[joe_mamba]

> The Reagan-era "greed is good" thing never really died here (among other places).

"Greed is good" is the MO everywhere on the planet now. Everyone I know in EU is trying to cash in as much as they can while the going is still good because they feel the ladder constantly being pulled from them (layoffs and wage stagnation everywhere, housing costs massively outpacing wage growth, etc). Either from scamming their company or from scamming the government and welfare system.

And the compound the issue, the government trying to "fix" this only makes things worse as they just add more taxes on the honest working class people in their quest to tax "the rich" and give to the poor, which is only a populist measure for votes, nothing that actually fixes the problem since none of the globalist robber barons are affected by such policies as all their wealth is tied in a network of international foundations, charities, trust funds, etc. so when you add a 3 Euro tax on Aliexpress items, you're only gonna hurt the guy trying to repair his TV and washing machine, not the real estate magnate living in Monaco.

I don't think we can escape this downward spiral in any peaceful and democratic way. That's probably why the EU is pushing all these privacy invading laws lately, to catch and crush any public uprisings before they happen.

[ryukoposting]

> Everyone I know in EU is trying to cash in as much as they can while the going is still good because they feel the ladder constantly being pulled from them

Your friends probably aren't engaging in "greed is good" themselves, just responding to the economic conditions created by people who are engaging in it.

In the American cultural headspace, "greed is good" refers to a very specific brand of robber-baron capitalism. It's a doctrine that was first given academic legitimacy by the University of Chicago's school of economics, then put into practice in the 1980s under the Reagan administration, and nowadays its loudest proponents are Musk and Thiel. It's an economic theory that lionizes extractive behavior by the economic elite, with some bullshit trickle-down argument that's too convoluted to be worth explaining here.

It creates an environment where everyone had to do evil shit just to put a roof over their heads, a self-regulating race to the bottom. Your friends are likely just unwilling participants, a side effect of "greed is good" rather than doers of it.

[jjfremont]

> "greed is good" refers to a very specific brand of robber-baron capitalism.

It does not. It refers to the Eighties brand of corporate raiders and excess Capitalism. It's a quote from the film, "Wall Street". That whole paragraph is wrongly conflating ideas.

[ryukoposting]

> It refers to the Eighties brand of corporate raiders and excess Capitalism.

Quote from my own comment:

> put into practice in the 1980s under the Reagan administration

Are you contesting the name "greed is good" because it was coined after the underlying theory was crafted? If so, I disagree. We didn't have the word "smartphone" until after those existed. The word "Christianity" wasn't invented while Jesus was alive. Trees existed before we named them.

Reagan didn't just pull a new breed of economic policy out of his ass in January of 1981. The Chicago School is informative of neocon economic policy, and once you get past the pictures of frogs, not much has changed about the modern conservative economic platform.

[joe_mamba]

>Your friends probably aren't engaging in "greed is good" themselves, just responding to the economic conditions created by people who are engaging in it.

Yes, which is why I said "Everyone I know in EU is trying to cash in as much as they can while the going is still good".

[WalterBright]

The growth of the welfare state sucks the life out of the economy.

[bastardoperator]

Agreed, we are giving an absolute load of welfare to billionaires. From tax breaks to bailouts, and to your point, it's sucking the life out of the American economy.

[WalterBright]

Entitlements are 54 to 60% of Federal spending.

[bastardoperator]

Mandatory spending, they have obligations to Americans. I'm sorry veterans, seniors, poor people, and the disabled are such an inconvenience for you, or that you don't know what the word entitlement means.