sp3ctr4l

Yep.

Concentrate wealth accumulation upward, socializes lossss downward.

Except this time the strategy is so fucking bad that it may very well bankrupt the state and just destroy its whole economy, which will ultimately lead to massive losses for many of the rich folks as well.

I didn't go into in the main post but yeah, US domestic air travel is down as well, which is a pretty good indicator domestic tourism is also down.

... Also, they want to just generally raise the sales tax, with the idea that this will mostly tax tourists.

But... theres no actual ... mechanism, to differentiate between a local resident sales tax and an out of state or international tourist sales tax.

... So what they want to do is bail out the already wealthier property owners, on the backs of the already poor non property owners, who pay much more of their income toward sales taxes than to property taxes.

It is literally rob the poor to prop up the idiot home and condo owners and corporations with mortgages they can't afford because they thought the housing bubble would never pop.

It is not a measure of public sentiment.

That'd be like a consumer confidence measure, something that just polls the general public.

The fear and greed index is based off of technical measurements of various active markets.

Very broadly, it is telling you whether or not the financial class, investors, stock traders, corporations significantly involved in that, your 401k managers... are acting fearful or greedy.

A middling score close to 50 basically represents 'reasonable, stable growth'.

Extreme fear means market participants are acting like a significant stock/bond downturn either is occuring or about to occur.

Extreme greed means market participants are acting like a huge upswing in stocks and bonds are occuring and will be maintained in the future.

You're right that extreme greed isn't a good thing, as it usually means a whole bunch of irresponsible financial bets are being made, that will later pop, and crash.

At the same time, extreme fear is also bad... because it basically is that crash occuring.

Maybe think of it kind of like some value you get back from your blood work.

There's a generally accepted 'average' value that means you are stable, healthy.

Then, there is a range of higher and lower values that are... relatively normal, within reasonable, expected variations.

Then, there are extreme values, way outside the acceptable range, either way too high or way to low, and now its time for your doctor to start looking at treatment options.

Quite literally, as this is going on, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida is trying to convince everyone in the state that it would be a really good idea to just... massively reduce, if not entirely get rid of property taxes.... and base government revenue off of higher sales taxes... on tourists.

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2025/04/01/ron-desantis-sales-property-tax-relief-florida-homeowners-plan/82753401007/

Florida is ... almost certainly the US state with the highest proportion of its economy/tax revenue ... tied to tourism.

I struggle to comprehend this level of stupidity, to the point that I am more inclined to believe DeSantis is just trying to make himself king of a rapidly economically declining and literally sinking fiefdom.

Agriculture and fishing? scared all the immigrants away.

Tourism? tanking.

Property values? also tanking.

Property insurance? fleeing the state, no more mortgages.

Uh uh what do what do?

Tax break!

If Dems get the epithet 'tax and spend', Reps get the epithet 'Slash and burn'.

What a fucking moron.

... Isn't that almost exactly the same thing Vivek Ramiswamy did?

Started or bought a biotech firm, literally got his own mother to conduct a 'study', concluding a drug in development worked and had potential, when in fact everyone knew it was bullshit, then he sold all his shares before larger studies concluded more publically that the drug was indeed bullshit?

collapsed inline media

The Gay Gamma Goongasm, according to ... Christian Nationalist Physics?

... If you get hit with fast neutrons, does that make you gender neutral or ambigender rofl?

Alpha radiation turns you into a chad?

Beta radiation makes you a soyboy?

fucking goddammit lol.

EDIT: i mean shit, if radiation causes gender/sexual orientation modification, then I guess you could actually construct a 'gaydar'... oh god my brain hurts.

In what way do you have to 'go out of your way' to interact with ml or hex?

Are... they not federated with your instance?

If yes, they're not federated, then you did that to yourself, by joining an instance that doesn't show their posts and communities to you.

If no, they are federated... then just sort set your feed from local to global, and you'll see their posts in their communities pop up.

... The entire point of the federation model is to allow each user to determine ... basically how much of a bubble they want to be in.

You may determine a whole instance is full of nutcases in a bubble, and avoid them... or you may not think that, and retain the ability to interact with them.

Generally speaking... you can pretty much join whatever instance you want, and in so doing, you are accepting the instances that are federated with your own instance, and rejecting the instances your instance admins have defederated from.

You realize that is a textbook 'whataboutism', right?

When the news about that came out, around a decade ago now, I deleted my Facebook profile and tried to tell all my friends/family using FB that ... this is pure fucking evil and they should also get off FB.

They all gaslit me, pretended that news wasn't real, and acted like I was a paranoid delusional maniac.

Nowadays we have basically the same kind of conclusions regarding TikTok and other platforms that focus on short form video content... well, actually even worse conclusions... and they come from actual peer reviewed scientific journals...

But you'll still get people saying 'brainrot isn't real'... when uh, yes thats a clumsy term, but it is basically confirmed at this point that TikTok is as addictive as a drug, ruins your motivation and attention span, fills your with mis and disinformatiin, ruins and warps your self image and self esteem, promotes wildly irresponsible and often illegal financial mindsets/strategies... etc etc...

Yay, validation lol!