• darkernations
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    1 month ago

    Americans—including this author—believe that the international security order the United States constructed in the aftermath of World War II and has been the guardian of in the decades since then has been a remarkable era in human history. This unprecedented “long peace” has provided stability that has enabled not only Americans but most of the other eight billion souls with whom we share this small planet to enjoy greater increases in income, health, and well-being than in any other era of recorded history.

    Only a self-deluded parasitic culture could produce such a failure of a human being.

  • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    Tomorrow’s Headline: IMF announces new metric for defining the size of the economy. This metric removes all industries that actually build things and instead only includes the financial industry.

    • redtea
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      1 month ago

      I concur. I liked how creative it was, still.

  • collapse_already@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    Good for them. They have the largest population. They should have the biggest economy. India is starting to catch up too. I don’t understand the handwringing.

    • HorseRabbit@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      Weird and racist.

      Also doesn’t the US actually have a vast slave labour force? Aren’t 1 in 15 black men in for profit prisons making fucking licence plates or pudding or whatever.

      • l0tusc0bra
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        1 month ago

        Hillary had actual slaves extremely cheap prisoner-servants at the governor’s mansion.

        • -6-6-6-
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          1 month ago

          Am remembering that my participating in government teacher had a picture of himself posing with actual Hillary Clinton on a framed photo on his desk.

          A ghoul memento. And a lesson in P.I.G.

      • AnarchoAnarchist [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        https://maltajusticeinitiative.org/12-major-corporations-benefiting-from-the-prison-industrial-complex-2/

        Making frozen McDonald’s hamburgers, working in call centers for Verizon and Sprint, making jeans and fancy panties, and taking reservations for American airlines.

        Not to mention the work farms that produce food, raise and process cattle.

        A typical American, over the course of a week, consumes several products and utilizes several services that are reliant on prison slave labor.

      • diegeticscream[all]🔻
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        1 month ago

        Unnecessarily pedantic point: for-profit prisons are less common (though they exist). The companies that scalp money from the prisoners for goods and services, and the companies that “pay” them for labor are all for profit.

    • l0tusc0bra
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      1 month ago

      It’s true, I’m one of the slaves. They have us towing giant blocks of granite through the Gobi desert to make a 500 ft tall monument to Xi.

    • darkernations
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      1 month ago

      A lot of us here were liberals (both “left wing” and right wing) once.

      Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015 (60 min read)

      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X

      Rich countries rely on a large net appropriation of resources from the global South. Drain from the South is worth over $10 trillion per year, in Northern prices. The South’s losses outstrip their aid receipts by a factor of 30. Unequal exchange is a major driver of underdevelopment and global inequality. The impact of excess resource consumption in the North is offshored to the South.

      Understanding Unequal Exchange: How does trade imperialism affect the global working class? (20 min read)

      https://anticonquista.com/2021/05/19/understanding-unequal-exchange-how-does-trade-imperialism-affect-the-global-working-class/

      “You cannot resist for very long a truth you discover for yourself.” - NC