The billionaires and Wall Street are stealing all of our money. We don't regulate any business. And the fuckhead in charge certainly isn't helping.

It feels like a matter of when, not if. The only question is what topples with it when the correction comes.

The rich will get to jet off to their little utopias, while the rest of us will be left to fight for what's left of the scraps. Of course, all of this has been greatly accelerated under Fuckhead 2.0.

All I can guess is that it's to cause panic/uprisings, and (of course) trigger emergency powers.

Putin seems to have been fomenting this for a long time, "day one" as we say, back in 2015 or so.

Made my analysis a while back. Might need some fine-tuning, and perhaps a bit more emphasis on "who has the videos?" from the dabauchery of the Trump-Epstein sex, blackmail and money-laundering empire.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220295160

Dictators arise in chaos. He's the "master" of chaos.



or KAOS.

There's no great global conspiracy, There's just a lot of stupid selfish people looking after number one. The only solutions are:

1. make them be less selfish and stupid (hard) or

2. get together to back strong institutions that expose and disincentivise stupidity and selfishness (easier).

Putin, Xi, Kim, Netanyahu, The musical chairs of Hamas ... have exhibited extreme cruelty.

To our great disgrace, Trump is emulating them, but he is incompetent in the extreme.

I really think that people worldwide have to raise the bar, demanding leaders of real merit.

But they are drawn like flies to racisim, xenophobia ... you know the list ... and they get played

I am sure that there have been many wannabe tyrants, but they just didn't have the backing of enough suckers to be played, or like Jim Jones, had a relatively small (but still too large) following.

There are tipping points in these chaotic systems.

I'll skip a philosophical discussion. Buddhism basically says that ignorance is the root cause , but as I noted, it's up to the many to have high standards and thereby to form a block on runaway poisons.

One doesn't take power without some assent, except, I suppose, through extreme force alone, and I don't doubt that the evil operators behind the scenes are contemplating that.

IF (big if) you are able to afford it, and your purchases are not frivolous, DO spend money.

The workers whose jobs depend on those stores staying open say thanks! in advance. Pay cash or by check if it’s at all convenient, so that the credit card companies don’t siphon off 4% from what the store really takes in.

For the last 800 years or so, there has been an open air market in our town square, where local farmers, small food merchants, etc. set up three times a week. We buy there when we can. There is even a local baker who attaches a huge multi-level bread-baking oven to a pickup, drives it onto the square, and sells freshly-baked loaves of bread and breakfast rolls right out of the oven. The aroma is seductive (betcha Peppridge Faahm doesn’t remembah that). The people of our small town crowd the market in all kinds of weather. It’s not always cheap, but it IS always fresh, and it keeps the tradition (and the farmers) from dying out.

I don't recall urging a second mortgage in order to be able to afford a Big Mac. Like Karl Marx wrote, "from each, according to his ability...."

Some are restructuring. And not necessarily via chapter 11. 7/11 is closing several low performing stores, but not goibg out of business. They are planning newer, smaller stores.

Family Dollar is closing several stores fur the same reason, but is not going out of business. New, smaller stores again.

Dollar General is closing a small number compared to the other 2 companies and is expanding.
.
The closings will hurt the employees and their families and communities at locations that are shutting down. But those companies are not going out of busines

some sort of financial crash.

Right now a lot of the economy is propped up on AI and building data centers, seems like.

. .of Depression?
Since when.

I doubt the OP would have thought those 4 years were indicative of depression.

IKEA is not going out of business. Neither are any others in that list.

Now it is down and slumping, but I couldn't find evidence it has dropped 14 straight months. But consumer sentiment is at all time lows and that effects spending significantly.

Joe Biden built the best economy for working people in my lifetime (born in early 70s). The media crapped all over it so much that even most democrats don't know how good it was. Joe Biden actually created conditions in the US where the bottom 50% saw more gains than the top 10% both in real dollars and as a % of net worth.

The media hated Biden, think about Jobs Reports
Actual headlines from some of Biden's job reports vs for Trump's latest:

"November Jobs Report Is Another Big Miss For Joe Biden" Added 210,000 jobs November 2021.

"the actual number came in at a dismal 266,000" April of 2021

"Another big miss for Biden on jobs." January of 2022 when we added 466,000 jobs.

Actual headline from Trump's latest job report.

"The Blockbuster jobs report showing we added 115,000 jobs."

That's what we're up against, the corporate media who has an agenda that is anti worker and anti middle class.

Little did they know what was coming.