• TommySoda@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Yes, keep making enemies of the billionaires that got this administration into office and spent millions of dollars to do so. I’d very much love that for you.

    • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      He’s brought down Tesla (bankrupt in 2 years, MMW), and now Amazon. We shpuld start a betting pool for who-s next. META? Google? Microsoft?

    • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      In the article, Amazon already back peddled and said it was just in the idea phase and they never really planned on implementing it.

    • SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Good thing this isn’t a country that came about because a bunch of rich white dudes got tired of being taxed and started a revolution.

      • ggppjj@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        That possibly reframing “no taxation without representation” a bit but I don’t entirely disagree with the sentiment.

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          7 days ago

          In the most literal sense we have representation, but it sure as hell doesn’t seem like it in practice… :(

            • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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              7 days ago

              So, he could have paid other guys to fight the war and stayed home? Instead of being in the middle of the battles, and going cold and hungry in Valley Forge?

              There’s a lot of bad things you can say about Washington but enough good to at least make him complicated. He chose to limit his own Presidency, the opposite of our wannabe Führer. for one.

              • Geetnerd@lemmy.world
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                7 days ago

                Yes, he was filthy rich, not in liquidity, but in assets.

                But yes, he was approached with the offer to be King of The Colonies, and he refused. We can admire that.

        • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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          7 days ago

          When elections are fraudulent, its the same as no representation. Besides, pretty soon they’ll be suspending elections altogether. It doesn’t get more “no representation” than that.

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          7 days ago

          They thought funding Trump would get them representation. They were wrong. Trump cares about no one but himself.

    • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      The billionaires have thus far been too cheap to amass private armies to directly enforce their own will. Why, when you can lobby Congress for the price of a used Hyundai Sonata to get the Army to do what you want?

      The government holds the power of violence and Trump holds the power of the government. The billionaires will be reminded of that if they get out of line. Coincidentally, this is the arrangement of modern Russia.

      • SaltSong@startrek.website
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        7 days ago

        they have been too cheap thus far.

        I’m pretty sure that Bezos had enough money to bribe moderate chunks of the army.

        • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Personnel is one thing.

          Modern warfighting is outrageously expensive. Guided munitions can cost hundreds of thousands each. Armored vehicles cost millions. Combat aircraft, tens of millions. And it continues to cost tons of money just to keep them in a bunker ready to go.

          They will balk at the cost of owning/operating even a single Arleigh-Burke destroyer.

          There is a reason they’re all too happy to keep letting you and me indirectly fund their military aspirations through taxes.

          • SaltSong@startrek.website
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            7 days ago

            They will balk at the cost of owning/operating even a single Arleigh-Burke destroyer.

            They don’t need one. They need a sniper.

          • CitizenBrain@lemm.ee
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            7 days ago

            You can have all the expensive equipment you want. They don’t have the numbers. When your enemies are all around you and this military historically fucking sucks at combating insurgency, you’re going to lose.

            The military would be smart to tell this dude to pound sand before they, and a bunch of people die in a new civil war that they can’t win against the most armed civilian population on the planet.

          • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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            7 days ago

            this is part of why it’s important for everyone to pay attention to the asymmetric warfare being conducted in Ukraine. for one, it’s a genocide, don’t look away and speak for their liberation just like i hope everyone is speaking up for all colonized peoples, like Mayans, Darfurians, Congolese, Palestinians, and Uyghers. for another the skills demostrated may become necessary in the near future

    • HeyListenWatchOut@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Insane that the rich hate taxes so much, that they’re willing to put literal narcissist criminal idiots in charge thinking “I can definitely control and predict this guy’s behavior and surely that will be good for my business rather than just not having a 37th yacht and paying taxes and making the world an objectively better place not only for the other 7 billion inhabitants but probably more stable for my own interests as well.”

      If we weren’t all being tossed into the furnace with them, it would be something I’d never stop laughing at.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        7 days ago

        That’s the crazy part, unless they’re “outlawed” billionaires should try and improve people’s lives since it means they would have more money to spend on the crap those billionaires are selling! It’s hard to sell stuff on Amazon if everyone is struggling to afford housing and food.

        • Prehensile_cloaca @lemm.ee
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          7 days ago

          UPS just laid off 20K workers on the expectation that Amazon deliveries will be way down.

          Container ships are down 60%. More than any month during the pandemic.

          Trump is imploding the entire economy.

        • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.

          They could work to remove the destitution and desperation of working people. But if their workers weren’t in such dire straits, then they wouldn’t have so much power over them. Workers with good pay and a healthy work-life balance also have more time to pursue unionization and other political activities. Even if improving the lives of the people would objectively increase the wealth of the ultra-rich, it would still decrease their power. And ultimately, the only reason people ever obtain that level of wealth is because they desire power more than anything else. People who aren’t power-hungry monsters cash out and retire early long before they reach billionaire status.

          • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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            7 days ago

            Workers with good pay and a healthy work-life balance are unlikely to pursue unions. That’s the stuff unions are trying to achieve.