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mckinlily · 6 months

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Plot armor but it’s Bruce Wayne’s wealth.

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

But by GOD is he trying.

#batman #bruce wayne #laws of this dc universe say Gotham is always a hellcity #and bruce wayne is always filthy rich #bruce wayne is fighting with everything he has against both those facts #he’s not going to win #but he’s not going to stop either #bruce crying with fistfuls of money in his hands: take it. PLEASE #the public: donate more???

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mostlysignssomeportents · 11 months

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'We buy ugly houses' is code for 'we steal vulnerable peoples' homes'

Tonight (May 11) at 7PM, I’m in CALGARY for Wordfest, with my novel Red Team Blues; I’ll be hosted by Peter Hemminger at the Memorial Park Library, 2nd Floor.

Home ownership is the American dream: not only do you get a place to live, free from the high-handed dictates of a landlord, but you also get an asset that appreciates, building intergenerational wealth while you sleep — literally.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/#homevestor

Of course, you can’t have it both ways. If your house is an asset you use to cover falling wages, rising health care costs, spiraling college tuition and paper-thin support for eldercare, then it can’t be a place you live. It’s gonna be an asset you sell — or at the very least, borrow so heavily against that you are in constant risk of losing it.

This is the contradiction at the heart of the American dream: when America turned its back on organized labor as an engine for creating prosperity and embraced property speculation, it set itself on the road to serfdom — a world where the roof over your head is also your piggy bank, destined to be smashed open to cover the rising costs that an organized labor movement would have fought:

https://gen.medium.com/the-rents-too-damned-high-520f958d5ec5

Today, we’re hit the end of the road for the post-war (unevenly, racially segregated) shared prosperity that made it seem, briefly, that everyone could get rich by owning a house, living in it, then selling it to everybody else. Now that the game is ending, the winners are cashing in their chips:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom-bfad6f3b35a9

The big con of home ownership is proceeding smartly on schedulee. First, you let the mark win a little, so they go all in on the scam. Then you take it all back. Obama’s tolerance of bank sleze after the Great Financial Crisis kicked off the modern era of corporations and grifters stealing Americans’ out from under them, forging deeds in robosigning mills:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-breaks-down-93-bln-robo-signing-settlement-2013-02-28

The thefts never stopped. Today on Propublica, by Anjeanette Damon, Byard Duncan and Mollie Simon bring a horrifying, brilliantly reported account of the rampant, bottomless scams of Homevestors, AKA We Buy Ugly Houses, AKA “the #1 homebuyer in the USA”:

https://www.propublica.org/article/ugly-truth-behind-we-buy-ugly-houses

Homevestors — an army of the hedge fund Bayview Asset Management — claims a public mission: to bail out homeowners sitting on unsellable houses with all-cash deals. The company’s franchisees — 1,150 of them in 48 states — then sprinkle pixie dust and secret sauce on these “ugly houses” and sell them at a profit.

But Propublica’s investigation — which relied on whistleblowers, company veterans, court records and interviews with victims — tells a very different story. The Homevestor they discovered is a predator that steals houses out from under elderly people, disabled people, people struggling with mental illness and other vulnerable people. It’s a company whose agents have a powerful, well-polished playbook that stops family members from halting the transfers the company’s high-pressure salespeople set in motion.

Propublica reveals homeowners with advanced dementia who signed their shaky signatures to transfers that same their homes sold out from under them for a fraction of their market value. They show how Homevestor targets neighborhoods struck by hurricanes, or whose owners are recently divorced, or sick. One whistleblower tells of how the company uses the surveillance advertising industry to locate elderly people who’ve broken a hip: “a 60-day countdown to death — and, possibly, a deal.” The company’s mobile ads are geofenced to target people near hospitals and rehab hospitals, in hopes of finding desperate sellers who need to liquidate homes so that Medicaid will cover their medical expenses.

The sales pitches are relentless. One of Homevestor’s targets was a Texas woman whose father had recently been murdered. As she grieved, they blanketed her in pitches to sell her father’s house until “checking her mail became a traumatic experience.”

Real-estate brokers are bound by strict regulations, but not house flippers like Homevestors. Likewise, salespeople who pitch other high-ticket items, from securities to plane tickets — are required to offer buyers a cooling-off period during which they can reconsider their purchases. By contrast, Homevestors’ franchisees are well-versed in “muddying the title” to houses after the contract is signed, filing paperwork that makes it all but impossible for sellers to withdraw from the sale.

This produces a litany of ghastly horror-stories: homeowners who end up living in their trucks after they were pressured into a lowball sales; sellers who end up dying in hospital beds haunted by the trick that cost them their homes. One woman who struggled with hoarding was tricked into selling her house by false claims that the city would evict her because of her hoarding. A widow was tricked into signing away the deed to her late husband’s house by the lie that she could do so despite not being on the deed. One seller was tricked into signing a document he believed to be a home equity loan application, only to discover he had sold his house at a huge discount on its market value. An Arizona woman was tricked into selling her dead mother’s house through the lie that the house would have to be torn down and the lot redeveloped; the Homevestor franchisee then flipped the house for 5,500% of the sale-price.

The company vigorously denies these claims. They say that most people who do business with Homevestors are happy with the outcome; in support of this claim, they cite internal surveys of their own customers that produce a 96% approval rating.

When confronted with the specifics, the company blamed rogue franchisees. But Propublica obtained training materials and other internal documents that show that the problem is widespread and endemic to Homevestors’ business. Propublica discovered that at least eight franchisees who engaged in conduct the company said it “didn’t tolerate” had been awarded prizes by the company for their business acumen.

Franchisees are on the hook for massive recurring fees and face constant pressure from corporate auditors to close sales. To make those sales, franchisees turn to Homevana’s training materials, which are rife with predatory tactics. One document counsels franchisees that “pain is always a form of motivation.” What kind of pain? Lost jobs, looming foreclosure or a child in need of surgery.

A former franchisee explained how this is put into practice in the field: he encountered a seller who needed to sell quickly so he could join his dying mother who had just entered a hospice 1,400 miles away. The seller didn’t want to sell the house; they wanted to “get to Colorado to see their dying mother.”

These same training materials warn franchisees that they must not deal with sellers who are “subject to a guardianship or has a mental capacity that is diminished to the point that the person does not understand the value of the property,” but Propublica’s investigation discovered “a pattern of disregard” for this rule. For example, there was the 2020 incident in which a 78-year-old Atlanta man sold his house to a Homevestors franchisee for half its sale price. The seller was later shown to be “unable to write a sentence or name the year, season, date or month.”

The company tried to pin the blame for all this on bad eggs among its franchisees. But Propublica found that some of the company’s most egregious offenders were celebrated and tolerated before and after they were convicted of felonies related to their conduct on behalf of the company. For example, Hi-Land Properties is a five-time winner of Homevestors’ National Franchise of the Year prize. The owner was praised by the CEO as “loyal, hardworking franchisee who has well represented our national brand, best practices and values.”

This same franchisee had “filed two dozen breach of contract lawsuits since 2016 and clouded titles on more than 300 properties by recording notices of a sales contract.” Hi-Land “sued an elderly man so incapacitated by illness he couldn’t leave his house.”

Another franchisee, Patriot Holdings, uses the courts aggressively to stop families of vulnerable people from canceling deals their relatives signed. Patriot Holdings’ co-owner, Cory Evans, eventually pleaded guilty to to two felonies, attempted grand theft of real property. He had to drop his lawsuits against buyers, and make restitution.

According to Homevestors’ internal policies, Patriot’s franchise should have been canceled. But Homevestors allowed Patriot to stay in business after Cory Evans took his name off the business, leaving his brothers and other partners to run it. Nominally, Cory Evans was out of the picture, but well after that date, internal Homevestors included Evans in an award it gave to Patriot, commemorating its sales (Homevestors claims this was an error).

Propublica’s reporters sought comment from Homevestors and its franchisees about this story. The company hired “a former FBI spokesperson who specializes in ‘crisis and special situations’ and ‘reputation management’ and funnelled future questions through him.”

Internally, company leadership scrambled to control the news. The company convened a webinar in April with all 1,150 franchisees to lay out its strategy. Company CEO David Hicks explained the company’s plan to “bury” the Propublica article with “‘strategic ad buys on social and web pages’ and ‘SEO content to minimize visibility.’”

https://www.propublica.org/article/homevestors-aims-to-bury-propublica-reporting

Franchisees were warned not to click links to the story because they “might improve its internet search ranking.”

Even as the company sought to “bury” the story and stonewalled Propublica, they cleaned house, instituting new procedures and taking action against franchisees identified in Propublica’s article. “Clouding titles” is now prohibited. Suing sellers for breach of contract is “discouraged.” Deals with seniors “should always involve family, attorneys or other guardians.”

During the webinar, franchisees “pushed back on the changes, claiming they could hurt business.”

If you’ve had experience with hard-sell house-flippers, Propublica wants to know: “If you’ve had experience with a company or buyer promising fast cash for homes, our reporting team wants to hear about it.”

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A Depression-era photo of a dour widow standing in front of a dilapidated cabin. Next to her is Ug, the caveman mascot for Homevestors, smiling and pointing at her. Behind her is a 'We buy ugly houses' sign.

Image: Homevestors https://www.homevestors.com/

Fair use: https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property

#pluralistic #the rents too damned high #house flipping #llc brain #scams #elder abuse #ripoffs #weaponized shelter #predators #homevestors #we buy ugly houses #ugly houses #real estate #propublica

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 10 months

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On Wednesday, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) reintroduced a proposal to make higher education free at public schools for most Americans — and pay for it by taxing Wall Street.

The College for All Act of 2023 would massively change the higher education landscape in the U.S., taking a step toward Sanders’s long-standing goal of making public college free for all. It would make community college and public vocational schools tuition-free for all students, while making any public college and university free for students from single-parent households making less than $125,000 or couples making less than $250,000 — or, the vast majority of families in the U.S.

The bill would increase federal funding to make tuition free for most students at universities that serve non-white groups, such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). It would also double the maximum award to Pell Grant recipients at public or nonprofit private colleges from $7,395 to $14,790.

If passed, the lawmakers say their bill would be the biggest expansion of access to higher education since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Higher Education Act, a bill that would massively increase access to college in the ensuing decades. The proposal would not only increase college access, but also help to tackle the student debt crisis.

“Today, this country tells young people to get the best education they can, and then saddles them for decades with crushing student loan debt. To my mind, that does not make any sense whatsoever,” Sanders said. “In the 21st century, a free public education system that goes from kindergarten through high school is no longer good enough. The time is long overdue to make public colleges and universities tuition-free and debt-free for working families.”

Debt activists expressed support for the bill. “This is the only real solution to the student debt crisis: eliminate tuition and debt by fully funding public colleges and universities,” the Debt Collective wrote on Wednesday. “It’s time for your member of Congress to put up or shut up. Solve the root cause and eliminate tuition and debt.”

These initiatives would be paid for by several new taxes on Wall Street, found in a separate bill reintroduced by Sanders and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California) on Wednesday. The Tax on Wall Street Speculation would enact a 0.5% tax on stock trades, a 0.1% tax on bonds and a 0.005% tax on trades on derivatives and other types of assets.

The tax would primarily affect the most frequent, and often the wealthiest, traders and would be less than a typical fee for pension management for working class investors, the lawmakers say. It would raise up to $220 billion in the first year of enactment, and over $2.4 trillion over a decade. The proposal has the support of dozens of progressive organizations as well as a large swath of economists.

“Let us never forget: Back in 2008, middle class taxpayers bailed out Wall Street speculators whose greed, recklessness and illegal behavior caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, homes, life savings, and ability to send their kids to college,” said Sanders. “Now that giant financial institutions are back to making record-breaking profits while millions of Americans struggle to pay rent and feed their families, it is Wall Street’s turn to rebuild the middle class by paying a modest financial transactions tax.”

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grison-in-space · 8 months

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Via a conversation on Metafilter about the state of Florida's decision to crush its public institutions, a person I think is particularly wise left a comment about the state of the legislature on higher education in Wisconsin.

The situation in Florida is atrocious, but it's important to be aware of how widespread this movement on the part of MAGA politicians to ban all academic and support programs related to gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality is. I'm a professor in the Wisconsin state university system, where, in addition to my regular fulltime work in my home department I direct the LGBTQ+ Studies Program (a more-than-halftime job I have done for many years in return for zero additional salary, or summer funds, or course buyout, or any other compensation...).

This summer, the Wisconsin state legislature, gerrymandered into permanent Republican control, voted to ban all DEI programs in the state university system, and cut $32 million from the university budget, which it stated was amount of "taxpayer money being wasted on divisive indoctrination efforts" (to paraphrase Assembly Speaker Robin Vos). This comes after years of successive budget cuts and a ten-year tuition freeze and years of faculty and staff taking pay cuts in the form of "furloughs" through which we were expected to just keep working. The situation is now somewhat improved in that Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, vetoed the DEI ban, but he cannot restore the funding. Anyway: a few days after the legislative vote to ban DEI , I was giving a talk about the range of state bills attacking trans youth and adults, and there was a Democratic state legislator on the panel. When we were introducing ourselves and I told her I directed the LGBTQ+ Studies Program, she said, "Oh, but that's no longer legal. Well, unless Evers vetoes the ban; we'll see."

After doing some blinking, I responded by explaining the difference between DEI programs and academic programs. DEI programs provide student support services, which is deemed administrative work, in contrast to academic programs. The LGBTQ+ Resource Center and the LGBTQ+ Studies Program at my university are both vital and important. But the resource center organizes support groups and social activities for students, while the academic program teaches classes and sponsors academic talks. Academic programs are not part of the DEI system--and the very same legislature that voted for the DEI ban had spent years prior threatening sanctions against students and faculty for supposedly not sufficiently respecting the absolute value of free speech in academia. Legislators presented instructors as censorious ideologues, students as snowflakes in love with a victim narrative, and the legislature as the champion of teaching and discussing all ideas freely.

The image of DEI programs presented by Republican legislators is some kind of kink fantasy, in which cis straight white men are forced to prostrate themselves, declare themselves to be bad and deserving of punishment, and lick the boots of students who are trans and queer, of color and feminist. The reality is that university DEI programs are providing mental health services and tutoring and social support to college students, at a time when their levels of mental health challenges are very high. They have zero to do with the kink humiliation fantasy, they really are about inclusion, and it is ludicrous and cruel to cut social support to marginalized college students.

But even if the state ban were not vetoed, a DEI ban does not dismantle programs like Gender Studies or African and African Diaspora Studies or LGBTQ+ Studies, because they are academic programs, I explained to the Democratic legislator. But from her response, it was clear that not only did Republican Wisconsin legislators think they'd banned all academic programs examining race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and who knows what else (disability studies? Jewish studies and Islamic studies?), but that the Democratic legislators seemed to believe so as well.

The flip from "we are the party of free speech!" to "we are the party that bans books and entire academic disciplines!" happened with dizzying speed. But take it from me as a trans person--these legislative attacks can burst across the country in the space of months, shifting the landscape radically. The thing about the MAGA movement is that it is made up of people who believe that the situation is desperate, the American project is on the verge of failure, and the time has come to destroy or be destroyed. Most Americans, including non-MAGA Republicans, want to see the culture war cool down and Americans get along, but MAGA-sorts want it to go hot. And I have to admit some despair about what to do about this, because of the unpersuadability of this group. Take a look at Question 39 from this CBS/YouGov poll of Iowa voters last week, and what percentage of Republican voters there believe they are being lied to by various parties. The percentage of MAGA voters who said they said they believed they were being told the truth by Trump was 71%, in comparison to 63% for friends and family, 56% for conservative news sources, and 42% for religious leaders. Only 32% of Iowa Republicans generally believed they were told the truth by medical scientists. (The figures for Joe Biden and "liberal media" were 10% and 8% respectively.)

It is hard to persuade people with facts and logic and calls for empathy when they think you are a liar attacking their great leader with whom 99% say they identify. What we have to do is persuade others to stand up. And I don't want to be doomy, but my experience with resisting transphobic legislation and action causes me a lot of concern. It's not just "the face-eating leopards won't eat my face" problem. The fact is, frankly, that a lot of institutions and people are craven. This past year I was in a working group with medical and social scientists advising the HHS about creating guidelines for research with intersex and transgender populations, and then Libs of TikTok spread lies about hospitals supposedly performing "sex changes" on little kids, and several children's hospitals received bomb threats--and suddenly most of the medical researchers working with trans youth were pulled from the working group by the hospitals they were affiliated with. Hospital administrators are shutting down research on trans youth and clinics serving trans youth, rather than having the backs of threatened doctors and patients, handing a victory to the face-eating leopards who growled at them.

My conclusion is that we need to focus energy on teaching people who have not dealt with serious bullying before how to stand up to bullies. For people like concerned parents considering attending school board meetings to oppose book bans, we could teach basic mutual aid strategies, like forming a supportive group to attend together. But what we are to do about people like college administrators and corporate executives who would like to do the right thing for students and employees, but not as much as they'd like to avoid offending a wealthy donor or receiving negative conservative media attention. . . that's a big question to me.

I have left my own longer comment in the wider thread.

(If you also like longform, thoughtful text conversation, this is my regular plug for Metafilter as a platform. If you DM me an email address, I can send you an invitation link for a free account.)

#metafilter #education #public education #colleges #legislators #cannot fucking believe the DEI thing #the thing is I have collaborated with this person in the past and he is a deeply sensible human being #so if he says this is what the legislators think #I believe him

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allthecanadianpolitics · 1 year

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The British Columbia government is opening to all ages its tuition waiver for those who were in foster care in the province.

The program was launched in 2017, waiving fees for people who had been in care from the ages of 19 to 26, but starting next August, that restriction will be eliminated.

To be eligible for the program, students must be studying full or part time at an undergraduate level at a B.C. public post-secondary institution, the Native Education College or one of 10 approved trades-training providers.

It also allows for as much as $3,500 a year to cover educational expenses such as textbooks, internet costs and computers. [...]

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

#cdnpoli #British Columbia #post secondary education #education #foster system

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tanadrin · 2 years

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I think the whole “expensive useless degrees” thing is another discussion that suffers from American parochialism, because in very many countries university is much cheaper to the student, or virtually free. Seen as a particularly American pathology, like absurdly high healthcare costs, I think it reveals that the terms this discussion is being had on--is a university degree economically worth it to the degree-earner?--is one that’s particular to a specific set of social conditions, not general to all developed societies. Some countries have made the decision that education is valuable enough in itself that it will be heavily subsidized by the state, like healthcare or transportation or scientific research, and the US largely has not, and so the question “should university be vocational training or ars gratia artis“ (which is a false dichotomy anyway) is less important.

Not unimportant--after all, the revenue that goes into subsidizing education has to come from somewhere, and education in other countries has not been immune to budget cuts and fee hikes--but it’s seen as part of a broader political dynamic of what society will prioritize and how, and not as a moral failing of specific individuals, as it being “your fault” if you got a degree and ended up in debt because of it. Which is a weird framing, because cross-culturally--even in the US--education tends to be valued very highly! We recognize it as a crucial mark not only of employability but also respectability and personal development, and traditionally not in a way that emphasizes STEM subjects. Quite the opposite in fact: the historically most respectable forms of education are the least “useful” in that sense, focusing on the classics and theology and similar subjects. And the US has more affordable options for education, like in-state tuition at public universities and community college, but the quality of these options are highly variable, and there are no national public universities.

Much like climate change and healthcare, I’m suspicious that framing the issue as one of personal responsibility is laundering a political problem (the US has set up its society to incentivize an education in almost every single way, and also attached high costs to education) into an individual moral one (if you are unemployed, it is because you chose the wrong degree), even as many people with “practical” university degrees struggle to find jobs in their field. It seems like a specific application of a more general principle that your economic situation is always and only determined by your set of individual choices, which, if that is one’s belief, one should state openly.

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anotherpapercut · 8 months

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College Resources

hey y'all so I have a degree in math, and have been tutoring college level math, stats, physics, and study skills for a few years now and I have several certifications as a college level tutor and in my years tutoring I've picked up a lot of absolutely essential things you NEED to know to pass math classes (and others!) if you have a hard time in math class, which unfortunately most schools will not teach you

so if you're in college (or high school, but some of these will be college specific) and you would like to hear my Professional Tips for how to survive math in college I have compiled a list of things I think you should know below the read more! I'm going to put a couple general tips at the top though for people who aren't taking a math class

alright, welcome to the read more! let's start with some general things

ok I'm starting with a kind of tip before the tips: if you are disabled, talk to disability support services at your school. a lot of times they provide services to attain a diagnosis if you don't have one, but if you do it's typically pretty easy to get accommodations and if your teachers try not to follow them, they will get in A LOT of trouble (I'm in the us so idk how disability laws are in other countries but here this is a big deal for universities bc public funding etc and if you make a complaint they will be FORCED to comply). I'm not saying bad experiences never happen, I've not been to every school in the us and I'm sure there are places that suck abt this, but I literally would not have been able to get a degree in math without accommodations (I'm autistic and have dyscalculia + memory issues) so it was worth every annoyed sigh by a dumbass teacher (which honestly rarely happened. most of them were cool). some possible accommodations include, extra time on tests, separate testing locations, formula cards, ability to use notes etc etc

I work in a free tutoring center at my local community college. while I won't say these are definitely universal, every college I have encountered (in the US, where I live) has one of these. Google the name of your school with tutoring. there is a very high chance you have free tutors available in a variety of subjects who are ready to help you. you should utilize the fuck out of this bc ur already probably paying for it in ur tuition

my favorite resource ever is one you may have heard of but I'm reminding you of it anyway. the Crash Course YouTube channel! it has free comprehensive videos about various subjects (including anatomy, physics, biology, economics, statistics and lots lots more). the videos are about 10 minutes each and they're incredibly easy to understand. they're an amazing way to study for finals. trust me on this one. they actually now have real introductory college courses that you can take for credit (tho I think you have to pay for that?) through YouTube so check into that!

take notes!!!!!!!! for real. seriously. even if you've never had to before. trust me. and don't just copy exactly what the board says, write what your teacher says out loud as well, that is often the most important stuff. I highly recommend investing in a few colored pens and/or highlighters. anytime the teacher says something important (such as formulas in a math class or a grammar rule in an English class) either write it in another color, or highlight it. color coding your notes even the tiniest bit will help you tremendously when you're studying and doing homework later. this doesn't mean having a color code so elaborate and strict that you're spending more time and energy figuring out the right color than listening and writing. I usually do the bulk of my notes in black then things like formulas or whatever in one bright color and extra bits of info from the teacher in another, this way it's easier to find the important stuff later on

if you've got a couple extra bucks, invest in a mini stapler. you'll be shocked how often those lil bitches come in handy

DO NOT EVER purchase your text books before the classes start (unless you get like an email before class starts telling you you need the book, but this is pretty rare tbh). half of your teachers are going to tell you on day 1 that they don't use the book at all. and honestly almost all of your books can be found by googling the name + pdf. just triple check that you have the correct edition!

speaking of emails, CHECK YOUR FUCKING SCHOOL EMAIL. I am so dead serious about this one. set up notifications on your phone. if you do not check your email you are going to show up for cancelled classes, miss assignment corrections, and generally not do nearly as well in your classes. I know this sounds fake but holy fucking shit please for the love of all that is good and holy check your fucking email. seriously.

the best way to study for your finals is to look at past tests and homework! if your teacher isn't a total dick they'll give you back your tests and homework. when studying for your final, go through and redo any that you got wrong, and look over the ones you got right. teachers usually take final questions from old tests and homework so if you do this it's very possible you'll study your exact finals questions. if they won't give you these back, reread your notes (in a way I'll describe in a moment)

reread your notes the same day you take them or very soon after so the lecture is still fresh in your mind! when you do this, grab a colored pen and take notes on your notes. I know this sounds ridiculous but it's actually a very important study tool. if you come across something you wrote that is confusing, write out an explanation. write down extra things that will help you understand the material. if there's something that you don't understand or don't remember PLEASE ask your teacher. some of them won't answer email so catch them in office hours or after class if you can. at the end of the semester when you're studying for finals, do this all over again but through your whole notebook for the semester (not all at once. pls take breaks lmfao)

if your teacher doesn't offer it up at the end of the semester, ask "can you please tell us some of the topics we should emphasize when studying for our finals?" (you can also say this in a far less pretentious way but I've found that professors are more likely to give you a real answer if you talk like this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I'm ngl, some of em will be assholes about this. they may laugh at the idea and snarkily say "look at your homework" or some shit equivalent. roll your eyes at these old bitches and move on. but many if not most will at least give y'all some idea of what to expect. and crucially: write down what they say and use it as a study guide

okey dokey!! that concludes the general section. now I'm gonna talk about some math specific stuff that will help you a lot if you struggle with math!

starting with an easy one: get a good calculator. please for the love of GOD do not get the TI-30X IIS unless you love it and are EXTREMELY familiar with all of the different operations. I'm sorry but this calculator sucks ass and it will hold you back. for about the same price you can get my personal favorite the Casio FX-115ES Plus (1st edition only, I haven't tried the 2nd edition bc I don't like change) or an FX-991 EX. if you're a Texas instruments guy get a TI 30XS or if ur doing calc and shit I'd get a 36X pro. I just prefer Casio personally lmao. in all likelihood your math teacher will be a calculator nerd who can teach you how to use any of these but there are also lots of videos made by calculator nerds on YouTube as well

so next I just want to emphasize how important your notes are. you cannot pass a math class without good notes unless it's a class you've already taken or something, and honestly even then I'd recommend you write some stuff down because the thing about math is there are a lot of different ways to do the same thing. which brings me to my next point

pay attention to the process your teacher uses to solve problems (I'll give an example in a sec) and especially to how they write the process down. if you're like me and you have trouble with the whole "show your work" thing this will help a lot, because you can use what your teacher writes down as a guideline for what you should write down. for instance, you may have learned about a math concept like permutations and combinations in high school one way, and then be taught a completely different way of performing the calculation in college. if this happens, ask your teacher about your way. sometimes their way is better for a specific reason and it's really important that you learn it. sometimes they'll say it doesn't matter just do what makes the most sense to you. sometimes you will also not get full credit if you do things a different way too so be careful and pay attention to what your teacher says abt it. you may have also been taught to show some steps in an operation but not others and your new teacher may want all of them. or none. or different ones. unfortunately math has a lot of variations

similarly, if there's a concept you don't understand, start by asking your teacher about it first bc they may want you doing a specific thing. if they're not helpful and you don't have access to a tutor turn to the internet. here are my recommendations for resources: Khan Academy has videos and examples explaining concepts in pretty much all types of math. usually really helpful because they'll show you several different methods and use different explanations, MathWay for classes that come before trig/calc. you can use it for those but it's a little more annoying lol specifically in regards to graphing and solving integrals and shit. this tool has A LOT of stuff in it but is best as a calculator to check your work on stuff and for showing you graphs that have transformations and shit like that from college algebra. it's got settings for different math types and even chemistry tho!, for more complicated graphing I'd use Desmos. you can use this in all classes but it's just a bit more complicated imo and it's more made for complex operations so I prefer to use MathWay as much as possible bc it's just more user friendly., there's also Symbolab which a lot of my fellow tutors really like but I personally tend to use the others more, Wolfram Alpha is a pretty well known one. tbh I find it kind of hard to use sometimes so i usually use it as a last resort lmfao but it is really good!, this last one is calculus specific (including things like calc based physics ofc) but derivative calculator and integral calculator are everything to me. could not have gotten through calc 2 and 3 w/o these mfs

OK THIS PART IS REALLY IMPORTANT!! we're going to talk about how you can make your math tests WAY easier on you and massively improve your chances of passing. here's what you're going to do for every test

1. when studying for your test, go through and find ALL formulas that you used in the unit(s) your test is over (this includes formulas you learned previously but used in this unit as well!!)

2. commit them to memory. easiest way to do this (besides practicing using them!!) is to rewrite them a few times including what you use them for and what all of the symbols and letters stand for

3. when you go in to take your test, spend like 5-10 minutes beforehand, right up until they make you put everything away, studying and rewriting these

4. the SECOND the test hits your desk, flip it over and write down every single formula immediately (including as much extra info like when to use and variable definitions as possible). now you won't have to try to remember them 30 minutes in when your brain is frying!!

5. go through the test and read each question carefully. if you can't remember how to solve it within 30 seconds skip it. you might only do 4 or 5 questions (maybe less depending on the length of your test) after the first pass, but just go back to the beginning and do it again, giving urself a little more time w each pass. this will ensure that you're not spending 45 minutes on problem 4 and having no time to get to the rest of the test. additionally with math it is extremely common to basically find the answer to how to do one problem while you're doing another problem. doing the ones you know first will also boost your confidence and help prevent anxiety from wiping ur brain. this is a really really important part of math tests

6. before you hand your test in, make sure you've written SOMETHING down on EVERY SINGLE QUESTION. even if you have absolutely 0 idea whatsoever what to do, there is always a chance for partial credit. a lot of times, you also know more than you think you do. so even if you can only do half a step of the whole process, half a point is better than 0!! if you really have no clue what to do, make something up. I know this probably sounds ridiculous but I'm so deadass. once I was taking a physics test and could not for the life of me remember what formula to use so I just made one up based on my vague idea of how it worked lmao. I wrote off to the side "I know this isn't how physics works, but I can't remember that so just pretend I'm god for a second" and I got like 75% of the points bc the teacher appreciated the effort!! there were fucking countless times when I was taking a test and I got to a point where I knew the steps of what I was supposed to do but could not figure out HOW to actually DO the math. so I wrote in words my understanding of what the next steps were. even though I didn't finish answering the question, I always got points for trying. this is what teachers are wanting from you. effort. so PLEASE write literally anything even if you're just making that shit up (just explain your reasoning in words to the side, as long as you're using logic you're really getting the essence of math anyway). you would not BELIEVE how fast your grades will improve by doing this. I tutored a girl who went from Ds to Bs within literally 2 weeks of starting tutoring just because she stopped leaving any questions blank and started getting partial credit

that's all the important stuff I can think of for now though I'm sure there's much more so I may update this in the future!

of course everyone is going to have a different experience and relationship with math. so adjust all of these tips to fit how you learn best. please try to remember that learning math is a very important part of developing your critical reasoning and logistical analysis skills. these are essential to understanding and interacting with the world and math is just a way of exercising those muscles. trust me when I say I know how infuriating math can be. I have dyscalculia and a math degree. I've spent so many hours crying over math you probably wouldn't even believe me. but it's worth it! and frankly, if you're in college, you're paying a lot of money for this class. you deserve to get everything you possibly can out of it

above all, if you're having trouble ASK FOR HELP. ask your teacher, ask your classmates, ask the head of the department, ask student services, ask Google!! and if you need help you can always ask me! :) I love helping people with this stuff and even if I don't know the answer to your question I'm pretty good at knowing where to look for them!

#this is so long and im praying the readmore works #this has been in my drafts for like a year sjdbakhdwihddnemsodm #college resources #math resources #forgot that tumblr builds in its own readmore now #good enough right?

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theshadowrealmitself · 8 months

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This was going to be a post about irregularities about what I’ve been told about my family’s financial status growing up vs what I actually noticed looking back on it, but it ended up becoming,, a vent? So venture forward at your own risk

Trying to figure out what financial status we had growing up, because there was 8 of us (sometimes more) in a 2 bedroom house, but we were going to a private school that was being paid for due to a deal struck with the people who raised me and the principal there where one of them essentially worked at the school for free as our tuition

(And god did we never hear the end of that deal, at practically every moment we were being screamed at about how much they sacrifice for our education and we should be kissing the floor they walk on in gratitude 🙄 and it wasn’t even like it was a good school, it was just a Christian private school, so every single part was about Christianity and missionaries and I honestly think it was worse for our education than public school would’ve been)

They also got government assistance for raising us, which went towards our clothes so we’d be able to buy a couple outfits twice a year from a thrift store, and a pair of shoes once a year (god help you if something happened to that pair and you needed another one), and then we’d get food and hair cuts from whichever area was doing those things for free

So I always figured as a kid we were poor as shit, and just grateful for whatever occasional nice thing we could get (I still have my Nintendo dsi that I treasure very carefully) and thought that they were doing their absolute best for us, despite their best still resulting in us always being hungry all the time (those lunch programs only gave out really small lunches and we were always getting like 2 meals, that small lunch being one of them, a day and drinking water throughout the day because “you aren’t hungry, you just think you’re hungry, water will fill you up”) (also the lunches at the school were also usually small)

So yeah, ratty clothes, choppy hair, always hungry, but grateful because they would always make a huge deal on how much they sacrifice for us and how much they give us, and how they couldn’t afford to give us more, and then the second each of us were 18 they dropped us like a hot potato and we each had to go live in financially sucking places where we can’t afford to do much for ourselves, but we’re all used to it

Except, it’s been occurring to me more and more that they never did all that for themselves or for their actual bio kid, when it came to those 3 it was never thrifted clothes, they’d buy themselves good filling food all the time and would always have snacks for themselves, and their daughter was always using their card to go out and get herself food from restaurants and stuff, and they all took themselves to have “salon days” where’d they actually go and have all this work done on their hair

And it wouldn’t just be stuff like that, whatever she wanted, she was able to have without a second thought, we’d all be sharing a deodorant stick (not even exaggerating) and she’d go out with their card and buy herself a full on bathtub set whenever she felt like it, clothes, food, money, etc., anything she wanted she got it instantly, while she never did any of chores and it was up to the rest of us who were all younger than her to constantly keep everything clean

And then when she moved out, they completely funded her college education and bought her a house

And they owned two cars

So like,,, y’all could afford to do that but asking for a little extra food for the rest of us or a new pair of shoes because the shoes I was wearing were literally falling apart on my feet was the end of the world and you needed to scream about your finances at us???

It was just so normalized that we never questioned why they got all those things and we didn’t, we were essentially their charity case that was supposed to make them look good to their church, we were just supposed to be grateful we weren’t being bounced from home to home, of course we weren’t being treated like their bio daughter even tho they were “like our parents,” because it was always “like,” it was always the appearance of, they didn’t actually give a shit about us other than what they could use to look good to others, “oh the nice Christian couple taking in the poor kids and making sure they get a nice Christian education” 🙄 while they kept almost killing us with their medical neglect

…This got away from me, anyways the point is I wonder if we were actually as destitute as they made it seem when we were kids or if they just lied to us so they didn’t have to feed us regularly

#no fandom #rant #this. probably needs some warnings?#I’m not sure #this actually doesn’t even touch on how horrid it was living with them #but no one has the stomach for that so I’m never gonna put out those facts #they’ll ruin everyone’s day #so weird how you never notice how off something is till you’re looking back later like ‘??????’#vent post

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beardedmrbean · 1 month

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One of trumps campaign promises is an free online American University. HE IS OFFERING FREE COLLEGE, and people will probably be pissed about it and say it isn’t free college because it doesn’t pay for them to get a useless degree at an overpriced university

Completely forgot American University existed, had to look them up and see what they're about.

Pretty basic, standard degrees you can take just about anywhere

Those are all things that are going to be Swiss Army Knife type departments, get a basic degree if you want to go further you can.

international and unknown would probably flatten those numbers out, except the last two.

Impressive list of graduates too.

people will probably be pissed about it and say it isn’t free college because it doesn’t pay for them to get a useless degree at an overpriced university

Nailed it in one, likely be people saying the classes are indoctrination as well, several other things they'll complain about.

Not free anyhow, wish they would be honest and call it taxpayer funded, which the average person with a degree will in the end contribute more in tax revenue than the education they got cost from a financial standpoint I don't entirely oppose taxpayer funded higher ed.

Just has to be limited to degrees that will actually be things people use and can make a living with, which if you look you can find a list of degrees that qualify for student loan forgiveness after X amount of time making minimum payments provided you work in the public sector with them.

My brother got $250,000 in student loans and such most of which will go poof soon because he's been working in various public defenders offices and similar.

This is going to be similar to him trying to get various countries on board with a pressure campaign on countries around the world in an effort to get them to decriminalize homosexuality, can't toss people in jail for being gay anymore, people said he was racist for doing that or it was only to stick it to Iran,

which who fucking cares if it was or not, you'd rather people in jail or executed for being gay

Nothing any president does will be terribly popular with a fair sized portion of the people, the hope they can have is that history vindicates them.

With this it could be 'here's your option, your other option includes a bill that will need to be payed now instead of over your working life, and you'll also be helping to pay tuition for people going to American University too with your taxes.

Much like people that send their kids to private school still pay the taxes that go to the public ones.

#anonymous

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qqueenofhades · 1 year

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I'm waiting for the day people realize many "socialist" endeavors would not, in fact, tank the economy or drive up the deficit. Take housing. Even if the government did something asinine like buy a 100k house for every homeless person--instead of, like, invest in affordable housing or something reasonable--that'd only be around $55 billion dollars spent! Just slash the US military budget from the 800 billion it currently is down to 750 billion and boom! Money! Take it down to 700 billion (1)

2) and you'd pay for free college as well. (For a source on the college claim, see: this forbes article whining about how it'd cost a ~horrifying~ 47 billion for Biden to enact free college for people making less than 125k forbes(.)com/sites/robertberger/2020/09/04/the-surprising-cost-of-bidens-free-college-tuition-plan/?sh=688bf7396f7f ) Tax the wealthy and we'd raise the money for healthcare. We HAVE the money to improve things. We simply choose not to.

Well... yeah. Of course there's money. Of course there is. It's just that the current economic/late-stage capitalist system has decided that it's better off being locked away by a tiny handful of unimaginably greedy billionaires in order to make them even richer, rather than being equitably redistributed to solve social problems. They have also very successfully convinced the public, for upward of 40 years, that it's actually better to let the billionaires keep those fortunes, all taxation and government is evil, it's immoral to want or expect financial help or justice from said government, if you can't work hard enough to make your own money than you have a personally deficient character, structural and systemic racism/discrimination isn't real and doesn't affect wealth distribution, and etc., etc., etc.

Late-stage capitalism depends on enforced scarcity: if you don't have enough, you'll keep working in whatever shitty job you can get. The Republicans have often cited the tired old Reaganite myth about how welfare recipients are just "lazy" and can't be bothered to Pull Themselves Out of Poverty, and besides, the corporate world doesn't want to be deprived of its control over the working population. So of course they resist any efforts to tax or regulate billionaires or corporations, and they engage in (again, sadly very successful) lobbying campaigns to tie this economic libertarianism to social conservatism/conservative populism/outright racial/white supremacist rhetoric. So plenty of working-class white people consistently vote against their own economic interests, because they like racism more than anything else. See the recent attempt to claim that the Ohio train derailment happened because poor, rural white people were "left out/overlooked by the evil Democratic government for being white!!!" Or the narrative, helpfully pushed by the NYT (as usual), that these towns are "forgotten," "left behind," or otherwise "ignored" by an uncaring federal (read: Democratic) government.

Except... the Democrats under Biden have enacted more legislation, tax credits, infrastructure projects, job opportunities, and so forth, in the last two years alone, intended to help the residents of places just like East Palestine, Ohio, than the Republicans have ever done in all their presidential administrations. It's the Republicans who have starved those places of proper funding, safety regulations, material resources, government oversight, and so on, while telling them that Democrats hate them because they're white. The voters of those places have often enthusiastically voted for that message, and then the national GOP apparatus blames.... the Democrats. Because of course they do, even though the Democrats, by any metric, are the party who actually materially tries to help the working class. Racism, Reaganism, and white grievance is a helluva drug.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

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hclib · 7 months

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The Beginnings of Perpich Center for the Arts

Since 2010, the second week in September has been National Arts in Education week. Since the 1980s, Minnesota's students have had a unique way to integrate arts into their education -- Perpich Center for the Arts.

The passion project of former Governor Rudy Perpich and his wife Lola, the Minnesota School and Resource Center for the Arts was created by the state legislature in 1985, The Arts Center served a dual purpose as a state resource for arts education and a public arts high school. As a state resource, the center supported arts educators and offered art programs throughout Minnesota. Support included classes and instructional materials, as well as a resource library.

In September 1989, the center's arts high school opened its doors in Golden Valley. Complete with a dormitory, the Perpich Arts High School enrolls 11th and 12th graders from across the state. These 300+ students receive a tuition-free, college-preparatory education that centers one of six arts areas -- dance, literary arts, media arts, music, theater, or visual arts.

Minnesota Arts Resource Center newsletter from the Mary Katherine Johnson Papers (M/A 0411).

#minneapolis #minnesota #golden valley #1980s #perpich arts high school #high schools #arts education #arts

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cosmicsponge2004 · 5 months

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LISTEN...

For any US Viewers here, we all know Joe Biden hasn't been a good president at all. With both his contributions to Isreal's Terrorism in Palestine along with his incompetence when it comes to doing ANY for the United States of America

We also know the republican party is just as evil as last time. With the options there being either Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. You can just search them here or on any news site to see why they would be even worse.

HOWEVER, We might not have to settle for Biden.

Now, I am under 18. So I am not allowed to vote. The US Government says my opinion dosen't matter. However, I can influence YOU! The 18+ Year Old US Citizens who DO matter in the eyes of the law

I found an independent candidate from a comment section on a tumblr post here (I forgot which one) and he seems great

He's very ambitious (I don't see him reaching most of his goals but surely he could get SOME change done)

Enter: Cornell West

More information on his website (more of his campaign's site but I think he runs it...?)

What does he plan to do? Here's a highlight reel of my favorites. Click "keep reading"

(the full list is on the site)

Abolish poverty

Abolish homelessness (big statements right there, dude)

Wealth tax on all billionaire holdings and transactions

National $27 minimum wage with special considerations for specific geographies where $27/hour would not be a family-sustaining wage

Mandatory minimum of six months of fully paid parental leave

National free pre-K childcare

Habeas Corpus Healthcare, free healthcare for any and all residents of the United States

Codify abortion rights as a Constitutional mandate (THIS ONE!!! THIS ONE RIGHT HERE!!!!)

Remove Transgender exclusions/limitations from all healthcare policies

Nationalize the healthcare industry, including the pharmaceutical industry

End medical apartheid and protect/increase rights for people with disabilities

End the war on drugs and associated collateral damage on families and communities (Reagan would shit his pants)

End mass incarceration and codify voting rights for all incarcerated people and immediately reinstate voting rights for all returning citizens

Address the disproportionate mortality rate for Black pregnancies

Establish a Land Back Commission to explore and address brutal land theft from, attempted genocide of, and broken treaties with Indigenous peoples

Protect free speech, enforce whistleblower protections, and stop the prosecution of those who expose government corruption

Shut down Cop City and plans for similar facilities across the nation

Redistribute police funding to unarmed community-led forces

Eliminate crowded prison facilities by developing alternatives to incarceration

Prisoner Bill of Rights that includes a right to humane treatment and humane living conditions for all correctional facilities

Investigate and end sentencing discrepancies based on race, ethnicity, and class

Ban the death penalty, life without the possibility of parole, three-strikes laws, mandatory minimums, and sentence enhancement politics

Restore voting rights for people with criminal records, including those who are currently incarcerated

Confiscate all military equipment from civilian police forces

Free tuition for all state and community colleges

Dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline by removing police and so-called School Resource Officers from all public schools

Cancel all student loan debt

End the unwarranted, unnecessary, and dangerous assaults on transgender people

Gender-affirming standards of care for trans people in public life and institutions

Codify an Equal Rights Amendment for LGBTQIA+ U.S. residents

National ban on any and all so-called "Don’t Say Gay" laws and all other anti-LGBTQIA+ laws

End crimes against humanity for migrants and their families - no separation of families, no children in cages

Slash the bloated U.S. military budget

Expeditious and responsible closure of global U.S. military bases - AFRICOM, etc.

Cease military funding to the State of Israel

End Israeli apartheid of Palestinian people and press the UN to establish a program for Palestinian dignity and liberation

Cease all military support to nations committing war crimes

(16-24 feel SUPER IMPORTANT to me as a Texan)

If he ain't all talk, I can see this going decently! Have a little hope. Vote for this guy. Or don't, I'm not your dead mom. But I am a concerned US Citizen with a tiny bit of hope. Emphasis on tiny

We can do it!!!

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stressed-depressed-and-bored · 1 year

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People always say “who is going to pay for it?” as if it’s some profound “gotcha!”

The rich. The rich can pay for it. They did in the past and they can do it again.

In the 1930s and 1940s the United States was facing a debt crisis much like todays. The government was running out of money coming out of the Great Depression and going into World War 2, and the economy wasn’t doing too well. Everything was falling apart, much like it is now. What was the solution?

And it worked. The US working middle class and the economy did awesome well through the 50s and 60s. The working middle class was wealthier than ever before and wealthier than it’s ever been. Regular people like you and me. Public infrastructure flourished. States had the budgets to build free colleges. College used to be free by the way. It wasn’t until Ronald Reagan’s advisors warned him how “dangerous” an “educated proletariat” was (those are his words), that major universities started to see cuts in public funding and had to start charging tuition.

Today, the top 1% is only taxed at 43% and has been dropping since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Reagan also set the precedent of ignoring labor and union rights, violating both domestic (NLRA, Wagner Act) and international (United Nations bill of rights) law. This too has only ever been made worse by Republican policy as time has gone on with yet more tax cuts for the wealthy. Look up the actual policies. Don’t take a politicians word, read their actual policy. They will and do lie to you.

Do y’all understand now why the US debt is going up so fast? It’s because Trump cut that tax rate even more, amassing a whopping 20% of our current total national debt within only 4 years. The debt ceiling was raised THREE TIMES during Trump’s presidency, the uppermost tax bracket was cut even more, and massive corporate bailout loans were forgiven. Research the PPE loans. This has been Republican policy for 40+ years.

The systemic deconstruction of the middle class and the government in favor of corporate control. We are living in a repeat of the Gilded Age of the Industrial Revolution. The railroads and the banks own and control everything, including the government.

These are facts. Read it in any history book.

Or you can just ban those books too and pretend it didn’t happen. That would be a mistake though.

If you wanna know how our economy has REALLY been doing for the last 40 years, I suggest looking into the Economic Policy Institute. Or ask any working class American how they have been doing lately, especially those of us who are young, trying to make it.

Our current struggle is not caused by the “Woke Mob” as propaganda outlet Fox News will tell you.

(Do any of you even know what “woke” means? It means you are aware and attentive to the fact that systematic societal issues and flaws exist. Wether it be race issues, income issues, whatever. Being “woke” literally means you’re not a sheep who follows along anything that the media and government tell you. Thats what it means. Literally look it up. I grew up as this word came to popularity. It’s been around for a very long time. The GOP is taking advantage of the fact that you don’t know what it is, and using it as a fear mongering tactic to channel your anger at your neighbor instead of the corporations pulling the strings. It is corporate propaganda).

Our current struggle is caused by the class warfare waged by corporate scum as they buy all of our politicians in return for bailing out the government’s debt. Both left and right, our politicians have been bought. None of them work for you. They work for the big corporations lining their pockets through unlimited lobbying.

So, when y’all say “I don’t wanna pay for it”- don’t worry, you aren’t going to be paying for it. The middle class will not be paying for it. The multi-billionaire corporations stealing your labor will be paying for it. The rich goons who increase the price of your groceries and lay you off all in the name of making a few extra bucks will be paying for it.

Do some research and you’ll see exactly why and when we got into this mess.

It’s not that complicated. It really isn’t.

Tax. The. Rich.

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