No, not entirely.

We have taxes taken out every paycheck that is kind of like an estimate of what you actually owe. At the end of the year, you file complicated paperwork to determine what you actually owe. Big tax companies lobby hard to keep it this way.

For anything more complicated than a very basic life, people often use a tax company (like TurboTax or HR block) for help, which costs money. For even more complicated ones, people may use an accountant.

It’s a ridiculous system and the lobbyists keep it like that

Unfortunately, the history taught here (at least where I grew up, but I believe it is like this in most parts of the country) is so US-centric and pre-WWII topical that we didn’t learn anything else. I don’t think I learned about the Japanese internment camps until law school and I was in “advanced classes” throughout my pre-university years.

Of course people would educate themselves outside of class, but there’s a variety of reasons that doesn’t really happen. It’s quite sad and unfortunate we don’t learn about the other atrocities (even those directly caused by the US). I wish it were different.

Slightly off-topic, but we’re not even taught the realities of our own history that we’re supposedly taught about. Example: the civil war. If you ask many people in certain southern states (and surely some more northern ones too), the reasons they give for the war do not match reality. Or at least they do not come close to telling the whole story. The stranglehold on our education system is bonkers

How respectful of him to spell her name correctly /s

Columbia is speedrunning fastest university decline in the public eye

Thanks for this! I think it’s the clearest visualization explanation I’ve ever heard for i

The white lotus. I didn’t like season 3’s theme as much as the first 2’s but I still like to listen

There are age requirements for federal government positions and none of them are 40. President is 35, senator is 30, and house rep is 25.

Definitely some greed. One grocery store here charges 50% more than the other just because (imagine: it’s a Kroger owned store). Neither store is a discount or lower-end store either. Ridiculous.

And coincidentally (or no really coincidentally at all), OP’s pic looks like a Kroger owned store too based on the price tag and the inconvenience sticker. Shocker that they’d charge that price 🙄

$5/dozen for the average brand near Chicago (in Indiana), and $8/dozen i think for the more expensive brand

Neither I believe it’s Hamilton County, the (comparatively) rich suburb of Indianapolis.

Sure, but I think the point is that raising minimum wage didn’t cause that. Inflation (read: corporate greed) really harmed grocery, food, etc. prices, especially during the pandemic. It truly became a game of how much can we raise these prices until people consider not paying for it

That if you weren’t part of “our” religion (my family’s religion, Catholic), you were basically living your life wrong and were an awful person. When I went to college I met people who believed different things, including in nothing, and I realized they were not, in fact, terrible, almost subhuman, people. I quickly changed for the better and that’s one of the best things to ever happen to me. It’s amazing how accepting you can be when you just accept people for who they are

That’s right: usually. Sometimes no. Or sometimes the volume of water only slowly drains away (like some rivers move extremely slowly and it’s almost as if it’s not moving at all). If it takes 3 days for the water in the normally filled river to move 1 mile, even if it takes 2 days with the flooded valley to drain instead of 3, that’s still 2 days of floods.

Imagine you drop a bunched up shirt onto the floor. If you look, you’ll see that there are lower spots surrounded on all sides of high spots. Terrain irl is not so different from that in spots. Hope this helps explain :)

If a 400 sq mi area gets 2 ft of rain and there’s a low valley area surrounded mostly by mountains, the water will drain down the mountainsides to the valley. It’s like a big bowl. The water that settles in the valley will be more than 2 ft because of the rest of the runoff from even higher elevations

Kroger next 👏👏

It depends how close you sit to your TV and how large the TV is. I can tell a difference if I’m close enough or if the screen is large enough. As well, try turning on a streamed 1080p show and using a 4k bluray (if you have all of thrsr things). When you stand close (like, closer than you’d watch), you can really see the difference. As you back away, it becomes less noticeable, but even at comfortable viewing distances people can see the difference

You can see an example on your phone. Try watching a video in 1080p and then 480p. You should notice a difference, even if you hold your phone a foot from your face it’s the same idea when watching on a tv.

I too would rather stand in the median of a busy highway interchange for 12 hours a day, in the rain or snow, with a bag of my stuff getting ruined, holding a sign and watching everyone turn their head away from me to not make eye contact, day in and day out, than get a job. I’m so glad you understand

/s

What they’re saying is that the assistance is so little that, even with it, people are still dying from malnutrition.

How? Because nearly everyone who is poor enough to qualify for food stamps doesn’t have extra money to buy other food.

After rent, renter’s insurance, internet, utilities, household toiletries, maybe a new (used) piece of clothing sometimes as things wear out, car insurance (bc good luck affording to live somewhere with any decent public transportation or having your work/home near enough to use it), car payment (because try saving up for even a used beater while being poor enough to qualify for food stamps), health insurance (even if the actual insurance is free from the marketplace, there are still copays, medicine costs, vaccinations, etc.), haircuts sometimes, etc. etc. etc. there’s just no money left.

And this is assuming that people have time and energy to cook for their kids because food stamps doesn’t cover fast food or prepared food. What it does cover is cheap food (and more expensive healthy food, but when money’s tight, you buy the high calorie per dollar foods, not the $4 container of lettuce). This cheap, bad-for-you food is less nutritious. And now we’re back at malnutrition.

There are some standards. The ingredients are listed in descending order of size (ie the first is the largest).

They can get around this in a few ways (though this isn’t really relevant here), such as for example preserves having this ingredient list: blueberries, sugar, corn syrup. Even though the amount of blueberries is technically larger than both sugar and corn syrup, sugar and corn syrup (still basically sugar) can add up to much more than the amount of blueberries. By including multiple types of sugar they can sort of hide the fact that the largest ingredient is some form of sugar

For some people who aren’t too picky, it might be a one-stop shop. Also true for some basics, like bread, milk, eggs, some produce, or common frozen stuff.

If you are looking for extra variety or less-common ingredients, you’ll have to also shop at a bigger supermarket. But since we usually use cars in the US, it’s not too big a deal to do both the same day