Some random company that sells fruits overthrowing another country’s government; it’s so ludicrous I’d say it’s too silly to be the plot of a serious movie and like no no, actually this ludicrous story is actually real.
Recently?
How a lawyer in America got jailed for legally fighting against(and defeating) an American multi-national oil company that polluted the Amazon and more importantly harmed the lives and health of the locals with the pollution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OtIAZMqrZE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_DonzigerI learned about this during the pan through interviews he did with Chapo Traphouse. Absolutely nuts.
In June 2022, a federal appeals court affirmed Donziger’s criminal contempt conviction. In March 2023, the Supreme Court declined to hear further appeals.
I’m shocked.
Donziger’s story is heartbreaking and infuriating, and I’m continually disappointed that so few people are familiar with his story and what the courts did to him. It’s one of the clearest examples of judicial corruption and the power and benefits that are afforded to corporations and almost never extended to the people fighting for what’s right and just.
Yep, learned about this just yesterday from the YouTube channel BoyBoy who covered the situation quite well and had a lovely interview with Steven (as lovely as such a depressing topic can be)
I cannot find the exact quote but it was something like “If you don’t grow, you’re dying”. This is the source of all enshittification. Companies are being forced by VCs to increase revenue every year to meet unreasonable revenue goals just to satisfy a handful of investors.
Spot on. Growth concept is cancer in current market.
My boss once said to a group of new joinees including me," Eventually you will be able to afford subscription to all the streaming services."
Well, that was a lie.
You can’t make me pick one.
My brother used to work for an SEO company. They charged clients to have their web sites on directories which would improve their Google pagerank… until Google updated the algorithm to penalize sites listed in these directories. The company quickly pivoted to charging the same clients to have them removed from the directories they had just charged them to be listed in.
As much as I hate SEO companies, people who hire them are even worse, so I can only approve of this.
Your mom always expects me to leave money on the dresser in the morning.
Here in Sweden we currently have the problem that hospitals are understaffed and keeping wages of nurses so low that a lot of nurses quit and leave the others with an even crazier workload so the hospitals buy nurses semi permanently from temp agencies that cost multiple times more and the rental nurses have better pay and agreements of overtime and such. We had a well functioning health care but then the privatisation of everything and selling out communally owned services to private profit making schemes since the 90s. Because our government has been dominated by right wing market liberals and “sossehöger” - social democrats that jump on right wing populism to stay in power when they can rather than being consistent in left wing ideals.
Fucking end the market liberal experiment already. “The market solves all problems” - yeah, of it’s own interest which is how to squeeze out more profits regardless the how and how low it stoops.
EVERY instance of ‘public-private’ healthcare goes that route, touted as the wave of the future and a seamless melding of public interest and delicious capitalist pork, and then every single one of them gets drunk on the cash and goes toxic like this.
It’s happening to Canada too. And France. And London.
Damn, I didn’t know America was contagious…
It’s been the strategy of the right wing here since forever to get in power - sell out as much they can (and for some unfathomable reason for discount prices), fuck things up in general, leave it to a left wing government to salvage what can be saved while blaming them for public service being garbage so they can motivate selling out more when they have power again. It’s a mix of blind idealists and profiteering scum that are in liaison with the right wing nationalist party with former nazi connections and obviously the Christian democrat leader that models the party according to the republicans is the most buddy-buddy with the fringe right.
And the populist right wing of course romanticises about the good days when everyone had housing and was safe and provided and so on - that was built solely by the left and the right wing fought them every step of the way and that they have since then torn down. Blatant lies and disinformation all the way.
But it is what people vote for. We get the societal break down we deserve.
Same happens in Italy. It’s probable the govt will collapse before 2027 and they won’t campaign as much for the new elections, so the new govt will be blamed for all the problems these fuckers caused
Whoa, I thought that just Australia was following American economics. The descent into privatisation on everything. I guess there are greedy and ignorant people everywhere. For some reason knowing Sweden is also going down the neoliberal toilet it makes me feel better and I dont know why. I guess its a feeling of inevitability.
Reminds me of John Stewart stating that to combat vested interest takes energy and effort every single day.
There are so many groups taking advantage of our overworked lives combined with the over abundance of useless information that distracts us from the real issues that impacts us. Its very difficult to know how and where to direct our energy. Of course thats my view as a social/environmental person. However, if you love the conservative/neoliberal view of the world. Then congratulations, things must seem pretty great right now.
Thats fucking sad
There’s this advert on YouTube shorts for some therapy app or service whatever and it’s just vulgar.
It’s this bearded dude filming himself washing his face and I guess the camera POV is on his basin or whatever.
The whole thing is meant to come across as though he is an influencer that you’ve not heard of, that this is a random video of his that you’ve stumbled across, and that this is just an observation that he’s made about therapy that he’s relaying to you whilst he exfoliates his putrid flesh.
I’ve nothing against therapy at all, but this commodification of it, and the way it dishonestly tries to sell it to you is simply capitalism all over. Most people probably need therapy because of the trauma this system has caused on people and yet here it is trying to sell you the cure as well.
To top it all off, watching this 2010s hipster relic scrub his face with soap is nail curlingly vile and I have no idea what the angle is other than trying to make this not appear to be an advert.
Putrid flesh ? Is he a zombie ?
That you can lease prison labor.
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Sounds like ‘pay day loans’ in the US.
Back in the day, a loan shark was a criminal who charged an outrageous 20% interest for money. Working class folks were at the mercy of these “six-for-fivers.”
Ronald Reagan became President and now established banks could charge 35% or more.
(Looks at my credit cards)
Yall got any more of that 20% interest?
Yeah, a factory worker would get $5 and pay back $6 the next week. That was a terrible crime. Then Reagan deregulated the banks and it became business as usual.
To be fair, usury is much older plague than capitalism, but it’s been one of capitalism roots, and capitalism cranked it up incredibly.
I’d like to add that there are good versions of “microloans”! I learned that there used to be (or still are, didn’t check) non-profit " banks" in some parts of India (and South africa I think) that would give out small loans of a few dollars to a few hundred dollars (which can be quite a lot of money in India). There was no collateral and low interest, but a group of people had to apply for a loan together. Until the first loan was paid back, the rest of the group couldn’t apply again. It was meant to provide financial backing and capital to microbusinesses (e.g. fishers, farmers, peddlers) that would otherwise be excluded from the financial market due to a lack of collateral and otherwise be forced to take high-interest loans.
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Thanks for the info! I didn’t think they were widespread, but figured they might be a bit wholesome and would light up this thread :)
Neocolonialism maybe?
Hong Kong’s subway system offers fare discounts if you use the entrances/exits that require you to walk through a mall, as part of their monetisation of spaces required to access public services
You can finance a pizza
Ugh I dunno if I just noticed it but the spread of “only x small payments!” financing for the smallest purchases can’t be a good sign
Amerika
