Oh boy! This is fun. So in 2008 the Republicans refused to swear in Al Franken. After 8 months of battling Republicans in court and politically, Franken was sworn in July 2009. This gave Dems 60 votes in the Senate. This is when they past the ACA, Dodd Frank, Job Creation Act which extended unemployment benefits. After the 111th Congress the house flipped back to Republican majority.

More recently. Biden was implementing a new approach to monopoly capitalism with the appointment of Lina Khan to the FTC. We also had Elizabeth Warren start the CFPB prior to that.

I will also say Dems have been much better on renewable energy and electrification infrastructure investment. But that is my field and most of those details come across in small bits and pieces through market news emails.

Yes. If congress really had their shit together, they could implement something at the IRS where each really wealthy person is audited and taxed on their personal GDP. Auditors could present their findings of wealth and a committee could tax the value at an appropriate level.

I really don’t see it this way. Sorry. The right wants culture wars to be done by government, the left wants culture to move towards a more fair and free society where people aren’t held back from opportunities because of biases around their identity. These are very different. And, no one in power on the left talks like those who in power on the right. The President has called half the country terrorists. Its insane and so much more one sided than you are saying.

It’s pretty telling that your example of a prominent non-MAGA type republican died 7 years ago. What Republicans support is MAGA. Otherwise they could hold MAGA people responsible for their clear crimes and moral failings.

https://finaeon.com/the-nazis-and-the-stock-markets/ This is how I see it. We’ve had an easy money environment since 2008. Wealth has piled up at the top. They will want to be part of “winners” in the captured economy under authoritarianism. Look at Palantir, Tesla, Fermi… Rich people are betting on connected companies, the rest of the economy will suffer but that is irrelevant to the gains made by the top winners.

Agreed. If you can take a loss forward 20 years on your taxes, the government should be able to go after leveraged losses for 20 years too.

Nah. They have deluded themselves with ideas of “rescuing” the company. But they protect themselves financially first. Then they don’t have the awareness to show that a business could have just made 1-2% a year forever instead of selling off assets for a chance at 4Xing their investment. They think its how life works. Take the big risk and never consider the costs as long as your ass is covered.

In this scenartio, the Landlord also owns the maintenance company, so the renter pays the wages of the maintenance advisor and maintenance costs.

He would have been down right giddy to read this story on his show.

It wasn’t fraud but it was poor business decisions based on their hope for massive growth instead of seeing success as steady profitability. They sold off assets (real estate) and then signed up to lease the property back from the new real estate owners. This shifted assets to liabilities. They idea would be to use cash to grow the business. They took too much cash as distributions to investors instead of making sound long term business decisions that would keep ToysRUs operating for the long term.

Darwin talked about societies and advancement in species around communication. It is important for us to be able to communicate threats in order to build community. Assholes don’t build lasting societies.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2022/dec/us-maternal-health-divide-limited-services-worse-outcomes

The statistics show worse outcomes for black women in abortion restricted states. There are so many deaths from the hands of Republicans. It is insane that they are supported by so many people in this country.

On Jan 21, 2025 the federal debt was $36,218 billion. Today it is $37,070 billion. That is a 2.35% increase in just 7 months. $852B. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny

Assuming one day of protest is the complete picture is what is comical. The Montgomery bus boycott started in 1955. The Civil Rights Act signed in 1965. One day is just part of the overall story of history. And having the largest protest be against Trump is part of our history now. It will take much more for that be a good story, but it is a good sign.

This is exactly whats happening. Every fascist act is normalized. There is no line to cross. There are just constant moves that are more and more harmful. Sinclair Lewis wrote about this almost 100 years ago.

Talking in CEO speak seems pretty mild compared to being on the board of an AI military company. I know there is no perfect billionaire so I’m not going to advocate for Dorsey. But if that is the worse thing about Tidal, I think I’ll still support it.

Serious question. Is Dorsey more ethical than the Spotify CEO? Is he still paying artists more for their music?

Growing Rheinmetall is good for Germany isnt it? Could there be other German companies that replace US products?

Yea. Its not that he used the word “fuck”. It is in the context of working with Netanyahu, then seeing that Netanyahu has no real respect for Trump or the US military as long as they support his wars. So Trump gets flustered realizing his Israeli buddy has no respect for the US and then says “fuck”. It just hows Trump has no international relations abilities and he doesn’t know what is going on.

Fewer people in the US are going to want to spend that much on a plushy. Unemployment is going to rise under Trump. There will be increased costs for needs and less cash for wants. But we will probably have continued inequality, so if a small scale artist can sell to rich people, they may do well.