You probably don't know any trans people personally. I grew up with the same beliefs about transgender people you have, until I actually got to know some of them. As impossible as it is for us to understand and as nonsensical as it appears to us, it's clearly not something most trans people choose.

It's OK for people to be different in ways we don't understand. Nobody has a duty to make sense to *us*. In any case, only about 0.6% of the population identify as transgender. Even if you completely outlawed gender reassignment surgery an gender-affirming care, it wouldn't budge the fertility needle even assuming trangender people decided to have children -- which they won't.

Of course, there's a counter example for any theory about people in general, so there's probably someone out there who chose it as a lifestyle. But that's just not the norm.

Also, employment is a lot less stable than it used to be. When I entered the workforce in the early 80s it was still common for people who were retiring to have worked for the same company all their lives. Young people now live in a gig economy; if they *do* work for a company, often they don't know how many hours they'll get from week to week.

And while things like TVs are cheaper than ever, essentials are often far more expensive. Median rents for a studio apartment in the US were about $250 when I got out of school; today they're $1200. If you have income twice the poverty rate and you follow the advice we were given back then to spend no more than 20% of your income on housing, you'd be looking to pay $483/month in rent. In most of the US even if you have roommates you'll be spending over $1000 per month.

Today it's more economically important to have a degree than ever. While wages for new college graduates have increased only modestly, wages for non-college graduates have dropped since the 1980s. Let's say you're thrifty and decide to commute to a state college. Your four year costs have risen from $3,200 to over $44,000. So families in their prime reproductive years are burdened with debt; it takes years to overcome that and to raise.

We often take poor families to task for being irresponsible and having children they can't afford, but the fertility rate in families below the poverty line isn't that high and it's remained steady for decades. What's happened is that the fertility rate at 200% of the poverty line has crashed.

Most women, with access to contraception and abortion, are doing what we told them is the responsible responsible thing. But if they *all* did it, it would be a demographic catastrophe.

A fine excuse to fire some more Americans! Why not start with the new dads?

It all went to shit in 1960. Been shit ever since.

What else happened in 1960?

Perhaps AI will explain someday the salacious intense sexual pleasure some people seem to derive from destroying other people's jobs.

It works out to $638/per registered car.

No shit??

If there were a shortage of workers, wages would be increasing. The only problem is wages have been stagnant for 51 years. (source: American Enterprise Institute)

Meanwhile, now only half of 30-year-olds earn more than their parents. It was 90% in the 1950s. (Source: Brookings)

Worker shortages are bullshit. The entire American job market is fraud-coated fraud.

Median price for a house in my part of the world has gone up 700% in the last 30 years. No house, no wife.

That about cover it?

Isn't that illegal in Texas and Florida?

I think you misunderstand the quote. I'm not suggesting there are no atheists in the military.

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

It has everything to do with attitude. I stopped thinking like an employee and started thinking like a leader. The results speak for themselves.

You're right. That's why I built it myself.

I built my own job.

I did. That's why I was able to start successful businesses in four different industries.

I have customers in sixteen countries.

That about cover it?

> Then what are you bitching about?

I'm not the only one who got screwed.

> And how successful can they be when they only last an average of five years?

The fuck are you talking about?

Failed? I've started four successful businesses since 2001. I can't be fired. Ever. You know why? Firing me requires my signature.

What, you think I've gone 23 years without a meal? How about you take a break from congratulating yourself and learn to read? Jesus.

Here's what happened in tech. I can speak with authority because I was there.

During the 1990s, when corporate America was caught in last place technology-wise, they had no trouble hiring and fairly paying people to help them build what they needed. I was one of those people, and because of my hard work, knowledge and skill I multiplied my salary 500% in seven years.

This was all funded by hard investments in technology infrastructure, and it is when all the key platforms were invented or perfected: browser, TCP/IP, streaming video, high-speed graphics libraries, multiplayer gaming, ecommerce, Flash, LAMP, etc.

By early 2001 I was unemployable. I haven't had a job since.

What happened? Simple. Plowing money into derivative shit became more profitable than tech stocks. (See Commodities Futures Modernization Act) All the capital and jobs were taken away so mortgage bonds could be monetized. That led directly to the housing crash, which led to bailout culture which led to mailbox money and then to rampaging inflation and finally to here.

They took our jobs, houses, women and money. Now they want our vote. We went from the greatest economic expansion in human history to the verge of ruin in one generation.

I couldn't rent a job now. Among the reasons nobody would ever hire me (despite the fact my experience and skill catalog runs close to 20,000 words and the fact I've built four successful businesses single-handed without one dime of outside investment) are: too old, too opinionated, too experienced, too expensive and so on. The situation is the same for everyone in my generation. We took the leading edge of the post-employment economy right in the teeth. We were educated and trained (by lifetimes of hard work on our parents' part) for an America that no longer exists. The world we grew up in doesn't even remotely resemble the one we live in now.

We're the ones who will never have homes, families or legacies because we were thrown off the train and we landed next to the very tracks we built.

All this bullshit about worker shortages and skill shortages is just that: bullshit. Stories like this are proof. Getting hired is pointless now anyway. You'll just get fired no matter how good a job you do.

P.S. For those of you who think you beat the system, just keep this in mind: your kids will never own a home, have a family or have a real job. They'll also never elect anyone to office. Have a nice day.

"RoddyVision, please make all the cars look like hot rods and all the people walking look like babes on roller skates."

Sorry, but all RoddyVision allows you to do is pierce the alien signal and allow you to see things as they really are. Side affects include chronic migraines and an unfortunate tendency to run out of bubblegum.

One human pyromaniac with a bic lighter can probably do more damage.