RUNNAWAYICEBERG

The next mayor has a tall task but the importance of who the city selects will be felt for decades. The city practically has the chance to start over, they have to get it right. If they fail to curb the inequality again and let the big money real estate investors dictate the city’s path….it’s doomed.

NYC brings back so many great memories from the 90s into early 2000s, great place. Sure it has issues and the pandemic exposed it but it will come back better. Can’t wait to take the fam there once it is alive again. There is nothing like it.

You claimed from that pic they are junkies. I merely stated differently. The topic changed away from capitalism though, once you wrongfully made those assumptions. ‘anti-capitalism’ states have homeless problems so the issue isn’t a capitlaism vs socialist debate and I think the pic was just a funny meme that takes on a life of it’s own. In fact, there are plenty of European countries with better social programs than the US with a higher homeless rate, like Sweden for example.

73/42 in Southbury CT USA. A definite top 10er. Full COC.

Good for you. Not everyone is the same. Take your own beliefs of that particular situation out of it and look at it with some compassion. Up to 45% are said to suffer from mental health issues, and roughly 11% of the 630k+ homeless are veterans. It’s not all junkies and/or people who are just aren’t that motivated to be better, as you claim.

You’d be surprised how much of it is mental health first and foremost, and, not just being an addict. But hey, keep making assumptions.

Yea. They don’t understand the downside of humid heat yet. All they think about June to August is pool. When I was a kid it was more enjoyable. When you’re grown and have more responsibilities, it fades. Give them some yard work to do during the next heatwave and let’s see their reactions then lol.

We love visiting big cities. I’ve been to so many of them, easily over 50, and not only in the states but abroad too….Europe, Central America.

Anyone who thinks the free market will solve all is stubbornly obtuse just as much as those who think a welfare stare would. The truth is somewhere in the middle. The problem is we have oligarch capitalism and abused social safety nets. We’ve been going in the wrong direction with both.

Beauty.

https://econreview.berkeley.edu/would-free-market-capitalism-make-people-wealthy-and-free/ https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/free-market-regulation.asp https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/glossary/criticism-free-market/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/fee.org/articles/problems-the-free-market-cant-solve/amp

Ha…see my post above.

Yea. Our government was also responsible for the drug trafficking trade from Central Am by arming the rebels in exchange. The crack epidemic was a direct result of this but they turned a blind eye when it was an inner city problem until it started affecting suburbia.

I just brush off the word stabs from some, it means nothing.

Blame the consumer apparently lol.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/prospect.org/api/amp/power/libertarian-delusion/ A third grotesque case of market failure is the income distribution. In the period between about 1935 and 1980, America became steadily more equal. This just happened to be the period of our most sustained economic growth. In that era, more than two-thirds of all the income gains were captured by the bottom 90 percent, and the bottom half actually gained income at a slightly higher rate than the top half. By contrast, in the period between 1997 and 2012, the top 10 percent captured more than 100 percent of all the income gains. The bottom 90 percent lost an average of nearly $3,000 per household. The reason for this drastic disjuncture is that in the earlier period, public policy anchored in a solid popular politics kept the market in check. Strong labor institutions made sure working families captured their share of productivity gains. Regulations limited monopolies. Government played a far more direct role in the economy via public investment, which in turn stimulated innovation. The financial part of the economy was well controlled. All of this meant more income for the middle and the bottom and less rapacity at the top. Clearly, a more equal economy performed better than a more unequal one. Families with decent incomes could recycle that purchasing power back into the economy. Well-regulated financial institutions could do their job of supplying investment capital to the real economy rather than enriching their own executives with speculative schemes-ones that left the rest of the society to take the loss when the wise guys were long gone. In the case of labor, there was not a single, "accurate," market-determined wage for each job, but a wide range of possible wages and social bargains that would attract competent workers and steadily increase the economy's productivity.

Because when the rich fats have control, this happens: More tepid growth in the income of middle-class households and the reduction in the share of households in the middle-income tier led to a steep fall in the share of U.S. aggregate income held by the middle class. From 1970 to 2018, the share of aggregate income going to middle-class households fell from 62% to 43%. Over the same period, the share held by upper-income households increased from 29% to 48%. The share flowing to lower-income households inched down from 10% in 1970 to 9% in 2018. These trends in income reflect the growth in economic inequality overall in the U.S. in the decades since 1980.

I’ve never seen anything like this in my 20yrs in supply chain. Folks who have done this for 40yrs+ say the same. It sounds like a bizarre problem that should be easily solved…”just put the blocks back in their proper places.” But Unless demand slows down enough or empty containers can be magically teleported, it will take many months. We started seeing the problem back in Feb but it has really exasperated the past two months. It’s projected to continue thru the summer too and no one knows when it will ease up.

Mostly, yes. Containers were being displaced all over the world as the shutdowns happened. Now with demand way up, supply is severely lagging because of how much we rely on Asian imports...there’s just not enough containers in the right places to keep the flow going. We typically import around 1500 containers/mo but could only book 400 in May and 700 in June (after paying a premium to secure an extra 300). Shipping companies are trying to recoup their losses from last year and they have all the leverage…a 20ft container ran about $2500 pre pandemic for a Shanghai to Savannah route but it’s running around $10k now.

Import supply is crippled with worldwide container shortages, jammed ports, and skyrocketing ocean freight costs. The biggest importer in the world, Walmart, is having difficulty securing containers. Capacity is a huge problem with no end in sight. The good thing to come out of this is the smarter American companies are beginning to realize the benefits of producing domestically again. The penny pinching savings from closing plants in the US to abuse cheap Asian labor has begun to wane. It will take a while but we also need congress to eventually strap on their big boy pants and incentivize American companies who benefit from American consumers to produce in America. It creates jobs and improves supply chain efficiency. But that may mean CEOs and shareholders may actually have to make a little less millions and billions to make this change sustainable. Crazy idea, I know.

Nothing beats the 80/50 blue sky warmth. One can do any outdoor activity they desire.

It’s probably a 10pm onward invasion, yea.