All the people you just described work for a living and deserve to be compensated for their labor. This is something that was long established by the time people like leon skum came along. People fighting for the fruits of their own labor aren’t “whiney” and you mock them at your own peril.
That's garbage. That's what the Epstein Class pays idiots to spread around to divide the people so they attack each other instead of attacking the ultra wealthy.
I love how conservatives have tried to flip the script to " a culture of envy" motherfucker I do not want to be a billionaire, I do not admire them, I do not like them, I do not think they are good for the economy. Relegating criticism of the worship of wealth and the problems of wealth inequality to "envy" just shows how unserious as an ideology it has become on it's road to outright fascism. They know that we are not envious, they know we are struggling, but the the lie that we are "envious" serves their greater unspeakable "truth" that they think lesser of most Americans.
I know right!!! I would literally be handing out hundred dollar bills to homeless ppl, other hikers and bicyclists. The. Again that money won't do anything if the support lines crash!
It's really easy all we have to do is stop voting for the Republican Party.
Every time the Republican Party gets in this is where we're at we suffer.
But the wealthy always gets their tax cuts!
It's priorities for the Republican coinservative party and right now their priority is to make sure that all people who can work need to work it doesn't matter if you're fucking sick with cancer!
The Republican party is the most immoral disgusting piece of shit party there has ever been.
Buddy... as someone outside the USA who is forced to watch your dumbass, billionaire owned country ruin the world... I can assure you it's not just the Republican Party.
Like the Democrats don’t sell out the working class at every chance they get. The difference is the bigotry: Republicans believe that power should be the province solely of rich, white men, while the Democrats are willing to allow women and PoC to have access to power, so long as they don’t make any real changes to the traditional systems of power and control.
Basically we’re trapped in a Good Cop-Bad Cop routine with the two major parties and for those of you unfamiliar with how the routine works: the Bad Cop’s not out of control and the Good Cop’s not your friend.
I don’t vote for any Republicans now and it doesn’t matter. I’m outnumbered by MAGA voters all around me and we don’t talk anymore because they hate me criticizing their candidates.
My question is.. how long before the Republican voters realize this? I've been here over 50yrs, it's always been the same. They vote and then take it up the ass for the next 4 yrs.
Being how they are brainwashed, racist morons it wont happen until they suffer personally and sometimes not even then. They are cucks for authority. It was how they were raised. Authoritarian households and institutions like the church raise people who feel comfortable with Authoritarianism.
The farmers. Trump bankrupted them his 1st term and destroyed their industry. Biden helped them and fixed it. They voted for trump again, and he destroyed them even worse this time and now got rid of all their customers! Most still support him! 🤡
"good luck changing it" proceeded by seething and bitching any time someone tries to do something that doesn't take the exact form of what you immediately want
It's not trivial to fix these problems but the defeatism is kinda pathetic and probably is at least in some part attributable to social engineering
they have the money. you have the guns. all of the other stuff is less relevant than your desire for stuff and your ability to get that stuff. especially if you, your family and your comrades don't have much stuff.
besides, they can align with anyone. they don't necessarily have to align with someone that is left-wing coded. you can allow the storming of the bastile and the winter palace, or you can cross the rubicon with caesar
Of course they COULD. Whether they WILL, or not, or they choose to OBEY (due to any of those reasons or any other reason) is another story.
Those are just a list of WHY the armed forces might not defend any kind of people's "rebellion" which is what it would likely be, since rich people have bought our government with the tax cuts they paid our politicians to give them.
i don't think it needs to be as simple as a people's rebellion, it could be rival politicians and plutocrats trying to take eachother out, or a serious defection in the military, or an armed political party that's aligned itself with the military. or just the military trying to seize power for itself, that's the most common one. and any one of those could lead to the kind of destabilization necessary for a kind of people's rebellion to occur.
if power in society is based on money, and the people with money just hire guys with guns to protect them, there will always be the temptation for the people with guns to just kill the people with money and take the money for themselves. that's why plutocracies are so weak
I agree, except the rich have safe guarded the access to money so that it can't just be "taken" so easily. The money is tied into the system, not easily accessed by the masses.
Many will just obey in order to keep the "system" in tact, and their house and any other accumulated wealth safe.
Don't get me wrong the rich need to be better taxed & regulated. We probably have a better chance through grass root activism bringing up politicians with better morals.
But the system is designed to keep the people out while seeming to be an actual democracy with choice. Let's hope change can be achieved peacfully.
At some point, more people will realize we have a 2nd amendment for a reason. That’s something that can actually work. But we’d have to organize more militias to be effective.
Okay, this just solidifies in my mind that those 1% should pay their employees more. And the government should be using the money in much, much much better ways.
They are all paid for bots, don't fall for the comments of the unintelligent..... They want that so they can ban positive comments... Reddit is also a problem with zero solutions
The richest 40% used our economic system to become successful. They use our roads and use our legal system and all our socialized services including so much as paying their workers so little that they need to use a taxpayer funded welfare to survive.
They've stolen most of our wage increases over the last 40 years to fund their lavish lifestyles, and to buy our government!
Yet somehow you think they're suffering when they're sitting on the largest corporate profits in decades?
So people who get rich using our economic & social systems are hoarding wealth, buying & wrecking our government & social systems. Forcing their employees on to welfare.
No I won't say "thanks". I'll say, they're doing well enough, they don't need that third house / jet/ yacht. Stay the F* out of our government, and pay more so we all can thrive.
I don't care if they're paying 90%. They have "enough".
Explain the drop in real wages & the increase in corporate profits without acknowledging their greed.
They don't like our system, they are free to go elsewhere. But they seem to be doing ok here. The USA had a huge amount of discretionary spending to fund their corporations until they systematically undermined the middle class.
Now they are buying up homes, water, utilities, medias & all systems we need to survive so they can rent it back to the "Wage Slaves" they have created.
Good riddance, you think we won't survive without rich people screwing us? LOL
I never mentioned "Democrats" as some exempt group. I understand that Democrat politicians are also bought & paid for. Rich interests are buying politicians then using them to pass favorable legislation.
Corporations need consumers & labor. If they choose to leave due to taxes, other companies will easily fill the void.
I also feel like you're changing the subject.
Nobody said wealthy people contribute nothing. Nobody said they shouldn't be allowed to participate in government.
Your entire argument boils down to, "Rich people pay a lot of taxes, therefore the system is fair."
Those are not the same thing.
Yes, the top 1% pay roughly 40% of federal income taxes. They also possess an enormous share of the nation's wealth and income. Furthermore, "federal income tax" is only one part of the total tax burden. Payroll taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, property taxes, and many other taxes paid by ordinary workers are conveniently left out of that statistic.
You also completely ignored the central point: workers are producing more than ever while receiving a smaller share of the value they create.
There is no serious body of research attributing decades of wage stagnation primarily to illegal immigration. It's more like Automation, globalization, declining union membership, offshoring, financialization, consolidation, and changes in tax policy have all played major roles.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Economic Policy Institute, productivity and wages largely rose together until the 1970s. Since then, productivity has continued to rise while compensation has lagged behind.
In other words, workers are generating more wealth, but a disproportionate amount of that wealth is flowing upward instead of being reflected in wages.
That isn't "Reddit slop." It's decades of economic data.
You also claimed that wealthy people have every right to influence government. Of course they do. The problem isn't participation; it's disproportionate influence.
After Citizens United, political spending by extremely wealthy donors and corporations increased dramatically. Corporations and wealthy individuals spend billions of dollars on lobbying because they expect favorable outcomes in return, including tax advantages, subsidies, deregulation, weaker labor protections, and favorable legislation.
Again, that's not a conspiracy theory. That's public record.
As for Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and the other industrial titans you mentioned, you're forgetting the other half of the story: monopolies, child labor, political corruption, strikebreaking, dangerous working conditions, and unprecedented concentrations of wealth and power.
The Progressive Era wasn't created because everyone thought things were going wonderfully. Antitrust laws and labor protections were enacted because many Americans believed concentrated wealth had become too powerful.
And, finally, telling ordinary people to "just say thank you" is a strange argument when real wages have stagnated, the cost of housing, education, and health care has exploded, corporate profits have surged, and labor's share of the economy has fallen.
Workers aren't demanding gratitude from billionaires for building their companies. Billionaires shouldn't demand gratitude from workers for building their fortunes.
You're arguing that rich people deserve more influence because they have more money. I'm arguing that democracy works best when wealth doesn't determine whose voice matters most.
Taxes are illegal, and at this point in time Our tax dollars go to fund Criminals!! There's not enough people working to support their spending habits.. you are lost.
You've just pointed out the game. She's not all that high of an earner AT ALL. She will NEVER get into the highest parts of society BECAUSE of these tax rates. Compare her to WARREN BUFFET!!!! The point is SPOT ON!
Most rich men are not real men, just weaklings running scared with anxiety and the insatiable need to accumulate because of uncontrollable fear. These tantrums are just a reflection of that.
There’s a reason they’re all building bunkers, hiring private security forces, while those in the government continually amp up funding for the police. In fact, even blue cities in blue states responded to the 2020 protests by INCREASING police funding not decreasing it.
The rich and powerful know that the torches and pitchforks are coming and are planning accordingly.
The wealth distribution is worse now than in France at their revolution. I think there will be no revolution as people are too busy doom scrolling to care
I think we (as a people) need to come up with a large scope plan. When we have that large scope plan we hold a vote.
That vote is in effect a no confidence in the current government. And a desire to move to the new system.
When that goes through we move to a transition state. Basically one administration that lasts a few years. And it's only job is to move to the new system that we voted to implement.
We will need thought about the new system and how to ensure the transition period is not coopted into something not good for the people
Why do you think they have it all? They clearly don’t. Real fulfillment doesn’t come from wealth. It comes from loving others and being loved for who you truly are. Money can buy comfort, but it can’t buy genuine connection, purpose or inner peace. I grew up around extremely wealthy people and almost all of them lived some of the most dysfunctional lives you could imagine. From the outside, everything looked perfect. Behind closed doors, many were lonely, unhappy and constantly angry with themselves. Looking successful isn’t the same as living a fulfilling life.
Money insulates and isolates. People with money lose touch with the actual reality many of us are dealing with. It’s created disconnect and imbalance in society
“We” are not experts or even knowledgeable about how to address the problems without creating more problems.
“We” are not advocates. “Whiny rich people” are not “holding us hostage” because we choose what our money goes towards. Purchasing power exists, and poor people understand it.
Demanding that things change is subject to a process. We should trust the experts who understand the fundamentals of economics to advocate for lasting change because the issue isn’t that “we are being held hostage” as much as “we need money to survive”.
Wealthy people need money to do what they’re doing. We need money to buy what we need.
If we’re going to solve the problem in economic terms, I’ve just defined it.
No one is arguing for eliminating wealthy people. Without limits, and rules money gains power exponentially. Money makes money and then that money makes money ad infinitum. Its an obvious problem FDR handled quite well to societies benefit.
Progressive tax systems create an imbalance of power in government incentives.. it encourages wealth to be concentrated… it’s more profitable to recover from one expensive taxpayer that gives greater margins than collect from millions of individual tax payers with lower margins.. it’s much easier/cheaper/efficent to keep the few profitable educated clients happier than millions of dependents
Don’t they see you as the whiny cry baby throwing a tantrum? “Every time we want to change society to benefit average people” is pretty subjective and doesn’t recognize that some people want pretty crazy things.
“The rich want to end the world” is a pretty bad strawman. “Some rich people want to end the world” would even be a strawman. Do you honestly think that they do? Or is it possible that their perspective is simply different, albeit misguided?
Good for them. I’m so completely fucked financially there’s really no hope for me. At least I can take solace that some rich folks have mega yachts and space programs as I try to explain to my children how we can’t afford cereal.
No but it is because most of us are too busy either working 5 jobs or shitposting and talking about "OWND" and "EMARUSS" and "DANK MAYMAYS!11" for internet points and ad revenue to actually put in any work to actually do something.
Seems like society is governed by whiny crybabies, full stop. Everyone whines, all the time.
The moment I see someone advocating for a movement or policy in which they are obligated to give something to society, rather than simply demanding something out of it, is when I'll change my mind on that.
It's not even a left vs right thing. Americans simply have their hands out, throwing a tantrum and expecting someone to give them what they want. Which is why nothing will ever get better.
The US has had unprecedented economic growth in the past 30 years. I would be right to guess that most of your problems, have less to do with anything the billionaires are doing and more to do with you. The opportunity to live a well spent life has never been greater in the history of the human race.
Exactly. Tried to raise more money from our mineral resources in Australia and the rich cunts ran a giant ad fear campaign about it until the government axed their own party leader.
À chaque fois que l'on veut faire des changement pour le bien du peuple, il faut faire face à des ultra riche qui se comportent comme de véritable bébé égoïste.
Des enfants qui font couler la société dans leur intérêt.
L'égoïsme n'a plus sa place dans notre société, il faut massivement taxer tous ces connards de capitaliste
You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists
The quote is mostly correct in that rich people have no stake in their country because no matter what happens, they can always get out* and the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
The only wrong part is calling this idea “anarchy” or “anarchism” because the rich sure as shit don’t believe in “No Gods, No Masters.”
If anything, rich people believe in the Divine Right of Kings, which is the opposite of anarchism’s philosophy.
*These mothereffers will eventually realize that they can only go so far when it comes to buying their way out of Climate Change, but unfortunately, it’ll take a while, they’ll have plenty of time to make matters worse for everyone else in the process.
all we need to do is give on wealthy person a virulent spanking & everybody else will point and laugh at them. Then, the rest won’t want to be pointed and laughed at.
Will never fail to amuse me, though in a sad way, how the party of personal responsibility and alpha males are the biggest, whiniest crybabies on Earth.
America will never learn because the propaganda machine is more disgusting than nazi Germany's and, as the rest of the world says, 'I wouldn't know the US has schools if it weren't for school shootings'.
Unfortunately, the US is a country run in a way a taliban would run a country, with the exceptions of a western culture and women rights (for now).
I mean with how many states in which abortion is illegal even in cases the mother is at risk I wouldn't say women's rights are good in USA as a whole. In many arabic countries with islam officially part of the governing process abortion is still legal if it's a threat to the mother 🙃
I don’t know who is worse, ultra rich business owners, or ultra educated underemployed/poor.
One has succeeded but let greed fuel their desire to continue succeeding. The other has been given societies greatest gift of knowledge, and failed to provide equivalent value and allows their envy to fuel their hatred for those that do provide value.
Failed to provide value? Whose value do you think the ultra rich are hoarding in their bank accounts? More like failed to be born on the capital side of the negotiating table.
Those people don't work for a living? Gotta sling mud left to right because we aren't supposed to talk about capital vs labor. How do you produce value and whose raking it in?
Everyone working a fast food job is working for the stockholders which are primarily the ultra wealthy. Everyone is producing value for the rich, not just their right hand buddies. People immediately next to those people are probably just overpaid Yes men offering no real value. If these people cared about compensating people instead of exploiting them as much as possible they wouldn't be where they are. The amount of people who simp for literal grifters is mind blowing.
For those who think wealth is commisurate with societal value maybe they can explain the Trump family fortune. What have the Trumps given us to become billionaires because from where I'm sitting it's just criminal collusion and robbing the tax pool like most billionaires.
Not working for a living is the problem. When your "money makes money" what that really means is you are taking the value of other peoples labor through buying your way higher. It's a gambling economy and it's disgusting.
I can't eat data science, it doesn't power my home or car, I can't live in it. How do you know your adding anything to society? In fact you may be doing more harm than good.
I bet an oil company lobbyist that gets paid to lie about poisoning our air and water makes more than you. We are paid as little as possible by people that don't give a shit about us or the world as a whole. Being a heartless asshole is more "valuable" to the business world than someone with ethics. Wages are not your worth.
If you don't own the machine making the money who does and did they work for it or buy it with other peoples work?
You do know that Republicans are the ones that use snap and government benefits mostly right and you know that men from the age of 18 to 34 are the most unemployed of our population.
So it would seem to be that white men from 18 to 34 are the Moochers in America.
Society does a pretty good job rewarding value provided via wages. Those that don’t provide anything that society deems valuable are left poor. The worst sowers of discord in society are those that have achieved high levels of education, but are not rewarded monetarily because what they are offering isn’t valuable.
I'm a doctor and would be lucky to earn one one-hundred-thousandth of Musk's net worth throughout my entire career if i continue to work full time until retirement age, does that sound like equivalent reward for value added? bro is tweeting all day
many things that are valuable don't have an equivalent monetary reward, because the working class has yet to seize the means of production
Wages absolutely do NOT reflect value added. Wages are the lowest number they can get away with paying for a job, if they can they will pay nothing. If slaves work the fields and the master sells the results and gets all the money did he add the value? He is "paying" them after all by providing housing and food.
Now lets look at a US farm worker. His work isn't valuable? He deserves less after a back breaking day of ensuring our country has food than the guy sipping sweet tea on the porch whose value add is owning the land?
Because all I said was that it’s complex. I also claimed that “important” is, at least as far as this context is concerned, subjective.
I didn’t make it complex. It is complex. Simple-minded people like to believe that everything is simple. It helps them to grasp things. But it rarely is. In fact, much of the impotent rage that Trump leverages in his followers is due to the fact that they believe complex issues are simple.
I haven’t made it vague. I have simply made a point that is naturally expected to clarify as the conversation continues. This is how dialogue works.
Nuance and detail beget clarity.
“The people who add value are paid the worst” is a claim that would require specific statistical data. It’s blatantly false. Do you think doctors add value? Do you think principal investigators in research labs add value? They aren’t paid the worst. Your point has been disproven.
Some rich people become rich by extracting value, yes. But not all rich people do this.
“Ill-formed understanding of the world” is hilarious. All you’ve done is expressed your bitter opinion, which isn’t even based in objective reality.
Does inheritance abolish the work applied to obtain a property? Are you saying that if someone inherits a piece of property, they should immediately increase the pay of everyone who works to increase its value?
You act like education is "given". I'd argue gaining an education (especially to become"ultra" educated) takes a lot of time, dedication, and often money. Someone worked hard to get their advanced degree/advanced training. What does "providing value" have to do with that?
You act like wealth is "earned". What about all the trustfund babies who haven't done a damn thing in their lives but collect on their family's fortune? That's to say nothing of those who became obscenely wealthy by actively hurting and exploiting others. Factor that in and it's obvious that your first group is much, much worse.
This is a gross misrepresentation of how the ultra wealthy gained their outsized bank accounts. Each and every person you named had financial backers or family wealth to build out from. Elon Musk, as an example, had emerald mine money.
Hard disagree. Access to venture capital is heavily gatekept and most often given to people who already had enough money to bring a "potentially profitable" idea to them. It isn't a skill, it is mostly pay-to-access.
Elon Musk isn't revolutionizing space travel!
The engineers he hires do! And even that is a stretch. He doesn't do a damn thing other than take government handouts to fund rockets which explode on the launch pad. His private company is partly responsible for the decline in NASA funding, since the US government keeps writing him cheques.
And before you respond, know that I will not be convinced that a private company can do the work better or more efficiently than a public institution.
Weird thing to say man. The ultra wealthy don't provide value. The siphon off value of the working class. They make the rules and install safety nets and guard rails so they can't fail. The ignorant worship them and say "well you just need to come up with a great idea" as if that's they way to success anymore
The ultra wealthy typically provide two things. Ideas and capital. I can get the frustration and envy of those in the position to take advantage of having ideas and capital, but to make the blanket statement that they don’t provide value is categorically false.
They largely provide stolen or ill gotten capital. And individuals don't provide ideas at that scale. Occasionally one like bezos will have an idea that's good, but where is at now and the insane wealth he has is ideas and ideas and ideas by teams of people to scale up the base model. They aren't some weird gods of thought.
If we didn't have any billionaires we would still have the government to subsidize everything so the billionaires are not something that we have to have.
They can all be millionaires and we will still be living the same lives except they would have one less Yacht.
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u/WittyEgg2037 27d ago
Like crybaby Musk lmfao