Didn’t expect to see this on Lemmy. I actively have a bag of these on my desk.

That was the first sci-fi I thought of when I read this too

Northeastern US. Things are okay. Worse than I would have predicted 5 years ago but not terrible.

We pay our bills, contribute to the 401k and HSA, and have still been saving every month. Our electric + natural gas bills fluctuate as we switch from electric cooling to gas heating, but their combined monthly average has doubled in less than 5 years. I’m eyeing up solar systems for some relief. We don’t drive much so the direct price of gas hasn’t been huge. Groceries are a bit more expensive, but usually not as crazy as I see on the news. Clothing has gotten wildly expensive, with thrift and outlet stores selling stuff for prices I would have paid at regular retail 5 years ago.

We’re holding on. I wish we ate out, and especially drank out, less. I was always a homebody, but nowadays its $15-$20 for a cocktail, $10 for a domestic draft, plus tip.

Haha that’s a funny joke.

Remember that US midterms are right around the corner. The media networks, which are owned by a handful of billionaires, do everything they can to be disruptive and divisive. Black vs white, man vs woman, gay vs straight, trans vs cis, Christian vs Muslim. Anything they can do to distract people fron rich vs poor.

So the Clancy trial gets blown up with a ton of attention. No one talks about Palestine or Iran. It even quiets some of the talk about inflation and jobs.

Remember the Casey Anthony trial? That was October 2008. Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard? That spanned several years, but arguably most of the headlines were made around August-October of 2020.

The truth is that these kinds of court cases are happening all the time. People go crazy and murder their families. It is waaaaay more common than being murdered by a random stranger. But you only hear about the ones that the Big networks WANT you to, and in a contextual narrative that that create.

Oh thank you- sorry I meant to say SEC instead of FTC initially.

Like… I agree with you, but i’m confused… Would that be someone other than the FTC?

He can push through a bunch of unpopular policies, retire for “health reasons”, and secure full pardons for himself ans his family members from Vance.

The question is: would Vance want that? He would take over in the wake of those unpopular policies, on top of Trump’s already incredibly unpopular regime. The Republicans would, presumably, have control of neither the Senate nor the House. If we assume that there are meaningful democratic elections in 2028, what hope does Vance have of winning? I guess that’s where I have a hard time buying this theory. I also have a hard time envisioning Truml trusting Vance enough to step down.

And Twitter users.

And, perhaps most importantly, the investors who allowed Musk to go from just another moderately wealthy silicone valley dude to the wealthiest person on earth. And the FTC for not throwing him in jail for decades for stock market manipulation.