How could he possibly afford that!?
It’s like suddenly there’s more money and it’s getting distributed /s
It’s not even more money yet. This is just the same city funds being redistributed to areas where it can be useful.
Meaning ANY Mayor could have done this, they chose not to.
Welllll one of the ways he did it was by delaying pension fund payments. So it’s not all roses.
That pension system is nuts btw.
These savings would be achieved by smoothing out a bizarre feature of the city’s pension payment schedule instituted in 2010, which had required accelerating payments through to fiscal year 2032, at which point the payments would turn negative and the pension funds would return money to the City over a seven-year period. The $8.2 billion “contribution cliff” created by this structure was not reasonable fiscal policymaking. The proposed change unwinds this drop off by smoothing payments over an additional five years. It does not—and cannot—affect the pensions owed to City workers or impact the City’s ability to meet those commitments.
Source: https://fiscalpolicy.org/explainer-the-proposed-restructuring-of-new-york-city-pension-payments
This is just the same city funds being redistributed to areas where it can be useful.
You’re mad! Mad, I say! It’ll never work!
how could he afford that?! NO you shouldn’t look at the for-profit businesses making healthy revenue!!!
But liquor is a vice and the Christians want to crack down on that.
lol ‘but liquor’
There is nothing wrong with regulating vices, but not because they are offensive to God, that’s just stupid superstition.
The reason to regulate vices is because they tend to be addicting and destructive, and there are many immoral people who will deliberately addict as many people as possible, just to shake the Almighty Profits out of their pockets.
I don’t care about that when it’s voluntary - nobody is addicted to buying a new car, or a new couch, that’s a personal choice. But when they have been enticed into becoming ADDICTED by marketing and advertising, the choice is no longer theirs, and they are spending money they don’t really want to because a corporation got them literally addicted through shrewd and effective advertising.
I have noticed that Matthew Broderick is now doing commercials for a new gambling app that uses Candy Crush type games to gamble instead sports or cards, and they are aiming it at middle aged women. Worse, they are aiming it at UNSATISFIED women. The ads show women with adult children who have moved back in, with husbands, or children, who won’t pay attention to them, etc. They are aiming at older women who feel unfulfilled in life, and encouraging them to feel better by playing a video game that is barely disguised gambling.
It’s not enough that they are addicting young men to sports gambling, now they’ve identified a new demographic - unhappy middle-aged women, many of whom control the household finances. It’s only a matter of time before we hear about families losing their home because mom gambled away the mortgage.
Vices need to be regulated to keep the Corporate Predatory Parasites under control, or they will eventually enslave ALL of us.
That’s the logical argument, but that’s not why we have liquor laws. Think way back when, it started with religious anti-drinking. Think prohibition, that was all rooted in religion. But when prohibition failed they had to settle on strict control.
Funny thing now is that as the right loses its “real” religion they want looser liquor laws, and its the left that now wants the logical liquor control. But again the real reason we’ve had liquor laws for hundreds of years has been religion.
The reason for gambling laws was to keep the money out of gangs.
and now its the left that wants the logical liquor control.
Who and why, exactly? Outside of drinks hirting others I couldn’t give two shits.
I’m much more concerned with how easily it is to get a gun over a drink.
Asks why. Lists why. …
The only godly vices are the abuse of power and children.
We should ban alcohol nation wide! That’ll show them! /s
[WCTU has entered the chat.]
Very funny to me that “libertarian” New Hampshire does the same.
The next time they call you ‘Socialist’ ask them to explain how the Homestead Act wasn’t Socialism.
I’m not from the US and hadn’t heard of this. But are we arguing it WAS socialism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts
From my very cursory reading of the above, seems like imperialism handing out indigenous land to settlers, no?
In conclusion, I’m saying this definitely does not look like socialism to me. Socialism is democratic control over society by the workers, and the Homestead Acts (from my cursoru understanding) don’t seem to be that. Just maybe the tiniest bit better than having massive slave operated holdings by oligarchs.
Yes, my comment was very US centric.
First, the Homestead Act gave land to a lot of people who were tenant farmers. It enraged the rich folks who saw their profits go down, and it was a boon to the ancestors of a lot of the MAGAs. They’ll crow about how their great grandparents came in covered wagons and ignore the fact that they couldn’t have afforded the land if it wasn’t for a government program.
Second, in my opinion, all political labels are meaningless outside the classroom. There are billionaires in the Chinese Communist Party and North Korea calls itself a Democratic Republic.
I’ve literally had this conversation with some of my fellow americans.
Them = All Socialist states fail!
Me = What about the Scandinavian countries?
Them = They aren’t really Socialist.
Me = So, we can have their health care system?
Them = [Usually silence, sometimes and explanation that it only works there because the population is not as diverse as america.]
all political labels are meaningless outside the classroom.
This is the real truth. None of the world’s governments are what they claim to be. All of them have taken a basic foundation, and then added various things from various systems until every government in the world is some Frankenstein’s Monster of bureaucracy.
We’re supposed to be a Democracy, or a Republic, or a Democratic Republic, or something, who knows, but a lot of the best stuff in America is straight up Socialist, like parks, schools, libraries, museums, roads, bridges, etc.
Fire Departments are one of the best examples of American Socialism. In the olden days, if you owned a building, you’d buy fire insurance from a local fire brigade, and they’d give you a “fire mark,” a cast iron medallion, that you would attach to your building. That proved that you were paid up, and if your building caught fire, they’d show up to put it out. If you weren’t paid up, they’d show up to watch your building burn, unless you paid.
Eventually, they replaced the profit-making fire fighting system with a municipal fire fighting system, paid for by ALL the citizens, to benefit ALL the citizens, and not just those with enough money to pay. Same with public schools, roads, bridges, etc. Much of the best of America is already Socialist.
NONE of the world’s governments adhere to the political philosophy they claim to follow, except in the most basic ways. Whatever labels they apply to their own systems, or the systems of others, is meaningless propaganda. There are no Socialist, Communist, or Democratic nations. They are all mixed systems, that exist more by evolution than design.
Thank you.
I think that they’re implying that people likely to argue that state-controlled stores are socialist are also likely to conflate any service or good offered by the state is socialism.
In the US, “socialism” is both demonized and the actual definition is obfuscated by right-wing (read: most) media in the same way other terms are, such as “woke”. This alienates the average person in the US from movements, policies, organizations, etc that would benefit them, from free school lunch programs to socialist representatives running on taxing the wealthy.
To the surprise of no-one
Funny how they also don’t say a peep about Mitch shit bag basically using our tax money to pay his healthcare… in essence, something we pay for–all while not having to go to work for weeks on end. Something the rest of us would not be privileged to have. Fucking wanker.
Mitch literally pulling a no-call no-show and getting away with it.
One of the few things I agree with the Christian right on except I think all vices, including all drugs / gambling, should be sold by state run stores. The profit motive and addiction don’t mix well
Wut?
The reason Alabama has state run liquor stores is that Christians clutched their pearls at the idea of people making profits off of the vice of alcohol. This individual agrees that vices and profits don’t mix from a moral perspective. Where this individual and the “alleged” inbreds split, and I’m assuming, is that they would like the state to supply all vices in a profit free environment. A novel idea that would surely not go down in a favorable way in a state that never finds itsself at the absolute bottom of any quality of life list, solely because of the existence of Mississippi.
This is dumb, because there is still a profit, it’s just the state collecting it instead of a private individual. If there was no profit, the product would be significantly cheaper, but it’s not. There’s a profit being made, it’s just going to “the people.”
The problem is that the government is going to operate the retail operation so inefficiently, that the profit will be eaten by bureaucratic costs.
That’s the real value of profit - it drives efficiency. Without a profit motive, there is no reason to value and implement efficiency, so money gets wasted.
The goal is lack of a profit motive, means they are less likely to exploit the human weakness. They’ll sell you your vice but not try to push more
The problem is that the government is going to operate the retail operation so inefficiently, that the profit will be eaten by bureaucratic costs.
Citation needed. You’re just repeating right wing talking points that holds that government can’t be efficient, and that profit is the only source of efficiency.
Profit drives selling things for more profit, not efficiency. Sometimes efficiency is the driving force for more profit, but not always by a long shot.
The value of regulated pricing for vices is that it prevents the profit drive to lower prices, increase addiction, and then raise prices.
The goal isn’t cheap vices. It’s stable prices, controlled quality and predictable supply.
You also make excellent points.
I understand that it could sound like Right-wing talking points, but RW talking points often have a kernel of truth, that gets distorted. We have all seen government agencies that are hopelessly bureaucratic, but that doesn’t mean ALL government agencies are that useless. I’ve been to terrible DMVs in past locations I’ve lived, but the DMV in the area I live now is amazing. I’m never there longer than a half hour. Government doesn’t have to be inefficient, MAGAs just like to make it that way, so they can invent excuses to cut programs.
Speaking of dumb:
Without a profit motive, there is no reason to value and implement efficiency
I work for a non profit organization. An enormous amount of effort goes into ensuring efficiency so that we can maximize the success of our mission.
Excellent point. Obviously, there is a lot more nuance involved that can’t be contained in a single sentence.
Don’t forget Trump’s gas stations which sell gasoline below market rate!
Doubt it. We just don’t know how’s he’s enriching himself with that yet.
I miss when the state ran our liquor stores. Was much cheaper.
how do liquor stores work in Alabama? would a customer tell the difference between a liquor store in bama vs another state?
To the best of my knowledge, not significantly.
The state I live in has a monopoly on the wholesale of liquor. The only difference you can tell is that liquor has the same price in every store. It can’t go on sale or be discounted or used in promotions.I don’t know about Alabama, but Pennsylvania also has state-owned liquor stores. For PA, you can get beer and wine in a lot of places, including gas stations, supermarkets, and beer stores. However, if you want hard liquor, you have to go to specific stores just for that. If you go to a beer store looking for rum, you’ll be out of luck.
For PA, you can get beer and wine in a lot of places
When I first moved here nearly 20 years ago, this was not the case. You could only buy beer at special stores where you could only buy it by the case, or you could buy individual six-packs to take home at bars and taverns. Wine was only available from the state-run stores along with the hard liquor (and this is still the case for the hard stuff). Coming from a state that had fucking drive-thru daiquiri shops, this was hard to accept.
Louisiana? Those drive-thru daiquiri shops blew my mind. I had been told that leaving a bit of paper on the straw counts as a “seal,” but when I went to one I didn’t even get a paper on the straw.
When I lived there it was a piece of scotch tape holding the lid on. Because removing a piece of scotch tape is just too complex a technical task to possibly be accomplished in a car.
I guess drive-thru daiquiri shops aren’t any more egregious than bars with parking lots.
Last time I tried that, they limited me to two 6 packs of beer. Mother-fucker, I’m not drinking this all tonight, but I like this brewery and won’t be back for a year or more.
Do they still do that?
For PA, you can get beer and wine in a lot of places, including gas stations, supermarkets, and beer stores.
Has this changed recently?
Because my understanding was that no, you absolutely cannot get it at gas stations.
You can sometimes find them in grocery stores, but that’s a loophole and only works if the store sells hot food (usually buffet style) so they can classify the separate POS as a restaurant with a liquor license.
And if you want more than a 12 pack of beer, you have to go to a “Beer Distributor”. A separate store that only sells cases of beer.
Aside from the grocery stores who have gone through the legal loopholes (it’s far from all of them), you can only get wine from the state stores that only sell wine and liquor (no beer).
It’s stupid. Remnants from prohibition.
When I was kid in Ohio, I would sometimes go into the state-operated liquor store with my dad when we were running errands. There was one bottle of each product on display behind glass, with a number, and you’d write down the numbers of all your selections, and give them to a guy at a counter, also behind glass, like a bank teller. He’d go get your bottles, and you’d pay and leave.
I was just a kid, and even I could see that this was an inefficient and stupid way to run a retail operation. At some point they changed the law, and regular retail liquor stores became legal, and state run stores disappeared. You could buy beer and wine at grocery stores, gas stations, etc., but hard liquor was only at liquor stores.
I was an adult when the switch happened, and I was friendly with my favorite store to buy beer. They got one of the first licenses to sell hard liquor, and when he told me, I said “Oooh, you’re gonna get RICH!” and he just gave me the biggest smile I think I’ve ever seen.
So apparently it’s not socialism when you get drunk?
How the USSR achieved full communism. Yes.
Tremendous amounts of alcohol were involved in the creation of the Confederacy as well.
The first few battles were basically bar fights.
And what if it is?
Is the fire department socialism? Everyone pays for a service/insurance that 99.9% people might never use, but want to have in case some shit went down. Why does nobody think this is socialism is beyond me.
There are some dumbass libertarians who advocate for privatizing fire fighting because of that
A lot of firefighting company actually used to be private, owned and operated by insurance companies
Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production
WORKERS collective ownership of the means of production is what socialism is.
That might be the European definition. In the US, socialism is anything the billionaire class doesn’t like.
Axshually Alabama has private liquor stores. Source: go there occasionally.
But the point still stands.
Yes, but the distribution is mostly controlled by the State, meaning all imported alcohol into the State has to go through the government first.
I lived in Mississippi which has a very similar setup.
A tread of someone fighting a saw man of an argument that never happened, while being wrong about how liquor stores in Alabama work.
This is going straight to the front page.
How do liquor stores work in Alabama?
