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Posted
6 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Sure, but you’ve got two political parties devoted to stopping that.

absolutley, but at least one party tried SOMETHING. sure it was in the confines of the current setup, I get that, but its something.

We will end up at "get money out of the government" with every issue we have. I know, we know. Sad panda. 

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Posted
42 minutes ago, staboner said:

absolutley, but at least one party tried SOMETHING. sure it was in the confines of the current setup, I get that, but its something.

100% agree. This isn’t a lboth sides” thing.
Both parties are bad on the healthcare market. Republicans are infinitely worse.

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Posted
22 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

Preach.

I was in Austria this summer on vacation, and I stupidly left my blood-pressure medication at home.  So I went to a doctor in small-town Tyrol without an appointment.  I had to wait about a half-hour to see the doctor, as I didn't have an appointment.  The doctor saw me, did a quick check-up, and gave me a prescription that I could fill at any apotheke.  Cost for the doctor's visit--70 Euro.  Cost for my meds that normally cost around $200 in the United States: 35 Euro.

Of course, if I'd been an Austrian citizen, it all would've been free.

But yeah--tell me again how we're the greatest country in the world.

"We're the greatest country in the world because if Austria had oil we wanted we'd kick their ass and take it!!!! 'Merica!!!!" - MAGA

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Posted
10 hours ago, Derka said:

this is the OP ^^^. they said this would happen and it did. and we aren’t even one year in. the immediate future is bleak.

Every so often I repeat myself but it’s going to get so much worse 

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Posted
11 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

lower cost and better coverage!  it's so easy!  that's why we haven't done shit about it for 15 fucking years. 

i'm pretty convinced they just want all of us to die.

We're going to see something out of them next month when they truly realize how fucked a lot more Americans are, in an election year no less.

Posted
PLease don't take offense, but I'm going to repost the exact thing I said before, which you quoted, and put some things in bold. Forcing the entire working population into solutions optimized for "the poor" is a huge problem for the Democratic party in general and was (along with fealty to employer groups) the primary reason they couldn't get ever get healthcare right, not Republican opposition.
I said:
"It's worse than that. Americans buy the wrong insurance for everything. People should be choosing the highest deductible plans they can afford, because the more they insure, the less they get for their premiums.
The worst aspect of ACA is that it eliminated catastrophic-only HDHPs and required all plans to cover this huge range of routine, predictable expenses you should be using an HSA for. Most people at professional income levels do not need vaccinations, routine checkups, or even generic and low cost meds to be "free", but I'm forced to prepay for those things with insurance, which is just a handout for the carriers and PBMs."
Insurance is a risk management product. It is simply dumb to require people who CAN afford the group discounted out of pocket cost of routine, predictable events to prepay for them through a middle man. It's like using car insurance to pay for oil changes and tire rotations. The entire point I was making is that people who don't need to pay for things like flu shots on a biweekly installment plan (which is what our healthcare plans make us do) shouldn't have to. 

No offense taken, and did skim over those points previously. Fair points.
And it does illustrate a major problem I think Dems/liberals have: how much do you prioritize helping the desperate at the expense of the middle class? The desperate need it more, but neglecting the middle class loses elections.
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Posted
8 hours ago, Tuco said:

And it does illustrate a major problem I think Dems/liberals have: how much do you prioritize helping the desperate at the expense of the middle class? The desperate need it more, but neglecting the middle class loses elections.

This is well said and correctly locates the problem - the Democratic Party used to be a middle/working class party that drew candidates and leadership from the diverse organizations that were representative of the interests of those populations, such as unions. 
The Democratic Party is now an elite party, led by affluent whites, and primarily draws leadership from social and charitable advocacy and activist groups. 

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Posted
7 hours ago, David Dennison said:

The middle class thinks it has more in common with the rich than with the poor.

Therein lies the problem.

this post is really good. 

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Posted
7 hours ago, David Dennison said:

The middle class thinks it has more in common with the rich than with the poor.

Therein lies the problem.

Most middle class are 1 or 2 paychecks away from being poor.

They are a lottery ticket win away from being rich.

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Posted

There are Nissan Altimas with $0 down and $299 for 96 months with your name on it.

Why wait to get yourself into a Nissan Altima? People will be laughing with at you when you see you driving ‘round town. 

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Posted
31 minutes ago, Hard Times said:

CPI released this morning. Damn high. Where is this under 2% Dotard keeps promising?

CPI inflation report November 2025

So does anyone actually believe the data being put out by the BLS under Wiatrowski?  To his credit, the numbers aren't so outlandish that they can be dismissed out of hand, but these numbers are a good amount lower than expected.  It wouldn't surprise me if they start pumping out 2.1% numbers even when it's clear that we're running closer to 4%.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Sigh.  We are the kings of "death by 1,000 cuts," and we defend that approach to the fucking death, because we are very, very bad at math.  Which makes sense, as among the many things that we've decided have no value is public education.

600380254_1169725395337529_8584749753570

 

What percentage of the middle class income is spent on things that are included in the "one payment covers all" that most western European nations provide its citizens?

Yeah, our base price is cheap.  But when we have to pay a la carte for everything else that they get in a prix fixe menu, we are getting fucked.  WHY?  Because we are paying for systems designed to deliver profit to billionaires, not service to customers.  

And I have no problem with profits and free enterprise.  It's just stupid that some base public goods are more expensive because we chose not to make them elements of "the public good," but rather profit centers for oligarchs.  We're a lot closer to Russia than we are to Denmark, and the difference is getting more stark every day, particularly under this regime.  Well-done, America.  We continue to ram a dildo up our own ass while we shout about how much we're winning.

Do you even rugged individualism, bro?

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Posted
On 12/17/2025 at 8:01 AM, Fastbreak said:

Most middle class are 1 or 2 paychecks away from being poor.

They are a lottery ticket win away from being rich.

There is zero indication that wealth inequality won't continue to grow. And it won't grow in terms of the current poor getting poorer, it will drag more middle class into poverty. And they will be told that it's the fault of Dems, illegal aliens and transgender swimmers. And the only way out is to give more tax cuts to the uber-wealthy since they create jobs. 

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Posted
8 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

There is zero indication that wealth inequality won't continue to grow. And it won't grow in terms of the current poor getting poorer, it will drag more middle class into poverty. And they will be told that it's the fault of Dems, illegal aliens and transgender swimmers. And the only way out is to give more tax cuts to the uber-wealthy since they create jobs. 

Oh.  I see you got the MAGA newsletter this month.  Whew.  I thought you might have fallen off the list.

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Posted
On 12/16/2025 at 12:32 PM, 4th&Five said:

meanwhile my Fox watching mom is scared to leave the country because "what if I get sick or hurt?"

Have her get sick in a place like Japan or South Korea, just to have her mind blown. 

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Posted
6 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Want to confuse a car salesman? Go on the lot and make a cash offer for a Nissan Altima. 

Or drive a Nissan Altima onto the used car lot to buy another a more recent version of used Nissan Altima.

 

Mind Blowing GIFs | Tenor

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Posted
2 hours ago, YChang said:

Have her get sick in a place like Japan or South Korea, just to have her mind blown. 

we actually went to japan last summer and on the flight over my daughter started getting sick.  just a bad head cold so our first stop after dropping our bags was the pharmacy.  we talked to the pharmacist through google translate for a few minutes and he gave us some cold medicine.  she was back to 100% after sleeping for 8 hours.  we brought back the biggest box we could find.

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Posted
28 minutes ago, Superhero said:

Or drive a Nissan Altima onto the used car lot to buy another a more recent version of used Nissan Altima.

 

The sad thing is that they aren’t *terrible* cars, notorious CVT issues notwithstanding. Going all-in on subprime and focusing on short-term profitability made them toxic to higher value customers.
 

Posted
5 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The sad thing is that they aren’t *terrible* cars, notorious CVT issues notwithstanding. Going all-in on subprime and focusing on short-term profitability made them toxic to higher value customers.
 

I was gonna say, at some point in the not too distant past, I think the Altima, Camry, and Accord were basically the cars that most people should buy.

CVTs have infected lower- and mid-range vehicles and seem to be an abomination.

 

Posted (edited)
29 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I was gonna say, at some point in the not too distant past, I think the Altima, Camry, and Accord were basically the cars that most people should buy.

CVTs have infected lower- and mid-range vehicles and seem to be an abomination.

 

They aren’t inherently bad, in fact, they are great in some specific ways (better fuel efficiency, smoother acceleration, reduced wear and tear on engine and so on. They work really well in tandem with hybrid cars and are great for small cars that primarily do daily commutes.

They are also a lot cheaper to put in new cars because they are relatively simple compared to a traditional automatic and turn something very expensive and hard to replace into something hypothetically cheap and easy to replace. 

On the other hand- they aren’t very robust and do not hold up well in situations that produce high levels of mechanical stress - ie towing and aggressive driving. 

Because they reduce production costs, and it’s tempting for manufacturers to use them inappropriately or put them in places where they aren’t easy to replace. 
 

If I was buying a Corolla or equivalent I wouldn’t think twice about a CVT. But I wouldn’t want one in a truck, and putting CVTs in a hard to reach location and/or selling a bunch of cars with cvts to people with bad credit seems like a bad strategy.

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Posted
1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The sad thing is that they aren’t *terrible* cars, notorious CVT issues notwithstanding. Going all-in on subprime and focusing on short-term profitability made them toxic to higher value customers.
 

There was a time when I was traveling a ton and renting cars that an Altima was about the best option on the National/Enterprise row. (Until I made Executive, then it got *slightly* better)

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Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

There was a time when I was traveling a ton and renting cars that an Altima was about the best option on the National/Enterprise row. (Until I made Executive, then it got *slightly* better)

The humblest of brags. Save some pussy for the rest of us!

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Posted
4 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The humblest of brags. Save some pussy for the rest of us!

lol, yeah. When you're a big baller like me they let you take the Murano. 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

lol, yeah. When you're a big baller like me they let you take the Murano. 

You joke, but I’m going to buy a Murano Cabriolet if I can find one.

Posted
On 12/17/2025 at 12:12 AM, David Dennison said:

The middle class thinks it has more in common with the rich than with the poor.

Therein lies the problem.

https://www.kxan.com/news/national-news/is-140000-the-real-poverty-line-a-viral-essay-sparks-debate/

A viral claim that $140,000 is the “real poverty line” has reignited debate over how poverty is defined and what it means to be middle class in 2025.

Investor Michael Green recently calculated that a family of four would need roughly $136,500 a year to afford essentials like child care, food, transportation, housing and health care.

That’s more than four times the U.S. poverty threshold set by the Department of Health and Human Services, which is $32,150 for a family of four.

Green, chief strategist and portfolio manager for Simplify Asset Management, laid out his argument in a widely read Substack essay that drew both praise and fierce pushback.

Posted
45 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

You joke, but I’m going to buy a Murano Cabriolet if I can find one.

The PT Cruiser isn't manly enough for you?

Posted
3 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 


If forced pay for the privilege to eat a shit sandwich, I’d at least want to pay the least amount.

Bro truly is a business genius.



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