The short answer (ba dum, tisssss) is that some forms of mutual funds buy a little bit of every stock rather than picking and choosing. Then, for reasons never really made clear, they let other investors borrow those stocks as long as they return them later.

Sears could have been what Amazon is today. Hell, it the 19th century, it WAS was Amazon is today. But the focus is so often on financial trickery over actual sound business practices

Alot of debt gets bundled into bonds or other investment vehicles and sold. So small retail investors, retirement funds, etc end up holding the bag. Sometimes the banks lose, but they can take tax write offs and if the loses are too great, they can often get bailed out by the government.

It’s not hard to use financial trickery to temporarily tank a stock price making it easier to buy up a company. When redditors went after gamestop shortsellers, the shortsellers used tricks to dip the stockprice just low enough just temporarily enough to trigger margin calls and crush the redditors.

Because bankers buy politicians and if people complain they buy news coverage to call the naysayers socialists

Kinda like how Uber and Lyft put cab companies out of business and then their prices skyrocketed?

Yes and No. Sears could have limped along for longer but the geriatric leadership they brought in made a bunch of stunningly bad decisions. Sears built their business on catalogs and shipping direct to consumers. With their huge distribution network, trusted name, and network of stores they could have embraced a hybrid model and been on the cutting edge of e-commerce but the geriatric fucks they put in charge doubled down on the retail model they had always known but with shittier service.

One of the reasons they have so much money is the financial trickery that private equity employs

Pretty much nothing in “the economy” works like it does in theory. It’s always way more complex so the people with the most power and money can squeeze more exploitation out of it. I really like how this guy explains it

https://www.facebook.com/reel/976701137942045

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1LcJjd6Wosw

He’s got a whole series on Private Equity

No, the “the work load for me a person with a life to live is unreasonable especially in a age of sealioning” excuse. If you had a more narrowly phrased question, that would help. But in the name of good faith debate, I’ll point you in a starting direction. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revanchism, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irredentism, then type “Russia’s Imperial Ambitions” into a search engine. When Putin was a boy, the map of his country was bigger than it is now and he wants that land “back”.

Any plan that starts with “if people would just”, they in fact will probably not

They’re also fascist countries where the government can and do set strict limits on content without concern for rule of law or the will of the people.

That’s why there’s been a movement for years to end Qualified Immunity and force Police to carry their own insurance like Doctors do. As long as Police face no serious consequences for breaking the Law, they’ll continue to be vicious thugs.

and/or they want field data from the real world conditions they’re being used in.

I mean, more than half. Almost everyone on the Left thinks Democrats share blame with Republicans even if Republicans are MORE to blame.

Technically the Freikorps would be more akin to groups like the Proudboys or Oathkeeprs. The analogy for ICE/Homeland Security agents/Federalized National Guard would be Gestapo.

TikTok is owned by the Chinese and they have strong anti-protest biases.

In a strictly hypothetical situation, you left out “slicing the pie”

Specifically in authoritarian or totalitarian regimes since Senior officers both have a lot to lose financially if the regime falls and typically are as guilty as the people they serve.

Any reason he could give is fabricated. Also, Portland in particular is more than just the usual “collapsing the Republic into a fascist dictatorship” thing he has going on. He’s still butthurt about Portland from 2020.