zazen

@Elliott Consumption going up doesn’t mean affordability going up. All that consumption is being afforded through debt which is hard to pay off. A big reason for housing size increase is due to developers incentivised to build bigger which provide higher returns - which is why starter homes cost so much these days. ”Housing platform app Zillow reports there are now 233 locations in the U.S. where a simple “starter home”—a smaller, less-expensive route to owning a larger house—will now run you $1 million or more.” https://fortune.com/article/housing-market-outlook-starter-home-costs-million/ It’s about how many hours of work it takes to afford the basic essentials compared to the past. Price to earnings ratio for houses used to be 2-3x income compared to 6-8 today or 10x plus in top cities. AI: ”Hours-of-work comparison: A median worker in 1970 could buy a median home with ~17,000 hours of labor.Today it’s roughly 35,000–45,000 hours, depending on location A degree used to require ~5,000–7,000 hours of labor equivalent. Now requires ~20,000–30,000+ hours, often financed. Healthcare used to require ~1,000 hours of labor yearly. Now requires ~3,000–5,000 hours depending on family size and insurance type.” https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/scheinman-institute/blog/john-august-healthcare/healthcare-insights-how-medical-debt-crushing-100-million-americans Boomers managing to pay off their mortgages and debts despite higher rates back then indicates their buying power compared to today. Because even if rates are low - the principal (asset price) is so inflated that even cheap debt becomes decades of financial servitude. How are people supposed to plan for retirement etc when many sink 30-50% of income into just their housing. https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc Debt is at record highs even prior to 2020 COVID - housing and non-housing debt.

I went back into the formless, and God slapped me (itself) and said “what are you doing here, go back and play hide and seek - being and BE-coming, coming to be what already is - because Being longed to Be-long” Maybe God is both lost and found within itself - eternally. As long as there is form, there will be limitation and the liberation from limitation. But if the formless has no limitation to transcend - then surely forms role isn’t to transcend itself (it can’t) but only transform itself in seeking the transcendent. Like that saying - before enlightenment chop wood carry water, after enlightenment chop wood carry water. Awakening isn’t about abandoning form but living in it from above.

It's both about the borrower and the nature of the loan itself. ''Evidence shows that a large number of borrowers of color were targeted and steered into toxic mortgages even when they qualified for safer and more responsible loans with cheaper costs.'' ''Borrower characteristics did not explain the differences in lending. Many of these borrowers qualified for credit on better terms but were steered into subprime loans because brokers received extra compensation for placing them in loans with higher costs.'' https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/109438/witnesses/HHRG-116-BA04-Wstate-BaileyN-20190508.pdf Subprime was about a predatory loan design deceptively sold. The structure of the loan was high risk as well as the client - but even lower risk clients were ''steered'' into higher risk loans. You can't just sell when you're underwater and the market has collapsed putting you into negative equity. If you took out a mortgage of $200k and your house value is now $100k - you still owe the bank the difference ie $100k. If your unable to pay the difference then you get foreclosed ie bank takes the property, evicts you and still comes after you for the remaining debt. What follow is your credit is destroyed (7+ years), you lose access to normal loans, interest rates jack up, renting becomes harder and some jobs wont even hire you. This has ripple effects on not just in the US but globally due to the US being the largest economy. But you think there's no harm or ''only 10 million Americans affected''. And you don't see how this is a crime because a gun wasn't pointed to peoples heads - only that it was the individuals choice and that they shouldn't be poor victims. That's like Andrew Tate's view of hyper accountability - ''everything is my fault bro, my destiny is in my own hands - I can get a Bugatti if I so please'' lol. If a mechanic messes up your brakes and you drive off a cliff - you "chose" to drive. But the mechanic still committed a crime and caused harm. The whole scandal was that income was not verified. In fact incomes were even inflated by the brokers in order to approve the borrower for a loan they weren't actually qualified for. Brokers were paid for closing such loans - so they massaged the numbers to get their fee's and cash in on it. Their called liar loans. As I mentioned earlier - the ripple affects aren't on a minority of the populace. Pension funds and retirement portfolios collapsed, state budgets collapsed, unemployment exploded. Household wealth dropped by $19 TRILLION. Just because one drug is gone (subprime loans) doesn't mean the drug dealer isn't still there dishing out new drugs. The predation has moved into different forms. Private-label securitization is back, non-bank lenders have replaced old banks, subprime auto loans are exploding, adjustable-rate mortgages are back, negative-equity car loans are rampant. Corporate landlords (Blackstone) are the new subprime machine. Today the global financial system is running on massive interconnected leverage. See a thread integral just started yesterday: Your chart shows ownership but tells nothing about affordability. It's like me saying people still eat food today - but says nothing about how affordable it is for people. People are now financing their groceries with klarna and buy now pay later schemes. There's a massive difference between being able to buy a home on one income outright or with a mortgage you can pay off within a decade vs buying a home with debt that even two incomes will takes multiple decades to pay off, if ever.

Of course - the problem isn't about emergence itself, its whether its responsible or not to participate in it given a individuals circumstance - its local, situational, particular, case by case. But anti-natalism isn't claiming that - its making a universal claim about life itself or the emergence of it being wrong regardless of any particular situation. Or does it not? Is anti-natalism saying ''for some people in poor circumstances it would be wrong for THEM to participate'' or is it saying ''it's always wrong for anyone to procreate, regardless of circumstances''? Maybe I've got the wrong definition or understanding of what anti-natalism is. No-thing cannot be wronged. But it can still be wrong for someone to participate in the creation of a life that will be heavily wronged due to their personal circumstances not being great - that's about localised responsibility - not a universal claim that life and procreation itself is wrong, or being is wrong. Someone in the middle of a war zone having a child is irresponsible - someone who's reasonably healthy and economically stable having child isn't. But anti-natalism doesn't think along those line - it simply states procreation itself is wrong, regardless. And the only way that exists is due to base assumptions about the fundamental nature of reality - which rests upon a specific ontology - whether anti-natalists know it or not. See what BlueOak is getting at below - the thin line we're treading is the difference between taking responsibility for procreation as a local personal choice vs a universal claim being made about procreation. If a universal claim is being made, then it follows that it must be defended onto-logically. Wholeheartedly agree.

Some people survived the Titanic so was it really harmful? A Ponzi scheme is fine because early investors get paid? They weren’t normal mortgages at 4% bruh. All kinds of toxic loan products were being provided - hence it was called subprime ie subpar or shit in simple English. NINJA loans (no income, no job, no assets) ie homie wasn’t legit or credit worthy enough to repay the loan, but it was given anyway. They were pushed heavily because lenders were paid per loan, not per risk level. They began with low teaser rates 1-4% for the first 2-3yrs before resetting (adjusting) much higher which is where people got screwed with repayments at that higher rate. Then there were ballon loans, interest only etc being pushed also. You’ll say “but the consumer should have known better” - that the math don’t math. But consumers weren’t given amortization schedules, the reset timelines, real post-teaser payment, the terms that triggered payment spikes or the long term cost in plain language ie that it would be a shit deal. You think because no one’s gone to prison for that systemic fraudulence that no one was harmed or no wrong occurred. But that proves my point in our initial discussion from which we’ve veered off: that the state serves capital rather than disciplining it in the service of the citizenry.

A chick being pumped and dumped by a playa isn’t harmed? Because even if it was risky, it was her choice and he promised her monogamy, marriage and kids. Selling that subprime like so playa: The issue isn’t just the sticker price - but the debt product attached to it. A $200,000 house is unaffordable if the loan is structured to make the payments explode beyond your income. That’s the fraud. They created artificial demand by giving mortgages to anyone with a pulse - little to no income verification or down payment, with adjustable rates that would explode later. That demand drove prices up - then when loans started failing (as expected) the bubble popped. We’ve gone from discussing structural power dynamics to how the 2008 crash harmed people as if that’s a serious question to begin with. Your strawmanning my points then reducing it to “it was their choice”. You have Google and AI to elaborate the obvious - but keep asking questions as if you want to be hand held through the obvious - AI not feeling personable enough for you? You are simply not engaging in good faith or as BlueOak said on the previous page being “deliberately obtuse”.

Don’t be dense dude. You’re either a troll or contrarian cos you get a kick out of it lol. The harm was in setting up loans designed to fail, lying about the risk, dumping the toxic loans onto pension funds, betting against the people they sold them to, and then getting bailed out when the whole thing exploded. If a doctor knowingly gives you a drug that makes you feel good today but destroys your organs over the years, you can’t say “well the doctor gave me medicine” Your charts are showing metrics that go up (cars, coverage) but they don’t show people being squeezed (cost of basics relative to wages). They show activity not affordability. People have more “stuff” because they take on more debt. Show me a chart of how many hours of work it takes to afford a home, healthcare, and college today vs 40 years ago. Watch the videos I shared - worth your while bro. I’m off to debate a superfacist.

Very interesting - I agree with the hollowing out of the vertical dimension. But what kind of structure are we talking of here? It can be structurally facistic even if the justification shifts from biology (quantity) to metaphysics (quality). If it has a rigid hierarchy justified by metaphysics, obedience to that hierarchy as cosmic order, and an elite at the top who are above accountability - we have spiritual facism. I think the issue comes from collapsing the vertical into the horizontal. The vertical dimension is something we are meant to orient ourselves towards - the North Star. But we don’t become the North Star or claim ourselves or the structure as it. Vertical principles can purify the people in power, but shouldn’t be used to justify the power they claim as “the cosmic / sacred order”. There is divinity (oneness, source) and some sort of order in the universe that enables us to exist - but this doesn’t translate into divinely ordaining a particular structure or group of elites as such. Legitimacy should remain institutional, not spiritual - no leader can claim metaphysics as political authority. This doesn’t mean vertical principles or spiritual strength isn’t seen as a virtue or worthy trait for stewardship. It just means the structure of governance should account for selecting for it and removing anyone who fails to live up to it. It shouldn’t be rigid like the Hindu system of old where Brahmins ruled due to cosmic order ordaining them as the highest. Civilization works when horizontal power is guided, limited, and elevated by vertical principles - in a healthy tension. This is abusing the idea of the vertical with the horizontal by claiming one impose itself on the other. If the vertical is about principles and the horizontal is about the structure - then corruption happens if we collapse the two and pretend the structure IS the principle. Vertical truths are being used as horizontal justification. You say we should be guided by transcendent principles - but if one of those are accountability or humility - then the structure would reflect that by having checks and balances. And a rigid structure in which one is beyond accountability due to being “spiritually higher” avoids that. This is where secularism is corrective to any potential tyranny (even spiritual tyranny) but this doesn’t mean a society must be spiritually hollowed out. Secularism shouldn’t need to overextend itself to mean a secular society - which is what’s happened in the West as a overcorrection. The balance is a secular state + spiritual society = civilizational health. The governance structure can remain secular to prevent tyranny and hold power accountable (which is principled) whilst the society remains spiritually alive by cultivating (culture) vertical principles. The important part is that the structure should prevent anyone from claiming divine authority over others - preventing the vertical from being weaponized. Islamic civilization at its best actually struck this balance quite well. AI: ”Islamic civilization separated the source of moral authority from the machinery of governance. The spiritual realm — scripture, law, ethics, scholarship, and community norms — was carried by the ulema, culture, and society, not by the ruler himself. The ruler couldn’t claim to be divine, infallible, or metaphysically superior. His job was worldly: administering justice, managing taxes, keeping peace, protecting borders. Spiritual interpretation and moral authority were outside the state and distributed across independent scholars, jurists, and institutions. This prevented metaphysics from being monopolized by political power. At the same time, the civilization remained deeply spiritual because the culture, ethics, law, and intellectual life were permeated by transcendence. Society was spiritually alive even though the state’s power was administratively grounded. The vertical (divine law, moral principles, spiritual purpose) guided the horizontal (governance, administration, institutions) without fusing into an authoritarian theocracy. In short: the state was practical and accountable, while society and leadership were spiritually oriented — a balance that kept the political structure flexible while keeping the civilization morally anchored.” —————- I think a key distinction to clarify this: Transcendence ≠ Transformation Transcendence is beyond form, ego, human limitation. Transformation is what happens within form when we orient ourselves towards the transcendent. We are shaped by the vertical - we do not become the vertical. If we were to become the transcendent (enlightened or just pure light), we would no longer be in form but in the formless. Transformation happens precisely because we remain in form - orienting ourselves towards the transcendent. The key error is collapsing the vertical into the horizontal. Though the vertical is our source and we are not separate from it (conciousness, oneness, God) we are distinct from it. As long as we are in form, we can only ever trans-form within form, towards the transcendent that is beyond form. Form is a journey and relationship, whilst going back into the formless is a homecoming. - The Vertical is the Absolute Reference Point (God, the Good, Truth). Constant eternal. - The Horizontal is the Field of Application (the self, society, politics) in dynamic motion toward the reference point. The moment the Horizontal declares "I am the Reference Point” the system shatters into either delusion (spiritual ego) or tyranny (spiritual facism). The moment it declares "There is no Reference Point” (secularised society) it drifts into relativism and nihilism. If the vertical is about the North Star and the horizontal is about our transformation towards it - pathologies show up when: - New Agers claim “I am the North Star” (spiritual narcissism) - Evola/Theocracy claims a king or superbeing to be the North Star (tyranny) - Hollow Secularism denies or ignores a North Star to exist (nihilism) The healthy balance is orientation towards, not identification or denial of - the vertical. —- I was talking with AI about this and came upon this: “Islamic metaphysics and political structure embody the distinction between transcendence and transformation with remarkable precision. Tanzīh: God is beyond form Preserves transcendence. No collapse into rulers, saints, or egos. Tashbīh: God is near Allows transformation. The human can be transformed toward the divine without becoming the divine. Human beings reflect the vertical without ever embodying it. We are in form. We can be shaped by the vertical, but never collapse it into ourselves. Islamic governance mirrors this metaphysics: • rulers are not divine • scholars do not wield political power • law is above all • no caste of metaphysical aristocrats • accountability is a sacred duty Islamic civilization keeps transcendence above the political sphere — while allowing society to be transformed by it. This is the principle secular governance was trying to imitate: Humility built into structure. Accountability as a transcendent principle. Islam contains Tanzīh (God's incomparability) and Tashbīh (God's similarity). It provides a counterbalancing theological and philosophical framework. · Tanzīh guards against the collapse. It ensures the Vertical remains Vertical. God is Wholly Other. No creature, no ruler, no saint, can be God. · Tashbīh allows for the relationship. It makes Transformation possible. Because God is also "nearer to you than your jugular vein," we can know Him, love Him, and be shaped by His attributes.”

Didn’t know I had to spell out everything man common. What’s your definition of harm? 8-10million lost their homes, families thrown onto the street, lie savings evaporated. The knock on effects of all that - suicides, divorces, kids pulled out of school etc etc. Entire generation’s wealth vaporized - trillions of € gone. But that’s a bad example of harm cos no one got shot? That’s the same surface level eyeballs saying Dems aren’t bought off - cos you think it must mean they have to have briefcases of cash snuck to them under the table lol cartoonish. You want a name and a boogeyman to make it easy. Goldman Sachs helped create toxic mortgages, sold them to pension funds, bet against them, made billions when people lost homes - then got bailed out. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup alumni staffed the same administration that was supposed to regulate them, right after the crash they helped cause. Nice game of revolving door. Affordability has decreased and is squeezing everyone on the fundamentals - housing, healthcare and education have increased multiples more than wages. My parents generation could afford a home on a single income, today’s generations can’t barely on two without a mortgage - etymology is mort-mortality (death) gage (pledge). Death pledge maxxing. Housing - vulture funds buy entire neighbourhoods, jack up rents, outbid families, convert homes into permanent rental stock, reduce homeownership into a financial asset ie financialization. Blackrock, Blackstone etc. Healthcare - medical bankruptcies, $100k+ cancer treatments, insulin price gouging (€12 in Canada vs €98 in US). UnitedHealth made $22 billion in profit last year while denying claims left and right. Education - from AI “Sallie Mae lobbied to make student debt non-dischargeable in bankruptcy (making it inescapable), aggressively pushed private high-interest loans on students, lobbied for higher federal lending limits while funding groups that advocated for tuition increases, and securitized the debt into Wall Street financial products—creating a self-reinforcing system where schools could charge infinite amounts because students could borrow infinite amounts with loans they could never escape, while Sallie Mae faced zero risk and extracted maximum profit through interest payments that lasted decades.“ Read the following: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ But don’t worry - people got Instagram, lots of ice cream flavours and like a gazzilion porn vids at their disposal - “consumer choices”.

Your missing the forest for the tree's. No ones saying people are zombies with no agency or they don't have choices - it's that their agency is limited within structural constraints by a few key players who you think ''serve people'' over themselves. Over the decades living standards have gone down and the middle class has been hollowed out due to the point we now have populism on the right and the left emerging - if the system and status quo served the people we wouldn't have wide spread discontent. Tobacco was a pure vice good - it isn't a utility, infrastructure or essential the way housing or healthcare are. You can quit smoking and suffer no functional loss in your ability to participate in society - try cutting out the major tech giants from your life. Tobacoo didn't just fall due to the market - although pressure was applied from there. The state clamped down via lawsuits, taxes and advertising bans. Tobacco is dispensable in a way a lot of these modern giants aren't which are fused with the state. Your focusing on small fish. BlackRock is the backbone of the retirement system - the system will defend its vital organs in a way it never defended tobacco. Corporations have a fiduciary duty to serve private shareholder value - not people. People are served as as secondary order effect, but not as a primary motive. If a corporation can cut costs, hike prices and lobby for regulations that favor it at the expense of the consumer - they will. This is legally mandated - this is what I mean by the system being structurally rigged in favor of capital. I also already pointed out 2008. People lost out, the big guys didn't and still go their bonuses. It's not capitalism or socialism - its capital socializing its losses and privatizing its gains - despite whatever we want to call it, its parasitic and extractive. Housing, healthcare, food and education - essentials wielded by a handful of corporations, who's directive is to maximize shareholder value, and not the value it provides to the customer. We can point to the illusion of choice in non-essential goods to ignore the tyranny of a lack of or limited choice in essentials we can't opt out of. If people had the choice they would opt out of crushing student debt to educate themselves, mortgages to house themselves which blow up in their face as in 2008, and not be medical emergency away from bankruptcy.

@Elliott From AI to explain what I mean by financial architecture and ''plumbing of the system'' being structurally designed in favor of capital. ''The Index Fund Mechanism (Passive Investing) How it works: Most Americans don't pick individual stocks. 401(k)s, pensions, IRAs default into index funds. Index funds (S&P 500, total market) are market-cap weighted This means: the bigger a company already is, the more money automatically flows into it The feedback loop: Company gets big → enters S&P 500 Trillions in passive funds must buy it (they track the index). Stock price goes up (from forced buying, not fundamentals). Market cap increases → gets even more weight in the index. More passive money flows in → stock goes higher. Repeat. Nobody chose this individually: Your 401(k) automatically buys Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta. You didn't "vote with your dollars" for Big Tech dominance. The structure of retirement savings mechanically concentrates capital into whatever's already biggest. It's structural, not democratic The Big Three own everything: BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street manage $20+ trillion in passive index funds. They're the largest shareholders in virtually every major corporation. Not because of "consumer choice"—because retirement money flows through them by default.They vote the shares (corporate governance) but it's YOUR money. You didn't choose to make Apple the most valuable company. Your retirement account did it automatically.The system is designed to concentrate capital into mega-caps. Consumers aren't steering—the index structure is.'' Another point is Michael Burry (Big Short) who predicted the 2008 crash just closed his fund down because the market is detached from the fundamentals "My estimation of value in securities is not now, and has not been for some time, in sync with the markets," https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/michael-burry-big-short-fame-deregisters-scion-asset-management-2025-11-13/ In plain english : the ''consumer'' can't affect these stock valuations to the degree they think they can with their consumer choices (to buy or not to buy, to empower or not to empower) because the state backstops and pumps liquidity towards these companies that have fused with the state to the point they are considered ''critical''. Their behemoth size underpins the US dollar empire ie too big to fail. This is why there is a divergence between main street and wall street - why is it that as main street suffers (everyday people being squeezed) - but wall street hits all time highs? Because liquidity - money printer goes brrrr and the regular person goes ahhhh ''cost of living crisis''. Traditional value investing becomes impossible. Burry can't find mispriced assets because the market isn't pricing anything properly - it's just channeling flows into whatever the index structure and imperial necessity demand to keep the empire afloat. Capital is the empire. When companies become infrastructure for empire, "consumer choice" becomes completely irrelevant. The state will prop them up regardless of their profitability or fundamentals justifying their valuation. Dollar hegemony requires strong US asset markets which is why i say capital is empire - and it is a financialized one. Michael Hudson is the goat at explaining all of this.

Your looking at how they got rich (consumer spending) but ignoring what they do when rich (regulatory capture, monopoly consolidation, political influence). Corporations start out through consumers choosing, but then they become something different after accumulating wealth from those choices - to the point they can end up shaping consumer choices through advertising and eliminating alternative ''choices'' through monopolistic consolidation. Decisions and desires are also engineered through advertising and algorithms. Even back in the Mad Men era - Edward Bernays influenced women to smoke by associating cigarettes with feminism (torches of freedom.) The advertising industry exists to create demand that doesn't exist - and modern day algorithms are that just ratcheted up. We are in cages influencing us at all times and ''inserting'' desires we didn't know we had. That proves my point - private capital became too powerful and could no longer be ''disciplined'' by the market or individual consumer choices ''in the form of the most direct-democracy possible'' as you put it. If they democratically grew these companies via their choices why can't they democratically tackle them? It took state force to do so. That's where anti-trust laws came from (response to Rockerfeller). These same laws are no longer enforced to the degree they should be due to state capture by capital. Symbolic slap on the wrists for some firms occur - but the core organs aren't harmed ie the structural power dynamic. Lina Khan was obstructed by the structure itself ie structural power. https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/11/10/lina-khan-former-commissioner-of-ftc-speaks-on-panel-about-divide-in-digital-policy-between-united-states-and-europe/ ''Khan said that Congress has been slow to check the power of tech companies while allowing them to hinder the lawmaking process by lobbying. “Just the endless torrent of money, which has, candidly, influenced both parties, I think has kept things from getting over the finish line” Today’s power isn’t smaller but is more systemic and so is less visible - it's financialized into a financial empire which is why it goes unnoticed if we simply look at the surface. It's structural ie financial plumbing and architecture - not cosmetic ie the house which is visible to all of us in the form of store fronts and ''consumer choices''. This is also why American's saying they have a better living standard than the rest of the world don't understand how - by a financial imperial arrangement maintaining the dollar as reserve currency which offers the US empire it's ''exorbitant privilege''. It's not solely because of market genius and capitalism - dollar dominance subsidizes American affluence and consumption (customer choices). JP Morgan became JP Morgan Chase the institution - Rockefeller became Exxon, BlackRock and a web of energy finance conglomerates. Private capital now upholds US hegemony in a symbiotic relationship - which is why they are treated as ''critical'' and beyond being challenged. State and private interest / capital has fused. If capital has global interests then they can subvert national interests. It's true Americans buy big cars and like big roads. But its also true that oil companies have been for decades lobbying against public transit also. Leverage isn’t overt control but about structural dependency - it' infrastructural and causes mutual capture or inter-dependency. Palantir doesn’t need to rule anything if it’s embedded in the defense, intelligence, and health data infrastructure the state relies on. Same with big tech and finance. So it's not about individual transactions - commerce, communication, and the state operate on privately owned platforms. It's hard to boycott our way out of monopolized infrastructure any more than we can boycott roads ie platforms. When Biden was faced with a standoff between capital vs labor during the rail strike he chose capital : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/ He later brokered a deal, but that was after pressure and backlash - hence, concessions made - pressure release valve policy. But what was the first instinct? In the service of capital. And why is that rail strikers could pressure to the extent they did? Because they could leverage a critical chokepoint ie infrastructure that the economy and country depends on - the same way these corps have infrastructure / platforms. Biden conceding wasn't about the workers but about keeping the machine running. In this sense I agree with you - we do have power, but it must be en mass, strategic and disruptive to the structure of power. Sold out doesn't mean briefcases of cash handed under the table. Money is literally in politics - that money influences politics - politicians depend on a pipeline of funds from their donor class. Lina Khan who Biden appointed (and is now appointed by Zohran) said so herself as I shared earlier. Lobbying isn't charity where no return is expected. Secularism championed separation of Church and state but somehow we just accept that money has become the new Church and that it shouldn't be separated from politics. Instead it corrupts our politics and cannibalizes society. This is why all empire can do is crudely contain rival nations - because it can't compete against them. It's hard to compete globally when your own elite class is feeding on you locally lol so all that's left is saber rattling. Capital elites don't care for national interest because they are a-national, trans-national. And yet they are fused with the nation state to the point that national interest has become code for capital interest. That doesn't mean private capital can't work with national interest or be in alignment - it just means they have dual loyalty and that they can hedge against your demise. They are the real parasites that need containing - so that the nation state can remain strong enough to compete rather than need to default to muscle and bullying tactics to try contain those they can't compete with - which only brings out world closer to WW3. All the videos I shared above explain it all better than I could. Financialization seems like a dense word and kind of abstract but this video is quite clear:

@Elliott The issue isn’t where the money comes from (people), it’s what happens after and as it accumulates (market capture). Once these companies pass a certain threshold they gain structural power by converting their accumulated wealth into a form of control and leverage. They can exert leverage over laws via lobbying, dominate the market by consolidating competitors and supplies, own the platforms and infrastructure everyone including the state depends on. Network affects lock people in - try not using WhatsApp, Amazon’s logistics, Zoom etc. If the government is a customer and a regulator, who has leverage over who? The state runs on Google, Microsoft, Amazon’s AWA, collaborates with big tech for data access, Elon’s starlink is contracted with pentagon, Palantir is embedded in the defence and intel apparatus of the state etc. None of those companies started essential - they became big through discretionary spending, that bigness allowed them to consolidate and entrench themselves with the state. Now their too big to fail or to “sticky” to detach. Democratically funded implies we can democratically defund them. I think what you’re saying is that people can notice themselves feeding into these monopolies in real time, then decide to pull away to counter that monopoly power that will end up exploiting them later (techno-feudalism). Or that free market competition will break them and check their excesses of power. But capital compounds faster than awareness - like a frog boiling in water. People are too distracted and value convenience to care about funding the next monopoly that is yet to exploit their dependence. It becomes increasingly difficult once dependencies get entrenched (especially at a state level) and when the “consumer choices” shrink by being bled out of the market or being bought up and consolidated.

The real question is where has capital shifted, left or right? ...the question doesn't make sense because money has no ideology or party loyalty except to itself - its own accumulation and preservation. Has real power been structurally challenged despite these surface level cultural / political shifts left or right? Every trickle down concession made in the form of a more left leaning policy coming through is a pressure release valve to keep the platform afloat - on which private capital depends - from which it simultaneously extracts from. Capital can cannibalize the host up to the bone, but not the bone itself which is the structure it depends on. Taking a slight hit to profits by re-distributing a slice of the pie doesn't change the core power dynamic where capital influences the state more than the other way round. A lil slice for the proletariat to keep them at bay and the system alive: It's patchwork maintenance (maintaining the status quo / power structure ) like a landlord doing the bare minimum so his building is at least rentable but not kept to such a high standard as to cut into profits. The country can overall be moving left culturally (liberalizing), with a little resurgence of right wing conservatism (not enough to reverse the wider cultural trend), with some minor political concessions (re-distribution) to keep the system afloat and away from total revolt / revolution, whilst maintaining the structural power dynamic (capital-corporatism supremacy) the entire time. The cultural shift absorbs dissent that economics can’t and doesn't fix - its a pacifier until it's not (Zohran - leftist populism). But even leftist populism done at a local level is still operating within a structural framework of capitalist supremacy in which it will be constrained, sabotaged, unsustainable or underwhelming in outcomes. The issue with re-distribution is you need something to re-distribute and to keep on re-distributing int he first place. You can't keep slicing the pie if the people who make the pie leave the kitchen for other kitchens that tell them they can keep more of they pie they make (lower taxes etc). The only thing keeping bakers and makers wanting to keep baking in a certain kitchen over another, beside the incentive of how much of their pie they get to keep - is the quality of the kitchen (ingredients, safety measures, facilities, more customers to sell to). So any increase in hostility towards capital (higher business rates or taxes) can be compensated for by other factors. If a system introduces policies that punishes capital investment but remains open for that same capital to leave - the tax base that re-distribution depends on risks shrinking. So the policy alleviates some pain short term but ends up eroding in the medium-long term. Socialist policies need some containment (of capital) to work to disciplines capital’s flight instinct. But containment only works where cohesion legitimizes it and competence can enforce it. Money needs to keep circulating (contained) long enough to see results - by recycling money back into the system (local investment, welfare) rather than being sucked up to the top and out of the system into tax havens and speculative assets. Enough profits earned within a society are kept to feed into that society, which loops back to private investors as they have a wealthier consumer base to profit from. That needs cohesion and competence (execution, management) - which provide capital the certainty it needs to concede to less profit now for more stable profits long term. This is why China was invested into despite capital having to concede to China's terms (re-investment, joint ventures, capital controls etc) - because investors would take a hit at some profit if they can still gain access to a large market and where their money will be safe. Also why Singapore and Nordic countries do well - small but competent and cohesive so capital doesn't feel the need to vanish to the next highest return jurisdiction if where they are is stable and predictable. A market, city or country need to be ''investable'' and the people need to be cohesive enough to where they don't mind a hit in profit (for the ''collective'' good) - especially if they see visible results of paying higher taxes in the form of better education, infrastructure, safety etc. Cohesion gives legitimacy, competence brings outcomes, containment makes it self-sustaining. All that fails if capital can't be contained due to having more mobility than the state has authority - where cohesion is breaking (larger multi-cultural societies) and where competence is misdirected. The US/UK are competent at serving capital, not citizens. Money enters the system but is routed through parasitic structures that extract before anything trickles down to public life. This is why ''we pay high taxes'' yet see little and end up frustrated, whilst other countries do better with equivalent taxes or low to nothing (UAE etc). Lack of cohesion is obvious (cultural divides, left vs right etc). Containment of capital by the state is difficult because it's structurally captured by the same entity (capital) it needs to discipline in the first place. But also - the US can't discipline capital (contain it in any serious way) because the US is largely a financialized empire dependent on dollar dominance - and the dollars dominance is dependent on the mobility of capital. The reason the world holds dollars, buys treasuries, and treats Wall Street like a global central bank is because of that mobility. Starting to restrict or contain it will unravel US hegemony. Financialization replaced production (to serve private capital), debt became the growth engine (liquidity to keep things afloat, inflate assets, widen inequality), interest on that debt became a parasite that is now cannibalizing the system after the elites already had their share. Containment unravels the US empire, but so does the current status quo which is unsustainable - the unravelling happens either way.