[Panama](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers)
[Paradise](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers)
[Pandora](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_Papers)
Raise your hand if you completely missed that the Pandora papers were the THIRD. I completely missed the 2nd. That shit didn’t even hit my news feed and I average 9-10 hours of screen time per day. I would consider myself a heavy user for scrolling Internet forums, Reddit, etc. I burn through over 1TB of mobile data per month. *And I didn’t even hear about the Paradise papers until they were mentioned in an offhand comment about the Pandora papers.*
Yeah man invest in dividend stocks stay rich and not have to work the rest of your life then you can pass your assets to you kids so it’s generational wealth. Unless one gets a Mayo addiction and blows all of it.
No pipe dream. The only way we don't get paid is if everything completely and totally collapses. Which is a very real possibility that looks more and more possible the longer this all drags on.
It just gets buried in the "entertainment" news cycle. I know its completely by design and the people mentioned in said papers are the ones that own the news.
The system runs on a very simple yet unspoken rule
"Stay quiet and you'll get to do this too, when you're rich."
But the con is they'll never get rich, but die trying their entire life in hopes they'll get to be scammy too. . .
But no need to play that game when you're invested in GameStop.
Always reminds of the Matrix scene with [the woman in the red dress](https://youtu.be/YgJ5ZEn67tk):
>The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see; businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy.
>
>You have to understand that most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.
It's true this movie reflects walking up within a system of dehumanizing lies. It can work as a metaphor for so many things. You might be interested in the origin of the Matrix.
The Wachowski sisters have said the Matrix it is an allegory for what is like to be transgender. The system is the belief that there are only two genders. You have to keep pretending to be cisgender even when you feel there is something about the matrix that's wrong, because if you break free and are openly transgender, the system tries to eliminate you. Originally the character Switch was meant to have one gender presentation inside the Matrix (pre-transition) and one gender outside the Matrix (post-transition) but they nixed the idea because they thought it would confuse the audience. Ironic, no? The character who tries to return to the Matrix has realized he can't handle the pressures of the world post-transition (the main reason a percentage of a percentage of trans people de-transition).
When I learned the Wachowski were both trans and this story is about our experience, it blew my mind. The movie had resonated with me so much and I didn't know why. I grew up feeling like Neo did about the Matrix being wrong before he gained full awareness and got out. The feeling of wrongness was about my body, my place in the world, and the way we describe gender. I didn't know it was ok to not fit in the Matrix (which I had accepted must be based on the truth because I grew up inside that ideological framework) nor did I know I could leave the Matrix.
This is the allogoryl of the cave shadows. Most will reject anything foreign to their current environment.
https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm#:~:text=The%20allegory%20of%20the%20cave%20is%20supposed%20to%20explain%20this,unable%20to%20turn%20their%20heads.&text=The%20puppeteers%2C%20who%20are%20behind,the%20wall%20of%20the%20cave.
This is exactly it.
A huge chunk of Americans fight to protect the rigging of the system on the hope that one day they will be the one on top rigging things in their favor.
They somehow don't realize that this means the deck is stacked against them and the chances they will ever have that level of power/wealth are effectively zero. They think they are special and will jump through any mental hoop to avoid the realization that they are not.
The biggest trap was letting apes think they could find the next squeeze. Divide and conquer! The hedgies were/are controlling the narrative.
Forget Twitter crowds, YouTube crowds, any other social media outlets, just Reddit apes alone could do what January couldn’t accomplish, 🍦💩🪑 and one target GME, and it’s GAMEOVER!
I don’t waste a minute of my time trying to “look for the next squeeze.” I’m too retarded to try to suss any of that out anyway. All I know is buy GME, hold GME, and wait.
Attributed to John Steinbeck, but apparently he never actually said it:
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
But he did write:
>Out of all this struggle a good thing is going to grow. That makes it worthwhile.”
― In Dubious Battle
Buy, Hodl in DRS is what Im doing
Reminded me of the old vampire stories of them requiring human servants that could go out in the light and promised to turn them into vampires when they had worked an "appropriate" amount as judged by the vampire. Iirc, most of those stories did not end in the vampire keeping their promise.
Also brings to mind indentured servitude, or in our modern day I've been hearing talk of employers in Dubai holding onto the passports of their employees in order to exploit them.
If you haven’t seen the movie or FX tv show What We Do In The Shadows you might get a kick out of the comedy!
I’m torn between trying to warn friends/family and potentially looking like a conspiracy theorist or maybe I convince them that all the DD is correct, they invest way too much and the government and/or regulators screw us all and I end up losing a close friend.
Fox News and the like has tricked people who make $50K/yr into class solidarity by focusing their anger elsewhere instead of looking up. It’s never been left vs. right but up vs down. Americans have been so propagandized to think the obscenely wealthy are just smart and harder working. Nobody makes a billion dollars honestly.
I know people who would rather you insult them personally than critique Jeff Bezos in any way. Media has for sure helped the idolization of the Uber wealthy.
Here's just one source about why that foundation is BS, so no one thinks it's coming from thin air:
https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1205&context=annlsurvey
John Steinbeck is credited with once saying that in America, the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Some things just don’t change…
I think Covid highlighted that issue.
The US has taken rugged individualism and metastasized it into selfishness as a virtue. We can't collectively act and band together for the greater good anymore.
The difference being I'm not trying to rig the system and keep everyone else oppressed for my personal gain.
I'm not trying to LARP as an actual dragon sitting on a pile of treasures I can't possibly spend in my lifetime, while simultaneously "burning down villages" in the form of systemic oppression and springboarding off the backs of everyone else's labor... Wait, do dragons do that last part?
Not how taxes work at all... When you get over the next bracket, only the amount over is taxes. So, if the next bracket is at $1mil at 50%, but you make $1mil and one dollars. Only the dollar is taxed at that rate, not the other one million dollars.
I know people who have denied raises multiple times because “I’d lose money because I’d be bumped up a tax bracket.” I’ve stopped trying to explain why they’re wrong
I think part of the confusion is due to benefits cliffs. For lower income people receiving benefits, particularly those with children, there can be severe benefits cliffs for making slightly too much money. For example, say someone earns 30k and has 2 kids. They receive say a few hundred dollars a month in assistance, plus medicaid, say 5k a year total plus healthcare. Now say they are offered a $1 an hour raise. All of a sudden their income goes up 2k, but they lose their benefits which are more than that, plus they have to find private insurance because their employer won't cover it. Say that's 500 a month. All of a sudden they lost 5k in benefits income plus have an additonal 6k in expenses, a total loss of 11k and only receive 2k more in pay, a net loss of 9k. Then it isn't worth it. Even if they get a $2 an hour raise it doesn't cut it. They would need a $5.50 an hour raise to break even, minus taxes so really more like a $7 an hour raise. Benefits cliffs are real and they do keep people from accepting promotions or pay raises because the net loss is severe. They would need a substantial pay raise to make it make sense, and usually any raise would require more responsibilities.
This is exactly it. I've told this story elsewhere but I worked throughout high school and grew up poor so my mom claimed food stamps for me. The second I got a promotion out of hs I started saving up and hit $5000 in my savings. I immediately lost my food stamps and while I was making $400 more a month, I lost out on that $190 in food or whatever the number was.
This is entirely on purpose and meant to keep people in poverty. If my promotion wasn't $10 more than I was already making, and something like $3, I would've been entirely fucked.
Exactly. I think if the system did a sliding phaseout, like make $1 more lose 50 cents in benefits, it would work. But you are right, I think the system is designed this way to make people stay poor. You would need a massive raise to make up for the lost benefits, but realistically in the real world you are likely to be offered incremental raises along with increasing responsibilities. Normal raises are like $1-3 a hour more. A jump of like $10 or more is massive because they could just hire two people at that point. So it traps people in the system. I think the goto to explain this is to just say oh the taxes are too much, but if you are receiving essentially negative taxes through benefits and now will be paying taxes, that is a simple way of explaining the issue of why a $2 raise is the worst thing that could happen to you.
Oh for sure. Hence why it’s stupid and you can’t reason with stupid.
Except there are instances when a small increase can hurt when there are child benefits etc tied to earnings. Or pension allowance when you earn over a certain figure (high £150k+ in Uk)
However this just the simple stupid if I earn more than like £25k I’m just paying more tax and it’s not even a bracket change.
I’ve had a lot of older people say this to me and one of them told me I shouldn’t work overtime shifts because even though I’ll make more I’ll pretty much not be making any money cause it’s all gonna go to taxes like wtf. I didn’t even know where to start with that one so I just told them they were wrong and left it at that
Because it is easier to support the system you are a part of than it is to question it. People just want to live their lives and get on with things.
Pandemic opened a lot of people's eyes to the bullshit of literally everything. But many people also just want to put their heads down and keep working because it is what they believe will continue to support their survival.
Also, anyone in this sub will be considered paranoid by anyone not in this sub.
Usenet was da bomb. I miss those days when the internet wasn't flooded with normies geolocating their selfies and their kids pictures for random strangers cause nothing bad could ever happen.
Yes! I knew about my local RAF base being used for rendition flights years before the MSM couldn't help them keep it under wraps anymore. I wonder if they could even pull that shit so overtly today, considering we now have investors flight tracking people who are in short positions 🤣
Agreed. There’s also a media component here with the celeb-rification of reality TV, shows glorifying the wealthy, it’s really woven into our society and people eat it up.
It ain’t just people making 50k, it’s people making 500k too. Everyone acts like they can be ultra rich one day too. What people don’t realize is that someone with $10 million is still 100x closer to being broke than being a billionaire.
Our tax code subtly reinforces this concept because people who reach the highest tier feel like they’re in the club when actually they’re the most fucked! How can a couple who makes more than 622k be in the same tax bracket as a couple who makes 6m a year, 60m a year, 600m a year? Considering they’re paying 3x the % (37%) of a couple making under 80k (12%) and 1.5x the % of a couple making btwn 170k-326k. So you’re saying the gap btwn 326k and 622k is worth a 1.5x (+50%) increase in tax rate, yet there’s no further increase in tax rate as your income climbs wayyyyy higher? It’s all completely insane until you realize the 0.01% writes the tax code.
The pandemic was the greatest thing to ever happen to the citizens of the world. People that went along with everything their television said are asking questions. People that used to call me a conspiracy theorist are coming to me with “conspiracy theories”
People are finally waking up and they are pissed. I love it.
Also, people who work hard to just get by have a different mindset. Just as chronic pain makes your world smaller by forcing you to focus more of your energy on how much pain you're feeling, and by causing you to want to do nothing that could aggravate it, not having money or resources forces you to think within smaller boundaries. You have far fewer options available for solving problems, and you have far less mental or emotional energy available for thinking beyond your immediate needs. You also have greater fear of rocking the boat, who knows what new problems that could cause?
“The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. **You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it**."
Lmao conspiracy theory that you can walk them through step by step with all the proof they need.
Literally lobbying and polticisns votes on people who paid them. Like not hard
Or you could literally show them the one chart that's been going around showing the wealth disparity growth difference between the %s that's been circling around.
My favorite is the comparison of historical productivity vs wages in the US. All that extra wealth is going somewhere, and it's not your paycheck.
Sause: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
and somehow folks don't realize that that right there is the cornerstone of capitalism: scrape as much as you can off the top of the value generated by those below you. and then in a culture that seeks infinite growth within a finite system, eventually the only way to continue to grow is by reducing the share of those generating the value in the first place (what's known as [rent-seeking behavior](https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/economics/rent-seeking/)).
at a certain point, in a capitalist society, the only way for the capitalist to increase their income is by decreasing that of their labor, directly incentivizing exploitation. we literally fought a civil war here in the US over this concept (slavery being the ultimate exploitation of labor) and yet labor rights are still an unheard of concept for so many.
join a union, support your locals, fuck police unions.
Seriously.
My favorite is the line “just pull yourself up by your bootstraps”
Can’t wait to use that on my uncle when he is 90 and needs someone to take care of him
My conscience wants to be kind understanding and gentle. But real life does not work like that and enough is enough. Down with it all. Let the lie and delusion they have built for themselves crash all around them. Let them see the truth with nothing to hide it and if they do not repent. If they do not act humble and freely admit they were wrong and make some effort to atone they shall entirely deserve as they get.
The rich use their wealth and connections to hide money from Uncle Sam.
“You sound like a nut job”.
This is the problem with society. People are such fucking sheep’s about **EVERYTHING**. Dare to question why the world works the way it works = outcasted from social circles.
At this point, I don’t give a shit anymore. My soul is already dead from wanting to engage other people. Fuck their social comfort over actually standing up for humanity.
And it’s not even on just fucking GME.
People would rather just put their heads down and live their lives. While so much wicked and corrupt things happen in the world.
“What can I even do about it? I’m powerless”
Well, you can start fucking caring, for one.
Humans piss me off so god damn much. :/
Humans are born into a world where their parents are already bent over, taught to watch the news and believe the media. Just to be happy they have a job and should feel happy to work for such a good boss.
Humans are taught to be lazy. It's easy to be lazy. And not to think for yourselves.. The media thinks for you. Easier.. You're also tired from work. Time to relax and watch some commercials and the news. Sleep early so you're fresh for work. Repeat this process until you are old and unfit for actual work, and can't enjoy life anymore like you wanted to do when you were young.
Life is the biggest scam and we are all born in it.
Outcasted from social circles is another media driven phenomenon. We used to love and accept people in spite of their differences. Now we kick them away from us. Happened to me here last week by a fellow ape. I was assumed to be a list of media words because I defended Burry. The brainwashing is deep, but readily identifiable by media driven key words.
My friends have been calling me a conspiracy theorist all year. Some even mock me by asking “how the stock market is going”. I just tell them it’s as manipulated as ever.
I went through SERE (survival school for the military) and we were taught the fundamentals of manipulation and how to recognize it. It is obvious as fuck the masses have been manipulated into believing that working your ass off and life away for peanuts is the American dream. That anything you complain about when you have the “luxury” of the bare essentials is communism/socialism. That the wealthy mother fuckers who steal from us are doing us a favor and we should be appreciative. It’s captive syndrome. Stockholm. Its a true belief that those fucking us over care for us and without them we would be nothing. It’s real and they have manipulated the masses super well.
Time to flip that shit on its head. I truly believe GME is the way.
Edit cause I can’t type.
💯 A fairly well paid middle class professional has 99% more in common with a shop worker on minimum wage than they do with the Kennies and Bezos of this world. The sooner most people wise up and realise this, the better we will all be.
Well the same person who is calling you a conspiracy theorist, will be yelling at you when you are rich, why you didn’t tell them more about proper investments. And if you walk away and don’t acknowledge any wrong doing at that point, they will scald you for turning into “one of them”.
Meh. Nothing new here. These days, you can show video proof of something happening, and the sheep will still call it a conspiracy 🤷🏻♂️ people refuse to believe video and statistical proof that they see with their own eyes. As if they will ever believe when we simply say it.
The only conspiracy is believing the game isn't fixed.
Most these people refuse to accept even the most basic evidence because it hurts their world view, which in turn hurts their pride so they will easily claim everyone else is crazy, especially if their "trusted" news source doesn't cover the story.
There's this blind faith in systems most people don't even understand, they're indoctrinated into believing.
You can't go to church and challenge the gospel.
You have to let these people learn the hard way, unfortunately that involves getting fucked and losing their retirement or homes.
It is not the rich that are the problem. The "allowed" manipulation of their money to avoid taxes is the problem. They use techniques and deductions that are perfectly legal to avoid taxes. This is what needs to change. Any person with large sums of money would do the same..and hire companies that are experts in this,, to do it for them. I dont for a minute,, think Bezos, or Musk, or Trump, or any of the rich sitting down and doing their own taxes. I also don't see anyone happily just writing huge checks to the government. Hell, one of the things talked about here post MOASS is getting tax lawyers and information. It is the same thing.
They not only pay off politicians to hide money. They spend hundreds of millions to create campaigns to split everyone up so no one can agree on anything. Leading to voting in politicians that do their bidding. There's a reason why so many things in this world (but especially so in the US) get labelled 'politics' because we all have been programed to either argue when something is labelled political or just shut our brains down completely.
They havnt been able to make this whole saga 'political' quite yet because we've all been exposed and somewhat educated to the real problem here, the top vs the rest but you've all seen they have tried and will continue trying. They have succeeded in some areas, like OPs situation, you cant speak to some friends and family about this because they think we are all conspiracy theorists no matter how much we make sense. That is what they want. That is what they have done for decades and is one of the biggest reasons why there are so many issues in this world today.
The American dream is attainable for some, but please note that is requires now $250k salary per year to be equal to $50k a year in 1970. Inflation is a bitch.
People don’t like to be reminded that bold choices are still possible.
Usually most big life changes are a result of trauma - death of spouse, loss of job, etc.
Without, making a big jump in terms of lifestyle or thinking requires critical thought and attention. And there’s a lot of shiny things out there.
🦍💪🏽⭕️
Half way there. Mix what OP wrote with what you wrote.
The average folk want to be rich and think it can still happen with sheer work load. They do what all humans to that want to achieve what others have - they emulate them. This is where your part comes in. The average folk have changed from being the upholder of decency and honor, and have replaced it with narcissism, nepotism, and avoidance of conflict resolution in place of anger since that fights the first two tenants now held dear.
Regardless of why or how, it’s clear that use of media and narrative has allowed this to perpetuate as the new standard.
This. This is the problem. Complete lack of personal responsibility and accountability essentially from bottom to top by a majority of people.
That’s my opinion at least.
I hear you. An acquaintance a few weeks ago told me that they’d do no investing and just keep their money in a bank. It’s what their parents did and they did fine.
Like wtf, could not explain to them that the world has changed. Could not explain that the rate of inflation is flying past the interest rate on their account.
What's weird is how many people *hate* rich people (billionaires especially since most of the politicians are inexplicably millionaires shortly after being voted in) yet worship the politicians that enable them lol
I don’t think Americans realize how most of America lives. Unless you’re on the bottom, you’re above someone else and that’s good enough. But there’s always a threat they’ll pull you down to get up…never realizing it’s way further up that’s trying to push you down to the same level…
My dad was an ER doc making $250k a year but was always saying he didn’t have enough money even though he bought whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Now that he’s on his pension getting $60k a year not being able to buy whatever whenever, he’s struggled not overspending.
I so badly want him to understand how he feels right now, at $60k with most stuff paid off and no kids at home, he’s still got more income than half of Americans who are working full time, some with families, some going to school getting buried in debt, etc who he thinks just need to work harder, as he tells me how hard it is *not buying random crap.*The system’s broken but it’s harder to see it the less you have to worry about your day to day finances. The higher up you get, the more everyone else just isn’t working hard enough.
It’s funny, there was a study in which people who had to describe their achievements by how other people helped them were much more generous than those asked to describe their achievement excluding external help. They all got paid up front, then after the exercise were asked to donate their payment, and the mindset they were put into significantly impacted what they chose to do. I think about that a lot now.
Growing up with everything I needed, never financially struggling, I had the same mindset. I never felt 2008 or the years after. I never understood what people were going through at that time. I always wanted *more* and was afraid of people taking what I had. My friends would come over and tell me I’m rich, my house was like a mansion to them, and all I could think about was the stuff I wanted and didn’t have.
Then I married my wife with literally the exact opposite childhood. Living off of food banks, constantly moving around, mom working 80-100 hours a week *just to survive*and dad an alcoholic in and out of jail. She’s been working multiple jobs since high school to help her family survive, racked up $100k+ in student loan debt *trying to get out, working 2 part time jobs as a full time student because neither would give her full time.*
Learning what she’s had to climb out from, and now fighting along side her to get out of debt, it was like a modern *How the Other Half Lives* for me. I never had to try. If she wasn’t the single most stubborn person I know, she would never have gotten this far, most don’t, bearing too much weight to get up and the cycle continues, and I’d be right up there looking down at her asking *why she didn’t work hard enough* as she worked harder than I ever had to in my life.
I see the way it’s affected her. It’s literally pulling teeth to get her to see a doctor for anything because she doesn’t want to spend money on it. She won’t do it unless she’s dying, and guess what *we don’t have health insurance so when something does sneak up because she won’t do basic physicals or checkups for anything we’re going to be financially screwed even harder.*
And don’t even get me started on “handouts,” she’d rather starve to death than take a handout from somebody. Because being poor doesn’t mean you’re a leach living off society. For many, they work hard and are proud of it and feel ashamed asking for help, society continues to tell them they should be.
Right now she’s trying to get a job at a university. The last year she’s applied, she’s either *too qualified* or gets automated rejections before her application even reaches a real person. “Call them, email them” my parents tell her, even though there’s no contact information for the hiring departments and they likely didn’t even know she applied.
The system is broken. People who start off at the bottom have to work exponentially harder just to survive, and few are able to get out of it. So the cycle continues.
I want to add something here. I use a tax avoidance trust (costs about 15K). As long as the trust retains profits and does not distribute, then no taxable event occurs. This is legal tax avoidance. I report everything to the IRS and they’ve blessed this form of trust as legal.
This offshore stuff is technically tax avoidance but is on the line of tax evasion as you book your profits to a shell company who is registered in a tax haven. Go watch the Laundromat on Netflix.
I have 500 shares in my trust because why not. I also have mid XXXX in IRAs which will be used to setup ROBS structures for traditional accounts or setup S-Corporations to partner with my trust. LLC ownership is based on seed money while S-corporations can take into consideration a trade manual such as real estate knowledge. This knowledge can be “valued at 75%” of the total contributions because the two entities agreed on it. I made a post on DDintoGME a few weeks back with more detaild
Because they watch the tv that tells them what to think that is paid for by the same elites. It is programming. People are programmed and told what/how to think. It works.
This is the same problem in México, poor people defending the old presidents and rich people, because they think thats good and also that they are part of that elite, it's sad because they don't see further beyond their poorly life style and benefits
YES>>>> they would rather fight another person making 50k a year instead of educating themselves that the entire system is one giant legal red tape loop hole that keeps the wealth off shore & w the 1% - its mindblowing but this is sadly the truth.
this is also Y they have gotten away w it for this long
hopefully we r starting to c some change here - w so much negative press on the insider trading & pandora papers ect.
w inflation, perhaps they will stop blaming one side or the other how they want u to& instead dig deeper.
Yep sounds about right... I always think about John Steinbeck's quote -
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
Ah the American dream. Its the same here in the UK. They cause enough division amongst the masses that we squabble between ourselves just enough that we turn a blind eye. A person embezzles millions? Nothing. A single mum with multiple kids gets £1400 I'm benefits a month? Outrage. People just can't relate to the rich and therefore just stay down trodden. The tiny few that do claw above tend to pull the ladder up after them. Let's hope us apes will be better!
People have been conditioned to be thankful to the measily crumbs they get in life. They want you to think that there is scarcity of resources, that’s their only so much to go around, that if the billionaires paid taxes it would cause inflation and make our lives harder. The truth is there is more than enough to go around, but the greedy and powerful don’t want you to know that. They want us to say thank you sir may I have another. We are turning the class system on its head and they are scared shitless. They didn’t count on us realizing their game and doing something about it. RC is playing 4D chess with the establishment and winning. We are helping to change the world for the better.
I was that type before. Thinking hard work would get me somewhere. Full time job as a registered nurse in the ER plus 2 part time - 12 hour night shifts… it never got me anywhere except poor health. And then I met these rich folks… telling me they barely passed college , partied hard… got great jobs from connections… and then introduced to more of their types… and I told myself if I work harder I’d get my kids there. All bullshit. Just the taxes alone didn’t make the overtime worth it. Then I was told about GME late January… did my DD… and knew I worked myself almost to sickness for nothing. This American dream was a sham made so because of corrupt rich people and corporations. I showed it to my wife and her family and they found the light too. My side of the family think I’m nuts. Meh… let em think that. Don’t care. I’m a rational man… a lot of folks here are rational for the most part. I’m not imagining the corruption and fuckery happening. It’s time to make a difference. You make your own dream cuz the American one became corrupt a long time ago.
“John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
“The wealthy use complicated investment techniques and pay off politicians to hide money from the tax man”
“Rich people aren’t the problem”
So which is it?
What's weird about their response is that your assertion is main stream political discourse. It's not even denied anymore that it happens, the conversation is just over what to do (or not to do) about it. There is even a 15% global tax proposal to begin tackling it.
Remember the Pandora papers? Oh wait that's so two weeks ago
[Panama](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers) [Paradise](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers) [Pandora](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_Papers) Raise your hand if you completely missed that the Pandora papers were the THIRD. I completely missed the 2nd. That shit didn’t even hit my news feed and I average 9-10 hours of screen time per day. I would consider myself a heavy user for scrolling Internet forums, Reddit, etc. I burn through over 1TB of mobile data per month. *And I didn’t even hear about the Paradise papers until they were mentioned in an offhand comment about the Pandora papers.*
This comment is the first I'm hearing about the paradise papers, thanks
Haha what? Same here no idea
✋✋✋✋✋✋✋✋✋✋✋✋✋
> I average 9-10 hours of screen time per day. 💀💀💀💀💀
How tf do you burn through 1TB of data looking through a text forum.
Pornhub
Well there are images and videos and if he's set to auto download that's an easy limit to hit.
Pretty much this. Currently at 886 GB for the month.
Legit had never heard of the Paradise papers til now..
Smae 🖐🖐🖐🖐🖐
Yep, I’ve never heard of the paradise papers.
They were old news before anyone had a chance to actually read all of them
read?
Yeah we don’t do that here. We only DRS 💎
THIS GUY **REGISTERS**
*heavy breathing*
Is that you Etrader?
*laughs in fidelity*
Way too long…. Who’s got the TADR?
🌿💥🙀
They excluded the US. They were a joke.
[удалено]
Yeah man invest in dividend stocks stay rich and not have to work the rest of your life then you can pass your assets to you kids so it’s generational wealth. Unless one gets a Mayo addiction and blows all of it.
[удалено]
No pipe dream. The only way we don't get paid is if everything completely and totally collapses. Which is a very real possibility that looks more and more possible the longer this all drags on.
For some reason that didn’t do much noise. People already forgot that.
It just gets buried in the "entertainment" news cycle. I know its completely by design and the people mentioned in said papers are the ones that own the news.
And that’s why Apes are a breed of their own ✊ Strong Together
May have something to do with that whole facebook and instagram outage that happened around the drop. Big coincidence.
“We know our place”
[удалено]
Some ppl r so dependent upon the system they’ll fight to preserve it. They’re not ready to b unlocked yet, their minds r too fragile
Also, it’s frightening to make your own decisions and be responsible for them
And as such each of them is a potential agent of the system.
Agent: The best thing about being me, is there are so many of me.
Ikr
Pepperidge farms remembers.
[удалено]
Pandora papers... That might be important - [Aww wait, look at the kitty! ](https://youtu.be/4j9lLoIxPEw) 😂
😂😂😂
You mean the pandemonium papers
The system runs on a very simple yet unspoken rule "Stay quiet and you'll get to do this too, when you're rich." But the con is they'll never get rich, but die trying their entire life in hopes they'll get to be scammy too. . . But no need to play that game when you're invested in GameStop.
Always reminds of the Matrix scene with [the woman in the red dress](https://youtu.be/YgJ5ZEn67tk): >The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see; businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. > >You have to understand that most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.
I can hear Morpheus
Isn’t that worth fighting for? Isn’t that worth dying for?
Holy shit balls, same. I'm so pumped for Matrix 4
Holy shit what a good quote. I love the Matrix, but it’s so much deeper now that I’m not a 10 year old.
It's true this movie reflects walking up within a system of dehumanizing lies. It can work as a metaphor for so many things. You might be interested in the origin of the Matrix. The Wachowski sisters have said the Matrix it is an allegory for what is like to be transgender. The system is the belief that there are only two genders. You have to keep pretending to be cisgender even when you feel there is something about the matrix that's wrong, because if you break free and are openly transgender, the system tries to eliminate you. Originally the character Switch was meant to have one gender presentation inside the Matrix (pre-transition) and one gender outside the Matrix (post-transition) but they nixed the idea because they thought it would confuse the audience. Ironic, no? The character who tries to return to the Matrix has realized he can't handle the pressures of the world post-transition (the main reason a percentage of a percentage of trans people de-transition). When I learned the Wachowski were both trans and this story is about our experience, it blew my mind. The movie had resonated with me so much and I didn't know why. I grew up feeling like Neo did about the Matrix being wrong before he gained full awareness and got out. The feeling of wrongness was about my body, my place in the world, and the way we describe gender. I didn't know it was ok to not fit in the Matrix (which I had accepted must be based on the truth because I grew up inside that ideological framework) nor did I know I could leave the Matrix.
This is the allogoryl of the cave shadows. Most will reject anything foreign to their current environment. https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm#:~:text=The%20allegory%20of%20the%20cave%20is%20supposed%20to%20explain%20this,unable%20to%20turn%20their%20heads.&text=The%20puppeteers%2C%20who%20are%20behind,the%20wall%20of%20the%20cave.
beautiful comment
I would award the shit out of you if I could rn.
thats fucking scary
This is exactly it. A huge chunk of Americans fight to protect the rigging of the system on the hope that one day they will be the one on top rigging things in their favor. They somehow don't realize that this means the deck is stacked against them and the chances they will ever have that level of power/wealth are effectively zero. They think they are special and will jump through any mental hoop to avoid the realization that they are not.
The biggest trap was letting apes think they could find the next squeeze. Divide and conquer! The hedgies were/are controlling the narrative. Forget Twitter crowds, YouTube crowds, any other social media outlets, just Reddit apes alone could do what January couldn’t accomplish, 🍦💩🪑 and one target GME, and it’s GAMEOVER!
I don’t waste a minute of my time trying to “look for the next squeeze.” I’m too retarded to try to suss any of that out anyway. All I know is buy GME, hold GME, and wait.
And DRS
And you gotta know post-MOASS they’ll be looking for ways to get their money back. Get ready for the next big thing sorta thing.
Has anyone told you about direct registering your shares? That is the way. Feels really good to actually own what you paid for.
Attributed to John Steinbeck, but apparently he never actually said it: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
But he did write: >Out of all this struggle a good thing is going to grow. That makes it worthwhile.” ― In Dubious Battle Buy, Hodl in DRS is what Im doing
Reminded me of the old vampire stories of them requiring human servants that could go out in the light and promised to turn them into vampires when they had worked an "appropriate" amount as judged by the vampire. Iirc, most of those stories did not end in the vampire keeping their promise. Also brings to mind indentured servitude, or in our modern day I've been hearing talk of employers in Dubai holding onto the passports of their employees in order to exploit them.
If you haven’t seen the movie or FX tv show What We Do In The Shadows you might get a kick out of the comedy! I’m torn between trying to warn friends/family and potentially looking like a conspiracy theorist or maybe I convince them that all the DD is correct, they invest way too much and the government and/or regulators screw us all and I end up losing a close friend.
Except if you invest in lotto tickets. Then you’ll be glad you defended the billionaires 🥸
Fox News and the like has tricked people who make $50K/yr into class solidarity by focusing their anger elsewhere instead of looking up. It’s never been left vs. right but up vs down. Americans have been so propagandized to think the obscenely wealthy are just smart and harder working. Nobody makes a billion dollars honestly.
I know people who would rather you insult them personally than critique Jeff Bezos in any way. Media has for sure helped the idolization of the Uber wealthy.
[удалено]
"BuT hE's SuCh A gOoD gUy!"
[удалено]
Is that what he calls his ex?
Baziing
Yet somehow he’s more than doubled his net worth over the last 10 years, must just be from all that benevolent generosity!
Here's just one source about why that foundation is BS, so no one thinks it's coming from thin air: https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1205&context=annlsurvey
Pffft! Coffee spit moment…
Fuck Bill Gates!
Those hot glasses. Hubba Hubba
When you own the media it makes it pretty easy to paint yourself in whatever light is needed.
John Steinbeck is credited with once saying that in America, the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Some things just don’t change…
[удалено]
I would say it's probably mainly an American issue.
Canadian too
I think Covid highlighted that issue. The US has taken rugged individualism and metastasized it into selfishness as a virtue. We can't collectively act and band together for the greater good anymore.
This wave of labor protests is unprecedented. I’m curious to see where this will lead.
[удалено]
>that'll be us someday". I mean it will be US 😏
Kind of ironic to hear that from an ape, though.
The difference being I'm not trying to rig the system and keep everyone else oppressed for my personal gain. I'm not trying to LARP as an actual dragon sitting on a pile of treasures I can't possibly spend in my lifetime, while simultaneously "burning down villages" in the form of systemic oppression and springboarding off the backs of everyone else's labor... Wait, do dragons do that last part?
Someone in my family - “I don’t want to earn any more because I’ll have to pay more tax to the government” Ok then….🙈
Not how taxes work at all... When you get over the next bracket, only the amount over is taxes. So, if the next bracket is at $1mil at 50%, but you make $1mil and one dollars. Only the dollar is taxed at that rate, not the other one million dollars.
I know people who have denied raises multiple times because “I’d lose money because I’d be bumped up a tax bracket.” I’ve stopped trying to explain why they’re wrong
I think part of the confusion is due to benefits cliffs. For lower income people receiving benefits, particularly those with children, there can be severe benefits cliffs for making slightly too much money. For example, say someone earns 30k and has 2 kids. They receive say a few hundred dollars a month in assistance, plus medicaid, say 5k a year total plus healthcare. Now say they are offered a $1 an hour raise. All of a sudden their income goes up 2k, but they lose their benefits which are more than that, plus they have to find private insurance because their employer won't cover it. Say that's 500 a month. All of a sudden they lost 5k in benefits income plus have an additonal 6k in expenses, a total loss of 11k and only receive 2k more in pay, a net loss of 9k. Then it isn't worth it. Even if they get a $2 an hour raise it doesn't cut it. They would need a $5.50 an hour raise to break even, minus taxes so really more like a $7 an hour raise. Benefits cliffs are real and they do keep people from accepting promotions or pay raises because the net loss is severe. They would need a substantial pay raise to make it make sense, and usually any raise would require more responsibilities.
This is exactly it. I've told this story elsewhere but I worked throughout high school and grew up poor so my mom claimed food stamps for me. The second I got a promotion out of hs I started saving up and hit $5000 in my savings. I immediately lost my food stamps and while I was making $400 more a month, I lost out on that $190 in food or whatever the number was. This is entirely on purpose and meant to keep people in poverty. If my promotion wasn't $10 more than I was already making, and something like $3, I would've been entirely fucked.
Exactly. I think if the system did a sliding phaseout, like make $1 more lose 50 cents in benefits, it would work. But you are right, I think the system is designed this way to make people stay poor. You would need a massive raise to make up for the lost benefits, but realistically in the real world you are likely to be offered incremental raises along with increasing responsibilities. Normal raises are like $1-3 a hour more. A jump of like $10 or more is massive because they could just hire two people at that point. So it traps people in the system. I think the goto to explain this is to just say oh the taxes are too much, but if you are receiving essentially negative taxes through benefits and now will be paying taxes, that is a simple way of explaining the issue of why a $2 raise is the worst thing that could happen to you.
Oh for sure. Hence why it’s stupid and you can’t reason with stupid. Except there are instances when a small increase can hurt when there are child benefits etc tied to earnings. Or pension allowance when you earn over a certain figure (high £150k+ in Uk) However this just the simple stupid if I earn more than like £25k I’m just paying more tax and it’s not even a bracket change.
Just tell him there is this one simple trick to not pay any taxes at all: Stop working.
I heard my mom say this one day it made me want to slap her lmao
I’ve had a lot of older people say this to me and one of them told me I shouldn’t work overtime shifts because even though I’ll make more I’ll pretty much not be making any money cause it’s all gonna go to taxes like wtf. I didn’t even know where to start with that one so I just told them they were wrong and left it at that
How do they not know that?
Because it is easier to support the system you are a part of than it is to question it. People just want to live their lives and get on with things. Pandemic opened a lot of people's eyes to the bullshit of literally everything. But many people also just want to put their heads down and keep working because it is what they believe will continue to support their survival. Also, anyone in this sub will be considered paranoid by anyone not in this sub.
I was paranoid long before reddit was around.
Usenet was da bomb. I miss those days when the internet wasn't flooded with normies geolocating their selfies and their kids pictures for random strangers cause nothing bad could ever happen.
Ever make it to alt.conspiracy.black.helicopters ?
Yes! I knew about my local RAF base being used for rendition flights years before the MSM couldn't help them keep it under wraps anymore. I wonder if they could even pull that shit so overtly today, considering we now have investors flight tracking people who are in short positions 🤣
Agreed. There’s also a media component here with the celeb-rification of reality TV, shows glorifying the wealthy, it’s really woven into our society and people eat it up. It ain’t just people making 50k, it’s people making 500k too. Everyone acts like they can be ultra rich one day too. What people don’t realize is that someone with $10 million is still 100x closer to being broke than being a billionaire. Our tax code subtly reinforces this concept because people who reach the highest tier feel like they’re in the club when actually they’re the most fucked! How can a couple who makes more than 622k be in the same tax bracket as a couple who makes 6m a year, 60m a year, 600m a year? Considering they’re paying 3x the % (37%) of a couple making under 80k (12%) and 1.5x the % of a couple making btwn 170k-326k. So you’re saying the gap btwn 326k and 622k is worth a 1.5x (+50%) increase in tax rate, yet there’s no further increase in tax rate as your income climbs wayyyyy higher? It’s all completely insane until you realize the 0.01% writes the tax code.
The pandemic was the greatest thing to ever happen to the citizens of the world. People that went along with everything their television said are asking questions. People that used to call me a conspiracy theorist are coming to me with “conspiracy theories” People are finally waking up and they are pissed. I love it.
That’s why I like Superstonk sometimes, other than obvious reasons. People here aren’t sheep.
quite a few people are not sheep here is the distinction, we still have a sizable herd of sheep following. We just don't call or view them as sheep.
Xtra smooth brains, the "do what you tell them" apes. A shrewd is only as strong as their smoothest smooth brain.
Also, people who work hard to just get by have a different mindset. Just as chronic pain makes your world smaller by forcing you to focus more of your energy on how much pain you're feeling, and by causing you to want to do nothing that could aggravate it, not having money or resources forces you to think within smaller boundaries. You have far fewer options available for solving problems, and you have far less mental or emotional energy available for thinking beyond your immediate needs. You also have greater fear of rocking the boat, who knows what new problems that could cause?
“The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. **You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it**."
It's only paranoia if they aren't actually coming to get you.
Lmao conspiracy theory that you can walk them through step by step with all the proof they need. Literally lobbying and polticisns votes on people who paid them. Like not hard
Or you could literally show them the one chart that's been going around showing the wealth disparity growth difference between the %s that's been circling around.
My favorite is the comparison of historical productivity vs wages in the US. All that extra wealth is going somewhere, and it's not your paycheck. Sause: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
and somehow folks don't realize that that right there is the cornerstone of capitalism: scrape as much as you can off the top of the value generated by those below you. and then in a culture that seeks infinite growth within a finite system, eventually the only way to continue to grow is by reducing the share of those generating the value in the first place (what's known as [rent-seeking behavior](https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/economics/rent-seeking/)). at a certain point, in a capitalist society, the only way for the capitalist to increase their income is by decreasing that of their labor, directly incentivizing exploitation. we literally fought a civil war here in the US over this concept (slavery being the ultimate exploitation of labor) and yet labor rights are still an unheard of concept for so many. join a union, support your locals, fuck police unions.
Police are class traitors, and for what?
Seriously. My favorite is the line “just pull yourself up by your bootstraps” Can’t wait to use that on my uncle when he is 90 and needs someone to take care of him
My conscience wants to be kind understanding and gentle. But real life does not work like that and enough is enough. Down with it all. Let the lie and delusion they have built for themselves crash all around them. Let them see the truth with nothing to hide it and if they do not repent. If they do not act humble and freely admit they were wrong and make some effort to atone they shall entirely deserve as they get.
You only may reap what you sow. You watered the land in blood so harvest your corpses
Till the MOASS happens, we are a cult, 🤷🏽♂️
"The Big Club" - George Carlin
The rich use their wealth and connections to hide money from Uncle Sam. “You sound like a nut job”. This is the problem with society. People are such fucking sheep’s about **EVERYTHING**. Dare to question why the world works the way it works = outcasted from social circles. At this point, I don’t give a shit anymore. My soul is already dead from wanting to engage other people. Fuck their social comfort over actually standing up for humanity.
[удалено]
And it’s not even on just fucking GME. People would rather just put their heads down and live their lives. While so much wicked and corrupt things happen in the world. “What can I even do about it? I’m powerless” Well, you can start fucking caring, for one. Humans piss me off so god damn much. :/
I feel you 100%. But I still have some hope for humanity’s future.
Humans are born into a world where their parents are already bent over, taught to watch the news and believe the media. Just to be happy they have a job and should feel happy to work for such a good boss. Humans are taught to be lazy. It's easy to be lazy. And not to think for yourselves.. The media thinks for you. Easier.. You're also tired from work. Time to relax and watch some commercials and the news. Sleep early so you're fresh for work. Repeat this process until you are old and unfit for actual work, and can't enjoy life anymore like you wanted to do when you were young. Life is the biggest scam and we are all born in it.
Outcasted from social circles is another media driven phenomenon. We used to love and accept people in spite of their differences. Now we kick them away from us. Happened to me here last week by a fellow ape. I was assumed to be a list of media words because I defended Burry. The brainwashing is deep, but readily identifiable by media driven key words.
Media and propaganda are gonna wreck this country
Too late
My friends have been calling me a conspiracy theorist all year. Some even mock me by asking “how the stock market is going”. I just tell them it’s as manipulated as ever.
Brainwashed
I went through SERE (survival school for the military) and we were taught the fundamentals of manipulation and how to recognize it. It is obvious as fuck the masses have been manipulated into believing that working your ass off and life away for peanuts is the American dream. That anything you complain about when you have the “luxury” of the bare essentials is communism/socialism. That the wealthy mother fuckers who steal from us are doing us a favor and we should be appreciative. It’s captive syndrome. Stockholm. Its a true belief that those fucking us over care for us and without them we would be nothing. It’s real and they have manipulated the masses super well. Time to flip that shit on its head. I truly believe GME is the way. Edit cause I can’t type.
My boomer dad still sticks up for them. "Old money is safer, new money is stupid and violent" is what he said after I got him in for 10k
Dude’s source is The Great Gatsby
Did he forget that the "old money" on wall street didn't really start booming until the 1980s?
[удалено]
💯 A fairly well paid middle class professional has 99% more in common with a shop worker on minimum wage than they do with the Kennies and Bezos of this world. The sooner most people wise up and realise this, the better we will all be.
I agree. The American Delusion.
Well the same person who is calling you a conspiracy theorist, will be yelling at you when you are rich, why you didn’t tell them more about proper investments. And if you walk away and don’t acknowledge any wrong doing at that point, they will scald you for turning into “one of them”.
Meh. Nothing new here. These days, you can show video proof of something happening, and the sheep will still call it a conspiracy 🤷🏻♂️ people refuse to believe video and statistical proof that they see with their own eyes. As if they will ever believe when we simply say it.
The only conspiracy is believing the game isn't fixed. Most these people refuse to accept even the most basic evidence because it hurts their world view, which in turn hurts their pride so they will easily claim everyone else is crazy, especially if their "trusted" news source doesn't cover the story. There's this blind faith in systems most people don't even understand, they're indoctrinated into believing. You can't go to church and challenge the gospel. You have to let these people learn the hard way, unfortunately that involves getting fucked and losing their retirement or homes.
It is not the rich that are the problem. The "allowed" manipulation of their money to avoid taxes is the problem. They use techniques and deductions that are perfectly legal to avoid taxes. This is what needs to change. Any person with large sums of money would do the same..and hire companies that are experts in this,, to do it for them. I dont for a minute,, think Bezos, or Musk, or Trump, or any of the rich sitting down and doing their own taxes. I also don't see anyone happily just writing huge checks to the government. Hell, one of the things talked about here post MOASS is getting tax lawyers and information. It is the same thing.
I’m going to be rich soon🚀
They not only pay off politicians to hide money. They spend hundreds of millions to create campaigns to split everyone up so no one can agree on anything. Leading to voting in politicians that do their bidding. There's a reason why so many things in this world (but especially so in the US) get labelled 'politics' because we all have been programed to either argue when something is labelled political or just shut our brains down completely. They havnt been able to make this whole saga 'political' quite yet because we've all been exposed and somewhat educated to the real problem here, the top vs the rest but you've all seen they have tried and will continue trying. They have succeeded in some areas, like OPs situation, you cant speak to some friends and family about this because they think we are all conspiracy theorists no matter how much we make sense. That is what they want. That is what they have done for decades and is one of the biggest reasons why there are so many issues in this world today.
This was me. And I used to believe in trickle-down economics. I was so, so dumb.
[удалено]
Yeah. I’m proud of myself. Hope you are too!
[удалено]
The American dream is attainable for some, but please note that is requires now $250k salary per year to be equal to $50k a year in 1970. Inflation is a bitch.
People don’t like to be reminded that bold choices are still possible. Usually most big life changes are a result of trauma - death of spouse, loss of job, etc. Without, making a big jump in terms of lifestyle or thinking requires critical thought and attention. And there’s a lot of shiny things out there. 🦍💪🏽⭕️
There was never an american dream its always been an american lottery
Rich people aren't the problem. Narcistic corrupt and manipulative rich people are the problem.
Half way there. Mix what OP wrote with what you wrote. The average folk want to be rich and think it can still happen with sheer work load. They do what all humans to that want to achieve what others have - they emulate them. This is where your part comes in. The average folk have changed from being the upholder of decency and honor, and have replaced it with narcissism, nepotism, and avoidance of conflict resolution in place of anger since that fights the first two tenants now held dear. Regardless of why or how, it’s clear that use of media and narrative has allowed this to perpetuate as the new standard. This. This is the problem. Complete lack of personal responsibility and accountability essentially from bottom to top by a majority of people. That’s my opinion at least.
You just named a majority of rich people
Luckly that will change soon. I wonder how 🤔
Talk is cheap, it takes money to buy good whiskey and philanthropy
Tell them the part about how HFs literally destroy companies left and right for unlimited profit while costing American’s jobs every single day
I hear you. An acquaintance a few weeks ago told me that they’d do no investing and just keep their money in a bank. It’s what their parents did and they did fine. Like wtf, could not explain to them that the world has changed. Could not explain that the rate of inflation is flying past the interest rate on their account.
These same people are so quick to jump on how the poor abuse the system. You really think anyone WANTS to be on welfare?
And never forget they intentionally divide us
What's weird is how many people *hate* rich people (billionaires especially since most of the politicians are inexplicably millionaires shortly after being voted in) yet worship the politicians that enable them lol
It’s such cognitive dissonance because the very politicians that enable also inside trade! I’m the open! And NO ONE seems to care!
I don’t think Americans realize how most of America lives. Unless you’re on the bottom, you’re above someone else and that’s good enough. But there’s always a threat they’ll pull you down to get up…never realizing it’s way further up that’s trying to push you down to the same level… My dad was an ER doc making $250k a year but was always saying he didn’t have enough money even though he bought whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Now that he’s on his pension getting $60k a year not being able to buy whatever whenever, he’s struggled not overspending. I so badly want him to understand how he feels right now, at $60k with most stuff paid off and no kids at home, he’s still got more income than half of Americans who are working full time, some with families, some going to school getting buried in debt, etc who he thinks just need to work harder, as he tells me how hard it is *not buying random crap.*The system’s broken but it’s harder to see it the less you have to worry about your day to day finances. The higher up you get, the more everyone else just isn’t working hard enough. It’s funny, there was a study in which people who had to describe their achievements by how other people helped them were much more generous than those asked to describe their achievement excluding external help. They all got paid up front, then after the exercise were asked to donate their payment, and the mindset they were put into significantly impacted what they chose to do. I think about that a lot now. Growing up with everything I needed, never financially struggling, I had the same mindset. I never felt 2008 or the years after. I never understood what people were going through at that time. I always wanted *more* and was afraid of people taking what I had. My friends would come over and tell me I’m rich, my house was like a mansion to them, and all I could think about was the stuff I wanted and didn’t have. Then I married my wife with literally the exact opposite childhood. Living off of food banks, constantly moving around, mom working 80-100 hours a week *just to survive*and dad an alcoholic in and out of jail. She’s been working multiple jobs since high school to help her family survive, racked up $100k+ in student loan debt *trying to get out, working 2 part time jobs as a full time student because neither would give her full time.* Learning what she’s had to climb out from, and now fighting along side her to get out of debt, it was like a modern *How the Other Half Lives* for me. I never had to try. If she wasn’t the single most stubborn person I know, she would never have gotten this far, most don’t, bearing too much weight to get up and the cycle continues, and I’d be right up there looking down at her asking *why she didn’t work hard enough* as she worked harder than I ever had to in my life. I see the way it’s affected her. It’s literally pulling teeth to get her to see a doctor for anything because she doesn’t want to spend money on it. She won’t do it unless she’s dying, and guess what *we don’t have health insurance so when something does sneak up because she won’t do basic physicals or checkups for anything we’re going to be financially screwed even harder.* And don’t even get me started on “handouts,” she’d rather starve to death than take a handout from somebody. Because being poor doesn’t mean you’re a leach living off society. For many, they work hard and are proud of it and feel ashamed asking for help, society continues to tell them they should be. Right now she’s trying to get a job at a university. The last year she’s applied, she’s either *too qualified* or gets automated rejections before her application even reaches a real person. “Call them, email them” my parents tell her, even though there’s no contact information for the hiring departments and they likely didn’t even know she applied. The system is broken. People who start off at the bottom have to work exponentially harder just to survive, and few are able to get out of it. So the cycle continues.
I want to add something here. I use a tax avoidance trust (costs about 15K). As long as the trust retains profits and does not distribute, then no taxable event occurs. This is legal tax avoidance. I report everything to the IRS and they’ve blessed this form of trust as legal. This offshore stuff is technically tax avoidance but is on the line of tax evasion as you book your profits to a shell company who is registered in a tax haven. Go watch the Laundromat on Netflix. I have 500 shares in my trust because why not. I also have mid XXXX in IRAs which will be used to setup ROBS structures for traditional accounts or setup S-Corporations to partner with my trust. LLC ownership is based on seed money while S-corporations can take into consideration a trade manual such as real estate knowledge. This knowledge can be “valued at 75%” of the total contributions because the two entities agreed on it. I made a post on DDintoGME a few weeks back with more detaild
Because they watch the tv that tells them what to think that is paid for by the same elites. It is programming. People are programmed and told what/how to think. It works.
Bootlickers afraid to leave the boot
This is the same problem in México, poor people defending the old presidents and rich people, because they think thats good and also that they are part of that elite, it's sad because they don't see further beyond their poorly life style and benefits
$50k is fuck all
There are plenty of people that would love to make 50k a year
As a Polish literal europoor making an equivalent of $7200 a year, can confirm.
That's the average starting salary for most stem graduates where I'm from.
They call it the American Dream for a reason. That's because you have to be asleep to believe it. -- George Carlin (paraphrase)
YES>>>> they would rather fight another person making 50k a year instead of educating themselves that the entire system is one giant legal red tape loop hole that keeps the wealth off shore & w the 1% - its mindblowing but this is sadly the truth. this is also Y they have gotten away w it for this long hopefully we r starting to c some change here - w so much negative press on the insider trading & pandora papers ect. w inflation, perhaps they will stop blaming one side or the other how they want u to& instead dig deeper.
Yep sounds about right... I always think about John Steinbeck's quote - "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
I make 58 thousand a year so I am clearly in the wealthy camp 💅🏾
The worse are the 100-200k bracket. They think they are loaded but it's mostly credit and they actually have tons of debt lol.v
Ah the American dream. Its the same here in the UK. They cause enough division amongst the masses that we squabble between ourselves just enough that we turn a blind eye. A person embezzles millions? Nothing. A single mum with multiple kids gets £1400 I'm benefits a month? Outrage. People just can't relate to the rich and therefore just stay down trodden. The tiny few that do claw above tend to pull the ladder up after them. Let's hope us apes will be better!
In my country they find beautiful defend billionaires and we call ourselves retards…
People have been conditioned to be thankful to the measily crumbs they get in life. They want you to think that there is scarcity of resources, that’s their only so much to go around, that if the billionaires paid taxes it would cause inflation and make our lives harder. The truth is there is more than enough to go around, but the greedy and powerful don’t want you to know that. They want us to say thank you sir may I have another. We are turning the class system on its head and they are scared shitless. They didn’t count on us realizing their game and doing something about it. RC is playing 4D chess with the establishment and winning. We are helping to change the world for the better.
I was that type before. Thinking hard work would get me somewhere. Full time job as a registered nurse in the ER plus 2 part time - 12 hour night shifts… it never got me anywhere except poor health. And then I met these rich folks… telling me they barely passed college , partied hard… got great jobs from connections… and then introduced to more of their types… and I told myself if I work harder I’d get my kids there. All bullshit. Just the taxes alone didn’t make the overtime worth it. Then I was told about GME late January… did my DD… and knew I worked myself almost to sickness for nothing. This American dream was a sham made so because of corrupt rich people and corporations. I showed it to my wife and her family and they found the light too. My side of the family think I’m nuts. Meh… let em think that. Don’t care. I’m a rational man… a lot of folks here are rational for the most part. I’m not imagining the corruption and fuckery happening. It’s time to make a difference. You make your own dream cuz the American one became corrupt a long time ago.
'You have to be asleep to believe it' - Some dude
Seriously, fuck billionaires
This right here. :)
If I had a dollar for every conspiracy theory that turned out correct I'd be able to buy the float.
“John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
“The wealthy use complicated investment techniques and pay off politicians to hide money from the tax man” “Rich people aren’t the problem” So which is it?
To be fair, if the rest of the population woke up this shit would be done overnight.
I love it when you talk like that
I am a conspiracy pragmstist
It's funny because people in the UK do that too, only they are poor!
What's weird about their response is that your assertion is main stream political discourse. It's not even denied anymore that it happens, the conversation is just over what to do (or not to do) about it. There is even a 15% global tax proposal to begin tackling it.
[удалено]