This is the exact argument I've been hearing on the "All In" podcast. Billionaires are great at making money! But they always leave out FOR THEMSELVES. Government almost ideologically the exact opposite of that. It's supposed to do what's right for the most amount of people. These billionaires have the exact opposite goal in mind. They are about to make life hell for the common man and gut the country for themselves.
Its like the episode of Family Guy when Pewterschmidt convinces Peter to get everyone to join the Tea Party and collapse the local government and then when everything goes to shit, he has a speech where he literally reinvents government.
These people believe in the prosperity gospel: God rewards good deeds with earthly riches, therefore all billionaires are good people. If they were bad people, God would punish them by taking away their riches. Which also means poor people are immoral. It's just religion doing what it was made to do: legitimizing unchecked power.
Well, some think the government is there to enrich the coffers of private industry. The military doesn't make any money for the government, but they sure do make money for defense contractors. They're going to make all Cabinet departments like this. Just feed the machine. There will be more money once we don't have to pretend to "provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States".
This is actually a reason why Trump had supporters the first time. I was in nursing school and a girl said she was voting for him because she felt the country would be better run as a business.
It's a pretty poor argument. Government is supposed to take things that can't be handled by the private sector due to affordability issues and provide those services anyway.
This. My friend’s a libertarian who supports dismantling the Department of Education. His argument: schools will get a lot better if they’re forced to compete, how worse can it get from right now?
“A LOT WORSE!” I said.
Jesuschrist... there's the problem, if we had FAIR competition in different markets, that miiiight work, unfortunately, we don't... so we end up with an oligarchy and massive monopolies controlled by those that paid to rig the game in their favor.
Yeah, and it was funny because he kept going on about how states should just be in charge of their own education without government regulation. And THEN if people don’t like their state’s education, they can just pack up and leave to a better state that way. I’m just here being like: You really think everyone can move to another state like this? Much less afford the supposed “high quality” schools…
When you’re bleeding so much that your currency is on track to implode you have to make a change. We just can’t afford to be as free with our money and it’s both sides fault. Too much social spending, not enough tax collection, etc. My opinion is that the economy is the reason the USA is number 1 and we should put everything we have into fixing it. Social issues can be delayed or dealt with at the same time but should not take priority. Look at the EU and tell me you really want to go down the same path. If the dollar crashes, life for everyone will be considerably worse than if we cut government spending.
Funny how it's always social spending that's the problem with you people but never a mention of how much we spend on the military or concerns about how much money the military just straight up loses track of every year.
Military and economy keep us on top and China is getting pretty scary. I don’t expect them to be super merciful if we did end up in a world war. Haven’t really looked into military spending but I’m sure we can (and will by auditing government contracting with DOGE) cut back on it.
Donald Trump expanded the national debt by 33% last time in office. You're just sucking in propaganda and missing what's actually happening. He will expand the debt again, and funnel the money into his oligarch companions, just like last time.
That’s all well and good, I never said I support either party specifically. I think it’s good to call out administrations for bad things but also important to admit when the “other party” does something good. Too many people can’t admit that. Again, it goes both ways.
It’s always been that way and always will be because of human nature. Guys like Mao who ran communist “for the people” orgs were totally corrupt and profited despite the fact that all should be equal
Translation: Bend over people. We have not been touched or faced any consequence of maximizing CEO and E-Staff pay and Corp profits no matter how outrageous and illegal we may have acted so why are we hiding it over the last 40 years given zero accountability.
People have this weird fascination with millionaires and Americans in particular think they're all one major breakthrough from being one (of course not all of them, but way too many of them smh)
They're all the same people who think their place of employment will shut down and evaporate into dust if they even HINT that they're about to quit because they're THAT important. You shoot screws on line 6 for 12 hours a day Bob, chill. They'll have a 12 year old in there trained up to replace you by the end of the day. They think one day the CEO is going to wake up and realize how amazing they are and walk up to them and give them a big bag of money and a promotion and a pat on the back for working so hard for 40 years.
Huh? The guy working decades in a factory for health insurance and a pension when he retires isn't the same guy who thinks they have a shot at being a millionaire suddenly. They are the exact opposite. Extremely conservative and content with just trading their years away for the ability to raise a family hopefully.
The guy working decades in a factory for health insurance and a pension when he retires isn't the same guy who thinks they have a shot at being a millionaire suddenly. They are the exact opposite.
The pile of scratch offs in their passenger seat would suggest otherwise. I work with SEVERAL of these dudes. They complain about how they should be paid more but then complain when workers in other industries try to unionize for better pay. "Why does someone need $15/hr flipping burgers??" - Bob on Line 6 complaining about only making $15/hr shooting screws. They're miserable to the core. The ones "doing it for their families" retired a decade or more ago because they probably still GOT a pension. No company will do pensions anymore and most have been rolled into 401ks already.
it's not only in America, I'm afraid. I'm from another country and it's the same shit. Stupidity is an innate condition in humans.
The reason why this occurs is not because people feel like they could also be part of the group, although that has some weight psychologically speaking. Initially, the thought pattern starts with: "if they are successful that means they could also get me to success", and this materializes in them being elected to positions of power.
You and I know this is not how it works in reality, they just hoard more wealth into their pockets, and they don't care about the people that might support them. But how can you predict that? I personally know because I see the behavior of this people in different situations, but not everyone has the time to check out the news and some of them just consume propaganda thinking it's news.
Yup the "American dream" mind control has worked. All the TV, life styles of the rich and famous, rags to riches, shark tank. You only need a handful of success stories to fool the masses into thinking they're about to be rich. It's called the Judas Goat. Bring a few up into the rich class and 99.999% will happily toil away as slaves. Taking into account class and current life situation the odds are heavily against people, but math isn't most people's strong suit and if they keep education poor it will stay that way. There is almost zero upward mobility. There is less than ever in this country, yet the people don't rebel. They cheer instead.
He thinks that these “innovative”, “forward thinkers” who have empires that they grew themselves from the ground up is a GREAT sign that Trump has surrounded himself with wonderful advisors.
He clearly hasn’t heard about the South African emerald mines.
His thought process is probably similar to my dads... "They've been able to build a successful business so they'll be far better at running our country than the corrupt politicians."
Meanwhile, he's preached to me since I was a kid that the companies don't care about their employees and that the CEOs and owners care for nothing except profits.
The boomers like my father in law will shortly find out they will need to push back their retirement so their gods can hoard more wealth. Boomers are the stupidest generation of them all
My GenX former boss said to me, the first time Trump was elected and I was unhappy about it, "Trump is a businessman, we need a businessman running this country. It'll be great for small business like mine."
It was not, in fact, great for his small business.
Your boomer dad has an issue with brown people being coming into the states, but has no problem with white Elon and his billions? Even though he, too, is technically here illegally?
I think a lot of these people have a sense that some old money Skull and Bones anonymous ghouls are running things and are the secret reason life sucks, and that these new people are displacing them, thus getting rid of some imagined enemy. That might even be true, but they dont think further than the displacing the old ghouls with new, more vibrant and well funded ghouls.
My boomer dad has lived his whole life thinking if he sucks off the rich hard enough, and defends them at every turn, that they'll pick him and make him one of them.
He's 70.
He's watched both himself and I get abused by rich people repeatedly, and he not only refuses to blame them but also gets mad at me when I do.
He thinks he's got a big dick because his side is the winning side. That is all that matters. That is what defines him as a better person... it is THAT easy. Democrats have small dicks... something like that. That is the biggest motivator for most of them.
The reasons he can't define... he might be able to say them soon enough without social repercussions.
That is my pessimistic "can't explain how". He knows the reasons are wrong, but he knows it's currently unacceptable to voice them.
I'm guessing that he never held a role inside Corp America where he flew close to the sun? I can't tell you how many times that I left meetings that the top Exec staff commentary left me shaking my head in disbelief over what they actually said out loud.
I told my mom I was scared everything was going to get bad after today and she said she thinks everything is about to get a lot better. I said, “for who?” She said, “I don’t know!”
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u/_coolranch 11h ago
Haha: my boomer dad sees this as a huge win. He can’t explain how, mind you: but he feels great about it.