Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but it's also likely that some (but not all) historians will put the peak of the American Empire in the 1960's somewhere, perhaps onat the moon landing. Declines often start out slow and are often indistinguishable from random noise until well after the fact, and there will be rises and falls after the peak.
it's also likely that some (but not all) historians will put the peak of the American Empire in the 1960's somewhere Based on what metric?
More than 10 firms pay up to $100k a month for access to Truth Social posts
211–220 of 338 posts
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#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read Marx, he predicted so many things that would happen during the late stage capitalism phase.
>late stage capitalism That period is defined as starting about 100 years ago, after WW1. 100 years later the "late stage" capitalism outlived communism in USSR and China.
If China is capitalist. Let's implement their form of capitalism in the West. Finally home ownership for 90% of the population. The English would be so happy.
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#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but I also accept the reality that it is a more visible, and perhaps exaggerated, form of what has been ongoing forever Thanks for sharing this. It's a deep insight for me. I did not understand how the same people that were deeply skeptical about the state, ended up being so quiet when the state's corruption became flagrant and blatant. But this line of thinking makes a lot of sense.
It sounds like equivocating nonsense to me. No one expects a society to be completely free of corruption, but there is a difference between at least putting up a veneer of working towards transparency, and unabashed pay to play corruption. In fact, the corruption is what the voters want, to show that they prioritize their group (white, men, rural, rich, benefactors, whatever helps you identify with the “winner” etc)…
I don't expect it to be free of corruption, but I can also acknowledge the systemic forces that are beyond my control which enable the corrupt excesses we see. Unfortunately, until the incentives reverse, it will continue.
One of the easiest and most assured paths to success, wealth, a comfortable life, influence, significance, and security, is by playing the power game. Hence, it will attract those who seek those ends, and discourage those who let beliefs, values, morals, or other similar concerns interfere with their own acquisition of power.
Its only inevitable then that the most corrupt players will eventually ascend, as they continue to amass money and power in such a system. Believing that the real difference is voting for "the good guys" and that will cause wide-sweeping change is probably what Tea Party voters thought in the early 2000s before they morphed into MAGA.
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#214Curious: are there any republicans left on HN? I have no concept of how you can defend this
You're not going to get a real response. They're here. They literally just ignore it. It's too inconvenient of a truth. It's much easier to just point fingers at poor immigrants than to actually give a shit about the corruption of rich people.
They've also been primed to ignore it, citing "fake news". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
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#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was the Union army complicit in the crimes of the Confederacy by simply allowing them to drop their arms and walk away as well? The world is complicated and full of nuanced takes depending on context. That said: >If a rival political party takes power in 2029 and they decide to do nothing about this, are they complicit? Like this really does read as: I still blame the Democrats for the crimes of the Republicans. The…
It’s funny you bring up Union vs Confederacy, because Reconstruction should be a blueprint of what not to do. We’re still paying today for the failures of our forefathers to not have the bravery to stamp out the worst cultural elements of the Confederacy, let alone the extended century-long suffering of formerly enslaved peoples in what ranged from “separate but equal” to outright apartheid. So yes, it was very much…
> the Nuremberg trials are a fantastic blueprint for what to do, though.
Some would argue that the Nuremberg trials did not go nearly far enough, as there should also have been similar trials in all countries that collaborated with that regime during the course of the war.
That's why you see far-right parties nowadays spring up again and start to grain more influence. It could have been stomped out well enough.
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#216If a rival political party takes power in 2029 and they decide to do nothing about this, are they complicit? If the cops drive past a mugging, observe, and then drive on past allowing the law to go unenforced, are they not just as corrupt as the robbers?
Was the Union army complicit in the crimes of the Confederacy by simply allowing them to drop their arms and walk away as well? The world is complicated and full of nuanced takes depending on context. That said: >If a rival political party takes power in 2029 and they decide to do nothing about this, are they complicit? Like this really does read as: I still blame the Democrats for the crimes of the Republicans. The…
>Was the Union army complicit in the crimes of the Confederacy by simply allowing them to drop their arms and walk away as well? The world is complicated and full of nuanced takes depending on context.
I think the irony here is you are presenting this like a complicated choice, when I would argue many people agree that the way the Union handled reconstruction was extremely poor.
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#217Capitalism implodes on itself, just as predicted..
People have announced the implosion of capitalism many times and each time living standards have improved. In a purely correlationary sense, it seems like civilization progresses one capitalistic implosion at a time.
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#218Insider trading as a service. No one is going to take the US seriously for the next 50 years.
The messed up part is that it's not even technically insider trading as long as they release the same information publicly shortly after... so they're not actually breaking any laws. So much of the way the US government has operated is based on some shared standard of moral sense that the current administration lacks completely.
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#219If a rival political party takes power in 2029 and they decide to do nothing about this, are they complicit? If the cops drive past a mugging, observe, and then drive on past allowing the law to go unenforced, are they not just as corrupt as the robbers?
There’s no tool for them to do it with and I prefer that that remain the case. I would prefer that we take the pardon away from the President and certainly think the pre-emptive pardon is unacceptable but there is no mechanism to pursue the present government.
I’d prefer if the US doesn’t become like my native India where the previous government goes in jail when a new government takes power. Hopefully we just destroy the pardon and call the obvious self-enrichment here an abuse of government that we cannot fix with our devices and go forward.
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#220When I first heard saw headlines about this I thought it was so outlandish that it couldn’t possibly be real. Yet here we are. It’s amazing how much corruption is occurring for so little money. A million dollars a month is peanuts for such clear graft.
I, too, was surprised at this but widespread corruption actually has this effect. As prosecutability goes down, you just move further down the market. In the limit, you pay the President $50 to get out of a $80 parking ticket. He can’t exactly charge you $100k for that privilege. It’s not the market clearing price. Previously he was limited by the enforcement side so the ask price was nowhere near the bid price.
Now, prosecution immune, he can access the remainder of the market.
I think this is one big reason why bribes are commonplace in India at all levels while they are reserved only for the most profitable of endeavours in the US - enforcement. Consequently, the relative pricing matches that.
I suppose one realization is that a corruption index could look at the price of the cheapest government corruption as a proxy for how widespread it is.