phpthrowaway99

It can't be just that. I have the skills, tools, and basically enough cash to build what would have been a nice house on decent land in California 20 years ago. But it's nowhere near enough now. By the time you buy 2 acres on the edge of town, get all the connections to utilities you need, get everything approved and permitted, and pay for all the materials, you're well beyond what most regular people can afford. In 1998, I had a highschool friend who's mother was going to law school at 40 years old, and his dad was an employee in the construction industry. In 2 years over weekends, while the mother still paid for law school, they build a house that today is worth well over a million dollars on 1 acre. A construction worker with a wife going back to college isn't pulling that off today. If they could, they would do it full time and build one of owner builder homes and sell them. It doesn't pencil out these days at all from government fees and material costs. It's not just 'oh houses are expensive because owners want them to be'.

If so, yes. But what if not so.

Do you really think doctors don't understand, or never learned, exponential growth? I knew a bioengineering student at Cal that was pretty smart and barely made it into med school. They had to go to a DO school instead of MD. So unless the bar for doctors used to be much lower than it is today, every doctor 'knows' what exponential growth is.

Whether they apply it to the real world is another thing.

I know people that don't think raising the minimum wage basically just causes inflation. They're just wondering why apartments in undesirable areas became 3x more expensive when minimum wage went from $5 to $15.

I suppose. Even lemon laws are funny if you follow them to their conclusion, so maybe OP is right.

Once a vehicle gets lemon lawed, it gets sent to auction where it is disclosed to dealers, and then it's just sold again to the public as a used car without the ability to be lemon lawed at that point.

I get what you're saying, but if a construction worker buys a new Ford F150 that is constantly breaking, that is a much bigger problem to him than if a wealthy person buys a Range Rover as a 3rd vehicle for Tahoe runs and that vehicle has some recurring check engine lights.

Unless we're calling construction workers buying F150s with 72 month loans wealthy these days.

Rich people can eat at at places to nice and clean that the work areas are probably cleaner than some of the tables and chairs in the customer areas of low end dining places.

Maybe it's just made of gelatin and you can compost it the next morning.

What if it's just liquid gelatin? People eat it. What's wrong with spraying a gummy bear onto someone?

The propellent is just regular air, compressed to maybe 20-80 psi. I'd be more worried about the solvents that make this sprayable but then dry within minutes.

If you search a famous name like Joe Biden or Donald Trump, it might be useful to read the 10,000th thing written about them, wouldn't it?

I have a black friend that was almost, sorta, called racist because he said he thinks his house rent in the Berkeley was high because tons of illegal aliens are renting too and driving up demand.

He tried to argue that without the millions of illegals in California, taking atleast a million housing units, rent would be cheaper. But everyone was shocked he could even say that.

Things are getting comical. As if the actual race or color of the millions of people taking up housing is the actual issue.... Not their legal status. If they were a different color or race he's be ok with it?

Would it be ok if a company didn't care that a user is gay or not, but they hated that he celebrated gay activities? Even straight people celebrate gay pride and rights. Can we discriminate against them? Seems pretty similar.

Can you imagine the poor intern that's just answering phones or delivering coffee, proud to have their first job, and loses their social media account? Sorta funny.

It also seems extremely petty considering they KNOW this company has endless fake accounts they use, and losing their personals doesn't really mean much other than a personal loss.

Not exactly. You can't deny baking someone a carrot cake because they are gay for example. But you can deny baking them a cake that represents a gay celebration, for example asking to have two male figured on top, or delivering it to a gay wedding.

I don't think you should be able to ban someone because you don't like them. If it's the case that you should, why doesn't Facebook scrape off and ban known sexual offenders list? Criminals? Should someone that beat their exwife in 1987 really be on Facebook, let alone be able to look up his victim?

I personally think people should be allowed on unless they break the actual rules of the platform on the platform.

Why are you being so pedantic about this?

Maybe I misspoke with most, if I said that. I meant Many. There were large protests in Germany just this week to get more energy flowing.

This is exactly the same point the previous poster made. Sure we don't know the real hidden motives of Russia or Putin, but you could say the same for the US and Biden. So ignoring crazy random guesses, you can say that all things being as sane as you'd hope they are, Russia destroying their own ability to say "if you agree to this or that, we will turn back on the gas flow you need to provide affordable energy to your citizens" would be pretty foolish.

On the other side, Ukraine destroying the pipeline and making sure EU members don't give it to Russia in order to restore the flow of gas makes pretty good sense.. as long as you don't care about the EU citizens.

I recently posted here that I sold cars for 10 years. I can not even imagine asking someone "what can you afford?" It sounds half condescending and half way too personal/inappropriate.

People come to the dealership and ask for certain cars. Sometimes they do ask about payment ranges, and so you tell them. If they say "oh that's more than I thought, I was trying to keep it under $500 a month. Is that possible?" I tell them if it's possible via lease with $4k down or maybe on a 72 month loan. They decide. What else am I supposed to do? Go full Dave Ramsey on them and figure out if they can really afford $500 a month?

The FEW times I tried to save someone from buying an expensive used car I just KNEW would eat them alive in repairs, it was always taken very poorly, and that's with me doing it pretty tactfully in my opinion.

People that are the type to make bad financial decisions (in our opinions let's say) don't exactly take kindly to lowly 'car salesmen' implying they can't really afford something.

It really doesn't take a lesson in finances to understand "money is important to have. I get money from work, which is not a sure thing. I should keep some money in reserves for when I don't have an income since jobs come and go".

Immigrants from 3rd world countries with zero formal education, zero real family experience with building wealth, save money like crazy in the US.

I didn't work with any offshore people. I knew a directional driller very well and visited him several times, and from there met a few welders as well while we worked on helping them install off-road suspensions onto their trucks. All had nice houses and sounded like they didn't have a care in the world. Very different from my silicon valley friends complaining about their high rent and housing costs.

For sure people go broke from over spending and going into debt. But this is a story of someone going into debt trying to stay afloat during a stay at home order apparently. Since the OP, it has come to light that he was more of a small business owner bidding on jobs prior to covid, which makes a lot more sense how a sudden drop in available work could wipe you out.

The word bidding is very well understood and used in the construction industry. I wouldn't assume the welder misused one of the most common words in the industry to help make a point here.

Attack Russian forces inside the Ukraine

It can. Maybe the word you're looking for is should not.

Most guys I know had their housing provided on site. They then traveled home between jobs. Or others had RV trailers with them so they didn't have to go home, if they even had a home at that time.

That's a cool stereotype to talk about, but for every broke guy that makes $200k living in Wyoming, I know more that own 10 acres, a nice house, a 3000 sq ft metal building next to it, $10k+ in guns and ammo, several paid off older vehicles, and one nice one with a payment for the wife and maybe himself. That is much more common that someone that makes great money but just CANT curb his spending.

Their ability to buy gas that is usually available to them.

People voted and lived in a society where things were handled. You voted and kept your government because things were handled. You voted the way you did because you were satisfied you could keep yourself warm in the winter at a fair price. Eventually, you consider that right yours, since it was described as something you have access to.

Then suddenly someone you voted for decides, "hey, I know my party ran on getting that pipeline approved, and we invested in green energy as a certain ratio based on getting this gas to you when you need it, but guess what.... We've changed our mind. There are outside things more important than your ability to heat your home for a price you can afford."

I'd consider that the politician turning off my access to affordable life sustaining gas.

If he's bidding on jobs, he's not exactly a union welder. He's a small business owner and in that case I agree things can definitely go south for various reasons.

Europe needs gas. Russia has gas. If EU citizens get cold enough and broke enough, they could entice their governments to give in and stop supporting Ukraine and get their gas turned back on. Idk about you, but if it came down to my grandmother freezing at home or a Ukrainian grandmother living in east Ukraine having to say she's now Russian, the Ukraine grandmother is going first.

Yes, I often hear about dudes making $200k in 8 months of work, living in inexpensive areas of the country, having trouble buying food.