Random Rants 76: Argh! Augh! Ahhh!

[rah]

I also agree and have also never insisted that capitalism is the only path to happiness, but it is the current reality and to ignore it is really silly.

 

[Lexicus]

Are you saying that boomers deliberately misled younger generations about the benefits of a college degree?

I'm saying that some boomers (and, it should be noted, some people from all generations, this is not something all boomers do or something that only boomers do) claim that capitalism is good because it allows people to follow their dreams, then call people stupid for following their dreams because the conditions of capitalism make their dreams a poor investment.

I can attempt to explain the inconsistency here in more detail if it isn't already clear.

 

[Takhisis]

Are those, by any chance, the same people as thsoe who think that freedom is me not being allowed to tell you what to do and you not not being allowed to tell me what to do?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm saying that some boomers (and, it should be noted, some people from all generations, this is not something all boomers do or something that only boomers do) claim that capitalism is good because it allows people to follow their dreams, then call people stupid for following their dreams because the conditions of capitalism make their dreams a poor investment.

I can attempt to explain the inconsistency here in more detail if it isn't already clear.

I agree that there are people who are zealous about support of capitalism and not all are boomers. I also agree that capitalism is not perfect. I also think that education in many forms can enable people to make smart decisions.

 

[choxorn]

We all decided to go to college because it offers a pretty high return on the investment- most of the good, high-paying jobs out there require degrees, and the ones that don't are usually either soon to be automated or the kind of dangerous, back-breaking labor that you really don't want to be doing for 50 years. With that in mind, why wouldn't we go to college if we have the ability to?

Really, a lot of the lectures about going into lots of debt for a degree when you could have gotten a blue-collar job you might not have been good at or enjoyed at all strike me as saying "Screw you for trying to improve your lot as a person, you'll take this crappy soon-to-be-automated factory job and you should be thanking us for it"

 

[rah]

i actually went back to complete my education when I got injured on a construction site.

 

[Kyriakos]

It was very cold (though not canada cold) here today as well.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

We all decided to go to college because it offers a pretty high return on the investment

And then proceeded to gripe about the investment. If it offers good return, why is there this endless tirade about the debt incurred in making said investment?

 

[rah]

Maybe because the investment transformed into a form of forced servitude. Or maybe it was just not as good of as investment as originally calculated.

 

[Takhisis]

The fight against the loud-construction-site upstairs neighbours continues. Luckily there's one underemployed person who works at home and is around to start imposing order when the @#$%& who lives upstairs sneaks in workers*, to try and continue the works in spite of a freaking court injunction.


*and pays them under the counter, too, evading taxes

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Mom has a surgery to amputate her big toe scheduled for one week from today. We need to pick up some supplies (a special cast, boot, meds, etc) on Monday and have a pre-op meeting on Tuesday.

 

[Takhisis]

Those things aren't included when you're billed for the surgery?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Maybe the hospital overcharges for them.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Well Albus Dumbledore's a very well known oddball.

I didn't cut out my lunch for prunes, I wasn't eating lunch at all and I started eating those prunes at midday as an extra thing I'm eating, to help me get more fiber. And you're talking to someone who sometimes eats only a cup of steamed broccoli for dinner, lol. What alternatives to prunes do you feel are a good idea? I've considered fig newtons, but those seem too much like cookies to me. I miss my grandmother's fig trees in Georgia, you just can't seem to find figs anywhere here.

Your gloves mess with your hand function? I bought a pair of gloves you can use with touch screens, so I can use my phone when I'm out of doors in the freezing cold and I need to keep my gloves on. I could still type with those if I needed to, like if I had a laptop outside or something for some unknown reason. I could never wear wool socks, lol. Don't you like being able to feel your shoes? My boots are very soft inside.

if you wanna have foods high in fiber that have pretty much zero calories go with some nice cucumber or spinach, just like that. I eat a cucumber pretty much every day. or a tomato with s&p. some bell pepper cut in strips. I like to pan fry a zucchini, cut into thick slices, with very little oilve oil for breakfast or lunch. nuts are a great snack, but pretty calory dense. I eat a lot of seaweed, but not so sure how you'd like that pretty much every vegetable has a decent amount of fiber, so if you pick some of the non-starchy ones (no taters, corn, etc) you should be good to go. fruit is good, too, albeit heavier on the calories.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Those things aren't included when you're billed for the surgery?

By "pick up" it may just mean from another supplier. There were numerous times with my mom and dad that stuff they were using in the hospital was hospital property, and to have the same stuff when they went home it had to be acquired from the local supplier. Still under insurance, but the hospital wasn't in the business of selling wheelchairs, or oxygen bottles and concentration devices, or crutches, or really much of anything. And the hospital pharmacy only dealt with 'in house' customers, so scrips that were continuing at home had to be picked up from an outside pharmacy.

 

[Arakhor]

If she's having her big toe removed entirely, she'll have a business to ever walk straight again. Nasty.

 

[cardgame]

Student loan servicers are the worst. My student loan servicer (Navient) is currently being sued due to fraud and I can attest that even when they are not committing outright fraud, they are bilking the crap out of everyone. They do not allow you to set up custom autopay amounts and instead attempt to force you to pay the absolute minimum or make manual payments every month to keep you on the hook longer. In addition, they do not allow you apply payments to the principal and instead funnel all of your payment money into interest first, again to keep you on the hook longer. Their website is a master course on how to obfuscate information to make it impossible to make rational repayment choices.

Is that even legal?! Payments have to be able to be applied to the principal!

Related, but definitely much less severe: I cannot set up custom autopay for my credit card debt; the only autopay amount it accepts is "the entire statement balance" which currently exceeds my linked bank account...

 

[Cutlass]

What will replace plumbers?

Nothing may replace plumbers. But it's never before been more difficult or expensive to become a plumber.

 

[Synobun]

Nothing may replace plumbers. But it's never before been more difficult or expensive to become a plumber.

I wonder what the plumbing market is like in East Asia with the craze for computerized toilets there. Do plumbers need to know how to troubleshoot and resolve those problems or is that an industry of its own now?

 

[Takhisis]

Is that even legal?!

I have just watched The Phantom Menace, so the appropriate quote for this is ‘I WILL MAKE IT LEGAL’.