Before I retired in 2024, the “worst case scenario” in the Pentagon for the Middle East was both Straits being closed. It was not even imaginable except in PowerPoint briefs and War College gaming scenarios.
Under Pete Hegseth, it has become a reality in less than six months.
It’s pretty awesome that between the crude oil pipeline, AI development, and the hottest summer on record, every headline this week is basically that the world is about to end and there’s nothing we can do
Even if you exclude the COVID payments, by the end of Trump's second term, he will be responsible for spending:
* ~45% of ALL US federal debt *EVER*
While also spending the lowest proportional amount on record, on programs that actually benefit YOU.
Moody’s now estimating the cost of the Iran war has been $1650 per household - equivalent to $215 billion. Free college nationwide is estimated at $70 billion
Trump: "Please right your right hand. I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States. That loves us so much he can't even breath. That I will go out with my family, my friends, I'll do it any way -- I don't care if I'm registered or not, I'm going to try to cheat like hell like they do ... "
A 32-hour workweek ain’t radical, but let me tell you what is.
Since Trump’s election, the 7 wealthiest men alive-all Big Tech Oligarchs-got $1.1 trillion richer while the technology they’re building may destroy millions of jobs & the future of humanity.
Now, that’s radical.
White-collar crime steals $300 billion/year. Street crime steals $16 billion/year. Guess which one gets militarized police and mandatory minimums? The law protects capital, not people. Enforcement targets survival, not theft.
Notice that it’s all about the party losing and about Trump. It’s actually not about US citizens who are struggling to put food on the table or can’t fill their tanks up with gas or losing their healthcare.
They don’t care about helping Americans. They care about power.
This is what happens when you’re so accustomed to the benefits of modernity - sanitation, clean food & water, low infant mortality - that you forget where it all came from, how much effort it took to build, & how bad things were before. This is the literal definition of decadence
Politicians claim they can't afford universal healthcare, then give $50 billion in subsidies to oil companies that made $200 billion in profit last year. The money exists. It's just allocated to corporations, not people. Scarcity is fiction. Priority is fact.
Over the last 50 years, $79 trillion has been transferred from the bottom 90% to the top 1%.
CEOs now make 350 times more than their average workers, while 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
We can and must create an economy that works for all, not just the 1%.
Too many people are having children but are not fighting to protect the world that their children will grow up in, nor fighting for the type of world they want their children to grow up in.
Just passive and docile and self-centred.
Tweh