“DO IT ROCKAPELLA!”

Yes

I hate this country so fucking much.

The national urban poverty rate plummeted from 52.9% to 38.1% in six months, while extreme poverty halved to 8.2%, marking the sharpest decline in decades.

President Javier Milei’s administration achieved this while slashing public spending by 5% of GDP and navigating a 1.7% economic contraction in 2024. Key drivers included targeted welfare programs and inflation control.

The government expanded the Universal Child Allowance (AUH) to cover teens up to age 17 and increased food card coverage, directly aiding vulnerable households.

So they cut spending overall, but expanded their Universal Child Allowance. I mean, that right there is probably what did most of the poverty reduction. The article doesn’t really say where the spending cuts came from. Could be they just cut a lot of waste, but it could be they’ve made cuts to important government services, and the effects haven’t necessarily been felt yet.

The IMF projects 5.5% GDP growth for 2025, fueled by rebounding consumption and investment. This turnaround challenges conventional wisdom that austerity inevitably harms vulnerable populations, showing market-oriented policies can coexist with poverty reduction when paired with precise safety nets.

Does it? Again, we don’t know what’s been cut and we don’t know what the long term effects of those cuts will be. All we know is that they made significant cuts overall, while also expanding two specific safety net programs. Admittedly, that has resulted in a significant reduction in the urban poverty and extreme poverty rates, for now, which is undoubtedly a good thing, but only time will tell if those will last.

This reads like neoliberal propaganda, but honestly Javier Milei is right of even most neoliberals. I seriously doubt the expansion of the Universal Child Allowance and the increased food card coverage will last. I’m certain Milei will want to cut those programs, at some point. He is anarchocapitalist adjacent, so I’m sure he wants to get as close as possible to no government spending at all, eventually.

It’s hard to explain, but I have a hard time believing it’s just sadism. Maybe it has to do with the productivity gains from a four day work week taking time to realize. Like you said, over the long run you get better productivity, but maybe the corporations are just more interested in short term profits.

Want happier employees?

No. American corporations absolutely do not care about how happy their employees are. They only care about maximizing profits, and the best way to do that is to squeeze as much productivity out of their workers while also paying those workers as little as possible.

They know the workers aren’t there to find fucking happiness. Few are so privileged. Most people go to work not because it makes them happy, but because they need the god damn money, to keep a roof over their head and to put food on the dinner table, and as everything gets more expensive, the workers need more and more money, to stave off homelessness and destitution. Happiness, Jesus Christ. What a luxury!

The purpose of capitalism isn’t to make people happy. It’s to make profit for owners. That’s it.

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“The people that think that’s toxic don’t understand the start-up game, and they’re just wrong,” he said. “The game is intense. And by the way, if you don’t do that, eventually, you’re out of a job.

For those who disagree, working at a startup is a choice, Hoffman insisted.

But the reward on the other side is second to none; the 100 or so first employees at LinkedIn don’t need to work anymore, he added. Microsoft purchased the professional networking platform for $26.2 billion in 2016.

That’s good for the 100 or so first employees at LinkedIn, but I’m certain that the VAST majority of employees who bust their ass trying to help get a start-up off the ground don’t have anywhere near that end result. I’m sure it isn’t worth it for 99% of employees of start-ups.

But if you want to take on the challenge, hoping that maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones, go for it, but don’t fucking drag a spouse/significant other, or children into that nightmare. If you want to commit your entire life to a start-up, then fucking commit.

I agree, rebuilding a US manufacturing base will require competent planning and management, but those are bad words here in the US, when it comes to the economy. To many Americans, competent, central economic management, direction, and planning is tyrannical rule by elites. To those Americans, Trump is the antidote. You might point out that there is significant irony in that. I agree, it is ironic, but that irony is completely lost on many millions of Americans.

the US relies heavily on imports and doesn’t have a strong manufacturing base for most products

And that’s the problem Trump is seemingly trying to fix. I agree he’s not going about the right way. His approach is a kind of clumsy shock therapy, that will cause chaos in at least the short term and may or may not produce the desired result, eventually, but reshoring production and rebuilding a strong manufacturing base for the US is a goal shared by the Democrats, as well.

Corporate profits are higher than ever largely because corporations have been able to get greater productivity out of workers without increasing pay. If wages had kept up with productivity, profits wouldn’t be nearly as high.

Edit: the reason this is a mystery to so many mainstream economists is because they don’t want to reconcile with one simple fact: in order for profits to keep going up, worker wages must be suppressed while also increasing productivity. Why do you think so many billions of dollars are being spent on AI development? Many see it as the key to ever increasing profits, because the worker, and their pesky demand for adequate compensation can be removed entirely.

I have the original ultimate wireless controller, and it works flawlessly for me on Fedora 41.

Block the community. Block all Linux communities. Seriously. If it bothers you that much, save yourself the aggravation and just block anything Linux related. It’s pretty easy. I have several communities on my block list.

That looks too good to be an official Sega product.

Pfft, Linux users don’t date. We’re all virginal, paranoid shut-ins.

Women can have it all: all the responsibilities, all the obligations, and all the stress.

Fedora, so missionary position, but the lights are on and we’re on top of the covers.

We live in a society that generally looks down on working class people. Not all working class people, equally, though, as not everyone who sells their labor is culturally or socially in the same class. A professional athlete making tens of millions of dollars a year can’t really be counted in the same social class as a factory worker making $50K a year. That being said, very, very few people get rich by earning a wage. Generally speaking, if you want to get rich you have to have access to capital.

And getting rich is the goal. One’s position in the social hierarchy is closely tied to their wealth and income. For this reason, there’s a strong incentive to NOT do work that doesn’t pay a lot. Unfortunately for all of us, much of that work is absolutely essential for the functioning of any modern society. So, there’s a disconnect. The incentives are skewed, away from some of the most essential work and toward some of the least essential work. I think the long term effects of this could be disastrous, as we see more and more shortages of workers in essential fields.

But fear not, the capitalists have anticipated this and they have a solution: immigrants. Just bring people in from other countries to do the essential yet low wage, low status work. I don’t really think that’s a solution at all, and is more or less just delaying the inevitable.