there's a lot to unpack here pic.twitter.com/KLhVxufH4p
— Gritty is the Way (@Gritty20202) June 6, 2022
Suddenly, I miss the ‘Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You’ category…
But… but… the peasants are REVOLTING!
The current anxiety over inflation starts to make a lot more sense when you frame it in the context of who's getting the spoils. Spoiler: "low skill", low pay workers are winning and winning big. (From Atlanta Fed Median wage growth tracker) pic.twitter.com/k6bcKdDLKN
— George Pearkes (@pearkes) May 3, 2022
Baud
I’m at a loss as to why hiring more workers would cause prices to go down.
Geoduck
One Twitter reply noted that “supportive work environment” referred to the establishment’s concrete floor.
sab
Important point. If you aren’t employing people and paying payroll taxes, or if you don’t have a honking big truck you never should have bought when a normal car would suffice, then inflation is a problem but not a huge one.
trollhattan
Handsome Joe did a thing about PV solar panels.
Year and a half late, but better than pulling a Navarro and cranking tariffs up more.
RaflW
I worked for a company years ago that sent out a letter to each employee annually saying what all the fringe benefits + pay equaled. It was probably a net negative to morale. We weren’t ‘making’ $30,000 even if that’s what we cost. Our rent or mortgage was unimpressed by our vacation accrual.
So, yeah, the job up top pays $13/hr with “up to” a 50c annual raise. Woot! Hitting the big $15/hr! In … 4 years or more.
The Moar You Know
That’s some fine print under “starting pay”.
Christ, what an asshole.
justawriter
“And yes, we mean a 50 cent raise per year, not per hour, you silly non-superior being.”
How much you want to bet he charges his workers for working on holidays by calling the regular shift an office party?
Suzanne
Mr. Suzanne shared this good piece about gun control and why we won’t have it from Salon.
I feel like it misses an important line of analysis, which is that lots of the white dudes described feel an acute loss of relative social power as women increasingly make gains. It’s no accident that the vast majority of our mass shooters are dudes, and many can’t get any.
Shorter me: some important subset of people want to have guns if they don’t have any accomplishments.
debbie
@RaflW:
They sure as hell never paid anywhere near what they’re charging me for COBRA.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Hmm. All of a sudden, I want a gun.
JanieM
@RaflW: It’s been several years (eight or ten at least) since I started to hear the usual suspects talking about what people make in terms of what they cost an employer *with* benefits — but they don’t say that’s what they’re actually talking about. This is done to deliberately mislead people, often to make wage-earners resent other wage earners. “Oh, those tolltakers on the turnpike, they make $70,000 a year.” No, they don’t, not in the way regular people talk about and understand this stuff.
Edited for clarity.
Baud
If so, I can only hope they turn out.
Jay
@Baud:
many, many years ago, I had an Exect, ‘splain to me in a meeting about our new industrial computer product, that “yes, we lose $1500 on each one we sell, we will make it up in volume”.
Moron.
Tagging in “crisis” words to the ad, as it’s posted on the door or main window, allows the MGMT or Owners, to try to shift blame for the “crisis”, amongst the weak minded, from supply chains and greed, to you know, those “lazy workers”.
Must be one of those MidWest diners the FTFNYT is always visiting.
WaterGirl
Anne Laurie I must protest the besmirching of my good name. :-) (indirectly)
I made that category on Sunday – everything that used to be separate under Sarcasm is now a subcategory called “Commentary” and you find it under balloon juice. As soon as I can I will make that a separate taxonomy again, but for now that was the fastest way to get everything going again.
Spanky
@Baud:
Happiness is a warm gun.
Citizen Alan
I genuinely think that within 20 years at the most there will be a serious push by Republicans to repeal the 13th Amendment and bring back slavery. IIRC, that whited sepulcher Mike Huckabee already floated the idea of using convicts as slave labor on his radio show.
Spanky
@Citizen Alan: I’ll give it 8 years, max.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Wait, isn’t that the entire blog?
Baud
Site is crashing.
debbie
Oh, boy.
Scout211
Today is election day here in the People’s Republic of California. I hope more voters return their ballots or vote in person today because last week election officials were concerned that only about 10% of the ballots had been turned in. I don’t have any idea how low turnout will affect the results, but come on, people!
Jay
@Suzanne:
Spent 2 decades underemployed as a disposable worker with little to show for it. Years where income covered room and board, with the “Buck a Beer” nights out.
Never had an issue, despite my “low status”, other than occasionally, having more than one “date” at a time.
I would attribute my “success” to two key things, 1) actually liking women, ( thanks Mom) and 2) not being an as$hole all the time.
Benw
@Suzanne: proof that you got laid within 5 days prior to purchase, and then a 5 day “hot stuff” period after which you have to prove you got laid again before you get the gun would be fun
VeniceRiley
In 20 days, I’ll be living in a country where the pay is even shittier! But, at least there’s water.
Jay
@Citizen Alan:
Prisoners are already used as slave labour in many US States.
mrmoshpotato
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
narya
There was an article in the FYFNYT the other day about how they talked to eight people at the gas pumps. I did NOT click on it–I figured that DougJ had somehow slipped it onto their website.
Jay
@VeniceRiley:
where are you going?
bbleh
@Baud: I would think it’s that more applications will help them lower their prices (assuming they actually mean to do that), because it means they can cherry-pick the ones who will work for the lowest wages.
trollhattan
@Scout211:
Seems to be a disconnect between turnout today and the metric tons of election crap mail we’ve been receiving the last two months.
RSA
@Suzanne:
Not only mass shooters. According to the FBI, below, almost 90% of known murderers were men in 2018 (I’m presuming that’s the last year complete data is available).
bbleh
Oh so THAT’s what they mean by “economic anxiety.”
“The Lower Classes are catching up! Next thing you know they’ll expect decent housing, and decent schools for their children, and [shudder] actually to be served at the Better Restaurants!!”
Cameron
@debbie: Well, that’s one item I know for sure I won’t be wasting my money on.
trollhattan
Caitlyn Jenner striving for full white trash status.
You can’t drive a nice car or you can’t afford gas for your nice car–which is it Karen…er…Caitlyn?
Anne Laurie
@WaterGirl: TEN THOUSAND APOLOGIES!
(… and one edit)
Mike S
I’m digging this LA Times Op/Ed. It is so quintessential republican that I can’t stand it. It would be funny if it wasn’t so typical of this putz.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: and that’s why AEI fired you!
Baud
@trollhattan:
Beverly Hills went to pot when the Hillbillies moved in.
Cameron
@Mike S: Ah, yes, all those many, many Republican senators and representatives who were outraged and would have impeached him in a hot second if only….if only…. I believe this style of essay is referred to as pantloadery.
Chief Oshkosh
@Suzanne:
But I don’t want gun control from Salon. I want it from the government!
trollhattan
@Baud:
Is that what Grannie was growin’ out back, behind the cee-ment pond?
Villago Delenda Est
@Suzanne:
So, it’s because their dicks are small. Nothing new here.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike S: Both sides bullshit. Author needs to be put on a rocketship to the sun along with Chuckles the Toddler, Chris Clitzilla, and Mrs. Greenspan.
Chief Oshkosh
@Mike S: I cannot believe that that guy is still being paid to mentally masturbate all over the media.
bbleh
@Villago Delenda Est: And that they’re emotionally, uh, differently abled. Which might have something to do with their, uh, size anxiety, which of course is irrelevant because … nobody else ever sees it!
WaterGirl
@Baud: Crashing or returning very slowly when you post a comment?
Mike S
@Cameron: He is living up to his name with this one.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Both. It’s slow, and I’m also getting a host error page.
lollipopguild
@Citizen Alan: I can see many of the usual suspects on the gop side going on fox and talking about bringing back legal segregation. They also want business to be able to discriminate on the basis of religion. These will be sold as “freedom”.
WaterGirl
@Anne Laurie: I hope you know my phrasing was just for dramatic effect and that i wasn’t offended at all.
I did want to make sure you knew that all the items were there, even if they were hidden in plain sight..
Mike S
@Chief Oshkosh: Agreed. He should have been banished after convincing the idiot republicans that Hitler was a liberal but he still writes columns for The LA Times.
Spanky
@Baud: FTR, I’m having no problem on Android.
Ok, I hit post and nothing happened
ETA and then it did on the 2nd try.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Ah, I was not getting that. 522? 524? Something else? I can report it if I know what the error was.
I know it seems wrong, but “Somebody got some kind of error” doesn’t engender much of a response. :-)
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Scout211: my husband and I turned in/dropped off our ballots yesterday. So there’s 2 reliable Dem votes!
MagdaInBlack
I’ve just learned that my company is paying new hire body men, painters and office managers more than they’re paying existing employees. They’re gonna be in a world of hurt when this gets out, which it will. I will make sure it does.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mr DAW is watching MSNBC and they’re reporting on FOX’s failure to cover the hearings. I thought that was interesting since we’ve been talking about that too
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I try to remember to look next time it happens.
bbleh
@MagdaInBlack: Ergo, unions. (Specifically, ones that tell management to stuff their “two-tier” plans into some tightly puckered orifice.)
Scout211
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
They announced earlier today that they will broadcast the prime time hearing on June 9 on all their platforms.
ETA: Then the rest of the night, their talking heads will rip it apart.
MagdaInBlack
@bbleh: Yup.
geg6
@Mike S:
So the doughy one drops another pantload.
Xavier
@JanieM: One big thing that would cut the cost of benefits for employers is Medicare for All.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Scout211: They must have been taking some heat
bbleh
@WaterGirl: FWIW, no problems in mountainous tribal WestVirginiastan, using either OS X Safari via Spectrum or iOS Safari via AT&T wireless. (If anything, seems a little faster than usual … ?!?)
Another Scott
Meanwhile in the UK…
Imagine that. :-/
The press always, always should push back against pabulum from people in power.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
‘@Scout211
Wagering pool now open on how long it takes for a Chyron to pop up identifying her as Rep. Liz Cheney (D-WY).
//
Scout211
@Another Scott:
Stranger Things?
MomSense
@debbie:
Oh fuck no. I’m guessing I’m going to be as furious with BW for withholding information when it could have saved lives as I will be with the cruel idiocy of the Tangerine Tinpot.
MomSense
@Another Scott:
Consideting Netflix is hemorrhaging subscribers because of huge price increases, I’d say Boris is on track.
NotMax
‘@Another Scott
“Blockbuster.” Foot in mouth disease running rampant inside No. 10?.
MagdaInBlack
@Xavier: This is why it surprises me employers arent in favor of Medicare for All. I suppose its because they’d loose the leverage over employees.
Ruckus
@Scout211:
I mailed my a few days ago, many of the occupants of the complex I live in were talking about voting at the time so I think most of them hadn’t yet. What with the ballot that we had I’m amazed that many haven’t decided use their ballot as a dart board, as that’s what it feels like it should be. I imagine there was a lot of confusion about the vote for senator, what with us having to vote twice. Took me a full read to see why there were 2 places and you could vote for the same person twice, yet not every candidate was running in both.
CA does a pretty good job but I’d guess there were close to 20 people running for senator, with I’d say half with no affiliation, which automatically loses my vote. If you are ashamed of your political party, think how I’m going to feel about it.
Joe Mayo
@Baud: Less OT necessary.
James E Powell
@Mike S:
Murc’s Law applies to every situation.
Jonah Goldberg is and always has been an a hole. That is he slightly less of an a hole than current Republican leadership doesn’t change that.
Peale
@Another Scott: I doubt he means that you can get any medical care at anytime…binge watching a whole treatment in one night or dribble out when you have the time,
maybe he wants to raise prices to reduce the number of subscribers.
bbleh
@MomSense: There is some almost myth-level tragedy in the phenomenon of Woodward. Yes he was key to the Watergate scandal, and yes he has an uncanny ability to get people to tell him things they shouldn’t tell anyone and that yield other scandals, most of which redound to the public benefit, and so great praise is due, but OTOH he withholds so much information that could provide substantial benefits in real time, merely for the sake of his own status (and I dunno, probably profit), that he substantially undermines his own contributions.
Oh well, you go to war with the publicity-hounds you have …
sab
@Another Scott: Whenever a Tory wants to do anything to change NHS be skeptical. Winston Churchill wanted to abolish it, which is why the Brits voted him out immediately after WWII.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
That didn’t sound like pabulum, that sounded like unadulterated bullshit.
Old School
@Another Scott:
Did Blockbuster Video exist in the UK?
BellyCat
The wage increase for low skilled labor is damn encouraging. The unfortunate part is that portions of the pie are simply being shifted from the middle to the lower socioeconomic class. What we really need is more frickin’ pie from the top shelf. Until we get that, it’s easy to see why the Democratic platform could suffer in the next election due to inflationary concerns. I just filled my truck and it cost $175. The fuel price is not a trivial issue for many who need their vehicles for work.
Real question: if the government can give people checks for Covid relief, why not give people checks for gas and inflationary relief? Call it something feel-good like Ukraine Patriot Payments or some such Rah-Rah thing. Then give the top .01% tax free options to contribute piles of money to same.
Cameron
@Mike S: It’s been quite some time since I’ve read anything by The Doughy One. I could have gone quite some time more.
JanieM
@Xavier: Sort of. But speaking as someone on Medicare: bare Medicare, without a medigap policy or a Part C plan, is deeply inadequate (or to be blunter, just plain shitty) health insurance. This has been mentioned on this blog fairly recently, I don’t remember by whom. Too big a topic for me, certainly for for tonight.
cain
@lollipopguild:
Everything is labeled as freedom .. the GOP Twitter handle talks about texting Freedom unironically to some number.
Freedom to discriminate to everyone who is not a white male.
Cameron
@Another Scott: Netflix? HTF do you base a healthcare system on a TV network? That’s some Trump-level gibberish.
bbleh
@Ruckus: Well, if you’re a worm like BoJo, arguably bullshit IS pabulum.
BellyCat
@cain: You misspelled “Freedumb”. (Clever way to build a scammer phone list of idiot marks, though!)
Mike S
Sorry Cameron
@cain: Freedom is the new tactical. Put it in front of anything and money will be made. My retirement plan is to sell “Freedom Tac survival kits” on FOX, Newsmax and OAN for 50 dollars a bucket.
Cameron
@cain: Like that Kris Kristofferson song, “Freedom’s just another word for bullshit on the loose.” I think that’s how it went, anyway.
Calouste
@sab:
The NHS was only created by Attlee’s Labour government that came into power when Churchill was voted out in 1945.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Citizen Alan: That language is already in the 13th Amendment. I read it recently and was shocked to read that it says in effect that slavery is not totally abolished.
Here, let’s go to the source.
Ken
Maybe women are just better at getting away with it?
Ken
I hope it was a 418. I’ve always wanted to see how tech support would act if someone reported that.
BellyCat
@Ken: Apparently not always
ETA: “During her time with ISIS, Fluke-Ekren also discussed plans for terrorist attacks on US soil, including parking a van full of explosives under a shopping mall, telling one witness that any attack which didn’t kill a large number of people was a waste of resources.”
kalakal
@Old School: Yep. Up till about 10 years ago. Most people these days would probably think of the game show. In the ‘there’s always a tweet’* dept:
Rees-Smug on Theresa May winning her vote of no confidence in 2018
“This is a very bad result for the prime minister, 117 votes against her… much worse than she thought” says Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, who insists the result is worse that it looks as an ”overwhelming majority of backbenchers have voted against her”
Rees-Smug on Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F’tang-F’tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel Johnson winning his vote of no confidence with 140 votes against him “a good victory”
The day before he opined
“This is a democracy, and in a democracy, if you win by one vote, you have won,” Rees-Mogg claimed.
He also said that Johnson’s authority would be intact even if he wins by such a tiny margin.
I really, really hate these people
*or in this case, interview
Nettoyeur
Graphs are useless without explanation of terms. What is point?
WaterGirl
@Ken: Ha!
BellyCat
@Ken: Reported to 3xx. They said they would get right on it!
bbleh
@MagdaInBlack: I rather suspect that, at least in the case of many* small-business owners (who employ the majority of American workers), it’s because they think their taxes would go up to pay for it, and if there’s anything they* hate more than having to pay their employees a fair wage, it’s paying taxes. I think big business would be perfectly happy with it if they weren’t saddled with the majority of the costs, but they worry they might be (because big business), so they keep their mouths shut.
* (Yes yes, #notAllSmallBusinessOwners. My family’s small business goes out of its way to pay a good wage because we realize the value of non-exploitive, non-adversarial relations.)
Jinchi
Slightly more than 20, plus you got to vote for Senator twice! (Once for filling the office next January. Once for filling the same seat, currently occupied by Alex Padilla.)
So Padilla appears twice on the same ballot, but not everyone running against him appears on both questions. It’s unlikely but possible that he could win the seat, and lose it on the same day.
bbleh
OMG lol. Best laugh of the evening thus far
Misterpuff
You said it! They stink on ice.
Ken
@kalakal: I wonder when Rees-Wossname will admit, or brag, that he voted against Johnson.
Though as I typed that, I realized that the only possible answer is “five minutes after Johnson leaves office”.
Xavier
@JanieM: No doubt Medicare needs improvement. But speaking as someone who has Medicare (primary) and Federal Employees insurance (secondary), I can state that insurance is going downhill fast.
Brachiator
@Scout211:
I dropped off my ballot about an hour ago. The polling place was pretty sparse, but there was a steady trickle of people coming in as they got off work.
The poll workers were helpful and cheerful. I thanked them for volunteering.
Steeplejack
I felt the bite of inflation myself today. Gassed up the doughty Kia and paid $4.99 a gallon (regular), total $68.30. She was very thirsty (13.7 gallons), but that’s still by far the most I’ve ever paid for a tank of gas. Last time I got gas was on May 3, and it was $4.26 at the same station. So it went up 73 cents in five weeks (in Falls Church, VA). I don’t drive much—only 274 miles in those five weeks—but I can imagine the bite that people who have to commute every day are feeling.
I did take a moment to laugh at my RWNJ brother in Las Vegas, who drives an F-250 pickup truck (it might even be an F-350, he just got it a few months ago) and has as his backup a Mercedes coupe. And, yes, of course he bitches constantly about Joe Biden’s high gas prices. Suck it, bro’.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
Weird. On my phone Browser, Brave, it looks like I could edit your comment.
bbleh
@Steeplejack: Well, just for the record, it’s not so much “inflation” as it is (1) profiteering by oil companies and — to a considerably lesser extent — (2) fluctuations in global oil prices thanks to (2a) Donald Trump’s BFF Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the rest of the world’s reaction to it and (2b) the Bush family’s good friends the Saudi royal family using their production flexibility to extort both profits and political concessions.
It really is Republicans all the way down …
Scout211
@Steeplejack:
@Brachiator:
I just sent WaterGirl a screen shot of that. I could see it, too. Several commenters earlier today had the same thing happen but no one (so far) has actually attempted to edit another person’s comments. This is the third time it’s happened to me (iPad pro iOS 15.5).
Steeplejack
@bbleh:
I get that and I agree. Just using the current shorthand cliché for the phenomenon.
Scout211
@Steeplejack:
Your comment is showing your edit function again. Again, it looks like I could edit your comments.
Steeplejack
@Scout211:
I give you permission to try editing this one, if the same thing happens.
Nettoyeur
@Mike S: It’s by Jonah Goldberg author of the oxymoronic book Liberal Fascism, opponent of the metric system, terminally afflicted with the peculiar soft bellied form of oppositional/defiant disorder that afflicts members of the wingnut welfare funded 101st Keyboard Brigade. All the woozy thinking of a liberal infused with the sociopathy of a National Review nutjob.
Nettoyeur
@Mike S: It’s by Jonah Goldberg author of oxymoronic book Liberal Fascism, opponent of the metric system, terminally afflicted with the peculiar soft bellied form of oppositional/defiant disorder that afflicts members of the wingnut welfare funded 101st Keyboard Brigade. All the woozy thinking of a liberal infused with the sociopathy of a National Review nutjob.@Mike S: His softness of head and belly caused him to fall out with the militant crazy MAGAs. Also , too, he found he couldn’t get anything published in the wingnut press anymore. Gotta feed that belly.
TriassicSands
@Another Scott:
For only $9,995.00 you can have MRIs with 480p resolution. That way, unless a tumor is at least the size of a grapefruit, you can pretend it doesn’t exist.
different-church-lady
Regarding that last tweet: look, I hate to be the contrarian, but what the hell good is a handful of dollars more per hour when inflation is just going to soak it right back up? Gas and food prices aren’t hurting the people making six figures a year at all compared to those punching the clock at the bottom.
evodevo
@JanieM: Yep..you owe 20% on ANY medical bill, whether it’s $200 or $200k or$2 million….way beyond most elderly people’s means…it helps, but…without a supplemental policy that only the recently employed can afford, it’s not the answer for everyone…