u/3rdthrow

I am defining the Progressive Era as between 1890-1930s.

I used to call this the "guilded age" but was corrected. That this was actually the Progressive Era.

For my family, this Era was terrible.

The 1920s would have been the years of the Labor Wars.

My Great-Grandfather was a coal miner earning company scrip. Worker safety wasnt a thing.

The Family was only able to get out once company scrip was outlawed.

Why was this economic time frame so terrible?

Did it have anything to do with the fact that the America Dollar had not yet become the preferred currency?

I made a post asking about current laws and suggested laws, to help tenants break leases, for ideas to bring up to my City.

Hit dogs do Holler.

It is disturbing how fast they jump to insults.

To paraphrase Spock, "You dont have a valid argument-so you have jumped to insults".

What are your thoughts?

Assuming that a deer doesnt change my plans, of course.

I have been calculating how long I think that my car can last before I need to replace it.

And I realized that I am extremely likely to hit 1 million before the car needs replacing, so I probably dont need to worry about putting aside enough money to buy a "new to me" car.

It was just such an odd realization to have. To realize that I will hit 1 million in stocks before I need to buy my next car.

Like the thought of "I'll have a Million dollars before xyz happens" is so weird.

What are your thoughts?

I tend to Myself, like one would tend to a Garden.

I check in on Myself, and make sure that I am growing the way that I want to grow, and unlocking the levels of all the different Women that I want to be throughout my Lifetime.

One of the things that came up while I was doing this tending; is that I worried that I had fallen too much in love, with potential.

I was worried that I might put off, doing things, in favor of dreaming about things.

Because sometimes saying "Yes" to one thing means having to say "No" to something else. But if you dont say Yes or No, you can daydream about having them both-while doing neither in reality.

I remember the issue, really first starting in College. I couldnt get my MBA and become a Scientist. I had to choose. I chose to become a Scientist.

I didnt like having to choose.

I thought my next Adventure, would be to become a Shareholder. Then I would have "arrived".

I vastly overestimated how hard it would be to become a voting Shareholder, just because no one had done it, in my family, before.

The people around me, only lived until they got married, they got married young, the Men either worked all the time or sat down on couches. The Women were consumed taking care of everyone.

There is nothing keeping me from pursuing my next Adventure, nor the one after that.

As long as I am alive, there is nothing that is going to steal my potential from me.

No moment of being a "grown" married Woman with kids, who must leave dreams behind.

What are your thoughts?

Happens daily-so it cannot be a half day. Seems too late to be driving back to the bus barn and too early to be leaving the bus barn, to go pick the kids up from school.

Google is no help. What are the buses doing?

Social Media has officially broken me. Technology brings so much Misery to me, that I am toying with the idea, of getting rid of what little I have.

I am toying with the idea of just going to the library for a Computer.

I currently dont own a TV. I usually just watch DVDs on my laptop. I do have two video games that I play on my laptop. I, thankfully, have a car that is too old to "call home".

I own, not rent, the Router and Modem. I am a bit worried that they might "call home" to somewhere, if left on.

Should I be turning my equipment off, when I am not actively using it?

What are your thoughts?

So my parent can work-no problem. But my parent really doesnt understand what is going on around her, in a way that I have just begun to understand has an adult.

She literally just "fakes it until she makes it".

Which has worked because my Father has been covering for her.

Now that they are getting up in years, and my siblings' diagnosis has suddenly explained *so much* about our family, my Father cant keep up.

After retirement, Mother was just done masking. I thought she had developed Dementia.

Nope. Just done pretending that she understands what is going on.

It is really bad.

She is super guillable but cant be talked out of anything. She just believes the first thing that she hears, and no amount of evidence to contrary will convince her.

She keeps getting this idea that she needs to sell the house, which was specially designed for my parents to age in place, to go travel the World in an RV.

No one can seem to get through to her, about how she plans to age for the next 20 years in an RV with no house.

So far she hasnt done it.

I know the State probably shouldnt declare her incompetent, but if my Father goes first, she is absolutely going to try to burn her life down.

All I can do is get out of the way, because she literally wont let me help. Her meltdowns are also violent. And those meltdowns are frequent.

It just bugs me in a way that I dont have the words for, that you can have a relative who clearly is not functioning correctly, and the State says that they have the "Freedom" to destroy themselves.

You cant even set up a third party to make sure that they dont make themselves homeless.

What are your thoughts?

For the record, I am childfree. I have moved to a new neighborhood that is supposed to be a pet free space. Naturally, this means that I have to deal with a hideous Hellhound, because what other kind of dog, would a person risk losing their housing over.

There are a lot of immigrant families that have squeezed big families into these houses. The dog owner is not one of them. But because of the tight spaces, these families spend a lot of time in their yards.

The scene is what I think of, as to what a neighborhood should look like. Kids are on their bikes and scooters everywhere. Adults hangout in the driveways and talk or go walking around the neighborhood. It is easy to go visit each other by just walking into each others' driveways. The kids are almost always outside in the yard when not at school.

And no dogs-until this family decided to break the rules.

I need you to understand, the young kids and toddlers are rolling around in the front yard during the day.

This dog needs to not be pooping in yards with little kids.

Dogs need to not poop outside of their own yard or a dog park. Im not kidding, owners need to get diapers for their dogs or not take them walking. Dogs should run around their yard or go to the dog park.

What are your thoughts?

I grew up, being taught that WW2 was extremely profitable to the American Economy. Which may have been true seeing as Europe was buying a bunch of our goods in the aftermath.

However, I am observing the War in Ukraine, which seems to be really good at driving up global inflation.

Despite sending supplies to Ukraine, it doesnt seem that the military spending is a huge boom for the American economy.

We are getting hit with all that inflation though.

Are Wars actually bad at contributing to real economic growth but "good" at contributing to inflation?

I am overthinking this, I can feel it in my bones.

I am CoastFIRE at 2.5 million, adjusted for inflation. Social Security is not included in that number and is just "extra icing on the cake".

It was unknown at the time whether I would be moving out of the area, so I didnt buy a house.

It turns out that I will be staying in the area.

The difference between the house that I can afford vs the house I actually want, is 40k extra on the downpayment.

I know that is 40k that technically could have gone towards reducing my retirement age, but I feel like if I buy a cheaper house, that I will pay for a reduced Quality of Life, for as long as I own it.

I dont intend to pay off the house. I will actually have a higher income in retirement, than I do right now, so I was going to service the loan throughout my retirement.

I have no heirs, and I will not be having children. I am not looking to adopt. So I am not worried about leaving an inheritance.

We are talking a 350k house vs 310k house.

I can afford this right?

Is it actually possible for me to spend "too much" on a house when I am CoastFIRE, as long as I can service the loan?

What are your thoughts?

My first thought would be the term, "low consumer sentiment" but that doesnt capture the "why" of why people wont spend money. I have heard "underconsumption" in regards to America and "low domestic demand" in regards to China.

But I have not heard terms related to a population that is scared that they wont be able to replace any money that they spend.

A bunch of my friends were sitting around talking about, what serving food is like, in their culture.

Now, I am the only Native American in the group.

So they wanted to know, culturally, what serving food to guests looked like in my home.

The answer to that question is, between my Autistic parent and two Autistic siblings-my family tried to never have guests over, because one never knew who was having a meltdown at that moment.

Only my youngest sibling got treatment has an Adult, and everyone else just denied that anything was wrong. I basically grew up as a hostage.

My Mother got Autism from her Mother, so I basically lost a huge amount of cultural upbringing, because the concept of culture was not understood.

I live far away from my tribe, and I find that the smaller, more intimate details of culture, are really learned by direct interaction, rather than by asking questions.

What are your thoughts?

I usually hear from God the Father, the most. So when the Holy Spirit talks to me, I react like that meme of Dwight from the Office getting surprised by Angela. He always catches me off guard.

It made me wonder, for other Christians, who hear from God-which person of the Trinity are you hearing?

I dont have children, but if I imagine myself has a parent, seeing my kids, claim that a piece of wood was their parent....

Like at that point in time, just abandon all hope because your kid is clearly too stupid to help.

A lot of people claim to wish to be God.

I dont.

I dont envy God His job at all.

That seems like a really rough job to have.

What are your thoughts?

I am used to God talking to me. Right now, I am going through Spiritual Warfare, so God is much more quiet than I am used to. Which I find to be normal for Spiritual Warfare. Kinda of a, 'can I still stay faithful when He is not talking me through everything.'

I just dont like it.

Im not used to not hearing His voice.

What are your thoughts?

Or in the experiences that you have heard from others?

Or in the experiences of people who you have heard about.

I am realizing how easy it is to cook dinner. I need a meat, a veggie, and a fruit and *bang* dinner. Not everything needs to be a full Hollywood production.

My parent insisted on buying all these super hard to clean gadgets, that I *must* use for dinner.

Like a giant, unwelding crockpot for slow cooking, *when everyone is home*.

What are your thoughts?

I came across an article that stated that one of reasons the cost of Lumber is so high, is that there are not enough Truckers to transport enough to meet demand.

My family has Truckers in it. I know at least one, carried special bottles so that they dont have to stop to go to the bathroom.

I hear that pay has dropped relatively over time.

I used to hear that Trucking was a sure-fire ticket out of poverty. It probably still is, but I dont hear people that I know encouraging people to become Truckers anymore.

There are no enough Truckers, because there is not enough pay for Truckers.

If employers were willing to pay good money, they wont have problems finding people.

The issue is that employers wont admit, that they may not be able to afford the workers that they want.

Cheap labor, and job scarity have broken Employer's brains-they want cheap labor and people being unable to leave, to last forever.

But economically, that really isnt possible.

What are your thoughts?

When your ASD (in my case AuDHD) does something horrible and when confronted-just blankness.

Like geuninely trying to understand their thought process, as to why *that* was the correct action that their mind leapt to.

And they just give you that blank, vacant look.

What are your thoughts?