#monopoly — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #monopoly, aggregated by home.social.
-
Banks take savings and invest it in war (sometimes both sides)
(devalues us all)Banks sell money
(this debt devalues the face-value of money in #circulation now)Banks #lend / #loan people's money for increasing it's own #power & #monopoly
#Banks & Money are the #root of #bad #power / #civilisation / " #infinite growth " / #destruction
The RICH don't want to change their power! Don't beg them to change!
Agree? @RichardJMurphy @aral @ashwin
-
Banks take savings and invest it in war (sometimes both sides)
(devalues us all)Banks sell money
(this debt devalues the face-value of money in #circulation now)Banks #lend / #loan people's money for increasing it's own #power & #monopoly
#Banks & Money are the #root of #bad #power / #civilisation / " #infinite growth " / #destruction
The RICH don't want to change their power! Don't beg them to change!
Agree? @RichardJMurphy @aral @ashwin
-
Anyone interested in #migration to #Chile #Paraguay #Brazil or #Argentina ? Möchte jemand #auswandern ? Keinesfalls Alleine! Hier vernetzen https://buy-land-together.com/auswandern-nach/
Ja #Lateinamerika macht nur #Sinn wenn man sich 99% selbst versorgt #wasser #essen #energie sonst ist man den CocaCola und Nestle #wasser #monopoly ausgeliefert, habe da ideen aber wenig Geld :( suche #Kooperation auch #MeerWasser kann man #Solar aufbereiten :D quasi #destillation wer ist dabei? checkout https://ultimate-solar.com #solarsystems -
Anyone interested in #migration to #Chile #Paraguay #Brazil or #Argentina ? Möchte jemand #auswandern ? Keinesfalls Alleine! Hier vernetzen https://buy-land-together.com/auswandern-nach/
Ja #Lateinamerika macht nur #Sinn wenn man sich 99% selbst versorgt #wasser #essen #energie sonst ist man den CocaCola und Nestle #wasser #monopoly ausgeliefert, habe da ideen aber wenig Geld :( suche #Kooperation auch #MeerWasser kann man #Solar aufbereiten :D quasi #destillation wer ist dabei? checkout https://ultimate-solar.com #solarsystems -
It's doubly scary with how much we depend on Google and how badly their AI messes up are impacting our lives.
#AI #google #monopoly
https://thewalrus.ca/google-search-is-dying/ -
It's doubly scary with how much we depend on Google and how badly their AI messes up are impacting our lives.
#AI #google #monopoly
https://thewalrus.ca/google-search-is-dying/ -
Pour les millio-milliardaires, le #monde est un supermarché géant, un #monopoly réel
Rien à voir avec le mot-valise capitalisme déshabillé de sa partie 'consentement entre parties prenantes".
Vendre quelque chose qui ne t'appartient pas (ex : un pays), ce n'est pas du capitalisme, c'est du vol/un enlèvement/un recel/une spoliation Pas une transaction commerciale.
Le plus grand hold-up des friqués à ne savoir qu'en faire, c'est sur le vocabulaire. Dépouillés des mots aussi = vulnérable.
-
& 🧠 #PSYCHOLOGIE
ℹ️ fehlende Vergleichsstudie mit Probanden
👉 OHNE ZUGANG ZU #HORROR #FILM
& TAGESFREIZEIT #TV 🗑️#kommunikation #energy #verbraucher #berlin #zukunft #cannabis #medien #deutschland #info #politik #mindset #gesellschaft #punk #kunst #glaube #anarchy #apple #satire #streaming #monopoly #soap #theater #krimi #quiz #3sat #kultur #arte #ndr #rbb #wdr #show #protest #comedy #lobby #wissenschaft
-
& 🧠 #PSYCHOLOGIE
ℹ️ fehlende Vergleichsstudie mit Probanden
👉 OHNE ZUGANG ZU #HORROR #FILM
& TAGESFREIZEIT #TV 🗑️#kommunikation #energy #verbraucher #berlin #zukunft #cannabis #medien #deutschland #info #politik #mindset #gesellschaft #punk #kunst #glaube #anarchy #apple #satire #streaming #monopoly #soap #theater #krimi #quiz #3sat #kultur #arte #ndr #rbb #wdr #show #protest #comedy #lobby #wissenschaft
-
Like comptuer networks, markets are a trust technology that require well established trust boundaries. The recent DOJ egg collusion complaint shows that collusion can happen, not just when producers get together, but when they "hack" an interface the market uses to coordinate activity.
In this case, the prodcuers coordinated to spoof activity to fool a market monitor.
https://misaligned.markets/bad-eggs-market-collusion/
#economics #capitalism #antitrust #monopoly #economy #inflation #cybersecurity
-
Like comptuer networks, markets are a trust technology that require well established trust boundaries. The recent DOJ egg collusion complaint shows that collusion can happen, not just when producers get together, but when they "hack" an interface the market uses to coordinate activity.
In this case, the prodcuers coordinated to spoof activity to fool a market monitor.
https://misaligned.markets/bad-eggs-market-collusion/
#economics #capitalism #antitrust #monopoly #economy #inflation #cybersecurity
-
Called my dad who spent nearly 40 years as a railroad man for Norfolk Southern (and Norfolk & Western before that) we were talking about what how terrible it would be for American shipping if Norfolk Southern is allowed to merge with Union Pacific like they want to, which in turn would probably force CSX to merge with the remaining big railroad and create a situation where most of the freight railroads in America are owned by just 3 companies (most northern freight is operated by a Canadian company)
-
Called my dad who spent nearly 40 years as a railroad man for Norfolk Southern (and Norfolk & Western before that) we were talking about what how terrible it would be for American shipping if Norfolk Southern is allowed to merge with Union Pacific like they want to, which in turn would probably force CSX to merge with the remaining big railroad and create a situation where most of the freight railroads in America are owned by just 3 companies (most northern freight is operated by a Canadian company)
-
#BrendanCarr already sidestepped the ownership cap earlier this year when the #FCC approved Nexstar’s $6.2 billion merger with rival Tegna, which would give the country’s largest #TV owner an 80% reach into #US homes. That deal was subsequently blocked by a federal judge after DirecTV & several state attorneys general sued, alleging #antitrust violations. The case is ongoing.
#law #monopoly #billionaires #media #regulations #censorship #influence #indoctrination #Trump
-
#BrendanCarr already sidestepped the ownership cap earlier this year when the #FCC approved Nexstar’s $6.2 billion merger with rival Tegna, which would give the country’s largest #TV owner an 80% reach into #US homes. That deal was subsequently blocked by a federal judge after DirecTV & several state attorneys general sued, alleging #antitrust violations. The case is ongoing.
#law #monopoly #billionaires #media #regulations #censorship #influence #indoctrination #Trump
-
The #FCC’s commissioners voted 2-1 to replace the cap, which prevents a company from owning broadcasting stations that collectively reach more than 39% of #US households, with a case-by-case review. The agency has said that the new process would “empower the FCC to approve deals that promote the public interest while allowing the agency to reject any deals that do not meet that standard.”
#law #antitrust #monopoly #billionaires #media #regulations #censorship #influence #indoctrination #Trump -
The #FCC’s commissioners voted 2-1 to replace the cap, which prevents a company from owning broadcasting stations that collectively reach more than 39% of #US households, with a case-by-case review. The agency has said that the new process would “empower the FCC to approve deals that promote the public interest while allowing the agency to reject any deals that do not meet that standard.”
#law #antitrust #monopoly #billionaires #media #regulations #censorship #influence #indoctrination #Trump -
Privatised fucking everything needs to stop.
If is a necessary function, like aged care, public transport, education, roadways, electricity, water, health care etc etc etcProfit motive means profits are syphoned to owners not plowed back or used by authorities.
Prices creep up and what was deceitfully sold as "more efficient" by corrupt politicians becomes minimum-effort, inefficient and after initial "competition" reverts back to a monopoly or a cartel.
-
Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period. [Unofficial] @[email protected] ·Pluralistic: Google is a scammer's paradise (05 Aug 2026)
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/05/absentee-landlord/
-
Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period. [Unofficial] @[email protected] ·Pluralistic: Google is a scammer's paradise (05 Aug 2026)
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/05/absentee-landlord/
-
David Ellison Should Never Own a Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery, because of course not.
But that didn't stop David Ellison from trying to convince us he should (and oddly making it clear he should not).
#wbd #psky #merger #monopoly #news #media #entertainment #movies #tv #film #television
David Ellison Convinced Me He ... -
David Ellison Should Never Own a Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery, because of course not.
But that didn't stop David Ellison from trying to convince us he should (and oddly making it clear he should not).
#wbd #psky #merger #monopoly #news #media #entertainment #movies #tv #film #television
David Ellison Convinced Me He ... -
David Ellison Should Never Own a Combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery, because of course he shouldn't.
No one person, family or company should own so much news, media and entertainment.
But that didn't stop David Ellison from trying to convince us he should (and oddly making it clear he should not).
#paramount #WarnerBrosDiscovery #wbd #psky #merger #monopoly #news #media #entertainment #movies #tv #film #television
-
David Ellison Should Never Own a Combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery, because of course he shouldn't.
No one person, family or company should own so much news, media and entertainment.
But that didn't stop David Ellison from trying to convince us he should (and oddly making it clear he should not).
#paramount #WarnerBrosDiscovery #wbd #psky #merger #monopoly #news #media #entertainment #movies #tv #film #television
-
Google profile suspension has led to major losses for air conditioner mechanic in WA
It seems they do have their own website, but it's the Google Reviews part that was sending customers their way.
-
Google profile suspension has led to major losses for air conditioner mechanic in WA
It seems they do have their own website, but it's the Google Reviews part that was sending customers their way.
-
“I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, ‘Hey, the sign says you’re open 24 hours.’ He said, ‘Yes, but not in a row.'”*…
As Max Burns reports, a wave of corporate consolidation is reshaping the grocery industry; today, the U.S. has one-third fewer grocery stores than it did 25 years ago. The result is that just four corporations—Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Albertsons—control more than two-thirds of the U.S. grocery market, This is squeezing workers, limiting competition, and giving this handful of retailers unprecedented control over what Americans pay for food…
If it feels to you like American consumers have fewer choices than ever before, your mind isn’t playing tricks on you. Federal regulators are approving corporate mega-mergers at the fastest rate since the 1980s. Consumers are feeling those industry-spanning consolidations everywhere, as hardly a sector of American life has escaped Wall Street’s goal of building the largest and most powerful corporate conglomerates in world history.
From power utilities and artificial intelligence to broadcast news networks and railroads, a few massive corporate players have come to dominate American commercial life in ways not seen since the Gilded Age trusts of the 19th century. Those consolidations have generated historic profits for executives and major shareholders while working families are faced with lower quality goods and services, fewer options, and a hostile labor market unfairly skewed toward the interests of the ultra-rich.
Democrats have been quick to criticize some of the nation’s biggest mergers as anti-worker and anti-consumer, but one critical sector of the U.S. economy has managed to escape widespread public criticism: grocery stores. Thanks to a record rise in special interest cash donations to both Democrats and Republicans, grocery-industry lobby groups have managed to keep prices high, wages low, and consumer choice limited while avoiding federal policymakers’ crosshairs. The result is an invisible crisis in the nation’s food industry that threatens to reshape how and what Americans eat.
In a corporate landscape defined by Republican deregulation, America’s grocery stores and food suppliers are consolidating despite active federal laws explicitly intended to prevent anticompetitive behavior. Perhaps the most important of those laws is the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, or RPA, also known as the Anti-Price Discrimination Act. For decades, RPA ensured fair competition by banning food suppliers from charging different prices to different stores; at least it did until the Reagan-era Federal Trade Commission largely stopped enforcing it in the 1980s. Even though RPA is still the law of the land, food suppliers like Pepsi now routinely ignore the law without consequence.
“Big corporations have buying power, and they can oppress and dictate to producers what they want to pay for crops,” Rhode Island Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos told me. “A corporation can come to a farmer and say ‘we’ll pay you this price for potatoes, but you can’t give that price to anyone else,’ so they fix prices in a way that hurts independent supermarkets and independent businesses.”
Megacorporations aren’t subtle about flexing their market power to fix prices in ways that protect other megacorporations. Last year President Donald Trump’s FTC dismissed an RPA claim against PepsiCo which alleged that Pepsi illegally offered grocery chain Walmart unfair pricing discounts while charging smaller chains more for the same products. When independent grocery stores undercut Walmart by lowering the price of Pepsi products, PepsiCo allegedly responded by raising wholesale prices or refusing to do business with the smaller stores until they raised prices above those at Walmart.
As independent grocery stores struggle, they become more likely to sell out to larger national chains, leading to consolidation that makes both prices and employee wages less competitive. As president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 3000, Faye Guenther represents over 50,000 grocery and retail workers across the Pacific Northwest. Guenther has spent years fighting the growing imbalance between rising prices and falling wages. Now, she says, things have reached a crisis point for regular Americans…
Read on for Burns’ looks at the impact on workers (TLDR: fewer jobs, lower wages), availability of stores (TDLR: or its opposite, food deserts), and food prices (TLDR: they’re rising), and for his suggested remedies.
The painful reality behind the joke “I’m getting stronger with age. I can now lift $100 worth of groceries with one hand!”: “America’s Grocery Monopoly Problem,” from @themaxburns.bsky.social in @damemagazine.bsky.social.
See also: “Grocery Retail: The Last Link in the Monopoly Chain.”
Also apposite: “Big Food Versus the People” (what court battles reveal about the ultra-processed food industry’s corporate litigation strategies). Further to which: “Is the recycling symbol free speech? A judge just ruled it could be“…
A pioneering California law meant to sharply limit use of the familiar “chasing arrows” recycling symbol has been blocked by a federal judge who said it probably violates the First Amendment.
In a preliminary injunction issued earlier this month, U.S. District Judge William Hayes halted enforcement of SB 343 after food, packaging and retail groups sued, finding that key provisions were “unconstitutionally vague” and likely infringed protected commercial speech. Enforcement of the law, passed in 2021, was expected to start this fall.
The decision is a blow to environmental advocates, who had hoped to remove the familiar symbol from a huge array of plastic products, in line with a statewide study showing that only a fraction are widely collected and actually recycled. SB 343 said only goods and packaging accepted by recycling programs serving at least 60 percent of Californians and then actually sorted for recycling — not collected and thrown away — could bear the chasing arrows.
Hayes’ constitutional reasoning surprised supporters of SB 343 because similar arguments against environmental marketing regulations have historically struggled in court….
Of course, there’s always eating out… but of course, that’s got its own issues: “The restaurant business is changing beyond recognition,” gift article from @economist.com.
Oh, and we might note that this is National Farmers Market Week.
* Steven Wright
###
As we chow down, we might recall that it was on this date in 1930 that the officially-adjudicated “first supermarket” opened: King Kullen in Queens, New York.
Grocery chains had been around since 1859, when The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) was established. But they rarely sold fresh meat or produce and relied on the old mercantile system of clerks puling items from shelves on request. As long-time readers may recall, the first self-service grocery store was the Piggly Wiggly, which shifted to self-serve in 1916.
The first modern supermarkets appeared just over twenty years later, offering a full range of food items, beverages, and household items under one self-service roof, often with an emphasis on low prices as well as convenience. There were a number of contenders for the “first supermarket” crown…
#acquisitions #business #consolidation #culture #Food #foodDesert #foodPrices #grocery #groceryIndustry #groceryStore #history #KingKullen #labor #mergers #Monopoly #oligopoly #Retail #supermarketTo end the debate, the Food Marketing Institute in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution and with funding from H.J. Heinz, researched the issue. They defined the attributes of a supermarket as “self-service, separate product departments, discount pricing, marketing and volume selling.” They determined that the first true supermarket in the United States was opened by a former Kroger employee, Michael J. Cullen, on 4 August 1930, inside a 6,000-square-foot former garage in Jamaica, Queens in New York City. The store King Kullen, operated under the logic of “pile it high and sell it cheap.” The store layout was designed by Joseph Unger, who originated the concept of customers using baskets to collect groceries before checking out at a counter. Everything displayed for sale in the store “had prices clearly marked”, meaning that consumers would no longer need to haggle over prices. Cullen described his store as “the world’s greatest price wrecker.” At the time of his death in 1936, there were seventeen King Kullen stores in operation. Although Saunders had brought the world self-service, uniform stores, and nationwide marketing, Cullen built on this idea by adding separate food departments, selling large volumes of food at discount prices and adding a parking lot. Moreover, the supermarket format as pioneered by King Kullen was not only cheap, but convenient, in how it combined so many different departments under one roof which had formerly required trips to separate stores. – source
-
“I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, ‘Hey, the sign says you’re open 24 hours.’ He said, ‘Yes, but not in a row.'”*…
As Max Burns reports, a wave of corporate consolidation is reshaping the grocery industry; today, the U.S. has one-third fewer grocery stores than it did 25 years ago. The result is that just four corporations—Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Albertsons—control more than two-thirds of the U.S. grocery market, This is squeezing workers, limiting competition, and giving this handful of retailers unprecedented control over what Americans pay for food…
If it feels to you like American consumers have fewer choices than ever before, your mind isn’t playing tricks on you. Federal regulators are approving corporate mega-mergers at the fastest rate since the 1980s. Consumers are feeling those industry-spanning consolidations everywhere, as hardly a sector of American life has escaped Wall Street’s goal of building the largest and most powerful corporate conglomerates in world history.
From power utilities and artificial intelligence to broadcast news networks and railroads, a few massive corporate players have come to dominate American commercial life in ways not seen since the Gilded Age trusts of the 19th century. Those consolidations have generated historic profits for executives and major shareholders while working families are faced with lower quality goods and services, fewer options, and a hostile labor market unfairly skewed toward the interests of the ultra-rich.
Democrats have been quick to criticize some of the nation’s biggest mergers as anti-worker and anti-consumer, but one critical sector of the U.S. economy has managed to escape widespread public criticism: grocery stores. Thanks to a record rise in special interest cash donations to both Democrats and Republicans, grocery-industry lobby groups have managed to keep prices high, wages low, and consumer choice limited while avoiding federal policymakers’ crosshairs. The result is an invisible crisis in the nation’s food industry that threatens to reshape how and what Americans eat.
In a corporate landscape defined by Republican deregulation, America’s grocery stores and food suppliers are consolidating despite active federal laws explicitly intended to prevent anticompetitive behavior. Perhaps the most important of those laws is the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, or RPA, also known as the Anti-Price Discrimination Act. For decades, RPA ensured fair competition by banning food suppliers from charging different prices to different stores; at least it did until the Reagan-era Federal Trade Commission largely stopped enforcing it in the 1980s. Even though RPA is still the law of the land, food suppliers like Pepsi now routinely ignore the law without consequence.
“Big corporations have buying power, and they can oppress and dictate to producers what they want to pay for crops,” Rhode Island Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos told me. “A corporation can come to a farmer and say ‘we’ll pay you this price for potatoes, but you can’t give that price to anyone else,’ so they fix prices in a way that hurts independent supermarkets and independent businesses.”
Megacorporations aren’t subtle about flexing their market power to fix prices in ways that protect other megacorporations. Last year President Donald Trump’s FTC dismissed an RPA claim against PepsiCo which alleged that Pepsi illegally offered grocery chain Walmart unfair pricing discounts while charging smaller chains more for the same products. When independent grocery stores undercut Walmart by lowering the price of Pepsi products, PepsiCo allegedly responded by raising wholesale prices or refusing to do business with the smaller stores until they raised prices above those at Walmart.
As independent grocery stores struggle, they become more likely to sell out to larger national chains, leading to consolidation that makes both prices and employee wages less competitive. As president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 3000, Faye Guenther represents over 50,000 grocery and retail workers across the Pacific Northwest. Guenther has spent years fighting the growing imbalance between rising prices and falling wages. Now, she says, things have reached a crisis point for regular Americans…
Read on for Burns’ looks at the impact on workers (TLDR: fewer jobs, lower wages), availability of stores (TDLR: or its opposite, food deserts), and food prices (TLDR: they’re rising), and for his suggested remedies.
The painful reality behind the joke “I’m getting stronger with age. I can now lift $100 worth of groceries with one hand!”: “America’s Grocery Monopoly Problem,” from @themaxburns.bsky.social in @damemagazine.bsky.social.
See also: “Grocery Retail: The Last Link in the Monopoly Chain.”
Also apposite: “Big Food Versus the People” (what court battles reveal about the ultra-processed food industry’s corporate litigation strategies). Further to which: “Is the recycling symbol free speech? A judge just ruled it could be“…
A pioneering California law meant to sharply limit use of the familiar “chasing arrows” recycling symbol has been blocked by a federal judge who said it probably violates the First Amendment.
In a preliminary injunction issued earlier this month, U.S. District Judge William Hayes halted enforcement of SB 343 after food, packaging and retail groups sued, finding that key provisions were “unconstitutionally vague” and likely infringed protected commercial speech. Enforcement of the law, passed in 2021, was expected to start this fall.
The decision is a blow to environmental advocates, who had hoped to remove the familiar symbol from a huge array of plastic products, in line with a statewide study showing that only a fraction are widely collected and actually recycled. SB 343 said only goods and packaging accepted by recycling programs serving at least 60 percent of Californians and then actually sorted for recycling — not collected and thrown away — could bear the chasing arrows.
Hayes’ constitutional reasoning surprised supporters of SB 343 because similar arguments against environmental marketing regulations have historically struggled in court….
Of course, there’s always eating out… but of course, that’s got its own issues: “The restaurant business is changing beyond recognition,” gift article from @economist.com.
Oh, and we might note that this is National Farmers Market Week.
* Steven Wright
###
As we chow down, we might recall that it was on this date in 1930 that the officially-adjudicated “first supermarket” opened: King Kullen in Queens, New York.
Grocery chains had been around since 1859, when The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) was established. But they rarely sold fresh meat or produce and relied on the old mercantile system of clerks puling items from shelves on request. As long-time readers may recall, the first self-service grocery store was the Piggly Wiggly, which shifted to self-serve in 1916.
The first modern supermarkets appeared just over twenty years later, offering a full range of food items, beverages, and household items under one self-service roof, often with an emphasis on low prices as well as convenience. There were a number of contenders for the “first supermarket” crown…
#acquisitions #business #consolidation #culture #Food #foodDesert #foodPrices #grocery #groceryIndustry #groceryStore #history #KingKullen #labor #mergers #Monopoly #oligopoly #Retail #supermarketTo end the debate, the Food Marketing Institute in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution and with funding from H.J. Heinz, researched the issue. They defined the attributes of a supermarket as “self-service, separate product departments, discount pricing, marketing and volume selling.” They determined that the first true supermarket in the United States was opened by a former Kroger employee, Michael J. Cullen, on 4 August 1930, inside a 6,000-square-foot former garage in Jamaica, Queens in New York City. The store King Kullen, operated under the logic of “pile it high and sell it cheap.” The store layout was designed by Joseph Unger, who originated the concept of customers using baskets to collect groceries before checking out at a counter. Everything displayed for sale in the store “had prices clearly marked”, meaning that consumers would no longer need to haggle over prices. Cullen described his store as “the world’s greatest price wrecker.” At the time of his death in 1936, there were seventeen King Kullen stores in operation. Although Saunders had brought the world self-service, uniform stores, and nationwide marketing, Cullen built on this idea by adding separate food departments, selling large volumes of food at discount prices and adding a parking lot. Moreover, the supermarket format as pioneered by King Kullen was not only cheap, but convenient, in how it combined so many different departments under one roof which had formerly required trips to separate stores. – source
-
unfortunately, the owner of Old Kent Road has thought of a bigger number so your rent has increased
#monopoly #pixelart #pixel_dailies @pixel_dailies -
Pixel dailies: Monopoly
#pixelart #pixel_dailies #Monopoly #ドット絵 #aseprite #Procreate @pixel_dailies -
Pixel dailies: Monopoly
#pixelart #pixel_dailies #Monopoly #ドット絵 #aseprite #Procreate @pixel_dailies -
El hombrecito del #monopoly para #pixel_dailies @pixel_dailies
-
Today's #pixel_dailies theme is #monopoly.
Fun fact, because apparently I do those now: Monopoly the board game started out as an object lesson in how landlords are terrible and exploitative. It wasn't really supposed to be fun to bankrupt your friends and family. It lives on as a stolen and grotesque inversion of its original themes, when Elizabeth Magie should be remembered as a pioneer of designing games with a message.
More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Monopoly
-
HOW MANY BILLIONAIRES DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHT BULB? 💎
None.
They inform you that the dark is good for the #economy.
It is easy to criticise billionaires.
But have you considered how difficult their lives really are?
Every #morning they wake with the terrible knowledge that someone, somewhere, still owns something they do not.
A #newspaper.
A #politician.
A chain of small islands.
Possibly even the #moon.
They must keep acquiring things until the #planet resembles a #Monopoly board after everyone else has gone home in tears.
And the expenses!
Yachts need #fuel.
Politicians need feeding.
Social #media #platforms do not ruin themselves.
Then there are #taxes.
Apparently, paying the same tax rate as a nurse can cause immediate organ #failure.
Fortunately, the accountants can rush everything offshore before #tragedy strikes.
Please spare a thought for the billionaires.
One private island is never enough.
#billionaires #oligarchs #democracy #wealth #politics #power #Tesla #Meta
-
HOW MANY BILLIONAIRES DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHT BULB? 💎
None.
They inform you that the dark is good for the #economy.
It is easy to criticise billionaires.
But have you considered how difficult their lives really are?
Every #morning they wake with the terrible knowledge that someone, somewhere, still owns something they do not.
A #newspaper.
A #politician.
A chain of small islands.
Possibly even the #moon.
They must keep acquiring things until the #planet resembles a #Monopoly board after everyone else has gone home in tears.
And the expenses!
Yachts need #fuel.
Politicians need feeding.
Social #media #platforms do not ruin themselves.
Then there are #taxes.
Apparently, paying the same tax rate as a nurse can cause immediate organ #failure.
Fortunately, the accountants can rush everything offshore before #tragedy strikes.
Please spare a thought for the billionaires.
One private island is never enough.
#billionaires #oligarchs #democracy #wealth #politics #power #Tesla #Meta
-
#Hotel: this is a very poor #Monopoly imitation with an admittedly flashy design. The properties are visually different, some of them striking. It's easy to imagine what kind of audience would appreciate which hotel. But in gameplay terms... the properties are vastly imbalanced. Take the first two you encounter: one is amazing, one totally useless. This game is all style and poor substance.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1502/hotel -
#Hotel: this is a very poor #Monopoly imitation with an admittedly flashy design. The properties are visually different, some of them striking. It's easy to imagine what kind of audience would appreciate which hotel. But in gameplay terms... the properties are vastly imbalanced. Take the first two you encounter: one is amazing, one totally useless. This game is all style and poor substance.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1502/hotel -
@IzzyOnDroid The only reason I still have this 'feature' on in browsers. Is to know first hand when my domains inevitably get flagged again for no reason.
-
@IzzyOnDroid The only reason I still have this 'feature' on in browsers. Is to know first hand when my domains inevitably get flagged again for no reason.
-
#monopoly : exclusive possession or control of a trade
- French: monopole
- German: das Monopol
- Italian: monopolio
- Portuguese: monopólio
- Spanish: monopolio
------------
Word of The Hour's Annual Survey @ https://wordofthehour.org/r/form
-
I can't belabour enough how #NewPublicManagement is destroying public services in the #UK - and that's by design.
NPM serves one purpose and that's to hand over public infrastructure and services to #oligarchs, so that they can sit pretty on top of their natural #monopoly.
It's basically wealth extraction from the #tax payer, to eventually gouge the #consumer.
‘You have to sit quietly until you die’: The families failed by #England’s social care system | Social care
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/29/you-have-to-sit-quietly-until-you-die-the-families-failed-by-englands-social-care-system -
I can't belabour enough how #NewPublicManagement is destroying public services in the #UK - and that's by design.
NPM serves one purpose and that's to hand over public infrastructure and services to #oligarchs, so that they can sit pretty on top of their natural #monopoly.
It's basically wealth extraction from the #tax payer, to eventually gouge the #consumer.
‘You have to sit quietly until you die’: The families failed by #England’s social care system | Social care
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/29/you-have-to-sit-quietly-until-you-die-the-families-failed-by-englands-social-care-system -
If there are externalities can I compensate for them?
In my opinion, the #AntiAI crowd is actually doing the work for #Anthropic and I've wondered how much of the rhetoric is pushed by them.
Anthropic's business model is to make everyone afraid of #LLM #technology in order to regulate their #monopoly.
The biggest threat to humanity is that the technology is controlled by the top of the K-shaped economy.
So, real AI education is fighting the megacorps.
19/
-
If there are externalities can I compensate for them?
In my opinion, the #AntiAI crowd is actually doing the work for #Anthropic and I've wondered how much of the rhetoric is pushed by them.
Anthropic's business model is to make everyone afraid of #LLM #technology in order to regulate their #monopoly.
The biggest threat to humanity is that the technology is controlled by the top of the K-shaped economy.
So, real AI education is fighting the megacorps.
19/
-
https://keenlens.substack.com/p/the-bank-of-england-admitted-in-2014
'I see everyday #politicians repeat like parrots #economic propositions they don't even start to understand, defending a model that a central #bank admitted was wrong over twelve years ago. ... The #Greens propose actual structural change and get labelled "communist" by people who have never read a balance sheet or a #Lenin text. The heterodox approach #predicted #2008, predicted the #housing #crisis, and predicted the current private #debt trap. The orthodox models predicted none of it ...'
'The orthodox model was declared wrong by the Bank of #England in 2014. Their paper “#Money Creation in the Modern Economy” stated plainly: #banks do not lend out deposited #reserves in a multiplier chain. Banks create #deposits when they make #loans ...'
(NZ's Social Credit Party got a Court to agree five decades earlier.)
'The consequences are not theoretical or academic. When you worship the wrong model, you can’t do anything else than design the wrong #policy. You pretend not to see the #monopoly extracting over 6 billions from a #mortgage market they control 87% of. You don’t see that raising rates shift #income from #borrowers to banks and does not touch the supply of housing stock. You end up believing the #household metaphor is literal — that the Crown pockets are empty — when #NZ’s #Crown debt is 44% of #GDP...'
(The OECD average is about twice that.)
'... #Galileo was almost burned at stake for simply asking the #Inquisition #judges to look in the telescope. Same old, same old.'
'.....
'Gentlemen, it is clear cut #class #warfare, and the #vested interests are so encrusted in #society that they are winning. Remember that their main weakness is in numbers, they are damaging and literally #robbing the majority of us, of the New Zealand society and brainwashing many trees to think that voting for the axe is the #prudent, #family sensible thing to do. The only chance you have is when numbers talk. The #election is coming...' -
https://keenlens.substack.com/p/the-bank-of-england-admitted-in-2014
'I see everyday #politicians repeat like parrots #economic propositions they don't even start to understand, defending a model that a central #bank admitted was wrong over twelve years ago. ... The #Greens propose actual structural change and get labelled "communist" by people who have never read a balance sheet or a #Lenin text. The heterodox approach #predicted #2008, predicted the #housing #crisis, and predicted the current private #debt trap. The orthodox models predicted none of it ...'
'The orthodox model was declared wrong by the Bank of #England in 2014. Their paper “#Money Creation in the Modern Economy” stated plainly: #banks do not lend out deposited #reserves in a multiplier chain. Banks create #deposits when they make #loans ...'
(NZ's Social Credit Party got a Court to agree five decades earlier.)
'The consequences are not theoretical or academic. When you worship the wrong model, you can’t do anything else than design the wrong #policy. You pretend not to see the #monopoly extracting over 6 billions from a #mortgage market they control 87% of. You don’t see that raising rates shift #income from #borrowers to banks and does not touch the supply of housing stock. You end up believing the #household metaphor is literal — that the Crown pockets are empty — when #NZ’s #Crown debt is 44% of #GDP...'
(The OECD average is about twice that.)
'... #Galileo was almost burned at stake for simply asking the #Inquisition #judges to look in the telescope. Same old, same old.'
'.....
'Gentlemen, it is clear cut #class #warfare, and the #vested interests are so encrusted in #society that they are winning. Remember that their main weakness is in numbers, they are damaging and literally #robbing the majority of us, of the New Zealand society and brainwashing many trees to think that voting for the axe is the #prudent, #family sensible thing to do. The only chance you have is when numbers talk. The #election is coming...' -
Want to avoid Taylor Farms and their explosive diarrhea lettuce (and also their CEO is a MAGA dickhead)? Here's a bunch of their companies. My Safeway only sells Taylor Farms, Earthbound Farms and "Safeway"'s brand. Well fuck. Also, this makes the Trader Joe's salad recalls make more sense. #monopoliesarebad #taylorfarms #monopoly https://imgur.com/gallery/monopolies-are-Vnnoekk
-
Want to avoid Taylor Farms and their explosive diarrhea lettuce (and also their CEO is a MAGA dickhead)? Here's a bunch of their companies. My Safeway only sells Taylor Farms, Earthbound Farms and "Safeway"'s brand. Well fuck. Also, this makes the Trader Joe's salad recalls make more sense. #monopoliesarebad #taylorfarms #monopoly https://imgur.com/gallery/monopolies-are-Vnnoekk