Do you feel like you’re being—to put it mildly—taken advantage of? Welcome to the club. Most Americans do. But who’s taking advantage of you? The government? Corporations? Both? Tune in to find out a few scenarios that have a lot of us grabbing our ankles.
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Do you feel like you’re being—to put it mildly—taken advantage of? Welcome to the club. Most Americans do. But who’s taking advantage of you? The government? Corporations? Both? Tune in to find out a few scenarios that have a lot of us grabbing our ankles.
1. Topics
2. Additional Resources
3. Merchandise/Support the Show
4. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
5. Credits
This week it's time to limber up, because we're all bending over. Welcome to Subpar Talks. Hey everybody. Welcome to Subpar Talks where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.
Chris:And I'm Chris.
Jeff:Thank you to everyone for joining us yet again. And as always, before we get to our topic this week, we have our standard disclaimer. You know the drill by now, listener discretion advised. We do touch on some mature subject matter from time to time. And there will be profanity, perhaps a lot of it. And we inject humor into all of the stuff that we talk about, so that might not set well with you, and that's OK. But for the rest of you, sit back and here we go for this week's topic. This week we are titling this episode Ankle Grabbers. Chris, help our listeners understand what an ankle grabber is, or an ankle grab.
Chris:An ankle grab or grabber. So, we picked up this phrase from Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad. And his context was basically when he felt like he and Walt were about to get screwed. They're about to get screwed over, shafted, whatever you want to call it. Um, so I pulled up Urban Dictionary to see what they had to say about it, and the first definition here tells you all you need to know. It says"a person who bends over to grab their ankles during anal sex." So there you go. Just, bend over and take it
Jeff:So Jesse was speaking metaphorically, right? Not literally.
Chris:Yes. Not literally. Well, not the, not from the footage we saw.
Jeff:All right. Not anything that made the final cut anyway.
Chris:No.
Jeff:So that reminds me before we get into this and, and explain exactly what we're doing with our ankle grabber, examples. There used to be a show called M X C Most Extreme Challenge, and what they did was they took a Japanese game show. I don't even know what the title of it was, but it had these people doing all these funny stunts, but these two guys would speak in English about what they were seeing these Japanese people do, and anytime anybody ended up on all fours. The guy said the guy said they just went into a full San Quentin So speaking of the prison of course, but that always cracked me up a full San Quentin. Assume the position, assume the position. That's exactly right. OK. So with ankle grabbers, uh, as Jesse was saying, they're about to get fucked, right? And. Chris and I have spoken many times about all the different ways that we, not just us, but many Americans are getting screwed by whoever, whatever situation and all of that. So, I've got some examples. I know, Chris, you have some examples and I'm sure a lot of us of this will flow together and we'll kind of build on on it, uh, you know, from topic to topic, but, um, lay on us one way that we're getting screwed because I feel like I'm getting screwed. Well, we are. It's not OK. It's not just.
Chris:No. So the first thing I wanted to start with is insurance companies, and there's so many examples that we can go through and will, but first of all, I think everybody has their own personal, dislike, hatred, whatever you want to call it for insurance companies. I mean, on the one hand, Insurance is great when it pays out, and you actually need it if you don't have a reason. And of course, nobody wants a catastrophe, a health problem, whatever. But if you are not having those issues, then you feel like the insurance company's screwing you already because they're taking your money and you get nothing from it. Now if anything ever happens to you or your property or whatever it is that's insured, Obviously maybe you, you could get your money back and then some, but all the time that we're paying into it and not getting anything you, you feel bad enough. But I have recently had an experience that I have not had before and that was particularly with health insurance, having claims denied all the time in the past. Anytime that I've ever had anything going on with my health insurance, it's mostly been either regular things that they already cover anyway, or it was an issue I was having that could potentially, and that's the key word there, potentially be life threatening, and that means life threatening if they don't look into it and find out that it's not. You know, for example, a doctor says, go to a cardiologist, go to a gastroenterologist, whatever. I mean, you're talking about your internal organs of any type. Um, they want you to get that checked out because if something gets more serious, they end up paying more money. You die. They get sued, whatever they want to protect themselves. But my issue recently, Was a very serious, as in more serious than ever that I've ever had back problem, and every single thing that was happening, they were denying. And I finally figured out there's nothing about this that they would see as life threatening to them. I'm just in pain and, oh, well do something else. Not their problem. Right. Anna just pissed me. and it, and it wasn't one time, it was multiple times all related to this and I, I think, I think that's part of where, you know, we got on the subject of talking about this anyway, because I just got so infuriated with the insurance company and how it works. I mean, you pay premiums to them, then you have to, even when you're paying your premiums, Anything that happens outside the norm, you've got a deductible. Then beyond your deductible, you've got co-insurance and you know, it just goes on and on, that you pay these premiums, but then you have to keep paying and keep paying before they actually kick in and really pay. But that's only if they approve it. Like, what the hell am I paying for?
Jeff:I know I always take the attitude that, or, or this always runs through my head when it comes to insurance companies, uh, especially health insurance companies. But they're gonna fuck you if they can, if they can get away with it. And health insurance companies fuck people across this country every single day because they are going to, with so many of those claims, they're going to just deny it outright first and they're hoping. That you will just bend over a little bit farther. Yeah. And take it and not challenge'em on anything. That's what they're hoping.
Chris:Right. Or take, you know, like in my case, an MRI was suggested, then an injection was suggested, and in all of those cases they just wanted me to go to physical therapy. Mm-hmm. Well, clearly that would've been cheaper, but at least in the beginning and, but you know, my issue with that, How do we even know what we're treating? I just have pain. You don't know why, where it's coming from. Is that therapy the right thing to be doing? How do you not inspect this problem before you decide how you're gonna treat it? And I had two different doctors suggesting the same thing, but it's the insurance company saying no. And I went off on them like, You haven't even seen me. I'm not your patient, but you're making these decisions. Why am I even going to these doctors if you're gonna be the one to make the decision anyway? Yeah,
Jeff:I had a, I mean we, this is, maybe this is another topic, but it reminds me, I had a student once from Argentina and I always love when I have students from other countries because they give. My American students and me just a different perspective and it's always nice to hear what that perspective is. But this student was from Argentina and uh, she was going to school here in, in the US and she got sick, so she just got in her car and started driving around until she found a doctor's. And she walked in and told the receptionist what the problem was and the receptionist asked her if she had an appointment. No. OK, do you have health insurance? And my students said, what is that? What's that? Yeah, exactly. Had no clue. And so she got educated really fast on the American healthcare system, she said. I had no idea because in Argentina I think they have, I think they have single payer, so it'd be like here if everybody had Medicare, like that's the health insurance, but the government, uh, funds it, so. Mm-hmm. it was just interesting to hear her say that, and she asked the other students a question, including me. Why in America do they charge you to ride in an ambulance? The vehicle that's gonna. Possibly get you to the place that, where they're gonna save your life, but oh, you're gonna have to pay
Chris:for it. Right. Well, I wondered that myself. I mean, if, if your house is on fire and you call the fire department, you don't have to pay for the fire department. Right? You've already paid for it. Tax money. So, yeah. How's the ambulance different
Jeff:than that? I remember, uh, this has been a few years ago, but Uber. Had to put out This says everything you need to know probably, or a lot of what you need to know about the American healthcare system. Uber put out, um, a press release that basically said, stop calling for an Uber when you have a medical emergency. because people were like, oh, I got chest pains, ambulance ride$2,000, or I can get an Uber for like 50 bucks. I'll just do the Uber and Uber said, please stop that Yeah. Like we don't want people to die. But yeah. That says a lot about American healthcare, right There. Sure does. Well,
Chris:the, the thing I couldn't help thinking about with all of that is the rainmaker. So that was
Jeff:Oh, I thought about that when you were given the story. Yeah.
Chris:Yeah. I mean, the whole deal in that movie with the insurance company, they said, Their very first action was deny, no question. And then they deny. And then they deny. And, and the whole deal was exactly like you were saying, their whole hope was that the patient didn't get an attorney. Mm-hmm. Because if they don't, and they keep denying, they have no ability to get anything done.
Jeff:That was a good movie. Good book too. I read the book. Yeah. Um, OK, so here's who else is getting screwed in my humble opinion. American Workers. Yep. And here's the thing. So with all of these types of issues, you know, the fact that we're getting. I tend to look at the, like the political part of it, at least first, that's just in my nature training, whatever. I look at the political aspect of it, and if you look at any polls, both Democrats and Republicans agree that we're getting screwed. Where they disagree is who's actually. Doing the screwing right? Yeah. So republicans tend to say, oh, it's the government who's fucking you. And then the Democrats typically say, oh, it's the corporation's fucking you. And so they can't agree on on whose, whose dick is in my ass That's what they can't agree on. So maybe through this episode, Shed a little light on that, and I mean, listeners can obviously come to their own conclusion on that, but I think we're being double penetrated. you might be onto something there.
Chris:I, I don't think I, I mean, honestly, I don't think either one of them are wrong. I think that they could be right to different degrees. Sure the government is, sure. The corporations are, we're getting it both ways.
Jeff:So the standard work week in America is 40 hours. Right. And it does tend to be less in, in a lot of countries. I remember hearing France a few years ago, went to a 35 hour work week, but my students are amazed when we get into this type of stuff. My students are amazed that this is the only. Industrialized country where your boss can require you to work 365 days a year, like there is no law against that at all. The only requirement we have is if you are paid by the hour and you work over 40 hours a week, you get overtime pay, so you get time and a half, but your boss can absolutely require you to come in every single day of the year. Where in other countries they've got mandatory paid time off like it's written into the law, like you will get time off. So you're basically getting paid to take a vacation. And yeah, my students are always amazed at that just because, I mean, how would they know unless they've looked into it? They just think what we do is normal.
Chris:That's one of the things I say. That is one of the things that in general, how much my eyes have been opened to the differences that we have here compared to other countries by being on social media. One of the things I do love about social media is the educational aspect of it. I don't use social media like a lot of other people use it in that I don't post a lot. But I do like to consume and I like to consume for that educational part of it. And in that way I have seen and heard from so many people in different countries in getting that perspective and it's amazing it both, yeah, it is. You know, from the healthcare, like you were describing, the person in Argentina or in this case from, you know, their work life. It's amazing how different it is.
Jeff:it is. Uh, so I'm looking at a chart right now. I think I'll post this in the episode notes, and when I bring up that kind of stuff, a lot of people say, well, it's just Europe. You know, they do things differently, but it's not just Europe. Our neighbors to the north in Canada, they get 10 vacation days a year. So paid leave and they get eight paid holidays. So that's 18 days mandated by law in Canada that you're gonna get off of your job and you're gonna get paid for it. And we get nothing, like nothing at all. So, as I said, workers are getting fucked
Chris:and you think, you know, this is not out of the kindness of their heart either, that the businesses are giving vacation time. They're doing it to be competitive. Yes. Because as soon as one does it, somebody else has to do it too. And, and I think, yeah, I think that's something to realize with all of these companies is how much you're getting paid, how much time you're getting off, what your work-life balance is, all of those kinds of things. This is not just out of the kindness of their heart. They have to do certain things to stay competitive because like I said, one person does it and they're not well, they're gonna lose their people.
Jeff:So I have read about this happening and I don't know how, I've assume it's pretty common just because I have a pretty jaded view of this kind of stuff. And as you said, you know, it's not about the kindness of their heart. you know, when somebody's paid by the hour, but then the, the company comes along and says, Hey, do you want to be promoted, like to manager or assistant manager, or whatever, and now you're gonna be a salaried employee. You're not gonna be paid by the hour anymore. And then the worker says, Hey, that's cool. I'm getting a promotion and I get a nice title. But it turns out you're working way more hours than you were. And when you do the math, you're actually making less money than you were, right. When you were an hourly employee. Yep. So they're getting fucked. Yep.
Chris:And it was all on
Jeff:purpose, Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It was planned. It was a premeditated fucking Yes, All right. Who else is getting fucked? So
Chris:piggybacking on that idea of how the workers are getting fucked and that being done by the companies, you know, what we're seeing worldwide now is this massive inflation. I don't know, I honestly don't know how the inflation in the US compares to the worldwide inflation. I just know it is a global issue right now. But one of the things, you know, what's happening in the US right now is the, the Fed has been raising interest rates saying, well, we'll just cut back on the supply of money because there's too much money out there. But there has been a lot of talk about that not being the correct adjustment, the correct thing to do in this particular circumstance. and that being based on the fact that corporations, and this is through the pandemic and continuing that the corporations have been making record profits. Yeah. And yet prices are going up. Now if they have these excess profits, then they don't need to raise prices in order to cover their. That means they're raising prices just for the sake of raising prices. Costs are not going up because there is a higher supply of money. Costs are going up because the corporations have chosen to raise the prices, and that's a very different thing. And while that's happening, worker pay is not going up at the same rate that those prices are going up. But you are seeing higher executive and CEO pay continuing to go up. So they're getting more and more and more while the workers are getting maybe a little more or fairly stagnant, and the consumers are getting shafted both ways because they're not getting more money, but now they're having to pay more at the same time.
Jeff:Mm-hmm. It's true. You sent me something, um, that Robert Reich wrote. Mm-hmm. He was the Secretary of Labor, uh, in the Clinton administration, and he just talked about how we've been dealing with 40 years, 40 plus years of trickle down economics. I am not an economist, but I, I'll give the listeners a, I dunno, 20 seconds on this trickle down theory. The trickle down economic theory is that if you, if you cut taxes for corporations and the rich, the benefits that they get from those tax cuts are gonna trickle down to the rest of society. And so he was going on to explain how we've got 40 years of evidence that that doesn't actually work. And as you alluded to, we've seen. The income gap continue to grow income inequality, you know that that gap is widening and started in the 1970s, right around 1980, but, but, uh, a little bit before then, and it continues to happen. And my whole thing on that is, you know, corporations are in it to make money, which is fine. That's why they exist and, and they want to make. If you cut taxes for corporations and we can argue about, you know, what the proper tax rate should be for, for whatever corporation or whatever, but if they have their taxes cut, the question then becomes what are they gonna do with that extra money? And corporations want to maximize their profits, which is fine. So they're going to put that money where they think they're gonna get the biggest return on their in. That may or may not be in hiring more workers. In fact, they might just give it back to their shareholders. I mean, we don't know what they're gonna do, but this, uh, belief that, oh, if we just cut Walmart's taxes or whoever, that, all of a sudden they're just gonna start hiring more workers. Well, they may, but they may not. It's not like this magic thing that if we do this, then this will happen. It's resulted in the rich are paying less in taxes than they were 40 or 50 years ago. Corporations aren't paying near what they used to, uh, a long time ago, and it, it has continued to widen the income gap.
Chris:Yeah, it's, it's really crazy. I, I was seeing, uh, just yesterday or day before, The percentage of people that are in the middle class in the different decades, how much that's fallen. You know, back in the fifties and sixties it was like 60 something percent, 70 something percent of people were in the middle class, and ever since then, falling, falling, falling and, and now I don't remember what is it in the forties, I
Jeff:think that's probably about. I got this from Scientific American. Uh, they're just given the rundown of a study that was done talking about, well, the title of it. I'll post this in the episode notes. Fading of the American Dream. Contrary to popular belief, equality of opportunity in the US is lower than in most advanced countries, and its. A 2017 report indicates that an American born in 1940 was almost certain to become more prosperous than his or her parents. Someone born in 1980 is just as likely to be worse off. However, declining equality of opportunity stems in large part from the high cost of higher education coupled with spiraling economic inequality. Statistics from the World Inequality Database show that since about 1970, the income of the top 1% corrected for inflation has quadrupled. Whereas that of the bottom 90% has stagnated. Men with only high school degrees have actually seen their incomes drop. I know I refer to George Carlin a lot, but George Carlin said they call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
Chris:yeah. And I, you know, I imagine a hundred years ago, 150 years ago, there were still gonna be people who felt like they were getting fucked too. you know? Mm-hmm. it's, there's always the, there will have always been people like that. There will always be people like that, but I think the biggest takeaway here is it's a bigger and bigger and bigger group that's getting fucked Yeah. That, that's the thing. It, it's, this is nothing new that it's happening. It's that it is exponentially happening. Yeah. And on multiple fronts.
Jeff:At least doubly, yeah, So who else, how else are we getting fucked?
Chris:So this will turn the mood of the conversation a little bit, um, away from quite being so serious to, we're
Jeff:gonna s we're gonna switch positions. There you go,
Chris:All right. At least get out, get out the lube So as we've said before, Jeff and I, you know, we're unfortunate enough to live in Texas and we've never gotten out. But it's interesting, it's really interesting here that there are so many people in Texas that have a lot of pride for being in Texas and. I'm just not sure why. I, I don't know. I think there's, there are people that I know that have lived here all their life, honestly, haven't even traveled a lot, but think Texas is the greatest and like, based on what I mean so many things in Texas can seem. Backwards. Strange. Extremely different than other places. And you think, well, they seem to have it together. Why can't we get it together? Yeah. So one of the things that, that Jeff and I have talked about many times is the fact that you can't buy alcohol in Texas on Sunday. And I'm talking about in a liquor store. Yeah. Liquor stores are closed on Sundays. They are also, and this has been changed over time, that they're closed on Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Years. Mm-hmm. and all of that is by state law. Liquor stores close at 9:00 PM on all the other days, and you can't buy liquor. And I'm talking other than beer and wine, you can't buy it anywhere in Texas. Other than a liquor
Jeff:store. Right. Not in the
Chris:grocery store. Right. And I was in Chicago years ago, and it was a Saturday night, nearly midnight in a seven 11, and they had whiskey behind the counter that was available for sale. And I was, I, I felt like I am not in Kansas anymore. like, what is going on
Jeff:here? I find it so odd, hypocritical. It's a harsher word, but that's what it is. Being in a state that champions free enterprise, capitalism, whatever, you know, lack of regulations, right, on businesses. But here you've got the government telling businesses when they can be open and what they're allowed to sell. It seems so hypocritical, right?
Chris:It is, absolutely. And in reading about this and living with it, I've never heard any good justification for it either. The only thing that I came across when I was looking into this was, and this is just an example of the, the limiting aspects here is. There is a law in Texas that says any public company. So right there, I don't get that compared to anyone else, but any public company cannot sell liquor, and that's why you can't go buy liquor at Walmart. Now, I'm not sure what the difference is here, and maybe because it's a membership thing. Costco sells liquor. Hmm. And I, I actually don't know about Sam's, um, being owned by Walmart, but I mean, I assume Costco's public.
Jeff:Yeah, I would think so. I don't
Chris:know, but in any case, uh, maybe it's because it's a membership thing, I don't know. But, but what I saw related to that law was, uh, and this was from the Texas alcoholic beverage. Yeah, that they said that they feel like not allowing someone like Walmart to sell liquor is going to cut down on availability and consumption, because if Walmart were selling it, they could also then be lowering the price, and of course there's Walmart everywhere and cetera, et cetera. Then I get. The point, but I'm not sure that that really means anything
Jeff:to me. The whole thing with no liquor sales on Sunday is a stupid law. There's no justification for it at all. And having to close liquor stores at nine o'clock at night again, why? Right. If somebody wants to be open till midnight, that's their business. Why not let. I don't, I think they recently changed this law. It used to be you can't sell beer before noon on Sundays in Texas. I think they moved that back an hour, maybe 11 o'clock. I don't know. So I came
Chris:across that you can sell between 10 and noon only beer and wine. They're of that nature, let's say. Between 10 and noon on Sunday if you are also serving food. And so that's how brunch places get away with it. So you're going to brunch and you get mimosas or something like that. And champagne is not gonna be as high alcohol content. It's more like a wine content. But you, yeah, you still can't get liquor before
Jeff:noon. Wow. So I, I remember seeing this, I've seen this a few times. If you go into a grocery store, back when it was noon, If you went into a grocery store and it was like 1155, there were people just lined up with their six packs or whatever, right. Just waiting, like waiting for the green light. Yeah. And do other states do this? Uh, they probably do. Texas is probably a more of a hard ass than other states, but they will send people. Who work for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission undercover to make sure all those people are complying with the law and they get slapped with a hefty fine if they're selling alcohol when they're not supposed to. Yeah,
Chris:they sure will. Same with, these are minors obviously, but
Jeff:yeah, these are so-called blue laws. Right. And I don't know the origin of that term, but they are laws that were put in place a long time ago to. Reinforce religious activity in society. So a lot of that stuff is restricted on a Sunday where you shouldn't be sipping on your Jack Daniels on a Sunday. You should be in church. You heathen,
Chris:right? So they, like the blue laws in Texas was defined, what was it like 42? Yeah, 42 different categories of items that couldn't be sold. Alcohol actually wasn't part of that. It was a separate law, but they all kind of got lumped together where, yeah, we're not gonna allow alcohol either or, or liquor in that case. But yeah, so there were 42 different things, and some examples of those things that you couldn't buy were pots, pans, cars, washing machines. and if you, if you really boiled this down, it was a lot of what were considered non necessities, as in, you don't need this today. We want you to stay. And, and that was, that was the justification for it was on Sunday, we wanna promote family time, like personal stuff. You don't need to be thinking about these things. But the weird thing, There's all kinds of weird things in here, but it was where the line was about what you could and couldn't buy. Like you couldn't buy a circular saw, but you could buy a hand saw meaning, OK, maybe you need a saw as an emergency for something, but you don't need an electric one. Well, you can buy a handsaw. And I remember hearing this example. You could buy baby formula, but you could not buy a bottle to put it in.
Jeff:That's just insane. That's stupid. I was just thinking of, of Texas and and pride in Texas and I, I've been hearing this for the past few years, Texas people are moving here, a thousand people a day are moving to Texas. I've seen that figure for the past, I don't know, two or three years maybe. Um, so I, I'm assuming it's true. I don't know. I don't know how many people are leaving the state but yeah, a thousand people are moving here. But what do people always say about Texas? Oh, it's a business friendly state and we have no state income tax. Right. Well, here's an example of how so many people are getting fucked. We don't have a state income tax. Most states. So you gotta figure out where you're gonna make up for that huge chunk of revenue that other states get, which is why we have really high sales taxes in the state and really high property taxes. That's how we try to make up for that lost revenue. So people come here thinking, oh, I don't have a state income tax. Well, guess what? Every time you buy stuff that's taxed, you're getting fucked by these high sales taxes and the high property taxes. and that favors the rich because that's a regressive tax system. So the less you make, the more money you're spending on taxes. Right? So the rich in this state, they're not spending much of their money on taxes at all. But if you're struggling 30,000,$40,000 a year, there's a huge chunk of your income that's going to pay tax.
Chris:Yes, for sure. And you know, then you. Everybody wants their property value to go up, right? You want to think you made an investment in your house, but that's what people don't factor in then, is you go buy a house at even a fixed interest rate and you're gonna pay X amount per month for the principle and interest, but your insurance C item number one on. This list is, your insurance is guaranteed to be going up over time, but part of the reason the insurance is gonna keep going up is because, uh, the cost of everything's obviously gonna go up. If your house burned down, how much is it gonna cost to replace it? Yeah, well, more today than 20 years ago. but with the property value going up, sir, your property taxes going up. Mm-hmm. if your house doubles in value, your taxes doubled in value, even if the tax rate stayed exactly the same.
Jeff:I was recently at a conference and there were state legislators there from Texas, and there was a candidate for a state legislative district. I don't remember her name. I wouldn't give her name anyway. There was a question that was posed to these legislators and her, the candidate about property taxes, because our legislators always say, oh, we gotta reduce property taxes. That's our number one item, this legislative session and blah, blah, blah. Well, there's only so much you can do if you don't have a state income tax. There's only so much you can do to reduce property taxes. But she said, straight faced. if we reduce property taxes enough, that's gonna cause those, those high rents that we see in the state to come down. And I wanted to ask her. If she knows that she's lying or is she just that stupid The idea that if you cut a landlord's property tax, that he's just gonna magically lower people's rents. That's not the way it works. And so renters add that to the list. Renters are getting fucked. Yeah.
Chris:Well, that's the whole trickle down concept again. We lower the property tax, the landlords will pass that savings on to the renters. No. Nope. Well, in talking about all the people moving to Texas, I would question how many people are moving to Texas by choice? Because a lot of people are moving to Texas because their company has relocated here. Yeah, true. and the companies are coming to Texas for some very obvious reasons, cuz yeah, they do get huge tax breaks and it is a business friendly state. But with all of the, you know, with all of the companies that are moving here, how many of those people are coming here just because they're relocating with the. And the other thing that's doing here is causing our property values to go up exponentially where we have historically had really decent real estate prices compared to the rest of the country. Yeah, well those real estate prices are going up a lot, which of course is then driving up the property taxes. But speaking of renters getting screwed, what else is happening right now? is the property values are going up so much that a lot of people have been priced out of buying homes. Yeah. Now that's kind of stabilized a little bit, but now we have interest rates going up. So if they might have been getting a chance to buy because of the values not going up so much. now they're getting priced out because of the interest rate. Mm-hmm. So what's happened there is a lot of people who couldn't buy have now gone to renting, and that has caused the rental market to get saturated, which has driven up those costs. There are people homeless now. Because they previously might have been able to afford a house but can't anymore. They previously might have been able to rent, but they can't anymore, and now they're just
Jeff:homeless. Yep. It's terrible. You mentioned so. This is on a, I thought we were going lighter.
Chris:I don't know what happened.
Jeff:It's all good. No, but you mentioned before about, um, oh, what was it? Prices at the fair, the state fair? Yes. Those of you outside of Texas. Uh, and, and maybe you don't know this if you recently moved here or it's a big fucking state, so maybe you've never been, but the state fair of Texas in Dallas is a massive thing. In typical Texas fashion, we always say it's the biggest state fair in the country, and there's more to do here than any other state fair, and it's a really big deal. I don't know if they do this in other states, but there's a a day where all school kids in Dallas and maybe the suburbs, I don't know, but they get a day to go to the fair, like they let out school to go to the fair. That was the thing when we were growing up, and I'm assuming it still is, but let me tell you right now, if you are going to the fair, you might wanna sell an organ or Yep. It is expensive, right? It's ridiculously expensive.
Chris:Yeah, it's crazy. I remember, so let's say back in the nineties, late mid to late nineties, it would cost you 30, probably 30 to$40 to eat lunch, and now you're looking at. Easily 60,$70 for that. Now, there are coupons available, there are special deals, special days, all of that. But if you don't do any of that, first of all, just to get in the fair, just to walk through the gate is now, I don't know, 20 something dollars.
Jeff:Yeah. At least. Yeah,
Chris:as a normal price. Nevermind that, I think it's 10 or$15 to park. So, you know, just imagine, let's just talk a family of four. One way or another, you just spent a hundred dollars to walk through the gate. Yeah. Now you're gonna spend another 70 or 80 on a single meal. and then if you ride anything. So all the rides are charged in tickets. So you buy these tickets. Well, the ticket price at the fair has been the same for literally as long as
Jeff:I can remember. 50 cents a ticket?
Chris:Yeah. 50 cents a ticket. But. The things that used to cost three tickets now cost 12 tickets, and so clearly those prices have been going up huge amounts, even though it might look like it's the same. That just reminded me, this is another place you're getting fucked, is where companies don't raise prices, but they reduce the quantity, the
Jeff:quantity of it. Yes. I see this all the time. People complain about the, the, the content in a chip bag, how they open up the chip bag. It's like half full. It's like, what did I just pay for
Chris:Right? Yeah. So there's that. I remember reading, this was some time ago, I mean, maybe 20 years ago, I don't know. But reading about how recipes that have been written down. In the, you know, fifties, sixties, seventies, that was a can of this, a package of that, whatever. It wasn't measurements. It was a unit. Yeah. And the unit sizes have changed. A 12 ounce can became an 11 and a half ounce can became an 11 ounce can and a 10 ounce. And recipes are actually getting messed up because people are going by the recipe and the quantity is not what it used to
Jeff:be. So speaking of parking at the fair, it just made me think I haven't been to the fair in years. In fact, it's probably been, I don't know, at least 10 years since I've been at the fair. But I remember this from when I was young, and then the last time I went, it was this way. If you wanna park in the safe parking lot, then that's gonna be the$15 or whatever. But you can go to a meth heads, or crack heads property, and they're gonna wave you in and you'll pay like five bucks and hope that your car will still be in the same condition it was when you left. Oh
Chris:yeah. Well, or there, I've seen that right? Where Yeah. Where people are out there. Just again, for anybody who doesn't know State Fair is in a not great part of town, right? And so, yeah, these, these meth heads abound. I mean, they're out there everywhere, living around there. And they also just come out of the woodwork and they're out there. Waving orange flags and have cardboard signs Come park here, you know,$5 and yeah. Well, that seems like a really good deal, except. You just paid$5 to park in a spot that says they'll tow your car. But these people are like, oh, no, no, it's fine. You know, we, we own the spot. And then of course you come back and sure enough, your car was towed. So it's, um,$5 plus the, the towing fee, plus getting it out of the pound and all of that.
Jeff:I, I remember doing that once, parking in one of those lots, and I was like, I really like the price and I really hope our car is still there and that it looks the same. Reminds me of vacation when they spray painted honky lips on the family. Truckster,
Chris:I parked in a, the yard of a house one time across the street from the fair, and I think it was like$5, something like that. Um, when I came back, I was the only car left there, a dog going crazy that I could barely see, but it was massive. I wasn't sure if I was gonna live to get to the car. uh, it, yeah, it was frightening.
Jeff:Seems like everything I see posted from the fair Now, maybe it's just my narrow Twitter feed, but it's people getting into fights. Yeah. And just all sorts of crazy stuff. I think with this stuff about, and it kind of goes back to what we were saying initially, but Democrats and Republicans disagreeing on who's actually fucking them. Um, and you said it, and it's kind of where I am on this. It's both, it's corporations and the government, but let me expound on that a little bit. I think ultimately mostly it's corporations and the rich, but I think it's the government policies or lack thereof that are allowing them to fuck us so much. It's. The government's, the pimp or, right. This is better. This is better. The government is providing the lube, and the corporations are applying it freely and going to town. Yeah.
Chris:Right. Yeah. That's for damn
Jeff:sure. So as we've said before with this kind of stuff, not to get you down, but it does help to know the truth. Right. It's not good to be ignorance of it. Yeah.
Chris:Well, and you know, we are here for edutainment. This is, uh, get perspective, some facts, some humor. We'll put it all in there.
Jeff:All right. If you like this kind of stuff, as I've said so many times before, please follow us on whatever platform you're listening to this on. Go ahead and subscribe. Follow us. You will get new episodes delivered to you automatically. And while you're there, go ahead and rate us and give us a review. We would be ever so grateful if you'd give us five stars and go ahead and write something. Doesn't matter what you write. Just uh, write something. Tell us how you're getting fucked That's fine as long as you write something that makes it easier for people to discover. This show. You can also go to our website, that is Subpar Talks dot com. You can email us, leave us a voicemail. If you wanna leave suggestions for topics you'd like to hear us cover in future episodes, we will definitely take those into considerations. We're on social media. If you wanna follow us on Twitter, we are at Subpar Talks on Facebook. We are Subpar Talks. If you wanna follow our personal Twitter accounts, we would welcome that as. On there. I am at@independentjeff
Chris:and I am at Chris Bradford, tx,
Jeff:and we have other social media links. You can find those on our website. And finally, get the word out about Subpar Talks. Share this on social media. Refer us to your friends, family, colleagues, whoever you encounter on a daily basis as you walk around. Grabbing your ankles like the rest of us. Go ahead and get the word out about Subpar Talks. And with that, I think that's it. Chris, unless you have any parting thoughts on ankle grabbing? No, I think we covered a lot. I think we did too. We were sufficiently bent over. Yes,
Chris:I feel it too.
Jeff:Yeah, I feel it. squirming in my seat right now. There you go. That is another episode of Subpar Talks. Until next week, so long.