Thanks for typing this up so I didn’t have to.

I still usually call my doctor for OTC stuff, and if my doctor says I need it, insurance gets to pay for it. Going to the doctor usually saves me money. And if I schedule it during a workday, it’s not my time going either but my employer’s, if it even needs more than a phone consult.

Welcome to Europe Squid!

Rule number one, the French are dicks.

Sooo I see the thread is full of US people here and it’s so strange. I don’t have drug brand preferences. I go to my doctor, my doctor tells me what to take, I go to the pharmacy, they give it to me, and I take it as instructed.

Am I missing out on anything?

There are multiple ways that can happen.

For example, if you look at recent history in China, Jack Ma, the executive chairman of the Alibaba group, gave a speech on October 24, 2020. The IPO of his current venture was then blocked by regulators a few weeks later, he stepped down from the board of Alibaba, and he was not seen again for four months. He denied the state had anything to do with his disappearance, but ever since he lived a quiet life and never criticised the Chinese leadership again.

If you look at Russia, in the October Revolution, the largest Russian bank was occupied by an armed Bolshevik detachment on day one. The bank was nationalized the same day, and it then ceased to exist altogether. No banks existed in the country for five-ish years after that.

Or Cuba, when Castro nationalized all assets of United Fruit when he took power.

Point is, since they own the justice system, they can do sham trials against the CEO and get someone like Jared Kushner elected by the board if they don’t also want to go to jail on trumped-up charges (pun intended). Or since they own the legislative, they can just nationalize the whole thing, wipe out shareholders without compensating them at all.

Almost all of these would result in a lot of economic damage, but the question is whether Trump or the Project 2025 people care. I mean, look at Twitter. Trump can at the very least make the federal government do to Blackrock what Musk did to Twitter.

Oh, they will not wither and die, it will just be bought by Nestlé et al. and you can either import food from abroad and pay the Trump tax, or you can buy the price gouged local produce after all competition is gone.

Fuck US politics in general.

Not for the side OSF is on.

Conservatives fear immigration, liberals largely don’t care. A small amount of people care deeply, providing a good enemy to bash who are sufficiently few to not cause issues but also sufficiently loud to keep the flames going.

They have the upper hand now, if MAGA is firmly in control of the government, they can dismantle Blackrock in a month.

That’s what they want you to think. Otherwise, all the tourists would be taking their shits on Tiktok in this “hidden gem”.

Open Society Foundations, Center for American Progress, stuff like that, I guess.

As I see it, they are more active on idpol and immigration than the economy and the issues that were decisive in the US election this time around.

I think the point is that while you’re right that nobody cares about comparing policies to each other, what decides voter turnout is how much each candidate lives up to the ideal of their own side.

Harris had to be at least as inspiringly progressive as Trump had been inspiringly conservative to drive turnout. Instead, she did the equivalent of Trump declaring that he’s a bit of a socialist.

Yeah, courting far left people like Dick Cheney was the problem. Next time they will just run Ivanka Trump and if you’re against her, you are a misogynist.

Just kidding, they won’t run her until she’s at least 60, everyone knows people who are younger than that can’t politics.

Not in the US, not yet.

In a Russian style society, money means jack shit against actual power.

We will have to fight for it though. At this rate we will have to vote down chat control yearly for the next century, and Macron and Scholz are not infinitely better than the US dems either.

At least now, they see that immediate rearmament and asserting ourselves as an economic and geopolitic power is a necessity, even if our industry doesn’t feel like it and never wants to change.

The ACA, which brought US healthcare from an 18th century level to a 19th century one in 2010, was a half measure under Obama, he got reelected for it, he was president for 7 more years after he signed that.

First time voters today were 4 years old when it happened. What else has the Democratic Party been doing? How about the housing crisis? How about inflation? Oh, they got that one 1400 USD stimmy check passed after Trump looted the coffers for corpos big and small.

Look, I’m not saying Harris wasn’t the better, less destructive choice. I’m saying something had had to happen, and people didn’t turn out for a candidate who said the past four years and the way the world is going is good. Not as well as for someone who saw problems and proposed - admittedly monstrous and ineffective - solutions.

Are you drunk? Just because I would understand if you were drunk.

Nobody ever accused voters of being smart. That said, Harris lost a lot of Biden’s 2020 voters, so this is the exact good time to go super critical on her campaign.

Fuck, are we really becoming the last beacon of freedom and liberty?

Imagine Murdoch arguing with Trump, trying to bankroll another party to rein him in, with it ending in him selling all his news outlets and retiring.

The point is that money doesn’t get you political power in this system.

It’s a lost art, don’t worry.