The Changing World Order

The Weimar Republic had one of the best constitutions ever devised. The problem was that the people didn't respect the constitution or democracy in general. Not near enough for a majority.

The Trump movement is certainly the most fascist we have seen in recent memory, and it is based on ideas that have been circulating in Republican circles for decades now.Perhaps the best distillation of fascism is the Nazi slogan "Blood and Soil", which, by the way, is what the Proud Boys chanted at one of their rallies. This gets to the heart of what fascism is. It is cultishly focused on ultra-nationalism and nativism. It is also focused on a narrative of some great past where the nation used to be better (i.e. "Make America Great Again"). Everything is subservient to those ideologies. It isn't a mistake that fascist groups like the Proud Boys find the Trump movement so attractive. It isn't a mistake that we can see so many parallels to Mussolini's Fascist movement that was later perfected by the Nazis. It isn't a mistake that when the leader of the modern Fascist party (the very same party founded by Mussolini) in Italy became Prime Minister that she was lauded by conservative groups. Why are conservatives such supporters of a fascist?Is the US an authoritarian government? Absolutely not. We have free and fair elections, one of the first hallmarks of a non-authoritarian government. We are nowhere close to one. It is simply ridiculous to point to laws passed by a strong democracy as being authoritarian. Authoritarian is not a synonym for "laws I don't like". This silly game conservatives play with words needs to stop.

WTF are you talking about. EVERYONE predicted what a Trump presidency would be like. For Fuck Sake, Hillary predicted it in the debates.You really are a FUCKING IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The German people were saddled with war reparations debts from WW I that crippled their economy and snuffed out their ambitions. If we dont want it to happen again, we had best not tax the crap out of the working class in order to pay off the debts and expenses of the enormous social programs which our nation cannot afford.We respect democracy as long as we the middle(working class) are not crippled through being expected to pay the bill that the rich wont pay and the poor cant pay.

Thats because you ask questions that require me to do the research of a fucking term papers worth of data to address! Ive got things to do every day. I cant answer your incessant demands for evidence on topics that are obvious to the layman.I will try and look some of your unanswered questions up, though. Do you recall any off the bat?

Tell that to your conservative buddies who continue to shift the tax burden away from the rich and onto the working class.If we throw out Medicare and pushed seniors to the private insurance market we would see many seniors dying of preventable diseases simply because they can't afford health care. Do away with social security and you would have seniors thrown out on the streets.We can't afford these programs? BULLSHIT!!! We can't afford not to have them.

I fully agree with you.

Evidently they are not obvious. If you don't have an answer then you shouldnt have made the post in the first place.Why did you bring up Rep. Ocasio-Cortez when discussing Candace Owen's?
How do we institute a gold standard?
Name fiat currencies that failed and why?
Why is silver a better investment than the stock market?
Do have any idea what The Federal Reserve does?You can start there. You spoke like you understood these subjects. There should be no research if you do. You could just admit you don't know what you are talking about and were just spouting shit.

Wrong. The German people had contempt for democracy long before the war, much like the contempt for democracy that the conservatives in the US are developing now. So for, the American conservatives don't have an excuse like war debts. When they do, you'll be goose-stepping down the street with your swastika armband and stiff-arm salute. You're just harping on the same old same old without making the slightest attempt to back up your claims. I keep telling you, social programs are not a drain on the economy. They boost the economy. They make more taxpayers. There's your problem right there. You don't respect democracy for its own sake. You don't respect democracy because it's the overall best system. You only respect democracy "as long as" it makes YOU better off (in your own misguided perception). Idiot. The poor COULD pay if you would stop robbing them.

Worse than hypocrisy: Ray Dalio and the heart of darkest capitalism

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Friends,

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Bridgewater Associates is the world’s largest hedge fund, managing roughly $125 billion of other people’s money. The New York Times recently reported that its founder, Ray Dalio, agreed to relinquish control of the firm only if it gave him what could amount to billions of dollars in regular payouts over the coming years through a special class of stock.

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Dalio already has an estimated net worth of $19 billion.

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I first came across Dalio in 2019 when I read his 5,000-word treatise “Why and How Capitalism Needs to be Reformed.” I was intrigued. Here was a major financial figure arguing that capitalism “is not working well for the majority of Americans because it’s producing self-reinforcing spirals up for the haves and down for the have-nots.” That widening wealth gap, Dalio noted, is “bringing about damaging domestic and international conflicts and weakening America’s condition.”

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Dalio foresaw one of two outcomes: Either we “re-engineer the system so that the pie is both divided and grown well” or else “we will have great conflict and some form of revolution that will hurt most everyone and will shrink the pie.”

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All of that seemed right to me — even more so today. America has already started down the second path. Trump, DeSantis, and other demagogues have been exploiting working-class anger to pump up their power.

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But Dalio had no proposal for “re-engineering” the system. To the best of my knowledge, he hasn’t supported a wealth tax or any tax increase on people like himself. He hasn’t proposed stopping giant hedge funds and private equity funds from forcing companies to squeeze out every ounce of profits, typically by suppressing wages and abandoning workers and communities. And he certainly hasn’t proposed capping executive pay.

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Worldwide, there are now some 10,000 hedge funds, which together manage about $2 trillion — and they charge their clients a bundle. On top of a 2 percent management fee, they deduct 20 percent of any investment gains. This lets hedge fund managers classify much of their income as “capital gains,” taxed at a far lower rate than regular income. Their wealth has given them so much political clout that this absurd “carried interest” tax loophole remains, despite promises from the last four presidents to close it.

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So while schoolteachers and cops face a marginal tax rate of 25 percent, hedge fund managers like Dalio have for years paid only 15 percent on their enormous incomes.

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Yet most of the funds Dalio manages come from schoolteachers and cops and other average working Americans. Fully a third come from public pension funds such as the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System. Another third from corporate pension funds that are supposed to guard the retirement savings of their workers, such as those at Kodak and General Motors.

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Meanwhile, CEOs and star traders now routinely demand eight-figure compensation packages to keep up with their counterparts at hedge funds.

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It’s a giant zero-sum game, as Dalio himself recognizes. “In order to earn more than the market return, you have to take money from somebody else,” he says.

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It’s worse than a zero-sum game because hedge funds, like private equity funds, pressure corporations to lay off workers, reduce the (inflation-adjusted) pay of average workers, bust unions, and move production abroad or to anti-labor states.

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They also use their wealth to distort and corrupt American politics, as I’ve already noted.

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And they use piles of borrowed money — thereby blowing gigantic, dangerous speculative bubbles. When Wall Street firms got into trouble in 2008, Bridgewater was one of the funds that pulled money out of Lehman Brothers, leaving the American public holding the bag.

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There is little justification for hedge funds. If pension funds want to balance out any risks they may take in the stock and bond markets, they can accomplish this far more cheaply through standard leveraging tactics.

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Note to pension fund managers: Get the hell out of hedge funds. You’re wasting the retirement money of the workers you’re supposed to represent.

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Meanwhile, there’s no justification for the giant compensation packages of hedge fund partners.

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Note to pension fund managers: If you absolutely must be in hedge funds, make your voices heard on taming executive pay.

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And there’s no justification whatever for maintaining the “carried interest” loophole in the tax code.

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Note to President Biden and Congress: Get rid of it.

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As Ray Dalio wrote, the system is not working well for the majority of Americans because it’s producing self-reinforcing spirals up for the haves and down for the have-nots. Dalio and his compatriots are part of that self-reinforcing spiral. The rest of us are all the worse for it.

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The three richest Americans own more wealth than 50% of the population of the USA.The 3 Richest Americans Hold More Wealth Than Bottom 50% Of The Country, Study Findsliberty before equality my arse.

332 million people in the USA. Three people have more wealth that 166 million of them put together. How the fuck is that Christian? How can anyone vote for that kind of society? What's more why do poor people vote for it? Are they really that ignorant? (Rhetorical.)

There is no major banking problem ... yet. The world media, all of it, is bound to talk us into one.Banking and markets float on two things: greed and perception.The SVB situation is not a banking meltdown but a normal business failure capitalism expects. The reaction of the fed to take receivership to stop a run before the bank defaulted is good but the reaction of the politicians, including Yellen and Powell, border on surprise which is being magnified by a disaster-seeking media into panic.They are going to stir sensitivity to every minor bank and business loss around the world magnifying the emotion to panic. Somewhere in some community there will eventually be a panic at some bank leading to a wider national bank run of unprecedented scale.I don't think people are working to stop this. Everything I see seeks to exacerbate the negative even back to old Roosevelt quotes given in the midst of a real social collapse. The media is fanning both the greed and the perception flames.These guys are going to talk us into a banking collapse. Yes, it's time to panic.

In resonse to your questions, Frontline PBS had a timely documentary that explains to you ignorant elitists why I know more than you do about finance! Age of Easy Money (full documentary) | FRONTLINEGranted I could not articulate my beliefs as well as the documentary, but you be the judge about the scope of the problem. Yes, you all can blame the Republicans, but Powell and Yellin did not help the situation at all.Back in 2008, Obama and the Fed should have let the banking system fail!

2008 Protester:

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Banks Got Bailed Out! We Got Sold Out!

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Why do you think this doc supports your claims?