- cross-posted to:
- brainworms@lemm.ee
- cross-posted to:
- brainworms@lemm.ee
Summary
Billionaires like Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy are spreading false claims to discredit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal agency protecting consumers from fraud and abuse.
Andreessen falsely accused the CFPB of politically motivated “debanking,” despite no evidence.
This rhetoric aligns with the “DOGE” project, led by Musk and Ramaswamy, which aims to slash government regulations and programs under the guise of efficiency.
Critics warn this effort will harm public services, benefit billionaires, and push privatization at the expense of ordinary Americans.
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I like how the only “increases” in efficiency they have proposed are to completely eliminate programs instead of actually making any of them better. Maybe we should adopt this same methodology to “solve” the problem of billionaires. 🤷
Well the economy would be more efficient without the capitalist class, although I get the feeling DOGE isn’t going to reccomend we switch to a Syndicalist economy.
I’m hoping for more of a “let them eat cake” kind of moment.
Remember kids, they want the government gone because they want to become the government to enrich themselves.
More accurately they want to become the oligarchy. Like in Russia.
I think this is partly why they got the stupid gomers thinking that Russia is some fantasy zone for white right wing xtian nationalists. For the oligarchs, Russia’s set up is a dream, so they have to find stupid voters to vote against their own economic interests for backwards identity politics reasons…so they make Putin out to be sympathetic towards xtians and homophobia and “whiteness” for the benefit of the rubes in the U.S.
For the oligarchs, Russia’s set up is a dream
Until they get defenestrated
The US is already an oligarchy. The difference between “oligarch” and “billionaire” is whether they are from Eastern Europe or Western.
You ain’t seen a real oligarchy yet.
But wait, President Musk is the edge lord Id like to be, he’s also a genius, he wouldn’t lie.
/s
Oh no, what will we do if billionaires control the U.S. government.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907
And those are just J.P. Morgan.
Is your point that this is fear mongering, or that the struggle between classes has been an ongoing fight for most of recorded history?
The latter. I mean, America was founded by a tobacco company and people so weird in their religiosity, they were kicked out of 17th century Europe.
I do think we can solve the oligarch problem. So, part of me was like, “We’ve met this challenge before, motherfuckers.” It wasn’t meant to dismissive but I’m pretty sure I could open hand slap Elon Musk and 24 of his 38 kids would feel it.
Wish I had your optimism. Hand it over.
On a more serious note, I truly believe that enriching & modernizing our education system is the way to go for dethroning our billionaire overlords. We can’t just expect slap dash imploding submarines to do all the work.
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All billionaires must go by any means necessary.
Americans will not destroy the military or the police state. We need those to do harm against our enemies and to punish the undeserving.
You don’t understand. You make them non-functional through incompetency first, then change their purpose and voila…neither.
Then you pay Elon Musk for fleets of Tesla robots that don’t work to do your dirty work 🤣
From what I’ve seen under Eric Adams in New York, you never actually lay any of these people off. You just bring in a robot that bumbles around a subway terminal until it breaks down, while a squad of officers guard it with lethal force.
Nothing new.
Americans are easy marks. Not most of our faults, we’re poorly educated by design. Critical thinking is college level here.
Few of us have any interest in being a society, any snake oil con man has to do is tell us we’ll be rich!.. Just fuck over our fellow humans first, lol, and we’ll come a running to that ballot box to literally destroy the very safetynet under our own feet. It’s quite pathetic to witness.
Then we’ll spend decades kneeling in front of them waiting for golden showers of prosperity, when we’re not at one another’s throats out of the zero sum mindset this herp derp land of rugged individualism propagates.
Our hyper individualist, disdain for the very concept of society is gallows hilarious. It’s like bragging that we’re conditioned to let one another drown. Yay? Got to hand it to the marketers on that one.
I agree with you. Quite a lot. And yet… Rugged individualism can also make a person want to think for themselves and not herp derp with the uneducated masses. I’m just saying American individualism can, uh, in certain cases make one more prone to collectivism.
I am the result of that type of backfiring, got fed right wing propaganda about rugged individualism and the founders as a kid. Turns out that that can backfire heavily into making someone who wants to be left alone, wants to tar and feather people, and thinks some type of collectivism is the best way towards that.
Fun fact, my grandmother finds my politics annoying which makes sense given the fact she fed me the propaganda but doesnt generally argue my points since I have pointed out that she is the fucking base source of them. She copes and thinks its cause of school and not the fact that she held up violent revolutionaries and our bastard ancestors up on pedestals.
You reap what you sow, amirite? Even if sometimes you don’t know what you’re sowing.
Yep, dont really know what she expected though since our ancestors while bastards were historically progressive and the founders were violent revolutionaries including the weird internal infighting. I do wonder how many “conservative” men are like me and are just surrounded by idiots, ive met a few who completely dropped the act once I said some distinctly non conservative terms like syndicalism, armament of the masses, and bougie bastards so its certainly higher than one would probably expect.
That may be a real thing, but also we’re at this weird place where modern “conservativism” is getting morphed into a sort of semi-anti-authoritarian movement. It’s unfortunate though that the sentiment is getting co-opted by grifters rather than channeled into actual progress.
Yeah its making it weird, though I do know for a fact most of the reds in sheeps clothes ive found were lefties surrounded by idiots. But yeah a couple sub groups of conservatives seem to be going into a conserve against authority and corporations, which while a good first step in theory they are also wrapped up in false trad bullshit. I cant wait to read the sociological books on this era in a decade.
Here’s an interesting article I read recently somewhat related to this topic: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/30/the-deep-historical-forces-that-explain-trumps-win
Like specifically how/why anti-authoritarians are somehow teaming up with grifter billionaires as of late.
The problem is that there is no alternative. The two parties are just this same process at two different speeds and slight amount of decorum. People forget that Jimmy Carter was our first neoliberal president and Clinton cemented this all being bipartisan and passed the things that were seen as too far right for Reagan (NAFTA, the crime bill, was going to SS privatization until Monica Lewinsky distracted from it…). Liberals hate Trump because he is being too crass and clumsy while doing this. Democrats would rather do the same thing more slowly and with more excuses and obfuscation.
Rich people are like other rich people, more than they are like their fellow countrymen, or ethnic group, or religious group. Anything a billionaire says is good for “everyone” needs to be understood in that light: the “everyone” they see are “all the people I associate with”, meaning “other rich people”.
All you have to do is convince the ignorant, unwashed masses that you’re speaking for them, not about them, and they will let you have whatever you want.
People don’t want policies. They don’t even want demagogues. They want a set of jingling keys in front of their face. That’s what they’ll pay attention to.
Doesn’t matter, had shinies.
But wait, they’re all wearing Tshirts instead of suits on these podcasts. Are you saying that doesn’t mean they’re one of us?
Gaurenteeing that’s exactly what we will do. Hopefully i be mostly dead.
Yawn. We are letting it happen. Remove them or else.
You really think those fuckheads are going to kill their cash cow?
There’s always profit to be extracted, especially from slaves.
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Why bother with the middleman?
~Bezos
Because as it stands right now there are rules to be followed to get maximum payout. After the orange fuckwad is seated that could change but only time will tell
Sometimes history shows oligarchs breaking stuff to make more money for themselves: trade patterns, movement of people, social safety nets, previous methods of doing business.
I think we all got so used to the modern times that it’s hard to image this still happening, but on a bigger scale.
Or, it could be mostly empty threats now, designed to manipulate the markets. We saw Trump scares during his last term in office, particularly near the end, that would deliberately scare enough people to make bank in stocks and bonds. Scaring a nation is very profitable.
Probably both types of things.
wow big take there sir
they can’t even tie their own shoes
The government has attacked me and my people throughout my life via the war on drugs using the “justice system”.
Kind of hard to be invested in a organization like that.
The CFPB and the DEA are a wee bit different, though. You can be angry at the latter and still want the protections of the former.
sorry, ml users only deal in absolutes when it fits their narrative.
I used to be on the ml server until I got fed up with the arbitrary moderation, so I try not to generalize.
…I try not to generalize.
While frustration with the status quo is understandable, abandoning the mechanisms of government only cedes power to those who are already disproportionately influencing it—special interests and billionaires. The government, flawed as it may be, is still the primary tool, and often the only tool, for enacting systemic change. By participating—through voting, organizing, and holding leaders accountable—citizens can challenge the status quo and push for reforms that better reflect the collective will.
Change doesn’t come from disengagement; it comes from working within and improving the systems that already exist. To give up on these mechanisms is to forfeit the opportunity to make meaningful progress.
