blackangst1
Lifer
? Reply to the wrong thread?
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Top 1% pays 50% of the taxes.
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? Reply to the wrong thread?
The rich benefit from the sheep they feed off of having the productivity and prosperity to buy their products and services and enriching them.
The 'rich' would own a whole lot of dirt from ocean to ocean and sick, ignorant and starving starving people's labor without society acting in ways to create broad wealth.
Ask millions of hungry Chinese peasants before and after the US consumers sent them trillions to make things and the Chinese government set up the structure for it.
blackangst1
Lifer
Great. So what services of the government (federal) do the rich use that the poor do not?
blackangst1
Lifer
So what youre saying is, the rich's taxes pay for upkeep of the business model that allowed them to become rich in the first place?
Every post that isn't your absurd right-wing ideology sounds like Karl Marx to you in much the same way that everyone else looked like a commie to John Birchers.
As I said above, the wealthy can own nothing but the dirt from coast to coast, and the uneducated, sick, hungry people's labor - big deal - without the society organizing.
Why do you think the wealthiest man in the US when it was formed had a modest two story home and a modest estate? There wasn't all that much wealth to go around.
You need an education in basic public policy - why, for example, when the railroads became the nation's economic backbone, one man owning a region's railroad and being able to charge exhorbitant prices that made him rich but shut out much of the use of the goods that couldn't pay his high prices, was good for making him 'rich' relatively speaking, but a bad idea for society to prosper, and that the government making transportation broadly available was the better policy.
What 'good or service' are you going to sell in a nation of poverty? Snake oil? Building a log cabin? Public investments in roads, education, and more increase the wealth.
And since the government supposedly represents the people, not the wealthy, sometimes its policies will make the less well off better off, not only the rich better off.
The government's job is not to merely serve the top 0.1%, even if they do get a disproportionate amount of its help compared to the rest of the people.
blackangst1
Lifer
Craig, youre reading revisionist history. If you think the wealthiest in colonial times lived in "modest estates", you obviously need to do a little research. Read about the Carter family and the Corotoman Plantation for starters.
A summary from wiki: Robert Carter died on August 4, 1732, in Lancaster County, Virginia and was buried in Christ Church, Lancaster County, Virginia. He left behind 300,000 acres (1,200 km²) of land, 1,000 slaves and 10,000,000 British pounds in cash
Hardly modest.
Praxis1452
Platinum Member
Public investments do not increase the wealth for everyone. The increase the life of certain and specific people that the road benefits, not to mention they are an inefficient use of money. If they were profitable businesses would create them themselves. Saying that the boost the economy is an absolute lie. Losing money does not make people more money.
You spent an entire paragraph complaining about monopolies(refer to railroads) yet government is the biggest monopoly around.
The wealthy might depend on the labor, but it does mean the labor deserves anything at all. We were given life by our ancestors but we don't give them everything either.
Their is an inherent contradiction between the government representing the people and equality of representation. If an issue has more than one side, and most do, then the majority are represented and the minority in a democracy cast aside. That's a fact.
If government helps business it is mainly because business interests drive lawmaking and congress as well as politics in general. They provide the wealth. Taxing the wealthier even a decent amount more won't change that.
The only solution to your problems is absolute equality and it's not going to happen on the national level.
blackangst1
Lifer
Take advantage of/use/same thing. Can you answer the question?
blackangst1
Lifer
I understand the change. So your answer is "insurance purchased by the rich to prevent revolution"? WTF does that mean?
TastesLikeChicken
Lifer
Does it apply to our society though? Maybe back when serfdom was the order of the day that was a valid concern. Not so much today.
Besides, the US is a country where a "poor" person can weigh 400+ lbs and maintain that weight. Go to a 3rd world country and see if their poor can do that. Many "poor" in the US have 2 cars. Poor in the US means buying a cheapo MP3 player instead of an iPod, or tennis shoes under 10 bucks instead of having top-o-the-line Nikes, or eating select cuts of beef instead of choice or prime. There are truly poor people in this world that would give their left nut to swap places with the US version of poor. Poor is a relative term. In the US it simply means the least well off.
blackangst1
Lifer
I guess "rich" and "poor" and "unstable" are relative, because I certainly wouldnt think youre talking about the USA...
yes, it does. the social system in place has made the 'poor' a rather well off bunch in comparison to historical counterparts. they're way less likely to take up armed rebellion because of it. further, our social system has instilled a basic belief in the system through education. we generally believe that hard work is rewarded, that our votes matter, etc. whether true or not, that helps reduce the likelihood of society breaking down.
if there is one lesson to be learned from history and from current events it is that people who have nothing better to do than scratch life from rocks would often rather fight than farm rocks. the more education, the more creature comforts, the more rights, the more hope for a better life by working in the system that people have, the more likely they are to work with the system rather than outside the system or (worse) against the system.
I'm not, because our society is a fundamentally socialist one with a decently evolved welfare state, paid for by taxing the rich. There are tons of other requirements for a revolution or whatever (see 'Inequality and Insurgency' by Muller for one), but even the poor here are guaranteed a free education, an array of social services, etc.
Take all of those away, turn the inner cities into ghettos (and I mean REAL ghettos, if you've ever been to the third world you know what I'm talking about), see what happens to crime/unrest/etc. I bet you it's not something we want.
blackangst1
Lifer
Why lookie here...I agree 100% with your response 🙂 And yes. I have 13 countries in my passport and I travel fairly often out of country so I DO know.
nobodyknows
Diamond Member
LOL at you people who throw out numbers like they prove something.
We have a massive deficit so obviously the rich are getting by too cheap. It's time for them to give back some of what this country has provided them instead of whining about what's fair.
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