Money can be exchanged for goods and services!

How DARE he use MY Tax Money to make MY Life EASIER! EVERYONE knows Tax Money is meant for RICH PEOPLE and NO ONE else!

Tell that to conservatives that say to cut taxes and social services.

Woo hoo!

Does that include a peanut?

Ok, but 30$/hr for shoveling snow with the benefits of a government job is a wee too much.

Edit: I was thinking in Euros (again...)

Mamdani didn't invent anything; plenty of Mayors, Dem and GOP have done the same thing when there was a blizzard.

Of course, it's different if a GOP mayor does it...

$30/hr, $45/hr overtime

Yea... that's how time & a half works...

Where did anyone say anything about inventing anything?

How much have you paid in the past for some clearing your driveway? That's about the going rate to have someone plow your driveway and it's way less than an hour's work. Personally it should be more to work all day shoveling, it's really hard work.

How so? It’s a physically demanding job, and pay also has to be scaled with the fact that NYC is one of the most expensive cities to live in.

Ok, but all that money wasted on streets could have gone to a private pocket of a nepo tech startup promising AI billboards that would feed ads to ppl & the city would subsidise to "promote innovation".

/s

What did they mock him for? Too expensive? Won't work?

It’s also a lot of calories burnt. Like, I would definitely need to double up on what I currently eat in meals at least if I were doing that all day and I already have an active, physically demanding job.

"...invest it in people..."

I thought you were supposed to give it to billionaires for safekeeping?

In NYC? Where a bottle of water is five bucks?

Would $20/hr make it acceptable to you? $15? Minimum wage? When you find a point that's different but acceptable, that's a hangup, not a standard.

How will he ever make a profit?!

A lot of seasonal workers are exempt from earning overtime.

It's so funny to me. I point out GOP hypocrisy, but apparently I didn't do it in the right way, so I'm getting downvoted.

It's like you didn't read my entire comment and just went off because you detected a slur I didn't make.

Congratulations, you're acting exactly like the folks who attacked Mamdani.

Probably both, yeah. They're not exactly known for being objectively right about things..

It doesn't sound like you find it very funny.

So let me get this straight, because I find the anger here hilarious.

I point out that Mamdani was getting bashed by the GOP for doing something that other NYC Mayors, of all parties, have done.

No, Mamdani didn't 'launch' anything. The plan was already in place, decades ago.

Downvote me for laying out the facts.

Congratulations.

You've discovered sarcasm!

I once heard a way to think about this kind of comment...

It's not that you think they're being paid too much - it's that you think it's too much relative to what you make vs your own work and your own value assessment.

And that doesn't mean they're paid too much - it means YOU'RE probably being underpaid too. Be angry at your own boss - not the ones who pay better. This "paid too much" idea is worker vs worker class warfare to keep everyone miserable. Don't do the capitalists' work for them. Every worker who does better is ultimately better for all of us.

1: Snow happens

2: Republicans criticize Mamdani for snow not melting at below freezing

3: Mamdani announces well paying jobs as solution to get rid of snow. Right wing demagogues mock the initiative.

4: It works EXACTLY as intended, which pleases the left

5: You criticize Mamdani for not inventing the snow shovel 6000 years ago in a bog in Russia

No! Money is only supposed to be hoarded, so you can watch red line go up.

And $30/hr doesn't even seem all that high for a high-cost-of-living area like NY.

Nd let's not forget that there was an economic benefit too that conservatives will ignore. People were able to get out of their house and go spend money thanks to the people who shoveled. People went to work and kept things going.

Conservatives frequently think these things bring no value, and will absolutely mock it on fox news saying "so people can wALk". But yes, the benefit is they can go keep the economy going.

Its why I don't understand why they are against things like high speed rail. Its an investment. Every time we connect people together trade happens, and economies grow. Its kind of how that works.

Lemmy is a bit like Reddit but without the nice factor. Love to read only the worst possible interpretation and then pile on.

I remember the very beginnings of Reddit where there was a "downvote ≠ disagree" rule and it was so much nicer. People only downvoted things that weren't relevant or in genuinely bad faith. We've come a long way from those days. Now I think people get genuine dopamine hits from downvoting an already downvoted comment rather than reading it for themselves.

Nobody is angry, just pointing out your lack of reading comprehension.

Republicans hiring people to shovel snow it before doesn't matter when the current Republicans were mocking the program which ended up being successful. I would assume the scale and pay was completely different as well because they were Republicans, but that is just based on history and stuff.

What facts did I get wrong?

Homer is smarter than all conservatives combined

And yet it's almost double the minimum wage.

I’d love to know what the economic ROI is on paying people that much to clear snow. I bet it’s huge in NYC.

This is great, but I love that he gave the school kids of New York an actual, honest-to-god snow day. No remote class, no logging on.

In a city where the vast majority either walk to work, or walk to the subway to get to work, I can't imagine. We clear roadways in the midwest and no one bats an eye, but clearing sidewalks in a walkable city is crazy to them.

Homer's brain is anyway, the thoughts don't usually make it all the way through Homer.

Because everything's a get rich quick scheme or a scam, investments to them are rigging bets on polymarket

It's an infinitely higher percentage than zero, isn't it?

It's an investment to the public, not a direct injection of cash/investment that they will directly benefit from.

Conservatives are stupid, basically. Given a set of facts they will draw back conclusions

S-M-R-Ter you mean.

Let’s not forget also, that when you pay people directly they go and spend that money. Businesses cannot have customers if the customers don’t have money. The reason why money is kept so tight is a) blind greed and b) because then people can only afford to patronize Walmart or Amazon, not their local stores.

Conservatives like to act as though raising minimum wage will kill local businesses despite the fact that that is not how that works.

Turns out when people have money to spend they spend across the board, both places like walmart/amazon and also the local stores

Conservative don't want to make things better for everyone, they want to make things better for themselves.

This makes them short sighted and only see the money right in front of their face, which in this case, is going into the pockets of people shovelling snow.

They don't see the benefit because it doesn't benefit them immediately.

But you can bet your life that they will reap the benefit as they pull themselves up by other peoples bootstraps.

Plus all the money paid out in wages went back into the local economy for rent, food, etc. It didn't go to offshore tax havens.