A New Conservative Party

[Harry Bosch]

Gosh, this is pretty basic info. Just got to his Wiki page. Or google "Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996". He lowered taxes on small businesses, reduced capital gains taxes, increased tax credits, increased credits for education and retirement. Here's the issue, many on the left today claim that they want to help the poor by increasing taxes on the rich. Increasing taxes on it's own does nothing to help the poor. The problem here is that by leading with tax increases rather than leading by solving the problem (barriers, flat world, technology, access, economic development, and etc) just pisses people off.

Who are these people you're talking about? I can't recall anyone talking about increasing taxes being anything other than a means to collections, which are used to fund programs. I've not encountered anyone saying that taxation is remediation.

I mean, whether you agree with them or not, Dems' spending priorities are not exactly secret or constantly changing.

Most people when asked what their taxes should be will say less than now, and greater than zero.

I'm genuinely baffled by this comment.

I didn't originally comment to your question because I knew that it wouldn't take long for someone to prove my point! Please see post 69...

 

[Deepak]

Gosh, this is pretty basic info. Just got to his Wiki page. Or google "Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996". He lowered taxes on small businesses, reduced capital gains taxes, increased tax credits, increased credits for education and retirement. Here's the issue, many on the left today claim that they want to help the poor by increasing taxes on the rich. Increasing taxes on it's own does nothing to help the poor. The problem here is that by leading with tax increases rather than leading by solving the problem (barriers, flat world, technology, access, economic development, and etc) just pisses people off.

Who are these people you're talking about? I can't recall anyone talking about increasing taxes being anything other than a means to collections, which are used to fund programs. I've not encountered anyone saying that taxation is remediation.

I mean, whether you agree with them or not, Dems' spending priorities are not exactly secret or constantly changing.

Most people when asked what their taxes should be will say less than now, and greater than zero.

I'm genuinely baffled by this comment.

I didn't originally comment to your question because I knew that it wouldn't take long for someone to prove my point! Please see post 69...

I think we’re reading that post very differently. Strong language aside, the point is that the wealthy have used their position of wealth and the power of money to not only get wealthier, but have taken things to the point where the fabric of society is starting to unravel.

As I see it, the money collected would be spent remediating issues that affect people now. I didn’t interpret it to mean that simply killing all the rich people will solve the problem.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I didn't originally comment to your question because I knew that it wouldn't take long for someone to prove my point! Please see post 69...

I think we’re reading that post very differently. Strong language aside, the point is that the wealthy have used their position of wealth and the power of money to not only get wealthier, but have taken things to the point where the fabric of society is starting to unravel.

As I see it, the money collected would be spent remediating issues that affect people now. I didn’t interpret it to mean that simply killing all the rich people will solve the problem.

Well, you're exaggerating my position. I didn't say that the left always leads with "killing all the rich people". I said that some on the left lead with that we can help the poor by taxing the wealthy. My point is that the left would do much better by leading with here is how we can level the playing field and help lift people up (education, entrepreneurship, economic development, less barriers, managing assets, taking control, fighting discrimination, and etc.); and then explaining that these programs require taxes to pay for them, but this is how we all benefit. And etc. The problem here is leading with antagonism just pisses people off - and the overall plan gets lost.

 

[Deepak]

Honestly this is the sort of language game up with which I will not put. There’s no shortage of people who say it the right way and we still have Rs going on about how windmills go brrr. Go check out the Day Without Stupid Redux thread with a mayor in Tx telling people they should have planned better and it’s their own fault for not planning ahead.

I didn’t put words in your mouth, I was pointing to the rhetoric from the post you referenced. I’m judging based on your own assertion that taxation was an ends not a means and now you’ve revised your position to being one about marketability.

 

[WAB]

I do NOT condone comments like the following:
Most rich people won their wealth in benign ways: inheritance, good investments, hard work. Most of us would be quite happy to be rich. Some rich people donate heavily to charities; some don't. But it is human nature to be greedy, and to want to pass on one's wealth to one's children.

Wealth inequality is bad for society, but the solution is to take political steps to help the poor, steps like improved schools in low-income areas, increased government funding for healthcare, childcare, education; and so on. Since production is finite, to afford improving the living standards of our poorest it is necessary to insist on higher contributions from our richest: capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and so on. Regulations and transaction taxes are also good to reduce the waste on talent in the financial sector. Better law enforcement would help too; I just read that $100 billion of Covid aid money was diverted to criminals.

Perhaps he agrees with all this, but Jarhyn's tone is completely wrong. We don't want to tax the rich because there's anything wrong with rich people as individuals. (There are plenty of greedy poor people who just haven't got lucky!) We just want a better allocation of society's finite resources: housing for the homeless, improved schools, and better nutrition for the masses, rather than spending society's finite resources on private jets and imported caviar.

@ Jarhyn, do you mostly care about helping the poor? Or are you more concerned with pulling down the rich? I assume it's the former, but if so, your words are very VERY misleading. I cringe whenever I hear a "liberal" write or speak like this.

I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor. It seems to me that some of them are MUCH more about wanting to pull down the rich than lifting up the poor.

I continue to be bemused and saddened by the confused hateful bullshit right-wingers come up with to justify their obsessive dislike of progressive thought.

I'm not a right winger. I am a moderate with some conservative leanings and some liberal leanings.
...
I have, however, called some people in the modern progressive movement 'regressive', because I see many people of that ilk who do not appreciate the right to free speech and wish to eradicate it. I disagree with left wing proponents of compelled speech, and agree with Jordan Peterson's stance in that area.

That you could describe me as a hateful right winger shows me that you don't know my posting history and I don't believe you care to know me.

I don't keep good track of the political stances of posters. This is the first post from you on a political subject that I recall. (I may have read other political posts from you without noticing the name, or making a permanent memory.) I shall assume that I over-reacted. You DID write "I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor" which is extremely damning of progressive thought. Do you feel this way about AOC? About Sen. Elizabeth Warren? About me, if you consider me "on the left"?

I hope I'm not wrong about this, but I'll guess that Jarhyn is much more concerned with lifting up the poor than pulling down the rich. I understand that his tone suggests the opposite; I find his attitude very unfortunate.

There is a horrid schism in American politics today. You make a severe charge against most on the "left" which I think is unfair (and which I took personally); I over-react by using pejorative words against you. Can you and I move toward bridging this schism now?

Yes, Swammi my dear friend, we can begin to build this bridge!

I like your post, and I like you, especially for the Shakespeare thread which was instrumental in pulling me out of a deep despair. I thank you.

First, I don't think most Democrats or people on the left want to tear down the wealthy, and I think most of them are truly concerned about helping the poor. But bottom line is this: I can not crawl inside the heads of other people and know exactly what they think and believe. I wish that some posters here would know that as well, but it has been my experience that a few people here and elsewhere really do believe that they know more about what someone else thinks than that person themselves. My own father is a person like this! My father is convinced that he knows what other people are thinking MORE than they do. He uses such phrases as, Oh, they think they know, but they don't know shit! They're heads are so far up their asses they don't know what's going on! I can tell you what they think they know...etc, etc. He happens to be hard right, but I have seen the same attitude from a few posters here over the years. There is nothing more irritating and offensive than to have an interlocutor tell you what you are thinking!

There is a poster here who loves to say things like, I know Americans think X, because they're Y and Q, but in the developed world, we enlightened and less ignorant people know P, and bla blah blah...

Such silliness should not be tolerated, but it is.

I will talk with you more. What I think might help is a new thread about bridging the gap between left and right. I would start one but it would die fast...

 

[Swammerdami]

I consider myself a centrist who is emotionally allied with the Left. But when I read some leftist rhetoric I am disheartened, and can understand why many on the right find these opinions laughable.

Can we start by stipulating that human nature is what it is, and won't change any time soon? Most people with 5 million dollars would like to have another million. The profit motive has been absolutely essential to economic progress; surely this is not in doubt.

There are straightforward reasonable steps for the U.S. to "have its capitalist cake and eat it too", to reduce wealth and income inequality, while leaving the U.S.'s admired entrepreneurial spirit intact. In addition to progressive income taxes and estate taxes, there are plenty of social welfare programs needed to better "split up the pie." We want to divert spending from imported caviar to simple nutritious food for children. We want this NOT because we hate caviar or the people who eat it, but because it should be the goal of an economic society to maximize the common well-being.

And there are many regulatory changes that would help. We should encourage smart people to become doctors, nurses and teachers, even making them "richer" if that's what it takes. OTOH, a tiny tax on financial transactions would reduce one huge misappropriation. Many of the smartest Americans today, who could be doctors or scientists developing better energy sources, end up on Wall St. enriching themselves but not helping society. Those financial traders aren't to blame — trying to change human nature is not a solution (at least in the short-term) — but simple steps will change their incentives.

"Vulture capitalists" are a more complicated issue. I'll just say that it's silly to treat those people as evil. (And their activities often contribute to the economy.) Some European countries give employees (and perhaps customers) a voice in corporate decisions; perhaps the U.S. should adopt something like that to reduce the excesses of vulture capitalism.

Someone asked how I define "rich." Setting a threshold is besides the point, at least until we start designing the detailed tables of income and estate taxes. But there are plenty of people making big money. Do those calling vulture capitalists "evil" also think top athletes and actors are evil? What about Tucker Carlson and his $6 million salary? Or Rachel Maddow and her $7 million salary? Let me guess: Evil Tucker's salary is a symptom of what's wrong with capitalist America, while Rachel deserves more!

I think I agree with most of you liberals on many of the SOLUTIONS. Where I differ is on the way I describe the problems. I'm happy to raise the minimum wage that Walmart employees are paid; I'd be happy to increase the taxes on Walmart's rich stockholders. But I don't call the Walton family as "evil"; and I think it's silly to think that way. Replace the Waltons with a family chosen at random, and the new Walmart owners would probably be just as happy as the Waltons to keep their billions intact.

Here's a random post from the thread. marc may think he's arguing against me, but we are in broad agreement. The difference is that I prescribe policies to improve American economic society without framing it so that wealthy people are the villains.

Most rich people won their wealth in benign ways: inheritance, good investments, hard work.

Inheritance might be benign way to get large amounts of wealth. But among some of the richest people it is not a matter of 'good investments' and 'hard work'. You have vulture capitalists make their money by destroying businesses. The family that owns Walmart are all billionaires, but pay their employees so little that there have been Walmart stores that did Thanksgiving food drives for their own employees. Sure, some can reach extreme levels of wealth without screwing over large numbers of people, but that does not seem to be the norm.

Wealth inequality is bad for society, but the solution is to take political steps to help the poor, steps like improved schools in low-income areas, increased government funding for healthcare, childcare, education; and so on.

Any solution to a problem needs to deal with the cause of the problem, not just the effects. If someone is bleeding badly the solution is to close the wound, not just give them more blood to try and compensate. Many people are poor because businesses have worked hard to make sure they don't have to pay people a living wage. And when they can, move those jobs to other countries where they can pay far less for labor.

One area where we might find agreement is about corporate behavior. We can't change human nature, but via regulation we CAN change corporate nature.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Honestly this is the sort of language game up with which I will not put. There’s no shortage of people who say it the right way and we still have Rs going on about how windmills go brrr. Go check out the Day Without Stupid Redux thread with a mayor in Tx telling people they should have planned better and it’s their own fault for not planning ahead.

I didn’t put words in your mouth, I was pointing to the rhetoric from the post you referenced. I’m judging based on your own assertion that taxation was an ends not a means and now you’ve revised your position to being one about marketability.

My position is pretty simple: lead with fixing problems rather than lead with increasing taxes, and we'll get more support and votes. Most Americans favor a strong safety net and helping people. And they understand that it needs to be paid for. But most Americans don't favor increased taxes to no end, just to waste it away.

 

[Deepak]

Honestly this is the sort of language game up with which I will not put. There’s no shortage of people who say it the right way and we still have Rs going on about how windmills go brrr. Go check out the Day Without Stupid Redux thread with a mayor in Tx telling people they should have planned better and it’s their own fault for not planning ahead.

I didn’t put words in your mouth, I was pointing to the rhetoric from the post you referenced. I’m judging based on your own assertion that taxation was an ends not a means and now you’ve revised your position to being one about marketability.

My position is pretty simple: lead with fixing problems rather than lead with increasing taxes, and we'll get more support and votes. Most Americans favor a strong safety net and helping people. And they understand that it needs to be paid for. But most Americans don't favor increased taxes to no end, just to waste it away.

And to make that point you posted to an analogy by a person posting in a dark corner of the internet, where the purpose of the post was to provide the poster’s assessment of rich people on their surrounding community rather than be a slick sellable political message. And indeed, even that post didn’t say the thing that you’re saying.

You’re seriously saying that Dems have been promising nothing but tax increases with no benefit attached, but can’t provide a single tangible example of it? How do you want me to address this? You’re asking me to hunt for Russell’s teapot. Show me

 

[prideandfall]

Can we start by stipulating that human nature is what it is, and won't change any time soon?

but that exact same argument would state that we should just shrug and allow rape and murder and theft because "it's human nature".

the entire point of civilization is that we subdue certain instinctual actions for the betterment of everyone.

to hoard is natural, sure. equally nature is to see someone with when you are without and to murder them directly in the fucking face and take their stuff. these are both completely equal (and equally valid) survival instincts for a way of life which no exists within human society.
and yet, our cultural is designed exclusively to encourage and endorse the former while excluding and denying the latter... because our cultural is designed by the wealthy and it benefits them personally to have it be this way.

The profit motive has been absolutely essential to economic progress; surely this is not in doubt.

you miss the point here: that "economic progress" is something that we should aspire to is what's in doubt.

Someone asked how I define "rich." Setting a threshold is besides the point, at least until we start designing the detailed tables of income and estate taxes. But there are plenty of people making big money. Do those calling vulture capitalists "evil" also think top athletes and actors are evil? What about Tucker Carlson and his $6 million salary? Or Rachel Maddow and her $7 million salary? Let me guess: Evil Tucker's salary is a symptom of what's wrong with capitalist America, while Rachel deserves more!

i did, and i asked specifically because whatever wealth point you picked would be substantially below the wealth point that jarhyn was talking about that you were commenting on, and i was right about that.

Replace the Waltons with a family chosen at random, and the new Walmart owners would probably be just as happy as the Waltons to keep their billions intact.

and thus you accidentally come to the entire point - it's not to 'pull down the rich so that a new crop of rich can take their place', it's to end the existence of 'the rich' in its entirety.
the walton family shouldn't exist, conceptually. those of us who advocate for the destruction of the monied upper class aren't wanting to just swap one white stock photo for another, we want to end the existence of that level of wealth altogether.

 

[Swammerdami]

Do we want to incentivise top Hollywood actors? Top surgeons? Top lawyers? Top athletes? Top inventors? (I vote respectively yes, yes, no, no, and yes on these questions.)

How much incentive is needed? (I don't know) For inventors, did we really want the invention? For Steve Jobs' inventions, Gates' Microsoft and Walton's "invention" (cheap retail) I will answer Yes, maybe, No, respectively. (I disapprove of Windows, but like how Gates is spending his share of that huge rent.)

Because incentives are good, but long-term inherited wealth is rather useless, I strongly favor big estate taxes on the very rich. Can we at least come to a good agreement on that much?

 

[prideandfall]

Do we want to incentivise top Hollywood actors? Top surgeons? Top lawyers? Top athletes? Top inventors?

what is your definition of 'incentive'? also, to what extent to you think that people gravitate to those areas solely for the profit?

in particular, the careers that you specifically mention all have a significant personal passion component to them - the 'starving artist' is a well trod cliche. people spend decades being poor to be actors, forsake money to be doctors in other countries or public defenders, most athletes make very little money, and most inventors die penniless.

you've never once heard of someone spending their life being destitute to pursue their dream of being an investment banker or hedge fund broker.

people will aspire to creative endeavors regardless of a financial motive (though obviously dreams of making it big are a part of that) - but if there was no chance of making huge amounts of money from it and instead just making a good solid decent living wage, you'd still have gobs of people doing it all the time.

i don't see why 'incentive' needs to be 'a statistically significant percentage of the resources available to the human race as a species' in order to be viable. excess for its own sake is a socially toxic concept.

 

[Deepak]

8 people have more wealth than 4 billion. This isn’t a question of incentivizing any given job.

This is just a recast version of the Republican mind warp where their destitute constituents are fighting for tax reductions and the abolition of the death tax, while not understanding that their tax liability is already nil, and anything they would pass on to their children would likewise not be taxed.

I genuinely don’t care how much a plastic surgeon is making or what a personal injury lawyer is taking home.

 

[Bomb#20]

I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor. It seems to me that some of them are MUCH more about wanting to pull down the rich than lifting up the poor.

I continue to be bemused and saddened by the confused hateful bull... right-wingers come up with to justify their obsessive dislike of progressive thought.

Why do you have that reaction? Seems to me prideandfall's post #79 is a perfect example of what WAB was on about. It's just a massive vomit of hate speech at rich people and at everyone less left-wing than himself. The difference between an antisemite and prideandfall is that an antisemite defines his outgroup as parasites and makes believe that getting rid of them will solve his ingroup's problems, whereas prideandfall defines his outgroup as parasites and makes believe that getting rid of them will solve his ingroup's problems. And the proof that he doesn't care about helping the poor is right here:

"if you have a combined total wealth of 3 million dollars you should be taxed at 100% for anything/everything else that you do until you're under 3 million."​

If people aren't allowed to accumulate more than X, then when they get close to X they'll consume their additional income -- and consumption is a type of destruction. Likewise, if people aren't allowed to have incomes more than X, then when they get to X they'll go on vacation for the rest of the year and stop producing anything more for the government to tax. So it's painfully obvious that the government will raise more revenue for lifting up the poor and for everything else the government seeks to accomplish at a tax rate of 90% than at a tax rate of 100%. It follows that if someone wants to tax anything at 100% then his goal is to destroy it rather than to obtain wealth with which to accomplish something useful.

Of course you wrote your denunciation of WAB before post #79; but surely that can't have been the first time you've heard an irrational screed like prideandfall's. Advocacy of 100% tax rates isn't a novelty; this hate-driven insanity comes up on a regular basis. Heck, even Bernie Sanders proposed a 100% tax bracket.

 

[Deepak]

I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor. It seems to me that some of them are MUCH more about wanting to pull down the rich than lifting up the poor.

I continue to be bemused and saddened by the confused hateful bull... right-wingers come up with to justify their obsessive dislike of progressive thought.

Why do you have that reaction? Seems to me prideandfall's post #79 is a perfect example of what WAB was on about. It's just a massive vomit of hate speech at rich people and at everyone less left-wing than himself. The difference between an antisemite and prideandfall is that an antisemite defines his outgroup as parasites and makes believe that getting rid of them will solve his ingroup's problems, whereas prideandfall defines his outgroup as parasites and makes believe that getting rid of them will solve his ingroup's problems. And the proof that he doesn't care about helping the poor is right here:

"if you have a combined total wealth of 3 million dollars you should be taxed at 100% for anything/everything else that you do until you're under 3 million."​

If people aren't allowed to accumulate more than X, then when they get close to X they'll consume their additional income -- and consumption is a type of destruction. Likewise, if people aren't allowed to have incomes more than X, then when they get to X they'll go on vacation for the rest of the year and stop producing anything more for the government to tax. So it's painfully obvious that the government will raise more revenue for lifting up the poor and for everything else the government seeks to accomplish at a tax rate of 90% than at a tax rate of 100%. It follows that if someone wants to tax anything at 100% then his goal is to destroy it rather than to obtain wealth with which to accomplish something useful.

Of course you wrote your denunciation of WAB before post #79; but surely that can't have been the first time you've heard an irrational screed like prideandfall's. Advocacy of 100% tax rates isn't a novelty; this hate-driven insanity comes up on a regular basis. Heck, even Bernie Sanders proposed a 100% tax bracket.

Notice how this is all self serving double talk. It doesn’t actually address the post being referenced, smuggles in a bunch of assumptions then declares victory based on those assumptions.

Income and wealth get introduced and swapped without explanation where it’s convenient. No effort is spent quantifying the effort of a Walton, or a 7th generation Rockefeller who play works as a barista at a Manhattan Starbucks while living in a town house in the Lower East Side.

 

[Bomb#20]

Notice how this is all self serving double talk. It doesn’t actually address the post being referenced,

Sorry, my bad.

WAB isn't a right-winger. What he wrote wasn't hateful. He doesn't dislike progressive thought; rather, progressive thought has a lot of complexity to it and WAB likes some aspects and dislikes others. And he's shown little sign of obsessing about it.

Happy?

 

[Swammerdami]

I don't think many on the left actually care that much about helping the poor. It seems to me that some of them are MUCH more about wanting to pull down the rich than lifting up the poor.

I continue to be bemused and saddened by the confused hateful bull... right-wingers come up with to justify their obsessive dislike of progressive thought.

Why do you have that reaction? Seems to me prideandfall's post #79 is a perfect example of what WAB was on about. It's just a massive vomit of hate speech at rich people and at everyone less left-wing than himself. ...

I am afraid you're correct. Without singling out prideandfall — I'm not even going to re-read his post — I have noticed this sort of hatred directed against the rich, in this thread and elsewhere. Since I feel an emotional attachment to the Left, I repress my memories of such nonsense (while NOT repressing memory of nonsense from the Right.)

I tried to explain why this leftist view is wrong-headed in a previous post, but some continued to brand the rich as villains. I still think WAB's first sentence quoted above was an exaggeration (Do the majority "on the left" have this irrational attitude? I think few Democratic Party intellectuals feel this way; does AOC?), but I will apologize again to WAB for my ill-tempered response.

I'd be happy to see the top tax bracket raised to 50% or 55%, and have big taxes on capital gains and estates as well. I just think it's stupid to consider the rich to be villains. Well-paid entertainers and inventors have improved the lives of Americans. They should be applauded, not condemned. We should talk about improving the system (e.g. regulations to curb some Wall St. excesses), but there's no need to point fingers of blame at those who took advantage of a flawed system. (I have a very smart computer-programmer friend who went to work for Jim Simons' Renaissance Fund and is now very rich. I don't condemn him; to the contrary I wish I'd zigged instead of zagging in my career and worked alongside him!)

What is especially bad about hateful leftist ignorance is that it turns people off and makes them more likely to vote for Trumpists. That is an outcome we do NOT want.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I do NOT condone comments like the following:
Most rich people won their wealth in benign ways: inheritance, good investments, hard work. Most of us would be quite happy to be rich. Some rich people donate heavily to charities; some don't. But it is human nature to be greedy, and to want to pass on one's wealth to one's children.

Exactly. So many on the left think wealth is automatically evil, they don't understand that it's usually due to prudent actions on the part of those that have the money. These days anyone with a decent job should be a millionaire as they are approaching retirement. Furthermore, a lack of money is far more often due to poor handling of thee outgo.

Wealth inequality is bad for society, but the solution is to take political steps to help the poor, steps like improved schools in low-income areas, increased government funding for healthcare, childcare, education; and so on.

Exactly. We should be trying to help people up. Schools are problematic, though, because they far more are a reflection of the students than a cause of the poor performance. I do not believe there is a good solution when the parents don't care, I favor focusing on helping those students who are interested in learning. This would have to be done with great care as historically it has often been used to discriminate.

Since production is finite, to afford improving the living standards of our poorest it is necessary to insist on higher contributions from our richest: capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and so on. Regulations and transaction taxes are also good to reduce the waste on talent in the financial sector. Better law enforcement would help too; I just read that $100 billion of Covid aid money was diverted to criminals.

The problem with the Covid aid money is they were trying to get it out fast and the systems weren't up to it.

 

[Deepak]

I am afraid you're correct. Without singling out prideandfall — I'm not even going to re-read his post — I have noticed this sort of hatred directed against the rich, in this thread and elsewhere.

It's a shame, I think.

I'm not envisioning a world that really looks all that different for the vast majority of Americans, or even people in the western world. That includes well paid entertainers and inventors, the vast majority of whom may or may become rich, but are never wealthy.

Indeed, the world I would envision isn't something that requires mechanisms other than adjustments to taxation, and a willingness to enforce rules on taxation.

The top income tax bracket is 500k for individuals. I you want to squeeze those poor bastards for another 13 percentage points of tax then it seems like you hate the rich more than I do.

I don't have any problem with people working for a living and being rewarded for the investment they make in that living, either through exploiting their natural talents, their efforts to educate themselves, or through shrewd decision making and even sheer luck.

My issue is much much higher level than that.

If your starting point is to say that the status quo must be maintained to even listen, then I think you don't have much cause to point out recalcitrance from others.

I don't want to speak for prideandfall.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

personally i favor pulling down the rich and also preventing the rich from even existing. i don't think there is any conceivable rational argument to justify any single human owning more than 3 million dollars - i mean that as the sum total of all wealth and assets controlled by an individual, including personal property and real estate and liquid cash and whatever else.

What you don't realize is this path results in the destruction of the human race. Probably not in your lifetime but without a doubt it would happen. Our current technological level is not sustainable--we will burn through our fossil fuels and crash. Crap like AOC's green approach will only speed the demise. (It's been tried--fossil fuel use goes up because the renewables can't pick up the load--all that really happens is nukes go away.)

It's those people with a ton of money that drive the innovation that is our only hope.

if you have a combined total wealth of 3 million dollars you should be taxed at 100% for anything/everything else that you do until you're under 3 million. and no member of a corporation in any position should be able to make more than 10x the salary of the lowest paid member of that corporation.

And while you're at it why don't you bring about immortality by prohibiting dying. (All you're actually going to do is increase the wage disparity because of outsourcing.)

that's how you fix the issue of wealth inequality, by making it non-existent. not by some limp-wristed mewling about maybe sort of a little bit if it's OK with the rich perhaps taking just a tiny bit more from one of their revenue streams BUT NOT TOO MUCH as long as everyone is alright with that.

That's how you fix the issue of humanity infesting planet Earth.

and the other side replying with "LET'S LYNCH ALL THE NIGGERS"

You're the one calling for a lynching.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

During the 50's and 60's, when we had an expanding middle class, the top marginal tax rate was over 90%. Nearly everything made over, I think it was 3 million, was taxed. So the wealthy had a choice, either that money could go to the government, which would hopefully put it to good use helping people out of poverty, or reinvest the money in the company to do things like hire more people, or pay them better. Reagan severely cut that tax rate, allowing the wealthy to pocket that money instead, incentivizing paying people less and using fewer people to do the same amount of work.

During the 50s and 60s we had no meaningful foreign competition. And only idiots paid those tax rates in the first place. Trying resurrect that golden era isn't possible.