22 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Grabbing assets is definitely part of the overall plan, since wealth is how they ultimately rank themselves, and how they remove others from the game. And more and more, the game seems to be aimed at total global collapse, leaving them holding as much as they can. Billionaire wealth rose by 121% in the last ten years, and it's clear they've got the stock market beat, since the best of the indexes only made around 77%. They're using their money to push the world to the brink, because they're ready for it, and will profit from all the chaos they're creating. Again, deportation just gives them another tool to take assets away from others to benefit themselves.

I'm thinking, with regard to creating chaos, that oligarchs try to aim for a kind of Goldilocks zone, where people have enough anxiety to be manipulated but not so much that they withdraw from consumerist comforts and turn their wrath on the oligarchs and the politicians who serve them. When you turn the 99% (in David Graeber's meaning) into frightened peasants, you can get peasant uprisings. Like the Jacquerie in France, peasants have a way of noticing when the leadership is asking them to defend failed and corrupt institutions.

2 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I'm thinking, with regard to creating chaos, that oligarchs try to aim for a kind of Goldilocks zone, where people have enough anxiety to be manipulated but not so much that they withdraw from consumerist comforts and turn their wrath on the oligarchs and the politicians who serve them. When you turn the 99% (in David Graeber's meaning) into frightened peasants, you can get peasant uprisings. Like the Jacquerie in France, peasants have a way of noticing when the leadership is asking them to defend failed and corrupt institutions.

Maybe once, but it seems the gloves are off. We have masked men in military gear with questionable authority harassing ordinary citizens. We have politicians willing to grin in photo ops under headlines like "17 Million Americans Lose Health Insurance!" They behave as if the midterms won't take place. I think we may have reached some magic number only the oligarchs know and now they don't need consumers as long as they can grab up everything the consumers own. I'm still reeling from the idea that a lot of these corporations don't need people of color to make their sales forecasts, so they dropped their DEI programs VERY publicly.

Then again, I thought it was good practice to pay people well for the job they do, so they can participate in their own economy, and everybody is happy. I didn't count on the fact that unhappy people work for less pay, don't complain as much, and spend even more money than happy people.

Just now, Phi for All said:

illionaire wealth rose by 121% in the last ten years, and it's clear they've got the stock market beat, since the best of the indexes only made around 77%. They're using their money to push the world to the brink, because they're ready for it, and will profit from all the chaos they're creating. Again, deportation just gives them another tool to take assets away from others to benefit themselves.

Yes, but I think they have far more effective ways of redistribution to the top. Especially as they get to make all the rules. I have doubt that the deportations will have any impact on that.

21 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Yes, but I think they have far more effective ways of redistribution to the top. Especially as they get to make all the rules. I have doubt that the deportations will have any impact on that.

Redistribution assumes there are assets to be redistributed. That was sort of guaranteed when people earned a wage that covered more than the cost of living. It behooved the extremist capitalist to keep the worker/consumer relationship healthy so they could count on steady income from the working and middle classes.

Now though, they don't seem to care much about that. Fuck consumer protections, force the middle and working classes to pay more in taxes while LOUDLY cheering to pay nothing yourself, and take away healthcare people already considered inadequate.

I think the deportations are just another way to signal that they've militarized these capitalist efforts. They don't give a shit if you're brown or black, but their base does, and they're using that to mimic WWII Germany. It shouldn't be this hard to convince anybody that deporting central and south Americans is just the start, and those with wealth to confiscate who aren't willing to pay to stay will be next, especially if they don't get a chance to pay for due process. Jesus, TFG is talking about deporting citizens, not just those with no papers. Established citizens with generations of wealth, you don't see that as a grab for assets? It seems like another tool to me, perhaps one that will work better than those "far more effective" ways they've used before.

Edit to add: Ah, the Secretary of Agriculture just figured it all out! The folks on Medicaid who need to show 80 hours of work are now expected to pick the crops going unpicked by deported migrant workers. Brooke Rollins is so happy the workforce will be 100% American!

19 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I think the deportations are just another way to signal that they've militarized these capitalist efforts. They don't give a shit if you're brown or black, but their base does, and they're using that to mimic WWII Germany.

I think there are different motivations here at play. There are many companies wanting a disposable workforce with little power, which is often filled by immigrants. They are also less likely to unionize, for example. Right-wing workers OTOH therefore see those guys taking their jobs. I just don't see how deportations has any positive financial impact for the rich. It is much easier to redistribute wealth by getting more tax money to the top. Most from what I read is that the big corporations (as e.g. outlined by recent SEC filings) are rather against deportations for financial reasons, even if they are ideologically aligned.

My overall point is that I just don't see why billionaires would be interested in a complicated mechanisms that likely drains tax monies, if they instead can make the rules where the money is directly funneled into their pockets.

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

just don't see how deportations has any positive financial impact for the rich. It is much easier to redistribute wealth by getting more tax money to the top. Most from what I read is that the big corporations (as e.g. outlined by recent SEC filings) are rather against deportations for financial reasons, even if they are ideologically aligned.

Could be that corporate forces are split - tech bros see deportation as a way to clear the path for automation (the ultimate in cheap, docile and submissive workers) while other corporations and smaller biz fear the economic shrinkage from mass deportation.

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

- tech bros see deportation as a way to clear the path for automation (the ultimate in cheap, docile and submissive workers)

I am not sure why that would be an issue, they can implement automation regardless of immigrants. They have been quite in favour of H1B visas in the past, though.

It does not mean that they won't help enforcing deportation, if they get to make money out of it, though.

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

I am not sure why that would be an issue, they can implement automation regardless of immigrants. They have been quite in favour of H1B visas in the past, though.

It does not mean that they won't help enforcing deportation, if they get to make money out of it, though.

What I was speculating (admittedly) was that deporting a large percent of the agricultural labor segment that picks produce, packs meat, etc would allow tech firms to roll out new robotic product lines and ride in to rescue untended fields of crops and stalled processing lines in slaughterhouses. (Unless of course that plan to force Medicaid patients to do fieldwork is implemented).

54 minutes ago, TheVat said:

What I was speculating (admittedly) was that deporting a large percent of the agricultural labor segment that picks produce, packs meat, etc would allow tech firms to roll out new robotic product lines and ride in to rescue untended fields of crops and stalled processing lines in slaughterhouses.

Oh I see. At least in the agriculture sector it seems that most developments in that area a still smaller startups. They are trying to put AI in everything and it might be a market that they may be eyeing, but I am not sure how profitable it might or might not be. But honestly, that looks like too much long-term planning for techbros.

And now Turnip is backpedaling on agri and lodging laborers...

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/11/trump-immigration-farmworkers-visas

Under pressure from worried farmers and hotel owners, the Trump administration is launching a program to streamline issuing visas for temporary, migrant workers to try to make sure fruits get picked, meat is packed and lodgings are cleaned.

Why it matters: President Trump's immigration crackdown has put his administration between a MAGA rock and a special-interest hard place.

• Farmers who rely on noncitizen workers — who make up as much as 40% of the agricultural labor market — are howling that Trump's mass deportation program is damaging the labor market, and could therefore threaten the food supply.

• But Trump's MAGA base wants to ratchet up deportations, saying the administration shouldn't allow employers to incentivize illegal immigration by granting "amnesty" to certain noncitizen workers.

Zoom in: Trying to balance those competing interests, the Department of Labor has created the Office of Immigration Policy. It's designed to be a red-tape-cutting, one-stop shop to help employers get faster approval for temporary worker visas...

Well, what are the chances that things might be dependent on whether the operation is a in a red or blue state/county?

Meanwhile, the acting director of ICE claims that they don't even need probable cause to arrest folks.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5396985-trump-homan-immigration-detainments/

On Fox News, Homan insisted his agents did not need probable cause to briefly detain someone.

“It’s not probable cause. It’s reasonable suspicion,” he said, citing the standard used for stop-and-frisk cases.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), a former federal prosecutor, said on social platform X that Homan’s claim was “patently false.”

The Department of Homeland Security “has authority to question and search people coming into the country at points of entry,” he wrote. “But ICE may not detain and question anyone without reasonable suspicion — and certainly not based on their physical appearance alone. This lawlessness must stop.”

there was a time when i would say that he is just pulling shit out of his ass and to not take such threats seriously. he's definitely pulling shit out of his ass, don't get me wrong, but now even the most unhinged of his dementia-fueled ideas are brought to fruition. our country is in the hands of a deranged madman