it's always jealousy with you, isn't it?
Not always. Among people who advocate in favor of socialism it is generally true though. The whole "Billionaires shouldn't exist" bit gives away the game.uziq wrote:
it's always jealousy with you, isn't it?
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
hard to not vilify when they dump chemicals into rivers and refuse to pay for cleanup and send people to physically threaten reporters
billionaires should not exist. that wealth was generated by their workers and has it has no purpose being stored in some family offshore account for perpetuity.Jay wrote:
Not always. Among people who advocate in favor of socialism it is generally true though. The whole "Billionaires shouldn't exist" bit gives away the game.uziq wrote:
it's always jealousy with you, isn't it?
in a few centuries' time people are going to look back on this phase of civilisation and wonder how we simultaneously squandered so many resources and distributed the gains so poorly. to say nothing of the distorting effect it has on democracy. e pluribus unum indeed!
do you really think everyone who criticises billionaires is jealous? that everyone's endgame in life is to have a yacht and own a hawaiian island? not everyone is groping after those things my guy.
Last edited by uziq (2020-07-10 16:04:52)
Not saying it is everyone's goal, but it's a much more complicated issue than "Billionaires shouldn't exist".uziq wrote:
billionaires should not exist. that wealth was generated by their workers and has it has no purpose being stored in some family offshore account for perpetuity.Jay wrote:
Not always. Among people who advocate in favor of socialism it is generally true though. The whole "Billionaires shouldn't exist" bit gives away the game.uziq wrote:
it's always jealousy with you, isn't it?
in a few centuries' time people are going to look back on this phase of civilisation and wonder how we simultaneously squandered so many resources and distributed the gains so poorly. to say nothing of the distorting effect it has on democracy. e pluribus unum indeed!
do you really think everyone who criticises billionaires is jealous? that everyone's endgame in life is to have a yacht and own a hawaiian island? not everyone is groping after those things my guy.
Last edited by Jay (2020-07-10 16:11:42)
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
what is the wealth generated by a polity and a society ultimately even for? wealth for it's own sake? the profit motive extrapolated to its nth degree? all that production, labour and ingenuity only make sense if it drives society forward in a way perceived as being good for all. billionaires are basically moral cripples. a huge proportion of americans live paycheque to paycheque and without basic necessities. it's a moral stain on your society. meanwhile we are strip-mining the earth and burning up our finite resources, indebting future generations with the ecological and social bill, and the vast majority of the short-term gain is ending up in the bank accounts of a few thousand people. for what? so elon musk can send 13 people to mars?
a billionaire represents a policy failure. they are all the products of legislative loopholes. no one can rationally 'produce' or sensibly accumulate that much wealth through their own labour and exertion. it is a complete absurdity. only since capital gains and speculation began to far exceed labour gains have billionaires become a fixture.
a billionaire represents a policy failure. they are all the products of legislative loopholes. no one can rationally 'produce' or sensibly accumulate that much wealth through their own labour and exertion. it is a complete absurdity. only since capital gains and speculation began to far exceed labour gains have billionaires become a fixture.
Last edited by uziq (2020-07-10 16:20:29)
No, a billionaire represents a success. Our billionaires are billionaires because they created projects that have run wild across the globe. Bill Gates made his money from Microsoft, and you probably have the MS suite on your laptop. Jeff Bezos created Amazon, which is delivering packages to nearly everyone on the planet now. Elon Musk has popularized electric vehicles and delivered people to the ISS. Warren Buffett made his money by investing in companies and making them more profitable and scaling them up. Their wealth represents economic success and it enriches America as a whole. You point out income inequality in America vs other countries, sure, but what global benefit have any of their economies generated? Have they created Google, or Apple, or Tesla? The closest you have is Richard Branson.uziq wrote:
what is the wealth generated by a polity and a society ultimately even for? wealth for it's own sake? the profit motive extrapolated to its nth degree? all that production, labour and ingenuity only makes sense if it drives society in a way perceived as being good for all. billionaires are basically moral cripples. a huge proportion of americans live paycheque to paycheque and without basic necessities. it's a moral stain on your society.
a billionaire represents a policy failure. they are all the products of legislative loopholes. no one can rationally 'produce' or sensibly accumulate that much wealth through their own labour and exertion. it is a complete absurdity.
All of their wealth was made because they held stock in corporations before they went public. They attracted investors because the products they made had global reach. It's not like they were paying themselves billion dollar a year salaries to get where they are today. They didn't take money from their workers. They took money from investors.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
never mind that half of those projects skimmed R&D from state-funded enterprises and the other half gained their market dominance through anti-competitive measures. no, the billionaires are a unique class of supermen and they should be rewarded as such.
okay so you're good at creating mega-corporations that sell products all over the globe. did google invent the internet? did apple invent the phone or processor? did tesla invent electric vehicles? hmm it's almost like all these things were invented and researched in large part by states beforehand, without having to make the leap to justifying billionaire CEOs.
can you actually tell me the benefit of billionaires? i don't need to be told about how bill gates set-up a company called microsoft and it became really big.
okay so you're good at creating mega-corporations that sell products all over the globe. did google invent the internet? did apple invent the phone or processor? did tesla invent electric vehicles? hmm it's almost like all these things were invented and researched in large part by states beforehand, without having to make the leap to justifying billionaire CEOs.
can you actually tell me the benefit of billionaires? i don't need to be told about how bill gates set-up a company called microsoft and it became really big.
Last edited by uziq (2020-07-10 16:29:20)
What's the downside? They hurt your ego by existing?uziq wrote:
never mind that half of those projects skimmed R&D from state-funded enterprises and the other half gained their market dominance through anti-competitive measures. no, the billionaires are a unique class of supermen and they should be rewarded as such.
can you actually tell me the benefit of billionaires? i don't need to be told about how bill gates set-up a company called microsoft and it became really big.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
the downside is that their immense wealth could be used for the public weal? that workers could have significantly better lives? that the middle-class could be made far more robust? that people wouldn't have to break their balls all their lives to keep the basic necessities together? i don't know, jay? i guess people are just jealous of elon musk because he dates grimes and has a few nice houses.
why do you think a billionaire hurts my ego? i literally have no comprehension of this worldview at all.
why do you think a billionaire hurts my ego? i literally have no comprehension of this worldview at all.
Last edited by uziq (2020-07-10 16:32:30)
It doesn't work like that uzi. Their wealth represents investor confidence in them. They have that money because the stock of the company they own is worth a lot of money. How would you confiscate their wealth? Would you force them divest their shares and give up control of their companies? To whom? Ok, now what? Now that they've divested and you've taxed the dickens out of their one time payoff, what happens next? Do you take the rest? Even if you confiscated every penny from every billionaire it would equal out to about two years of current tax receipts by the American government. Two years. Meanwhile, you will have hurt your future tax revenues by destroying them as income sources, the stock value of their corporations, undermined the rest of the market, and wiped out the common peoples 401k accounts.uziq wrote:
the downside is that their immense wealth could be used for the public weal? that workers could have significantly better lives? that the middle-class could be made far more robust? that people wouldn't have to break their balls all their lives to keep the basic necessities together? i don't know, jay? i guess people are just jealous of elon musk because he dates grimes and has a few nice houses.
Last edited by Jay (2020-07-10 16:38:25)
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
Where's Walmart in all this. Keeps wages low, antiunion, creates food deserts. Relies on government to give employees assistance.
The common person is someone you hate and doesn't have savings jay.
I don't really care about billionaires. Just estate tax em only rich people are really affected by that anyway.
The common person is someone you hate and doesn't have savings jay.
I don't really care about billionaires. Just estate tax em only rich people are really affected by that anyway.
Last edited by RTHKI (2020-07-10 16:43:26)
obviously when people say 'billionaires should not exist' they are not talking about requisitioning the existing wealth of billionaires. it's about targeting the corporate structures and pay differentials in the first place. that's the sense in which it is a policy failure.
with that said, corporations and billionaires are overwhelmingly not paying their fucking fair share of taxes. this is a complicated problem and surely doesn't involve divesting them of their stocks. it involves everyday, humdrum tax avoidance, by individuals and by corporations. and yes, state-level, national,-level and maybe even international authorities need to get a grip on fucking capital flight and tax evasion.
with that said, corporations and billionaires are overwhelmingly not paying their fucking fair share of taxes. this is a complicated problem and surely doesn't involve divesting them of their stocks. it involves everyday, humdrum tax avoidance, by individuals and by corporations. and yes, state-level, national,-level and maybe even international authorities need to get a grip on fucking capital flight and tax evasion.
Last edited by uziq (2020-07-10 16:44:47)
uziq wrote:
obviously when people say 'billionaires should not exist' they are not talking about requisitioning the existing wealth of billionaires. it's about targeting the corporate structures and pay differentials in the first place. that's the sense in which it is a policy failure.
with that said, corporations and billionaires are overwhelmingly not paying their fucking fair share of taxes. this is a complicated problem and surely doesn't involve divesting them of their stocks. it involves everyday, humdrum tax avoidance, by individuals and by corporations. and yes, state-level, national,-level and maybe even international authorities need to get a grip on fucking capital flight and tax evasion.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar … es/583222/If such a thing as American exceptionalism remains, maybe it can be found in this: Despite deep IRS budget cuts, an average audit rate that has plunged in recent years to just 0.6 percent, and a president who has bragged that dodging federal taxes is “smart,” most Americans still pay their income taxes every year. Even more remarkable, most of us feel obliged to pay. To quote the findings of a 2017 IRS survey: “The majority of Americans (88%) say it is not at all acceptable to cheat on taxes; this ethical attitude is not changing over time.”
True, tax crooks might not confess their real feelings in an IRS survey. But other data confirm that the U.S. is among the world’s leaders when it comes to what economists call the voluntary compliance rate (VCR). In recent decades, America’s VCR has consistently hovered between 81 and 84 percent. Most countries don’t calculate their VCR regularly, but when they do, they lag behind the U.S. One paper that gathered what comparative data were available reported that Germany, the top European Union economy, had a VCR of 68 percent.
Other countries score worse, among them Italy (62 percent), the site of a sprawling tax scandal in which about 1,000 citizens were charged last year with bilking the government out of 2.3 billion euros in tax revenue. The public didn’t seem terribly bothered; ex–Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was convicted of tax fraud in 2013, may have tapped a common sentiment when he said back then that “evasion of high taxes is a God-given right.”
Then there’s Greece, where economists have struggled to even calculate a VCR. According to the International Monetary Fund, more than half of Greek households pay zero income tax. Indeed, tax evasion is practically a national sport. Take the swimming-pool trick. After the 2008 recession, the government placed a luxury tax on private pools. When only 324 residents in the ritzy suburbs of Athens admitted to having one, tax collectors knew they were being swindled—but didn’t know how badly until Google Earth photos revealed the real pool count: 16,974. It’s now common to conceal chlorinated assets with floating tiles, army nets, and pool interiors painted to mimic grass.
What separates Americans from Greeks or Italians? It’s not income-tax withholding, which the U.S. pioneered but Europe has since copied. Higher tax rates may be one factor. Illegal shadow economies, in which goods are sold off the books for cash, are another. (Greece’s black market is the biggest in the eurozone, accounting for 21.5 percent of its GDP.)
Economists say a third factor, one with profound political implications, is tax morale. This is a catchall term for various forces that motivate people to pay taxes, including social norms, democratic values, civic pride, transparent government spending, and trust in leadership and fellow citizens. People are more inclined to fudge (yes, economists use that word) their tax forms if they think others aren’t paying their fair share.
***
Last edited by Jay (2020-07-10 16:48:34)
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/19/tax-avo … ecade.html
https://fortune.com/2019/04/11/amazon-s … avoidance/A research paper by Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury Secretary, and finance professor Natasha Sarin found that lax enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service has led to hundreds of billions of dollars a year in uncollected taxes from the wealthy, which could reach trillions over the next decade.
Summers — a vocal opponent of the wealth taxes being proposed by Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — contends that one way to start making the tax system more fair and progressive without raising rates would be to plug the holes in collection.
The “tax gap” — the difference between the amount due to the IRS each year and the amount collected — grew to just under $400 billion in 2013, according to the IRS. Summers and Sarin estimate based on current income and IRS trends, the tax would total $7.5 trillion over a 10-year period from 2020 through 2029.
i mean, what could possibly be done differently, right? jealousy, that's the problem.f the Fortune 500 companies that have already filed their 2018 taxes, 60 were profitable and yet avoided all federal income tax, according to an ITEP analysis released on Thursday. The total U.S. income of the 60—which ITEP reports included such names as Amazon, Chevron, General Motors, Delta, Halliburton, and IBM—was more than $79 billion and the effective tax rate was -5%. On the average, they got tax refunds.
I'm going to take the second article with a grain of salt. It may be right, or it may be cherry picked. Maybe they are carrying forward previous year losses? I don't know.uziq wrote:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/19/tax-avoidance-by-the-rich-could-top-5-trillion-in-next-decade.htmlhttps://fortune.com/2019/04/11/amazon-s … avoidance/A research paper by Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury Secretary, and finance professor Natasha Sarin found that lax enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service has led to hundreds of billions of dollars a year in uncollected taxes from the wealthy, which could reach trillions over the next decade.
Summers — a vocal opponent of the wealth taxes being proposed by Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — contends that one way to start making the tax system more fair and progressive without raising rates would be to plug the holes in collection.
The “tax gap” — the difference between the amount due to the IRS each year and the amount collected — grew to just under $400 billion in 2013, according to the IRS. Summers and Sarin estimate based on current income and IRS trends, the tax would total $7.5 trillion over a 10-year period from 2020 through 2029.i mean, what could possibly be done differently, right? jealousy, that's the problem.f the Fortune 500 companies that have already filed their 2018 taxes, 60 were profitable and yet avoided all federal income tax, according to an ITEP analysis released on Thursday. The total U.S. income of the 60—which ITEP reports included such names as Amazon, Chevron, General Motors, Delta, Halliburton, and IBM—was more than $79 billion and the effective tax rate was -5%. On the average, they got tax refunds.
Our tax code is undoubtedly a mess. There are carve outs and subsidies all over the place. No argument from me on that account. It definitely needs to be cleaned up, but neither party wants to do so.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
the democrats do, but they're the ones you keep ridiculing as being jealous? errrr
they rake in their campaign money from Wall Street, tech companies, trial lawyers, the medical industry and colleges. They're not trying to reform shit. They're up to their eyeballs in corruption and lobbyist money.uziq wrote:
the democrats do, but they're the ones you keep ridiculing as being jealous? errrr
Last edited by Jay (2020-07-10 17:02:40)
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +640|3915
Trump just commuted the sentence of Roger Stone before he was set to go to prison.
It's weird that tech companies are your new favorite pet. You know tech companies would never support any sort of weatlh distribution downward, right? Just to be clear the next time you try to call Tom Steyer or Jeff Bezos a leftist.
Trial lawyers? Lol dude where do you get these? What articles are you reading? Generally curious
Trial lawyers? Lol dude where do you get these? What articles are you reading? Generally curious
so are the democrats all puppets of radical bernie and AOC or are they corrupt hillary? which one is actually the present party and danger? because you seem to flip between alternative takes depending on whether you’re pointing out trump’s wisdom or AOC’s uselessness or whatever.Jay wrote:
they rake in their campaign money from Wall Street, tech companies, trial lawyers, the medical industry and colleges. They're not trying to reform shit. They're up to their eyeballs in corruption and lobbyist money.uziq wrote:
the democrats do, but they're the ones you keep ridiculing as being jealous? errrr
where’s biden going to fall on that policy spectrum? genuine question. he’s obviously not going to be a far-left radical.
The party is the old guard types like Schumer and Pelosi. AOC has no power. Neither does Bernie. Biden is as corrupt and morally bankrupt as they get.uziq wrote:
so are the democrats all puppets of radical bernie and AOC or are they corrupt hillary? which one is actually the present party and danger? because you seem to flip between alternative takes depending on whether you’re pointing out trump’s wisdom or AOC’s uselessness or whatever.Jay wrote:
they rake in their campaign money from Wall Street, tech companies, trial lawyers, the medical industry and colleges. They're not trying to reform shit. They're up to their eyeballs in corruption and lobbyist money.uziq wrote:
the democrats do, but they're the ones you keep ridiculing as being jealous? errrr
where’s biden going to fall on that policy spectrum? genuine question. he’s obviously not going to be a far-left radical.
Last edited by Jay (2020-07-10 17:11:14)
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
so trump’s current ranting is as unhinged and mendacious as we all said it was two pages ago? whilst you were saying ‘good messaging, many americans really care about these issues’.
Rank Sector Amount To Cands/Parties Dems Repubs To DEMS To REPUBSKEN-JENNINGS wrote:
It's weird that tech companies are your new favorite pet. You know tech companies would never support any sort of weatlh distribution downward, right? Just to be clear the next time you try to call Tom Steyer or Jeff Bezos a leftist.
Trial lawyers? Lol dude where do you get these? What articles are you reading? Generally curious
1 Finance/Insur/RealEst $942,324,754 $533,531,541 47.7% 52.0% $254,272,766
2 Other $646,528,890 $544,428,742 65.9% 33.5% $358,636,228
3 Ideology/Single-Issue $627,840,545 $349,192,979 60.2% 39.4% $210,278,565
4 Misc Business $409,141,196 $254,603,505 47.0% 52.6% $119,636,167
5 Health $276,868,889 $190,280,085 56.4% 43.2% $107,317,588
6 Communic/Electronics $243,744,744 $168,072,253 72.0% 27.4% $121,039,358
7 Lawyers & Lobbyists $229,498,437 $217,997,658 72.5% 27.0% $158,060,765
8 Labor $174,235,896 $70,336,709 85.6% 13.9% $60,186,396
9 Energy/Nat Resource $144,703,059 $96,663,130 22.5% 77.3% $21,764,507
10 Agribusiness $99,058,524 $80,130,446 29.7% 69.8% $23,823,952
11 Construction $87,560,411 $77,930,556 30.6% 68.9% $23,868,312
12 Transportation $74,166,087 $69,406,390 29.8% 69.8% $20,705,153
13 Defense $30,477,652 $30,292,902 41.0% 58.3% $12,422,426
https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/sectors.php
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
i suppose trump can’t go after biden for being corrupt because it’s very very bad optics for himself