47 Comments

I have family in Brazil. I have seen dystopian society up close and what you describe is real and will be our fate if we let the progies continue.

Energy, water, cooking gas, gas, produce, meat is, as percentage of salary, very expensive. The 15 gallon tank cost R$225 to fill up, about a 5th of the monthly income. They do a lot of walking, don't take trips, go to work, come home, stay.

Beef is R$50 a pound. I took the family out to a restaurant, 5 people, R$800, nearly a months salary. A pizza is R$90. Think about bringing home $1,200 a month and paying $90 for a pizza.

No air conditioning, dish washer, dryer, energy is too expensive. Everyone spends all their money, energy and time on just the basics.

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The solace and curse of being 70 is that we know nothing, from poor customer service to "schooling" to EVs has to be this way. Vote.

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Erick, this could well be the most ridiculous thing you've ever written. Moreover, it promotes the view that those with whom you disagree are not just wrong, but evil.

Policy initiatives can be misguided without being maliciously intended. Due to its failure to take into account the effect of bigger airplane restrooms on ticket prices, this may well be bad policy. But why must it be some nefarious plot against the middle class? It is every bit as plausible to simply view it as a misguided attempt to make air travel more accommodating for the obese.

"It is all part of the plan?" If you are referring to the Democrats' plan to harm the middle class, for crying out loud, THE MIDDLE CLASS INCLUDES AN AWFUL LOT OF DEMOCRATS. Would they not be just as adversely affected by rising ticket prices?

This is as absurd as progressives viewing the pro-life movement as actually being motivated by the desire to control women's bodies and retard their progress as competitors against men in marketplace, rather than concern for human life. It is as absurd as believing that any policy holding the potential for an adverse effect on people of color is motivated by racism. IT IS ABSURD!

And it is destructive. Rather than the denunciation of their views, it is the demonization of those with whom one disagrees. This demonization of the other side is one of the biggest things that is tearing this great country apart, and you need to cut it out.

You're better than this.

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The Democrat (and other) elites don't give a rat's a$$ about anyone in the middle class, including Democrats. It may not be 'evil', exactly but it's sure not benevolence either. It's all about power and control. If you have an expensive car that takes forever to charge, you don't have the freedom to move around much (or ditto for air travel). They'd really rather you don't have a car at all and use public transportation which obviously doesn't work in much of the country. Not that the elites care; they primarily live in urban areas. They also don't care if crime impacts you, because they have secure access (often multiple) homes, and armed security. They'd prefer you rent, rather than own, because then you are more dependent on government largesse. They'd much prefer worshiping at the altar of 'saving the earth' even if it reduces the average American's standard of living back to the Stone Ages. It won't affect the elite class at all.

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I think Erick is correct on this. Go check out Hillsdale College and their FREE online course American Citizenship and Its Decline by Victor David Hansen! He does a great job of explaining how what Erick wrote about takes place and how history show this. You might not like this but it happens and it's happing today. I don't think the elites care one iota about the little guy (middle class)! It's easier to control a people when they are poor and needy so either make the middle class poor and needy or get rid of them! Doesn't make a difference who they vote for! The poor is always with us and they are the ones that need government to survive!

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The same kind of manipulation is in effect on Gun ownership. Totalitarians hate the people having guns. So how do you get rid of them. Increase Crime - more crime, more gang violence and the favored weapon is a gun. DA's don't prosecute, no Bail, reduce the number of police that are replaced by phantom social workers. If you defend yourself, they will prosecute you, not the criminal. More people killed by Guns, the more the public leans to ban them.

Control what you think ESG and DEI are designed to force you (as a chief exec for Black Rock said) to change what you think, to force your compliance. The insanity of Transpeople is a good example. It's not physically possible. No one has actually become a person of the other sex and never will. They are better referred to as FANTAMEN AND FANTAWOMEN since they are simply acting out a FANTASY. Acting like, prancing around, wearing makeup, chopping off breasts, mutilating and sterilizing surgeries and drugs. No different than Blackface vs an actual Black person. Their target is your children. My daughter came home from pre-school years ago and had learned about dinosaurs -- she announced that when she grows up, shel'll be a Triceratops. Luckily the transspecies crowd wasn't around to put horns on her.

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The sad thing is all the denial this was happening, even during the pandemic where it was clear the authoritarian elite were out of control, and perfectly happy to cause pain to the middle class.

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I still cannot believe today is the real-life version of both of Orwell's books--"Animal Farm" and "1984." This administration keeps repeating lies which they believe will manifest as reality (postmodernity). We initially were hit with over 9% inflation. Then it slowed to 8, then 6, then 5, the upper 3s, and now we keep posting the numbers we have. These are all increases. It's not legitimate to simply add the percentages together, yet even using this flawed mathematical reasoning, you actually wouldn't be far off. This is Chuck Schumer all over again! Things are now "less bad" but they still are bad! The major media outlets echo the administration's lies. This is the same way you brainwash people: subject them to physical & psychological stress while demanding they believe what you tell them!

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Prices never stay the same. Mild inflation is what we want. Don't ask me for the details - I fell asleep during that particular economics class - but were prices to actually start falling, then we would be in real trouble.

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I understand that much thankfully. I’m more uneasy with the motive and manner of the message. Plus (there’s always a plus) the means we found ourselves in this situation. You’re correct: minimal inflation (paying with the monies in circulation) is expected at a rate slow enough allowing for wage increases which are not a detriment to inflation while not so low to cause recessive deflation yet not so high to price people out of necessities & hurt the standard of living. Nice catch!

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Off topic but I am mad as hell.

The Secret Service says it was less than a gram of cocaine. Holy CRAP. Do you have any idea how big a pile of light fluffy cocaine a gram makes?

30 years ago, cocaine was the rage and was primarily found in the white community. White yuppie professionals. But dealers learned to cook it into the more potent and cheaper crack. They targeted the black community. The penalties for a $10 rock of crack puts you in prison. Pure cocaine only gets you pre-trial diversion and a clean record. The prisons are full of young black crack offenders, and the pre-trial diversion process is full of 30-year-old white bankers and salesmen.

So, let’s think about this. It wasn’t crack so it wasn’t a black visitor, or Hunter’s because we all know he takes selfies with his crack pipe. The Secret Service assigned Mr. Magoo to investigate but they can’t seem to find any old white guys who had access to the area where the coke was found. They refuse to name the culprit, so I’ve run my own investigation and discovered the truth.

POTUS is a demented, hair sniffing, stumbling, bumbling, diaper wearing coke head who snorts lines off the top of the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

Case closed

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It's the only way they can keep him awake!

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In 20 years or so, many smaller passenger planes will use hydrogen. You can also have XOM and others do a large Carbon Sequester program to remove the carbon released from the larger long range passenger aircraft operations. The market will solve this problem as soon as the government gets out of the way.

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If you really want to not use fossil fuesls, then go Nuclear. France is 98% nuclear. Instead we are buying our way into Chinese slavery. They spent the last three decades buying up the mineral rights to the climate approved wind and solar (while building record numbers of coal plants in China). So Biden's push not only enriches China it funds their massive military buildup.

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Well, I am happy to see more people waking up and realizing something that a few people have been trying to get across for quite a long time now. Better late than never, but still may be too late. If you notice, the democrats are no longer bothering to hide their plans, so really aren't worried about being booted out of office.

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I don't need the government dealing with the bathroom issue on airplanes. I do not need them regulating my gas stove. I need them to find a way to get off their collective asses and actually do something about the real issues like high costs of food, gas and other issues.

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HERE-HERE!! We could get better results from 535 sixth-graders!

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I only disagree on the airplanes. I don’t agree with the Biden idiocy. But airlines have taken to sardines in a can. They would if allowed stand you up back to front and pile in a thousand people on an airplane.

And bathrooms are ridiculous even normal sized people could squeeze into them. My 5 foot wife can barely use them.

Saying that, no I don’t want the government to be the one to fix it. Airlines need to pull their head out.

And today thanks to Biden it is immeasurably difficult to fly. A plane ticket that was 100$ is now triple that.

So now only the rich and elite can fly.

It’s semantics I know. But honestly I think the concerns about airlines is legit.

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I tend to agree with this view. Any lack of comfort in airline accommodations is better left to the marketplace. If there is a market for larger airplane bathrooms, someone will slightly raise ticket prices and offer travelers this alternative. If they make money doing so, then the other airlines will follow suit.

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I'm more in favor of people actually having some accountability for their own health and size. If you want to weigh 350 lbs, great, but then buy enough airline tickets to accommodate your wider-than-average girth. And maybe airline small bathrooms can become an additional incentive to find the discipline to lose weight. I've done it, and anyone can. There are the healthy ways to do it and then there are other ways (gastric bypass surgery, and the proliferation of all the new weight loss drugs hitting the market). It's simple math - less calories in and more out. And I don't want to hear any blather about hormones or other excuses. I'm post menopausal and at an age where it's not as easy but if I can do it, anyone can.

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I saw this marxist, socalist crap coming years ago. When I tried to tell people who I thought were interested, they tuned me out and said that I was just ranting again. People need to stop what they are doing and take a good look at what is occurring around them in this country before it is too late. It may have already have gone too far to stop. Liberalism is truly a mental disorder and it often causes permanent brain damage.

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If liberalism is a mental disorder, this country has been crazy since its very inception because there have always been liberals, and there have always been conservatives. The interplay of the two perspectives, over time, is what has produced the collective genius of American democracy.

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it's illiberalism that's crazy

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Read the book of Judges in the Bible for a picture of where complacency leads...over and over and over again.

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RIGHT?? But why care when we have Tik Tok and reality TV??

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It is for context - massively blessed by God, ignoring blessings' source, complacent disobedience, crisis, rescue by God's Judge, ignore, complacent, crisis...lather, rinse, repeat. Tik Tok et al merely show various ranters' outcome without the context of history.

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The Airline deregulation legislation was passed in 1978 under Pres. Carter. Also passed was the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act in 1978, which allowed electric generating companies access to transmission lines.

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You covered a number of things in an excellent way, except the CAB thing. You do such an excellent job of all of these things.

I was a pilot for PANAM back in the good ole days of the dinners on board that were first class meals and of coarse when it all changed.

I retired almost 30 years ago and still fly some but we just use economy and the small seats since my wife and I are small.

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"The middle class will lose, but the left will have saved Mother Earth"

Ahh, Gaia is a cruel mistress indeed...

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Nice use of Gaia.....!

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Yeah, name false gods so folks recognize the actual recipient of their worship...

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