The current governor of West Virginia, Jim Justice, changed party from D to R the day he was sworn in.
WV is a textbook "both parties suck" case of corporate capture. And that's in communities where voting is accessible. Not one where the voters are disenfranchised, the election infrastructure is deliberately neglected, and the parties just parachute in candidates to rotten districts.
Kentucky also has a Democrat in the governor's mansion. We're still waiting to hear how this will save the state from Trumpism
I feel like West Virginia needs to embrace the ways of their four fathers and start shooting politicians and corpo dogs. At the very least WV is close enough to worst case scenario that it probably can't make things much worse at this point.
(Multimodal) GPT ≠ "pure" LLM. GPT-4o uses an LLM for the language parts, as well as having voice processing and generation built-in, but it uses a technically distinct (though well-integrated) model called "GPT Image 1" for generating images.
You can't really train or treat image generation with the same approach as natural language, given it isn't natural language. A binary string doesn't adhere to the same patterns as human speech.
Text prompts are first tokenized into word embeddings, while image inputs—if provided—are converted into patch embeddings [...] These embeddings are then concatenated and processed through shared self‑attention layers.
I haven't found any other sources to back that up, because most platforms seem more concerned with how to access it than how it works under the hood.
You're right that image generation models are not LLMs, but they actually are pretty closely related. You may already know how they work, but for those that don't, it's kind of interesting. It uses a similar pipeline for vectorization of input, but takes a different approach for output.
Even better, they can point to the Bible and say that God chose flawed men like King David and Noah to do His work. So, even if the Epstein files come out, they can still say that Trump is Godly.
American Evangelical Protestants literally reinvented indulgences and called it "Seed Faith". Like Martin Luther is spinning so much in his grave he can power Wittenberg.
they tout revelations as proof they need to gather their strength and expel jews to israel. meanwhile revelations describes an unchristlike figure corrupting religion to enact mass suffering. it says that the followers of this figure will not enter the kingdom of heaven, but the followers of the true church, a small number, will.
these chucklefucks are, by their own theology, paving their way into hell
A new monk arrived at the monastery. He was assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He noticed, however, that they were copying copies, not the original books. The new monk went to the head monk to ask him about this. He pointed out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies. The head monk said, 'We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son.' The head monk went down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours later, nobody had seen him, so one of the monks went downstairs to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall, crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?" With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was CELEBRATE, not CELIBATE!"
Are you living under a rock? These Russian (and other nations') disinformation campaigns targeting the US have been very well documented ever since the 2016 election and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. A barrage of books and endless articles, as well as the occasional news scandal, have made the rounds constantly. It's almost impossible not to notice.
Also, what is your point, exactly? Do you expect them to identify themselves with their country of origin? They'll obviously try to blend in.
Does the Russian state apparatus attempt to utilize social media for its own interests? Absolutely. Is the impact of Russia in western, American-owned social media any more significant than American state apparatus impact or EU state apparatus impact? Absolutely no.
Is the impact of Russia in western, American-owned social media any more significant than American state apparatus
Right now, one could say that the Trump administration is an extension of their campaign. They've been deeply intertwined for decades, and it's safe to say that they're all compromised.
In 2004, an ex-colleague of Trump's was back visiting our mutual home county, and regaled us with stories about what a joke he is, what a narcissist being played by his psychopathic handlers priming him for a puppet presidency.
It seemed a mite absurd, implausible, in 2004. But came 2015, ... well, it would have been good if awareness of such stories had proliferated further. :/
But then... the solution space is further upstream than the parade of puppet presidencies.
There are too many for my current spoons stock to start listing, but, a couple fun prominent normie-popular ones I was surprised to see not mentioned on your (superb) list...
Drain the swamp.
Build a wall.
Of which, at least one of those was a laudable goal to espouse.
I truly think there must be something wrong with all these people's brains. When these Trump influencers speak it sets my BS alarms off almost instantly. Like just based off the tone and way they talk. How does someone listen to their crap long enough to ingest it let alone actually believe it?
I can legitimately see conservatives having this conversation, while homeless, while standing in a free soup line, while also actively hating on socialism (with zero awareness that they are literally in line for socialism)
I've seen people argue that the economy is way up and that unemployment was way down, only to be shocked for me to provide data showing record layoffs this year in the USA topping more than a million jobs which add up to more than the last three years combined, mostly tech sector. Just imagine what it must be like for Manufacturing now that steel and aluminium are heavily tariffed.
Seriously. What is the way out? Society is taking such an ugly turn. Reality seems to not matter anymore. These guys have their own reality, full of lies and fake info. And people eat it up.
Is the way out to just... have everyone on the brink of collapse, so they can feel, with their own senses, that things are bad?
Edit: Lots of misunderstanding my point. My fault for not being crystal clear. This guy Nick Adams says "inflation is non-existent" like that would somehow be a good thing. Non-existent inflation would be a bad thing.
A little bit of inflation is a good thing, and non-existent inflation shouldn't be the goal.
The original post says "inflation is non-existent", which would be bad but they are claiming it's somehow good (despite being 100% false). I was just pointing out the stupidity of Nick Adams, whoever that is.
The original post says "inflation is non-existent", which would be bad but they are claiming it's somehow good (despite being 100% false). I was just pointing out the stupidity of Nick Adams, whoever that is.
How does this happen, do these people all own their own house? Like if I was struggling it's the house that is going to be a problem, food is a rounding error compared to food costs. Especially if money is tight.
Mortgage £1100/month, enough food to survive for the week... £5? Not sure. Currently pay £10-15 each but eating pretty well. So £20-40 a month food most likely.
Something tells me people don't stand in line like this unless they're desperate for help. I don't want to accuse, but your post is victim blaming level. Glad for you that you don't understand what it's like to be this close or past the point of being able to eat every day.
So NPR went to a heavy Trump voting area food bank while snap was not being paid out to see how hungry Trump supporters were feeling.
They got this one lady saying it was good, SNAP was bad because people should be able to feed themselves. Seemingly realizing that was a pretty weird thing to say while getting food from a food bank. She said "I can feed myself, but just here in case that have some food I would like for free".
So at least she claims she wasn't desperate for help, just taking some free food. Almost certainly BS, but we are dealing with a crowd that thinks taking food meant for the hungry when you didn't need it is less shameful than actually needing food...
I've come to believe that an individual like that just isn't really a person. They're a human being, but not really a person. I still can't put my finger on it but to me it's like they're incapable of understanding that everything exists independent of them or that they, deep down, can only view reality as though they are the only ones who are sentient, or something like that. It feels like it's something a bit different than them just having narcissistic traits.
Nah, they have been taught their whole lives that if you are in need, you are just lazy, everyone is fundamentally capable of taking care of themselves and there's zero excuse for not being able to just do it yourself. Based on her voice, I'd say at least in her late 60s, that's a long time to hold a world view.
So in all circumstances, they must show their own strength by asserting/repeating that world view. Even as they themselves should have learned better, either they are in denial about their status and needs or they feel a deep shame and see such a ludicrous stance as somehow saving face.
It's sadly quite consistent with being a human person.
Yeah I am sure they are, but financially how does it work? How can you be unable to afford food and yet able to afford somewhere to live? Are they all homeless, which if so USA wtf your homeless problem is WAY bigger than I could have ever imagined.
The homeless problem is way bigger than it's talked about. The officials don't want to acknowledge it, the people around them ignore it, the media I guess doesn't get much from stories about it so they won't cover it.
You still seem surprised that people can pay a big bill but not the little daily ones. The problem with that approach is you're assuming they can pay the first bill. Some of these people may still have a place, but are far behind in their payment or rent, maybe on the edge of being kicked out. They still have some money, they just can't pay everything they owe to get caught up. And once you get in that hole, it's very hard to get out without a major change or luck.
Just be glad you never had to be in that situation, and hopefully it will always seem impossible to you. It doesn't take much to find yourself there.
I'm sure there are people here in the US that have the same disbelief as you, even with things around them. So for someone from another country that has better systems in place to take care of the public, it must seem baffling. If you're shocked about the economics, you'll really love the healthcare situation (which certainly you've seen talked about). They go hand in hand, especially since the US pinned health insurance onto employment, so if a job is lost healthcare costs are going to jump, which leads right back to not affording the big bills and starting the fall.
First: They might have a mortgage. They might be struggling to pay the mortgage. Mortgage gets paid first. They might have made the calculation that they had to pay the mortgage and rely on charity to avoid starving.
Second: They might have a mortgage that is already in default. They could be approaching foreclosure. Struggling perhaps more than you imagine.
Third. They might rent. They might be facing eviction. They might be barely surviving.
Fourth: They might already be homeless. Lucky I guess. They don't have to worry about a mortgage or rent anymore.
Those are just the thoughts I could come up with right now.
Also, this is America. A medical emergency can leave you with nothing.
I have a feeling you don't track your food expenses well if you think that little can feed a person, let alone a household, without a lot of charitable support or food from friends and family.
Yeah, I obviously eat nicer stuff than that because I don't need to cut down to the bare minimum and can have nice things but if I had to I know bare minimum survival food is going to have to cost less than I spend now.
Also rice and beans can be a pretty good meal. Of course seasoning does add a little to the cost but soy sauce isn't expensive. Depends how absolute minimum you are looking for a bare minimum survival cost. But I think if I was at that point I would probably look at catching a few crabs from the harbour to add to the dish.
That is what food costs at Aldi? Also to clarify, that £20-40 was my approximate guess of what survival food shopping would likely cost based off my normal food shopping of £20-30 for 2 each week, or £10-15 each. But we also buy stuff that could be easily cut back if we had to.
So a cheap week for us is £10 each and that still includes stuff you could cut out. Clearly it could cost less than £40 a month then if we were cutting back. The main thing that varies our cost is we eat quite a bit of cheese, that usually contributes to the more expensive weeks.
And they'll still vote red.
Looking at you Tennessee. Should have done better in the special election
The current governor of West Virginia, Jim Justice, changed party from D to R the day he was sworn in.
WV is a textbook "both parties suck" case of corporate capture. And that's in communities where voting is accessible. Not one where the voters are disenfranchised, the election infrastructure is deliberately neglected, and the parties just parachute in candidates to rotten districts.
Kentucky also has a Democrat in the governor's mansion. We're still waiting to hear how this will save the state from Trumpism
Kentucky has had a Democratic governor since he beat the carpetbagger Republican incumbent during Trump's first term.
But the General Assembly is overwhelmingly Republican (86% in the senate, 80% in the house), so his effectiveness is limited.
I feel like West Virginia needs to embrace the ways of their four fathers and start shooting politicians and corpo dogs. At the very least WV is close enough to worst case scenario that it probably can't make things much worse at this point.
Yeah they go hungry, and can't afford healthcare, but at least the president hates immigrants just as much as they do. You have to puck your battles
Kinda crazy to depict trump walking on water like Jesus. I know its a cult and they treat him like Jesus but still
Have you not heard the actual quote from dog killer Noem at the cabinet meeting the other day?
it's real and fucking insane
No I had not heard about this and fuck you for showing me lol
Something something HAARP...
I'm so glad we elected an old, demented man who needs to be constantly praised so he doesn't hit the Big Red Button in his temper tantrums.
Uuuhhh isn't that just literally a lie? Like wtf
Well, so we're the things Jesus supposedly did, so at least that's consistent.
I'm not religious or anything, but how can you not see that and think: wait this is wrong.
They also made a gold fucking idol of him.
The boat passengers are segregated too. Did the image prompt explicitly ask for both races?
Notice how all the black people are at the back of the boat.
Why are all the white ones only raising their right hand to chest height and everyone else has both hands up.
That's not fair, one of the white guys also has a phantom black hand popping out of his head. Now don't you feel foolish?
He had to specify no Nazi salute in his prompt ?
Never thought ai would be the ones pushing technofacism.
That's sarcastic, right?
well that's it, time to retire this meme, it doesn't get better than this
absolutely incredible
LLM slop factories are overtly racist because they're trained on shit lifted straight off the internet.
That's image generation, not LLM (language/text generation), but the point stands
Hate to bring it to you, but today's image generation comes through LLMs
(Multimodal) GPT ≠ "pure" LLM. GPT-4o uses an LLM for the language parts, as well as having voice processing and generation built-in, but it uses a technically distinct (though well-integrated) model called "GPT Image 1" for generating images.
You can't really train or treat image generation with the same approach as natural language, given it isn't natural language. A binary string doesn't adhere to the same patterns as human speech.
Just curious, does the LLM generate a text prompt for the image model, or is there a deeper integration at the embedding level/something else?
According to CometAPI:
I haven't found any other sources to back that up, because most platforms seem more concerned with how to access it than how it works under the hood.
You're right that image generation models are not LLMs, but they actually are pretty closely related. You may already know how they work, but for those that don't, it's kind of interesting. It uses a similar pipeline for vectorization of input, but takes a different approach for output.
The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
They're not beating the "We worship Donald Trump" allegations
most aren't even trying to beat the allegations
I remember watching someone on the news literally say that he was chosen by God.
Even better, they can point to the Bible and say that God chose flawed men like King David and Noah to do His work. So, even if the Epstein files come out, they can still say that Trump is Godly.
So basically they're comparing Trump to fuckin' David of Giant Slaying fame? Oh that's rich.
There's a lot of people comparing him to Christ. Hell, there's Christians saying he is Christ's Second Coming.
Modern American Christians wouldn't know heresy if it hit them over the head.
American Evangelical Protestants literally reinvented indulgences and called it "Seed Faith". Like Martin Luther is spinning so much in his grave he can power Wittenberg.
Propaganda and lies.
All these "christians" painting trump as a god or second coming of jesus. If they were actual christians they would know this is herasy
I don't know how much more the opposite of Jesus trump can even be.
If Trump is the anti-christ, the test was too easy.
they tout revelations as proof they need to gather their strength and expel jews to israel. meanwhile revelations describes an unchristlike figure corrupting religion to enact mass suffering. it says that the followers of this figure will not enter the kingdom of heaven, but the followers of the true church, a small number, will.
these chucklefucks are, by their own theology, paving their way into hell
And they will wear the mark of the best upon their head...
* beast... right?
A new monk arrived at the monastery. He was assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He noticed, however, that they were copying copies, not the original books. The new monk went to the head monk to ask him about this. He pointed out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies. The head monk said, 'We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son.' The head monk went down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours later, nobody had seen him, so one of the monks went downstairs to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall, crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?" With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was CELEBRATE, not CELIBATE!"
Could not have said it better
thank you for voicing my thoughts!
Cheer up guys a few oligarchs that own everything are enjoying record profits
"Hunger" as in the statistic measuring hunger has been eradicated, yes.
Just like unemployment and inflation, yes.
This gives me some strong North Korea, Glorious Leader kind of vibes.
Walking on water, god rays behind him, saving the people on the ark from an existential threat. This is undeniably N Korea
"When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross"
Is trump personally going to sink that boat?
Nah, that's Hegseth's job
All these posts are paid for by Russia and Trump. Any post this obviously disconnected from reality is pure paid propaganda.
So most marketing that we just accept the lies of?
USA post about the most USA thing in the USA
Lemmytor: "FOOKIN RUZZKIES!!!!"
Are you living under a rock? These Russian (and other nations') disinformation campaigns targeting the US have been very well documented ever since the 2016 election and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. A barrage of books and endless articles, as well as the occasional news scandal, have made the rounds constantly. It's almost impossible not to notice.
Also, what is your point, exactly? Do you expect them to identify themselves with their country of origin? They'll obviously try to blend in.
Does the Russian state apparatus attempt to utilize social media for its own interests? Absolutely. Is the impact of Russia in western, American-owned social media any more significant than American state apparatus impact or EU state apparatus impact? Absolutely no.
Right now, one could say that the Trump administration is an extension of their campaign. They've been deeply intertwined for decades, and it's safe to say that they're all compromised.
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/332270-eric-trump-in-2014-we-dont-rely-on-american-banks-we-have-all-the-funding-we/
Huh, funny, I thought it was the Democrat establishment funding the Trump Campaign as per Wikileaks.
That's kind of a curious thing to bring up.
WikiLeaks is arguably another Russian asset, or at the very least a "very helpful stooge".
https://www.britannica.com/topic/WikiLeaks#ref350540
https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/mar/18/wikileaks-russias-useful-idiot-its-agent-influence/ (2019)
Not to mention that the Clintons are also probably compromised via the Epstein files.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79l38vl3lwo (2025)
Somehow, and whether one likes it or not, it all points back to Russia once again.
Oh, I see, everyone except the USA is a Russian asset. Wikileaks being a Russian asset, lmfao, most American thing I've ever heard.
You're literally using "Russia" the same way Nazis used "Judeo-Bolshevism" almost exactly 100 years ago.
No attempt, they do already.
Ever once act like a half decent human being if it doesn't benefit him.
That alone should have ever told people that he was not a good choice for improving anything.
In 2004, an ex-colleague of Trump's was back visiting our mutual home county, and regaled us with stories about what a joke he is, what a narcissist being played by his psychopathic handlers priming him for a puppet presidency.
It seemed a mite absurd, implausible, in 2004. But came 2015, ... well, it would have been good if awareness of such stories had proliferated further. :/
But then... the solution space is further upstream than the parade of puppet presidencies.
There are too many for my current spoons stock to start listing, but, a couple fun prominent normie-popular ones I was surprised to see not mentioned on your (superb) list...
Drain the swamp.
Build a wall.
Of which, at least one of those was a laudable goal to espouse.
half of a country's population is entirely gaslit by these people. Don't believe what's in front of your eyes...just believe what we tell you.
I truly think there must be something wrong with all these people's brains. When these Trump influencers speak it sets my BS alarms off almost instantly. Like just based off the tone and way they talk. How does someone listen to their crap long enough to ingest it let alone actually believe it?
For one thing, MAGAts love cherry picking and quoting the Bible.
I can legitimately see conservatives having this conversation, while homeless, while standing in a free soup line, while also actively hating on socialism (with zero awareness that they are literally in line for socialism)
the bread lines are so back 🔥
I've seen people argue that the economy is way up and that unemployment was way down, only to be shocked for me to provide data showing record layoffs this year in the USA topping more than a million jobs which add up to more than the last three years combined, mostly tech sector. Just imagine what it must be like for Manufacturing now that steel and aluminium are heavily tariffed.
Good luck finding these details in the future, what with the fotus nixing reports of job activity.
Manufacturing jobs left the US many moons ago lol
You would think, but US and UK still build a lot of heavy machinery. Which requires a lot of steel and aluminium. Which is now tariffed.
It's Nick Adams, sentient turd and wonder of modern science.
Seriously. What is the way out? Society is taking such an ugly turn. Reality seems to not matter anymore. These guys have their own reality, full of lies and fake info. And people eat it up.
Is the way out to just... have everyone on the brink of collapse, so they can feel, with their own senses, that things are bad?
Humans suck.
experimental physicists
some people need to see it with their own eyes how things develop, instead of relying on theoretical predictions.
It's fascism.
And this is how it "works".
This is why fact checkers will soon become illegal in Soviet US.
And that's somehow not satire?
Paid propaganda unfortunately
"Those are probably just lazy folks"
Who is he? Could that be sarcasm?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Adams_(commentator)
It took some time to find. An actor is more famous.
we need a revolution
Ok, I'm willing to believe that obese child rapist can walk on water but only if he gets nailed to a fucking cross.
Nail gun him today, don't delay.
Maybe he thinks hunger has been eradicated because he’s smoking crack.
nick adams, the australian cunt, that is the equivalent to "kirk". after Charlie died, im guessing he is the replacement.
Idk, he's missing a particular detail to complete the hole resemblance.
Shouldn't they be happy? They voted for that. They got exactly what they voted for.
Nick adams is retarded. There is no doubt in my mind that he has a MAJOR mental deficiency.
Being a (R)etard has nothing to do with mental ability. They are just bad people.
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/
Last year's inflation was 2.9%
This year to date is 3%
BLS is garbage data now. Biden's presidency, it was close to accurate. Now it's just propaganda, with no basis in reality.
Has anyone checked this guys drug use? Whatever he took before posting is probably illegal in quite a number of countries.
I'll tell you what he can't do.
Shuffle off the goddamn mortal coil and save us a lot of trouble.
This kind of propaganda teach communist levels, it’s scary how similar we are getting from URSS
The cheap (Grok?) image really sells it, doesn’t it?
With the blacks at the back of the boat, too. Lol.
Wow. I feel bad for just noticing that.
People in red states masking? I have doubts.
I'm sure he just misspelled "exacerbated".
Ok, but why are they cheering for him to launch a missile at them?
A little bit of inflation is a good thing.
Edit: Lots of misunderstanding my point. My fault for not being crystal clear. This guy Nick Adams says "inflation is non-existent" like that would somehow be a good thing. Non-existent inflation would be a bad thing.
A little bit of inflation is a good thing, and non-existent inflation shouldn't be the goal.
Wouldn't be so bad if it were only a little bit, and if that were the only problem.
Yes, but the original post says "inflation is non-existent", which is bad. I was just pointing out the stupidity of Nick Adams, whoever that is.
You mean the inflation we narrowly escaped last administration? The inflation that was easing but is now raging? Yeah.
The original post says "inflation is non-existent", which would be bad but they are claiming it's somehow good (despite being 100% false). I was just pointing out the stupidity of Nick Adams, whoever that is.
He's the US ambassador to Malaysia and another Trump cultist grifter. Obviously.
Inflation isn't a problem if everything else keeps in step with it. But it doesn't work that way, sometimes things lag behind for years, or decades.
The inflation rn is not "a little bit", plus add corporate price gouging on top of it....
The original post says "inflation is non-existent", which would be bad but they are claiming it's somehow good (despite being 100% false). I was just pointing out the stupidity of Nick Adams, whoever that is.
A good thing in a bad system built on endless growth, sure.
How does this happen, do these people all own their own house? Like if I was struggling it's the house that is going to be a problem, food is a rounding error compared to food costs. Especially if money is tight.
Mortgage £1100/month, enough food to survive for the week... £5? Not sure. Currently pay £10-15 each but eating pretty well. So £20-40 a month food most likely.
Something tells me people don't stand in line like this unless they're desperate for help. I don't want to accuse, but your post is victim blaming level. Glad for you that you don't understand what it's like to be this close or past the point of being able to eat every day.
Hundred percent. I'll take holes in my shoes and staying warm by layering clothes on top of my blankets again over going hungry again.
So NPR went to a heavy Trump voting area food bank while snap was not being paid out to see how hungry Trump supporters were feeling.
They got this one lady saying it was good, SNAP was bad because people should be able to feed themselves. Seemingly realizing that was a pretty weird thing to say while getting food from a food bank. She said "I can feed myself, but just here in case that have some food I would like for free".
So at least she claims she wasn't desperate for help, just taking some free food. Almost certainly BS, but we are dealing with a crowd that thinks taking food meant for the hungry when you didn't need it is less shameful than actually needing food...
I've come to believe that an individual like that just isn't really a person. They're a human being, but not really a person. I still can't put my finger on it but to me it's like they're incapable of understanding that everything exists independent of them or that they, deep down, can only view reality as though they are the only ones who are sentient, or something like that. It feels like it's something a bit different than them just having narcissistic traits.
Nah, they have been taught their whole lives that if you are in need, you are just lazy, everyone is fundamentally capable of taking care of themselves and there's zero excuse for not being able to just do it yourself. Based on her voice, I'd say at least in her late 60s, that's a long time to hold a world view.
So in all circumstances, they must show their own strength by asserting/repeating that world view. Even as they themselves should have learned better, either they are in denial about their status and needs or they feel a deep shame and see such a ludicrous stance as somehow saving face.
It's sadly quite consistent with being a human person.
I misplaced my shocked face, where is it?
Yeah I am sure they are, but financially how does it work? How can you be unable to afford food and yet able to afford somewhere to live? Are they all homeless, which if so USA wtf your homeless problem is WAY bigger than I could have ever imagined.
The homeless problem is way bigger than it's talked about. The officials don't want to acknowledge it, the people around them ignore it, the media I guess doesn't get much from stories about it so they won't cover it.
You still seem surprised that people can pay a big bill but not the little daily ones. The problem with that approach is you're assuming they can pay the first bill. Some of these people may still have a place, but are far behind in their payment or rent, maybe on the edge of being kicked out. They still have some money, they just can't pay everything they owe to get caught up. And once you get in that hole, it's very hard to get out without a major change or luck.
Just be glad you never had to be in that situation, and hopefully it will always seem impossible to you. It doesn't take much to find yourself there.
I'm sure there are people here in the US that have the same disbelief as you, even with things around them. So for someone from another country that has better systems in place to take care of the public, it must seem baffling. If you're shocked about the economics, you'll really love the healthcare situation (which certainly you've seen talked about). They go hand in hand, especially since the US pinned health insurance onto employment, so if a job is lost healthcare costs are going to jump, which leads right back to not affording the big bills and starting the fall.
First: They might have a mortgage. They might be struggling to pay the mortgage. Mortgage gets paid first. They might have made the calculation that they had to pay the mortgage and rely on charity to avoid starving.
Second: They might have a mortgage that is already in default. They could be approaching foreclosure. Struggling perhaps more than you imagine.
Third. They might rent. They might be facing eviction. They might be barely surviving.
Fourth: They might already be homeless. Lucky I guess. They don't have to worry about a mortgage or rent anymore.
Those are just the thoughts I could come up with right now.
Also, this is America. A medical emergency can leave you with nothing.
They may also be living with family, who in turn might be struggling.
What used to be a weekly £40 shop for the household is now £100.
I have a feeling you don't track your food expenses well if you think that little can feed a person, let alone a household, without a lot of charitable support or food from friends and family.
The most literal definition of "survive", bulk rice and dried beans.
Yeah, I obviously eat nicer stuff than that because I don't need to cut down to the bare minimum and can have nice things but if I had to I know bare minimum survival food is going to have to cost less than I spend now.
Also rice and beans can be a pretty good meal. Of course seasoning does add a little to the cost but soy sauce isn't expensive. Depends how absolute minimum you are looking for a bare minimum survival cost. But I think if I was at that point I would probably look at catching a few crabs from the harbour to add to the dish.
How on earth are you only paying £20-£40 a month for food?! My weekly shop costs more than £20, and I live alone…
That is what food costs at Aldi? Also to clarify, that £20-40 was my approximate guess of what survival food shopping would likely cost based off my normal food shopping of £20-30 for 2 each week, or £10-15 each. But we also buy stuff that could be easily cut back if we had to.
So a cheap week for us is £10 each and that still includes stuff you could cut out. Clearly it could cost less than £40 a month then if we were cutting back. The main thing that varies our cost is we eat quite a bit of cheese, that usually contributes to the more expensive weeks.
If it's a family home, very likely.