Thread by @KrisAtLarge

the chief preoccupation of #capitalism and capitalists is *predicting the future*. (well, that and _stealing_.)

to be a capitalist is to be hagridden with the #future, and craving omens and portents about it. to be in #business and #finance is to be into fortune-telling.

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quite literally in fact! a #fortune, in the sense of a big pile of treasure, was called a fortune because it was something that came to you by *chance*.

a rich relative died and left you a legacy. you had a lucky gold strike, or found a shipwreck loaded with riches.

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these days, though, people who devote themselves to lives of avarice—e.g. @elonmusk, @Teslaconomics, and everyone else in #business and #finance and #investment and #realestate and #cryptocurrency and every other way of scamming money—feel that they're *owed* a "fortune".

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the readers of @FortuneMagazine all feel that they're entitled to fortunes; indeed they feel that fortunes should accrue in their bank accounts at regular intervals, with a predictable "return on investment".

they're *gamblers*, yet they think of it as "earned" income.

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#investment is gambling. speculating on #realestate is gambling. starting a #business is gambling. to be an #entrepreneur is to be a gambler—there's no guarantee of ANY of these things paying off...but the people who do these risky things all feel *entitled* to #success.

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#capitalism is "doublethinkful" about #risk. capitalists from @elonmusk on down are all completely and permanently *hypocritical* about risk. they pretend they love and thrive on taking chances, but in fact most capitalists crave safety and guaranteed "passive income".

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and for that reason, #capitalism and capitalists is obsessed with the future and predicting it.

here's the top eight hits from @Money Magazine on "forecasting", the usual #business term for predicting the #future.

there's a 2009 item about how economists are bad at it...

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...but there's also confident predictions about gas prices in 2023, mortgage rates in 2023, the housing market in 2023...a great fraction of #business and #finance #journalism is nothing but *this*:

"expert" predictions about the #future, that don't NEED to come true.

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just as with more *spiritual* forms of fortune-telling, the audience for economic forecasts is generally looking for some sort of ratification for decisions they've already made, at least subconsciously.

they want predictions that tell them what they already want to hear.

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suppose a grifter like @BillyM2k or @Teslaconomics has an itch to bet on the housing market in 2023. (it doesn't need to be housing; it could be anything—soybean futures, $TSLA, anything.) they'll look through #business #journalism for forecasts that match their desires.

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that won't be their *conscious* decision, most likely. they would say, if asked, that they're "objectively" sifting through "evidence" (in the form of #economic forecasts, which are purely speculative and not good evidence.)

really, they're looking for confirmation bias.

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they're looking for economic forecasts that match what they already have half-decided upon doing, and when they find forecasts that *don't match*, they'll simply ignore them or pronounce them inadequate. people do the same thing with tarot readings and tips on horses.

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the *premise* is always that the canny person into #business or #investing or #cryptocurrencies can, with enough data analysis and astute economic fortune-telling, *always* get out ahead of chance.

they can treat the #market like a source of guaranteed, regular income.

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ultimately the capitalist feels that they should make money *forever*, always more and more of it, even though what they're doing is gambling on chance: no #business is guaranteed to make #money, and no #investment is guaranteed to pay off. the situation is an absurd one.

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and I don't *think* it can last forever, but...I suppose I'd be a fool, after writing all these tweets, to stake myself to a prediction about the fate of #capitalism.

let's just say I *want* it dead, and leave it at that.

~Chara of Pnictogen

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