What would happen if we just fixed stuff. Like, the wealthy can still have it all, but then stuff wouldn’t be broken. Just like, fix things. When is someone going to step up and just pay to fix stuff?
For the wealthy to feel like they’ve won at life…people have to lose. If everyone was okay, then the wealthy couldn’t feel superior to us.
And herein lies the problem with capitalism. It creates the greed that undermines the very system that allows it to exist. This cannot be escaped because it’s systemic.
To a rational person, there is such a concept as “enough”, but not to the capitalist.
Never, because once you get to the levels of obscenely wealthy that the modern elite inhabit, the actual amount stops mattering, but the drive to maintain and increase it gets far stronger. Thus, they spend insane amounts on political lobbying to ensure that the government doesn’t collect any money from them in taxes. As for paying for things like infrastructure, they’ll never do that because spending money on that doesn’t IMMEDIATELY net them returns, even if it would in the long run (better schools directly correlate to smarter, more productive workers; better Healthcare means people spend less time sick and are back on the job sooner; improved transportation means workers are early or on time, so production isn’t held back as much).
Furthermore, the Elite (as it were) literally don’t see the rest of us as people worthy of compassion or respect, let alone any money. Pretty sure that some studies have been done showing that, over a certain level of wealth, your brain and personality shift noticeably towards sociopathy. It’s not exactly a particularly high number either, from what I recall; only a few millions of dollars.
Billionaires and other rich people will never fix society’s problems unless we literally force them to at threat of life and limb, and there’s little point in believing otherwise.
This. Why would trump who is so old and in poor health want the us to not research cancer treatments like mrna. It works directly against his own interest. Instead he works to make himsef richer when at his age if he devoted himself full time to spending his wealth he would not be able to. The draw of the points just are to much. He is living the real life version of a crappy phone game.
Eric Adams Syndrome: Spend $1,500 to save $1
Kind of like the new ICE budget. I remember seeing a tweet from some right wing lunatic saying they didn’t care if it costs a trillion dollars, deport every single undocumented immigrant. They’ve always had an endless budget for things like war and terror.
Entirely unsurprising. But invading a blue city is the kind of thing that gives those with the authoritarian mental illness rock-hard erections.
Helping people? Fuck that noise. We want to brandish our penis compensation devices and bust some heads! Time to own the libz!
Breaking news Trump is a moron
He is, but his puppeteers aren’t, they are evil and played the long game.
Who are his puppeteers?
Heritage Foundation
The man is world famous as a money mismanager
president “epstein” trying very hard to shift public focus away from himself, and the fact that ghislaine being on work release isnt gaining more attention is something.
Same as it ever was.
The Cruelty Is The Point.
They’d put all the money in a literal pile and set it on literal fire before they’d just help people who need the help.
If I had to characterize the US govt when it comes to helping its citizens I’d compare it to Immortan Joe.
Immortan Joe: Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!
the stupid thing is, scandinavia mostly cured their homeless problem. They put up homeless apartment buildings, then assisted them to reintegrate into society, by getting a job, finding a place to live etc. They… saw the humanity and helped them achieve something. Oh, but the USA would never help people down on their luck. Ugh.
Yep. Cruelty and intimidation.
was joe cruel or stupid? the administration is cruel
Cruelty is inherently stupid in the long run.
Hard disagree. Most of our billionaires will have lived long, happy lives, dying in peace and comfort surrounded by loving family after decades of cruelty. For each of them, it was perfectly sensible.
Billionaires genuinely do not consider the people beneath them to be anything other than pawns and slaves. They really, REALLY don’t care.
Billionaires are selfish and whatever cruelty just comes second to that. What we’re seeing with Trump and ICE is cruelty as the main purpose and if we’re using the Nazi’s as the established pattern, we’ll see it end that way as well.
Well, unless climate change cuts it short, which is what I was really getting as with “long run”.
Hard disagree. The cruelty is the point. They’re spending resources making sure that we suffer when it does nothing to benefit them.
Sure but helping the homeless would make them actual Christians following the teachings of Christ and we know that now what Republican Christians do.
Trump only ever claimed to be Christian to sell bibles.
TRUMP BIBLE, TRUMP BIBLE! GET YOUR TRUMP BIBLE. ORDER NOW AND WELL THROW IN A TRUMP 2028 HAT!
I wonder if he’s gonna update the included constitution in the bible with the newly redacted rights
With his name plastered all over it, probably. Because T stands for tacky, not trump.
This makes sense if cruelty is the point.
Cruelty, yes, but let’s not forget grift.
And cognitive dissonance. Gotta redraw those lines in the sand!
Look up how much we send to Israel to conduct a genocide
It’s never about the cost. It’s always about the hate.
And fear
Cruelty is the point. I really don’t think this country will ever change in any positive direction, sadly.
It worse than the country won’t change - it’s humanity that won’t change.
The point is to 'test run" military protection around the White House.
This. They know that none of this is sustainable on a the grand scale.
I agree with the general point of this post. But FYI any city that has put serious money into housing the homeless has found the homeless didn’t get housed. No amount of money ends famine in Africa and no amount of money eliminates homelessness.
So yes, having national guards stand on street corners all day is a very stupid waste of money. But you can’t compare it to a fictional amount of money someone just made up on the spot. Because anytime someone has made up a similar figure, and then gotten it, that number didn’t do the thing they said it would. So I don’t think anyone has shown they know how to estimate that number.
What a cynical take. European cities with proper social safety nets have addressed the problem very well, and while homelessness is at non-zero levels, it’s insignificant compared to what we see in the US. “We’ll never solve it completely” doesn’t justify not trying.
A better take is it’s more complex than just providing shelter
Sure, if you half ass it but if you’re serious it’s a a soluble issue. For example
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/02/how-finland-solved-homelessness/
The Finns have turned the traditional approach to homelessness on its head.
There can be a number of reasons as to why someone ends up homeless, including sudden job loss or family breakdown, severe substance abuse or mental health problems. But most homelessness policies work on the premise that the homeless person has to sort those problems out first before they can get permanent accommodation.
Finland does the opposite - it gives them a home first.
No amount of money ends famine in Africa? I can definitely give you a number that would.
If the causes of famine include corruption and repression, then more food or more money will just be taken by that corruption.
I don’t want to be the contrarian but:
Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it cost about $530 per Guard member, per day to be deployed.
How?! How could sending people that are already on the payroll to a different city cost this much? And you are really going to push such a claim, with the source being “some guys said so” and pretend to be a news organization we should take seriously?
Because they are taking the entire cost of the operation, and dividing it by the number of folks deployed.
So that includes logistics, housing, food, equipment maintenance. Including those big expensive fucking trucks, etc etc. And of course, the MIC gets a big cut too.
Payroll is probably a small portion of that $530.
Your average national guardsman isn’t getting paid $530/day. That’s almost $200k/year.
Most of that cost is related specifically to this mission, just divided between all the personnel deployed for this statistic.
First, I’m going to heavily qualify this statement. Like, a lot. I have never served in any military capacity and I’m repeating something a member of the Canadian military told me, which could easily be wrong for 20 reasons.
National Guardsman are similar to our “reservists” and are not paid when inactive. If additional troops who were already trained but not active, we’re then activated, that would account for additional costs.
So yeah, massive grain of salt but you asked and someone gave me a reasonable answer that seemed to fit. I have done no fact checking, though.
