Comment by mrguyorama

10 months ago

> But then again given our current political environment maybe that is what we're trying to tell the next generation.

There's no trying.

The US has played "Just grift your way to money" as a standard means of operating since at least the dotcom boom. A reason so many young and poorly educated people jump at obvious MLM type scams and other scams is because they feel that everything is a scam, so surely they can get in on it too, right?

And everything IS a scam. Coke doubled in price in the past 5 years. I promise you their costs did not double. Their costs are Labor (highly automated), water (they almost always have sweetheart deals for dirt cheap water, cheaper than you pay), and one of the most subsidized commodities available, HFCS, or alternatively, a sprinkle of dirt cheap chemicals for their diet sodas.

People feel that, even when they don't understand or even recognize it.

People recognize that the US has been a scammy free for all for decades now. Everyone for themselves, fuck you, got mine.

We are on like the third generation raised this way. The people who took "Greed is good" to heart had kids, and raised them with it as a core principle.

Jordan Belfort, the guy who Wolf Of Wall Street is based on and spent time in prison for scamming his clients in basically the same way modern crypto pump and dumps work, now sells out auditoriums as a motivational speaker for fucks sake.