This is an interesting thread to revisit a year later, since we now really have a "metacrisis" on our hands here in the FSoA with Trump bulldozing the constitution.  His aspirations for a new colonialism and expansion of Amerika to include Canada, Greenland, Panama and the New Riviera in Gaza also makes international level war seem more likely.  I do wonder where Trump expects to get all the military personnel it would take to secure even 1 of these acquisitions.

How do you think all this will play out over the next 4 years?  What will the FSoA and the world look like in 3028?

RE

So, do you think rising unemployment will have any effect on Trump's popularity with J6P?  Or will he find some way to blame it on CONgress?

RE

It's just been 9 days in 2025, and thousands have already lost their jobs in the U.S.; from technology to media, here are the top companies sacking people

Workforce reductions continue into the year 2025 across various industries while following significant job cuts in recent years. According to Business Insider, various companies are citing diverse reasons for these layoffs with a notable influence from technological advancements specifically artificial intelligence (AI).

According to a World Economic Forum survey, 41% of global companies anticipate reducing their workforces over the next five years due to the rise of AI.

Business Insider reported that several major firms have already announced job cuts this year while BlackRock is reducing its workforce by about 200 employees representing 1% of its staff, at the same time, Bridgewater Associates has also cut 7% of its workforce and brought back its numbers back to 2023 levels. Additionally, the Washington Post is also eliminating less than 100 positions in non-newsroom areas to streamline all of its operations.

During such times, Microsoft is also planning unspecified cuts while focusing on underperforming employees.

Ally Financial is laying off approximately 500 employees or nearly less than 5% of its workforce as a part of its strategic right sizing effort, noted Business Insider. These layoffs actually reflect broader trends in the tech and finance sectors where companies are eventually adjusting to economic pressures and technological shifts.

In spite of these cuts, the WEF predicts that tech jobs in areas like AI and big data will double by the year 2030 while indicating a shift in the job landscape as new roles emerge while others become obsolete, asserted Business Insider.

Read more at:  the article link.

And here is a reality many now experience:


Feb 10, 2025 2025
Job Apocalypse: Where Did the Work Go? TikTok Rant On Unemployment

A good video.

Quote from: RE on Feb 13, 2025, 05:31 AMLooking at the results of this poll, it's pretty EZ to see why we're DOOMED.  The average J6P is a total idiot.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-approval-opinion-poll-2025-2-9/

RE

I figure 80% of Americans are class traitors.  It is what comes from living in dreamland.

* Don't look back, you could turn into a pillar of salt.

Looking at the results of this poll, it's pretty EZ to see why we're DOOMED.  The average J6P is a total idiot.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-approval-opinion-poll-2025-2-9/

RE

Let's not forget Australia, Hawaii, Tahiti, and Moorea. Also Peru and Argentina.

1 post and back in the cooler. 

RE

Quote from: TDoS on Feb 12, 2025, 07:39 PM

Quote from: RE on Feb 09, 2025, 12:05 PMI did all my traveling around in my youth, there's nowhere I wish to go I haven't already been.  My love of sailing yachts comes from their portability, the fact you can take your home with you wherever you go.  That's what I liked about trucking also.  It's a degree of freedom you can have otherwise unattainable in our society.  You just need a way to earn a living wherever you go, which I have always been able to do.

RE

Yeah, and you sure made a well documented and quite fair response to this disappear without the normal gloating. It was a good one wasn't it?

Sorry if it hit that close to home, the proof being in the radio silence response and speed at which it was disappeared. When you opened the door with your honest answer, I couldn't avoid responding in the same way. But with nice historical and personal photography to make my point. You could have left all the cool photos.

Sorry if it hurt your feelings. I'll try and be more discreet about your sensitivities on this matter in the future.

I'll let RE put you in the cooler.  I'll just say fuck you.  RE lived in Brazil and traveled in Europe.  If he figures he has seen enough he has poetic licence for :

QuoteI did all my traveling around in my youth, there's nowhere I wish to go I haven't already been.

Where do you get the idea that either of us has anything to prove to you.  You need not answer.  I'm being rhetorical.

Is there anything to you besides being a total asshole?  That question is not rhetorical.  If you can't answer because RE has you in the cooler, that is fine.

Quote from: RE on Feb 09, 2025, 12:05 PMI did all my traveling around in my youth, there's nowhere I wish to go I haven't already been.  My love of sailing yachts comes from their portability, the fact you can take your home with you wherever you go.  That's what I liked about trucking also.  It's a degree of freedom you can have otherwise unattainable in our society.  You just need a way to earn a living wherever you go, which I have always been able to do.

RE

Yeah, and you sure made a well documented and quite fair response to this disappear without the normal gloating. It was a good one wasn't it?

Sorry if it hit that close to home, the proof being in the radio silence response and speed at which it was disappeared. When you opened the door with your honest answer, I couldn't avoid responding in the same way. But with nice historical and personal photography to make my point. You could have left all the cool photos.

Sorry if it hurt your feelings. I'll try and be more discreet about your sensitivities on this matter in the future.

One day in the fall of 1906, the British scientist Francis Galton headed for the country fair.

As he walked through the exhibition that day, Galton came across a weight-judging competition. A fat ox had been selected and members of a gathering crowd were lining up to place wagers on the (slaughtered and dressed) weight of the ox.

Eight hundred people tried their luck. They were a diverse lot. Many of them were butchers and farmers, but there were also quite a few who had no insider knowledge of cattle. 'Many non-experts competed,' Galton wrote later in the scientific journal Nature, 'like those clerks and others who have no expert knowledge of horse, but who bet on races, guided by newspapers, friends, and their own fancies.' The analogy to a democracy, in which people of radically different abilities and interests each get one vote, had suggested itself to Galton immediately. 'The average competitor was probably as well fitted for making a just estimate of the dressed weight of the ox, as an average voter is of judging the merits of most political issues on which he votes,' he wrote.

Galton was interested in figuring out what the 'average voter' was capable of because he wanted to prove that the average voter was capable of very little. So he turned the competition into an impromptu experiment. When the contest was over and the prizes had been awarded, Galton borrowed the tickets from the organizers and ran a series of statistical tests on them, including the mean of the group's guesses.

Galton undoubtedly thought that the average guess of the group would be way off the mark. After all, mix a few very smart people with some mediocre people and a lot of dumb people, and it seems like you'd end up with a dumb answer. But Galton was wrong — the crowd guessed 1,197 pounds, after it had been slaughtered and dressed the ox weighed 1,198 pounds. In other words, the crowd's judgment was essentially perfect.... Galton wrote later: 'The result seems more creditable to the trustworthiness of a democratic judgment than might have been expected.' That was, to say the least, an understatement.



Seven percent unemployment in six months.  Consumer confidence is equivalent to guessing the weight of an ox.

Here you see where a coke can full of virus (if that) crashed the consumer cargo cult.  You can see the subsequent recovery. The end of the recovery shows this years falling confidence.  Gas prices will be kept low until the election passes.  What then?

Did I pick and choose, yes.  Do I think this is dishonest?  No, not in this case.  In general the American economic spin is always positive.  Truth is hard to find.  We are lied to every day.  Did I find some truth?

I do not know.

Is the precariat tapped out?

Quote from: RE on Feb 12, 2025, 06:45 AMI figured when he got elected it would accelerate collapse, but he's tuning up this shit show even faster than I imagined possible.

RE

It boggles the mind.