The US is oddly very similar to a third world country in how it works sometimes
The government is no longer serving everyone. It’s not even serving the red states that voted for the current regime. It’s serving the ultra wealthy. It’s even openly pay to play: You get access to Trump by bribing him.
Also the regime is incompetent and despises expertise, so not only can they not negotiate with Iran, but they can’t operate the US armed forces to engage Iran with military force. The administration serves as an adverse force multiplier. And is wrecking the lives and integrity of the units.
The US is no longer a nation. It’s a pile of debt and assets that are being financialized, picked apart like buzzards would a carcass.
It feels like the worst parts of Las Vegas and “Big Box Retail.” Everything is being parted out to private equity, and it’s not for us people (or even U.S people) anymore.
I use Vegas as an example because all of the fun family-ish attractions and locals’ incentives have all but been eradicated, replaced with celebrity-DJ’d highrise night/day clubs and luxury shopping that seem to pander to the most egregious ends of wealthy foreign money. (Probably where a lot of shady deals go down, too.)
The other end is conventions, of course. If you wanna woo a guy who knows a guy to give
youyour boss’s boss’s boss a government contract for kill-drones, it probably happens here.The majority of residents’ place in this new structure is as servants, hawking luxury goods and experiences they themselves couldn’t possibly hope to attain because they’re actively shut out.
A little tangent here, but my point was: Feels like the entire country is following this ruinous pattern.
The rich are their own country, and if they have it their way, we are but their footstools across the globe.
Most advanced in what? The US is not even the top dog in military tech anymore.
I know it’s fashionable to claim that the US sucks at everything here on lemmy, but is this really a serious question? The US dominates in academia and scientific research and it’s not even close. https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/education/us-universities-dominate-global-academic-rankings-as-china-leads-in-representation-5111182.html
I have to admit I did not expect the US to still perform so well after losing thousands of academics this and last year.
However, reading the article you linked, it strikes me as a pointless victory. A statistic that won’t lead to anything meaningful.
Sure, it’s cool that academics and scientists publish a lot of articles, but does it really matter if nobody reads them because access is paywalled? And does it really matter if government institutions, as well as private companies, will just go against the research, because they could not care less?
Personally, I’d be much more interested in something that tracks public access to academia, and its impact on society, especially government’s decision making. Because to me, this just feels like GDP. Good for bragging about being top 1, and nothing else.
Still, I have to give the empire at least a little credit for its universities’ performance.
Shanghai rankings account for the number of Nobel Prize / Fields Medal winners, meaning they look at how good the institution was historically, rather than purely how good it is now. If you rank universities by current research output, such as the Leiden Ranking, it’s a very different picture.
Expensive and mediocre garbage
If we kill Blackrock, we solve so many issues.
Uh… No? BlackRock is a fairly passive company. They “own” so much because people buy they ETFs and mutual funds which buy stock in everything. You’re basically saying get rid of pension funds, 401ks and retail investors because those are largely the people using BlackRock and Vanguard funds.
You get rid of those, now you’re left with rich people as the only shareholders for everything.
Looking at your down votes here I don’t think you are correct.
It’s kind of a problem that they own the stock. It’s not the people that own the ETFs or mutual funds that get to vote with the shares. Instead, a company gets to amass that power using other people’s money.
I don’t know what a good solution is, but it’s very much a problem.
The insidious part is that this type of fund manager doesn’t care anything about what each company actually does or even their long-term future, they’re driven entirely by what will get them their bonuses for this year. It’s why we get enshittification. CEOs who don’t deliver YoY growth get voted out in favour of ones who will.
I don’t know how it all works, but I did see on Vanguard there’s an option to change how vanguard votes on your behalf. There’s the default of “maximum profit”, but there’s also “long term stability” and “ethical” (not the exact names). I don’t think every company has options like that, but they probably should, if we’re going to keep this kind of thing around at all.
If you use vanguard, go see what your options are.
Edit: think I found it https://corporate.vanguard.com/content/corporatesite/us/en/corp/about-our-funds/proxy-voting-across-funds/investor-choice.html#policy-options
Egan-Jones Wealth-Focused Policy […] This policy by rule rejects proposals based on environmental, social, or political considerations unless they directly contribute to revenue generation at the company receiving the proposal.
None of them look super good though
This policy by rule rejects proposals based on environmental, social, or political considerations unless they directly contribute to revenue generation at the company receiving the proposal.
The fact that it exists and they’re making a whole thing of letting you opt out of doing that, tells you a lot about what the standard practice in the industry is.
None of them look super good though
Yeah there’s no option for genuine environmental or social activism, just one that follows some other investment company’s ostensibly ethical voting strategy. Again, this speaks TONS about the Epstein class running these funds, that they’re scared that giving such an option might result in people actually taking it.
This might be the most evil thing I’ve learned about this year.
How is it the most advanced…I heard some of the cities are wothout power… and apparently segregated
FYI, this post has been reported as “off topic”, along with the declaration that posts of this nature make this board indistinguishable from Lemmy Politics.
As the sole Mod, I’m going to allow it because this sort of issue is a direct consequence of our civilization’s corporate-centric approach to governing, and highlights the urgent need for Work Reform; the implementation of a system that is not 100% profit-driven or based around profit outcomes. Indeed; Work Reform is a political concept at its core since the entrenched powers never reform from within, but only change due to outside pressure.
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with this approach. All opinions are valid.
Technically I think it is off-topic since it has nothing directly to do with work reform. Note, I said directly, so no need to point ouf correlations between work reform and racism or bad government in general.
I know what you mean, and your logic is 100% sound.
By the time I saw this it was 8hrs old with +250 upvotes though, so I didn’t want to purge it against the will of the people.
That’s how I feel about moderation. I’ve followed reddit posts that had hundreds of comments and suddenly got removed because technically they didn’t belong where they were. Always annoying.
Exactly my experience!
If it was languishing with a dozen upvotes and no comments, that’d be one thing; but it’s generating discussion and interaction, so I’m not going to be the spoil-sport on this one.
Great job on moderation. A reasoned and practical approach.
Thank you!
It’s not especially on-topic but it’s not completely unrelated either. I think it’s fine as an edge case but that doesn’t mean a ton more like it should also be allowed.
I’m inclined to say off topic, but i’m not angry about it if it stays. I really appreciate your mod style. Thank you for asking for opinions from the community.
My complaint is that it’s from a serial Reddit reposter. If I wanted a reddit feed, I’d go to reddit. Last I looked, they posted 10x the amount they comment, drowning out communities
Oh, its Sanitation again, I didn’t notice that.
I understand and appreciate your point. But as long as they’re abiding by the rules of the sub, I’m going to let the community upvotes & downvotes be greater determinants of the worthiness of their posts. And as long as they’re not being a bad actor, I won’t ban this or any other user.
I’m just glad to see posts that are mostly-applicable to the topic rather than those spammy fake jobs or that one guy obsessed with the end of the world.
Right, it’s a complaint I tend to keep to myself, sometimes letting people know that they aren’t going to get a reply or more details, as that’s frustrating as a user
Hey, it sucks to hear this place only has one mod. I have free time and I strongly believe in the mission of decentralized social media. If you want any help I would be more than happy to volunteer my time.
I’ll keep that in mind, thanks! Fortunately this is Lemmy, so I only have one or two reports each day to deal with (for now). And most users actually seem pretty mature and reasonable!
I have a hope that the sort of people to be on Lemmy at all aren’t the sort to be too toxic or unreasonable; and mostly that’s been wonderfully true in my (limited) experience!
All opinions are valid.
Wrong.
That’s my opinion, therefore it is valid. ;-)
LOL that’s valid
I thought about editing that since unconstructive replies are less valid, but figured whatevs. I’d rather hear all feedback than discourage poor feedback. :p
I wanted to write up a bunch of silly opinions, but I’m exhausted from dialysis, so you just got that joke. heh. I also wanted to say something about the moderation style - I always preferred community feedback like that as well, so just know that I have high praise for it :)
Awwwws, thanks! Best wishes for your dialysis, that’s rough. Hope things work out as well as possible
Richest, most advanced 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
North Korea tells the same story
Except they actually had a beet crop year that beat expectations this year, so at least some of their propaganda turned out to be true
According to who
According to North Korea.
Show me
Yeah right, everyone knows you’re a shill account. I’m not going to waste my time arguing with a sealion.
Let me clarify something for you: this isn’t me starting an argument with you. You’re not that important to me. This is just a mark-and-bypass.
Good day.
Anything’s possible when you make shit up
You would know that, wouldn’t you. 🥱
.ml moment
Expecting people to prove shit? Yeah I guess
According to reality
We do have the richest and most advanced billionaires.
which is proof that, as a Nation, it is neither
So advanced it doesn’t need universal health care or 60% of the population lives from paycheck to paycheck and have no savings in case of emergency. Not to mention definitely no rampant drug issues.
Sad that even Bernie is buying into the propanda.
It certainly doesn’t seem that way, but I think when people say this they are referring to GDP, which does show the US as the highest.
does ai companies passing money to each other get counted in the gpd?
Two economists are walking in a forest when they come across a pile of shit.
The first economist says to the other “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The second economist takes the $100 and eats the pile of shit.
They continue walking until they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist turns to the first and says “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The first economist takes the $100 and eats the pile of shit.
Walking a little more, the first economist looks at the second and says, “You know, I gave you $100 to eat shit, then you gave me back the same $100 to eat shit. I can’t help but feel like we both just ate shit for nothing.”
“That’s not true”, responded the second economist. “We increased the GDP by $200!”
All the sheep spouted,
“The best country in the world”,
And they believed it
Yeah, that’s something Trump would tweet. Just the first sentence, without any context at 3 in the morning.
It’s corrupt as hell, but the world still folds back to the US dollar when their own currency goes to shit for a reason.
in the wealthiest neighborhoods.
Wait til you hear about Puerto Rico after Maria. I was there 2 years after and there were whole parts of the island that had no power or running water. It took me almost 2 months to get my gear shipped in as they had an active triage on what was shipped by need. It was one pallet, thats how tight it was even after 2 years.
The less touristy parts of New Orleans were still fucked (though not without power, afaik) in 2012 from Katrina in 2005.
2012? Those scars still won’t smooth out for another two generations.
Absolutely believable, I just haven’t been back since 2012
remember Flint, pepperidge farm remembers, it took them a long time to fix it.
There were places in the US that didn’t have power for over a month after hurricane Laura. I know because I experienced it firsthand.
I’m telling you, that was my thought too. But my second thought was that hurricanes are way more destructive, over a much bigger area. If I can get power in two weeks after hundreds of miles of 150mph wind and 20’ floods, why aren’t they fixed yet?
This shit in Gary is extra fucked up.
Hurricanes get more exposure and bring storm chasers out. Also, areas used to major events like hurricanes have better planning.
They shot at the repairmen. Gary was once the most dangerous place in the US. There’s more to the story
Oh damn, are there not enough Democrats that lord diapers can send in the national guard and just murder people in the street?
Not Louisiana; Paris, France; or even Rome?
It’s the place that knew me when.
Gary, Indiana - let me say it once again.
Priorities seem straight to me. Impoverish non-white Americans so that old richwhitemen can do whatever they want.
It’s both bigger and smaller than that
- smaller in that outright racism has evolved to systemic racism plus classism
- but much bigger as a failure of poor infrastructure condition and market that can’t adapt. Many places have a poor state of infrastructure that could fail like this, and the market can’t adapt to the need regardless of what city failed
‘okay okay, we will schedule a couple bombing runs for Gary, to make things even. that’s how equality works right? ah fuck it’ pushes red button
That’s probably on purpose
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