This is written by Ray Dalio, the conservative billionaire.
The "extremist left" he is worried about is Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax on billionaires.
eye roll
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
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Hmm. I did notice the funny, overly-symmetrising perspective, but I couldn't place who it sounded like. I guess that's because I don't know any billionaires.
In addition to to contemporary takes, "fascism is right-wing dictatorship and communism is left-wing dictatorship" isn't an entirely useless way of putting it, but it's close. Left and right are very situational, and there's been left wing dictatorships that weren't very much like the USSR, and plenty of right-wing monarchies that had none of the populist vibes fascism runs on.
For everyone planning on fleeing to Canada: we have a massive housing shortage already. You're probably going to end up in tents, sadly. Igloos, maybe, which would be ironic since a lot of you think we live in them.
Are there more people than houses, or are there a bunch of expensive empty houses which people can't afford?
The former. We measurably just have less housing stock per capita than other developed Western nations. Maybe the latter happens too, but I'm skeptical, because rent money is as (non-)green as the rest, and it's not required to explain the situation.
Why we haven't built more houses is less clear. In the absence of hard data or guesses from more educated people, I'll speculate a bit:
One tradesman I know is billing high enough to feel personally guilty about it, and is still swamped with work. This is typical, rumour has it. The US and Canada officially have the same rate of construction work employment. We don't have undocumented immigrants working construction really, while it sounds typical in the US. Put together, my guess is there's a sizable labour shortage that's masked by data collection issues in the main other jurisdiction that builds largely with wood framing.
And dont come to New Zealand. We’re closed.
Fun fact, housing prices are actually higher in Canada.
I'm guessing you "win" on other expenses, though. And generally are a smaller country with a smaller capacity for loud-talking refugees.
We have hobbits. So there's that.
hope for the emergence of a strong middle that fights against the extremists
the parties increasingly moving to greater extremism
I haven’t seen such enlightened centrism on display for a long time. The Overton window has moved so far to the right in the United States in the past 10-20 years it’s frankly terrifying. One wonders what this guy thinks are the extremist positions.
To make the decision only a bit more extreme than it currently is…if you had to choose between a fascist government and a communist government, which would you choose? If you are not knowledgeable about what fascism is (a dictatorship of the hard right) and what communism really is (a dictatorship of the hard left), I urge you to get schooled
Is…is this guy arguing that we’re equally likely to fall into a communist dictatorship as a fascist one? Please, sir, school me on your definition of communism. Because it seems to me that the 2024 election is a choice between the business-as-usual US Government, for all its (manifold, disastrous) faults, and fucking Looney Tunes.
Is…is this guy arguing that we’re equally likely to fall into a communist dictatorship as a fascist one?
He didn't say that explicitly, but now that you point it out, that would be a simple corollary of this dude's take on the shape of polarisation in America. And it's obviously a dumb conclusion.
and fucking Looney Tunes.
That's not even slightly true! There are plenty of WWII-era Looney Tunes shorts that show it to be explicitly antifascist.
At this point, I wish Looney Tunes was an option!
There are some interesting ideas in this essay, but I'm struck by how much it underestimates the effects of technology, and their implications on the economy.
Trump getting a second term seems to drastically increase the likelihood of a civil war, whereas Biden remaining in office drastically favors WWIII. Screwed either way, and I'm not sure which one is the lesser evil...
Biden's foreign policy is an aggressively boring continuation of what US policy has always been. Lol no.
Trump would be civil war AND WWIII. The dude already said he's for the genocide of Gaza and everyone knows he loves Russia and China. He would also end Democracy within the US.
whereas Biden remaining in office drastically favors WWIII.
LOL, nah. Biden vs. Trump is basically a wash in that respect.
For a Trump presidency, do you mean a civil war happening during WWIII? Because that man wouldn't do jack shit about stopping that from happening. He'd just join his buddy Putin's side of that conflict, supposing the civil war resolved in his favor. And supposing WWIII's nuclear Armageddon ending isn't reached before that point.
He will need to fall in line otherwise uncle Poots will release the pee tape.
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Trump doesn't need that threat held over his head; he's a Putin fanboi and true believer.
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Trump has zero shame. If there were such a tape and it were actually effective at blackmailing him, I'm willing to bet it it's because it's a "CP" tape, not just a "pee" tape.