Moralities aside, some find it liberating to stop caring what is & isn’t considered “weird.” Conformity definitely has its advantages, but at least consider the possibility that, for you, it may not be worth the costs. Take it from Al, or DEVO themselves for that matter.
As for morality, I’m not really a fan of it in its conventional senses. Philosophy prof. Hans-Georg Moeller, author of The Moral Fool: A Case for Amorality.
Okay real talk. I consider virtually all unions* in the US to be yellow unions. They are like that because, during the 20th century, all socialist/communist leadership was purged from organized labor. The unions were made into virulently anti-communist ones, for the purposes of the Cold War, but also for the purposes of declawing the labor movement. As a result, the unions don’t really work to develop class consciousness among the rank & file. And of course they don’t, because union leadership is in partnership with the capitalist class instead of antagonistic toward them. So the leadership is mostly aligned with the Democratic party and that party’s donor class, while the rank & file, having no class theory, are left susceptible to all manner of charlatanry.
(Things are worse still, if I get into labor aristocracy in the imperial core, but I’ll leave it at that.)
*One notable exception is the IWW.
Wasn’t there a huge scandal with Evergrande surrounding just how much of Chinese requirements were tied to real estate?
Yes, which is why the Chinese state intentionally popped the real estate bubble and left the capitalists out to dry.
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“We will scale up the building and supply of government-subsidized housing and improve the basic systems for commodity housing to meet people’s essential need for a home to live in and their different demands for better housing,” an English-language version of the report said.
Compare that to Obama, who bailed out the private banks at the expense of people with home mortgages, banks that knowingly wrote those bad mortgages. Michael Hudson, 2023: Why the Bank Crisis isn’t Over
The financial sector is the core of Democratic Party support, and the party leadership is loyal to its supporters. As President Obama told the bankers who worried that he might follow through on his campaign promises to write down mortgage debts to realistic market valuations in order to enable exploited junk-mortgage clients to remain in their homes, “I’m the only one between you [the bankers visiting the White House] and the mob with the pitchforks,” that is, his characterization of voters who believed his “hope and change” patter talk.
The Federal Reserve is just the cartel of the US private banks, whereas banking in China is predominantly state owned. The Chinese state both runs these banks and has fiat monetary sovereignty, so it’s not answerable to the capitalists like the US is.
Bonus info on fiat monetary sovereignty: Why The Government Has Infinite Money
Not to mention, China has its own homeless problem - let’s not act like they’re doing so much better.
[Citation needed]
A “curious approach on billionares” sound much like billionares apologia to me.
Since you’re not going to actually read it, I guess you’ll never know.
A quick search for “chinese megayachts” will show what you are looking for.
I didn’t say there aren’t billionaires with megayachts, I said, “Do you see Chinese state functionaries tooling around the world in megayachts?”
What an odd thing to wonder. Do you see Chinese state functionaries tooling around the world in megayachts?
I don’t think this concern is justified in most cases, but I’m not really in position to argue. If this were a common problem, I think I’d have heard about it, but outside of the occasional sensationalist news piece or Hollywood/TV thriller, I haven’t.
I do know an old joke, though: Before visiting a foreign country, it’s important to memorize three phrases in the local language:
I don’t know what a “treat monster nature” is. I haven’t traveled much outside the core, so I can’t speak to this first-hand, but my impression is that most of the world is mostly a safe place to visit. There aren’t a lot of places that are going to punish you for renting hotel rooms and eating at restaurants as an American. Most people around the world know how to distinguish between America the empire and a civilian American spending money into the local economy.
I don’t fully understand your question, and I doubt that I’m qualified to answer, because I have virtually every privilege, and I’ve never thought about international travel but from my own easy mode perspective.
You say “travel the world,” but where realistically will you travel? Westerners tend to travel almost exclusively to other imperial core countries and to popular tourist spots in the periphery that cater to imperial core tourists.
https://dan.mastohon.com/@danhon/111925461009889302
more in thread + https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBdZ8F
A few more examples:
Found via JWZ: Helpful Notices
Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles