Trust me, I know that correlation is not causation, but damn, that is one sharp coincidence.
This corrupt Supreme Court has a lot to answer for. That graph comes from Paul Krugman
Amid the bloody shambles, one big question is, who put The Gang That Couldn’t Think Straight in power? In an immediate sense, Trump was put over the top by low-information voters — defined by G. Elliott Morris as voters who don’t know which party controls Congress. But the groundwork for the MAGA takeover was laid well before by the Roberts Supreme Court and by right-wing billionaires that the court enabled.
A few weeks ago I wrote about Billionaires Gone Wild, the extraordinary influence acquired by a tiny group of ultra-wealthy men. I shared this chart on campaign contributions, based on estimates from Americans for Tax Fairness.
That data explains a lot about the current state of the nation.
So if you want to understand how this country has degenerated to such a state, how we can be spending nearly $2 billion a day attacking Iran without a clear endgame in sight, while children go without healthcare, nursing homes are understaffed because their workers have been deported, home electricity bills skyrocket due to data centers, consider who benefits and who isn’t hurt.
This is a billionaire’s war, waged at everyone else’s expense.
How many billionaires, or even millionaires, are actually serving in the military right now or are even luxuriating in a hotel somewhere near where the missiles might fall? How many will be materially hurt by a rise in gas prices, the destruction of reliable information sources, the lack of availability of vaccines or healthy food?
If you can’t tell who the winners and losers are, you’re one of the losers.
That looks historic, as in historians 100 years from now will point to Citizens United as THE event which triggered the Great American Decline!
I wonder what the billionaires are actually getting out of this? I mean, should we “win” (we won’t because there’s no reasonable definition of what “win” even means), yeah, we get control over Iranian oil…but not all of the billionaires are tapped into oil stocks. Yeah, weapons makers are making a payday because obviously we now have to buy a lot more (this seems to happen often – every 5 years or so we bomb somebody and it seems the only real justification is that weapons makers need to keep the cash flow), but again, not all of the billionaires are in weapons either.
And then the next reality is gonna hit: this war is showing how cost-INeffective our weapons are in the drone age. 4 million to take down a 30,000 drone is not cost effective (esp when they have thousands more), and Ukraine has shown that even cheaper drones not only can stop a frontal ground assault with almost no casualties, but can assemble a tactical picture of the entire front faster and more accurately than our expensive million dollar satellites can ever do. Yeah, long as this administration is in charge, they’ll keep buying the expensive stuff…but if smarter heads ever get in charge again, that is over. It is clear there has to be a different way to handle the new type of warfare Iran and Ukraine are waging.
So the rest are primarily tapped into stocks and as we saw, those are just tanking. The supposed “but the Dow is above 50,000” ended less than an hour after she said that stupidity and has only dropped more (almost 10%) since.
So who is really gaining from all of this?
Besides Putin (47 is suggesting pausing oil sanctions against Russia to try to lower the price – i note he’s not talking about the US reserve which Biden successfully (and profitably) managed in 2022), and, well, the Saudis.
This isn’t a billionaires war as such, because I don’t see which billionaires really are cleaning up because of it.
@ ^ acroyear : It all seems to be very short term profit and personal gain for .. long term apocalyptic nightmare consequences. Especiall;y wehn look at he combo of Global Overheating and rising reichwing fascist totalitarianism that we all seemed headed for. Its unsustainable long term for everyone and a global catastrophe for everyone – but they somehow don’t seem to see it and understand that or care..
There is at least some research that suggests that the money is mostly useless when it comes to swaying the public, but that what it really accomplishes is convincing politicians they need more money from billionaires in order to compete.
I don’t get @acroyear #2 at all
I am an investor and my consistent observation over years is that stocks in things that make war are systematically profitable. The market goes up the market goes down, still money. Money money money. A the new billionaire money that is all techy and stuff? You may think nerds and geeks would be averse to war, but nowadays lots of war materiel is all techy and stuff. :)
Are war materials insanely uneconomical? Yes! …for the buyer. ‘The billionaires’ aren’t paying the taxes so they are not the buyers. You are. You’re the buyer. Kinda. That is to say it’s your money but your congressional and executive mistresses are blowing it all playing around in Vegas with wealthier men.
The pretext for the war doesn’t matter, as far as the $$$ is talking. All that is necessary is to get the buyers to buy.
yah well there are absof’nlutly some traders are taking advantage of stock price swings. Who has the inside knowledge and who doesn’t is an interesting question. I do not believe for a moment that this bunch of lying cheating greedy incompetents are just being so honest and above and beyond to not try to profit on what they see on a day to day basis. that is who they are! and the main asshole does not care at all he has nno idea how any of this actually works and his “crew” is only out for themselves.
it is a truly nasty situation and will probably spin completely out of control soon like it always does in that part of the world.
As for the rich and their money, they are getting what they paid for but I do not think it is what they thought would be..