• Allonzee@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Remember about a year and a half ago when no expense or resource was spared to try to rescue a billionaire with a deathwish from the bottom of the Atlantic while AT THE VERY SAME TIME over 500 refugees that could have been saved, who were still at the surface, were left to drown off the coast of Greece.

    https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/titanic-submarine-billionaires-get-massive-global-rescue-effort-refugees-left-to-drown/

    The ship had been in distress almost two days before it sank, but help didn’t come until it was too late. How many might have been rescued with one-tenth the resources that were rushed to save the five billionaires and millionaires on the Titan?

    This isnt a healthcare problem. This is a global crony market capitalist problem.

    This is a class warfare occupation problem.

    Fuck valuing human life on the basis of ego score.

      • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        I’d argue the allowance of passive shareholders is what causes the biggest problems. Shares of profits should go to active employees only, unless they’ve fulfilled the requirements of a pension, not entities that intend to collect capital while contributing no labor towards the products/services generating the profit.

        Passive income should only be hard earned. The only passive income that should be legal should be after 20+ of laboring/supporting the means by which those profits were generated, so it cannot be gamed.

        Not some random asshole leeches who don’t want to work showing up with chips from their last trip to the exploitation, insider info casino, demanding any, let alone all profit. People have to earn a living, it’s perfectly reasonable to DEMAND skin in the game in order to make money.

        • Hugucinogens@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 days ago

          This doesn’t address the core issue of capitalism:

          Owners in general (of businesses, housing, everything) get all the money, thanks to the opportunity to mercilessly take advantage of workers/renters/everyone else. And taking advantage gets you more money to take more advantage of people.

          The passivest of incomes goes to the owners, the ceos are just the highest paid guard dogs of those people.

          Is that ok? Passive income being much harder to earn for everyone, unless you are rich enough to start your own business, that is.

          Are we not going to end up in the same situation? Isn’t it basically the same situation we’re already in?

          • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            I disagree, by untethering profit from the labor that makes the capital, innumerable problems arise.

            Passive investors have taken to buying enough of a profitable company to make it self-destruct for a short term burst of profit that then kills the company, stuff like “sell all your real estate in own to lease agreements, give us the profits next quarter, then choke to death on rent after we sell.”

            There’s no incentive to care about your product or service if you buy and sell for short term profit.

            If this could happen at all, you could make rules about how much profit the creating owners can retain relative to staff. New businesses could come from employees, now making enough to have excess capital, to form new companies if they feel they can make something better, and the promise of passive income ONLY After they’ve worked there for appreciable time would create commitment to making good products and services again instead of figuring out how to trick consumers with crap for a quick score.

            This whole mess is created because people with all effectively all the capital have no interest in an actual market of goods and services that benefits society, they live in a different, nationless world, it’s why they choke peasant schools and commons to cut their own taxes. Such people shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions for companies in a country they don’t care about. They should be restricted from it.

            If Elon Musk really wants ownership in company X, for example lol, he would be more than welcome to apply to work there for a small but growing share of profit over the course of his employment share of the profits.

            If he’d like to make his own company, he should be forced to take a reasonable share of the profits, tied to a non-insane multiple of his lowest paid employee, and if the employees, the shareholders, see he isn’t putting 40 hours of attention a week into running the company, they should have recourse to protect their interests they have skin in from him.

            New companies should be formed solely by laborers with an idea getting together with honestly earned money. Closer to a cooperative model. The idea of infinite growth needs to end decades ago as it’s making people suffer now and is on track to destroy the planet. We need equilibrium. Growth should be measured, or it is a danger. We need to go back to condemning rather than cheering people who wish to pursue extreme wealth, as that’s as antisocial a goal as “I’d like to set lots of buildings on fire.” People used to know that, but we’ve been propagandized to see greed as virtuous “rational self-interest.”

            I firmly believe the capital markets are what have detached any semblance of humanity from commerce. They must be destroyed. Labor is what matters and thus should be what capital is tethered to, gambling is a vice for entertainment.

            But we can’t even get our most leftwing, lol, party to do anything, not even healthcare. So this is all a pipedream. It will eventually collapse under the weight of its own corruption, but until then, this place is a dystopia.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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          5 days ago

          Shares of profits should go to active employees only, unless they’ve fulfilled the requirements of a pension, not entities that intend to collect capital while contributing no labor towards the products/services generating the profit.

          So if my nephew wants to borrow $5k from me to start a business, I shouldn’t be allowed to lend it to him?

          Keep in mind that all of these restrictions result in consenting adults being prevented from entering the economic arrangements they want to enter into.

  • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Because the police protect capital above all.

    If CEOs are dying there’s a potential negative financial impact, whereas unhoused people dying makes their job easier.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      Dying unhoused people don’t effect the economy which is why no one cares … unless we can use them as indentured servants or outright slaves, then we could care more about them.

    • UnpopularCrow@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      This. If you look very closely at police cars that say “Protect and Serve”, you’ll notice the fine print after that says “the wealthy”.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Barricade just looked around at US society and put the slogan on himself that made sense as a cop car. “To Enslave and Punish.”

        I’m starting to think the autobots weren’t the “good guys.” At least in Micheal Bay’s Transformers.

    • Botzo@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I’m pretty sure this is the only way for Reaganomics to actually work.

      As wealthy people die, the wealth gets spread out and taxed (a little), so more people have access to spend it. Now we just need them to be more like musk and spawn a horde of children to increase this effectiveness.

    • Mango@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Holup. I am certain this is going to be very good for the finances of everyone, including police.

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    This is why serial killers often got away for so long. Many serial killers picked their victims very specifically based on economic and social standing. Sex workers were often ignored by ignored by everyone and their killers frequently got away with it.

    Even historic serial killers like Albert Fish (a incredibly monstrous person) chose to kill poor black children because he knew that the (mostly white) police force of the time would not give two fucks about a missing poor black child.

    • Charapaso@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      One of the most on the nose scenes in the Wire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6r2a2PaQPI

      The conversation (copied from IMDB)

      Detective James ‘Jimmy’ McNulty : Guy leaves two dozen bodies scattered all over the city, no one gives a fuck.

      Detective Lester Freamon : It’s because who he dropped.

      Detective William ‘Bunk’ Moreland : True that. You can go a long way in this country killin’ black folk. Young males especially. Misdemeanor homicides.

      Detective James ‘Jimmy’ McNulty : If Marlo was killin’ white women…

      Detective Lester Freamon : White children.

      Detective William ‘Bunk’ Moreland : Tourists.

      Detective James ‘Jimmy’ McNulty : One white ex-cheerleader tourist missin’ in Aruba.

      Detective William ‘Bunk’ Moreland : Trouble is, this ain’t Aruba, bitch.

      Detective Lester Freamon : You think that if 300 white people were killed in this city every year, they wouldn’t send the 82nd Airborne? Negro, please.

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Its sweet and innocent that thinks the cops even give a thousand dollars of time and effort to investigating crimes against the poor.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Police clocking fifty hours of overtime at $75/hr playing candy crush while they claim they’re investing a bike theft is something in willing to believe.

      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Thats why the worst time to have an interaction with a cop is within 30 minutes before end of shift/shift change.

        Cause they make tons of false arrests to milk several extra hours of overtime slow walking paperwork and other bullshit.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    They should close the investigation now before we waste more resources. Can’t they just get another CEO? Plus its not like the old CEO is just gonna wakeup and start ceo-ing … Not with all them speed holes.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        That could be correct, but potentially it could be more personal.

        Maybe the shooter themselves had an illness or condition that was expensive to maintain, or treatment was rejected. If they had nothing to live for or weren’t super-concerned with getting caught, that could be an explanation.

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    It’s very likely that NYPD is going to spend a lot more on this murder than an “ordinary” one, but do you really know they only spend a few thousand on an ordinary one or did you just pull that number out of your ass? Cuz I have no idea what the murder investigation budget is.

    • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 days ago

      To play the devil’s advocate, it is scientific fact that people are less deterred by gravity of punishment than certainty of punishment. if you understand the police’s job as both preventing crime and investigating crime, than crime prevention is the more important job than crime investigation, because every victim would be the happiest if they never had been a victim. So it is logical, that if a crime happened, you want to investigate and if possible, use the investigation to prevent crime. As perceived certainty is such a good deterrent of crime, you want to be perceived as highly successful with investigations and therefore punishment as highly likely.

      So that brings you in the situation where an investigation has a higher value for the police when the investigation is in the news, as a success in that investigation will raise the perceived certainty of punishment more, compared to a “unknown” crime. As the value is higher, the resources spend on it can be higher too, as long as the additional funds are relative to the additional value of the investigation.

      It seems immoral to spend more resources on high profile cases, as it seems to value certain lives more but arguably it raises the safety of everyone by making punishment seem more certain.

      Obvious counterpoint: If you know that they are doing that, you aren’t perceiving them as successful in the average investigation and there you don’t feel like punishment is certain, or more certain.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Interesting article, but it says this $17.25 million figure includes besides police and court expenses, lost time for the victim and perp, and “estimates on the public’s resulting willingness to pay to prevent future violence.” And I don’t think they mention whether it includes incarceration costs. The detailed version still didn’t shine any light on any of that, or anything about the research team’s methodology. But that number definitely isn’t what people are talking about when they say, “Police spend $x to investigate crime A and only $y to investigate crime B.”

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    It’s only weird if you believe the prime function of the police is to protect everybody.

    If you think the prime function of the police is to protect the rich and their assets, these action of theirs make perfects sense as do many other actions (such as prioritizing fighting crime against property over stopping violence)

    • A7thStone@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Fighting crime against the property of the capitalist class. They don’t give a shit about your or my property.

    • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Imagine being the bystander who nopes out in the video - I bet their immediate future involved a serious change of underwear.

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    What do you think thr 1950s was? The giant boom following USA government subsidies of the middle class, courtesy of FDR. The 1950s had a raging lack of equality, and were in part sustained on the backs of women, but that’s another discussion. It would not have happened at all, in any format, without government subsidy.

    From FDR to 1981, an American middle class was subsidized. American labor was valued. You could say it was one of our best commodities, for everyone concerned.

    Then, in 1981, the format switched. The idea was, the most financially efficient way to run America was to subsidize the investors and corporate. As such, the wealth would then trickle down to all parts of society, enriching the nation as a whole with this fantastical efficiency. Subsidizing the middle class was systematically broken, overturned, and the subsidies were then given to investors and corporate.

    American labor was systemically devalued.

    Which brings us to present day. Biden did start to pick away it the 1981-2020 travesty, but fixing broken things takes time, and this broken thing will take more than a couple years to fix. Some teamsters got to keep their retirement, infrastructure will slowly feed us in years to come, but it’s not enough, and it’s certainly not something that even helps most of our day to days as of yet.

    Well, that ended this year.

    And now we have the people subsidized and grown fat from the 1981-2020 structure in charge.

    What will happen next?

    Will American labor regain its value? Will we subsidize a middle class instead of the upper tier of individuals, the very people running the show now, going forward? Or will we all be financially squeezed even further beyond our capacities?

    We will have to wait and see.