This is a deeply sick way of thinking. Mangione was and is a fool, a 3rd rate thinker. His manifesto is muddled, factually mistaken, and by his own words he understood the topic poorly. You only need a cursory knowledge of the late 60s and early 70s to know that political violence rarely achieves its aims and is much more likely to empower reactionaries. There's no quick fix for political change.
I did say rarely, and if you are looking more carefully a pluralistic democracy wasn't really what a lot of the founders were after, especially guys like Jefferson. Sure we're happy we got it, but it wasn't necessarily the aim and we got SUPER LUCKY that Washington decided to step down and retire. The former military leaders of revolutions almost never do that.
And I think you have that backwards. The nonviolence movements of the mid to late 20th century are the exception more than the rule when it comes to achieving change.
> political violence rarely achieves its aims and is much more likely to empower reactionaries.
Cursory knowledge of history also shows that, when it comes to violence, logic does not matter. People are scared for their livelihoods. If the rich and powerful keep shouting to the word that they are going to destroy your way of life, there will be violence. It doesn't matter how futile or counterproductive it is.
I'm quite aware the elites will never be meaningfully impacted. That doesn't change the reality that it's going to happen. I personally am quite afraid of the future, I know deep down me and my family are in for a bad time in the years to come, and nowhere in the world will be safe, other than the bunkers in Greenland of course.
>That doesn't change the reality that it's going to happen.
That's why the elites have secret self sustaining doomsday bunkers on private islands.
And the mid-upper class are trying to cash in as much as they can now while the going is still good so they can also move their families abroad or to gated communities in safer places of the country to be as far away from the potential riot hotspots as possible when the shit hits the fan.
Ultimately it's gonna be every man for himself. Expecting the government to do something for the "little guy", is futile. If they were to do anything for you, they would have done something since the 1970-80's, when they started shipping jobs abroad and eroding your purchasing power to enrich the shareholders.
> You only need a cursory knowledge of the late 60s and early 70s to know that political violence rarely achieves its aims
Maybe cursory knowledge isn't enough, actually. The Civil Rights Act was ultimately only passed because of political violence. As another commenter said, the literal founding of the country was based on political violence.
> Maybe cursory knowledge isn't enough, actually. The Civil Rights Act was ultimately only passed because of political violence.
Violence by the police against peaceful protestors is what turned public opinion. Violence by political activists did not lead to the Civil Rights Act. You have it backwards.
This is the cursory knowledge I'm referring to - it leaves out extremely pertinent details. The Civil Rights Act did not pass until multiple days of rioting following the assassination of MLK.
The peaceful protestors were also only one side of the coin. Their impact relied on being an alternative to the other side, which was not peaceful.
L.B.J. was instrumental in whipping votes for the Civil Rights Act. In his joint address to congress he said "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long. He then went on to personally lobby individual senators until it passed.
It think you're the one who has a cursory understanding here.
Humans have been killing each other since before recorded history. There is no use pretending it's some exceptional 'sickness'. Rather than dismissing the sentiment as the product of a sick mind, it's more productive to accept it's part of us and try to understand the underlying causes.
Mangione was a one-off, and a lot of people understand why he may have done what he did. Just wait until the American version of the French Revolution happens. If AI keeps stealing all the jobs, it will come sooner rather than later.
- Most of the nobility escaped the French Revolution unharmed. By the way, wealth is a lot portable for today's magnates than it was for the French nobility deriving their income from their land holdings.
- Some of those who went to the block were nobles but most were ordinary people.
- The leader of the revolution, Robespierre, was himself executed in the infighting after the French Revolution, a very neat own goal. Bonus fact: his time in power was called the Reign Of Terror.
- The First Republic lasted only 10 years before Napoleon Bonaparte took the throne.
In a turbulent time, always seek to be led by those with a proper understanding of revolutions and their context. Generally, those who romanticize the French Revolution don't pass that test.
I don't give a shit. When half of the middle class of America is unemployed, it's going to look very different than the French Revolution, whatever might happen.
> and a lot of people understand why he may have done what he did.
He didn't understand why he did what he did.
> just wait until the American version of the French Revolution happens
We should all be trying to actively prevent that. The French Revolution was a complete failure and mostly succeeded in killing poor people and launching Napoleon's wars.
That doesn't matter, and I don't think your comment makes any difference. The fact is that a lot of people understand why he (may have) did what he did.
>We should all be trying to actively prevent that. The French Revolution was a complete failure and mostly succeeded in killing poor people and launching Napoleon's wars.
The same or worse will happen if it happens here. But when half of middle class jobs are just gone, you don't leave the people with many alternatives but violence.
The Who is your evidence? Lol. The French Revolition turned out pretty well for the French people. It needed to happen. And centuries later, the French still don't accept bullshit, they will protest and riot when their protections are diminished in any way. America does protesy and riot too, though not to the same extent, but that will only get worse as things get bad.
Russia is not a good example either, their society has always been a clusterfuck, and probably always will be as long as there are people willing to throw other people put of windows so someone can stay ahead or in power.
> The Who is your evidence? Lol. The French Revolition turned out pretty well for the French people.
Many people have made comments that are similar in nature, the line from that song is the pithiest example I could think of to express the idea that replacing terrible leaders usually leads to more terrible leaders.
Spending decades fighting wars across Europe under Napoleon was good? I wonder how the troops that invaded Russia feel about the French Revolution lol
> The French Revolition turned out pretty well for the French people.
What? Napoleon marched them off to war "spending 30,000 lives per month". They didn't get a proper Republic until 1870 and turned into miserable colonial overlords. Moreover the 3rd Republic;s foreign policy helped cause WWI.
People will downvote you because the idea of violence shocks and scares them, but if you steal people's future and strip them of any real (peaceful) options to change things, it becomes inevitable some of them will try to fight back with what few options they do have left.
The status quo of health insurance in the US ("delay, deny, defend") is structural violence. This isn't about fear of violence, they just have different politics...
GameStop has a standing approved agreement to issue up to a billion new shares. If you read the offer you will see it is 50% financed by GameStop stock.
They threw him a hardball today in his cnbc interview on this topic. $GME stock value would plummet short term, but the combined company would revalue much higher.
Current Gamestop shareholders would be diluted. They would own, proportionally, a much small slice of the combined company, but at a higher price point.
The framing of this as, "Ryan Cohen is diluting Gamestop shareholders in order to meet the terms of his enormous pay package" is disingenuous though, as his pay package is all stock. He's diluting himself too. He obviously has faith that, long term, the value of the combined company can substantially grow.
He has a massive stake in Gamestop outside of this pay package. The loss from diluting his massive accumulated position is not worth the bonus unless he thinks the price will recover long term.
My take? The strategy is like a contractor fixing up houses. GameStop was the crappiest house on the block. He’s fixed it up and is using it as collateral to take out a loan and buy the dilapidated mansion next door (eBay). He’ll keep going until he’s gentrified the whole neighborhood using the value of the current business as collateral to buy the next. He wants to sell only when the value of the entire gentrified neighborhood reflects market rate for the work he's put in.
The only thing that Cohen has done is shut down stores and cut costs massively at the expensive of revenue. He hasn't really fixed anything, he is just managing their demise. All of his strategic initiatives like expansion of e-commerce or an NFT platform were complete disasters that had to be wound down. The only reason the company is even showing a profit is because they repeatedly diluted shareholders to raise cash and then re-invested that money into Treasuries. Basically, if you are buying GME stock, you are getting an expensive fixed income wrapper.
Buying EBAY would be a bad deal for pretty much everyone involved. GME shareholders get diluted to buy EBAY for way too much money. EBAY shareholders get paid in vastly overvalued GME shares. And the entire thing would be managed by some guy whose only strategic idea is to cut costs. The only one who would benefit is Cohen, because it would create a sufficiently liquid market for him to sell his stake, something that is not currently possible in GME.
> The only reason the company is even showing a profit is because they repeatedly diluted shareholders to raise cash and then re-invested that money into Treasuries.
The attention stunts were a strategy toward finding profitability for the core GME business model.
This is significantly different, in line with a strategy that seems to have been in place since he became CEO of Gamestop.
This appears to be an attempt to take over eBay the same way he took over Gamestop by acquiring a 51% controlling interest with capital he will raise by further diluting the value of Gamestop shares.
It appears long term he is trying to build the, "Amazon of the secondhand market".
I remember showing up to buy a new Call of Duty game on release day, back when physical was the only way to buy games and seeing tons of people with boxes full of old games and consoles. I realized then that GameStop's differentiation from other retailers was that it was also a kind of pawn shop.
Incentives are key. If Congress does not present a balanced budget then there has to be consequences. Many other countries work this way. No balanced budget forthcoming? Then there is an immediate collapse of the current government or ruling party and run-off elections to replace them.
The issue with requiring balanced budgets at the federal level is there are a number of situations where, by any economic theory, you want to run deficits.
So what you really need is an impartial Fed-budgetary-counterpart arbiter that declares when balanced budget rules are and aren't in effect.
And probably toss in what target percent of debt needs to be paid down too.
As democratic popular opinion turns against classical liberal economic principles, many theocratic or monarchist hell holes are increasingly becoming the unexpected underdog turned winners in economic freedom. It's been fascinating to watch.
My understanding is that unique historical, cultural, and even geographical factors have led to this outcome for Oman. I would encourage you to read up on the history of the country to understand the nuance here and not paint with such a broad brush.
Everyone has a unique "..." and a nuance here and a nuance there.
UAE has a unique yada yada and also ended up with a surprisingly remarkably free economic index despite being a theocratic monarchy.
As did the monarchy Lichtenstein, British controlled Hong Kong, and the one-party state of Singapore (technically democratic, in practice it functions like a recallable monarchy).
Also of note the three richest countries by GDP PPP per capita are Monaco (hybrid monarchy with monarchist veto powers), Lichtenstein (hybrid monarchy with monarchist veto powers), Singapore (single party state).
> one-party state of Singapore (technically democratic, in practice it functions like a recallable monarchy).
This is untrue. It would be more accurate to say that the same party has been in power since independence from the UK. Each election in the last 30 years has slowly moved the needle -- fewer and fewer of seats held by the majority party (PAP). I guess there will be a non-PAP prime minister in the next 20 years. Sure, it doesn't look like other democracies, but please don't call it one-party. Also: See Japan. Many outsiders just don't understand democracy in Japan and try to impose their worldview on a different type of democratic system.
I'll yield that it isn't a pure one party state. There is some room for difference of opinion whether you want to characterize it as one or not.
But let's not play the bullshit and borderline xenophobic, ad-hominem attack that it's just "outsiders" who "just don't understand." Or try and distinguish that it's people 'imposing their worldview' (something every human does no matter what they are arguing).
But don't take my word for it. Read what Lee Kuan Yew had to say himself[0]:
The PAP represents the broad middle ground in society and attracts the best and brightest people into Government, LKY said last night. He therefore did not see a two- or multi-party system emerging in Singapore soon.
Ah yes, good ol LKY, the outsider who just doesn't understand Singapore, and with such a non-Singaporean 'viewpoint' that he had quite popular support (even if you want to argue it is a minority, it was widespread enough as to be valid enough to be considered one valid and widespread Singaporean point of view). Calling it not a two or multi-party system, leaving quite obviously his assertion is that it's a one-party system.
This and other points, documented by Yeo Lay Hwee (Senior Fellow, Singapore Institute of International Affairs) , who even if she flip flops between suggesting Singapore is a one-party state, lists quite a few reasons why it is a reasoned viewpoint from an understood observer [1].
I'm not sure what the conclusion is from this other than that the wealthy love having an autocratic tax haven microstate to park the money they earned from liberal democracies in.
Its ok he'll just slot some new softs from Shinjuku corp and break the ICE on the implants from his VR 3d rendered file system that he jockeys into with his Nintendo power glove.
*Oh god, you made me remember Adobe Atmosphere was a thing...
I didn't know Adobe Atmosphere was a thing. Thank you for providing another example of that strange period of MMO-lites like Worlds and VRML. Interesting to think Adobe Atmosphere versus Worlds mirrors the much later one-sided walloping of Metaverse versus VR Chat.
Luigi Mangione: …
CEOs: “Not like that…
I’m not suggesting that it’s a good response. I’m suggesting that this interpretation of what CEOs are saying is wrong.