Those Purge movies got it wrong. This is capitalism. We’re not going to legalize murder, but felonies, like theft and grift, are the crimes that will be indulged in, and it won’t help you to hide in a bunker. Your salaries, your retirement funds, your bank accounts are going to be pilfered and emptied into the pockets of the rich.
Trump has already started. It’s the day before his inauguration, and do you think he’s working on a high-minded speech and getting ready to take action to Make America Great Again? Ha. He’s launching a memecoin.
Man, there’s a lot of jargon in that video. I’m not and never have been into crypto, so a lot of it went over my head, but I can recognize the general thrust of what’s going on: Trump is going to use the authority of his position as head of the federal government to sell worthless trash to his followers. I won’t be buying it. Unfortunately, I’m still going to be sad for all the people he’s robbing, and I know this is going to do harm to the communities I’m part of.
The POTUS is certainly above the law according to the SCOTUS that the previous and now incoming disgusting excuse for POTUS rigged ruthlessly and by fraud, acts of bastardry and lies.
I think the current POTUS should use that power he’s been given ruythlesslyand without any delay inhis last day or so kleft to do so.
Democracy and law in the USA is dead anyhow so, yeah.
But Biden is too decent and respectable and ethical or at least conventions & traditions~bound a human being to do what really probly should be done right now before its finally too late.
StevoR @1:
IIRC, SCOTUS ruled that POTUS could do whatever they wanted, as long as SCOTUS didn’t object to it. That would pretty much always be in support of Trump and his chumps.
At one point, I would have believed that Trump would be losing professional Republicans the support of Republican voters, costing the party dearly for the midterms and leaving them decimated for the general election. Now I’m just wondering how much lead paint their voters snack on, and suspect at best that the next Democratic presidential candidate might just squeak past.
Scamming the rubes is a small part of what is going on with the meme coin. The main purpose is to allow people to openly bribe Trump in a legal fashion. Just buy a lot of the (worthless) coin, and then show Trump you did it.
I said this at the beginning of the first Trump regime in 2016.
The corruption of Trump’s term of office will be massive, open, and entirely unprosecuted.
Which turned out to be true.
I haven’t yet said it again for the new Trump regime of 2025.
Why bother?
Everyone knows this will be the case and few people will care.
For the longest time, I didn’t know how cryptocurrencies came to exist. When I finally did read a succinct explanation, I was blown away. Apparently, this thing called crypto mining isn’t mining at all. Somebody (that’s a bit of a mystery) creates a very, very difficult mathematical puzzle and when you solve it, voilà, a bitcoin is created. In effect, it’s literally created out of thin air. It’s as if you or I solved a very difficult crossword puzzle and were rewarded with a bitcoin. That’s it. There’s absolutely no intrinsic value in any cryptocurrency. Dollars are make believe, too, but at least they have the full faith and credit of the USA to back it up.
The other thing about Bitcoin is that its value only increases in direct proportion to the amount of new money injected into the system. If you got in early, you are now a Bitcoin billionaire. As soon as people stop buying Bitcoin, its value stops increasing. Ponzi scheme, anyone?
Note. You can’t buy Bitcoin with Bitcoin. It has to be traditional currency. That tells me a lot.
The USA has now started down the path that nations take when they fail.
I read this book when it came out in 2012 and liked it.
These authors take an empirical approach to the age old question of why some nations succeed and some fail.
Or why does the world have rich nations and poor nations.
The Nobel committee also like this book since 12 years later they won a Nobel prize.
Nations need 3 things to succeed.
.1. A strong central government.
.2. Taxes must be at least 10% of GDP.
.3. Rule of Law. A level playing field.
Everyone must be equal under the law.
Where the USA is failing right now is with the Rule of Law.
It’s gone.
Among other things the Rule of Law prevents corruption.
It is also necessary for Free Markets.
Free Markets don’t actually exist. They are creations of governments and societies.
Without government and laws, the markets always end up with monopolies, and ownership by the ultra-rich oligarchies.
Which is where the USA is at right now.
The Rule of Law is dead.
PS Even the US Supreme Court is notably corrupt and enabling the destruction of our democracy.
@ ^ raven : I care. A lot of people care.
But all these people that do care are powerless unles they…
(Yes, you fill in the blank there folks.)
Could swear I typed unless with two esses.. Sigh.
Its hot (39 Celsius in Adelaide today, bloody warm still after midnight here) I’m so very tired but still cannot sleep and my hands are just fucked & clumsy AF. Brain too probly. Still doing my best as best I can, FWIW, in a very fucked up world. Of all the possible timelines ..we live in This one? Really? (Expletives.)
Meanwhile in an alternate vastly better and more rational timeline Kamala Harris is about to be sworn in as POTUS & Trump is rotting in jail where he belongs or never even was a political phenomena becoz reason and compassion and good people prevailed. Sigh.
This is a good point.
There is a huge amount of wealth accumulated in the USA.
.1. The Social security trust fund has trillions of dollars and more coming in every day.
Wall Street wants your retirement saving accounts badly.
That is why the GOP wants to abolish Social Security.
It’s already partly privatized with IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401(K) plans etc..
The oligarchies don’t want half of those retirement savings, they want it all.
.2. Same for Medicare and Medicaid.
Medicare Advantage plans were set up as part of the plan to privatize Medicare.
Why have a government plan for old people that works when you can privatize it and have the private insurance companies deny your claims and pocket the money.
Well, its worked well enough so far that the private insurance company leaders all have body guards because they are afraid of being shot by irate sick and dying customers.
.3. The US Federal government owns 29% of the USA.
National parks, BLM, National forests, Wilderness areas etc..
All that land just laying around owned by 346 million US citizens.
The oligarchies are already trying to claim it.
Utah is owned and controlled by the Mormon church, another powerful and corrupt institution.
They are already trying to get control of Federal lands.
Which will end up being controlled by the Mormon church and distributed to the Mormon oligarchies.
.4. The US Post Office.
Why let the government run the mail when private corporations can make billions of dollars by cutting services and raising prices?
.5 The school systems.
Huge amount of money spent educated tens of millions of children.
.6. Slavery?
There are 346 million people in the USA.
Why should they just walk around and do whatever they want, when they could be laboring in your factories.
.7. Etc. Whatever else you can think of to steal, scam, or privatize.
On your mark, get set, go.
The looting of the US will start on Monday, January 20th.
Isn’t the whole idea of the Purge movies that capitalists legalize murder on one day to distract people from their predatory behavior?
Retirement? I didn’t think I was getting that anyway. I’ll work until I’m crippled and then starve.