Mark Pertz
782 posts
@Coinvo ALERT ALERT PSA.
Always remember. When the product is free. You are the product!!. Maybe this time is different 🤣
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@RepMikeLevin Yeah but he is criticizing UK immigration policies. A true humanitarian.
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The Trump DOJ is now arguing in federal court that Elon Musk’s AI company should be allowed to run dozens of unpermitted gas turbines polluting a Black community in Mississippi. They also argued the federal government should have the power to shut down citizen lawsuits like this one entirely.
This is the Justice Department intervening on behalf of a polluter, against the people breathing the air it’s polluting.
That’s not protecting national security. That’s protecting Elon Musk.
Elon Musk just became a trillionaire. The community next to his data center is breathing smog-forming nitrogen oxide and formaldehyde.
nytimes.com/2026/06/16/cli…
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@Tyler_Neville_ An optimistic cynic. Question most things as a skeptic while also knowing everything will work out in the long run.
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If you make it to 30 and you aren’t cynical about the way the world works, you are a sheep.
If you are 40 are can retain your optimism in the face of all that, you are a champ.
I’d like to imagine that once you’re 75 and you can stare pessimism & death in the face & laugh, you are an absolute effing warrior.
We should all aspire to that.
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@ArthurMacwaters When no other form of protest works violence will occur. Not a liberal where everyone just needs a hug. Get rid of that 1% but to think that the 1% goes away is misguided. Only the faces will change.
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1% of people account for 63% of all violent crimes.
0.2% of people ever commit murder, and **67% of all murders**are committed by people with prior arrests
You can literally just fix crime by not tolerating people who show a history of being destructive to society.
Arthur MacWaters@ArthurMacwaters
It baffles me that for centuries it was completely un-controversial to kill pedophiles and murderers and now it’s like a big deal to suggest that Can someone explain this to me?
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@DowdEdward That was fast. All this AI hype around intelligence but Noone has come up with the correct prompt how to address these issues. Water issues, income issues? One would think these are basic answer and solutions issues.
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Said differently…”we didn’t realize this would become a commoditized industry…please save us!”
First Squawk@FirstSquawk
ANTHROPIC CEO: WITHOUT HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS IN REVENUE, AI COMPANIES COULD FACE EXISTENTIAL RISK
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@ihtesham2005 I agree 100%. When wondering why billionaires still work it is in no way for the good of the people. One reason to obtain money is leisure time. Doesn't mean these guys are bad people. Maybe it's how fragile that wealth is. Can't be certain but never made sense to me.
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Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire last week and David Sacks explained why he does not have a single extra dollar in his bank account. Most people reacting to this number do not understand what they are reacting to.
Sacks was blunt about it.
Elon's balance sheet is identical to what it was the day before the IPO. Same assets. Same everything. The only thing that changed is that the public placed a higher value on the shares of a company he already owned. He is not selling. He is under a one year lockup. And Sacks predicts he holds far longer than that because SpaceX is his life's work.
Freeberg extended the argument into something deeper.
Wealth is not stuff. A house depreciates. Food gets eaten. Clothes wear out. Every physical thing you own is a wasting asset. The reason humanity is more prosperous than it was a thousand years ago is not because we have more stuff. It is because we built machines that make stuff. Corporations are machines. SpaceX is a machine that makes satellites, launch vehicles, broadband connections from orbit. The trillion dollar valuation is the market placing a present value on everything that machine will produce for the next fifty years.
Then Sacks said the thing that lands hardest.
A SpaceX welder just made a million dollars in company stock. That is not a story about an owner getting rich. That is a story about the line between labor and capital being fluid. You start as one. You become the other. Karl Marx built an entire philosophy on the assumption that line was fixed.
It was never fixed.
It never will be.
WATCH THE FULL PODCAST ON @theallinpod
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@travelingflying Uh oh. Musk getting feedback on being too rich. Gotta get that branding machine in gear. If you don't stop the negative opinions early enough it could get costly. Never underestimate the power of the brand.
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Elon Musk: ”DEI is simply racism rebranded. I'm against racism and sexism, no matter who it's directed against.
It is entirely possible to be racist against White people or Black people or Asians or anyone else. We should really accept no racism or sexism in any form, no matter what it's called.
DEI and wokeism essentially advocate racism and sexism. That is wrong. They're also anti-meritocratic. We should really, in my view, have a meritocratic society where people succeed as a function of their abilities and how hard they work. That should be the only way that people succeed, not through some arbitrary measures that are discriminatory.”
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Unpopular opinion: If you become a billionaire we take all your money and chuck you on the bottom rung of your own slave workshop.
That will get the rich to pay their taxes.
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@ZolaInRecovery It's crazy that it's always an all or nothing solution. There were a lot of steps between having an idea and making a trillion dollars. Yes money is important. But it seems we went from maybe 3rd on a list of priorities to money being the top 5. Let's just put at 1 of 5.
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Being a trillionaire while children die from starvation every day doesn’t make me think you’re “successful,” it shows me that you’re evil and consumed by greed.
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@actingliketommy A movie spends 200 million with dreams of being a blockbuster. Instead loses 50 million. Everybody got paid and jobs were created. Only losses were spread amongst shareholders. Look familiar?. At least both entertained us.
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Capitalism:
Man gets an idea. Has money to start idea.
50,000 workers work FOR YEARS to realize the idea and create something that resonates, shaping it all the way.
Man keeps stock, becomes billionaire.
49,000 workers can barely pay their bills.
Rinse. Repeat.
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Elon Musk: “If the standards for passing medical exams and becoming a doctor, especially a surgeon, are lowered, the probability that the surgeon will make a mistake is higher.
They’re making mistakes in their exam; they may make mistakes with people, and that might result in people dying.”
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@RockChartrand Pay taxes according to length of military service. Skin in the game. Want to pay less join the service. Their choice. If a poor kid can sign up for 800 a month surely saving 100 million is a no brainer. Right? Right?
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Calling for different tax rates based on income isn't equality. It's explicitly treating people differently under the law because of how much money they have.
In almost any other context, we'd call that discrimination. If the government imposed different legal standards, fees, or penalties based on wealth, people would rightly object that citizens are not being treated equally.
The usual defense is that the wealthy can afford it. But equality isn't about ability to pay. It's about applying the same rules to everyone. Once the law changes based on income, equality before the law has been replaced by unequal treatment in pursuit of a desired outcome.
You can argue that redistribution is justified. You can argue that it's necessary. But don't call it equality. Equality means the same rules for everyone. Progressive taxation means different rules for different people based solely on how much they earn. That's not equality under the law. It's discrimination for a social purpose.
Tim Corfman@CorfmanTim
Billionaires pay an effective tax rate of 23% while the highest wage earners pay an effective tax rate of 45%. Having billionaires pay a higher effective tax rate is about equality, not theft.
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@jcokstein Whew. Thanks. I was beginning to think my 49.61 cents in the bank was low. We are all in this together.
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@gregorykennedy Labor laws that encouraged 5 day vs 7 day work week just encourages laziness. The obvious problem is that the poors don't read reports from PHDs. Productivity per hour blah blah. Any conclusion finds what it is looking for.
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I know being against the minimum is highly controversial, so before you jump all over me, here is the conclusion from extensive research by PhDs at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, who have more data and more computing power than most nation-states.
There isn't much disagreement on this point: the minimum wage reduces the number of jobs.
I know the general public doesn't typically like this, but it's just because of years of liberal propaganda and lobbying by lawyers and other groups that benefit from it.
Full report linked in the replies.
The Gregory and Paul Show@gregoryandpaul
Minimum Wage - Job Killer or Job Creator?
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@travelingflying Wow.
Anti fraud king thru DOGE thrived off gov. Dime.
Humanitarian speaking out about UK immigration policies but never a peep about Israel... non greedy richest man talks about money not important, going away. We will all be rich with UHI. Plenty more. Crazy itbworks.
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Elon Musk on how legacy media is brainwashing people to believe lies about him: ”It’s disappointing how well propaganda works. If you repeat a lie, the sort of he’s a Nazi lie, enough times some people believe it that still believe the legacy news.
If they still think what CNN says, with the exception of Scott Jennings, is true, you know they called me Nazi on CNN. So if someone believes CNN then they would say ’oh he must be, that’s a Nazi, they said on TV’. The person on TV said it.”
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@LarkDavis Tax certain brackets according to their military service. Skin in the game. Serve and save 100 million in taxes. Their choice. Grandfather the older in but once it becomes embedded think how many the rich kids would sign up. Hint: zero
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A wealth tax is, in practice, little more than a backdoor tax on unrealized capital gains.
The historical record is clear: capital moves swiftly when pushed too hard. France, Sweden, Germany, and others across Europe tried wealth taxes, then repealed most of them after facing capital flight, relocating businesses, and disappointing revenues.
When investors and entrepreneurs leave, the damage spreads. Innovation slows, jobs vanish, and businesses shrink or relocate. The ultra-wealthy adapt and find friendlier jurisdictions. It is workers, the middle class, and everyday people who are left with fewer opportunities, stagnant wages, and slower growth.
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@Big_crusher1000 But earning 5% on government bonds is somehow a masterclass of how to provide value in the world. Can a person with the same background as your example make money with bonds. Is it the money part that defines character.
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When do you look in the mirror and realize the reason you're working a low-paying job is that nobody will pay you for a high-paying one?
Corporations are not laboratories for social justice; they're there to make a profit. If they pay you $100,000 a year, they want to see if it's money well spent.
Whose fault is it that you have three kids and you're working a low-wage job? That is not the fault of the job; it's your fault.
ً@omgsidewalks
can someone PLEASE tell me when did “if you work full-time you should be able to comfortably afford shelter, food and utilities” become an extreme leftist belief ??
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@SteveOnSpeed If we could just repeal all labor laws this country could get back on it's feet.
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Whenever you hear someone clamor for tax increases to provide such-and-such for the poor or kids, just remember:
The government is $39 trillion in debt.
If more money would solve the problem, it would already be solved.
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