A cartel is rival government and a government is a cartel pretending to be your friend. It's thuggery all the way down. At least the cartel is honest about its intentions.

This sounds like taxes to me. I'm told these are desirable, so I don't see any problem with this.

Do YOU shop at them? Do most people?

Is food essential? Because I don't hear people shrieking for grocery stores to be nationalized. Not yet, anyway.

The best part of the Norway thing is that it's basically 5 million people sitting on an oilfield...which they export so they can pretend to be green at home.

The FDA approved it: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fda.gov%2Findustry%2Fc...

Perhaps it's time for people to stop trusting the gatekeepers and think for themselves.

You think the United States actually has a market economy? That's cute.

One possible outcome. The airbnb issue isn't the root cause, but it might be the trigger:

1) Airbnbs get banned (actually usage is starting to slow anyway - discretionary spending is down)
2) Airbnb owners start to dump properties on to the market.
3) Neighborhoods get re-comped at much lower rates.
4) Things start to snowball - other owners panic sell since most of their savings is stored in home equity and try to get out early.
5) As home equity evaporates, people scream. Time for the government to step in.
6) Central banks lower interest rates as economy deteriorates.
7) Big investors with liquidity swoop in and buy up the now extraordinarily cheap assets (houses, businesses, etc).
8) The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
9) Rinse and repeat.

You mean like the actors that destroy Argentina's currency on a perennial basis? Aren't they the ones doing the regulating and the taxing?

Good thing Gerry Spiess made his crossing before the U.S. decided the entire ocean belonged to them: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

It's transitory.

The phrase you're looking for here is, "regulatory capture".

The 18th century has entered the chat.

> I don't really want to see a return of the Mob, so instead I want to bring enough raw political power that the suits don't feel like they can use violence and intimidation.

Isnâ(TM)t that just kind of outsourcing the mob?

Laundering just implies "funding things that we can't see directly and probably don't want funded".