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…2 laws
2 laws are all it takes in your mind?
You are an extremist.

Those were just the ones that indisputably need to change. I had other points like so many of them should stop being pro-war and also they should support Medicare for all but I figured you'd just say "that's just your opinion man".

Downvoted because of your total misuse of "reactionary", but otherwise you're on mark here.

Bipartisan support for dumb shit doesn't make the US a "one-party state". However, it does mean that both are stupid and you should vote third party.

bi-partisan support on some issues is not a one party state. Your maliciously spreading propaganda lies, insisting the parties vote so similarly that we essentially live in a single party state.
Others might let this go by, but i'm going to call out your malicious behavior.

The isn't bi-partisan support on just "some issues". The problem is that it's bi-partisan support on screwing over the average citizen and sucking off the 1%.

Thats an entirely different subject than what one party state means

“Malicious behaviour”
topkek
“calling out the fact that both parties are tools of the elites is malicious”

I never said
“tools of the elites”

Americans should really be paying attention to the efforts of Conservatives to quickly destroy the National Postal Service before an election that will largely Mail-In-Ballots because of their mishandling of the pandemic in order to suppress people's votes.

Dont worry man. We Americans will get to that and discuss the issue when its already to late to do anything about, like every election cycle.

but its being discussed right now

so where exactly would everyone here position themselves?

Carlin was the 🐐 pic.twitter.com/CQTvcu1t6m

— Secular Talk (@KyleKulinski) July 26, 2020

Would have thought after bernie was shafted for the second time Kyle wouldnt be one to miss Carlin's point by only showing one cheek of the whole ass he was railing against.

Something tells me he wont be as eager to share this video.

Kyle's video still proves a point tho.

How exactly did he miss the point?

It's right there in the tweet at the 20 second mark: "The politicians are put there to give you the illusion you have freedom of choice; you dont"

Carlin's point is the division between parties is meaningless: they're all bought by the same moneyed interest. By showing only trump's republicans Kyle's framing it as only applying to republicans, shoring up the illusion Carlin warns against.

I'd probably fall under the camp of unenthusiastic techno-libertarian communitarianism. But get me drunk and high enough and I become a raging anarcho-capitalist.

And he would be only partially right.
People certainly have the freedom of choice. Literally, you have that freedom. The problem is the lack of exercising that freedom on behalf of the voter base. The moneyed-interests are also interests of the voter base. You think middle class boomers living in suburbia are going to vote in a politician that promises to enact a system where they will be the ones that are going to be financially liable for it? You honestly think that the elderly generations which outvote the youth by 2 or even 3 fold, are going to support any kind of pension reform despite the fact that the entire system is being supported by the young?

Special interest groups represent special interests and propose legislation that would better service the interests of the people or cause they are representing. Money that flows into political coffers doesn't magically enact law, it instead is used to influence people to support the legislation either through pressuring their representative or making it difficult for the representative to compete come election time. Money rarely ever translates directly into votes. But it certainly helps sell an idea or cause that a politician has.

The overwhelming amount of legislation that affects our lives directly is on a local level – and local level political participation is abysmally low in comparison to federal. We bitch and moan about the electoral system while we can't be bothered to actually vote for the local school-board administrator? How many of us (in general, not you guys) even know our local congressmen or congresswomen? Or our city council? This isn't about money. Or moneyed system. It really is about the political parties having a vested interest of you not participating in the political system. They want the die-hards. The ones that will always come out and vote for them.

The narrative that "oh it's pointless because they are being bought out" is a populist message, it's cheap, and easy to sell because no one wants to have to take on the responsibility of their own lack of civic participation.

The ironic thing is that the neo-reactionaries who want to bring about some type of neo-monarchist system ultimately are right that a large segment of society indirectly wants it as well. Why else would we put so much incredible stock in our political discourse fighting over the Presidency? Why is it that the population already inadvertently views the Presidency as a Monarchy? Hell! Our political discourse is often indirectly framed around the idea that the Presidency can dictate everything about the country we live in.

"It's the President's fault the economy is so bad"
"It's the President's fault the country is in flames"
I've heard this from the right during the Clinton years. I heard it from the left during the Bush Jr years. I heard it, again, from the right during the Obama years. And what do you know, we're hearing it again during the Trump years.

Because underscoring any and all our rhetoric is the idea that the President is given near-dictatorial powers. And I strongly believe it is because we secretly want that to be true. Because it's just so much easier to blame the elected King than it is to blame an entire body that has, for decades on end has legislated a system that has been disastrous.

Also, I hate to spam the thread, but I think everyone here should really visit this site: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com

Be warned.
It may cause you to drink yourself into a stupor.

Thanks for ending the gold standard Nixon.

Sorry, has anybody paid attention in Serbian politics?

Authoritarian Technocracy

Pringles-Flavor Tribalist

"If you’ll scratch a cynic, you’ll find a disappointed idealist."- George Carlin

A "didnt abandon the left, the left abandoned me" liberal

Centrist libertarian, but if I had to choose then right-libertarian.

pic.twitter.com/soyxpyraFp

— Cursed Boomer Images (@CursedBoomers) July 27, 2020

"It's time to resign, sir."
"No, I don't think I will."

Mildy Libertarian

Why do they all look like they need to shit

Federal Judge orders release of files from Ghislaine Maxwell lawsuit by Thursday.

Still trying to figure out politics, but there's two things I believe
1. People are generally best left alone to their own devices
2. Money cannot flow well through the economy if wealth gets concentrated in the hands of a few

So I'd say left-libertarian. I think we need to tax rich people to the point where one person having 1,000,000,000 dollars is basically impossible, let alone the $170Billion Jeff Bezos has

The flaw with that thinking is two fold: 1) the assumption that just because that person has 1,000,000,000 dollars means that someone else who would, does not. And 2) more often than not those people do not have that actual amount in liquid cash. And it would be economically devastating to force people to liquidate that wealth because it would force them to liquidate the various assets – largely shares in private and public markets – which would inadvertently create massive ripples to anyone else who's invested into those public companies – i.e. most public/private unions, retirees, pension plans, etc. This is especially true after we completely got off the Gold Standard.

But even if they do have that kind of money, in liquid cash, that is, all it means is that they have a major purchasing power. They could use that purchasing power to buy up resources that you may need – but ultimately, that's an extreme rarity. Most often they buy luxury goods, which entire – well payed – industries exist to cater to. Roman Abramovich has a massive luxury yacht that he bought – well guess what: a team had to design that yacht, another team had to procure the logistics for that yacht to be built, another team actually dedicated man power to building that yacht, and there is are entire teams dedicated to maintaining that yacht, so ol' Roman there can have his hookers and blow while sailing the Caribbean.

The real complaint here is that instead of Roman Abramovich buying that Yacht he should give it to me, instead. And I am not arguing that this is in essence a bad thing to claim.

just as an edited add on: I think we should definitely create some sort of incentives for redistribution efforts outside of simple taxation.Taxation can often have a limit to how effectively someone's money is distributed – and God only knows how horrible the US is at that kind of redistribution.

Jeff Bezos does not have 170 Billion dollars.

You're right, he has 180 billion
https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2020/07/08/jeff-bezos-net-worth-hits-all-time-high-of-more-than-180-billion/#452b60d824ff

@chewybunny
I can't tell what you mean with your first point, could you rephrase it?
As for your second point, I am well aware the cash is not liquid. Most people are aware of that. And if there's side effects of liquidating the cash, that's okay, we can take it slow. I'd rather we try than just give up and think it's too hard. And even when it is liquid, that's the thing, there's no guarantee on what it is they'll actually spend it on, and when it's that much money, they have a large control over the business and political affairs of the country and other parts of the world. I'd rather the people in those kinds of power positions not be people that got there through cheating, wage theft, blood money, and any other underhanded tactics that they can get away with.

No where in that article does it say he has 180 billion dollars.

Poochy, I'm not playing your semantics game. Fuck off.

I'm not playing a semantics game. Its objectively true that he does not have 180 billion dollars. I genuinely don't know any other way to say it.

Go ahead and keep lying
Bitch

No, Poochy is right on this as well. Bezos doesn't have $180 billion dollars, he has a net worth of $180 billion dollars.

It's sort of a "semantics game", but the difference is, in fact, meaningful. Fucking hell.

Notice how no where in that link does is say he has "$178.7B".
come on, how is reading comprehension this bad in this topic?

So, the BarrMacht deployed in Portland are described by a former member as one of the most violent and racist in all of law enforcement.

@Master Pain

No problem.
1) There is a prevalent thinking that there is a fixed pie – and whatever some rich person takes out of the pie means that there is less pie available for other people. To be super simplistic about it: Imagine 10 people surrounding a pie, and Jeff Bezos takes 35% of that pie, Elon Musk takes 25% of the pie, and Bill Gates takes 15%, and the other 7 people have to divide the rest. But the reality is that there is no fixed pie, the pie is growing exponentially, constantly, and new wealth generated makes the pie larger. This is especially true with fiat-currency, which we use. So there is an assumption that just because someone makes 1,000,000,000 dollars it means that someone else, is making less. That's just not the case.

2) I really don't think most people are aware as to how wealth is determined. In fact, most people in my opinion think that's how much money a person has in the bank. Evaluations of someone's wealth is "estimated", and is in constant state of flux. So I want to show you this graphic as a reference:

Liquidating cash would turn that cash into an income, which can be taxed as an income tax. Correct me if I am wrong, but the desired goal here is to take a part of the wealth and redistribute – somehow – to benefit people? This is what Senator Warren proposed: a Wealth Tax.

But a wealth tax comes with severe problems. In France , for example, their wealth tax has been disastrous. From 1998 to 2006 it led to massive capital flight, a brain drain, and ultimately a net loss in tax revenue. Capital Flight is the biggest problem with tax-burdens – due to the fact that the wealthy have the means and the power to flee a particular tax jurisdiction for another. This has been a massive problem for New York, last year as they lost over 2 billion dollars due to large bodies of wealthy people fleeing the state. This is going to be even more exacerbated this year due to the emptying out of rich neighborhoods of New York due to the corona virus.

For a long time Wealth Taxes were in vogue in Europe, but after a period many countries began to abandon them because the actual money generated from a wealth tax was a net loss.

But the biggest problem above all, and affects the very core part of the determining wealth, is how the hell do you determine the complexities of a business evaluation. Look at the above chart, for billionaires the bulk of their money is in business interests (not stocks). Private businesses can account to 40% of the total net worth of a billionaire, the fundamental problem with this is that you can't determine the actual cost of a business until that business is sold. We can estimate it's evaluation, but it's an estimate at best. On top of this private businesses can devalue themselves if needed, through accounting, estimations about futures, etc. Ultimately, even the rich don't really know what they are worth at any given moment. What is given is an estimation. If someone tells me my business is worth 3 million dollars, and I am the sole owner of that business well then my estimated wealth would be 3 million + (whatever other assets I have). But if I ultimately want to sell that business, and no one is buying it for 3 million, but instead 2 million, then the estimation was wrong. And if I had to pay a tax on the total evaluation of that business then it would be in my best interest to devalue it.

Jeff Bezos total wealth is estimated at whatever it is. It's true value is most likely significantly lower, and if he decides to liquidate, even slowly, it would devalue the overall total wealth. So you cannot arbitrarily say we want to put a 1% tax on Jeff Bezos's total wealth, because we don't really know what that is. We would need to hire an army of bureaucrats crunching numbers going through all the business ventures, their evaluations, etc just to calculate it – and we would need to do it on a yearly basis.

>they have a large control over the business and political affairs of the country and other parts of the world

That's a statement that I have not particularly seen manifested in the US at least according to how people think it would. We've seen time and time again when someone who's extremely wealth decide to play the game of politics to get completely shat on. Hell we've seen it in this election cycle with Bloomberg entering the race, spending more money than any other candidate indeed spending more than most of the candidates combined, and having nothing to show for it. And we've seen it time and time again. There is little evidence to support that money directly translates to power. At least, political power. It can translate to influence, and helping someone get elected, but it is never a guarantee.

As far as other parts' of the world – potentially, but that again has to do with how the political class in those parts of the world deals with money and power in the first place. Countries which are set up as more dictatorship like, certainly benefit more from money-influence. But most of the time that money-influence doesn't come dramatically from individual billionaires, but instead whole governments seeking to grow their geopolitical influence in those regions.

I think people greatly over-estimate the relationship between money and power, in comparison other relationships like politics and power.

"I'd rather the people in those kinds of power positions not be people that got there through cheating, wage theft, blood money, and any other underhanded tactics that they can get away with."

Me neither. But we ultimately don't know whether they were or weren't. Furthermore if we're going to play the morality game here then we should consider evaluating our own roles in this, and how complicit you are in this endeavor. Imagine an elderly man, lived his whole life being a damn good person, helps the community, but has the bulk of his retirement come from his IRA – which has income from selling shares or dividends from companies that are forced to use resources that are mined by destitute poor in some third world country with a horrid economy and government. Is he liable for this? He's definitely benefiting from it.

Besides, studies have shown that much of the motivation behind taxing the extreme wealthy is a product of envy, than some sort of morally just position. Two Yale studies in 2006 and 2008, showed that 50 percent of the public would prefer to earn less money, as long as they earned as much or more than their neighbor.

Forgive me if I am particularly cynical about the motivations of "justice" when it comes to people fighting for the lesser fortunate. Especially when those concerns tend to be so hyper myopic.

Chewybunny, thank you for this comment, it is very insightful. I appreciate you taking the time to write it all out.

As far as the "pie" growing, wouldn't that lead to inflation? If everyone had a billion dollars, wouldn't that billion not be worth much? Or is there someway that we can have an end-goal of improving the majority of people's well-being while also retaining the lavish lifestyle of rich people? (You did mention the yacht maintenance stuff before, but I don't think that wealth would trickle down that much)

I understand the net worth is just an estimate, but surely it's not off-mark by 180 percent? And even then, Bezos would still have 1billion. I hope this doesn't sound like deflecting, but the point I want to make isn't so much about how Bezos specifically has this much or that much money, in this or that form, but just about the fact that one person has so much influence over the economy. And, that this position he has means there's no guarantee over him improving working conditions for employees.

When it comes to political influence, I'm not talking about a rich person literally running for office. I'm talking about stuff like Amazon being able to negotiate tax breaks that let them pay nothing in taxes, or paying for lobbyists, donating to super pacs, etc.

When it comes to complicity, who are you going to focus your energy on dealing with: the leader of a country, or the footsoldier of their army? Ultra-rich people shape the system to their benefit, they need the mechanisms that give them power to be embedded in the functionings of common people. How's a poor person gonna stop shopping at Walmart if they don't have enough money to shop elsewhere? For your IRA example, he would technically be complicit in it, but definitely not as complicit as the people way higher up who have magnitudes more influence than he does in changing the system.

Forgive me for being prudish, but given my stance on billionaires, I really don't care to read anything from Bloomberg news. And when it comes to people who have crippling medical debt or live paycheck to paycheck, I don't think it's any wonder that they're envious of people who can afford multiple yachts.

That's about all. I appreciate you giving me a lot of info

"As far as the "pie" growing, wouldn't that lead to inflation?"

Not necessarily. The pie in this analogy doesn't represent the money supply, but the total of the value in the economy as a whole. It's when the money supply grows faster than the economy does that you get inflation (the reverse, deflation, also exists, but it's less common).

In fact, this is why countries struck by economic disaster, be it by their own mistake or just by terrible luck, tend to experience hyperinflation: the economy is stagnant or worse, but the money supply is growing, likely even faster than before. Famous examples are Zimbabwe, Weimar Germany, and Hungary, and we have a current example in Venezuela.

Ha! Someone owes me money, because those called "alarmists" in 2016 turned out to be right!

https://web.archive.org/web/20200730162838/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53597975

Interesting, the bbc link as of my posting has it phrased as "suggests" not "calls".