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Anecdotal but I know 4 Boomers who retired during covid. I also know a lot of younger folks who opted in to the gig economy instead of working at a store/restaurant, including 3 of my nieces and a nephew.

DoorDash went from 850ish million to 2.6Billion dollars in 2020 with over a million dashers and they account for about 45% of food delivery in the US.

I hopped into a Jeep Cherokee that I thought was mine and drove it down the road for a minute before realizing I was not in my vehicle. Keys are funny like that.

It looks like 2020 was China 11.5, USA 5.1, India 2.5.

The biggest thing to note is both China and India are INCREASING every year.

LOL

I'm 99% anxiety free after I learned to manage my allergies and diet!

I make light of the situation now but at one point in my life I was confused and freaked out because of the symptoms you mentioned and everyone including the doctors thought it was stress. After thousands of dollars in medical all I really needed was Benedryl, a better diet and a new primary care physician.

I would disagree and say that most land is cheap in the US.

I grew up with my sisters in poverty. I didn't eat at a restaurant until I was 14 and paid for it myself. I started baking crackers, biscuits and pancakes that my younger sisters and I would eat for dinner with government peanut butter or cheese when I was 11. Having no utilities was a regular occurrence. Christmas was socks, underwear and a winter coat. Shoes were a touchy subject and I would have to have pretty big holes before they would get replaced. School hot lunch and food drives were awkward.

I decided what I wanted out of life in my mid-twenties and pursued it and now in my 40's I am doing better than I could have ever imagined. Everyone I know who was poor and wanted to better themselves was able to get out of poverty. All 4 of my sisters are middle class or better. Thats 5/5 that succeeded. All my friends across the states I had lived are homeowners and seem happy. All the people I met who bitched and didn't do anything to better themselves are still poor or dead.

I didn't get lucky and neither did my sisters and friends. We each made personal decisions and planned our way out of poverty. It didn't happen over night. A lot of set backs happen and everything is hard. Transportation and unforeseen expenses are the largest hurdles and access to credit is also difficult because of the length of time it takes to repair.

SF does have a huge homeless population. Yes it go's to homeless shelters and other charities/programs. We sometimes forget that not all homeless are chronic homeless which is what most people associate as homeless.

Someone may be having hard times making rent and go to a church or other organization for financial help and other services. Battered women, at risk children also exist and may require a shelter with more security or women only shelters - which are funded too. There are many other services that exist that use that funding.

I didn't see waste. Actually, I would go so far as say most charities that receive federal and state funding rely on reporting to receive those grants and funding and things are very transparent. HMIS is the tech side of things that build the systems to track and report on everything.

I don't feel like you are being honest. Driving across the state of California is not being nearby. A 4+ hour, 200+ mile, one way drive is not nearby.

You are still surrounded by people with the same ideologies, it's just harder to hear us because of the noise. The people who are pro-censorship and regulation have never been a friend to the internet or its philosophies.

Since when did "high quality" become impossible? lol. Thats news to me. The fact you think Sears was "high quality" is telling. Maybe you have never bought or been exposed to "quality" in the first place?

I totally disagree with your assessment. 20 years ago it was harder to find quality products than it is today. I am a person that buys "quality", I support local & US companies whenever I can. There are so many excellent boutique companies for just about everything outside of shitty mass produced electronics. I just do not see your world at all, but then again, I don't mistake garbage retailers and company branding for quality.

I think the simple answer is we are mammals and feed our newborns milk and since they usually don't die from their breast feedings we equate milk to being good & nutritional. The fact is, we've discovered clay feeding vessels with nipples that contained animals milk from 2000bc near infant graves. The horn was a popular material for feeding bottles during the middle ages.

We've been giving infants and kids milk for a very long time to supplement their diets because the dairy industry was able to reach that far back in our timeline. I think we all understand that the dairy industry has been lobbying and marketing, to get a spot at the table, but so has every other commodity thats available in a global market.

Do you shower at the place you are walking or riding your bike? Just sweat your ass off all day long and hope everyone around you doesn't mind? You have about 1-2 minutes before your sweating through your clothing in Houston. It's 95F and ONLY 60% humidity right now.

As a teen in the early 90's, who was self taught, there is only one correct answer for all questions, RTFM. lol. Man that sucked.

Im in a smaller company of a few hundred employees. We had the option to go back to the office this week. Exactly 3 people are in the office, the same 3 who have remained at the office the entire time. Everyone else chose WFH until it is mandatory to go back to the office.

Outside of a few counties in the US the process is very straight forward.