Singapore: First time?
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thankfully every big city is functionally a small island, sometimes literally in the case of management
We can have good public transit in America if we would just design our fucking towns properly, but we bulldozed walkable neighborhoods to make room for highways so it’s going to take a lot of work and public pressure to fix this fucking mess.
Average lease right now in the US for a new car is about $525/mo
That was what rent was for a 850 sqft studio in most B-list East Coast cities (think Worcester MA, Rochester NY, Raleigh NC, etc), just 10-15 years ago.
I paid $550 in rent for a 550sqft apartment in a nice neighborhood in a midsize southern city just 6 years ago. Heard from a friend that’s still there that new signups for the same place cost $1100 now.
My first ever apartment that I paid for all by myself cost 550 in bum fuck Georgia 15 years ago I’m pretty sure it’s still the nicest and largest apt I’ve ever had. I can only imagine what it costs now when this glorified hallway I live in now is 1850
My last house was $1300/mo, which was considered high for my area. Now I’m paying $2500/mo for a place that’s falling apart.
We’re careening towards the tipping point where the commute to my area to work will make it not worth it.
Jobs around here pay $16-18/hr and I have a couple coworkers who drive 1hr20m each way for that $16
Meanwhile rent anywhere near here is $1600/mo
It’s already almost unjustifiable for people to commute to this area to work, and you can’t live around here on the wages these places offer, so everyone is desperately hiring.
These retail companies are going to fold like a house of fucking cards. And honestly they fucking deserve it. These big chains enjoyed decades of insane profits without raising wages at all, now they have to raise wages for people to even exist and they’re still raising prices on goods to offset their new wage expenditures.
God forbid these corporate subhumans sacrifice 1% of their profits each year so that the entire economy doesn’t collapse.
Assuming that’s about a 60 mile commute and they average 30 miles per gallon, that means it costs your friends 1/8th of their income just to drive to work.
2 gals x $4/gallon x 2 trips = $16. That’s one hour of their eight hour shift that they have to work just to be able to work.
That’s if they get 30mpg. At 20mpg, it costs them $24, or 1.5 hours of work just to afford to get to work.
Yet the most popular new cars sold are V8s that weigh 2.5 tonnes and are the size and shape of a brick shithouse. In this country, you can’t even buy a small, economical hatchback new anymore, even if you had the money.
Fuel costs in the 1970s were never anymore than 40¢/Litre, yet that was the “fuel crisis” and the driving force behind econo-boxes. Now at $2.20/Litre, Ford of Australia only sell two whopping big utes, a van, and three ugly SUVs.
Thank the EPA (in the US) for that, not consumers.
Also, 40 cents in 1975 is equivalent to $2.28 USD today.
So many corporations are about to start losing money in their pursuit of being greedy and fucking us over for more money. Like at this point I have enough money for food. That’s mostly it.
I have a friend in America who has to take 2-3 jobs just to be able to afford rent and basic living. It’s shocking that things have gotten to that point
Marketplace on NPR yesterday was boasting about how job creation was outpacing population growth, and they claimed that the US was employing more people.
My ass was thinking “that logic only works if it’s one person, one job. And that isn’t the case for many Americans these days.”
Yep, Biden is making a huge mistake by leaning into the whole ‘actually, the economy is great according to these indicators we’ve picked!’. People know better from personal experience.
And Trump is taking advantage of this. Motherfucker has zero shame in lying to workers, telling them that his presidency will make their lives better, and then never say how that will happen. His platform is “trust me, I’m a rich guy.”
The thing is that according to liberal ideas, the economy IS doing great.
Anyone to the left of Joe Biden recognizes that it isn’t, but liberals are the majority of the democratic party. To them the “traditional” economic markers are the most important things to track, and those numbers all look good.
“Liberal” economic ideas have nothing to do with the living conditions of the average person, they have everything to do with the capitalist class being happy and “opportunity” being available to the working class. That’s why the economy in the 1910s could be described as healthy even though people were literally forced to live in tenement houses and were being locked into factories. That’s also why many liberal economists say that it’s possible for unemployment to get too low, because apparently that’s considered bad.
The question Joe Biden is answering when he says the economy is doing well is “are the capitalists happy and continuing to expand capitalism to extract as much wealth as possible from the working class,” and right now that answer is clearly yes.
Liberals don’t want employment to get too low, because that would give the working class actual negotiating power over working conditions without even having the need for unions.
I think that sentiment is shared by politicians on both sides of the aisle. Just look at all the smear articles from the last few years claiming workers are greedy and ultimately the problem.
Yeah, Republicans are not even pretending to care about workers. I wasn’t implying they’re better in any aspect.
the problem with capitalism is eventually you run out of poor people’s money
That’s certainly the problem I’m having
It’s been that way since I graduated highschool back in the early 2000s. It just been getting worse since then.
about $800 last year for auto insurance
this year the number is about $1400
same vehicle same city
income stayed the same if not lower due to less work
new vehicles are more than likely unaffordable seeing how expensive a ten year old vehicle is
how the f#%k are we not in the streets
We’re not in the streets because a new sucker is born every day.
Wow, and I thought my car insurance of €170 was expensive this year!
My rent eats 45% of my income. Ya im going to the cheapest car dealership and buying a used car that runs.
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I see so many people driving brand new vehicles, new jeep trucks and grand wagoneers. These vehicles start at like 60k and go up to like 100k. Yeah people can’t afford them, but they’re still buying them. They’re thinking it’s a tomorrow problem.
Ya loans are the way most people do these things. Or they love out of their vehicles. It’s crazy. Meanwhile I’m driving a vehicle from year 2000 that I’ve owned outright since 2009. Most I spent on a major repair was 6k. I’d be blown away if my total cost of ownership, including maintenance was over 25k. Unless you’re making 160k a year with no dependents I don’t know how these people do it.
probably making minimum payments on the debt and then trading up every few years - they’ve been in debt so long that it’s normal.
Or leasing.
This aligns with average in other countries.
Why do you need to buy new
Well certainly some people need to buy new. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be used to cars to buy.
Because covid destroyed the car supply chain and made new cars basically the same price as used
In some cases, used is actually more expensive because it’s available that day, whereas ordering a vehicle still takes 6+ weeks
And now we have strikes so we camt get new cars or parts to fix the cars we have. Fun times.
Strikes help the workers afford shit they wouldn’t otherwise, and has positive consequences for others in the same class
Yup, and that’s why I’m still driving my 15+ yo cars. I’d like to replace the gas guzzler, but I’m not spending $40k or whatever to do so.
Warranty. Safety features. Advanced tech.
You can have that all with an older car. As far as I’m concerned, tech has regressed since car manufacturers decided to go touchscreen.
Safety technology absolutely has not regressed, new cars are safer than ever, and generally make the roads safer by A) having more assists and alerts for drivers and B) having better crash structure resulting in less fatal accidents.
And headlights that blind everyone around you
And front facing cameras because you can’t see what’s right in front of you in today’s huge ass trucks
Lies. advanced butt fans. Advanced lack of fuel economy.
Idc about any of the things mentioned, but anti-consumer, anti-repair bs has been increasing steadily for many years
Occupy Wall Street should have gone full French revolution.
Until reporters found the absolute dumbest people they could find for interviews and successfully spun the entire narrative as OWS being a bunch of looneys.
It wasnt even as bad at that point.
B-but nobody wants to work! But they can’t get to work with no car! And they can’t go to work from the house they can’t live in because the rent is $3k. B-but nobody wants to work!
I actually bought a new car earlier this year and am now looking to get rid of it and buy an old car that has a head unit and doesn’t track everything I do.
That’s ok, you only need 5% to buy new cars annually.
When I visited the US 80% also drove a car with dents.
When I was growing up in the US south we had a lot of retirees from up north who’d brag about how everyone where they were from knew how to drive in the snow and ice and we were pansies for not wanting to. I spent a few years working up north and those mofos have cars that look like they’ve been through a demolition derby coming out of every winter. They don’t know how to drive on it but they try anyway.
Perhaps organising a society where buying a new car is an expected thing that the typical person does is not optimal?
Yeah, fixing the financial reasons would be a nice bonus, but the root cause is the absolute failure that was/is/will continue to be the suburban experiment
All I want to buy is a ticket for a new train
fuck cars
Not optimal for who? It sure as hell sounds optimal for capitalism!
