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More from the article ...

... The board game Monopoly has always taught some important economic lessons: The benefits of owning real estate. The profit potential of railroad mergers. The value of a get-out-of-jail-free card.
President Trump hopes to encourage more U.S. manufacturing with his import taxes on foreign goods. But an online experiment suggests most people aren't willing to pay a premium for a "Made in the USA" product.
Economy
What a Texas showerhead salesman discovered about 'Made in the USA' labels

Now a special edition of the board game is teaching a new lesson"about how hard it is to make things in the USA.

The game is being marketed by the WS Game Company, which produces most of its high-end board games in China, just like almost every other toy maker.

After getting hit with a seven-figure tariff bill last year, CEO Jonathan Silva decided to see if it was possible to produce a profitable board game in the United States.

He opted for a custom version of Monopoly, pegged to the country's 250th birthday. But the experiment almost didn't pass go. One big problem: No dice.

"We turned over every single leaf trying to find someone who would make 10,000 dice for us in the U.S.," Silva says. "It requires special machinery. It requires investment. And that type of stuff just can't happen on a random Tuesday and be ready in a couple of months."

Silva ultimately had to settle for imported dice.

He was able to find the rest of what he needed domestically, but it wasn't easy. A former Hasbro factory in Massachusetts prints the Monopoly board. A company called Pioneer Packaging makes the tray that holds the Monopoly money. And a small business in Indiana cranked out custom metal game tokens, in all-American shapes like a cowboy hat, a covered wagon and an apple pie.

Just assembling all those different players took more than a year, so Silva missed the first half of the 250th birthday selling season. And the cost to manufacture the games -- which retail for $80 -- was at least double what it would have been in China. ...



Lindsey Graham Is Dead

The news broke very late last night, so details are obviously scarce and subject to revision. However, after what is being described as a "brief and sudden illness," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) reportedly died yesterday at the age of 71.

In a somewhat eerie coincidence, given the deathwatch currently focused on Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Graham suffered a cardiac arrest at his residence in Washington. He was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, and was declared dead on his arrival there.

Graham was in good enough health that he was scheduled to appear on Meet the Press this morning. And on Friday, he was in Ukraine meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Long plane flights and blood clots can certainly go hand-in-hand, so, in the absence of details, it's fair to wonder if the Friday plane flight and the Saturday coronary are related.

Obituaries are a time to reflect on a person's career, and when we consider Graham's, we do not think history's judgment will be kind. He had become one of the biggest show horses in the Senate (probably in competition with Ted Cruz, R-TX, for top honors), and tended only to introduce "message" legislation, like the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 and the No Retaining Every Gun In a System That Restricts Your Rights Act. Even when he got a bill passed, it tended to be "show" legislation, such as the Laken Riley Act.

Meanwhile, the thing that you really think of first when you think of Graham is that he was a political chameleon, one who shifted positions in a fashion that was usually ham-fisted, and often quite rapid, based on the way the political winds were blowing. Most obviously, when Donald Trump first ran for president, Graham famously slurred him as a "jackass" and a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot," and said that "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed...and we will deserve it." Of course, once Trump took control of the GOP, Graham became one of his most subservient lapdogs (and it is Graham who sponsored the bill that would, if passed, lavish money on Trump's "won't cost taxpayers a dime" ballroom).

The talking heads this morning said that Graham was a "shape shifter".

A shape shifter? Didn't that used to be called flip-flopping. Maybe someone should run that by John Kerry.

#5 DBT2 states, without any proof, that "Americans don't want democratic socialist populists."

Actually, some Americans want that very thing. Just look at Mamdani's victory in NYC.

And it is also true that there are Americans who don't want that.

Which presents the very idea behind this thread and the accompanying thread I posted.

==> (One should actually read the linked articles; apparently, some are satisfied with ignorantly commenting based only on what they think the article is saying (based on the headline), without actually reading what's written and understand the points and nuance presented by the authors. *sigh* But idiots have to be idiots.)
If Democrats are going to win in November, then Democratic Party candidates will have to campaign where their voters are. And campaign at a level their voters can understand. And they must campaign on issues that their voters can easily grasp, and easily understand the solutions being promised.

Thank you, DBT2.

More from the article ...

... More than a quarter of working-age adults who relied on credit cards to buy groceries were either unable to pay their balance in full or missed their minimum payment, according to the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. About one in 10 adults relied on so-called "buy now, pay later" loans to cover their groceries -- of those, about a third missed a payment last year, the analysis found.

About 20% of working-age adults said they had tapped long-term savings that weren't intended for everyday expenses, such as an emergency fund, at least once in the last 12 months to pay for groceries, the researchers said.

"Families still need to eat. They will still need to pay for their basic needs," Kassandra Martinchek, a co-author of the study and public policy expert at the Urban Institute, told CBS News. "Now they have the additional burden of also needing to repay debt -- it could constrain their ability to meet their basic needs in the future and get back on their financial feet."

Over the past five years, grocery prices have jumped 32%, making food affordability a top concern for many Americans, the Urban Institute said. The group's findings are based on a December survey of 7,500 adults ages 18-64.

The findings underscore the growing affordability pinch that many households are experiencing after five years of elevated inflation. In 2026, price increases have reaccelerated due to the Iran war, which has driven up energy costs and pushed consumer prices to their highest level in more than three years.

In a May CBS News poll, more than three-quarters of Americans said their incomes aren't keeping up with inflation. ...



snip ...

But part of the problem is internal. The 62-member Congressional Black Caucus, which is entirely Democratic, has been focused on swing seats. A leader of its PAC, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), said: "The PAC has always been focused on electing Democrats in tough seats so that we can reclaim the majority. That goal, that focus, has not changed." Note that he said nothing about holding Black seats or supporting Black challengers to Republicans. In most cases, it is supporting white candidates who have a good chance of holding a tough blue district or flipping a marginal red one. The CBC's priority is maximizing the number of Democrats in the House, not the number of Black Democrats.
The CBC's priority, maximizing the number of Democrats in the House, has been my position all along.

In fact, it could also be phrased as

The priority is...maximizing the number of Democrats in the House, not just the number of Progressive Democrats
Yep.

Otherwise, for example, Jim "Gomer" Comer would remain chair of the Oversight Committee in the US House if the Democrats don't take the majority this coming November. That's an outcome everyone in the middle or the left side of the aisle should abhor.

And a political party that consists of large groups of Black voters, Latinos, Asian Americans, and other racial minorities, along with LGBTQ voters, Jews, affluent college-educated suburbanites, single women and young voters needs all Democratic candidates elected - everywhere - and not just "pure" Democrats who can easily get elected in NYC or Los Angeles. Such candidates would crash and burn in places like Texas (Talarico would be too "conservative" for LA voters) and Georgia (and as with Talarico, Ossman would be too "conservative" for voters in NYC).

It still amazes me that there are those who are so politically ignorant to understand this basic equation built on the reality of the game on the ground in state after state, Congressional District after Congressional District, town after town ...

... not the political game played on the Internet by Karl Rove/James Carville wannabes.

snip ...

As an example of the fine line Democratic leaders have to walk, consider the ramifications of the Supreme Court's decision to gut the remaining bit of the Voting Rights Act. Black leaders, especially in the South, are feeling isolated. Party leaders are focused on swing House districts and states and 2028 presidential hopefuls are in early states, of which only one (South Carolina) has a large Black population. Howard Dean's 50-state strategy never got going, and instead, Democrats have something like a 30-state strategy, where the party apparatus has been left to wither and die in many red states, especially in the South.

Where fuck is the money going?

#23 | Posted by oneironaut

Into stuff your little brain can't comprehend.

"When you look at the raw math"roughly $213,000 allocated per classroom versus an average teacher salary of $56,663"it looks like a massive chunk of money vanishes into thin air.

The gap isn't usually a single "black hole" of administrative waste (though bureaucracy certainly plays a role). Instead, it's driven by the massive structural reality that a school building requires a small army, expensive benefits, and physical infrastructure to keep that single classroom doors open.

A breakdown of where that remaining ~$156,000 per classroom actually goes includes the following expenses:
1. Teacher Benefits (The "Total Compensation" Gap)

That $56,663 is just the take-home base salary. School districts must pay significant mandatory and optional benefits on top of that, which generally add 30% to 45% to the cost of every employee.

Florida Retirement System (FRS): The state mandates significant employer pension contributions.

Healthcare & Insurance: Health, dental, and life insurance premiums paid by the district.

Taxes: Employer-paid Social Security, Medicare, and workers' compensation.

The Real Cost: A teacher making $56k actually costs the district roughly $75,000 to $80,000 in total compensation.

2. The Rest of the Building's Staff

A school cannot run with just a teacher and 18 kids in a room. A huge portion of per-pupil funding pays for the people who support that classroom from the outside. That $213,000 per room has to partially fund:

Student Support: School nurses, guidance counselors, speech pathologists, and librarians.

School Operations: Principals, vice-principals, front office secretaries, security guards, and janitorial/maintenance staff.

3. Special Education & ESE Services

In Florida, funding is pooled across the district, but the cost to educate students varies wildly. Exceptional Student Education (ESE) and English Language Learners (ELL) require dedicated resources:

Specialized parateachers, interpreters, and behavioral therapists.

Heavily reduced class sizes for high-needs students (sometimes a 3:1 or 5:1 student-to-teacher ratio), which drains a disproportionate share of the per-pupil average pool.

4. Operations, Technology, and Facilities

Just keeping the physical lights and air conditioning on (a massive budget line item in Florida summers) takes a toll.

Utilities & Maintenance: Electricity, HVAC maintenance, roof repairs, and cleaning supplies.

Software & Tech: Laptops/tablets, Wi-Fi networks, cybersecurity, and educational software licenses (which are increasingly billed on a expensive per-student annual subscription model).

Instructional Materials: Textbooks, lab supplies, and physical classroom materials.

5. Transportation and Food Services

Getting the students to the classroom and feeding them is entirely separate from instruction but eats from the same macro-budget.

Busing: Fleet acquisition, diesel fuel, mechanic salaries, and bus driver wages.

Cafeteria: Food prep staff, supply chain costs, and kitchen equipment maintenance.

6. District Administrative Overhead & Capital Debt

The "District Office": Superintendent salaries, HR departments (hiring hundreds of teachers), legal teams, payroll processors, and IT management.

Capital Outlay & Debt Interest: Building new schools to keep up with population growth or paying off the interest on bonds used to build existing ones.

When you apply that 55-60% metric to your $213,000 figure, you get about $117,150 going strictly to direct classroom instruction. Once you subtract the teacher's total compensation package (salary + benefits) from that slice, the math aligns closely with the reality of running a school system."

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