This is Paul Harvey's 'If I were the Devil' brought up to date
Retold with no religious symbolism
Makes it twice as frightening
Listen, learn, beware, fight to change
𝖳𝖧𝖤 𝖯𝖤𝖱𝖥𝖤𝖢𝖳 𝖢𝖱𝖨𝖬𝖤.
The Cost: $115 Million Per Hour.
The Reality: Zero percent chance of getting caught.
A trillion dollars a year is being siphoned out of America by criminal networks who targeted the programs they knew weak politicians wouldn't dare touch.
“Billions in taxpayer money flow through Congress while they work 133 days and earn $174K salaries. What exactly are we funding?”
$810 MILLION in allowances.
Up to 18 staffers each.
Massive operating costs.
Billions in waste. Nothing fixed.
This is institutionalized FRAUD.
An HOA telling homeowners they can’t fly the American flag on American soil is peak insanity.
People pay mortgages, taxes, and dues… then get told patriotism violates “community standards.”
And banning political flags too? Funny how “freedom of expression” suddenly disappears when it offends the wrong people. 🇺🇸
The idea that career politicians are completely disconnected from the financial struggles of average Americans is a valid critique, but the standard talking point of simply raising the minimum wage fundamentally misses the mark. Forcing a higher minimum wage doesn’t solve the underlying economic crisis; it merely triggers an immediate inflation spiral where the cost of daily goods and services jumps to absorb the new labor costs, ultimately leaving working-class citizens in a worse position than where they started.
The "minimum wage" debate is completely missing the point. Everyone is fighting over raising wages by a few bucks, but that’s like putting a band-aid on a broken leg. The real crisis isn’t just what people are getting paid—it’s the fact that the buying power of the U.S. dollar has been utterly destroyed, while the cost of basic goods and housing has gone into orbit.
Let’s look at the actual math using the ultimate benchmark of financial stability: buying a home.
In 1970, the federal minimum wage was $1.45 an hour, and the median home price was around $23,400. A single minimum-wage worker brought in about $3,016 a year, meaning an average house cost roughly 7.7x their annual salary. It wasn’t effortless, but with a dual income or some careful budgeting, owning a home on basic wages was mathematically possible.
Today, standard inflation calculators will tell you that $1.45 in 1970 equals about $11.64. But look at the actual cost of assets. The median home price has exploded to roughly $420,000.
If you want to walk into a bank today, factor in current interest rates, property taxes, homeowners insurance, and strict debt-to-income limits, you don't need $11 an hour to qualify. You don't even need $25 an hour. When factoring in standard modern debts like student loans or car payments alongside the inflated cost of everyday necessities, a single earner needs closer to $70 to $80 AN HOUR ($145k–$165k/year) just to secure the exact same purchasing power and financial security a basic worker had 56 years ago.
This structural gap hits on a massive point that raw home-price-to-income ratios completely miss: we don't buy sticker prices, we buy monthly payments. Comparing raw prices assumes you are paying in cash, but modern buyers are forced to absorb the real-world cost of borrowing and qualifying.
Treating the symptom (the wage) without fixing the disease (the collapse of our currency's purchasing power and the artificial inflation of assets) is a losing game. If we just hike wages without fixing the underlying economy, the cost of goods just keeps chasing the new printing press. We don't just need higher numbers on our paychecks; we need a dollar that actually means something again.