Capitalism threatens democracy; or, why inequality is a problem

[Barothmuk]

-snip-

Assuming I ignore the peasant minded worship of his masters who can apparently conjure wealth independent of reality what I found most weird about this post is how communal living is presented as some unimaginable nightmare.

 

I live in the first world, I'm not that poor and I have literally spent the entirety of my adult life living communally.

 

 

 

If we don't submit total political and economic power into the hands of a select few we'll have to share a bathroom

The horror.

[Darkpriest]

 

First of all overwhelming majority of billionaires are self made not inherited.

 

Yup. And I've got this here bridge you might be interested in.

 

 

http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ufe/legacy_url/410/BornOnThirdBase_2012.pdf

 

http://www.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/workingPapers/2013/WP181.pdf

 

http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/assets/documents/abs_mobility_summary.pdf

 

 

his does not imply that everything is inherited, in only proves the obvious, if you have better starting point, you will most likely retain it, due to better healthcare, education and thus access to capital

[Barothmuk]

I live in Poland. We were from 1945 till 1989 behind the "Iron Curtain". We lived in your dream, in soviet.

I didn't mention or express support for the soviet union so this little hissy fit was a waste of effort.

[Barothmuk]

And you see any criticism of your betters as a sign of one being a mass murderer in the making.

 

Guess the Soviet programming has yet to wear off.

[Gfted1]

Psst, BVC, can I has some trust fund? Just 1%? Can you hook a brother up?

[BruceVC]

 

And you see any criticism of your betters as a sign of one being a mass murderer in the making.

 

Guess the Soviet programming has yet to wear off.

Yes I'm soviet worshipping capitalist.

You're a joke on top of everything else.

 

Baro is right sharp_one , Soviet programming can take generations to go away

 

You may not even realize it ?

[redneckdevil]

So if Sharp is wrong, what type of govt is there to enforce the equality of wealth and to keep it going? Who's gonna enforce and regulate when someone rises above everyone's station thru either hardwork and/or ideas and bring them back down to equality of wealth?

 

"Whoever told you life was fair? Look around everywhere, the cruelty of nature is displayed".

Edited January 21, 2017 by redneckdevil

[Meshugger]

I wonder if anyone preaching for harder inheritance-tax, death-tax or alike has ever inherited anything dear to them. Like your grandparents house, or some other smaller property, only having to sell it in order to pay for the taxes. Do those people actually stare happily at the sales contract as they realize that they are distributing their means to the state?

[Meshugger]

Anyhow, income equality works as long as there is a strong middle class and social mobility also, all while the system works and seems to be justified by the whole. 

[Chippy]

I wonder if anyone preaching for harder inheritance-tax, death-tax or alike has ever inherited anything dear to them. Like your grandparents house, or some other smaller property, only having to sell it in order to pay for the taxes. Do those people actually stare happily at the sales contract as they realize that they are distributing their means to the state?

I expect most of them disagree with the democratic right of a generation being able to work, sacrifice, and raise the standard of living for their next generation with assets they leave behind. So of course the next generation become privileged and spoiled, so their wealth needs to be distributed to those born without a silver spoon in their gob.

 

I also expect that they agree with a person loosing all of their assets to pay for their old age, instead of the actual cost to the governement for the time they're in care.

[ShadySands]

I wonder if anyone preaching for harder inheritance-tax, death-tax or alike has ever inherited anything dear to them. Like your grandparents house, or some other smaller property, only having to sell it in order to pay for the taxes. Do those people actually stare happily at the sales contract as they realize that they are distributing their means to the state?

 

For 2017, the estate and gift tax exemption is $5.49 million per individual, up from $5.45 million in 2016. That means an individual can leave $5.49 million to heirs and pay no federal estate or gift tax. A married couple will be able to shield just shy of $11 million ($10.98 million) from federal estate and gift taxes. 

Your grandparents must have a really nice house

 

Yes, I'm for the estate tax and yes, I have had to deal with selling things after people left them but not because of any tax

[Meshugger]

 

I wonder if anyone preaching for harder inheritance-tax, death-tax or alike has ever inherited anything dear to them. Like your grandparents house, or some other smaller property, only having to sell it in order to pay for the taxes. Do those people actually stare happily at the sales contract as they realize that they are distributing their means to the state?

 

For 2017, the estate and gift tax exemption is $5.49 million per individual, up from $5.45 million in 2016. That means an individual can leave $5.49 million to heirs and pay no federal estate or gift tax. A married couple will be able to shield just shy of $11 million ($10.98 million) from federal estate and gift taxes. 

Your grandparents must have a really nice house

 

Yes, I'm for the estate tax and yes, I have had to deal with selling things after people left them but not because of any tax

 

 

I do not live in the US.

 

Think more of paying 30% for a house hardly worth 100k.

[kirottu]

Finlands inheritance tax is quite more severe. There's even the possibility, in some rare cases, that you have to pay the tax before you get the actual inheritance, which can really **** you over.

[213374U]

I expect most of them disagree with the democratic right of a generation being able to work, sacrifice, and raise the standard of living for their next generation with assets they leave behind. So of course the next generation become privileged and spoiled, so their wealth needs to be distributed to those born without a silver spoon in their gob.

Ah, such a simple, beautiful dream.

 

You know it's time to wake up and smell the coffee when even technocrats acknowledge the problem, though:

 

[ShadySands]

Yeah, I know a lot of you guys don't live in the US but getting rid of the estate tax has been going around here again

[Malcador]

Blessed is the slave that learns to love the lash

[Ben No.3]

It's time for a more radical and controversial proposition I don't necessarily support but is still fun to talk about: the abolition of private property.

 

Mind you, private property, not personal property. So really, anything that isn't considered a mean of production remains yours.

 

Oh, and it will be controlled by the people not the state, with government being merely a administrative body. Important one, as history has shown.

[Chippy]

 

I expect most of them disagree with the democratic right of a generation being able to work, sacrifice, and raise the standard of living for their next generation with assets they leave behind. So of course the next generation become privileged and spoiled, so their wealth needs to be distributed to those born without a silver spoon in their gob.

Ah, such a simple, beautiful dream.

 

You know it's time to wake up and smell the coffee when even technocrats acknowledge the problem, though:

 

 

I can't sit through an hours worth of debate, and I'm never really sure where you stand on most issues, although you strike me as the militant SJW type.  So I'll respond to what Ben said in another thread about people voting for Trump as wanting to shake things up, and attempt to tie that to Brexit and this thread.

 

Most of my Irish family died in WW2; my grandfather didn't as he wasn't drafted due to both of his legs bing smashed in a road traffic accident. He worked until he was 70 as a labourer, then died in a hospital from gangrene in his legs because the hospital didn't treat him.  Then his assets got taken (after a lifetime of saving for his kids) to pay for my grandmothers care. She died soon after because her carers were stealing the food and drink we brought her, and we were told her absent mindedness was dementia - it was actually dehydration which actually caused her to fall and led to her death.

 

If my grandparents assests had gone in part to my aunt, she wouldn't have died either. She worked 100+ hours a week to keep her job in immigration, she was treated like a servant by the immigrants who thought it was great fun to call her out to replace a light bulb, or empty the dishwasher. If she didn't do it she was afraid they'd call her racist and she's loose her job. While most those immigrants were living in £1 - £5m houses, she had only enough money to rent a 12' square garage - which she was so ashamed of she didn't tell us her address, so when she had a heart attack we got there too late.

 

None of that would have happened if she was given a percentage of what my grandparents worked for over their 100 combined years of paying every tax in the book, and national insurance.

 

And I'm not even gonna go into the history of my gypsy family, or my Sicilian family murdered by organised crime and mostly drowning in the sea as they fled to Tunisia before having all of their assets stolen by that government. I because I know you SJW types dont "care" or you think it's white people's "turn" since now that we're feeling the effects of "equality" (after all we knew was privilige) it feels like discrimination.

So (and I'm talking to the more reasonable SJW types here like Bruce and Ben), if you wanted to know where the Brexit and Trump 'white people's backlash' came from, I'd put forward that it was mostly from families like mine.

[HoonDing]

i cry evertiem

 

[Chippy]

i cry evertiem

 

Took me a while to catch on. Subtle compared to the usual stuff though.

[Ben No.3]

 

 

I expect most of them disagree with the democratic right of a generation being able to work, sacrifice, and raise the standard of living for their next generation with assets they leave behind. So of course the next generation become privileged and spoiled, so their wealth needs to be distributed to those born without a silver spoon in their gob.

Ah, such a simple, beautiful dream.

 

You know it's time to wake up and smell the coffee when even technocrats acknowledge the problem, though:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR-9u_UzgIU

I can't sit through an hours worth of debate, and I'm never really sure where you stand on most issues, although you strike me as the militant SJW type. So I'll respond to what Ben said in another thread about people voting for Trump as wanting to shake things up, and attempt to tie that to Brexit and this thread.

 

Most of my Irish family died in WW2; my grandfather didn't as he wasn't drafted due to both of his legs bing smashed in a road traffic accident. He worked until he was 70 as a labourer, then died in a hospital from gangrene in his legs because the hospital didn't treat him. Then his assets got taken (after a lifetime of saving for his kids) to pay for my grandmothers care. She died soon after because her carers were stealing the food and drink we brought her, and we were told her absent mindedness was dementia - it was actually dehydration which actually caused her to fall and led to her death.

 

If my grandparents assests had gone in part to my aunt, she wouldn't have died either. She worked 100+ hours a week to keep her job in immigration, she was treated like a servant by the immigrants who thought it was great fun to call her out to replace a light bulb, or empty the dishwasher. If she didn't do it she was afraid they'd call her racist and she's loose her job. While most those immigrants were living in £1 - £5m houses, she had only enough money to rent a 12' square garage - which she was so ashamed of she didn't tell us her address, so when she had a heart attack we got there too late.

 

None of that would have happened if she was given a percentage of what my grandparents worked for over their 100 combined years of paying every tax in the book, and national insurance.

 

And I'm not even gonna go into the history of my gypsy family, or my Sicilian family murdered by organised crime and mostly drowning in the sea as they fled to Tunisia before having all of their assets stolen by that government. I because I know you SJW types dont "care" or you think it's white people's "turn" since now that we're feeling the effects of "equality" (after all we knew was privilige) it feels like discrimination.

So (and I'm talking to the more reasonable SJW types here like Bruce and Ben), if you wanted to know where the Brexit and Trump 'white people's backlash' came from, I'd put forward that it was mostly from families like mine.

Here's the thing, I'm not a SJW, I'm a socialist. Equality of everyone is at the heart of my beliefs.

 

And, the story you are telling seems like a class, not a race problem, to be honest. Maybe a bit disguised as a race problem, but in essence it's a class thing.

[213374U]

I can't sit through an hours worth of debate, and I'm never really sure where you stand on most issues, although you strike me as the militant SJW type.

A swing -- and a miss.

 

I'm all for your family inheriting their forebears' assets and the state getting zippo. Problem is people nowadays are increasingly likely to be worse off than their parents were through no fault of their own... unless they are one percenters, evidently. So no more working 9 to 5 to buy a house to leave your kids -- that dream's dead, Jim. More like, work your ass off to make a miserable living, die in some hole, and leave debt to your children. That's where the increasing inequality is leading us. And when the likes of Christine Lagarde are starting to get worried about the side effects, you know ****'s gonna hit the fan.

 

It's baffling, really. People get really bad rashes about this because "muh wealth redistribution". What do you think is happening but wealth being redistributed upwards?

 

If not being perfectly happy with the results of the Thatcherite strategy of socializing losses and privatizing profits makes me a "militant SJW", then so be it. Used to be called simply angry at being conned, but these days we need these lame shorthands for everything, it seems.

[Ben No.3]

You've done well. Yet some of your opinions are breathtakingly wrong. But you've done well. Greeting to your sister.

[Chippy]

 

I can't sit through an hours worth of debate, and I'm never really sure where you stand on most issues, although you strike me as the militant SJW type.

A swing -- and a miss.

 

 

So you conveniently sit back and take shots at people on these boards without ever really actually committing to a political view.  Months ago on the refugee crisis thread you placed a kid in Sweden/Germany doing racist graffiti within the same political paradigm as Abu Hamza (which is why I didn't respond to you then, and can't really be bothered to continue much now),  when called out by another member to state a political leaning, you simply responded with "I just try and treat everyone well and hope nobody wants me dead" or something to that effect - which is great, except when your dealing with people like Abu Hamza (and I've read his risk assessment), and whenever someone says something you don't like, you just resort to the pot-shots again.

 

Maybe I should have said Passive Aggressive Social Critic Armchair Keyboard Warrior?. Either way, good luck if you ever meet Abu Hamza or his followers, because people like that will make their mind up on where you stand pretty quick.

[213374U]

So you conveniently sit back and take shots at people on these boards without ever really actually committing to a political view.  Months ago on the refugee crisis thread you placed a kid in Sweden/Germany doing racist graffiti within the same political paradigm as Abu Hamza (which is why I didn't respond to you then, and can't really be bothered to continue much now),  when called out by another member to state a political leaning, you simply responded with "I just try and treat everyone well and hope nobody wants me dead" or something to that effect - which is great, except when your dealing with people like Abu Hamza (and I've read his risk assessment), and whenever someone says something you don't like, you just resort to the pot-shots again.

 

Maybe I should have said Passive Aggressive Social Critic Armchair Keyboard Warrior?. Either way, good luck if you ever meet Abu Hamza or his followers, because people like that will make their mind up on where you stand pretty quick.

 

Ah. So not only are your hyperbolic tales boring as watching paint dry, on top of a penchant for acting high and mighty and demanding that others conform your political sensibilities -- you also have a gift for misrepresentation! Or a really ****ty memory. This is the "grafitti":

 

 

And you were crying bloody murder because hate speech laws were cramping little poor PEGIDA boy's style. Totally unfair! It's art I tell's ya!

 

Yeah. You didn't answer because the comparison was outlandish. Not at all because I called you on your bull**** claims that complaining about immigration in Sweden will land you in jail, no sirree.

 

Sorry, was I supposed to be scared by the insinuation that Abu Hamza or the likes of him will suddenly jump out of a smoke cloud and visit grievous harm upon me? Appreciate the sentiment mate, but in the unlikely event that happens, I can take care of myself.

Edited January 21, 2017 by 213374U