Maybe the masses are saying "This isn't working for us! We don't know what would work for us, but this isn't it!"
And I wonder how long until this comes to the USA...
And I wonder how long until this comes to the USA...
In general I do think easy access to consumer credit is the difference between the US and everywhere else. It numbs over systemic issues and provides the illusion that things are better than they really are. AFAIK credit is much harder to come by in other countries, which is why seemingly small things like an increase in gas prices, transit fares, or a small tax blow up in other countries when it wouldn't have the same effect here.
I look around and sure, a few people are talking about recession concerns but most people don't seem to care.
Credit is cheap of course you'll finance that house at 3.5% or buy the new 40k car at 2%. Spend spend spend is how we keep things afloat in hopes that when the music stops, _we_ aren't the ones left holding the bag.
I agree that easy credit has this awesome ability to mask over deep societal problems. We spend enough to not worry that we've built a lot of things on sand that may not hold up in a bad storm and it's so strange sometimes to watch.
I'm hoping we can avoid another 2008 or something worse but the current system seems unsustainable longterm. Something has to give for as long as we expect more money in the future
The true beauty of the message is that it's vague enough to get both you and the guy next to you (and the guy you would both intensely dislike if you knew the full extent of their opinions) to all come out and smash shit up at the same time in a coordinated manner.
... but the hidden ugly side is that you and the guy next to you will not agree on how to rebuild things once you're both done smashing stuff.
What really scares me is not only how fragile things are, but how expensive it's going to be to get back to the level of wealth we enjoy today, assuming it's even likely we are able to (which I'm not so sure about).
So if you have the tools to amplify this message until it's all that anyone sees, and everybody knows that it's all that everybody else sees, you can cause revolts at your convenience.
You don't even need to dirty your hands with direct message shaping - which comes with consequences such as getting your head chopped off - just moderate all the competing messages a tiny little bit harder, and bob's your uncle.
As a direct example, notice how the author judges the size and effectiveness of revolts based on how prominent they are on youtube. Which is just an algorithm tweak away for the right people.
That said, the current connected world has probably reduced the available reaction time between each stage of escalation, so getting complacent wouldn't be advisable.
Why would someone downvote this? It's a statement of fact.
(For the record, I didn't downvote you. I can't - you replied to me. I probably wouldn't anyway.)
The problem is if you run around and protest without any real goal, you end up with a big nothing burger 7+ years later.
But I was thinking about several percent of the country marching in the streets. That's not something we've seen yet.
Unlikely to happen here seeing that unemployment is at a 50 year low and wages are rising.
But also consider that it is not necessary for things to be _uniformly_ bad to trigger a large protest. E.g. France is "prosperous" on paper, yet a substantial segment of its population is really hurting, and they blame the "progressive" policies of Macron et al for that.
I read some opinions about HK protests, and they were saying, basically, that HK youth has no chance to buy an apartment and live a good middle class life, hence the revolt.
This is something that is not captured in GDP growth metric. To me it makes perfect sense. What is the point of, say, 5% GDP growth if you pay 1/2 of your salary as rent and will never accumulate enough dough for downpayment?
> See, for example, Venezuela.
“Progressive” and “socialist” aren't mutually exclusive, but neither does the latter imply the former; “progressive” and “authoritarian” might overlap, but Venezuela's government isn't an example as it isn't progressive.
My main problem is with the connotations. Progress = good, authoritarianism = bad, so "progressive populism" sounds good, and "authoritarian populism" sounds bad. The wording is probably deliberately designed to paint one side as better than the other. In fact, though, "progressive populism" can wind up being every bit as authoritarian and ugly and brutal as "authoritarian populism" can.
The idea that the protests are principally economic doesn't contradict that they have a political dimension, indeed, it makes the likelihood that the protestors would seek and sacrifice for political change greater.
If nothing much changes in terms of the status quo because of those politicians or their campaigns however, that's when you'll probably see the marches in the streets, protests, etc.