Should there be billionaires?
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Governor Gavin Newsom
For the bottom 40% of families, California taxes are LOWER than states like Florida and Texas. In fact, 16 other states tax LOW-WAGE earners MORE than California taxes our HIGH-WAGE earners. The...
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Where this came from: https://itep.org/whopays-7th-edition/
What happens when a non-billionaire* has billionaire money.
*I know she is IS a billionaire, of course, but she is not the person that obtained that personal wealth. I believe that the mindset to obtain that level of wealthy often is counter to the actions she is doing.
*I know she is IS a billionaire, of course, but she is not the person that obtained that personal wealth. I believe that the mindset to obtain that level of wealthy often is counter to the actions she is doing.
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BS on the buying personal goods through a company when referring to small business owners. I work for every dime I get paid and get almost nothing for my personal benefit through my company. No one wants red flags on their tax returns which invites an IRS audit.
100%. But I don't think that is a good argument in support of the existence of billionaires. It does support the idea that no one should be a billionaire though.
Thought provoking video, thanks for sharing it!
I agree with an alternative minimum task, but I don't think we should start there.
I think 1-2 years public service is a good idea, but I don't think it should be military service. We already have a problem with imperialism and war in service of empire. Expanding that pool will only lead to bad things.
But 1-2 years after high school/college to do public works and infrastructure projects would pay dividends in civics lessons in addition to replacing aging and failing infrastructure.
Why not both.....I'm for mandatory service of some kind after high school and have been for 20+ years and it is more needed now than ever as this generation is the least equipped enter the world as any we have ever had. I know every generation says that but the data supports it. Gen Z is getting canned at historic levels particularlly within the first 6 months, bringing/requesting to bring parents to job interviews, and have worse academic markers than previous generations. The military seems like the logical path to me to run all of it.......large entity that is good by govt standards at least at logistics and that demo is who is getting called up should large scale war happen anyway.
No, I dont want mandatory military service for anyone.
We already have a massive imperialism problem and foreign adventurism issues.
Expanding the military pool is not going to help with this, it will make it worse. If we had a national history like switzerland, I would feel differently.
I dont think feeding more american lives into the war machine is prudent in any way, shape or form. For us or for the rest of the globe.
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No one is less war than I am. I've taken plenty of heat here for it but the military is more than war it's mechanics, nurses, engineers, a path to college tuition.
I don't disagree with the sentiment. I wish there was some form of civil service branch........work skills, tutoring, after school programs, there are limitless jobs people could do and this generation needs it more than ever. This is the kind of govt I would be for. Everyone would get something for it.
Which brings me to my next and more controversial point. Personal accountability has never been mentioned in this thread. If one is stuck as an adult and their only employment option is Walmart or Amazon I would like to hear their story. We can argue about what needs to be done to improve education but everyone gets one for free......what did one do with that? If one has a good work history at Walmart for a year why cant one get a better job........I'm the leading tin foil hatter on AI is coming for us all but that isn't an excuse for the last 10 years. We have a wealth disparity problem in this country very few disagree with that but we also have a personal responsibility problem. One shouldn't rack up 100K in Art History education debt and blame a billionaire for their plight......or fail a drug test at work......or not be willing to relocate for better employment.....or just not want to do certain jobs. There is more of that than there are billionaires and it is never addressed. Two things can be true.
But again......take every cent from all the billionaires in the US and we are still trillions in debt and adding to at a clip of 1.8T in over spending a year. You have then exhausted all the resources of the group that contribute the most dollars to your revenue and you haven't fixed anything. The problem is spending both in amount and how the dollars flow. Simply saying tax the rich is a lazy band aid on a gun shot wound.
It is, but there is a good argument for those things being part of a public works program instead that builds up the countries infrastructure and actually builds wealth instead of spending trillions and then literally blowing those funds up. This is one of the reason why China is posed to pass us up. Their infrastructure is much newer and better than ours. Many places have better infrastructure.
Believe it or not, advanced art history degrees can lead to very lucrative jobs (curators and logistics of art pieces and installations), so this example is probably not the one you want to go with. There has been an explosion in the cost of a degree, driven by how financial aid has worked. There are plenty of degrees that provide value to society that pay poorly by our capitalist system--mainly because they don't make the capitalists more money.
There are plenty of jobs you wouldn't want to do, nor would I. Not everyone has the means to make that change, this is not the america in the 1950s where one "just needed to work hard to get ahead" It was only partially true then and it is false today. The deck is stacked against the common person.
We lit $2 trillion on fire in Afghanistan just for the Taliban to walk back into power the minute the last C130 went airborn with our withdrawal. We have wasted so much money on our military and we are less safe than we were in 2001. That should be the easiest thing to cut. What if we spent half as much on our military (we would still be #1) and instead spent that on public works projects? Something that had a tangible impact?
Making money is fine, being weird and hoardy and greedy isn't
I think the government loses a lot of credibility by being inefficient and wasteful, but I also feel taxes should be paid by all and more if you benefit more from the government (like most billionaires do)
I think the government loses a lot of credibility by being inefficient and wasteful, but I also feel taxes should be paid by all and more if you benefit more from the government (like most billionaires do)
I don't much care for this as an argument.
I'm a vet and the VA now charges me $15 copay on meds because I can afford it. Hell, I refused two meds because I could get them from Mark Cuban for half the price of the VA copay.
Other than they should not charge a copay higher than the retail price, I don't mind them charging wealthier Vets. But, don't charge me $15 to help the system after I served then say that there is no need to tax billionaires as it isn't enough money.
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Stillwater Townie
Ranger
I wish there were no billionaires in government beginning with Trump. He was born already filthy rich. I fear billionaires will more likely make poor judgements and bad decisions for the country from knowing if things go wrong, they will most likely come out of it still quite rich, still with no need for them or their servants to look at price tags before buying anything.
So Art History.......let's talk about that. How many jobs do you think there are really? And if there are say 10 jobs as you describe in an area how many nurses, teachers, equipment operators, engineers, para legals, loan officers are there that are making more. It's a good example because you need to spend a ton of money to get a very advanced degree to go after only a handful of jobs. And it's not capitalism that's the problem it's that you don't need art history at all to have a functioning society. Is it nice......absolutely is it needed no. Pick your economic or government system same applies.......there will always be more nurses, teachers, etc etc because the world needs them. Pick one of those degrees.......or if you don't accept the debt and life you chose.....you can be anything you want but it's not our job as a society to take care of you.
There are plenty of jobs I don't want to do........but I've done way worse jobs than most people to get here and I'm not to good to do anything to be self sustaining. The psych major that says they can't find a job........use that degree to pass the middle/elementary science teaching cert and go to work. I know you can do that becuase I went through a job loss years back and studied one weekend and passed the test to be 6-12 science teacher as a fail safe if I didn't find anything.......for years I got unsolicited calls from districts offereing over the phone. I can guarantee you a job in the dallas area.....many have a signing bonus from 2.5-5K. I'm not saying today's economy is as robust as the post war boom of the 50s but if you are willing to work hard there is a path to success there are too many examples for this not to be true. I'm dealing with this with my own now......life guarded for the past several summers and is having to budget on his own for the first time in college.......I told him to start looking for better paying work as an able bodied young man and gave numerous suggestions, all of which I have done myself, and he doesn't want to do them. It's more fun to flirt with the chicks at the pool so we had to have the talk of thats fine you are a grown man but don't ask for money you won't work for. I don't want to do the job I have now.....but I worked hard to get here and it is lucrative so here I am. Google AI says there are 24 millionaires in the US.......also says there 21 million able bodied adults between 24-54 that are unemployed and not looking. Similar numbers of the rich who are the problem as there are to people who just refuse to work. If you started a society tomorrow I know which demo you would take. It ain't the 50's but the 50's didn't have 21M deadbeats either.
I completely agree that there is military waste and I lean more towards every war since WWII is as much our own fault as anyone else's......the military has also sent millions of well trained in every way people into the American work force. It aint all bad. We are on the same page with the service angle just looking from different directions. It could be both.
I'm not following how a VA copay relates to the fact the "tax the billionaires" logic is flawed. We have a spending problem in all aspects of our government. Whether you want to look at the way we handle things like the above, that we outspend the next several countries combined on defense, pick any of the pottery classes for equatorial emerging nations type crap, we spend money like there is an endless supply because well anytime they run out they just print more.
You could take all the wealth of all the billionaires.....not a percentage of income or unrealized gains......every cent. We are still trillions in debt and adding to said debt at a rate of almost 2T annually. We have a spending problem with both parties. Till that is fixed it doesn't matter who or how much tax you are going to end up at the same place.
There are a ton of videos going around about the LAX automated people mover......it cost 30 billion and took 7 years. Look up the massive projects done for less money in less time. The govt is the worst place to send money to.
JTOSU
Ranger
The tax the billionaires logic is not flawed. There are people that have more money than they and their 10,000 closest friends could ever spend. They "made it themselves" by utilizing public resources to their own benefit and minimizing pay for labor. They were able to do that pushing money into the poltiical system to make the government favor them. Live by the sword, die by the sword. If they can use the government, they can be taxed by the government if the people figure out how to use our power.
Lets call two types of goverment revenue X and Y. If you were to argue that govenment spending is so outrageous that it makes no sense to even bother with revenue X, would you not also argue that it is outrageous to bother with revenue Y?
Now, put tax on billionaires as X and VA copay as Y. Or make it the other way around. It doesn't matter.
I'm not saying there isn't room for tax reform. I'm saing the tax the billionaires logic is simplistic, lazy, and doesn't begin to address the cause of the problem. In your equation Y is so warped there is not enough X to go around. Fix Y.......hell at least read what Y is before you vote on it then ask for more for real services not just throw it away. The B folks we are talking about have a combined wealth of 8T. How much of that do you want cause all of it doesn't put a lasting dent in the problem. We have the money for your copay now.......it goes to 20 year wars we started with lies as justification or $30B two mile small railway systems for one airport. The border has been a divisive topic for decades now......you and I debated it during Biden to which you pointed to his border control bill 88% of the over 100B bill went to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan for defense purposes. That's not a border bill it's a military spending bill. If a bill that said......here is the plan, here is why it will work, the money will be spent in these places over this much time, and it cost 20B, we are going to raise said funds with this new/increased tax and it will be used for nothing else. then the taxes expire...... then lets talk. You know how you budget things......want a vacation this summer, car crap the bed you don't eat out as much till it's paid off......thinking of getting married and need a ring pick up some extra shifts. It's how it works. What we do is print more money making the problem worse and devaluing the currency for all. (I'm not trying to derail the thread with the border it's just an example I'm sure all of us a similar one from each side of the aisle as that is more the rule than the exception)
.Our tax system isn't perfect there are massive reforms that could make it more efficient and equitable.......but it does not matter one bit how much you take from the rich if you don't stop spending at the rates we are. All this take 5% from the billionaires and we will solve homelessness and have healthcare for all is just more lies from the people who got us in this spot. It will just be more waste and the next demo to be demonized will be millionaires. Saying "tax the rich" as a fix to the problem is no differnt than looking at a fire and saying it needs more gas our govenrment spends more than it takes in AND can responsibly print from essentially thin air.
Yes, lets talk about art history. So this is where the facts further diverge from your narrative. There are not droves of art history majors roaming around unemployed, bringing down our economy and driving up our national (and individual) debt. In 2023, the last year of data I have access to, there were 3,512 art history degrees at all levels (bachelors, masters, doctorates) nationwide. That makes it the 192nd most common degree. Curators make ~100k on average, art dealers make roughly $150k on average. Outside of profs who are generally paid terribly in most fields, it is not a bad line of work.
Furthermore, I see you are putting forward the old philistine arguement that certain degrees, non-science and non-business degrees specifically are not necessary and not have value. Its a ridiculous argument and is part of the reason why we are here. The percentage of people earning Liberal Arts degrees has been in decline for 30 years. Its not going up. Many K-12 educations have eliminated civics class, and we as a population are currently failing civics class via our body politic. We have more business people in government than ever before, especially in elected office. Is our government better or worse off than 30 years ago?
70% of people on food stamps work full time. How many of those people work for a company owned by a billionaire? I'll give you a hint, its a majority. Where is the ethics in that?
Of your 24-54 million figure, 57% of men list health, (physical, mental & behavioral) as the reason for not working and almost 2/3 are open to working in the future if their circumstances change. Another 25% don't work because their household income is over 100k, so have enough means to do so. Most women listed in that figure list caregiving as the main barrier to work. So much for people just being too lazy to work, huh?
We agree about the military spending, but unless we get down to the root issue its not going to be helpful. And the issue is not because people are getting too many degrees or degrees in liberal arts.
Its because we have allowed the greediest people on the planet to set the narrative on what determines success, who is qualified to exercise power and which people have value. Guess what? Most of them think a person's value is on how much money they are making them or how much entertainment they are providing. If there is one takeaway from the Epstein files it is that.
As George Carlin said, there's a big club, and you aint in it! None of us are. Its time we start acting like it and not make their arguments for them.
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