The pond's on a break, but couldn't resist this evocation by Matt Wuerker of cartoonists past ...
Wueker himself isn't beyond the odd historical allusion ...
Beyond the ancien régime, the pond still enjoys the evocation of mythical critters as a way of bashing real ones ...
And here's a couple of matters the pond is pleased to be taking a break from ...
Oh DP! Thanks for "couldn't resist this evocation by Matt Wuerke". And Herbert Block.
ReplyDeleteSooo good. And the soulless ghouls exposed as just dancers with the devil. Needs to be front page at all times in all places. I wonder if the scribblers' get the same hitnof dopamine as you and Loonpondians?
Thanks for the toons DP!
ReplyDelete"“The Forbes 30 Under 30 have collectively raised $5.3B in funding,” the tech entrepreneur Chris Bakke tweeted on Tuesday. “The Forbes 30 Under 30 have also been arrested for frauds and scams worth over $18.5B. Incredible track record.” The first number comes from Forbes and the second is Bakke’s own back-of-an-envelope calculation, but you get the gist: the line between innovator and fraudster seems to have become alarmingly thin."
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/06/forbes-30-under-30-tech-finance-prison
Via...
We just need Donald Trump to get the fuck off the roof.
"This week the International Monetary Fund placed a collapse in AI stock as a top five global risk along with nuclear war. That is quite a statement, but it is not an exaggeration. The US stock market is so reliant on Big Tech just now and the US is so reliant on stock markets these days and the world is still so reliant on the US as the foundation of the global economy that risk means big risk.
"But from whence does the risk emanate? The short answer to this question is 'from the same place that subprime debt risk came from', because basically AI investment is almost exactly the same financial scam as subprime. I am not going to go into all of this here but you'll need a slightly longer explanation than that...
"So here's the basics; there is a gold rush and you want to profit from the gold rush but the chances of success are a long way from guaranteed (your plot might not have gold on it) so there's a lot of risk involved. How do you make the profit without the risk? Basically you don't seek to profit from the actual gold but from the potential for gold.
"You'd get first refusal on a plot and then you'd go to investors and explain that the plot has lots of gold (‘probably’ in small print) making it a highly profitable opportunity. So investors pay for the plot in return for a share, you take a management fee and some share of the gold as well and so you... can't lose. All you have to do is persuade them there is gold on the plot, whether there is or isn't.
...
"The global economy is based around things that economists tell you are 'necessary'. The analogy with the priesthood is not a loose one; literally, they dictate reality to us because they are the ultimate power and decide reality.
"So let me just have a go here. No, raising interest rates doesn't lower supply shock inflation. No GDP growth does not reliably make the public wealthier. No, wealthy never trickles down, it congeals upwards. No, complex and risky financial products and practices like derivatives or CDOs or short selling are not essential to the economy. No, an honest man never, ever needs a shell company.
"What is important about every single one of these examples (and countless others) is that in any other context they would be considered fraud, illegal, immoral. If I lied and charged you for a roof repair that wasn't needed and wasn't done, that would be illegal. That's what is happening with inflation. We're being lied to that the roof needs fixed when actually we just need Donald Trump to get the fuck off the roof.
...
https://www.commonweal.scot/articles/magazine-pdmba