No doubt there are policies that could be described as neo-liberal in character. That doesn't mean they are being controlled by some underlying neo-liberal agenda. — Pantagruel

Except that no one has argued that anyone is being "controlled" by an "underlying" agenda. Neoliberalism is an ideology in part, but it's also a set of policies. That's what I'm referring to. Whether the people who carry out these policies "really believe," or describe themselves as neoliberal, or are "controlled" by these beliefs, or are true Christians, or believe in the Easter bunny -- who cares.

The neoliberal era is characterized by the polices enacted -- not beliefs. Who knows what these people really believe.

Neoliberalism is, at best, an ideology. — Pantagruel

No, it's not only an ideology. It's a set of real policies enacted by real people that have real impacts. It's not only an abstract, ethereal "something" floating around out there. It's tax cuts. It's deregulation. It's privatization. It's "free trade" agreements.

All of which have real world consequences.

As for the specific statistic I mentioned, it's odd that you didn't ask the OP to verify his very statistical claim. — Agent Smith

What "very statistical claim" would that be? I'd be happy to supply you data.

So where is your source? You've been asked by several people. Do you have a source or did you make it up?

Statistics show that the death rate for all possible causes has declined in the US for the period 1916 to 2023. What have you to say about that. — Agent Smith

Cite your source and I'll take a look.

Whatever increase in despair there is, and I've not conceded it without first seeing the data, is probably quite complex and doesn't fit neatly into wherever our biases might lie (the economic system, civil rights violations, guns, drugs, single parent homes, poverty, bullying, etc), but is many of those for some, different from others, and who knows what else. — Hanover

Yes, but this itself is a bias. It takes something obvious and wants to hide behind "it's complex."

No, it's not that complex. On the level of each individual, we can argue. On a mass level, it's obvious. It's obvious with opioids. It's obvious with guns. It's obvious with suicides. These are outcomes of our particular culture. You compare to other countries and even other eras within our culture and it's even more obvious.

Sweeping government policies have sweeping impacts on society. They trickle down to towns and cities across the country. If you decide to cut federal spending on education, there's less available to distribute to states, which means less quality and higher property taxes. You cut regulations on drilling, you have more pollution and more respiratory deaths. You cut gun control measures, you have more mass shootings. You allow big pharma to do whatever they like, you get the opioid crisis.

None of this is complicated. There's been a campaign to make it all mysterious and confusing. It isn't.

Are you trying to explain that suicide or drug overdoses have as a common cause the failure of a economical system? — javi2541997

Yes.

opiates are more necessary than you think, they are helpful to people struggling with a lot of pain — javi2541997

They are necessary in some circumstances. They were overprescribed for years, and for a simple reason: profit. Plenty of scholarship on the pharmaceutical industry and the opioid crisis, as you know.

I am not agree with the fact that I am depressed or have suicidal risk because I live in a savage capitalist country. — javi2541997

There are many factors -- but given the policies of the neoliberal era, it's no coincidence to me that despair is rampant. Those policies have killed unions, destroyed education, kept wages low, increased debt, kept working conditions more stressful and precarious, and eroded social safety nets -- while transferring wealth to the top 0.1%. If you're failing to see how these conditions, played out over 40 years, will undoubtedly lead to despair -- then, as I mentioned in the OP, you've failed the test. So to speak.

Mental health is more complex. Neoliberalism could be a factor, as you explained. But not the main cause. I doubt (a lot) if removing such system the people would feel better. — javi2541997

There's an easy way to check. Look at the policies of the last 40 years, then compare them to different policies in different eras. Or look at other countries.

For example, take guns. Other countries have despair as well, and mental health issues -- no doubt. They don't have close to the mass shootings that we do. There's a simple reason: the number and accessibility of guns. Period. What does this have to do with neoliberalism? Easy: it encourages less regulation and favors the rights of corporations, including gun manufacturers. So it doesn't matter that kids are being killed every day -- just as it doesn't matter that the environment is being destroyed. What matters is making money and destroying everything about government that doesn't support corporate greed.

About stock buybacks:

Swimming in cash, Chevron plans a $75 billion slap in the face to drivers

Now, when you're a profitable company, you have a lot of options for what to do with those profits. You can reinvest in the business, upgrading your equipment or hiring more people. You can issue a dividend to shareholders, as a treat. Or, in America, you can do a buyback, in which you use the profit to purchase your own stock on the open market.

Buybacks are increasingly common, and controversial (in fact, they were flat-out illegal until 1982).

On one hand it's an easy way for a company to reward shareholders and signal confidence in its own value (after all, what moron would buy shares in a company whose stock is about to go down?). But critics say the practice artificially inflates the stock's value by creating fake demand. Conveniently, it also gooses executive compensation, the vast majority of which comes from stock options.

See here: Chevron, which is expected to report Friday that profits for 2022 doubled to more than $37 billion, is essentially balking at calls from investors and the White House to funnel its extra cash into more drilling capacity to help reduce prices for inflation-weary customers.

Instead, Chevron is buying $75 billion worth of its own shares, and jacking up its quarterly shareholder dividend. That decision prompted rebuke from the Biden administration.

Buybacks should be banned immediately.

More evidence of capitalism gone off the rails. Thanks, Reagan.

But it would be eye-opening to learn how others perceive and understand the origins of philosophy to be. — Bret Bernhoft

Philosophy is a name for a specific kind of thinking— a type of thinking distinguished by its questions; questions that are universal.

What is the question of questions? Answer, in my view: the question of being.

So when did philosophy begin? Well, the oldest extant writings tells us that’s more or less the early Indians and Greeks, who questioned being.

Nope. Only works in one direction.

There needs to be a crisis, an ideology, an enemy (anyone but the rich). All supplied and propagated dutifully by the very organisations who should have been holding the government to account. — Isaac

Sure. I’m not going to reread the entire article but I came away as though she understood this context. I don’t think she’s arguing that the rich got lucky or that it was accidental.

None of this has happened by accident, according to Peter Goodman, the author of Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World. “It’s not an accident,” he tells me, “that our economies have concentrated greater wealth in fewer hands. Quite simply, wealthy people have used their wealth to purchase democracy, to warp democracy in their own interests. They’ve done that through a global template that involves lowering taxes, privatising formerly public attempts to deal with common problems, liquidating the spending that went into things like social services, and then putting that money into their own pockets.” The main power of the billionaire class, Goodman says, is in their creation of values, not value, that maintain a friendly political climate. Davos, he says, is “a prophylactic against change, an elaborate reinforcement of the status quo served up as the pursuit of human progress”.

What are your opinions of whether pornography is problematic? — Shawn

I think it is. Like any other dopamine-increasing activity, it becomes addictive and, most importantly, creates unrealistic expectations.

The porn when I was a kid was tame in comparison to today. Playboys, Cinemax, etc. Now there’s no mystery— it’s like anatomy class. It’s also degrading and gross.

I feel for younger generations exposed to this shit early. It’s a much more rampant issue than I thought.

Don’t be a Menace to South Central while Drinking Your Juice in the Hood — Pinprick

Wtf?

Being John Malkovich — Andrew4Handel

Charlie Kaufman is brilliant and this one is a masterpiece. Thanks for reminding.

Yeah, that’s sarcastic. She goes on to talk about it in more detail. It’s not an accident.

How about:
Inherit the wind
Mississippi Burning
Hoffa
Malcolm X — universeness

I haven’t seen any of those. I saw a few minutes of Malcolm X and maybe a few moments from Mississippi Burning (Gene Hackman, yes?).

Falling Down — Vera Mont

A funny movie. I always thought it was a satire of conservative ideology and middle aged male fantasy.

Thin Red Line — ssu

Just barely missed my top ten. As I get older the impact has diminished a bit, but still an excellent film.

You mentioned Michael Mann and Heat. Good movie. His best, however— in my opinion is The Insider, which continually rises a few notches higher as I rewatch over the years. In my 20s I liked it but now I feel I actually understand it.

The breakdown of these figures exposes how on a global basis, extreme wealth is accumulated not by innovating or increasing production, but by taking advantage of rising prices and exploiting labour. In this effort, wealthy people are enabled by lack of regulation and taxation. The result is a bonanza of plunder with no sheriff in town.

This has been happening for a while, but the pandemic accelerated the trend. Rich people benefited from everything – every positive intervention from the state and negative impact of the crisis somehow still ended up increasing their wealth. They benefited from rising costs by using them as an alibi to charge higher-than-inflation prices, then distributing the rewards as dividends instead of higher wages. Food and energy corporations made a killing, making $306bn in windfall profits in 2022, then distributing 84% to shareholders.

https://apple.news/AabXb9PPQSoC0Ne-qu75mVQ

No Country For Old Men
— Bradskii
Hated the book so much I wouldn't watch the movie. — T Clark

Oh no! See the movie anyway. I implore you. I had to see it 3 times in the theater— a modern masterpiece on all levels.

? I didn't cringe once. Now I'm curious. — Vera Mont

Some of it is just too silly I guess.

Good luck finding some of these on streaming services. Jesus…

The grapes of Wrath — universeness

Here’s another unpopular opinion of mine. I’ll have to watch it again, but I remember hating this one. I think it’s because I had just read the book.

Forrest Gump. — Vera Mont

Another great one. Even despite the cringey parts.

Unforgiven — Bradskii

That’s been mentioned a few times. I like that movie, but I’ve never understood exactly why so many people think it’s so great. I feel I’m missing something.

What exactly did Trump do? — Merkwurdichliebe

Made America Great Again.

I’d like to exhume this one, given its new relevance. Maybe there’ll be more traction this time.

Yellen says minting a trillion dollar coin is off the table. I wonder if republicans are crazy enough to see this to the end.

I’m glad at least a few people are including fun ones like Star Wars and Men in Black. I love those. I still love Disney movies too, frankly. Some of Don Bluths were great.

I’m surprised no one threw in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That movie was my world as a child.

American Beauty — Hanover

Conrad Hall’s cinematography alone puts it up there. Another one I forgot.

Aaaargh! I keep being reminded of ones I should have put on my list. — T Clark

Me too…should have done the top 25. Just too many good ones.

The Little Thief of Baghdad (1940) — tim wood

Never even heard of this one. :up:

Braveheart — universeness

Glad someone mentioned that one. I forgot but I still think it’s great, no matter what anyone says.

hand, Tokyo Monogatari is a 1953 film of Yosujiru Ozu. — javi2541997

Oops. Yes I did see that — I know it as Tokyo Story. The Japanese didn’t ring a bell. Ozu is incredible and it’s a great movie.

I love almost everything I’ve seen out of Japan, which admittedly isn’t a lot. Ozu and Kurosawa are at the very top. Miyazaki is up there too.

Kubrick, Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, for sure. — Paine

Indeed. I'd add Scorsese, Wes Anderson, PT Anderson, and the Coen brothers whose entire filmographies everyone should watch.

So far, the list below I haven't seen (way more than I anticipated). I always thought my movie knowledge was fairly wide. Quantitatively proven wrong today.

Next is to prioritize which of the following to see first. :chin:

Perfect Blue — javi2541997

4. Tokyo Monogatari — javi2541997

10. Paprika. — javi2541997

Steven King's "The Langoliers" — Outlander

The Lion in Winter — 180 Proof

Sleuth — 180 Proof

A Soldier's Story — 180 Proof

Barfly — 180 Proof

Glory — 180 Proof

The Field — 180 Proof

Ray — 180 Proof

Doubt — 180 Proof

The Grey — 180 Proof

The Sunset Limited — 180 Proof

Lincoln — 180 Proof

Fury — 180 Proof

I Am Not Your Negro — 180 Proof

The Wicker Man — Jamal

Andrei Rublev — Jamal

Stalker — Jamal

The Long Goodbye — Jamal

Headhunters
The Lives of Others — Luke

About Time — Luke

Chef — Luke

Calvary — Luke

The Fall
The Salvation
The Father
1917
Oldboy — Luke

The Milagro Beanfield War — Vera Mont

The Russia House — Vera Mont

Turtle Diary — Vera Mont

The Last Picture Show
Solaris by Tarkovsky
Richard II, with Lawrence Olivier
Alexander Nevski and Ivan the Terrible by Eisenstein
Koyaanisqatsi — Paine

Heart of Glass by Herzog
High Noon
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie — Paine

Damn...

Discovered the Mountain Goats recently thanks to a friend sending along “No Children” and “You Were Cool.” Good find.

Anything by Bergman is good, and Seventh Seal is certainly up there — but for me, Persona may be his greatest.



Seen everything there except Snatch and Bullets Over Broadway (surprisingly, since I love Woody Allen). Thanks for reminding me of Allen. I should have included one of his at least…

inker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - the 1980s version with Alec Guinness. Ok, it's a TV series. So sue me. — T Clark

Never seen that one, but Alec Guinness is always fantastic.

Including TV mini series isn’t out of bounds. In that case I would include the Canadian (1980s) version of Anne of Green Gables. Wonderful.

Doesn't this belong in the Lounge? — T Clark

Eh. I put it under “interesting things.”

also liked "Pride and Prejudice" — god must be atheist

Which version?

Harvey is fantastic. This will be interesting indeed.

Here’s mine:

Seven Samurai

Shawshank Redemption

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Usual Suspects

No Country For Old Men

Persona

8 1/2

Dances with Wolves

Goodfellas

There Will Be Blood

Right. Not sure why this isn’t obvious.

Absolutely. But...and you can see where I'm going with this... None of those ideas we new. Some have been around since I was a young man, others since the 60s. Some since the 1860s. — Isaac

It’s a tale as old as time. No doubt.

They haven't worked. Either they haven't taken hold, or their opposition has been stronger, or they've just not proven popular. — Isaac

Well that depends. You said yourself things were better in some eras. I think that’s true. I also think organizing has been successful— social movements are a good example. Civil rights, women’s rights, etc.

I think we’ve regressed in the economic sphere.

I don’t see an alternative. There’s revolution, of course…but those are hit or miss as well.

Anyway— I don’t pretend to have all the answers. Maybe there’s something I’m overlooking. I’m all ears.

But not enough people want to join unions — Isaac

That’s changing as we speak. At least in the states.

We could take collective action, but that requires people to collect with, and there aren't enough. — Isaac

There’s plenty of people. The task is to get them together. Easier said than done, of course. There are parallels with other social interactions: becoming friends with people— not always easy; just try to get them all together to do something (even something fun) — a very difficult task, at least for me. People have jobs, kids, pets, health issues, appointments, lack of money, other plans, or else they’re too exhausted from all of it to make the effort. I’m in that position myself often enough.

If something like meeting people, making friends, and gathering with them is this difficult, then getting people to unionize or canvas or protest or boycott or strike — or even hold a meeting about any of it — is extremely hard.

But that’s the task, and I don’t see another way forward.

I will say that local government involvement is extremely important and worth doing. Mostly the various town or city committees are run by volunteering retirees and almost no one pays any attention or attends any of the meetings. But it’s an easy way to start doing something. Everyone lives in a town or city.

Likewise everyone who isn’t unemployed or running a business themselves works for a company. There’s a chance to change that company’s practices from within. Working for a smaller non-profit, I’ve had the opportunity to talk directly with the president just from an email sent to the Human Resources department, and it contributed in changing various policies (not just me— it was other input and factors as well). Discussing unionizing with coworkers has also (slowly) gauged interest in having a vote.

This is all anecdotal and small, but I bring it up because 99% of the time, this is it. This is the work. Just talking to people. Showing up. Speaking up. Learning how to communicate. Learning about how government and business functions, thinking about power and how institutions are structured, educating oneself about the socioeconomic system one’s currently living in, etc.

Point is, there’s nothing too small. I don’t know of any other way to bring people together or to affect changes.

So now the more interesting question of what you think is in the way of getting (or, in some cases, keeping) all that? — Isaac

Educating, organizing. Collective action. As always. I think strike-ready unions are one way, funding and voting for progressive political candidates is another.

All of it will take people coming together and acting together. The numbers are on the side of the people, if only they overcome the propaganda and division they’re surrounded by.

Fidgetting with knobs and switches isn't going to change what is a structural problem. — Benkei

I don’t see co ops as “fidgeting with knobs and switches” at all.

yup, it's as cut and dry as anything — Merkwurdichliebe

No, it isn’t.

What’s pathetic is this flabby, tired “both sides” argument and false equivalence from those — like you — who want to pretend to be “fair and balanced” but are in fact ignoring what’s clear as day.

Biden can go to prison. Fine. I hope so. But what he did isn’t close to what Trump did. If one can’t see that, one needs to examine their lives. Maybe too much time online.

Workers are not currently free to negotiate equally which is what leads to such clearly unfair distribution arrangements and the situation is clearly getting worse. — Isaac

Yes — well said.

So, out of the solutions available, which do you favour? Minimum wage (effectively a legal lower threshold on the distribution arrangement), or Universal Basic Income (removes much of the coercion so that each party is more equal). Or do you have a third option you prefer? — Isaac

I’m in favor of those.

I think there co-op model is a good one. I also like the idea of requiring workers on the board of directors. I think Germany has something to this effect.

Then there’s the obvious case of stronger labor unions. Repealing stock buybacks and increasing corporate taxes are also low hanging fruit.

The problem, which I think Mikie eludes to, is that even the simple act of tossing a plastic straw in the trash may contribute to a negative result for others. — praxis

Exactly.

Not an original thought, of course, but one I’ve never taken too seriously until now.

It’s only in capitalist ideology that these are conflated, as if ownership of land and capital is just another form of personal possession. — Jamal

I agree with this wholeheartedly, of course. My comment is indeed much more general.