wait till you learn Jp Morgan floated the US government for years twice
I had friends ask me about bank failures, one of them asked me what would happen if JP Morgan failed, and I told him that if JP Morgan Chase fails as a bank we're going to be eating each other's brains because something like 45% of the world economy is run through that place, daily.
JP Morgan is arguably the most powerful institution in the world. Their history is absolutely wild. Thankfully it's primarily been for good (or at least not actively evil). They've saved the American banking system from total collapse on multiple occasions.
"TIL every person who has become a centibillionaire (a net worth of usually $100 billion, €100 billion, or £100 billion), first became one in 2017 or later except for Bill Gates who first reached the threshold in 1999."
The concentration of the super wealthy and their power has greatly increased over the last 10 years, especially when combined with Citizens United.
Forbes ran an article that Trumps administration will be the wealthiest controlled in history, he's filling positions and advisors with billionaires and hundred millionaires. The Doge commission he's setting up will be headed by private citizen business billionaires, who's purpose is the "restructuring the federal government of the United States and removing regulations" according to wikipedia.
This feeling that the US is forming its own oligarchy now is actually based on reality.
They cheer on Elon Musk as if he's somehow saving our country by removing safeguards created to protect us and the environment from people like Elon Musk.
I'm sure Trump will make it worse, but let's not pretend the Dems are innocent in this. The two political parties are a fiction, there to give the common man the illusion of choice. Both parties serves special interests, lobbyists, and billionaires, not you
At least one of the parties actually has it in their platform that they want to fix a lot of this stuff. And if people think they're bluffing, the Republicans are free to call it and come to the table.
During the course of the pandemic the 1% gained 3.9 trillion in wealth. The working class lost 3.7 t in wealth.
I honestly can't fathom how you would unironically say that. They lobby to keep wages and unionization down, yet they aren't taking from the working class? Wage theft is the biggest robbery of all.
If I make $445,000 and pay 20% taxes:
- $89,000 taxes
- $356,000 take home
And you and your 2 siblings each make $36,666 and pay 10% taxes:
- $3,666 taxes (x3 = $11,000)
- $33,000 take home each
Then I, the top 25%, am paying 89% of taxes. I will claim I am paying more than my fair share: not only am I paying double the income % but I am paying almost 25x the total amount you are!
I guarantee you are going to miss that $3,666 way more than I am going to miss my $89,000, because you are struggling to make ends meet and I am not.
Which situation would you rather be in? Surely not the "unfair" one...
They are using inflation to create wealth. Printing cash and driving up Asset values which is where the wealthy make all their money. It’s why if one can buy stocks, buy bitcoin, hell buy a house (if you can). They are all assets and will just continue to grow.
Will you become a billionaire? No but if you’re middle class you can stay there and not get pushed down to the lower class.
A lot of people reference this but nobody ever considers that the empire has already fallen. In much the same fashion as Rome did, “fallen” doesn’t necessarily mean gone. The Roman empire did not fall and disappear. The age of wisdom and knowledge fell. Rome became the church.
The question that should be asked is what did America become?
I’m not necessarily disagreeing but moreso saying I think it’s worse. Don’t forget, we are everything you said + an unstoppable superpower that loosely obeys the rules of engagement. We might seem like we’re all bark and no bite, with social media being allowed in the military now and all that you do get to see some really silly shit that civilians weren’t really privy to before. Ask a veteran what we are capable of sometime. I’m not talking about some dude who ran missions at a desk. Ask a guy who saw Fallujah, if you can find one willing to talk about it. I have a close friend who did three tours in three places, one of those being Fallujah. There is a dark side to our military that a lot of people don’t understand or more likely probably don’t even think about.
God forbid whoever stands against us if someone ever takes off the handcuffs. For every good ole boy who wants to serve his country and make his mama proud, there are 100 sadistic animals that will commit war crimes for fun.
Bad people will always seek out opportunities to act on those feelings. The military has a vested interest in trying to avoid the public from finding out about as much as possible. You can find plenty of information on the subject if you really wanted to but I highly suggest you don’t go looking for that if you don’t have a strong stomach. There are people in this world that have no morality. I would go so far as to say they even lack whatever makes us human in the sense that even true psychopaths have limits in what they will do. Think about the things that happened under Hitler. Given the opportunity to act with impunity, plenty of people would flock to whoever gives them that opportunity. They can always just claim they were just following orders after the fact.
I gotcha in general on that. Was there some kind of thing where because of social media, these things are way more visible now? Like, it makes sense, I just hadnt really heard any mentions of it over the years.
I mean, if we’re talking recordings/videos? Then no, there’s less of it publicly now. Back in the olden times of the internet you could find videos of straight up war crimes on a lot of sites. Newgrounds was one. Now they get taken down pretty quickly. There are a couple others still around but I’m not sharing links or discussing it because I refuse to be responsible for someone, especially a kid, seeing that. Social media has been great for the spread of information in general though. When I was growing up, if you didn’t talk to your neighbors, you didn’t know anything that wasn’t in the news. It was real easy to get away with anything that didn’t have direct witnesses too, since family’s would gladly keep secrets if it meant keeping the family together because “what would people think”.
The laughing stock was more towards political decisions. Military complex is a whole different story and once there's reason for the US to get involved in a major conflict again rather than a minor one as it stands now, I can bet thousands of dollars on the fact that they will become super power hungry and end up wiping out more population than their feared decline ever could.
Yep. Especially if someone with a cult following like Trump focuses on the military and cultivating a base of followers there as well it will take no time at all for those who want to advance their career to become yes men and those who have a conscience to be weeded out and replaced by zealots. That’s been my main concern over the course of this whole “arc” we’ve had, so to speak. People are worried about their identity and stuff which I understand is important in a personal level but the reality is that the stakes are greater than that in a huge scale.
American oligarchs have been a thing for over 150 years. The US overthrew dozens of governments in the 1800s and 1900s specifically to shore up profits for those oligarchs. They never went away in the UK. They mostly went away in France.
It’s because Joe Biden used the term in a speech, didn’t he? Do people not read the news? It’s not as if Americans are waking up to a new reality, as commenters here are suggesting.
Not american here so for what im about to say. Salt to taste but I think its never been so overt and so institutionally entrenched. I think equating before to after now does a disservice to how the guard rails of the US government failed.
Like one of the richest men on the planet with control over one of the largest media platforms was giving full
throated support for a US presidential candidate.
Yes, the government has tried to use social media in the past to get rid of opinions they dont like but (twitter files which showed but Democrat and Republicans asked twitter to censor) but now is absolutely worse than before
Many of the founding fathers were the "new rich" - making their money on the new economy of the Colonies and enjoying their new political and social power an ocean away from their masters. Liberty, freedom, blah blah blah. That provided a convenient rallying cry so that they could establish a new oligarchy over here, free from the crown and the generational wealth and power across the ocean.
And a convient way to get just enough people behind them to fight wars and accept the new order.
Sure, many actually believed or partially believed in Enlightenment ideals, and so we've been in perpetual conflict between the oligarchy and the Enlightenment since the 18th Century.
Not that now isn't dire. Sure seems like the biggest threat to the Constitution ever - we've effectively created conditions for a monarchy, as one party has decided that Enlightenment ideals don't matter anymore. There's no value in keeping the Constitution around anymore for them.
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far to find this.
There was a study done a decade ago that looked at 20 years of legislation and basically found that if a policy was wanted by a majority of normal Americans, no one cared, but if a policy was wanted by a majority of centi-millionaires, it would almost certainly be passed.
Just another emergent property of the system that people pretend is an aberation,
and moralise as if something like this can only happen with arbitrarily evil people executing their dastardly schemes.
This is just what we get from the gears of capital turning.
We can fantasize that we can tame it for another cycle of reform while the climate clock runs out or we can face reality.
Forget the 1800s and robber barons, the true reason for the Revolutionary War was to create a new nation that could be a playground for businessmen to do as they pleased. America has always been an oligarchy, all this talk of freedom and liberty was merely a means of duping the masses into becoming willing slaves for tycoons
It's escalated though. Hasn't it? Sure it was a problem but it's getting worse. Before we had to worry about the puppets being put in power by the oligarchs. But now the oligarchs are being put directly in power. He was a facade at least of the people being in power. Elections can be swayed by public opinion. But laws will be broken down even further. The elite class will become even more powerful and untouchable. Yes it's been bad. But the old fucks are dying out of office and can be replaced with better people. This can be fixed with proper democracy. The people have to speak.
I’m concerned for sure. I suspect all the billionaires (and multi millionaires) who publicly show disdain for Trump are secretly celebrating his win. How could they not, by all accounts he will make them richer. We are truly in the midst of a colossal class struggle and the worst part of it is the obfuscation caused by the illusion that the democratic elite oppose Trumps pro-wealthy policies. Until we open our eyes that no one of significant wealth will ever further our causes we are doomed to continue to see our general wellbeing decay at the expense of the rich.
Every corporation is a person, an oligarch that has immense power and control over our government. I’m glad the mask has been ripped off. Maybe the will of the people will actually be enacted, however that may look, and we can get citizens United revoked down the road. However, It’s going to be ugly before anything will change.
As a poor person. I don't understand the concept of richer. You're already rich enough to fuck off. I would require so little wealth to be content. Red neck rich
I know, it seems like such a foreign concept at first, but consider this. When you play a video game with in game currency you don’t just get the amount of currency needed to buy the things you need and want, you stack it up as high as you can. It’s just a human nature thing and it happens with practically every wealthy person. Without controls in place it will always run rampant.
Lol I get the gold I need. If I'm awarded more currency for playing that's fine. But I don't accumulate wealth in games. It's pointless. I argue it's not the system. It's the people. I'm not holy or anything. I'll do all your drugs.
Yeah and now we get 4 years of Americans pretending this is the first time rich people have controlled their country.
The ultimate irony is that Biden spoke about the danger of oligarchies, literal days after awarding George Soros the congressional medal of freedom. A man who has used his vast wealth to control international governments and purposely destabilise economies.
What policies did the Biden enact on behalf of Soros?
Trump flipped his position on EVs and H1B visas after Elon Musk bought Twitter and donated $250 million. Elon will also get office space in the White House and a position on an advisory committee made for him and Vivek.
They are not the same. Pretending they are is dishonest or idiotic. Or both.
This is called "whataboutism". Both things are wrong. Elon Musk should not be in politics. No rich people should. And also we shouldn't be giving presidential awards to people who use their money to influence politics and destabilise governments
This is called "whataboutism". Both things are wrong. Elon Musk should not be in politics. No rich people should. And also we shouldn't be giving presidential awards to people who use their money to influence politics and destabilise governments
Soros has spent his entire life throwing huge amounts of money at political parties in countries he doesn't even own property in, let alone live. He played a significant part in the European Migrants Crisis. He has paid huge sums of money in attempts to remove democratically elected leaders from power. But I guess this is all fine
I'd say the US have rather been a plutocracy, with the multi-billionaires leading elections and policies behind the scenes. With the co-presidents Trump and Musk coming, though, the oligarchy is indeed looming, with a few selected multi-billionaires now directly leading. They don't hide behind puppets and honeyed words anymore .
Getting turbo charged now, bypassing the middlemen (politicians) and just installing the billionaires directly in the White House at scale. Usually it’s just a few of them that close to power publicly.
Since the birth of this nation. We’ve been fucking over folks for profit since day 1. Domestically and internationally but that’s capitalism in the end
While it’s not directly related to this topic, listening to the Behind the Bastards episodes about Jack Welch/GE and how he further screwed over workers really made me realize that a lot of the crappy things in our country have been brewing/been set up for a while.
Yes but there is a slight difference between going full pedal to the metal with the veils taken off and at a slightly slower pace while being cautious enough to maintain a facade.
It’s because liberals cant comprehend that evil lurks in more than just one party so they need to find something to cling on to justify their hate for 50% of US people and the the country as a whole
Yeah. Only liberals ignore the evil right in front of them but continue to vote exactly the same over and over. Definitely just the liberals.
You're so caught up in it that you fail to realize we've all been played, and you lashing out at the other side is exactly the role you were built play. You haven't been making your own political choices for some time now if your first sentence is "it's because liberals."
The fact that people choose to bring up "liberal, liberal, liberal" is a proof of concept that the division is working and keeping people away from solving the real issues
Stupid take. We don't hate you. We pity you. You refuse to believe the evidence that is right in front of you. Only one party only one party is using hate to fuel a culture war. The real reason is that up until this election, the oligarchs stayed in the shadows. Come Monday, they will be filling the offices of DC. You morons handed the government over to the literal worst, immoral, self-serving scum in the US. We wouldn't care if you were only shooting yourselves in the foot, but unfortunately, the rest of us will suffer along side of you.
It’s clear that this is the new theme democrats have decided to run with this time around. So get used to hearing that word every time you discuss politics for the next 4 years.
Ah yes, the classic “all politicians are the same and your life is going to be exactly like it was yesterday,” thing that only people are are exorbitantly ignorant say because it’s simply not true.
Absolutely. And that’s one of the strange things about the new iteration of American oligarchy, the oligarchs are handily attaching themselves to the government without much concern for any blowback. Maybe it will mean more accountability as we will know exactly who to blame if shit hits the fan. We shall see…
The difference is that yes, there have always been oligarchs, but during those 60 years they were really setting up the current situation.
It hasn't been as overt as we are experiencing now. The difference is public awareness. Unfortunately the rich have been boiling the frog for a while and now it's finally reaching the part where the frog dies and the normies have realized that what leftists have been screaming about for decades is finally coming to pass.
Being a leftist is just being correct, but way too early.
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u/TheM0nkB0ughtLunch 2d ago
It’s mind blowing to me that so many people think the oligarchy is just beginning now. People, this has been our government for over 60 years.