One thing I desperately wish the markets would finally recognize is that the call is coming from inside the house: by letting private enterprise capture government, they are destroying the very currency that gives them power through unnecessary subsidies, preferential tax policies, socialization of losses and privatization of profits. Through corporate mass media manipulating voters and outright corruption in donations or associations with politicians, they did this to themselves.
Until markets begin penalizing companies receiving government funding (or whose workers disproportionately rely on welfare due to low wages) with shitty share prices and recognize which sectors should be private while which others should be public, this nonsense will continue unabated.
This is why I loathe believers in the mythos of “the invisible hand of the free market”: if said hand existed, it’s been firing shots into its mouth for decades and everyone in finance has seemed okay with that continuing.
Listening to my fellow Americans? Lots of them either don’t know that’s the policy, don’t know the consequences of such a policy, or want it because they believe it’ll harm their enemies.
How can someone not know, at this point? You can literally just google “mar a lago accord”, this stuff has been widely discussed across mainstream media and social media (including the likes of r/conservative and even the whitehouse site! eg https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/04/cea-...)
We assume people think similarly to us, but the reality is that we're the outliers in a lot of ways. It's why I occasionally insert myself into the Lion's Den on HN when I see someone smart espousing known bullshit, lest their SME be confused as authority on whatever they're screeding about.
Having watched colleagues spend every waking moment on their breaks digest literal propaganda as truth? Watching relatives so dosed up on misinformation by cable outlets that they only exist within that specific fantasy and never reality?
Until markets begin penalizing companies receiving government funding (or whose workers disproportionately rely on welfare due to low wages) with shitty share prices and recognize which sectors should be private while which others should be public, this nonsense will continue unabated.
This is why I loathe believers in the mythos of “the invisible hand of the free market”: if said hand existed, it’s been firing shots into its mouth for decades and everyone in finance has seemed okay with that continuing.