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blusky

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Yes really
That's a big list with few results. Many cases were ordered into arbitration, many strung along for several years to outspend plaintiffs on lawyers. Singapore and Norway were successful, that's kind of telling. The doge coin scam was textbook pump-and-dump, nothing happened. I stand by my "not really". He seems to get sued a lot and nothing happens. He's found guilty of union busting, pays a minuscule fine and Tesla employees still dont have a union.
But all of this avoids the point I'm making. Musk makes a calculation on how expensive it will be to break laws and pay lawyers and fines or just pick up shop and relocate. Or he threatens the State that sues him and has a big soapbox to spin his side of the story. Robber barons had none these tools.

Somewhat related, look at the case of Everton FC. They were recently found guilty by the English Football Association of breaching FFP rules (they lost too much money in the 20-21 season). They received a 10 point deduction putting them in the relegation zone. Meanwhile, Manchester City FC, owned by a Saudi Prince, have 115 alleged violations of FFP including forging revenue, putting players on the books for other Saudi owned clubs then 'loaning' them to MCFC for free, the Prince's brother 'paid' 60m for naming rights to the stadium in a deal valued at 3-5m, and another 112 similar examples. Der Spiegel laid the case(s) out in a long article with receipts, the evidence is overwhelming. Nothing will be done. Nothing can be done. MCFC have made it publicly known they will sue the FA in 3 countries and force the FA into debt just to pay for the lawyers. They'll sue the directors of the FA personally and force them into protracted court battles. They brag about it. They unveiled a stadium sized TIFO with the name of their head of legal before a match. Like Musk they can spend millions, 100s of millions if necessary tying up their opponents in court forever.
Look at what happened with the PGA. Fearing the prospect of being deposed in an American court the Saudis just wrote a check and bought the PGA as easily as you or I buy a set of golf clubs.

All religions have this issue
Agreed, but they don't have this issue to the same degree or at the same time.
youtu.be
The silence from the crowd is palpable. Everyone understands what is happening. To pretend all religions are the same is moronic and dangerous.

68% seems soft considering every other poll puts the evangelical vote closer to 80%. So maybe they are coming to their senses. Trump holds a majority across the christian community. The more you go to church the more likely you are to vote for Trump. Trump even gained points among non-Christian religions. +4 points among Hindus and Buddhists vs the 2016 results. Black protestants are the only religious group Trump doesn't carry.
11% of atheists voted for Trump down from 14% FWIW.
www.pewresearch.org
www.kwtx.com
www.jpost.com

Christians want Trump. No amount of spin or disavowing or declarations of who is "real" or "fake" can change that. I understand why it's uncomfortable for Christians who don't support Trump, but it is an objective fact.
I'd argue religion has little to do with why an overwhelming majority of white Christians support Trump. Christians support Trump because he supports their values. Trump is clearly a racist, they are racist. Trump doesn't like gays, they don't like gays. Trump doesn't like immigrants, they don't like immigrants. Trump doesn't support reproductive rights, they don't support reproductive rights. Trump is an isolationist, they are isolationists. Trump is vile and inflammatory, they are vile and inflammatory. None of this are things Christians who don't support want to talk about, they can't talk about it. To speak of it is to acknowledge the values of the vast majority of Christians, evangelical or otherwise, are ------ up.

business tax rates encourages reinvestment
That was true once, still true in the rare cases where products are produced in America by Americans for Americans. If you tax the NFL more they'll expand the league, lengthen the season and create their own tv network for more market share. But for companies with a global reach, with manufacturing and distribution centers spread around the world, they are immune from a drastic shift in tax policy. They'll just move profits to places with little to no corporate tax rates. Lower rates result in stock buy-backs increasing share price and creating cash to buy up competitors or links of their own supply chain. More profit, more consolidation.

As for the article, among the "three main theories" presented only the third seems viable to me. Not mentioned is the astronomical increases of the financial sector since the 40s, now the number one engine of GDP. If an American capitalist builds a factory, employs thousands of people, buys products from other capitalists and sends a product to market, a share of revenue (admittedly a decreasing share over time) is returned back into the economy as wages. People spend wages bla bla bla...economics. But when profits are generated in the financial sector that money never leaves the sector (except for hookers, coke and yachts). It just accumulates in the hands of very few people, at best it gets spent on more financial products. That sector is allowed to grow and grow to the detriment of all others and produces nothing but rent, and putting a rent-tax on everything that moves. Occasionally it's infused with 'free money' from central banks adding to its' power, wealth and influence and creating inflation for everyone else. And now the rise of Amazon, Alphabet and Apple, who spend less than 1% of revenue on wages will only make the situation worse.

The ultra rich of today have a fundamental connection to the robber barons of the guided age, the landlords of the feudal system, the imperialism of the Caesars and the total ownership of everything from plants to people Kings held; all of them do whatever they can get away with. Society and law has to set limits despite, and in response to, the levers the ultra rich are able to pull for their own advantage. The government broke monopolies but breaking personal wealth that is spread across many sectors of the economy seems a tougher prospect. And the power of the growing financial sector makes that prospect even harder. As the article implies, if Trump had taken his initial 200m inheritance and simply spread it across the stock market he could be worth 8b today. No ingenuity, he doesn't need to produce anything, he wouldn't need a 'brand' or real estate holdings, doesn't need to dream up anything novel or unique. He could have just sat on a beach and watched his money multiply. That isn't healthy for society.

the Tesla driver cult isn't attacking labor trying to organize with rifles
If Musk can, "coup whoever we want!" how is that significantly different from paying Pinkertons to beat and murder strikers or the Slave Patrols in the 18th century? If SpaceX reaches Mars Musk isn't going to hand it over to benefit humanity, it will become his own personal fiefdom. He'll make the laws, he'll own an entire planet...if we let him. If the people of Texas get tired of rocket parts falling on their beaches and neighborhoods he'll move again to a place more accommodating. If he can't do that he'll claim empty ocean and create his own personal State outside the jurisdiction of the laws he doesn't like. This is something Carnegie, Rockefeller or Vanderbilt could have never dreamed of.

If (when) research into AI leads to a super intelligence we wont know until well after it is deployed to enrich and empower its' owner(s). It could by then already be too late to do anything about. It might already be too late. Capitalism has already been replaced by something much worse. Varoufakis calls it Technofeudalism, his book mentioned in the article is fantastic. Consider this, in 2020 the British Exchequer announced GDP had fallen by 20%. A staggering number and much worse than anticipated. The stock market went up in response to the news. Because the financial sector knows that today bad economic news --less production, less profit, more unemployment-- for everyone else means a greater supply of digital currency for them. That isn't Capitalism. That's some new thing worse than any monopoly, robber baron or feudal entrapment.

Effete may or may not be Rustapar, paid 10 rubles a week to maintain this dialog, I've got serious doubts it can maintain gainful employment of any sort. It'sd jsut as likely it is a Useful Idiot working pro bono. Either way that's something I can't prove given the anonymity of this site and my own very limited technical capabilities. I can prove its' proffers are indistinguishable from those of known Rustapar, bots and Russian State media.
www.ynetnews.com
www.euronews.com
www.csis.org
Free speech however disgusting, intentionally counter-productive and objectively false it may be is a core Western value, a privilege it would never receive in any of the regimes it claims to support. So I hope it repeats Fascists/Russian/Jihadist talking points long enough for those in the NSA who do have the technical capabilities to remove its' digital mask and they put it on a no-fly list. It can say what it want but I don't want to be and I don't want any of you to be stuck on an airplane with this....thing

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