Well, here is the thing. For me no one is useless. - Of course within reason, someone like Mugabe or Stalin is a sack full of shit that humanity could dispense.
But Joe Sixpack sitting all day on his ass masturbating? So what? Imagine if Hitler decided to do that instead of leading Germany making it great again.
Doing nothing, is for some people already an achievement. As silly as this sounds.
I didn't say that, someone else did.
Oh, my bad that part was not meant for you but GM. Kinda sliped in to it for some reason. Again, sorry. I should correct that.
That is what the 70-80 percent tax is for. They make money, but they also pay very high taxes.
Which is what Bernie Sandrs more or less proposed if I remember correctly. I mean sure, I could agree to that. It's better than the 38% right now - which no super wealthy person pays anyway, it's closer to 20%.
I just find it funny how far the political spectrum has moved to the right and to neoliberalism today if a tax from the 1950s, which is seen as the 'glorious' days of Americanism, is considered 'anarcho-comunism' and 'insane' today. Eisenhower that fucking socialist! I am sure he secretly read Marx The Capital and masturbated to Stalins picture. Manchurian candidate. Phew! Thank god later Republicans saved us from that.
However, we really are not at that point yet.
But we could be.
We have the money and the resoures to make it happen. I am not stupid. I know it won't be decided in a matter of a few weeks, months or years even. But we have to lay out the foundation for it now. Trough education, economic changes, regulations etc. Particularly our school system has to get away from grades, and beeing more focused around intrinsic motivation - in other words, teaching people how to learn not what to learn, so that they enjoy it to broaden their horzions and actually stay learners for their whole life and not just during their high school or college years.
Beacuse there is a huge risk, that we could actually end up with a different kind of society. A society where social mobility is virtually non existant. Where jobs are much more than now a part of inheritance rather than your own decision. Just like wealth is in many cases inheritd. You know a society like in Elysium. Which is pretty much not a Science Fiction, but the reality in states like Kenia - without the fancy tech of course. People I know that do charity work there visit the place a couple of times per year and it's horrendous how rigid and divided the society is in terms of income and wealth. And there is no social wellfare, health insurance or programms for the poor and yet the nation is still economically underdeveloped. So much for Neoliberalism. This is what some people want for the western nations.
When you look at a lot of the data the US is already on it's way to an oligarchy, democratic decisions are influenced more and more by money and the wealthy elite and the disparity in income between the richest and poorest is close to some third world countries. That alone, should make anyone worried.
If you use the government to hamstring companies, making them POOR is exactly what you are going to do
Why is it always about 'making them poor' like as I didn't adress this argument already? I am not making companies poore by limiting the wealth
individuals can have. There is no engineer or worker that gets paid billions. Some of the smartest people you can find in research are working for pennies and dimes - compared to what a CEO of Microsoft can earn. Work and income are not releated anymore in this day age! That's the point. Try to understand where I am coming from here, it's frustrating to always adress the same points, just in a different manner.
No one is talking about making companies or people poor!
Besides, taxes are a transfer payment. What the state gets in forms of taxes, is usually one way or another given back to the society, by paying the police, fire fighters, jurisdiction, buraucracy, keeping the infrastructure, education, research and a lot more. What do companies usually do? They send their wealth out of the economy.
Plenty of senators and congressman are not ultra rich, certainly not a Buffet or a Gates
Dude, there is clear reserarch on that and how much money is influencing politics.
Many of the Senators could be considered a part of the wealthy elite and they depend on donnors throwing millions into the ellection process. Do they controll the Senate like kings in the past? No they don't. But they have a much higher chance of geting their interest trough than the rest of the population. Companies literaly write papers the parliament is simply passing as laws. One to one. No changes.
Congress in particular is loaded with millionairs.
The Center for Responsive Politics analyzed the personal financial disclosure data from 2012 of the 534 current members of Congress and found that, for the first time, more than half had an average net worth of $1 million or more: 268 to be exact, up from 257 the year earlier. The median for congressional Democrats was $1.04 million and, for Republicans, $1 million even.
http://time.com/373/congress-is-now-mostly-a-millionaires-club/
In which world, are they representing the people? Their needs, interests or even just the reality out there.
I mean, isn't this what YOUR government does?
Who? The wealthy or the people on wellfare?
Right now, if you happen to loose your job you're getting paid unemployment benefit for a year, which is I think 60 or 70% of your previous income or something like that. After that you're getting welfare, which is 416 euros per month. It comes with a lot of restrictions and possibilities to sanction someone, so that you could actually get paid nothing, it's rare but it happens. Usualy when you're missing appointments or declining job offeres. Other restrictions are for example, if you have a too expensive appartment or car, or life assurance you're forced to sell/cancel it. You're slowly but steadily pushed in to poverty.
If you're talking about the wealthy they are almost as pampered by the governement like in the US. Income tax has been lowered tremendiously over the last 30 years, particularly estate tax. So much even that our Federal Constitutional Court ruled it as unconstitutional and demanded changes from the government - which still hasn't happend.
And all of this while the deficit is growing and the government is talking again about 'doubling the military budged'. Go figure. We never have money for the 'poor', schools you name it, but always for more tanks. Germany is turning into the US ... kind of.
I am not paying a fucking idiot who does nothing but watch TV all day, a single fucking cent.
What if it happens that this dude, now without money to buy his drugs, now stabs someone that's very close to you for his/her wallet? Something this 'useless fucking idiot' wouldn't have done, if he got paid an UBI?
I know this sounds very strange, particularly as I feel that it is an ideological issue for many, an emotional question. But the reality is I think, that we will simply have to accept the fact that some people, will never work. They just wont. And regardless how much 'preasure' we apply, they will find other means and ways to get their money. Of which many ways will be illegal activities.
I do not understand why so many of you oppose socialism actually, as this is exactly what socialists did - for the most part. They forced people to take jobs and work. Productivity, human labour, beeing a benefit to the society trough work etc. all the things that seem to be important for you, was important for them as well.
Why give money to addicts when we can just force them into treatment facilities? At least this way, they can get help AND not stab someone else for their habit. Giving them money is just an expensive way for them to kill themselves off faster.
No it isn't. I can only repeat my self. There are examples and research pilling up, showing that you get the best results, trough offering options, not by creating preasure or pushing people in to programms, like treatment facilities - which usually do not remove the cause for addiction.
