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How you manage to craft in your mind the rationalization that a luxury car is "equal" to basic healthcare is a mystery, but the rationalizations used to try to defend egoistic avarice never did make sense.
How you manage to craft in your mind the rationalization that a luxury car is "equal" to basic healthcare is a mystery, but the rationalizations used to try to defend egoistic avarice never did make sense.
And I will ask how you equate provision of a consumer product (at cost to others) with a "right"?
Yes, like any other CONSUMER PRODUCT. If you can afford it, you may purchase it. There is no reasonable expectation that others should buy it for you just because you want it.
So too bad about that cancer, right poor people?
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Nature's laws. So if you don't like gravity or entrophy will you also seek legislation to repeal the effect of those as well?
Economic policy is neither a science science nor a religion.
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My dad, starting at age 14, put 47 years in at a mill. I grew up in the shadow of that mill, learning to tell time by the sounds of the passing trains and the sounds of the shift whistles. Everyone expected that like it had always been, their dads and uncles would get them jobs in that same mill under a fat union contract. My dad forbade me from ever setting foot inside, and set expectations that I would do better. He demanded that I pull myself up and instilled in me the lessons he learned the hard way. He never lived to see me get the college degree he dreamed of for me. Two grad degrees and a lot of hard work later, I am successful - but through my own effort.
Your dad was able to get a good paying job at a mill despite having a formal education. Try doing that today. And I won't even go into the fact that he had union representation. I bet you were also able to get your degrees using money your father left you are even working a couple of part time jobs.
If a child coming from the upper-middle class is going out of school crippled in student debt (often at 6% or higher), how is someone from a poor or working class family supposed to even think about getting a formal education?
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I expect no more of others than I expect of myself. You seem to be an advocate of equality of outcome through legislation and force upon those who are successful rather than equality of opportunity for all, understanding that some will fail - and that's ok.
Equality of outcome, no. Equality of opportunity, yes. Allowing capital to simply flow up (as capital naturally wants to do) is bad for a capitalist society.
So, in summary, you advocate for social darwinism because you've never actually experienced it. Your father's decent paying union job allowed him to give you the tools to move ahead. Heavily subsidized education allowed people to get through school without crippling debt, and wages used to keep up with inflation. But you keep telling yourself that you did all on your on and advocate for kicking that ladder out from beneath you.
It's amazing how many boomers and later generations have no clue how rough their parents and grandparents had it during the Gilded Age and pre-New Deal. We had social darwinism and nearly complete laissez faire economic policies that created enormous inequality and grinding poverty. It's a generation of people who have never felt true want, and somehow think they got to where they are purely on their own merit and specialness.
Government creates inequality and grinding poverty in every era. Crony Capitalism is the new normal and will ensure inequality for the foreseeable future.
Personally, I think it would be a step in the right direction if it was even considered period.
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It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. ...
Apparently there is some use in pretending ...
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But one big part of the reason we have so much inequality is that the top 1 percent want it that way.
The top 1% wants it that way? LOL... No. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT POLITICIANS want it that way. And there's a very deliberate reason for that...
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Originally Posted by InformedConsent
There's a reason for that... The problem is the progressive federal tax system in the U.S. Because of our highly progressive tax system, the government is overly dependent on making sure the income gap is as wide as possible, and that they don't discourage the revenue producers too much by taxing them at rates that are too high therefore either driving them and/or their capital available for investment out of the country, or causing them to scale back on their productivity and income because there's a tipping point at which they decide they have enough for now and don't need to earn as much thereby significantly lowering their effective tax rate and dramatically reducing federal tax revenue.
I'll let this economist explain it:
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"[Economist Anatole] Kaletsky argues that over-reliance on progressive taxes creates "a perverse incentive for governments to promote income inequality. Ifthe solvency of the stateand the ability to fund basic services for the poorest people in society depends on the rich getting even richer, it is tempting for even the most progressive politicians to support widening inequalities."
For example, in the U.S. (according to the latest IRS published data), the top 1% earns 18.7% of the income, but pays 35.1% of the federal income tax revenue, roughly twice their fair share which is 4 times what the middle class pays (the middle class pays only about half of their fair share of the federal income tax compared to their share of the income).
The problem with our country's progressive tax system is that it creates a perverse incentive for the federal government to enact policies that promote as wide of an income gap as possible in order to maximize tax revenue.
As long as the U.S. has a progressive tax system, the incentive remains to keep the income gap as wide as possible, and this is why: When the top 1% loses income share, the federal government loses twice that much in tax revenue. But when the top 1% gains income share, the federal government consequently gains twice that much in tax revenue. Another way to look at it is that the federal government receives 4 times more income tax revenue per dollar earned from the top 1% than they do from the middle class, so guess whose income they're going to favor and protect.
Furthermore, the countries with more income equality have regressive tax systems, mostly based on VAT, consumption, etc., instead of one's income. Pay close attention to the charts:
Think very carefully about that... It's counterintuitive, and some people get angry when this is pointed out to them, but it actually turns out to be true.
And true to form, Mr. 'tax the rich's' presidency has resulted in EXACTLY what was predicted by the liberal economist quoted above.
Federal Government politicians seek to maximize tax revenue to spend to buy votes. It's simple math. Which group has more votes?
50 people earning $20,000 each and receiving taxpayer-funded public assistance?
Or
2 people earning $500,000 each?
Extrapolate that onto the U.S. population in which 47% pay no federal income tax whatsoever yet receive the same government services and benefits that everyone else does, with the added benefits of one or more forms of taxpayer-funded public assistance for most of the bottom 25%.
It's all about buying votes. Under our current progressive federal tax system, the only way to maximize tax revenue to do that is to maximize the income of those who are taxed the most: the top 1%.
And I will ask how you equate provision of a consumer product (at cost to others) with a "right"?
A completely irrelevant question since the satisfaction of basic needs are services while a luxury car is a consumer product. Your unwillingness to be honest with yourself notwithstanding all reasonable people recognize the difference.
Been there, done that for several years. Worked hard to get out of that pit. It can be done and millions of us have done it.
My spouse and I have. Started out in a low-rent bad neighborhood 600 sq ft apartment that would only heat to 59 degrees in the Chicago winters because that's all we could afford at the time. We are now FAR beyond that level.
Meanwhile most of the rich parents are Liberals..LMAO! Occutard was full of rich kids.
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