[mullingitover]

No economic system is functional without a bunch of compromises, and capitalism needs strong regulations as a check to keep it from turning absolutely rotten.

We're witnessing the removal of all of the guardrails, traffic signals, road maintenance crews. The highway patrols have been replaced by organized teams of highwaymen.

It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.

[consumer451]

I recently read someone's comment here stating that "trust is efficient."

What we are witnessing is the devolution of the USA from a high-trust to low-trust business environment. "Low-trust business environment" is the euphemism we have used to describe other countries, where corruption is rampant. This is so sad to watch.

[rapnie]

Not just sad to watch. Would a country with a low-trust business environment be allowed to have such a huge mountain of government debt, and continue to have its currency be the world's reserve currency? A lot of sadness hinges on those considerations.

[radicalbyte]

I'm pretty sure that the damage is done. It will take a few years, maybe even a decade, but the USD will no longer be the defacto reserve currency.

[cft]

there's no reason for the USD to be the reserve currency, being the currency of a country that doesn't produce anything anymore

[dlkmp]

But does provide services the entire world depends on.

[exe34]

it's the other way round, the military maintains the world order, the currency is used as reserve, and they get to provide services that nobody else can provide while they're top dog. they are not on a trajectory to remain top dog for very long.

[cft]

there's no reason that one government should control that currency.

[lazide]

I remember when everyone said the Euro was the new reserve currency - even a Bond film used it as a plot point.

Came to nothing.

[2muchcoffeeman]

But things can change no? Like the country whose currency we use becoming untrustworthy. Do you think the world watched the first trump presidency and thought to do nothing?

[radicalbyte]

It was US policy to actively work against that and it was an acceptable deal for us given that we've been friends and allies forever. Now Trump has turned the US into our heroin-addict sibling we can no longer rely on them.

[lazide]

So they’re going to…. Be nicer now? Less crazy?

[EasyMark]

But at that point in time the USA wasn't run by a clown show of grifting circus performers.

[impossiblefork]

Those particular aspects are only good for Americans though. That those two things are ending is good for basically everybody else, from Brazilians, Chinese and Canadians to Frenchmen.

[rapnie]

The speed with which things are ending are most important I think. For decades there has been a slow decline in US power. Today we have the BRICS trade block representing more than half of the world's population. And countries hold a basket of reserve currencies, where the dollar is still a large percentage, but not nearly as large as it used to be. If all these pillars of American empire are carelessly self-destructed, crashing the world order, it will be hugely disruptive. It forces other powers to act and move to occupy the power vacuum, while lacking the economic weapons may force US'es hand to engage with military force, to reestablish itself.

[Ray20]

>Today we have the BRICS trade block representing more than half of the world's population.

As far as I understand, the BRICS block does not actually exist. I mean, being member of it does not mean anything serious. There are no obligations, no agreements, no roadmaps. We might as well talk about a alliance of countries whose names begin with the letter "S"

[impossiblefork]

I really don't agree. Rather, the 2015-2024 period has seen a huge increase in US GDP relative to the EU, which is probably largely driven by the US ability to spend, due to these particular things.

Of course, countries like China are catching up anyway-- they're more than a billion people and very able, and of course, people are working hard to get out of this arrangement. I agree that it will be disruptive, but I think the crash has been in the making for years.

When US interest rates went from 1% to 4.5-5% without a drop in stock prices or a corresponding increasing in dividends I could only interpret that as pure irrationality, and even now companies like Tesla still have P/E ratios of 133.54 whereas excellent firms in the same business-- Volkswagen and Toyota have P/E ratios 3.24 and 6.21 respectively. I'm surprised it still hasn't gone through the floor. The traders by trading at these prices are implicitly assuming interest rates will go back to <1% without any drop in earnings, and that won't happen.

[mullingitover]

> When US interest rates went from 1% to 4.5-5% without a drop in stock prices

The Dow crashed from ~36k to ~28k in less than a year, and that decrease in value doesn't account for inflation. Adjusting for inflation I don't think the markets have actually fully reached their late 2021 peak.

[yencabulator]

Agreed otherwise but

  s/forces other powers/makes other powers want to/
  s/force US/make US want to/

Starting wars is not something forced upon a country, and that's ungood doublespeak.

[StormChaser_5]

Not sure that's true. America's military keeps peace for trade to happen in a lot of the world... Not always successfully but it's there. That works because they have the reserve currency and can therefore print money for free. Which benefits the US greatly in all sorts of ways. But everyone else also sees some good. If that goes away its going to have impacts on everyone else as well as America. Maybe not as much of an impact on the rest of the world but this is not good for anyone. I can get the anger at the way the US acts, particularly over the last couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean that them doing badly helps the rest of us

[impossiblefork]

I really don't think we do.

France and Britain alone used to be able to defend trade routes. I don't think it's a huge expense. It really is good for essentially everyone aside from the US itself, once the disruption is over. Obviously we'll have some kind of crash though, but I think that was inevitable with or without this.

[enraged_camel]

>> France and Britain alone used to be able to defend trade routes. I don't think it's a huge expense.

That was a different world. France and Britain today have nowhere the kind of force projection the USA does, via its military bases and aircraft carriers.

[dragonwriter]

> France and Britain alone used to be able to defend trade routes. I don't think it's a huge expense

France and Britain used to be two of the world's largest imperial powers, and at any time you could plausibly claim France and Britain alone could defend global trade routes, Britain, at least, still was.

You really aren't making a case for it being an easy, cheap job.

[dboreham]

I don't think that's completely true. Wasn't the US Navy founded (by a Scotsman of course) because the US at the time lacked the funds to pay off the pirates? European countries did pay them off, hence didn't need as large navies.

[consumer451]

I agree. I would argue that Pax Americana has been pretty great for even the USA's supposed "arch enemies." My gut feeling is that everyone loved that stability, whether friend or foe, and the fact that it's now gone will mess everyone up.

I am biased here, but I look forward to the next century of Pax Europa. This is the only way forward.

[CuriouslyC]

Europe isn't playing aggressively enough or really doing enough to innovate. China is in a position to reap a huge windfall from Trump putting the US in the dumpster. China will bring Europe into the fold with the promise of gradual reforms, and they'll win the global south with soft power and trade agreements.

My fear is that Trump sees America's position eroding quickly relative to China before his eyes and decides to do something an order of magnitude dumber than anything he's done before.

[lazide]

If you really think the US is going to just, what, retire all that military equipment you haven’t been paying attention.

[eastbound]

I know I’ll be downvoted but, since we’re going straight for scorched land, I prefer to voice it.

I think most voters think like me “I still prefer Trump to a leftist government”:

- Was there any need to be so extreme in terms of wokeness on the left? I am directly threatened by their program. Was there really any need to go for such a degree of revolution, ensuring everyone sensical would vote Trump? Could the left imagine being a little more democratic and making a few more concessions towards… omg, white males? Is it such a bane? It’s concessions for white males, or we vote for Trump, so did the left win anything with their scorched earth policy?

- It is true that savings needed to be done. The left refused to do any, and went to raise the public programs, reaching a few trillion debt per semester. At one point this has to stop, and the left ain’t gonna stop by itself, so the left provokes the people into voting for the only one who will stop public spending and, yes, he comes in, and has the bad role of taking the US to the cleaners. You will say “It doesn’t even save money” and whatsnot, but would the left have saved the money by themselves? No. Never. So someone else came in and saved for them.

This entire movement is a reactionary movement to the left. The left makes no concessions. So both sides go for a scorched earth policy.

What have we learned? What have we won, on either sides?

Do we agree that, staying closed-minded as they are, the left will resume public spendings by the trillions the moment they step into power? Do we agree that the left is a direct threat to meritocracy, stability of government, men in marriage, men at work, a direct threat to men’s financial stability, and that no-one on the left cares even a little what others-than-them feel?

[tmcb]

> I am directly threatened by their program. […] Could the left imagine being a little more democratic and making a few more concessions towards… omg, white males?

I am not from the US, I am originally from Latin America. I am considered a “white male” there. I am now living in Europe as I am a dual citizen. This kind of position is interesting to me. What is so bad about being a white male in the USA at the moment?

I’d like to elaborate further, but I want to engage in an honest conversation so I would like to hear your opinion.

[slopslop]

As a white male from northern europe, I learned during the most left recent years that I’m responsible for all the world’s injustices and ethnic/gender/sexual preference defines a human. I can see why so many gave a protest vote when the current system was trying to paint their existence as non-desirable. We went decades backward and this all just brought the focus back to our insignificant external factors like skin color.

I don’t support extreme right or their hate but it looked a lot like categorical hate against my “kind” that I didn’t have part in choosing.

What got me writing is that is debt actually so bad or is it like leveraged investment? If US would have chosen a bit more professional leader capable to at least maintain the position in world economy, the debt wouldn’t likely ever have to be paid off.

[tmcb]

> I’m responsible for all the world’s injustices and ethnic/gender/sexual preference defines a human.

Rest assured you are not. But this could turn out to be true, maybe in a very minor way, the moment your resentment towards this straw man becomes the main driver of your political views.

[2muchcoffeeman]

This is what the US "left" got wrong though. Reality or not, there is a strong perception that what these guys are saying is true. I could not fault someone looking at any media whether social or traditional from coming to this conclusion. I think Andrew Tate is a direct symptom of this. He simply filled a void in confused young men's lives. You can point to data saying that there is still inequality all you like, but you need to deal with the current sentiment too. The left is as responsible for Trump as the ultra right.

Americans literally thought that this extremely easy to bribe, criminal, serial adulterer, whose is most likely trying to undermine your constitution (I expect all you 2nd amendment supporters to stop touting that) was a reasonable choice.

[Epa095]

Damn, as another nordic male, why did nobody tell me?

I noticed that someone in America said so, but the US had been extreme, in all ways, for many years and no sane person takes the stuff coming from there as gospel.

I am not responsible for 'all the world’s injustices', and nobody had tried to make me. Maybe if I spend some time on YouTube I can find someone at an American college thinking so, or a right-wing podcast saying that people think so about me. But that is not the mainstream here.

[DemocracyFTW2]

There's no "leftist" party in the USA, there's a Conservative Party called the Democrats, and there's an Ultraconservative Party that's now hellbound to become a Fascist Party called the Republican Party.

[FranzFerdiNaN]

Do you also post on the /r/conservative subreddit? Because you should if you do not, you will find many likeminded people who are completely down the rabbit hole.

[fabian2k]

They're not saving money so far, they have been spending more money than the government spent in 2024. And in those cases where they will spend less they also did enormous damage, e.g. cancelling clinical trials midway through. This is pure destruction, not efficiency.

And your woke argument is a pure strawman. What were those extreme positions by Kamala Harris?

[eastbound]

The “Trump is doing the opposite of his program” yields no constructive argument. Because voting for the opposite movement wouldn’t have made the left suddenly implement meritocratic capitalism.

[hansvm]

Why, exactly, isn't that a constructive argument?

eastbound> We need Trump because the economy is in the shitter

fabian2k> He's actually making it worse

eastbound> Well, the other side wouldn't have made it better

How do you get to have it both ways -- the economy is important enough that we need Trump, but Trump is more important despite ruining it?

[miramba]

> wokeness on the left… I am directly threatened by their program.

Could you please explain what that threat is exactly, and what kind of “concessions to white males” you would have in mind?

[eastbound]

I’ll candidly assume that this is not a rhetorical question aimed at making me pass as a spoiled child, as is frequent with leftism:

- AOC, known as “the squad” (!), has claimed the Congress has too many white males. President Macron said the same about the US tech sector, and he’s not even part of the extremists, so this issue permeates society. Basically everyone says white men should be fewer of them. This is a direct threat.

- Feminism was supposed to give women more place at work and give family a better representation of both genders at home. What happened: Men can’t apply for some jobs anymore; while men are assumed to not merit to see the children by default at home. This has been going on since the 1980 in every developed country, moreso in France and US, a little less in Sweden. Judges and lawyer family courts are often 100%-women (80.2% in the profession).

- We helped women when they were 38% of the university students. But they crossed the 50% in 1990. Men now represent 39% of university students. Do we help them? No, we drop help programs. And Sweden also dropped equality programs the moment men were in need.

This is what various groups have been militanting for years, but they were harassed into submission by the left (from Facebook’s pro-left censorship at the time, to directly burning their cars or killing their dogs, and of course cancelling conference centers for men support groups which they presented as extremists - which is true, men are angry).

How is Trump helping?

- His program basis is based on a meritocratic econonic theory (that does not favour women, which is all the left complains about), but, granted, elected presidents generally implement another program, and Trump isn’t helping much,

- Men thrive in both meritocracies and in the wilderness/lawlessness, because they work more. To this, Trump has choosen the latter. The more economic crisis there is is, the weaker the government, and the more women will need men. Given the left’s program is “let’s take men’s/white’s people money”, the scorched earth is the best situation.

Granted, it would be nicer if leftists didn’t hate white men’s guts so much that they could listen to them when they make reasonable demands such as equity in family courts or meritocracy at the workplace. Barring being sensible…

[tmcb]

If you are eating too many carbs and you go to the doctor and he says "you should be eating way less carbs", he is not necessarily telling you to quit all carbs from your diet cold turkey.

It is safe to say that men are ~50% of any country's demographics. If you find any position of power and prestige where they are over-represented, it is safe to assume that there is an imbalance. People will come up with excuses for such imbalance, but one cannot deny that there is such an imbalance there.

[mindslight]

> The more economic crisis there is is, the weaker the government, and the more women will need men

So, to put a finer point on it - you decided that aiming to destroy the United States, and the Pax Americana underlying western civilization, was an appropriate response because AOC and Macron (who represent "everyone", in your apparent media diet) hurt your feelings. As a fellow man, this is just pathetic and entitled.

There have always been groups in society you cannot criticize. There has always been groupthink bullshit that you just smile and nod, and then later share your real thoughts with your trusted close friends. The growing prevalence of talking about men's rights issues was the painstaking path to them getting better - there are some pretty harsh biological reasons why custody courts are slanted towards women, right? If you really wanted to phrase this in terms of "men", then maybe you needed to listen to your fellow wiser men telling you to hold your nose and vote conservative/democrat instead of lashing out with histrionic destruction. Alas.

[miramba]

It wasn't rethorical and I appreciate your extensive answer. Being male myself, I can relate to some of the points you made. But I don't feel threatened. I guess there is a wide range of the meaning of this word, but I would describe it as perceiving a danger to ones life, livelihood, happiness or something. I did not experience any more disadvantages from being male than being young or old, short, brown-eyed, not too smart, overweight etc.

And your reasonable demands...are you seriously at a workplace where meritocracy is lived? Ever? Out of the many different non-meritocratic factors that come into play in a workplace, being male certainly was never in the top 10 for me. If anything it was an advantage. I'm sorry if you had different experiences. It's not true, where I live, that men can't apply for certain jobs, and I doubt that is the reality for you. The usual term is "everything else equal, a female candidate will be preferred", which is just an encouragement to women to apply. If you want the male candidate, you always find a reason that he is not equal to the female applicant. So if you have the feeling that you didn't get a job because you are male - perhaps it was because the female candidate was better.

And those recurring "leftist", "leftism" references make your statements a bit biased. The time to put everything in left and right categories is somewhat last century. It's all more complicated than that. Nobody hates you because your male and white. But it sure sounds a bit whiny what you are complaining about - imagine you'd be black and female, you really think you would be in a better position, you would have an advantage then? Come on.

[dragonwriter]

> AOC, known as “the squad”

Well, when you get that basic of a fact wrong,...

[netsharc]

Trump and meritocracy? You are insane. Oh, Hegseth the wife-(and alcohol-)abusing TV-presenter should be in charge the world's most powerful military? Brett Kavanaugh, who in the balance of probability did assault that woman, should be forced into the supreme court (even blocking the FBI investigation)? You're just going to excuse these flaws away, aren't you?

To be honest, this thread has shown what weak fragile egos some white men have. So your kind has had it easy for centuries. Yeah, probably the rhetoric that's made you "the enemy" is really dumb (hey it poisoned the mind of the richest man in the world, for one), but what do you expect, mollycoddling?

Hah, maybe the whole (white) world should have a truth-and-reconciliation committee, where men are invited to discuss their privilege, and what can be changed to make an equal world. (Actually not just white, men all over the world have had this tyranny. Then again maybe it's just the animal/biological nature that we shouldn't just suppress). But even with "committee", there'll be weak egos screaming about the tyranny against them. A bit like states wanting to hide away the civil war from their education, or not even allowing discussion about systemic racism or "critical race theory" (uh oh sorry if that triggers you, if I were mocking you I'd call you a snowflake now).

[fabian2k]

Whatever Trump is doing is the opposite of a meritocracy. He's hired a lot of entirely unqualified people, the only thing he values is loyalty.

[master-lincoln]

What left are you talking about? The Democratic Party in the USA would be seen as neo-liberals too from outside the US. Calling it "the left" just shows how delusional the society in the USA seems to have become...

[rapnie]

The whole left/right thing has been weaponised to distract from the up/down, top/bottom real issue.

[labster]

I agree, but I would also like to add that the Republican Party is not a conservative party, either. Trump brags about raising taxes on so many imports. And the current administration never saw a Chesterton’s fence they didn’t want to tear down. The party as a whole seems to be pretty happy with it.

So that’s America, no options if you want to vote for a liberal party or a conservative party.

[eastbound]

> The Democratic Party in the USA would be seen as neo-liberals too from outside the US

Incorrect: This is an old argument from the left to pretend that US leftism isn’t very left.

Truth: The US government is in debt of 6 trillion per year, which makes it the most powerful government of the world. The right’s “Atlas Shrugged” vision is to have a very lean government, as in, weak and powerless as possible.

Conclusion: The American left wing proposes to build a government bigger than any socialist country in the world.

Correlation: Ironically, the leftists are often anti-war and they’d be much better defended if they supported defunding the US government to the point they couldn’t wage war outside their borders. The left should support Elon Musk ;) </s>

[Epa095]

OP should have said that "The Democratic Party in the USA IS seen as neo-liberals too from outside the US".

There is obviously multiple axises you can place the left/right on. If you want to define anyone who accepts debt as 'left', and thus the USA is leftish then... ok whatever floats your boat. Just be aware that the rest of the world sees concepts like universal healtcare and education as more important than how much debt you accept. Using debt to pay for a huge military and unsustainable low taxes is not a typical leftish view.

[const_cast]

> The right’s “Atlas Shrugged” vision is to have a very lean government, as in, weak and powerless as possible.

This is objectively not true of the right's actions. If you read Project 2025 or just look at the legislation/EOs passed, the right is currently trying to expand the power of the president to unprecedented levels. In addition, they're trying to undermine the checks and balances of the courts such that the government can make greater decisions faster.

This isn't a small government, it's teetering on fascism. The fascism analogs only grow greater when you here Trump speak of an enemy within, who must be eliminated. When he speaks as if he is the One True answer to every problem facing the US. Trump-ism is become more akin to a cult than a political platform, many people just following Trump because they view him a God. It's a bit spooky. It's very difficult to not draw parallels to fascist leaders of the past.

> Conclusion: The American left wing proposes to build a government bigger than any socialist country in the world.

Delusional, sorry. If you think the democrats, the ultra-capitalist right-leaning party, want to create a socialist country you are just delusional. I don't know how to help you there because it's just not in touch with reality.

There's, like, 2 representatives in all of the Democratic party who could maybe kind of be consider democratic-socialists. And there's a better chance of hell freezing over than those 2 convincing the other hundreds to go their way.

After a certain point, we have to come back down to Earth and acknowledge what is actually going on, instead of whatever we have allowed our minds to concoct.

[const_cast]

> making a few more concessions towards… omg, white males?

I'm a white man. We already HAVE all the concessions. There's nothing left to give us. I mean, we're not gonna implement anti-racist stuff against white men because there does not exist any racism against white men. Ergo, that policy is defacto implemented.

White men also don't need DEI because we actually already have DEI. Studies show upwards of 50% increase in likelihood of being hired if you're white.

I mean, look at Trump's cabinet and admin. Full of white men... because they are white men. A lot of them are very unqualified.

> It is true that savings needed to be done.

This administration will only raise the deficit.

Also, the left at least admitted that taxes on the ultra-wealthy need to be raised. The Trump administration is continuing to raise YOUR taxes while cutting theirs. So, to recap: higher taxes for you, a greater deficit, and the programs will be cut. Wow, it's a lose-lose-lose! Almost impressive how shit conservative policy is.

> This entire movement is a reactionary movement to the left.

I applaud your honesty in admitting the reactionary nature of American conservatives.

However, you're incorrect in saying they're reacting to the left. They're not. They're reacting to a made-up version of the left. One formed and imagined through decades of conservative propaganda. One where the left are communists, baby eaters, and reptilians - not the reality, where the democratic party is a right-leaning ultra-capitalist party.

> Do we agree that, staying closed-minded as they are, the left will resume public spendings by the trillions the moment they step into power? Do we agree that the left is a direct threat to meritocracy, stability of government, men in marriage, men at work, a direct threat to men’s financial stability, and that no-one on the left cares even a little what others-than-them feel?

Uh, no.

[drekipus]

Roots of which started way back earlier than 2001 even..

[consumer451]

Personally, I would argue that the corruption afterburner kicked in with Citizens United v. FEC.

This was like giving a crack addict a feedback loop which gives them more crack. Of course it was going to end badly.

We could discuss many possible points of inflection, but I don't want to dilute the undeniable power of the phrase "trust is efficient."

However we got here, whatever one's politics, you cannot argue against that simple phrase, and the tragedy of the loss.

___

just to give credit, it was https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=the_snooze who turned me on to these three words that have stuck in my head

[pirate787]

Yet Kamala and her supporting PACs had two or three times the funding that Trump had.

[consumer451]

There is no need to get left/right political here. There are two political parties in the USA, and they both hit the feedback loop of $crack. One might have led to low-trust faster than the other, but they are both $crack addicts in the end.

Just to be clear as to what this means in politics on the ground... left or right, if you have a political position which disagrees with the biggest money, they will primary you. So, left or right, generally speaking, you only see politicians finally standing up for their morals when they are no longer up for election. The most obvious recent example of this is Mitch McConnell.

[EasyMark]

at some point you hit saturation on most anything, doesn't stop the fact that hundreds of millions were spent on both sides. Kamala lost because she was a female of color, not because of policies, no one will ever convince me otherwise. There are just too many misogynists and racists in the USA currently to have both of those working against you unless you're bordering on messianic in charisma

[yardie]

You mean a single day fundraiser beat Trump’s single day fundraising by 2-3x, that would be correct. If you think her 90 day campaign fundraising managed to beat Trump’s 8 year fundraising campaign that would be wildly incorrect.

[eru]

It depends on what you mean by 'strong regulations'. Regulations that are on the books should be enforced as written. In that sense I agree. But it doesn't mean that we actually necessarily need all the regulations that are on the books to stay on the books.

Eg, it would be perfectly fine to make insider trading legal by law. (And in fact, the definition of insider trading in the US differs a lot from the one used in France. So there are lots of things that have long been legal in the US that would have been illegal in France, without the economy collapsing.)

I agree that random enforcement of some regulations but not others depending on the whim of the executive is less than ideal.

[pineaux]

You could make insider trading legal by law, but that would destroy a lot of the stock market because all non-insiders would basically set themselves up to be ripped off.

[eru]

No, it wouldn't destroy the stock market. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661926 for an explanation.

Summary: people are already allowed to trade on inside information (in the US), if the person who officially owns the information is ok with that. The prohibition on insider trading in the US is about fiduciary duty to the owner of the information, not about protecting the general public.

[Epa095]

> So there are lots of things that have long been legal in the US that would have been illegal in France, without the economy collapsing.

Who knows, maybe we are in the middle of the resulting collapse now ;-)

[eru]

Well, that collapse is because of tariffs, not the intricacies of differences in insider trading law.

[Epa095]

I was thinking more that these kind of lax laws allowed the rich to get richer, and influence politics in ways which enabled or accelerated the fall. But it it a complicated picture of course, and the further back in the chain of causality we go the harder it it to say anything for real.

[eru]

> [...] allowed the rich to get richer, and influence politics [...]

That would have been a better world than the one we live in.

I'd rather have Romney and Bloomberg etc than the populists we got.

[delusional]

> It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.

Importantly, there's no guarantee it's actually going to get better. We like to pretend that human existence has some trajectory towards "justice" or "prosperity". I don't think that impulse does us justice.

Stalin/Lenin could have won. Hitler could have won, Napoleon could have conquered and held. It could just get worse.

[johanvts]

Oppression and corruption is expensive. Systems based on them are not going to be competitive in the long run.

[dachris]

That may be the very long run. Taking it strictly, Russia never had real democracy. And they are trying hard to export that model.

[autobodie]

Define "real democracy"

[Draiken]

Like the American one where unelected billionaires control the government and the populace.

I always find it so surprising how people really do believe individuals have any real power despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

It's a capitalist society so capital is power. Doesn't get simpler than that. Voting is the circus to distract us so we don't realize how much we're being exploited, while giving a sense of agency that simply does not exist.

We can choose but they pick the choices we have.

[autobodie]

> It's a capitalist society so capital is power.

Precisely.

[yardie]

I look at apartheid and how long it managed to hang on. And I can only determine it was surprisingly lucrative and competitive as well. It took a long, series of activists and a long time to finally delegitimize and finally break it.

And now, apparently, everyone involved with it had always been against it.

[atombender]

Systems based on oppression and corruption can still be extremely resilient. Countries like Russia, North Korea, China, Belarus, Cambodia, Eritrea, and Venezuela have all lasted many decades.

[closewith]

That's a very optimistic belief, not any kind of axiom, but even if we accept it, the long run could easily extend past the lifetimes of every loving person today. It could last generations or much longer.

[Epa095]

Maybe oppression is where AI finally shines, making oppressive systems competitive. Technology is certainly helping China, and I can only imagine how much Stasi would love to automatically transcribe and store everything all their microphones caught.

[autobodie]

Lenin did win.

[astral_drama]

> It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.

If they're getting away with it, they'll do it again. The tariffs were paused for 90 days. The plan is to run the same playbook in 90 days.

[labster]

Why do you trust that they will actually wait 90 days to run the same playbook? There’s nothing stopping Trump from reneging on his 90 day tariff pause.

[Almondsetat]

Capitalism actually thrives where there is only 1 regulation: total transparency. After all, if we go by the classic definition of free market competition we have customers who have perfect knowledge of every product and the products are very similar and etc. etc.

Who cares if someone at the WH does insider trading? In a transparent system people would be able to trace back every transaction and realize something is brewing and they could act accordingly.

[wesselbindt]

> could act accordingly

Concretely, what are you thinking of here?

[Almondsetat]

Simply copy their positions. But if everyone's position were available, insider trading wouldn't even exist because it would give the game away

[notahacker]

By the time you copy their positions, they've made their money.

In theory of course, them being blatantly and obviously corrupt would hurt them at the ballot box. In practice, this is not really something at moves the needle in American politics.

[EasyMark]

why do you think you would know their positions in time to do anything about it?

[Almondsetat]

I will leave it to big investors with supercomputers connected directly to the exchanges to eat away at the potential profits of even the slightest insider trading activity automatically

[formerly_proven]

This is poor bait, even for 2025 HN standards.

[EasyMark]

who cares? I care, I want insider traders to go to prison for multiple years. That's not a free market, that's a market of those who know things to manipulated the rest of the market into never ending pump and dump schemes.