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Because many people make bellow poverty wages but can have a decent house and food supply in some parts of the world.
Many of our poor are down right miserable living in toxic dumps, stealing food from the trash, or dealing with termite infection inside a house that may collapse.
Dollar value does not tell you the full story.
Travel to Ethiopia, or Somalia, or India, and stay for 1 month, then return and post again.
Governments do not exist for the benefit of the people, democracy or not. Governments exist for their own power, and to protect the interests of the ruling classes. This is true literally everywhere in the world, and for all time. That isn't to say that governments are against the people. They are for the people in the same way a farmer is for his cattle and sheep. He wants them to be happy and healthy to turn him a good profit, but not because he cares about them.
The pay there in terms of US dollars is next to nothing, but people are better off than most of the poor in this country.
I liked the example that Varoufakis gave in my previous post...
Quote:
"Economists tend to overestimate things that can be measured, and completely neglect values which can't be measured... Take the aborigines in Australia, when Captain Cook arrived in Botany Bay they didn't have a single pound or euro or cent, and they lived very happy fulfilling lives without commodification or markets. Look at the aborigines today, you can see that because of the welfare system they have a very high income compared to what they had 200 years ago. When were they happier?
Today it is a community in dire straits. The same can be found in communities in India, look at the number of suicides among Indian farmers whose income is going up but whose lives are diminishing sharply. Look at the deaths of despair in the United States, the number of people who die unnecessarily from depression, obesity, and from ill-health which is the result of poverty within wealth. That is the worst way of being poor, by being surrounded by wealth."
Governments do not exist for the benefit of the people, democracy or not. Governments exist for their own power, and to protect the interests of the ruling classes. This is true literally everywhere in the world, and for all time. That isn't to say that governments are against the people. They are for the people in the same way a farmer is for his cattle and sheep. He wants them to be happy and healthy to turn him a good profit, but not because he cares about them.
This is reality folks.
True. And it's an argument against socialism and more for capitalism where you can own a business or create an invention, or offer better service, etc to customers for a better wage or profit for YOU, not the gov.
So true. As incomes grow, the concept of how much wealth equates to being rich, grows. For some, being "rich" is not achieved until they are worth $1B. Among the ultra rich, there seems to be a contest to see who can become the first trillionaire.
There is a problem with income inequality where it begins to undermine public investment. If a percentage of national wealth is required to maintain and expand public investment, the ability to fund it becomes unworkable when too much wealth is concentrated in a few hands in a society that bristles at what it considers to be onerous tax rates. Underfunding investment in both labor and capital will eventually result in a slower, if not declining, growth of absolute wealth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by beach43ofus
My new personal charter:
Governments do not exist for the benefit of the people, democracy or not. Governments exist for their own power, and to protect the interests of the ruling classes. This is true literally everywhere in the world, and for all time. That isn't to say that governments are against the people. They are for the people in the same way a farmer is for his cattle and sheep. He wants them to be happy and healthy to turn him a good profit, but not because he cares about them.
This is reality folks.
Yeah, that is why I want a small government. The smaller the government, the freer the people.
True. And it's an argument against socialism and more for capitalism where you can own a business or create an invention, or offer better service, etc to customers for a better wage or profit for YOU, not the gov.
Are socialism and capitalism the only things that have ever existed? When were they created? Why were they created? And what will the future hold?
Are you on the right side of history? If not, why not?
I agree with Bernie, & the latest member of the AOC socialist squad, Jamal Bowman, when they say the current system "enslaves" the 99%, and is only working well for the Elite top 1%.
Its a newer softer rendition of slavery, but it shares some of the same characteristics as old school slavery.
To a great extent, Trump, Rand Paul, The Tea Party, & myself, are saying something very similar...we are way too heavy at the top with income, wealth, & future opportunity. A barrier has been put into place between the have's & have not's...we call it "the swamp", others call it "the elite's".
We are all working on the right problem...the same problem. Income & wealth gaps that prevent many in the bottom half from saving for their futures, and moving up the social ladder. Even the top 2%-49% are having to struggle harder to stave off the top 1% to maintain their way of life.
Our proposed solutions, differ in this way....
...Bernie, AOC, & the squad feel our free market economy system has failed, & socialism is the answer. They have lost all faith in our system, & our leaders, so they want a re-set.
...Trump, Paul, the Tea Party, & I, feel the original system that America was founded upon was excellent, and got us this far, but Washington DC has been changing it for 200+ years into the convoluted version we have today; that is failing us. It has evolved very poorly into something almost unrecognizeable from where we began in 1776 w/ Declaration of Independence, 1787 with the Constitution, & in 1791 with the Bill of Rights.
I believe the 99% can force a return to the system, as originally crafted. I don't think the people we have in DC today, will ever do it. They must be removed, & replaced...en masse..peacefully.
The 99% needs to flood the zone with new candidates for every political office in DC. The 99% need to vote for their/our own candidates, to get all the incumbants out.
Fix the unlimited money creation process to start with. during all the chaoes of 2020, the fractional reserve lending amount has been made to 0. Which means banks can lend even if they dont have any money.
2 examples . Salesforce is buuying a piece of krap software called crack or something for 27 bn. Fb paid 20 bn for an app written by 1 person. They are at best like the old yahoo messenger.
Now the recent news is that fb and google are “cooperating “ among themselves as to not compete with each other in terms of online advertising.
And who is at the helm of all these companies? The same people who run wall street, treasury, goldman sachs etc.
Fix the unlimited money creation process to start with. during all the chaoes of 2020, the fractional reserve lending amount has been made to 0. Which means banks can lend even if they dont have any money.
2 examples . Salesforce is buuying a piece of krap software called crack or something for 27 bn. Fb paid 20 bn for an app written by 1 person. They are at best like the old yahoo messenger.
Now the recent news is that fb and google are “cooperating “ among themselves as to not compete with each other in terms of online advertising.
And who is at the helm of all these companies? The same people who run wall street, treasury, goldman sachs etc.
So? Are they not free people? Why can’t they do what they want if they are not your slaves?
Governments do not exist for the benefit of the people, democracy or not. Governments exist for their own power, and to protect the interests of the ruling classes. This is true literally everywhere in the world, and for all time. That isn't to say that governments are against the people. They are for the people in the same way a farmer is for his cattle and sheep. He wants them to be happy and healthy to turn him a good profit, but not because he cares about them.
This is reality folks.
Something wonderful was built between 1900 to 1960 here. But in order to sustain that level of wealth and standard of living, we need measures like glibal manufacturing , outsourcing and production from rest of the world.
See how oil comps like exxon made money. They produced oil worldwide and paid thier employees well.
Same with companies like google, fb , amzn etc. they sell stuff worldwide and pay people well here.
That number of beneficiaries cannot remain big and will reduce going forward and thats wat wevare seeing now.
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