>Medical billing in this country is a damn scam.

BUT it's a lesser evil scam!! Every election you will be told to suck it up and just "accept the way things are, because things could be worse".

And you will hear that until the day you die as people around you tell you ANYTHING DIFFERENT is impossible.

Well then little girl, maybe you shouldn't pick fights with random people. Next time think a little before you start spewing your crap around.

>It absolutely is connected.

You are a lunatic. It isn't "connected". Who the fuck is going to be living in an undeveloped forest? Who am I displacing? Absolutely no one, you raving idiot.

About 20% of houses in Maine are registered as vacation homes. MAYBE THAT IS A START OF WHERE THE HOUSING HAS GONE.

Not to mention rich people with so much money the only thing they can think to do with it is buy a 3rd or 4th or 5th house to rent out "for passive income".

You are trying to pretend someone buying an untouched piece of forest in the middle of rural Maine "is part of the problem"? Again, fuck you. All you want to do is sling bullshit around.

You are being extremely disingenuous. You didn't just "bring up an issue". You insinuated I was ignoring that issue because I was talking about remote workers coming to get a place to live.

And then I was using MYSELF AS AN EXAMPLE, and how I came here and just started pumping money into my local community.... while buying an unused plot of land that no one has touched.

But you are trying to pretend like THAT is a problem? Fuck you buddy, fuck you.

And, AGAIN, people coming to live in a community are NOT why housing and rental prices are insane.

It's instead the use of housing as a financial vehicle. People buying MANY HOUSES and private equity firms buying up huge amounts of housing.

If tomorrow a law was passed that you could only own 1 home that was the one you lived in, then the housing market would CRASH overnight. Because people who live in their homes in a community IS NOT THE PROBLEM.

Again, you are trying to attack people for living their lives and turning on your neighbor instead of thinking for even one moment and attempting to understand the situation.

You are a disingenuous asshole who just wants to fling shit around at innocent people trying to live their lives.

Lol which mirror again? You are trying to blame people buying houses to live in for a housing crisis caused by private equity and people buying many houses as income streams.

You are like a stupid animal lashing out at anything nearby. Turning on your own community out of stupidity instead of saving your anger for those actually causing your problems.

Next you will be rabidly shouting at people coming out of the grocery store while you continue your derangement.

>The people who could no longer afford their rent

This isn't caused by people buying houses to live in. This is caused by predatory rental market and the "landlord industry". Or all the boomers who buy 4 or 5 or 6 houses to rent out for extra income.

YOU are refusing to look at the bigger picture and just trying to lash out at anyone and everyone who is trying to live their lives. Instead of these large private equity firms coming in from out of state and trying to squeeze you for everything they can.

So you turn on your neighbors living their lives instead of the actual people fucking you over.

The plot of land I purchased had never been touched for 100+ years (actually longer, no one has ever built there).

Who is being displaced?

But if you are talking about people coming in and purchasing a house or something. Then, again, who is being displaced? The people selling their home? I'm pretty sure that was the sellers idea....

It's crazy to me that some people think land in their hometown or wherever needs to be set aside for 10...20...30 years while they save up and MAYBE some day decide or get into a position where they want to maybe purchase it.

If you want the land, go buy it. There is a ton of pretty cheap rural land all in Maine.

People moving to Maine bring money if they are remote workers...

When I got to my rural property, I instantly hired the contractors a mile down the road. And now plan to hire them more over the winter and next year.

Also bought a bunch of lumber from the local mill.... and eat at the local grocery store every day.

And that isn't even starting to talk about taxes.

People coming with good jobs already raise the tide for everyone around them.

Wow must be worth a lot.... to a corporation that wants to extract wealth from the state and then ship it out to a variety of rich share holders across the world.

The only way things like this should be explored is by Maine itself, and then every dollar of profit put back into the state.

Otherwise all the downsides are socialized to everyone living in Maine... while all the profits are privatized to strangers who will never have to deal with the consequences and mess they leave.

A quick google reveals the reality.

Yes Maine has the highest frequency of outages with 3.9 per customer each year.

West Virginia - 2.8

Louisiana - 2.3

Alaska - 2.2

Tennessee - 2.2

Florida - 2.2

Montana - 2.1

Mississippi - 2.1

Georgia - 2.1

Oklahoma - 2

Is it AS BAD in other states? No. But experiencing blackouts multiple times a year on average in a range of states is not my idea of "unrealizable power isn't a US thing".

And that is JUST POWER, the infrastructure issues in America go far far beyond just keeping the lights on.

Yup, every state has the same issues. In more advanced countries they put power lines under ground.... but in Kansas if the wind blows the power goes out.

We COULD invest in this country, but that would require doing things that isn't making some corrupt piece of shit rich. So instead let's just shove all our money at corrupt health care industry and corrupt internet companies and rail lines.

Oh? Rail workers want a single paid sick day? Fuck that, get the president on the line and crush them!! lol

Every single step we are fucking over the people of this country while things just keep getting worse and worse from decay and lack of investment. And instead of demanding anything better, the citizens smile and shrug "at least we aren't some random 3rd world country!!!". Always comparing themselves to the very bottom of the world to make themselves feel good lol.

According to studies the infrastructure in America (ACROSS ALL STATES) is in a disastrous condition. Bridges at risk of collapse.... lead pipes in many many cities (it's far more than the one or two that make the news).... even our rail system is nothing compared to advanced nations.

In every single aspect we are living in a country made in the mid 1900's. What we have USED TO BE great, but now is just aging and decaying and there is no investment into the country anymore.

It's a night and day difference when looking at upcoming countries or more socially minded countries. They have high speed rail, massive public transportation, huge cities with the finest building and technology.... internet access that shatters what Americans generally have access to....

>We just don’t want to.

Exactly. Because of massive corruption all of the money is going to weapons contractors and health insurance companies and all sorts of other private interests.... while we end up paying more for less.

Who needs a robust public transit system or healthcare when you can instead funnel all that money into aggressive policing and massive police forces with tanks? Or throw 100+ billion into a proxy war half way across the globe?

It's a joke how much the American people are just letting this country be gutted. And all the politicians have to do is whisper "things could be worse" and Americans get on their knees and thank the corrupt oligarchy for fucking them.

The scary issue is really more about the wider economy.

I know a lot of people live in denial, but 31 trillion in debt and a very clear future of shifting global powers is not ideal...

When the US can't just print itself unlimited money anymore, who knows what will happen...

If we can't maintain infrastructure when times are good, I doubt it will be better when things turn over.

It's why I'm much more "prepper" minded. I'm working towards being as self sufficient as I can be.

Except to get an underage work permit... you have to

1. Be enrolled in school

2. Not under suspension or habitually truant

3. passing a majority of courses

For someone underage that NEEDS to work (especially 40 hour work weeks), I'm going to guess they don't have 1 or more of these things.

Pretending like those criteria are "nothing" is completely dismissing the very challenging situations some kids find themselves in.

> Are there really that many kids that age responsible for paying rent?

Yea, especially kids who are trying to stay out of the foster care system or who have siblings and are trying to keep their lives together....

Here on reddit I've seen posts from kids asking for advice in similar situations.

I wish we didn't live in a "lesser evil" world and actually cared to fix any of the problems in our society. But instead we just keep voting to keep things AT BEST the same..... it's monstrous.

There are a lot of young people and kids in very rough positions needing to make money to keep a roof over their heads.

The country needs far better social protections than the foster care system (which is full of abuse).

Combined with the min wage not being enough to get by on...

So I have a hard time blaming the kids for working or even the company for letting them work unless there was more to the story (like did the company force this on them? Or was it up to the kids to decide how much they wanted to work that week?)

But a blanket "yay these kids can't work as many hours" is naive to the harsh realities some people have to face in this country.

Yea yea, we can all imagine a million ways things could be better. Congratulations.

Here is my counter offer....how about our leaders will continue to be corrupt and do what they want, while the will of the bottom 90+% have no statistical impact on policies.

No? Well, I don't care. You are going to keep voting to support it each year anyway. So just be quiet and keep doing your part.

Sorry, it's lesser of two evils from now until we are all dead. Vote blue and just accept the status quo... forever.

Won't someone think of the children?!?!?!?!

Well, to be fair... most politicians deal in slinging crap around.

I'm shocked.... people still watch TV??? I haven't had that for almost a decade now haha.