I agree but I came across Dolly Parton syrup in the grocery store once. Had to say for all the good, that felt a bit odd, strange and out of place with Dolly’s character.
> US monopoly money has value mainly because of petro dollar.
A currency’s value reflects confidence in the economy issuing it. The dollar is backed implicitly by the size, productivity, and stability of the US economy.
No, the currency has value only in as so far as you can buy stuff you need with it.
Lets say you're Germany, US imports make up only 6.9% of total import value(Netherlands is 7.1% and China 12.5% on top) closely followed by Poland with 5.9%.
Take most countries in Europe, US imports are a rather small very modest portion.
So it doesn't make that much sense that US dollar would be particularly valuable.
After all - you really don't actually even buy that much stuff from US, thus the need for the US dollar isn't particularly large, and why would it be?
On the other hand, if you want to buy oil however, you need the dollar.
That is what makes the dollar valuable.
Now if you can buy oil from Iran, Russia or whatever in some other currencies, why would you need the stinking dollar?
I mean, you do import some US goods, but not that much really.
Why would you have confidence in an economy that regularly has insane trade deficit (1 trillion now)?
Once the petrodollar goes, thing will go tits up. And it will, because there's only 60years of oil left in the global oil reserves in the tank.
I once thought that this would be true, but wars are fought with oil burning machinery. And so countries with oil will always be able to play bully. A country with strong access to oil also has the most important resource in war. Batteries are simply less dense energy storage.
Because ultimately those things (apartments, high-speed rail, mines, factories, datacenters, etc) exist for the benefit of the public.
We give tax breaks because we recognize that these things are beneficial to the economy and want to incentivize their construction. Some countries go even farther and directly subsidize development.
So many of these things DON'T benefit the public, especially as automation reduces the number of jobs they produce. They mostly benefit the capital holders and they'll take steps to increase their profit even if they hurt the public in the long run.
Nonsense. Who consumes the goods produced by the factories and mines? Who lives in the apartments and takes the high speed rail?
Automation is also a massive boon to the common man. It's the only reason we're not both dirt farmers right now, and is responsible for most of the increase in standard of living over the last two centuries. Your views are short-sighted.
> Who consumes the goods produced by the factories and mines?
Not all consumption is good. It can harm health, relationships, etc. And many goods have been ravaged by planned obsolescence and other corner cutting such that we're forced to consume more to maintain status quo.
> Who lives in the apartments and takes the high speed rail?
This is frankly an entirely different class from mines and factories. While there is "NIMBYism" over both, the reasoning for it can be vastly different.
The reason I started my comment with "Privatize the profits, socialize the losses" is not because we shouldn't have any mines or factories or apartments or high speed rail or automation. It's because our corrupted system means the negative impacts of them is felt more by the public while the positive impacts are concentrated in fewer people. Automation that enriches everyone is great. Automation that leaves people destitute is not. These things don't just naturally end up on the positive side.
That's not your call to make. If I am willing to spend my hard-earned money on a thing, it's because I think it will improve my life. Who are you to tell me otherwise? You're not my mom.
And it is not true that we "Privatize the profits, socialize the losses". Bailouts are rare exceptions; in general, investors take the loss when a business fails. They are last in line in bankruptcy court and cannot be insured.
That's not your judgement to make. First it's patently false in almost every modern society (there might be some with literally no restrictions on private ownership, idk), and second everyone can come to their own conclusions.
I for one am glad we don't have 8-year-olds enjoying one last smoke before an entire day in the mines, and if we did, I wouldn't let you tell me I can't say whether that's good or bad. You're not my mom.
> Automation is also a massive boon to the common man.
So much so, that we aren't allowed to download and finetune the model weights that we helped to train?
When OpenAI and Anthropic start begging Uncle Sam for bailouts, I'll be voting to let them go bankrupt. There's no love for companies that leech off of the common man like this and then beg for more tax money to larp as a profitable company.
America's AI corporations are not your friend. They're not as friendly as Apple or Google were, because those companies depended on a positive B2C business relationship. OpenAI and Anthropic both grovel at the feet of the government and eye an IPO at the same time. It's pathetic.
Whether data-centers and AI are actually beneficial is still somewhat of an open question with large groups on both sides. So unclear how beneficial data centers are to the general public.
I do like living and working in buildings, using computers, refrigeration systems and transit infrastructure, getting medical care, and eating cooked food, so I think building things is by far a net positive.
Also, banking, scientific research, offsite backups, and the internet have been very useful, so data centers are pretty great.
I drove by it and don't get the fuss. It's a box in an industrial park. It makes a little bit of noise but not nearly as much as the paper factory next to it. People just like to whine.
A paper factory, on the other hand, smells like barf and has huge vats of chemicals that will dissolve you. It probably uses also more power than a data center, at a much worse power factor.
I used to work two lots down from one. I wouldn't notice at all if it was next to my house. The only way to distinguish it from any other business in the office park was the slightly higher security. There was also a charter school next to it, and it was much more disruptive than the data center.
That's dismissive to my point. Society built itself up. Corporations that suck on society's tit and give nothing back, demand profits, and continue to skim off the top are not Mother Teresa.
I've had great experiences with most every large corporation I've chosen to deal with, from suppliers like Toyota with their cars and Perrigo with their pharmaceuticals to distributors like Costco and WinCo Foods, and marketplaces like Craigslist and eBay. The countless smaller S corps I deal with have been even better. I've also benefited greatly from nonprofit corporations like the Wikimedia Foundation, American Automobile Association, and Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
There are plenty of corporations that I haven't had a great time with, so I just don't do business with them. Amazon's marketplace search doesn't support boolean operators and their sort by price feature doesn't work, so I buy from eBay instead. Wal Mart doesn't have as good of products or as helpful of employees as WinCo, so I buy from the latter.
The only corporations that I've had bad experiences with but continue to patronize are: Comcast, Wells Fargo, and PG&E. Just because they treat me horribly doesn't mean I blame any of their wrongdoing on the other corporations I do business with. Their use of tax breaks is far from the worst problem. They all have contracts with various government organizations which force me to do business with them, when I would leave immediately if I had a choice.
Granted, I've had much better experiences with those three than with Department of Motor Vehicles and the Franchise Tax Board, so I'm probably better off with those agreements in place than if the government organizations themselves were providing internet access, servicing my mortgage, and suppling natural gas. Then again, what is a government except the most powerful corporation?
I don't like doing business with corporations that have police and an army backing them, but otherwise the rest of the corporations I deal with have been great.
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