Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

Problem is Biden’s been running on that message - that corporations have been contributing to inflation - for the last several years.

And it’s not breaking through.

@Zaknel
Plus the harm Trumps handling of COVID also having a hand on how things are now.

@Meanlucario
That’s not the point. Plus, inflation is caused by there being more money in circulation without product to match it, not by corporate greed.

@Zaknel
You say that like corporations don’t bend over backwards to raise prices to line their own pockets. I’ve seen a “sale” where the discount was 0% off. I’m not joking.

@Meanlucario
The nature of trade is that someone has to willingly give you their stuff in exchange for your stuff. In this case, we use money as a means of exchange. If you don’t like someone’s buying prices, you won’t buy them. Therefore, if one business is raising their prices too high, someone else could capitalize by selling the same product or service for a lower price. Therefore, businesses tend not to “price gouge” for every single thing.

@Zaknel
You say that, but corporations find ways to still do so, especially when our politicians are on their payrolls.

There is supply side inflation and demand side inflation, along with various other price pressures.

Anyone who says inflation is solely a result of “too much money” in the system is woefully ignorant of economics.

A study found that “Greedflation” accounted for effectively half of the inflation happening post COVID.

Corporations using the excuse/worry of rising profits to raise their costs higher.

So it’s not just “money printer goes brrr” but also “line must go up”.

Polls are Predictions.

Predictions that don’t always survey the most varied of crowds and general populations.

What you do on the day of said political election is what matters the most.

@CaptainXtra
Polls are also a big pain in the ass to conduct over the phone.

I had some of those jobs in college and once more just a few years ago. We spend most of the time either praising one candidate or attacking another, then ask the respondent whether they agree or disagree with the statement, then asking them if they “strongly agree/disagree” or “somewhat agree/disagree.”

They’re also poorly written and have bad psychometrics. I’m convinced that these were nothing but “push polls” to convince people to vote Republican. How does this even qualify as “market research?!”

US defense officials estimate upwards of 50% of the ballistic missiles Iran used crashed or failed to launch
Jeez that’s worse than Russia. And Israel has said they will retaliate within 48 hours, and of course Iran said they’ll hit even harder if Israel does retaliate. The US warned Israel to be strategic about retaliation, but we’ll see how that goes (I say hit the drone factories, which would help Ukraine too).

They literally just fired their surplus as an expensive turkey shoot for Israel to save face after the consulate attack, this is further proven with their statement about the matter being “concluded” even before all the crap they sent had finished scattering around the place.

Only a piece of shit warmonger would retaliate against something so obviously meant to be for show, I wouldn’t be surprised for them to find out most missiles didn’t have active warheads.

Then again, Netanyahu is a piece of shit warmonger, so…

@Dustcan
Shit, I knew that all along. The pandemic was just a convenient excuse to jack up prices. Why would companies lower their prices now that the pandemic is over? If consumers are still buying their goods they have no incentive to lower prices. Pandemic pricing is the new normal and I hate it.

@kleptomage
Welcome to capitalism.

@Meanlucario
Capitalism is not the problem. It’s capitalism with insufficient regulation and weak-willed consumers that must always have the new shiny thing.

@kleptomage
I wouldn’t really class toilet paper, chicken eggs, or paprika as “shiny things”.

@kleptomage
Welcome to corporate brainwashing, where people are fight and die to defend the corporations that exploit them.

@The Smiling Pony
True. I was speaking generally of higher priced goods, like of the kind of person who buys a new $60,000 truck to drive to their factory job.

@Poison Trail
@SleepySteve
@Poison Trail
@Ereiam
So how does stuff like Sweet Baby Inc fall into this, I wonder? Because I’ve been hearing a lot more negative than positive, though it might be just the particular people involved.

@Dustcan
That doesn’t surprise me. Though what happens if the line goes down?

Sweet Baby Inc is a company made of former Ubisoft executives that offers consulting services favoring diversity and inclusion in games, the perfect scapegoat for a base desperately eager to push the idea that everything and everyone that isn’t “one of them” is part of some grandiose conspiracy (Obsession with a Plot, one of the core elements of fascism).

In truth, companies seek them out specifically due to their experience in the industry. Even the best writers sometimes screw up and end up introducing token minorities that are introduced and immediately gets their face eaten off, or introduce tropes that have already been played out identically in another game. It may sound surprising, but not all video game companies have industry veterans with decades of experience, or lack basic knowledge around the setting they’re basing their game in. That’s what consulting firms are for, patching up areas of expertise that may be lacking.

The “Negative” you’ve been hearing was amplified by Elon Musk himself and broadcast on his shitty propaganda outlet. Claims of SBI’s executives “bragging” about having blackmail on their clients and “forcing” them to uphold some kind of “DEI Agenda” have been consistently debunked but is echoed the next day from a lack of actual moderation on the website.

To expand on that last point, their “smoking gun” that SBI is systematically blackmailing dev teams into hiring them to “ruin” their video games by adding “woke” elements was a seconds-long, out-of-context soundbite from a 2021 talk given by SBI’s CEO in which she jokingly suggested that employees of AAA studios’ marketing departments who want more diversity in games “terrify” their employers. She explicitly says she’s joking like two sentences later.

So, ESG, DEI, Sweet Baby Inc. What is all this stuff?

ESG - Environmental, Social and Governance - a set of overarching principles pushed by certain owner/investor companies to run their businesses by. They sound reasonable but often leads to businesses having to compromise profitability for social criteria for example.

DEI - Diversity, equity, and inclusion - A more specific set of principles and guidelines for companies and organizations in regards to their so called social responsibilities. Dictates that a certain percentage of the workforce must be of a certain ethnicity, what can and cannot be said internally in the organization, what the end product must include in terms of themes and people and social issues.

These two are often just lumped together and referred to as ESG/DEI.

Then there are companies like Sweet Baby Inc. Sweet Baby Inc is not the only one, there are many of these advisory companies. They market themselves as “narrative advisors” and claim to offer “consultation” to studios and writers in the entertainment business under the guise of making entertainment more representative, diverse and enriching. In reality they check the scripts of entertainment writers and make sure they are ESG/DEI compliant. Their employees often use titles like “sensitivity reader/advisor”.

Ever wondered why characters are genderswapped, race swapped, orientation swapped or why all of a sudden there are so many people of new ethnicities around that weren’t there before in a new version of something you are a fan of? That’s these guys at work.

Some people claim this is all a conspiracy, this does not exist, it’s all just right winger talk and so on. That’s not entirely true, it does exist and is a common practice at many large US businesses now.

For example, a while ago the Disney criteria for a production leaked online, if something does not meet these criteria Disney will not make it. The criteria covers what must be depicted and who must be hired to produce what they are making:

It was an extensive leak that can be seen in full here: https://imgur.com/a/V3FXgaG

Here is an example on the effect this has on a franchise, in this case Tomb Raider.

This is how you may know Lara Croft, going on expeditions and raiding Tombs:

After the ESG/DEI process has been applied to Lara Croft, she is no longer a “tomb raider” but a “truth seeker”. She will now respect the cultures she comes into contact with and no longer “mirror colonial practices’’. An upcoming board game shows the end result of this process, notice the racial diversity and the legs of the character on the far left, highlighted to bring this very special design choice to your attention:

So, is all of this something you should worry about? Well that is something you have to decide for yourself. This has been going on for the better part of a decade now and it has reached the mainstream audience.

There seems to be a fatigue now amongst the audiences. They are tired of seeing their favorite shows, games and movies change for the worse, diversity prioritized at the cost of storytelling. It’s great for those under the LGBTQIA/leftist umbrella, for those not under it, it’s getting a bit off putting. Movies like Top Gun 2 still perform at the box office while huge Marvel productions flop. Audiences are growing tired of being preached at.

So that’s it and now you know what’s going on.

@Background Pony #7A74
It’s just basic capitalism, pandering to as many people as possible by including everything they can and offending no one that might raise a stink. Smooth everything out so everyone can like it.

It’s not a conspiracy, it’s marketing.

@Background Pony #7A74
If Yapping was a sport you’d be an olympin.

@Wiimeiser
From what I’ve seen, they’re the exception and have a few bosses who are racist towards white people if their tweets like how straight why guys kissing makes them sick are any indication. There’s also Kotaku defending them when the drama started, claiming you can’t be racist towards white people.