Since the financial crash finance capital has been hollowing out every single industry in this country, and that’s gone into overdrive since covid

Something something decline in the rate of profit

Financialization.

88% of all S&P500 companies (2017 data) now have their top shareholders as one of the Big Three institutional investors (BlackRock, Vanguard, or State Street). This number was 25% in 2000.

Almost every major American corporation you can think of, with few exceptions like Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, Walmart etc., are practically owned by institutional investors. People like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk are really the few exceptions left of individual capitalists you see in America, and even their controlling stakes in their own companies are slipping.

The rest of Corporate America are owned by the “faceless” bourgeois class who invests in the corporate assets through institutional investors while being divorced from making key decisions about the companies. The only purpose left is for the line to go up, even if it means all the established corporations are stripped bare in the process.

This is what financial oligarchy really means (I really don’t think most people truly apprehend the significance of this).

Hollywood movies are terrible (moreso than usual?)

The same thing is happening with Hollywood. If you’re interested in the nitty gritty details, read this paper titled Financialized Hollywood: Institutional Investment, Venture Capital, and Private Equity in the Film and Television Industry

The upshot is that all the major media companies: Disney, Time Warner, CBS, Comcast, Netflix, Verizon, AT&T are all essentially owned by the same Big Three (BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street), collective owning an average of ~15% controlling stake in those companies and wield disproportionate amount of influence.

neofeudalism is about extracting rents

Yes, the USA is in terminal decline, it has been since the dotcom bust. The USA gets a little shittier every year.

1. Yes
2. Yes. Yes.

Expires in 20 minutes, only for use at the one restaurant on the other side of the airport

When I was an Inspector the regional FAA manager in Arizona would roll over for any small business tyrant throwing a tantrum, Boeing could get a plane made of paper and duct tape certified if they wanted

Hahaha triggered libs!! 😜😂🤣😵‍💫🤡

See you say that, but their early attempts to make the MAX self-grounding were poorly received.

Happy birthday to the ground!

Who knew that cutting out any thoughts of build quality to earn the shareholders some extra money would backfire.

One of the inherent problems with capitalism is that it always tends to this shit. Once you are a market leader companies just start cutting quality. Nobody cares about long term thinking, just immediate gains.