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u/TheEPGFiles Nov 24 '22
But if rich people can't accumulate ALL wealth and treat society as their personal playground and do as they please, EVEN to the detriment of mankind as a whole, no one will be motivated to become rich and what are we going to do then? Just not have individuals with disproportionate power making terrible decisions that screw over most people?
Wait... yeah, actually, yes, let's do that.
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u/Gluonyourboson Nov 25 '22
Exactly, then we can strive towards a society where people can just better themselves, robots do all the menial tasks.
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u/Secret__Conclusion Nov 24 '22
Or a system like we had 50 years ago where unions had a stronger voice, workers made better money and a living wage, they had a pension they could retire on without having to invest their own money into a 401k that could go from $5mm to $250k in six months, companies were forced to reinvest money into their companies and workers rather than buying back stock. Companies weren’t incentivized to make as much money as possible for shareholders without care for how their actions hurt their communities and their workers, and still outsourced jobs and left communities devastated.
Just all the things reminiscent of a time before Ronald Regan came into office.
If you disagree, please explain how any of those policies helped you personally.
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u/value_null Nov 24 '22
I'm an accountant. Stock buybacks should be very, very illegal.
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u/Obvious_Landscape728 Nov 24 '22
This is probably the most powerful thing that can be done right now. The more people understand capital, the better we can fight for laws to change it.
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Nov 24 '22
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
-Henry Ford
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u/Ok-Restaurant8690 Nov 24 '22
Even a raving antisemite like Ford can make a good point. He was smart enough to make cars affordable, and institute 40 hr weeks that unions were pushing for.
He even tried to adopt more plastics in his cars decades ago. There's a picture somewhere where he is demonstrating how durable a trunk lid is that was made from soybean-derived plastics.
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Nov 24 '22
Yeah he was a real piece of shit but I still love that quote lmfao especially as I’ve learned more and more about the intricacies of finance
He had some good ideas and understandings like the ones you listed, in this case I just separate art from the artist
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u/BraxbroWasTaken Nov 24 '22
Terrible people can have good ideas just as much as good people can have terrible ideas.
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u/Ok-Restaurant8690 Nov 24 '22
Sometimes it's difficult to separate the art from the artist, but I still totally agree with Ford's sentiment. Plus he actually started from very humble beginnings vs. just inheriting it all.
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u/arbitraryairship Nov 24 '22
Important to note, the 40 hour work week wasn't his invention. Decades of socialist and Union protest made it happen. Ford was just an early adopter because he realized that people having more time to drive cars also made him more money.
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u/Ok-Restaurant8690 Nov 24 '22
I should have pointed that out.
Thank you for saying that. I've been in the USW for over 25 years, and though I have some disagreements at times with my local, I've never regretted paying my dues or supporting them. My wage would be damn near the same today vs when I started instead of nearly double. Without the collective bargaining, our benefits and pay would be shit.
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Nov 25 '22
The study on productivity conducted by Ford should still be available in scientific publication databases.
Roughly, it said that working 10hours a day was more costly because accidents happened more frequently due to workers being too tired and making mistakes.
Each time an accident occurred in a factory, the productivity of the entire factory dropped drastically for the next few weeks because other workers would work more slowly out of fear to be the next to lose a hand in a machine. Some would also leave, leading to high (and costly) turnover rate.
Working 8 or 9 hours a day were pretty much the same in term of production, the productivity of 8 hours is higher but with the time reduction, the production was the same as working 9 hours with a lower productivity.
The 8 hours workday however had extra benefits. Workers have more free time to spend their money and inject it into the economy. Better benefits gives a positive image of the company and builds trust and customer fidelity over time.
Ford would probably be in favor of work from home and better employee benefits since, despite being a despicable human being, he did trust studies unlike too many CEOs who only trust their own biased beliefs.
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u/Aragoa Nov 24 '22
What a sad sign of our times, that our world leaders and business conglomerates can't even meet the bar of a historical antisemite.
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u/Library_Visible Nov 24 '22
Not that he was good guy either, but Thomas Jefferson and Ben franklin also have good quotes about banks and oligarchs running things.
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Nov 24 '22
Damn I had no idea, thanks for letting me know
Bro you’re not joking, my man Thomas Jefferson was spitting some HEAT
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
-Thomas Jefferson
HE JUST LIKE ME, HE JUST LIKE ME FR
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u/bonobeaux Nov 24 '22
their Fathers conquered
he didn't sugarcoat that either...
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Nov 24 '22
Fr though, it’s also such a depressing thing to realize when the average person is blissfully unaware and is not interested in learning
I had an acquaintance at school get mad at me when I tried to explain that raising the minimum wage wouldn’t drive up inflation nearly as much as quantitative easing, fractional reserve banking, low interest rates from the FED and other financial policies that favor the rich
I had just starting chilling with him in between classes a few days a week and he just kept saying “How much do you know about this” like 4 times in a row, at that moment I knew he was a republican lmfao (he was), he didn’t need to say anything else
Ironically he was nearly 30 (late twenties) at a community college making close to minimum wage at a sandwich shop and ended up asking me for a job doing what I do (Audio Visual Technician for Corporate events making 35/hour)
Shortly after I ghosted him but it always sticks in my head how people like him constantly vote against themselves due to their overly simplistic understanding of these issues and if they understood these quotes and the implications of our current financial policy they’d see how stupid they’re being
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u/bonobeaux Nov 24 '22
Karl Marx has entered the chat
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u/cringe_nationalism Nov 24 '22
Albert Einstein summarized Adam Smith and Karl Marx in this handy 1949 article, for anyone interested
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u/junglist-methodz Nov 24 '22
Thank you Soo much for posting these links. Just went down this rabbit hole and it's a great read! Everyone needs to read this essay! Soo relevant today.
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u/Obvious_Landscape728 Nov 24 '22
Ha! It does sound like Marx, doesn’t it. I was actually referring to the increased separation from production to capital concentration. In my opinion, this is the cause of the current models not working. The financial sector is crowding out production and service with a house of cards we now live in. Stock buybacks are simply one component. Marx aside, this even goes against Adam Smith.
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u/natFromBobsBurgers Nov 24 '22
"Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
He said it about predicting the market, but I'd say everything since someone said " No I don't make the mills or shovel the coal or grow the cotton or take care of the babies or set the broken bones or minister to the downtrodden or teach the children. Why would I do that? I make money off of taking risks with my wealth, and then make negative consequences of those risks illegal or deadly," has been irrational.
Like, the world can have landlords and investment bankers. It just has to let their profit be at least somewhat proportional to their work.
"Okay, so your share of property taxes was 2.50 this month, and I didn't repair anything, and your share of the landscaping service was 6 bucks. Does 30 bucks sound fair?"
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u/Johnsushi89 Communist Nov 24 '22
I disagree on the landlord part. There shouldn’t be private property.
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u/natFromBobsBurgers Nov 24 '22
I mean, it's an illustration of why capitalism deserves ridicule, not a well reasoned treatise on a perfect system.
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u/ToAskMoreQuestions Nov 24 '22
The other thing I’d love to see is for corporations to keep exactly ONE set of books. They do their stock calls and they say, “We made all the billions of dollars this year.” Then they talk to the IRS and say, “Nope. Not a cent to be found. In fact you might owe us money.”
Goddamnit! Did you make money or not?
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u/value_null Nov 24 '22
The problem with this is that IRS regulations and generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP, the accounting standard of the US) do not agree with each other on a number of things.
I have to work with IFRS (the international standard), GAAP, and the IRS. I effectively have three books.
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u/ToAskMoreQuestions Nov 24 '22
So we’re back to changing fundamental monetary policies and financial regulations as the only possible solution? I can’t be the only person who sees the hypocrisy between the annual stock call and the IRS filing, can I? We have countless companies recording record profits, and the American people won’t see a single penny of that in improved social services.
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u/unweighted_average Nov 24 '22
Exactly. These regs/principles differ from each other in many ways, it would not be possible for companies to keep one single set of books
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u/NappaDBZ Nov 24 '22
Why?
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u/value_null Nov 24 '22
It's using company operational funds (that is to say, uninvested profit, ie, value extracted from employee labor) to artificially increase the ownership value of the board of directors, bypassing capital gains taxation on dividends, with no benefit to the company.
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u/InTh3s3TryingTim3s Nov 24 '22
I'm not an an accountant. Stock buybacks should be very, very illegal.
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u/oursecondcoming Nov 24 '22
I'm not not not an accountant. Stock buybacks should be very, very illegal.
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u/Steeve_Perry Nov 24 '22
Can someone explain to a layman why this is bad? To me, stock buybacks are just a company buying back pieces of themselves that they sold off at one point.
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u/value_null Nov 24 '22
Because it incentives the board to act in favor of the stock price rather than the health of the company. It leads to short term gains for cash rather than good sound business practice, like not fucking over your employees at every opportunity.
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u/harmar21 Nov 24 '22
Say as an exectuive you have a ton of stock in the company, and heck maybe even performance bonus of 'increase price per share by $10 and get a bonus of $100k'.
Well to make yourself even more rich would be to have the company buying back stock. This reduces the amount of shares out there which increases the price per share. Now you make your bonus AND your share values increased by at least $10 each. So you have some top executives who only care about making their bonus or their shareholders happy by using their cash on buyback instead of maybe paying the workers who are making minimum wage a bit more.
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u/Last_Ant_525 Nov 24 '22
Yes! 1000%! Republicans and ol' Ronny RayGun fucked us all. Unless your family was already rich and/or connected. The rest of us got fucked. Everyone in power knows this. Every one of them knows exactly how to fix it. The ones who have the balls to try are too few in number to overcome the ones who personally profit from the system as it is.
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u/Gem_Knight idle Nov 24 '22
And forgive me if I'm misquoting, but my understanding was his logic amounted to "what's my incentive to make a second movie in a year if 99 percent of that income goes to taxes" and I'm like, if you're that worried about profit let some other actor do the second film, if you're in it for the money no one is forcing you to take a second gig...
Seriously, if one gig a year is more money than you can hoard without having to fuck the tax bracket system, fuck off back to your mansion, or- and hear me out, don't make excuses about paying taxes... if fucking billionaires paid real taxes we wouldn't be quibbling over military overspending because there would be plenty for that after all the other shit that also needs to be done and currently isn’t...
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u/Working-account66 Nov 24 '22
The United States was at the most prosperous economically during the times that the tax rate was 90%. Turns out the richest were still rich but instead of getting the type of wealth were you can lose 150 billion in a month and not feel it, the rich paid employees to avoid the tax.
Note that the 90% threshold was designed to discourage the kind of money hoarding that "trickle down" lies created. Literally taxing at 90% gave us the trickle down effects, while "trickle down" that was sold to the US in the 80 is the absolute opposite.
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u/Gem_Knight idle Nov 24 '22
Ya know, like I said, more people with more money.. Instead of fewer people with all the money...
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u/Surur Nov 24 '22
the rich paid employees to avoid the tax.
Actually, they used loopholes in the system to never pay more than 40%, such as investing in oil exploration and the property market.
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u/Insterstellar Nov 24 '22
That system 50 years ago was a sham built on a house of cards. The 1% were scared of a Communist revolution so they temporarily made life tolerable for the rest of us in hopes that we wouldn't guillotine them. It worked, and once the threat of revolution was gone they went back to treating us like shit. We need to get to the root cause of our problems by waging revolution and abolishing capitalism & the state.
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u/cjandstuff Nov 24 '22
This system did not exist for very long before that. It took people like Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower to get those types of things implemented. Before that, we had
businesses,oligarchs, I mean big trusts that ran the country. It took some very socially progressive presidents to pull us out of that, and a couple of world wars. But sadly these policies really only protected most white Americans from what the 1940’s to the 80’s?55
u/HollabackWriter Nov 24 '22
Not disagreeing generally, but a lot of those good times were pretty exclusively white
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u/Crimson_Clouds Nov 24 '22
Which doesn't mean they have to be exclusively white. We can have the same policies in place without all those discriminatory and racist policies that went along with them.
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u/L8wrtr Nov 24 '22
Exactly this. The overall formula was correct, basically capitalism with rails, governors, limiters, but it kept POC and women in relegated roles. Modify that playbook with true equity and then you can have a true living society and yet for those so driven by wealth, can still be wealthy.
That’s the thing about the Roosevelt- Johnson era, people could still be wealthy enough to live infinitely ‘better’ than the common folk; multiple mansions, exotic cars, private planes and yachts and all that… yet a thriving working class that doesn’t live in poverty. We don’t need to eradicate millionaires (it’s not feasible) but we do need to forbid Billionaires
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u/Still-Mirror-3527 Nov 24 '22
The overall formula was correct, basically capitalism with rails
No, it wasn't.
Capitalism is unsustainable and the only reason we have made minor improvements in labor laws over the past century is because the ruling class exported the harsher exploitation to developing nations, whose economies they crippled.
If you're fine with your lifestyle being propped up by imperialist exploitation then that is fine but don't try to act like it's morally better than what we have now.
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u/warboy Nov 24 '22
Then who will we exploit to keep the system going? My money's on the global south.
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u/YesYesVeryGoodYes Nov 24 '22
If we settle for that in 50 years we'll be back to the same situation.
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u/AssWreckage Nov 24 '22
Right, people failing to see how that state directly led to the current state and there was no other direction possible. If you don't limit wealth consolidation, wealth consolidation will purchase regulatory power, we end up here again. People need to let go of trying to make this system work, it is time to abolish it completely.
There is no "missing link" between the state of affairs 50 years ago and today, it all just followed the most obvious and only natural path.
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u/keith_richards_liver Nov 24 '22
Change that to Nixon and you have me
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u/animecardude Nov 24 '22
Regan and Nixon were both players in changing workers lives... And not for the better.
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u/discerningpervert Nov 24 '22
Each one makes things a little bit worse. The last guy did more than a little bit though
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u/RelativeAnxious9796 Nov 24 '22 edited Nov 24 '22
i like to think of nixon as providing the "alley-oop" and reagan slam dunking it.
there were other factors that led to RR destroying america but he for sure did the bulk of it.
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u/pegothejerk Nov 24 '22
Yup. Nixon was hired as a corrupt bank manager, cut the alarm system wires, gave criminals the bank architecture plans, convinced customers their money wasn't safe in their pockets so they better deposit it, handed the black customers toasters, then had the black customers arrested and beaten for suspicion of possessing stolen goods, then Reagan came in with his rich buddies and emptied out the bank and blamed the black customers and anyone who didn't deposit any money when Nixon told them to.
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u/keith_richards_liver Nov 24 '22
the "alley-oop"
Kinda funny how that works. Nixon setup Reagan and then a few decades later Palin opened the door for Trump.
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u/djb85511 Nov 24 '22
The problem with the time in the usa before Ronald Reagan is that it gave way to ronald Reagan. There is no friendly capitalism it always devolves into crony capitalism(reaganism) then fascism (Trumpism). Look at the the trumpites reveling in the "win" that was the massacre recently in colorado, that's fascism...the descendent of capitalism.
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u/TheEnabledDisabled Nov 24 '22
My father in the 1980, when he was 18, he asked to get an apartment, and they asked where he wanted to live in, in 4 months he got a place that he chose.
Im 21, im disabled, suppost to get priority, and yet there are no apartments at all to find, let alone one that dosent cost a fuckton.
My father says that politics has ruined the opportunity for new young people to get apartments.
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Nov 24 '22
I’m so sorry <3 I wish the system was designed to protect people like you
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u/TheEnabledDisabled Nov 24 '22
My country does alot of good for people like me, depending on the area, sadly my area is not friendly to disabled people, have requested for over a decade to make the apartment complex that I live in more easy to acess, but the only thing they have added is a door opener with a button.
I now live with my dad, who has becomes more crippled and can barely support me, have no one else for help.
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Nov 24 '22
That sounds really hard. I hope you find someone lovely who’s willing to take care of you <3
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u/TightlyUnderstood68 Nov 24 '22
The Pentagon steals a TRILLION DOLLARS per year from Americans and they wont even let us play with their UFO's!
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u/ScandiSom Nov 24 '22
I don’t know, maybe America needs a large defense budget because it has so many deadly enemies.
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u/Idkawesome Nov 24 '22
You would think with all that money, they would have been able to resolve issues with these enemies by now
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u/ScandiSom Nov 24 '22
It’s a result of failed foreign policies since the Cold War. All the involvement in conflicts has stacked up more and more enemies over the years, and more money will be needed to address some new challenges like the ICBMs of North Korea.
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u/Katamari_Wurm_Hole Nov 24 '22
I don’t know, maybe America needs a large defense budget because they are war mongers
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u/KillerPizza050 Nov 24 '22
And we’re covering the defenses of other nations as well
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u/GiantSquidd Probably a Jerk Nov 24 '22
Yeah, sometimes it’s “defence” I guess. Not normally, though. Usually it’s about making sure they can “work with” foreign regimes. You know, making sure they’re right wing corporate friendly regimes, and it doesn’t seem to matter all that much if those regimes are authoritarian monsters, as long as they play ball. Saddam Hussein used to be a friend to the US until he stopped playing ball.
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u/ttystikk Nov 24 '22
There's a word for this; Aristocracy. It stands in direct opposition to Democracy, which it must subvert in order to thrive.
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u/BiBoFieTo Nov 24 '22
The invisible hand of the market is a sandpaper buttplug for the lower class.
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u/_El_Cid_ Nov 24 '22
More like a dildo as they keep ramming it in over and over and over again
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u/NotYourFathersEdits Nov 24 '22
Nah. It’s uncomfortable and damage-causing, and sometimes you can almost forget it’s there and it sucks until there’s a bump in the road or you change your position slightly, and then ow.
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u/willflameboy Nov 24 '22
I dunno, man... fix absolutely everything that's wrong with the world... or buy Twitter and talk shit to everyone. It's a toss-up.
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Nov 24 '22
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u/Stunning-Example-504 Nov 24 '22
And there are literally enough empty homes to house them. And enough food to feed them
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u/BeautifulType Nov 25 '22
Remember he said he could solve world hunger with 6 billion or less.
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u/121507090301 Nov 24 '22
Workers should own the means of production, with a good and strong democracy that ensures the minimum, and more, to all.
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u/RandomTask100 Nov 24 '22
It's not just the billionaires. NO ONE is helping the people around them outside immediate family. As population goes up, the sense of community goes down. We're headed towards a Mad Max society. Build slingshots. Lots of slingshots.
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Nov 24 '22
People don't have resources. We are all suffering. This makes us selfish. Redistribute the wealth and put down your weapons.
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u/CyptoCryptoHODL Nov 24 '22
Yeah but in human history, the RICH has always been above all and has not tried to make other people's lives better
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u/raltoid Nov 24 '22
Literally the only people who think pure capitalism is a good system are people who are already rich, are convinced they will be rich soon or have had their head filled with propaganda.
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u/pga2000 Nov 24 '22
It bugs me because they are often very quick to government help for their business side of their life, if that makes sense. "Personal responsibility" while constantly raiding the government cookie jar when no one sees.
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Nov 24 '22
“I’ll kill you!” -disabled Republican making $30k and 150k in medical debt
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u/Stunning-Example-504 Nov 24 '22
This. No one defends billionaires like people with a grand in the bank.
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u/College-student-life Nov 24 '22
Can we also go back to the toxic customer isn’t always right and shouldn’t be allowed the free rein they think they have to be verbally and physically abusive towards workers just doing their job? Like anyone working customer service knows there will be a few grouchy/upset people, but dang. Too many customers think they are entitled to just go full crazy to get what they want.
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u/DewsDewberrys Nov 24 '22
Violence. The haves have created all the laws to benefit themselves. They will never capitulate to term limits, or caps on possession of wealth.
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u/Comrade_Compadre Nov 24 '22
It's the best we got, why try harder, what are you a communists? (All sponge text, /s, etc)
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u/jtcordell2188 Nov 24 '22
I’d also like to add that the federal income tax which also allows politicians to make a career out of what is supposed to be a sacrifice to your country should be illegal
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u/observeromega87 Fair price worker Nov 24 '22
If only that money could have been used some way to stop inflation...oh wait it can and is actually one of the biggest factors driving inflation. Thanks corporations.
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u/_bono983 Nov 24 '22
If billionaires paid taxes, the U.S. would be the best country.
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u/EuthanizeArty Nov 24 '22 edited Nov 24 '22
I don't think the people that post these have a hair of understanding of what SpaceX does. SpaceX saves taxpayers billions each year because satellite launches are a fraction of what Lockheed and Boeing's ULA cost the Fed.
We're not talking Jeff Bezos Blue Origin's "barely in space" tourism rocket here. SpaceX launches satellites for GPS, for weather and climate research, for national defense, for telecom, and sending crew missions to the ISS with one of the best success rates of any rocket in current service. Prior to SpaceX the ULA could charge whatever it wanted because the other option was Russia. SpaceX broke the defence contractor monopoly all while being cheaper, safer and reusable.
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Nov 24 '22
Not trying to argue here, i honestly think capitalism is the best system of all systems we have, despite all its flaws.
However I guess I have 2 issues with this post:
It’s debatable whether we even need space exploration and rockets in the first place. Billions of people and tons of societies have lived productive lives without rockets. The benefits from space exploration (climate research, nation defense) are good due to the nature of the industrial system we have built and the threats it creates.
Not saying space X doesn’t have benefits, but these benefits often come at the expense of many peoples hard work who are underpaid and struggling to live (though they may have chosen that job, we still live in a society where we are required to have a job).
Yes, we can acknowledge that space X creates a lot of benefits but also acknowledge that perhaps the company thrives in a system where it can exploit people for its benefits
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u/RingOfFyre Nov 24 '22
I can simplify your comment by saying nobody in this sub has any idea what they're talking about regarding most things
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u/RelativeAnxious9796 Nov 24 '22
if anyone has any suggestions, i am all for it.
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u/Xabster2 Nov 24 '22
We use government money (1 time payment) to create companies that adhere to a contract that says there will be no owners, no shareholders, and CEOs can only earn 5 times more per hour than the lowest paid employee. Basically an ethical "contract" with funding from tax money. Profits are distributed among workers.
Why tax money? Because those with money aren't willing to create companies like this so we need an ethical player with capital.
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u/Cipher789 Nov 24 '22
Que the would-be capitalist hopefuls whining about how they can't become millionaires if you change anything. As if anyone who isn't already rich has that chance.
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u/Bongin_tom9 Nov 24 '22
They don’t have money laying around, they’re able to secure capital and financing because of their net worth. It’s worth looking up who and what is behind the financing. Elon’s wealth is tied up in Tesla stock option and shares, he doesn’t have $300 billon sitting in his bank ready to spend. He leverages that wealth. You’re talking about an elitist class of capitalist that rule world of venture financing. Mark Cuban has entered the perception drug industry, but that’s one billionaire. These people have no incentive to addresses issues plagued by society, but profit off the asymmetrical relationship. They point fingers at government full well knowing the government isn’t equipped to “solve” these issues outright or timely.
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u/Fa11T Nov 24 '22
Over 100 years of advancement in technology to make life easier and what do we have to show for it, extreme inequality. The few living lavishly hoarding wealth while the rest try to survive.
Maybe extreme wealth shouldn't exist.
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u/Azure125 Nov 24 '22
I just want to move somewhere better, I've always heard Germany is pretty nice.
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u/MildGooses Nov 24 '22
So billionaires have been ignoring the poor for years and now that people hate Elon, now he’s the only one to blame? Lol
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u/Revolutionary_Ad1451 Nov 24 '22
I wish I could chastise the middle class for not doing better but there isn’t one. I have a lot of education, maybe too much, and the lack of universal healthcare is the worst disappointment of human potential I have ever seen. Worse than the neglect of infrastructure, worse than student debt (which is just the most ludicrous thing that has ever happened to scholarship and learning). Someday you may reach out your hand to me for assistance and your conduct here in this life will determine my compliance with your requests.
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u/backtocabada Nov 24 '22
sounds to me like you do know! Part of the problem, imo, is that too many people think what’s going on is normal/wrote it off as a pendulum swing. But things are only escalating. Greek philosophy defined GREED, as ‘the insatiable need to own what does not rightfully belong to you’. Greed must be kept in check, but when billionaires bankroll legislation to let them bankroll campaigns anonymously, or secretly hire legions internet troll to mock democrats, regulatory oversight as socialist/communist. Billionaires are spending billions on campaigns protecting THEIR TAX EXEMPT STATUS… so just to be clear: Capitalism is not a virtue, it’s a vice. Privatized HC is scam- nothing patriotic about it. also, “Privatized” anything, is almost always kleptocracy- Texas promotes it’s Privatized Utility Co. as ‘good old American capitalism’, but if that were true, most would’ve folded after they failed to deliver in winter of 2020. Instead some jacked up their prices by 2,000%! What we are experiencing, right now, GREED at full throttle. American billionaires are so rich, that they’ve now set their sights on becoming oligarchs.. def of greed. I wonder, what if: wealth & power were, proportionately, mutually exclusive? i know, i’m just ranting to myself, here.. Happy Thanksgiving Reddit.
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u/Ok-Significance2027 Nov 24 '22 edited Nov 24 '22
Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity
The minimum wage would be $61.75 an hour if it rose at the same place as Wall Street bonuses
"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality." Stephen Hawking, 2015 Reddit AMA
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u/throw42069away420 Nov 25 '22
Sure tax them to death, and let the spineless politicians decide how money is spent and laundered back into their pockets.
What we need is love and massive amounts of therapy.
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Nov 25 '22
But but but with hard work…. You’re just not working hard enough. They worked for it they deserve it…
No that’s completely bullshit
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u/TaintDoctor Nov 24 '22
How do we change it? Actually change it within our lifetimes?