1st Gen. Lunch Table - General Discussion

Bee done stole more signs than the Astros

 

Indeed.

 

I feel like the millionth photo needs to be something ban-worthy haha

 

just one of the benefits of driving through houston at 3AM. One of these days i'm gonna come through after a hurricane & get a big one.

 

I just checked earnings report for my insurance company which is Progressive. Their Net income is up OVER 400%!!! Year over year. Checked a few other ins company stocks and they’re basically all making more money than ever before. To top it off I just learned the state has approved each increase Ins companies have requested.

 

Stroopwafels? Blasphemy:

"Sometimes I like to brag, sometimes I'm soft spoken. When I'm in Holland I eat the pannenkoeken"

 

Yes, there is a title for it. It’s called “greedflation”. Now you recognize it here, in this case, you need to understand, every business is doing it right now and then scapegoating one very specific person and/or group for it, because they know approximately 50% of the population will buy it hook line and sinker, and believe it to the bitter end, regardless of the truth. Scapegoating works wonders when everyone is tribalized. It’s amazing how easily people can be pitted against their best interests, and led to not question what’s really going on.

 

Nah, stroopwafel is the real OG for me. I can live without the herring, the bitterballen, the pannenkoeken. Just gimme some stroops and I’ll carb myself to death. They’re so much better fresh off the press.

 

Mine went up 25% on a 22 year old truck! It’s only worth about 4 years worth of insurance payments now if it got totaled.

WTF is wrong with that picture?!?

 

It’s what AI and/or algorithms are telling the insurance co they can charge to eek every last dollar out of the customer for the shareholders, BoD, and C-suite salary/bonus package. I can’t wait ‘til details of the Big Grift come to light. It’ll be too late of course, but … it’ll be nice the number of people I get to tell, “told you so, told you they were distracting you!” I only hope I get to join the other nobles, lords, or barons in owning a few fiefs.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot2noFWkqFU

 

You know if they bring back the 5 mph bumper standard…




We’d have a lot of ugly vehicles, but they’d be cheaper to insure.

 

If you asked them, they’d probably tell you some bullshit line, like, “well, your old vehicle doesn’t support all the fancy nanny features, so it’s a higher risk!” Sounds plausible, right? Because that’s probably what AI coughed up.

It’s not a coincidence all of this nonsense started around the time AI usage kicked up at the corporate level and has slowly been honed in to extract max profit. They’re blaming it on “chaos after the pandemic”. Sounds plausible, right? But it’s what AI coughed up.

It’s all a hoodwink, my dudes. It’s a grift. They’re milking the lower and middle class ‘til we’re all indentured servants.

 

I'm starting to see it in print. People starting to call me, 'you were right'. Hang on, lemme see if I can find a recent example.

 

Found one. As usual, the Guardian is my least monetized source of news that may actually be news: https://apple.news/Aef_zrw_wSOiQEbnaAciIkg

 

Yup. And I guess we have no protections? It fully is gouging and unless someone does something about it soon, those will become “normal” prices. But anll the sheeple are too distracted by rhetoric and talking points that scapegoat the easiest possible targets to distract from the actual problem that we’re probably all screwed at this point.

 

Beyond that, we seem to have a shortage of critical thinkers. A lot of people get their "news" from Facebook. I've seen my boomer Aunts repost actual fake news without realizing it.

 

Not economically viable.

 

Mine actually went up $100 last year and back down this year

 

Yep, already too late. Because shareholders gotta get a marked increase every quarter, or they'll bail. So we'll price gouge as far as possible then cut every last employee to squeeze that out. But it's _______'s fault.

 

Yup. Damn sure feels like this, in a picture.

Hard not to when you have so many ppwerful forces telling you, “you must not question, just do, and believe”

Now even talking about faith alone, it goes beyond that to the flags and bumper stickers folks flaunt.

“Choices always were a problem for you
What you need is someone strong to guide you
Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow
What you need is someone strong to guide you
….
If you want to get your soul to heaven
Trust in me now, don't you judge or question
You are broken now, but faith can heal you
Just do everything I tell you to do”

(or think or feel or believe, and spout it like it’s gospel)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ4WXPGGnO8

 

Was this the thread where we were wishing for a return to combustion V8's? I don't see tha big blocks coming back but, my heroes at Toyota aren't yet done making sense: https://apple.news/ARAxMrcg0TsKfxlNoNcERVg

 

I view it more along the lines of absolute corruption at every level. I called the consumer protection bureau which is in charge of allowing rate increases and they admitted they approved the increase. What they refused to answer if how on earth they can justify continued rate increases while these companies are reporting massive increases in profits over the past few years.

 

Ev was never going to work. Im not a rocket surgeon and i saw that when they started. The georgia guidestones were right.

 

It’s easy to look the other way when everyone is so busy blaming the other team for the problem to hold anyone accountable, much less pay attention to what is really going on, or to even dig on their own and figure it out. Many of us are too stuck in our own echo chambers, which have been decided and created for you by algorithms, for exactly this purpose. And again, almost everyone impacted is too stupid to see it. Critical thinking jas gone the way of the dodo and we now have others to think for us.

 

That’s exactly right. Before the prices went up, a 2023 doublecab 4wd Tacoma was only 10% more than what I was paying because of that.

Now start looking forward to when self driving cars are the norm and well, insurance….

“Didn’t leave the self driving mode on when you got in an accident? Premiums will now be 30% higher!”

 

There are no accidents. They decided to hit you. Take your pound of flesh.

 

Is it record revenue or actual profit? I've heard their excuse is that it costs substantially more to fix or replace a vehicle now. Same with homes. Some of the payouts from hurricanes the past few years have been huge.

Side note, the hurricane forecast for this year is looking rough.

 

I checked Progressive’s and their Year over year NET profit was over 400% increase. Looked at a few other insurance co. stock prices and the ones I looked at were near double over past year indicating their profits are higher as well.

Their costs may be higher but their profits are multiple fold higher.

 

What a waste of a die…