These unconvicted foreigners, who some people refer to as “InNocEnt ciViLiANs”

I would have said “I’m also less than 28 weeks pregnant. Do I need a note too?”

No, having a system where “I’d pay you less if I legally could, but you have to work or die” is something I should be grateful for is incredibly fucked up.

Yes, capitalism wants to pay 2 cents or less for your labour. But it can only do this with the threat of starvation and villified, illegal homelessness.

When you remove that threat, capitalism loses its power over the population.

Oh, I have pipier!

Exactly, that’s when the free market dictates what a job really is worth

I’m not! Scrap minimum wage! Enact a livable UBI (also established by hard research and science and not politicians or lobbyists) and let the Free Market decide what a job is worth!

I cannot express this enough. Do NOT start the WAAAGH.

The cynical perspective is that it’s an attempt to consolidate wealth for the wealthy.

Basically, you drive the price up on everything and force the least able to bear the loss in revenue to give up and sell.

Elon Musk can afford to lose $11 billion, because he still has $200 billion left over and that is obviously more than anyone needs to keep afloat for a few bad years. The same goes for every billionaire and every multibillion dollar company.

When you import something from another country, it needs to go through things like customs, etc. You have to fill out all the paperwork about what it is and where it’s going (if you’re using/selling it in the US or just middlemanning it somewhere else).

Part of that paperwork includes tariffs, a tax on the good you are importing. So, the importer has to pay the government that money in order for the product to legally come in to the country. The importer pays that cost, so the local purchaser pays that cost, so the consumer pays that cost. And each one of those (and likely many other) steps probably will add on a little extra for the trouble.

The hope is that encourages local production; even if it costs more to produce locally, when you factor in the cost of the tariffs to import, it might make sense to invest the cost to avoid the tariffs.

The troubles are:

1. you can’t often make a fully operational supply chain domestically in 4 years
2. the US doesn’t have some of those raw resources, like minerals or regional food sources
3. good or bad, places like China can pay professional factory workers way less than minimum US wage, which, in case this is news to anyone, is already far below a livable wage

Classic uplifting news! Community member(s) do something the fucking government should be doing.

That’s just the natural aging process. Plumbing just gets saggy and wrinkly. Ask any man over 50.

Most usual pets don’t care for my existence at all.

That sucks, dude. I’m sorry you’ve never experienced that.

Also, a cat comes into your house and you have to feed it for a day:

But to ask “would people actually care for, shelter, and feed an animal they didn’t know? Like just bond with a creature for what? Emotional connection, companionship, and kinship to another living thing? I love animals, tho” is just a weird take. Like, you can love animals (or babies) and not want to be responsible for them in your home, but to be incredulous about why someone would want that is ridiculous.

“Would people really let some stray live with them?”

That’s literally the history of house cats. A million times, yes, people want to hang out with random cats.

You don’t need to want cats or babies to see why other people would want cats or babies.

“I love all animals, as long as those useless fucks stay outta my way!”

I’m in there. I see “story rich” and it reads as a crutch for no gameplay, or a premise for a book without the responsibility of pacing.

I know that’s far from true, and there are loads of great story-rich games that are fun and engaging. But when that’s the main tag, it turns me away.

What better way to advertise your clandestine movie than with clandestine marketing?

It’s like the cost of one banana

Private insurance should only exist for things that are both a) completely optional, and b) not inevitable (so… evitable?).

Auto insurance? Well, if it’s the law to have it, why is a private company involved whose sole model is to collect money and deny payments?

Health insurance? Well, it’s optional, but you will absolutely need to pay for Healthcare at some point (or you die early). Why, again, should we put an institution in charge whose sole purpose is to make the average person pay more than they get out of it?

Famous athlete leg insurance? High value possession insurance? Have at it, private insurance.

Fahrenheit is literally a German dude making a scale from, “scheiße its chilly outside” to “oh mein gott, its hot out!”

It’s that extra “one” of incredulity.

40 degrees, that’s just too hot.

41? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.