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Posted

That article is so good.  It's also a terrifying further acknowledgement that these people (all of them) exist on a different plane than the populace.  The idea that they (or anyone else in the truly-rich elite and those they politically support) have any clue what it's like to be a farmer in Nebraska, a single mother in Virginia, or even a (mere) millionaire doctor in Vermont is farce. 

We and they are a different species.  We, the people, may as well be an ant-farm sitting on a shelf to them.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, TexasHooch said:

That article is so good.  It's also a terrifying further acknowledgement that these people (all of them) exist on a different plane than the populace.

There are the grifters and the grifted.

Posted
1 hour ago, TexasHooch said:

Nah.  That's putting it far too simply. 

Murdoch will be dead soon. It's not simply about grift to him and people in this sphere.  For people two and three notches down, like Barr and some of the folks in their orbit, sure.  For him, and the tech bros, and the hedge fund managers, It's a world view, which is devoid of any understanding (and therefore empathy) towards us.

Shortly after my wife and I got married, we traveled to Uganda as part of an aid group.  We went to the poorest district in the country, and then we went to the poorest family in the district- which was an orphaned teen-aged girl and her 3 much younger siblings living in a half roofed mud hut, their clothes literally falling off of them. We, of course, did have deep sympathy, and some of us immediately started to speculate on what they needed, or how we could help them directly, right there immediately.  Our hosts, however, quickly brought us to the reality that our experience was simply too far removed from theirs as to presume that we had any real understanding how to help them in any meaningful, sustained way.  Of course the aid organization we were there supporting was much closer to the ground, and therefore better placed to assist.  But us? Nope.

I tell that story because it occurs to me that the gap between the mega billionaires and us is actually greater than the gap between us and that family in Uganda.  At least we were close enough in our shared experience to share sympathy, if not true empathy.

That is a fantastic analogy (and an important one from both ends/perspectives -- see books like Toxic Charity).

Empathy is important.  It's beyond important, it's essential to functioning societies, and we have turned 180 degrees away from it.  But as a companion to empathy is the humility to realize and accept that sometimes, your experience/perspective absolutely prevent you from even starting to understand the perspective/needs of others.  Which is FINE.  What you have to do then is accept the word/wisdom from people who DO have the perspective and ability to understand the subject matter.  And that humility is hard, because when you're amped up on empathy, you want to save the world.  Letting the adrenaline subside, and realizing that you can't is really important.

And our two-way insanity of projecting our perspective onto billionaires ("they want to help us...because if I was a billionaire tomorrow, that's what I'd do!" is as insane as billionaires telling people "hey, if times are hard, sell a piece art!") is killing us.

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Posted

Holy shit, what a read.

I'll gift link the article from the Atlantic below, but here's an intro to the story.  There's also an audio link on the page that's over an hour long, if you would rather listen to it:

GROWING UP MURDOCH

James Murdoch on mind games, sibling rivalry, and the war for the family media empire

 

Quote

When I first approached James Murdoch in early 2024 to pitch him on a series of in-depth interviews, I figured it was a long shot. Rupert Murdoch’s youngest son, the onetime heir apparent to the Murdoch media empire, almost never spoke to reporters. Still, I could only imagine the stories he had to tell.

In his 20 years working for the family business, he’d been inside rooms where decisions were made at the most powerful conservative-media empire in the world. He’d seen up close how his father’s British newspapers came to champion Brexit and how Fox News had helped deliver Donald Trump to the White House. There were signs that James had grown disillusioned with these aspects of how his family fortune had been made: In 2020, he’d abruptly resigned from News Corp’s board of directors with a cryptic letter citing “disagreements over certain editorial content.”

 

Quote

Might he finally be willing to elaborate? Sometimes, as a reporter, all you can do is ask.

What I didn’t know when we sat down for our first meeting was that the Murdochs were secretly fracturing. Rupert had decided, at age 94, to rewrite the irrevocable family trust to give sole control of the empire to his eldest son, Lachlan, rather than splitting it equally among his four oldest children as planned. A bitter (and not-yet-public) legal battle had commenced. James—liberated by what he saw as his father’s betrayal—decided, somewhat to my surprise, that he was ready to talk.

 

Quote

The conversation that started that day ended up lasting a year. I met more than a dozen times with James and his wife, Kathryn, as they told me stories that would shock even the most devoted viewer of HBO’s Succession. These interviews were wide-ranging, filled with revelations that help explain how America got to this fraught political moment. But the stories that stayed with me most were the intensely personal ones about the unraveling of a family.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/04/rupert-murdoch-family-succession-james-murdoch/681675/?gift=Q78T0P0cUu8jt3BNLSKmM6kGw_MgtMudBgbpHk5EgSc&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

 

 

 

 

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Posted
On 3/7/2025 at 6:16 AM, Bullneck said:

 

Ram vehicles are manufactured at five facilities; two in North America, one in Western Asia, and two in South America.

Sterling Heights Assembly, Sterling Heights, Michigan, United States. This facility was first built in 1953 as the Michigan Ordinance Missile Plant, operated by the US Army. Chrysler Corporation purchased the facility in 1983. The plant currently produces the Ram 1500 (Quad Cab and Crew Cab).[19]

Saltillo Truck Assembly Plant, Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. The facility first opened in 1995. The plant manufactures the Ram 2500-5500 Heavy Duty and the Mexico-only DX Chassis Cab.[20]The plant has won numerous awards and has been recognized as the Chrysler groups best truck facility in terms of build quality.[21] The Saltillo stamping plant is also attached to the facility.

Tofaş, Bursa, Turkey. The plant produces vehicles primarily for the European market; however, the Ram ProMaster City is produced at Tofaş and imported into North America.

Goiana, Pernambuco, Brazil. The plant produces vehicles primarily for the Latin American market. The output consist of FCA Small Wide 4×4 and Small Wide 4×4 LWB platform based vehicles, the factory produces Jeep and Ram branded trucks and SUVs. The plant currently produces the Ram Rampageand Ram 1000 (the badge-engineered Fiat Toro), along with the Jeep Renegade, Jeep Compass, and the Meridian.

Betim, Minas Gerais, Brazil. A Fiat factory that produces the Ram ProMaster Rapid/Ram V700 Rapid (the Latin America-spec badge-engineered Fiat Fiorino) and the Ram 700 (the badge-engineered Fiat Strada).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Trucks
 

so, Maria, the American rams are made in America and Mexico, the south and Central American rams are made in Brazil and Mexico, and the asian/euro rams are made in turkye. 
 

so they are already doing what you suggest.  
 

More complex than a wiki page to break down where all the parts and components come from, but we aren’t going to build 10,000 auto part manufacturing facilities here. 

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