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Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

@babadookspinoza

27 Jan

The US can’t run out of money for the same reason it will never pay off its national debt: through coercion and violence, the US has pegged almost the entire world’s monetary system to the value of the dollar, and US dollars come into existence as debt.

The US dollar isn’t backed by gold; it’s backed by 800+ overseas military bases and 6,185 nuclear warheads.

Don’t get me wrong: returning to the gold standard would be idiotic. But know that the excuse of “how will we pay for it” is a lie EVEN IF you insist for whatever reason on not raising taxes on the rich. But the ruling class is desperate to limit inflation, which hurts the rich.

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Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

@babadookspinoza

26 Jan

The entire conversation around the minimum wage is framed as a question of entitlements or “handouts” when the issue is really this: of the value produced by a worker per hour, how much should employers be prevented from stealing?

All the wealth generated by companies is ultimately produced by workers’ labor. Worker productivity is at record levels, but wages stopped increasing alongside it in the ‘70s. These are the “handouts” you’re looking for: stolen wages taken from those who work by those who don’t.

Minimum wage workers create FAR more value per hour than $7.25 or even $15, but the law allows bosses to keep all but the tiniest pittance for themselves. Why isn’t the law changed regularly to ensure that workers keep enough of the value THEY produced to live comfortably?

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Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

@babadookspinoza

26 Jan

I’ve been pretty depressed about the state of the world recently and one thing that helps a *little* bit is to remind myself not to take on other people’s guilt and feel the shame of shameless people. I’m only one person, and the world does not rest on my shoulders alone.

It’s still tragic regardless of who’s responsible but getting my head out of macro-level thinking and into my own personal life is really necessary every once in a while. Otherwise it’s just too much for any one person to worry about without having a complete mental breakdown.

I know we all struggle with this which is why I tweeted about it. If anybody has other strategies that help I am eager to hear them.

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Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

@babadookspinoza

26 Jan

If you’ve never had to deal with what sobriety is like with ptsd then I don’t want to hear your moralizing opinions on drug use.

Expert opinion is slowly coming around to the recognition that most addicts are self-medicating trauma symptoms. I share that view and anecdotally know it to be true from personal experience and that of many friends of mine. If you don’t feel inclined to use drugs, you’re lucky.

That said, I think glorifying drug use is also abhorrent, at least with regard to drugs like alcohol and heroin that routinely kill people and ruin lives. The culture makes it that much harder for genuine addicts to stay sober if they’ve managed the Herculean feat of quitting.

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Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

@babadookspinoza

26 Jan

You can roughly measure how democratic a society is by the degree to which public opinion aligns with its laws, and by that metric the US isn’t even close. Particularly apparent during the pandemic, when millions are being abandoned to unemployment, eviction, hunger and illness.

Only one class of people wants things to be like they are, and they’re the small, idle minority living off *our* labor.

A 2014 study used precisely this methodology to determine that no, the US is not a democracy but an oligarchy. cambridge.org/core/journals/…

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Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

@babadookspinoza

19 Jan

Giving poor people enough money to spend on things they WANT and not just what they need would be a huge boon for the economy, and the fact that the ruling class avoids this like the plague confirms that it’s not the economy they care about but *their* economic interests.

This is the main reason the stock market is usually talked about as if it simply IS “the economy.” In reality only the very rich own a significant number of stocks. The stock market has done very well during the pandemic, as have the rich, while the rest of us are in a recession.

The continued existence of the poor as a class is more useful to the rich in the form of an exploitable underclass than they would be if they were more active consumers. Having an army of the unemployed waiting at your door allows you to better exploit your employees.

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Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

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More from @babadookspinoza

Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

Future “Who Wants a Vaccine?” Contestant

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