"It’s Time for Major Wealth Redistribution — Yes, I Mean It."

[RVonse]

Adjusting for productivity is only relevant if you care about inequality rather than poverty. If you care about poverty it's the absolute number that matters.

To divert discussion of "inequality" to "absolute poverty" is a right-wing trick. Income is a strong predictor of contentment but the correlation is far from perfect;

It is not income that creates happiness or contentment it is freedom. And whether you lived 400 years ago or today, freedom is what counts for happiness. And that is why a "King of England" would be more happy than a poor person today even though he had no running water or toilet. Unfortunately, in today's economic system the poor have less freedom than the rich do when it comes to opportunity. And opportunity for the poor is what really needs to be worked on. Most libertarians would agree with that too.

 

[RVonse]

Most people, given (for example) $600/wk free, gratis and for nothing (that's equal to 40 hours at a proposed $15 minimum wage), would NOT decide that this was heaven on Earth, and simply stop bothering to do anything that might generate any further income.

UBI could probably be done if the marketing was different. All you need to say is tax cuts for everyone. The rich get a 600/week tax cut and the poor get a 600 refund on their income taxes of zero. Everyone would want this.

 

[Bomb#20]

o
Nobody said it does.

I responded to "If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets from the billionaire class, there are two ways we could do it: legally or illegally. If we did it legally, we'd have to pay them just compensation for taking their private property for public use. Many view taxation as seizures of property or income. So, forgive me for actually reading your actual words.

You're seriously offering "Many view taxation as..." as justification and yet claim you were relying on my "actual words"?!? My actual words were "If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets", not "If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of income". The court will take judicial note of the fact that 6 trillion dollars is more than their income.

 

[Bomb#20]

You like visualization aids? Here's one:

Interesting graph, but without links to specific date, it's almost useless. It appears to be cherry-picked. A graph showing hunger might be more useful than cherry-picking a particular dollar figure.

As you wish...

The presentation tells us nothing of wealth and income inequality, which is the topic of this debate.

And it's the topic of this debate because anticapitalists have a zero-sum-game mentality that leads them to consciously or subconsciously blame poverty on inequality without having a good reason to. If you don't want preconceptions to be challenged, go complain about inequality at a non-freethought site.

When comparisons are made between 1800 and the present, it must be remembered that productivity has increased by a factor of about 15 or 20 times in the U.K. over that interval. (No, I didn't "cherry-pick" U.K. — it's just a country where data is readily available.) All else equal this would imply inflation-adjusted $2 changing into $30 or $40; yet your graph considered only $2 throughout.

You say that as though productivity increases were a gift from the gods and will happen on their own schedule regardless of what we do. Productivity has gone up so much because unsatisfied rich people have kept trying to get richer by spending their money on making productivity improve, because producing more makes them richer, because most of our societies respect property rights.

 

[DBT]

Anticapitalists?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Antcapitalists?

Forget plastics. The next big thing is formic acid

 

[DBT]

Antcapitalists?

Forget plastics. The next big thing is formic acid

That's what can happen when you post on a tiny phone screen, spell check, bah.

 

[bilby]

Antcapitalists?

Forget plastics. The next big thing is formic acid

They like to invest in the colonies.

 

[Bomb#20]

Antcapitalists?

Forget plastics. The next big thing is formic acid

They like to invest in the colonies.

That would presumably be the colonies of Phthia, the antcapital of the Myrmidons, Achilles' antwarriors?

 

[DBT]

How many here are anti capitalism or anti free enterprise? The issue is not so much about capitalism or enterprise, but how it is practiced and who gets the lions share of the profits being generated in a lopsided partnership between workers and management ...

 

[Bomb#20]

Anticapitalists?

I take it you don't perceive yourself as anticapitalist. But you've argued for limits on CEO pay; you've said you're outraged by the "excessive" salaries and bonuses; you've expressed shock that people defend the practice. So how do you figure it's consistent with capitalism for you and the legislators you vote for to tell company shareholders they're not allowed to give their own money to their employee on account of how it enrages some third party? The shareholders are consenting adults. What on earth do you mean by "capitalism", if to you it doesn't at least include taking other people's property rights seriously?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

To divert discussion of "inequality" to "absolute poverty" is a right-wing trick. Income is a strong predictor of contentment but the correlation is far from perfect; and, understandably, inequality is inversely correlated with contentment.

Except wealth only correlates with happiness at lower income levels.

 

[DBT]

Anticapitalists?

I take it you don't perceive yourself as anticapitalist. But you've argued for limits on CEO pay; you've said you're outraged by the "excessive" salaries and bonuses; you've expressed shock that people defend the practice. So how do you figure it's consistent with capitalism for you and the legislators you vote for to tell company shareholders they're not allowed to give their own money to their employee on account of how it enrages some third party? The shareholders are consenting adults. What on earth do you mean by "capitalism", if to you it doesn't at least include taking other people's property rights seriously?

Where did I say I was 'outraged?'

My point was that a power imbalance between individual workers and employers and management allows management to keep wage down, which manifests as suppression of wages and negotiation....a lopsided state of affairs where one side get very rich and the other side struggles.

I've said this too many times, yet here I am having to correct the same misconception.

Outrage has nothing to do with it. It's an observation.

 

[laughing dog]

o
Nobody said it does.

I responded to "If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets from the billionaire class, there are two ways we could do it: legally or illegally. If we did it legally, we'd have to pay them just compensation for taking their private property for public use. Many view taxation as seizures of property or income. So, forgive me for actually reading your actual words.

You're seriously offering "Many view taxation as..." as justification and yet claim you were relying on my "actual words"?!? My actual words were "If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets", not "If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of income". The court will take judicial note of the fact that 6 trillion dollars is more than their income.

In the USA, we tax assets ( property taxes and estate taxes are 2 examples) as well as income. So forgive me for reading your actual words.

 

[Harry Bosch]

You're seriously offering "Many view taxation as..." as justification and yet claim you were relying on my "actual words"?!? My actual words were "If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets", not "If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of income". The court will take judicial note of the fact that 6 trillion dollars is more than their income.

In the USA, we tax assets ( property taxes and estate taxes are 2 examples) as well as income. So forgive me for reading your actual words.

Estate taxes are similar to distributions in that assets are being distributed to heirs. I definitely agree with property taxes because a home uses up local resources (water, sewer, police and fire to protect the home, and etc.). My shares in Home Depot or whatever company do not cost the community anything.

 

[Worldtraveller]

That's not what I said or implied. Social security networks and available aid are not the signs of Dictatorship, just a decent society. The children of the very rich offer a safety net in the form of family wealth and presumably care. Should society at large not do the same for its struggling members?

Do you consider the super rich to be radicals, communists or something because they take care of their own when needed, endowments, trust funds, etc?

The problem with your approach is you assume everyone wants to succeed, not merely be a bum on whatever welfare system exists.

What percent of people (I realize it might be news to you that they are people, so read that part again if you have to) that receive public assistance do you think are happy living in the glorious luxury of food stamps, section 8 housing, and all the other luxuries of being poor in the US?

Let's assume it's as high as 10% (I suspect it's much, much lower than that). I, for one, am totally ok supporting those 10 people in order to help the other 90. You apparently, want to punish the 90 for the actions of the 10, which is very much like the current republican party. You'd fit right in.

 

[Swammerdami]

This YouTuber has a less sanguine view of happiness under American capitalism as some in this thread have.
[YOUTUBE]aNghg1Y-WIc[/YOUTUBE]

 

[DBT]

That's not what I said or implied. Social security networks and available aid are not the signs of Dictatorship, just a decent society. The children of the very rich offer a safety net in the form of family wealth and presumably care. Should society at large not do the same for its struggling members?

Do you consider the super rich to be radicals, communists or something because they take care of their own when needed, endowments, trust funds, etc?

The problem with your approach is you assume everyone wants to succeed, not merely be a bum on whatever welfare system exists.

Just curious.....how are you defining success in terms of income, investments, lifestyle, etc? What does it take for someone to be called successful?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's not what I said or implied. Social security networks and available aid are not the signs of Dictatorship, just a decent society. The children of the very rich offer a safety net in the form of family wealth and presumably care. Should society at large not do the same for its struggling members?

Do you consider the super rich to be radicals, communists or something because they take care of their own when needed, endowments, trust funds, etc?

The problem with your approach is you assume everyone wants to succeed, not merely be a bum on whatever welfare system exists.

What percent of people (I realize it might be news to you that they are people, so read that part again if you have to) that receive public assistance do you think are happy living in the glorious luxury of food stamps, section 8 housing, and all the other luxuries of being poor in the US?

Let's assume it's as high as 10% (I suspect it's much, much lower than that). I, for one, am totally ok supporting those 10 people in order to help the other 90. You apparently, want to punish the 90 for the actions of the 10, which is very much like the current republican party. You'd fit right in.

If you make life comfortable for those 10% you'll find it's a lot more than 10%. There will be other things they would prefer to use their time on rather than upgrading their lifestyle.

 

[DBT]

This YouTuber has a less sanguine view of happiness under American capitalism as some in this thread have.
[YOUTUBE]aNghg1Y-WIc[/YOUTUBE]

It's like a Con perpetrated on a Grand Scale. Class and cast being repackaged in modified forms by the Lords of the Manor in order to pull the wool over the eyes of the peasants: "oh, Just work hard, you too can get rich."