aisf*

Orange Controller? Looking gooood ;)

I’m too young to chime in on Clinton, but I can see it with Obama for sure.

Lol, this is especially the case when it’s my turn to be the designated driver in the group 🤣

At least I’ll stay hydrated! Hydrohomies for life!

I think we need to remind companies why streaming started…time to sail the seven seas yet again, fellas!

Highkey though I kind of don’t want to help people leave Twitter to go to Lemmy. While the increase in posts would be great, the kind of toxicity and general culture that follows can most definitely ruin a website.

This artstyle is so unhinged and I love it lol

Cats know they’re the gods 🤣

Damn, never knew the calculator modmail was poppin’ like that.

Do you statistics? This guy clearly statistics.

Depends on where I’m at. In the U.S. (where I’m from), I would personally tip. I also tipped in Mexico when I vacationed there recently. I wouldn’t tip in a no-tip/offensive-tip country (e.g. France).

“Da, is authentic American Clam Chowder recipe, comrade! You add beets and vodka, yes?”

We both bought during COVID, and only because the rates were so low. Our home prices have gone up, but not crazy (we had to pay extra for property taxes due to the appraised home value though), but I didn’t mean to come off as abused. I’m doing well, and knock on wood whenever I get the chance [edited, spelling incorrect], but I also know I’m on a thin fucking tightrope - due to what I’m about to bring up next.

However, and this is what caused our discourse, I don’t believe it’s right for jobs like my father’s to just vanish to the other end of the world. That has real life implications for everyone, someone’s family, their mental health; it just messed him up for a while dude. To go back to the main topic of the thread, “Migrants aren’t pushing down wages, its your boss,” while you believe that we may not be promised anything in life (and this is true), what’s the point of upholding this social contract, going to work and producing towards a GDP, towards a country, and doing your fair share; when you can’t even be promised your end of the social contract, the American Dream? At that point, I’m sure my dad would have just made the decision to stay in India instead of coming to the US in 1996.

In one of my other comments, I talk about how my middle school janitor came to this country (back in like the 70’s or the 80’s), and purchased a house on a Janitor salary. Dude was unionized and was based af. From my experiences today, the American Dream is dying and not the same as what it once was. Whether it be Migrants, companies, the policies that allow for labor to be off-shored; it’s infected and (in my honest opinion), not worth chasing atm. We aren’t a third world country, but we’re not a country that can provide that social contract for its youth. The youth works to enrich the old and rich, kept oppressed by low wages and replaceability (the off-shoring of work), no longer do the youth work to enrich themselves.

Honestly also very true. Something reductionist (and wrong) about my statement - the baby doesn’t have autonomy. They just go after impulse. Corporations do have autonomy, and typically choose to go against the middle class.

I did lol at the idea of a group of global babies trying to take over the world though 😂

Wholeheartedly agreed. The existence and ability to just easily off-shore everything and reduce costs, to a business; is like candy to a baby. You don’t blame the candy, or the baby, but you blame the circumstances that lead the candy to the baby. Keeping jobs at home is the only way towards the prosperity of the middle class. We unfortunately have policies that just favor the wealthy class over the middle class, and things like this happen.

Real talk, you do understand that most of those places that have cheaper housing will pay me significantly less? I actually took the time to look at NJ (where the average cost of housing in Teaneck NJ is $830k for the same single family 3br home my folks have). A job in Teaneck NJ which is literally what I do pays $65k a year. A mortgage for $830k right now is about $7k a month with current rates, but with the equity I have in my home would probably be around the same $5k a month I’m paying. But I’d be earning almost half my salary. You’re taking this idealized view “oh just move, you’re being selfish if you stay in a HCOL area,” but you aren’t realizing that EVERYONE has been affected. House prices in the suburbs have shot up. Which is okay if wages kept pace, right? But they haven’t.

Edit: I’m also not old, I’m not even 28

Wow. I didn’t think about that. Holy heck. Let me just take my wife, my brother, my parents, and move half way across the map where, the cost of living will be lower but the cost of salary will be exponentially lower; because a stranger on the internet told me to! Shouldn’t take me more than a week to uproot my whole life and move somewhere else. Thanks fam!!! 😀

(Major /s, if you already haven’t noticed)

It’s his world, we’re just living in it 🤣

Super agreed. We used to be a country where a janitor was able to get a house for themselves and their kids, and provide for a family on a single income. I’m basing this off of a real example too lol! My middle school janitor in Queens, NYC is a dope dude. Granted things are different now, the population size is expanding and there is a space/space-to-person ratio crisis, but that can’t mean that engineering apprentices, or technicians, or low-volt electricians have to live making < $50k (explicit examples that I’ve seen in my HCOL area). There once was a gradient for a middle class, now it’s just either high income or broke lol.

So your argument is basically, I can’t sympathize for the common man because I’m doing well? After OT I make $103k a year. After taxes and union dues I make $64k a year net (about $5,400 a month) My apartment mortgage costs me $2,100. In 2021 my dad was let go as a cost cutting measure. Which is actively what I’m advocating against in my previous comments that you’re railing on. His mortgage, which includes my mom and brother is $3,200 a month.

My brother is a student and my mom is a cashier, I pay for both places. Because my mom works and my dad recently landed a part time job not even making a third of what he made, we’re still pretty fucked but can just get by. I literally have to work two jobs after OT on my first, to keep myself cushy. Which I’m okay with because I’m really young, and I’m grateful for what I’m working towards. But I have to ask, what the fuck are you going on about?

Edit: I looked at your post history and now understand what you’re going on about. You’re just one of those folks that defend the 1%. Lolol I was confused at first but now I understand.

I’m sorry if I’m being dumb but I don’t get what you’re asking. I work as a unionized engineer and then always try to keep a second side hustle job (cashier, waiter, etc.). When I was a non-union engineer I saw third party companies hiring people that were underqualified and across the globe, remotely taking jobs. As a waiter/cashier however, I didn’t see this at all. Although I was working minimum wage so I don’t think anyone would necessarily ask lower.

The point I was trying to make is that, when I was making $35 an hour non-unionized, firms would offer to have remote engineers for $30 an hour. So now I’m effectively “over” market rate, and am at risk of being fired. This weakens my ability to earn for my family. If the latter didn’t exist, I could have asked for $40 an hour even. Thankfully I’m now unionized at around that rate so I’m okay. But for my friends that aren’t minimum wage, but aren’t flying stacks of money rich, they are constantly at risk of just being another budget issue.