Apparently Russia attacking The Ukraine and China continuing to shut down parts of its (and the world's) economy for The COVID (and, its, it appears, return to a more Marxist ideology in connection with its economy...anyone hear from the Alibaba guy lately?) was all part of GLOBAL INC's conspiracy plan to drive up profits and push everyone into a recession?
Yeah, ok.
You ever think, maybe, that businesses can be adept at taking advantage, best they can, of a bad situation on the ground when it works to their advantage? It is not as if we have never had price gouging around a natural disaster. (It was not that long ago when people were hoarding TP and selling it on eBay.) This just happens to be a worldwide natural (or man made) disaster, with huge collateral events (environmental and war) occurring, that is impacting everyone worldwide. Some industries are fucking EVERYONE over because they can. Meanwhile, others are getting hammered.
We have heard that domestic oil producer shareholders are fine taking profits right now instead of expanding production. This comes on the heels of oil demand taking a dive. Maybe makes sense $ wise, but maybe not morally. But, in the end, oil companies (like most businesses when push comes to shove) don't act morally. It's all about the Benjamins.
A push for renewable energy and addressing environmental issues could be a good outcome here. But we are too focused on pronouns and denying that water shortages out West are, in part, man made because people want to live in a desert with no water. See, e.g., QAnon97.
No one here has argued more than I have that big businesses have engaged in a high degree of fuckery surrounding supply chain issues, shipping, collusion, and any other manner of bullshit in the Covid era.
What you said here: “Apparently Russia attacking The Ukraine and China continuing to shut down parts of its (and the world's) economy for The COVID” just kind of reinforces what the article said. They’re literally pumping more money directly into the system in support of Ukraine. Consistent with the article.
Meanwhile China is using Covid to throttle supply. Their extensive lockdowns only served to drag this on much longer. They could do this shit for years. They’ve adopted an entire ideology around it (Zero Covid) and you think they’re just going to abandon it? Coincidence?
They’re the goddamn kings of Making Cheap Shit, but now that they’ve got most of the world by the balls they’re taking full advantage of this opportunity to throttle supply in the face of rising demand, thus drastically inflating the value of their entire manufacturing industry. Because what are we gonna do? Bring manufacturing back here? Every Democrat in the US has guffawed at that very idea since the day Trump started saying it on the campaign trail.
I have buddies in finance that were telling me last fall that Russia would invade Ukraine right about the time the Covid thing seemed to be coming to a logical “end” and it turned out to be exactly right. They told me—emphatically—to go long on oil. I believe I posted that here late last fall or early winter. Definitely before the invasion.
One of my best friends has been AOTC on almost everything since March 2020. He’s VERY plugged in. The ONLY thing he missed on was that another global lockdown would come as a result of Omicron. I mean, they kinda tried, but turns out too many people were basically over it by that point to really get behind anything as draconian as we had seen previously.
One of my biggest regrets is not having listened to him. He’s one of the smartest mofos I know. He makes his own luck and lives life on his own terms. But I got so sucked up in the circus sideshow that everyone else is that I kind of dismissed it while it was all unfolding.
So while he’s in his late 30s and has multiplied his net worth many times over and doesn’t even need to work anymore, I’m still toiling away trying to keep up with the rising cost of, like, fucking everything. 🤦🏻
And also, come on, man. Market manipulation, scandals, conspiracies, all that shit is as old as time.
Ok at this point, for fun, sI’m going to attempt to set a record for longest run-on sentence ever.
Behold:
It’s not really more of a stretch to believe the central bankers used Covid to try and cool down an economy that was running way too hot (we can blame that on Trump if you like) as it is to believe that this virus just emerged from a pangolin and all the developed nations in the world magically came up with this eerily similar and unprecedented authoritarian containment plan that flew in the face of science and didn’t actually work and did a lot of irreparable damage and then on top of it shouted down anyone (including well respected scientists and epidemiologists and virologists) that didn’t toe the line and then rushed a bunch of experimental vaccines to market and forced a great number of people to take them through some combination of political, financial, occupational, or social pressure that made a bunch of huge corporations (which aren’t PEOPLE!) …(with awful human rights track records) ENORMOUS profits and then it turns out the vaccines didn’t actually do a lot of what they said they’d do, but that’s ok because if we move the goalposts enough we can pretend that it’s ok they lied to us about the efficacy against contracting the virus as long as it helped against hospitalization and serious health issues but we knew, like FUCKING KNEW, before this even happened that coronaviruses are really hard to vaccinate against because they MUTATE RAPIDLY and so by golly the vaccine was presented as this cure-all but wait it really wasn’t and people get it time and time again and new variants come out but that’s also ok because if you get it time and time again and don’t die it’s because of THE VACCINE but the people who get it time and time again and also don’t die, well it’s just a matter of time before they do die, which a select subset of our society (like this guy named fucking that used to post here openly roots for) but that’s ok because it’s actually kind of funny that fat Republicans who deny the virus end up dying from it, because they’re the ones who were actually at risk all along but went way too far the other way and it bit them in the ass, and I appreciate both sides of the debate but hate that there are even two sides to begin with but I also understand that that is EXACTLY WHAT THIS WHOLE FUCKING EXERCISE WAS DESIGNED TO DO and so we have a group of people who won’t back off their stance that this was an “Existential Threat To Our Society And It Makes Me Feel Good To Wear An Ineffective Cotton Mask And Put A Thanks Dr. Fauci Sign Next To My Hate Has No Home Here Sign In My Lawn” or the group of people who think “This Is A Plandemic And I Won’t Get Chipped Because The Blood Of Jesus Is The Only Vaccine I Need” while ignoring the fact that in reality almost everyone falls somewhere in between those two extremes and has real and perfectly rational reasons for feeling the way they do but we need to lump people into camps because I watched X on Fox News and they don’t say what I want to hear or I watched X on CNN and they don’t say what I want to hear and so since my mind is small I have to assume that anyone who watches those things believes everything they say without question or any sense of skepticism because I read here that nichi’s neighbor told him over the backyard fence about some bullshit he saw something on Fox News and it indeed turned out to be bullshit and Alum rather than using his computer power to mine bitcoin uses it to google articles that confirm his bias and post them ad nauseum in response to anything that doesn’t conform to his already established and thoroughly unchangeable viewpoint and then there’s Mn posting pictures of his his culinary creations and Wingnut talking points while simultaneously using coded language to convert the burgeoning youth movement of IlliniHQ^2 to the ways of authoritarianism and nationalism and populism and racism and bigotry and neo-nazism and undying love for Halibut despite living on a pristine (except for the mutant frogs) lake somewhere in Minnesota which from what I’ve heard is cold af most of the year so the poor dude probably has to melt the icicles off his tallywhacker before he can even pour the (cold) coals to his old (literally) lady up der in the Nortland where they should subsist on a diet of nothing more than fresh caught perch, pike, bluegill, crappie, trout, mussels, seasonal vegetables, a strawberry pie followed by slow but steady lovemaking that transcends even the joy that comes with drinking an ice cold root beer made with real Wisconsin honey on a hot summer day I just hope he sends pics but let’s get back to PAMan I think you need to get out of the city more and enjoy the finer things in life like a handy and a rosé on a blanket in a moderately populated park area where you might get caught but probably won’t but just enough ambiguity to make it exciting but at the same time ILL0vE97 needs to buy more drinking water at Costco and murph needs to SELL NOW and move to Missouri where he’s truly happy and Illinikvn needs to post more and Jobu is dying (again) and Judy needs to invite me to more bourbon tastings and Tempo needs to explain the staff shortages at Outback and Lanphier needs to help me understand his relationship with Reggie and I want to know if they saw a white light at the end of the tunnel and if not then what was it eternal doom for Illinois athletics but if it was would they even be back and if Ben Wilson on the other side did he say anything about whether or not he would have been an Illini had he not been dead and has anyone asked Nick Anderson why he didn’t properly box out I mean was it an instructional issue or right place wrong time or was it the curse of Frieder like wtf happened man that was our championship to lose, sucks I hate it but here it is 30 some years later and it’s all people like Tempo can talk about but I see the replay of the 89 game at IU where Nick made that shot and the bench stormed the court and Bobby looked real mad but he didn’t throw a chair or anything actually just looked really depressed which to me is satisfying but probably not so much for Dominic but boy that game against Cuse was a barnburner and it’s like hey I can’t even be mad they made it a long way but then I remember that goddamn Michigan of all schools won that title and we kicked their asses twice that season which just hurts even more but they always say it’s hard to beat good time three times in one season but that sounds like snowflake talk to me if you are really that much better you should just beat them every time regardless of the coach or the other team or bad bounces or improper box outs or people that are important to your team having concussions this isn’t youth soccer or the pedal tractor pull at the county fair people care about this shit and your legacy and hanging a banner and doing thing the right way and graduating players and mowing your own yard and doing Navy seals training in a slimy man made pond in Urbana and having ladders as a metaphor for success and moderately stretchy wristbands made of materials that don’t decompose that have inspiration sayings on them so when you go out to Kams (RIP) you don’t bring some skank home and get herpes and a $900 a month child support payment or threaten to cut someone with your strap or make your bitch gargle ice cubes while shoving her face in the carpet of a shithole apartment while demanding your money or getting high in MPLS and cold cocking a teammate or roughing up a bitch or buying drugs from undercover cops and running all over campus from them or going home for the holidays and sharing with them the dream you’d like to play professional basketball for money or maybe pulling guns out on people or players being all Americans in practice but not seeing the floor in games hardly ever unless it’s against a severely undermanned IU team and playing well but still losing anyways but that’s ok because it was a Good Learning Experience which is how People Grow but I need to go now to watch fucking’s videos on YouTube bye
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