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American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

economist.com

51–60 of 360 posts

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with it? It shows the article, with a little banner on top, showing when it was captured. Doesn't mess with scrolling, what's not to like?

Well, for one, it wants me to scan a QR code as a captcha.

I chose the audio option to get around this.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#52

> Perhaps the danger is not 2008, 1999, 1973 or even 1873, but 1789. 1789 was the year of the French Revolution [1]. The rest are years with financial crises. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

The French Revolution is no longer possible. The surveillance state plus wealth mobility means the wealthy will be in New Zealand before anyone erects a guillotine, and the people that would foment a revolution are heavily surveilled and infiltrated.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with it? It shows the article, with a little banner on top, showing when it was captured. Doesn't mess with scrolling, what's not to like?

Well, for one, it wants me to scan a QR code as a captcha.

Me too, and ain't no way I'm doing that. That's blocklist behavior.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#55
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If you're genuinely curious, a few suggestions that I personally found incredibly enlightening: Anand Giridhardas, Winners Take All: The book is fantastic, there's also his now infamous google talk where he talks about dismantling google: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st century: Probably the most comprehensive (but at times also longwinded) outline on how wealth inequalit…

I was just thinking about it, rich people have money to spend in elections to get their representatives elected. When they do they make laws, or remove existing laws, to help rich get richer, so they have more money to spend in the next election. And so it goes.

Solution might be legislation that puts limits on how much money each person can spend on elections. But it may be too late, there are so many rich people in the congress that such laws can not pass.

The rich not only want to get richer they also want the lower classes to get poorer so they will work for less and will have to work longer hours so they will have less time and money to educate themselves, and thus will remain clueless about what is going on.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#56

I would say with inflation, wealth inequality and skyrocketing housing, gas and grocery prices as well as super high amounts of consumer debt and families stretching to keep up it feels a lot like pre-bust 2005/2006 economy out there right now. We might not be on the cusp of a subprime mortgage bank crisis but it does feel ominous lately.

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The inequality doesn't come from the creation of wealth so much as the destruction of it. Inflation and rising prices of staple goods (there is some covariance, but the latter seems to be outpacing the former) impact poor people disproportionately hard because staple goods are more or less fixed costs. The marginal utility of an extra dollar is much higher for someone on the poverty line vs. someone who is a multi-millionaire.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#57
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're genuinely curious, a few suggestions that I personally found incredibly enlightening: Anand Giridhardas, Winners Take All: The book is fantastic, there's also his now infamous google talk where he talks about dismantling google: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st century: Probably the most comprehensive (but at times also longwinded) outline on how wealth inequalit…

How about a summary of Piketty's argument? We could start off with how are you worse off because of people wealthier than you?

It’s a rather public example but DOGE did immense damage and was facilitated by the ability to leverage wealth into power. There is a dangerous feedback cycle.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#58
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're genuinely curious, a few suggestions that I personally found incredibly enlightening: Anand Giridhardas, Winners Take All: The book is fantastic, there's also his now infamous google talk where he talks about dismantling google: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st century: Probably the most comprehensive (but at times also longwinded) outline on how wealth inequalit…

How about a summary of Piketty's argument? We could start off with how are you worse off because of people wealthier than you?

I have not read Piketty. But I could imagine a society where the poor are 10% better off and the rich are 1000% better off to be a less stable society that ends up falling apart.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#59
No ones labor is worthless. Guys this is so retarded but I understand why tech people find this difficult.

Humanity runs off of romance. This is not sexual romantic love but rather the thrill of other human people.

An AI cannot provide this. This interaction has value. Technology frees us from having to deal with the mundane so we can deal with the exemplary.

Just go to a poorer country and see that it is not possible there. America is friggin awesome.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#60
Fascism needs existential threats. Nobody in their sane mind will accept their hateful ideology if they were not desperate, and in panic.

> A millenarian economy is necessarily a paranoid one.

The economy does not need to be paranoid, it becomes paranoid with inequality increases the stakes on everything, when you can be obscenely rich or depressingly poor and there is no in between. That makes reasonable people paranoid. High equality with opportunities for everyone makes people reasonable and wanting to work for the common good.

> “Merely regulating it is insufficient,” wrote Pope Leo XIV in a 40,000-word essay on AI last month. “It must be disarmed.”

Of all the messages, the Pope was far from "apocalyptic". He was trying to defend the working class and avoid discrimination and xenophobia embedded in the models. No, end of times bullshit.

> If things are so dire, why are American stocks so expensive?

Because it is disconnected from the average working class experience. "Everything is good because stocks are up" is a non sequitur (except for the people that only care about their portfolio).

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