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by john_moscow 1513 days ago
Economy and politics always go together.

Optimizing the economy for the retirements funds (creating favorable conditions for existing big companies) has eliminated the paths to prosperity for the new generations (you cannot run your own shop to outcompete Loblaws or Walmart, and a cashier job there will never afford you anything more than bare survival). This is discouraging people from starting families and having kids, so the government began outsourcing population growth by importing people from other cultures with lower standard of living. This ignites political division in the society where the far left sees anything beside a shared room a privilege and the far right wants to deport anyone who isn't a 3rd-generation local.

Keeping the real estate bubble from popping has served somewhat well the real estate investors, but made property ownership impossible for many people. The political response is unsurprising: many question the whole concept of owning real estate, it's becoming increasingly hard to evict a bad faith tenant, and aggressive homeless people actively disrupting the life of nearby real estate owners are seen as victims and not malefactors.

The corporate media is doing their best to steer the discussion away and people are buying it. "Fair" isn't somehow when the median salary can reasonably afford a single-income household comfortable to raise 2+ children. It's now about how your fellow minimum-wagers should use the pronouns and how promotions from toilet scrubber to shelf stocker should be granted based on the skin color and historical oppression points, while the actual oppression of the former middle class by the corporations is happening right now.

2 comments

> Optimizing the economy for the retirements funds (creating favorable conditions for existing big companies) has eliminated the paths to prosperity for the new generations (you cannot run your own shop to outcompete Loblaws or Walmart, and a cashier job there will never afford you anything more than bare survival).

Technology, efficiencies of scaling, and automation make it difficult for less efficient businesses to compete. Retirement funds have nothing to do with it.

Most economic discussions are inherently political but it's not the case that most political discussions are inherently economical. I argued that we are avoiding dealing with our economic challenges and are focusing on non-economic political problems.
>I argued that we are avoiding dealing with our economic challenges and are focusing on non-economic political problems.

Well, yeah, since all major media companies and social networks are owned by the entities directly benefiting from the "economic challenges" of the former middle class.