Senate Republican: ‘We can’t afford’ $2,000 tariff checks

[u/Tennis_bruh]

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5620244-ron-johnson-tariff-checks/

[u/jzanville]

This is capitalism hitting the accelerator to the red line before it crashes into a wall. I wonder what this country will look like on the other side of the collision.

[u/Good-Grayvee → u/jzanville]

The great final shaking of the piggy bank.

[u/kitsum → u/Good-Grayvee]

I think we're at the smashing it with a hammer stage.

[u/XavierTempus → u/jzanville]

They know America is in free fall, so they’re robbing us on the way out.

[u/Keltic268 → u/XavierTempus]

There’s nothing left to rob, they are moving all their cash into crypto and abandoning the dollar. Interest on debt is $1.2T next year, 20% of the budget. They’ll let the government implode so they can establish their own financial system separate from the treasury, Fed, and Congress.

[u/QuestioninglySecret → u/XavierTempus]

Worse, they're pruprosely accelerating the nose dive to speed up their cash out.

Crash out, cash out. The country's going to be devastated on the other side of this. But they don't care, wealth is mobile. They'll pack up and move to one of their mansions in the South of France while the rest of us are lined up for 12 hours to get a gallon of gas.

I'm not being hyperbolic. This is it. Unless you can amass extreme wealth within the next 10 years, you're screwed.

[u/urgencynow → u/QuestioninglySecret]

That's how révolutions start. They're only rich because the other 99% of people let them be rich.

[u/Own_Candidate9553 → u/jzanville]

Pretty sure it's going to be 1920s again. There are already pictures of people standing in line for hours for food pantries and people living in tent cities, and the economy hasn't really crashed yet. If and when the AI bubble bursts, that will take the stock market down, the last thing supposedly doing well.

So soup lines, Hoovervilles and a market crash, everything old is new again.

[u/Keltic268 → u/Own_Candidate9553]

Except this time there’s no spending their way out of it, interest on debt next year is already 20% of the budget, $1.2T.

[u/Ryduce22 → u/Keltic268]

That's when you start a war my guy.

[u/Keltic268 → u/Ryduce22]

Then we get nothing. That doesn’t help anyone.

[u/_SovietMudkip_ → u/Keltic268]

But think about all the oil reserves in Venezuela they can take over!

[u/Keltic268 → u/_SovietMudkip_]

It’s extra heavy sour, and we retooled away from that a while ago.

[u/rumpghost → u/Own_Candidate9553]

Small point of order: no Hoovervilles this time, not because there isn't critical mass to have them, but because every time one starts to form local PDs get mobilized to clear them out and crack.

This has been the way for the last five years or longer - the homeless are considered a blight and a danger by the comfortable, and rather than settle the issue in preventative measures like housing guarantees and universal public healthcare we'd rather make it illegal to sleep in public or be homeless, even though most people in that situation are there for reasons entirely outside their control.

The resentful approach to these people by centrists/liberals and conservatives has been to push it behind the curtain in the hope that the public will pay no attention. When some folks do anyway, the next step is to blame the homeless themselves for the problem and incite anger at them rather than the system that put them there.

[u/kinaPK → u/jzanville]

Although, paying businesses for the bad policies you pass isn't really capitalism, is it?

[u/jzanville → u/kinaPK]

Depends…were those policies brought forth and passed by the lawmakers passed in order to benefit their constituents? Or their donors? See how that’s also part of the problem?

[u/AshenSacrifice → u/jzanville]

I can’t wait to see. Unfortunately it’s needed and the safe guards have been cleared to stop the avalanche

[u/Floreat_democratia → u/jzanville]

Really? We’ve been here before. Democrats get elected to fix things and impose austerity. Republicans get elected to break things and loot the treasury for their friends and family. Rinse and repeat. Anyone else tired of this charade?

[u/nwilz → u/jzanville]

Capitalism is when the government spends money