- cross-posted to:
- latestagecapitalism@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- latestagecapitalism@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19930828
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I had a friend that voted for Brexit. When I asked him why, he said that his grandfather was able to buy a house and take care of his family on his salary. His father was able to do the same. He said, these immigrants come in and live two families to a house and are willing to work for far less. He said, I don’t want that type of future for myself.
No amount of telling him that – the people that caused this issue are also benefitting from Brexit – could convince him.
Was weird because I wasn’t an immigrant but my family was and he was cool with me.
They come so close. I understand the anger, broken promises from society at large, but then they do that little twist at the end. It’s like they’re about to win the race, then decide to just veer off into the stands right before getting to the finish line.
It’s because their pain is very real, their struggles are very real, their feelings are very often valid, and they understand the concrete impact that it has had on them and their way of life.
They can’t abstract that out and critically think about why that is the case, so they just repeat what an authority told them and is easy for them to understand.
I don’t know though if it is simply a lack of education or an inherent human solipsism that is hard to break through.
It is the same the world over, even before TVs when newspapers brought the news, and before that anything written down was true because “priests and scholars definitely wouldn’t lie.” That is why extremely strict factual news laws have to be brought into effect with anyone caught lying bearing fines based on a percentage of their revenue to combat fascism that is based wholly on fear fabrication. The problem is, of course, policing that correctly as for example an American Trump regime would simply use those laws to say that anything they don’t like is not true (they they do anyway now).
I think the last step of understanding the issue is difficult because it requires admitting that their current belief and way of life is not optimal for themselves.
Everyone or almost everyone thinks highly of their own decision skills or at least that they do their best. They believe they can make good choices and that they can either outsmart or work harder than others. The truth is that, maybe they can, but there’s very little choice in how it’s rewarded. The believable lie is that work is compensated fairly, and once someone has put half a life into this lie, it’s difficult and soul crushing to admit that it’s plain wrong. It may cause frustration and anger, which doesn’t solve it. A solution isn’t evident or maybe it seems out of reach, causing more frustration, causing more anger. It’s a lot easier to take out anger on people than fighting a system. And especially in groups, it’s easier to point at smaller minority groups, because their own group is stronger or have more votes, so it’s actually doable. They get a relief for the frustration by believing that they’re doing something about their issue. It won’t work though. It’s similar to being bullied in school and then thinking it will help to take it out on the younger kids, instead of confronting the older bully.
It takes courage to fight upwards. Having been through unionisation efforts I can assure you that people living from one paycheck to the next are absolutely not courageous.
In regards to news, it’s also a lot easier to simply choose the news that keeps presenting their existing belief.
Yep, if you listen to guys like Steve Bannon talk, they sound like Marxists in their critiques of the system, up until the point where they have to identify the culprit. Instead of capitalists, they’ll go and blame liberal elites, immigrants, etc.
If illegal immigrants are taking all the jobs, why don’t we blame the people giving them jobs instead of the immigrants who are desperate?
Because they have the capital.
Because the immigrants aren’t taking all the jobs, and we’re honest. But if they were, we would.
because they just want cheap labor, and laborer want to maximize wages
You forgot we also want cheap goods. It’s a race to the bottom.
Because wages are so low.
Race to the bottom! Lol
Yeah but my problems are all because I have to see a brown person at work sometimes!
A quote often posted, but still works:
President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Tie housing costs to wages.
You wanna raise the rent? Go talk to the bosses and convince them to raise wages.
You wanna cut wages? Go talk to the landlords and get our rent down.
Yes! I’ve been saying that forever. They say rent/mortgage shouldn’t be more than 30% of your income. OK, make it so if you’re working full-time, you can afford to live. Doesn’t seem like a complicated, or controversial, take.
I don’t know a single person who is only spending 30% on housing. It’s more like 50% where I live. A lot of landlords have that dumb “rule” where you must make triple the cost of the lease per month after taxes but will look the other way when 4 people split the cost evenly for a 2 bedroom apartment so they can each make ends meet. Not a single one of them comes close to making 3x the rent each month but an over occupied apartment is more likely to remove a squeaky wheel who won’t pay their share of the rent on their own without management having to get involved. Saves them the trouble of having to fight a long legal battle to evict a troublesome tenant.
Housing is so beyond fucked right now.
It really is… Me and my gf are two software developers living together, AKA income definitely isn’t an issue. And yet almost half of our collective income goes to rent. To be fair we are renting a 3 room flat, and it was our choice to splurge a bit for now. But when I think about the future, starting a family, suddenly a flat like this doesn’t seem as outrageous of a desire. To actually meet the 30%, we’d need a much smaller flat, each on our own would only afford a single room. But our incomes are comfortably above average, SO HOW THE FUCK DOES ANYBODY ELSE AFFORD ANYTHING AT ALL?!?
That is true, in many other countries. But the USA loves it’s exceptionalism, and this is one of those fucked up examples of it.
(Of course other countries have their own issues.)
I am more in favor of tying wages to inflation.
It’s a day broader metric… That way, slave wage companies can’t screw their workers by charging out the ass for the services they’re providing for next-to-nothing. Then the business owners can fight with everyone about keeping the inflation rates low so they can enjoy paying their workers less.
Let these two asshole groups duke it out amongst themselves.
Inflation however is a load of bollocks. It’s inaccurate to measure and can be oh so easily manipulated.
House prices have been rising at a stupid rate for decades yet we had in the UK a typical inflation rate of… 0.1% for a decade whilst house prices out performed everything else because they just ignore it.
Like how if your favourite brand of cereal goes up 700%, that won’t be included in inflation data they make the assumption you’d eat a generic brand instead that only went up 0.5%
It’s all bollocks the lot of it, remove money it’s not worth anything anyway
You need to look at the rent for the cost of housing. That’s what goes into inflation. House prices are high because inflation is low. Or more correctly, they are high because interest rates are low, which is because inflation is low.
Imagine you have a rock-solid investment opportunity. You are sure, it will generate a return of 10k until the next year. Say you can borrow money for 5%pa. If you borrow and invest 100k, you get 110k back and have to pay 105k back, for a profit of GBP 5k. But if everyone thinks the same, they are not just going to let you have free money. If they can’t adjust the payout, they will adjust the price. So, at that rate of interest, the price has to be 200k for that 10k opportunity.
The point is that if rents are constant while interest rates go down, then the cost of buying must go up.
Remember if your yearly raise isn’t more than inflation, you’ve lost money.
Happened to me for a couple of years through COVID, where I got no raises for a few years and let’s just say, I don’t work at that company anymore.
Or get a tenant with a higher wage?
The problem with this idea is that stats say that rents aren’t increasing faster than wages.
Anyone whose income depends on harming others has an incentive to distract the people they’re harming. Point a finger at any out-group & that job is done. Immigrants are the easiest out group to post a finger at
“[the landlord leaves the worker] with the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more.” - Adam Smith
Consider the incestuous circle of ownership of the big 3 asset managers (BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard) and despair.
That explains why the oligarchs are trying so hard to get Kamala to fire FTC leadership
Elon musk is an immigrant.
Mudrock family are immigrants, also were in UK while publishing xenophobia.
Shiity people often abuse the USA’s liberties in bad faith and prosper.
But govt people allowed the mergers until the media are mostly owned by them, soon there will be ONE major grocery chain in USA, apparently the Loblaw imbroglio is invisible from Wash DC, and buying and selling personal data is commonplace, not even taxed much less protected.
Those Pogo comics of them going downhill out of control are from the 50s, that pure copper penny still hasn’t dropped.
Who got bailed out in 2008? And who bailed them out?
Ah yes, let’s attack our neighbors who try to save their money, and let’s ignore the bankers and politicians who created the system that incentivizes this behavior.
This whole argument of peoples pension funds being the largest shareholders in a company is bizarre. https://www.blackrock.com/institutions/en-us/insights/public-pensions-survey pensions are owning less and less of the stock markets every year, become less and less relevant. Institutions like blackrock however are growing. Consistently.
Like mate your neighbour Barry isn’t calling into the shareholders meeting to criticise the CEO for paying $0.05 an hour over minimum wage the the receptionist.
Pensions have practically vanished in the US. It’s all 401k
Institutions like blackrock however are growing. Consistently.
Ah yes, let’s blame blackrock who provides a service for our neighbors who want to protect their wealth and invest, and let’s ignore the bankers and politicians who created the system that incentivizes this behavior.
You keep repeating bankers and politicians but don’t seem to be going into much detail. Which politicians? Which bankers? When did your neighbours get enough money to invest through blackrock and when did they become billionaires?
What do you mean? Are you going to say politicians didn’t pass the laws that are the foundations of our financial and economic system? Which law are you curious about, then I can look up when it was passed and by who. Blackrock doesn’t gatekeep, anybody can invest with them, you don’t have to be a billionaire.
You’re the one making the claim bossman, burden of proof is on you
I need to give you proof that politicians created our laws? Dude…
Are you being intentionally obtuse?
I’m here reading comments of people’s opinions, and everyone is elaborating trying to help people understand their views. You’re not. That’s why people are asking for clarity (which you’re not providing)
Companies like Blackrock also lobby those politicians with that wealth they’re pretending and investing.
“lobbying” is just spending money in hopes of getting more favourable laws passed, which is a form of investment in the company’s future.
Lobbying is a sanitised word for bribery.
Sure, the system feeds itself.
Exactly. Stockholders are not the problem - corporate concentration of wealth and power is the problem. Attacking me for having a 401k is just crabs-in-a-bucket mentality.
No one is attacking you for your 401k… The problem is that the richest 10% own 93% of all stocks, and the 1% own 54%. Your 401k almost certainly falls into that 7% the peasants “own”. When we point a finger at “stock holders” we’re talking about the relatively small group that owns everything and would rather kill everyone than share the wealth equitably.
Tbf, if that is what is meant by stockholders perhaps the specificity would do the argument good, because without it you’re lumping them in with all stock holders (like those with a 401k.) I also get the notion that you may not care about the 401k but the hexbear users might, for instance, so some infighting may take place, but oh well.
At any rate by using terms that include a wider range of people than you do intend to kill (saying things like kill all landlords or kill all stockholders etc, which could include fair landlords and 7%ers or whatever unless specified), it’s going to make those people who acknowledge those cases you “don’t mean” defensive against being killed. Basically, we need another word that only applies to the people that you find it acceptable to kill, that excludes those who you think should live despite exhibiting similar behaviors to those marked for death, if you intend to get those people on your side.
Fair enough… Not sure what that term would be other than “oligarchs” or 1%… Although it’s really more like the richest 1% of the richest 1%
When we point a finger at “stock holders” we’re talking about
Maybe you are but there’s plenty of people who are perfectly happy to attack the middle class.
Honestly that’s my big fear as far as any “revolution” goes… That people won’t recognize the oligarchs separate from just the richest person they know. Like, someone with a big house in your neighborhood, is almost certainly not oligarch levels of destroy society and the world, but they’ll be accessable while Elon and the banksters won’t be.
Have you read the text in the image?
No one is pointing the finger at regular people… The problem is that the richest 10% own 93% of all stocks, and the 1% own 54%. The 1% often IS the bankers, and they did create the system, and they paid the politicians to pass it. You’re just muddying the waters.
Have you read the text in the image?
Yes
You all are fundamentally missing something with real estate pricing increasing, and that’s how it’s used for money laundering.
You know how you can sell a piece of art to someone for any price and how that gets used for money laundering? Well, the rich do that with houses and property too. Hint: a lot of real estate agents aren’t really working as real estate agents. They are someone’s escort or drug dealer etc who gets payment in the form of a cut of the property they “sold,” but in reality was a pre-planned transaction that didn’t really need real estate agents to facilitate.
So basically they are subsidizing illegal activity with our properties.
Ummm… What? Proof of this? Would be pretty wild if true.
Oh, they talk about it in the documentary Active Measures (2018) when discussing Donald Trump doing it with commercial real estate and iirc, the mob/mafia. McCain and Hillary Clinton are in that doc. I’m looking for a link to the full documentary and will update this comment if I find it.
Please ping me when that’s posted. Thank you.
I couldn’t find the free full (legal) version on YT anymore. It was free about a month ago. Sorry about that. You can of course find it through the usual other means
Well, I lived near a mn+ per year broker and he was sketchy. One of his clients was eventually convicted for tax evasion and got ten years, so while I didn’t ask a lot of questions, I did always wonder. I was just wondering the potential mechanisms. Thanks. I’ll sort something.
Don’t forget the massive property tax increases and home insurance increases. Both have doubled in less than 10 years. At least they have here in FL with our wack job governor.
Yes but that also has a lot to do with insurance companies finally using climate data for their rates.
And the lack of state income tax. The tourist taxes only go so far, they’ve got to make that money somewhere, property tax is one of the places Florida balances the books.
One of my best friends is an illegal immigrant and I’ve realized that he is here doing what I’m doing. Trying to get by and provide for his family. If the tables were turned I’d do the same and if all these people against them say they wouldn’t, they are full of shit. Actually, there’s such shitty people that they probably wouldn’t anyway.
In some countries (including the USA), immigration is mostly a civil issue, and most “illegal immigration” is actually not illegal!
These two groups are the same people.
Those dern im’gints controlin’ the means’o production.
