March 16, 20241 yr I do wonder if Musk's 'endgame' is to become a politician maybe 10 years plus down the line after the retirement of Trump. Either that or he will support any replacement for Trump.
March 16, 20241 yr 23 minutes ago, Enrico_sw said: Most American CEOs are extremely clear about their political leanings. Bob Iger, Jeff Bezos, Jack Dorsey (Muks's predecessor), Larry Fink, Michael Bloomberg, etc. => all of them are pretty clear about their "wokeness" and their love for far left extremism. Wokism has infiltrated capitalism in the past 5 years. It's an infection. IMHO WOKE in US corporate culture was just a natural social pattern, as back in the 2000s it was called 'Corporate diversity'. The US has a diverse population so it is natural that corporate propaganda would create such initiatives to maintain workplace morale and make their company look more attractive for PR and potential employees. It always appeared to be disingenuous as with the current forms. A lot of the modern WOKE stuff is due to the way Americans are educated, especially those with liberal arts degrees. So as they rose in the corporate ranks they started to having their 'own ideas', which has proven to be negative in the field of entertainment. WOKE, feminism, etc. and other 'social justice' movements however strongest fuel is in the economic area: massive economic problems and failure of the American dream for approx. half of the population to have the standard of living, family, and social life they want. It is the politics of discontent and unhappiness, and social failure, originating most strongly from a broken economic and gov't system.
March 16, 20241 yr Feminism and other politics of unhappiness would naturally fade away ( significantly- half way I believe) if men with high school or even middle school diplomas could get jobs where they could buy a house in a few years and securely live a middle class lifestyle with a family on a single income like in the 1950s-1960s. De-industrialization secured this loss. The most basic and important things like housing, education, and healthcare have become unaffordable and women have become wage-slaves with family declining in importance. Corporations have become much more powerful since the 1960s and the individual much weaker. Economics and Culture has de-evolved into a very twisted set of priorities, it is actually family formation that is no. 1 in life and the backbone of a functioning society, not the endless chasing of delusions. Sadly there seems to be no way to repair things.
March 16, 20241 yr 2 hours ago, Cult Icon said: Medvedev is an internet troll... Medvedev is a former president who is still deputy of the security council. Also a lot of his rhetoric leading up to the Ukraine war has come to pass. Pretending that him denying the existence of the state of Latvia is no big deal and certainly does not mean that the Baltics might soon be threatened by Russia is naive at best.
March 16, 20241 yr 41 minutes ago, SympathysSilhouette said: Medvedev is a former president who is still deputy of the security council. Also a lot of his rhetoric leading up to the Ukraine war has come to pass. Pretending that him denying the existence of the state of Latvia is no big deal and certainly does not mean that the Baltics might soon be threatened by Russia is naive at best. It's like how Biden claimed that 50% of the Russian economy would be lost due to sanctions and how people in the West falsely made up stories that Putin would be overthrown somehow due to the war. Medvedev tweets are like any other political troll's tweets, they are mostly fiction directed to stimulate the imagination of extremists and are completely at odds with what the Russian state/Putin is doing and saying. Journalists from the West like to use this as the most flimsy sort of 'proof', when they clearly know nothing about the enemy country that they pretend to be experts about. IF Russia invades the Baltics/Poland NATO will use nuclear weapons on them. What the Russians want is the demilitarization of Ukraine and turning it a North Korea/South Korea type situation with a DMZ.
March 16, 20241 yr On 3/5/2024 at 5:35 PM, Cult Icon said: In the US & UK- it was mainly the conservative right that de-regulated and de-industrialized both countries to a staggering degree, leading to the creation of a lot of poverty and disfunction in society. The Unions were on the left. You're talking about Reagan/Thatcher in the 80s. The de-regulated both foreign trade and internal economies. That's not what I think is best, but at least that was consistent and they didn't attach a ball to their industry's feet. In the 90s, people noticed that there was a need for regulations (health, environment, etc.) and they were right. Some regulations were needed. Internally and externally. And simple ones. Since the 2010s, there's a big folly in the West (especially in the European Union): very stringent regulations within our countries and free trade with countries that have close to zero regulations (China, India, etc.). This is the recipe for de-industrialization. The Left is holding this view and wildly so. Parts of the Right (including Trump) see the folly and impact of it. That's why our agricultors have been protesting in France in the past months. They're smothered by regulation while cheaper and less qualitative products come from overseas freely. Today's Far Left has a fantasy: punishing Westerners and destroy the West. That's their prime goal.
March 16, 20241 yr On 3/5/2024 at 5:35 PM, Cult Icon said: The majority of service jobs come from the result of the bloated overdevelopment and overcompetition (I believe there is such a thing!) of industries- the physical/tangible 'wealth' of the society itself has not improved much at all (and even decrease) and the psychological-physical cost on human well-being and health can increase as it has in the US & Asia. I believe that the grip of mega-corporations and their negative impact on the economy is due to under-competition. Companies have been buying each other like crazy for the past decades. In many sectors: steel, aluminium, turbines, glass, plastic, entertainment, Fast-moving consumer goods, big tech, etc. These are oligopolies (and sometimes monopolies). Finance is dominated by giants like Blackrock (BTW, f** Larry Fink). Small business have been crushed by these giants. These mobs try to "force behaviour" (that's what Fink said). They are screwing up the middle-class, because they don't give a shit. That's their dream: Spoiler This is not very different from communism.
March 16, 20241 yr On 3/5/2024 at 5:35 PM, Cult Icon said: Consumers are also not "perfect economic actors'- they also can be "captured" much more easily than economic theories assume with aggressive propaganda/marketing and lock-in by powerful corporations/industries. This is true. But powerful corporations are the result of "under-competition". Basically, there should be competition everywhere it's possible (and the state should ensure that by breaking down oligopolies/monopolies) and regulation where it's not possible (which concerns very few sectors).
March 16, 20241 yr 51 minutes ago, Cult Icon said: Feminism and other politics of unhappiness would naturally fade away ( significantly- half way I believe) if men with high school or even middle school diplomas could get jobs where they could buy a house in a few years and securely live a middle class lifestyle with a family on a single income like in the 1950s-1960s. De-industrialization secured this loss. The most basic and important things like housing, education, and healthcare have become unaffordable and women have become wage-slaves with family declining in importance. Corporations have become much more powerful since the 1960s and the individual much weaker. Economics and Culture has de-evolved into a very twisted set of priorities, it is actually family formation that is no. 1 in life and the backbone of a functioning society, not the endless chasing of delusions. Sadly there seems to be no way to repair things. That's what I think. I would just add that mega-corporations (aka the result of under-competition) allied with far left ideologies to screw up the middle class. Mega-corportations and Marxism are very close in terms of ideologies. They both hate freedom and crush oppositions. The middle class was f*** by both of these ideologies.
March 16, 20241 yr Mega-corporations love feminism, it helps them enslave women in BS jobs and crush the family to get more consumers. This is woke trash. Feminist frequency or "sweet baby inc" are the agents of these corporations to infect the gaming industry. But we resist. We won't get f*** by these powerful douchebags.
March 16, 20241 yr 52 minutes ago, Cult Icon said: IF Russia invades the Baltics/Poland NATO will use nuclear weapons on them. What the Russians want is the demilitarization of Ukraine and turning it a North Korea/South Korea type situation with a DMZ. If there is anything I have become convinced of over the past two years it's that there is no way an invasion of the Baltics would lead to a nuclear exchange. NATO would have to send in conventional troops (or perhaps the alliance won't even exist any more in the way it does now by that point). Trump seems serious about pulling out of NATO, which would reduce the nuclear deterrent to just the UK and France in a European context. Your own reasoning does not make sense, on the one hand Russia is a war economy with production capabilities that the West cannot match, on the other hand they would have no interest in taking over countries that would pose far less of a challenge logistically and in terms of manpower and equipment than Ukraine did and does.
March 16, 20241 yr 1 hour ago, SympathysSilhouette said: If there is anything I have become convinced of over the past two years it's that there is no way an invasion of the Baltics would lead to a nuclear exchange. NATO would have to send in conventional troops (or perhaps the alliance won't even exist any more in the way it does now by that point). Trump seems serious about pulling out of NATO, which would reduce the nuclear deterrent to just the UK and France in a European context. Your own reasoning does not make sense, on the one hand Russia is a war economy with production capabilities that the West cannot match, on the other hand they would have no interest in taking over countries that would pose far less of a challenge logistically and in terms of manpower and equipment than Ukraine did and does. 1. why not? That was NATO's game plan in the Cold War and why nothing happened. 2. It requires Russia to declare war on Ukraine and mobilize a greater part of society. An army of many millions to invade Europe, think in terms of 6 million or more and an army in the millions to occupy a country the size of Ukraine. Not an expeditionary force of 600,000-430,000. The entire Russian ground force was roughly 330,000+ men in 2022 and their initial force of 160,000. The claims that Russia wants to take over Ukraine (by Western media, MIC funded war mongering think tanks, and politicians) and invade other countries are bogus. 3. Russia appears to be greatly outproducing and outsupplying the force in Ukraine is a testament to how de-militarized and incapable modern war machines are compared to the Cold War and WW2. It is not a sign of a high level of capability. The US bombed Vietnam with a greater weight of fire than WW2 but in this war they struggle to produce basic artillery shells in anywhere near the required number. Both NATO and Russia are a pale shadow of what they used to be. 4. It is still unclear if they intend to launch a second invasion of Ukraine at all. They could do it and try to clear out the Donbass and the rest of Oblast Z and K but they do not have enough troops in the reserve army to do much more. There is still no second round of mobilization. Or they could just continue positional warfare and try to exhaust Ukraine until it collapses and deplete as much NATO hardware and munitions stockpiles until a political solution is achieved. That is the extent of their ambitions.
March 20, 20241 yr On 3/16/2024 at 6:19 PM, Enrico_sw said: You're talking about Reagan/Thatcher in the 80s. The de-regulated both foreign trade and internal economies. That's not what I think is best, but at least that was consistent and they didn't attach a ball to their industry's feet. In the 90s, people noticed that there was a need for regulations (health, environment, etc.) and they were right. Some regulations were needed. Internally and externally. And simple ones. Since the 2010s, there's a big folly in the West (especially in the European Union): very stringent regulations within our countries and free trade with countries that have close to zero regulations (China, India, etc.). This is the recipe for de-industrialization. The Left is holding this view and wildly so. Parts of the Right (including Trump) see the folly and impact of it. That's why our agricultors have been protesting in France in the past months. They're smothered by regulation while cheaper and less qualitative products come from overseas freely. Today's Far Left has a fantasy: punishing Westerners and destroy the West. That's their prime goal. Trump's will to impose tariff on Chinese cars is a proof that the Right is trying to defend the Western industry. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13210227/bloodshed-donald-trump-rally-automobile-car-imports.html The Left is the prime destroyer of the industry in the West, because of a) their strong regulations in the West and b) their push for free trade with countries that have zero regulations (like China).
March 22, 20241 yr On 2/23/2024 at 5:23 PM, Enrico_sw said: Competition has brought many intellectual and technological breakthroughs that led to prosperity. Contrary to what a lof of nonsensical leftist "thinkers" believe, Western countries became the world leaders in the 19th/20th century, NOT because they stole a bunch of resources (primary sector) in poor countries, but because their industry (secondary sector) was far superior than anyone else's. The industry has been the key to prosperity, and, competition is the core engine of the industry. I agree with you that most of the tertiary sector is composed of BS jobs. Tertiary companies and jobq are widely overvalued. The reason why there's so much overvaluation is because the competitive intensity has largely decreased in the West. Sane States are supposed to prevent over-concentration in the industry, but that's not what we did. Big oligopolies (Google, Amazon, General Electric, AT&T, Disney, etc.) were allowed. Less competition, less efficient industry, less creativity. This replicates the same flaws that socialist/communist economies have. In short, the industry made the West rich and then Western leaders spoiled it to redistribute it to a BS tertiary economy. You talk about competition but that's only one thing, it's stuff like the Western way of doing business and the environment that was more successful initially- property rights, financial instruments, strong rule of law, etc. and support of industries by the governments (both in Asia and in Western countries). But that is really in the past as these advantages are gone, other states have them too. About 'less competition' that is not necessarily the case. Competition can easily destroy new and growing businesses before they can develop to their full potential, it happens all the time, typically by industry leaders. The typical US new business will fail, it is only a tiny minority that succeed for more than a few years. I do agree with you on how established Fortune 500 type corporations are engaging in corporation socialism though. The flaws that "socialist/communist' economies "have" apparently allowed China to be no. 1 in the world with state capitalism. USA recovered from 1930s Great depression (25% unemployment), built the 1940s war machine, and went to space with state capitalism and several East Asian countries went from 3rd world to 1st world in a generation. The Soviet Union also industrialized after the Russian Civil War, won most of WW2, created the largest army in the world and went to space which was impossible for a capitalist regime before they began to decline internally. I don't think the core problem is competition. Outside of fossilized industries, there is massive overwork of people in many Western countries and Asia that have led to declining poor psychological and physical health. (US life expectancy has declined by a few years..) The key issue I believe is the whole "neoliberal"paradigm that has saturated the whole of US society and has to varying degrees saturated Western countries. It has massive failures that caused Western civilization to degenerate and stagnate and has effected asian countries as well. The UK seems to have most closely followed the failed US model to its extreme detriment. It extends from economic-financial to politics, international trade, military affairs, culture and is a form of state religion as all of us are educated under this paradigm and consume media that assumes it to be objective reality. It is a type of brainwashing that is at odds with the truth and any real understanding of what constitutes a worthwhile and flourishing society and life. The final result is that billionaires-upper class, finance sector, multi-national corporations, government and certain favored industries (healthcare, education, defense, real estate, etc) become predatory over the bottom 99% + of society, which has stagnating or lower living standards due to being ripped off and used as "labor factor inputs" (catastrophic inflation and low job security/overcompetition for jobs that aren't minimum wage, etc...). The human being becomes siloed- out "atomized, individual consumers" and the actual institution of the "family" is broken up via the destruction of traditional social values/community with LGBT/Feminism etc. Western governments and households have incredibly high debt levels (especially the US), and live hand to mouth due to operating an extremely unbalanced economy, society, and state.
March 22, 20241 yr On 3/16/2024 at 1:44 PM, Enrico_sw said: Mega-corporations love feminism, it helps them enslave women in BS jobs and crush the family to get more consumers. This is woke trash. Yeah, feminism and the myth of the independent woman that "can have it all" (in reality only some make it, the others fail) and shaming women that put family first plays in quite well in procuring a new labor supply. I think that is why corporations like to signal their support for this. The Sex and the City 'Dream' so to speak, and the sad myth of the average woman eventually getting a lifestyle like a hollywood celebrity... On 3/16/2024 at 1:19 PM, Enrico_sw said: Since the 2010s, there's a big folly in the West (especially in the European Union): very stringent regulations within our countries and free trade with countries that have close to zero regulations (China, India, etc.). This is the recipe for de-industrialization. The Left is holding this view and wildly so. Parts of the Right (including Trump) see the folly and impact of it. That's why our agricultors have been protesting in France in the past months. They're smothered by regulation while cheaper and less qualitative products come from overseas freely. The biggest problem is "free trade". It absolutely ruinous in a way that economists who are miseducated under the neoliberal paradigm do not understand. When all of US industry disappears and instead goods from Mexico and China are imported, the American people lose not only tens of millions of jobs but the entire infrastructure and capability to make essential goods in the first place. Then the people are impoverished and have to live on credit, hand to mouth and are unable to form families, raise more than 1 kid, stimulate local economies and create communities, leading to vicious cycle. Both in North American and Europe the birthrate dropped massively only to be replaced by illegal and legal immigrants. The white woman birthrate dropped by 1-1.5 children in these countries. The complete loss of countless industries since the 1970s means that Americans can no longer learn how to make such things, let alone create multinationals. Also a society needs to have a jobs for all types of people, not just people who want to rot inside of cubicles and in front of computer screens. White collar work is physically/psychologically unhealthy and unnatural & mentally ill to an extent. And it's not like multinationals are necessarily selling manufactured products cheaply, much of it rips off the consumer with a high profit margin. This is why half of the US is looking more like a 3rd world country than a 1st world.
March 22, 20241 yr On 3/20/2024 at 9:50 AM, Enrico_sw said: This is how Russians see the Americans. Interesting. Why should we care what Russians think of anything? A country outside of the top 50 in quality of life rankings. Yeah, that's what we should all aspire to be.
March 22, 20241 yr 2 hours ago, SympathysSilhouette said: Why should we care what Russians think of anything? A country outside of the top 50 in quality of life rankings. Yeah, that's what we should all aspire to be. I agree that Russia is far from being perfect. I'm happy to live in France and not there. But that doesn't mean they can't formulate valid criticism on us. France (and I believe the West) in the 90s was a paradise, but we've been going downhill since then. The Zeitgeist causes an obsession for race, gender and all these other nonsensical issues. It's destructive and divisive. We used to be more united. That's a weakness. They exploit it.
March 22, 20241 yr If you look at what happens (even in Belgium), people are less and less happy every year, while we are getting more and more "woke". It's not just a correlation, it's causation.
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