- cross-posted to:
- programmer_humor@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- programmer_humor@programming.dev


Why’d you cut off the qr code at the bottom?
That can’t be accurate. The reality is way worse. The top 1% wouldn’t even be visible on the chart at that scale. What am I missing?
That it only goes up to 2021
Even in 2019 when I took an intro to ethics class, we read an essay on wealth disparity and even then, the top 1% didn’t even fit in the same graph as everyone else.
this must be of only the working class
I’d believe that the top end of the working class has a net worth of 15 million at the start of retirement
That’s gotta be it. Doctors and lawyers might retire with a net worth of $15M.
Billionaire oligarchs make that much in less than a month.
Rate of change in 2021 (last data point on this graph) is nearly vertical. Five years of that would put a few zeros at the end of that figure, which is exactly what happened.
Even before 2021, the disparity was already so great it wouldn’t have fit.
WTF happened in 1971‽
In 1974, Congress re-wrote the tax code, and baked in Trickle Down Economics, and the permanent financial landscape improved greatly for the wealthy. The rest of us were dealing with high inflation (Remember Ford’s WIN buttons - Whip Inflation Now?), gas lines caused by the OPEC oil embargo, interest rates over 20%, etc., and didn’t recognize what was happening.
So when Reagan came along and pushed Trickle Down Economics, it was already in place, and ramping up, he was just introducing it, and selling it to the American people, and it became standard dogma for a long time.
The result has been a decades long re-distribution of wealth to the upper incomes, at the direct detriment of the working and middle-class.
That’s why it appears to start before Reagan - because it did.
New York Mag: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/09/rand-study-how-high-is-inequality-us.html
Fast Money: https://www.fastcompany.com/90550015/we-were-shocked-rand-study-uncovers-massive-income-shift-to-the-top-1
Reagan
It looks like this curve starts ramping up before 1981.
I am never again buying a post 2010 car. I’ve driven a few modern cars, and they have truly gone to shit. STOP BEEPING.
Why does it say keep my eyes on the road? I can only read that by taking my eyes off the road.
2024 car window button broke before it was a year old… the car was not even commuted in. Less than 10K miles in a year. The button was used maybe a dozen times? At most. This was a “high-quality” vehicle, the best reviewed of kind. Resets with updates, all settings lost. I have to go through menus to use radio, three menus? It beeps and dings constantly. I am enraged every time I drive it.
I hate you so much. I wait for death
My mom bought a 2024 Toyota Aygo X, and it will constantly beep at you if you go 2kph over the limit. You can turn it off by going into the menus but it’ll just turn on again on the next start
I would drive it directly off a cliff. That sounds like something they make you do in Hell Lite.
I absolutely hate it, for me that would be enough of a reason to not buy that car
Right to repair laws would help things so much. If you didn’t like the firmware that came with the car, you could install alternative firmware. If the dealer sold a car that was known to have some terrible components, there would be a business opportunity for a car modder who would buy factory vehicles from the dealer and replace the most trouble-prone parts, then re-sell the car with a slight mark-up.
It used to be that when it came to high performance cars, there were groups like Alpine, AMG, Abarth, Shelby, Saleen, etc. They were often race teams, or associated with race teams. Sometimes they would buy stock cars and modify them for racing, or at least modify them for high performance. But, most of those have now been brought into the company most associated with them. Mercedes owns AMG, Alpine is part of Renault, etc. I would bet one reason that this is not as common anymore is that cars are heavily computerized, and the computers can use DRM to restrict anybody but the original manufacturer from modifying them.
Keeping my '03 running as long as I possibly can. Does the radio work? No. Do I need the dome light to see my speed at night because the dash lights burnt out? Yes. Is the seat disintegrating more and more each day? Yep. Does it leak when it rains really hard? I do get a little spritz every now and then.
But that fucker’s been paid off for two decades, and I can think of exactly one time when it was incapacitated due to a cracked radiator after 20 years on the road. 20 years of reliable service. It doesn’t even whine at you for not wearing your seatbelt, it’s so old. All you get is a little reminder light. It makes a bigger deal out of you leaving the headlights on.
I REFUSE to buy the enshittified touch screen trash that passes for a car today. Give me a fuel efficient, safe vehicle with physical buttons and a basic ass stereo and I might reconsider.
My 2010 Jeep Wrangler is built out of Lego. There’s a million companies that make parts and I can customize everything on it 12 times over.
Unfortunately, it’s less aerodynamic than a cow and you feel every bit of variance on the road, but it’s still a fun ride in every season.
Built-in obsolescence should be illegal. It’s so wasteful
Hmm, there are some products that should have a defined “end of life”. For instance, computer networking hardware which will eventually be outdated and no longer get security updates. The trick is, the EOL date should be clearly marked on the product at the point of sale so that the buyer can make an informed decision.
This is built-in obsolescence, but it’s better than the current situation where Cisco will sell you a firewall at full price and then decide 6 months later that they aren’t supporting that model anymore and you have to buy a new one.
computer networking hardware which will eventually be outdated and no longer get security updates
I don’t think that means that the correct approach is for the manufacturer to build in obsolescence. Sometimes the security threats don’t matter to some users, so they should be allowed to accept the risk and keep using the item. Or, there could be a rule in place that if the company no longer wants to maintain something, it is required to release the source to maintain it.
Yeah, I get that. I just feel like the general EOL of 2 years also works perfectly well with 15 years for most products.
In europe it is illegal. Guess what, it destroys everything nonetheless. Seems like laws apply only to workers…
Not only that, but you can’t even use price as a proxy for quality anymore. Choosing to splash out on something you want to last just means you’re going to be more disappointed when it inevitably breaks.
This is what got me. I started a really well paying job so me and the wife decided to splurge on some better, name brand appliances. I’ve replaced every single one in less than 5 years. Fuck GE, fuck LG, and definitely fuck Samsung.
Only bosch
The term is skimpflation
What a jagged pill
Life is short but unfair
no literally
On the bright side, you will have to replace it in a few years.
We all suffer together!
Well thank the gods for that!
Yess, I am so happy for this.
Actually, everything (at least everything including in CPI) is cheaper.
In fact, during current Trump’s term median wages grew, by all measures.
It appears that the CPI has also been enshittified. Only explanation.
CPI site says you are lying (US bureau of labor statistics). Just a head’s up, even the website has been enshittified.
Even independent researchers say that wages grew.
Maybe your perception has something to do with the lifestyle inflation?
Actually, everything (at least everything including in CPI) is cheaper.
You made this claim, it was FALSE. I responded to the FALSE claim that you made. Everything is not in fact cheaper, CPI went up 2.4% for 2026 according to the actual source of such statistics.
.09 for March alone
Since your first claim was a lie, I won’t bother looking up median wages… feel free to provide a source, but I bet you’re full of shit… again.
make sure your “source” adjusts for inflation
womp womp
Do you know what CPI is? CPI ISN’T ADJUSTED FOR WAGE GROWTH.
I never said those things are nominally cheaper
What time period are we talking about?
Wow! You’re a treasure trove of bad opinions…
Anybody can use tricky math and crow about the results. So, even though you are most likely wrong, it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t care less if every American tripled their wages under Trump because that tiny-handed, mushroom-dicked, orange pedophile rapes kids. Your achievements cease to matter once you put your dick in a kid. Your opinion ceases to matter once you defend someone who puts their dick in a kid.
So I can’t state objective facts that are favorable for somebody, because that somebody is a bad person?
Hope the protest non voters feel good about themselves.
Edit: you get what you wanted. Fuck you protest non voters. This is the reality you created. Have fun.
Are you blaming enshittification on just this current administration?
Absolutely not.
So how long have they been protest non-voting for enshittification?
Time.
?
It’s weird, it’s almost as if every time you ignore your own voters, you lose them. And, uncannily, if you ignore them for decades, it gets worse, you lose even more! It’s crazy!
70% of Ds are done supporting Israel. Hope you’re happy with Israel’s murder machine on US voter’s dime. And Israel gets universal healthcare, while we have none. Fantastic job.
You’ll lose more voters next term. They don’t want what you are selling
(Ds are now down to 30% of voters, Independents are up to 40%)
You are a bad person. Full stop.
Not if you look outside China for your products. West Taiwan does export some quality but they’re unicorns
It doesn’t matter where it’s produced, what matters is who designed it and for what market. Things tailored for the mass US market are usually designed to minimize the cost of manufacturing above all else. Things tailored for Europe are a little earlier in the enshittification process.
There are tons of high quality products manufactured in China, the only difference is that the specs for those asked for high quality, while the things you associate with Chinese manufacturing are when they were asked to make trash.
Good point, with a caveat. The vast majority of aforementioned demand on China is terrible quality. That doesn’t mean that the only reason Chinese trash manufacture exists is because of foreign contracts. In fact, I believe very few of them were actually ‘asked to make trash’ by way of making it as cheaply as possible.
I am willing to stake that nobody, not even American businessmen, paid those manufacturers to create ten thousand seller pages on Amazon and the like with randomly generated six character names.
And things tailored for Europe that are produced in any other country are miles better than the slave colonies of Guangdong Province. Things made in: England, Scotland, France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Germany, USA, Canada, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Nepal, even Malaysia and Singapore.
I don’t think we’re contradicting each other. Sometimes the manufacturer themselves (or other Chinese entities) will be the ones creating the spec.
It also makes sense that the trash products, which compete exclusively on price, will mostly be coming from the area able to manufacture products for the lowest price. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t also able to manufacture higher quality things when requested to.
China’s got better shit than the US now, you just gotta look for it.
PFF I didnt know the US exported anything good. I never mentioned the US.
EU, on the other hand… There are more than two countries in the world













