We ought to get rid of sales tax.
We should lower income tax for the 99% and raise it for the 1%.
We need to ensure the 1% are paying their taxes, many of them are circumventing them.
Of course none of this will change so long as we keep reelecting establishment libcons/republicrats.
The problem is, Gloom, if you tax the richest people punitively, they will just pick up their shit and gtfo.
And if you chase them around enough, they will just join this weird, creepy-ass globalist cult and strong-arm governments into destroying competition while bribing politicians to never really have to pay the taxes still.
Think about it, who does millions of “environmental” regulations and “green” energy subsidies help?
Companies that are already so rich they can survive it.
On a more basic level: what role do you or the government have deciding how much money anybody should have? As a separate point, what role does the government have in distributing money?
I actually favour a UBI to most other statist schemes. That one is comparatively mild and benign. In a sane world, this could probably be negociated into reality. But that doesn’t make it a great idea. You are not even taking into account things like inflation, or that now employers become far less competitive, and that over decades all low wage jobs will eventually just get exported because no one in that country wants to do them. You would essencially be putting people on life support. Still, like I said, it is among the less hare-brained and could be worked out.
This is absolutely true. Like Smears erstwhile talking about raising taxes AND jails are bad.
Well lol you raise taxes you get more jails.
If you defund government, you get less.
If you want soldiers doing their actual job, protecting borders and serving as a powerful deterrent to nutjobs, stop being wishy-washy about people like Trump.
People with crazy global schemes will use armies for crazy global schemes. Why in 2021 we still letting them extort us with “the other side is rassis and wants to kill gays,” or the pretty flowers, or “we have plans to help the poor and starving?”
Wake up my beautiful people!
People make fun of the entire Republican philosophy being simply “freedom.” The brash simplicity of it. What do you want? Freedom. Period. Give me that freedom.
What they don’t realize is that the simplicity is the entire point. We don’t want no insane scheme that inevitably includes some form of world domination. Keep it simple. Does it increase freedom? Green light. Does it decrease freedom? Nix it.
Just to throw a knuckle ball into the discussion…
theguardian.com/commentisfr … sm-attacks
Billionaires attack capitalism.
One way to get around inflation, would be to reduce or get rid of non-luxury sales and non-luxury income tax while raising luxury sales and luxury income tax.
That way, only the price of luxury goods would go up.
Yea, raise luxury, and inessential, if you will, sales and income tax.
Raise taxes on luxury and inessential goods and the members of the 1% who produce them.
As for chasing the 1% around the world, if we can learn to elect more grassroots politicians, instead of ones bought and paid for by the very 1% we mean to go after, we will have a better chance of succeeding in making the 1% pay.
No, they will just move to wherever. Incorporate in some island somewhere, just as one of a million examples.
We elect capitalists in theory, but we get corporatists in practice, we elect social democrats in theory, but we get corporatists in practice.
I don’t think you’re any less likely to get corporatists by voting for capitalists over social dems.
If you look at the details, you might become convinced otherwise.
For example.
Social dems are every one for “green” legislation. “Green” legislation is corporatism itself. It is the government protecting certain corporations and banning every other business, and legislating in their favour.
Just one example.
I’m not presenting you a general voting or party philosophy. I generally despise Republican politicians too and would be hard pressed to even vote.
But if you are clear about these concepts, then when someone like Trump comes along you are prepared to act.
Don’t let them blackmail you.
This is why I am skeptical of meaningful reform in this fashion: it would require a global effort amongst the bottom 75% - 99% to collectively unite to negotiate terms. Organizing something of that magnitude, on a global scale, seems next to impossible (albeit ever so slightly more likely with the internet age).
And the argument that mega-corporations and conglomerates would just relocate offshore if U.S. raised tax rates is unfortunately legitimate. Tax sheltering is already a serious problem and the ultra-wealthy, as well as corporations, are able to relocate money and assets to wherever it is most beneficial to them.
So, as much as I would love to effectively argue that the ultra-wealthy are being unpatriotic by relocating assets to avoid taxation that would benefit their fellow countryman, I just don’t think the nationalism of the ultra-wealthy runs that deeply in most cases.
d0rkyd00d when are you going to clarify your position on Hitler?
I agree, in order for the idea for higher taxation to be widely accepted (including by the majority of the highest income earners), we would need more faith that government would be effectively using those tax dollars, vs. funding Forever Wars and other shenanigans, all in the name of “democracy.”
I am at a loss for how to best resolve that.
On the other hand, neocons did start the war on drugs, which’s sort of corporatism, and the war on terror, which unnecessarily expands the military industrial complex at our expense.
Trump isn’t a neocon, he appears to be a rightwing quasi-populist, which’s why I prefer him to Biden on the one hand, and the Bushs and Romney on the other.
My voting habits are a bit odd.
Federally, I’ve been voting for Maxime Bernier, he’s like Rand Paul, he also wants to halve immigration, but provincially, I’ve been voting for the NDP, which’s a leftwing quasi-populist party.
I never vote for the two main parties, because I think they’re the least populist, the most corrupt.
Omg no son how are you voting for those communist bastards.
Honestly.
Harper has maintained support for Trump while all the rest of the establishment pricks distance themselves.
Here’s an interesting link, I don’t have any reason to believe these are overestimates. Just seeing the numbers blows my mind…614 people, controlling $2.9 Trillion in wealth in the U.S…
UNITED STATES
TOTAL BILLIONAIRES | 614
TOTAL NET WORTH | $2.9 TRILLION
THE RICHEST
#1
JEFF BEZOS
NET WORTH |$113.0B
#2
BILL GATES
NET WORTH |$98.0B
#4
WARREN BUFFETT
NET WORTH |$67.5B
#5
LARRY ELLISON
NET WORTH |$59.0B
#7
MARK ZUCKERBERG
NET WORTH |$54.7B