Have you seen the sacrifices made to afford those homes? Just because someone owns a home doesn't show the whole picture.
There are plenty of Americans that own homes and are struggling to make ends meet elsewhere.
Home ownership is set up to consume a person. Miss a payment and there are serious repercussions to one's financial well being, so it becomes a priority.
Up to a point, miss a credit card payment and it's extra fees. Miss a utility bill a month, and it's the same. Buy less food and you'll survive, albeit less comfortably.
Seven of us were living in a 3/3 - when I could no longer afford the monthly payments that doubled via insurance increases. What would you have us downgrade to?
> Not everyone needs to live in 5 bed mcmansion.
This seems like a unproductive assumption and one unlikely to be the rule. Why introduce it into the conversation?
This is not unique to US in any way I can see. Also, doing by far the biggest financial decision of a lifetime should expect some serious financial analysis beforehand, and plenty of extra buffer for 'what if' situations. Quadruple that for US due to healthcare (and education for potential children) costs.
But what I see sounds mostly as FOMO and emotional decisions. Having home ain't some basic human right but a luxury, where I come from (central Europe) it was like that for hundreds of years. All generations living in 1 tiny basic house was the default, inheritance with many kids was very tricky and thus often cousins were forced to marry. Maybe there was some period in US where things were significantly cheaper, but what were the reasons? Maybe US wasn't so full of people. Maybe poor blue collar construction workers were squeezed much more harshly so that things were done cheaper. Also, construction got (at least in Europe) massively more complex and thus expensive due to regulations, materials etc. There can be 10,000 other reasons. But it seems otherwise smart folks here are mostly looking for first target to blame.
Cheap housing is a pipe dream in strongly capitalistic society like US. I know everybody not having it wishes for it dearly, at least until the moment they cross the fence to home ownership and then suddenly want to see their biggest investment appreciate sky high. Seems like human nature, me first and then the rest (I am not an exception, but then again stuff above doesn't make me lose sleep, life has way more important qualities than hoarding wealth at other's expense).
I got an Atari XE when I was a kid. In addition to Byte for news, I always had to pick up a copy of Antic, an Atari specific magazine with listings (mnany simple games) in each issue to type in. Mostly in BASIC and some assembly.
If they cannot do it anymore with the "inexpensive labor" abroad (colonization), they will corrupt the political system to import that "inexpensive labor" (immgration).
"The train, to its credit, since it was near the terminus, was on time."
Had a good chuckle on this one, because with that particular line that statement is dead-on.
"By a little after six I was standing in Port Authority (there are no seats in Port Authority, which is another story) waiting for my bus home."
As someone who uses the terminal everyday, that's just not true. There may not be any where the author was waiting, or may have liked, but there are seats. I don't know if the intent was to paint a glum picture, or just wasn't specific about the fact.
Just like the train the author mentioned, the Terminal is a hotel for the homeless, some levels worse than others.
The place is falling apart. Pieces of walls and ceilings missing.
As far as actual transportation, nearly all buses from the Terminal use that tunnel. There is no dedicated bus lanes through and past the Lincoln Tunnel except during the rush hours. They are all caught in the same logjam on both sides of the tunnel. Like everything else public transportation in NYC, it's not given enough priority. Perhaps because not enough of the upper classes use it.
"with a wealthy downtown professional class that relies on inexpensive labor with long commutes (without the resources to drive) who work early/late shifts."
Much of the labor except for those fortunate enough to afford closer neighborhoods have to endure the long commutes.
I lived in the mentioned Howard Beach until my 30s, and just getting to the first station of Manhattan by subway was an hour.
Belle Harbor at one time had a large number of police and firemen. That's an additional half hour (at the least, depending on train connections).
An entire section of North East Queens is a "transportation desert" that has poor bus service at best. Those buses are often stuck in traffic with those who are able to drive. There are parts of Southern Brooklyn and Queens as well. Forget about Staten Island. If relying on public transportation, it can take longer to get from one end of NYC to another than a flight from JFK to Florida.
This is not new, I've seen this story pop up fairly often over decades. Once every while there's an incident, and a story such as this comes out.
This is sort of the nature of an industry that doesn't shut down regularly, and must be manned. Planes fly, and someone must direct them, at all times.
I work in rail, and it's the same story. A number of us who control trains and train traffic work long hours every day of the week, because someone _must_ be there. You can't just, at the end of eight hours say "time to go home," if the next person doesn't show. That "next person" is now you. This is how it works in _any_ full time operation.
All parties take advantage. While I can not speak for Air Traffic Control, my job, as many American Industries, have realized the benefit of having too few people. Few employees means lower costs in many cases, for example here's the first search hit on helping an employer figure it out [1]. With ever rising costs, some employees are more than willing to work overtime to make ends meet. So, the employer saves costs by hiring fewer people and relying on those who want to make overtime.
The problem is that neither side knows "when to quit," and the cycle continues to feed itself. No one wants to resolve the problem because it's mutually beneficial to most involved.
IIRC it got so bad at FDNY at one point they had to come up with some regulations, however I can't find a source at this time to back it up.
> the software is incorrectly displaying it as a low pressure warning
The post doesn't specify if the display actually says low pressure, or if the TPMS warning light comes on, which we usually interpret as low pressure (most common case). If it is the TPMS light, I'm sure that's more of an "out of range" warning than "low pressure."
The post specifically says, "It complains about low tire pressure" so I took the author at their word.
But on the other hand, you may be right. Maybe it's just a TPMS light. It's a fun ranty blog post, the author wasn't necessarily being super precise with language =)
But the other other hand, not all TPMS systems can detect overpressure (indirect TPMS only detects underpressure)
About using mental illness as a way of gaining sympathy/popularity?
Unfortunately I have to agree with the parent, it does seem to be true.
In my own experience: my niece never mentioned depression until she saw videos about it on TikTok. Then she was always moody, and constantly stating "I'm depressed, but therapy is expensive. Can you give me money? Don't you feel bad for me?"
I see people walking around with T-shirts advertising they suffer from depression.
I don't know if social media and exposure has brought the correct view of mental illness to light.
> About using mental illness as a way of gaining sympathy/popularity. Unfortunately I have to agree with the parent, it does seem to be true.
I see this too. I know people with real mental health issues that cripple them and I know people who like to use “mental health day” as a fad excuse du jour to just take a day off because “they don’t feel like working today”. The people I know with the real, crippling mental health issues generally don’t get over it in an afternoon of watching movies and being lazy—it’s usually days and weeks of agony.
So in my mind if people are using mental health just as an excuse to take a day off they are definitely doing damage to those folks who actually suffer from crippling mental illness by minimizing what it really is…because if Sally can sort out her mental issues by binge watching a show on Netflix in an afternoon, why can’t Frank get over his inability to get out of bed for three days by doing the same thing?
“Although if you chat with MD’s about this topic, diagnosing mental health is hard so that isn’t a silver bullet either.”
What are they going to give people a quick blood test for depression? “This person has depression today, they can stay home.” Neither you nor the parent understand what the term “mental health” means. You don’t catch stress or anxiety or schizophrenia like you catch a cold. It can only ever be self-reported because that’s what it is, by definition. If there were an underlying physical condition it would be reclassified as “health” rather than “mental health” as we do for autism, stroke victims, those with brain injuries, basically any mental health problem that can be reliably diagnosed by an MD ceases to be “mental health”
There are plenty of Americans that own homes and are struggling to make ends meet elsewhere.
Home ownership is set up to consume a person. Miss a payment and there are serious repercussions to one's financial well being, so it becomes a priority.
Up to a point, miss a credit card payment and it's extra fees. Miss a utility bill a month, and it's the same. Buy less food and you'll survive, albeit less comfortably.