@HeavenlyPossum wow took them a while to figure out that they could save at the top by cutting the people with the highest salaries instead of the people doing the actual work
Recently, someone told me that, thanks to capitalism, the environment has been getting cleaner and healthier.
“That pollution level is expected to get significantly worse. First Street projected changes in air pollution, based on models that predict extreme heat and wildfires. The group estimated that by 2054, more than 125 million Americans each year will be exposed to at least one day of ‘red’ air quality, the level that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency describes as unhealthy. That’s a 50 percent jump over this year.”
Recently, someone told me that, thanks to capitalism, the environment has been getting cleaner and healthier.
“That pollution level is expected to get significantly worse. First Street projected changes in air pollution, based on models that predict extreme heat and wildfires. The group estimated that by 2054, more than 125 million Americans each year will be exposed to at least one day of ‘red’ air quality, the level that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency describes as unhealthy. That’s a...
I came across a first-hand account of somehow who escaped the fire in #Lahaina and she noted that many roads out of town were privately owned by sugar plantations and were chained shut.
She says people died in their cars trying to escape.
All of those sugar plantations were enclosed by the Hawaiian monarchy and sold off to American colonists, who in turn overthrew the monarchy and cemented their control of the islands and their lands.
Dying because of a chained gate on land that was stolen from the Hawaiian people is as surely murder as if they’d been pushed into the flames.
I came across a first-hand account of somehow who escaped the fire in #Lahaina and she noted that many roads out of town were privately owned by sugar plantations and were chained shut.
She says people died in their cars trying to escape.
All of those sugar plantations were enclosed by the Hawaiian monarchy and sold off to American colonists, who in turn overthrew the monarchy and cemented their control of the islands and their lands.
@HeavenlyPossum Adjacent point: I live in an area that is at extreme risk of similar outcomes as Lahaina. After seeing the pictures of the cars strewn all over the roads, my escape vehicle is now going to be a bicycle.
@HeavenlyPossum Looking at a map of large landowners in the area, it seems like the major private owner of land along the escape route is Kamehameha Schools.
Someone popped into my mentions yesterday and tried to argue that we can and should respond to the climate catastrophe by changing our consumption patterns—reducing, reusing, and recycling; carpooling; buying from artisans rather than big firms; etc.
Undoubtedly, many of us could improve the way we buy and use stuff and thereby nibble away at the margins of the climate problem. But no, we are not going to solve problems like “sequential heat waves that kill at least tens of thousands of people every summer” by recycling our glass bottles.
What I really want to talk about, though, is the idea that our pattern of purchases and use is somehow a neutral and organic expression of our preferences that we can just adjust on a whim. It’s not.
Someone popped into my mentions yesterday and tried to argue that we can and should respond to the climate catastrophe by changing our consumption patterns—reducing, reusing, and recycling; carpooling; buying from artisans rather than big firms; etc.
Undoubtedly, many of us could improve the way we buy and use stuff and thereby nibble away at the margins of the climate problem. But no, we are not going to solve problems like “sequential heat waves that kill at least tens of thousands of people every...
Much of what we purchase, use, dispose, and replace is not the result of neutral preference, but in response to incentives, disincentives, and outright command imposed on us by people with power over our lives.
In much of the world, for example, the physical built environment was designed by people in power to require the purchase, regular refueling, and maintenance of personal automobiles to complete trips of anything more than a few kilometers (and often even less than that).
In Georgia in 2011, for example, a mother tried crossing a street from a bus stop to her home. Using the nearest crosswalk would have added a mile to their journey across the street. They were struck by a man driving a van—a habitual criminal driver—who killed her son and injured the rest.
That physical environment was physically constructed in such a way that the simple act of transiting a few dozen feet of public space requires the purchase and ownership of a car *at the risk of death.*
Much of what we purchase, use, dispose, and replace is not the result of neutral preference, but in response to incentives, disincentives, and outright command imposed on us by people with power over our lives.
In much of the world, for example, the physical built environment was designed by people in power to require the purchase, regular refueling, and maintenance of personal automobiles to complete trips of anything more than a few kilometers (and often even less than that).
Just to add that the Treadmill of Production (which I wrote a bit about in my toot below) is a useful concept to help understand how the capitalist economy is not demand-driven, but supply-driven.
@HeavenlyPossum wow took them a while to figure out that they could save at the top by cutting the people with the highest salaries instead of the people doing the actual work
@HeavenlyPossum
https://archive.is/hAmMx
@HeavenlyPossum
Of course, the real question is whether any of the $2.15B savings will be redistributed to the workers or hoarded as usual by the owners.
Also the headline is misleading. They're not getting rid of the bosses, only "middle management”.