Will The Oligarchy that owns the US eeeevvvvveerrrrrr be slightly reined in?

[DBT]

I mentioned an ascending pay scale according to skill and other factors, danger, risk, effects on health, etc, which would attract people because of the higher pay. Plus, do not discount the need for meaningful work, some want to be doctors or lawyers or engineers, astronauts, etc, for reasons other than money. Which is not to say that these occupations should not be well rewarded. I didn't say that.

The problem is you can't have it both ways. The money you want to distribute at the bottom is far more than what exists at the top that you could take even if you didn't mind the harm you would do in the process.

Well, that's odd...given the stats on wealth distribution and income there should be more than sufficient wealth being created to raise the standard of living across the board.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I mentioned an ascending pay scale according to skill and other factors, danger, risk, effects on health, etc, which would attract people because of the higher pay. Plus, do not discount the need for meaningful work, some want to be doctors or lawyers or engineers, astronauts, etc, for reasons other than money. Which is not to say that these occupations should not be well rewarded. I didn't say that.

The problem is you can't have it both ways. The money you want to distribute at the bottom is far more than what exists at the top that you could take even if you didn't mind the harm you would do in the process.

Well, that's odd...given the stats on wealth distribution and income there should be more than sufficient wealth being created to raise the standard of living across the board.

Not if you want to fund it with the rich.

 

[DBT]

Well, that's odd...given the stats on wealth distribution and income there should be more than sufficient wealth being created to raise the standard of living across the board.

Not if you want to fund it with the rich.

The rich take far more than they give. Being in positions of power and privilege they are able to manipulate the system in their own favour, tax breaks, dodges, etc. The rich should pay more...more taxes, higher wages so that everyone benefits. Especially workers who contribute to that wealth but are underpaid.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well, that's odd...given the stats on wealth distribution and income there should be more than sufficient wealth being created to raise the standard of living across the board.

Not if you want to fund it with the rich.

The rich take far more than they give. Being in positions of power and privilege they are able to manipulate the system in their own favour, tax breaks, dodges, etc. The rich should pay more...more taxes, higher wages so that everyone benefits. Especially workers who contribute to that wealth but are underpaid.

You're still arguing ideology rather than practicality.

 

[ZiprHead]

The rich take far more than they give. Being in positions of power and privilege they are able to manipulate the system in their own favour, tax breaks, dodges, etc. The rich should pay more...more taxes, higher wages so that everyone benefits. Especially workers who contribute to that wealth but are underpaid.

You're still arguing ideology rather than practicality.

What's impractical about it and why was it so practical 60 years ago?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The rich take far more than they give. Being in positions of power and privilege they are able to manipulate the system in their own favour, tax breaks, dodges, etc. The rich should pay more...more taxes, higher wages so that everyone benefits. Especially workers who contribute to that wealth but are underpaid.

You're still arguing ideology rather than practicality.

What's impractical about it and why was it so practical 60 years ago?

It never existed. The high tax rates you're pining for had so many loopholes they were pretty much meaningless.

 

[ZiprHead]

What's impractical about it and why was it so practical 60 years ago?

It never existed. The high tax rates you're pining for had so many loopholes they were pretty much meaningless.

I didn't say anything about tax rates. I asked about practicality.

Frankly, I think this:



is much better than this.:

 

[DBT]

The rich take far more than they give. Being in positions of power and privilege they are able to manipulate the system in their own favour, tax breaks, dodges, etc. The rich should pay more...more taxes, higher wages so that everyone benefits. Especially workers who contribute to that wealth but are underpaid.

You're still arguing ideology rather than practicality.

The gulf was not as wide a few decades ago, yet the world economy did not collapse.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What's impractical about it and why was it so practical 60 years ago?

It never existed. The high tax rates you're pining for had so many loopholes they were pretty much meaningless.

I didn't say anything about tax rates. I asked about practicality.

Frankly, I think this:

View attachment 26257

is much better than this.:

View attachment 26258

At least you're admitting the 90+% rates are fantasy.

What is also missing in your data is tax loopholes. We don't know what the rates really were.

That being said, the first thing to do should be to undo His Flatulence's tax cuts.

 

[DBT]

So why do you appear to be against a fairer distribution of wealth in society? Don't you think that's a good thing, something to work towards?

 

[ZiprHead]

I didn't say anything about tax rates. I asked about practicality.

Frankly, I think this:

View attachment 26257

is much better than this.:

View attachment 26258

At least you're admitting the 90+% rates are fantasy.

What is also missing in your data is tax loopholes. We don't know what the rates really were.

That being said, the first thing to do should be to undo His Flatulence's tax cuts.

And again, doubling down on the rates and ignoring the question of practicality.

 

[fromderinside]

Given neither people nor businesses can control visibility of income in or out thanks to our digital economy, the guvnamint (sic) should just track these transactions and assign tax proportional to difference in income and outgo. It already has control of at least meta information transactions. Warren has a plan for that.

 

[fromderinside]

I didn't say anything about tax rates. I asked about practicality.

Frankly, I think this:

View attachment 26257

is much better than this.:

View attachment 26258

At least you're admitting the 90+% rates are fantasy.

What is also missing in your data is tax loopholes. We don't know what the rates really were.

That being said, the first thing to do should be to undo His Flatulence's tax cuts.

And again, doubling down on the rates and ignoring the question of practicality.

I think the eye popper for differences between 1950 and now is the 90% rate on top incomes. And, as I wrote elsewhere the government already has access to information tools capable of independently ascertaining income and outgo for most everybody.

Those who are conducting flea market economies which, thirty years ago, was already estimated to be 15% of GDP. They could effectively be reigned in by eliminating anything but electronic transactions.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Given neither people nor businesses can control visibility of income in or out thanks to our digital economy, the guvnamint (sic) should just track these transactions and assign tax proportional to difference in income and outgo. It already has control of at least meta information transactions. Warren has a plan for that.

In other words, punish thrift, reward squandering your money. No saving for a rainy day.

 

[DBT]

Thrift? It's more than just thrift that makes billionaires.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Given neither people nor businesses can control visibility of income in or out thanks to our digital economy, the guvnamint (sic) should just track these transactions and assign tax proportional to difference in income and outgo. It already has control of at least meta information transactions. Warren has a plan for that.

In other words, punish thrift, reward squandering your money. No saving for a rainy day.

Thrift? It's more than just thrift that makes billionaires.

He wasn't talking about just billionaires.

 

[lpetrich]

Thrift? It's more than just thrift that makes billionaires.

Yes. A LOT more. Like building business empires in unoccupied spaces in the economy. That's what happened in the previous Gilded Age, and that's what's been happening in this one.

Thrift can be overdone, leading to the  Paradox of Thrift - If everybody saved instead of spending, the economy would grind to a halt. Though if people are to spend for the good of the economy, then the duty of doing so should not mainly fall on those least able to do so.

 

[DBT]

Thrift? It's more than just thrift that makes billionaires.

He wasn't talking about just billionaires.

That assumes that low income earners get paid enough to put money aside as savings. Low income and thrift are inseparable. Nor, as pointed out, does this help the economy as a whole.

 

[lpetrich]

Why are we living in an age of anger – is it because of the 50-year rage cycle? | Science | The Guardian - 2018 May 16

Pointing to US outbursts of social and political violence around 1870, 1920, and 1970, with the prediction of 2020 as the next one.

Happy Birthday, America: Is It Your Last? | Vanity Fair - 2018 July 1

"The curious aspect of this divide is that Americans of strongly opposed ideologies but mild partisan sympathies often seem more willing to share a country than do Americans of mildly opposed ideologies but strong partisan sympathies." - mentioning the likes of Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald being friends.

Most of us have read enough about our divides to be familiar with the studies of partisanship and how our loyalties skew our perceptions. We know, from psychological papers, that as sports fans we’re likely to overlook the faults of our own team and perceive and exaggerate every fault of the other side. And yet few of us seem to make an effort to factor it into our thinking. Back when the rivalry between the Bloods and the Crips of South Los Angeles fascinated the world, journalists would occasionally ask members of each side (which also had countless internal factions) why they hated the other one. No one ever seemed to offer a coherent answer. It wasn’t a battle of ideas, of lifestyle, of resources, or even of blood. Turf wars and drugs entered into it, but the battle was primarily one of arbitrary identity and nothing more. They hated one another because they hated one another.

Not even "The Crips were nasty to us" or "The Bloods were nasty to us".

“The American polity today has a lot in common with the Antebellum America of the 1850s; with Ancien Régime France on the eve of the French Revolution; with Stuart England during the 1630s; and innumerable other historical societies that went through integrative/disintegrative cycles,” writes Turchin, who predicts that we’re headed for peak unrest in the 2020s.

Cliodynamics: can we use history to forecast the future? | The Week UK - 2019 Nov 13

Turchin says: “It is important to stress the limitations of this approach. The theory does not predict when and how actual violence will break out, only structural conditions that make such an outcome likely.”

He is now researching the various possible outcomes of a crisis period.

 

[lpetrich]

Peter Turchin The Ginkgo Model of Societal Crisis - Peter Turchin

Until last year I thought that we collectively have a decent chance of avoiding the crisis, but I now have abandoned this hope. A major reason for my pessimism is the resolute refusal by our ruling class (including its both Liberal and Conservative wings) to see the real causes of the crisis. They are internal, not external. As a result, the mid-term elections will be completely free of (largely mythical) Russian influence, but no attempt is made to address the deep structural-demographic causes. All these pressures continue to increase.

While going into a crisis is overall very similar, what next isn't. Peter Turchin had assessed crises in several places (Europe, Russia, Middle East, India, China, US), and he finds a variety of outcomes:

• Population decline, decline > 50%
• Lethal epidemic
• Elite: massive downward mobility, dispossession, extermination
• Ruler: executed or assassinated
• Transformative revolution
• Civil war, period of prolonged/repeated ones (>100 years)
• Territorial fragmentation, external conquest

More positive total outcomes are not very common; they peak in the moderate-to-severe range.

What it means for us here in the United States is that the severity of the troubles to come in the next few years to a decade is really impossible to predict. It could be as mild as the late 1960s–early 1970s, with the violent urban riots and a fairly ineffectual terrorist campaign by the Weather Underground. Or it could be as bad as the First American Civil War. Once again, a real catastrophic collapse of our society may not be highly probable, but it is much more probable than we think.