Zohran, What is best in life?

“To crush the oligarchs, see affordable housing, and hear the lamentations of landlords.”

In many races, DNC support after the primary is not so important. Remember gerrymandering? How party establishments have generally set up the districts along party lines?

Like I said, it’s been a minute, but BYD isn’t available in the US; looks like Mercedes offers 4 SUV/crossover models starting at $55k and 2 sedans starting at $75k; Kia is all SUV; Hyndai has one sedan and two crossovers. Ford is crossover/truck; GM is all SUVs. More than there were, but non-Tesla sedans are still the exception. I’d love to see BYD in the US. Love to see KEI in the US.

It’s been a while since I looked at EVs, but my (US) experience at the time was that Tesla was one of very few companies offering sedan-shaped EVs. The US market was full of crossovers & SUVs (like Rivian), and that form factor seems antagonistic to many of the things that make high performance, long range EVs: terrible aerodynamics, high body weight, poor visibility… They’re big enough to fill will batteries to compensate for the poor efficiency, but that just raises costs.

Don’t really have taxes at that income level. In the US, ACA pays full insurancne premium (currently, that will change if the billionaire tax cut passes), and ‘wellness checkups’ are $0 out-of-pocket by law. Most of my dinner recipes are around $2.50/serving at 900 calories. I’m able to walk most places I go, but car insurance is $100/month. Don’t feel like dating, raising kids, or making big vacations. I average something around $7-800/month on ‘entertainment’ like video games & hobby materials, which leaves $300-400 savings. $350/month is 10%, which is around 2x the US average savings rate (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT). Savings for emergencies like insurance deductible and for retirement.

But that’s my point: my housing probably isn’t everyone’s idea of ‘comfortable,’ my diet is pretty carb-heavy and probably not everyone’s idea of ‘comfortable.’ I like it, though. It feels comfortable to me; I don’t consciously restrict any of my spending - all the numbers I’ve given you are post hoc analysis. I’ve been doing it for a decade.

I don’t dispute people feeling like they need $150k to live comfortably. Lots of people want kids. Lots of people want to take a nice vacation time-to-time. There’s a massive propaganda machine out there trying to convince everyone that they need just a little more than they have right now to feel good about themselves, and I believe that propaganda starts wearing thin by the time you get to $150k, $200k. They’ve got to live their life; I can only live mine.

That’s what I said: “Comfortable” depends on feelings. Once you know what feels comfortable, then you can quantify.

Well, then I can say that $40k is definitely “comfortable.” That’s $1500 rent, $300/month food, another $200 gas/elec/internet, a thousand left over for odds & ends and another couple hundred saved.

Pretty much my budget in a MCOL major metro.

You can’t define “comfortably” without feeling.

Bibi’s stopped taking his calls.

I think he signed this one just to prove that he can spell his own name right.

Cancer research and Medicaid.

Agree. Top 10% is one of the IRS/census bureau’s breakouts, but it doesn’t really capture the scope of inequality. IMO, wealth number - $2M - sounds a lot richer than the income number - $250k - especially on the internet, where people skew younger. 10% income is about 3x median. 10% net worth is about 10x median. But in a country where 16% of people are over 65, a lot of those $2M people are retirees. Top 10% of either could easily be your neighbor, and you’d probably not notice.

The 1% numbers are much more extreme. 1% by wealth is $11M; by income $790k. The 1% threshold is about as far from the 10% threshold as the 10% threshold is from median, by either measure.

Article’s not talking about wealth, though: it uses income. Top 10% combined household income is about $250k, and they account for about 25% of all income earned. Household income could be two salaries plus investments.

A huge amount of waste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67i4-_sXGcQ Claims $400/year, $35/month.

Lemmy needs a new community: Cops or Criminals? Just pictures of thugs in SUVs & you have to guess whether they’re a cartel hit squad or ICE.

In an election where the margin of victory is 1%, it only takes 1-in-50 racists to throw the election.

Sure, Kamala wasn’t hugely popular with internet Democrats. Sure, running as a centrist annoyed all the people looking for change. The whole Israel thing. Voters overlooked all of that with Biden in 2020, when he wasn’t hugely popular with internet Democrats & came with a 50 year legacy of supporting some atrocious policies.

This is terrible. Those guys make the_best accident reconstruction videos. https://www.youtube.com/user/USCSB

If you’re doing 1-a-day, a rice cooker can be a great simplifier. Throw a measure of rice & your protein into the cooker, some rough chopped veg if you like. 2 minutes prep. While it cooks, make some kind of a sauce - yogurt or mayo make great bases, just add whatever spices you like; gochujang or miso thinned out with some soy sauce, citrus, or vinegar. When the rice & protein is done, pour on the sauce, add some pickled veg if you like. 800-1000 calories, depending on how much fat is in your sauce, one cooking pot, one eating bowl. 20 minutes start to finish.

Not exactly the same, but I have an air quality sensor I use to turn the HVAC fan mode on/off to filter. Also a CO2 sensor. Both wired to the RPi I run homeassistant on. The HVAC is controlled via T6 pro Z-wave now, but I started out with a Zooz Zen15 switch to just turn the whole thing on/off.

The CO2 sensor has been pretty stable for 4(?) years - it has an internal recalibration routine that resets its baseline based on the past week’s data. My readings range from 400-ish with the windows open & fans to 1200+ cooking with gas in the sealed house. Averages around 800 with the AC or 500 with the furnace (which exhausts combustion gasses). The aq sensor has been replaced once after 3-4(?) years. It reads exactly what purpleair says is outside with the windows open, drops to 0-2 µg/m3 with the filters running, spikes to 300+ cooking.

Point, laugh, and move on. They’re there to make you feel uncomfortable, draw catcalls and insults, but above all to be taken seriously. Treat them like a joke and, if they don’t actually skulk away, you’ll at least put everyone else at ease.