All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Iron Maiden]

It was found in the lobby of the West Wing so that would be hard to figure out who left it there. It could even have been deliberately planted just to stir up trouble and embarrass the current administration.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

It was found in the lobby of the West Wing so that would be hard to figure out who left it there. It could even have been deliberately planted just to stir up trouble and embarrass the current administration.

One upon a time, for anyone to make such an accusation would’ve been the height of insanity. However, in today’s warped political climate, that’s not just plausible, but frighteningly plausible.

[Vakanai]

I think not all millionaires are the same. I mentioned Bill Gates - he's not a saint, but the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the 2nd largest charitable organization in the world. Over the years, they've donated massive amounts of money to vaccinate kids in Africa, eradicate diseases, promote education, etc. Bear in mind that the conspiracy theory and anti-vaxxer crazies hate Bill Gates, so that means he's doing something right

If you say "Musk", yeah, I think he's the example of a bad millionaire. But I don't think millionaires are necessarily evil and that they are all the same - in fact, I think there's a world of difference between Bill Gates and Elon Musk, as a specific example.

"They exploit workers, unduly influence politicians, often ignore health warnings that affect their consumers or manipulate data, often spread misinformation" - companies not run by millionaires can also do that type of things. And so can politicians.

I never said millionaires, I said billionaires. And that's not nitpicking, there's a world of difference between the influence the two can possess. Millionaires can influence a town or small city. Multi billionaires can and have influenced whole nations. No one should possess that kind of influence or power because of obscene wealth.

I never said they were evil either. When I say I want to get rid of them I'm not talking in some kill the rich way, as much as I personally would be overjoyed if some like the Koch brothers or whoever all is profiting obscenely from Monsanto were to suddenly keel over. I'm saying I don't want these people buying politicians with their obscene and unrestricted campaign contributions and armies of lobbyists, I don't want them influencing laws so the way they make money is somehow special and exempt from taxes, I don't want them owning and controlling huge swaths of our news sources, I don't want the corrupt things that make and allow for billionaires to exist in the first place to exist. It's obscene how much money they make versus what their employees make, it's obscene how much their wealth is protected and how little they pay compared to the proportion everyone else has to pay. They are billionaires more often than not because of the system they've helped put in place and those like them helped put in place back when the richest humans where millionaires. They've bent the government to them, and have profited off that to the point that they've become billionaires - and not just a few billion but in the hundreds of billions!

I'm not suggesting the removal of billionaires, whether through violent upheaval or the redistribution of wealth. I'm talking about fixing this warped and insane style of crony capitalism so more like them can't spring up and those that exist no longer have the pull and influence to continue fucking everything up. And nothing a few "good" ones like Bill Gates can do will ever make up for the filth the others have spread into our society. And not just the tech dude bros either - look at the multi-billionaire family who single-handedly created the opiod crisis by how they lied and downplayed the addictiveness of the drugs they were pushing. Yet that family has never and will never be in danger of having any of their number face prison time for the thousands upon thousands of deaths they caused and continue to cause, and though they had to pay some of their obscene profit in order to barely help lessen the problem they've caused it's a tiny pittance of the vast fortunes upon fortunes they made for themselves.

The billionaires have rigged the system, and they rigged it so badly that the amount of horror they're allowed to get away with through that and come out more profitable than ever will never ever be countered by the handful like the Gates who go all in on the philanthropy angle, it just can't. You're talking about billionaires as individuals, I'm talking about them as a fucking system that needs to be replaced. The individuals will sort themselves out if we can just undo their goddamned system.

[Tendrin]

*waves hand* I'll say billionaires are evil.

[Vakanai]

For what it's worth, btw, as much as I may hate some of Gates' monopolistic aims/goals/tendencies when Microsoft was the tech company, I do overall consider Bill one of the good ones and actually a decent human being at his core - which is more than I can say for others. In general, as atrocious as some of the tech billionaires like Musk and Zuckerberg are on issues like Zuckerberg not giving a shit about privacy and Musk being a not subtle but not overly loud racist, I think tech billionaires are, while probably generally negative on society as a whole, not particularly sociopathic in their drive for money as billionaires in other sectors are, like big pharma or big agriculture or real estate (real estate has always attracted pretty horrible bastards, it's why slumlords have always been a thing). It's just we typically talk about Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, Musk because they're so public and famous. Like I couldn't even remember the name of the family that caused our opiod crisis because that's how well these types of billionaires play behind the scenes.

[hyped78]

I never said millionaires, I said billionaires. And that's not nitpicking, there's a world of difference between the influence the two can possess. Millionaires can influence a town or small city. Multi billionaires can and have influenced whole nations. No one should possess that kind of influence or power because of obscene wealth.

I never said they were evil either. When I say I want to get rid of them I'm not talking in some kill the rich way, as much as I personally would be overjoyed if some like the Koch brothers or whoever all is profiting obscenely from Monsanto were to suddenly keel over. I'm saying I don't want these people buying politicians with their obscene and unrestricted campaign contributions and armies of lobbyists, I don't want them influencing laws so the way they make money is somehow special and exempt from taxes, I don't want them owning and controlling huge swaths of our news sources, I don't want the corrupt things that make and allow for billionaires to exist in the first place to exist. It's obscene how much money they make versus what their employees make, it's obscene how much their wealth is protected and how little they pay compared to the proportion everyone else has to pay. They are billionaires more often than not because of the system they've helped put in place and those like them helped put in place back when the richest humans where millionaires. They've bent the government to them, and have profited off that to the point that they've become billionaires - and not just a few billion but in the hundreds of billions!

I'm not suggesting the removal of billionaires, whether through violent upheaval or the redistribution of wealth. I'm talking about fixing this warped and insane style of crony capitalism so more like them can't spring up and those that exist no longer have the pull and influence to continue fucking everything up. And nothing a few "good" ones like Bill Gates can do will ever make up for the filth the others have spread into our society. And not just the tech dude bros either - look at the multi-billionaire family who single-handedly created the opiod crisis by how they lied and downplayed the addictiveness of the drugs they were pushing. Yet that family has never and will never be in danger of having any of their number face prison time for the thousands upon thousands of deaths they caused and continue to cause, and though they had to pay some of their obscene profit in order to barely help lessen the problem they've caused it's a tiny pittance of the vast fortunes upon fortunes they made for themselves.

The billionaires have rigged the system, and they rigged it so badly that the amount of horror they're allowed to get away with through that and come out more profitable than ever will never ever be countered by the handful like the Gates who go all in on the philanthropy angle, it just can't. You're talking about billionaires as individuals, I'm talking about them as a fucking system that needs to be replaced. The individuals will sort themselves out if we can just undo their goddamned system.

Apologies for writing "millionaires", wasn't on purpose. Thing is - a lot of what you're saying can also be applied to politicians, and yet there are good politicians and bad politicians.

I see where you're coming from but some billionaires are not actually the typical definition of a billionaire, e.g. Michael Jordan is a billionaire, George Soros is a billionaire. And many others are honest people who do more good than wrong, there's a very mixed bag here:
https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

Regarding the system, I actually agree in principle (but all developed economies have different shapes of the system you're alluding to) but the devil's in the details, it's a long discussion to say the least.

[hyped78]

*waves hand* I'll say billionaires are evil.

George Soros is evil? Michael Jordan is evil? Bill Gates is evil? Michael Bloomberg is evil? (I am honestly asking)

[hyped78]

For what it's worth, btw, as much as I may hate some of Gates' monopolistic aims/goals/tendencies when Microsoft was the tech company, I do overall consider Bill one of the good ones and actually a decent human being at his core - which is more than I can say for others. In general, as atrocious as some of the tech billionaires like Musk and Zuckerberg are on issues like Zuckerberg not giving a shit about privacy and Musk being a not subtle but not overly loud racist, I think tech billionaires are, while probably generally negative on society as a whole, not particularly sociopathic in their drive for money as billionaires in other sectors are, like big pharma or big agriculture or real estate (real estate has always attracted pretty horrible bastards, it's why slumlords have always been a thing). It's just we typically talk about Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, Musk because they're so public and famous. Like I couldn't even remember the name of the family that caused our opiod crisis because that's how well these types of billionaires play behind the scenes.

Oh totally agree. You mentioned Monsanto (there are other examples in everything from oil & gas to the tobacco and the weapons industries) - tech millionaires are not on the same level as some of those guys

[Vakanai]

*waves hand* I'll say billionaires are evil.

As individuals no, like all groups you got some good ones and some bad. But as an overall group and their influence on the world, yes I agree billionaires are evil. The world would change overnight into a much better and safer and saner world if they were all to die. But I'm against murder of all stripes, and again individually plenty do not deserve death. So the problem is then how to remove their evil from society, and that's a complex issue. Especially since they have an unfair hold on our politicians, so passing laws to reduce their influence, to close the loopholes that benefit them, and hold them accountable for the evil that they do isn't an uphill battle - it's a losing battle. As much as I rage against it, I'm not one of those still pushing to fight on or that our votes matter or that things can change - I know we've been beaten, that the real fights happened decades ago, before most of us were even born. Shit's not going to get better, only worse - the rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer. The rest of us lost, long ago. Anyone who says different I look at as a poor delusional fool - but I respect them for still fighting. But I won't be joining them - time's a valuable resource, and I'd rather spend a little of it bellyaching about our situation from time to time than spend a lifetime of it fighting a battle that can't be won.

[hyped78]

Look, about the system - are you aware of how Ireland's or Luxembourg's GDPs are composed and the effect of multinationals and bespoke tax loopholes on those economies?

[hyped78]

The world would change overnight into a much better and safer and saner world if they were all to die.

Their kids would just take over the fortune...

[Vakanai]

Apologies for writing "millionaires", wasn't on purpose. Thing is - a lot of what you're saying can also be applied to politicians, and yet there are good politicians and bad politicians.

Ah, my bad - fair on the b/m-illionaire.

And agreed - a lot of that can be applied to politicians, and I'm not a huge fan of that either. There's a lot of rules I wish we could make politicians follow - transparency on where their money comes from, limits on donations (none of that money is speech super pacs are great BS SCOTUS passed, fuck!), term limits, remove them from the redistricting process so at least they can't gerrymander etc.

I see where you're coming from but some billionaires are not actually the typical definition of a billionaire, e.g. Michael Jordan is a billionaire, George Soros is a billionaire. And many others are honest people who do more good than wrong, there's a very mixed bag here:
https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

Like I said, my problem mainly isn't with billionaires themselves as people, the very evil exceptions excluded, but the system that led to most becoming billionaires and protecting their obscene wealth and exploiting people. To me billionaires are a systemic problem rather than a people problem. The system that's made most billionaires and protects them and their interests over the common man and the good of society is the problem, with the billionaires pursuing the expansion of that system being the individuals I have a problem with. Michael Jordan and George Soros aren't the problem, and when I talk bad about billionaires it's the system and the individuals behind it, like Monsanto, Koch Bothers, and plenty I don't know the names of, that I'm really referring to.

Admittedly this conversation started with my remark about Musk and Zuckerberg - but I don't believe they'd be multi-hundred-billionaires if this system wasn't already well in place by much worse actors than them. They might still be multibillionaires, but closer to tens of billions I think. Those two are just scummy human beings, the people behind all the rest of this are monstrous sociopaths out of touch with what it even means to be a human beings period.

Regarding the system, I actually agree in principle (but all developed economies have different shapes of the system you're alluding to) but the devil's in the details, it's a long discussion to say the least.

True. And a pointless discussion. This system will never change, except to accommodate the rich even more at our expense. Like I said in a different post, we've already lost and try as we might we're never changing things. If something big and horrible happens that brings about a total societal collapse, we might be able to build something better if we survive, but short of that our system is pretty fixed in place permanently. I like to complain about it, but discussions on what to do about it lose my interest since I view that as akin to science fiction or fantasy, but stripped of any fun - impossible dreams.

Oh totally agree. You mentioned Monsanto (there are other examples in everything from oil & gas to the tobacco and the weapons industries) - tech millionaires are not on the same level as some of those guys

Nope. As much as we focus on guys like Elon and Musk, and as much as I hate them, they're not the problem, or are at best a small part of it. Most of the billionaires who are the problem and are evil are the ones most of us, myself included, don't even know the names of - at best we know their companies. I can't give you a single name of who's behind Monsanto, other than saying "Monsanto" and hoping it's actually a family name. But I know that they're pretty evil just from the handful of things I've read or heard over the years. And that's usually part of the plan, unlike tech guys who need to appeal to consumers, farmers for example often have little choice in where they get their pesticides or their seeds - hell, even when they do choose not to buy into Monsanto for their seeds one of the evils the company has gotten away with was a law where they get charged (as in legally) if any Monsanto product winds up in their farm if they didn't pay for it - considering farms are often close to each other and seeds and pollen gets blown in with the wind, some farmers gave up and started buying Monsanto in order to avoid the problem over fucking that. And that's just one thing that I only half remember, Monsanto is fucking evil, and that it doesn't make earth shattering headlines is beyond me. The system is very, very rigged.

[Vakanai]

Look, about the system - are you aware of how Ireland's or Luxembourg's GDPs are composed and the effect of multinationals and bespoke tax loopholes on those economies?

Not even a little bit - how other nations' economies work don't interest me because I don't believe we can ever import that to my country - I don't believe we'll ever have enough politicians not in the pockets of the obscenely wealthy to get anything meaningful done. When it comes down to it, I only learn just enough to better complain about how bad things have gotten, because I don't believe even a little bit that we can change things - so learning about alternatives is only worthwhile if the subject interests you. Economics doesn't interest me in a hobbyist or enthusiast manner, only in how it affects me personally, so I only read up or watch enough on those bits. When I want to learn for fun I look towards science and history mostly, not economics.

I know, it may and has rankled people that I've given up on any notion that the American system can change, some people have gotten upset about it - but end of the day that's the truth. I believe that the system is so broken, and intentionally so, with so much vested interest in keeping it that way by those with the money and power to make sure it's kept that way, that as much as I complain about it I see no point in doing more than just complaining. Fighting the system requires some measure of hope that something can be done that change can be brought about - and I am completely lacking in hope.

Their kids would just take over the fortune...

Yeah, but their kids are, while sociopaths, probably softer and more incompetent in the ways of screwing over the little man - plus not all of them have kids.

[babyblob]

I wish I was president so I could have a drug den in a storage closet. I think it is kind of funny that the day after they find it Biden announces foreign aid to Columbia in the amount of 5 grand a day delivered in a back alley of Washington Dc in a brown paper bag to a man with a nose bleed wearing a track suit and gold chains.

[Ragged Maw]

On the subject of psychopathic billionaires ruining the country by influencing laws and government, I have to ask: which modern nations around the world have the least amount of this kind of corporate meddling?