As a pragmatist in an echo chamber & a person who believes American economics is a foundational root I wish more of us would explore, learn + talk about - a specific thread:

-paradoxical private/ gvt institutions (privatized incarceration) are built on quota which in turn is dependent on...exponential economic inflation.

-how is crime addressed when quotas need to stay up?...Inflating the numbers and exaggerating petty offenses. According to the FBI, the violent crime rate fell 51% between 1993 and 2018.

some math: privatized prisons need 2-3% gains 2 keep pace with yearly inflation, meaning they ultimately need 20-30% more bodies 2 stay solvent over a decade and that’s just to BREAK EVEN.

If they r keeping pace with inflation 2/3% functions, but what business doesn’t want 2 keep growing their profit margin?...so prisons overflow with bodies.

We fill prisons with people for the same reason you are advised to leave your money in a 401k for 40 years. The stock has to go up to stay solvent.

The irony of taxes supporting 4 profit systems is a bitter pill. If our tax dollars subsidize for profit entities, it’s pretty easy to see how institutions of power end up marginalizing groups of people in order to continue cashing in, perpetuating an exponentially broken cycle.

If we don’t zoom in on economics or remain unwilling to dive into, admittedly thick, basic minutiae + definitions of said economics (including capitalism which has many forms which most of us don’t truly understand) I’m not quite sure how we structurally + culturally pivot...?