Climate Crisis On Track To Destroy Capitalism, Warns Top Insurer (theguardian.com) 197
The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate. From a report: The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world's biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.
Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company's investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management. The core business of the insurance industry is risk management and it has long taken the dangers of global heating very seriously. In recent reports, Aviva said extreme weather damages for the decade to 2023 hit $2tn, while GallagherRE said the figure was $400bn in 2024. Zurich said it was "essential" to hit net zero by 2050.
Global carbon emissions are still rising and current policies will result in a rise in global temperature between 2.2C and 3.4C above pre-industrial levels. The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts, said Thallinger, who is also the chair of the German company's investment board and was previously CEO of Allianz Investment Management. The core business of the insurance industry is risk management and it has long taken the dangers of global heating very seriously. In recent reports, Aviva said extreme weather damages for the decade to 2023 hit $2tn, while GallagherRE said the figure was $400bn in 2024. Zurich said it was "essential" to hit net zero by 2050.
DTs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DTs (Score:5, Funny)
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Ironically, he may save us by reducing the constant purchasing of plastic crap by lower income folks.
Fixed that for you. The /. demographic may grumble about higher price tags, but ultimately we're just gonna suck it up and keep buying our (previously cheap) plastic crap.
Mixed feelings and all... (Score:5, Funny)
The Guardian: "Climate Crisis will destroy Capitalism"
Guardian Readers: "Pass me more coal! That fire ain't big enough!"
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Could you explain it?
DesScorp is obviously saying that The Guardian tries to shape the minds of a labor socio-economic class in the UK that is more pedestrian & proletarian about its blue-collar-focused needs & mental state than The Guardian's editorial board and journalists will ever understand.
Re:Sorry I don't get the joke (Score:4, Informative)
Except he did it with a shit coal joke, and the UK closed its last coal fired power station last year, and working class and middle class and ruling class Britons are all A-OK with that, by and large.
Re: Sorry I don't get the joke (Score:4, Funny)
Luckily I did actually screw yo momma.
Re:Sorry I don't get the joke (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing as how the site is British, I just assumed it's some variant of "don't threaten me with a good time!" Kinda like the supposed Bernie bros in 2016 who voted for Trump out of spite, in order to burn down the system that they'd believed had failed them.
Of course, I'm also open to the possibility that some British conservatives took the rage bait. Hell, we do the same thing here on Slashdot: "President Trump to do $THING - does disaster loom?" and it'll be the top commented story that day.
Re:Sorry I don't get the joke (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing as how the site is British, I just assumed it's some variant of "don't threaten me with a good time!" Kinda like the supposed Bernie bros in 2016 who voted for Trump out of spite, in order to burn down the system that they'd believed had failed them.
Of course, I'm also open to the possibility that some British conservatives took the rage bait. Hell, we do the same thing here on Slashdot: "President Trump to do $THING - does disaster loom?" and it'll be the top commented story that day.
To be completely fair though, President Trump to do $THING is often followed by disaster. Check the stock market today, for example. Oh, I know, fifth dimensional chess and all that, but still. My 401k valuations look like a rollercoaster this week.
Re:Sorry I don't get the joke (Score:4, Interesting)
GROK summary of YOY 2024 earnings for Ins. Co.s (Score:4, Informative)
Q1 2024 YOY Earnings: Allstate reported strong YOY earnings growth in Q1 2024, with revenue up 10.7% to $15.3 billion and net income at $1.4 billion. For the non-publicly traded companies, specific earnings are not publicly available, but industry data showing a 13% rise in premiums and improved loss ratios suggests a generally positive performance.
Easy to call BS on this story. And I live in CA; major insurers threaten to pull out all the time, but this is their TACTIC to get permission from state regulators to RAISE RATES.
AC post 'cus I'm modding.
GROK didn't quite get my query but above was good enough to post.
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And I live in CA; major insurers threaten to pull out all the time, but this is their TACTIC to get permission from state regulators to RAISE RATES.
It might seem like NBD in California where wildfires and mudslides have always been a regular thing, and earthquakes aren't affected by climate change. Here in Florida though, where we're getting slammed with at least one devastating hurricane (and huge expenses to clean up the mess) nearly every year, insurers actually are making good on their threats to get outta Dodge.
Not that I have any tears to shed for the insurance industry (bunch of scumbags, the whole lot of 'em), but the entire scheme only works
Re: GROK summary of YOY 2024 earnings for Ins. Co. (Score:2)
A lot of home insurers have actually left California. They didn't want to operate in a market where they couldn't sell worthless insurance to old people.
It's not working out great, but they do have a point. Our building and zoning laws allowed people to build a bunch of flammable structures close enough to each other that they could easily catch one another on fire. In large part this was done to enable our lumber industry. Instead of the broken window fallacy, it's the burnt shit shack fallacy. I live in o
Re: GROK summary of YOY 2024 earnings for Ins. Co. (Score:4, Informative)
" Our building and zoning laws allowed people to build a bunch of flammable structures close enough to each other that they could easily catch one another on fire."
And if you build your house out of brick and concrete when you live right on a fault line, you get killed when the big one hits.
Re: GROK summary of YOY 2024 earnings for Ins. Co. (Score:5, Interesting)
The predicted knock-on effects about no mortgages without insurance also seem quite plausible; losing your home without insurance is very likely to lead to bankruptcy, and that means the mortgage provider likely gets the short end of the stick too - even after clawing back what they can from whatever assets are left. I'm not so sure I'd say it will eventually lead to the collapse of the entire financial system because it had more facets than that and would almost certainly adapt (a big part of the insurer's part of it however...), but it does seem highly likely to cause massive upheaval during any adaptation which is going to have an impact on everyone.
And yet here we are, still mostly voting in leaders on agendas of doing all they can to make the problem worse rather than doing whatever they can to try and solve what they can and buy more time for their successors to try and deal with the rest. While we're all in this together, at some point it's going to turn into everyone for themselves (probably when mass climate change induced migration starts), and when that happens it's going to get very ugly, very fast.
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Pretty much this. I have raised this point on several occasions and a lot of people just scoffed at it. It's very simple, if you can't get insurance or if the premium is exorbitant in a particular area - move ASAP. The alternative, as you mentioned, is a high chance of loosing everything and going bankrupt.
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Good advice for the unencumbered. Less so for those who own property. If you can't get reasonable insurance, neither can a buyer.
Re: GROK summary of YOY 2024 earnings for Ins. Co. (Score:2)
And then the government (which is, in theory, the people) can decide whether to offer insurance at a loss or not.
The oligarchs will beat climate change to it (Score:5, Interesting)
At the rate we are going we are going to be a kleptocracy long before climate change breaks down our civilization. Techno feudalism
Good point... (Score:3)
Actually maybe this is what Musk and Co. are doing...
They can see the collapse and expect it to go in similar way to Roman Empire - with feudal structure they can have full control of....
Musk and Trump both (Score:2)
I suppose Trump will probably die before it comes to that. But you never know he comes from a ridiculously long-lived family.
Just one of the things that really pisses me off about this world is people do not take into account just how valuable it is to come fr
Climate change is real but this isnt the threat (Score:4, Informative)
Climate change is real and it will raise costs for insurance, but the real driver behind raising costs for insurance is the inflationary monetary supply. The cost to insure a building is far higher in 2025 than it was in 1980, not because its more likely to be destroyed but because the cost for replacement is so much higher. The labor isnt there, the materials arent there, all of the economic value has been sucked out of the economy and replaced with air.
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There can be a cause and effect between the two. Global Warming creates more damage so thereby requiring far more effort to both maintain and rebuild, and therefore raises the costs of everything, including insurance.
During the pandemic I heard an interesting take on what creates inflationary pressure. Often it is due simply to supply shortages. If there is money available but the supply is suddenly restricted, what remains commands a premium. This is considered inflationary when affecting broad categor
Destruction is more than an election cycle away (Score:3, Insightful)
Thus of little real interest to our politicians. Yes: some of the better ones, and better countries; are doing things but they get a lot of flack from their political opposition -- especially the right. Far too many just lie about it.
Spreading the Risk (Score:3)
Setting aside the idiotic premise (Score:2, Insightful)
...so there was no investment or capitalism before insurance?
Pretty sure that'd be a fucking surprise to the Assyrian merchants trundling all over Mesopotamia ca 1400bc.
And this is bad? (Score:2)
Thank you Mother Nature for giving us a hand.
As We Know It (Score:2)
Insurance is a parasite. It was never necessary for capitalism to succeed. The burden of insurance distorts the market so much, it would be a great relief if it were to fail. Of course, it would destroy our economy as we know it, but capitalism would persist.
Re:As We Know It (Score:5, Informative)
Insurance is a fundamental necessity for any system with private ownership. It allows risk to be shared so that everyone pays a little bit to protect them against bad luck wiping them out economically. It is fundamentally the same as the concept of a company, or investing in a business venture - multiple people coordinating their resource use to allow them to achieve things no individual otherwise could.
Without it, the big projects only happen under despotic rulership and that's really not great for the average person.
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It allows risk to be shared
It allows risk to be securitized. All you have to do to protect yourself is to diversify your portfolio. There is no evidence that CDSs [wikipedia.org] were ever a good buy, aside from being bundled with garbage mortgage backed securities in order to con the market and get better bond ratings.
In 2008, they should have made anyone expecting payment on a CDS to bring in the underlying defaulted security as proof of insurable interest. Otherwise, it's like buying fire insurance on your neighbor's house and waiting for it to
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While I won't claim it happens in practice, especially for the 'big' players gaming the system, the fundamentals of insurance include, 'you can only insure a pre-existing risk' (so you shouldn't be able to get a policy to insure your next game of poker before entering a casino), and 'you can't get insurance on someone else's risk' (like a fire policy on someone else's real estate when you don't have a personal stake in it).
Of course, if you let finance bros near the regulators and legislators, and it's a ma
Re: As We Know It (Score:2)
How does diversifying your portfolio protect you from your house burning down or being blown over?
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You just go live in one of your other houses. Or you can sell some of your massive stock holdings and buy another one. /s
Sheesh... poor people are soo dumb.
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Obviously you're supposed to own multiple houses, in different parts of the country.
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You have enough wealth in other forms to move or rebuild.
Re: As We Know It (Score:2)
So protect yourself by being extremely wealthy. Not really a winning solution for the 99%.
Re: As We Know It (Score:2)
Without insurance, the non wealthy couldn't afford the risk of things like buying a house (or a car for many), or getting sick.
In that case ... (Score:3, Interesting)
They already burn down businesses and generate all the associated greenhouse gasses.
Current Policies have no upper bound (Score:2)
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And yet, none on those complaining the most are willing to cancel commercial air travel. Quite the opposite.
"As the industry moves into a new era of growth, the airport industry must focus on financial viability, operational efficiency, and sustainability. From 2024 to 2043, global passenger traffic is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.4% to reach 17.7 billion passengers. Based on the latest data, long-term forecasts now estimate a loss of 3 to 4 years of growth potential in glo
Capitalism doesn't need any help (Score:4, Insightful)
Capitalism is a lovely motivational system for a few generations, until the wealth concentration is too great.
That's why to make it last, you need a regulated market that includes a wealth tax to prevent the runaway wealth concentration issue. And why you need a decent education system so the population understands why it's necessary. And a combination of responsible free speech and a free press to keep everyone up to date on those who are trying to subvert the system. And an adversarial legal system divorced from the political system. And a proper democracy to allow the population to throw out bad leaders.
When you allow obscene wealth concentration, you get a handful of people who can control speech, kill education, subvert the law, and end democracy. Any civics teacher or historian could tell you that... but you have to be willing to listen.
The guardian - the bastion for the entitled (Score:2, Interesting)
What does this have to do with "capitalism?" (Score:5, Insightful)
The damage at 3C will be so great that governments will be unable to provide financial bailouts and it will be impossible to adapt to many climate impacts
If "the damage is so great that governments will be able to provide bailouts" then this suggests that whatever "ism" you choose to mention is going to be equally fucked, here. So why are the alarm bells ringing for capitalism in particular? Is socialism going to somehow magically solve this problem?
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Nah.
"Despotism" will do just fine; Warlord Bob isn't going to bail you out when your crop fails, he's just going to order you beaten until morale improves.
Re:What does this have to do with "capitalism?" (Score:4, Insightful)
then this suggests that whatever "ism" you choose to mention is going to be equally fucked
You are completely correct, but I think that applies to catastrophic scenarios. A major climate apocalypse will stress the ability to respond and and recover, and it doesn't matter what system of government or banking is involved.
I think there has to be a distinction between catastrophic events and responses - versus - "life as usual" under a new set of rules and constraints. In the article ( https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com] ) I think that is what they were implying when they said:
The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism ... with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate
Even without acute catastrophic events (earthquake, hurricane, tornado, flood, fires, etc.), climate change will increase predictable or anticipated risks. For certain projects like a new housing development or a business district in such and such area, or insuring farmers' crops in certain areas, the risks of failure will be so predictably high that an insurer knows it could not meet the payout if disaster struck - it would bankrupt them. So, they cannot take on that account.
For capitalism, an investor hopes that the project they fund succeeds, and everybody profits. They also accept risk of failure for business and market factors - such is the nature of venture capitalism. But, if the enterprise is wiped by unanticipated natural disaster, that is where insurance comes in. And, if the insurance companies cannot insure a project because such risks are so high, then the investors may think twice about committing capital to a venture. No investment, no ventures, then no new projects, no progress (ironically, even possibly for businesses that might fix the climate problems). Individuals who lose houses or businesses are then bankrupted because of no recovery money - on a large scale.
For major catastrophe, you are right, no -ism may be able to support a recovery. But, for slow, regular, metered small doses of disaster, we may be at a tipping points where they are too big or too frequent for the insurers to pay, and that will affect capital development, at least in some sectors.
Let me re-write that for you (Score:3)
"We've been raking in profits and overcapitalising our risk for decades. Get ready to bail us out if something goes wrong, we've already taken all the money!"
So Long, Thanks for all the fish ... (Score:2)
Isn't that the goal? (Score:2)
Somehow it seems like every crisis can only be solved by abolishing capitalism. Over-population, ozone hole, incipient ice age, global warming, uh, sorry, climate change. You name it.
...laura
Translation (Score:2)
"It would still be possible to provide insurance but we would no longer be able to make unreasonable, horrendous profits in the process, so we're out."
No insurance? (Score:2)
He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.,/quote>
Oh noes! I can't build a mansion on the South Carolina dunes. Or along the crumbling cliff sides along the Pacific Coast highway. The system is just so unfair!
"GÃf¼nther" ?! (Score:2)
Stock picks for best (Score:2)
...Mad Max fiefdom companies?
Re:Tiring (Score:5, Funny)
I was wondering how that happened.
Re:Tiring (Score:4, Funny)
Have you heard of Fournier's Gangrene? Cause it makes your wiener fall off and is made worse by warming climate.
Re:Tiring (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you heard of Fournier's Gangrene? Cause it makes your wiener fall off and is made worse by warming climate.
I hear it pairs well with testicular microplastics.
Re:Tiring (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you seen "don't look up"? If not watch it and come back to read the rest of my comment.
That's very precisely what is happening right now. And you're on the side of the TV host saying "Stop ruining the mood."
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Have you seen "don't look up"? If not watch it and come back to read the rest of my comment.
That's very precisely what is happening right now. And you're on the side of the TV host saying "Stop ruining the mood."
That movie so perfectly encapsulates so much of our current society. Including the dumbass thinking he can use the planet killer to make a profit. Good grief.
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Ok, Chicken Little.
Apt analogy. From what I recall of that movie aliens did invade and the chicken was right all along.
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Better to be alarmed and actually do something about the problem than to not be alarmed and think you have more time to solve it than you actually do.
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What does any of that have to do with anything? Is any of that a reason NOT for educated people to raise the alarm? Like what are you even trying to say with this comment?
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This has literally nothing to do with my comment.
Re:Tiring (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe, you know, it really is as bad as they say. You're trying to sound like the reasonable person by saying, "Yeah it's a problem, but don't be alarmist." Except in this case the people you're calling alarmist are basing their predictions on solid evidence, and the people calling them alarmist are basing their predictions on a vague feeling that it can't really be as bad as all that.
So who's actually being reasonable?
Re:Tiring (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the people making these predictions are actuaries. Actuaries can put a price on your grandmother and her pet poodle, I too will take them seriously.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Let it destroy capitalism. If capitalism isn't destroyed, then capitalism will destroy humanity.
Bold of you to assume it won't just be replaced by a worse *ism.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
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Re: Good (Score:2)
And he's just 14 years old !
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Jesus, just when I didn't think anyone could say anything dumber than rsilvergun you pop your head up and spout utter garbage. The "old people" your describing are baby boomers who I will fully admit ruined the planet but from completely hard left of your description.
I think the people your actually trying to describe is Gen X who after watching the utter failure of our parents in the 1970's and 1980's are mostly center right as a generation. I'll let you in on a little secrete, we have never had any power and never will our parents fucked us out of a better life that there parents gave them and then held onto power until the last couple of years.
My only hope for the future is that Gen Z and Alpha can slightly un-fuck the world after the boomers die out.
I'm GenX, so I know what I'm saying when I say this. We were born, told to get the fuck out of the way so our parents could continue having a good time, and most all of us have stayed out of the way so effectively we're nothing at all to the powers that be. On the bright side, most of us don't spend all day every day whining about it, because we got used to the idea pretty early on that nobody wants to hear word one from us, so we pretty much just keep our heads down and try to carve out a little niche of peace for ourselves while the world burns around us.
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My only hope for the future is that Gen Z and Alpha can slightly un-fuck the world after the boomers die out.
You’re talking about the very ones making our energy world burn because of shitcoin mining they invented.
If that’s their idea of un-fucking the world, don’t hold your breath.
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I didn't say it was a great hope.
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My critique of old people blaming woke was to the claim that young people specifically have some problem rediscovering bad -isms, and you hopped over that point entirely so you could race to (apparently) your preferred argument over who fucked everything up. I don't care, that was never my point
And, newsflash--yes, boomers are old, the presence of people decades years older does not change that, but what I described applies to older generations too, especially about their hivemind support for Israel
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I skipped over your -isms because it's a stupid line of thought. Once your get past pasty ass EU style socialism it's all a dictatorship wrapped up in "people's party" lines which always starts and ends in bloodbaths from ether spectrum of politics. It's time to get past your faulty college curriculum and join the real world.
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I'm pretty confident that Trump is the last of the boomers as Vance will more likely be the first Millennial president barring something insanely stupid or the democrats finding a half way decent candidate (I'm not above voting for a "good" democrat, just not a progressive). I doubt we will ever have a Gen X president.
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What one could be worse than one that destroys humanity? One that destroys humanity and ridicules it before?
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Let it destroy capitalism. If capitalism isn't destroyed, then capitalism will destroy humanity.
Look at the bright side. Mother nature gettin' right pissed just might take care of both capitalism *AND* humanity.
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[raccoons staring in from just past the firelight]
Wonder if North America's B-Team will do better?
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Look at the bright side. Mother nature gettin' right pissed just might take care of both capitalism *AND* humanity.
George Carlin had it right, “the earth isn’t going anywhere, we are.”
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Look at the bright side. Mother nature gettin' right pissed just might take care of both capitalism *AND* humanity.
George Carlin had it right, “the earth isn’t going anywhere, we are.”
Just think how happy the cockroaches will be!
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Let it destroy capitalism. If capitalism isn't destroyed, then capitalism will destroy humanity.
This is the same argument the maggots are using to justify destroying the government instead of fixing it, with "the government" changed to "capitalism" and "family values" crossed out and "humanity" written in.
Capitalism is not worse than other isms, it's letting ANY system run without sufficient oversight (which also means citizen involvement.) You cannot take your hands off the reins, ever, or the horse will scrape you off on a tree and run free.
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Capitalism is not worse than other isms, it's letting ANY system run without sufficient oversight (which also means citizen involvement.) You cannot take your hands off the reins, ever, or the horse will scrape you off on a tree and run free.
100% spot on, its authoritarianism that is the problem, the more distributed the government power and accountability is among its citizens the healthier and better it is for everything, even capitalism. For capitalism to meet that distributed allotment you need substantial system charges placed on the wealthy, no matter how they structure it, so that the system can continue to function for everyone. Letting the wealth concentrate has been the cause of rebellion after rebellion in history.
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9 million people a year die from famine or famine related disease. This is caused by capitalism and just one way in which people die as a result of capitalism.
How many people die each year because they can't get needed healthcare? How many people die from pollution caused by deregulated capitalists? How many die on the streets because they don't have homes?
The reality is that people die either way, its just a lot slower and just as needless a death. Lots of isms lead to the same outcome, it just looks a bi
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"Citizen Involvement" happened it was called an election I'm sorry your side lost but on the bright side the current administration is getting better polling than the last three presidents before him.
I understand that your bubble has been shattered that has to be hard to take but fear not your side will get in power again in a decade or so.
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That's because the government/capitalist system is so corrupt that its beyond saving and the only real way to fix it is for it to collapse. It is sad and a lot of people will suffer, but 40 years of no significant action proves that to me.
You need the support of billionaires to even run for president. There is no way that the government will pass any law that will significantly effect the super rich. And even if they could, the rich would simply take their money to another country, which will be only to hap
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
That's because the donkeys keep growing it to criminally wasteful sizes. ... The thing needs pruning. Badly. And one side wants to prune, and the other side clutches pearls and starts with the whining. Same thing in 1980 with Reagan. Oh man. The Reagan Cuts.
The Reagan "cuts" didn't exist. I do remind you that the size of government grew under Reagan.
If you're looking to name a president under whom the government was cut, that was... Bill Clinton.
https://www.economicpolicyjour... [economicpo...ournal.com]
and, a good article about Reagan's massive government spending increase here: https://theweek.com/articles/6... [theweek.com]
Re: Good (Score:4, Interesting)
That's fine, Congress has the power to decommission federal agencies and reduce spending, so barring a constitutional amendment that's how it should be done. The executive branch doesn't have any such authority.
Re: Good (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, Republicans, who hold the majority in both the House and Senate, stand by silent while the executive branch usurps their authority.
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Would it make you feel better if Republicans voted on it to create the same end result
Yes. Objectively yes. 100% yes. It would show they care about the constitution rather than what is going on now.
Re: Good (Score:3)
Yes. Then they would at least have to go on record voting for it, and defend that vote to their constituents, rather than just letting the President do it for them.
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Let it destroy capitalism. If capitalism isn't destroyed, then capitalism will destroy humanity.
There are too many other things that would be destroyed by climate change. If the cost of reducing or eliminating the consequences of climate change is that capitalism survives, then fine, I can live with that.
Climate change is an existential threat. Capitalism is not. But I'm not saying both don't cause harm.
Re: Good (Score:2)
Re: Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you considered that climate change is the natural consequence of Capitalism?
Yes I have. Then I considered there are countries one would not consider particularly capitalistic who are among the biggest contributors of greenhouse gasses.
I think it's industrialism -- not capitalism -- that has led us to where we are. And I think industrialism and capitalism could help to get us out of this mess, if they're properly directed.
Re: Good (Score:2)
"Then I considered there are countries one would not consider particularly capitalistic who are among the biggest contributors of greenhouse gasses."
But there are not, unless you include very stupid people easily confused by marketing in your group of people, and nobody should be looking to them for advice on anything.
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Re: Good (Score:2)
Corporatism is just a type of capitalism. It is not a wholly different thing. And it is also arguably a natural phase for capitalism to achieve on its way to self destruction.
People think capitalism means a lot of things which it flatly does not. It does not mean a single thing except capital controlling the means of production, which corporatism is certainly an example of, only with extra steps.
Re: Good (Score:3)
"Capitalism provides everyone the means to save themselves."
That's a load of shit. It provides people with capital the means of controlling production, that's it. In the absence of a meaningful system of rule of law, it is first and foremost a vehicle for depriving others of agency.
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It'll take a lot of brainwashing to overpower a lifetime of first-hand experience.
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I was just going to say something like that. Capitalism is an idea, a pattern of human behavior, not a thing. The existing companies may fail, investments may shift, but the idea will remain.
Even after a climate disaster, I'm quite sure all the surviving humans will continue to specialize, trade, save, and invest and that's what capitalism is.