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FWIW I am a big proponent of small and medium business.
I am NOT at all a defender of the big multinational or national big box or any bankster bank.
You want to tax GS, JPM, Walmart or GE out of business..be my guest.
But don't lump Joe's Plumbing and Repair with them and tax them out of business too.
So here in the US are the chants of "tax the rich" to pay for our utopia of welfare entitlements and higher government debts.
Well take a look at Venezuela who did declare a war against the rich and the outcome. The rich pulled a "John Galt" and left and now the country is awash in new immigrants. Venezuela is lenient on immigration and has a wealth of social programs. These new immigrants are not professionals but many say life in Venezuela is better than where they came from.
"Venezuela is in the throes of an immigration puzzle. While large numbers of the middle class head for the exits, hundreds of thousands of foreign merchants and laborers have put down stakes here in recent years, complicating the portrait of how a brain drain unfolds.
The opposing tides reflect the increasingly polarized nature of the country. The government of President Hugo Chávez, who recently declared an “economic war” against the “bourgeoisie,” has expropriated 207 private businesses this year — including banks, cattle ranches and housing developments, according to Conindustria, a Venezuelan industrial association — prompting many to seek safer havens elsewhere."
And Brazil is what happens when there is a small middle class and large poor population and most of the wealth is concentrated with the rich.
The Conservatives want to the United States to look like Brazil.
I think in the end there will be no middle class. The elite rich and the worker class.
And by elite I mean those who don't get W-2's each year. If you get a W-2 then you are a worker and not an elite.
What a ridiculous statement. Social justice works in many places around the world. Every kind of justice is good, simply because the word justice as such has a positive meaning.
What defines "social justice" or "economic justice" is a matter of perspective. Taking more of my money (as someone who earns north of six figures) to give to someone who cannot / will not make the effort I have in life does not fit my definition of "justice" in any form.
What defines "social justice" or "economic justice" is a matter of perspective. Taking more of my money (as someone who earns north of six figures) to give to someone who cannot / will not make the effort I have in life does not fit my definition of "justice" in any form.
What defines "social justice" or "economic justice" is a matter of perspective. Taking more of my money (as someone who earns north of six figures) to give to someone who cannot / will not make the effort I have in life does not fit my definition of "justice" in any form.
Ah yes. You must be another person who believes that they owe their success solely to themselves.
The fact that you live and work within the governmental and political framework that is the United States has absolutely nothing to do with your success, right? You'd be just as successful in, say, Pakistan? And, you'd be just as comfortable living somewhere else with all your hard earned money than here, right? I traveled to Peru a year or so ago. A sliver of wealth hidden behind barbed wired walls in a sea of poverty. Guess that's what conservative Americans are hoping for in the future?
Did you go to public school? Ever used the court system for a business dispute? Have you ever or do you have student loans or a mortgage? Traveled down a road? If so, you are the recipient of a form of governmental assistance and aid that contributes to your success. Most poor people will never need to waste thousands of dollars of the court's resources to adjudicate a contract dispute between businesses, yet their tax money goes to prop up same. Similarly, childless people have to pay school taxes so that children in their communities can get educated. MOST do it without too much complaining, however, because MOST recognize the value to them and their community when kids are educated, and not running around committing crimes or adding to the numbers of welfare recipients later in life.
I am absolutely amazed at such short sighted vision and seeming dismissal of the importance of investments in the populace to the future vitality and success of the nation as a whole, as well as for the continued comfort of the wealthy and rich classes. I'd rather be middle class in Canada than rich in Peru!
That cartoon graph is exactly that, a cartoon. The 1913 income tax act was intended as a tax to target a TINY minority of the population. Namely, the New England area tycoons. Look at what it amounts to today, where laws are proposed to exact a 30%+ tax on a commodity whose only intent is to try to protect yourself from inflation, and where you technically have to report bartering as "income".
Back in the day when the rate was that high, very few people were actually paying income tax. It was much more optional and did not carry the same burden of paperwork and nerve wracking auditing that it does today.
What defines "social justice" or "economic justice" is a matter of perspective. Taking more of my money (as someone who earns north of six figures) to give to someone who cannot / will not make the effort I have in life does not fit my definition of "justice" in any form.
I even agree with you there, it is all about the definition. However, a system that some people (the beneficiaries of that system) call socially just, but which creates a society that from an objective standpoint is rather unjust (for instance when some people earn 400x what others earn or start out their lives free of material worries thanks to inherited wealth), does not deserve that attribute.
It is also naive and even stupid to allow such great material inequality because that won't change human nature. Most people are envious by nature, some more than others. And when that envy cannot be satisfied by legal means, some people will start to steal and rob and consider the wealthy fair game suited for kidnapping etc.
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