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Very few countries have freedom of speech, should we follow them?
Unless you can explain to me why other people must be forced to pay for your medical expenses.
It's very relevant when someone says our gripes about living in America are meritless since it's the richest country in the world. All that richness doesn't save someone from being bankrupted by a medical bill.
No one else is paying for anyone else's healthcare. Whether it's a premium or taxes, you're paying your share the bill to reap the benefits.
why would anyone condemn the financially successful. isn't that what we all aspired to as young people?
becoming part of the 1% isn't about being born to wealth. that is a unique possibility in america. you can't do it in europe or anywhere else on this planet unless one is politically connected. only in america can a janitor immigrant or his child become a millionaire.
With capitalism you're always going to have losers & people who suffer because of it. If people stepped up & took care of their neighbor then we wouldn't see the suffering.
With socialism your goal is to remove all the suffering & losers but by trying to make everything equal you remove the incentive to be better. You stay at the status quo & if it was not for capitalism and wanting to be the best or the richest where would we be in life?
I think they are both flawed systems because you're never going to have a society that can care for one another to make capitalism bearable. And with socialism it would never truly work on the large scale. You need trust for that & when you're dealing with so many races, cultures & different types of people you'll never have that trust.
But between the two I feel like capitalism is the lesser of the two evils. Because while people will still be losers & suffer it's not as much as it would be with full time socialism.
Hence the ideal of democratic socialism, which is what Bernie and the Squad are actually promoting. I’m not a political scientist, but it seems to me that democratic socialism is a capitalist, market-based economy in which the inevitable harms and extremes of capitalism are tempered by a strong democratic government using things like taxes, social services, regulatory systems and enforcement bodies to ensure that there is a strong social safety net. By ensuring things like universal health care, a robust education system with affordable higher learning opportunities, and social programs that help the poor and ensure that no one goes hungry or homeless due to lack of income in the richest country in human history, democratic socialism mitigates some of the harms of unfettered capitalism.
Democratic Socialism exists in the US and programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are all very popular. America has become increasingly captivated by the titans of industry, who have skewed its laws and systems to favor the rich and convince the masses that anything other than unfettered, unregulated capitalism is communism of a kind no different than Stalin’s or Mao’s. Americans who grew up under the New Deal die off and no one remembers how democratic socialism saved America from the markets during the Great Depression and ushered in an age of prosperity that will likely never be seen again.
The oligarchs won in the end, and they have you all fighting about things that don’t matter while they rob the world blind.
The rich never paid 90% in the 50's ... the tax laws are designed to promote investments, spending or philanthropy. The rich pay a lot of tax but spend a lot more.
Picking info out of thin air? Try looking for the facts instead. Income above $200,000 was taxed at over 90% from 1950 to 1959. So if you made $10 million you paid over 90% tax on $9,800,000 of it. To say the rich should be taxed less because they spend more is absurd. Defending the rich when you are not rich is bizarre. Why do people do that? Do they think that by adopting the values of the rich they will become rich themselves?
"The top 1 percent of Americans today do not face an unusually low tax burden, by historical standards. The top federal income tax rate was 91 percent in 1950 and 1951, and between 1954 and 1959. In 1952 and 1953, the top federal income tax rate was 92 percent."
Hence the ideal of democratic socialism, which is what Bernie and the Squad are actually promoting. I’m not a political scientist, but it seems to me that democratic socialism is a capitalist, market-based economy in which the inevitable harms and extremes of capitalism are tempered by a strong democratic government using things like taxes, social services, regulatory systems and enforcement bodies to ensure that there is a strong social safety net. By ensuring things like universal health care, a robust education system with affordable higher learning opportunities, and social programs that help the poor and ensure that no one goes hungry or homeless due to lack of income in the richest country in human history, democratic socialism mitigates some of the harms of unfettered capitalism.
It works in European countries, but it takes a VERY different tax system than we currently have in the US. Convince your fellow Americans to adopt a European-style taxing system and the US can have those European-style social program goodies:
These progressive measures only happen with a strong president committed to them. FDR and LBJ changed the landscape with SS and Medicare. Obama made a small dent with no payout limits and no pre-existing condition preventing health insurance payouts.
You can't convince a Republican administration or Congress to pass progressive measures to any extent. You can't even convince 70 million ordinary Republicans to vote for progressive leaders. They are died in the wool believers of less government, less taxes, every man for himself.
Higher education has only become further out of reach for most people, with tuition having risen more than 40x at the public university I graduated from in 1968. I have great medicare and supplemental health and prescription coverage, I'd be bankrupt without it, but it costs me about $10K a year for myself and my wife for premiums, copays and deductibles. Lots of people not old enough for medicare can't afford to pay $10K a year or more for health insurance. Despite what people think I do believe wealth is and always was a zero sum game. The more that is accumulated at the top, the less there is for everyone else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent
It works in European countries, but it takes a VERY different tax system than we currently have in the US. Convince your fellow Americans to adopt a European-style taxing system and the US can have those European-style social program goodies:
It's very relevant when someone says our gripes about living in America are meritless since it's the richest country in the world. All that richness doesn't save someone from being bankrupted by a medical bill.
No one else is paying for anyone else's healthcare. Whether it's a premium or taxes, you're paying your share the bill to reap the benefits.
If I am forced to pay $20,000 in your healthcare tax but you pay diddly squat but somehow we have the same access to the healthcare, how is that not slavery?
These progressive measures only happen with a strong president committed to them. FDR and LBJ changed the landscape with SS and Medicare. Obama made a small dent with no payout limits and no pre-existing condition preventing health insurance payouts. Higher education has only become further out of reach for most people, with tuition having risen more than 40x at the public university I graduated from in 1968.I have great medicare and supplemental health and prescription coverage, but it costs me about $10K a year for myself and my wife. Lots of people not old enough for medicare can't afford to pay $10K a year or more for health insurance. Despite what people think I do believe wealth is and always was a zero sum game. The more that is accumulated at the top, the less there is for everyone else.
By changing the landscape, you mean hammering the final nails to the coffin.
SS and Medicare have already bankrupted this country.
These progressive measures only happen with a strong president committed to them. FDR and LBJ changed the landscape with SS and Medicare. Obama made a small dent with no payout limits and no pre-existing condition preventing health insurance payouts. Higher education has only become further out of reach for most people, with tuition having risen more than 40x at the public university I graduated from in 1968.I have great medicare and supplemental health and prescription coverage, but it costs me about $10K a year for myself and my wife. Lots of people not old enough for medicare can't afford to pay $10K a year or more for health insurance. Despite what people think I do believe wealth is and always was a zero sum game. The more that is accumulated at the top, the less there is for everyone else.
OK, so if you're all for those social programs and more, why not advocate adopting a Euro-style regressive tax system to replace the US's progressive tax system?
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