Mostly Harmless

being poor in the US still makes you rich by some global standards, but often times The American Experience is like..... you're a passenger locked in the baggage hold of a very long train that's going very fast. and the people driving the train are running it off the rails and shouting CHOO CHOO MOTHERFUCKERS CHOO CHOOOOOOOOO as they thoughtlessly bulldoze this train through everything in its path. you want very badly to get off the train or bludgeon the conductors with a crowbar, because you don't like where it's going, but you're handcuffed in a duffel bag and the conductors have barricaded themselves in the engine cars with all the food, medicine, and tools that could be used to help you out.

To be sure, most Mormons aren’t Nazis and don’t have favorable views of Nazis, but they are about as reactionary as Nazis, particularly with their obedience to the church hierarchy. Mormons like the conservative who hates everyone the fascists hate, but hates the fascists because “I’m an American, and we Americans love democracy and hate fascists,” obviously knowing nothing about, say, Chile in 1973, or how NATO was totally cool all that time working with Spain while Franco was still in charge, or how American industrialists coordinated with the Nazis before the war, or literally anything about the deeper history of America and fascism. But whether they know how fascist they are or not, they’re comfortable doing fascism, and a hiccup away from realizing they really do fundamentally agree with fascism, so long as their “prophet” is in charge.

A small excerpt from one of Joseph Smiths “revelations”

they also own the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii and several elementary and secondary schools in mexico and the pacific islands. given the information previously provided in this post, this is particularly alarming.

during the obama romney election the leaders of the church sent out a letter to be read in every congregation that was like...remember to vote in a way that god would appreciate or else :) he may be upset w you :)

they also have $32 billion in business assets that they handle through church-owned finance companies (look up Deseret Management Corporation) so they don’t have to report their expenses. their holdings include swaths of land in utah, america’s 14th largest radio chain, and utah’s largest newspaper. oh and they’re just sitting on SO MUCH FUCKING LAND WHY DO HTYE OWN SO MUCH LAND????

The authors estimate an additional $219 billion in savings from reduced “administrative overhead” that the current decentralized system creates, including “the elimination of redundant corporate functions and the truncation of the top-heavy salary architecture of health insurance corporations.” For instance, the plan would replace dozens of health insurance executives, many of whom make well over $20 million a year, with one administrator paid the same salary as the current Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Finally, letting the national Medicare system negotiate pharmaceutical prices would save about $180 billion, according to the analysis.

Galvani’s $3 trillion estimate is somewhat lower than the annual spending estimates produced by other observers, including the libertarian Mercatus Center ($3.3 trillion per year) and the more centrist-oriented Urban Institute ($3.4 trillion per year) and RAND Corporation ($3.9 trillion).

The child naively believes that everything should be fair and everyone should be honest, that only good should prevail, that everybody should have what they want and there should be no pain or sadness. The child believes the world should be perfect and is outraged to discover it is not.

And the child is right.”

Don't buy into overpopulation theories. The Earth has enough for all, and we have the capabilities to provide for everyone.

Demand is not the issue, supply chains are.

https://overpopulationisamyth.com/

https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2019/mar/9/how-racist-myths-built-population-growth-bogey-man

https://www.pop.org/debunking-the-myth-of-overpopulation/

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-overpopulation-myth

Another video explaining why population isn’t the problem

“Why you shouldn’t obsess about “overpopulation”“

“I’m an environmental journalist, but I never write about overpopulation. Here’s why.”

which comes with this handy graph that shows the poorest people contribute the least to carbon emissions

Embroidery Hoops

Shimunia on Etsy

Not to sound like a Crazed Communist~! here.

But if you have $131 billion you can probably afford air conditioning and regular bathroom breaks for everyday Americans that work in your stores. 

You’re still going to be ridiculously rich anyway.

Disabled people should have to work their way out poverty and not simply be taken out of it by state financial assistance, Iain Duncan Smith has said.

The Work and Pensions Secretary said it was not the role of government to pay the disabled enough to stop them being poor and that the correct way to escape poverty was by working.

“We don’t think of people not in work as victims to be sustained on government handouts. No, we want to help them live lives independent of the state,” he told the annual Conservative party conference in Manchester.

“We won’t lift you out of poverty by simply transferring taxpayers’ money to you. With our help, you’ll work your way out of poverty.”

Mr Duncan Smith argued that many sick and disabled people wanted to work and that the Government should give them support to find jobs and make sure the welfare system encouraged them to get jobs.

The Work and Pensions Secretary criticised what he dubbed Labour’s “something for nothing culture”, and also dismissed protests against his policies, which his party’s conference has been subject to.

In his wide-ranging speech, Mr Duncan Smith also criticised the old Employment Support Allowance benefit for signing people off work when they were judged by doctors as too sick to work.

“The ESA has Labour’s essential mistake at its heart – that people are passive victims. Of course if you treat people as passive that’s what they’ll become,” he said.

“It’s no wonder, when the system makes doctors ask a simplistic question: are you too sick to work at all? If the answer is yes, they’re signed off work – perhaps for ever.”

The disability charity Scope said it agreed that disabled people needed better help to get into work, but warned that cutting financial support would actually undermine this goal.

“The Secretary of State is right to say that many disabled people can, and want to, work. If we are going to halve the disability employment gap, we need to remove the barriers disabled people still face when finding, staying in and progressing in work,“  said Mark Atkinson, the organisation’s interim chief executive.

“However, we are deeply concerned that lowering the financial support unemployed disabled people receive, will push people further from the workplace. Those in the Work Related Activity Group who receive Employment Support Allowance are disabled people who’ve been independently assessed as being unfit for work. It is not a passive benefit. Everyone in the Group must take steps towards finding work.”

The PCS trade union, which represents civil servants, said Mr Duncan Smith had “fundamentally failed in his job”, however.

“How Iain Duncan Smith, who was fundamentally failed in his job, has remained in his post is a political mystery that will confound pundits for generations to come,” the union’s general sectetary Mark Serwotka said.

“Universal credit has been a textbook case of how not to overhaul public services and his cruel cuts to social security support for unemployed, sick and disabled people bring shame on the UK as a civilised nation.“

The Work and Pensions Secretary’s policies on disability have faced sustained criticism in recent years.

It was announced in August that the United Nations is investigating the British Government over alleged human rights abuses by his department and programme.

He has also been lambasted for closing Remploy factories, the scrapping of the Independent Living Fund, cuts to payments for a disability Access To Work scheme and cuts to Employment and Support Allowance.

Fitness to work tests have also been the subject of much disquiet, with critics labeling them unfair, arbitrary, and bureaucratic.

The Government’s so-called “bedroom tax” also primarily hits disabled people, with around two thirds of those affected by the under-occupancy penalty being disabled.

Everyone in the pictures above would have been an example of a “passive victim”, right Iain?

We’re about to enter 2020 and the Queen is handing out titles to reward a man responsible for the deaths of vulnerable people.

Fuck this country.

Fuck the monarchy.

My Dad owned a business my whole life. It was profitable, but it didn’t expand. I ask him once why he never grew it, and he said it’s nearly impossible without climbing on someone’s back–your vendors, your customers, your employees. Particularly that last one. You don’t wait until your business is big to be a good human being. The very first time you have to choose between your own profit and your employees health insurance, you choose the later. You give maternity leave even though the government doesn’t make you. You dock your own salary to not lay people off during a recession. You have adequate staffing and reliable hours. Anybody who says you can’t run a retail business on a normal, reasonable, predictable schedule you know in advance is full of shit. My Dad did it for 35 years (always have one more person than you think you need, and 98% of your staffing problems vanish). It’s just not maximum profit. If you don’t prioritize extracting profit from every corner of your business, you never become rich enough to give billions away.