I feel like a good shorthand for a lot of economics arguments is "if you want people to work minimum wage jobs in your city, you need to allow minimum wage apartments for them to live in."
"These jobs are just for teenagers on the weekends." Okay, so you'll use minimum wage services only on the weekends and after school. No McDonald's or Starbucks on your lunch break.
"They can get a roommate." For a one bedroom? A roommate for a one bedroom? Or a studio? Do you have a roommate to get a middle-wage apartment for your middle-wage job? No? Why should they?
"They can live farther from city center and just commute." Are there ways for them to commute that don't equate to that rent? Living in an outer borough might work in NYC, where public transport is a flat rate, but a city in Texas requires a car. Does the money saved in rent equal the money spent on the car loan, the insurance, the gas? Remember, if you want people to take the bus or a bike, the bus needs to be reliable and the bike lanes survivable.
If you want minimum wage workers to be around for you to rely on, then those minimum wage workers need a place to stay.
You either raise the minimum wage, or you drop the rent. There's only so long you can keep rents high and wages low before your workforce leaves for cheaper pastures.
"Nobody wants to work anymore" doesn't hold water if the reason nobody applies is because the commute is impossible at the wage you provide.
I must not mock Gen Alpha. Mocking Gen Alpha is the mind killer. Mocking Gen Alpha is the little-death that brings total generational solidarity obliteration. I will engage with Gen Alpha lovingly. I will permit them to be cringe. And when they grow up I will turn my eye to their accomplishments. Where mocking has gone there will be nothing. Only generational solidarity remains
Don't let this die. Taylor Swift is the Pollution Queen now. We need meme edits with her photoshopped onto backgrounds of wildfire-ravaged landscapes and oil refineries chugging out black smoke.
Photo of smudgy black eye shadow? That's THE Taylor Swift-inspired look now, it represents fossil fuels.
We need parodies of Taylor Swift songs about pollution and killing polar bears.
Give her representatives a full-time job for the rest of their lives defending her from the phrase "Pollution Queen." Make this meme a the figurehead of an entire fleet of other celebrity-terrorizing memes.
"But this doesn't dismantle the system that—" Shut. Don't care. Isn't it great that such a huge portion of environmental damage is being done by human individuals with egos, whose feelings can be hurt when people are mean?
Money can save you from physical harm, but can it save you from looking ridiculous?
Yeah sure everyone on here looooove Boston but how many of you guys have gone to the science museum. Done the musical steps huh. Who's even been in the basement and watched the electricity show HUH y'all don't even know about those bitches going inside a giant bird cage and getting struck by indoor lightning on purpose.