base698

No kidding. I've spent all morning arguing it's not only the trans issue and misery makes strange bedfellows. Now that Elon is next to Trump you think that will continue?

I just posted a study. I meant to add if you are a shitlib it's 10%, if you are MAGA it's 90%. I'd wager 80% given nothing seems to improve when we give billions to any project. Are Musk's companies effective or ineffective? Do you think other oligarchs would do better with the resources? Which ones?

Yep, "misery makes strange bedfellows". If you think it's just the trans issue great, but there are plenty of other motivating factors. See liberal rag Vox in 2018: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/5/30/17405922/elon-musk-twitter-meltdown-tesla-valuation-bubble-model-3-promises-reality

Politically connected individuals get the rewards, which way does California lean? > A study using American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) data found that politically connected firms were 64% more likely to secure stimulus grants My first claim was just that money spent doesn't lead to positive outcomes. Somewhere between 10% to 90% of spend is corruption and bureaucracy. I'd guess it's at least 80%.

As are the Dems. Just different ones. WE LIVE IN AN OLIGARCHY. What you are witnessing is this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elites

It was, I don't mean to imply it wasn't. Just the people around him and his signaling indicates this is not the case in 2024. Who do you think owns the commercial properties and hotels? Do you think it's likely to be a republican donor or a democratic one? I bolded it so you wouldn't miss it, yet you focused on the part that was not bold.

IIRC it was partly about unions and partly about investigations into autopilot. This was partly just the press and when he started to fight back it spiraled. It definitely started as a press problem and morphed into what it is today. It wasn't just the trans issue was my point, and a lot of it stemmed from him fighting regulators, the press and the government for what he saw as the life of his companies. We live in an oligarchy. I support Elon over Reid Hoffman and Marc Cuban.

Poor (meaning people without a $10 million+ net worth) are propagandized against bankruptcy. He was quoted as saying, "You can grab the bank by the justice system and just stop paying your loans. When you're rich, they let you do it." Is it hard to run a casino? Do you have some kind of knowledge about the number of casinos that go bankrupt vs ones that open? Do you have market analysis for areas and demographics that are more/less risky?

It is not the same thing. Elon was rich but not powerful in 2021 when lawmakers thought they could belittle him and tweet "Fuck Elon". Now he is both rich and powerful. From Frank Underwood in House of Cards: Thank god Mike Huckabee is rich and not powerful.

Do you have any examples? I'm aware of the one in Texas where the mother went to the ER 4 times over 24 hours and giving her antibiotics each time. At the last moment they finally determined she needed an abortion and had to do the ultrasound and they portray it as the ultrasound requirement killing her, instead of the doctors making the wrong call 4 times in a row.

It's an emergency. We have a precedent 4 years ago. If we can prevent free movement selectively for the sniffles I think we can for 100,000 dead a year and the risk of little Jenny inhaling Fentanyl on the subway accidentally.

You don't see a difference between having Elon Musk who is going to be the head of "DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY" and JD Vance who has paid lip service to the Fed issues and an administration that had Mike Pence and other swamp creatures?

That makes a good story, and Elon is solid on narrative. However, if you go back a few years to 2016 you'll see increasing antagonistic behavior towards Space X and Tesla. Of the best examples are legal action for not hiring non-citizens when you legally can't hire them Space X because of export controls. When he fought back the press further vilified him and the situation spiraled. During Covid a California State Senator tweeted "Fuck Elon Musk". In the best example of "don't bring knives to gun fights" of all time Musk is now the 3rd most powerful person in the world on top of being the richest.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/us/california-homeless-spending/index.html California has spent a stunning $17.5 billion trying to combat homelessness over just four years. Nearly $4 billion went to local governments to spend on anti-homelessness initiatives. $3.7 billion went to a program called Project Homekey, which also funds local governments, but specifically to buy properties like motels and commercial buildings to turn into permanent, affordable housing. So far 13,500 units have been finished. I'm not going to look it up but there are tons of examples of tiny homes being constructed for multiples of the price of a small 2 bedroom in lower cost of living area. The homeless refuse to stay in because they have restrictions on drug use if they stay. Political climate is the main one. The appetite for a solution like, mobilizing the military to bus them to treatment centers out of cities is there. People aren't going to tolerate the "BUT THEY ARE UNHOUSED NOT HOMELESS" BS, they just want it fixed. There are a bunch of videos circulating X that were made a year or two ago by Trump with some specifics.

You guys should print $4T dollars and keep letting them in like we have.

Yeah, that's not true in any state, even Alabama and Texas which are the most restrictive. Florida has medical exceptions where the mother is in danger the whole term. What is true is that if your niece gets a 20 week scan and the kid has downs then she can't do anything about it.

Yeah I got that, which is why and people like Elon Musk switched to Red. You'll be brought to heel soon enough. Good luck with your seething though.

New Right by Michael Malice: https://www.amazon.com/New-Right-Journey-American-Politics/dp/1250154669 https://x.com/pmarca/status/1577366792233660416 list is solid, but crosses a lot of domains and general history. In particular the Machiavellians by Burnham but it is more history and political science.

Yep and those administrations are just as responsible. I hate neocons as does most of the new right. If you don't see the difference perhaps read "The New Right". It is a good overview.

Yes, every American city being crime and filth ridden for a decade is worse than a single day of rednecks wandering around the Capitol. Money certainly will not solve it as the Democrats have proven spending billions on the problem and having it get progressively worse (pun intended). All the money spent on homeless seems to do is get given to connected Dem donors.

Given the budget deficit and debt I'm more interested in stopping that so we don't have to print even more money. I'd prefer not to pay $36 for my hamburger because they doubled the money supply again. If we do that and get the budget under some reasonable threshold we talk what to do about it.

They lost their grip somewhere between 2021 and when Trump was shot. The SV elite alignment around Trump (Bill Ackman, Elon, David Sacks, Marc Andresson) and Zuck refusing to endorse or get involved and Bezos saying WaPo won't be a propaganda arm of the DNC anymore shows something changed. It was like the world collectively decided, maybe we don't want to have shit on the street and widespread looting. You can feel it in the air.

I was jointly referring to Santa Monica, which I left in 2020 and various towns in NC not in the major hubs, if you can call NC cities a major hubs.

Show me the man and I'll show you the crime Lavrentiy Beria, prime deputy under Joseph Stalin.

I think it's close. Wasn't a Trump fan. Aware of some of his faults, never voted red until very recently. Been kind of on the anti woke bandwagon in a few instances (donglegate being the most notable) but still a dem voter. Even voted yes on weed this time in Florida but can see why it failed and was kind of glad it did. In case you ask, smelling it in public sucks and it's already prevalent on the beach.