Mastodawn

@pluralistic : "Any good investor knows that anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. The only question is: will that halt is a controlled braking action, or a collision with reality's brick wall?"

Given the aggregate overarching greed permeating the CEO class coupled with the collective venality of the politicians profiting from granting those CEOs carte blanche, my money's on Brick Wall.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/27/use-your-mentality/#face-up-to-reality

Pluralistic: Reality-Based Communities (27 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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bsmall2 Mar 28, 2025

_Panic Rules_ by Robin Hahnel comes to mind...
@grheavyroller @pluralistic

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Gaëtan Perrault Mar 28, 2025

@grheavyroller @pluralistic I don't think we make it out of the 2020s without some form of 1929 crash.

A Pandemic, a gilded age with high stock prices, a Smoot-Hawley style president, rise of fascist governments... It's not the same song, but man does the tune sound familiar.

And a president willing to ride this through pain. Willing to tank the US dollar and stock market to make these tariffs work. An ailing superpower.

I don't see a way this ends smoothly.

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Weltzeitgeist Mar 28, 2025

@gatesvp @grheavyroller @pluralistic I agree.

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The Penguin of Evil Mar 28, 2025

@gatesvp @grheavyroller @pluralistic There is one critical difference. Most of the world will no longer give a toss. China will spin a US crash into the excuse for their self caused economic pain, Europe will be quite content to see a crashed USA become a Russian style low value resource export economy and India simply doesn't have to care any more.
It's going to suck but for Africa, India and to a fair extent China it's not a big deal once the waves die down

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Avner Mar 28, 2025

@etchedpixels @gatesvp @grheavyroller @pluralistic except I don't think the US was the same sort of linchpin then that it is now when it comes to international aid and science. "Once the waves die down" is glossing over a whole lot of death and human suffering that's already started and we haven't even hit that wall yet. Unless I've misunderstood you?

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The Penguin of Evil Mar 28, 2025

@Avner @gatesvp @grheavyroller @pluralistic The US isn't a lynchpin any more. Aid money is directly replacable by other sources (China is busy right now mopping it up). If you look at it as innovators dilemma then the US has reached the stage that it only contains lawyers and venture capitalists because they've gotten out of the rest as less profitable. That's the stage before it impodes entirely.
Agreed there will be a lot of suffering alas but it's not 1929 it's quite different.

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Heather Mar 28, 2025

@etchedpixels the way the west got out of it last time was through a massive war. Russia/China/India may not care about the economic impacts but the US has spent the last century making US problems everyone's problems.

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Jyrgen N Mar 30, 2025

@etchedpixels @gatesvp @grheavyroller @pluralistic That may be not entirely false.

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Angus McIntyre Mar 28, 2025

@gatesvp @grheavyroller @pluralistic The major difference between the coming crash and the previous one is that in 1929 the wealthy threw THEMSELVES out of windows.

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