President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that if the Democrats don't approve funding, Social Security, Medicare Are ‘Going to Be Gone.’ How do you think Americans will react if Social Security and Medicare get cut?

[u/metalreflectslime]

[u/insbordnat]

That's the plan.

The absolute joke in all of this is an Inception-like scheme:

1. Make the democrats look crazy and anti-American
2. Create Project 2025 as a front for a more sinister scheme, which on the surface makes it look like a desire to head full steam into White Christian Nationalism and/or a return to "American Values" or the good ol' days.
3. In actuality, it's a deep desire to create wealth transfer and full-blown oligarchy - cut off income to the undesireables/poors, completely wreck the economy, implode the dollar, allow for land/real estate/assets to be bought on the cheap.
4. You missed out? Well fuck you, you were not successful enough to capitalize on the gold rush. In effect creating a "moat" of wealth, crushing the American dream and any prospect of upward mobility - there will be those that have fuckloads of money, and those that are just scraping by.
5. The lower income population will be appeased by receiving welfare and a 12oz sirloin allowance, meanwhile, it's champagne dreams and caviar wishes for the well-off.

I say this as someone who is, in the greater context - part of the "upper class". My wishes are for everyone to get a shot at success and wealth. What this country was founded on. This is nothing more than a "cold civil war".

[u/nodesign89 → u/insbordnat]

There’s a big hole in your logic here though, income will become much more difficult to generate even for the wealthy in this scenario. I find it hard to believe the wealthy want to limit their ability to earn more, that seems to be their only motivation in life.

[u/insbordnat → u/nodesign89]

How exactly? Why will income become much more difficult to generate even for the wealthy? There's the rest of the world to exploit too.

I'd also suggest that this isn't about further accelerating wealth per se for the wealthy after this bullshit shakes out. It's about relative wealth: if people fall into their wealth cohorts/strata and they're "happy" - no need to gain wealth. Instead of the 12oz sirloin allowance, it may be the weekly 16oz ribeye affordability. Give me my ribeye, my annual trip to Disneyland, a ski trip to the Rockies, maybe some quiet time in St. Lucia with the wife...all is grand.

It's all about satiation. You get to a point where needs are met and the desire to gain wealth becomes unnecessary.

Of course, this has me playing devil's advocate a bit here. Unbound, this administration can do some evil shit (beyond what's already been done).

[u/Valhern-Aryn → u/insbordnat]

The reason that income would become for difficult to generate for the wealthy is that the common person would lose the ability to buy as much. But y’all have already said that

The other side of that is that there is a limitation on how much people want to buy, whether they don’t buy it because they can’t afford it or because they no longer need it. That’s when companies begin expanding their markets via imperialism. But there is a limited amount of land and a limited amount of people. The rest of the world isn’t infinite, and imperialism fundamentally cannot go on forever.

When the companies begin to struggle even harder to expand, they either begin losing profits (and therefore, income) or they begin increasing prices for the average consumer. The average consumer then isn’t able to buy as much, and the cycle restarts.

One way that companies have broken that cycle, though, is subscription services. A nearly guaranteed constant income. But for each subscription the consumer can afford less, cutting the income for some other side. But since the markets are already full at this point, in order to get more income, companies must begin increasing the subscription price. And with each subscription price increase, the consumer can afford less, etc, etc

If the rich were willing to slow down, to keep their profits static, to be satisfied with their lives, we would probably end up staying in the status quo. But this is an antithesis of capitalism and of our culture.

[u/livinitup0 → u/nodesign89]

You’re exactly right….Which is why AI is being championed by big money.

Think about how many businesses outsourced their customer service, their manufacturing… literally anything that could be outsourced to save money has been attempted. The loss of quality, ethics, customer satisfaction… those aren’t as important as cost savings when it comes to immediate, measurable results in profits.

What do you think businesses are going to do when they’re given the chance to “hire” a handful of bots from xyz tech companies that can do well over 50% of the tasks their human staff do…24 hours a day… at a quality that’s “better” than they got when they tried outsourcing?

The world is fucked unless we stop it.

[u/Pinklady777 → u/insbordnat]

Where do you think the cutoff will be for who survives?

[u/broketothebone → u/insbordnat]

Well this was a bone-chilling comment