Line Must Go Up

[Xarpho's Return]

What even IS this meme?

It's often parroted in response to globohomo companies letting things deteriorate and making the world a worse place and is basically current year's version of "late stage capitalism" and somehow makes even less sense.

Furthermore, it's not even accurate—the stock market constantly changes and just as many companies fall as others go up. Most of the time "Line must go up" is used is not even expanding markets, the idea of markets is that they're not a finite system and can always been expanded (unless it's a shrinking industry, which isn't the case in LMGU). In LMGU situations there is a better path forward that can make everyone more money, but they don't do it (in fact, it often makes everything worse).

The other thing that bugs me about this is that what is the suggestion otherwise? Are there corporations who have truly maxed out all they could max out and they should just...arbitrarily stop?

Besides, it's not like anyone who uses this line never would like, ask for, or appreciates a raise...

Am I onto something here, or am I the retard?

 

[Apustajan apustaja]

Line go up: One day, we can all afford a big ass TV, just like the millionaires have!
Line did not go up as much: We all have big ass TVs, that cost like two weeks worth of food.

Economics and quality of life are a complex game.

 

[millais]

I thought it's more of a reference to governments pursuing a short term growth policy over long term health and stability for the economy. Like why they never want to raise interest rates, even though economy has been overheating.

 

[888Flux]

because predditors & leftists are not people and lack any ability to rotate the apple or hear their own inner monologue, they must speak in retarded neologisms that stimulate their basal ganglia.

it doesn't actually "mean" anything. it's the 21st century version of gutteral caveman speak. they don't have beliefs or convictions. just pure emotion.

 

[draggs]

What even IS this meme?

A meme for retards who are angry they can't smoke weed and goon and gayme and 1488/hammer and sickle gas the kikes/the yts total nigger/chud death sperg all day and also be successful financially, romantically, sexually, and socially

 

[AbyssGazer]

The birth rate dilemma is the best example. It's basically a pyramid scheme. The population can obviously not be increased forever, and it certainly can not be saved by nigger import. Yet no one wants to be the sucker at the bottom of the pyramid, so, Line Must Go Up.

because predditors & leftists are not people and lack any ability to rotate the apple or hear their own inner monologue, they must speak in retarded neologisms that stimulate their basal ganglia.

it doesn't actually "mean" anything. it's the 21st century version of gutteral caveman speak. they don't have beliefs or convictions. just pure emotion.

I see the expression being used here more than on normienet.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

I would say the best explanation of this meme is the Canadian 100 to 100 plan, where they want to have 100 million people by 2100 because of "muh GDP" and "muh economics" so they are importing literally a million pajeets a year and destroying the entire nation out of blind worship of Gross Domestic Product as a measure of life.

In fact the entire meme is about worship of economic numbers as being the ultimate moral and civilization good in the universe for neoliberal and neoconservative types. To the point they push policies that destroy their nations and communities because of the short term economic gains for it. The equivalent of killing the goose that lays golden eggs so they can profit NOW NOW NOW.

In companies you will see this shit with a lot of private equities where they acquire a business, put a Indian CEO in charge who proceeds to burn the entire thing to the ground with cutting costs by doing insane shit and firing people so they can suck all the wealth out of the thing ASAP and look good on the balance sheet.

 

[DumbDude43]

it's fairly simple: it mocks people who treat financial and economic gains as their highest (and sometimes their only) priority, to the detriment of everything else.

the poster child for this is mass immigration. sure, flooding an area with third worlders brings ruin and decay to society and makes life worse for everyone around them - but have you considered how beneficial an infinite supply of cheap labor is for the profit margins of corporations? line go up! nothing else matters!

 

[peachlover669]

I thought it was pretty obvious, its in reference to how so many things (mostly in media and entertainment) are going to shit because companys have a mindset of "Line must go up!" and as a result things get cheaper, worse, and more monetized in pursuit of line going up instead of just being content with making a product that benefits the world and makes them money.

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

I thought it's more of a reference to governments pursuing a short term growth policy over long term health and stability for the economy. Like why they never want to raise interest rates, even though economy has been overheating.

That's what it is, it's artificially propping up the value of (mal)investments through low interest rates and massive monetary expansion, at the cost of making decent housing and many other things completely unaffordable for people as well as driving massive inflation in food and other essential goods.

It's also artificially suppressing wages through mass migration, legal and illegal, while simultaneously allowing companies to systematically underpay and exploit workers by charging it to the state via welfare programs.

One idea I've had is adjusting tax brackets based upon the relative income growth in the working and middle classes.

 

[ZipDisk]

It's because of GE.

Jack Welch was one of the first CEO's to decide "Fuck the economy, QUARTER GAINS."

He's also the cocksucker who introduced mandatory firing quotas, and widely popularized offshoring.

He was the cancer that continues to hurt us all.

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

He's also the cocksucker who introduced mandatory firing quotas, and widely popularized offshoring.

Truly one of the most evil CEOs of all time and I'm glad he died a painful death from kidney failure with his reputation in tatters. Enron embraced a similar philosophy and that turned out brilliantly for them.

Yank-and-rank quotas just encourage backstabbing, demoralization and inefficiency, it's like the Great Purge every year forever. At least they don't typically kill the employee like Stalin but I know this POS racked up a body count.

It is very painful to me to have to fire someone unless they commit some actual crime or egregious violation.

 

[ZipDisk]

He literally waged war on retirement. Before he took the seat, people could work at one job their entire lives so long as they didn't fuck it up.
Nowadays you can get fired by a fucking computer and they won't even tell you why.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

its in reference to how so many things (mostly in media and entertainment) are going to shit

It's not confined to media and entertainment at all. I struggle to think of ANY industry that hasn't been hollowed out over the last 40-70 (depending on how you measure) years of myopic decision-making.

 

[SCV]

You've completely mis-understood this. "Line must go up" is the mindset of bean counters and CEOs that are making things worse with bad long term decisions for short term gains.

For example you might fire 20% of your workforce which increases your net profit immediately but will have consequences eventually when things break and no one left knows how to fix them or productivity tanks because everyone is afriad of being fired. In that scenario the CEO may well get a bonus for raising profit and retard investors will value the stock higher (the eponymous line going up) because profits have increased.

Similarly you might see amazon make their search worse so people have trouble finding what they want but spend more time on amazon.com and as a result make more impulse buys. That immediately increases sales but eventually people will form a negative association and move away from amazon (monopoly effects not withstanding).

I will address some specific points now

Furthermore, it's not even accurate—the stock market constantly changes and just as many companies fall as others go up. Most of the time "Line must go up" is used is not even expanding markets, the idea of markets is that they're not a finite system and can always been expanded

The examples I've given are for single companies but this management ethos has become widespread and affects most large companies now. The main driver for this is getting sued for not caring enough about stock price essentially. See: https://kiwifarms.st/threads/blackr...o-patients-after-the-ceo-was-murdered.220407/

The other thing that bugs me about this is that what is the suggestion otherwise? Are there corporations who have truly maxed out all they could max out and they should just...arbitrarily stop?

The (or at least my) suggestion would be that companies would focus on long term planning, providing good service, and being a good place to work instead of enshittifying all their products, chasing fleeting stock price bumps, and doing awful things like stack ranking to sacrifice their employees well being chasing profits.

I'm not sure what you mean by "max out" and "stop" (companies exist over time, not as a single event) but I would say that if a company has the most market share it has then they could simply be a stable business rather than trying to force it. Consider if pepsi was the only soda company and sold everyone as much as they wanted. They could simply be happy with the money they make or they could fund bullshit studies that say it's safe for diabetics to drink soda and increase their market even further. Should they do this? They may even get sued it they don't fake those studies. (There are no big companies currently that simply make a profit without trying to increase their market in various more or less ethical ways because, of course, line must go up.)

Besides, it's not like anyone who uses this line never would like, ask for, or appreciates a raise...

People only need raises because of inflation. That is a larger discussion but it's in the same vein.


Ultimately it's just expressing dissatisfaction when a company abuses it customers/the environment/it's workers/whatever in order to increase profits by ironically repeating the companies reason for the abuse.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

What even IS this meme?

It means the economy and its component serve the LINE (GDP, profits, shareholder value, you name it) rather than the population. Modern economics - largely thanks to MMT and other post-gold standard retardation - is clownworld ramped up to 11.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

The other thing that bugs me about this is that what is the suggestion otherwise? Are there corporations who have truly maxed out all they could max out and they should just...arbitrarily stop?

Yes. Anything else is detrimental to society by definition. The original purpose of a "corporation" and the reason it was legally recognized by the state was to serve a particular useful function.

Why do we tolerate them not holding up their end of the deal? What do we get out of these multi-billion dollar parasites in 2025?