James retweeted
An investment banker, private equity investor, venture capitalist and operator all walk into a NYC bar
The owner brings out drinks for each of them
The investment banker takes a sip and tells the bartender that he can get the owner 14x EBITDA for the place. The owner says he is not interested. The banker then slides him a business card and says to call him when he is ready
The private equity investor tells the owner he already has financing lined up to buy the bar. He can cut in the owner for a 20% earn out, but will probably fire half the staff. He points to the vodka bottle prices and notes a lot of room here for “margin expansion”
The venture capitalist, meanwhile, asks the owner if he has thought of incorporating AI into the drink pouring process. He advises the owner to think from first principles and claims he can write him a check at a $2B valuation. The only condition? The owner must convince A16Z or Sequoia to invest first.
The operator is the only person who figures out how the bar functions, where kegs are stored and how the employees are paid
At the end of the night, the bill arrives and the operator is forced to pick up the tab since he is the only one who remained sober. He asks his friends to pay him back
The banker offers to handle the payments in exchange for a fee
The private equity guy asks him if he can leave the money as owed debt, and he will pay with interest over time
The venture capitalist tells him to mark up the value of the tab but says he can’t pay it for at least another five years.
The next morning, the operator wakes up to 3 LinkedIn posts from each of his friends on what it takes to run a successful bar in NYC
James retweeted
Socialism is when you destroy public services and the more public services you destroy the more socialism it is
Anonymous submission:
Last week, a group of activists disabled the OMNY readers at the BQ Church Avenue station in Brooklyn with an automatic center punch and drill. They opened the gate so people can ride for free, and painted the cameras to protect themselves and fellow riders from surveillance.
This was deliberate act of protest against unaffordable transit, hyper-surveillance in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods, and the MTA's collaboration with the military industrial complex.
YOU ARE BEING WATCHED. OMNY records when and where you travel, your photograph, name, DOB, billing address, and other personal details. This invasive tech creates a profile to track your life and travel patterns. OMNY’s privacy policy places no limits on the data it collects about you.
EVERY TAP FUNDS A WAR PROFITEER. OMNY is operated by Cubic, a military equipment company making combat simulators. They sell the F-35 fighter jet training system to imperialist zionist entities like israel. The F-35 is a key weapon in israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and all of the US's imperialist wars, responsible for massacring millions of people.
FIGHT BACK. The MTA and Cubic don't deserve your hard earned cash. Take action, smash a reader, jump the turnstile, hold the gate for others. If you must pay, use cash for OMNY cards, and tap yourself and fellow riders in. This makes you all less traceable. Cover your face and identifying features. Always check for police before evading the fare. Remember, contracted security guards have no authority to stop or detain passengers.
RIDE FREE, FUCK THE NYPD, AND FREE PALESTINE!
James retweeted
The wealthiest Americans pay almost all taxes as is. The problem is not and has never been that they don't pay enough, it's that the government spends way, way, way, too much. The fix is not even higher taxes, it's basic sanity around spending.
Hi @elonmusk , we’ve conducted the most comprehensive study to date on tax unfairness in the United States.
We found that you, like your fellow billionaires, pay a lower effective tax rate than the average American.
So if you really want to help the American people, I have a better suggestion than charity: pay more taxes. 🧵
James retweeted
C’est quand même fascinant de voir cette jeune femme passer à la télé et affirmer son bullshit avec un aplomb total. Aucune hésitation, aucune nuance. Je suis quasiment persuadé qu’elle était convaincue que personne n’irait vérifier.
Et c’est ça le plus intéressant. Pas l’erreur, la certitude. Une partie de cette génération a été biberonnée à une grille de lecture où l’on est du bon côté par définition. Et quand on est du bon côté, on n’a plus besoin de vérifier. Le réel devient un détail, presque une provocation.
Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, la psychologie sociale s’est obsédée sur une seule question : comment des gens normaux ont-ils pu participer à l’horreur ?
Asch a montré que trois quarts des participants niaient au moins une fois ce qu’ils voyaient de leurs propres yeux dès que le groupe affirmait le contraire. Milgram a montré que près de deux tiers allaient jusqu’à infliger ce qu’ils croyaient être une décharge potentiellement mortelle, simplement parce qu’une autorité leur assurait que c’était justifié. Browning, dans Des hommes ordinaires, a montré que des pères de famille de Hambourg sont devenus des exécuteurs sans fanatisme particulier, par conformisme, pour ne pas se désolidariser du groupe. Arendt a appelé ça la banalité du mal : le pire ne vient pas de monstres, il vient de gens qui ont cessé de penser par eux-mêmes parce qu’ils étaient certains d’avoir raison.
Toute proportion gardée, évidemment, ce n’est pas la même chose. Mais le mécanisme, lui, est identique : une conviction morale absolue qui dispense de regarder le réel. Gad Saad appelle ça l’empathie suicidaire, une empathie tellement déconnectée des conséquences qu’elle finit par détruire ce qu’elle prétend protéger.
Les gens qui ont causé les pires catastrophes de l’histoire étaient rarement des sadiques. C’étaient des gens persuadés d’être du bon côté. C’est pour ça qu’une génération qui considère la vérification comme une trahison morale n’est pas un sujet anodin. À long terme, le mécanisme produit les mêmes effets, quelle que soit la cause qu’il sert.
James retweeted
Sa mère prof d'anglais ne peut plus payer la cantine, mais heureusement, Lola-Fleur Whittaker, militante LFI, peut encore se payer des voyages en Malaisie, en Égypte, à Oman, en Sicile, en Croatie ou en Grèce...
Rassurez-vous, ça ne compte pas : c'est du CO2 de gauche.
James retweeted
Did you know that @RoKhanna (worth over 100 million), who supports the revolution in France, evades taxes via three golf clubs owned by his minor children in Ohio?
A true man of the people!
James retweeted
Until the 1950's you had to put crops in jars of vinegar and store them in a hole underground so you could eat in the winter. We need the youth to stop pretending to be victims and learn how life was and why it's so much easier for them, not harder. xitter.cf/LeeKuanYimby/status/21…
James retweeted
The riots in France and the anti-Israel protests in the U.S. are part of the same movement. @WSJFreeEx:
James retweeted
It is a completely legitimate question and not because you’re a Muslim
It’s legitimate to ask because:
1) your sister repeatedly claimed your family had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)
2) you supported Morsi in 2012 who was MB
3) you wrote an article for HuffPost in 2011 downplaying the risks of the MB — where with hindsight, objectively you were wrong — and luckily the MB is now banned in Egypt
To the American’s who don’t have context here. The Muslim Brotherhood is an ideological movement that believes the ends justify the means.
The closest analogy would be the communist movement last century. If we replaced “MB” with “Communist”, the evidence above would be more than enough to demand clear answers from anyone running for Senate with this background
As far as I’m aware this clip was the first time you officially disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood
But you should understand that
a) when it takes you weeks to do so
b) with the background laid out above
and
c) without acknowledging the severity of the MB as a dangerous ideology
Frankly it just doesn’t instill much trust
James retweeted
Are the austerity cuts in the room with us now?
You’re unable to view this Post because this account owner limits who can view their Posts. Learn more
James retweeted
Questions are swirling after Mayor Michelle Wu endorsed state Rep. Bill MacGregor right after a taxpayer-funded coffee hour in Roslindale.
Also spotted at the event? Boston’s new elections chief, Kerry Jordan.
The timing is raising eyebrows, especially with Boston’s Elections Department under state receivership after the 2024 election mess.
Was this a city event or a campaign stop? And was the elections chief there when Wu made her endorsement?
James retweeted
Americans have so little access to food, in fact, that 80% of adults are obese. In the US, we spend so much on food, we only have 93% of our income left for other expense. This is what failure to provide affordable food looks like.
James retweeted
Donald Tusk the Prime Minister of Poland says the country will not take any illegal migrants from the EU resettlement policy and refuses to make the same mistakes as Western European migration policy.
This is the best decision he will ever make.
James retweeted
Annabel Richter was a 19 year old FIT student. She was fed fentanyl by a man named Moises Friere who told her it was cocaine. Friere knew what he was doing — he gave the drugs to two female students and didn’t take any himself. While Annabel was overdosing, Friere stripped off her clothes, took photos of her naked body, and then raped her instead of calling for help.
Because of what he did, she is dead.
There are no “I am Jane Doe” rallies for Annabel Richter. There is no daily coverage of her death on CNN. There are no New York Times investigations creating timelines of her last day. Unless you read local crime news in New York City, you will not have heard about this case.
Why is Cornell’s Jane Doe of so much more interest to mainstream news than FIT’s Annabel Richter? Perhaps because news loves to create narratives about predatory white male college students and refuses to make national-news villains of men like Friere, who commit most of the actual crime in places like New York City.
The NYT and CNN aren’t lying when they do 50 stories about Jane Doe and zero about Annabel Richter. They’re just exercising editorial judgment about which parts of the news you need to hear.
Man who drugged and raped dead NYC college student texted nude pics of her instead of calling 911: feds trib.al/pAEqBDj
James retweeted
Students supported Mao
Students supported Castro
Students supported Khomeini
Students supported Hitler
Students supported Mussolini
If find yourself blindly supporting every student lead movement, you’ll be wrong very often, in many eras, on many issues.
A good rule of history: if you find yourself opposing a student movement while siding with the ruling class, you're wrong. Every time, in every era, whatever the issue.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Student movements have not always been on the right side of history. Mao's student Red Guards persecuted hundreds of thousands. Students helped Castro and Khomeini rise to power, and Nazi student groups opposed the Weimar Republic.
britannica.com/topic/Red-Guar…
encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/art…
aei.org/education/actu…
James retweeted
Someone should ask Johns Hopkins. They had me perform brain surgery for decades.
