I wonder how many trillions of dollars the Trump dumpster fire will end up costing American business.
You’d think our corporate overlords would remove him.
Let’s say the pre-Trump economy is worth $100 trillion, and a particular billionaire’s share is $2 billion. Let’s say Trump catastrophically decreases the economy’s value to $50 trillion, while increasing corruption such that that Trump is getting more power, and the billionaire’s share is $10 billion.
This is followed by a collapsing market that creates a dip in share prices or private valuation, the assets of which can be bought for pennies on the dollar, eventually leading to that billionaire having $30 billion in a total economy worth $20 trillion.
Win/win for Trump and the billionaire, at the cost of everyone else.
That’s basically what’s happening, and will continue to happen.
I’m not an economist, so here’s my ass talking, but I don’t think your example scales out. I think you’re making the mistake of equating the stock market to the economy. It isn’t.
Not everyone wins in a failing economy. If one billionaire makes out, three more lose money.
Not everyone wins in a failing economy. If one billionaire makes out, three more lose money.
No, yeah, that’s true. But the billionaires are also competing with each other in a (perceived) zero-sum game and they believe the ones who are cozying closest to Trump will be the best ones positioned to make money - either in a corrupt or a failing economy. But every recession has been a golden opportunity for billionaires.
Heck, in post-collapse Russia, this is how oligarchs first appeared - the “shock therapy” of the 1990s transition to a market economy dropped the value of resources to nothing, and the rich at the time bought them and became the ultra-rich. Some didn’t make it. ( Like a super-bacteria forming from the ones not killed by antibiotics, the ones that survived were even more resistant to control.)
Good example, especially given that it looks like a Russian oligarchy is where we’ve been headed since 2016
This is followed by a collapsing market that creates a dip in share prices or private valuation
I am not a billionaire, just an average joe lucky to be able to borrow a few thousand from my Roth 401k in order to buy oil stocks in March 2020 at 90% off.
I earned between 15x and 20x what I invested and paid off my student loans when the market recovered.
It’s not just for the billionaires, but you’re right, all of this is intentional and the wealthiest will profit the most.
At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re working on it. He’s destroying their bottom lines.
That said, if you go after the king, you’d best not miss.
Their bottom lines aren’t very important to their goal of owning everything. Money is just a vehicle for power, but once they own everything and everyone they won’t need it.
The parasites are still making money. Rocking the boat would temporarily interrupt the party, they’ll continue to party until they’re forced to change.
The question is incomplete. They will cost trillions, but the presidency, the party fixing elections right now, will cost the country the dollar itself. They will max out borrowing, then print money to pay off the debt and de facto default. They will turn all of those dollars into very much less valuable things.
Presuming no one stops them.
Chaos is a ladder
The corporate overlords area fucking idiots. They always have been.
True risk is also anathema to them, probably hedging bets on how the midterms go before they make big moves
I think it’s simpler than that and just is down to the impact on the next quarter’s profits.
24 trillion. the culture war bs with the right is thier best chance of maintain power in the us, so no, they might have accept less to hold on to that power. Or they just stir up the right wing in other countries, alongside with russia.
Most of those overlords don‘t care about their business anymore. They want to get the bag now. It‘s how Oligarchies operate. They burn billions to make millions. Or in this case delete trillions to make billions. The goal is have proportionally much more money than us pathetic peasants.
The way Trump operates in particular is unsurprisingly dull. He flips the table and ruins the game for everyone. Then he waits and whoever says some flattering words to him and gives him a hefty bribe is excluded from his bullshit. Suddenly they see their competition crippled while they themselves can do business as usual. That‘s all there is to it. Trump was never the brightest bulb and probably thinks his obvious scheme is brilliant.
It’s kind of a weird game theory thing, because the industries affected aren’t consistently losing. A decision he makes on Wednesday can help the finance industry but hurt the tech industry, and then he can reverse it on Thursday and now the finance industry is tanking but the insurance industry is up. It’s tough to know who would work together to pull him out of office, because between any two given days, the people who have the money have different opinions on how he’s doing.
They’ll make sure it hurts us, long before it ever touches them.
I don’t get it, sometimes you wonder if it’s true and he might be acting to help Russia
Sometimes?
Good. The Mastercard and Visa tax never made any sense. We deserve better.
reminds me when Brazil launched their Pix payment system nationwide, which is free for individuals, and the US launched an investigation into unfair trading
potential unfair advantaging of Brazilian payment services over US competitors was cited
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has accused US president Donald Trump of being “bothered by Pix” because it “will put an end to credit cards”
lol get rekt
Against what? Against consumers that don’t need to pay fees? Against the Brazilian government who is behind the pix?
Poor US companies with billionaires yatches bills to be paid.
Becoming independent from the US empire‘s dollar or oil is a serious crime that gets punished with dictatorship. It‘s no coincidence the US is launching a cascade of fascist think tanks and lobby groups against Europe right now.
Very well said. What a great ally! My way or the highway.
Good. Make it hurt.
I want to see CEOs from the sky.
They would be tiny from way up there
I like the way you think, get them to terminal velocity.
The most important thing about terminal velocity is the immediate stop and its effects.
And the popcorn stand for spectators. Very important.
Yes, make it hurt EU. It sucks that my dumbass country made it come to this, but it needs to happen. Way too many people here pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
Hello, friends in civilized lands, especially those of you who work at financial institutions…
Some of us in the states are excited to watch you do some damage to the entrenched middlemen that have been skimming from all of us for so long. Please do consider letting us sign up for the new stuff. Our money is still worth something, for now!
I agree 100% but also this is like when you watch your brother punch your dad to make him stop hitting your mom, and you know you’re going to get the shit kicked out of both of you later for it.
…unless one of your grabs the crowbar and goes for broke…
Hey blue states…
This is like that son that was sexualy abused by his dad for years, then killed and ate him.
Seconded.
i would gladly make the switch if for no other reason than just playing a tiny part in screwing over Visa and MasterCard.
Why? Cause fuck em! That’s why!
We should solve our own problems. Haven’t we exported enough problems abroad already?
come on canada start taking notes
At least we have e transfers and debit unlike down south. I for one will be jumping on the first non us credit card however.
As an American, I just may do the same.
You do realize why we’re scrambling to get a European credit card, right? I mean what’s going to stop us from cutting Americans off when Trump decides to invade San Marino?
Oh I hope that they name it something mildly silly. Like “Lone’y” or “broke buckz”
We have debit. And etransfer for things like PayPal or Venmo.
How does debit work for fraud? Are banks more willing to refund when theres5fraud? In the US it feels like it’s mostly on the user to bear
Depends on your bank, some have insurance on debit (like a credit card) but a lot in Canadian banks are moving to visa/MasterCard debit cards (since a bunch of our banks moved into the us market and are therefore tainted).
Ha, venmo is such a scam. And paypal is just as bad as MasterCard
How the fuck is venmo a scam? Jesus Christ what Idiocracy.
How is it not? They take a part of every fucking payment. Jesus Christ would not like it at all.
You mean like every company that charges a fee? That’s not a scam, that’s called business. Jesus Christ it’s like people want everything for free and don’t understand that it costs money to run a business. Credit cards charge interest, your bank charges fees, businesses price stuff over their cost. That farmer you pay for their vegetables charges more then it cost them to produce. These aren’t scams. They are the cost of having services and good provided to you.
How much is the fee? Because last I checked it was not like an etransfer (included in most banking plans).
How about JCB?
Jbc?
Japan Credit Bureau
Ah, are they world wide and less corrupt?
Canada has Interac but turned it in a for profit.
The Bank of Canada has considered a digital CAD but not started anything yet. Maybe they are taking notes?
Meanwhile, we could give biz the option to lower their prices and in exchange pass down the cards fees to customers (transparently of course, big display: Visa +n1%, Mastercard: +n2%, …). The current system makes all prices higher but cards provide rebates or other benefits. That’s pretty much a tax on the poor who can’t access “high end” credit cards.
I’m all for Europe doing their own thing. I’m an American and even I hate seeing the US use it’s position for bully politics. No citizen of any other country should ever thing that an American company or govt will treat them with dignity or respect. Look at how we treat each other.
Why do Visa and MasterCard exist? The middleman that jacks up the price while offering the end user nothing? Thanks capitalism.
There was a time back in the day it was useful.
Before smartphones, credit cards were the cashless option.
Now that we all have a more than capable payment terminal in our pocket, Visa and mastercard are obsolete
Sorta. Whomever does payment on your behalf has to be willing to extend credit for an immediate transaction while the very slow process of exchanging money happens at a delay. This is especially so if the transactions are international. I truly wonder how the phone with just an ordinary bank account does this. Is it Google/Apple who extend credit? If so, is that better?
Most other countries don’t have to rely on the antiquated network the US uses for resolving those bank to bank transactions. In South korea, Street vendors have what looks like a phone number posted on signage around their Wares or snacks and people just make effectively debit pushes from their bank to the merchant’s bank in real time with zero margins.
I kind of expect this is how the rest of the world operates and it’s only the us then sits on using its own infrastructure which it made one time, in the 1960s, and has refused to move off of since. This created a lot of the market need for a bunch of private companies to make their own little piggybacking solutions like venmo, zelle, square cash, and all the others.
Too be fair, a lot of major businesses in the US now just exist as financialization institutions extending debt to their large-scale clientele, under the guise of being manufacturing or data services. Like GM. Or Oracle.
I’d suppose the banks work with each other.
uh…NFC payments work through V/M.
They offer credit to losers to spend more than they should. But the credit rates are what used to be usury when the mob did it.
Love to see it.
Anything that diminishes Visa and MC’s power is probably a good thing.
We’ve had this in Australia since the 90s at least. All debit cards are dual network: They support both Visa/Mastercard, as well as the local network (called EFTPOS). EFTPOS is noticeably cheaper to process - around 0.3% fee, compared to ~1% for Visa/Mastercard debit in Australia, ~1.5% for credit, and ~3% for Visa/Mastercard in the USA. The profits stay in Australia rather than going to a US company.
That’s only for debit cards, though. EFTPOS doesn’t support credit cards.
Same in Norway and I think same in many countries, biggest issue is across borders inside of Europe. Most payments online also.
Thanks for the info! The only two countries I’m familiar with (in terms of payment processing) are Australia and the US, so I didn’t want to make assumptions about other countries.
Does anyone outside the US even use credit cards?
They have far fewer perks, so it’s not as common.
In Australia, most credit cards have an annual fee, and they pretty much all just offer frequent flyer miles. US cards have much better perks: Quite a few offer 2% cashback, cards with points offer more points than Aussie cards, they almost all include extended warranty and rental car coverage, some include mobile phone protection, etc. If you pay it off in full every month, you get these perks for “free”.
Of course, merchants pay the price for these perks, given the high fees to process credit cards. They can make merchants pay a 3% fee, pay 2% cashback to customers on some of their cards, and still make more money from card fees than they would in other countries. Visa and Mastercard used to require merchants in the US to not charge any extra fees for accepting credit cards, but after a big lawsuit, this is no longer the case. Stores are slowly becoming like Aussie stores - charging extra if you pay by card.
In the US, it’s also very important to build up your credit score, as this affects loan rates for mortgages, cars, personal loans, etc. Most people build their score by getting a credit card as early as possible and using it often.
Same in Canada with Interac. I’d love to see some interop between these types of networks
What Interac is missing is some sort of protection if a number gets stolen, etc. You could lose all the money in the accounts on a card.
Yeah that’s not what we’re talking about here. Debit cards already have their own circuits, like Bancomat here in Italy. This is about credit cards.
Why would it need to be different for credit cards vs debit cards though?
I don’t think it’s a technical issue as much as a financial one
I’m glad to see Visa suffer, but I’m pretty concerned that Wero requires a proprietary phone app. There is no way to shop using Wero without this proprietary software.
It doesn’t require an app. When you pay, you select your bank and it will redirect you to a page that the bank provides. My bank provides a QR-code I can scan with their banking app, but it also offers a log in form to pay.
So I guess it is based on what your bank is willing to provide.
This is based on my experience with ‘iDeal’ the predecessor of wero.
Is Wero OpenSource ? Between me & you, I really hope GNU-Taler gets mass adoption they are on version 1.3 I think
what does GNU Taler do exactly? is it just another blockchain-like cryptocurrency scheme? Does it require a traditional bank to provide some kind of API? How does institutional oversight work?
It’s in the website.
Wero is intregrated into the banking apps we already have. In Germany the banks ING, Volksbank and Sparkasse already implemented it.
That’s just a different proprietary app though.
Are any of those apps FOSS?
Yeah, i was thinking the same thing. Changing one evil for another.
Alas I don’t think the USA will have the political stability to ultimately allow the adoption of an alternative. There is zero point building something that also accommodates the USA right now as the new King is quite likely to ban it and waste all the time put into it. Even a treaty put in place wouldn’t stop this from happening, so frankly its not worth an EU or any other countries company anticipating doing anything with the USA for the foreseeable future.
allow the adoption of an alternative
Why would the EU need an approval from the USA?
USA can use whatever the fuck they want. This is to replace all the transactions happening within the EU.
Having your own transactions system is a big win for the EU, even if no other countries adopt it, and it’s a massive loss for the USA.
Personally, I think having WERO available to Americans would be a good thing for Europe. It aligns the American population more closely to Europe, and if America has a civil war, Europe would have stronger economic ties with the side they favor.
As an American, I certainly wouldn’t mind using WERO. Aside from buying my hentai games without censorship, I would like to keep my money in a safe institution. DOGE broke into America’s social security systems, and exfiltrated data that includes things like bank account numbers. It wouldn’t be surprising if Donald withdraws money from his enemies, without any oversight. Or just orders the banks to do so on his behalf, with ICE in every branch.
Point being, I don’t trust America with my wealth. Europe should use that feeling as a springboard for global spread of the Euro.
For those who were a little concerned about the “breakup” phrasing in the title, I didn’t see any indication in the article indicating those payment methods would stop being accepted. Just moving away from being reliant on them.
Thanks for this. I recall the days of having to take cash to a sketchy guy or getting screwed at the airport so you can get out of the airport. It wasn’t cool, and being able to pay with a credit card in some far-flung places now is pretty amazing.
Costco broke up with VISA so, it’s possible. Re-establish the Templars again as the new money lenders from old.
What Would Jesus Do? Probably burn down banks and most churches.
Man I wish I lived in the EU
Right? The ecconomic benefits, the lack of financial catastrophy from suffering a paper cut, living wages, acessible mass transit, and the political stability. It must be like waking up every day in a dream.
Unfortunately the combined forces of US and Russian propaganda machines try very hard to ruin it for us, and they see some success in depleting EU membership support in polls and various political unrests
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More money ≠ more purchasing power
Yeah but we pay way less for housing and health.
In my country the vast majority of people can’t afford to live alone, because housing’s too expensive for a single person. It has always been so, traditionally you lived with your parents until you got married, then with your families’ help you’d get somewhere to live, if you were well off enough they’d help you start a mortgage, etc.
Nowadays families can’t set aside that kind of savings anymore, for the most part, so the help they can provide is severely reduced.
Shit was rough for Millennials, I have no idea how Gen-Z’ers manage, as it seems to be even worse now.
Right. The Weimar Republic had their population making substantially more cash than at any point before 1923. They used to be able to take wheelbarrows of cash to the grocery store.
It’s true for software engineering because the salaries in NA are insane due to the insane profits those companies are making. But for the average job, life is better.
We generally pay less
Serious question: what is stopping you?
It’s not a simple thing. You really need some personal tie like ancestry or marriage, go to a university, or be sponsored for work.
I don’t think that’s true. Granted I am from here but just to come and start to work us citizens find it way easier than other nationals. Take it in small steps. Most countries allow you to apply for citizenship after 5 years. You just have to find work and accommodation. Some countries do require proof of ancestry like Ireland but there are many others that dont. Some even have free universities like the Nederland or Germany and they teach in English.
I may not know all the subtleties so don’t quote me on that!
Unies are usually not free for non-citizens. At least not where I live.
i am not saying all all free but you can find free if you need to:
https://www.student.com/articles/countries-american-students-study-free-europe
and even if you don’t find, the tuitions costs are lower than US and even UK now. have a look maybe you can find something that peaks your interest. the rest of the world is a lot more diverse than the US.
Nice. We have JCB in Japan but I think it piggybacks off VISA/Mastercard for overseas transactions. It’d be cool if it partnered up with a European counterpart for purchases made in the EU.
We have JCB as well but only for digging holes and moving earth.
I suppose I could do that too with my JCB, but it would take ages to get anything done since the card isn’t very big or durable!
