True, true.

Edit: Just read your entire post history and ran a background check on you while I was at it. Had a look at your recent bank transactions through some clever social engineering as well just to be thorough. Tsk tsk tsk, you've said some questionable things here and there haven't you? -100 social credit points.

"Iron law of woke projection" as they call it.

That takes money and time believe it or not, as much as I do hope that's not the "permanent" solution.

In what world does the law care about how something "feels" to you? All you'd be doing by filing frivolous complaints is waste a few dollars worth of taxpayer money to make yourself feel better for five minutes. If you want to ban this practice then get involved politically.

I'm aware of the small-scale studies on UBI, but firstly I doubt they would be effective at larger scales, and secondly I don't find employment status on its own to be a good measure of productivity. Personally, if I could live reasonably comfortably without investing time and effort into acquiring valuable skills, I probably wouldn't have bothered going to university, let alone migrating to the US for better opportunities. I don't think it's a coincidence that countries with more "socialist" policies tend to stagnate economically, don't innovate as much and fail to remain competitive on the world stage. But of course correlation =/= causation. I would like to see UBI attempted at the scale of a country, but I'd rather see it from a distance than be roped into it.

Like I said in another comment, replacing bad spending practices with different ones is not much of an improvement. Entitlements (like social security, food stamps, housing assistance, etc.) are one of the top three expenditures of the federal government if I remember correctly, but there's a difference between having programmes to help people who need support, and disincentivising people from working and lowering the value of money by sending everyone a cheque, which screws the people that this is theoretically helping anyway.

I find it ironic that you mention military funding and pharmaceutical companies even though I generally agree with you, considering the last 3 or so years were spent shunning, demonizing, banning, and in some cases firing whoever was critical of Pfizer, Moderna & co. while they were, like you said, making record profits (from our taxes) while lying left and right and asking for more. And military funding? I am not a big fan either, but I'm willing to bet most Americans are in favour of all the aid we are sending to Ukraine, which wouldn't be possible without those investments. So I feel like people point at the spending in those areas pretty often, but when push comes to shove, whether it's thanks to government and media propaganda or simply from circumstances, the public is actually pretty wishy-washy about it. Who would propose cutting military spending in 2023, with even Zelenskyy seemingly laying out bait for World War III? Who would have said anything about pharmaceutical companies in 2021? Definitely not any politician who wanted to get or stay elected. Once federal debt becomes THE big concern, maybe that will change, but I don't expect that to happen any time soon.

Don't tell me you believe the government propaganda about inflation being caused solely by "supply chains" (which I will point out is a problem that was exacerbated by the government paying a lot of people for not working) and "Putin's war in Ukraine".

When you give most people money unconditionally, the value of money goes down, i.e. you get inflation. That is a tautology. Taken to the extreme, unconditional handouts decrease productivity and labour force participation. Can you guess what direction they have been trending in since 2020?

Temporary handouts may have been necessary at the beginning of the pandemic, but they were given to far too many people (I got some and definitely did not need it) and for far too long, and as a result now we're stagflating. I don't see how implementing such programmes permanently could be positive in any way when we have a perfect example of what it leads to right here, today.

Got it. And government inefficiency (or corruption) has been a constant everywhere I've lived. Unfortunately it's all quickly forgotten and there's hardly ever any accountability.

Giving random people money for nothing is the exact opposite of something with "provable community benefit". And the last 3 years have made that clear as day if it wasn't obvious enough without it. "things are expensive these days", so let's print more cash and make it worse, right? This project sounds like a waste of money, but what is actually needed in most of the western world is austerity, not replacing counterproductive mass spending with more mass spending.

Just gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps and give the mayor a firm handshake.

I can see how it might be interpreted that way. To be clear, I would agree that it is on the rise, but in my opinion the "anti-Nazi" movement (the nonsensical name-calling and dehumanizing of the right wing) is not helping with it at all, and in fact I would argue that it is creating more anti-semitism.

What does a march in Charlottesville that occurred years ago have to do with gun ranges in Pittsburgh, exactly? Assuming that is the event you are referring to.

Might as well stay locked up inside because a serial killer might be roaming around your neighbourhood.

I'm Jewish and my family emigrated to escape Nazism, and I find people like you who hallucinate Nazis everywhere to be absolutely insufferable. You think you're so cool and brave standing up to political extremism when all you're doing is helping trivialize it until no one takes it seriously anymore. I'd sooner be friends with Kanye West than with a so-called anti-fascist.

Yeah let's get rid of that and use wind and solar instead. Works great in Pittsburgh, and I didn't want heating in the winter anyway.

It seems true that the incidence of unusual weather events is increasing, but panicking over individual sudden changes in temperature, warmer/colder than normal temperature, unusual level of precipitation etc. is the modern equivalent of doomsayers predicting the apocalypse.

Sounds like confirmation bias. Just a few weeks ago I saw people claiming we'd never get a white Christmas again because of climate change, and we all know how that went. Now a cold snap followed by warm weather is worrying. Any change in weather conditions and any deviation from historical standards at any scale is concerning if you're looking for a reason to be concerned. I have lived in 3 different cities in the last decade or so and hear or read the same comments about the weather every year, either it's too cold or too warm, winter is too long or too short, weather too variable or not enough, etc.

I think it's interesting that very expensive areas like NY and LA only average a few years higher than Pittsburgh.

It would be interesting to see how it compares to the past decades, especially since it's hard to get an idea of how it correlates to the age of first-time homebuyers vs. people upgrading their homes.

Oh come on. Last week everyone was whining about how cold it was and I got downvoted for telling people to wear gloves and a coat. Now it's warm again and some are still finding a reason to complain. I for one enjoyed the white Christmas, spent a good amount of time outside while it was uber cold, and enjoyed the warm weather this week. Next month when it's cold again people will be bitching in no time.

"This year" huh? Interesting.

Mind giving the address so we can confirm that it hits all the checkboxes? Hard to believe when you can't remember the year you bought it otherwise.

Too bad you deleted your post calling me a locust for being an immigrant, that was a fun one.

Right. I just bought a house but I don't know what I'm talking about. Fuck off.

I'm sure you can find plenty listings that look good, as I did before I went to see them in person and noticed the issues. If avoiding places that are on a busy road, that have a basement with water issues or obvious structural problems is picky, then I guess I'm picky.

My house is just 1000 square feet, has poor insulation, was built more than 70 years ago. Pretty sure I'm not picky.

The only way your numbers work out in my experience are if you can afford a large downpayment, buy something that needs significant work, or in an unattractive neighbourhood. Your loan would have to be under 170k and I couldn't find anything worth considering listed under 200k.

You're not getting that for $1100/mo at current interest rates. I bought a few months ago. 2 bedrooms, no garage. Mortage alone is higher than that, throw in taxes and utilities and it's closer to $2000/month. Not to discourage people from buying, but today is very different from this time last year.

You're right, but it's still much better than most other US cities where you almost need to be a dual 6-figure income couple to get an actual house.

Too late, I'm here.