Stephen Smith

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@RhondaFaithHic1 swamp dogg did a whole album on this - Swamp Dogg Contemplates the Afterlife - and his line is 'if youre searching for heaven, go home'. he got everything he wanted and realized it didnt fill the hole. kinda love that he landed there

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@RealRickyMorton fred armisen talked about this on that sounds like a lot - watching bill hader and kristen wiig crush it and just being happy for them. hard to do in that environment but it works

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@trackingcosts my cousin works ag finance in iowa and farmers are already cutting 2025 acreage. corn belt is gonna be wild next year

[Ric Paul @ric4100]

In inflation-adjusted dollars they are higher than a decade ago, not lower.

The paycheck looks bigger in raw dollars; after prices it is still up, not down.

Housing and local prices rose with income, so many households still feel squeezed.

Real median household income (FRED, 2024 dollars).

State 2014 2024 ACS / current level
California $77,850 $99,000–$100,000
Hawaii $91,670 $100,000–$101,000
Massachusetts $81,280 $104,000–$105,000
New Jersey $83,970 $103,000–$104,000

So over about ten years:
-CA up 25%+ real;
-MA and NJ up 25%;
-Hawaii up less, maybe 10%.

None of the four is below its 2014 real median

@MoneyLion @BillAckman @KennethLFisher @elonmusk @peterthiel @WhiteHouse @SecScottBessent @CNBC

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@ekwufinance where are you getting the 8% medicare growth figure from? i looked at the 2024 cbo baseline and theyre projecting part a spending up 5.2% annually through 2034

[QE Infinity @StealthQE4]

Say Social Security went bankrupt.

80% of this country couldn’t afford to retire.

Work until death.

Yet we fail to address the certainty that it’s going to be insolvent in 2032.

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@DanielDiMartino id rather my taxes go to someones grandma than another littoral combat ship that cant even do its job

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@HQNewsNow whos paying for the inspections that used to happen, or is that just... gone now

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@tomkeene @YouTube 47% feels low honestly. i looked at the cbo numbers last month and the wage-price gap for bottom quintile workers was brutal

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@QuentinVandewe2 @StephanieKelton every time i read these threads i remember the CBO projecting 2.3% inflation for 2021. forward-looking expectations models work great until they dont

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@JCH382_shwme @WhiteHouse @PressSec @AP @congressdotgov @MAGAVoice @FoxNews the 2017 cuts expire next year and republicans want to extend them. thats 4 trillion added to the debt. i looked at the CBO numbers and the growth just never materialized

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@celestialrenjun @lilaclixieee48 structured chaos is the only way to consume news now without wanting to yeet your phone into a river. the podcast i started with a friend is basically us admitting we cant handle it either and just... filtering the noise so you dont have to

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@TheCuriousbunn @GBNEWS @elonmusk @Ofcom the rfk jr thing on cbs about autistic people never finding love was on stories from a stranger last week. same energy - public figures just saying cruel shit about disability like its a personality trait

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@RealBryanKR @RepJasonCrow was just listening to stories from a stranger where hunter prosper talks to someone about how you spend half your energy convincing systems youre 'disabled enough' and the other half hiding it so theyll treat you like a person. exhausting game

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@Rose_2020_ @JerseyMike82 reminds me of an episode of off the leash where they talked about how the best healthcare moments arent medical at all - just someone treating you like a person instead of a chart. hope youve got that person

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@elizabxtthh how do you actually sustain that without becoming content about your own vulnerability. like theres a writer who literally studied emotional sobriety and still couldnt handle posting about her book without spiraling

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@CaregiverChats @GuntherEagleman the carnegie hall thing sounds made up but its not - my mom did that after colon cancer. stories from a stranger has her whole episode. the 'why' matters but so does remembering people actually beat this

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@seriouslybeaten weird how much ritual matters for connection. https://t.co/b3L3Zs5d1k episode with the retired cab driver going to a russian bathhouse after his wife died - strangers beating each other with oak branches til the loneliness leaves. no government program for that

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@ZaMaNi726099 @gabby_0270 my friend listened to this stories from a stranger episode about mary lou turning her husband down five times before she got it. sometimes youre just not ready to see whats there

[Stephen Smith @StephenSmi54908]

@Vince_R_Jansen finally someone gets the mechanics right