Complications posted:

Our entire economic model doesn't hinge on one holiday season, it hinges on one each quarter. Thanksgiving to Christmas, Valentine's, July 4th, back to school and labor day. Missing any of those sprees is a crippling blow because retail finance is as just in time as the supply chain.

Shear Modulus posted:

if we had a true free market instead of crony capitalism then someone else would build a better global logistics system and the problem would solve itself

Weka posted:

Amazon afaik is still yet to buy or build any ports or even ships.

V. Illych L. posted:

right, it's certainly possible - stripping your way through college is practically a cliche - though i'd want to see some evidence that it's something that happens outside of relatively isolated cases and, in particular, is common among Thai women before i'd allow that statement

ToxicAcne posted:

What do you guys think of Varoufakis's theory that Capitalism is dying out and being replaced by techno-feudalism? I don't really get the comparison to feudalism as that wasn't really based on the endless expansion of capital. Feudalism existed in a society where most stuff hadn't been commodified yet.

bob dobbs is dead posted:

there are no serious top-class mercenary navies or air forces currently operating. Eric prince is trying to make a mercenary air force and mostly failing

bob dobbs is dead posted:

the mercenary companies - academi / blackwater / whatever fuckin name they have now, wagner group, have had a pretty straightforward pattern of splashing onto the scene being mildly effective, then proceeding to get their face crushed in serious deployments. often because of their lack of close air support and serious indirect fire (rocketry, artillery) and serious armor and other combined arms stuff.

there are no serious top-class mercenary navies or air forces currently operating. Eric prince is trying to make a mercenary air force and mostly failing

as long as centralized states maintain the monopoly on violence there will be no feudalism and no corporate rule. sure, they're better at advertising, but they need combined arms warfare to seriously challenge modern states

LastInLine posted:

They don't but they have built air terminals and bought a fleet of freight planes. They're spinning up operations to run their own gateway logistics and Customs clearinghouses and should have a viable nearly totally in-house international import/export logistics operation within a year or so. What's important in the air shipping industry is that they'll be able to sell excess space on their planes and turn that into a profit center in the same way they did for their server capacity.

They're certainly in a position to completely disrupt the current US shipping landscape in a way that's really never been done and let me assure you as someone on the inside that they will be wildly successful at this endeavor. All players in the industry are absolutely abysmal and have been completely insulated from competition solely by the fact that it would take an extremely well-capitalized entrant to be able to lease the airport space and an air fleet to start a logistics operation. Amazon will absolutely destroy the existing players.

Edgar Allan Pwned posted:

If the rich own the politicians isn't that just feudalism with extra steps

the panacea posted:

well there is a reason why private ownership of military aircrafts is regarded as a big no no by the international community (see Geneva convention).

skooma512 posted:

I figured that was because every flight hour for a mil jet is enormously expensive and is thus only used by people who have access to sovereign wealth and power.

BonHair posted:

Also, I would not be surprised if some enterprising state decided to go all in on just being a state military for hire to circumvent the Geneva convention. It seems right up Saudi Arabia's alley if their oil income actually fails.

skooma512 posted:

I figured that was because every flight hour for a mil jet is enormously expensive and is thus only used by people who have access to sovereign wealth and power.

wikipedia posted:

Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc., 88 F. Supp. 2d 116, (S.D.N.Y. 1999), aff'd 210 F.3d 88 (2d Cir. 2000), more widely known as the Pepsi Points Case, is a contracts case tried in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1999, in which the plaintiff, John Leonard, sued PepsiCo, Inc. in an effort to enforce an "offer" to redeem 7,000,000 Pepsi Points for an AV-8 Harrier II jump jet (valued at $33.8 million at the time) which PepsiCo had shown in a portion of a televised commercial that PepsiCo argued was intended to be humorous.

BonHair posted:

You're assuming mercenaries don't have access to that same wealth. The only difference is the middle man.

Also, I would not be surprised if some enterprising state decided to go all in on just being a state military for hire to circumvent the Geneva convention. It seems right up Saudi Arabia's alley if their oil income actually fails.

quote:

RARE 3 HARRIER AIRCRAFT PACKAGE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE!

Blockade posted:

https://twitter.com/kittynouveau/status/1456706592242429955/photo/1

poo poo POST MALONE posted:

lmao remember this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc.

quote:

In justifying its conclusion that the commercial was "evidently done in jest" and that "The notion of traveling to school in a Harrier Jet is an exaggerated adolescent fantasy," the court made several observations regarding the nature and content of the commercial, including:

• "The callow youth featured in the commercial is a highly improbable pilot, one who could barely be trusted with the keys to his parents' car, much less the prize aircraft of the United States Marine Corps."
  
• "The teenager's comment that flying a Harrier Jet to school 'sure beats the bus' evinces an improbably insouciant attitude toward the relative difficulty and danger of piloting a fighter plane in a residential area."
  
• "No school would provide landing space for a student's fighter jet, or condone the disruption the jet's use would cause."

Shame Boy posted:

I'd never read the full wiki article before and it's got some gems

quote:

Among other claims made, Leonard claimed that a federal judge was incapable of deciding on the matter, and that instead the decision had to be made by a jury consisting of members of the "Pepsi Generation" to whom the advertisement would allegedly constitute an offer

PokeJoe posted:

how could you leave out this one

the panacea posted:

well there is a reason why private ownership of military aircrafts is regarded as a big no no by the international community (see Geneva convention).

ContinuityNewTimes posted:

Neat bit of military aircraft in private hands trivia: there was a time immediately after ww2 when Italy transferred some of their bombers to the knightly Military Order of Malta

Weka posted:

I figured a big reason mercenaries were used is to do crimes you wouldn't want your troops doing for political reasons.

Forseti posted:

These motherfuckers stole my business idea

bob dobbs is dead posted:

right? and then theres only room for light infantry doing that, if the tanks and missiles are brought out then you're just at actual war

Megillah Gorilla posted: