By living expenses, you mean rent. You should just say rent. It cuts back on another fig leaf.

Rent is the only part of our economy in which money is forcibly taken at gunpoint by someone who never did any work to earn it.

The groceries at the grocery store are expensive because of the grocery store's rent, too.

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somekyle2 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

We seemingly have very different experiences with rent. All rent I've paid was agreed upon prior to me being charged it, and guns were never involved. The people I rented from did the work of owning/managing the building and providing it for my use. Maybe this isn't a noble way to earn money, but I found it to be a really useful service, and it seems not dramatically different than most services I pay for (how much incremental work is Netflix doing for my behalf? what work is the bank doing to earn my loan?).

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inigyou 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Indentured servants agreed to be indentured servants. At gunpoint. It's literally illegal not to pay rent. They will put you in jail if you don't sign a rental contract. Consent under duress is not consent.

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bot403 9 hours ago | parent [-]

This is hyperbolicly dramatic. Nobody will put you in jail of you don't sign a contract. And if you don't pay rent it's a beach of contract and civil matter. It can be very hard to force people to pay rent if they're not paying. All you can do is kick them out, eventually ,there is no jail.

Your dramatic post makes it seem like the cops can kick down your door to get rent. That's simply not true.

	▲	inigyou 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It isn't dramatic. If you don't pay rent you're homeless. It's illegal to be homeless. So you go to jail.
	▲	ButlerianJihad 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		But it is true, from a certain perspective. You're either homeless or you have a domicile somehow. So, many people enter into leases or rental agreements. Then they pay rent to maintain that home. If you don't pay rent, you don't get arrested, but the constable is actually a law enforcement officer, and the constable is the #1 official who is involved in evictions, so yes, they will "kick down your door" to dislodge you from a place where you haven't paid rent. And then what do you do, when you're homeless and on the streets? In most urban centers, it's illegal to sleep outdoors or trespass ("urban camping" laws), and so the homeless are often subject to arrest or sanctions because of the nature of their plight. So the only logical response here is to get housed, pay rent, and keep paying, just to stay on the legal side of things. Ask me how I know.

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grebc 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Some people think society owes them.

	▲	_DeadFred_ 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, society owes a social contract where if you work you can afford to live and have a roof over your head, food to eat, and clothes that aren't Temu plastic rags of worse quality than dystopian sci-fi fiction 'clothes issued to people on basic'.

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tzs 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Walmart groceries have also gotten more expensive and Walmart owns the land that the vast majority of its stores are on.

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13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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