Hating the rich over liking the poor

originally posted by: Edumakated


When has there ever been a time that we didn't have income inequality? Further, what does income equality look like? Be specific.

During the cold war and before corporate globalism went full swing, we had a vibrant middle and upper class and a healthy lower class even and the inequality in this country was nothing like it is today.

As part of our propaganda war, we pointed at the Soviet Union and the income inequality they had where the 99% were poor while the 1% that had business contracts thanks to the state were very rich.

How come income inequality was bad then but ok today in our country where the same situation exists.

Big Business and Government are in bed together serving each other while everyone else gets poorer.
Corporate and Banking Lobbyists own Washington DC.

How come income inequality was bad with monarchs or kingdoms we escaped from where the kings and elites had all the wealth and everyone else were peasants and serfs but now it is ok?

The difference is the degree of it.
In a merit based society, from low to high skills, you would expect to see a nice 45 degree angle, but that is not what we have today in America.

It goes from 0 for the majority to 100 for the rich like it did in the Soviet Union and Kingdoms

a reply to: Ridhya

Sigh... you don't listen.

Neither do you. There have been several people post in agreement with me that, in order to satisfy EEOC, companies conduct interviews even after choosing their new employee secretly.

It happens, and all you are doing by stating it doesn't is showing how little you understand about the world.

TheRedneck

a reply to: ScepticScot

That sounds a lot like a return to the poor houses.

Is it better to let them freeze to death under a bridge, hiding from the cops?

Should some signs be put up saying 'no singing, no dancing, no laughing'. Wouldn't want to leave any chance that people on welfare could still enjoy themselves.

It sounds like you want people to enjoy poverty. That's how you keep them in poverty. I want them to enjoy life on their own terms, not muddle through it while shackled to a government check. The only way to do that is to not make poverty enjoyable.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

There is wide spectrum between wanting people to enjoy poverty and wanting people to suffer for the crime of being poor.

Saying that people on benefits should have no luxuries seems a moral judgement about the 'undeserving' poor.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: Edumakated

When has there ever been a time that we didn't have income inequality? Further, what does income equality look like? Be specific.

There's always been a difference between skilled and unskilled labor.

Kinda the entire point of college degrees and unions.

WORK has never been an equal thing by extension neither should taxation.

If anything, there is far less income equality nowadays than before. First, we are no longer trapped into social classes by birth. Pretty much everyone has the ability to move up in social / economic class. Second, the standard of living is so high, especially in the western world, that even our poor are largely rich by global standards.

Our standard of living has dropped.
There are more homeless and people living in tent cities than there ever has been.
I never saw those growing up and did not see the amount of homeless wandering around like you do today.

It was predicted that Corporate Globalism would be a race to the bottom for the majority of people and the top elite would be the winners and that is what we see playing out.

originally posted by: AboveBoard
a reply to: Edumakated

Also, another point.

Yes, there has always been income inequality and that is not bad in and of itself.

It is the degree of the inequality, combined with the stagnation of wages and mobility in the "everyone else" category that is a cause for alarm.

No one is saying there shouldn't be wealthy people in America, or that there must be equal distribution of wealth in some sort of massive socialist movement (except true socialists), the problem is that the rich are further enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else, and at the expense of upward mobility.

Yep
I don't understand why these people supporting this do not point at the elephant in the road.
Corporate and Banking lobbyists rule DC and is in large part responsible for the current predicament we are in.
Trade Pacts, Bank Bail Outs, QE, Net Neutrality, Wars and so on are all to benefit these too big to fail Corporations and Banks.

originally posted by: Edumakated

If government kept it's hands out of the pockets of the productive, you'd see way more charitable giving. In fact, if you actually look closely, you'd see the rich give a ton of money already for social causes IN SPITE of getting robbed by the government. Go to any hospital, museum, university, and you will find a ton of rich benefactors behind the scenes making it possible.

I'm glad you stated what charities the rich give to.
It is to places and organizations that benefit them.
Like art galleries, museums and hospitals with wings named after them.
They do not donate to homeless shelters or housing for the poor or food aid, how would they benefit from that?
Majority are the middle class and poor themselves that donate to those causes.

originally posted by: Edumakated

If government kept it's hands out of the pockets of the productive, you'd see way more charitable giving. In fact, if you actually look closely, you'd see the rich give a ton of money already for social causes IN SPITE of getting robbed by the government. Go to any hospital, museum, university, and you will find a ton of rich benefactors behind the scenes making it possible.

It is our money, it is fiat paper printed by the government.
Imagine if we went back to the barter system?
The rich would lose a lot.

Imagine paying your doctor with a baked apple pie and nice meal for a house call like they did years ago, rather than paying 20,000 to all the middle men.

Whenever I read one of these threads about rich vs poor and how both the rich and the poor feel a sense of entitlement, I can't help think of this ;-)

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: TheRedneck

People shouldn't be happy in poverty but the should at least be treated better then we do our rapists and murderers in the penal system.

originally posted by: PublicOpinion
a reply to: Edumakated

It does work.

Nothing like... wait for it... WINNING!

No socialist could possibly beat our crony capitalists to their quantitative easing shemes but hey... you guys said it aint a centrally planned economy at all! Right?

*giggles*

Hey QE1 and 2 basically happened on Obama's watch. Did you know that the HITECH Act was under Obama admin....part of the Stimulus package. Want to know what that is? Its bureaucratic red tape designed to give auditors a cut of any breach of health records they find in any business related to the health industry, you know such as doctors offices and hospitals or any industry related which houses personal medical records. Any IT network administrator who is in charge of a network where the breach occurs has culpability, and any CFO or CEO will also bear responsibility. Fines can be up to a million dollars for a business. Also HITECH allowed for upgrades to office and hospital IT networks in order to allow them to better house medical records.
In case you are wondering, I first heard of this at an ISSA meeting in Orlando, and network administrators were worried that no one in that field would want to shoulder the responsibility. I personally think the government was more interested in getting fines than in protecting individual medical records in a database. I also think it dovetailed Obamacare by helping to provide better databases to link all these things together. Ever heard of TIA? I did a PP Presentation on it in the University. That was the baby of Admiral Poindexter, where he wanted to connect all medical, traffic, and credit card databases together. Sound fun? I think it sounds like Orwell's 1984.
TPTB don't do this stuff randomly.
Meanwhile, according to a cnn money article, Obama was responsible for QE3 and guess what.... the Republicans OPPOSED it! Its ridiculous to blame Capitalism on Republicans and the wealthy 1% when Democrats are just as wealthy and just as crony and using as much of the capital they can for their own purposes, and yet that is exactly what socialists do.. Socialism doesn't work and it uses Capitalist money. money.cnn.com...

originally posted by: PublicOpinion
a reply to: Grimpachi

Not short-sighted at all when you can save 15 million with your own tax-cut. It's called cronyism, amirite?

Moral high ground or simple objectivity, you decide.

This argument I am hearing from liberals must be the most inane argument they have come up with yet.
Do you actually think that the govt is going to work out a tax bill so that they can make sure Donald Trump doesn't or does get a tax cut???? What kind of lunacy leads one to believe that an individual is going to be taken into account when building a tax plan??? I don't know if you actually believe Trump persuaded Congress to pass a bill purely for himself, but if you do, then get some help quickly.

a reply to: UKTruth

Yawn. Lable away!

What kind of lunacy leads one to believe that an individual is going to be taken into account when building a tax plan?

It's called science. Ya know... math and stuff. Try some!

By 2027, more than half of all Americans — 53 percent — would pay more in taxes under the tax bill agreed to by House and Senate Republicans, a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center finds. That year, 82.8 percent of the bill’s benefit would go to the top 1 percent, up from 62.1 under the Senate bill.

And even in the first years of the bill's implementation, when it’s an across-the-board tax cut, the benefits of the law would be heavily concentrated among the upper-middle and upper-class Americans, with nearly two-thirds of the benefit going to the richest fifth of Americans in 2018.

www.vox.com...


a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

Hey QE1 and 2 basically happened on Obama's watch

But...but...but Hillarama! Geez...
Who cares? Afghanistan was his war as well, now guess what happened under Trump?

Socialism doesn't work and it uses Capitalist money

...and Norway is a failed state cuz the stupid socialists don't know how to sell their fricken oil. Or Iceland. Merely in the process of being colonized by Loki the shipbuilder and his Viking band of true believers. Watch more Fox-News, too! NOW!

Iceland's recovery has become a myth wrapped in a legend inside a legend. It let its banks fail, slashed household debt, let its currency collapse, put capital controls in place—and now it's doing better than those countries that did austerity!

www.washingtonpost.com...

a reply to: ScepticScot

There is wide spectrum between wanting people to enjoy poverty and wanting people to suffer for the crime of being poor.

I don't recall ever calling poverty a crime. Are you saying you think poverty should be illegal?

Saying that people on benefits should have no luxuries seems a moral judgement about the 'undeserving' poor.

I don't care if they have a Rolls Royce in their garage and are eating caviar... unless I am paying for it. Then, yes, I do care. Sorry, but that's life. People tend to look after themselves first, and that's not a terrible thing in itself.

As for my plan, I don't deny anyone any luxuries. I even stated (I think, I tried to put three pages into a paragraph) that every apartment would have telephone and satellite/cable TV hookups, ready to go. I only say the luxuries are just that and should not be something to be furnished free of any personal obligation to anyone who wants it.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Puppylove

People shouldn't be happy in poverty but the should at least be treated better then we do our rapists and murderers in the penal system.

Agreed. Our penal system needs to be trimmed way back on the niceties. I have zero issue with prisoners having bread and water for food and an hour in the yard for recreation. There should be no electronic gadgets, no internet, no entertainment, none of that crazy stuff that a lot of honest people outside of prison can't afford.

It is prison after all.

TheRedneck

a reply to: PublicOpinion

i can't help but laugh at some of the gullibility that these kinds of articles rely on.

Their prediction is for 2027, ten years from now, and after the new tax bill sunsets on most things in it. in other words, their terrible prediction is what would have happened in 2018 without the tax bill.

Science requires thought before blindly accepting things. just sayin'.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: PublicOpinion
a reply to: UKTruth

Yawn. Lable away!

What kind of lunacy leads one to believe that an individual is going to be taken into account when building a tax plan?

It's called science. Ya know... math and stuff. Try some!

By 2027, more than half of all Americans — 53 percent — would pay more in taxes under the tax bill agreed to by House and Senate Republicans, a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center finds. That year, 82.8 percent of the bill’s benefit would go to the top 1 percent, up from 62.1 under the Senate bill.

And even in the first years of the bill's implementation, when it’s an across-the-board tax cut, the benefits of the law would be heavily concentrated among the upper-middle and upper-class Americans, with nearly two-thirds of the benefit going to the richest fifth of Americans in 2018.

www.vox.com...

 

a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

Hey QE1 and 2 basically happened on Obama's watch

But...but...but Hillarama! Geez...
Who cares? Afghanistan was his war as well, now guess what happened under Trump?

Socialism doesn't work and it uses Capitalist money

...and Norway is a failed state cuz the stupid socialists don't know how to sell their fricken oil. Or Iceland. Merely in the process of being colonized by Loki the shipbuilder and his Viking band of true believers. Watch more Fox-News, too! NOW!

Iceland's recovery has become a myth wrapped in a legend inside a legend. It let its banks fail, slashed household debt, let its currency collapse, put capital controls in place—and now it's doing better than those countries that did austerity!

www.washingtonpost.com...

Afghanistan wasn't his war, Syria was. He merely added some troops, probably to protect the pot and poppy fields.
I don't think I remember mentioning Hillary in my post, however she would just be more Obama only more corrupt if that can be imagined.
Washington Post....meh....more liberal media. According to your article though, Iceland did actually do austerity for a bit, then let its banks fail. I am guessing it was your point that they didn't bail out the banks like we did. However, it appears that the IMF actually bailed out the government, according to your article.
My point is that no matter how much Obama touted the socialist way, he was still a corrupt crony President. And that is my other point, that the socialist system still depends on other people's money to survive. you know spread the wealth and all that..... Michelle Obama in particular said expressly that we have to give up some of our pie so that others can have more. Remember that?

a reply to: olaru12
Every war makes the consumer gadgets you love cheaper as it grants us access to markets and minerals we previously did not have. Maybe it sucks, but that is how it has been since beginning of time. Conquer a land with lots of timber? Now wood is cheaper to build furniture and homes. Conquer a land with lots of fuzzy animals??? Furs and the clothes and other fabrics they make with them become cheaper and easier to proliferate.

Back and forth it goes. If people really were opposed to it, they would not be seeking the latest and greatest in consumer products. Electronics require metals to work. They may only take a few grams or even milligrams, but when you are pumping out hundreds of millions of units a year of various brands and styles, milligrams turns to tons. Tons require heavy machinery and land rights to acquire, or the brutal slave drivers of revolutionary militants.

Without Kurdistan and North Korea today, no holograms and VR for the kids, personal robots, and advanced drones tomorrow. Nearly everything you own that you can afford without being a millionaire required a war to get the mineral rights to build those things en masse.

The only solution to change that system, is for the people themselves to change their desires and demands. People don't change, and so we will war until the end of time. Accept it, enjoy the fact we benefit, and enjoy life guilt free.

But above all, don't hate the rich and pretend it is not envy. Im not against social programs myself, but I can live without them if it means our markets remain free and open.

originally posted by: jacobe001

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: Edumakated

When has there ever been a time that we didn't have income inequality? Further, what does income equality look like? Be specific.

There's always been a difference between skilled and unskilled labor.

Kinda the entire point of college degrees and unions.

WORK has never been an equal thing by extension neither should taxation.

If anything, there is far less income equality nowadays than before. First, we are no longer trapped into social classes by birth. Pretty much everyone has the ability to move up in social / economic class. Second, the standard of living is so high, especially in the western world, that even our poor are largely rich by global standards.

Our standard of living has dropped.
There are more homeless and people living in tent cities than there ever has been.
I never saw those growing up and did not see the amount of homeless wandering around like you do today.

It was predicted that Corporate Globalism would be a race to the bottom for the majority of people and the top elite would be the winners and that is what we see playing out.

My friends are throwing warm winter clothes into the garbage, because it's so much better to destroy everything, rather than give to away to people with nothing, trying to survive.

It's done over and over again. Large mega-corps throw away perfectly usable products into the dumpster, because it's the easiest way to write millions of dollars in inventory off the books. It takes a concerted effort by workers who care to mention that it should be donated to charity. And it still has to be approved up the ladder. And follow-up calls. By then, it's approved as an after-thought - 'oh, I thought you already donated it, so go right ahead'. It's not like upper management doesn't care about it, but they can't show they care. It's not 'business-minded'. It's given a silent nod of approval.

At the very top, it's all about the bottom line. They want profits, and to cut losses, and old inventory is a way to help the bottom line. And if they want to donate it, instead of trash it, they are often regarded as soft-hearted businessmen. Someone who cares that it could benefit poor, and elderly, is 'not focused on the bottom line'.

Business does NOT have to be that way. It can be very profitable, and still help many people out - at the same time. They don't see it that way in their ivory towers.

All the people around this need to help each other out. The mega-corp honchos don't give a s^&*^ about the ever-growing welfare state.

The governments are simply puppets of the globalist bankers, and mega-corps.

It cannot change unless a mass - a tipping point - of people are in agreement on the problems that cannot be resolved by the status quo. Income tax is the example I always use. It is a tax that nobody has EVER agreed to put into action, which was given as an excuse to pay for WW1, etc, and would be removed after the war ended. Nobody really noticed it never ended after the war, because the early1920's were good times. Businesses made money, people had jobs, and life was great. So they didn't notice income tax was never removed.

Back then, they had to make up a perfect excuse to take away - steal - money out of everyone's pockets. Because it WAS NOT NEEDED FOR ANYTHING. Other taxes had created the immense infrastructure of America, so they had to make up a good excuse to steal our rightful earnings.

I hate that so few people realize that income tax is insidious, evil. It should never have been created, and it should be abolished - forever. It makes slaves of every one of us, by working one day per week for nothing. Because the government gets about one day's earnings, each and every week, forever. And they take your money before you get paid, on top of it. And if you don't pay your money to them, you are PENALIZED for it, with interest. And you could be put in jail, in some cases.

They are slave-owners, of everyone, extortionists, thieves, and the mafia can't hold a candle to them.

But oh well, everyone likes watching their daily TV shows, why bother??

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
a reply to: olaru12
Every war makes the consumer gadgets you love cheaper as it grants us access to markets and minerals we previously did not have. Maybe it sucks, but that is how it has been since beginning of time. Conquer a land with lots of timber? Now wood is cheaper to build furniture and homes. Conquer a land with lots of fuzzy animals??? Furs and the clothes and other fabrics they make with them become cheaper and easier to proliferate.

Back and forth it goes. If people really were opposed to it, they would not be seeking the latest and greatest in consumer products. Electronics require metals to work. They may only take a few grams or even milligrams, but when you are pumping out hundreds of millions of units a year of various brands and styles, milligrams turns to tons. Tons require heavy machinery and land rights to acquire, or the brutal slave drivers of revolutionary militants.

Without Kurdistan and North Korea today, no holograms and VR for the kids, personal robots, and advanced drones tomorrow. Nearly everything you own that you can afford without being a millionaire required a war to get the mineral rights to build those things en masse.

The only solution to change that system, is for the people themselves to change their desires and demands. People don't change, and so we will war until the end of time. Accept it, enjoy the fact we benefit, and enjoy life guilt free.

But above all, don't hate the rich and pretend it is not envy. Im not against social programs myself, but I can live without them if it means our markets remain free and open.

People want the latest smartphone, which they can't live without, because that's what they are told. This makes you popular, or at least trendy, and they envy your amazing new smartphone. Until the next one comes out, within a year, and you have to exchange your 'old' phone for it. It never ends.

Friends sit together at tables, and never even talk to each other, unless it's about something they read on their phones! And they all go back to their phones again. No wonder so many people are becoming socially inept!