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Living in the DC area, full of people with grad degrees who committed to careers helping people, feeding the hungry and protecting civil rights, all fired and floundering

The obvious lie behind “trickle down” is that accretion of financial leverage only begets (and accelerates) accretion of wealth toward those same leverage centers. Leverage in this context being the means to compel automatic wins (think LBO as opposed to merely debt itself)…

agree! (& trying to bring the good folks together to discuss in person - gelconference.com )

I am not going to let the bastards win nor lower myself to their level and those who are so willing to do so value greed more than anything, and that is one thing that makes people Republican.

They were careless people

I’m sure you’ve pointed it out before, but this also is why so many people think the “economy” sucks. You’re supposed to work hard and get rewarded. Instead, we’re watching the laziest, grossest, dumbest people to ever be, rake in billions.

I finally landed a new job after a long stretch of unemployment, and it's a pay cut, although not as big as yours. But I was previously at a tiny startup, and I'm now in a big corporation, and usually I would expect a higher salary and/or title.

Let's just say that it becomes very challenging to teach kids the value of honesty, hard work, thoughtfulness, and so forth, when they're all swimming in a sea of "Mr. Beast is doing the Squid Games! Get rich by betting on it now!"

thegrimhistorian.substack.com/p/has-americ...

Billionaires are built on the blood of others.

We are training kids that grinding it out running scams and fraudulent enterprise (or just gambling) is a respectable way to make a living

The part that scares me the most is it isn't just us. Like if it was JUST the US I could be like maybe we could rebuild to something better when it all falls down. But other countries have been influenced by and fear opposing us too much to not be dragged along with us and I fear for humanity itself

It really does matter which rules. Given that the culprits now make the rules, we're going to have to break some to hold them accountable.

There are many ways these are bad, but as a parent I really despair about teaching my kids to be good people. Like, how can I teach them that it's important to be honest when lying constantly seems like the winning strategy actually?

And that is exactly Trumps lifelong philosophy. Ironic that the same people who want to legally require the 10 commandments on every surface have enabled this and stuck all of us with it.

With the creative/writing commons and the seed commons now pretty much all stolen and enclosed, they have basically won. They are free to entirely impudent and self indulgent. Tho where they go next is anyone's guess. If there's nothing more to steal how will they get their precious wealth growth?

Decision time: Is it Stupid Immoral Asshole Pedophiles, or Stupid Immoral Asshole Pimps? Either way, SIMPs works for me.

2. Except for Discworld of course. But in that case whole point for Terry Pratchett was showing various characters from Granny Weatherwax to Vines to even lord Vetenari all trying in various ways to nudge society into a better direction.

A fish rots from the head

Problem is much deeper than Trump. It is tied to how easy it is in the US to exponentially increase one's wealth via investment once you've obtained certain level of capital. So some stupid immoral ones got lucky and rich, then they become even more so and now using their wealth to destroy society.

I don't think it would matter if we saw them less, because we'd be affected by them just as much. I'm sure a bunch of people that were affected by Musk axing all that aid don't hear about him everyday, but they're still dying.

And then the news media just sits there, eyes rolled back in their heads, and goes "this person lives an incredibly humiliating and unpleasant life of their own choice and no one can explain why their net worth is so high. Is the most deranged lie you ever heard in your life the secret to success?"

our guiding light as a society, is grift and it always has been theft, grift, exploitation, corruption these are the American ideals

This is my every waking moment.

😭😭😭 it’s true

Corruption. Corruption is bad. Also why, one man rule is bad.

Im trying to turn it into a polisci history lesson but it will only be useful if something fucking changes and the last 10 years are giving "the hundred years war lasted more than 100 years"

i have felt like this for my entire working life, which began in 1996

How do we fix it

yup

I imagine the Gilded Age felt a lot like this.

I would be rewarded by society for becoming so much worse

It’s like Atlas Shrugged except (quelle surprise) it’s the non-sociopathic segment of society that’s perilously load-bearing.

Watching them attack Fauci really highlights it. Why should the next Fauci try to save them?

That’s absolutely what’s happening

Its not even a good work of fiction if you take the politics out of it.

The worst book I ever finished

Yes, the problem with a mafioso state is that ultimately it destroys creativity and research. Only coercion remains to get anything done. All eyes look to Ukraine for the future.

its been that way for a bit. rewarding psychopaths with huge stock bonuses or media attention. it has just opened up to the a broader group of miscreants the economy is just gambling and grifting circle jerking each other

bsky.app/profile/fore...

My friend and I used to joke that we were too smart to get rich. Eventually we realized we're too moral.

In fairness, most of the stupid and immoral are being punished too. The successful ones you're seeing are successful for other reasons that rhyme with fust trund.

Competent professionals, rise up! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

We have to restore social norms, but with teeth

Capital ultimately has to follow creativity and confidence in the system for securing the rewards of creative effort. Capital flees as confidence dwindles. As it flees, interest rates must go up to offset the riskiness of staying in the system.

Most succinct encapsulation of what is happening. The naked, unadorned, & frankly baseless accumulation of power for no reason yet perhaps an odd attempt to embody meaning. It has the appearance of a death cult in its effect.

This is what I feel every day at work. We’re doing cool and valuable to the world stuff in the electrification push and it feels like we’re being crushed by state economic policy and our investment is being redirected to AI data centers and gambling apps. Impossible not to feel bitter about it.

This is what Americans apparently wanted: This is what people voted for. Ultimately the people are to blame.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity

I see you're familiar with my resume.

Why do we keep getting the socio-economic setting wrong? [brain cramp]

Vote and hope your vote gets counted. Voice your perceptions to your family and friends. Be brave.

Phew. I feel this. 🤦‍♀️