Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP, why are you avoiding Amazon and Target? Are you trying to make a political statement? If so, there are certainly more egregious offenders out there.
Exactly. I've posted on this subject before, but really people are being short-sighted here. If you want to rein in your spending in these uncertain times, more power to you!
But the people who are responsible for the current situation are not the owners of Target and Amazon. All the tech and business leaders, and all foreign heads of state, and now a law firm and an Ivy league university, have made token gestures towards this administration, because they understand Trump's motor runs solely on retribution against perceived slights. He's never thanked enough, never flattered enough, and money talks. If you do that, maybe he'll be putty in your hands, as Putin well understands. The calculus today is: what minimal gesture will get him off your back? How much can you then get away with afterward to return to normal operations without the White House noticing? Because you bet that's what Paul Weiss and Columbia are going to do.
Also consider this: the autistic billionaire who has announced that we need to fight against empathy stands to gain billions in government contracts and has now put himself in a position of incredible strength inside the federal government. Blue Origin is a rival. Meta is a rival. If you had any long-range strategic thinking into this at all, and you really should, you'd see that the other billionaires need to be encouraged to get closer to this administration to act as counterweights to this one billionaire. We cannot let taxpayer money and American influence flow towards just one guy. The more these people fight for pieces of the pie, the smaller the pie pieces each of them gets. This is the least worse scenario for us little people.