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posted by
martyb
on Saturday January 27 2018, @12:43PM
from the I-got-mine!-And-Yours.-And-Yours.-Annnnnd-yours,-too. dept.
from the I-got-mine!-And-Yours.-And-Yours.-Annnnnd-yours,-too. dept.
The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017
More than $8 of every $10 of wealth created last year went to the richest 1%.
That's according to a new report from Oxfam International, which estimates that the bottom 50% of the world's population saw no increase in wealth.
Oxfam says the trend shows that the global economy is skewed in favor of the rich, rewarding wealth instead of work.
"The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system," said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International.
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Only 1% of World's Population Grabbed 82% of all 2017 Wealth
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-- Miramanee, "The Paradise Syndrome", stardate 4842.6
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:17PM (73 children)
i grew up in a "communist" country.
here's what happened in practice: salaries were reasonably close to each other for most people.
however, if you worked in the clothes factory, it was understood that you could steal clothes.
similarly car parts for car factory, chairs for furniture factory, etc.
and people would get by by bartering products and/or influence in certain things.
because there were not enough products to be bought, because the official economy was centrally planned and didn't really function properly, so everyone was effectively poor.
that is not communism.
ideal communism will never work for human society, obviously.
ideal communism says "if the country produces N dollars, the income for each person should be N/population".
and real people would, in such a country, stop working because there would be no motivation.
however, in reasonable societies taxes should be relatively bigger for bigger incomes.
i.e. something like this: if I am paid 50 thousand dollars a year, i should pay 10 thousand taxes; if i am paid 300 thousand a year, i should pay 150 thousand taxes.
because productivity is intimately linked to living in a certain society.
you may call this "almost communism", and you may argue whether or not it's the right system to use.
however, please be aware that countries calling themselves "communist countries" are very different from the almost communist countries that i describe.
like the other poster says, look to northern europe for countries that are actually close to ideal communism.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:51PM (70 children)
Why?
No, really. Why?
Keep in mind that I will not accept "because they can afford it" as a valid reason. The same could be used to justify legalizing first party robbery of them (as opposed to the third party robbery that higher taxes are).
Neither will I accept "they have benefited more from society" as a valid reason. It's patently false. Having your survival-related needs met by government programs is a far greater benefit than having your desires met.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:10PM (21 children)
Taxes put a much greater financial burden on those that make little money. Paying 40 percent of your income is much more difficult than paying 4 percent. Government has a role, despite what some people claim. I don't want corporations making decisions on what defines clean air/food/water when it impacts their profits. Businesses would decide how many deaths are financially acceptable. Those are the true "death panels".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:15PM (20 children)
See above re: Because They Can Afford It. This is not a valid reason.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:29PM (5 children)
So then why would someone need 3 houses and 4 cars? Because they can aford it?
Disclaimer: I am an engineer and I completely agree to pay 5 times more taxes than someone who earns 4 times less then me. This to simplify the progressive tax concept which you seem so passionately against.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:57PM (4 children)
Irrelevant. They earned their money. They can use it for toilet paper and be utterly morally sound.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:56PM (3 children)
You can not say irrelevant. The wealth disparity is a serious problem and history abounds with examples of what happens when humans finally get fed up with a crooked system. Stop waving off valid arguments, you are not a king and you have no autonomy. Pay your taxes, support a better tax bracket, make society better.
"They can use it for toilet paper and be utterly morally sound"
The more I see your discussions the more it seems likely that you are a true sociopath. Morality is some set of rules you follow because society says so, you lack a functional conscience. It could also be a result of the libertarian mindset you work so hard at, working hard to separate "logic" from "feelings". Hell, libertarianism is practically THE sociopath ideology anyway. As long as you don't harm others you can do whatever you want. Much simpler rules to follow.
Example: as long as you get someone to voluntarily sign a document allowing you to kill them as long as you pay off their family that is OK. Who is the gov to say a voluntary contract is morally wrong?
A bit excessive, but that is how such arguments go. You highlight the extreme end to show where an ideology can lead to. In this case some dystopian hunger games type shit where rich folks are legally able to do whatever they want to poor suckers needing a small break.
It is all irrelevant anyway, everyone knows TMB is a marooon so anything he says is definitely stupid.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:39PM (2 children)
Shouldn't there be evidence to support this assertion?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:45PM (1 child)
Every violent revolution in the history of humanity?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:51PM
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:34PM (10 children)
Well, the system did work better before Reagan shifted the tax burden from capital to labor. How common is the single income family now?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:07PM (9 children)
The reason there are so few single income families now is because women decided to essentially double the available workforce over the past four or five decades. Double supply means half demand and pay scales to account for that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:41PM (1 child)
Oh the irony.. What happened to all your talk about wealth being generated? If more people are employed then there should be more overall wealth. Yet again you are a hypocrite and moron. I should start up a SN bingo game, the responses here are predictable enough to make it work.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:22PM
He's saying that if you have 100 jobs for 100 people, then suddenly there are 200 people for those 100 jobs, the wage offering will go down due to there being more people applying for the job,
NOT,
more people are working so the family income should go up.
More people looking for the same jobs makes wage go down. (50 people looking for 100 jobs means wage will go up: supply and demand). Logical.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @11:04PM (6 children)
The women had to go work to compensate for higher taxes on their husband's stagnant wages. Wages weren't driven down for that. They were driven down by tax incentives to off shore the jobs. You know, for a "libertarian", you really do send mixed messages. You sound more like a regular neo-liberal.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:53PM (5 children)
Not so. Wages didn't stagnate until some years after women entered the labor market in force. Actually, it's hard to point to a time when women weren't in the labor market. They were always there, and they've just grown more and more numerous through out the years. But, wages increased right up until the 80's, then the stagnation began. The rust belt and coal country were the first victims, and it has spread from there. Even so, we saw growth through the 90's. Not a lot, but there was growth.
Women get some "blame", I guess, for doubling the available workforce. But, illegal aliens, outsourcing, and offshoring have all been greater contributors to wage stagnation than our women wanting jobs. Without those latter forces at work, how much would my wages have fallen, just because my sister, my wife, and my daughters in law want jobs? Not much. In fact, my wages would likely have continued to go up, because all of those women now have money to spend on the things that I produce.
America's wives aren't staying at home, cooking meals? Oh - where are they, then? A bunch of them are downtown, cooking meals for money? Ohhh-kay - I need to charge more for my products, so that I can afford the meals they are cooking downtown! WIN-WIN!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 29 2018, @02:30AM (4 children)
Wages didn't stagnate until some years after women entered the labor market in force.
Hmm, maybe you aren't aware of Nixon's wage/price controls, and he debased the the dollar. The stagnation started way before the 80s. More like 71-73.. Your storyline is entirely false.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 29 2018, @02:47AM (3 children)
I guess someone should define "stagnation" then. I made increasing amounts of money, year after year, right up until the middle of the '90's. Unions were successfully negotiating wage and benefits increases for their members, up until about '83 or '84, when the steel and iron industry very publicly moved some of it's operations out of the country. Bill Clinton took credit for "improving the economy" in the 90's. It wasn't until about '97 or so that the crap really started hitting the fan. I realize that various segments of the economy were hit sooner, and others later, but overall, I think that things stayed pretty good until the housing bubble burst. The combination of the housing bubble, and illegal alien immigration is what hit me, personally. Others may have very different perspectives. The dotcom bubble, for instance, had zero effect on me - that was just something that I read about. It put no one out of work, that I knew.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 29 2018, @08:08PM (2 children)
Sorry, didn't mean "false". More correctly it's personal. I was comfortable with lots of perks during that time too.
illegal alien immigration is what hit me, personally.
I'm interested in how specifically that happened.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 29 2018, @11:12PM (1 child)
I worked construction for much of my life. I'm a multicraft guy - a full fledged journeyman carpenter, who can do concrete, rodbusting, some limited welding, pipefitting, and field engineer work. Around '97 or '98, I was in need of a job, and did some semiserious job hunting. One of my leads took me to Dallas. I walked out on the jobsite, surrounded by mostly Mexicans. Found the super's trailer, went in, and introduced myself.
I was told bluntly, that they weren't hiring any white boys. The super told me flat out that he can hire two, or even three Mexicans for the wages that I expected to get. I suppose that I gave him a strange look, because he got defensive, and told me that was pretty much the same story all around Dallas. I wasn't going to find a journeyman's wages when there was so much cheap labor flooding the market.
That wasn't the end of my construction work, but, wages did stagnate. There were no more raises, I no longer got phone calls asking me if I was a available.
People in the north east US, and the east coast, can make claims forever that the Mexicans are just doing the work that Americans are to lazy to do. But, I know better, because it affected me directly. They don't just pick vegetables, and mow lawns. Mexicans aren't mules, after all - they are working men and women, like myself. They can learn any skill that I can learn. They can learn any skill that any member of this forum can learn. They would be serious competition on a level playing field. With the unfair pricing of labor - we can't compete.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 30 2018, @01:46AM
Illegal aliens, illegal drugs... the market demands it all. Capitalism doesn't respect the border any more than migrating animals do.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:55PM (2 children)
Because I like living in a civilized country and so prefer to keep paying to maintain civilization even when the poor can't afford to.
I'm perfectly fine with my taxes going to defend the poor from starvation, shelter and educate them. What I object to is my taxes going to "defence" where defence means killing people thousands of miles away just to make some filthy rich people even richer.
It's cheaper and more efficient to pay to deliver education, food, shelter and healthcare to poor people than pay to deliver healthcare, food or shelter in far more expensive ways (e.g. ER, crime, prison) or to suffer the results of their poor education (remember many of them can vote too).
So if I prefer not to live in a country where many are suffering or dying in the streets then I might as well pay for it in more efficient ways.
One potential issue is if the poor breed indiscriminately till the system can't feed all of them but there are ways to deal with that if it actually looks like becoming a significant problem. But it doesn't appear to be happening significantly in the Scandinavian countries.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:09PM (1 child)
I have no problem with you redistributing a portion of your wealth if you so choose. I do to some degree myself. What I have a problem with is you demanding others do the same under threat of imprisonment or death.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:29PM
Whereas, i look at it as, if they have the money to bribe politicians to make laws favour the rich, they have money to pay more in taxes.
Individuals bribing: they pay more (and go to jail, lol).
Corporations bribing: it pays more. Way more.
It's the money in politics that, IMHO, has begun the real spiral down (as well as CEO's getting salary/stock options/benefits WAAAY beyond their worth, but as you say, that is a hiring problem). Take the big money out, make the politicians speak to EVERY individual for money (not just big corp) and you will get a politician more interested in making the country a place for "We the people" instead of just "We the rich".
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:16PM (8 children)
I'll give it a try to answer that one.
Since it is easier to sell that than the actual "the poor will get the tax breaks" - which is the intent.
The reasoning basically is that the poor needs more support to even the playfield to make everything less stratified - but actually pointing out to the poor that they're poor never goes over well so it is easier to market it as "taxing the rich".
If this is a good thing or not depends on your personal beliefs, if the main object is "all for me" then it is insane, if the main object is "all for all" then it doesn't go far enough.
(btw, norway uses a model similar to the one proposed (all nordic countries uses different models - but has the same overall theme))
Depends on what you measure, quantity - yes, quality - no. Having enough to give a comfort above the basic need (without entering luxury) tends to provide a decent average.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:44PM (7 children)
And this goal has some innate quality that makes forcing one man to work for another's benefit okay? We used to call that slavery and slavery is immoral no matter how comfortable the slave.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:42PM (3 children)
> makes forcing one man to work for another's benefit okay?
No one is forced. The rich person could take all of their money out of investment and stop working.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:11PM (2 children)
Not buying it. This is only acceptable to you at the moment because most prefer not to. The minute that changed you'd be demanding taxes on cash holdings.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:25PM
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 30 2018, @12:45PM
> you'd be demanding taxes on cash holdings
Please don't accuse me of writing things I never wrote.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:31PM (2 children)
As I wrote in the next paragraph - if it is a good thing or not depends on your beliefs.
But sure - let's run with your ad absurdum, this would mean you also are against any and all taxes and conscription-style military service.
And how did you get to "/forcing/ one man to work" (and driving that to slavery?)? The man is allowed to accept less pay, give money away, do another job or even working less or not at all (neither of which was/is included in slavery).
The system has dimininishing returns simply enough - so past a certain point you'll mainly just do a job for the joy of it (relative to other activities).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:48PM (1 child)
Yes, I am. I'm also a realist though and realize the former is unlikely to happen, so I'm willing to accept progress towards perfection rather than demanding perfection.
Thought it needed no explaining but if it does I will. When you take the product of a man's labor you have effectively said to him "your labor during this period was not for yourself but for me". Call it retroactive slavery or theft or whatever you like but do not call it moral.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:33PM
Ahh, you being completly against taxes leaves us at an impasse and we can't never really understand each other's point of view on this subject (with that being said, it is nice arguing with you). Personally I consider taxes to be useful, guess that is a sideeffect of the benefits that gives you over here (sweden).
Out of curiousity - how would you fund stuff like roadconstructions, enviornmental agencies, powergrids, police, fire departments, food and water standards and such?
Slavery is something completly different then, and is a bad rethoric.
Theft - depends on how you see taxes, from your POV it is theft from my POV it is sane.
It is moral (really, look up what the word mean) - if it is good or bad however depends on which moral you apply.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tangaroa on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:24PM (2 children)
How about because the poor cannot afford it? To meet any given level of state spending, the money has to come from somewhere. Taking from people who need the money to put food on the table is going to cause more harm than taking from it someone who might buy a tenth Lexus.
The rich are more prone to hoarding, capital flight, and using financial tricks that cause damage to the economy. The middle class will at least buy Starbucks and Warriors tickets which puts the money back into the economy.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:48PM (1 child)
Rewording an invalid reason is also not a valid reason. Neither is assuming a level of spending must be met; especially spending that is nothing but wealth redistribution to begin with.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:04PM
Assuming you get to exploit a system that causes massive suffering and hide behind "muh properties!" is not a valid excuse for running a pseudo-ponzi scheme.
You treat the issue like people want to steal everything you have, where reality is people want you to pay your fair share of the costs of running society. You can quibble all day about what are valid expenditures, etc. but you start from the assumption that taxes are theft. There is no salvation for such self-inflicted ignorance.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:51PM (1 child)
Because those people benefit disproportionally from government spending.
And, yes, "because they can afford it" is a valid reason.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:07PM
False. Having your needs for survival met via society is a far greater benefit than having your non-survival desires met. That aside, once you have paid whatever is asked of you for let's say using the roads, you owe neither moral nor financial debt in using said roads. When you pay the price for something, all debt ceases to exist.
Saying it in caps does not make it so. It especially does not make it selectively so. Unless you believe your poorer neighbor would be justified in coming to your house, pointing a gun at your head, and saying "You're paying my rent this month because you can afford it better than I can".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:56PM (12 children)
Because people who already have more wealth have an unfair advantage when it comes to acquiring wealth. The higher taxes compensate for that unfair advantage.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:09PM (11 children)
Unfair how? Someone earned that wealth and is free to use the fruits of their labor however they choose. If you don't enjoy having less, earn more.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:37PM (8 children)
Unfair in that they need less effort to obtain the same additional wealth. Sometimes to the point that certain wealth is only available to them.
Even if you assume that the wealth was earned (which is not always the case), then that wealth is already fair compensation for that past work, and there's no reason there should be even more compensation in the form of easier obtained future wealth.
The joke of the century.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:19PM (7 children)
That isn't unfair. Any citizen with the ability is free to earn their way up exactly the same as those at the top did and make use of those "easier" avenues.
You think? Making money is not a difficult proposition. Most people just never put any serious thought into how to do it. Here is precisely how to do so:
Find a need/desire, fill it, charge money. If your current attempt is not succeeding, change your approach or attempt something different. Repeat as necessary.
Do please share this around to those of your acquaintance who have not figured this out.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:35PM (6 children)
Buzzy 2020! #MAGA
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:52PM (5 children)
If nominated I will not accept. If elected I will not serve. Unless you make it Emperor rather than President. I don't have a temperament suitable to dealing with corrupt fuckwads every day without being able to order their executions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:07PM (1 child)
I guess you missed the sarcasm. Everyone here (except khallow and jmorris maybe) would rather jump off a bridge. You'd be like a shitty Trump 2.0 leading us straight into idiocracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:41PM
For my part, it looks like we are well into idiocracy already. Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:55PM
Yeah, that's why I always phrase it... "When I become dictator..."
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:12PM
So you're saying you'd commit suicide?
Holy shit, that does it, I'm writing you in for 2020.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:38PM
Donald? Is that you? Shouldn't you be busy with running the country right now?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:36PM (1 child)
Unfair only if you have politicians who accept (are allowed to accept) money to make things favour them, or that they can (illegally/immorally? can't come up with the right word) make things favour them above others.
Let the rich make their money, yes hell yes: just don't let them change the system to favour them above another.
Make money? Fair
Corrupt the system to favour you? Unfair
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:58AM
You think scuzzy would hold to his promises any better than frumpy?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:01PM (7 children)
It's because the cost of living is not zero, therefore the tax function cannot be tax(income) = factor * income + 0.
The most basic form is a cutoff: if (income <= liveable income) { tax(income) = 0 } else { tax(income) = factor * (income - liveable income) }
But most civilized countries have a progressive tax with several piecewise linear functions, e.g.
tax(income) =
0 if (income <= liveable income)
factor1 * (income - liveable income) if ( liveable income <= income <= comfortable income )
factor1 * (comfortable income - liveable income) + factor2 * (income - comfortable income) if (income >= comfortable income)
factor1 is kept low: in that way, the government stimulates the people to advance their careers and that way grow the economy.
factor2 (factor3, ... ) is a progressively higher scale of income taxation because at one point you've gone beyond "i can live a comfortable lifestyle in my country even with heavy taxation" to
"i can become very rich with this job in this country even with extremely high taxation on the upper scales", when the extra income is used only as a yardstick to measure "I'm more rich/imortant than that other person because I earn more".
That doesn't benefit society, therefore it doesn't harm society or even those people themselves to be taxed heavily on the tax scales way above "comfortable income".
You can also interpret taxation in a different way in countries or supranational entities that have the "subsidiarity" principle [wikipedia.org]:
In the EU, the money earned at local level is meant to be spent at local level. If there is anything left over, it goes to fund higher-level organisations.
Sweden has the subsidiarity principle as well: A large part of my taxes go, first and foremost, to pay the unemployment benefits of the drunks and junkies in my own village/town ("Kommun") :-) .
If I earn enough, above a certain tax threshold, then what is left over gets spent by my provincial government, to pay for medical care, hospitals and road maintenance and region-wide economic development initiatives.
Healthcare is provincial (larger scale than Kommun level) because each hospital has a "catchment basin" that spans large areas and multiple Kommuns.
If there is still money left over in the scale above that, then that gets taxed and spent by Sweden's national government, on universities, defense, and other luxuries.
It is very important to observe, that only the "rich" pay for defense. So you could see it as a cause for pride, that you earn so much that you can pay for the defense of your fatherland.
Just like in feodal times, when a jarl/earl had to fight, and a hertog/duke (heer-tog) had to raise an army in times of trouble.
Whereas if you're just a basic wage slave, the government takes your money to support people in your neighbourhood that have temporarily or permanently dropped out of employment. It happens to the best of us.
The government that steals your hard-earned money, is therefore *your own* government. It is yours. That is a very important point to make. The US had a bloody revolution based on "no taxation without representation", so you probably know that much better than I.
If you don't like it, well don't immigrate to Sweden!
It also means that if it goes badly with the country's economy, like in 2008, the people come first. Defense spending comes last. They won't squander it on expensive F-35 JSF planes (I hope). Somehow, this has gone wrong in the US.
I think that the subsidiarity principle was used by Charlemagne, but I don't remember if I read that somewhere or made it up out of whole cloth.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:17PM (6 children)
That is irrelevant. Do you believe in slavery? Because that's precisely what forcing one man to work for another man's benefit is.
Again, irrelevant. It doesn't harm a woman if you use lube and a condom when raping her but it is still morally reprehensible.
You've done a pretty good job obfuscating the fundamental issue at hand but said nothing that makes theft or slavery morally sound.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:51PM (2 children)
I remember time when people would say, *America, love it or leave it.*
Like it or not, the majority decides the form of "slavery" (chattel, wage, etc) you will live under. And people will tell me, *don't let the door hit ya on the ass.* I wouldn't say that, because I believe all the fences must be torn down, and everybody has a right to live where they want and to *follow the food*, but I am interested to see how you would fund your collective, and is it a fenced/heavily guarded community with restricted membership.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:23PM (1 child)
We've actually had quite a lot of protections against that happening from the very beginning and some not small amount of blood shed to keep it from happening other times but you are largely correct.
A collective? Me? I'm not even interested in a collective of two or I would have married by now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 27 2018, @11:11PM
A collective? Me? I'm not even interested in a collective of two or I would have married by now.
So, you live all alone in a cabin up in the mountains, sending *letters to the editor*, or a van down by the river, washing your clothes on a rock, and spearing whatever swims by?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:39PM (2 children)
Wow.. are you really saying, that it is immoral, to be forced to do work for another man's benefit?
That's quite a radical viewpoint. It must be difficult for you to live in a society with other people, some of them putting unreasonable demands on you (or trying).
However, I respect that you'd never take a job where an asshole boss bullies you around :-). Wish I had done that a bit more often.
What is your viewpoint on military conscription: should it be dodged, because it is immoral to force you to fight for the protection of your countrymen?
And what about work in the public sector: nurses, teachers, firefighters, police officers have no choice but to work for others' benefit, even if sometimes they must "serve" absolute assholes.
What I mean is: sure, they get paid to interact with "people", but they must occasionally some days get people that they think: "It isn't worth the wage to have to deal with *these* people".
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:56PM
It's the basis of a free society. In ancient Rome it was perfectly moral.
Even if he does, I'm not forced to work for him. I do it voluntarily or I leave.
In a war morality changes. Try to proudly say in a crowd: "I'm a deserter, I do not want to protect you." See what happens.
They said an oath to help everyone. Yes, sometimes it's too hard. Those leave the profession. Nobody forces them to stay or to go.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:07PM
Fuck yes I am. All week long and twice on Sunday. When I take a job it is for my benefit. You can tell by how I quit when value_returned is less than value_put_forth.
I'm against military conscription but not for moral reasons. I wouldn't, as a vet myself, want to share a foxhole with someone who did not want to be there. You couldn't trust them like you could a volunteer. For me that outweighs any moral argument one way or the other.
They're all paid except for volunteer firefighters. Almost none of them would be doing the job if they weren't. Actual volunteers, most of them will be doing the job because they enjoy the work, the company of their coworkers, the results of their effort, or a combination of the above. Actual altruists are mentally disturbed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:14PM (1 child)
here's one reason why: if they don't accept this, society will become unbalanced (such as it is right now). whenever this happened, throughout history, there has been a bloody revolt in the end, and some percentage of the ultra-rich were executed by mobs of poor people (although in the long term not a lot changed for them, hence successive revolts). there is a non-zero probability for any rich person to be the one killed by the mob (it's kind of random I think).
i would prefer this reason: fighting against an unbalanced society is the decent thing to do, because it reduces overall suffering, and it releases more resources for quality time. if you think that's fluffy pink feel-good hippy non-sense, you are free to think it and to argue against it, but I won't apologize for thinking this way.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:23PM
That's at least a rational argument. An easily dismissed one because "paying protection money to the mob" is never going to be on sound ethical ground, but it is rational which is more than can be said for every other argument so far.
And you lost it. Helping the poor is the decent thing to do. Robbing someone's house to do so is not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:50PM (3 children)
Protection from being robbed of wealth greater than that needed for survival falls into the category of "desires" rather than "survival-related needs".
Compared to a completely flat tax, a lower marginal tax rate on the first n thousand dollars of annual income is a "government program[]" that subsidizes "Having your survival-related needs met".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:25PM (2 children)
Yes, glad to see we agree. The poor are receiving far greater benefit from society than the rich.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:35PM (1 child)
Special place in hell just for you uggy.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:15PM
He's going to reincarnate poor after he's done his time in the inferno, mark my words. Anyone his age who hasn't progressed beyond this level of development is going to die in it, and there are some things you can't atone for in Hell as they require the lesson to be taught in the same context it was failed to be learned in last time. He's probably going to pop up somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa or somewhere else that's being exploited ruthlessly around 2070 or so.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Informative) by fyngyrz on Saturday January 27 2018, @05:50PM (4 children)
Because 20% of Joe Floorwasher's income is a huge, life-altering hit to him and his family, while 20% of Joseph Mergatroid Moneybags the Fourth's income has no life-changing effect on him whatsoever.
The most important benefit of a tax rate that is higher for higher income entities is to put the load where it can be borne without harm. For a country to be economically healthy, you want everyone to be able to live at some reasonable level. A big part of getting that done is load distribution. When you have a horse and a dog, you don't put the big packs on the dog.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:14PM (3 children)
Irrelevant. Theft is no less of a crime if the person stolen from will hardly miss it.
As for the rest, society's welfare is not my primary concern. Our nation was not founded to provide comfort to all its citizens but individual liberties were absolutely the core of what we were promised. I would rather have life than material comforts and I would rather have liberty than life.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:47PM
You cannot adequately measure harm by its general class; theft of a tootsie roll is no less theft than theft of all your savings.
However, the harm done is vastly different, and yes, we do, and we should, treat these instances quite differently. Likewise, you take 20% of Joe Floorwasher's income, it's radically different than taking 20% of Joseph Mergatroid Moneybags the Fourth's income. Even if both are tax, or, if you must, "theft."
Even if I accept your implied assertion that taxes are inherently theft (I certainly don't), such action I deem necessary in order to build and maintain the underpinnings that make a society, a thing I value far more highly than your offended, if grievously simplistic, sensibilities on the matter.
Where I will stand with you, if you like, is that some use of tax money is absurd, some is evil, and some is far more wasteful than circumstances actually call for. In this, pushback seems appropriate and righteous to me.
But tiered income taxes in general... there are many things that we cannot do on our lonesome or in small groups because they are simply too large to approach at that level. Highways are one good example of this.
Others could be approached, but greed prevents success: healthcare and shelter and animal welfare are good examples of that sort of thing. They could be largely addressed by charity of the wealthy in a substrate of enabling legislation; but they are most certainly not. Consequently they become big jobs that should fall to government; it's either that, or they won't get done to the degree they need to be done.
For government to be able to actually try and/or approach solutions these tasks, government must be able to transfer material and labor to the task. So far, that means applying the common medium of exchange: money. So we have taxes. Or, as you seem to want to call it, "theft." No matter the name, it seems very clear that we should have it. At least until automation creates an economy of plenty, which is still probably a ways off in the future, and which I am convinced is going to be very painful to transition to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:48PM
Just claiming something is irrelevant does not make it so. Take your shitty worldview to the bathroom and flush it where it belongs. Society's welfare is not your primary concern? All you've done is highlight that you're a naive selfish fool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:59AM
Stolen?! They own it to the community, it's nothing but paying their debt.
Did you get no education? Do you not drive on the roads? Do you get no service from the police and the fire department? Do you use no internet?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:28PM
For one, it's a shortcut for translating income into disposable income. What's the point of taking money people actually can't do without to buy food and pay rent just to then give it back to pay rent and buy food?
For another, even though the better off hate to believe it, they DO benefit more. Why does a guy who can't afford a car give a crap if the police do or do not spend time and money on auto theft? Why does someone who has neither the money for a lawyer or time off work for court give a crap if the civil courts remain open? Why does he give a crap if Vietnam goes communist?
If you believe that living beyond comfortably is a lesser value than getting welfare, give it all up and go on welfare. When can we sign you up? Anyone?
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:11PM
Because without taxes wealth is distributed exponentially. Any system with exponentially distributed parameters is inherently unstable (Think Holocaust).
A stable system should have normally distributed parameters. Hence the proposal is simple - tax till the income is normally distributed. Average is set by economic conditions. Dispersion is set during the budget hearings. Then people are taxed (and/or taxes distributed) until the target is achieved.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 27 2018, @09:01PM
That was my perception of East Germany in 1990 - clearly things were better than they appeared from the stores, not good, but not nearly so bleak - it had to be the black market that made things actually work there, then.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @01:27AM
Seems to be a universal thing.
One Piece at a Time - Johnny Cash [songtexte.com] Psychobilly Cadillac [google.com]
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