I myself wonder why people with more than a billion dollars in annual income keep working. You can't spend a billion dollars a year on your self no matter how hard you try. Anyone who wants more than a billion dollars is not healthy and isn't helping the economy, they're only locking up wealth in their bank account instead of letting it flow into the population.
Status games. Humans are never quite satisfied with what they have. It is, in fact, entirely possible to spend a billion dollars per year. Investments, charities, buying extremely fancy art, paying your three thousand housekeepers, getting diamond-encrusted suits...it's all about trying to show off your wealth. Status games. One guy's idea for a utopia actually had a slow shift to where you had to buy what amounted to vouchers in bead form that showed how much you'd donated to charity/government that year, which would become the primary status symbol for wealth levels that large. If you want to make sure everyone knows you're richer than then them, donate more. Usually, no, they're not going to be helping the economy. But 'you're not contributing' isn't grounds for taking all of that money. High taxes, yes. Very high, even. But 90% taxes above, say, a hundred million dollars a year(over ten million seems more reasonable to me, really, but that's not actually based on anything so *shrug*), as the highest bracket? You're gonna be making a lot more in tax money than 100% over a billion, for multiple reasons.
For one, we're getting a lot more in taxes from the obscenely rich. We're getting way, way more in taxes from now-nonprofit organizations (since capital is now flowing into private hands instead of staying corporate, so it's being taxed as salary). Also, the government actually prints money. It can't "run out" any more than Reddit can run out of upvotes. So long as the total value of the economy (which backs the dollar) rises at approximately the same rate as we're spending, the PPP of the dollar remains the same
...So we're going to devalue the dollar massively to pay for this? Like, we're cutting off trade relations, getting rid of the massive corrupt corporations that are a significant portion of the country's economy, and making it so everyone can afford what they need. Inflation will go through the roof if you take the 'print money' route. Like, the rich don't stick around to get taxed. They like being rich. Money is a measure of value, or time, or work, or however you want to put it. Rather than make everything non-profit, you could just tax corporations.
I was thinking firing and blacklisting from government work for a start, plus prosecution with standing anticorruption law.
Right, but what about all the people who
weren't corrupt?
A better way to deal with it, I think, would be to allow prisoners to choose their correctional facility, and they're organized in tiers based on security/rehabilitation versus seclusion or whatever. They get to learn about what prisons they might end up in while they're waiting for trial or right after, and then they have to try and appeal. They can also request transfers if they find themselves being abused or the like. Cases of prisoner mistreatment are followed up on thoroughly, escaped prisoners mean a
hefty-ass fine to make sure they don't try and attract people just looking to escape...you have to work
with incentives. Not against them.
I think the basic income will do more to stop gun violence than a lot of stuff. They're just not a major concern for me.
Certainly. "I made a mistake in trusting Mr. X. He no longer works for me, and I've appointed an independent group to investigate the operation so we can compensate for the mistakes," is enough, so long as it's followed through. I'd love to see a politician take that level of responsibility.
Eh, fair enough.
Does he actively court racists by saying bigoted things? Yes.
He's certainly said things that people have termed bigoted. Given that political discourse in America at the minute is in a place where Congress have faced resolutions forbidding them from even using the term 'illegal immigrant', I'd rather make my own mind up about what is bigoted and what isn't.
Do I need to bring up the Mexican rapist thing? Like, really do I need to find a video where he has to backtrack and say that he doesn't think all Mexicans are rapists, just some of them?
Do you not consider that racist?
Wasn't expecting that one! Though, to be fair, I'm fine with mocking the field in terms of the candidates. It's just when it crosses the line to insulting the voters that I think is a step too far. Like, there was a post a dozen or so pages back along the lines of 'Everyone with a mental age of 12+ knows Trump is a joke'. I take offence to that. It makes a rather direct implication about my mental capacity.
Also, this(addressed to people in general, by the way, but also mainiac in specific). Mock the candidates all you want. You aren't the candidate you support. Arguments are not wars, and politics should not be a battlefield. You don't need to be a soldier taking the bullet for your general. Don't attack the people you're interacting with. Attacking the politicians who will never visit this forum? Why should it bother you? Association? 'If my candidate is a racist, then he's saying I'm a racist! That motherfucker!'?
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Topic: Murrican Politics Megathread 2016: There Will Be Hell Toupée (Read 1571299 times)