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> Elon Musk enjoys a level of access to the US executive branch that other companies only dream of In short, he's an oligarch. Over here we don't react kindly

• pessimizer 2y ago
  Europe is full of oligarchs, and has less class mobility than the US. The history of Europe is a history of oligarchs throwing peasants at each other. A middle-class lifestyle when one doesn't have to spend on the military might fool you into thinking that Europe is egalitarian (everybody looks healthy), and looking egalitarian can look like a lack of corruption if your glasses are dirty. Meanwhile, there are families that have been controlling that continent for hundreds of years. The funny thing about the European rearmament bluff is that any weapons bought by Europe are eventually going to be aimed at other Europeans. It isn't that Europe needs to defend itself from the outside, it's that Europeans need to be protected from each other.
  • rsynnott 2y ago
    > and has less class mobility than the US. So, interestingly, this is something that Americans tend to believe, and that Europeans tend to believe, but it is empirically not true. Americans in the bottom income quintile are less likely to make it to the top quintile than people in the major European economies, but they are more likely to _believe_ that they can: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/americans-overestimate-social-mobility-in-their-country https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...