HN user
No, it is really "competition" (banks compete for my money) vs "monopoly" (no other option than the government).
The assumption that CBDC is a good idea because the government is always benevolent and does what's best for the people is incorrect, as demonstrated by the horrible financial mismanagement in the recent 20 years.
I actually did, a few months ago. In my state, out of the 10 non gun-carrying people killed by the cops in the past 10 years, 2-3 were Black, 5 were White, the rest Hispanic and 1 Asian (matching the racial makeup of US).
So the statement by the poster above holds - if you don't point a gun at a cop (figuratively), your chance of surviving contact with police if you are Black are no lower than other races.
The left-leaning bias is not limited to just "news".
It is also very much present in various tech and fashion/style publications - check out Ars Technica and GQ as examples.
Both owned by the corporate mouthpiece Condé Nast Inc., by the way.
Life is not fair and not a bed of roses, never will be.
These experiences make you tougher - in adult life, you will run into toxic bosses, colleagues, brutal job interviewers...
It is important to have a loving family and/or supportive friends who can provide a different point of reference.
Words can break hearts when they come from a loved one, or someone you look up to.
Why would what some random person says break your heart?
The Fed want inflation to diminish (in real terms) the mountains of debt the US government and consumers incurred in the past 20 years. At the expense of the poorest people and savers (because wage inflation is much lower than the goods/services inflation, not to mention bank savings interest rates, which are laughable).
Make no mistake, the Fed are not idiots, they have been trying to introduce inflation for a long time, but initially they succeeded in asset inflation only. With the help of Covid and the war, they got their wish.
But wage inflation needs to match the goods/services inflation, because without it, borrowers will be even less able to pay their debts.
In order to really stamp out inflation, the Fed would need to raise the interest rate to 10%, essentially forcing the US to declare bankruptcy.
The Fed is hoping to introduce a mild recession, which, they hope, would reduce all kinds of inflation, without them having to raise the rates above 3.5% or so.
Pearson had a 50% stake, most of which was sold to the Agnellis. So now, the Agnellis and the Rotschilds are the largest (and, together, controlling) shareholders.
Board members like Lady de Rothschild and Eric "you have no privacy" Schmidt publicly supported/donated to the Hillary Clinton campaign. The Rotschilds were invited by the Clintons to spend their honeymoon at the White House. The rest of the board reads like the attendees at the Bilderberg Group and the Council on Foreign Relations. The very definition of elitism, and collusion with the governments (Schmidt, Alex Karp, who is also on the board, there are also Sirs and Baronesses). "Free trade" - yes, reserved for the multinationals, Most definitely not mom-and-pop, small/medium business oriented anymore (which they used to be, before the sale).
The fact that they (probably still) have superbly written articles should not disguise the shift in their political stance.
Perhaps more like globalist/corporatist, which reflects their recent ownership?
In 2015, Pearson - a publishing company - sold its controlling stake to a bunch of corporate owners, like the Agnellis (43%) and the Rotschilds (21%), among others.
The change in their editorial direction was immediately visible (I had been a subscriber/reader for 35+ years until 2016)
They were only petitioning for early elections - in case Covid restrictions were not immediately removed. Not unconditionally.
Petitioning for early elections (even if impossible legally) is a far, far cry from "overthrowing the government"*.
Would you be willing to edit your original post to provide some context here?
So they tried to "overthrow the government" by filing a petition to call for early elections? That's quite a stretch...
to overthrow the elected government of Canada
This is a serious claim, and one that I have not seen coming from the protesters (they want an end to the Covid mandates, from what I can tell) . Can you please provide the source for your allegation?
You missed my point entirely - which is: Increased expenses that others occur now due to inflation, will - sooner or later - affect you.
The fact that something (temporarily) does not affect you does not mean it is not happening.
You are lucky, then. For me, electricity, gas, and, above all, real-estate taxes went up easily 10% (or more).
And while you don't have to buy/rent a house right now, your plumber may. So he will charge you more when (inevitably) you will need his services.
It is all linked together, and claiming that "it does not affect me" is naive.
Since we can only pick one -> "Animal Farm", no question about it. Easy read, succinctly describes human nature.
But if I could, I would supplement it with these two, because they were so prescient in describing what happened to us in the past 30 years:
Erich Fromm - "Escape From Freedom"
Aldous Huxley - "Brave New World"
Also - The Art of Loving
Construction costs have very little to do with current asking prices.
It is all about what the market can bear (and it can bear a lot these days, thanks to incessant money printing)
What to do when you have two very different opinions coming from experts:
- Anthony "I am The Science" Fauci
or
- Dr Malone (mRNA inventor)?
Who to believe?
Difficult to say, but these days, sadly, the first (and prudent) thing to do is to follow the money. While credentials matter, the first thing I check when I read a paper/publication is who funded the work.
There are quite a few toxic places in the software business, no?
Medical field (being a physician) is not a walk in the park, but:
1. nobody questions you intelligence/knowledge after, say, 20 demonstrably successful years in the business
2. on your way home you can say "tough day, but at least I am making $600K/year"
But it is absolutely true that pay has been surging since about 2014/2015
Only partially true:
1. High total compensation (not salaries) is limited to FAANG/Unicorn employees (awash with money)
2. That high compensation has been achieved by stock options multiplying in value, thanks to abnormal run of the stock market (thank you Federal Reserve), which is not going to continue with rising interest rates
3. Salary base seems to be stuck at $150K for mid-senior developers in bigger cities (except for NYC) for many years now
They were bailouts, because, without Fed's guarantees, no financial institution would loan money to most of these badly-managed, reckless corps. And they are doing the exact same thing again, knowing they will be bailed out again.
"Profits for the taxpayer" - did you get a penny of the "profits"? The only people who profited were the executives of the bailed out companies - who deserved to lose their jobs, not double their wealth.
The bond "market" is dominated by Fed purchases (with money created out of fresh air), to keep borrowing costs low (aka QE). They are following the BoJ, which now owns around 70% of all government bonds. This charade can continue for a while longer, but what happens when governments own 100% of their own debt and all mortgage debt (MBS in the US)?
The US, at least, has not been a free market for a long time.
What we have is some form of (heavily financialized) crony statism, where a bunch of well connected monopolies milk consumers shamelessly (health "care", higher education, etc).
As sibling comments are pointing out - the jobs are not for life anymore (and the tenure is getting shorter).
But there are 3 other aspects, specific to your location/economic system, which do not apply (and mostly never applied) in the US/West:
- people did not move around the country for jobs like they do in the US
- salaries in Eastern Europe/USSR were public and the same for the same position/responsibility.
- bosses' salaries were perhaps 30% higher (certainly not 300+% higher, so everyone was in the same socio-economic class, facilitating camaraderie
Make it 2-3 conductors per train for commuter trains in Boston. Also, MBTA employees retire with super high pensions (70-80% of salary)
Inflation is the most cruel, invisible tax - cruel, because it is regressive, and so affects the poor much more than the rich.
That the government, elected by the people, is actively - and pretty openly- diminishing the purchasing power of working people it was elected by - is just breathtaking.
And yes, the purchasing power will diminish, because price inflation will not be matched by income inflation, due to a lot of slack in the labor market.
... and healthcare, which has been rising 13%-15% every year
Really? "... and many people's only news source"
Why bring politics into this? Most of my economically clueless friends are liberals who only watch CNN and read NYT. Economic Ignorance is widespread and bipartisan.
Almost noone in my highly educated and successful social circle grasps this. We are talking MBAs and PhDs. They all think that the bailouts in 2008 and in 2020 were necessary because otherwise "the economy would collapse".
It was just the previous King, Juan Carlos, his son (the current King) seems to conduct himself much better (no corruption, no elephant hunts, no tawdry extra-marital affairs).
But I do agree with you that the concept of monarchy (hereditary power/wealth at taxpayers' expense) has run its course.