What’s with the obsession for each side to promise a big check for everyone? Surely the money is better spent on public services rather than bribery…
He’s not going to do it once he gets into office, these posts are just made to keep people trusting in two party system where both parties are against socialism and for bombing a new middle east country
It’s not going to happen and by the time americans realize it they’ll be distracted by invasion of bolivia and accepting that you can’t punish people for lying by ousting them like said bolivia
No. I never agree with anyone using engagement bait titles.
And yet you engaged
I disagree, Bernie doesn’t go far enough. All large corporations are to be nationalised, and ran under workers control.
All rent collectors are to be stripped from they’re plunder and are to attend weekly struggle sessions with previous renters.
And most importantly, we overthrow the dictatorship of the capitalist class and replace it with our own proletariat dictatorship of the working class under democratic centralism.
I think 99% of people agree with this - that Bernie Sanders wants to do it. Do they support it, though?
Eh, it’s a compromise, but I can live with it.
It’s so crazy to me that people eat stuff like this up. Pages like this make BANK slapping some text on a bunch of image while adding absolutely nothing to the conversation.
Everything they make exists not to make a difference but to drive page views to their stupid accounts. It’s so, so transparent.
And in this house, we hate all ads
Yes.
Only 5%? Mine is approaching 30% and I can’t afford shit.
Also sending out checks is fucking stupid. Just lower our taxes.
It’s 5% of wealth, not income. But still, anything short of 100% will not stop the parasites. But its a nice gesture, if nothing else
But its a nice gesture, if nothing else
Not particularly. 5% is nothing to them.
No, it should be 10% at least.
We could tax a billionaire 95% of their wealth, and they would still have more money than you or I could reasonably spend in a lifetime.
Oh yeah, I’m a big proponent of no more billionaires. But it appears to a lot of average people smaller amounts are more palpable because they think they’ll ever be that rich.
Somebody’s Facebook sphincter-scrapings aren’t a very good source. Here’s an article on the subject: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5764783-bernie-sanders-ro-khanna-tax-billionaires/
Now that’s a band name: sphincter scrapings
It shall be thrash metal
K-pop
K-thrash
K-rap
A boy band
At that age, it’s splash-metal
I have the same amount of power to make this happen as Bernie Sanders has.
I hate using this term because I don’t think he’s stupid but the phrase is “useful idiot”
If you think of the machine that is politics he serves a purpose. Allowing him to vocalize this message essentially is a pressure release valve. His existence and beliefs although not wrong are keeping more aggressive views at bay. He’s basically keeping a segment of the population docile by making them think “he speaks for me. I don’t have to do anything”
Hate to say it but AOC as well. They’re part of the machinery. They are not disruptors at all.
They keep the left in the Democratic Party so that a viable alternative doesn’t form.
You seem to be advocating that no one American even talks about taxing the wealthy so that there isn’t a “pressure relief valve”?!
In the world of shit that is American politics right now, your solution, out of all the things that possibly change, is to silence anyone suggesting that just maybe there’s a better way?
THIS?! This is what you would change? Remove even the discussion of anything even slightly left of the Clintons?!
Are you insane? Are you Nancy Pelosi? Are you JD Vance?
Do you hate the Democratic party so much that you want to remove all traces of progressive politics from it?
I’ve got news for you. The water is boiling and the lobster isn’t climbing out. Putting the lid on and turning up the heat isn’t going to work. Throwing younger lobsters in the pot isn’t going to work. And silencing the only people talking about turning the heat down isn’t going to fucking help.
Americans need him but more agressive
Disagree. Mamdami is a good example. They just need someone new and fresh without baggage. You go back far enough you will find inconsistencies in any politician. A fresh face benefits all.
Why America only wants geriatrics is beyond me.
They don’t want geriatrics, but being an incumbent comes with a massive fund raising and name recognition boost. Making it a huge accomplishment to break into the debate. AOC was a major upset for a reason when she took office. That was not a small accomplishment.
I’ll pass on the check and stick with student loan forgiveness, Medicare for all, well funded public schools, housing for the homeless, etc…
Of course but I go further and want to outlaw anyone to “earn” a billion dollars. Think wealth should be capped at 100 million everything after that seize and used for the greater good.
And if a corporation gains a value cap of billion it is broken the fuck up into smaller companies.
$100m is still far more than one person could ever need. Why draw an arbitrary line at all? Why not use what’s required to have a fair society as the starting point, and let the inability to accumulate such absurd levels of wealth derive naturally from that?
capping at a hard number doesn’t make sense when 100 million today means something different tomorrow. it should be relative to the cost of living. Anything over 200x cost of living could be considered not needed. But Republicans can’t do math so back to square 1.
I agree but first we need to start somewhere. To do what you are suggesting we need to destroy all billionaires and capitalism. That will take violence that the left just cant grasp unfortunately.
I also agree, but in order to outlaw anyone “earning” a billion dollars we would also still need to destroy all billionaires and capitalism. It seems the only way we can change this will take violence that the left just cant grasp unfortunately.
Yea. When you’re so rich you could just not work a single other day in your life and still spend 10x a normal working class human would spend is where I’d cut it and make them pay out their asses.
Why even have money its kind of a klunky bullshit abstraction
I get currency as a fundamental concept, like I don’t want to spend all day figuring out how many pints of goat’s milk will power my car for X miles, but I agree that it’s become far too abstract to be tenable
That’s not how shit worked before money the need for precise tracking rather than general damn erins been carrying the whole neighborhood pretty hard and what has Steve even for anybody lately and how do I get Hector back for that cup of flour he spotted me in a way that will make him smile type thoughts a society that runs on making things work or making people happy runs better than a society that deliberately grinds to a halt every five seconds based on petty obsessive grievance adjacent bullshit believe it or not
arbitrary
There would be nothing arbitrary if we simply used a multiplier against the poverty line! If that number changes, then the cap changes; simple enough.
100 million? Fuck that. 10 million tops.
100 million is a bit low. There are privately held companies worth more than that because of infrustructure cost alone.
To bad to goddamn bad 100 million is being generous.
I love that you’re just standing on this number staunchly lol.
100 million is already an absurd amount of money that allows one to live out their entire life throwing money at all their whims without ever worrying about running out. The only way to go broke is by seeking out ways to spend it all.
The fact that billionaires exist is insane.
I feel like we’re conflating individual, personal wealth with corporate valuations in this thread. Yeah, 100 million is way more than enough for a single person obviously, but for a corporation it’s tough to even say what that amount means.
If we’re still even doing corporations, I feel they should be evaluated and tracked by the proper authorities (aka, we the people) and given the appropriate treatment based on what that entity existing even entails.
If we decide your corporation is a net benefit to society, maybe we’ll relax things a bit. If you give up top-down hierarchy, turn your org over to the workers, and provide something that enhances the public good, maybe we let you cook, ya know? But know that the people are always watching and reporting in.
Conversely, if we decide your little corporate fiefdom is a leech, yeah, we’re going to keep you on a short fuckin leash, you’ll be under the microscope and progressively taxed and picked apart until that entity dies, unless and until you clean up your act and keep it clean long enough - then you get to play with the big dogs that are doing it right and allowed to exist and even thrive.
I’d rather see no corporations at all, at least not in their current form, but this doesn’t seem too bad as an intermediate step on the way there.
Then it needs to be run as a public service since it relies on the public infrastructure, run and provided at cost just like the rest of the government runs.
If you want communism then just say that instead you of playing number games.
The issue with the 100 million figure is that it’s not a large amount of capital. It’s sounds like a lot because we’re all wage slaves.
Thinking our problems are solved by outlawing our master’s ownership of the castle is how we expose ourselves as fools.
The castle isn’t the problem, it’s that average wages should be far far greater. A six figure income should be the minimum wage of the educated.
you put earn in quotes because i think you know they dont usually earn a billion. so what exactly are you trying to stop?
He’s putting it in quotes because no one has ever earned a billion dollars, because it’s not possible for a person to do one billion dollars worth of labor. If they have accumulated a billion dollars (or a billion dollars in assets), they’ve done it by taking it from others.
Exactly and I was being kind leaving them with 100 million. Beyond that I want to bring out the gulitions. Because hoarding that much wealth is a mental disorder with no cure. These fuckers will never get enough.
gulitions
That’s overkill. Hunter-killer squadrons of unarmed gulls would suffice.
thats what i said… i feel like Data from Goonies
Wealth hoarding and exploitation
to be clear - i agree something needs to be done but nobody can define specifically what to do. how do you define it? what exactly are you taxing? how are you taxing it?
my argument, is that its a hard problem. bernie sanders is the only person i see coming up with ideas.
i can’t. its easy to say “billionaires must be stopped” but how? specifically, exactly what.
to give an example. what is wealth hoarding? how do you define it so it doesnt cover savings accout or retirement?
If your retirement account has $100,000,000 in it, it needs to be taxed. Tax capital gains income like regular income and put some progressively higher tax brackets back, a progressive wealth tax, progressive taxes for homes worth more than a certain amount, and higher rates for second, third, etc homes, and hell, maybe even tax unrealized gains over a certain amount.
Private property. That’s literally the definition. Abolish private property. Problem solved
100 million
You fuckin class traitor, you should ldar right now. Fucj you
Family farms are now illegal.
I don’t know… why is medical care so expensive in the first place? Why are teachers wages so low? Why is there such a huge wealth disparity?
Seems like these are systematic problems which need to be solved with a full system restructuring rather than throwing money at it. Not to dunk on Bernie, but If I were American, I’d be hoping for more concrete solutions.
5% tax sounds nice (imo, its no where near nice enough lol) but what are we taxing here exactly? Billionaires don’t actually have any money. There’s a systematic problem to solve right there… how can people be filthy rich, yet have no actual money to tax?Like this, a very ‘American idea’ to me is ‘student loan forgiveness’. You borrow money from a bank (for profit institution), you pay it to get educated at a university (for profit institution) and get the loan forgiven by the government (tax payers). Systematic problem. Just make universities public and they get funded by the tax payers directly.
Feels like a band aid on a dismembered limb imo…
I get your misgivings but… Changing it for the better has gotta start somewhere.
Even this idea is way too “progressive” to have any chance of coming to pass
Feels like a band aid on a dismembered limb imo…
Would you rather bleed to death?
Yeah the underlying problems have to do with market power granted by certain laws and the systemic prevention of competition. In land markets there’s massive amounts of money going into keeping us from building more housing so that owners in scarce locations can stay rich. Land value taxes would solve that.
5% tax sounds nice (imo, its no where near nice enough lol) but what are we taxing here exactly? Billionaires don’t actually have any money. There’s a systematic problem to solve right there… how can people be filthy rich, yet have no actual money to tax?
I believe most of billionaire’s wealth are in intangible assets like stocks. Then I hear billionaires and their bootlickers defend themselves, by reasoning that the government can’t tax those intangibles unless the investors sell the shares and cash in on the gains. However, Ireland already tax those with unrealised gains from investment funds every eight years. There is no reason for other countries not to follow suit.
Just make universities public and they get funded by the tax payers directly.
Public universities are cheaper than private, but still too expensive to pay for using saving from a minimum wage summer job. There is no doubt that tuition costs are inflated, but the idea of how you make schools charge less money is complicated.
The Trump administration is claiming that reducing the amount of money students are allowed to borrow from the government will somehow force universities to lower their costs. In reality it’s simply creating a bigger divide in education based on socioeconomic factors, and increasing the amount of private debt students are forced to take on if their family cannot cover the cost of tuition.
Universities in the U.S. are typically portrayed by the right as elitist and left-wing institutions that exist to indoctrinate young minds with marxist ideas. However, many of the right’s most vocal “anti-elitists” (Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, Adrian Vermeule, even Donald Trump himself) hold degrees from the most prestigious institutions within the United States.
Despite their leftists reputation, the board of trustees that actually govern public and private higher learning institutions in the U.S., are often made up of wealthy and well connected right-leaning individuals.
In Bed with the Right does a really good podcast episode on Boards of Trustees, but my main point is that (as is the case with the majority of problems in the U.S.), when you ask a question like “why does it have to be so expensive/complicated?” The answer is that these overly complicated systems are often not a consequence of incompetence or poor planning. They’re the very intentional results of a country that has been locked in a never ending struggle between democracy and oligarchy since the very beginning.
It’s no accident that the changes Trump is making will not result in universities suddenly offering cheaper tuition, or students taking on less debt to get an education. It’s the system working as it was intended. It just makes it more believable to have an incompetent buffoon serving as the public face behind “failed” policy.
Many of the poorest and uneducated Americans voted for him, and they make for great photo ops when they cheer loudly at his rallies. Many of the wealthiest Americans with degrees from the “elite” institutions he so often attacks, were the ones who quietly invested their own money and paid for those rallies.
Just make universities public and they get funded by the tax payers directly.
Public universities are cheaper than private, but still too expensive to pay for using saving from a minimum wage summer job. There is no doubt that tuition costs are inflated, but the idea of how you make schools charge less money is complicated.
I don’t want to take away from your other excellent points about the American economy, but I think you missed the point about public.
Public like schools. Public like free education for anyone bright enough to pass the entrance exams. Public like investing in the future talent of the nation. Public like genuinely free tuition.
It’s cheaper than forgiving private loans because the banks don’t earn any interest in the first place.
It won’t happen in the USA of course, but that doesn’t make it a bad idea.
