Many people do not grasp the sheer size of the disparity between the truly wealthy and everyone else.
They really think billionaires are like them, the only difference is that someone else goes to Walmart for them
Billionaires are like everyone else. That’s the reason I don’t look up to any. They’re just as human as I am. No amount of money can ever make them anything else or anything more. They have access to an absurd degree, and they can afford far, FAR more, but they will never escape their base human nature. Almost anyone can be a billionaire. Some current billionaires prove that every moment they open their mouths.
Everyone poops.
Or they take capitalism as good and freedom as an axiom.
Most people will take “freedom” as an axiom, but how “freedom” is defined varies a lot. In a society where the commons are pretty much fully enclosed and you are homeless, the petite-bourgeois may very well be free, but you really aren’t.
I believe your comments is just a paraphrase of: “They are being stupid”
In my opinion this is a very toxic way of thinking and does not try to understand the arguments “the other side” presents.
I don’t think it’s that bad-faith. I myself still find it positively mind-blowing to comprehend when the data is right in front of me.
Someone might equate wealth to hard work, but it hasn’t really hit them, the real literal difference between 1 million dollars, and 1 billion, and then the news is talking about “trillionaires.”
There’s just no way to earn a billion dollars, to yourself, through honest work and by not exploiting others. And I think a lot of folks really don’t realize this. They know that’s a lot, but they might change their mind and realize how outrageous it is, when you present them with something like:
“Joe, you could get 3 more promotions and work 80 hours a week for 13 lifetimes and still not earn that much. Do you really think this is just petty jealousy at play?”
They might just change their mind.
But a lot of folks grew up in a time or place where people who ran the company started at the bottom, and it really needs to hit them hard that this just isn’t reality anymore.
I assume they think they will be able to achieve the same status in the game that’s designed to literally oppress them and make them think they are cared by the billionaires.
It’s the American dream. What is the quote? We’re all embarrassed potential millionaires?
That’s why the “hustling culture” is so important and prevalent in our society right now.
Everyone “knows” someone that made bank with either youtube, selling some pyramid-scheme product, bitcoins, some collectibles, craft beer, lottery… you name it.Social media (and before that was TV) is selling us the idea that there’s a shortcut to becoming rich, you just need to find it, hustle, and you will become one of the rich persons.
That’s also why there’s so much cult of wealth and billionaires.
That said, a large portion of Millennials and after them have a rather negative view of billionaires and are rather skeptical of becoming rich, or even becoming home owners.
The worst one is Real Estate agent. Oh god I hate them so much.
Something like “Temporarily inconvenienced billionaires” I think?
I’ll have you know I’m a millionaire with a cash flow problem.
This has been studied, and the ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ idea is actually wrong.
The real reason is because some people (especially conservatives, because it’s a core part of conservative ideology) believe that in order for society to work, a hierarchy must be maintained wherein the ‘deserving’ are at the top, and everyone else is in their rightful place. Any threat to the natural hierarchy will undo the societal order and bring chaos and carnage.
This is why Obama becoming president was such an affront – because his presence outside his ‘rightful place’ was an existential threat to the natural order.
This belief has its roots way back when feudalism began to fail and the moneyed classes needed to find a new way to retain their power – both capitalism and conservatism were born at that time, with ideologies shifting from birthright to ‘earned’ status, which enshrined the haves and have-nots into literally sacred structures of meritocracy and social darwinism, and colonialists specifically fostered strict adherence to the social order. It became ingrained culturally that adhering to your station, whatever it is, is crucial for society to function. That there’s honour in being a cog in the machine, and that not accepting your lot in life is a danger to everyone. (eta: this is mostly subconscious, but you can see it if you ask ‘why’ enough times of someone who idolises Musk, for example. You’ll eventually whittle them down to these themes.)
That’s a nutshell view of a complicated topic, but these people don’t believe they’ll strike gold one day. They believe people who are rich deserve to be treated as kings, for the same reason monarchist peasants did.
Any pointers where I can read more about that?
One place to start is this article from the Stanford Encyclopaedia on Philosophy: Conservatism.
It’s a lengthy read, but enlightening.
One highlight from the summary:
Most commentators regard conservatism as a modern political philosophy, even though it exhibits the standpoint of paternalism or authority, rather than freedom. As John Gray writes, while liberalism is the dominant political theory of the modern age, conservatism, despite appealing to tradition, is also a response to the challenges of modernity. The roots of all three standpoints “may be traced back to the crises of seventeenth-century England, but [they] crystallised into definite traditions of thought and practice only [after] the French Revolution” (Gray 1995: 78)
I recommend reading the sources linked in that article, as well.
eta: It’s worth noting that societies worldwide often see a resurgence in conservatism in response to social change, crises, and civil rights movements, which are without fail a fear response to threats to the social hierarchy. We can see this in real time.
because they prefer to dream of themselves as billionaires in potentia. it’s hard to admit you’ve been duped, especially when society gives you so many targets to punch down on.
or, as futurama put it, link
A slave doesn’t dream to be free, but to be a king
Well it’s similar to what Churchill said about democracy… it’s a bad system but it’s better than all the others.
If you can put ideology aside and think in terms of economics, in many industries capitalism offers an efficient way of determining the an optimal price and quantity to produce considering the costs and value something brings. And it’s something that allows for industries to function without an excessive amount of centralized planning which will often get things wrong.
But it’s like a machine in a many ways. And like any machine it requires maintenance. Things like trust-busting, progessive taxation, regulations, and occasional stimulus are necessary to keep it running smoothly.
But once you bring ideology into it, it all becomes a shitshow. Some will argue capitalism is a perfect machine and any kind of maintenance on the machine will ruin it’s perfection. Others take any kind of maintenance on the machine as a sign the machine will inevitably fail and needs to be replaced entirely. But then we go back to the beginning where other systems have been tried and they’re worse. Charlatans, grifters, ideologues abound pushing people in every direct except for simply taking reasonable measures to keep the machine running smoothly. There’s an almost religious devotion towards arguing the either the machine is perfect or the machine is doomed to failure and not only should be replaced they should accelerate the failure so it can be replaced sooner.
Zealots from all sides demonize the mechanics that are simply keeping things running. A lot of emotional nonsense about this thing. But to an economist, it’s just a machine with both strengths and weaknesses. The functioning of the machine is well understood, and the other machines that have been tried didn’t really work.
I think decentralization of power is a nice feature too. Billionaires are power centers outside of the government, judiciary, or military. They exist as a result of lax control on the markets by the government. In countries without capitalism and property rights, the billionaires are the government and the judiciary and the military. So, even though it might seem like nationalizing their wealth would decrease inequality, if there aren’t good safeguards for decentralizing government power, it would result in a less equal society.
Part of the existence of billionaires is the ability to actually determine which money is theirs. In autocratic governments, you can’t really say who owns what because you never know what the government might decide to take.
I don’t defend billionaires, I think power should be spread more fairly, but eliminating them via the government needs to be done wisely in order to maintain decentralization.
Maintaining decentralization just allows for more centralization as markets coalesce into monopolist syndicates, better to centralize, make public property, and democratize.
The main argument is that that would not less to democratic control. Are there any historical examples where you have both democracy and violation of private property rights?
Cuba, the PRC, USSR, etc. All had large democratization of the economy compared to the fascist slaver system under Batista, the Nationalist Kuomintang, and the brutal Tsarist regime. Centralization doesn’t inherently mean democratic control, but you can’t have meaningful democratic input without control, and thus democratic output.
Again, decentralized market systems naturally result in the “better” firms monopolizing and outcompeting, this isn’t something that can be meaningfully fought.
AES states have by no means been perfect democratic wonderlands, of course, but they have brought large democratization with respect to the level of development of the productive forces. I highly recommend reading the essay Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” It takes 20 minutes and contextualizes the benefits and struggles of AES states. Socialism is often judged through a false, idealist lens, rather than an analysis of the actual material conditions and structures.
It was an interesting read and reminded me that democratic socialists arguing for restricted capitalism and communists are often arguing for similar goals with differing language.
Sort of. Communists don’t want restricted Capitalism, they want to progress from Capitalism to Socialism.
In countries without capitalism and property rights, the billionaires are the government and the judiciary and the military.
In the US, they just have solidified a really good means of controlling it… I mean, the amount we don’t tax them, the super PACs we let them contribute to, and the control they have over our media are definitely forms of control that may not be “as bad” as other systems (arguably) but it seems like it’s really similar.
Many reasons. One major factor imho is the belief or illusion to be living in a meritocracy. Which would mean, that someone who’s rich has to have earned it and therefore criticism must stem from envy or jealousy. The same belief fuels the ideology of thinking of poor people to just be lazy leeches on society.
The idea of meritocracy is such a bullshit lie it’s laughable. We need it so our children don’t live in a world without hope but much like santa claus they should shed the idea around the time of college. There are merit based reward systems. Ladder climbing is real. Only, many of them are corrupted by politics and mismanagement. Even if you succeed in an isolated merit based system it’s only to incentivize more production and you will never reach the level of CEO or what ever.
What we should teach young adults is that life is a lottery inside a lottery inside a lottery. Success is about increasing your odds by taking as many smart bets as you can. Bets where the reward is great and where you don’t have much at stake if you lose. Betting with other people’s money is the most efficient way of extracting value. The meritocracy isn’t real, so neither is the morals around it. If you want nothing but an easy life this is how you do it. If your can’t in good conscious gamble with other people’s livelihoods we will see you on the ladder.
Many don’t even do it intentionally, they just don’t grasp concepts like Historical and Dialectical Materialism, which requires reading lengthy books to fully grasp. They may be anti-Capitalist at heart, but without a solid understanding of theory they play into bourgeois hands.
There’s also the fact that the ideas held by society are a reflection of the Mode of Production.
Pretty sure they’d take everything you just wrote and say, “that sounds like critical race theory, which Jesus said was bad.”
Sure. The de-industrialization of America has been devastating for class awareness.
What de industrialization?
US is second largest industrial output and it has been rising.
Unless you mean jobs after NAFTA and code changes… Which is true but manufacturing employment is on the rise post covid reforms
The US shifted the vast majority of its production overseas, which is why it’s seen as a “service economy.”
US did offshore no doubt but it was not a vast majority. You can check the numbers, there was some decline in employment but US has high tech factories and industrial base is now growing quickly even with job growth since covid.
The reason it is largely a service economy is due to growth in service sector after industrialization. Once people got all their needs with goods met, they started buying service.
Think about all the food joints we have now for example. This is fairly recent thing. Sure food out always existed but not like this.
Also, people have god walkers, people buy insurance etc all this is kinda recent in big picture thing
I am aware of the process, the US produces the vast majority of its commodities oversees before “finishing” or “assembling” in the US. It’s Imperialism in action, where it hyper-exploits the Global South for super-profits.
Right but we started this here with claim that US de industrialized which I saying is not accurate and it is a common misconception thrown around.
It doesnt even require that much reading of such subjects. All it takes is to not be brainwashed by media and politicians.
Critical thought and self awareness is all it takes
I’m sorry, but I entirely disagree. Dialectical and Historical Materialism are incredibly far-removed from standard American discourse and takes quite a bit to understand, oversimplifying it is dangerous. If all it took to be a Marxist-Leninist was critical thought and self-awareness, the US would have had a proletarian revolution already.
Usually it’s my friend Cowbee here who tells people to read things, but here I will:
https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
“Brainwashing” is a reactionary myth (that originally comes from orientalist stories of Chinese hypnosis that were used to explain-away defectors in the Korean war) that is used to position the believer in a position superior to the masses (“sheeple”), and which only knows how to treat the latter condescendingly as blind followers of this or that, which is not how you do mass organizing if you want to succeed.
Should be mandatory reading, thanks for posting it!
Because propaganda is effective.
temporarily embarrassed billionaires
Richard Nixon’s head : I promise to cut taxes for the rich and use the poor as a cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel!
[audience applauds]
Philip J. Fry : That’ll show those poor!
Turanga Leela : You’re not rich!
Philip J. Fry : But someday I might be rich, and people like me better watch their step
People who defend billionaires either have a vested interest, have actually bought that they’re 1000x smarter than normal people, or have some (possibly vague) abstract moral position that overrules the basic idea of fairness. Often it’s more than one.
Capitalism, as the term is commonly used, is poorly defined enough that you have to specify what it means here. Is it any kind of market? Is it large corporations? Is it every interaction being purely voluntary (somehow)? If you consider a big Soviet firm like Gosbank a “corporation”, all three could also be socialist depending on who you ask.
Since this is .ml, for the classical Marxist definition that it’s “private ownership of the means of production”, the arguments are mainly against the proposed alternatives, or just that private vs. personal is hard to demarcate, and nobody wants to share a toothbrush.
I guess the central premise of capitalism is that while every society has its haves and have nots, capitalism is supposed to encourage the haves to invest in the economy rather than hoarding their wealth. In return, they stand to get even wealthier, but a stronger economy ought to generate more employment and generally improve the lives of commoners as well.
Unfortunately, in a never-ending quest to make wealth-generation more efficient and streamlined, employment is being eliminated through automation, outsourcing, etc. and the system is eating itself out from the inside. I doubt it can persist much longer, but what will replace it remains unclear. I pray that it will be something sensible that ensures everyone has their basic needs met and can still find rewarding pursuits in life. But there are so many ways it could go very wrong, and that includes staying on the current course.
I guess the central premise of capitalism is that while every society has its haves and have nots, capitalism is supposed to encourage the haves to invest in the economy rather than hoarding their wealth. In return, they stand to get even wealthier, but a stronger economy ought to generate more employment and generally improve the lives of commoners as well.
Nitpicky, but that’s the premise of Liberalism, not Capitalism. Capitalism emerged not because it was an idea, but an evolution in Mode of Production. Liberalism is the ideological justification.
Unfortunately, in a never-ending quest to make wealth-generation more efficient and streamlined, employment is being eliminated through automation, outsourcing, etc. and the system is eating itself out from the inside. I doubt it can persist much longer, but what will replace it remains unclear. I pray that it will be something sensible that ensures everyone has their basic needs met and can still find rewarding pursuits in life. But there are so many ways it could go very wrong, and that includes staying on the current course.
Have you read Marx? He makes the case that due to Capitalism’s tendency to centralize and form monopolist syndicates with internal planning, the next mode of production is Socialism, ie public ownership and planning of the syndicates formed by the market system.
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In Ireland we suffered under British Imperialism and capitalism for hundreds of years and we had our own famine and repressions.
Fact that us often ignored in Anglo world… Or when it is brought up… This oppression is different 🤡
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If censorship in Soviet Ukraine is your reason for defending capitalism, don’t let it go over your head that such things happened and continue to happen in capitalist countries and colonies too.
for a reason that you are listening songs from another country or reading books, that was not accepted by censorship
Man are you going to have a wild time reading the First Act of Supremacy of 1534 from the United Kingdom. Couple of follow up bangers from it like the Act of Supremacy in Ireland of 1560. All that happening distinctly before communism was even invented.
Again, authoritarian, not communism.
You really to get yourself educated my friend
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Buddy im not even communist, i am still for capitalism.
Your criticism is given to you because of how ridiculous you sound when you regurgitate the same old propaganda that you watch on social media.
Its so obvious that these thoughts were not formed by your
Echo chambers suck, I’m sorry. It’s assbackwards when people dismiss real, lived experiences that don’t align with what they optimistically imagine those experiences would be like.
Not sure why you’ve got downvoted, but that’s the reason why all Baltic states had such a reaction when the invasion started.
That said, I would say that most of those states are highly socialistic despite having pretty much allergy to anything red and while preferring a capitalist system that doesn’t mean they want or support billionaires.
It could be because they arent even describing communism. These problems are easily found right now.
The problem here is that people dont even know what communism is and they end up giving these kinds of answers. Makes you think thats probably why they made a new account
Theres no genuine convo of why communism is bad.
It’s more because it’s a bunch of random assertions, falsehoods, misunderstandings, half-truths, and more with no substance to tackle and respond to without starting a lengthy struggle session.
The USSR absolutely was guided by Communist ideology, and was Socialist, that’s true. It’s also true that it wasn’t perfect. A good article to read is Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” because many people don’t understand Marxism and interpret it through an idealist, anti-Marxist lens. The article is pro-Marxist-Leninist, and anti-ultraleftist, and attempts to highlight the impossibilities of establishing an idealized form of Socialism through fiat, without strong development of the productive forces and centralization.
Centralization = corruption
Explain. You cannot achieve democratic control without centralization, because you can’t have inputs with no output.
Issue of centralization is regime and politics agnostic. More centralization just results in more corruption.
I am not sure how to run the society any other way but we know that current systems are corrupted by the ruling elites at our expense.
Legal system is unwilling to deal with it because the judiciary are just regime lapdogs used against working people when they get out of line.
Issue of centralization is regime and politics agnostic. More centralization just results in more corruption.
Again, please explain. This doesn’t logically follow.
I am not sure how to run the society any other way but we know that current systems are corrupted by the ruling elites at our expense.
Capitalism is, Socialism isn’t.
Legal system is unwilling to deal with it because the judiciary are just regime lapdogs used against working people when they get out of line.
In Capitalism, yes.
Have you read Marx?
So your describing surveillance capitalism
That’s how I see how Zuckerberg sends your grandfather to Siberia for lack of work and unwillingness to work, as it happened with my grandfather :) Don’t you think that you are exaggerating (so far) the level of problems in your country? All these problems of listening to you for the sake of selling goods are trifles compared to what any radical-communist-nazi who dares to power will do
Ok if we go off of that example, explain how exactly a so called communist country will exclusively force people to something against their will? What youre describing is closer to authoritarian government…
Nazis are not communist at all, they are facists. Youve been watching too much bullshit news from people who dont have a elementary clue of political science. This is why you cant even give a good clear answer as to why youre defending billionaires and surveillence capitalism.
Under censorship you’ll not create . . . good meals
Are you saying that the Soviets censored recipes?
Yes. Food in the shop had a bad quality with a permanent deficit. Big amount of good food in modern country is making by a small business
This could be a language barrier thing, but it sounds like you’re talking about a production issue, not a censorship issue.
okay, despite the cultural and resource diversity, what prevented then in the Soviet Union from making normal food en masse for people like sushi or even shawarma? Why was there only sausage and chebureks, buns, vodka, beer everywhere? Because there is an order to do so and there is a chain of manufacturers, there was no initiative from below, although the country was supposed to be for the people. Due to the size of the state apparatus for serving the population, any initiative was lost. In the end, everything was done only when the old grandfather wanted to show off in front of the West :) there is nothing made of high quality in the Soviet Union, except for missiles that were sold to other countries to shoot at people :) and everything that served the military industry.
I’m going to avoid touching the rest of that and say that a centralized production not making sushi or shawarma is not the same as censoring those things. You can still make them at home, it’s not like fish, rice, and seaweed were beyond the reach of the existing production. Again, it sounds like a production issue.
and the main reason for the deficit was preparation for the war, not the desire to make people’s lives in the country better. Nothing prevented the Soviet Union with the Communists at its head from being an ally before the war with the Germans, attacking Poland together and attacking Finland, suppressing protests in Czechoslovakia and Hungary
I’m really struggling to follow some of this. Are you saying the Soviets didn’t need to fight Germany and didn’t need to take as much time as they could manage to prepare to do so?
Okay :) but everything was in deficit :) and this is not a production problem :) this is a problem of sick heads in power and a complete lack of empathy for the country’s citizens :) in relations between people, the deficit created corruption, with which Ukraine still has big problems. A habit was created to solve all cases not according to the law. People could not travel abroad without a large number of certificates and the personal permission of the local head of the party. Soviet engineers, having good talents, proposed different concepts of cars that were very modern, but the local leadership said no to any initiative from below. It was easier for them to simply copy Western equipment, or buy Western equipment and pass it off as their own, as Russia is doing now under sanctions. Now, under capitalism, you can protest and at most they will give you something like a fine for hooliganism. Under the Soviet Union and the Communists, there were no protests, or if there were, people were sent to Siberia, and their families were dismissed from their positions, and they had a label in front of state bodies that their family was unreliable. And the journalists did not say anything about it under the pressure of censorship, not even a hint. People learned all the information about the protests only after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And something similar happens in any country that wants to build communism. People become communists in their eyes, often not for the sake of making the world better, but for the sake of getting back at a system in which they are marginalized and losers
Because my country, Ukraine, was under communists and it was not good time with all genocides, holodomor, repressions, red terrors and other things
Yes, but none of that is unique to communism, that’s just corrupt government. Anywhere that develops systemic inadequacies and a culture of impunity can instantly become such. That’s just something that is independent of the underlying system of economics. Like many capitalist systems like to point out that bourgeoisie who are after their own interest act as some check on the government who is usually in a power struggle for control. And that power struggle is what ensures no one side wins out.
But there’s nothing technically stopping the rich from becoming the actors of the government and when we as a society excuse profiteering in office, well then there’s no barrier from the rich just becoming the government. Which that’s just the French ancien régime that ultimately lead to the French Revolution.
So it’s NOT specific to just communism. It’s just that’s the most recent and easiest one to point out because of how blatant/brazen that system had become with it’s corruption. Even with all of the “nay-saying” that might happen with United States detractors with their usual hum of “Oh well they’re all corrupt!” Even with how passive some are with it, the corruption is nowhere near the level of being out in the open that was with the USSR. Politicians still weasel their way around because they know that there’s still some bottom level of ensuring checks on that corruption that exist. And we have those checks not because we are a capitalist society.
I think the idea that some economic system promotes some civic purity or prevents some form of government corruption is a bad linking of things that ought not be linked, because a pure capitalist society doesn’t magically inherit some barrier of corruption. That barrier has to be formed independent of the underlying economic system.
I’m not trying to detract from what happened under the USSR but that has way more to do with how power got consolidated post World War I and everything that lead to the toppling of the Russian Monarchy. The system of communism played a role in that consolidation of power, yes, but literally any tool could have been used if you have someone with the mindset of Vladimir Lenin who wanted to rapidly consolidate power during the Bolshevik revolution. I mean look at the current Myanmar Civil War and some of the ideas of General Min Aung Hlaing, no need for implementation of communist ideology there, he just wants to be in power, doesn’t believe that the current transfer of power is legitimate, and is willing to get a lot of people killed in proving that point.
I think given the current situation in the United States, the belief that you NEED communism to have totalitarianism is a dangerous linking of things that can actually happen independent of each other. You just need someone to wear down government legitimacy enough to start a civil war, that’s all you need. Everything else is just tools at your disposal to get that goal done.
So you have to understand the nuance here I’m trying level. I’m not saying it WASN’T COMMUNISM, what I’m saying is that it can be communism, but ultimately you just need someone who wants to consolidate power rapidly and exists in a society that will forgive abuses of power enough, sometimes that’s done by de-legitimizing the current system enough. That’s it, that’s all that’s required. Communism can play a role in that somewhere, but it doesn’t have to.
Propaganda
Unfortunately many of us have been taught that being a good person and a good citizen equals being productive and accumulating resources. Things that are quantifiable and external to the actual person and their relationships.
Being productive and accumulating some resources can be good activities to spend time on, but they are practical necessities and not defining characteristics of existence.
About defending capitalism (and not billionaires - who more often than not abuse this system). Some of us lived in other systems. And we understand any other system is way way way way worse.
There are however a lot of problems with capitalism and should be held on a very short leash. Or else monopoly happens. The most effective actions to keep capitalism at bay: strong anti-trust laws, strong worker protection (this includes a lot of stuff), wealth tax.
And be aware there are many flavours of calitalism. Most commonly people in USA are the most extreme where you have really “long leash”. And people see such capitalism as failing and want to replace whole system.
There are however a lot of problems with capitalism and should be held on a very short leash. Or else monopoly happens. The most effective actions to keep capitalism at bay: strong anti-trust laws, strong worker protection (this includes a lot of stuff), wealth tax.
Capitalism eats the leash, you can’t avoid this.
As the above commenter mentioned it is possible to stop it eating the leash so to speak. The main problem is keeping all of those protections actually in place. We don’t seem to want to codify worker rights or anything else important to the constitution.
Follow the trends. People didn’t stop wanting rights, Capitalism exists in constant decay as it grows, eroding worker rights due to outsized Capitslist power.
You can only stop Capitalism from eating its leash if you stop time, as long as systems remain in motion they will trend in natural directions, for Capitalism that is centralization.
Correct!
This is simply not true. And whole EU is doing this more or less effectively. But your government has to be very very careful since this sure can happen.
In recent years we have seen degradation of this leash. But EU commission started keeping up with global monopolies.
I believe also in USA they are making some antitrust changes after a few decades of sleeping.
In recent years we have seen degradation of this leash.
Proving me correct.
Read all my statements again. And apply strict mathematic logic.
Few years of degradation of antitrust laws and some effective reforms in this year alone does not in any way prove your point.
It absolutely does. Follow the trends and the mechanisms.
Stick a finger up its butt and the leash will get spit back out? I think I read that somewhere, not sure if it works.
Our retirement is tied to it.
my retirement is non-existent
Maybe you should be working to fix that.
working on it, I’ve taken upon myself the eat the rich way of thinking and planning. however, after their wealth is distributed, retirement doesn’t work without an ever increasing population, does it?
This is the answer, right here
