Trump, Bukele, Milei, Orban, Thiel, Musk, etc. It’s the “Dark Enlightenment” and “Network State” type of fascists that want to replace democratic government with stuff like corporate-controlled city-states, and crazy shit like that. They see it as a means to starve the government so they can run their own corporation-like governments.

The message in the genesis block alludes to the ideology (as that kind of stuff was a major talking point for right-wingers back then), though I guess it’s not definitive proof. The early community was definitely Austrian-school adjacent right-wingers though.

Fiscally irresponsible

I mean, there are people who just don’t have the money for a needed “purchase” (like medical care, transportation, or food), and hope they’ll be able to get a better job or make more money in the future to pay it off later. Been there.

Lemmy is quite left-leaning, and the impetus behind creating Bitcoin was right-wing Austrian school economics. Now, it’s being pushed by literal fascists.

Kind of a nitpick, but the CEO wasn’t a billionaire. It’s also kind of an important distinction, because it’s not necessarily the wealth that’s the main problem, but how the owner class/bourgeoisie obtain their wealth/income. A slumlord worth less than a million is arguably as morally wrong as a Blackstone CEO (one obviously has more wealth/power/impact though). The evidence of owner class solidarity and government capture/corruption is also important. Rashid, being a politician, is likely trying to not alienate is millionaire donors.

WV? In the 90s, I remember my uncle still didn’t have a septic tank or sewage; the family still used an outhouse. For breakfast, they’d often make biscuits and gravy with this weird, and I assume cheap, canned-gravy I’ve never seen anywhere else (was good, but likely very unhealthy). Most of my family from there are dead now (drugs, shit-life-syndrome).

What you’re describing is basically stagflation. It doesn’t necessarily mean a crash. It’s possible for the majority of people to keep on earning less and less real income for a long time without a crash.

I do wonder what the effect of all the layoffs from tech and the public sector and all the cuts in federal funding will do though. Dunno if that’s enough to flood the housing market and crash it or not. I think I’ve read that banks are in a good position to absorb housing market losses, so it won’t be like 2008.

AFAIK, most current economic indicators are OK. Not necessarily great, but not dire either.

The stock market makes no sense to me. It doesn’t appear most stocks move on the fundamentals of the companies or anything like that. It all appears to be driven by hype/gambling, and propped up from sustained lows by 401ks on auto-pilot and people trained to “buy the dip” by the quick Covid recovery.

The USD appears to be rapidly losing a lot of value compared to other currencies like the EUR. But, that fits well into the plan to reduce imports and boost US exports. Inflation with stagnant wages makes US exports more attractive/cheaper.