It's been discussed multiple times here before. The blunt reality is that
* Almost all of the productivity gains over the past three decades have been captured by the 1%(0.1% really). Rank and file workers (yes that includes tech workers) have seen a very minuscule portion of that. Tech got by for a while because the gains were so large and that for a while, the overall pie expanded faster than the growth in developers.
* The elites used the excess surplus to capture the govt(e.g Citizens United)and ensure favourable policy like being able to socialize losses and privatize profits which resulted in even more of the gains going to them.
* In search of ever increasing profits, the elites also funneled those gains into buying up more and more of the economy starting at the top (P.E driven consolidation) and increasingly moving lower and lower on Maslow's hierarchy (housing, food/farmland, medicine).
The lowest sections of our society started getting squeezed way before(notice where the most support for a promise to return to a 'glorious' past is), but it has now reached a point where even the upper middle class is getting squeezed and can't easily afford basic needs like housing and healthcare.
History shows that these situations are inherently unstable and don't last very long. Unfortunately for the elites, in the extreme cases they don't tend to do well in the aftermath once the proles decide they have had enough.
The best hope is that they voluntarily realize that the situation is untenable.
I guess they had to do the 'voluntary' bit as otherwise they are likely looking at a class action lawsuit claiming blatant age discrimination.
If you are eligible though, I wonder just how 'voluntary' the process actually is, esp if the company tells you that a PIP is coming otherwise (of course in a nice, legally defensible way)
A shortage can also be physical. The fuel you already bought (and possibly paid for) cannot be delivered. Maybe the actual delivery is the issue. Maybe a government confiscated it for other uses. Or maybe the fuel doesn't exist at all, because the refinery didn't have the oil to produce it.
Something is fundamentally broken when the sitting president of the United States pardoned thousands convicted in a court of law of attempting to use violence to achieve political ends.
No wonder people are increasingly recognizing that democracy is now broken.
Pretty much every major country has seen the writing on the wall and are pivoting hard to renewables. It's no longer even about climate change, or some other lofty goal. The reason(esp for India and China) is plain and simple energy independence. Investment into renewables pretty much guarantees long term energy independence.
It's mystifying as to why the United States is firmly trying to pull in the opposite direction and leaning hard on coal and other fossil fuels. Is it because the US is the largest oil producer in the world now? But even that doesn't make sense as it simply does not have the refining capacity needed to handle the volume of extracted crude.
Why would the US deliberately risk getting behind on the first major shift in the energy landscape in a hundred years?
Issue is, Musk is making pretty much every one invest by forcing indexes to bend the rules and include SpaceX into their ranks thus forcing index funds to buy at the early public valuation of SpaceX.
* Almost all of the productivity gains over the past three decades have been captured by the 1%(0.1% really). Rank and file workers (yes that includes tech workers) have seen a very minuscule portion of that. Tech got by for a while because the gains were so large and that for a while, the overall pie expanded faster than the growth in developers.
* The elites used the excess surplus to capture the govt(e.g Citizens United)and ensure favourable policy like being able to socialize losses and privatize profits which resulted in even more of the gains going to them.
* In search of ever increasing profits, the elites also funneled those gains into buying up more and more of the economy starting at the top (P.E driven consolidation) and increasingly moving lower and lower on Maslow's hierarchy (housing, food/farmland, medicine).
The lowest sections of our society started getting squeezed way before(notice where the most support for a promise to return to a 'glorious' past is), but it has now reached a point where even the upper middle class is getting squeezed and can't easily afford basic needs like housing and healthcare.
History shows that these situations are inherently unstable and don't last very long. Unfortunately for the elites, in the extreme cases they don't tend to do well in the aftermath once the proles decide they have had enough.
The best hope is that they voluntarily realize that the situation is untenable.
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