Michael Mangum

@a_man_in_red Yeah, not many people made homemade bread. Lots of people made staples, though, like beans and rice, tuna casserole, meatloaf, spaghetti, etc.

I don't think Gen X and Boomers realize just how infuriating it is to be constantly given condescending "advice" like this every time someone brings up how much harder it is to buy a house now compared to when they were our age. And how many of them had to do this themselves?

@ljmontello Then vote for local politicians who will increase the supply of housing and reduce the cost and impediments to building new housing. That is the only solution.

You shouldn't be priced out of housing until middle age in the richest country of the most prosperous empire in human history. Demand better.

@vollerEkel The only "poverty food" is *no* food.

Question: if we're supposed to scrimp and save money for a house, and the solution is to eat literally poverty food like we lost a war, how on are we supposed to actually afford anything nice? Renovations, decent furniture, stuff like that.

@FloridaFloGrown You know who had impressive daily caloric intake? British sailors. They had at least 5000 calories daily of mostly hardtack, salt pork, and beer daily, with enough vegetables thrown in so they didn't get scurvy. *Every* day. For months. But then, they needed those calories.

The people telling you to povertymaxx and eat bread sandwiches so you can afford a used car are just plain wrong. Even as far back as the 1800's people were averaging 3,000 to 5,000 calories a day.

@uw20152015 @beerandtokens And yes, income taxes were substantially higher.

@MikeMangumx @beerandtokens

My brother in Christ. In 1980 the home price to income ratio was 3.6x, now it’s 5x In 1980 a degree cost 15% of the average annual income, today it’s 58% In 1980 child care cost 7% of the median household income, now it’s 19% In 1980 health care cost 10% the median household income, now it’s 21% In 1980 the average car payment for a new car was 6% of the median household income, now it’s 13% These are national averages, and not some anecdotal personal experience. Idk why it’s so hard for people to do a little good faith research and just admit that life’s necessities are exponentially more expensive now than when they were young adults. It’s a crazy level of pride, arrogance and denial.

@rishabhm @Cloudwatch199 People talking past each other here. H1Bs are used *both* to bring in quality talent *and* to bring in cheap, almost indentured labor.

The people who raging about Indians are mostly some combination of or all of (1) Economically disaffected (2) Incompetent (3) Racist Telling these people , as I've seen @Cloudwatch199 and others try to do about how Indians contribute to the US and are successful model residents/citizens is only going to further rile up these folks. These people are here, raging on X, because logic deserted them long ago. You won't convert these people, one moron at a time. Instead energy should be focused on engaging with people in Congress. Especially Republicans.

@FloridaFloGrown @NeedlesslyWordy Eating at a pizza place was something we did after the final game of the little league season - and was a pretty big deal. We went to a pizza place as a family maybe 2-3 times when I was a kid, total, and we didn't order pizza for delivery until I was 17. We had "pizza at home".

@NeedlesslyWordy Dude are serious? How old are you? Did you not order pizza growing up? It wasn't a luxury for rich people lol. It was just something you did when mom and dad were working late or tired

@halpern_ma52754 @dilanesper "The H1Bs (who aren’t low-skill programmers)" That depends. I remember an entire department of testers replaced by H1Bs. They were testers, not developers, and people with minimal general knowledge replaced hundreds of people with years of domain specific knowledge.

@dilanesper I forgot we have neanderthals only in America. Dingbat. The H1Bs (who aren’t low-skill programmers) are first educated IN america under student visas. We don’t need skilled labor. We have colleges that can train more American workers with skilled when foreigners stop taking space

whenever i do a pro-immigration thread someone chimes in that "people voted for this". no. People voted for border control. They didn't vote to exclude skilled workers.

@Juxtmarvel It's not that men look for "dumb girls". Men look for different things in a partner than women do. Women want a man who is smarter, more successful, higher status - i.e. marrying up/hypergamy. Men are looking for physical attraction and personality traits.

i feel men are more tolerant of an intellectually inferior partner than women. if a man is intelligent, he goes for pretty dumb girls bc he can't stand a girl being equal or smarter than him. men just love feeling superior.

@dilanesper Define "skilled worker". I've worked with potentially thousands of H1B immigrants. Many of them are great and very capable. Many of them aren't; they are there due to low cost. Maybe one or two of them could arguably fall in the category of "has skills that citizens do not have".

@rcondiscord "and never forgot about ramen and hot dogs" I didn't know about ramen, so I bought 40 lb bags of potatoes and would chop and fry one up for a meal. I did eat fast food regularly...every single "Dollar Whopper Wednesday" I had a burger. I could make fries at home.

Re: Gen Z and food. 1.) Stop calling everybody old enough to grow facial hair a Boomer. It is making you confused. 2.) Actual Boomers are in their 70's and 80's, and did not grow up eating fast food every day. 3.) Gen X grew up when peak T.V. dinner was replaced by the invention of the Dollar Menu, and while we did eat tons of fast food by the time we got to the work force, most of us saw the Arby's Five for Five as some sort of miracle, and never forgot about ramen and hot dogs. The Dollar Menu was killed by covid and minimum wage, and it does suck. You do have it worse than Gen X did living in the 1$ McDouble era. Nevertheless, the solutions proposed by Actual Boomers are the valid solutions to your situation.

@avidseries x.com/kausmickey/sta…

The rightwing bubble is one of the most statistically illiterate districts in the discourse when it comes to immigration. Here are a few of the things they don't seem to know: (1) Indian H-1Bs are only a tiny percentage of the total legal immigrant population in the US (about 1 to 2%). (2) Just because a group might suck in Europe (e.g., Pakistanis, Lebanese, Turks), doesn't mean they suck here in the US. (All of those groups I named outperform whites on income and education here in the US). (3) Legal immigrants (including from many nations in the developing world) drive innovation and tech company creation here in the US at a higher rate than do native-born Americans. (4) While Indian immigrants display more in-group hiring bias than native-born whites, the amount of this bias is only average among immigrant groups.

@dwReserved @devahaz The bill that put a cap on illegal aliens to be part of catch and release to "only" 5000 per day (1.8 mil/year) that would give parole (preventing deportation)...that bill?

@devahaz Lankford tried back in 2024, and dems were ready to give the GOP the border bill they wanted. It ended catch and release, had thresholds for closing the border, etc Then Trump demanded that they kill the bill because he wanted to campaign on the border and immigration issues. 🤷

Seeing some silly arguments on the pro-immigration side today. It doesn’t make sense that immigrants should get equal rights and opportunities as citizens the moment they step foot in America. What makes sense is smart immigration policy supporting immigrants that help America.

@noctyraonline @DrewHampshire There weren't as many of them. The town I grew up in had a steakhouse/bar and one fast food place. That was it. That same town, with a very slightly lower population, now has 8 restaurants.

@DrewHampshire Then tell me, how the hell did these restaurants survive?

The idea that Boomers took their families out to eat all the time is a total Gen. Z fantasy.

@sgodofsk You'd have to differentiate between purchase price and rental.

amusingly what you would need in order to make tinder clear as market is, ahem, a price mechanism, if you catch my drift

@ZombieNinjaPir8 @wraithburn I was a MS FTE and I remember we had an open position for almost a year because my manager was only allowed to hire a woman. That was around 2003, 2004, something like that.

When I applied for Amazon in 2017, I got to the in person rounds and was flown to Seattle with a lot of others. When leaving the Amazon building, we rode an elevator down. Two white girls were already on and said, "Great, another white guy" when I entered. I did not get the job

@NEETzscheIDDQD I've got a 20 year old Toyota that's in great shape. Cars now last much longer and require *much* less maintenance than they used to - which is good because there's much less of it you can do yourself. Cars required a tune up every 10k miles in 1980, now its about every 100k.

Any 20yo car selling for $6k is not "cheap." Any 20yo car is a piece of shit by default, including ones from respected automakers like Toyota. Boomers shouting "I know what I have" won't change this.

@emilykmay Men are much more reluctant to commit, but when they do, they are more committed. It's a duty/responsibility thing. There is still plenty of messaging about duty for boys and young men. For women, not so much.

something I've noticed that I can't quite flesh out is while lots of people of both genders will stay in unsatisfying relationships, men seem to be more likely to stay in a relationship where they aren't happy than women are. but they won't end it, unless it's for someone else.

@UziCryptoo Google "Baumol's cost disease".

When I worked at Sears in the early 90's, the people there built entire lives off those jobs. The guy running appliances had three kids, coached little league every weekend, and retired after 32 years with a pension. One of the women in customer service bought her first house working full-time there, and the older guy in hardware took the same vacation to the Ozarks every summer because he could actually afford to unplug for a week. The managers knew everybody by name, the Christmas bonuses actually meant something, and the store was packed every holiday season because business was booming. Nobody thought they were "stuck" working retail - it was honest work that paid enough to live with dignity. Somewhere along the way, corporations started making record profits while the people keeping the place running could barely afford rent. When exactly did a steady full-time job stop being enough to build a normal life?