Yo, top 1%: shut the fuck up

[erimir]

Don't be silly, that's a cartoon, not real history.

[JoeP]

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

This $5M Chandelier Under a Vancouver Bridge Will Start the Class War - VICE

Spinning Chandelier under Granville Street Bridge...

[lisarea]

OFF TOPIC, ONE INFRACTION FOR ME: It's not that I disagree about that at all, but I have to confess that I have a very specific thing for over the top chandeliers in weird places. Like there's an otherwise normal looking probably 3 bedroom house two doors down with a two story chandelier in the entryway. And a senior apartment complex a couple blocks down with one that's probably four stories.

But my favorite is probably the fancy chandeliers at "Woody's Wings N Things," located in a run down strip mall from the 70s probably. "Woody's Wings N Things" being, naturally, a pan Asian restaurant specializing in Cambodian, Laotian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese, and also Buffalo wings and corndogs and stuff.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Originally Posted by lisarea

a pan Asian restaurant specializing in Cambodian, Laotian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese, and also Buffalo wings and corndogs and stuff.

Source: Asian food in a small town - The Oatmeal

[lisarea]

It's actually surprisingly good for such an odd place with such a huge menu, and it's just outside of Denver, which has always had decent-sized Asian immigrant communities. My bestie is Chinese and a pretty big 'foodie,' and she loves it. So NO CASTING ASPERSIONS ON WOODY'S. INFRACTION!

If you go just a few miles southeast of there, there's a couple mile long stretch that's always had dozens of tiny little Asian takeout restaurants, mostly Thai and Vietnamese, with nearly identical white signs with phone numbers and addresses in black Helvetica, and maybe one person who could take an order in English with a little pantomime. But when you found a place you really liked, you'd have to write down the address if you didn't know the language because otherwise, you'd never be able to find it again. <-- True story.

Denver's been gentrifying so badly lately, though, I'm not comfortable even saying they're still there. Lots of really great places have been priced out by bullshit hipster places for stupid white people who pay 10x as much to avoid being a minority for ten minutes. (See? Back on topic. NO INFRACTIONS FOR ME.)

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by lisarea

OFF TOPIC, ONE INFRACTION FOR ME:

Originally Posted by lisarea

So NO CASTING ASPERSIONS ON WOODY'S. INFRACTION!

Hello police? ... We've got a pseudo-admin here ranting and waving an infraction gun around. ... Yes. Thanks.

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[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by lisarea

OFF TOPIC, ONE INFRACTION FOR ME: It's not that I disagree about that at all, but I have to confess that I have a very specific thing for over the top chandeliers in weird places. Like there's an otherwise normal looking probably 3 bedroom house two doors down with a two story chandelier in the entryway. And a senior apartment complex a couple blocks down with one that's probably four stories.

But my favorite is probably the fancy chandeliers at "Woody's Wings N Things," located in a run down strip mall from the 70s probably. "Woody's Wings N Things" being, naturally, a pan Asian restaurant specializing in Cambodian, Laotian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese, and also Buffalo wings and corndogs and stuff.

As long as we're already off-topic, have you read Artemis by Andy Weir (that same guy who wrote The Martian)? They're on the moon so they have this economy where everything that comes from Earth is massively expensive, but glass is dirt cheap because it's made from silica, which is abundant on the moon. So everybody, the rich and the poor alike, has these gorgeous crystal chandeliers in their places.

How's that for a weird place for a chandelier. At a poor person's house. On the moon.

[JoeP]

I do have a grudging respect for the FT's palpable relief that,
"Thankfully", 21st century peasants will be unable to bargain for better wages. pic.twitter.com/0vkzSb9oMX

— Michael Oswell (@_MichaelOswell_) April 27, 2020

[Stephen Maturin]

I will surely find the stuff about contemporary peasants funny AF once I stop loling at the notion of Black Death-surviving peasants cackling and twirling their Snidely Whiplash moustaches as they bend their feudal lords over the negotiating table and buttfuck them into submission.

That could take some time.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

lols, more too it though:

Oh, for sure! It's a case of incredibly unfortunate phrasing

— Michael Oswell (@_MichaelOswell_) April 27, 2020

Still, riiiight, like 'scarring a generation with lower living standards' appears to be way under way.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

hey if we're all ok with letting 1% of the population die for socioeconomic reasons I have an idea

— Socially Distant Brian Bucklew ₑͤ＞∿＜ₑͤ (@unormal) May 23, 2020

[JoeP]

From 2011, a time when the financial crisis of 2008-2009 seemed like a pretty serious thing (we were so young) but anyway ...

Of the title, by the title, for the title:

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% | Vanity Fair

[JoeP]

[JoeP]

Every thread at can have something to say about President-loser Donald J Trump's failed attempt at a coup successful 83rd consecutive loss of the 2020 election.

Business shits have been behind the whole thing, getting Dump into the White House, donating to all his arselicking senators, all the "advisers", all the "stop the steal" and other slogan lies.

Billionaires backed Republicans who sought to reverse US election results | Republicans | The Guardian

Of course they've controlled the Republican party since at least Reagan, so this is nothing new, but it's almost pleasing now to see how much they are all failing. All that money and influence and they still couldn't steal an election?

“Here’s the thing about the hyper wealthy. They believe that their hyper-wealth grants them the ability to not be accountable. And that is not the case. If you’ve made billions of dollars, good on you. But that doesn’t make you any less accountable for funding anti-democratic or authoritarian candidates and movements,” said Reed Galen, a former Republican strategist who co-founded the Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump campaigners.

Galen said he believed groups such as the Club for Growth now served to cater to Republican donors’ own personal agenda, and not what used to be considered “conservative principles”.

The Lincoln Project has said it would devote resources to putting pressure not just on Hawley, which the group accused of committing sedition, but also on his donors.

I don't trust the Lincoln Project but I hope they are successful in this. Bring on the consequences.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

I’ll put it here:

Ultimately you aren’t making a mathematical argument. You’re making a moral one. You morally believe my dishwasher shouldn’t start at $15/hr. Your morals suck. Our math is good. $15 is good. Shut up.

— Josh Raby (@JoshRaby) January 16, 2021

It turns into a thread of him telling people to shut up.

[JoeP]

Which is our official thrad for sub-living-wage supposed labour market shortages?



Anyway, these images look strangely familiar. Нет, товарищ?

[Stormlight]

Wealth, shown to scale

Depressing.

[lisarea]

I haven't even looked at it yet really, but it wouldn't be fair if I had a head start:

The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax-- ProPublica

[JoeP]

I am happy for you to have a head start, especially if you would be so kind as to report from the sunlit uplands, I mean murky depths, of the trove.

I got this far:

Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most.

And I thought: bollocks. I'm pretty sure no one believes that "myth" - and if there are, sadly, a number of suckers that do, their beliefs aren't going to be affected, let alone demolished, by this "revelation".



...
I may be being cynical.

[JoeP]

I grant that this might have as significant an effect as the Panama Papers did.

If only for the journalists involved.

[lisarea]

Agreed that it'll be dismissed just like the Panama papers were. But every single time it comes up, it chips away a little bit, raising public awareness and forcing politicians to respond and the media to cover it. The big revelations there probably don't surprise any of us, but it's going to surprise some people, and that's progress.

Look at the trajectory of healthcare reform in the US. It takes a ton of different people bringing it up at different times in different contexts before anything at all even starts to change. Wealth inequality is the same way.

[Ari]

A major problem is the cult of personality the media has built around the rich. Plenty of Elon Musk Fans have sworn up and down that he deserves all the credit for the amazing wonders Musk has brought us, while also not being able to list a single thing Musk himself has done.

As far as I can tell, Musk’s ability is taking credit for others. Having sued Tesla to be called a founder, and being the twitter voice of SpaceX, but not an engineer. Whatever his real talents are, no one seems to know.

So long as people presume the rich are their friends or colleagues (themselves being temporarily un-rich) they will continue to argue in favor of benefits for them. Just like the Alpha/Beta male dynamic, the rich will be allowed to be hyper rich and above the law so long as it feeds the beta’s fantasies of what being an alpha is like.

Also most still don’t realize how rich the rich really are, (that’s when you have a TV in every room, right?)

[lisarea]

Both Musk and Bezos are going to Icharus themselves directly into the sun after I inject a couple of minor but significant adjustments into their calculations.

Also most still don’t realize how rich the rich really are,

Things like that visualization Stormlight posted are part of the awareness that needs to be raised. People need to stop imagining ultra-wealth as some guy having more than one big fancy house and start seeing it for what it really is. You can't look at wealth like that and believe it was earned.

(that’s when you have a TV in every room, right?)

Eight track stereo, a color TV in every room, and can snort half a piece of dope every day. That's the American dream, neighbor.

[Ari]

Good to know that despite being richer than God, there are still things petty things for Bezos to get angry at.
How to watch Bransons flight, which Jeff Bezos is still hopping mad about | Ars Technica

It’s hilarious because it’s all made up. There is no “edge of space” it’s a nice soft gradient. Karman did a bit of math and found the average height where a common wing no longer provides reasonable lift and altitude is maintained by orbital motion at around 83km, but said, fuck it, that sounds like a nice round 100km (62 miles) to me! So the 100km “line” was born. The Air Force meanwhile looked at it and said, ya know, 83 is really close to 80, which is 50 miles, fuck it, 80km it is! NASA has since agreed with the Air Force to play nice.

Years later, it’s billionaire slap fight time!
It’s not even just a one off tweet but someone on Bezo’s team got paid to make a little “This is why our boss is the best” slide comparing the HOT Blue Origins with the NOT Virgin Galactic.