Yet the administration intervened to help them get what they were striking for.

There’s definitely a place for vital jobs where striking can be illegal, but the administration also made sure they were set

You might also pay attention to the other pro labor actions of this administration, including the first sitting president to stand on a picket line

For sure, I grew up in a rural conservative area. I thought i knew these people. I thought they were just like me and I could understand their perspective even when I disagreed with it. But 2016 went against everything they claimed to believe in, and they just started making less and less sense, they just started getting more toxic, more hateful and spiteful , more anti-everything and everyone. No. No I can’t.

Maybe I’m falling for the echo chamber effect also, maybe I’m falling prey to those who would keep us divided and at each others throats, but I’m finding it difficult to sympathize, difficult to even want to understand them again. Difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are decent people being manipulated with base emotions. No, this is them

Some Americans are. Way too many Americans are. Feel free to disconnect. However not everyone is and there are like 380 million of us

Maybe kids are too short sighted to see the risk, but who says they don’t do that? Among the stupid things I did as a kid was try to turn any tube into a gun/cannon/firework mortar, and hold it in my hands to aim and launch. We even had the benefit of my grandfather losing a couple fingers as a cautionary tale, that we completely ignored. If something happened, could you really call that an accident?

Or the time we were playing with fireworks …. In a barn full of dry hay? I don’t know how my grandfather let us live after that one

…… but there’s a threshold of stupidity where you really can’t call it an accident. I’m happy to have survived in one piece all too many bouts of stupidity but the adult me wouldn’t call it an accident if something happened

Yes, but no.

For both myself as a kid and my kids now that I’m parent, I’ve done it several times. However it was really more family day, an open house to show where you work and who you work with. It always had activities, my company has a bounce house (that I never got to use as an employee)

It became pretty annoying as my kids grew into teens. I stopped taking them because everything was oriented to little kids, but teens could probably use some exposure to what people do at work. They’re deciding what they want to do, but with no information, while it would be so useful to actually shadow their parent. Not fun maybe, but useful

Financial aid debt is way too high but there is a bit of a turnaround in places. Or there was. It may not last past Jan 20

There were millions with student loan debt forgiven or partly forgiven, and several states made public universities partly free.

In our case my ex still has student loan debt. She’s a teacher which ought to get it forgiven, but she consolidated so is no longer qualified. However several of her peers benefitted

My older kid goes to a public university and his first year was free, based on his mom’s income.

The data certainly deserves a deeper look. It may also be because we just have that much more well paid jobs than what people generally think of as wealth inequality.

I realize that looks inconsistent so let me explain. Most people think of wealth inequality as the different between the Bezos of the world and them. However in this case, I see their measuring by quintile but we have a ton of software and medical- maybe we just have bigger quintiles three and four. Still wealth inequality mathematically but very different from what people expect that means

Because quality of life is that much higher to make up for the cost, at least mathematically

Every company I know are careful to watch where their employees live and adjust wages appropriately. That’s probably the real reason most are hybrid: if you have to come into Boston twice a week, can you really live up in the mountains somewhere cheap?

I only know that my town has high population of immigrants and if blue collar jobs and we’re growing like crazy.

I mean all the land was developed a couple hundred years ago, so we’re getting taller

Yeah, I alternate between proud that we have a $15 minimum wage and horrified at what it probably should be

And yet Massachusetts is probably the first state with a statewide zoning overrride, allowing just that, near any transit (including buses).

It’s too early to tell whether it will work, but one of the first examples is about to open near me

This shocked me the most. I thought we would be a darker shade of blue than ever, despite what other state voters do. I’m so disappointed

She was on traditional media? I guess I wasn’t there to see either candidate. I only saw both online

Working classes don’t need healthcare or education? Quality of life is irrelevant? A strong economy doesn’t matter? One of the highest minimum wages doesn’t affect working class? I

Free college (depending on income)doesn’t matter?

I have one of those for camping but never actually got to trynit

Plus don’t people get something from school? My schools, way back when, and my kids schools always had some class trying to bring current affairs into the lesson, and certainly during a presidential election.

My teen has a law and gov class where they had various debates about real people and real issues - it’s amazing that teacher can sit back and let the kids have their opinion but he does. Obviously not everyone has a law and gov class, or the Econ class where they’re going over proposed policies of each side but everyone has a history or social studies where they’re do that, don’t they?

How doesn’t at least some of that carry over into adult life?

We all fail somewhere …. I voted wrong on one ballot question, for the vibes, and wish I could take it back.

My state had a question whether the auditor should audit the state legislature, and after so much news about corruption, conflict of interest at the national level, I voted “Hell yes”. However when I read it afterwards, too late, it was a separation of powers question and I would have voted “no, the executive branch can’t police the legislate branch”

That’s my latest flavor of denial: I don’t think they do have any firsthand knowledge. It’s all what their echo chamber tells them. After all, no one can watch or listen to the toupee for even a couple seconds and not realize ….

These people vote for people who tell them what they want to hear and project the rest

I think it’s even farther removed from that … these people vote for people their echo chamber tells them are better for reasons their echo chamber tells them what they want to hear, and they never have the awareness to find out from the donvicts mouth. …. You know, morons