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Just got back from month long vacation # 3 this year, perspective fully changed: Working for money is fucking stupid. Wow, is it stupid.
I've met dozens of people who travel full time from property and investment income from their grandparents; and I am probably a couple years from fully supporting myself purely from passive income (though I'll probably keep working just to get the number higher; maybe pile up some burnable cash to buy more investment property during the next crash).
The switch was sudden and totally unrelated to anything specific I had done; it is just a result of two generations of skin flint behavior and interest rates. If your family line can get together mid six figures of money in investments and assets and sit on it for 1.5 generations without anyone buying penis compensation trucks or boats or developing a gambling addiction or fentanyl addition; you can just be fucking set. (Said in the tone of a joke, but actually a big ask according to the facts.)
The people talking about class war are 100% right; I can say that for a fact now that I've experienced it from both ends. It's really nice to be on the winning side for once. I just watch the money I float in my checking accounts go up 70k every couple months and most of it goes into investments that will only be dinged if the government of the USA collapses; recission proof and inflation proof and 98% risk free. It is so fucking easy to live solely off the sweat of other peoples brows; no wonder these dudes who were born into it start thinking they can't possibly fail.
All this to say: What the fuck do we do about the fact that owning shit and renting shit is just flat out better in every way than doing shit or making shit?
It's easier, it's safer, it's more sustainable over the course of your life, and you can pass it down to your kids locked away in trust so even the frailest son can't fuck it up.
I know that my solution (radical wealth redistribution, red-black shit at large, etc and so forth) isn't popular here; but even conservatives have got to recognize there is a problem.
How do you solve it without the revolution? Is that question even coherent?
Please pay at least half attention of thinking of the problems of the red-black shit solution and massive wealth redistribuion and revolution.
Evidently that way of thinking leads to less wealth creation and other huge problems to boot.
So I reject your framing all trying to solve the problem you focus upon in exclusion of all others.
I would say in regards to that, if rent seeking is bad, you don't promote it to society in general. Your mentality is wrong.
And if being owner is good, it might play a role in encouraging wealth creation. I think for other reasons that are more important about power concentration we should break monopolies like FAANG and try to limit the power of corporate lobbies to corrupt politics.
This applies even to weapon manufacturers who are actually IIRC the biggest donors to think tanks. And people part of neocon warmongering groups, tend to get positions in said corporations.
Corporate America has been corrupted by private/public partnership and march in institutions and powerful ethnic and ideological leftist lobbies. Like the ADL which its control over advertisers. Over 90% of jobs since BLM have gone to non whites in S and P 100 according to Bloomberg.
IMO the solution is to outright ban and start criminal investigations for anything that fits for some of this super NGOs deep state monstrocities. And also seperate super corporations like blackrock in a million pieces while also investigating any attempts for them to impose totaltiarianism and enforce ideological conformity of far left type as something criminal.
Plutocracy in combination of cultural totalitarian far leftism and ethnic supremacy for groups associeted with the left, is like some kind of chimera that is rather bad.
The plutocracy can NOT do as they want but should be constrained by principles and forced to be more evenhanded in their hiring decisions over following ideological dictates.
Ideally you want a society that people try to create wealth, and even managers and owner of wealth can play a productive role by doing so effectively. This should be seperated from the mentality that powerful whether goverment or rich, or specific classes can do no wrong. A mentality that they should be constrained by strict adherence in principle needs to be enshrined and requires certain form of punishment for those who break it.
Personally, I have a much greater beef with the rich guy who uses his millions to promote evil causes over the guy sitting on them and enjoying his wealth.
Nevertheless, one leftist critique that the left has done but hasn't really effectively opposed team totalitarian consolidation of our private public partnership age, has been about the possibility of any tendency of capital to accumulate power and leading to monopoly. The leftist solution of the more radical sort or what they do in practice which is to join them and focus on promoting redistribution in favor of the left's favorite groups and calling this as Kendi has as anticapitalist, is really not a good solution.
But there might be value in restrictions limiting the growth of big capital and promoting smaller bussiness and the middle class as the way forward. Going too far in restrictive area can kill the golden goose of capitalism, but yeah I see the value of antirust, and trying to not less an arrogant plutocracy do as they want. The bedrock and what countries should primarily be run in favor of is the middle class family. While other social classes also have their place in society, so I am not adopting a framing like the marxist who thinks other classes should be eliminated in favor of the working class.
We should advantage the middle class voter, tax payer, family as a good, but we shouldn't try to mistreat the other ones.
Here are some other ideas:
Punish white collar crime, the Sam Bankman Fried types much more strictly. The point should be punishment to deter them.
I already advocated it but start treating some of the lobbying we see from these types as a crime, and as corruption, treason, etc.
Start to treat these types imposing their extreme ideology on society as a crime too.
Try to remove political commissars from institutions (The ADL has a chapter in Microsoft, Google, Facebook) and to promote both more pluralism but an overton window with restrictions too. Both the current plutocrats and people who marched in goverment institutions are too much on the political commissar front. The overton window should be more even handed and not prejudiced for left wing demographics.
To that end, both break up such mega corporations and FORCE public platforms to allow competition. With massive fines. Things like Substack, Gab, etc. Regulate to allow pluralism. This is in line with the much forgotten theory of democracy that dissent including extremists opposing each other leads to a more moderate end. Personally, I still favor some gatekeeping but of a more evenhanded nature. More pluralism against the prejudices of the powerful types of our society would be a good thing.
AA policies of plutocrats and the goverment which have obviously become rather excessive should not only be seen as racist, but an abuse of power. The issue of powerful using their power for their own ideology at expense of society. This goes contra to the rationalist alignment with them which in case of Scott Siskind let him even promoting George Soros in certain instances as a good. Anyway, large fines, prosecutions should be the recipe.
I don't think someone who is rich, or managed to capture a position of the bureocracy should do just what he wants because he has that position. Principle should rule over petty and immoral desires of powerful men. Of course this still requires men of principle to enforce this ideal.
Ban AA and start prosecutions against those who do it and allow/encourage lawsuits for those trying to enforce it through the backdoor. It goes without saying that those who exercise the dastardly proffession of being an enforcer of "diversity" who engages in immoral rent and parasitism, should actually engage in an honest job.
Fundamentally, maybe I don't know about Samsung having negative influence in politics of Korea, but I don't have that much to complain about companies like Sony, Samsung, etc. So if they were less ideological companies like google would be less offensive but there is something to say about the enormous power of Apple, Google, Amazon that is simply too much.
There is an inherent strong value to strong communities which requires rootedness, continuity, and promotion of culture related to religion, ethnic identity. So maximizing wealth creation should not be ideal and there should be a compromise that have people for example go to church in mornings, or enjoy weekends.
The things that can elevate man outside of the capitalist process tend to be related to things of a more conservative and Lindy nature.
The rich who instead of giving his money for malevolent far left NGO, builds awesome cathedrals for example, or promotes paintings like Michelangelo's frescoes, deserves praise for making the world a better place. There is also of course more to just supporting beauty like certain technological innovation and wealth creation which should be more rooted to continuing the splendors of our ancestors creations.
This can be adjusted to an extend for different societies. World is too boring if everyone is the same. Chinese should promote more traditional type of their architecture. Arabs, the same. And so on.
And yes, some selfish motive like trying to have comfort for you and your family is going to motivate more people to gain wealth than patronage to build cathedrals, creating great work of arts that are actually admirable unlike abstract art and architecture, etc. But wealth used for good causes. Actually encouraging this might lead to more of the wealthy spending their money, because now there would be more things of worth to do so.
And also, if you are a rich guy who has done so, putting your name somewhere is well worth it. But name, not advertisement. Putting something like the symbol of Pepsi near a magnificient statue is disgusting and defiling. A plague of the patron but no tacky advertisement.
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