#investment banking companies market

[harshitasoni]

Capital Command: Efficient Navigation through the Investment Banking Terrain Unveiled.

Gain strategic insights with our investment banking analysis, providing a detailed examination of current industry trends. Stay ahead of the curve and make informed decisions in this dynamic financial sector.

[fin-markets]

Barclays Trading Strategy

The following two strategies were published by Barclays in their "U.S. Equity Trading Strategy- Impact of Retail Options Trading' report in September 2020 to capitalize on new retail options trading volume.

The Straddle Purchase a call and a put with the same strike and expiration, providing the closest thing to a perfect price hedge conceivable. Doing so covers your risk whether the price increases or decreases; you would be taking either a long or short position on volatility. Barclays chooses which stocks to employ this approach on based on their VolScore statistic, or the volatility spread between a stock's volatility and the volatility of the industry in which that firm operates.

Long Call Spreads Unlike Strategy #1, where you're merely making a volatility play, in Strategy #2 you're genuinely betting on a stock. Barclays purchases a long call and then sells a call that is even more out of the money. An OTM call option will have a strike price that is higher than the market price of the underlying stock.

An informed investor can make above market average gains by using these strategies, but a thorough knowledge is advisable before committing hard earned sums of money in options trading. I will expand on these two strategies in my coming articles :)

~Lakshya Kapoor

[estravven]

More job musings

[phantomrose96]

If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

[harishgade]

Mastering the Share Market: A Comprehensive Basic Guide for Share Market Beginners

Introduction: The Indian share market is a dynamic landscape offering abundant opportunities for investors. This blog aims to demystify the complexities of the market, empowering readers with insights and strategies for informed decision-making. Section 1: Understanding the Share Market 1. What is the Share Market? The share market, also known as the stock market, is a platform where the buying,…

[staricrypto]

Bitcoin VS Traditional Investments: Understanding the Differences

Introduction: Bitcoin VS Traditional Investments, the pioneering digital currency, has emerged as a popular investment option, challenging traditional investment avenues. This blog post will explore the differences between Bitcoin and traditional investments, highlighting their key characteristics, risks, and potential returns. By understanding these distinctions, investors can make informed…

[worldspotlightnews]

The forgotten rescue plan that could prevent another SVB-like collapse | CNN Business

A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link. New York CNN  —  After Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed, the US government stepped in with an extraordinary measure to rescue customers, some of whom held many millions of…

[reportwire]

Here's why 7 Club stocks, including Nvidia and Meta, beat the market in January and February, defying this year's seesaw start

This year has, so far, been something of a Jekyll and Hyde market for equities. January’s strength was a welcome reprieve from the brutality that was 2022. February’s stumble has reminded us that sticky inflation remains a challenge for both the broader economy and stocks. With that in mind, we sifted through our portfolio to find names with a mix of durable fundamentals and stories strong enough…

[harshitasoni]

Morgan Stanley's Triumph: A Leading Force in Investment Banking

Navigate through the ever-evolving landscape of the global investment banking market, exploring current trends and transformative factors shaping the industry's trajectory.

[fin-markets]

 What is Venture Capital?

Venture capital (VC) is a sort of private equity and financing provided by investors to start-up enterprises and small businesses with the potential for long-term growth. The majority of venture capital is often provided by wealthy individuals, investment banks, and other financial organizations. However, it is not always in the form of money; it can also come in the form of managerial or technological know-how. Venture capital is often given to startups with outstanding growth potential or to businesses that have had rapid growth and seem well-positioned to keep growing.

Large ownership stakes in a company are developed and sold to a select group of investors in a venture capital deal through independent limited partnerships that are set up by venture capital firms. These partnerships can occasionally be made up of a group of related businesses.

Types of VC Funding

Pre-Seed VC- Pre-seed funding usually refers to the time when a company's founders are just starting to run their business off the ground.

Seed Funding- At this stage the company is about to launch its first product and might need external funding to do so. VCs provide such funding.

Early Stage Funding- Before a company can become self-supporting, it will need more funding to increase manufacturing and sales once a product has been established. The company will thereafter require one or more investment rounds, which are often identified progressively with Series A, Series B, etc.

It is important to note a difference between a VC funding and a bank loan: VC usually does not require a cash flow or assets to secure the funding, on the other hand- a bank usually does. VCs also provide mentoring and networking services to help a new company secure talent and growth. Though it is also notable that VCs tend to demand a large share of company equity.

~Lakshya Kapoor

[sanskarjaiswal]

The pre-epidemic challenges of the traditional banking business model have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, including revenue pressure, low profitability (due to low-interest rates and high capital levels), tighter regulation (following the previous financial crisis), and growing competition from shadow banks and new digital entrants. 

[bitchesgetriches]

Everything You Need to Know about How to Increase Your Income

Make more money at the job you have

One of the simplest ways to increase your income is to just make your current employer pay you more. But while it may be simple, it ain’t always easy.

Santa Isn’t Coming and Neither Is Your Promotion: How To Get Promoted

How I Chessmastered Myself Into a Promotion at Work

The First Time I Asked for a Raise

You Need To Ask for a Fucking Raise

Ask the Bitches: “Can I Quit With Unvested Funds? Or Am I Walking Away From Too Much Money?” 

The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Salary

Make more money at your next job

All that said, you’re statistically more likely to increase your income faster by job hopping! So if your current employer doesn’t want to pay you more, leave that sinking ship behind in pursuit of a higher salary.

Job Hopping vs. Career Loyalty by the Numbers

The Fascinating Results of Our Job Hopping vs. Career Loyalty Poll

How NOT to Determine Your Salary

When It Comes to Salary Negotiations, Are You Asking for Enough?

What To Do When You’re Asked About Your Salary Requirements in a Job Interview

If Your Employer Refuses To Negotiate Salary, Try These 11 Creative Counteroffers

Season 4, Episode 9: “I’m on the Wrong Career Path. How Do I Convince a New Industry To Take a Chance on Me?” 

Invest your way to more money

Of course there are some who say the true path to wealth is passive income: when you stop working for your money and instead let your money work for you. And they’re not wrong! Here’s how we recommend you increase your income passively.

When Money in the Bank Is a Bad Thing: Understanding Inflation and Depreciation

Investing Deathmatch: Investing in the Stock Market vs. Just… Not 

What’s the REAL Rate of Return on the Stock Market?

Dafuq Is a Retirement Plan and Why Do You Need One? 

Procrastinating on Opening a Retirement Account? Here’s 3 Ways That’ll Fuck You Over.

Season 4, Episode 1: “Index Funds Include Unethical Companies. Can I Still Invest in Them, or Does That Make Me a Monster?” 

Small Business Investing: A Kinder, Gentler Alternative to the Stock Market 

The Dark Magic of Financial Horcruxes: How and Why to Diversify Your Assets 

Make more money through side hustles

When it comes to side hustles, we have traditionally advocated caution. The last thing you want to do is burn out in pursuit of a second income stream. But with enough wits and fortitude, a side hustle could help you increase your income by leaps and bounds.

Romanticizing the Side Hustle: When 1 Job Isn’t Enough

Season 2, Episode 9: “I Use My Free Time to Volunteer. Should I Focus on Making Money Instead?”

Stop Undervaluing Your Freelance Work, You Darling Fool

Freelancer, Protect Thyself… With a Fair Contract 

Season 4, Episode 10: “I’m a Freelance Artist. How Do I Price My Work Fairly Without Losing Clients?”

Ask the Bitches: My Boss Won’t Give Me a Contract and I’m Freaking Out 

“Independent Contractor” My Ass: How to Stop Wage Theft Through Worker Misclassification 

Becoming a Millennial Entrepreneur (In the Midst of a Pandemic) With Katelyn Magnuson 

11 Awful Mistakes I Made as a Self-employed Freelancer, and How You Can Avoid Them

The Magic of Unclaimed Property: How I Made $1,900 in 10 Minutes by Being a Disorganized Mess

I Am a Craigslist Samurai and so Can You: How to Sell Used Stuff Online

What to do when you make more money

Once you increase your income, you might find yourself… not quite bored, but finding you have a little more bandwidth to handle the stuff that matters. It can be a jarring transition! Here are our thoughts on the matter.

Season 3, Episode 7: “I’m Finished With the Basic Shit. What Are the Advanced Financial Steps That Only Rich People Know?” 

Season 3, Episode 4: “The More Money I Save, the More I’m Scared To Lose It. Can I Break the Cycle of Financial Anxiety?” 

How to Avoid Lifestyle Inflation … and When to Embrace It

Ask the Bitches: I Know How to Struggle and Fight, but I Don’t Know How to Succeed

Update: I Know How to Struggle and Fight, but I Don’t Know How to Succeed 

The FIRE Movement, Explained 

I Was Happy to Marry a Poor Man. Then Things Changed.

I Have Become the Rich Relative I Always Wanted 

Believing in Miracles: A Conversation with Chris Dane Owens on Money, Creativity, and Self-Funding Art 

I Now Make More Money Than My Husband, and It’s Great for Our Marriage 

Season 2, Episode 1: “I’m Financially Stable, but My Friends Aren’t. The Guilt Is Crushing!”

The Resignation Checklist: 25 Sneaky Ways To Bleed Your Employer Dry Before Quitting

Advocate for systemic change

We don’t endorse an attitude of “I got mine.” So once you increase your income, there are lots of ways to use your newfound financial breathing room for good! Lift as you climb, my friend. Here are a few ways to do so:

Wallet Activism: Using Your Money for Good with Author Tanja Hester 

Woke at Work: How to Inject Your Values into Your Boring, Lame-Ass Job 

Raising the Minimum Wage Would Make All Our Lives Better

Post a Salary Range in the Job Description, You Fucking Cowards

1 Easy Way All Allies Can Help Close the Gender and Racial Pay Gap

The Truth About Unions: What Has Organized Labor Done for You? 

How To Support a Labor Strike with 3 Simple Steps

Everything in moderation

One last thing, my lambs: don’t crush your spirit while chasing the goal of a higher income. Working hard is hard work. If you find these tactics are leaving you exhausted and demoralized, you might be on the road to burnout. And that road leads nowhere good!

That’s why we just released our glorious new Burnout Workshop. Click the button below to take a peek!

Get the Burnout Workshop Here!

[robertreich]

Should Billionaires Exist? 

Do billionaires have a right to exist?

America has driven more than 650 species to extinction. And it should do the same to billionaires.

Why? Because there are only five ways to become one, and they’re all bad for free-market capitalism:

1. Exploit a Monopoly.

Jamie Dimon is worth $2 billion today… but not because he succeeded in the “free market.” In 2008, the government bailed out his bank JPMorgan and other giant Wall Street banks, keeping them off the endangered species list.

This government “insurance policy” scored these struggling Mom-and-Pop megabanks an estimated $34 billion a year.

But doesn’t entrepreneur Jeff Bezos deserve his billions for building Amazon?

No, because he also built a monopoly that’s been charged by the federal government and 17 states for inflating prices, overcharging sellers, and stifling competition like a predator in the wild.

With better anti-monopoly enforcement, Bezos would be worth closer to his fair-market value.

2. Exploit Inside Information

Steven A. Cohen, worth roughly $20 billion headed a hedge fund charged by the Justice Department with insider trading “on a scale without known precedent.” Another innovator!

Taming insider trading would level the investing field between the C Suite and Main Street.

3.  Buy Off Politicians

That’s a great way to become a billionaire! The Koch family and Koch Industries saved roughly $1 billion a year from the Trump tax cut they and allies spent $20 million lobbying for. What a return on investment!

If we had tougher lobbying laws, political corruption would go extinct.

4. Defraud Investors

Adam Neumann conned investors out of hundreds of millions for WeWork, an office-sharing startup. WeWork didn’t make a nickel of profit, but Neumann still funded his extravagant lifestyle, including a $60 million private jet. Not exactly “sharing.”

Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of fraud for her blood-testing company, Theranos. So was Sam Bankman-Fried of crypto-exchange FTX. Remember a supposed billionaire named Donald Trump? He was also found to have committed fraud.

Presumably, if we had tougher anti-fraud laws, more would be caught and there’d be fewer billionaires to preserve.

5. Get Money From Rich Relatives

About 60 percent of all wealth in America today is inherited.

That’s because loopholes in U.S. tax law —lobbied for by the wealthy — allow rich families to avoid taxes on assets they inherit. And the estate tax has been so defanged that fewer than 0.2 percent of estates have paid it in recent years.

Tax reform would disrupt the circle of life for the rich, stopping them from automatically becoming billionaires at their birth, or someone else’s death.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing against big rewards for entrepreneurs and inventors. But do today’s entrepreneurs really need billions of dollars? Couldn’t they survive on a measly hundred million?

Because they’re now using those billions to erode American institutions. They spent fortunes bringing Supreme Court justices with them into the wild.They treated news organizations and social media platforms like prey, and they turned their relationships with politicians into patronage troughs.

This has created an America where fewer than ever can become millionaires (or even thousandaires) through hard work and actual innovation.

If capitalism were working properly, billionaires would have gone the way of the dodo.

[alpaca-clouds]

You Cannot Create A Solarpunk Future Under Capitalism

I am feeling like a broken record, but I just need to make this clear once more: No, Solarpunk in any form is not possible under capitalism. If you think it is, you either fail to understand Solarpunk, or you don't get what capitalism even means.

Technically I wrote about this already almost exactly a year ago. Let me reiterate it again, though: Solarpunk at its core is build around a couple of ideas. Those are:

Living in relative harmony with our environment, rather than destroying it. (Which includes using renewable energies.)

Decolonialism.

Social justice and the same rights, chances and possibilities for all people.

Neither of those three points is archievable under capitalism, as the end goals of capitalism are opposed to each of them.

Let me go through each of them.

Environmental Sustainability is not archievable under capitalism.

This is the point people tend to argue about the most. Because they will go: "But if the renewable energy sources are cheaper than fossil fuels, the capitalist will see more possibilities to make money with it." Well, do I have news for you: A variety of renewable sources, such as solar and wind power, are already a lot cheaper than fossil fuels and yet somehow the capitalist argue against using them. Care to explain that? No? Well, I'll do it for you. (Technically already did in that blog last year.)

See, when someone's net worth is listed somewhere, most of them actually do not have billions of dollars on their bank accounts. And no, they also do not swim in gold coins. Instead their net worth comes from calculating how much money they would be able to make if they sold all thier assets. A lot of those assets are shares in companies they have, as well as stuff like their fancy houses, fancy cars, fancy private jets and fancy yachts. Most billionaires have not more than a couple tens million dollars in liquid money, meaning money they can just spend. If they wanna buy something that is more expensive, they will usually go to a bank, say: "Look at all the stuff I have. I wanna buy myself more stuff. Gimme money?" And the bank will go: "Of course, Sir Billionaire, here you go. Have a nice 10 billion dollars."

And this is where the issue arrises: Most of the billionaires who are investing in the energy market, have already invested billions in fossil fuels. Be it by owning shares of fossil fuel companies, or by owning mines, oil rigs, power plants and the like. And this puts them into a silly little position: Even if they wanted to make more money through renewables, they cannot without harming themselves. Because in the moment that renewables become even more viable than they already are, fossil fuels lose their viabilities - and hence all the assets they hold in fossil fuels lose their value in an instant. The billionairs know that. The banks know it, too. Which is why banks do not want to give the fossil fuel billionaires money for that, even if they ask.

And that is only on the energy-generating side of it. If you go into the other stuff that harms our environment... Simply put: Public transport will never make as much money, as selling everyone their own car. And plastics are just so much cheaper than any alternatives. And the companies need fast fashion, because they won't make as much money, if folks only go buying new clothes every ten years.

Capitalism is build on the exploitation of the environment.

You cannot archieve decolonialization under capitalism.

Let's talk about the call to decolonize next. This is even easier explained: Capitalism is build on colonialism. And contrary to what you might have been told in school, colonialism has never ended. Most indigenous folks never got their ancestral land back - or have to fight to remain on it to this day. The most notable examples you know off might be indigenous people on their land (at times the land they originally had been forced onto after their ancestral land had been stolen from them) fighting pipelines that the capitalists want to put onto that land. That is colonialism.

In fact a lot of the raw material we use to power capitalism is produced on stolen land or is moved across stolen land to be financially viable. Be it oil springs, that can be found there. Or be it mines. That is both mines that produce coal, but also mines that are used to produce lithium and other materials used in batteries of electric cars. These raw materials should technically belong to the indigenous people from whose land those materials are sourced. And we do know for a fact that some of them will prefer to leave those materials in the ground. Maybe because of the harm to the environment that mining for them creates. Maybe because the land is sacred to them. Maybe because some of them just do not care about cheap electric cars.

It is more than that, of course. Because colonialism also allows for slave labor. And yes, I mean slave labor. Like classical slave labor where people are pressganged into laboring in those mines, or in other factories, where they are not paid at all - or are paid in breadcrums. The reason that the global south is so abhorently poor, even though most of the raw materials powering our world are found there, is, that the people in the global south are exploited, while the land is often owned by people from the global north, who either got it through colonialism - or by buying it from someone who got it through colonialism.

And once again: The profit motive of capitalism is directly opposed to decolonizing - and because of that it won't happen. Capitalism is built on colonial exploitation.

You cannot archive social justice under capitalism.

Capitalism as a system was invented for one reason and one reason alone: To allow former nobility, who were close to lose their power and influence in a Europe of anti-royal revolutions, to hold onto the power and influence and veil it underneath the idea of meritocracy. Basically saying: "Everyone gets what they deserve based on the work they got in." Obviosly they got the most, because they owned the land that everyone was working and living on. And then they did their best to brainwash everyone into believing this - at which they actually succeeded.

Here is the thing: Capitalism needs an underclass to exploit. Sure, a good chunk of that exploitation will happen in other countries, where the poor white middleclass folks do not need to see them toil, but some of that exploitation simply cannot be done in those other countries. At times because the work physically needs to happen in the western nations - stuff like road contruction, general contruction work, cleaning and such are an example of this. And at times because some things might be time critical, cannot be transported that far and stuff like that - like farm work in some cases, or also all the Amazon warehouse stuff. Oh, and all those fastfood jobs belong into this area. Stuff that is paid minimum wage and exploited to no end.

And then there is of course prison labor in the US, which once again is just slavery.

And all of that does not even go into the care and nursing work that is either underpaid by a ton when it is happening on the open market (like in hospitals, schools, kindergardens and other care facilities) - or is happening completely for free. Mosten done by women, who will care for both children, as well as elders and disabled family members for free.

The true endgoal of capitalism is to turn the labor of the lower classes into money and value for the upper class to hoard like bloody dragons. As such capitalism will never be compatible with any sort of equal rights and equal chances.

Those three aspects are truths that just cannot be changed. Capitalism will never be able to create any sort of justice, equal rights, or sustainability. It is not in the interest of capitalism to do so, either.

[worldspotlightnews]

Silicon Valley Bank collapses after failing to raise capital | CNN Business

New York CNN  —  Silicon Valley Bank collapsed Friday morning after a stunning 48 hours in which a bank run and a capital crisis led to the second-largest failure of a financial institution in US history. California regulators closed down the tech lender and put it under the control of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC is acting as a receiver, which typically means it will…