I'm old enough to remember how companies all tripped over themselves trying to help the government spy on their customers after 9/11. I assume that every company that I do business with has an open pipeline to the government feeding in all the data it has about me.
Thankfully I never had any managers who were habitual interrupters. Oh, I've been interrupted before, but only when I start going down an irrelevant train of thought. Which I completely understand and appreciate.
I remember when I first voted at 18, thinking that I'd be pissed if I were old enough to die fighting a war, but not old enough to elect the people that drafted me in the first place.
We could demand amendments or a new Constitutional Convention. In practice, though, the US Constitution is pretty sclerotic in comparison to other nations'.
The cost of a lot of things, dining out in particular, were kept in check for decades because wages for labor were suppressed. The true costs of "everyday needs" were borne by labor to the benefit of the consumer (and arguably, the business owner).
Now that we can't cheaply exploit labor post pandemic, costs for the consumer are going up. The rising incomes at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, alongside rapidly (and long-running) spiking costs of real estate, are squeezing consumers as they buy groceries, gas, and yes, fast food.
Putting the brakes on the costs of those is probably going to look like squeezing wages on low income workers once more.
Not to mention the fact that they're now outright _creating_ gambling addicts that wouldn't have been addicts before the legalization of online betting.
