Trump to Propose $4.8 Trillion Budget With Big Safety-Net Cuts

I am paying them.

 

You shouldn't have to be paying.

 

Yes i should they are my bills brought about by my actions. Suggesting that they are someone elses responsibility is just silly and wrong.

 

That's the usual misleading conclusion we get from the Right.

Min wage $7.50/hr = $300/wk.
Av. wage c. $25/hr = $1000/wk.
CEO wage (up to 300 times av. wage) = $7500/hr = $300,000/wk.

Indeed, as Gates and Buffet have both said, the rich should be paying much MORE tax.

 

Bernie is a democratic socialist, working to create an economy that works for all; nothing to fear unless you are a money shuffler/ securities-derivatives -player, who produces nothing of real value in the real economy. Bernie's policy of a financial transaction tax is obviously required to put a brake on parasitic casino derivatives activity eg betting on the direction of the Dow.

[Derivatives - "financial weapons of mass destruction": Warren Buffett - derivatives designed to insure against the weather etc, are one thing, but the rest of it is a fraud, and a parasite on the real economy).

Recall Rolling Stone magazine's verdict re: "Goldman Sachs, the world’s most powerful investment bank, as a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”]

 

Someone is requiring the purchase of derivatives? I hate say it but you have no idea what you are talking about. You just read talking points that appeal to you personally. And to make matter worse, you post the drivel so that it might infect someone else. Oh, and I suggest you stay away from the financial investment industry. You wouldn't want someone to slip you a derivative while you are sleeping.

 

I said the poor are the major beneficiaries of the income tax code. That is because they pay no income tax. The average owners pay a modest percentage of the income tax. The wealthy pay most of it. I am a CEO and I am a long long way from being wealthy. I wish I were but I'm not. The problem with your numbers is that they don't address taxes. They are just a list of potential incomes. They mean nothing. Glad I could add some perspective to it.

I like living in a country where one can be wealthy with the right talent and hard work. Wanting the government to assuage your envy by taking money from other people to give to you turns my stomach. To me it spells the near end of our culture. I hope we don't have to prove that to you because you wouldn't enjoy it.

 

At the very least, you should be able to insure against the loss.

 

I should be able to do what i can afford.

 

If we don't do something about this...



... we could see an outright rejection of the capitalist system.

Okay. We can have that while addressing the income problem we have (see above).

The distribution of income and wealth lacks legitimacy before we even begin to look at "taking money from other people" for any purpose.

Outcomes count in a democracy, probably more than process. You're arguing process and showing little interest in getting the outcomes right.

Can we have a stable capitalist system, unthreatened real socialists who would collectivize production, if the outcomes (income distribution) are so out of whack a voting majority are willing to dismantle the free enterprise system?

 

It is not within the voting majorities authority to do away with the capitalist system. That would require the unconstitutional seizure of property. The majority doesn't always get what they want

 

Perhaps.

What should you be able to afford? Anything at all? The necessities of life? Should you have to work to get the necessities? What if you're too young, too old, too sick, or incapable for one reason or another to work?

Is medical care part of the necessities of life? If yes, what level of care?

How about schooling and job training? Who receives it at what cost?

 

Yes I should have to work to get my necessities.. absolutely yes. Every able bodied man should have to.
I should be able to afford what my knowledge, skills and work ethic can attain in a given market.

 

Not right away, but eventually the majority come out on top. If the majority lose faith in the capitalist system we have now, they will reform or replace it. You're standing in the way of reform and pushing us toward a binary choice of replacing it.

 

How does that play out if people can't make enough to provide for themselves and their family? This is likely to be a larger problem as AI and faster computers put people out of work.

And if you come up short and can't afford the necessities of life?

 

Actually, it’s an indictment against his re-election—he’s spending money faster than we the people can make it.

 

Sorry, I have zero interest in seeing government redistribute wealth. Actually I think the majority of what federal government does is beyond its approriate role. I would like to go back to a union of states. The federal government should serve the states and the sates should serve the people. Fix that and you fix a lot of economic ills. Why? because the states have competition from other states.

 

Every general tax redistributes income, so what are you saying is the role of government?

What do you say to people who argue the system currently rigs distribution in favor of some people, typically those who buy influence?

Seems ideological. I can think of many things that shouldn't be left to states. We need to train more doctors. The states haven't solved the doctor shortage.

We have competition from other countries.

More to the point... if you can't fix this...



... we could see worker support for the capitalist system evaporate.

 

We don't need reform we need to hold to the constitution.

 

Roommates to share housing costs, charities for food. There is plenty of help out there.

 

"Have to"? Just leave out that little word "to" , and you are on the right track. So now we have the correct statement:

"Yes I should have work to get my necessities.. absolutely yes. Every able bodied man should have work."

(aka a Job Guarantee in MMT).

Provided the first (correct) statement is applicable.

In practice that means a role for the public sector, to provide services desired by the community but not supplied by profit driven private markets.

NB everyone has something to contribute, though not necessarily in competitive profit driven private markets.

[I note LangleyMan has commented on your ideological tendencies; see if you can change that aspect...)

 

Trump to Propose $4.8 Trillion Budget With Big Safety-Net Cuts
Just another in a continuing series of actions taken by Trump demonstrating his immense capacity for enriching the rich coupled with his microscopic capacity for, or understanding of, compassion.

 

Now you are sounding like an ideological hack.

An economy that works for everyone, by employing the skills that everyone has to contribute, has nothing to do with "assuaging envy" or "taking money from other people".

Your ideological blindness prevents you from seeing past wealth creation* in competitive profit-driven private markets. Not everyone's skills are competitive in these markets.

Hint: there is a necessary role for the public sector to provide desired community services not sensibly provided by profit driven markets.
eg looking after the erlderly in their own homes for as long as possible etc.

I see you are not as wealthy as you want to be? Bernie Sanders' policies are likely to create an environment that is better for your business than the existing environment, since everyone will be gainfully employed, allowing for a massive reduction in the community destroying poverty, correctional (prisons), and (ill-)health industries.

* I have already mentioned a financial transaction tax to restrain the activities of the vast money shuffling industry ("like a giant squid wrapped across the face of humanity"}; that would create wealth in itself, as money is directed to more productive investment. But you can study MMT to see how government can create wealth alongside wealth creation in the private sector; it's all about available real resources, not money)