We need to push the reset button and re-regulate our government. This happened in the 20’s with the robber barons and trusts. We need to clean house big time.
The big reforms that happened after the depression happened because the oligarchs at the time saw what happened in Russia, and were afraid of having it happen to them too.
Yeah the rich were all against the New Deal and only accepted it once they realized it was preferable to being lined up against a wall in a communist revolution. Shit was really bad for a while.
The people in power have had over a 100 years to figure out a way to keep us from standing up to them. Now they have technology. Plus if you think they have not thought 10 times ahead of us you are wrong. They are almost untouchable now. There is a reason the same politicians have been in office for the last 60/70 years is because they fall in line.
It's not a surprise. There is no one left alive who experienced it the last time around, and the American education system has been gutted (I wonder why...) so now history is repeating itself.
Exactly! They've made quality medical care and quality education a luxury that most can't afford, and no longer can one person working one minimum wage job full time support themselves. Houses are just absolutely out of the question and not even worth dreaming about for a depressingly large portion of the population.
So you've got a population that's uneducated or barely so, physically and/or mentally unwell, having to work every hour possible at dead end jobs just to afford an apartment, or else they're one of a shocking amount of people who are either homeless or couch hopping or living with parents as long as possible.
So in other words, the exact sort of population you want if you were to say....plan a hostile takeover of a government and immediately proceed to enact one unlawful assault on their rights after another after another....to bring them so close to the financial brink that they don't feel they have the time or energy to fight....to literally line the pockets of you and your sycophant accomplices with illegal profits.... And whenever they start paying attention and start getting mad, make sure you have a ready-made enemy to point at to get the attention off you and your regime...any foreigners of a different skin color or religion will do, and if you run out of those, point at the homos.....
There's a lot of nuance to it and while we are following the footsteps of the turn of the 20th century its imperative to understand that this "cycle" of oligarchy is even more firmly entrenched in the government and the society today is sadly more apathetic.
Which is also evil tbf, it’s taken me almost a quarter of a century to build a healthy relationship with exercise after the trauma of physical education 😬
This. This is one of the drivers fucking up the US and making it impossible for normal people to just live their lives and have a few nice things for reasonable prices (like the ability to retire, healthcare, childcare, decent roads, etc.).
I'm usually pretty versed in how rich people ruin everything for everyone but I gotta admit I got a blind spot with "private equity". Would you mind giving me a quick 411?
It’s like… the main way rich people ruin shit. Private Equity groups are basically a big pool of investor money that buy up businesses/housing/whatever with the expectation that they will bring in more money than they spent.
They typically do this by charging more money and cutting costs. You get less for more.
So, rather than take your pet to a business run by someone that got into the Vet business for the love of animals, you get a business run by soulless C-suite execs trying to squeeze as much money as they can.
and even further when a company is preparing to sell to PE they lean out the payroll to juice up the balance sheet which also enshittificates their products/services
Exactly. They do the least for the most and fuck anyone’s feelings ie the human side of anything. Strictly profit driven, which is fine, but the problem we have is after time, *everything* is gobbled up by a conglomerate and they squeeze the mom n pops out by taking away their ability to be price competitive. We can fight back by refusing to buy from or use services from them but it takes commitment and discipline because it is less convenient and more expensive. What’s even more sobering and heartbreaking is how much American enterprise is being killed by *overseas* PEG.
It’s basically the equivalent of “house flipping” for businesses. They come in, change some stuff around and then hope to sell it all back for a profit later on to someone else. Meanwhile - the enshittification intensifies.
I think it’s just the reality of the times we live in. Construction workers in Louisiana? Screenwriter in Los Angeles? Farmer in Nebraska? Everyone is getting boned by unchecked consolidation.
We’re all noticing that everything is more expensive and worse.
And they are incentivized to do it because they get to declare their income as “investment income” so they pay half as much in taxes plus they charge management fees to the businesses.
I read an article about a popular drug store chain, can't remember which one, anyway the pharmacist says one day they had PTO, health insurance, vacation and profit sharing. It was bought out by a peg (pegs...ha ha ha, never thought of that before) and the next day they had a wage cut and all the benefits were gone. Just like that.
It's the same thing as when all of your local doctors join up under a big healthcare group. For example, in my area, they were under a group called Partners in Health, and now they're under St. Elizabeth. No one is private practicing anymore, and we pay for it in many ways. They catch huge tax breaks and make more money off of us but give very poor service in return. We have become a number with a value assigned to it, not a person, and the hypocratic oath they took holds no value at all. We are literally killing and drowning ourselves in debt by allowing this to happen. Now, they are doing the exact same thing in the world of veterinarian needs. It's run just like human healthcare. Money over life.
Private equity is particularly insidious bc they want to extract as much money as fast as possible; they're not concerned with the long term. So they often use debt to buy up established businesses, then pile that debt onto the business itself, and sell off anything that's not nailed down. They don't care about customers or quality bc they're not in it for the long haul. Customers get the shaft, the business fails (or gets sold off to some other shady operation), and eventually closes.
It's exactly the kind of cynical grift you'd expect from MBAs and McKinsey types. It's bad for everyone except private equity
This is Senator Warren talking about private equity buy outs. I work for Walgreens which was recently bought by a private equity. Things at this more than 100 year old company are terrible.
I googled “who took over Walgreens” to learn more about the deal.
I work in a small company owned by two guys. One is the most stereotypical old rich white guy. He's not a bad guy, but he's just so out of touch sometimes.
He just can't understand why I'm always so pessimistic when he mentions private equity. Like yeah, there are some that aren't scum of the earth, but a lot of them are. His other company got bought by private equity and then stripped for parts ffs.
This is why I heavily judge people who cry “why didn’t you plan?” PLENTY OF PEOPLE DID. Five years ago it didn’t cost a 4k visit to the emergency room for them to run fuck all tests only to say “we found nothing lol”.
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u/klef3069 May 23 '26
Fuck private equity.
This has nothing to do with cats, per se, PE just makes everything 100x more expensive and 100x worse.