Factors of inequality (2)
This is a continuation of the topic Factors of inequality.
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1margd
‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse
Damian Carrington | 2 Aug 2025
An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished.
... Dr Luke Kemp at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge ...“I’m pessimistic about the future, but I’m optimistic about people.” Kemp’s new book covers the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies over 5,000 years and took seven years to write. The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens.
Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, he says. The threat is from leaders who are “walking versions of the dark triad” – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and killer robots.
... Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp was published in the UK on 31 July by Viking Penguin
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/02/self-termination-history-and...
Damian Carrington | 2 Aug 2025
An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished.
... Dr Luke Kemp at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge ...“I’m pessimistic about the future, but I’m optimistic about people.” Kemp’s new book covers the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies over 5,000 years and took seven years to write. The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens.
Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, he says. The threat is from leaders who are “walking versions of the dark triad” – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and killer robots.
... Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp was published in the UK on 31 July by Viking Penguin
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/02/self-termination-history-and...
2LolaWalser
Oh, capitalism isn't going to save us all? What a shame.
Marx was right all along, and if there are any historians in the future capable of analysing what happened on Earth, they will conclude that the USSR was on the right path, and the US, the genocide-based, slaver state of capitalism and neocolonialism, was bound to drive us all into extinction.
I only wish this were in any way a consolation.
Marx was right all along, and if there are any historians in the future capable of analysing what happened on Earth, they will conclude that the USSR was on the right path, and the US, the genocide-based, slaver state of capitalism and neocolonialism, was bound to drive us all into extinction.
I only wish this were in any way a consolation.
3JGL53
>" .... historians in the future capable of analyzing what happened on Earth, they will conclude that the USSR was on the right path ...." - So, was it the 30 million kulaks Stalin starved to death that was the tipping point for you to conclude that U.S.S.R.-style communism was the better political system, compared to all the others? Is psychotic dictatorship the best of the political systems on offer? That's your thinking? Then you must REALLY love tRump. Personally, I think abject dictatorship sucks major ass.
4JGL53
> 3 Is the question above really that difficult to answer? Please tell us WHY U.S.S.R.-style communism was the better political system? If it were so wonderful then why did it die the death? Objectively, highly controlled economies suck. Communism sucks. Dictatorships suck. Can someone produce convincing evidence to the contrary?
5kiparsky
>2 LolaWalser: I'm pleased that you're so confident in your conclusion. It would be interesting to see you explain your reasoning - what makes you say the USSR was "on the right path"?
7kiparsky
>6 John5918: Thanks for that.
9margd
Tax the rich or watch the middle class collapse
Gary's Economics | Dec 2025
"This video explains why house prices did not crash even after interest rates surged. The reason is simple: rich people accumulated an unbelievable amount of money during Covid, and that money has to go somewhere. The rich buy assets, lend mortgages, and drive prices upward, even while living standards collapse. When interest rates fall again, they will start buying even more, creating a vacuum that sucks wealth out of the property-owning middle class. Rising house prices are not society getting richer. They are society getting poorer, and future generations will pay the price ..."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/tax-the-rich-or-watch-the-middle-class-coll...
Gary's Economics | Dec 2025
"This video explains why house prices did not crash even after interest rates surged. The reason is simple: rich people accumulated an unbelievable amount of money during Covid, and that money has to go somewhere. The rich buy assets, lend mortgages, and drive prices upward, even while living standards collapse. When interest rates fall again, they will start buying even more, creating a vacuum that sucks wealth out of the property-owning middle class. Rising house prices are not society getting richer. They are society getting poorer, and future generations will pay the price ..."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/tax-the-rich-or-watch-the-middle-class-coll...
10margd
Griftopia
Republicans Are Dismantling a Key Tool in the War Against Kleptocrats
Casey Michel | June 22, 2026
"... until the early 2020s, the United States stood at the center of the world of offshore finance. While places like Switzerland, Panama, the Cayman Islands, and other smaller locales got most of the headlines regarding offshore secrecy, in reality it was the U.S. that dominated the world of laundering illicit wealth, attracting billions (and potentially more) from narco-traffickers, arms dealers, kleptocrats, and others looking to wash their wealth clean.
Many industries accelerated America’s transformation into an offshore behemoth, including real estate and private equity, both of which enjoyed decades-long loopholes in basic anti–money laundering provisions. But there was one industry in particular that served as the bedrock for all of these laundering networks: shell companies. Thanks to America’s fractured corporate formation landscape, the federal government had no say in how U.S. shell companies were formed—or what kind of information was needed when setting up a shell company.
As a result, states like Delaware, Wyoming, Nevada, and others provided all of the secrecy and legal protections that cartel heads, dictators, human smugglers, and others needed to hide their financial tracks. ...
It wasn’t simply autocrats and their oligarchic proxies who benefited from these anonymous shells. Wealthy Americans, those looking to secretly influence American politics, those searching for ways to covertly inject finance into U.S. elections—all of them profited from this rank secrecy.
... early 2020s that legislators finally passed something called the Corporate Transparency Act. ... {bi}partisan ... a slate of legislators from both sides of the aisle passed the bill over President Trump’s veto. Nor was the bill onerous. Instead of a public registry of corporate owners, as seen in places like the United Kingdom, America’s new shell company database would remain private, accessible only to federal authorities and other officials tracking illicit and looted wealth.
... Barely a month into his second term, Trump announced ... that his administration would no longer be enforcing the law for U.S. shell companies—and that no one would need to worry about prosecution for breaking the law. A few months later, Trump’s Treasury Department announced that it was destroying all of the filings the registry had compiled thus far, torching the database entirely.
Still, the law technically remained, as did the related statutes of limitations—and the potential for a future administration to go after malefactors still setting up anonymous shells ...
Enter Congress. In late April, Trump’s allies on the House Financial Services Committee pushed through legislation by a one-vote margin to formally repeal the requirement that U.S. shells divulge their true owners. Claiming that the transparency requirement—which requires that company managers take approximately five minutes to fill out a form disclosing company ownership—was an onerous burden, the new bill, dubbed the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act and sponsored by Ohio Republican Representative Warren Davidson, will restore America’s status as the leading offshore haven. Last month, Senate colleagues introduced similar legislation, aiming to attach it to the broader defense bill set to be passed later this year. ..."
https://newrepublic.com/article/211855/republicans-making-world-safe-kleptocrats
Republicans Are Dismantling a Key Tool in the War Against Kleptocrats
Casey Michel | June 22, 2026
"... until the early 2020s, the United States stood at the center of the world of offshore finance. While places like Switzerland, Panama, the Cayman Islands, and other smaller locales got most of the headlines regarding offshore secrecy, in reality it was the U.S. that dominated the world of laundering illicit wealth, attracting billions (and potentially more) from narco-traffickers, arms dealers, kleptocrats, and others looking to wash their wealth clean.
Many industries accelerated America’s transformation into an offshore behemoth, including real estate and private equity, both of which enjoyed decades-long loopholes in basic anti–money laundering provisions. But there was one industry in particular that served as the bedrock for all of these laundering networks: shell companies. Thanks to America’s fractured corporate formation landscape, the federal government had no say in how U.S. shell companies were formed—or what kind of information was needed when setting up a shell company.
As a result, states like Delaware, Wyoming, Nevada, and others provided all of the secrecy and legal protections that cartel heads, dictators, human smugglers, and others needed to hide their financial tracks. ...
It wasn’t simply autocrats and their oligarchic proxies who benefited from these anonymous shells. Wealthy Americans, those looking to secretly influence American politics, those searching for ways to covertly inject finance into U.S. elections—all of them profited from this rank secrecy.
... early 2020s that legislators finally passed something called the Corporate Transparency Act. ... {bi}partisan ... a slate of legislators from both sides of the aisle passed the bill over President Trump’s veto. Nor was the bill onerous. Instead of a public registry of corporate owners, as seen in places like the United Kingdom, America’s new shell company database would remain private, accessible only to federal authorities and other officials tracking illicit and looted wealth.
... Barely a month into his second term, Trump announced ... that his administration would no longer be enforcing the law for U.S. shell companies—and that no one would need to worry about prosecution for breaking the law. A few months later, Trump’s Treasury Department announced that it was destroying all of the filings the registry had compiled thus far, torching the database entirely.
Still, the law technically remained, as did the related statutes of limitations—and the potential for a future administration to go after malefactors still setting up anonymous shells ...
Enter Congress. In late April, Trump’s allies on the House Financial Services Committee pushed through legislation by a one-vote margin to formally repeal the requirement that U.S. shells divulge their true owners. Claiming that the transparency requirement—which requires that company managers take approximately five minutes to fill out a form disclosing company ownership—was an onerous burden, the new bill, dubbed the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act and sponsored by Ohio Republican Representative Warren Davidson, will restore America’s status as the leading offshore haven. Last month, Senate colleagues introduced similar legislation, aiming to attach it to the broader defense bill set to be passed later this year. ..."
https://newrepublic.com/article/211855/republicans-making-world-safe-kleptocrats
