Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Jonathan Kamens (jik@federate.social)'s status on Sunday, 06-Apr-2025 11:50:44 JST Jonathan Kamens

   Let's talk about why Elon Musk wants high unemployment, despite conventional economic theory.
   The theory says that businesses succeed when customers have the money to buy their products. Therefore, the theory says, it's good for unemployment to remain low, because when it is high there are too many people who can't afford to buy stuff, and businesses fail.
   Makes sense, right?
   No, not for Elon Musk, it doesn't.
   Let's dive in. First, Tesla.
   #economics #unemployment #politics #USPol
   🧵1/8

   • Embed this notice
     Jonathan Kamens (jik@federate.social)'s status on Sunday, 06-Apr-2025 11:50:37 JST Jonathan Kamens

     in reply to

     This is also, by the way, why Musk wants to destroy the American social safety net. He wants people to be _desperate_ to find work, so that they will take jobs with poor wages and terrible working conditions. He wants people to be subservient to him and people like him. He wants a country chock-full of people who have no choice but to be servants of the rich if they want to stay alive.
     🧵6/8

   • Embed this notice
     Jonathan Kamens (jik@federate.social)'s status on Sunday, 06-Apr-2025 11:50:39 JST Jonathan Kamens

     in reply to

     So, what does Musk _really_ want? He wants to be able to hire people for less money, so that he personally can keep more money, and he wants to be able to abuse his workers without fear of them going to work elsewhere. High unemployment drives down wages and makes it harder for workers to switch to better jobs. Musk _wants_ higher unemployment, for exactly these reasons. He wants everyday Americans to suffer and be locked into bad jobs paying poor wages.
     🧵5/8

     Evan Prodromou repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Jonathan Kamens (jik@federate.social)'s status on Sunday, 06-Apr-2025 11:50:40 JST Jonathan Kamens

     in reply to

     I probably don't have to explain Twitter, but just for completeness… Musk didn't buy Twitter to make money off of it. He is never going to make money off of it, and that will remain true regardless of how high or low unemployment is. Twitter is a propaganda tool for helping Musk and his allies destroy American democracy.
     🧵4/8

     Minoru Saba repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Jonathan Kamens (jik@federate.social)'s status on Sunday, 06-Apr-2025 11:50:42 JST Jonathan Kamens

     in reply to

     Now, on to SpaceX. What I said above about when your customer is the government applies 1000% to SpaceX. As long as the government wants to keep sending things into space, they're going to keep paying SpaceX to carry their payloads. Unemployment could be at 10% or 20% or 30% and SpaceX would still be raking in cash from the U.S. government and others all over the world.
     🧵3/8

   • Embed this notice
     Jonathan Kamens (jik@federate.social)'s status on Sunday, 06-Apr-2025 11:50:43 JST Jonathan Kamens

     in reply to

     Even if Musk weren't destroying Tesla's reputation by being a Nazi, high unemployment wouldn't be a big risk to its business, because its cars are a luxury good targeted at high-income consumers, a small segment of the population. Tesla will never sell enough cars to be a commodity item, so high unemployment won't greatly depress sales.
     Also, much of Tesla's revenue is credits and rebates from green government programs. When your "customer" is the government, who cares about unemployment?
     🧵2/8