And some people said that “socialism doesn’t have any incentives”
Its fucking painful that its headline worthy that taxes were used for the betterment of the places they were paid in.
They aren’t even used to bomb brown people overseas 😡
Or given to Netanyahu to bomb brown people.
Don’t worry, ya boy Trump has you covered. They’re bombing brown people side by side with Netanyahu rn
Not for THIS tax money, but American tax money still.
Maybe.
Taxes rarely get any good propaganda, though. I don’t mind news stories like this being plastered everwhere if it means people will start believing their government can do something for them again.
Yeah hate to live in a world where expected behaviour becomes our paradise.
Wait wait wait. You’re telling me that if you offer fair compensation for labor the people performing that labor will do the job they’re hired for?
Son of a gun. Who’d of thunk it!
And some of that money will come back and the cycle will continue.
A basic thing that capitalists can’t grasp.
They can grasp it, but they do not care. Sidewalks being cleared doesn’t affect you if you are driving everywhere.
Or privileged enough to WFH/pause working when there weather turns.
Nd let’s not forget that there was an economic benefit too that conservatives will ignore. People were able to get out of their house and go spend money thanks to the people who shoveled. People went to work and kept things going.
Conservatives frequently think these things bring no value, and will absolutely mock it on fox news saying “so people can wALk”. But yes, the benefit is they can go keep the economy going.
Its why I don’t understand why they are against things like high speed rail. Its an investment. Every time we connect people together trade happens, and economies grow. Its kind of how that works.
I agree but I think we are currently driving past that place in history where everything is based on buying and selling things for money. The current imbalance of capital is slowly catching on to the rest of the world, not just the ones who’ve known it all along.
Clean energy is another example of an investment which obviously saves money in the long term and also improves the economy in the short term. Conservatives don’t care about that because they don’t care about the long term, and even if they do, they want all of these issues to still be around so they have something to yell about (since apparently voters only care about something being a problem and can’t tell if the ‘solution’ will actually make things better or worse). There’s also a lot of lobbyist money that they can keep on getting by preventing these sorts of investments. If we stopped relying on a couple of oil companies, then those oil companies wouldn’t be able to give the politicians money.
The issue with public transport is that it’s an investment that will pay off in years, not next quarter, or even next election. They don’t give a fuck if it doesn’t benefit them specifically, and right now.
Also, it evens the field. They don’t want this because the bottom having more means they are less above them.
Your last point is probably the most important part, it’s not about money, it’s about classism.
I’d love to know what the economic ROI is on paying people that much to clear snow. I bet it’s huge in NYC.
In a city where the vast majority either walk to work, or walk to the subway to get to work, I can’t imagine. We clear roadways in the midwest and no one bats an eye, but clearing sidewalks in a walkable city is crazy to them.
It is because they personally do not walk on the sidewalks and don’t se employees as people and would rather they just trudged through the drifts to thank them for a paycheck.
They do know that trucks move goods around, which they care about.
Therefore roads being cleared is important to the wealthy and sidewalks are not.
Let’s be real, it’s not that much money. I mean $30/hr is nice, but that’s only when there’s enough snow to be worth cleaning, and only half the year. It’s not like a full-time position paid $30/hr.
So the investment is relatively small, and the benefit is relatively large.
I’ve known several people who love that kind of seasonal/day labor kind of work. They can work and save while the work is there and then do contract/part-time in the off season. It’s not for everyone but some people make it work.
I wonder how it’s set up, can I just put in some hours after my day job or is there a set schedule?
Plus all the money paid out in wages went back into the local economy for rent, food, etc. It didn’t go to offshore tax havens.
Conservative don’t want to make things better for everyone, they want to make things better for themselves.
This makes them short sighted and only see the money right in front of their face, which in this case, is going into the pockets of people shovelling snow.
They don’t see the benefit because it doesn’t benefit them immediately.
But you can bet your life that they will reap the benefit as they pull themselves up by other peoples bootstraps.
Also those people are getting swole while they shovel snow.
And it’s not a new concept either, it has been proven many times and there’s plenty of case studies. High speed rail too, all over Europe, China and Japan. But when your job has been given to you by an oil company donation…
Because everything’s a get rich quick scheme or a scam, investments to them are rigging bets on polymarket
Besides that, people are struggling to make ends meet. If the city pays them to do something, that money isn’t just staying in saving accounts. They are going to spend it, likely very very soon.
Let’s not forget also, that when you pay people directly they go and spend that money. Businesses cannot have customers if the customers don’t have money. The reason why money is kept so tight is a) blind greed and b) because then people can only afford to patronize Walmart or Amazon, not their local stores.
Conservatives like to act as though raising minimum wage will kill local businesses despite the fact that that is not how that works.
Turns out when people have money to spend they spend across the board, both places like walmart/amazon and also the local stores
I mean, yes, but they have the choice.
I assume oil companies broke the brain of the worst americans so now they only want what’s best for oil companies, most of the time without even realising it.
Its so obvious top which is the most annoying thing. Cars are freedom. Well, no, they’re actually a huge liability that cost a small fortune and lose that value, and then you’re tethered to a gas pump forever.
Or I could, I don’t know, take public transit anywhere I wanted to go. You know, freedom to choose other things
It’s an investment to the public, not a direct injection of cash/investment that they will directly benefit from.
Conservatives are stupid, basically. Given a set of facts they will draw back conclusions
Money can be exchanged for goods and services!
No! Money is only supposed to be hoarded, so you can watch red line go up.
Tell that to conservatives that say to cut taxes and social services.
I thought you were supposed to give it to billionaires for safekeeping?
Homer is smarter than all conservatives combined
It’s a shame that removing the crayon didn’t work for RFK.
The worm ate it
Homer’s brain is anyway, the thoughts don’t usually make it all the way through Homer.
S-M-R-Ter you mean.
Woo hoo!
Does that include a peanut?
Outside NY, the MAGA faithful condemn this and would rather have the money diverted to billionaires who will one day descend as prophesised, to give them their land of milk and honey
How DARE he use MY Tax Money to make MY Life EASIER! EVERYONE knows Tax Money is meant for RICH PEOPLE and NO ONE else!
What did Democrats do? The usual?
It says in the op photo, they paid people to shovel snow
My bad. I thought he was a socialist.
Ok, but all that money wasted on streets could have gone to a private pocket of a nepo tech startup promising AI billboards that would feed ads to ppl & the city would subsidise to “promote innovation”.
/s
If they just built some more datacentres the snow would naturally melt form the climate change.
They are literally doing their best!
(And it’s horrific beyond comprehension.)Heated driveways are old school. Nowadays we need bitcoin-mining sidewalks.
You mean paying contractors exorbitant rates for
slaveprison laborers being paid $2.00/hr while the executives pocket most of the money?They increased prison labour to 2$/hr now??
That’s socialism!!
That’s oddly specific, did I miss something?
No, not that I know of.
It was intentionally oddly specific for purely comedic reasons.Doesn’t mean it won’t happen several times anyway.
Fair enough, cheers!
This is great, but I love that he gave the school kids of New York an actual, honest-to-god snow day. No remote class, no logging on.
Roosevelt did the same thing too when soldiers came back from the war and couldn’t find work and their government Bonds were expired. He designed a lot of unification projects like bridges and all sorts of projects while those bridges are beautiful and they’re still standing today showing that we don’t have to do things cheap and we can still help people that’s grades are under that our governments to do that invest in their people.
Roosevelt as in Franklin Delano Roosevelt? He was already dead when the war was over. His successor, Harry Truman, could have implemented this policy?
$30/hr, $45/hr overtime
Yea… that’s how time & a half works…
A lot of seasonal workers are exempt from earning overtime.
And $30/hr doesn’t even seem all that high for a high-cost-of-living area like NY.
And yet it’s almost double the minimum wage.
Its something closer to 400% of the federal minimum wage and more like 600% of what some states have on the books. Minimum wage has barely moved since I was in high school.
I read this as minimum wage needing to be higher, not snow shoveling wages needing to be lower.
Absolutely. My point was more that even though it doesn’t seem much for NY it’s still way better than doing minimum wage. Anyone doing minimum wage would love to make that much because the minimum wage is so low.
It’s an infinitely higher percentage than zero, isn’t it?
So is the increase in my weekly grocery bills. What’s your point?
Anything is an infinitely higher percentage than zero. That’s how math works. Don’t know what you’re trying to get at with that.
They could have paid zero.
Why?
Ok, now you’re being obtuse on purpose. Goodbye.
Cool but don’t you guys have machines for this?
Asking from Montréal — we might just be more sophisticated with snow removal because of our reality.
Can’t really use plows or snowblowers on NYC sidewalks. Too many trashbags and sidewalk sheds.
It also just doesn’t make sense to invest in huge levels of any of that. How often does NYC get that much snow buildup compared to Montreal? It’s almost certainly not worth the maintenance and storage on a shit load of snow blowers, for something that might get one use a year.
I saw so many people commenting on social media how they have never seen the sidewalks and streets cleared that fast in New York. He is winning people over quickly.
