https://tinyurl.com/4pfs8r4k

Are you watching this?

I’d never heard of it. But “The Week” recommended it and…

Every year on my birthday I do three things, eat a pastrami sandwich, watch a movie and have an ice cream sundae. And during lockdown I watched a movie highly recommended by “The Week” and it was a dud. So now, when the magazine tells me about something, I do research. And “A Murder at the End of the World” had an 88% rating on RottenTomatoes, so we dove in.

And immediately heard the Doors’ “The End.”

Last night I listened to Albert Brooks on Marc Maron’s podcast. Albert had a lot of interesting things to say, but what resonated most was believing no one would remember anything and you had to do what was interesting to yourself. He just couldn’t understand how people repeated themselves, how they did one successful thing and then did it over and over again until they died. That resonated. Albert also talked about this movie he was in called “The Wedding Party,” and the studio renamed it “The In-Laws” just before release and it failed. Albert told them it would be compared unfavorably to the original, and it was, it was a dud. You always need to trust the artist, the artist knows best. Oh, they’ll lead you off the cliff now and again, but they’ll be right more often than wrong. And the most iconic use of “The End,” one of the most iconic uses of a song ever, was in the opening of “Apocalypse Now.” I saw it during a one week preview at the Cinerama Dome, with surround sound, the curtain parted, the helicopter was hovering, it was amazing.

So I wouldn’t have begun my series with “The End,” because people like me would judge you negatively for it. But “Apocalypse Now” came out in 1979, nearly fifty years ago, and when I was growing up we watched old films religiously, but fifty years before was the silent era, and I saw a few of those, but mostly we concentrated on films of the thirties and forties. So have today’s generations even seen “Apocalypse Now”? The streaming generation, bingeing “Friends” and only going to the theatre to see superhero movies, if that?

And how many people were watching this show anyway, I mean you’ve got to have a subscription to Hulu. But the card before the title said “FX,” which meant it premiered on FX first? Ultimately it turned out “The Week” was right, “A Murder at the End of the World” was only on Hulu, being dripped out week by week, but I didn’t know that when I started.

So you’ve got amazing cinematography. And the scenes between Darby and Bill when they’re hunting down the serial killer…

Yes, this is a show that jumps from the past to the present, and back again. Actually, a step beyond today, it’s nearly sci-fi, and I’ve got little time for sci-fi. And in today’s episode there was some clichéd dialogue but…

Then they flashed back to yesteryear and the show was so damn good again.

It stars Emma Corrin. I’d neither heard of nor seen her. She looks like that comedian Mae Martin, and interestingly Corrin is nonbinary too. I found that out when I did research, I always do research on the shows I watch. And I found out Corrin played Diana in “The Crown,” but I don’t watch that, I found the first season so slow it was like watching paint dry. And I hear people rave about it, but there are so many shows and so little time.

And a lot of the time Emma as Darby just stares into the camera. But it works, you can feel the tension. And when she’s younger, and she’s feeling things out, her impulses, sexuality… That rang true. She had desire, yet she was self-conscious, but she took the risk and…felt she experienced rejection.

And I saw that the show was co-created by Brit Marling, who also acts in the series, and I knew her name, but I had no idea what she looked like. I know she’s a star, but this isn’t the seventies anymore, never mind the eighties, when we had a mental scorecard of every actor, knew their films, and there was a clear dividing line between highbrow film and lowbrow television. You used to follow actors from movie to movie, you looked forward to seeing them, but now… Other than the superstars, someone can be labeled a star and you’ve never heard of them. Or they can have a number one record, like that woman who performed on SNL. But don’t beat yourself up, don’t feel old, the truth is the younger people are in the same boat, there’s just so much out there that no one can know everything, no one can have a grip. So you forage, alone. Or, you can consume what’s fed to you, like the boomers who still will watch only what’s on cable, whose idea of a risk is to stream what Netflix recommends. But that’s no fun. If you’re not on a personal hejira, a personal search, you’re missing out. Even worse, you can ignore almost all of that which is hyped, like the new Dolly Parton album, a marketing exercise, dreck, listening to Dolly sing rock is like listening to Tom Waits sing country.

So I looked up Ms. Marling and the PR headshot didn’t look quite like the woman in the series, but by process of elimination, it was clear she was playing Lee.

And her husband… Creepy. It was none other than Clive Owen. Who broke through in 1998’s “Croupier,” a well-reviewed English film I saw in the theatre, back when I still paid attention to such. Here Owen plays a tech titan. And I won’t say he’s modeled on Elon Musk, but there are similarities, the calmness, the slow talk, the confidence, the belief they know everything.

And then someone dies, ergo the title, and you’re starting to think it’s “Ten Little Indians,” but there are not enough episodes to kill one character per.

So I’m driving to Santa Monica yesterday and I see a poster for “A Murder at the End of the World” on the side of a bus shelter. And Felice went for a meeting, mentioned the series, and the two people in attendance were watching it too.

How did everybody know? How did they get the memo?

And there was a story on Emma Corrin on the front page of today’s “New York Times” Arts section, but it started to talk about the plot and I thought they were spoiling it, but in truth these hype articles are all the same, i.e. hype.

So when it’s in the past, a la 2010, “A Murder at the End of the World” is like “Mindhunter.” You saw that, right, Fincher’s show on Netflix? There were only two seasons, unfortunately. But when “A Murder at the End of the World” is in Iceland, at times it resembles a seventies disaster movie.

And I’m wondering if there’s a buzz. Once again, you’ve got to have Hulu, but they’re advertising, and now I’m telling you about it.

It rides the razor’s edge, sometimes incredible, sometimes almost hokey.

But I’m watching.

1

The punk bands survived, the new wave ones did not. Which is exactly the opposite of what one would have thought back then. You’d think the more left field, the less mainstream, the shorter the lifespan. But it turned out 20/20 and the Pop and the Know and the Kats…  The list goes on and on of skinny tie bands known by all back then, but the only one that really broke through was the Knack, and everybody hated them for it. Then again, as big as “My Sharona” was, there was “Good Girls Don’t” and not a whole hell of a lot more.

So if you were paying attention back then, you knew about Madame Wong’s, you knew about the Hong Kong Café, you knew about the Masque, because the story was not only delineated in the “L.A. Weekly,” but in the L.A. “Times” too.

Oh that’s right, the Go-Go’s broke, but what you’ve got to know is they were hiding in plain sight, the “Times” kept asking why they didn’t have a record deal. It wasn’t like they were playing in Oshkosh, they were in the recording capital of the world, and no one was interested, until Miles Copeland signed them, an outsider if there ever was one.

That’s one thing that’s been lost today, the outsider, on both the business and artistic side. There used to be these larger than life figures, who seemed to bend the world to their will. They worked the record company, as opposed to vice versa, they were fierce advocates for their acts. As for the live business… There were many fiefdoms. Frank Barsalona laid a bit of structure on the business, you took this act to get that, and you didn’t poach someone else’s territory, but it was a club, based on loyalty, and acts that did poorly gave money back, nearly unheard of today, because they wanted the promoter to hire them again in the future, they didn’t want the promoter to go broke. No one gives money back to Live Nation, it’s a public company.

And the label titans came and went, except for Mo Ostin. And they were handsomely paid, but it was clear the musicians were the stars, they made more and controlled the business.

Still, many felt the business was too controlled. Had become overblown, far from the garden the Beatles nurtured.

Then came the Ramones.

Nearly completely stiff. But you were aware of them, because it was a small world, everybody was paying attention, and music was a religion in a way it is not today, you listened to the radio, bought records, went to shows and read everything you could get your hands on. You saw the first two Ramones albums in the bins, but chances are you didn’t know anybody who owned them, and they certainly didn’t play them on the radio. Actually, by time the Hong Kong Café opened its doors to punks, one can say the Ramones had changed direction. 1977’s “Rocket to Russia” had “Rockaway Beach,” which sounded more like sixties surf rock than what was being played at the Masque. And 1978’s “Road to Ruin” had a cover of “Needles and Pins,” in search of a hit. Then again, that was the same album with “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

Not that the Ramones had no impact. They talk about the loners and outcasts hearing Patti Smith and forming bands, it seemed like even more were formed in the wake of the Ramones. And they were bands, no one was sitting in their bedroom cutting a record by themselves. You had to go out for the action, you couldn’t sit at home and surf the web, there was a scene. And the scenesters were the social media influencers of the day, sans the pay. Yes, you had an identity, and you displayed it at the show, and you were seen again and again, people knew who you were, until the era passed.

So just like with the blues before, punk started in the U.S., but it really took hold in the U.K., which then fed the sound back to us. There were endless U.K. punk bands. But fashion was a component of the scene. Attitude was over the top. Whereas the punks in L.A…really seemed to be living the life. And one can say the scene died with Darby Crash. It was all a lark until it wasn’t.

And the stunning thing is how brief the window was.

2

Sure you went to the Forum to see the big acts, the shows were hyped all over KMET and KLOS, they were cultural rites. But even more you went to the clubs, to check out the new acts, you wanted to see them, needed to see them before they got big.

And there were constantly new clubs. And as “classy” as the Roxy was, as venerated as the Troubadour was, many were just holes in the wall, like Club 88, not far from where I lived. You mean bands are playing in that converted strip club? Yes. And you felt part of it. You knew what was going on even if you didn’t go, because of the ads. You saw who was playing. And there were columnists raving until you decided to partake.

Certainly after the Knack hit, major labels scooped up new wave acts. But the L.A. punk bands? They were positively independent. Their records were released by labels you never heard of before. It was an outsider system. That sustained. Tom Waits going from Asylum to Epitaph? Unfathomable. And there was SST and Slash and…

It was all very brief.

So what killed the L.A. punk scene?

You could say it was MTV in 1981. Suddenly acts were bigger than ever before, and playing live was nowhere near as important as how good your video was. Furthermore, how you looked was important. And so many of those in the punk scene were not so good-looking. They had amazing clothes, in some cases amazing legends, but no one who was part of the starmaking machinery wanted anything to do with them.

And you wondered where they all went. How they survived.

This was not Bruce Springsteen, never having a day job. Most had day jobs in order to survive. And most were not college graduates, this was their life, and when it was over, they had to find a new source of income. Phranc ultimately sold Tupperware.

And you continued to read about Phranc, she was great at getting attention, and a few were, but most of them faded into the woodwork, but some of them are in this movie.

3

I was turned off at first, because of some inaccuracies in the dates. You can say whatever you want in a movie and it becomes the authoritative document, even if it’s untrue. But if you lived through the era, oftentimes you know it was different.

But in this case I don’t want to quibble, because very soon the film locked into the truth.

Chinatown was dead. No one went there. First and foremost it was downtown, which was barren, especially after dark.

So the fact that there was music in Chinatown? Quite a novelty. Music at a Chinese restaurant?

And this was when there was no wall between the promoters and the performers and the public. Sure, the stars might have had billboards on the Strip, but everybody else was completely accessible if you went to the gig, if you hung out.

Esther Wong was always around, with a scowl on her face. And even though they pooh-pooh Wong’s West in the film, it had a pretty long run as the showcase club long after Chinatown was dead. One can’t say it was cool, but that’s where bands played, from Elvis Costello to the unknowns. That’s where I saw David Geffen checking out John Hiatt, being convinced to sign him.

And being signed was everything. You needed the money, the push. Making records was expensive, getting them distributed was nearly impossible if you weren’t with a major. That was the goal. But the punks realized they would never be accepted and did it themselves.

And the funny thing about punk is despite the closing of the venues in this movie, the music had a very long life. If you were around in the late seventies you were stunned when Nirvana became the biggest band in the land in the nineties. Whodathunk?

4

Now in truth most scenes are very short. They might be impactful, but their heyday is brief. Once again, I’d love to know where all the attendees went, those consumed with their outfits, their appearance, because without them there was no scene.

And if you were in the mosh pit you could get hurt. But most people had never heard of a mosh pit, never mind been in one. Took time for the phenomenon to spread.

Yet in truth, we haven’t had a new scene in music for a long time, since the heyday of Napster. Or maybe today there are so many scenes and none of them break through big, after all Top 40 is now a niche.

And if you’re making music today there’s a good chance you were influenced by Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera, whereas everybody in this movie knew every lick of the Beatles and Stones records. They didn’t want to emulate their heroes, they wanted to tear them down. They thought the mainstream had become too precious, that most music was bogus.

And I was actually at the Dwight Twilley gig at Madame Wong’s mentioned in the movie. Then again, I don’t remember the prank. But there were two shows that night, and I went to the early one. Got there ninety minutes before, to be close, that’s what you did.

And we all knew Dwight Twilley from “I’m on Fire.” An infectious record which I heard on KROQ.

KROQ. It was the last free-format radio station in Los Angeles. Not the KROQ of today, not Top 40 of the alternative. The signal was weak and it was a club, either you listened or you didn’t. And if you did you knew records by heart that those who never made it up the dial to 106.7 had never heard.

But that was the power of radio.

Dwight was signed by Clive Davis. But it never took. And recently Dwight Twilley died. Tragic, then again vocalist Phil Seymour, Twilley’s original partner, died at 41, of cancer, not misadventure, and unless you were around back then, unless you bought the records, and I certainly bought the first, hungering for more of that sound, you have no idea who he was.

But there was an era when the minor was major. When the scene had shifted from New York to L.A. The sunshine and the weather made it easier to schlep your equipment, to live, and tradition was nonexistent in California, you could make it up as you went.

And today you can still see the Circle Jerks. And X. They took the road less taken and it turned out to go on forever.

Unlike the clubs.

The story is here. It’s brief and interesting, well done. 

You should watch “Chinatown Punk Wars.”

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/3772nhyv

“Holiday” – Madonna

“Holiday” – The Kinks

“Holiday” – The Bee Gees

“Tommy’s Holiday Camp” – The Who

“Dreadlock Holiday” – 10cc

“Holiday Inn” -Elton John

“Holiday” – Michael Hedges

“Holiday” – Nazareth

“Holiday Hotel” – Loggins & Messina

“Holidays in the Sun” – Sex Pistols

“Holiday in Cambodia” – Dead Kennedy

“Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday” – William Bell

“Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday” – Warren Haynes

“Holiday Road” – Lindsey Buckingham

“Holiday” – Vampire Weekend

“Holiday” – Jimmy Buffett

“Holiday” – Little Mix

“Holiday” – Scorpions

“Every Day Should Be a Holiday” – Dandy Warhols

“Holiday” – Green Day

“Deadbeat Holiday” – Green Day

“Holiday in Spain” – Counting Crows

“Holiday” – Weezer

“On a Holiday” – Brian Wilson

“One Less Holiday” – Art Garfunkel

“Voters See American Dream Slipping Out of Reach, WSJ/NORC Poll Shows

Fewer believe that anyone who works hard can get ahead”

Free link: https://tinyurl.com/3ttszj4y

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You are spot on with this post.  One issue I think you should consider discussing closely related to income inequality is housing affordability and how this is a primary source of anger, particularly among younger generations.  One reason the sub 30 demographic you mentioned does not feel positive about the economy is the inability to purchase their first house without some type of family assistance.  If you come from a poor family, good luck trying to buy a house.

I am 41 with two kids (9 & 7), living in Orange County (Irvine), CA.  My wife and I know multiple families who are well off economically ($500K+ combined household incomes) and are unable to afford a basic single family home in Irvine, being forced to rent.  Of course OC is incredibly expensive compared to most housing markets, but this traditionally coastal problem is spreading beyond these markets and impacting historically affordable places like Texas.

The younger generation literally feels hopeless about the possibility of home ownership. Much of this is driven by severe underbuilding and overly burdensome zoning laws, which in places like California is attributed heavily to NIMBYism driven by traffic concerns, preserving neighborhood character, etc., but ultimately the underlying reason is to preserve the value of most people’s largest asset.  The selfish attitude of “I got mine”, particularly with the 50+ crowd, is sickening.  As you know, housing is the key pillar of most middle class families’ wealth, so taking this away will only further exacerbate income inequality.

Thank you for all of your writing.  I always look forward to reading your notes.

-Matt O’Connor

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Thanks for this, Bob.

I’m a strong progressive, but I also acknowledge that the Democratic Party has been complicit in 40+ years of hollowing out the middle class.  Why is conservative news and Trump effective in rallying the less-well-off to their side?  Because the Dems haven’t been “the party of labor” or “the party of the middle class” since 1980.  Yes, there will always be some single-issue voters who’s minds can’t be changed, but what the Dems need now is a youthful leader who’s willing to call out the injustice, to move the party back to favoring “the little guy” over billionaires, and to champion and enact policies that correct for all the abuses that we’ve seen in favor of a finance-driven economy.  When I look around at the Dem leadership, I don’t see that person.  Maybe it’s Cory Booker?

Chris Rimpl

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I heard an interview six weeks or so ago featuring Naomi Klein talking about her new book. She said something that has stuck with me. “The far right conspiracy theorists don’t always get the facts right. But they get the tone perfectly.”

Which is what your letter was saying, no? The democrats are tone deaf. Same as the Liberal party up here in Canada. Shouldn’t be this way, but here we are,

Have a nice day,

Cheers, Owen Dearing

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BDS and the Federalist Society- what a great comparison. It’s time for Jews to start investing in pro-Israel faculty so that we too can win the long game. Department chairs care mainly about grants and funding and I assume most agencies or orgs that currently fund would never give money to someone with a pro-Israel research proposal since it goes against the current academic ethos.

Anyway as always I love your take on these issues and I am thankful for your newsletter!

Best,
Michael Cantor

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The Truman-Eisenhower economy was hijacked starting around the late-70’s when Carter slashed Cap Gains. Then Reagan went all-in on supply-side tax and fiscal policies. As a result, the broad 60% middle-class, since the early 1980s, has lost HALF its wealth. By design — by policies that have reduced net tax rates on ultra-high-income, while keeping middle-class tax rates progressively higher. This has caused a massive 40-year upward redistribution of wealth from the broad middle to the very top.

But why do our elected officials vote these neo-Liberal, supply side policies into law — year after year — if they are killing our broad middle-class and causing increasingly severe class-disequalibrium? Because quid pro quo. Politicians need money for campaigns. Who funds those campaigns? Over 90% of campaign funding comes from 0.1%-wealth sources, who demand only one thing in return. Ultra-low tax rates. And they get it. Of course. Larry Lessig found that DC politicians spend roughly 50% of their working hours on the phone to their 0.1% constituents.

Does the middle-class understand this? No. Of course not. They are told by the 90% media (0.1%-wealth owned, leftist and rightist) that our problems are (fill in blank). Immigrants. Baby Killers. Gays. Socialists. Fascists. The truth is never spoken. You will never hear an in-depth report on profound class-inequality vis-a-vis supply-side tax policies on the 90% news.

Alas, the core problem is campaign funding laws that allow disproportionate influence of minority interests (special interests, money as speech). Lawmakers are the only one’s who can change these horrific campaign funding laws. But of course that would be political suicide. And, as we’ve seen, the Supreme Court, who take massive gifting from ultra-wealth interests, is not going to make the required changes.

And so, the USA continues to grow increasingly unequal, the middle-class continues to lose real wealth, incr(ease their real debt load, and decrease their real savings — core metrics that have been worsening for 40 years. At this rate of growth in class-inequality, the USA will reach 1% / 90% inequality ratios last seen in pre-revolutionary France, circa 1785.

Fix campaign funding, or die. Simple as that. (see UK, NZ, and other nations for healthy campaign funding law).

John LaGrou

https://www.cbpp.org/research/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality

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And, of course, in the ATTENTION economy, where clicks and likes are the currency, Trump is slaying it..It matters little WHAT one is saying, as long as they are shouting louder than anyone else..

I smugly assumed that in the eigth years since the Donald’s ascension, attrition would seal the deal for us..Millions of old voters would die..Millions of new voters would come into the fold..The GOP would be grand no more, just old..

But we lost the young men..While sleepy Joe is cavorting with world leaders, Trump is going to WWF matches..”He’s one of US!” They feel seen.

Trump plays “Macho Man” at his rallies..”Machismo” is still a thing in Latin culture..

Today’s kids are SO Jonesing for some BDE, that Trump, Putin, Musk, and  Andrew Tate are seen as viable role models..They should look to Travis Kelce..Talk about BDE! (“Phizer Boy” acc.to Aaron Rodgers, who’s literally limping on the sidelines.)

The “great replacement theory” doesn’t seem conspiratorial to today’s dudes..Guys can’t even get hired for roles in action/superhero movies..And if you boycott these films, you’re a MISOGYNIST..Of course, the ladies get a pass, for not supporting THEIR OWN gender..

James Spencer

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Here’s the problem the Democrats are up against:

Core inflation is the change in the costs of goods and services but does not include those from the food and energy sectors. Food and energy prices are exempt from this calculation because their prices can be too volatile or fluctuate wildly.

Food and energy (gas) prices are not factored in to that “lowering” inflation rate the Democrats (and I’m registered Democrat) tout. In the real world, where most of us live, food and energy is where inflation is hitting hardest.

Jeff Eyrich

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Case in point

“BREAKING: America’s largest egg producers and industry groups illegally rigged the market to drive up the price of eggs a jury has found.

“Their price-fixing schme includd exporting millions of eggs overseas t drive up U.S. prices around Thanksgiving and Easter.”

https://x.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1727068498197901568?s=20

Rob Meder

P.S. Our corporate overloads raised the prices and never looked back. Worked so well raised em again. People kept buying. They put less in each package. People keep buying. Margins have never been better.  The grocery world has shrunk to where a few massive multinationals own every shelf in the place. This is not ‘inflation’ – it’s simple old school greed. The only thing that will reverse this is when people stopping buying. Companies are more than happy with how thing are right now. Nothing a politician can do about it.

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Democrats need a targeted message, not a change in leadership.

HRC didn’t have one for Wis, Mi, Ohio, and PA and she lost.

The financial abyss between the haves and have nots has never been wider

and deeper. If they’re not smart enough to craft a message then a change

in leadership is warranted.

John Keith Sr.

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Dear Bob, I’m a union lawyer representing workers at many industries all around the country, including the young workers organizing Starbucks. Your observations are valid.  Wage earners, especially the youth, are facing serious economic challenges and they’re damn angry about it.  I don’t blame the Democrats per se, rather the increasing and perhaps inevitable monopolization of the economy.  Major industries are controlled by just a few corporations so many workers are employed directly by them, or indirectly down the line by their multiple contractors and suppliers.  As a result, they essentially control the labor market, as well as the market for their goods and services.  It’s not surprise to us in the labor movement that workers have not had significant improvements in earnings in over 30 years.

We also know that Trump will do nothing but accelerate this trend, but try telling that to the folks who are struggling in this economy.   Keep up the good work, Bob Giolito

Bob Giolito

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Once again, Bob, you’re dead on! Nailed all the liberal dems I know, and that’s most of the people I know, except for my youngest brother, who lives in MI, a Trumper who grudgingly has a half-black grandson, a gay daughter who’s afraid to come out at age 40 (“there’s no hate like Christian love,” she says), and of course believes everything in the bible and NT (except that part in Revelations that says children born of adultery should be killed).

Yes, it’s 2016 redux! Scary, cause this time they will make the trains run on time, right to the camps.

Schuyler, a devoted reader

Schuyler Bishop

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I understand your perspective here. It’s definitely anxiety-producing. At the moment, I am glad to have moved to Warsaw from Nashville. It’s certainly a hell of a lot cheaper, for a start. I’ve recently been dealing with my two US banks. Both websites stopped working for bill pay. It took four days and a total of hours on the phone to resolve ONE of them. It’s been a week and the other has not changed or gotten back to me, as promised. Plus, to pay a bill online from either means they POST A CHECK to the recipient in 7-10 days! This is absolutely unheard of at my banks in Poland and the UK…for years. They don’t even have checks here.

Take a step back from your rant to encompass a broader view, like Xi and Putin do. The US (and EU) have completely yielded dominance in wind, solar and battery tech to China this century, including the raw materials supply chain. A huge strategic error with serious security implications, both energy and otherwise. And a perhaps more damning illustration of the complacency and incompetence you so rightly point out. How/why was this allowed to happen? There must have been many smart people on the inside shouting the warnings. It was the “leaders” who sat by doing nothing. Add to this the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. Frighten stuff.

Robert Bond

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We have corporate profit induced inflation: July 2020 through July 2022, inflation rose by 14%, but corporate profits rose by 75%, 5 times as fast.

Example: the cost for chicken went up 20% in 2021 as Tyson Foods doubled their profits from the 1st quarter of 21 to the 1st quarter of 22

The news media reports every day about how groceries are impacting the middle class, but they never say that prices are inflated because of corporate greed.  And nothing else.

We collected $4 and 1/2 trillion in taxes in 2022. That’s 1/2 trillion less than 2021. As a % of our GDP, it’s less than 17%. Which is down from our historical average of 19.5%, which by the way is already super low.

If you compare America to other nations:

lGermany has tax revenue as a % of GDP of 24%.

UK 27%.

Australia 30%.

Not only are we bad at collecting taxes, we’re not even trying.

The one agency where we’ve decided to cut spending this year was the IRS, whose one job is to… collect taxes.

If we raised our tax revenue to 24% of GDP, which is very reasonable (where Germany is now), we would 100% solve the deficit.

We have an inability to control perception.

We as a country are doing so many things to pivot back to making the USA as a whole better for the future.

Inflation is corporate greed induced.

Taxes and the debt are a result of Reagan. And greed.

Turns out greed is totally NOT good

Garu Witt

The Pabst Theater Group | Milwaukee 

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You’re constant misrepresentation of Biden is the reason you get blowback. If Biden was 15-20 years younger, you and everyone else would be praising his record. Student loan forgiveness efforts, minimum wage gains, helping and supporting the Union efforts, massive amount of progressive judges appointed, the infrastructure package and the list goes on. On could easily make the argument that the inflation is more of a result of corporate greed and the lack of regulation allowed due to Republican efforts.

Having said that…The time is now for Biden to step aside and help find someone younger and if he makes it known, I would like to think someone on the Democratic side would step up. I think there is a way to recognize Biden for all his accomplishments and at the same time say that it’s time to hand the baton off.

Duff Rice

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Heavy stuff, but so on point with how I’ve been feeling. And as a lifelong Democrat, I have no idea what my Democrat friends are thinking cause I’m too afraid to ask, cause I’m afraid to get cancelled if I say I’m completely frustrated and over Biden.

I saw one of those editorial comic newspaper photos on social media few years ago that stuck with me and I wished I’d saved. Where there was earth but right above it was a livable orb that said AMAZON. It was like a Jeff Bezos planet. And I felt like it hit home. Like all of these new age billionaires could easily build a liveable place in space right above earth and leave this planet for a healthy living space above earth. I pictured the Kardashians, the Beyonces, the Taylor Swifts..meanwhile we’re all killing each other here while they cast absentee ballots for Democrats.

So what do we do? I had so much hope for Pete Buttigieg in the last election, but good grief there’s been seemingly no progress on the infrastructure of travel or high speed rail and nothing but toxic disaster trains in this country. Who do we pick to be our next president? Nikki Haskell seems viable?

We need someone as whipsmart as a tech guru whose not out for world domination.

Don’t get me started on the Gen Z who couldn’t find Palestine on a map prior to 10/7 but now are their biggest champions.

You’re older than me, but when I hear older folk saying we’re screwed – I feel like we are genuinely screwed.

Thanks for being the only person saying what likely a lot of us feel.

-Suzannah Wilkins

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As part of the liberal elite, I’m feeling it. My husband started a small business right before the pandemic. We got hit with the shutdowns, inflation, supply chain issues, and crime. We took out an adjustable home loan to fund it and this has been super rough with the Fed raising rates. Lately we have been withdrawing retirement savings and maxing credit cards to keep it afloat. I wake up in the middle of the night worrying how to pay the bills.

Don’t discount how Covid has f*cked with people. My husband has been battling long Covid for a year and a half, and I’ve been getting insomnia, strong anxiety, and fatigue since my last infection in the summer. I can’t say if it’s long Covid or just life. I expect there are a lot of others who have seen strange health symptoms develop in the past few years. How many of these are from Covid?

I work in tech, not a great job like at Google, but a decent job. Our company had layoffs. Salaries are stagnant. Laid off tech people with experience are having trouble getting interviews and if they can find a job their salary is down. And expenses are up.

A number of years ago, a friend of mine was murdered in an antisemitic attack in this country, which I never thought could happen here, until it did. It is frightening how antisemitism is on the rise. I am sympathetic to the Palestinians too, though, how would anyone like to grow up under Hamas?

Although I am not Jewish, I understand what it is like to be targeted, because I am trans. I can go to jail for using the restroom in Florida now, thank you Ron DeSantis.

Things just feel – bad – so I get why people vote for Trump. I hope abortion will save the Democrats in 2024. I miss the hope and change. We need a positive message to counter the fear and hate.

Thanks Bob!

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Karl Marx: to the proletariat “all you have to lose are the chains that bind you!”

PS. I lost my business and all my income due to COVID. Small businesses were shut down by the government through no fault of their own. If you were big enough, you had accountants to quickly apply and get you that ppp money. The little guys were left to fend for themselves. I played the game and lost.

Renee Emmett