3 minutes ago, >kkj said:

How does that fit into your "you have to work yourself to get somewhere"-logic? Didn't you then do nothing except been born in the right family?

My logic is simple: you are entitled to do what you want with your wealth that you earned. That includes passing it down. However, that still means someone worked to earn that wealth. It's only your hang up. Not mine.

Just to be clear @BigPoppaPalpatine

I sit in an office and hand out instructions to others. This isnt jealousy.

45 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Just to be clear @BigPoppaPalpatine

I sit in an office and hand out instructions to others. This isnt jealousy.

Just to be clear, I'm dealing with multiple people, so not everything was pointed at you. However, I don't count it as altruism when you try to steal from someone because you don't think they need it.

Hahaha, so taxing for welfare is stealing whilst dodging taxes is not stealing.

Got it

I'm tapping out here

24 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Hahaha, so taxing for welfare is stealing whilst dodging taxes is not stealing.

Got it

Lol. Dodging taxes means what exactly? If you invest heavily in the country, then you pay less. If you take loses, you pay less. Notice how you "tap out" now.

2 hours ago, BigPoppaPalpatine said:

“Wealthy surbanites" and "single mothers"... you discount someone going to a good college as wealthy, and they couldn't have possibly worked hard to get there. It's this lie that no one in the upper class earned their place. Let's take someone who's parents earned wealth. If they earned that wealth, then they should pass it on as they see fit. You have no right to it. You have to create this victimhood to justify your ideals.

It’s not that many of these people don’t work hard. It’s that working hard is insufficient. To achieve a certain level of wealth, you’re not only required to work hard, you need luck and you need to have been born into the right resources.

But it should be more analytical than emotional, and neither of us really know anything about people we just met on the internet anyway.

Think of our economy like a hydroelectric dam. The water is money. The “high ground” is people who live paycheck to paycheck, covering multiple jobs. That’s high potential energy, they’re spending most of what they earn fairly quickly. At the bottom of the dam you have the ultra wealthy. This is where the money pools, and while it might circulate to an extent as it’s invested, virtually none of it is getting all the way back to the top.

If you aren’t interested in how Amazon needed a functional society with roads, laws and many internet connections to thrive, if you aren’t interested in it being possible for a certain income bracket to enjoy a truly lavish lifestyle while still being heavily taxed, maybe take this angle.

Heck with the feelings of the richest Americans.

Heck with the feelings of the poorest.

If enough of that money doesn’t make it back above the dam, the power output will suffer.

27 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

It’s not that many of these people don’t work hard. It’s that working hard is insufficient. To achieve a certain level of wealth, you’re not only required to work hard, you need luck and you need to have been born into the right resources.

But it should be more analytical than emotional, and neither of us really know anything about people we just met on the internet anyway.

Think of our economy like a hydroelectric dam. The water is money. The “high ground” is people who live paycheck to paycheck, covering multiple jobs. That’s high potential energy, they’re spending most of what they earn fairly quickly. At the bottom of the dam you have the ultra wealthy. This is where the money pools, and while it might circulate to an extent as it’s invested, virtually none of it is getting all the way back to the top.

If you aren’t interested in how Amazon needed a functional society with roads, laws and many internet connections to thrive, if you aren’t interested in it being possible for a certain income bracket to enjoy a truly lavish lifestyle while still being heavily taxed, maybe take this angle.

Heck with the feelings of the richest Americans.

Heck with the feelings of the poorest.

If enough of that money doesn’t make it back above the dam, the power output will suffer.

Except this is not the case. The money gets reinvested. Companies expand or get created by these investments. This employs more people. Using Amazon as an example... the company gets into adjacent markets. You go from a bookstore, to an online market, to shipping, to groceries, to entertainment... each move expanding their employment.

23 hours ago, Tayloraj100 said:

I dispute this idea. An entrepreneur with the right product can create a market where none existed before, and some resources are things like information or creativity. Once you sell people Playstations you can create games to sell out of nearly nothing more than creativity and labor that pull in more money than blockbuster movies. And then you can sell people a Playstation 2, which they don’t need and didn’t want before you made it. Lots of people these days are making money selling things that don’t even physically exist, and some (shudder) are making money posting videos of themselves on YouTube, which didn’t even exist 16 years ago. Look, I can concede that there’s stuff to criticize even in my above examples (****, Huxley’s Brave New World critiqued it with its “Centrifugal Bumplepuppy”), but capitalism is not going to run out of stuff to sell you.

You can create infinite variations of products, when I say new markets, I mean new consumers to sell to. Capitalism cannot survive without ever expanding access to resources, including an expanding consumer base. Creating new products or services is a way of expanding individual market share- for example, PS4 exclusive titles made more people who purchase videogames buy PS4s instead of Xbox's or gaming PCs- and the PS4 might have made someone buy videogame products instead of a bicycle or an inflatable pool; but wage laborers can only spend the money they're given.

13 minutes ago, BigPoppaPalpatine said:

Except this is not the case. The money gets reinvested. Companies expand or get created by these investments. This employs more people. Using Amazon as an example... the company gets into adjacent markets. You go from a bookstore, to an online market, to shipping, to groceries, to entertainment... each move expanding their employment.

Is this increasing employment, or simply reallocating workers to lower paying jobs at amazon, by increasing amazon's market share? Unemployment is necessary under capitalism. Without workers being replaceable, the power dynamic that puts a company in a position of power would be impossible to maintain.

Amazon expanding its market share and entering new markets was a result of them being able to cut costs. Part of those costs were related to treating employees above the bare minimum to reproduce the laborers required to replicate itself.

3 hours ago, BigPoppaPalpatine said:

Yes, they are worth that much more. Again, Amazon is a bookstore before Jeff Bezos, and now is a large corporation employing hundreds of thousands. Do you think the average worker makes that happen? No. Amazon would continue doing what it always did.

As for @Cpt ObVus , you are using stereotypes to prove your point. You are talking about TPS reports and memos... which what, you watched Office Space? Yep, that's proof right there. Take manufacturing any widget. A guy in an office designs a widget. Another guy an office creates an assembly plan to build that widget. A worker gets simplified instructions telling him/her what to do. The guys in the office hope the worker can follow those instructions. Are there specialized workers that do complicated assembly processes? Sure. But most are just following a step by step process laid out for them.

"Wealthy surbanites" and "single mothers"... you discount someone going to a good college as wealthy, and they couldn't have possibly worked hard to get there. It's this lie that no one in the upper class earned their place. Let's take someone who's parents earned wealth. If they earned that wealth, then they should pass it on as they see fit. You have no right to it. You have to create this victimhood to justify your ideals.

It's jealousy. Just be honest for once.

But it’s not. I’m a product of relative privilege. I have been through periods of relative poverty. Today I want for nothing. I’m comfortable. My attitude toward money is that I have plenty. I don’t actually want any more than I have. I want others to have more than they have, and I want to live in a society which makes this a priority, rather than allowing the obscenely rich to become even more obscenely rich, and not repaying the society that enables them to make their mega-fortunes.

I understand that you think it must be jealousy, because like so many today, you don’t seem to care about people who were born into less fortunate circumstances than you were. The idea of actually looking at the meager share of wealth and opportunity that some were given, and saying, “Man, that sucks. Here, have some of mine,” is alien to you. That’s genuinely sad to me. And I’m not some ascetic, sitting and meditating on the plight of the poor and working in soup kitchens. Maybe I should be. But I’m just a middle-class guy who recognizes how lucky he is, and how lucky he might not have been.

//

As to the relative worth of your average CEO to your average worker: I simply don’t agree with you. And I have worked in offices. I have worked in factories. I have worked in restaurants. I’ve worked retail. I’ve worked in human services. I’ve seen it from all angles. The simple fact is that anyone who works anything close to a full time job should be able to bring home a paycheck that pays the bills, and have access to health care and housing and reasonable government services, and the ability to have modest discretionary spending and retirement savings.

And the guys working in offices probably should be paid somewhat more (skilled v. unskilled labor and all), but they really aren’t worth hundreds of times more than their employees. I know. I’ve been on that side of things. Until wealth is distributed more evenly, the living wage and medical care and housing I mentioned will not be available to everyone.

“When I was poor and complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I'm rich and I complain about inequality they say I'm a hypocrite. I'm beginning to think they just don't want to talk about inequality.”

29 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

The idea of actually looking at the meager share of wealth and opportunity that some were given, and saying, “Man, that sucks. Here, have some of mine,” is alien to you.

"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them."

2 minutes ago, Bravo Null said:

"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them."

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of god"

(The "Eye of the Needle" has been claimed to be a gate in Jerusalem , which opened after the main gate was closed at night. A camel could not pass through the smaller gate unless it was stooped and had its baggage removed. The story has been put forth since at least the 15th century and possibly as far back as the 9th century. However, there is no widely accepted evidence for the existence of such a gate. ^{[7] [8]} )

If you want to go the biblical route, all rich people are going to **** unless they lose their wealth. So I think you should argue for confiscating their wealth if you want to save those poor billionaire souls.

But Jesus also has such gems as "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obet Christ."

So maybe some cute little sayings from a bronze age book aren't really relevant here.

Forcing someone to give up their money or property doesn’t make them (or you) generous.

43 minutes ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obet Christ."

"Masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that He who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with Him." Then there's this, which basically means 'Treat your slaves well.' That's the important part.

6 minutes ago, Bravo Null said:

"Masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that He who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with Him." Then there's this, which basically means 'Treat your slaves well.' That's the important part.

The main problem with slavery wasn't that slave masters weren't good masters. The problem with slavery, you might already know, is the slavery.

2 hours ago, Bravo Null said:

"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them."

Right on. I’m willing to do my part. If the government needs more tax money from me to fund the programs we’re talking about that will keep people safe and strong and happy, I will pay. Though it would be a lot more profitable to hold the truly wealthy accountable for their share of the tax burden first.

I’m willing to give up another 10%, but not while Bezos and Trump pay nothing (not that I think Trump actually has much of the money he says he does, but you can’t go around talking about how rich you are and then pay $750 per year in taxes).

8 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Right on. I’m willing to do my part. If the government needs more tax money from me to fund the programs we’re talking about that will keep people safe and strong and happy, I will pay. Though it would be a lot more profitable to hold the truly wealthy accountable for their share of the tax burden first.

I’m willing to give up another 10%, but not while Bezos and Trump pay nothing (not that I think Trump actually has much of the money he says he does, but you can’t go around talking about how rich you are and then pay $750 per year in taxes).

Sigh. Trump paid. He paid more than the $750 you claimed. The number you quoted is what he owed. Please actually know something before speaking like you gave facts.

1 hour ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

The main problem with slavery wasn't that slave masters weren't good masters. The problem with slavery, you might already know, is the slavery.

Both stacked, but yeah.

3 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

I understand that you think it must be jealousy, because like so many today, you don’t seem to care about people who were born into less fortunate circumstances than you were. The idea of actually looking at the meager share of wealth and opportunity that some were given, and saying, “Man, that sucks. Here, have some of mine,” is alien to you. That’s genuinely sad to me.

And there it is. You think that your ideals make you morally superior to others. That's why you label Trump a dictator. You view everyone that disagrees with you as evil. And you wonder why Americans don't want to hear about socialism? Maybe if you weren't trying to force your morality on others, they might listen to you.

Can we stop implying people are morally impure for disagreeing about economic policy?

You've both done it.

It also turns out telling someone what their uNetHicAL uLTeRiOr MoTIve aCtUaLLy iS doesn't really lead to better understanding.

BigPoppaPalpatine might be making minimum wage, going to the food bank and using a library computer. Not selfish for his beliefs.

ObVus might be a wealthy real estate mogul staring out over the skyline from his penthouse, thinking about vacation properties. Not jealous of the elites.

Even if you weren't on the internet, an argument that hinges on telling someone else what their motives are is usually a poor argument.

Be excellent to each other.

19 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Can we stop implying people are morally impure for disagreeing about economic policy?

You've both done it.

It also turns out telling someone what their uNetHicAL uLTeRiOr MoTIve aCtUaLLy iS doesn't really lead to better understanding.

BigPoppaPalpatine might be making minimum wage, going to the food bank and using a library computer. Not selfish for his beliefs.

ObVus might be a wealthy real estate mogul staring out over the skyline from his penthouse, thinking about vacation properties. Not jealous of the elites.

Even if you weren't on the internet, an argument that hinges on telling someone else what their motives are is usually a poor argument.

Be excellent to each other.

The problem is that this is what the argument for socialism has been based on in this thread from the beginning. Corporations are greedy, and others know better than them what do to with their money. My counter is that wanting their money is jealousy. There is no way to untwine these personal motives if one side just says "you need to do this to help people because otherwise you are greedy".

22 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Can we stop implying people are morally impure for disagreeing about economic policy?

You've both done it.

It also turns out telling someone what their uNetHicAL uLTeRiOr MoTIve aCtUaLLy iS doesn't really lead to better understanding.

BigPoppaPalpatine might be making minimum wage, going to the food bank and using a library computer. Not selfish for his beliefs.

ObVus might be a wealthy real estate mogul staring out over the skyline from his penthouse, thinking about vacation properties. Not jealous of the elites.

Even if you weren't on the internet, an argument that hinges on telling someone else what their motives are is usually a poor argument.

Be excellent to each other.

Man, I’m trying. I think the guy’s trying to have an actual exchange of ideas, then every time I make a decent point or as any kind of direct question, he starts making insults and wild accusations.

I don’t think he actually wants a real discussion.

Just now, BigPoppaPalpatine said:

The problem is that this is what the argument for socialism has been based on in this thread from the beginning. Corporations are greedy, and others know better than them what do to with their money. My counter is that wanting their money is jealousy. There is no way to untwine these personal motives if one side just says "you need to do this to help people because otherwise you are greedy".

I think it's a mistake to call corporations greedy as well.

It's like calling a virus greedy. Growth, regardless of the consequence to other entities, is the point.

I won't be mad at the flu, but I'll still get a vaccine.