• jtrek@startrek.website
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    3 days ago

    I feel like in the olden days, when stuff like this happened people would form up into a miltia shaped mob, march down to the rich person’s house, and deal with the problem.

    • CentipedeFarrier@piefed.social
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      3 days ago

      I would do that but I cant afford to get to where the rich people live, it’s days of travel away cuz flying is a no-go for me these days.

      In the olden days that was not the case, and money/goods couldn’t travel that far either. You could torch the owner’s house cuz it was in town. You knew where they lived. It was accessible.

      • quarkquasar@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        That’s the best part: Global warming will eventually ix-nay the whole flying thing, and then the wealthy will have to outrun the poors.

        • pemptago@lemmy.ml
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          3 days ago

          That’s why they have bunkers in NZ. I just hope it becomes apparent to their security teams that they do not contribute anything of value-- Assuming it happens before their fantasy of autonomous security.

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    This is the system working as designed. I’m not sure how anyone missed that.

    And while tariffs were in place Amazon was passing on those savings, or lack thereof, to customers. So they mostly didn’t see any losses from paying the tariffs. Then they get refunded, and then it’s less that the government actually paid Amazon anything, they just gave them a reason to charge people extra in shipping, for no good reason.

    Whether those costs were rendered in the shipping cost on Amazon, or by simply marking up the prices so that they could account for those extra costs, doesn’t really matter.

    Consumers ended up paying this bill. The 650M “refund” was just the government exempting them from costs that the government should not have collected from them in the first place.

    • bluefootedbooby@sopuli.xyz
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      3 days ago

      What, are they supposed to NOT use Amazon, for starters? Are you actually insane? That’s no way to live where they cannot get their labubu delivered on the same day!

      • PlaidBaron@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I always said the Americans wont fight back until there are only 30 brands of cereal on the shelf to pick from.

        As long as they have their comforts and false sense of superiority, they will grumble but ultimately accept their authoritarian regime.

        • village604@adultswim.fan
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          2 days ago

          That’s true for pretty much every society that’s fallen to fascism. People often don’t start rocking the boat to the extent where it affects change until food scarcity starts.

          It’s one of the components of humanity’s Great Filter, IMO. The other being the sociopaths that take advantage of the complacency.

      • cheers_queers@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        i have been boycotting amazon since that guy died of a heart attack and didnt get emergency services. what was that, over 5 years ago? and still more horror stories keep coming out, yet i am looked at weirdly and questioned about why i dont spend my money there. it is like living in the twilight zone.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          3 days ago

          It’s extremely hard to rig a Midterm, too many tiny Congressional races. All you can do is manipulate them through gerrymandering and propaganda and hope for the best. It will help them a little bit this time, but they are going to be so overwhelmed by Dem votes that seats will flip that people didn’t think were even in contention.

  • someguy3@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Customers pay the tariffs. And then tax payers (customers) pay for the tariff refunds. Which the corporations pocket because it’s too difficult to return it to the customers.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    3 days ago

    That’s the way it ALWAYS is. Some corporation does something terrible to consumers, and the government fines them a fraction of the profit from the terrible behavior, and then celebrates with a press release about how great they are.

    Meanwhile the consumer is still screwed, the corporation still made a profit on their corruption, and the government got their beak wet.

    When we take it back, these sorts of corporate fines should be much more onerous (minimum $1 billion per count), including confiscation of entire corporations and entire estates, and the money placed in the “America First Fund” (irony intended), to be the seed money for all the Social program we’re going to launch - health care, college/trade school, pre-K, student loan forgiveness, UBI, etc. Use these fines to directly help the people that were hurt by corporate misadventure: the Citizens.

    “Fixing America on their dime, while punishing them for their crime” could be the program’s slogan.

  • sartalon@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Oh and they are keeping the prices at the same rate as when they were paying tariffs!

    Burn them all at the stake.

  • btsax@reddthat.com
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    3 days ago

    “The Democrats caused this by not letting the tariffs go to reducing my income taxes”

    -Future Americans

  • Avicenna@programming.dev
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    2 days ago

    Well amazon raised prices to cover the tariffs which means people paid it out of their pockets (even though Trumputan advertised that as some sort of trade leverage). And now people’s tax money is likely being used to pay this refund too. Overall the net effect might be Americans paying more “tax” than the “communist Europe”. I also wonder if Trumputan’s family got some lucrative deals out of this because he was the one pushing the buttons.

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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      3 days ago

      Not really, that’s just how it’s been portrayed over time. The American revolution wasn’t led by American workers, it was agitated by the founding American aristocracy who were angry that there was a higher power than them controlling how they made their money. Many of the founding fathers made their fortunes from smuggling operations.

      It’s not like they abolished taxation or gave broad representation to average Americans. The American revolution was a revolution for the rich by the rich. It’s the reason why we have a bicameral Congress, where senators act as overseer over the decisions of the common people. It wasn’t until the 17th amendment passed in 1913 that senators actually started to be elected by the people.

      • village604@adultswim.fan
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        2 days ago

        Yup, and IIRC the colonies did benefit from the taxation. King George built infrastructure and provided soldiers and shit.

    • D_C@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      “Revolution? Nah, that takes effort and I’m not about to do that!! Next you’ll be wanting me to protest, or something. Pfffft. Plus we all know protesting is almost impossible in today’s age of instant communication…
      Anyway. Listen. Listen. The midterms. We’ll totally destroy them in the midterms. You’ll see. After the midterms they’ll all be leaving the country, or be in prison. Just wait for the midterms, bro!!!”

      • Sir_Premiumhengst@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Yes and, any effort to disenfranchise voters from voting is an effort in favor of the red Republican party who is actively doing gestures tiredly at everything

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      3 days ago

      really? it was just over who cant keep slaves that was about it. and not something like top vs bottom(aristocrats vs “plebians”

  • Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 days ago

    Considering he keeps “ending” the war on Iran to play with oil prices while he buys low sells high; makes me think the price gouging followed by tariff refunds was the real goal all along.

    • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      It only takes 30% of Americans in the right states to feel that way and the entire federal government is theirs.

      The slave states lost the big armed showdown, but won the war

      • Talcosis@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        I think the math works out that you only need 23% of the total vote to win an election? Number from a mostly remembered YouTube video a decade ago.

        Assuming 50% plus 1 in the 40 least populated states and no votes at all in the 10 most populated states.