusable bags worth. Plastic bags always make the amount of groceries one buys look like way more than it is, but I worked in a grocery store for several years as a teenager and learned how to really heavily pack paper bags, and cloth bags you can fit even more into per bag.
You can get gigantic paniers that will hold that quantity of food, or again, use a trailer that you hook up for grocery runs
You’re gonna ride an hour in the rain or intense sun?
Personally, I love biking to replace car trips, but in the current American landscape it’s most realistic to bike as a compliment to driving. We’ve been a one car family for about 1/4 of the time we’ve had kids thanks to biking, and most of the time we haven’t been a one car family has been due to job changes requiring 40+ mile commutes
So riding in the rain or intense sun? Yeah I do it pretty regularly, but I fully respect folks who decide that’s the day they’ll drive
You cannot manage the American urban/suburban sprawl with an ebike. Maybe you can, but the average family cannot.
If you were talking about an accoustic bike I’d agree. I’m a crazy person and I’ve been enjoying seeing what my body can do with enough training, so I’ve been pushing my limits on my accoustic bike, but ebikes are absolutely game changer since they flatten the hills (I live in an extremely hilly area. My school route literally starts with a 100 foot climb!) and allow for one to not work as hard or at all if they’re sick, too hot or otherwise just don’t feel like putting in as much effort that day
But most importantly more folks should try bikes because they’re freaking fun!
It’s a damn good movie. Early DreamWorks films were really something else. I recently watched Road to El Dorado with my kids and seeing Cortez correctly portrayed as the bad guy, the incredibly witty writing, good character development and everything, it was clearly written with adults in mind as well.
There’s seriously a lot of good animated films from the late 90s/early 2000s that are like a peek into an alternate universe where animation as a medium was treated as a real art form and allowed to break out of the children’s market. I’ve seen some lay the blame at Shrek given how much of a breakout success it was and how different it was to anything else in film. Except rewatching it as an adult now it’s best moments are when it’s dunking on Disney and everything else is just a malaise of fart jokes and gross out humor. Peak comedy for an 8 year old, not much beyond that though.
Meanwhile you go watch Anastasia (1997) which was the first film produced by Fox Animation and you see something far darker but still beautifully animated and exquisitely written. My wife and I actually kept watching that one after my kids went to bed because the mix of real history, embellished mysticism and fiction was brilliant plus the animation and art style absolutely gorgeous.
Now that Disney owns basically everything it’s pretty sad to look at what could’ve been. I’ve seen it said that Japanese Animation is so popular because they treated it as an art form and took it seriously for both children’s and adult media, and it’s definitely another window into what the world would be like if the industry in the US stayed on that course from the early 00s
Henry Ford was a capitalist, racist, eugenicist asshole, but he had one thing the current capitalist, racist, eugencist assholes in power today don’t: long term economic planning.
It’s literally just supply side economics. If you have the power to increase the buying power of your customers, your customers can and will spend more money. Also more free time means people will want to spend more money on things to do and things to own, meanwhile if they’re stuck spending 60-80 hours a week purely focused on work they’ll be too tired to want anything other than food in their belly and a bed to sleep in
So I’m currently working my grandmother through this process and we stumbled upon the most cost effective option for independent living which is to hire a care person to come by 10 hours a week (cost my grandmother about $400/week for 10 hours per week). They’re there to help with cooking and cleaning which are most of what an independent living facility would provide. Throw an emergency pendant (something like $30-50 per month) and you have all of the of features of a $6k/mo independent living facility for less than $2k/month over their current housing costs
I’m not sure what to expect when my parents reach that age. At this point I’m more worried that they won’t be able to retire given their horrendous financial discipline. My in-laws seem on track to die young given the sheer quantity of alcohol they consume, the frequency with which they drink and drive, and their predisposition to riding motorcycles to go bar hopping. My grandmother however needs to be moved into a memory care facility ASAP because she is at the point that she really shouldn’t be living independently anymore