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>Nope it’s the millionaires. It’s the underemployed educated elite. Wrong. The billionaires want the public focused on the low-end millionaires, who largely ha

>Nope it’s the millionaires. It’s the underemployed educated elite. Wrong. The billionaires want the public focused on the low-end millionaires, who largely have no more control over policy than the poorest pensioner or laborer, while the billionaire-class and their willing enablers destroy the society and environment to their own benefit. It's just a different spin on the ages-old strategy of dividing the non-ruling-class and pitting them against each other. The one thing the billionaires want to avoid is a unified public coming for their wealth and influence.

elcritch 1mo ago
> The one thing the billionaires want to avoid is a unified public coming for their wealth and influence. Personally I prefer to avoid "Reign of Terror" (1) or similar situations where a "unified public" wantonly destroys the ultra wealthy. That revolution was led by educated elites clerks, lawyers, etc and not by commoners. The peasants were pawns. > the low-end millionaires, who largely have no more control over policy than the poorest pensioner or laborer, while the billionaire-class and their willing enablers destroy the society and environment to their own benefit. Billionaires wealth may need curbing, in particular unlimited mergers. However in my estimation it's the millionaire class level actively destroying the economic foundations of the west, not just the USA. It's CEOs like the ill fated Brian Thompson worth only tens of millions who made those millions by driving exaggerated profits and share price at UnitedHealth. It's Jim McNerney former CEO at Boeing who drove up share prices by gutting engineering that made himself a centi-millionaire. Meanwhile SpaceX and Tesla made Musk a trillionaire, but you don't need a Tesla. Similarly for Bezos or Zuckerberg's products. However food, healthcare, education, etc are all continuously increasing their profit margin's at the expense of everyone else and their companies/brands. For example Dorito's market share plummeted recently after they kept driving up prices to over $7 / bag. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror
59percentmore 1mo ago
The low-end millionaires run interference for the billionaires. Regardless of who's actually at fault, if the low-end millionaires were to publicly and materially side with the remaining middle class, working class, poor, and indigent, their combined influence would be irresistable - which is basically what you said, I'll admit. But my point is that the millionaires are the last holdouts. Everyone else is ready to party. If every American with a sub-8-figure net worth held back their property payments for 6 months, they could collectively have anything they asked for. Anything.
- elcritch 1mo ago
  > If every American with a sub-8-figure net worth held back their property payments for 6 months, they could collectively have anything they asked for. Anything. That'd not affect the federal government. It would however hurt schools & teachers, garbage men, police, etc as property taxes largely go to city and county governments which run those services.
  - 59percentmore 1mo ago
    It would cause an instant liquidity crisis that would lock up credit and securities markets. The federal government would be forced to backstop large market participants as years of suppressed price discovery was unleashed, decimating balance sheets worldwide. This would result in a fundamental rebalancing of apparent value, which those withholding payments would have a primary hand in influencing.

elcritch 1mo ago

> The one thing the billionaires want to avoid is a unified public coming for their wealth and influence. Personally I prefer to avoid "Reign of Terror" (1) or similar situations where a "unified public" wantonly destroys the ultra wealthy. That revolution was led by educated elites clerks, lawyers, etc and not by commoners. The peasants were pawns. > the low-end millionaires, who largely have no more control over policy than the poorest pensioner or laborer, while the billionaire-class and their willing enablers destroy the society and environment to their own benefit. Billionaires wealth may need curbing, in particular unlimited mergers. However in my estimation it's the millionaire class level actively destroying the economic foundations of the west, not just the USA. It's CEOs like the ill fated Brian Thompson worth only tens of millions who made those millions by driving exaggerated profits and share price at UnitedHealth. It's Jim McNerney former CEO at Boeing who drove up share prices by gutting engineering that made himself a centi-millionaire. Meanwhile SpaceX and Tesla made Musk a trillionaire, but you don't need a Tesla. Similarly for Bezos or Zuckerberg's products. However food, healthcare, education, etc are all continuously increasing their profit margin's at the expense of everyone else and their companies/brands. For example Dorito's market share plummeted recently after they kept driving up prices to over $7 / bag. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

59percentmore 1mo ago

The low-end millionaires run interference for the billionaires. Regardless of who's actually at fault, if the low-end millionaires were to publicly and materially side with the remaining middle class, working class, poor, and indigent, their combined influence would be irresistable - which is basically what you said, I'll admit. But my point is that the millionaires are the last holdouts. Everyone else is ready to party. If every American with a sub-8-figure net worth held back their property payments for 6 months, they could collectively have anything they asked for. Anything.

elcritch 1mo ago
> If every American with a sub-8-figure net worth held back their property payments for 6 months, they could collectively have anything they asked for. Anything. That'd not affect the federal government. It would however hurt schools & teachers, garbage men, police, etc as property taxes largely go to city and county governments which run those services.
- 59percentmore 1mo ago
  It would cause an instant liquidity crisis that would lock up credit and securities markets. The federal government would be forced to backstop large market participants as years of suppressed price discovery was unleashed, decimating balance sheets worldwide. This would result in a fundamental rebalancing of apparent value, which those withholding payments would have a primary hand in influencing.