Socialism good or bad?

[Hack]

I literally don't have the time to explain all of this again as you still cling to the idea that this is a broad economy tax.

If you can't at least be open minded to the fact that their is income inequality and that big money does whatever they can to reduce their tax burden through vehicles such as pooled income funds, donor advised funds, 501c4, 501c3, carried interest tax loopholes, and private foundations (chances are you have no idea what any of these are and thats because you aren't mega rich), then there is nothing I can do or say to make you see differently. https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...-lower-tax-rate-than-working-class-last-year/

You actually believe the rich are the solution to their own problem, we're more friendly to the mega rich than we are to the middle class and you think that's fine, lmao, that is some real boomer shit.

Next you're going to tell me the sacklers, the kochs, Robert Murdoch, Robert Mercer, Mark Zuckerberg, and George Soroes are all good people, made their money completely ethically, and believe that they're wealth means they're smarter and better suited to tell you how to live your life which is outlined in 'the gospel of wealth' by Andrew garnege. These people can literally by pass the state supreme court and millions of voters by just showing money at things. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...o-defeat-a-state-supreme-court-chief-justice/. And bill gates is the best case scenario. It's awesome that they're giving money to charity but they're also shaping laws and the world we live in without anyones consent and we have no say in the matter because they have the money to do so.

If you really do care to be more mindful and see both sides more clearly than read "winners take all" or read into citizens united.

I refuse to let envy and greed direct my actions towards other people. I don't care whether some people have done things I consider immoral or not. If they have broken laws, hopefully they are punished, but I can handle it if they aren't.

All of us do better if the highest marginal tax rates are kept low.

If there was a really good reason to confiscate money from someone I could understand why you would advocate it. But there isn't even a good reason behind it, just jealousy and greed.

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[watisthis]

I refuse to let envy and greed direct my actions towards other people. I don't care whether some people have done things I consider immoral or not. If they have broken laws, hopefully they are punished, but I can handle it if they aren't.

All of us do better if the highest marginal tax rates are kept low.

If there was a really good reason to confiscate money from someone I could understand why you would advocate it. But there isn't even a good reason behind it, just jealousy and greed.

Its not about envy or greed, its about fairness. If you bothered to read anything I have said you would understand this. I just gave you several points as to how the scales are significantly tipped in the advantage of the wealthy when it comes to EVERYTHING. This isn't confiscating its just ACTUALLY PAYING a PROPORTIONAL sized tax as currently they do not laid out by said talking points in my previous post.

Would you agree that if those gains were made unfairly then it would be different? Your argument is predicated on the economic system being fair. It isn't. This is the key point you don't seem to be addressing.

Concentration of wealth is concentration of power. In the feudal system nobility itself wasn't valuable, it was the claim to land. Merchants could become more powerful than hereditary aristocracy if they had money to pay for the soldiers to exert their will. We don't have private armies for the most part but wealth is power. Why don't the poor have any power or influence? Raw numbers they have more people than any other segment of society. But they don't have any money so it doesn't translate into power.

Furthermore, everything the nazis did was legal under german law. I agree that most of what the rich do is legal, its just that most people recognize that it is immoral, despite its legality. Fair is subjective, so that means greed is subjective too, so there is no way to change your view because we simply have a different view of what is fair. In my view however, you are falsely equating what is right with what is legal or allowed by the rules. The rules themselves are unfair. Let's say it's year 1765, and I sell slaves. If someone proposes to change the system, to be more fair and more ethical, I can say I just make money why are you being so envious and greedy, nothing illegal here, these people are my property by law. This was the common view until 1800s.

My point being that what is moral, greedy, envious, whatever the fuck word you wanna use, changes by times, and sometimes laws are changed despite the opposition of many people of benefit the current system. It does not mean what is now is right or moral or ethical, or that we're greedy and envious, everyone just wants a fair shake.

 

[Weather Man]

Jobs report smashes expectations, sudden surge in TDS sufferers stroking out reported.

 

[Hack]

Life isn't fair.

We should be striving for fairness of opportunity, not fairness of outcome.

 

[watisthis]

Jobs report smashes expectations, sudden surge in TDS sufferers stroking out reported.

Yup. Employment figures were a helpful metric decades ago when the lion's share of full-time jobs provided a living wage. Those times are long gone. Now people have to work far more than they did even just 20 years ago to make ends meet. Americans don't have an employment/productivity problem. We have a getting paid problem.

For instance if you look a quality of jobs, they're approaching 2008 recession levels in addition to being at at thirty year low. https://qz.com/1752676/the-job-quality-index-is-the-economic-indicator-weve-been-missing/

But hey I'm sure these numbers aren't inflated because the GM strike ended in October or anything.

 

[watisthis]

Life isn't fair.

We should be striving for fairness of opportunity, not fairness of outcome.

Thank you for finally agreeing with my argument.

 

[Hack]

Yup. Employment figures were a helpful metric decades ago when the lion's share of full-time jobs provided a living wage. Those times are long gone. Now people have to work far more than they did even just 20 years ago to make ends meet. Americans don't have an employment/productivity problem. We have a getting paid problem.

For instance if you look a quality of jobs, they're approaching 2008 recession levels in addition to being at at thirty year low. https://qz.com/1752676/the-job-quality-index-is-the-economic-indicator-weve-been-missing/

But hey I'm sure these numbers aren't inflated because the GM strike ended in October or anything.

So you want these people to not have jobs. Is that right?

Thank you for finally agreeing with my argument.

Equal opportunity means we need fewer regulations and lower taxes. Fewer regulations let people start small businesses. Lower taxes mean more people will have jobs.

If you want those things - I agree.

 

[watisthis]

So you want these people to not have jobs. Is that right?



Equal opportunity means we need fewer regulations and lower taxes. Fewer regulations let people start small businesses. Lower taxes mean more people will have jobs.

If you want those things - I agree.

No, I want those people to be paid based off their value. Rockefeller was loaded beyond imagination but the point is that the top % of wealth holders held less wealth in contrast to everybody else back in the late 1800s and yet you still believe what is going on now is some how just how the world works.

It's great they have jobs, but they still live in poverty; and as the research shows the income quality of said jobs is decreasing which I've already addressed and I suppose I will have to again.

I've already stated we need to scale regulations so that small businesses can prosper.

Per your lower taxes opinion: Tax cuts do create jobs, but the results vary widely. They depend on the type of tax cut, the recipient, and how high taxes were before the cut. The Congressional Budget Office https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20190522_R45736_8a1214e903ee2b719e00731791d60f26d75d35f4.pdf did a comprehensive study of the number of jobs created by different government policies. It analyzed seven types of tax cuts. It found that the most cost-effective policy was payroll tax cuts targeted to new employees.

Payroll tax cuts are the most cost-effective ways to increase jobs because they lower the cost of labor. These cuts create jobs in four specific ways:

Companies with popular products immediately use the savings to hire more workers. Other companies use the savings to reduce prices. That increases demand, which necessitates hiring more workers. Some firms use tax savings to allow them to buy more goods. This benefits manufacturers. Many businesses use the cuts to raise wages to retain good workers. The workers spend more, increasing demand. According to the CBO, every $1 million in payroll tax cuts creates 13 new jobs. The payroll tax cuts specifically targeted for new hires is the most cost-effective tax cut. Every $1 million in targeted payroll tax cuts creates 18 new jobs. It lowers the cost of new employees when compared to existing workers or investment in new equipment. That changes employers’ decision-making in favor of new hires.

In Kansas, the tax cuts absolutely helped the economy for the very wealthy. It also absolutely hurt the economy for the very poor. Less tax revenue meant a necessary cut in services. Politicians then looked at using sales tax as a means of making up the difference. The very poor spend close to 100% of income, with a huge chunk of that spending subject to increasing sales taxes. The very wealthy can invest earnings and can avoid capital gains taxes. The poor also rely on the services that are cut as a result of less tax revenue.

Is there a net gain from the trickle down effect? Possibly, but again, it favored the very wealthy.

Moreover,

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...-money-of-the-super-rich?srnd=businessweek-v2

"The actual effect of lower taxes on the rich, isn’t to stimulate the economy but to further enrich the rich and further incentivize greed. In his analysis, when the wealthy get tax breaks, they focus less on reinvesting in businesses and more on hiring lobbyists, making campaign donations, and pursuing acquisitions that eliminate competitors. Chief executive officers, for their part, gain additional motivation to boost their own pay. “Once you’ve created a successful business and the wealth is established and you own billions of dollars, then what these people spend their time doing is trying to defend that position."

The top 0.1% of taxpayers—about 170,000 families in a country of 330 million people—control 20% of American wealth, the highest share since 1929. The top 1% control 39% of U.S. wealth, and the bottom 90% have only 26%. The bottom half of Americans combined have a negative net worth. As Ronald Reagan was winning the White House, the top 0.1% controlled 7% of the nation’s wealth. By 2014, after a few decades of booming markets and stagnant wages, the top 0.1% had tripled its share, to 22%, a bit more wealth than the bottom 85% of the country controlled. When Reagan cut the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 28% across eight years, and later, when Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush slashed tax rates for investors, they were doing so on the advice of economists. The prevailing belief, backed by theoretical models, was that lower taxes on the wealthy would stimulate more investment and thus more economic growth.

The real world hasn’t been kind to those theories. Since the era of liberalization and globalization began about 40 years ago, America’s economic growth has been markedly slower than it was the four decades prior. And though the article acknowledges that gross domestic product has risen faster in the U.S. than in other developed countries, he points out that the same is true of population. Measured in GDP per person or national income per adult, U.S. growth since 1980 is hard to distinguish from the pace in France, Germany, or Japan. Meanwhile, the typical worker was better off abroad. From 1980 to 2014, for example, incomes for the poorest half of Americans barely budged, while the poorest half in France saw a 31% increase. The pie has not become bigger in the U.S., it’s just that a bigger slice is going to the top."

 

[Weather Man]

Wages growing twice as fast for low income workers than upper income, socialists enraged.

 

[watisthis]

Wages growing twice as fast for low income workers than upper income, socialists enraged.

The links posted above and https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/files/zidar_tcfw_jpe_2019.pdf are actually facts that disprove this. Nice try, go read a book, boomer.

 

[Jimmy Dean]

The links posted above and https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/zidar/files/zidar_tcfw_jpe_2019.pdf are actually facts that disprove this. Nice try, go read a book, boomer.

12-4 years ago employment numbers preceded economic growth or downturn. funny how that suddenly changes though, right?

 

[watisthis]

12-4 years ago employment numbers preceded economic growth or downturn. funny how that suddenly changes though, right?

I'm not sure what you mean, please elaborate.

 

[Jimmy Dean]

I'm not sure what you mean, please elaborate.

During previous administrations, increasing employment signaled an upcoming uptick economically. and stagnant jobgrowth suggested an upcoming economic shrinkage.

but for some reason, during trump's administration, employment numbers are suddenly following economic trends, instead of preceeding them.

Your mistake here is thinking that we business owners react to the economy by hiring. If you, as a business owner, react to the economy, you are going to have a short lived business.

We hire and train proactively to the what we can see the economy doing in the future, because if we reacted, we would always be too significantly understaffed. Right now we are hiring like crazy because there is only economic growth on the horizon. During the last turndown years, we had stalled hiring more than 6 months before the economy really stalled out. Because we could already see it on the horizon. Because the economy is a massive wheel, and as long as you know where the proper indicators are for your industry you should be able to see things months if not years ahead of schedule. In our industry, we have to make fairly accurate growth projections of +/-10% accuracy 5 years out, +/- 3% acc. a year out, and be within 1-2% quarterly out, expected <0.5% (accuracy, not growth, growth is much higher month to month as compared to prior year) for our month to month projections.

So no, 250k job creations in a month should tell you that there is not a recession immediately on the horizon, or already occurring. If there is one upcoming, it is at a minimum 6 months out, but likely 12mo+. this is not counting potential black Friday/housing bubble type isues, but those are different.

 

[watisthis]

During previous administrations, increasing employment signaled an upcoming uptick economically. and stagnant jobgrowth suggested an upcoming economic shrinkage.

but for some reason, during trump's administration, employment numbers are suddenly following economic trends, instead of preceeding them.

Your mistake here is thinking that we business owners react to the economy by hiring. If you, as a business owner, react to the economy, you are going to have a short lived business.

We hire and train proactively to the what we can see the economy doing in the future, because if we reacted, we would always be too significantly understaffed. Right now we are hiring like crazy because there is only economic growth on the horizon. During the last turndown years, we had stalled hiring more than 6 months before the economy really stalled out. Because we could already see it on the horizon. Because the economy is a massive wheel, and as long as you know where the proper indicators are for your industry you should be able to see things months if not years ahead of schedule. In our industry, we have to make fairly accurate growth projections of +/-10% accuracy 5 years out, +/- 3% acc. a year out, and be within 1-2% quarterly out, expected <0.5% (accuracy, not growth, growth is much higher month to month as compared to prior year) for our month to month projections.

So no, 250k job creations in a month should tell you that there is not a recession immediately on the horizon, or already occurring. If there is one upcoming, it is at a minimum 6 months out, but likely 12mo+. this is not counting potential black Friday/housing bubble type isues, but those are different.

When have I suggested there's a recession immediately on the horizon? The trends have been going up annually since 2010 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=mlY0 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=mlXn

If you look at the quality of jobs, they're approaching 2008 recession levels in addition to being at a thirty-year low. https://qz.com/1752676/the-job-quality-index-is-the-economic-indicator-weve-been-missing/

Wages are still trash when compared to our economy https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=mlYL

I'd say "Trump" is doing as good as he can just that corporatism is dominating the wealth divide. Now I will quote my post in another thread to break down how this isn't just about presidential policies.

"It is all about the allocation of resources. The problem is not how much we take in but where those resources go and what is the breaking point on interest payments towards our debt.

People forget the House is the purse of the U.S. obviously Checks and Balances occur. Weirdly the US Government deficit, thou not all the time, is better with yearly deficits when a Dem is President and the House is Republican. Dem President pushes a couple of big spending projects and the Republicans realize the should be fiscal conservatives and people rally around that to make something work.

When roles are switched, there is no idealistic check on the deficit. Republicans forget the should be fiscal conservatives and lets the House run wild on spending because Republicans themselves want their own spending projects in place and deals with Dems that way.

Then add the Senate. Judges are huge. So whoever is in charge with the Senate will negotiate to spend through the House for the Minority of the Senate Senators for some support in votes.

Both established Rep and Dems have a relationship with the Military Industry. Some spending we do need. We need to keep our production of ships going. Now do we need all the bells and whistles on those ships, I think not.

The issue with the economy is a lot more complex than the Republican and Democratic. The world is changing and everyone thinks they are right. Also, people want to be reelected. Nobody wants to tell their district the are cutting spending in their districts.

On another note, you seem to think that company profits go back into the company. It used to be that way but not anymore. Company profits go to the shareholders. Many companies these days borrow money for capital improvements and for ongoing costs. That way, if something does go wrong, all the wealthy people at the top still get their full share. Only the debtors and employees suffer.

The big Trump tax cuts didn't really help working people. What it did was lower the amount companies had to take out of people's salaries. So their paychecks went up, but at the end of the year, they still had to pay the same amount, which meant smaller refunds or actually having to pay on April 15. A lot of companies handed out bonus checks that the first year. Companies like bonus checks, because it fools people into thinking they are getting more, but watch, and you won't see many raises being handed out. Those tax cuts did help big businesses keep more money and that money went to the shareholders. Some people got wage increases, depending on the region and the industry, but it was not evenly spread across the board.

Since companies didn't have to send money to the government for their employees (payroll tax) it meant that they had more money to do what they wanted. Which is, you guessed it, give it to the shareholders.

Companies should be allowed to make a profit, and a good profit, but they could be taxed more an the only people who suffer would be the shareholders.

https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/98/2/622/5418441"

Now some of that is offtopic but you get the idea.

As for small businesses, I am all for scaling regulations so that small and med sized businesses get to reap more benefits. I could go more in-depth into this but I feel like we'd agree on a lot of issues as I'm heavily in favor of Adam Smiths idea of capitalism.

 

[Caballus]

Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte...

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