It’s an ouroboros. The ultra wealthy finance state actors till they become rich (insider trading,etc), then they enter the private sector and become even more filthy rich by getting executive jobs or board seats to lobby the next state actor they can corrupt. I always follow the money, because there are very few true believers actually in power.
Why do you think every other billboard on the interstate is for some lawyer suing truckers? Then trucker insurance goes up and they pass that expense on to shippers and everything gets more expensive. Businesses don’t care because everything’s is owned by the same private equities anyway - so the rich get richer.
You think we would have learned this from school. When there’s no teacher in the room to watch the testing, some kids alway cheat. The more they get away with it, the more kids decide to cheat. This seems super basic, but somehow they still convince people “self regulation” works.
Billionaires are pouring infinite money into right wing movements. They have no scruples and can pay anyone they need to get what they want done. The problem is capitalism because it creates extreme unelected power in an extremely small self interested minority. They also fund the power centers of the left to keep things from moving too far against them. Elections move on money far too much. In the end, you can’t have democracy and capitalism. Slowly capitalism always tries to swallow democracy.
Years away but they’ll catch up quick if Taiwan gets absorbed by China which is looking more and more likely. Taiwan has lost faith in American backing for obvious reasons and the nationalist party is gaining steam for a deal with China.
Name a time in history private ownership hasn’t metastasized into monopolies and imperialism. Wall Street as a financial hub didn’t even exist till 1817 and didn’t gain much hold on the world till far later. The first stock market was in 1611 in Amsterdam. British capitalism fueled British imperial rise before America even existed. Capitalism is just smaller fiefdoms under owner monarchs. It always exploits labor and slowly takes more and more power to oppress for its own gains. People are real quick to forget how awful businesses were to labor in the past. Union members died to get us the little we have they are again stripping away. Systems that centralize power with an unaccountable minority always do the same thing.
This is what capitalism does. Its endless profit growth requirement is not possible under any real market conditions. So it inevitably starts squeezing it’s own customers and degrading it’s own service to maintain these unrealistic demands for profit. The more consolidated the market becomes, the worse the outcomes. Anti-trust was always a half measure. The problem is capitalism is inherently unsustainable and can only lead to negative outcomes for it’s products and services over time. Nothing can grow infinitely and that pursuit will always collapse bringing societal pain.
I think it’s likely aliens exist, but unlikely any alien species will be what we expect. I highly doubt we will see humanoid “little green men” or anything like the majority of science fiction portrays. Each planet is vastly different in just our solar system. The vast differences in environments across the galaxy will yield vastly different paths of evolution. We are only looking for “life” that fits our narrow definition based on Earth’s species - we have likely already missed signs of alien life.
Hate is a multi-billion dollar business in America. The capital class spends obscene amounts of money to keep people hating each other and stoke the culture war. It’s the evolution of the old school union busting on the 1900s.
I don’t think anyone not living in America understands how deeply propaganda is pushed here across media and culture. The ruling class has distorted everything so much it’s hard to have a coherent conversation with most people on real issues. The misinformation and capital class talking points are intensely deep seated.
I’m tired of this notion that society must protect children from reality. If parents want to raise their kids in stupid sheltered worlds, that’s their stupid fucking choice and should go no further than their choices for their kids. Sheltering children is a stupid concept. Parents should be explaining the crazy shit kids will see and give them a healthy way to absorb the bad in the world not trying to act like it doesn’t exist. We shouldn’t have to bend over backwards to capitulate to their idea of how a kid should be raised. I shouldn’t have to give up my privacy to prop up their fantasy. Personally, every kid I’ve seen be sheltered ends up a more fucked up adult. The world is fucked, kids should learn how to live in it.
Joe Rogan is dumb. Why do we care about dumb guy opinions exactly?
Most people who say owning or investing income is the way to go started out with the means to make this obtainable in their life. Not saying you can’t work your way to that, but you will have to work hard to get there if you aren’t from circumstances where wealth is available to you through non-labor means. I find the majority of the people espousing this ethos the loudest are the “born on third base” types. They have a real need to justify their wealth as “earned.”