this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
863 points (97.6% liked)

politics

19088 readers
4137 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Drinking lead can damage people's brains, but Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach opposes a plan to remove lead water pipes.

In their letter, the attorneys general wrote, “[The plan] sets an almost impossible timeline, will cost billions and will infringe on the rights of the States and their residents – all for benefits that may be entirely speculative.”

Kobach repeated this nearly verbatim in a March 7 post on X (formerly Twitter).

Buttigieg responded by writing, “The benefit of not being lead poisoned is not speculative. It is enormous. And because lead poisoning leads to irreversible cognitive harm, massive economic loss, and even higher crime rates, this work represents one of the best returns on public investment ever observed.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

First of all, rich people own jets, which don’t burn leaded gasoline.

I can't speak to the rest of your post, but if you own and maintain even the smallest Cessna for personal use, you are rich to me, and you are rich to anyone I've ever known personally, and you are rich to most people. That's like saying owning a Ferrari doesn't make you rich.

[–] turmacar@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Partial and group ownership is incredibly common now because everything is so expensive. I'm making ~$60k and 'own' 1/20th of a plane (Cessna 177) that none of us could reasonably afford alone. Admittedly that's not struggling, but it's not a ton of money in my part of the country either. It's just prioritizing spending on getting to fly instead of other hobbies.

Most flight instructors / people going for the airlines are in similar partnerships or at a flight school using those small planes to eventually get enough hours to go to the airlines. They're usually making less than I am.

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

OK that's fair, I was ignorant of that. But is this the case for most small planes? (Maybe it is, I truly don't know.)

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Middle class != rich.

I've met almost no one who owns a brand new Cessna Skyhawk as a "I'm a private pilot, it's mine. I go flying on pretty weekends in it." Because yeah, the aviation equivalent of a Toyota Corolla costs nearly half a million dollars new. Pretty much all new Skyhawks go to school fleets, the likes of ATC or ERAU.

Older used aircraft can be had for considerably less; a small airplane is within the reach of a middle class income. You might own a plane instead of a Corvette or a Winnebago, you might buy a plane instead of remodeling your house, but its within reach if it's your 'thing.'

A lot of the aircraft owners I've met are instructors or other aviation professionals, owning an aircraft is a business expense at that point.

Then you get into fractional ownership or flying clubs, where say, you and four other guys you met in flight school buy an airplane together and split the expenses, and share a Google calendar of who gets the plane when. Membership dues-based flying clubs are fairly popular, because they can offer lots of people ownership-like access to a fleet of various planes. A large local club to me is the Wings of Carolina, which when I last checked in owned two C-152s, two Piper Cherokees, two Mooney Bravos and a twin of some kind, and the individual membership dues were less than the ownership cost of one of those 152s.

The funniest part to me is how many airplanes seem to be owned by no one. The number of airplanes tied down to the typical GA ramp with flat tires and flaking paint is...interesting to me.

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

Hmm interesting thank you very much for the additional info!

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world -2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Nah owning a Ferrari or airplane doesn't mean you're rich. Keeping one running in the long term probably does, more so.

I can tell you that at least some of the people you see driving around in Ferraris just won a six figure personal injury settlement and spent all the money in the course of days or weeks. I would say even if you had one million in the bank, that isn't rich. It will certainly provide a great deal of comfort and options, or one Ferrari and some options, and will open some doors, but it's much closer to abject poverty and homelessness than having like a $1 billion, or even $100,000,000.