Don’t sit and wait for better opportunities. Fuck the lists. Band together for some of Booker and Lewis’ Good Trouble. Get out on the streets. There are millions of people who are just as upset as you are, and every voice added to the crowd multiplies the reach.
Most of them are so isolated that chaos in the streets really wouldn’t change their lives or opinions
Emphasis mine. This has been said about every single ruling class ever. It has been proven wrong many times. The wealthy are afraid of the lower classes. Their lives depend on the status quo, and their lives change when the status quo changes. Otherwise they wouldn’t press so goddamn hard on the boot.
Except that this 4D chess move is not going to make the wealthy a fortune. Dismantling the global economy will only hurt, everyone, in the long-term. Including billionaires’ profits. Just the threat of tariffs is enough to do that damage. Whatever short-term gains anyone might make on a market dip are going to be completely washed out by the long-term losses of destabilizing international trade on a whim.
Even if it is “according to plan”, it’s a stupid fucking plan, and it won’t work.
Seems like a formatting thing, thanks. I’ll stick to just inline hyperlinks instead of footnotes I think
This is nonsense that gets spread way too often. The wealthy benefited from Covid, but they did not benefit from the Great Depression. Billionaires are shortsighted hoarders who can’t help but screw themselves over in their race to the top end. They really are so fucking stupid and greedy that they will crash the economy by accident, AGAIN.
The meme is referencing the official US Trade Representative’s explanation1 of the tariffs, where yes, the math really is as stupid as it seems, but it gets worse.
The research that Trump’s team used to determine that “calculation” flat out states that when the US tries to tariff other countries:
The source clearly demonstrates that American tariffs are paid directly by Americans in both directions, meaning out of everyone on Earth the tariffs screw the US the most. Trump’s administration legitimized the source by citing that research for its calculations on the tariff rates.
The explanation freely admits that the stupid parameters were chosen more or less arbitrarily, and they cited the paper (Cavallo et al 2021)2 but conveniently didn’t list it in their “References” section.
Our analyses indicate that the price incidence of US import tariffs falls largely on the United States… Our results suggest that retailers are absorbing a significant share of the increase in the cost of affected imports by earning lower profit margins on those goods… [These analyses reveal] that the recent tariffs applied by foreign governments on US exports have affected total foreign import prices far less than was the case for the recent US tariffs
He said for us to go out and cause some good trouble. Necessary trouble to redeem the soul of our nation. I want you to redeem the dream. Let’s be bold in America, not demean and degrade Americans. Not divide us against each other. […] This is a moral moment. It’s not left or right, it’s right or wrong. Let’s get in good trouble. My friends, Madame President, I yield the floor.
Don’t let anyone, anyone, pretend that this was business as usual. Senator Booker came out and gave people what they’ve been asking for - a call to action. This isn’t empty democrat promises, this isn’t “both sides” bullshit. This was a United States Senator telling the public that shit has hit the fan, and that politics isn’t enough anymore.
Fuck the apathy. Fuck the doomerism. This wasn’t business as usual, this won’t be business as usual. Listen to what the man had to say. Get together. Trouble is coming whether we like it or not. May as well make it good trouble.
The Roaring Twenties (1920s) was a time of wild economic growth and insane deregulation. Coolidge and Hoover caused the Great Depression by dismantling the government’s ability to regulate commerce and by raising tariffs to an insane level. America enjoyed a brief Gilded Age for the wealthy that caused a global economic collapse.
The reason Bank of America and Merrill Lynch have to operate as two separate entities is because of the Glass-Steagal act, enacted in response to the Great Depression, which split up commercial and investment banking to stop them from making the same mistakes again.
Like almost every other economic downturn, the Great Depression was caused in large part by laissez faire capitalism. Unregulated banks were gambling with too much of their customer’s money by making extremely risky investments in the stock market and agriculture (in 2008 it would be risky investments in sub-prime mortgages).
The tariffs were temporarily successful at isolating and enforcing american industry (note that the domestic industry was still strong enough to benefit, unlike now). But the Banks’ speculation bubble collapsed in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and since commercial and investment banking were still intertwined, it wasn’t just people losing the vaue of their stock portfolios - the banks were gambling with the money in their customers’ savings accounts.
Once people realize that the bank doesn’t have the funds to cover all of its accounts, that starts a run on the banks. Without the FDIC to insure your savings, when your bank goes bankrupt, you go bankrupt. The Great Depression begins in full.
Those same tarrifs prevent any relief or recovery from overseas. US citizens couldn’t afford to live. They couldn’t afford to buy domestic goods made down the street or heavily tariffed imports. Even when tariffs were pulled back it took time for supply chains to be rebuilt.
Reciprocal tariffs from overseas craters international demand for US goods, and suddenly US citizens couldn’t afford US products either. No customers, no money. Factories begin to close with no available replacements in the supply chain.
Domestic agriculture and industry collapsed, at a time when there was (intentionally) very little trade with other nations. Americans suffer, starve, and die. Tension builds, eviction standoffs begin, and homeless populations assemble by the thousands in “Hoovervilles” - shanty towns that looked very similar to the living conditions in Gaza pre October 7th.
Without constant planting, irrigation, and harvest, and with the long-term damage done by unregulated agriculture, Middle America becomes the Dust Bowl. It takes less than 5 years for the landscape to transform, and dust storms hit Washington DC in 1935.
90 years ago. 1935. You probably know someone that old. There are about a million Americans alive today who were born at a time when over a million Americans were homeless, many living in refugee camps in the new American Desert. There were cars, and airplanes, and CRT TV’s, and American children starving by the tens of thousands.
All of it started because a Republican President let corporations gamble recklessly without oversight while “protecting” American industry with extreme tariffs that cut the nation off completely from the global economic network.
Trump dismantles regulatory and social support agencies and enacts tariffs on a level we haven’t seen since Coolidge and Hoover caused the Great Depression
The collapse is going to be the democrats fault
Keep on keepin’ on my friend
Edit - whoosh? You’re saying it’ll be blamed on the democrats I think? Either way I don’t think it’ll be that easy this time. They fucked up too much stuff too fast, all while obviously in complete control. ‘Oft evil will shall evil mar’ and all that.
As terrible as this is and will be, I have hope we can change a lot of minds. Social security started from the ashes of the great depression. It can be done again.
1920’s 2: electric boogaloo. Good luck everyone. Wish it didn’t have to be this way. Do what you can to prepare your families and your communities, because this is going to hurt.
If we get the chance in the 1930s, let’s make sure we pull an FDR and not a Hitler, please?
The move, the department has said, is expected to save $1.8 billion from the agency’s $1.7 trillion annual budget — about one-tenth of 1%.
This story has been corrected to show the savings is about one-tenth of 1%, not about 1%.
Good stuff AP, fixing their mistake and lampshading the idea that this has anything to do with budget.
Dismantling the Department of Health for a savings of ~0.1% will surely help all of the people suffering in debt or without treatment from the American healthcare system.
If you’re a federal worker, please, do your best to force them to walk you out the door. Work together. If we get real lucky and things turn around, many of you will have one hell of a class action lawsuit on your hands. Talk to lawyers. Sue for wrongful termination, discrimination, etc.
Everyone else, but especially healthcare workers - talk to your unions and associations! If you don’t have one, join or start one! Show up to the meetings! Doctors, nurses, aides, many of you are already organized around your shared interests. Take advantage of that.
The system was broken from the start but it took a beating during the pandemic. Many of you have seen how things have gotten worse than they were.
With leadership like this, it’s only downhill. Less staff and support. More desperate, angry, or misinformed patients. ICE agents on the unit, police interrogating miscarriage survivors and OBGYN staff, medication and supply shortages even if we don’t see a second pandemic.
Talk to each other, talk to your reps and your leaders and your politicians. Stay safe and stay strong.
Yeah, I understand the possibility that a comment like that just isn’t worth responding to. Apathy is such a ubiquituous kneejerk response that it’s basically the fediverse’s equivalent of youtube’s “First!!” comments.
But we need more productive discourse, and sometimes that requires addressing all the potentially cynical readers out there who will just read the headline, see the apathy in these comments, and continue on with their doomscroll without a moment’s thought
It’s an ideological war. Most of it will look like talking until the talking pushes people to start acting. You can’t just skip ahead to the revolution and push the “riot” button, you have to convince people to act.
Everybody paying attention is already aware of these things.
They haven’t been paying attention and no, they’re not already aware. Not everyone in the nation is on the same page. Clearly.
I understand why you’re trying to find reasons to be upset, and simplify the situation. But what are you actually trying to find here? What are you contributing?
What did MLK’s “I have a dream” speech accomplish? What did Sophia Scholl’s leaflets accomplish? What are you accomplishing, right here, right now, with this comment?
I am by no means elevating the senator’s speech to that level of historical importance. But the point stands. It’s an ideological war. It has to be fought with ideas. There is no other way.
To fight fascism is to fight especially when it feels like it accomplishes nothing. To fight an ideological war is not just to fight against your enemy - it is to fight for the hearts and minds of your friends.
I think it’s important that we start filling the fediverse and the world with more productive discussion. It feels like every single post and thread around here is completely hijacked by the “centrist/leftist/third party voters” conversation.
The first comments you see on every news article aren’t even about the article, it’s unrelated complaints against the presumed opinions of other people who may or may not have voted, some of whom may have been bots or internationals or children.
It’s wildly counterproductive. We need to move forward and really push for solidarity and meaningful solutions. We can’t stop fascism by fighting each other.
He talked for a little over a day.
There’a a reason there was a 24 hour record to be broken in the first place. Standing and delivering a speech for 25 hours straight is a genuinely incredible physical and mental feat.
The talking is to hold up the Senate, give voices to seniors worried about losing social security, and to draw more attention to the absolutely broken state of our government.
It’s an ideological war. Most of it will look like talking until the talking pushes people to start acting. You can’t just skip ahead to the revolution and push the “riot” button, you have to convince people to act.
Government doesn’t issue the ID for free, and needs to send it to a valid address. It’s nothing more than an attempt to stop voters from voting. If they actually cared about preserving democracy, they would make the ID’s free and easily accessible before requiring them to vote.
The more important issue is that it’s not an issue. There are no indications that non-citizens or identity thieves have had any impact on federal elections. Voter fraud is simply not a problem, so new laws to stop voter fraud really only exist to stop voters.
someone should have continued after him because the nomination passed and i am sad again.
Another senator can’t take over for Booker, only way it ends is when he cedes the floor. They were only able to ask questions to give him a break.
A man stood and spoke for over 24 hours straight and so many are dismissing it as nothing more than “performative”
This is what it looks like to fight. It’s not perfect, it’s not easy, it’s not even clear if it will do anything. But it’s something. It’s someone standing up and forcing people to listen to the voices of the unheard.
That’s what it looks like to fight. It’s an ideological war for the soul and future of the nation - did you really think it would be simple, or easy? That we would have natural heroes and great victories?
Fight in whatever way you can. Yell from whatever rooftop you can find, including the senate floor. Kick and scream, even if it feels pointless. But don’t stand around doing nothing but questioning the contributions of others. We need solidarity.
Thank you for the insightful contribution ‘PM_Your_Nudes_Please’!
Really though, you have my sympathies and you’re absolutely right. Of course tragedies and disabilities can break up marriages. It doesn’t necessarily mean that either spouse did anything wrong.
Anything that changes a person can change a relationship, and anything that changes a relationship can end the relationship.