Blanche confirmed 50-49 at 1am as the Senate's Turtle Caucus dies off; a top House Judiciary Democrat defects to the GOP in Michigan; and Burrito-Gate exposes what's really wrong with zoomers.
There's a factor in the Twenty Dollar Burrito Brawl that I haven't seen addressed: between parents dropping the ball on teaching their kids basic life skills and Home Economics being pulled from high school education, Generation Z doesn't know how to stretch a dollar or cook for themselves so they don't have to rely on other people to make and deliver their food.
It's not the only factor, but it's something I've observed among the Zs and Alphas that I've interacted with.
Excellent point. While Growing up eating out was an occasional thing. Now people eat out most of the time and complain it’s expensive. I can feed 5 people burritos for $20
Look for Safe Catch. Ahi Yellowfin Tuna, 43 grams of protein per can, and mercury limit of 0.1 part per million. The FDA limit is a too high 1.0 part/million. Even so, limiting Safe Catch to 1-3 times a week for an adult is a reasonable strategy, no more than once a week for children.
Another strategy is eat smaller fish like sardines--good omega 3 content, and since they are in the middle of the food chain, they don't take in as much mercury as tuna.
You betcha ya! the smaller SMASH fish are a better choice. I’ve preferred mackerel for some time now. But…Locally raised Buffalo 🦬 remains my go-to protein source 🫶🏻
Working at a pizza place with a free pizza meal for every shift kept me going! My roommate ate hot dogs with avocado wrapped in tortillas. Ugh. But, we knew how to shop and make food ( I wouldn’t call it cooking though).
Food service jobs are great for college kids. During my last couple of college years I tended bar in 5 star Gold Coast dining room. Meals improved greatly! 😁
Yes-definitely both my kids are working in college one at a restaurant, one at a grocery store. For me, it was not just a job but a group of friends for life.
Married in 1967 while hubby was in college, paid for by himself. We survived on Banquet Pot Pies and Chef BoyArdie (?) pizza mixes. We had to think long and hard if we wanted to celebrate our anniversary by going to the $1.00 Steakhouse. Truly. There was one in Champaign Illinois.
Historically, has any generations parents said , "You know, we had it easy growing up. Let's take away some things we enjoyed from our own kids as they grow up." I don't think so. It is in our nature to want to provide 'better' for our children. The real root of the issue is that is starts with a real passing on of the faith. Not a watered down prosperity gospel or "it's just Jesus and me and the bible". All the rest is ancillary. We as a country still allow the slaughter of almost a million babies a year. We gloss over that horror. We "statistics-ize" it the way Stalin predicted. How can a new generation be blessed without a people humbling themselves and repenting, and doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord? Economic issues are downstream from the True Faith.
For the last 25-30 years kids have been taught in schools that Christianity is bad and Christians are stupid. They go home and convince their weak parents that what they are learning is true. Children have been handed lots of power and been given entitlement. The kids run the show as parents helicopter around them.
Home schooling has helped ameliorate that a bit, but I've seen kids who had that who then still went off to a college and 'flipped'. It's sad to see. The sad fact is we all have a bit of a rebellious tendency in us no matter our state in life. It is why it is all the more amazing the example that Mary gave us in the New Testament. We can see by her response to Gabriel that she knew the teachings of the Old Testament. When he brought her the request from God, she replied perfectly in her free will, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." Humility in our relationship with God is the only way out of this mess.
And as a Gen-X-er myself, I see how annoying the helicopter parenting is. I'm not a full "free range-r", but kids need more exploration/discovery/problem-solution to their lives. The 'drone-ing' of our young still continues, now with digital babysitting added on.
Yes, the hypocrisy of this younger generation protesting about the death of children in Gaza, yet promoting the slaughter of babies in the womb is breathtaking! Truly repugnant.
They don’t have the skills but “influencers” have told them they are entitled to the rewards anyway. So they feel cheated. And their teachers/professors have told them who to blame — Trump, conservatives, capitalism, republicans. Hence the rise of the “free everything” communists.
Exactly. When I bought shrimp from a weekend business in a truck, he asked if I wanted them mild, medium or spicy. I asked What? He said how do I want them steamed. I said "I am going to cook them, so raw. Doesn't anyone cook anymore?" Pretty bad when the default position is assuming you are too lazy to cook yourself.
Seafood buying off the truck is a huge thing in the Gulf of America states! It’s perfectly fresh or flash frozen and they generally just drive it inshore a few miles for the convenience of the customers. If you’re ever in the south and see one on the side of the road, I would urge you to stop and check it out for yourself! Cheers
Good to know you have a Startrek Transporter. Unless you are at the dock, everything moves by truck, rail, or plane. Seafood, produce, meat. Except for you, apparently. This was not a pick up truck. A dedicated trailer that does not move, and has been operational here for decades.
There's always the inverse, which precious few consider: it takes 20 of the paper monies to buy a burrito. Twenty paper monies use to buy burritos for four. What's with the paper monies? They have the same dead presidents on them as before. Who broke the monies?
You are spot on! When Home economics got removed as a required course I was livid! And here are the fruits of that effort! Maybe RFK can have some influence. Nutrition ignorance was rampant among the urban and rural poor a century or so back. Now it knows no economic boundaries.
Did you see he is going to have a cooking show to demonstrate relatively easy recipes that are healthy but not expensive? I think that is a great idea!
My older son is an excellent cook and my younger son is learning, although he can only do basics. My objective is for each of them to be able to feed themselves reasonably well when they are adults and on their own.
The inflation is real. High minimum wages don't produce cheap burritos, either. And there's relentless upcharge and corporate style enshittification (less for more).
But.
Zoomers do seem to expect a standard of luxury and safety that wasn't there a few decades ago. The fact that Doordash is even in discussion, or the presumption is food bought at a restaurant, is indeed part of the problem. And older generations have become soft, too. All those Guatemalans sure make it easy to get take out.
Both things can be true.
And yeah you can make a better burrito at home for much much less, unless you're severely disabled in multiple ways.
Glad to see the "Turtle Caucus" going away. It's crazy how they're all showing their true selves after either announcing their retirement or having their retirement proclaimed for them. Being in TX - I was glad to see Cornyn finally pushed out as he's been a RINO for several terms now. Being nearby, I was really glad to see Cassidy out. Maybe we'll get some sanity in the health areas of gov without him driving things. :)
I followed the "Burrito" conversations. Some summed that up as a "both" issue and I tend to agree with that. The cost of a burrito shouldn't be $15-20, but at the same time inflation grew at an insane level to contribute to that. Now - getting rid of tons of people on govt SNAP benefits and getting rid of the visa/migrant invaders consuming all of the resources ... that will help quite a bit, but is crazy hard to do with "judges" blocking that at every turn and our politicians welcoming these grifters in en masse.
I know in TX - we have a _huge_ visa issue and Abbott isn't helping that. We have people on the streets exposing the visa fraudsters, pointing out their "businesses" (houses) and the fact that people on these visas are working other jobs. We can't close those doors fast enough and get these people back home to make their own countries great.
the burrito conversation is actually a learning opportunity for young adults.
particularly when paying $35 to have it delivered. because the extra $20 to have it delivered and tipping requires three of the most important concepts to understand for success:
1. opportunity cost
2. time value of money
3. determining when a burrito is just a burrito and the first two no longer have value
Some of us said, shouted at the time that shutting down the world for a bad cold and giving trillions of dollars to us for hiding out at home...or go on extended vacations...would result in massive inflation. You can't flood a market with currency without additional products for that currency to buy. Supply-Demand is an economic law. Not a suggestion. Massive inflation was *always* going to result from that.
I was called selfish and uncaring and told I wanted people to die, some called me a murderer. Well...
There's many components that Jeff did an able job explaining. But the Scamdemic printing press was the rocket fuel boost it needed.
And for the record, that foolish spending, following a foolish national/global shutdown is on ALL of DC. D's, R's, and yes, PDJT. Fact. I hate that I have to write it, but I said that at the time, too. It was foolish all the way around. And arrogant. To imagine that man controls the microbiological world of the planet is the height of arrogance. Nothing man did, no controls, no barriers, no minimization of movement and socializing, working, playing, exercising, no injections of magical elixirs and potions controls the ocean of microbiology we live and breathe in. We only control our own bodies. And how well we take care of them to meet the microbiology we coexist with. When we take care of the perfect immune system that God designed us with we can handle anything but chemical poisoning. For which there is no biological technology, no biotech, that can help with. Only poison control.
If PDJT wasn't a known germaphobe he'd have known better than to "trust the experts" who lied their asses off to him. With fear + flattery. The nation and the world needed a POTUS who said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." And "We will...bear any burden, meet any hardship...to assure the survival and the success of liberty." Instead we had were directed to stay at home. The original sin of the loss of freedom came when he forgot that we are AMERICANS. Only the tyranny that followed in the petty tyrants of state government and his successor made his catastrophic mistake look better. Sorry if that truth offends C&C readers. But it's the truth of it. Trump believes in cooties. SadTragic. For all of us. Now we all pay for it.
To be fair, he tried to keep to the two weeks the "experts" initially said we needed, and got excoriated because it was "too soon" and he was "killing people" by saying we should open the country back up :/ But yes, he should never have agreed to any of it in the first place.
I never get delivery because I can't stand to pay that extra for the convenience! I will get take out at the very most, if I don't feel like cooking! Or go to a restaurant and just have my meal there, if I am going to pay extra.
Like I told my son when he said I bought things for nothing when I was young and told him a McDonald’s meal was $3.75. That was an hours wage now it cost $17 which is an hours wage.
We will be happy here in NC with Tillis leaving. Cooper (pooper) is the one we need to stop! We have an uphill battle. Hopefully the truth about Covid will help keep him out!
Elizabeth Warren is pushing and contributing to campaigns! She’s a nightmare.
Thanks to C&C, I have some good push back points. 🙌
As a fellow Texan -- be excited all you want for seeing Cornyn pushed out, but Paxton is a horrible, horrible, horrible replacement candidate. And that is now coming to fruition in the polling. Independents matter, folks! My center-right children who live in Texas will not be voting for him. They're all voting third party.
Talarico, who would have a snowball's chance against Cornyn, is polling higher than Paxton in numerous polls. Can Paxton pull it out? Maybe?? But if so, it will be even more razor thin than Cruz's victory over O'Rourke. And how much of the Republican war chest will have to be spent in Texas to do this? Which is NUTS to have to do in Texas -what a waste. So we might gain Michigan, but it is hardly a foregone conclusion we keep Texas.
You believe polls? The polls showed Harris by a landslide. Additionally Paxton is not horrible. You are woefully uninformed. During the Biden years he was a ray of light during dark, dark days. In his role as AG he fought creatively and tirelessly until the tide began to turn. And his reward was vicious attacks by the press and now people like you.
I largely agree with this, but I also think Gen Z bears some responsibility for their predicament. I'm 30, right on the Millennial/Gen Z edge, often in what's called the "Zillennial" window, and the number of people my age or younger who cannot cook, cannot do basic financial math, and cannot tighten the belt at all astounds me.
You're correct that the $20 burrito is not actually about the burrito, but that goes both ways: there is also no $20 burrito in this nation, certainly not from Chipotle or other standard wrapped meat and rice emporiums. Which means the $20 burrito is as much a stand-in effigy for the financial illiteracy of the younger generation, as it is for a broken housing market, and both issues need to be fixed, not just the housing market.
And young people bear some of their own responsibility for that illiteracy. Sure, schools and parents failed them on that, but we also live in the most information-accessible era in human history. Not knowing what an interest rate is, or how to budget, or how to hold debt in ways that are less costly, is a choice that too many young people are still making.
Also paying burrito makers $20 an hour so they can have a ‘living wage’ when those jobs were not meant to raise a family on. They were for teenagers and college students, increases the cost.
I am afraid there may be another explanation to go with yours., I know absurd numbers of these otherwise poor are too pathetic to even do pick up, let alone cook, so maybe $20 is the price if you order from Door dash .
Our nephew is a decent good man, but zero ambition. He ran up his credit card, then walked. He works enough to get the few things he wants. Lives with his mother, helps his dad, occasionally does things for us for which we pay him. We could keep him busy full time, but he is just not interested. All too common these days. Life is still too easy in this country when it comes to not starving or freezing to death if you don't work.
Yeah I didn't even bother to go into the gig economy side of the equation. In my mind, that rolls up to "cannot budget". Delivery of anything other than a pizza (or groceries, which was actually standard prior to the second world war) is and has always been a luxury that comes at a premium, and I cannot fathom why it's not being treated as a staple.
Don't get me wrong, I have those nights where I just really want the Chicken Parm Fairy to knock on my door, but I also can't drive due to a neurological condition and I make enough money to splurge.
Look at the priorities; tatoos, Tik Tok, the latest electronic gadgets, wanting "it all" without earning anything. And saddest of all, no personal, spiritual relationship with our Creator.
Have you tried to buy a decent lunch in NYC? Governments cause inflation for the most part. The idea that demand is the main driver is economic fallacy foisted upon us by bad economists. Bad layers of government like in NYC which also has NY State bad government makes the issue even more pronounced. People have been saying things 'need to be fixed' for decades, but Congress isn't equipped with people who want to really fix it. They just want to get re-elected.
I mean, I live in a blue downtown (albeit in a red state) and the locally-owned, high quality burrito place is $11, not $20, and is portioned heartily enough to keep me for most of a day without any other food. Can double the protein for another $2, and I basically don't need anything else to eat that day.
That's my point, is that the hypothetical nature of the $20 burrito reveals as much about the financial illiteracy of Gen Z as the reaction to the possibility of its existence reveals about their reasonable frustrations about generic cost of living (most of which is being driven by housing, insurance and healthcare costs, not food if you normalize against increases in median wage).
Inflation is absolutely a result of policy (namely, monetary policy), but there is a serious expectations issue within Gen Z that needs to be addressed at the same time, or literally nothing will ever be good enough for them. A chart going around recently showed that while most generations see $100,000 or perhaps less as "successful" annual income, Gen Z sees $600,000 instead. Until those expectations are re-set, Gen Z will never be happy with anything. They will be prisoners of their own minds, subject to suffering that is ultimately self-inflicted, and it breaks my heart to imagine.
I hear you on expectations. When it comes to food though, we need to compare apples-to-apples (and not apples to food-grade shellacked apples which basically means apples long past their normal due date).
There is 'sustenance' and there is healthy eating. Something can 'sustain' you now, but you are going to 'pay the piper' at some point. And there is the concept of food 'substitution'. Where a restaurant or food processor will take our something of higher health value and replace with something more harmful, to keep a price point. We know most people don't read labels, let alone learn about what those terms they see mean. So in the case of a burrito (I've eaten, but rarely):
1. Corn - is it gmo? Any other adulterations? Glyphosate used?
2. Beef - Healthy beef is grassfed, not corn fed. I don't think your 'high quality' burrito is using grassfed beef. Cornfed has a bad Omega 3-to-6 profile. The meat in your burrito is causing inflammation you will pay the price for either/and in the short term and long term. And that doesn't even take in to consideration where the beef was sourced (here or overseas where you can be getting old beef). The restaurants often do not know what is in their beef or the true source They just buy from Sysco. Now, we have supermarket chains like Sprouts Farmers Markets, supposed to be healthy, who have approved the selling of labgrown meat. They don't put that on the label. Instead it will begin showing up as "Cultivated" "Cultured" "Cell cultured". Created with techniques cancer cells use to propagate. Easier to hide that creation in 'ground beef'. Who's checking where the beef really comes from? This is 'substitution'.
3. Cheese - How many know that most shredded cheese is now treated with an antibiotic so it 'stays fresh' longer without molding. Any anti-biotic will mess with your gut biome, which scientists are only now starting to understand the symbiosis of.
4. The sauces used for the most part are additional chemistry experiments, and often loaded with seed oils and soybean, not something healthy like unadulterated olive oil or organic avocado oil.
So, to truly eat a healthy burrito, assuming you can find one in a restaurant that is diligent, would cost about $20 when you factor in food costs are often only 1/3 the final cost. And if you want to eat that healthy at home, you better find a way to buy in bulk those unadulterated ingredients because getting each of the above in a truly healthy format will cost you if you only buy periodically so as to not have it expire.
People know shrinkflation, but few know substitution dangers and what it does to their health.
If we're limiting ourselves to discussing healthy food, then eating out shouldn't even be in the equation, frankly. It's a pointless contention because there are vanishingly few places which even offer half of what you just had to list to stretch the final cost above $20.
That's kind of the point, is that those expectations are absurd. Trying to find premium meals (i.e. organic, grass-fed, sustainably raised, no chemicals at all involved in any stage of the process/completely fresh, and prepared by someone else) at non-premium prices has always been a fantasy, that's not suddenly a new phenomenon. If you want completely healthy and completely cheap, then it's back to my point about needing to learn to cook; that's always been the case.
Bingo. I said in another post this is what I call adulting. Basic societal survival skills are missing from Gen Z's arsenal as an adult. Some of this is the result of being lazy, because as you mentioned pretty much every tool you need and how to use it is accessible by numerous methods.
In college I lived off Kraft Mac and Cheese and cans of tuna, lol.
Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University is such a great resource for basic instruction in budgeting and building wealth. It’s even offered in an online format now. https://www.financialpeace.com/app/classes/guide
My burritos regularly cost over $20 at Chipotle, such being the result of an extra spoon of meat for $6 (extra protein for me).
But I question how well such a generation can do as home owners (with repairs and maintenance) if they can't do basic food prep, do math, etc.
All people can learn skills for some degree of Independence and a sense of accomplishment. But they're much more likely to be successful if they're married, or are willing to have responsible roommates, and sacrifice for the long term instead of whining about short term types of luxuries. (that's a broad brush stroke, I understand. I'm trying to convey that there's a need for sacrifice.)
I've only ever bought a new car once in 1993. All others, including my first pulled from a junk yard and rebuilt, were used and required skills to learn to maintain, instead of chasing more debt to look cool. A car also enables people to go to school, reach jobs they couldn't otherwise get via public transportation, and you can pick up tools and parts for maintaining or building things.
I BARELY got into a house in a buyer's market with a VA loan (for sellers, one of the worst to sell to because of seller conditions). That meant it wasn't a cream puff house, was old in style and interior kitchen, bath and carpets.
Over 10 years, we've replaced most of the floors ourselves, did demolition and upgrades (paint, upgraded hinges and knobs) we could do ourselves, and leveraged a relative's contractor discount for counters we couldn't afford, but fell in love with after wandering outside the cheap counter material area in a warehouse. The bathrooms still need updating, but we've remodeled one with paint, switching out lights, curtains and mirrors, and exercised creativity.
In other words, it's taken time and I've learned skills along the way. My purchased tools and learned knowledge have been an investment to save money elsewhere. I have 3 vehicles, two over 20 years, one at 14 years, all paid off and I maintain them. Two look a bit worn, and I'm toying with the idea of painting them myself.
The point is... There are sacrifices I have to make. And skills to learn. Investments in myself to allow me to have what I have, over time. My wife is about to retire, and we're facing having to tighten up a bit more. I will need to work a few more years. Hopefully there is a retirement to look forward to.
Oh, and my smart phone is 10 years old. Yes, I replaced the battery once. It still functions well. You don't HAVE to buy into a consumer mindset. Buy the best you can at the time (quality) and make it last. Some people say 'But once, cry once. "
When they get a little older though, their “useless degrees in woke nonsense” encompasses computer science and engineering.
H1B, OPT, ands that other student visa is robbing them of any chance that had at a good job.
The H1Bs tether the immigrant to the company like a slave, and with the student and temp worker visas, the company and employee together save 15.3% because they don’t owe FICA taxes on those wages.
We’re making our young people compete against all 8 billion people in the world for a job when they did nothing wrong.
If we don’t protect our youth, where do we get off asking them to sacrifice for our SS and Medicare?
Ehh, this is kind of overblown, frankly. I'm white, straight, male, and have a STEM degree. I'm gainfully employed in a career with upward mobility, own my home, etc. The same can be said of basically everyone I know from college, and several are married with children, or at least children on the way.
Even within tech, only ~5% of the jobs are held by an H-1B, and amongst the population at large, it's closer to 0.15% of jobs in the US. While yes, they need to go back and that program needs to be shuttered, it wouldn't free up nearly enough jobs to make a dent in the underemployment problem.
Ultimately, the issue was we oversaturated the tech jobs market. We told everyone to learn to code, and assumed that both they'd be good at it, and that you can maintain an entire economy on B2B web development indefinitely, and neither were true. Most people don't actually make remarkable programmers, and economies cannot infinitely scale up more and more B2B Web software; there are upper limits on just how much connectivity and integration work there can be in an economy that's largely stagnating everywhere else.
I keep wondering if there is any way President Trump could offer some degree of student loan forgiveness by sticking the universities with at least part of it. After all, they ran the grift in the first place; they should be on the hook, no?
That would have the additional political benefit of further dividing parts of the Democrat constituency.
I never understood why they all kept building more huge buildings. They have to be maintained and airconditioned and what all, when we were already in the age of virtual classes and virtual degrees.
I am a boomer, and when the computer age hit, I taught myself everything I needed to know to get ahead in my job and to do things more efficiently.
Teach kids how to read. After that, they can teach themselves everything they want or need to know.
The arenas and the student center buildings are part of the scam, a way to take those excess funds the students borrowed to get, and pass them to building contractors.
I have no doubt that there were kickbacks and grift involved.
I remember that Diane Feinstein's husband was involved in a UC "new arena" scam, and made a lot of money from it.
Same here! Good reading comprehension opens up the world via books. Yes, I still prefer the feel of a good book in my hands as supposed to staring at a lit screen. 😁😄
In student loan offices on every campus it is carefully explained AFTER students have been told to read the documents they are about to sign that student loans are non-dischargeable for any reason. They are told and sign off on provisions that the loans can be taken from their paychecks and Social Security, and probably other sources as well. I remember at age 18 understanding what that meant, but then I didn't major in Left-Handed Puppetry.
they weren't explained to me back in my day. I never knew any of that until years later. Man, I'm GenX...life is hard for us as well once corporate gives you the boot...no one will hire you. We at least know how to make due and save $, but it's still a kick in the teeth the prices of everything compared to earnings (or lack thereof when you are jobless and there's just no one hiring you no matter what you apply for).
The Obama administration ran the grift. It was how he jacked with the employment numbers to hide the truth. At the time you could not go on social media sites without a flurry of pop-ups touting cheap degrees.
Are there a fair number of young people with unrealistic expectations and a poor work ethic? Yep...but there are also a LOT of young people who worked hard, studied hard, followed the rules that were given to them, and are now PI**ED that none of the promises they were given are even remotely close to coming true!
When we denigrate them and belittle their understandable frustration we are only pushing them straight into the arms of the waiting DSA, who is also making unrealistic promises to them, but from the other side of the political divide! IMHO, there are far too many Boomers (sorry, but that is the age demographic), both Democrat AND Republican, who have zero empathy or understanding. They are NOT helping the situation when they condescendingly tell the kids to sit down, shut up, and quit whining! It is not helpful and it will not end well for ANY of us if we keep ignoring what they are trying to say, simply because we don't like their tone!
I am sure I will get a ton of pushback for these comments but I think Jeff said some things that need to be said and I appreciate him having the guts to do it!
Reframing the message would go a long way too. I keep hearing Trump tout how he stopped inflation and prices are dropping. Food, gas, services etc. It is simply not true. Gas in central florida is up to $4 per gallon! Our food bill has not gone down even a little and good luck finding help with services you can’t do yourself for a reasonable cost.
Framing it better would be to acknowledge what we all know we are experiencing. Validate us! Don’t gas light us. We waded through the gas lighting and don’t believe your lying eyes for a while now. We see it. Maybe SOME states have it a little lower -but were they already the states that were lower anyway? I drove through Georgia in the height of biden. Gas was STILL lower than everywhere else. So people in Georgia telling me what their gas prices are (lower) doesn’t help. Not sure if that makes sense.
Anyway. Voted for Trump every time. But he needs to stop telling me to not believe my lying eyes. That would go a long way.
I see Jeff is still pushing the "Get a STEM degree" line. That is SO last decade.
When the economy crashed in 2001, the newly unemployed were told "Be a nurse".
As a nurse, I didn't like the sound of that one. And yeah, a new influx of nurses willing to work 12 hour shifts, who weren't all that interested in actual nursing, ensued.
Then when the 2008 crash hit, the newly unemployed were told "Learn to code" and scorned for their college ambitions, with the "You should have gotten a STEM degree, not gender studies". (Jeff is showing his age with that one.)
So the STEM departments filled up with young people eager to get a useful degree.
And then they graduated with $100,000 debts and found out about H1B visas.
Meanwhile, Obama and the Congress after 2008 rebooted the all-important stock market by handing over billions to the bankers, and putting it all on the public debt.
Now the debt is skyrocketing, as is inflation, since inflation is actually caused by too much money in the system, not young people making a living wage.
Obama foreshadowed this in another way, when he announced that American workers were going to be forced to be "competitive" with Chinese workers, who worked long hours with no regulations on pollution or dangerous conditions.
That meant going back to the 1880s, when Americans worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, for lousy wages, and dangerous working conditions.
We're always told "We're a nation of immigrants". Yeah, because they needed to replace those workers who died in the mines, the mills, the factories, and the railroads.
I'd rather cut off Wall Street than screw young people. And the attitude that young people should be screwed instead has led to the point where they are openly talking about cutting off Social Security to the elderly.
Divide and Conquer. George Carlin nailed it over a decade ago, because he was an intelligent man, and could read the tea leaves of the propaganda we are fed.
I am a Boomer. I spent my life being remarkably empathetic and compassionate. Sometimes to my detriment. But I feel absolutely attacked by the younger generations. And they are remarkably ignorant for the most part in doing so. Boomers did not have anything handed to them other than the good fortune to be born into an economic boom. Well that and pre-Department of Education education. But that boom was over by 1971 when Nixon (who was not a Boomer) removed the US from the gold standard. Look at the economic stats pre- and post- 1971. The interest on the mortgage on my first house was north of 14%. That being said young people do have considerable economic (and social and other hurdles) but they seem woefully unprepared to address them. And voting for the DSA will not help them. He'll voting for Democrats will not help them. Democrats have, and the DSA will squash them far more mercilessly than they (erroneously) think Boomers have. Maybe it is just that they are the soft men created by the good times created by strong men.
A quick AI search of the phrase "ride the tiger" got me this:
It comes from the Chinese saying roughly translated as “He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount” (recorded in English by the late 19th century, e.g., in W. Scarborough’s 1875 Collection of Chinese Proverbs).
Imagine waking up to the fact that you've been riding a very wacky Tiger and you need to jump. Wow... sucks to be them.
The tiger we've been 'riding' is the Republican leadership one in Congress. Do nothings for main street people. Have voters too scared to dismount for the apocalyptic fear placed in them every 2 years while nothing really changes from Ryan to McCarthy to Johnson, or McConnel to Thune.
Sad thing is, God allowed the Biden administration as a way for us to wake up and wise up. We thought that is what happened in Nov. 2024, only to discover basically the same old same old in Congress. If they literally just did what they said they would do, we wouldn't be in this position. But like a battered spouse married to an alcoholic, we just accept things over and over because "what else can we do".
Why is Thune still in power blocking us? It is because we have a deep problem in the Senate with 80% of the Republican Senators. 6 years was supposed to protect us from immediacy of an election. But it hasn't. It calcified people into positions of ease, prestige, and power.
I am reminded of a famous quote by Archbishop Fulton Sheen, "Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them."
I think it has applicability here in the political scene too.
The commies’ challenge that Carville and Fetterman “start their own party” reminds me a bit of that CA congresswoman who told Elon to F off. He tweeted back “message received” and the rest is history. And karma.
Scandinavia socialism had ended up being just as destructive as every other variety. And to think the Swedes guarded themselves for decades from Soviet Communism, only to invite other destructors into the country themselves.
I was a mechanic. Ever since I was six or so. And I did that until I was 40. God, I miss those days. Life was easy, stuff was cheap. I married a pretty girl and fixed up a starter home. We raised three kids and felt genuinely middle-class. I want this for the zoomers.
What is wIth all the losers here who think only the war and Epstein files should be written about every freaking day? Go read your commie heroes' stacks. Maybe go back and look at THE LIST!
President Trump should be touting Mike Rowe's program every day and warning young people college isn't the best course if you're taking dumb classes that won't result in a living wage. Parents need to wake up and steer their kids in a better direction!
Here is the link to Mike Rowe’s build freedom jobs program. I’ve sent this to several young people and they’ve already put in their applications. It’s quite amazing 🤩
He also has a requirement that there is a love of our country and it's values of hard work, gratitude for our communities, etc. He said if that's not there, it's a tough climb in getting financial assistance.
However, Home of the Brave is underpinning the burrito wars (likely a little ccp money, too). Zoomers' parents have absolutely failed them in teaching any sort of fiscal accountability. As for corporations bemoaning the lack of smart hires due to dumb dei crap in colleges, I know one big one that lost a great kid last year because even though he was perfect for a position, no degree/don't bother. Well, someone else swooped him up and his potential knows no bounds. Warm bodies are nothing if they're incapable of problem solving.
@lis1242498 It’s true that parents have failed to teach their children fiscal responsibility. Yes, everything is more expensive, but young people in America today have so much. Few of them know what true poverty is. They walk around in designer clothing carrying the latest smart phone. In our city, there are food banks in every neighborhood. I was in a rural area in NC recently, wearing jeans with a hole in the knees. An elderly man I was talking to told he that when he was a kid, he had to have patches over the patches on his pants (because his family was so poor). There is a disconnect between what people need, what they think they are entitled to, and what they are willing to sacrifice and work for.
Re Fauci, when you have everyone asking the wrong question, you don't have to worry about the answer. This wasn't a lab leak from GOF. Jeff and company need to catch up and read Sasha Latypovas work on this.
Exactly. Fauci is going to get prosecuted for something he didn't do because it doesn't exist. Where is the proof of cleavage site and all the GOF claims?
Fauci is guilty of so many things , any prosecution is justified. His beagle torture. His Aids drug. Run Death is Near, his entry for an ebola drug pulled from the trials because so many quickly died, then he inserts it into the nationwide covid standards of care. Censoring , and ruining, all who dared question the many facets of the narrative. Covering up the illegal mandate for the military by hiding the fact Cominarty, the approved Pfizer covid shot, was never available in this country, denouncing ivermectin "horse paste " that worked, and getting pharmacies to disobey doctors scrips to dispense them. Just a small partial list. Defending Fauci is indefensible
There is evidence in the overly uncommon rates of furin interactions compared to comparable infection rates with respect to proteolytic enzyme attachment of other viruses.
I tend to think of it as "there was no new novel or deadly disease." People did get sick...but they got sick from whatever it was making them sick before 2020.
PS: the kicker for me and model estimates regarding the origin, leaving the mortality and morbidity out, was that less than 1% of the Chinese population eats bats.
Go figure. I was not allowed to include this factor in my modeling, and no one explained why
The sunspot cycle was linked to disease as far back as Hippocrates. The recent 11 year cycle began in 2019 (Covid?) And ends for UN Agenda 2030. It is peaking in 2025. It causes Influenza due to its influence on the body. Sadly Influenza disappeared and was labelled Covid. No vaccine prevents sunspot diseases, like Influenza.
Blanche to keep breaking the law and covering for the Epstein class. I remember saying months ago we would never see the meat and potatoes of the files. Yet another broken promise. TAW
Epstein? What's an Epstein? Didn't you notice that everyone is cheering Operation Epstein ForGetAboutIt? LOL. Distraction da'jour.
Like Massie said "Trump isn't in the files but his billionaire buddies from New York are". Let me translate that for everyone "Trump has the goods on a lot of very powerful people some of whom are above him in the Zionist banking cartel".
America usually has a Rockefeller controlled president but this time you've got a Rothschild controlled president.
That was when I knew the gig was up. One month after winning the biggest upset since Dewy vs Truman, Trump goes from "Lock her up" to "I don't want to hurt the Clintons. They're good people".
People in other states may have a different experience, but as to the statement "..., the Never-Trumpers were never any actual electoral threat..." - they RUN South Carolina. Oh, they SAY they support Trump. But look at the upcoming special election to replace Lindsey Graham. Trump endorsed Lindsey's sister, Darline. But the party has whole-heartedly pushed their own Russell Fry instead. Let's see what happens Tuesday night, Aug 11.
Hi, Paula! What county are you in? Fry is currently the Congressional District 7 Representative in the U.S. House. He sought re-election and won his primary for that seat. earlier this year. He faces Democrat John Gregory Vincent. in November. Now he is also running in the special Republican election for Sentaor Lindsey Graham's seat, for which the special primary is to be held Augst 11. (It is legal in SC, but I'm not supporting him. He should have waited till the next term.) PLEASE VOTE August 11 if you are eligible! But, if you voted in the Democrat primary earlier this year, you would not be eligible. (I am supporting Mark Lynch, who earned 130,000 against Lindsey Graham earlier this year. Darline whatever-her-last-name-is [Graham? Nordone?] (endorsed by Trump, but - there are issues, let's say) is not your only option!
There's a factor in the Twenty Dollar Burrito Brawl that I haven't seen addressed: between parents dropping the ball on teaching their kids basic life skills and Home Economics being pulled from high school education, Generation Z doesn't know how to stretch a dollar or cook for themselves so they don't have to rely on other people to make and deliver their food.
It's not the only factor, but it's something I've observed among the Zs and Alphas that I've interacted with.
Excellent point. While Growing up eating out was an occasional thing. Now people eat out most of the time and complain it’s expensive. I can feed 5 people burritos for $20
Such a great point! It’s so important to control one’s own gustation and consumption. But my broke college era ’Ramen’ was linguini aglio olio!
Oh La La so fancy LOL
😂💦fancy sounding peasant food!
Add a can of tuna or a couple of chopped hot dogs and Feast Like A King!
Well, that was my attitude but with buttered egg noodles.
Yep! I’m hoping tuna was safer to eat back then. 😬
I’ve since progressed to wild caught mackerel in EVOO.
Look for Safe Catch. Ahi Yellowfin Tuna, 43 grams of protein per can, and mercury limit of 0.1 part per million. The FDA limit is a too high 1.0 part/million. Even so, limiting Safe Catch to 1-3 times a week for an adult is a reasonable strategy, no more than once a week for children.
Another strategy is eat smaller fish like sardines--good omega 3 content, and since they are in the middle of the food chain, they don't take in as much mercury as tuna.
You betcha ya! the smaller SMASH fish are a better choice. I’ve preferred mackerel for some time now. But…Locally raised Buffalo 🦬 remains my go-to protein source 🫶🏻
Working at a pizza place with a free pizza meal for every shift kept me going! My roommate ate hot dogs with avocado wrapped in tortillas. Ugh. But, we knew how to shop and make food ( I wouldn’t call it cooking though).
Food service jobs are great for college kids. During my last couple of college years I tended bar in 5 star Gold Coast dining room. Meals improved greatly! 😁
Yes-definitely both my kids are working in college one at a restaurant, one at a grocery store. For me, it was not just a job but a group of friends for life.
I think they still got frozen burritos for like a buck 50 at Walmart
What don’t they have at Walmart!? One may also buy organic produce and grass fed beef there. All things to all people… 🤪
Married in 1967 while hubby was in college, paid for by himself. We survived on Banquet Pot Pies and Chef BoyArdie (?) pizza mixes. We had to think long and hard if we wanted to celebrate our anniversary by going to the $1.00 Steakhouse. Truly. There was one in Champaign Illinois.
Historically, has any generations parents said , "You know, we had it easy growing up. Let's take away some things we enjoyed from our own kids as they grow up." I don't think so. It is in our nature to want to provide 'better' for our children. The real root of the issue is that is starts with a real passing on of the faith. Not a watered down prosperity gospel or "it's just Jesus and me and the bible". All the rest is ancillary. We as a country still allow the slaughter of almost a million babies a year. We gloss over that horror. We "statistics-ize" it the way Stalin predicted. How can a new generation be blessed without a people humbling themselves and repenting, and doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord? Economic issues are downstream from the True Faith.
For the last 25-30 years kids have been taught in schools that Christianity is bad and Christians are stupid. They go home and convince their weak parents that what they are learning is true. Children have been handed lots of power and been given entitlement. The kids run the show as parents helicopter around them.
Home schooling has helped ameliorate that a bit, but I've seen kids who had that who then still went off to a college and 'flipped'. It's sad to see. The sad fact is we all have a bit of a rebellious tendency in us no matter our state in life. It is why it is all the more amazing the example that Mary gave us in the New Testament. We can see by her response to Gabriel that she knew the teachings of the Old Testament. When he brought her the request from God, she replied perfectly in her free will, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." Humility in our relationship with God is the only way out of this mess.
And as a Gen-X-er myself, I see how annoying the helicopter parenting is. I'm not a full "free range-r", but kids need more exploration/discovery/problem-solution to their lives. The 'drone-ing' of our young still continues, now with digital babysitting added on.
Amen
Yes, the hypocrisy of this younger generation protesting about the death of children in Gaza, yet promoting the slaughter of babies in the womb is breathtaking! Truly repugnant.
Amen
I like to call it "adulting". A lot of Gen Z don't have the skills to be an adult in order to "get along" or survive in today's world.
They don’t have the skills but “influencers” have told them they are entitled to the rewards anyway. So they feel cheated. And their teachers/professors have told them who to blame — Trump, conservatives, capitalism, republicans. Hence the rise of the “free everything” communists.
Exactly. When I bought shrimp from a weekend business in a truck, he asked if I wanted them mild, medium or spicy. I asked What? He said how do I want them steamed. I said "I am going to cook them, so raw. Doesn't anyone cook anymore?" Pretty bad when the default position is assuming you are too lazy to cook yourself.
It can’t just be an enterprising business that offers a step for its customers that could be appreciated? Gee whiz, Mr. Wilson!
I don't have a steamer so I would appreciate that service, personally. Unless I wanted to pan fry them or do something different.
You bought seafood off of a truck? Do you also purchase gas station sushi?
Seafood buying off the truck is a huge thing in the Gulf of America states! It’s perfectly fresh or flash frozen and they generally just drive it inshore a few miles for the convenience of the customers. If you’re ever in the south and see one on the side of the road, I would urge you to stop and check it out for yourself! Cheers
I'm in Central Florida and have seen it, but never stopped
Good to know you have a Startrek Transporter. Unless you are at the dock, everything moves by truck, rail, or plane. Seafood, produce, meat. Except for you, apparently. This was not a pick up truck. A dedicated trailer that does not move, and has been operational here for decades.
There's always the inverse, which precious few consider: it takes 20 of the paper monies to buy a burrito. Twenty paper monies use to buy burritos for four. What's with the paper monies? They have the same dead presidents on them as before. Who broke the monies?
And yet, those same parents were helicopter parents!
You are spot on! When Home economics got removed as a required course I was livid! And here are the fruits of that effort! Maybe RFK can have some influence. Nutrition ignorance was rampant among the urban and rural poor a century or so back. Now it knows no economic boundaries.
RFK Jr is working on that! There’s a lot of work to do here and it’s up to us.
Did you see he is going to have a cooking show to demonstrate relatively easy recipes that are healthy but not expensive? I think that is a great idea!
Good point. My teenage sons do quite a bit of cooking and it always shocks people!
My older son is an excellent cook and my younger son is learning, although he can only do basics. My objective is for each of them to be able to feed themselves reasonably well when they are adults and on their own.
I learned early from my mom how to cook. My twin sister only knew how to make macaroni and cheese. Of course she sewed better than i did.
The inflation is real. High minimum wages don't produce cheap burritos, either. And there's relentless upcharge and corporate style enshittification (less for more).
But.
Zoomers do seem to expect a standard of luxury and safety that wasn't there a few decades ago. The fact that Doordash is even in discussion, or the presumption is food bought at a restaurant, is indeed part of the problem. And older generations have become soft, too. All those Guatemalans sure make it easy to get take out.
Both things can be true.
And yeah you can make a better burrito at home for much much less, unless you're severely disabled in multiple ways.
Agree, there are multiple factors going on here.
Glad to see the "Turtle Caucus" going away. It's crazy how they're all showing their true selves after either announcing their retirement or having their retirement proclaimed for them. Being in TX - I was glad to see Cornyn finally pushed out as he's been a RINO for several terms now. Being nearby, I was really glad to see Cassidy out. Maybe we'll get some sanity in the health areas of gov without him driving things. :)
I followed the "Burrito" conversations. Some summed that up as a "both" issue and I tend to agree with that. The cost of a burrito shouldn't be $15-20, but at the same time inflation grew at an insane level to contribute to that. Now - getting rid of tons of people on govt SNAP benefits and getting rid of the visa/migrant invaders consuming all of the resources ... that will help quite a bit, but is crazy hard to do with "judges" blocking that at every turn and our politicians welcoming these grifters in en masse.
I know in TX - we have a _huge_ visa issue and Abbott isn't helping that. We have people on the streets exposing the visa fraudsters, pointing out their "businesses" (houses) and the fact that people on these visas are working other jobs. We can't close those doors fast enough and get these people back home to make their own countries great.
the burrito conversation is actually a learning opportunity for young adults.
particularly when paying $35 to have it delivered. because the extra $20 to have it delivered and tipping requires three of the most important concepts to understand for success:
1. opportunity cost
2. time value of money
3. determining when a burrito is just a burrito and the first two no longer have value
Some of us said, shouted at the time that shutting down the world for a bad cold and giving trillions of dollars to us for hiding out at home...or go on extended vacations...would result in massive inflation. You can't flood a market with currency without additional products for that currency to buy. Supply-Demand is an economic law. Not a suggestion. Massive inflation was *always* going to result from that.
I was called selfish and uncaring and told I wanted people to die, some called me a murderer. Well...
There's many components that Jeff did an able job explaining. But the Scamdemic printing press was the rocket fuel boost it needed.
Excellent comment. Right on target
And for the record, that foolish spending, following a foolish national/global shutdown is on ALL of DC. D's, R's, and yes, PDJT. Fact. I hate that I have to write it, but I said that at the time, too. It was foolish all the way around. And arrogant. To imagine that man controls the microbiological world of the planet is the height of arrogance. Nothing man did, no controls, no barriers, no minimization of movement and socializing, working, playing, exercising, no injections of magical elixirs and potions controls the ocean of microbiology we live and breathe in. We only control our own bodies. And how well we take care of them to meet the microbiology we coexist with. When we take care of the perfect immune system that God designed us with we can handle anything but chemical poisoning. For which there is no biological technology, no biotech, that can help with. Only poison control.
If PDJT wasn't a known germaphobe he'd have known better than to "trust the experts" who lied their asses off to him. With fear + flattery. The nation and the world needed a POTUS who said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." And "We will...bear any burden, meet any hardship...to assure the survival and the success of liberty." Instead we had were directed to stay at home. The original sin of the loss of freedom came when he forgot that we are AMERICANS. Only the tyranny that followed in the petty tyrants of state government and his successor made his catastrophic mistake look better. Sorry if that truth offends C&C readers. But it's the truth of it. Trump believes in cooties. SadTragic. For all of us. Now we all pay for it.
To be fair, he tried to keep to the two weeks the "experts" initially said we needed, and got excoriated because it was "too soon" and he was "killing people" by saying we should open the country back up :/ But yes, he should never have agreed to any of it in the first place.
I’m 63 and I’ve never ordered restaurant food via uber or any other delivery service!!
I never get delivery because I can't stand to pay that extra for the convenience! I will get take out at the very most, if I don't feel like cooking! Or go to a restaurant and just have my meal there, if I am going to pay extra.
Like I told my son when he said I bought things for nothing when I was young and told him a McDonald’s meal was $3.75. That was an hours wage now it cost $17 which is an hours wage.
(Yes I get gas was cheaper LOL)
A friend just bought me a pair of shoes from Costco for $9.95.... 😧
We will be happy here in NC with Tillis leaving. Cooper (pooper) is the one we need to stop! We have an uphill battle. Hopefully the truth about Covid will help keep him out!
Elizabeth Warren is pushing and contributing to campaigns! She’s a nightmare.
Thanks to C&C, I have some good push back points. 🙌
Dan Crenshaw thankfully, is now gone as well.
Cassidy, a huge hemorrhoid to us all.
As a fellow Texan -- be excited all you want for seeing Cornyn pushed out, but Paxton is a horrible, horrible, horrible replacement candidate. And that is now coming to fruition in the polling. Independents matter, folks! My center-right children who live in Texas will not be voting for him. They're all voting third party.
Talarico, who would have a snowball's chance against Cornyn, is polling higher than Paxton in numerous polls. Can Paxton pull it out? Maybe?? But if so, it will be even more razor thin than Cruz's victory over O'Rourke. And how much of the Republican war chest will have to be spent in Texas to do this? Which is NUTS to have to do in Texas -what a waste. So we might gain Michigan, but it is hardly a foregone conclusion we keep Texas.
I don’t share your view of Paxton. I will be voting for him because he has tirelessly fought for conservative values.
me too
You believe polls? The polls showed Harris by a landslide. Additionally Paxton is not horrible. You are woefully uninformed. During the Biden years he was a ray of light during dark, dark days. In his role as AG he fought creatively and tirelessly until the tide began to turn. And his reward was vicious attacks by the press and now people like you.
Why is Paxton a "horrible, horrible, horrible" candidate? I'm in the midwest so not familiar with Texas issues.
Paxton is a "horrible, horrible, horrible" candidate because that's what the TV says.
And if you don't trust the TV you simply must be some kind of cheating on your wife nazi.
Talifreako makes Beto look sane. Which quite a feat.
I largely agree with this, but I also think Gen Z bears some responsibility for their predicament. I'm 30, right on the Millennial/Gen Z edge, often in what's called the "Zillennial" window, and the number of people my age or younger who cannot cook, cannot do basic financial math, and cannot tighten the belt at all astounds me.
You're correct that the $20 burrito is not actually about the burrito, but that goes both ways: there is also no $20 burrito in this nation, certainly not from Chipotle or other standard wrapped meat and rice emporiums. Which means the $20 burrito is as much a stand-in effigy for the financial illiteracy of the younger generation, as it is for a broken housing market, and both issues need to be fixed, not just the housing market.
And young people bear some of their own responsibility for that illiteracy. Sure, schools and parents failed them on that, but we also live in the most information-accessible era in human history. Not knowing what an interest rate is, or how to budget, or how to hold debt in ways that are less costly, is a choice that too many young people are still making.
Also paying burrito makers $20 an hour so they can have a ‘living wage’ when those jobs were not meant to raise a family on. They were for teenagers and college students, increases the cost.
I am afraid there may be another explanation to go with yours., I know absurd numbers of these otherwise poor are too pathetic to even do pick up, let alone cook, so maybe $20 is the price if you order from Door dash .
Our nephew is a decent good man, but zero ambition. He ran up his credit card, then walked. He works enough to get the few things he wants. Lives with his mother, helps his dad, occasionally does things for us for which we pay him. We could keep him busy full time, but he is just not interested. All too common these days. Life is still too easy in this country when it comes to not starving or freezing to death if you don't work.
Yeah I didn't even bother to go into the gig economy side of the equation. In my mind, that rolls up to "cannot budget". Delivery of anything other than a pizza (or groceries, which was actually standard prior to the second world war) is and has always been a luxury that comes at a premium, and I cannot fathom why it's not being treated as a staple.
Don't get me wrong, I have those nights where I just really want the Chicken Parm Fairy to knock on my door, but I also can't drive due to a neurological condition and I make enough money to splurge.
I have a friend whose son is exactly the same.
Look at the priorities; tatoos, Tik Tok, the latest electronic gadgets, wanting "it all" without earning anything. And saddest of all, no personal, spiritual relationship with our Creator.
Have you tried to buy a decent lunch in NYC? Governments cause inflation for the most part. The idea that demand is the main driver is economic fallacy foisted upon us by bad economists. Bad layers of government like in NYC which also has NY State bad government makes the issue even more pronounced. People have been saying things 'need to be fixed' for decades, but Congress isn't equipped with people who want to really fix it. They just want to get re-elected.
I mean, I live in a blue downtown (albeit in a red state) and the locally-owned, high quality burrito place is $11, not $20, and is portioned heartily enough to keep me for most of a day without any other food. Can double the protein for another $2, and I basically don't need anything else to eat that day.
That's my point, is that the hypothetical nature of the $20 burrito reveals as much about the financial illiteracy of Gen Z as the reaction to the possibility of its existence reveals about their reasonable frustrations about generic cost of living (most of which is being driven by housing, insurance and healthcare costs, not food if you normalize against increases in median wage).
Inflation is absolutely a result of policy (namely, monetary policy), but there is a serious expectations issue within Gen Z that needs to be addressed at the same time, or literally nothing will ever be good enough for them. A chart going around recently showed that while most generations see $100,000 or perhaps less as "successful" annual income, Gen Z sees $600,000 instead. Until those expectations are re-set, Gen Z will never be happy with anything. They will be prisoners of their own minds, subject to suffering that is ultimately self-inflicted, and it breaks my heart to imagine.
I hear you on expectations. When it comes to food though, we need to compare apples-to-apples (and not apples to food-grade shellacked apples which basically means apples long past their normal due date).
There is 'sustenance' and there is healthy eating. Something can 'sustain' you now, but you are going to 'pay the piper' at some point. And there is the concept of food 'substitution'. Where a restaurant or food processor will take our something of higher health value and replace with something more harmful, to keep a price point. We know most people don't read labels, let alone learn about what those terms they see mean. So in the case of a burrito (I've eaten, but rarely):
1. Corn - is it gmo? Any other adulterations? Glyphosate used?
2. Beef - Healthy beef is grassfed, not corn fed. I don't think your 'high quality' burrito is using grassfed beef. Cornfed has a bad Omega 3-to-6 profile. The meat in your burrito is causing inflammation you will pay the price for either/and in the short term and long term. And that doesn't even take in to consideration where the beef was sourced (here or overseas where you can be getting old beef). The restaurants often do not know what is in their beef or the true source They just buy from Sysco. Now, we have supermarket chains like Sprouts Farmers Markets, supposed to be healthy, who have approved the selling of labgrown meat. They don't put that on the label. Instead it will begin showing up as "Cultivated" "Cultured" "Cell cultured". Created with techniques cancer cells use to propagate. Easier to hide that creation in 'ground beef'. Who's checking where the beef really comes from? This is 'substitution'.
3. Cheese - How many know that most shredded cheese is now treated with an antibiotic so it 'stays fresh' longer without molding. Any anti-biotic will mess with your gut biome, which scientists are only now starting to understand the symbiosis of.
4. The sauces used for the most part are additional chemistry experiments, and often loaded with seed oils and soybean, not something healthy like unadulterated olive oil or organic avocado oil.
So, to truly eat a healthy burrito, assuming you can find one in a restaurant that is diligent, would cost about $20 when you factor in food costs are often only 1/3 the final cost. And if you want to eat that healthy at home, you better find a way to buy in bulk those unadulterated ingredients because getting each of the above in a truly healthy format will cost you if you only buy periodically so as to not have it expire.
People know shrinkflation, but few know substitution dangers and what it does to their health.
If we're limiting ourselves to discussing healthy food, then eating out shouldn't even be in the equation, frankly. It's a pointless contention because there are vanishingly few places which even offer half of what you just had to list to stretch the final cost above $20.
That's kind of the point, is that those expectations are absurd. Trying to find premium meals (i.e. organic, grass-fed, sustainably raised, no chemicals at all involved in any stage of the process/completely fresh, and prepared by someone else) at non-premium prices has always been a fantasy, that's not suddenly a new phenomenon. If you want completely healthy and completely cheap, then it's back to my point about needing to learn to cook; that's always been the case.
Here in the northeast GA mountains, there are two so-called farm-to-table eateries, both of which are centered on healthy grass-fed BEEF.
You're new here, I think - never saw your handle before. I bid you WELCOME as a scribbler of first-class comments!
I've been around a while but mostly lurk. Nonetheless, thank you!
Bingo. I said in another post this is what I call adulting. Basic societal survival skills are missing from Gen Z's arsenal as an adult. Some of this is the result of being lazy, because as you mentioned pretty much every tool you need and how to use it is accessible by numerous methods.
In college I lived off Kraft Mac and Cheese and cans of tuna, lol.
And I can make a burrito at home for under $3.
I would make a grilled cheese sandwich using velveeta (!) and an iron in my dorm room. Good times.
But was it mayo or butter on the outside? lol
Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University is such a great resource for basic instruction in budgeting and building wealth. It’s even offered in an online format now. https://www.financialpeace.com/app/classes/guide
They have a teen version, too!
My burritos regularly cost over $20 at Chipotle, such being the result of an extra spoon of meat for $6 (extra protein for me).
But I question how well such a generation can do as home owners (with repairs and maintenance) if they can't do basic food prep, do math, etc.
All people can learn skills for some degree of Independence and a sense of accomplishment. But they're much more likely to be successful if they're married, or are willing to have responsible roommates, and sacrifice for the long term instead of whining about short term types of luxuries. (that's a broad brush stroke, I understand. I'm trying to convey that there's a need for sacrifice.)
I've only ever bought a new car once in 1993. All others, including my first pulled from a junk yard and rebuilt, were used and required skills to learn to maintain, instead of chasing more debt to look cool. A car also enables people to go to school, reach jobs they couldn't otherwise get via public transportation, and you can pick up tools and parts for maintaining or building things.
I BARELY got into a house in a buyer's market with a VA loan (for sellers, one of the worst to sell to because of seller conditions). That meant it wasn't a cream puff house, was old in style and interior kitchen, bath and carpets.
Over 10 years, we've replaced most of the floors ourselves, did demolition and upgrades (paint, upgraded hinges and knobs) we could do ourselves, and leveraged a relative's contractor discount for counters we couldn't afford, but fell in love with after wandering outside the cheap counter material area in a warehouse. The bathrooms still need updating, but we've remodeled one with paint, switching out lights, curtains and mirrors, and exercised creativity.
In other words, it's taken time and I've learned skills along the way. My purchased tools and learned knowledge have been an investment to save money elsewhere. I have 3 vehicles, two over 20 years, one at 14 years, all paid off and I maintain them. Two look a bit worn, and I'm toying with the idea of painting them myself.
The point is... There are sacrifices I have to make. And skills to learn. Investments in myself to allow me to have what I have, over time. My wife is about to retire, and we're facing having to tighten up a bit more. I will need to work a few more years. Hopefully there is a retirement to look forward to.
Oh, and my smart phone is 10 years old. Yes, I replaced the battery once. It still functions well. You don't HAVE to buy into a consumer mindset. Buy the best you can at the time (quality) and make it last. Some people say 'But once, cry once. "
When they get a little older though, their “useless degrees in woke nonsense” encompasses computer science and engineering.
H1B, OPT, ands that other student visa is robbing them of any chance that had at a good job.
The H1Bs tether the immigrant to the company like a slave, and with the student and temp worker visas, the company and employee together save 15.3% because they don’t owe FICA taxes on those wages.
We’re making our young people compete against all 8 billion people in the world for a job when they did nothing wrong.
If we don’t protect our youth, where do we get off asking them to sacrifice for our SS and Medicare?
Ehh, this is kind of overblown, frankly. I'm white, straight, male, and have a STEM degree. I'm gainfully employed in a career with upward mobility, own my home, etc. The same can be said of basically everyone I know from college, and several are married with children, or at least children on the way.
Even within tech, only ~5% of the jobs are held by an H-1B, and amongst the population at large, it's closer to 0.15% of jobs in the US. While yes, they need to go back and that program needs to be shuttered, it wouldn't free up nearly enough jobs to make a dent in the underemployment problem.
Ultimately, the issue was we oversaturated the tech jobs market. We told everyone to learn to code, and assumed that both they'd be good at it, and that you can maintain an entire economy on B2B web development indefinitely, and neither were true. Most people don't actually make remarkable programmers, and economies cannot infinitely scale up more and more B2B Web software; there are upper limits on just how much connectivity and integration work there can be in an economy that's largely stagnating everywhere else.
Well said!
✝️✝️✝️
My mouth will speak the praise of Yahweh,
And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever.
Praise Yah!
Praise Yahweh, O my soul!
I will praise Yahweh throughout my life;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
— Psalm 145:21 - 146:2 LSB
✝️✝️✝️
Thank you for sharing this wonderful, encouraging verse!
I keep wondering if there is any way President Trump could offer some degree of student loan forgiveness by sticking the universities with at least part of it. After all, they ran the grift in the first place; they should be on the hook, no?
That would have the additional political benefit of further dividing parts of the Democrat constituency.
I like that idea. Universities can use those generous alumni donations they have lying around.
I never understood why they all kept building more huge buildings. They have to be maintained and airconditioned and what all, when we were already in the age of virtual classes and virtual degrees.
I am a boomer, and when the computer age hit, I taught myself everything I needed to know to get ahead in my job and to do things more efficiently.
Teach kids how to read. After that, they can teach themselves everything they want or need to know.
While they're at it, also teach those kids how to write in cursive.
They (anti-Americans) don't want future generations to be able to read the Founding documents.
The arenas and the student center buildings are part of the scam, a way to take those excess funds the students borrowed to get, and pass them to building contractors.
I have no doubt that there were kickbacks and grift involved.
I remember that Diane Feinstein's husband was involved in a UC "new arena" scam, and made a lot of money from it.
Mrs. RW
I always told my kids that if they can read well, they can learn anything they want to know!
Same here! Good reading comprehension opens up the world via books. Yes, I still prefer the feel of a good book in my hands as supposed to staring at a lit screen. 😁😄
Many universities have endowments worth billions of dollars - tax exempt dollars - so they sure as shinola have the money.
Student loan forgiveness is a terrible idea! Nobody held a gun to their head.
In student loan offices on every campus it is carefully explained AFTER students have been told to read the documents they are about to sign that student loans are non-dischargeable for any reason. They are told and sign off on provisions that the loans can be taken from their paychecks and Social Security, and probably other sources as well. I remember at age 18 understanding what that meant, but then I didn't major in Left-Handed Puppetry.
they weren't explained to me back in my day. I never knew any of that until years later. Man, I'm GenX...life is hard for us as well once corporate gives you the boot...no one will hire you. We at least know how to make due and save $, but it's still a kick in the teeth the prices of everything compared to earnings (or lack thereof when you are jobless and there's just no one hiring you no matter what you apply for).
The Obama administration ran the grift. It was how he jacked with the employment numbers to hide the truth. At the time you could not go on social media sites without a flurry of pop-ups touting cheap degrees.
So they can get more tattoos?
Thank you for being willing to say hard things!
Are there a fair number of young people with unrealistic expectations and a poor work ethic? Yep...but there are also a LOT of young people who worked hard, studied hard, followed the rules that were given to them, and are now PI**ED that none of the promises they were given are even remotely close to coming true!
When we denigrate them and belittle their understandable frustration we are only pushing them straight into the arms of the waiting DSA, who is also making unrealistic promises to them, but from the other side of the political divide! IMHO, there are far too many Boomers (sorry, but that is the age demographic), both Democrat AND Republican, who have zero empathy or understanding. They are NOT helping the situation when they condescendingly tell the kids to sit down, shut up, and quit whining! It is not helpful and it will not end well for ANY of us if we keep ignoring what they are trying to say, simply because we don't like their tone!
I am sure I will get a ton of pushback for these comments but I think Jeff said some things that need to be said and I appreciate him having the guts to do it!
I'm with you and Jeff. Condescending responses don't acknowledge the real problems these young adults face.
Good points!! True points!!
Reframing the message would go a long way too. I keep hearing Trump tout how he stopped inflation and prices are dropping. Food, gas, services etc. It is simply not true. Gas in central florida is up to $4 per gallon! Our food bill has not gone down even a little and good luck finding help with services you can’t do yourself for a reasonable cost.
Framing it better would be to acknowledge what we all know we are experiencing. Validate us! Don’t gas light us. We waded through the gas lighting and don’t believe your lying eyes for a while now. We see it. Maybe SOME states have it a little lower -but were they already the states that were lower anyway? I drove through Georgia in the height of biden. Gas was STILL lower than everywhere else. So people in Georgia telling me what their gas prices are (lower) doesn’t help. Not sure if that makes sense.
Anyway. Voted for Trump every time. But he needs to stop telling me to not believe my lying eyes. That would go a long way.
I see Jeff is still pushing the "Get a STEM degree" line. That is SO last decade.
When the economy crashed in 2001, the newly unemployed were told "Be a nurse".
As a nurse, I didn't like the sound of that one. And yeah, a new influx of nurses willing to work 12 hour shifts, who weren't all that interested in actual nursing, ensued.
Then when the 2008 crash hit, the newly unemployed were told "Learn to code" and scorned for their college ambitions, with the "You should have gotten a STEM degree, not gender studies". (Jeff is showing his age with that one.)
So the STEM departments filled up with young people eager to get a useful degree.
And then they graduated with $100,000 debts and found out about H1B visas.
Meanwhile, Obama and the Congress after 2008 rebooted the all-important stock market by handing over billions to the bankers, and putting it all on the public debt.
Now the debt is skyrocketing, as is inflation, since inflation is actually caused by too much money in the system, not young people making a living wage.
Obama foreshadowed this in another way, when he announced that American workers were going to be forced to be "competitive" with Chinese workers, who worked long hours with no regulations on pollution or dangerous conditions.
That meant going back to the 1880s, when Americans worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, for lousy wages, and dangerous working conditions.
We're always told "We're a nation of immigrants". Yeah, because they needed to replace those workers who died in the mines, the mills, the factories, and the railroads.
I'd rather cut off Wall Street than screw young people. And the attitude that young people should be screwed instead has led to the point where they are openly talking about cutting off Social Security to the elderly.
Divide and Conquer. George Carlin nailed it over a decade ago, because he was an intelligent man, and could read the tea leaves of the propaganda we are fed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5K2bozek00
Mrs. RW
You can see how the debt skyrocketed after Congress started comping Wall Street gamblers in this chart.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN
Mrs. RW
You are right on both counts.
I am a Boomer. I spent my life being remarkably empathetic and compassionate. Sometimes to my detriment. But I feel absolutely attacked by the younger generations. And they are remarkably ignorant for the most part in doing so. Boomers did not have anything handed to them other than the good fortune to be born into an economic boom. Well that and pre-Department of Education education. But that boom was over by 1971 when Nixon (who was not a Boomer) removed the US from the gold standard. Look at the economic stats pre- and post- 1971. The interest on the mortgage on my first house was north of 14%. That being said young people do have considerable economic (and social and other hurdles) but they seem woefully unprepared to address them. And voting for the DSA will not help them. He'll voting for Democrats will not help them. Democrats have, and the DSA will squash them far more mercilessly than they (erroneously) think Boomers have. Maybe it is just that they are the soft men created by the good times created by strong men.
A quick AI search of the phrase "ride the tiger" got me this:
It comes from the Chinese saying roughly translated as “He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount” (recorded in English by the late 19th century, e.g., in W. Scarborough’s 1875 Collection of Chinese Proverbs).
Imagine waking up to the fact that you've been riding a very wacky Tiger and you need to jump. Wow... sucks to be them.
The tiger we've been 'riding' is the Republican leadership one in Congress. Do nothings for main street people. Have voters too scared to dismount for the apocalyptic fear placed in them every 2 years while nothing really changes from Ryan to McCarthy to Johnson, or McConnel to Thune.
Lotta truth there without question. But I’ll that as opposed to what’s on the other side.
Sad thing is, God allowed the Biden administration as a way for us to wake up and wise up. We thought that is what happened in Nov. 2024, only to discover basically the same old same old in Congress. If they literally just did what they said they would do, we wouldn't be in this position. But like a battered spouse married to an alcoholic, we just accept things over and over because "what else can we do".
Why is Thune still in power blocking us? It is because we have a deep problem in the Senate with 80% of the Republican Senators. 6 years was supposed to protect us from immediacy of an election. But it hasn't. It calcified people into positions of ease, prestige, and power.
I am reminded of a famous quote by Archbishop Fulton Sheen, "Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them."
I think it has applicability here in the political scene too.
The commies’ challenge that Carville and Fetterman “start their own party” reminds me a bit of that CA congresswoman who told Elon to F off. He tweeted back “message received” and the rest is history. And karma.
**sweet Scandinavian-style socialists,**
That socialism was made possible by the security umbrella provided by the USA.
Scandinavia socialism had ended up being just as destructive as every other variety. And to think the Swedes guarded themselves for decades from Soviet Communism, only to invite other destructors into the country themselves.
I don’t know if this is true, but I read once that about 20% of the Swedish population is now Somali.
I was a mechanic. Ever since I was six or so. And I did that until I was 40. God, I miss those days. Life was easy, stuff was cheap. I married a pretty girl and fixed up a starter home. We raised three kids and felt genuinely middle-class. I want this for the zoomers.
What is wIth all the losers here who think only the war and Epstein files should be written about every freaking day? Go read your commie heroes' stacks. Maybe go back and look at THE LIST!
President Trump should be touting Mike Rowe's program every day and warning young people college isn't the best course if you're taking dumb classes that won't result in a living wage. Parents need to wake up and steer their kids in a better direction!
Here is the link to Mike Rowe’s build freedom jobs program. I’ve sent this to several young people and they’ve already put in their applications. It’s quite amazing 🤩
https://www.buildfreedom.us/?ref=prometheanaction.com
Pass it on let’s help spread the word! 🫶🇺🇸🫶
He also has a requirement that there is a love of our country and it's values of hard work, gratitude for our communities, etc. He said if that's not there, it's a tough climb in getting financial assistance.
I blocked all of them long ago. I don’t see a single post like this. I feel bad for those who do.
Can we just call Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins Democrats already? When do they actually vote republican?
Fantastic article.
However, Home of the Brave is underpinning the burrito wars (likely a little ccp money, too). Zoomers' parents have absolutely failed them in teaching any sort of fiscal accountability. As for corporations bemoaning the lack of smart hires due to dumb dei crap in colleges, I know one big one that lost a great kid last year because even though he was perfect for a position, no degree/don't bother. Well, someone else swooped him up and his potential knows no bounds. Warm bodies are nothing if they're incapable of problem solving.
@lis1242498 It’s true that parents have failed to teach their children fiscal responsibility. Yes, everything is more expensive, but young people in America today have so much. Few of them know what true poverty is. They walk around in designer clothing carrying the latest smart phone. In our city, there are food banks in every neighborhood. I was in a rural area in NC recently, wearing jeans with a hole in the knees. An elderly man I was talking to told he that when he was a kid, he had to have patches over the patches on his pants (because his family was so poor). There is a disconnect between what people need, what they think they are entitled to, and what they are willing to sacrifice and work for.
We've met that guy, several times, at a Hayesville food pantry.
Rational thinking delivered in a sensible, non-confrontational way, is a beautiful thing.
Thanks for the reminder and the example, Jeff Childers!
Squishy? Don't be so diplomatic.
And as for the DSA, DSA Co-Chair Megan Romer says, "We believe in taxing the hell out of millionaires."
She then struggles to explain what that actually means. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6RWsHLvBntg&pp=iggCQAE%3D
I wanted to share my thoughts here on Fauci yesterday, but your litany on Fauci had me cracking up. If you get the chance, check it out JC. https://torrancestephensphd.substack.com/p/the-imperious-dr-fauci
Re Fauci, when you have everyone asking the wrong question, you don't have to worry about the answer. This wasn't a lab leak from GOF. Jeff and company need to catch up and read Sasha Latypovas work on this.
There was no disease.
Exactly. Fauci is going to get prosecuted for something he didn't do because it doesn't exist. Where is the proof of cleavage site and all the GOF claims?
Fauci is guilty of so many things , any prosecution is justified. His beagle torture. His Aids drug. Run Death is Near, his entry for an ebola drug pulled from the trials because so many quickly died, then he inserts it into the nationwide covid standards of care. Censoring , and ruining, all who dared question the many facets of the narrative. Covering up the illegal mandate for the military by hiding the fact Cominarty, the approved Pfizer covid shot, was never available in this country, denouncing ivermectin "horse paste " that worked, and getting pharmacies to disobey doctors scrips to dispense them. Just a small partial list. Defending Fauci is indefensible
There is evidence in the overly uncommon rates of furin interactions compared to comparable infection rates with respect to proteolytic enzyme attachment of other viruses.
after reading your stuff Torrance, and Sasha (thank JO, she's interesting, compelling), I would love to see you both debate, and my money is on you.
Man I'm not the debating type. I share my thoughts and let folk decide for themselves. Proving a point is kinda lame.
I mean pride is an evil thing. It will take all that you have if you let it
I just wanna help folks.
I tend to think of it as "there was no new novel or deadly disease." People did get sick...but they got sick from whatever it was making them sick before 2020.
PS: the kicker for me and model estimates regarding the origin, leaving the mortality and morbidity out, was that less than 1% of the Chinese population eats bats.
Go figure. I was not allowed to include this factor in my modeling, and no one explained why
The sunspot cycle was linked to disease as far back as Hippocrates. The recent 11 year cycle began in 2019 (Covid?) And ends for UN Agenda 2030. It is peaking in 2025. It causes Influenza due to its influence on the body. Sadly Influenza disappeared and was labelled Covid. No vaccine prevents sunspot diseases, like Influenza.
Didn't say it was. Just said it was a virus. Disease is just in the name, just nomenclature.
What's a virus?
Blanche to keep breaking the law and covering for the Epstein class. I remember saying months ago we would never see the meat and potatoes of the files. Yet another broken promise. TAW
Trump Always W ... Wanks? Whines? Wrecks? Wusses-Out? LOL.
You still talking about the Epstein files?
Epstein? What's an Epstein? Didn't you notice that everyone is cheering Operation Epstein ForGetAboutIt? LOL. Distraction da'jour.
Like Massie said "Trump isn't in the files but his billionaire buddies from New York are". Let me translate that for everyone "Trump has the goods on a lot of very powerful people some of whom are above him in the Zionist banking cartel".
America usually has a Rockefeller controlled president but this time you've got a Rothschild controlled president.
Who has been locked up?
"Her??" Oh wait
That was when I knew the gig was up. One month after winning the biggest upset since Dewy vs Truman, Trump goes from "Lock her up" to "I don't want to hurt the Clintons. They're good people".
Bill Hicks for the win baby.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIiCjhCBDaM
**Never Trump GOP resistance is suddenly and unexpectedly coming to a sudden and unexpected close.**
I wonder if the Uniparty is starting to react to the communist advances?
People in other states may have a different experience, but as to the statement "..., the Never-Trumpers were never any actual electoral threat..." - they RUN South Carolina. Oh, they SAY they support Trump. But look at the upcoming special election to replace Lindsey Graham. Trump endorsed Lindsey's sister, Darline. But the party has whole-heartedly pushed their own Russell Fry instead. Let's see what happens Tuesday night, Aug 11.
I'm in SC. Who is Russell Fry? I've gotten no political mail from his campaign.
Hi, Paula! What county are you in? Fry is currently the Congressional District 7 Representative in the U.S. House. He sought re-election and won his primary for that seat. earlier this year. He faces Democrat John Gregory Vincent. in November. Now he is also running in the special Republican election for Sentaor Lindsey Graham's seat, for which the special primary is to be held Augst 11. (It is legal in SC, but I'm not supporting him. He should have waited till the next term.) PLEASE VOTE August 11 if you are eligible! But, if you voted in the Democrat primary earlier this year, you would not be eligible. (I am supporting Mark Lynch, who earned 130,000 against Lindsey Graham earlier this year. Darline whatever-her-last-name-is [Graham? Nordone?] (endorsed by Trump, but - there are issues, let's say) is not your only option!
Same party.