Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

Higgenbotham wrote: Fri Apr 10, 2026 9:45 am First there was United Health and now this. Let's see if this possible incipient trend accelerates as they further tighten the screws, which they most certainly will.

Kimberly-Clark Distribution Center in Ontario, 29 yo employee arrested over the arson, no casualties. Estimated damage around $200 million. The phrase ‘all you had to do was pay us enough to live’ comes from the arsonist filming himself starting the fires. It already got a ‘defend deny depose’ spread across social media platforms, as the images of the 1.2 million square foot warehouse ablaze were released.

https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comme ... are_button

The Hill

Opinion: Class warfare is smoldering in America — and it’s about to catch fire
Opinion by Austin Sarat, opinion contributor

In 1982, Harvard Professor Seymour Martin Lipset used his presidential address to the American Political Science Association to crow about the absence of working-class radicalism in this country — the kind that had so plagued European nations.

In Lipset’s view, America’s egalitarian ideology, rapid upward mobility, and individualism fostered what he called a “middle-class” outlook among workers. “The absence of an aristocratic or feudal past,” he observed, “combined with a history of political democracy prior to industrialization, served to reduce the salience of class-conscious politics and proposals for major structural change.”

On April 8, the arsonist filmed himself starting the fire that burned the warehouse to the ground. As he did so, he said, “If you are not going to pay us enough to f—ing live or afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this (setting fire to the plastic wrapping of a package of toilet paper).”

Then, as the fire spread, he said triumphally, “There goes your inventory.”

Not since Luigi Mangione allegedly shot an insurance company executive in New York City has there been such a crystallizing moment for the expression of the growing hopelessness and anger felt by people at the bottom of the economic ladder. Wealth disparities, the lack of upward mobility, the affordability crisis, and the impact of AI are all contributing to those feelings.

While the lionizing of Mangione has subsided since 2024, the frustration that led him to murder the head of United Health Care has not. Recall the message he painted on the bullets he used: “Delay, Deny, Depose.”

Those words channeled the feelings of millions of Americans who have been mistreated by insurance companies. What the Los Angeles arsonist said, and the fact that he posted a video of what he did, suggests that he, too, saw himself in a role similar to Mangione’s.

The LA arson should be a wake-up call to political leaders that they urgently need to address the growing despair felt by many Americans.

‘The only thing that terrifies me is BYD’: Politicians quake at Chinese EVs
The question is when, not if, U.S. and European auto markets will open up to Chinese EV investment.

By Zack Colman, Jordyn Dahl, Sara Schonhardt and Charlie Cooper
05/13/2026 05:00 AM EDT

The walls that once kept Chinese electric vehicles out of the western economies are quickly developing some major cracks.

That’s made the U.S. auto industry and lawmakers nervous that President Donald Trump’s trip to Beijing for a Thursday summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping could accelerate the entry of cheap EVs, wiping out the nascent U.S. EV sector at a time when fuel costs are soaring because of the U.S. war against Iran and rising car prices are souring public sentiment.

“The only thing that terrifies me is BYD,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), whose family built a car dealership company before he entered Congress, said last week at an event in Washington. “The fact that it’s so inexpensive would destroy every other car company’s investment in electric vehicles.”

For now, the U.S. market is off limits to Chinese EVs due to a combination of national security regulations and a 100 percent tariff. A flurry of new legislation backed by the top auto lobbying organization and manufacturers along with bipartisan warnings from Congress to Trump to avoid deals are evidence that U.S. automakers are in a panic over the potential entry of Chinese EVs or manufacturing investment.

“They’re absolutely more than worried — they’re scared stiff,” said Michael Dunne, chief executive officer of Dunne Insights, an automotive consultancy. “Imagine if the Chinese come in with a $25,000 EV. That could catch like wildfire.”

While Cabinet officials insist protecting the auto sector is non-negotiable in the talks at this week’s summit, Trump himself has opened the door to Chinese investment.

“If they want to come in and build the plant and hire you and hire your friends and your neighbors, that’s great,” Trump told the Detroit Economic Club in January. “I love that. Let China come in, let Japan come in. They are and they’ll be building plants, but they’re using our labor.”

'We Have No Chance Against This': Honda Reacts To China's Supplier Strength
Honda’s CEO delivered this stark verdict after touring an auto supplier factory in Shanghai.

Ford And Toyota Are Also Worried

Honda’s leadership isn’t alone in sounding the alarm across the supply chain. In an October 2025 interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Ford CEO Jim Farley didn’t mince words either:

'They have enough [production] capacity in China with existing factories to serve the entire North American market, put us all out of business.'

Similarly, former Toyota CEO Koji Sato recently told suppliers during a meeting with representatives from 484 companies that unless things change, the company’s very existence could be at risk:

'Unless things change, we will not survive. I want everyone to acknowledge this sense of crisis.'

aedens wrote: Fri May 15, 2026 9:04 am U.S. tomato prices rise nearly 40%.
H can provide local customers.

metastatic limousine leftism

and the path away from authoritarianism

i feel sort of stupid. for ages i’ve been puzzling with something and trying to figure it out: from soros to BO to biden to hil-dog and the WEF, the UN, IPCC, WHO, from groovy gavin to horrible hochul, these people seem like wreckers. they are bent on undermining and destroying systems that work from the electorate to elections to the economy, property rights, taxes, energy, public health, public services, the social contract, and the public purse.

you can see the flight from their cities and states, the damage done, and the virtue claimed for it. they stand proudly in front of 17 time felons who just killed again and tell you it’s simply unjust to keep them in prison. they swear no illegal gets welfare and medicaid, then pay to teach border jumpers to steal it. it’s so obviously, ostentatiously, dystopia wept wrong. and these people are not stupid. they must understand, must be able to think in second and third order systems. so what gives?

and i finally think i get it and it’s so fricking simple and so large and nose on your face obvious that i’ve been staring right at it and not quite seeing it:

they are deliberately wrecking things. the wreckage is not a bug, it’s the feature. they want to destroy the high function systems of the west because they want to rule the west in authoritarian fashion. that’s the only goal. and successful systems cannot be so ruled. they resist. they do not want or need such rulers. things are good. people want good things to continue. they are optimistic and replete.

so you need to create a problem for which the only answer is dictatorship and then get people to give such power to you out of desperation.

you need them poor, hungry, hurting, angry, unsafe, threatened, and envious of anyone better off.

you need to break their belief in a better future because people who believe in better futures do not accede republics to dictators.

so you must not only create problems that make life unpleasant, you must undermine belief that individuals can solve these problems for themselves. if you can do that, then all you need is an external enemy to unify them against and voila, you’ve got control and people will thank you for it.

(at least for a minute until they glean your true nature by which time it’s too late.)