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I have always felt that way. I am a very strong proponent of "cooperation not competition" and that everyone SHOULD work together, for the benefit of all. I am perfectly willing to have some personal sacrifices so that the quality of life can be improved for everybody.
Actually, I guess some people would call me a commie. But to me this unbridled wealth that the "upper class" holds in the face of abject poverty amongst the masses has always rubbed me the wrong way. I'm all for redistribution. And yes, I know that some people are worthless, lazy POS and do not "deserve" to be supported by the hard work of others, but my philosophy is that it is a Karma thing. Help undeserving people and it will come back to you in some way in the long run.
20yrsinBranson
That cooperative spirit is what keeps a company healthy because everyone is watching the bottom line. Maybe I'm just too old school, but I really can't deal with the attitudes of people so fixated on money they can't see what they're doing anymore.
The joke of all jokes is wealth distribution getting thrown around in this last election. How is it that no one noticed it's been distributing every way except to the bottom 80%? Not just our trade deficit sending money out the door instead of taking care of home, not just pouring money in the sand in the middle east, but frozen wages for years in the same companies where executive compensation ratio to average employee was 500:1. Back in the day 30:1 worked fine, but it would appear they've done a different set of mathematics to justify themselves. When their european peer CEO's are aghast at their greed, you know there's a problem. This kind of greed not only affects workers but shareholders get marginal dividends as well.
These undeserving folks looking for a free ride... I've witnessed those who live that lifestyle are miserable and perpetuate their own misery infinitely. What a horrible waste of a life to pay for free lunch. They go nowhere, do nothing, know nothing, care for nothing, and their lives amount to nothing in the end. I'd rather not risk punishing the truly needy trying to get some sense of justice out of the scammers chasing nickels, and isn't it funny how much work they have to put into scamming & holding up a lie to themselves? I guess we've just got to be able to show a job pays more. I can agree with Milton Friedman, but only so far.
As far as wealthy people go, bless them. When you're making billions and telling your employees to apply for welfare I have no mercy for that behavior. Don't hire more people than you can pay a living wage to should be a good rule of thumb, and if employees are so disconnected from the bounty they're hauling in that isn't exactly capitalism. I'm all for fair business, but when they rig the game... The pareto principle can be interpreted in many ways but when joint ratios get too imbalanced, expect trouble on the ground.
Ok assuming the states create a health insurance plan and leave the federal government out of it "10th Amendment". First I would like to say New Jersey is Broke, California is broke and New York and other places that I know of are on there way. All of them have high taxes and many social programs. With that being said I would think they would have to raise the taxes on everyone in these states of course to pay for the state run health coverage. They currently can't run the social programs they have now and even stay out of debt and that includes the federal government as well. So where do you think they would try and get the money from once they couldn't pay the medical bills. Once millions are on this system in a state they would have to run to the federal government looking for money and of course every other state would do the samething. Also speaking of the federal government and the management of programs.
Lets look at social security, medicare and welfare. All of them are complusive systems that very soon social security will be broke that is unless they raise the tax on social security. This really isnt about socialism as much as it is government control. Also we are currently in 12 trillion in debt where is all this money going to come from do you really think it will only come from those who make over 250,000. Even if we all agree to pay into this system it will have no oversight. It will not use common sense and most of all I know this because of every other government action and program they have already put into place. They can't manage a war, they can't manage peoples retirements, they can't manage a budget, they can't even back the money with someone real and just print money. They surely can't tell the truth, so in closing the idea of socialized meds might sound good I have to remember who I'm dealing with. I mean if government consistantly was honest and did the right thing with your money and didnt waste it. If they didnt make stupid laws and continue to ignore the common interest of the people you might have a good point to trust government with your healthcare. Being that I'm living in the real world and government since 1900 has been out of control I wish to use reason and sanity.
UHC I've already answered this but I can't recall if it was in this thread so I'll just reiterate... those states with the social programs need to consolidate and trim them down with synergy. There's overlap happening in some cases, and other things are pointless. Illegals not paying into the system... got to go. The revenue for uhc should barely leave the state in my theoretical sketch. Feds only handling bulk purchasing that delivers directly to states on demand.
The rest of what you have said presumes that nothing america has ever done as a government has ever been of positive benefit to anyone except politicians. That's illogical to me. The standard of living here has been raised tremendously over the course of a century and I don't expect utopia in this new century. Just a bit more order so the shell games don't continue to get carried away. Supervision on ground level by local munipalities and state works better than feds doing it from afar. The socialized medicine with profiteering insurance system we have now has to float too many middle men with nothing but incentives to drive the price up. Our over abundant population of lawyers need to go to medical school and make themselves useful.
An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked; and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich - a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little.. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.
I don't know if that story is true, but it's consistent with what I've seen. The problem is capitalism has not been happening for a very very long time. Government isn't taking all the reward away with taxes. Government has sided with corporations too long and too extreme, and now we live by corporatism.
I'm not against capitalism, and when proper regulations are in place, balance between commerce and we the people happens. That's the ideal. No corporate entity or industry should be writing legislation for themselves. That's when corruption rules the roost.
That is hard for some people to come to grips with.
Why would a person work when they can be paid(not a lot) to NOT work...and to relax at home.
There is also the matter that if you need a little extra $$$ you can work under the table.
Nobody is discussing the ultra enrichment of welfare the way half of this forum has insisted. I'm talking about the people who do work and are considered working poor, which I'm certain is an incentive to not bother working. The real problem is the ratio keeping too much on the top. Talk to working class like they're dead beats they just might take that suggestion.
Power in the hands of the people is something Im definatley on board with.
How would you define an "establishment"? I am against government which has no fear of reprisal or repremand outside of not winning an election 6 years later. Im also against the private ownership of means of production, which given its own devises, ALWAYS creates a slave class.
On another thread, Randomdude, you outed yourself as a beleiver in communism. Why are you changing your position here? Only to get along? Why?
Russia was never Communist.....Russia was a state run capitalism at its best, a straight out dictatorship at its worst, that served the sole purpose of using capital control to shift wealth to the controlling parties, and those who they owed favors. At no point did the Russian average Joe EVER get even a small percent of his labor, which is a pillar of Communism.
You didn't answer the question, Randomdude. Have you ever been to Russia, or China? Have you ever been outside of the US?
Ok assuming the states create a health insurance plan and leave the federal government out of it "10th Amendment". First I would like to say New Jersey is Broke, California is broke and New York and other places that I know of are on there way. All of them have high taxes and many social programs. With that being said I would think they would have to raise the taxes on everyone in these states of course to pay for the state run health coverage. They currently can't run the social programs they have now and even stay out of debt and that includes the federal government as well. So where do you think they would try and get the money from once they couldn't pay the medical bills. Once millions are on this system in a state they would have to run to the federal government looking for money and of course every other state would do the samething. Also speaking of the federal government and the management of programs.
Lets look at social security, medicare and welfare. All of them are complusive systems that very soon social security will be broke that is unless they raise the tax on social security. This really isnt about socialism as much as it is government control. Also we are currently in 12 trillion in debt where is all this money going to come from do you really think it will only come from those who make over 250,000. Even if we all agree to pay into this system it will have no oversight. It will not use common sense and most of all I know this because of every other government action and program they have already put into place. They can't manage a war, they can't manage peoples retirements, they can't manage a budget, they can't even back the money with someone real and just print money. They surely can't tell the truth, so in closing the idea of socialized meds might sound good I have to remember who I'm dealing with. I mean if government consistantly was honest and did the right thing with your money and didnt waste it. If they didnt make stupid laws and continue to ignore the common interest of the people you might have a good point to trust government with your healthcare. Being that I'm living in the real world and government since 1900 has been out of control I wish to use reason and sanity.
I had to chime in here regarding NY and high taxes.
OUr sales tax in the county I lived in wsa 8.65%... a little high, but not so bad. The tax problem is NY is PROPERTY taxes.. and the reason for the high property taxes is NOT the social programs, but the school districts.. partcularly on Long Island. School taxes took up over 65% of my tax bill on my home.
Long Island is broken up into several "districts" and "special districts". Becasue it is so fragmented, somtimes things over lap. There is also alot of neppitism within local governments on LI. Becaues the school districts are so fragmented, the teachers Unions have a stronger negotiating power over the smaller districts (for example, when one district gets concessions from a certain town they will use that concession to gain the same or better concessions from the next district they negotiate with). The school administration is also overpaid in many districts on Long Island.
To boot, the rest of NY State looks at Long Island as a virtual ATM machine. We contribute the most in total taxes and get a fraction of it back from Albany. The reason.. because Long Islanders are mostly commuters from NYC.. where obviously the pay is pretty nice and high in comparison.
NY is now having money problems because property values have plummeted and as a result so has the taxes that can be collected on said properties. And the taxes that would go to the state and local governments from the actual sales of homes has taken a whopping as well.. which is another reason why NY is not having problems.. their budget is not meeting the deflation in taxes..
That's really not true. However, it IS true that when incentives are removed, and when incentives never existed, humans work much, much less.
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