• DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    What if, bear with me here, what if people just don’t have as much disposable income after the dramatic transfer of wealth to the rich class we’ve been seeing?

    The economy is collapsing and the lower classes are feeling it already. The rich investor class isn’t seeing it because the tech industry has been propping up the market with their investments going all-in with unrealistic expectations for AI technology. We are currently experiencing a K-shaped recovery where the richest are on a spending spree while the poorest are cutting back their expenses. How much more obvious must it be that this is what’s going on?

    You want the general population to start wasting their money on useless crap again, you’ll have to give them more money to work with.

    • wheezy@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      I agree, but I gotta point out the area you’re wrong. It’s the internet after all. So don’t take my hyper-focus to heart.

      The investors are absolutely aware. They don’t care if AI has any material value. They will happily invest in a bubble and inflate far beyond what anyone believes is possible. The capitalist system has only evolved to be BETTER for capitalist when the bubble pops. They know this. They literally have lobbies dedicated to ensuring their wealth is protected.

      I think we confuse the “irrationality of the market” with the investors being irrational themselves. They are doing exactly what any rational investor would do in an economic system that has been built to favor them.

      I’m sure you’re aware of this given your perspective. But I think it’s important to use the right vocabulary to describe this. The problem is not a “broken system” with irrational actors. The system is working EXACTLY as intended and the investors are acting completely rationally within the economic system that has been created for their benefit. This isn’t “bad capitalism” that needs regulation. This is just capitalism.

      Bubbles and crashes are not something that investors are working hard to avoid. They are a feature of the contradictions of capitalism. Capitalist are very much aware of them and have ensured they can benefit from them while the working class takes the losses.

      • undeffeined@lemmy.ml
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        1 hour ago

        I agree with Frank Herberts take on the “power corrupts”: its not power that corrupts people, corrupt systems attract corrupt people.

      • Pelicanen@sopuli.xyz
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        1 day ago

        I have never thought in terms of this before but now that you explain it, why wouldn’t they do exactly that when no one was held accountable after the 2008 financial crash, the big firms that fucked the market got bailed out, and the ones who had enough money when the dust settled could buy everything for cheap and increase their ownership?

    • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      They’ve also been propping up the market with some sketchy circular deals, swearing up and down they’re not like Enron.

      • Macchi_the_Slime@piefed.blahaj.zone
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        1 day ago

        I straight up laughed when people started talking about “skipping Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals” to “stick it to the Oligarchs,” just like… must be nice to actually have enough disposable income to have been thinking about making leisure purchases during this. Some of us are broke enough that we’ve been putting off replacing things we need that are barely functional because we can’t really afford it and sales like these are the only time we can.