#lindstrom2020 rants

[lindstromm]

Absolutely No One: What legal gobbledygook in contracts in the USA do you want to destroy with a blowtorch?

Me: So glad you asked! Mandatory arbitration, of course. That’s the stuff that says you can’t sue - you have to settle any problem with the company in mandatory arbitration. Arbitration is when you go to a person (an arbitrator), explain what happened, and the arbitrator tells you how to solve the problem (pay money). It was supposed to be a way for two big companies to agree to stay out of court if they had a contract dispute, like Company A didn’t pay Company B. Stuff like that.

Now Mandatory Arbitration is in every contract, and it’s aimed at people, not companies. Your bank, your doctor, your ISP, your cell phone provider, your Amazon account. Every contract you sign says you can’t sue if something goes wrong. If you don’t sign it, the company won’t do business with you. You can’t join a class action either. And the thing is - the big company chooses the arbitrator. Guess who’s going to decide in favor of the big company? The arbitrator, right, yeah.

Why does this matter? It’s this shot from “Bug’s Life”

The grasshopper is the big company, and the little ants finally realize there’s a million of them and they can stand up to the grasshopper. But it only works if the ants can work together.

Arbitration separates the ants. The secrecy rules means the ants can’t talk to each other, or publicize what the big company is doing that’s wrong. The ‘no class action lawsuits’ rule means the ants can’t get together to take on the big company. The ‘no courts’ rule means the whole process happens behind closed doors. Arbitration means the grasshopper takes on the ants one at a time. So they lose.

Mandatory Arbitration: Just One More Way Corporations Screw Americans.

#mandatory arbitration #arbitration #lindstrom2020 rants #contract law #grasshopper and ants #a bug's life #late stage capitalism

[lindstromm]

I finally figured out why Frozen II did not work as a sequel to Frozen. (Yeah, it took me a while)

[The movie by itself is magnificent. Visually stunning, strong characters, gorgeous music. I even liked Kristoff’s song.]

But as a sequel, it didn’t work. Frozen II turned its back on the central metaphor that made the original Frozen so powerful. The metaphor of Elsa’s secret connected with so many people on so many levels. What are you hiding that will make people hate you? What secret must you keep to protect everyone around you? What makes you so radically different from everyone else that you can’t even be around them? What happens if it bursts out all over the place despite your best efforts?

Frozen II sidestepped all that, and retconned Elsa’s struggle out of existence. She spent her entire childhood locked away to protect everyone else. Her father did that to her. He told her ‘conceal don’t feel; don’t let it show.’ Her mother never spoke up in her defense. Anna lost her sister to a closed door. Elsa didn’t learn how to be herself or how to be around others.

And Frozen II threw all that away. It turns out that having a magical queen was a blessing for Arendelle! (No it wasn’t.) It turns out that her parents loved her! (That’s a pretty twisted definition of love.)

Frozen II gaslights Elsa and everyone who connected with that metaphor. “Ha! See? All the problems were just in your head! Your differences are great! Did you foolishly think people would be scared of you? Or hate you? That’s so cute you were that wrong! All that suffering and angst was because you were too sensitive and overreacting! No one else did anything wrong or treated you badly! It was all just a big misunderstanding!”

Seriously?

I think Disney realized it had turned Elsa’s parents into villains and it wanted to redeem them posthumously. Her parents taught her that she was scary and dangerous and had to hide and that poor little girl *believed* them. Frozen II ignored how the parents treated Elsa, and dumped on an additional helping of guilt when Elsa discovered that they died while trying to figure out the puzzle of her magic. Way to make it worse, Disney. 

The truth is, for Elsa to accept herself, she needed to reject what her father taught her. For people who connected with Elsa’s metaphor to accept themselves, they have to reject what family/society/media teaches them. It’s hard. It hurts. It takes time. You’re going to screw up sometimes. The victories are hard and breathless. The setbacks are devastating. And the message that all your struggles are just a big misunderstanding trivializes, minimizes and denies just how much effort it takes to Let It Go and accept who you really are.

#frozen #frozen 2 #frozen meta #Queen Elsa #lindstrom2020 #lindstrom2020 rants #movie meta #bad parenting

[lindstromm]

Nobody got to be a billionaire by getting a paycheck. Jeff Bezos is not a billionaire because of his paycheck. Bezos’ paycheck is $81,840 (plus expenses). The reason he’s a billionaire is because he owns billions worth of stock in Amazon. Bezos is filthy rich because of a number on a balance sheet, not because he has a hundred billion dollars in a bank account.

Billionaires are a failure of the economy. Billionaires mean we need to put the brakes on capitalism. Corporate tax is crazy complex and fixing it in one place risks breaking it in another. The govt can’t just confiscate the value of Amazon thru taxes and give it to other people. Taxes aren’t always the best way to redistribute wealth, especially if wealth is stock ownership. (I mean, yeah, make companies pay more taxes, but that won’t fix the problems with a company like Amazon.)

The goal is to REDUCE THE VALUE OF AMAZON. The Dept of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission should make Amazon sell Pillpack, the pharmacy it bought, and sell Whole Foods. Antitrust laws should be enforced so that Amazon stops vacuuming up entire sectors of retail. Making Amazon smaller will reduce Amazon’s value and break up its stranglehold on e-shopping.  (The FTC is suing Facebook to make it sell WhatsApp and Instagram as of 9 Dec 2020.) (The Dept of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in Oct 2020.) This is a TREND, people!!

Another thing that would REDUCE THE VALUE OF AMAZON is to force them to treat their workers better. Workers need higher pay; they need reduced productivity quotas so they can go to the bathroom during their shift; they need better working conditions. Probably laws aren’t the best way to get these results - the best way would be to let Amazon workers unionize. Then the union can bargain for better conditions, like breakrooms and reduced quotas. So Amazon’s expenses go up (they have to hire more people and pay them better) and that makes its profits go down.

Bezos would still own Amazon stock, but he wouldn’t be a billionaire because Amazon would be worth less as a company. The number on the balance sheet that makes him a billionaire is no longer in the billions.

Antitrust laws, unions, higher minimum wage, regulations that protect workers - all of these things will redistribute wealth that’s built on the backs of workers. It's not just taxes that redistribute wealth.

Get rid of billionaires by enforcing the laws that put a lid on capitalism.

#billionaires #jeff bezos #amazon #lindstrom2020 #lindstrom2020 rants #economic policy #capitalism #antitrust #unions