I’m just going to sip my tea over here. As the widow of dead federal officers are crying on the news after they FAFO.
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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Stalin orders nkvd to ravage areas that protested. Nkvd has a quota of 3k a day.
Hitler orders Gestapo to ravage areas that protested.
I hate this modern remake culture.
I just saw that ice is over budget what money are they using for this? Is there a procedural wrench the democrats can throw into the gears of fascism?
SNAP. Social security. NASA funds. USAID funds. NOAA funds. The list is almost endless. And we're all out of wrenches. Only strongly worded letters.
Senator Chris Murphy, the party's top member on the DHS appropriations subcommittee, said that, "Trump's DHS is spending like drunken sailors," adding, "They cannot invent money. They cannot print money. They don't have the money to spend that they're spending," as quoted in the report.
I would question how exactly ICE alone are already $1B over budget if they have no authorization to spend money beyond their budget. Or assumedly not spend $1B beyond the budget… Hows that work?
Also, obligatory “fuck you” to the economic times for trying to not let me copy text
I don't know this as fact but my guess would be they're over last year's budget.
They've been taking money from other parts of DHS to continue working. When the money runs out, that means the entire DHS budget runs out and they won't be able to as easily appropriate more since it would have to come from another department
That's how you know he's scared shitless. Also, his overcompensating tweets tend to be a great indicator of how small he feels. The bigger the wall of text, the more filled with lies/CAPS LOCK/insult/etc. - the more out of his depth he is, like a cornered animal screeching.
Plus, military seems to be quietly saying the loud part, as one could interpret the small signs of the parade. So if he can't count on them he can't rely on any dictator's biggest enforcing arm, the same arm that can easily crush ICE and all the co-fascists if it ever comes to that.
I really hope they don't get away with it in the end. Simply being removed from office without heavy consequences for all of them just sends the message that the next sleazebag can start to slowly carve a path on the shadows and attempt success where these grifters failed.
He already tried it during his first term, but luckily was inexperienced and mostly surrounded by people who reeled him in. Now, on his second attempt he's learned from experience, and surrounded himself with yes men, either by appointing them directly, or by firing and replacing someone else in a strategic position that could threaten him. Which makes him much, much more of a threat.
There won't be a third attempt from Trump, but you can bet the likes of Vance, Miller and so on will try to fill the void he leaves if they aren't held accountable. Heck, even Trump's son's have already floated the idea of following their father's footsteps. Evil is always lurking, waiting on a chance to pounce when prey is weak.
Simply being removed from office without heavy consequences for all of them just sends the message that the next sleazebag can start to slowly carve a path on the shadows and attempt success where these grifters failed.
Even if there are heavy consequences, without massive social and economic reforms fascism will rear its ugly head within a generation. Both are necessary, and I don't see nearly enough talk about the latter.
Our entire economic system, and the world along with it, are doomed to fail if we dont move the money that billionaires have been squatting on. All the exploitation and poverty that exists in the world can be tied to billionaires parking money that should be moving through the hands of Americans and out to the rest of the world.
Ive recently started looking into just where our money went. Although we all know the answer inherently, I suppose moreso I have been trying to more acutely visualize how it has been taken away.
The median income today is roughly equivalent to the median income of 1958, so if you are just looking at raw inflation you might think people are paid on par with the value of money in 1958. The reality is that inflation does a piss poor job of showing you the whole story.
In 1958 the median household could afford everything that was needed for a family of four and then some. The 2% richest income bracket in 1958 made only $15k or more, equating to an income of around $170k today. There was only 1 billionaire at the time, J Paul Getty, who was the richest man in the world and worth the equivalent of $12B today.
Flash forward to today, the median is at a nearly inflationary equivalent point, but appx. $75k a year is hardly enough for 1 individual to live comfortably, let alone an entire family of four. This means that 50% of all households are well below what it costs for one person to have healthy finances in 2025. It also means that the richest 2% of households in 1958 would hardly be able to afford a comfortable cost of living of a family of four in 2025 (about 170k at its cheapest).
If that isnt a ridiculous enough statistic to show you how viciously American wages have stagnated in favor of making the rich even richer, then consider this: In 1958 child laborers were paid $1 per hour, the minimum wage at the time. Assuming that child worked 40 hours in a week, they would have made a little over $2k in the year. Relative to the GDP of the united states at the time (about $480B) that would equate to making over $1M per year today. Therefore, everyone currently making less than $1M per year (pretty much everybody) has less buying power than the average 10 year old child laborer in 1958.
With this in mind, its easier to see how inflation doesnt tell the whole story. That $1 minimum wage might equate to $12 today, which is higher than the federal minimum wage, and the state minimum in about 25 states. But even if the minimum wage were brought on par with that base metric (which again was considered the appropriate wage for literal children), a person making $12 would have absolutely no buying power relative to a minimum wage earner back then.
To put it further in perspective, a household earning the median income of $5k back in the day would be the GDP-relative equivalent of making over $40M per year in 2025, even though it would be the inflationary equivalent of earning less than $75k a year.
Now, Im not an economist whatsoever. Im just a guy. And im sure there are some methodological issues with looking at wage strength relative to GDP for serious purposes. But I think doing so makes it pretty clear that we have hardly a fraction of the buying power of the average American back then. Where did all that money go? Into the bank accounts of billionaires.
Going back to Getty, the first billionaire, would have had the equivalent of an unfathomable $12B today. Elon Musk has $433B just himself. He is 36x richer than how rich Getty ever was. He is not alone up there either. In total, the US today has 812 more billionaires than we had in 1958. If we capped all wealth at $12B, or the equivalent of Getty’s wealth back then, then every billionaire in the US would still have $1B-$12B, and we could immediately move the excess $5T that they have collectively been sitting on. US worker wages could be raised to a point which meets actual cost of living. Wages around the world could finally rise in step, ending crushing poverty that plagues the globe.
Even if we pegged modern billionaires to the same level of wealth relative to GDP as Getty, who was 1/481B, then no one would be allowed to be worth over $62B today.
The wool has collectively been pulled over our eyes for nearly 100 years. We have been pushed to accept the bare minimum that they could get away with, while they stuff their pockets for no functional reason. A game of numbers that creates limitless suffering around the world for the benefit of no one. All so they can feel good looking at their estimated worth in Forbes magazine. We dont deserve this, the people of the world dont deserve this. And the whole world is gonna go tits up if we dont fix it. The existence of the 0.01% comes at the cost of the rest of humanity. The next time you cant afford child care, healthcare, or even your groceries, remember where your money is. Its in their accounts
I whole heartily agree, and thank you for taking the time for writing that. Not enough people look into this, including me. Sometimes I stumble into articles or videos that touch on how messed up the financial world is. The biggest thing I hate is how everything runs on debt, and how that affects the inflation rate to always wanting be positive. It promotes buying now, as money loses value from inflation over time. On the flip side of that, negative inflation promotes saving money because it gains value over time. I wish the system was more balanced instead of always leaning to one side, because as they say, the line has to always go up, is not sustainable. I'm not an economist either, as you mention, just another dude in this rat race.
Thank you! Its been stuck on my mind for a long time, but especially the past week.
Shameless plug for a new community I have just started to discuss this problem: [email protected]
If you have any good articles or videos on wealth inequality we would love to see them over here. Anyone who wants to dive into this more deeply please join us
I think Trump will die in office. Either his atrocious lifestyle will catch up to him, or he'll be assassinated by Putin, one of the members of his entourage, Musk, or possibly a cartel.
Eventually someone is going to decide he's more trouble than he's worth. They'd be wrong, though, because he's the glue holding the MAGA movement together. Vance isn't anywhere near as charismatic (to his base).
While I agree, considering Peter Thiel wanting all of this to lead to a government collapse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment)
and his influence on Vance https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-trump-vp-peter-thiel-billionaire/
certainly means that the accelerationism won’t stop and I don’t think we should discount the power social media can wield
Social media and surveillance capitalism being used for "conservative" propaganda and disinformation are arguably THE leading cause for the size, scale, and success of the MAGA-fascist mental illness.
You have to have a leader those people can rally around, though.
He's just finding out he's not a king and millions of people will come out against him. He thought everyone loved him. He just found out how wrong he is.
He knows people don't like him. He doesn't care, because they're VERY BAD VERY STUPID people. That's how narcissism works.
Who would have guessed America’s Hitler would be so fucking lame.
I mean, just in general... Germany's Hitler was a fucking loser too.
At least his tanks didn't squeak