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“The democrat party is the communist party”.

“The socialists are taking over the democrat party”.

“Mamdani will unleashed the greatest crime wave since the 1990’s”.

“The people who are going to pay for Mamdani’s spending spree are packing up and moving to Florida”.

“The democrat party is the communist party”.

“The socialists are taking over the democrat party”.

“Mamdani will unleashed the greatest crime wave since the 1990’s”.

Now, now. The network that paid over three-quarters of a BILLION dollars for lying wouldn’t lie, would they?

“The democrat party is the communist party”.

I heard a talking head on the news last night howling that Mamdani wants "free child care", "free transportation", and more free stuff. Of course, the guy was a Repub, and Repub dogma says everything must be rationed by ability to pay. Compared to today's GOP, everyone else is a "communist".

Steve

The more I think about it the more brilliant I find Mamdani’s pledge. Free buses, free day care, and a rent freeze are an immediate and huge injection of income into poor and working lads families in NYC without a direct cash transfer. It is an example of alleviating poverty by expanding the social wage. It’s the kind of thing democrats should be advocating for everywhere.

I only read one article, but I'm sure the right is squealing about the reference to Debs in his speech yesterday (assuming any of them are educated enough to know who he was).

I'm sorta indifferent. I live in AZ. Not NYC. What goes on there doesn't matter much out here. He won the election, so the people voted for him. That's all I really need to know. That right-wing heads are exploding is a bit amusing, I must admit.

Free buses, free day care, and a rent freeze

The cost of day care is what keeps a lot of people out of the work force. The cost of transportation, and poorly designed public transport systems, are another impediment to work.

A few years ago, the local Detroit news did a piece on a Detroit man, and the ordeal he had, trying to get from his home in Detroit, to his job in the 'burbs, because he could not afford to get his old car fixed.

As usual, the media wildly exaggerated his commute. He didn't walk 20 miles every day. He had a 10 mile commute, each way, and walked, a couple miles, to make bus connections, because the different bus lines did not intersect.

Detroit Man walks 20 mile a day work commute, inspires donations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBJz1kNsgyk

The news, over the last week or so, has talked about people who work in Manhattan, and drive a 2 hour commute, from PA, because they can't afford to live in NYC.

Steve

Free buses, free day care, and a rent freeze are an immediate and huge injection of income into poor

I’d be careful of the law of unintended consequences.

Free buses led to homeless using them as living quarters when it was tried in LA during the pandemic. I don’t know what the mechanism would be to prevent this, but it needs to be addressed, lest the buses become *less* popular, not more.

Free daycare is similar. I expect it would be overwhelmed in short order. I have a neighborhood example, where a young woman (whose husband was serving in Iraq) agreed to host some (latch-key) kids after school until their parents got home from work. Within a couple months she had more than a dozen showing up because other parents heard about it and took advantage (and she couldn’t say no, apparently), and she was wholly unprepared for anything of the sort. (It began as a favor to one neighbor.)

And “rent freeze” comes with its own set of problems, because landlords have costs that are not frozen. Maintenance is the only realistic way they have to cut, and they will. Rent control seems laudable, but comes with its own set of issues.

I’m not sure if a “government board of reasonableness” is the answer to a lot of this, but easy sounding solutions are, well, easy. Solutions that don’t have deleterious long term implications, not so much.

Free buses led to homeless using them as living quarters when it was tried in LA during the pandemic. I don’t know what the mechanism would be to prevent this, but it needs to be addressed, lest the buses become *less* popular, not more.

When I visited Seattle in 94, city busses were free, downtown. The Boeing HQ on East Marginal Way, was outside of "downtown" so I had to pay for that trip. How did free downtown busses work for Seattle?

Free daycare is similar. I expect it would be overwhelmed in short order....Within a couple months she had more than a dozen showing up because other parents heard about it and took advantage

Have you checked the cost of daycare? From the Google net sifter:

The annual cost of daycare in Metro Detroit varies by center and age of the child, but generally falls
between $12,000 and $15,000 per year for center-based care, while family child care costs are slightly lower, often around $9,000 per year. Factors like the type of care, child's age, and specific provider influence the final price

What is the point of taking that job at Walmart, if most of your wages go to paying for daycare? Of course the woman that offered to do it for free was swamped. But if there was an organized program, across the city, with sufficient capacity, so everyone could work, and not worry about their spawn's welfare, or the cost of daycare?

Steve

What is the point of taking that job at Walmart, if most of your wages go to paying for daycare? Of course the woman that offered to do it for free was swamped. But if there was an organized program, across the city, with sufficient capacity, so everyone could work, and not worry about their spawn's welfare, or the cost of daycare?

Steve
****

Well, the good news is that eventually less people will have jobs - so they wont need day care.

Also, dont complain. Days of two married parents, and only one needing to work - were racist patriarchy days.

Now, we're more modern.

It's better.

Look around.

The more I think about it the more brilliant I find Mamdani’s pledge. Free buses, free day care, and a rent freeze are an immediate and huge injection of income into poor and working lads families in NYC without a direct cash transfer. It is an example of alleviating poverty by expanding the social wage. It’s the kind of thing democrats should be advocating for everywhere.

From a political perspective, absolutely. This is why I think the Democrats' biggest political problem over the last two decades or so has been climate change. Voters support the Democratic position on climate change ("We should do something,"), but they do not in any way share the Democratic priority on climate change ("It's the most important thing.")

So when the BBB got turned into the IRA and the BIL, and the Democrats were forced to actually prioritize and pick/choose which things got included and which things got cut, the majority of the direct spending and tax provisions that survived were all for green endeavors. Child care, permanent ACA subsidies, universal pre-K...all got dumped so there would be money left for the clean measures. The bill was primarily a climate bill, both on the tax and spending side.

That hurt in two ways. First, as you point out, there are lots of other things that cost money but have an immediate impact - while all the green stuff involved (mostly) capital investments and infrastructure that takes years to actually manifest. And second, most voters want climate change to be "solved" but rank it as vastly less important than almost any other issue - which has not been the position of the Democratic party for quite a while.

Of course, Goofy's point is well taken. These positions are great for campaigning on, but they're a bear to actually implement. For example, there's a reason why even transit advocates are cautious about getting ride of fares, and whether buses can be both "fast and free," as Mandami promised. Making them free guts the budget for the bus program, dramatically induces people to switch from walking and biking to riding the bus (even for very very short trips), and makes the bus a free place to sit and get out of the weather for a while. So the service becomes free, but you run the risk of landing at a "you get what you pay for" degraded level of quality.

How did free downtown busses work for Seattle?

I don’t know and would be interested to hear how they dealt with it. I would guess the homeless problem in LA is more similar to New York’s than it is to Seattle, but I really don’t know.

Have you checked the cost of daycare?

Not lately but I know it’s extremely high. That said, there is some room between “completely free” and “reasonably priced.” Again, I don’t know what that solution is, but it probably doesn’t lend itself to a sound bite slogan.

My sister, tasked with the same problem (with her own children) 40 years ago, started a daycare in a church basement and ran it for 30 years. The price was modest, the church did not charge for the space, she got donations as well as whatever the price was for the service, and she eventually passed it along to others to run when she retired. She took a modest salary, and one of the conditions with the church was that there would be no religious instruction given, although she is the church organist and “a believer”. That is, the daycare was open to all denominations at a low price, and its was quite successful. I don’t know how you replicate that on a scale that matters, but it can be done.

So the service becomes free, but you run the risk of landing at a "you get what you pay for" degraded level of quality.

Make the buses free and they turn into rolling homeless camps.

Also, dont complain. Days of two married parents, and only one needing to work - were racist patriarchy days.

Patriarchy for sure. My mom talked about one of her bosses, fluffing himself up, boasting his wife had not worked a day, since he married her. My maternal grandmother was pretty forward thinking, for her time. She demanded that each of her three girls learn a skill "so they would not be dependent on a man". My mom went to business school, and worked as a secretary. My aunt Dorothy was a teacher. My aunt Pat had a college degree in occupational therapy, tho she didn't work for long after marrying. To my uncle Dale's credit, he quit his electrician's job in Kalamazoo, because Pat was hired for an OT job in Cleveland. So they moved to Cleveland, for Pat's job, and Dale found a job wiring control panels on Electro Motive locomotives, then moved to Western Electric, also in Cleveland.

Thing is, prior to the 1950s, the wife/mother thing was close to a full time job. Doing laundry, with a wringer washer, and hanging everything up on a clothesline, then ironing everything, was an hours long project, that my mom and grandmother both worked into the early 60s. I was still washing dishes by hand, until about 30 years ago. I don't even want to think what it was like to clean house, without a vacuum. Things that used to take hours, I now accomplish by pushing a button, then going to do something else, while the machine does the work.

Then there is the attitude of the "JCs". When I started at the pump seal company, in 78, everyone doing work similar to mine was male. With the exception of a couple draftsmen in Engineering, women were restricted to being secretaries and clerks. I was still doing about the same level of work when I retired, but I was the token man in a field otherwise entirely staffed by women.

Steve

It’s the kind of thing democrats should be advocating for everywhere.

I agree with albaby (and you). Yes, this is the sort of things Dems should have been pushing. At the same time, "free" can be problematic. Probably better to charge something for the services, but much less than they actually cost. The difference being made up in the city budget (taxes). Charge $1.50 for the bus, for example. Quite manageable, but not free.

Daycare could be huge. I recall seeing stories over the years of people opting out of work because daycare would have eaten the person's salary, so it wasn't worth it to go to work at all. I'm not sure "free" daycare would be an answer. I can foresee that being overwhelmed quickly. Maybe require companies of more than 50 employees to offer it as a benefit (like health insurance under the ACA; 50 seems like an arbitrary, but round, number). I think the benefits would outweigh the costs pretty quickly.

Maybe require companies of more than 50 employees to offer it as a benefit (like health insurance under the ACA; 50 seems like an arbitrary, but round, number). I think the benefits would outweigh the costs pretty quickly.

That would be a "burden" that the "JCs" would not want. So they would be motivated to not hire anyone with young spawn. Somehow, it sticks in my mind that the Oklahoma City Federal Building, the one blown up by white Christian boys, had a daycare center, but it was a government operation, so could do nice things for staff, that a "JC" would not.

yup, from the net sifter:

The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City had a daycare center that was destroyed in the 1995 bombing, which killed 19 children inside. The building was subsequently demolished and the site is now the location of the Oklahoma City National Memorial. There is no longer a federal building daycare center at that location

USians have been brainwashed that everything must be rationed by ability to pay. The inevitable result is that some people are left behind.

Steve

Daycare could be huge. I recall seeing stories over the years of people opting out of work because daycare would have eaten the person's salary, so it wasn't worth it to go to work at all. I'm not sure "free" daycare would be an answer.

Daycare is expensive because daycare is expensive. It's labor intensive and there's almost nothing that can be done to increase the productivity (in economic terms) of the facility. Little kids need a certain number of humans in the room with them, and the humans have to have a certain set of skills (and background checks and whatnot). Kids need space, and outdoor recreation opportunities, and food/snacks/toys and a place to nap, and other things that can't really be value-engineered out of the facilities. There's almost no possible way to reduce the costs of daycare. So the business suffers heavily from Baumol's cost disease.

There may be no solution. There are other industries that similarly suffer from the Baumol effect (older child education, medical services), but at least in those fields you can imagine how technology can be applied to make them more efficient (in the pure economic sense of output per worker), even in the near term. But for daycare? Hard to solve for that....

Daycare is expensive because daycare is expensive.

Sure. So is medical care. The ACA requires any company of 50 employees, or more, to offer medical coverage. The government could pass a similar requirement for daycare. Either on-site, or a reimbursement situation for private daycare. We're not talking about reducing costs, we're talking about employment benefit (or at least I am).

Seems pretty easy, really. The bigger concern is what the other poster mentioned: discrimination. Not hiring a person with children because of the required benefit. However, that can be at least partially addressed by prohibiting the asking of the question during the hiring process. You already can't ask -I believe- about medical conditions, political affiliations, sexual orientation, and a lot more. Just add that you can't ask about children, or plans for children.

We're shifting the burden of daycare, not reducing the cost.

One of the most important aspects of accurate pricing for the real costs of goods and services is conveying information about the relative value of those goods and services with respect to everything else in the economy.

The problem with Mamdani characterizing his various plans to provide goods and services at zero nominal cost to the end-users is that all of these good and services are far from "free."

Obscuring the real cost of his proposals (or any similar proposals from any other politicians) means the electorate will be less well equipped to make rational choices about the political allocation of scarce and very finite resources.

This is aside from other issues such as moral hazard, unintended consequences, and so forth.

When a politician falsely implies that a proposal has "zero cost," i.e. it's "free," among many other issues, that politician misrepresents the very real consequence that any resources expended to provide the "free" goods or services means something else is not getting paid for, that could otherwise be.

The bus fare might be "free" (i.e. zero cost to the end user). However--what is the impact if the lack of fare revenue lessens the funds available (for example) to properly maintain the "free" buses?

Like it or not, everything IS "rationed by the ability to pay".

If the city budget does not contain enough funding to pay for the "free" bus rides, then those rides will necessarily be rationed.

Further, if you prioritize "free" bus rides, which are not "free" at all, any funds you have spent providing the "free" bus rides (or "free" anything else) will be that much less funds available for a lesser priority--which will therefore be rationed.

Instead of "free" bus rides, Mamdani could have campaigned on "safe" bus rides.

He didn't.


Why not?

Careful with your nomenclature.

In 1994 in Seattle, the downtown bus rides you took at zero fare/zero charge to the end user were not at all "free."

They were paid for by some form of funding, probably state or local taxes of some sort.


The fact that ProGlibs would insist on using the obscurantist word "free" for valuable goods and services which are anything but--instead of more accurately characterizing these goods and services as "zero cost to the end user"--shows a striking degree of economic illiteracy.

), but they do not in any way share the Democratic priority on climate change ("It's the most important thing.")


And that's me. I resented that when Obama became President the first thing tackled was Climate Change and not Health Care. It seemed like we lost momentum by the time we got to healthcare and I thought it was more important than climate change, but we could work on climate change once healthcare was taken care of. It was vice versa. Now there may have been good reasons for doing that, but it wasn't apparent.

democrats: Don't call us a bunch of communists!

Also democrats, after hearing a bunch of commie ideas: Wow, those sound like great things to do!

You can't make them up.

You can't make them up.

You seem to manage.

Dope1 don't you know that the affordability crisis can be easily solved by simply electing a politician who declares that you can have "free" stuff?

I mean, Mamdani PROMISED to give the electorate FREE STUFF.

Doesn't that settle everything?

Daycare is expensive because daycare is expensive.

So is K-12 education, yet, this country managed to provide that, for decades, free, to the end user. I had to provide my own supplies, but did not need to buy books until Jr High and High School. That changed around 1969 or 70. Someone filed suit in Michigan, contending "free public education" should be "free". So, my last year of high school, books were provided, as they were when I was in elementary school, and we were issued notebook paper, pens and pencils.

I see now that, not only are the students again required to pay for books and supplies, but, at least some school districts charge a fee for each class taken. As we now have an openly, proudly, public education hostile regime, I expect those costs to the end user to escalate, as government funding is redirected to more "JC" tax cuts.

So, yes, free daycare as part of a return to free education could be an issue against the "ration everything by ability to pay" party.

Steve

I mean, Mamdani PROMISED to give the electorate FREE STUFF.

I know what you mean. I just hate it when politicians make promises and then don’t keep them like lowering groceries on day 1, releasing the Epstein files, only arresting undocumented criminals, end all the wars, etc.

So is K-12 education, yet, this country managed to provide that, for decades, free, to the end user.

Sure. But K-12 education is inarguably necessary, and is commonly provided (for free) by virtually every country on earth.

Child care, though, tends not to be - for the simple reason that there is almost always an alternative to having the child(ren) in a child care center. Care at home.

In some states, the annual cost of infant child care is about $20K per year. In that scenario wouldn't make sense for the state to pay that amount to pay a third party to care for an infant so that the parent could work, unless the parent is working for more than $20K per year. You could instead just give money to the parent instead, and let them stay home.

Child care isn't necessary for the child's development (unlike K-12 education) - it's necessary if the parent is going to be able to leave the child to go to work. Since child care is very expensive relative to other employment, and is only going to get more expensive relative to other employment over time, it is a really thorny question whether free child care is a societally beneficial practice compared to alternatives. Unlike K-12 education, which clearly is. Which is why almost no countries provide free child care for infants or very young children (<3 years old), and none of the four countries that do offer full time free child care:

https://www.unicef.org/innocenti/media/5431/file/U...

That's the reason why, unlike universal free public K-12 education, even the most generous rich countries don't have similar programs for early childhood childcare.

Child care, though, tends not to be - for the simple reason that there is almost always an alternative to having the child(ren) in a child care center. Care at home.

You can't care for the spawn at home, if you need to work all the time.

Thanks for that link. Some interesting tidbits.

In Figure 1, overall policies regarding childcare, the US ranks 40th, only topping Slovakia.

In several graphs, the US isn't even listed.

In Figure 9, cost of child care, as a percent of income, the cost in the single parent, low income, scenario, in the US is only exceeded by Slovakia, and Cyprus.

So here sits Shinyland: doesn't want to pay for Medicaid, or SNAP, tells people to get a job instead, but won't lift a finger to help people take care of their spawn, while they work the jobs the lack of assistance programs forces them to take.

Steve

Child care, though, tends not to be - for the simple reason that there is almost always an alternative to having the child(ren) in a child care center. Care at home.

You can't care for the spawn at home, if you need to work all the time.

This is typical in the Philippines. Young woman gets pregnant, guy disappears. She lives with parents, has the kids. Grandparents take over raising the kids and Mom goes to work, sending money home to grandparents to help with raising the kids. She get to visit them. If she get lucky, she finds a nice guy, and gets the kids back. If unlucky, the kids get raised by the GP and turn out great because they are raised with the old values.

This has all of the natural variations but is a common theme. If in the family both work, then another relative lives with them and takes care of the kids.

This has all of the natural variations but is a common theme. If in the family both work, then another relative lives with them and takes care of the kids.

That is the "traditional family values" model the GOP has been pushing, since the 80s, as a way to defund assistance programs, and give the "JCs" another tax cut. In Detroit, there are a lot of kids that are raised by their aunts or grandparents. Doesn't Vance talk about being raised by an aunt or grandparent, rather than his junkie mother? But a lot of aunts and grandparents need to work. So, who minds the spawn?

Steve

But for daycare? Hard to solve for that.

One way, I would think, would be for corporations to analyze their personnel turnover and see what portion of it might be attributable to “has small children.” Just as Henry Ford reduced his turnover by 75% with his $5-a-day gambit leading to less downtime, less training time, and better output, this might be a cost which could be absorbed and still lead to better productivity and a happier workforce.

It wouldn’t work on a small scale, probably, but a large building (the Murrah building in Kansas City!) might be able to support it both economically and ethically. Dunno. I’m still with the “free is a bridge too far” brigade, but there might be some position between “absolutely free” and “too high priced to matter” that would work.

One way, I would think, would be for corporations to analyze their personnel turnover and see what portion of it might be attributable to “has small children.” Just as Henry Ford reduced his turnover by 75% with his $5-a-day gambit leading to less downtime, less training time, and better output, this might be a cost which could be absorbed and still lead to better productivity and a happier workforce.

Oh, no doubt. Lots of companies offer on-site daycare as a perk. That's not what I was referring to in "solving for that." I was referring to solving for the ever-increasing cost of daycare, relative to the economy.

This is the Baumol effect, or Baumol's cost disease. The production of many (most?) goods and services in an economy can be made more efficient over time through the application of technology (which includes both equipment and developing better practices). IOW, productivity for most workers in an economy increases over time - you can get the same output with fewer worker-hours. Hence, the Green Revolution and the shift of most workers out of agriculture and into other areas of the economy.

However, for some specific things it is literally impossible for efficiency to improve. They will always require exactly the same amount of labor input no matter what happens. The classic example is a string quartet: it takes the same number of musicians to perform a string quartet today as in the 1600's. Link at bottom of post. Early childhood daycare isn't as pure an example as a string quartet, but it's pretty close. The youngest of children simply require a certain number of humans to care for them, and there's no way to really reduce that number through efficiency or technology.

What Baumol pointed out is that these sectors of the economy inevitably get much more expensive over time, because their input costs (mostly labor) keep going up as wages in the overall economy rise, but their productivity never does. Wages rise because other sectors of the economy (like manufacturing) get more efficient, and because of cross-elasticity of demand for labor, the wages of the low-efficiency sector have to rise as well - even though the sector isn't any more efficient.

This is why "stuff" gets cheap and "services" get more expensive as economies get richer and grow. Daycare is a service, and one that can't be made more efficient, so it's just going to get more and more expensive going forward.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

The classic example is a string quartet: it takes the same number of musicians to perform a string quartet today as in the 1600's.

And yet the wiki you cite provides arguments that productivity has increased with string quartets so I'm not sure it is that analogous.

"Gambling and Andrews pointed out in 1984 that productivity does go up with the size of the performance halls. Furthermore Greenfield pointed out in 1995 that far more people hear the performance due to advances in amplification, recording and broadcasting, so productivity has increased many-fold."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

Pete

That is the "traditional family values" model the GOP has been pushing, since the 80s, as a way to defund assistance programs, and give the "JCs" another tax cut

Yah, the GOP is co opting the normal default way, and it doesn't work well in the fishing villages along the coast, and in other areas in the PI. You can see kids with wasting, stunting, etc. in those villages along with TB, and you can see it in the barrios in the cities. The barrio kids sniff cheap solvent to stop the hunger pangs and it just gets worse. Malnutrition is common, but wasting is terrible. The body never really recovers, so you don't want a kid undernourished for a year. You can see the body, but the IQ has been dialed down too. We want to give kids a good chance, and that starts early, so we need to help that pregnant woman, see that she gets good prenatal care, and care after the child is born. SNAP and WIC are designed to do that. Then giving them a good meal at school means they get one good meal a day at least.

Free buses led to homeless using them as living quarters when it was tried in LA during the pandemic.

My understanding was that the homeless took shelter in buses, trains, and transit stations as the availability of shelter beds diminished during the pandemic, and social distancing policies limited capacity at traditional shelters. Not because of free buses, per se.

In some states, the annual cost of infant child care is about $20K per year. In that scenario wouldn't make sense for the state to pay that amount to pay a third party to care for an infant so that the parent could work, unless the parent is working for more than $20K per year. You could instead just give money to the parent instead, and let them stay home.

Short-term, yes.

But, in the long-term, the kid grows up. Then the stay-at-home parent has a huge gap in their resume, their skillset is rusty (or obsolete), and they will have great difficulty re-entering the workforce. By channeling that $20K to a child care center, you generate economic activity in the form of that child care center, PLUS the economic activity of the would-be SAH parent. I don't have data, and will defer if someone does, but I'm guessing that $20K generates more than it costs. Even if it's only a little (e.g. $2K extra), it's a positive investment.

That's the reason why, unlike universal free public K-12 education, even the most generous rich countries don't have similar programs for early childhood childcare.

It's difficult to compare to other nations because they have other programs/policies that we don't. For example, paid maternity AND paternity leave. And not just a couple of weeks, but several months (minimum of 4 months in France, for example). And they have healthcare, where we -mostly- don't. Parents receive a lot of help, where here they mostly don't. So more parents here struggle, and need some form of daycare so they can work just to survive. That's less the case overseas.

Short-term, yes.

But, in the long-term, the kid grows up. Then the stay-at-home parent has a huge gap in their resume, their skillset is rusty (or obsolete), and they will have great difficulty re-entering the workforce. By channeling that $20K to a child care center, you generate economic activity in the form of that child care center, PLUS the economic activity of the would-be SAH parent. I don't have data, and will defer if someone does, but I'm guessing that $20K generates more than it costs. Even if it's only a little (e.g. $2K extra), it's a positive investment.

Maybe. But unlike K-12 education, it's an investment in the job skills of the parent, not the educational needs of the child. We're willing, as a society, to impose financial burdens on the collective through taxes in order to make sure that kids get feed and clothed and educated. When the interest at stake is, "pay more money so that the parent doesn't have a few-year gap in their resume," it's less clear-cut. Which, again, explains why public education is universal among Western developed economies but almost none of them provide <3 childcare.

“Charge $1.50 for the bus, for example. Quite manageable, but not free.”

I’ve been reading a lot about the K shaped economy recently and I’m starting to think that it is creating a K shaped reality to go with it. I get that $1.50 a ride might seem like a nominal fee, but you can currently get a monthly pass for $132 or $66 if you’re income qualified. Assuming you’re qualified and you take two busses a day your “nominal fee” is a significant increase. By the way, you need to earn less that $24,500 a year to qualify for the discount as a single person.

Those of us who post on this site live in a different universe than those who would see free busses as a significant relief to household finances.

Swerve. This election is why I think the republicans need to end democracy before 2026. If the working class awakens to the possibility of a greatly expanded social wage, and votes for it as they did in NYC, the billionaire class is in trouble. The ONLY way the lives of working and middle class people improve in a context of increasing concentration of wealth and income is to tax that wealth and high income to invest in social wage goods. The wealthy know this, hence their current participation in and support for Trump. The concentration of wealth is incompatible with democracy.

This reminds me of a passage out of one of my favorite fantasy novels, Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce. A young boy the main character has taken on as a servant is talking to her about money.

"Folk've given me nobles jus' for holdin' the stirrup when they mounted up," Tobe informed her. "Some is so rich, a noble means as much to them as a copper bit to ol' Alvik."

O.K. let's say we agree that everyone in NYC should get free bus rides.

Would you at least agree that any one riding the bus should be:

1) properly dressed/minimally dressed; 2) polite and respectful to the other passengers; 3) have a minimal level of good hygiene; 4) not be loud and rambunctious to other passengers or to the driver? 5) Don't leave trash or litter or bodily fluids on the bus? 6) don't threaten or assault other passengers? 7) don't damage property while on the bus?

No charge, it's all free. I'll bet every citizen of NYC would applaud free bus rides assuming the free riders followed the above constraints.

No charge, it's all free. I'll bet every citizen of NYC would applaud free bus rides assuming the free riders followed the above constraints.


The first thing they’ll do in NYC is decide that paying bus and subway fare is racist. And no, they won’t ask for behavioral standards on either one.

That’s what Seattle did. All th buses became rolling drug dens and a driver was stabbed to death.

So, it's not really about subsidizing bus rides for the deserving needy people who simply can't afford to pay for whatever reason.

It's about enabling the destruction of civil order, chaos, and ultimate complete government control of everything.

The ProGlibs have no answer to it.

It's not about income inequality. It's not about helping those in poverty. It's about enabling bad behavior by the scumbags of society, most of whom are Democrats.

Not paying a bus fare is just anti-social behavior, just like all the other behavior issues I listed.

By telling these anti-social psychopaths they don't have to pay bus fare, the real message is: "There are no rules. Do whatever you want. Create chaos. Create fear. We will hold you to know standards of behavior whatsoever, be it paying your fair share for the bus ride, or for any other aspects of your behavior in society."

Swerve. This election is why I think the republicans need to end democracy before 2026.

Saw a piece on Pakman last night, speculating that his nibs might be fine with the shutdown, not want it to end. It sort of dovetailed with my speculation that Johnson is fine with the House being shut down, because he realizes Congress no longer has a role to play in the government. The shutdown is certainly every "JC's" moist fantasy: forcing Proles to work for free.

Trump PROVING he doesn’t give a DAMN about anyone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCUN8Qw8jeU

Remember the early 90s, when the "JCs" leveraged that mild recession to demand "give backs" from their Proles? It got to be a routine thing, take a pay cut, take a benefit cut, take another pay cut. I remember the news talking to one guy, whose employer had his hand out again. He said "it's like giving to the Community Chest. every year they are back for more".

I'm pretty sure that is what will happen when the Dems finally cave on the ACA subsidies. Next year, the regime will defund another program.

Steve...HBTT

It's about enabling the destruction of civil order, chaos, and ultimate complete government control of everything.

Oh God. Not this nonsense again.

One word to you, little marco:
(Or maybe two, depending on how you write it)):

Horseshit

Not this nonsense again.

I’ve put darco and Mope on mute for the time being. But it really is entertaining to see their quotes and the replies, I have to say.

I’ve put darco and Mope on mute for the time being. But it really is entertaining to see their quotes and the replies, I have to say.

Figured as much. You're another who thinks that righties should be tied to a chair and rhetorically punched all day long and can't understand why they wouldn't agree to that.

Sorry, I only reply to people I have a modicum of respect for. Toodles! <click>

Ismr409: I’ve put darco and Mope on mute for the time being. But it really is entertaining to see their quotes and the replies, I have to say.

I too have sent Marco off to play in the Trolls Club with Jedi and his many dopples. While it used to be entertaining to watch the black knight Dope1 so thoroughly humiliated by the evenhanded albaby1, it's now become boring and tedious.

...the real message is: "There are no rules. Do whatever you want. Create chaos. Create fear. We will hold you to know [sic] standards of behavior whatsoever, be it paying your fair share for the bus ride, or for any other aspects of your behavior in society."

Try taking a look at Trump one time. A good, hard, honest-to-God look. Then, reread your words above.

Listen the fact that you equate Trump with the boogey man is a psychological issue. Your problem and the problem of everyone else who has been brainwashed to focus their personal anxiety on a political figure.

Democrat policies impoverish and hollow out vibrant cities. They become crime ridden until everyone who can flee, does flee.

It would be nice to take the subway in NYC or any other urban area without having to constantly look over your shoulder. You can't. And it's getting a lot worse when someone like Mamdani basically tells criminals all commuters are now fair game for criminals.

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