OracleOutlook

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 3hr ago

It was average wage taken from several months in a year span. But you are right, your article is better.

Where did all the money go? What did Pete Butigeg spend his 7.5 billion that was earmarked for charging stations across America in the Infrastructure and Jobs Act?

Probably a lot went to the pockets of Beltway grifters. It certainly didn't go into the pockets of actual construction workers.

Then there was the child tax credits, the stimulus checks, etc. Money went to everyone across the class spectrum.

Reading your article, it looks like the increase in wages was caused primarily by Minimum Wage laws increasing wages by fiat. I do not suggest doing that. Creating artificial floors is not great for a market. Even so, your article sounds pretty happy about increasing lower decile wages? Why is that? If you are correct, then should not it be obvious to an economically savvy publication to be terrified of the resulting inflation?

Or is inflation a little more complicated than that?

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 3hr ago

That would lower GDP, while reducing immigrant labor to increase productivity and GDP. Possibly because there is an increase to automation when cheap laborers are less available.

Machines are different from cheap laborers in that they do not compete for housing, food, etc. Demand decreases if you swap out a machine for a human. Where does price equalize if demand decreases and supply stays the same?

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 11hr ago

Are you saying inflation was caused by wages increasing instead of the government printing money?

Real wages went down in the Biden years.

What I recall during the Biden years was employers complaining that they couldn't find people to work for them, without being willing to raise their wages. And then Biden imported millions of new low-wage workers for the complaining businesses instead of letting the market come to a new equilibrium.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 11hr ago

Even if we gave everyone citizenship, there would still be downward pressure from wages. The majority of immigrants are in low-skilled jobs. If we maintained immigration so that the same proportion of upper-, middle-, and lower-class people immigrated as US citizens, then there would not be distortion. Even with removing illegality from the equation, immigration creates a distortion to the labor market exerting downward pressure.

This is in addition to the cultural concerns of having 16% of people in America "foreign born" and the increased difficulty of passing along US values to immigrants as the proportion of native-born Americans goes down. Does American culture matter? Yes! It created the prosperity and freedom that Americans enjoy - the very reason why the world wants to come here. Don't kill the Golden Goose. Don't tear down Chesterton's fence.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 14hr ago

It doesn't help to just continue abuse because, "well, she's already been abused before so now it's on her to repent." Which is what it comes across as when all I said is that Christians should love her instead of verbally abuse her and people are objecting to that.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 16hr ago

Florida requires E-verify now: https://www.paychex.com/articles/compliance/florida-e-verify-requirements-for-private-employers

And so far it hasn't tanked their economy. In 2023 and 2024 Florida lead the nation in GDP growth with 9.2%. The number of construction jobs actually increased.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 16hr ago · Edited 16hr ago

Except all across the board, in this scenario, the country removes the downward pressure to wages caused by the underclass who can get paid under the table, who cannot ask for help if they are abused, and who are desperate to accept any wage to avoid going back home. That changes the wage equilibrium everywhere.

If farm wages double (not quadruple, like in the example above - I think that the quadrupling was a hyperbole) and farm workers make $40 an hour, price of groceries increases $150/year per family of four. Let's say $50/year for a single person.

Then anyone else in a shitty job can say, "is this really any better than making 40/hr picking corn?" And so now Amazon has to raise wages, or provide better working environments, to at least be better than farm work. And so it goes, rippling through the economy. Wages for the bottom third of the country should rise more than 150/yr.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 16hr ago

I didn't say that anywhere. I'm saying, love comes first, then repentance. Repentance is necessary. But it doesn't happen first.

Les Miserables is on the mind, consider Jean Valjean and his moment of repentance. After a life of getting kicked around, he steals the Bishop's valuables. And in response, the Bishop loves him, saves him from going to Prison again, gives him more than he stole. And that is the moment that Jean Valjean actually feels sorry for his actions. Once he experiences true love.

You can say, that's just a story. But there is a reason why it rings true. The world is full of bitter people who will stay bitter forever unless someone breaks their shell with love.

Will it always work? No. But does it work? In my experience, yes.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1d ago

What year was this?

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1d ago

Sure, I can conceive that someone could be incorrect. But my point is, what do you mean by "American" here?

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1d ago

But then there's no more American people. Who will our elected leaders serve? "The people currently standing on the territory formally known as the USA?" Whose long-term interests do they protect?

Our leaders should have a referent "American people" and put the interests of these "American people" first. I assure you that leaders of other countries understand who "their people" are and serve their interests to the detriment of our own. If we do not have leaders who look out for our interest, then we will taken advantage of at every turn.

Who are the American people? Citizens, their children, and those they adopt in. Adoption isn't an uncaring, unnoticed act. It's always personal and usually planned for. The adoptee needs to want to join the family and take on the family's customs.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1d ago

down on the farm, labor costs are typically less than 20% or for specialty crops close to 40% of total operating costs, and the price from the farm is about one-third the price on the shelf...

Quadrupling those wages might cost the typical family $300 in a year.

From Oren Cass' "Jobs Americans Would Do" https://americancompass.org/jobs-americans-would-do/

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1d ago

Lately I've been thinking of the argument made in this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=F9xYqQDTHnk

God's love remains, even when we are at our worst. Basically, Christianity is a relationship with Jesus. Jesus looks at us, loves us, first. Being loved comes first, then repentance is the response to that.

Repentance is important, but it's not first. First is being loved by Jesus and us, His body on Earth.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1d ago

In a normal, healthy, average relationship, a single man and a single woman partner together to provide each other with resources that would be difficult for the other to get. They do this because they have a shared vision of the future, a shared project to raise the next generation.

The historical norm was for a woman to be spinning cotton, wool, or flax from sunup to sundown to make enough thread to weave enough cloth to sew into enough garments for herself, her husband, and her children. There was a gendered world - every civilization had their own norms, but they all had norms surrounding what tasks belong to women (tasks that can be done by weaker people with the tendency to get pregnant and have babies/toddlers hanging off them.) For example, in a European village a man paid taxes by giving his lord crops, while women owed their taxes in eggs.

Men needed women's labor. Women needed men's labor.

There was a weird period in the 19th-20th century where machines took over a lot of the labor that women could do, while there was much less automation of male labor. Then in the later 20th century, the women's labor that wasn't automatable went overseas to cheaper labor. This lead to more "Homemakers" outside the upper class.

But now, the majority of the time, both men and women work outside the home. Both men and women need to labor productively to keep themselves in comfort. We are reverting back to the historical norm (except for the "women taking jobs they can do while minding their own children" part. We'd probably need to repeal the CRA and some license regulations before we could get there.)

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1d ago

Breaking news: Trump is saying he will not be deporting illegal immigrants who work on Farms and in Hotels.

Gavin Newsom is claiming it for a win for the violent riots that have taken over LA and other major cities.

This is a bit of a let down for Trump Supporters and anyone who wants to take America back from those who were not invited. Especially with Gavin Newsom rubbing it in the public's face. Especially with American Approval of deportation efforts have been increasing.

Trump's rationale appears to be:

Hotels/farms are low hanging fruit, it's easy to pick up illegal immigrants from these locations.
After swooping these groups first, then the only applicants to these positions (at the wages the farms and hotels are willing to pay) are the criminal illegal immigrants.
So focus on criminality first.

Does this mean that, once every last criminal is deported, he will then do sweeps of farms and hotels? Left ambiguous.

One problem is the effect of exploitable labor goes in one way. Over the past 2 decades, Landscaping businesses that employed high school students and ex cons went out of business because they couldn't compete against undocumented workers.

If one farm gets raided, and one farm growing similar things does not get raided for another year, then the first farm needs to hire more expensive people and raise prices while the second farm will still benefit from the lowered wages. The farm that got raided first goes out of business first, the second farm maybe gets to buy up the first farm, then when they are inevitably raided they still stay in business and make more money now.

It's not fair. It's not fair that the government has not enforced its own rules surrounding hiring employees uniformly across industries.

The fair thing would be to deport 100% of everyone deportable all at once. The shock of that will be destructive to every industry that is predominately illegal immigrants.

The next fair thing might be to deport 10% of employees in every business all together, then another 10% later, and so on until the bottom is reached.

Of course, the above two "fair" plans are ridiculous. We do not have the man-power to do it.

Any other fair ideas? Besides Trump's new plan of "Don't try to tackle this right now."

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1d ago

Sounds like a Christian should have reached out to her and told her that she is loved - explained forgiveness, sanctification, and water that does not leave you thirsty. Instead, she got a mob calling her names.

-5

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Transnational Thursday for June 12, 2025

OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 1d ago

US has started removing non-essential people from the Middle East. People assume that this means an attack by Iran is imminent. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-embassy-iraq-preparing-ordered-evacuation-due-heightened-security-risks-2025-06-11/

The expected series of events would be:

Iran is very insistent on making nuclear weapons.
US and Israel cannot allow this
Israel attacks Iran
Iran attacks Israel and US bases in the region directly.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 7d ago

Usually punishment is confinement to her room for X amount of time, the worst was for two days in a row when she was suspended from school.

We tried spanking for a span when she was four, but it didn't have any effect. Confining her to her room doesn't really have an effect either, except giving her space to calm down.

My mom just recommends taking the next treat away, but the behavior is so continuous, disruptive, and unsafe that we're at the point where we don't do treats. We don't get to go to parties, play dates or movies. We take away the next trip to Costco.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 8d ago

I think I qualify in the "urinary incontinence" bracket, but it's just when I have a very, very bad cold at a specific time of my cycle, and I'm able to wear a regular pad to deal with it. About as inconvenient as a period. This seems to be the most common version.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 8d ago

For my background - I am the mother of four kids, the oldest of which is a handful and the third of which has some kind of birth defect that currently requires a fake eye and may require a kidney transplant when he's a teen.

When I say the oldest is a handful, I mean that she is seven years old and has been suspended from school twice for running away from school and across a busy street without looking. Let's call her A. I have trouble taking her places - either I take her by herself somewhere or I leave her behind and take the 6, 3, and 2 year old. It is much easier to take the 6, 3, and 2 year old places together than it is to take A by herself. She is a wonderful child 90% of the time, but 10% of the time she gets stuck on a Bad Idea. Literally stuck, she repeats a phrase over and over again, does not listen to anything, only snaps out of it after 20 or so minutes.

A babysitter quit because one of her "stuck ideas" was to get revenge on the sitter for some slight (didn't get the right color dinner plate, if I remember correctly.) Another stuck idea was to get to the check out line first in a busy Home Depot garden center - I had a toddler in a stroller, a 3 year old walking as fast as he could, and couldn't keep up with the lithe unencumbered A. I lost sight of her and wandered around Home Depot until the intercom said she was at the front - she tried to run into the parking lot by herself but an employee stopped her.

She officially has ADHD and I am supposed to take A to a therapist to treat her for this. They don't think she has ODD because she always feels remorse after. I think she might have high-functioning autism because she also has a very black/white way of looking at things. If someone doesn't predict the future she calls it a lie. Ex. "Can we go outside this afternoon?" "Yes, if the weather stays nice." then if it rains and we have to stay inside, "You lied!"

However, when I filled out the PIC-2 questionnaire with full candor and honesty, the Neuropsych wrote in her parent-facing notes: "[OracleOutlook] responded to the measure in such a way that she reported a slightly higher number of symptoms than is typical for A’s age. This is likely due to increased stressors in their life and not true feigning of symptoms; however, results were interpreted with caution." I suspect we are years away from getting a full diagnosis for whatever is going on with A.

I don't write all this to complain or ask for advice. I am trying to get across the experience of having a "bad kid." I don't take the other kids to as many places as I would like. I worry that they are picking up bad adaptations to having a turbulent, violent personality living with them. The next oldest has a fawn response. The younger two like to hit back. It's not great.

I also have a lot of medical costs from the third child with the eye prosthetic. When he was an infant he needed a new conformer every month or so, which is pretty pricey.

This isn't even getting into pregnancy, which is a crap shoot as you noted.

Ultimately life is a risk. The question is, is it worth it? I say yes. Humans throughout history said "yes" through worse difficulties and dangers.

There are many good reasons to be done having kids. Mine is that I want to increase the odds that my husband is alive and well up to the point the youngest turns 18.

One consideration is that having one difficult kid is hard, but I actually think it gets easier when you have more kids who are better behaved. I'm glad I didn't stop at A. If I had, I would assume there was something wrong with my parenting that caused her emotional disturbances. I also get to have "normal kid experiences" with the other kids.

If your complicated kid is the youngest, it's probably easier to manage. I've seen families where they keep going until they have 5-7 kids, hit a kid who needs more attention, and then stop. They seem pretty happy, even when they need to have specialized schooling, medical procedures, etc. It seems easier for an experienced parent to manage, and they also have older kids in middle school/high school who can help out more with chores and babysitting.

While having a really needy or psychotic child can be really bad, the odds of it happening without a clear family history are around the same as getting into a really bad car accident. Going into each pregnancy I worried about it around as much as I worry about getting paralyzed on a road trip, which is to say not overly much - certainly not enough to make me reconsider.

I hope this helps give you more to consider. I'm not trying to persuade you to have another kid, just give a different perspective on the "getting unlucky" phenomenon. I love A. I wish she didn't get "stuck" most days, but I'm glad she's here. I'll do whatever it takes to raise her right.

Also, life is sadder without a 1 year old in the house. It just is. I have a long ways to go before I get a grandkid to play with but I look forward to it already.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 8d ago

While conservatives report much higher mental health ratings, asking instead about overall mood eliminated the gap between liberals and conservatives.

Isn't this just a replication of hedonic adaptation? No matter how good you have it, most people feel "average" most of the time.

Mental health isn't really related to how someone's mood. Mental health is a measurement for how well a person can respond appropriately to life's challenges and has a good working model of the world. Even something like a "mood disorder" is one where there is a disconnect between actual life circumstances and the person's state of mind or feeling. If someone was feeling miserable because of actual life circumstances - say they're locked in a basement and getting tortured, no one would consider that a mood disorder. And a mood disorder also covers feelings of elation caused by BPD, feelings of anger, etc.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 15d ago

I'm mostly perplexed by the whiplash the two dating threads this week have. On the first, we have men bemoaning that they can't find women who haven't had lots of sexual partners. On this one, we have a man talking about how, on the "women seeking lots of sexual partners app" they seem to disproportionately glom onto some men, and so these men must be visually hot and men who aren't being glomed onto are not.

Well, if you don't want women with lots of sexual partners, stop trying to figure out how to attract the women on the "women seeking lots of sexual partners app." Find out how to attract the women who aren't on those apps.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 16d ago

More than 61% of relationships start online.

This is not the same as "more than 61% of relationships start on a dating app," as I believe you have mentioned elsewhere. Also in this comment thread it is mentioned that "Studies consistently show that approximately 75-85% of Tinder users identify as male, while women make up only 25-15%." Women signing up for dating apps are the odd ones here. And signing up for dating apps is not the same as using dating apps as consistently as men.

About 1/3 of American adults have ever tried out a dating app. 1/10 partnered adults – meaning those who are married, living with a partner or in a committed romantic relationship – met their current significant other through a dating site or app.

So about 4/5ths of relationships that started online started somewhere other than a dating service. How does that work? I would speculate that it takes place in environments where there is more 1:1 interaction - Discord servers, online gaming, twitter - I know more than one couple that met on Tumblr. Places with mixed media - both text and photo posts. Places where women can post photos but men don't have to in order to create their niche.

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OracleOutlook Fiat justitia ruat caelum 16d ago

Look, I'm a woman. I married someone a decade older than me, so I am an outlier. For what it's worth, he didn't make more money than me at the time. I saw him as undervalued and received an excellent return on the investment. He was the first person I found very sexy, which was a feeling that only occurred after three dates. Mostly, we could talk to each other for hours and it was really nice to hang out with him, and then I felt real sexual attraction for the first time at the age of 26. (But also it was tied up in the thrill of the hope of a future together. Sexual attraction is different now, having attained that future.)

I feel 0 sexual attraction to Niko or Finn, just like I felt 0 sexual attraction to anyone who didn't first show interest in me. I would say that at least half my college classmates were not overweight and didn't have obvious deformities so that is why Niko and Finn go into the top half of the assessment. Every boy in High School and College seemed like a child to me - who would want to marry a child? Niko and Finn seem like children, too.

I think we're really hitting on something here if you can hear me out. Women are not men. Look at what my first comment was about - the words he chose to describe himself. I noticed that it's weird he put incest on his blurb. I don't know who that is attracting. I looked at words first to see if I would find this guy attractive.

The other woman here zeroed in on clothing choices and location of the photos. Not any immutable facial characteristic.

If a man is not obviously deformed or overweight, then to me it's not the photos causing the problem. Maybe there is some kind of woman out there who feels sexual attraction to a photograph, and these are the kinds of women who respond on Tindr? But I cannot tell you what motivates these women, because I have never been in a social circle with such a woman. From what I have heard, sexual abuse can lead to sexually promiscuous behavior in women. Maybe that's what's going on?

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