Do you believe "I cannot come into work because I cannot afford gas" will be viable?

[uuuhname]

More like "it's not my problem whatever is happening in their life and I really don't want it to be. I want it to have exactly the amount of bearing it REALISTITCALLY has if we remove feelings from the equation: none"

this is where all of the classic counter points to libertarianism come in. all of which point to you having no means of actually living this dog eat dog world you seem to want to live in. without actually living in mad max. which, we all know well enough by now you can barely confront the prospect of even thinking of other people much less living in the sort of hardship you seem so eager to have others endure.

[Endus]

You Calling me GOD now. Providing for others isn't free.

Like with universal healthcare, this is a garbage argument.

We all know it isn't "free". It's "free to the end user of the service". That's what matters.

It's absolutely affordable, and trivially so.

Tons of people literally cannot. They have no extra money to save, they can't feasibly budget any differently without suffering for it, and they're simply not being paid enough for their means to be sufficient.

True and not True, in 2016 White Middle Classes workers making Uneducated $70.000 Males then followed by women in 2020 Overwhelmingly went for Trump.

I edited in what you were responding to, because your comment here was spectacularly irrelevant to what I actually said, and I have literally no idea what the hell you thought you were trying to say.

I commented that working class people literally can't save and live "within their means", because their "means" are insufficient. You went off about middle-class people voting for Trump? With weird references to some body of statistics you don't bother linking? Are you okay?

If you aren't good at your job why should you keep it in the first place, more importantly outside of a livable wage why should you ever be paid or advanced?

You should be paid because the contract you signed says you owe them wages. If you're not paying them, that's literally theft.

As an employer, paying minimum wage particularly, you're not entitled to anything that isn't in the contract. The minimum standards being met.

Because if you can't afford to priorities what you need vs what you want that isn't anyone's problem but yours if you give no fucks and do a shitty job where you have one.

You missed the point entirely. You were whining about people having smartphones they can get for essentially free.

If you're stupid as fuck don't pay attention to detail, have an attitude with customers and are over all unpleasant and lost the business money, you lose opportunities and typically a job if the business isn't desperate and when that's true people know, and business's die, so those working lose work anyways.

You'd probably get sued for wrongful dismissal up here. Canada doesn't allow at-will employment. You can't fire someone without cause, and if they're meeting the minimum standards set out in the contract, there's no cause.

That's not, like, a new thing, btw. That's how it's always been. So yeah; those standards are just fine.

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More like "it's not my problem whatever is happening in their life and I really don't want it to be. I want it to have exactly the amount of bearing it REALISTITCALLY has if we remove feelings from the equation: none"

Again, this is a lie. You aren't making a passive argument that you don't care. You were actively pushing for a society where people starved to death.

[uuuhname]

Yes it really is a situation people create for themselves by not ever thinking ahead or about others.

Do you think you live forever that everything is free?

Do you think convenience and innovation take care of themselves. Do you ever bother to get involved with your community, church, neighborhood get togethers?

Do you pay attention to the economy, what’s going on?

Do you save budget live within means?

Are you good at your job?

All serious questions

are they? they seem like seem like points of view from someone who hasn't had to deal with economic hardship for the last 20 years. sound familiar?

Those questions don’t have to be for anyone specific, but when I hear people bitching pay and wages for doing less than the minimum most of these people are too stupid and lazy to get McDonald’s orders right why the fuck should they be paid beyond a livable wage?

they're not even paid a livable wage????? THIS is what I mean by Boomer takes.

By livable I don’t mean an smart phone every year and vacations to Coachella or whatever.

this sounds like someone who doesn't understand how a consumer based economy works. I thought the point was you want people to have the extra money to BUY things.....

So no I’m not going to say what boomers told my generation of X’ers that working hard and saving will be enough because it won’t.

this is so lacking in self awareness it hurts.

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I really struggle to believe anyone short of an overt narcissist can claim to have been homeless at some point and thinks it's in anyway acceptable to except other people to have to deal with that.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Like with universal healthcare, this is a garbage argument.

We all know it isn't "free". It's "free to the end user of the service". That's what matters.

It's absolutely affordable, and trivially so.



I edited in what you were responding to, because your comment here was spectacularly irrelevant to what I actually said, and I have literally no idea what the hell you thought you were trying to say.

I commented that working class people literally can't save and live "within their means", because their "means" are insufficient. You went off about middle-class people voting for Trump? With weird references to some body of statistics you don't bother linking? Are you okay?



You should be paid because the contract you signed says you owe them wages. If you're not paying them, that's literally theft.

As an employer, paying minimum wage particularly, you're not entitled to anything that isn't in the contract. The minimum standards being met.



You missed the point entirely. You were whining about people having smartphones they can get for essentially free.



You'd probably get sued for wrongful dismissal up here. Canada doesn't allow at-will employment. You can't fire someone without cause, and if they're meeting the minimum standards set out in the contract, there's no cause.

That's not, like, a new thing, btw. That's how it's always been. So yeah; those standards are just fine.

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Again, this is a lie. You aren't making a passive argument that you don't care. You were actively pushing for a society where people starved to death.

I support Medicare for all. I don’t support socialism or communism. Not suggesting you do but yeah.

Most people bitching are the middle upper middle class. Fuck them. I care about the poor and those with out a place to live or food to eat first.

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are they? they seem like seem like points of view from someone who hasn't had to deal with economic hardship for the last 20 years. sound familiar?


they're not even paid a livable wage????? THIS is what I mean by Boomer takes.


this sounds like someone who doesn't understand how a consumer based economy works. I thought the point was you want people to have the extra money to BUY things.....


this is so lacking in self awareness it hurts.

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I really struggle to believe anyone short of an overt narcissist can claim to have been homeless at some point and thinks it's in anyway acceptable to except other people to have to deal with that.

Mean every word if these lazy unthinking morons don’t care about the homeless the starving and their communities I don’t really care if they don’t make enough to buy a smart phone every year.


Skip the phone fill up your gas tank do your fucking job and participate in society to help everyone especially those without or less.

[BeepBoo]

Again, this is a lie. You aren't making a passive argument that you don't care. You were actively pushing for a society where people starved to death.

I'm past the point of caring about however it is you want to nitpick word it. Yes, I want people to die if they can't manage to find help on their own and they are actually going to die as a result. I don't want to be forced to save them. Get over it. It's called freedom.

[Kaleredar]

I'm past the point of caring about however it is you want to nitpick word it. Yes, I want people to die if they can't manage to find help on their own and they are actually going to die as a result. I don't want to be forced to save them. Get over it. It's called freedom.

You know people wont just idly starve to death, right? They'll just take what they want from whomever has it, violently if need be.


P.S, "edgy libertarian" goes out of style after high school; most people drop out when they find out Ayn Rand was a welfare leech. I sure hope you don't teach some sort of sociology or economics.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I'm past the point of caring about however it is you want to nitpick word it. Yes, I want people to die if they can't manage to find help on their own and they are actually going to die as a result. I don't want to be forced to save them. Get over it. It's called freedom.

Pretty fucked up of you but at least you’re more honest than the people complaining the loudest now be hard times finally hit them.

[BeepBoo]

You know people wont just idly starve to death, right? They'll just take what they want from whomever has it, violently if need be.

That's fine. I'm confident in my strength to defend my shit, especially given the people typically in these situations.

[unfilteredJW]

Interdependance is a part of civilization, I understand that. That doesn't justify the leftist policy that you want though.


We should try to talk about *ideas* and solutions that relate to the topic. We shouldn't be gossiping about people, imo.

Your ideas are bad and you should feel bad.

[Shadowferal]

That's fine. I'm confident in my strength to defend my shit, especially given the people typically in these situations.

Oh please, you won't have much shit to defend when society goes to hell.

[Verdugo]

Lot of libertarian morons that never left their parents basement in this thread.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Correct, it's just going to make everything more expensive and bring the wage gap down so my comparative buying power is less than the 4x average income it is now.

People always say this, they always claim that if we increase welfare somehow, that price inflation will happen. And yet, no country that had ever implemented strong welfare benefits or even UBI has seen a massive spike in price. Assuming prices will jump simply because people have more money is silly. Most big corporations already make their profits by selling items at a low profit margin, making pennies on the dollar per purchase, but that adds up over time. If the prices go too high, the items stop selling. If the prices go too high, the company's competitors will lower their prices and steal their business.

People who claim inflation will always ruin welfare seem to forget that prices are determined by FAR more than the amount of money people have. There are hundreds of other factors in prices that I didn't even list.

People having more money means more stuff will sell at normal price, meaning the company makes more money. Period. You think "Well they CAN raise the price so they will" and that's just not how this works. Your cost of living won't go up. Stop believing this nonsense.

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Lot of libertarian morons that never left their parents basement in this thread.

I almost feel like I'm being baited as his stance is just so ridiculous, but at the same time I know the sweaty libertarians on this forum are often (Deadly) serious about their stance of "Fuck you, I got mine, go die in a gutter"

[Zantos]

It wont be no. In their eyes, you were hired to do a job. If you can't or wont show up to do said job, they'll find someone else who will. People have always had to work to survive. Weather it was for themselves by hunting / gathering or for someone else for monetary compensation, its not something anyone can escape. That being said, something does need to be done about the rising fuel costs. They are bringing in record profits. That doesn't just happen. If their cost was increasing as well, then they wouldn't be getting record profits. The mere fact that they are seeing record profits despite these "rising costs" shows that this is out of control.

[LilSaihah]

I don't know if I'd really say that but I think a lot of people should be reconsidering whether their employment remains viable if they have long, expensive commutes and don't get much to show for it.

[Mayhem]

Hu, considering our commuting allowance and commuting assistance are being increased this month, I guess the US doesn't have something comparable, right?

[Shadowferal]

Another one of "life's choices" that people can't afford; 100 Million People in America Are Saddled With Health Care Debt

In the past five years, more than half of U.S. adults report they’ve gone into debt because of medical or dental bills, the KFF poll found.

A quarter of adults with health care debt owe more than $5,000. And about 1 in 5 with any amount of debt said they don’t expect to ever pay it off.

“Debt is no longer just a bug in our system. It is one of the main products,” said Dr. Rishi Manchanda, who has worked with low-income patients in California for more than a decade and served on the board of the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt. “We have a health care system almost perfectly designed to create debt.”

Medical debt is piling additional hardships on people with cancer and other chronic illnesses. Debt levels in U.S. counties with the highest rates of disease can be three or four times what they are in the healthiest counties, according to an Urban Institute analysis.

The debt is also deepening racial disparities.

And it is preventing Americans from saving for retirement, investing in their children’s educations, or laying the traditional building blocks for a secure future, such as borrowing for college or buying a home. Debt from health care is nearly twice as common for adults under 30 as for those 65 and older, the KFF poll found.

Perhaps most perversely, medical debt is blocking patients from care.

About 1 in 7 people with debt said they’ve been denied access to a hospital, doctor, or other provider because of unpaid bills, according to the poll. An even greater share ― about two-thirds ― have put off care they or a family member need because of cost.

“It’s barbaric,” said Dr. Miriam Atkins, a Georgia oncologist who, like many physicians, said she’s had patients give up treatment for fear of debt.

Patient debt is piling up despite the landmark 2010 Affordable Care Act.

The law expanded insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans. Yet it also ushered in years of robust profits for the medical industry, which has steadily raised prices over the past decade.

Hospitals recorded their most profitable year on record in 2019, notching an aggregate profit margin of 7.6%, according to the federal Medicare Payment Advisory Committee. Many hospitals thrived even through the pandemic.

But for many Americans, the law failed to live up to its promise of more affordable care. Instead, they’ve faced thousands of dollars in bills as health insurers shifted costs onto patients through higher deductibles.

Now, a highly lucrative industry is capitalizing on patients’ inability to pay. Hospitals and other medical providers are pushing millions into credit cards and other loans. These stick patients with high interest rates while generating profits for the lenders that top 29%, according to research firm IBISWorld.

Patient debt is also sustaining a shadowy collections business fed by hospitals ― including public university systems and nonprofits granted tax breaks to serve their communities ― that sell debt in private deals to collections companies that, in turn, pursue patients.

A lot more in that link.

[Biglog]

I'm usually pretty apathetic to money issues, and I know many people are are very tight budgets. But still it seems like the math for gas increasing by $2/gallon to be a reason not to be able to afford to go to work is a stretch. A 20 mpg car (which isn't even that good) and 20 miles from work (quite a distance) is only an additional $4 for a commute with $5 vs. $3 gas. Even McD's pays $15/hour, and is essentially the new minimum wage. If you're working anywhere for less than $15/hour, you're being underpaid. $4 in gas for a shift is not going to come close to making working a shift not worthwhile or viable. What it takes to "fill your tank" and the cost to drive around for personal reasons has gone up, but that's a different discussion. The math for work travel not being viable because of a $2/gallon change in gas prices simply doesn't add up.

Where this gets more complicated though is when people choose to drive very poor mpg vehicles like pickup trucks that get closer to 10 or 15mpg, and/or they choose to live a long commute from their job. Pickups are incredibly common in the US, including for many people that never haul anything other than stickers on the back window with their political opinions. Prices for oil have fluctuated wildly since the early 70's depending on world events and is something that should be expected. Driving a 10mpg truck or living a long commute from your work like 60 minutes from your job are luxuries that you choose, and opens up yourself to these kinds of budget hits if oil prices increase. We've got very used to cheap gas in the US compared to most of the world, and as oil becomes harder to extract and runs out that is only going to increase over coming decades even without things like wars or OPEC issues. If you look at new car lots now, they are empty of cars but full of new unsold pickups for sale. The same happened a few years ago when gas spiked to $4/gallon. I think we've all known for a while that the days of 10-15 mpg pickups and high-performance fuel cars are numbered, it's just a matter of time.

[Sunseeker]

Especially since many people have already moved out of incredibly expensive areas close to their employers, yes. But these people already had leverage to negotiate with their employers.

It will likely not fly with low-paid workers, forcing more poor people into the city(into small, low-income low, quality apartments), and generally increasing violence, crime and poverty.

[Unholyground]

So, people who can't afford to pay for gas...can afford to buy a motorcycle and get their M license (which comes with additional costs as well)?

This doesn't sound like a serious/reasonable/practical solution. It sounds like fantasy.

You don't need a license to drive an E-bike and you can turn off the restriction settings so they go upwards of a 100 km an hour some of them, Technically you could be pulled over if they caught you speeding still, but you can go on backroads and sidewalks with E-bikes it would be pretty hard to catch you. It's great in Canada where I live there's not a ton of police anywhere so they wouldn't early be able to do much nor care.

That being said the government should take a brunt of that cost, When you make your society rely on a sinlge fuel source they should by law have to doll out money to make gas cheaper.

[PC2]

That being said the government should take a brunt of that cost, When you make your society rely on a sinlge fuel source they should by law have to doll out money to make gas cheaper.

Sorry but no, the government/taxpayers don't owe people subsidized gas.