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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On June 02 2016 05:42 GreenHorizons wrote: "What difference, at this point, does it make!?" No, but seriously, why does that matter at all? Private implies that she had it set up through someone she hired and she owned the server. A personal server is just a government email server that they set up for just her to use. | ||
KwarK
United States43971 Posts
On June 02 2016 05:44 GoTuNk! wrote: The United States has traditionally been a beacon of hope and leadership for the western world. From their indepence and their constitution (basically copied trough latin america), to inventing the modern world, to defeating the Nazis and the Soviet Union perhaps?. Not perfect, but magnitudes above the alternatives. The world is still dominated economically, militarily and culturally by the United States. Americans are richer than ever and as powerful as ever. The only difference is that within America the privileged position of the white Christian male has been challenged. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On June 02 2016 05:46 KwarK wrote: The world is still dominated economically, militarily and culturally by the United States. Americans are richer than ever and as powerful as ever. The only difference is that within America the privileged position of the white Christian male has been challenged. The "Make America Great Again" slogan is purposefully vague. It's to be interpreted by the listener however they want to. That said, I think it's fairly clear that, economically, many in the US have been left behind. The middle class isn't what it once was. | ||
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farvacola
United States18857 Posts
On June 02 2016 05:46 KwarK wrote: The world is still dominated economically, militarily and culturally by the United States. Americans are richer than ever and as powerful as ever. The only difference is that within America the privileged position of the white Christian male has been challenged. To make matters worse, the increasing degree of cultural diversity seems to be trending against increasing levels of wealth inequality. If a traditional power demographic were to be challenged during a time when economic prosperity was being realized relatively evenly across the class spectrum, well, you'd probably have something that looks a lot like northern Europe. Instead, there's a large amount of overlap between those that have money and those that are losing cultural capital, which, naturally, leads to political phenomena like Trump as luck would have it :D | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
The Pitch Forks are Coming: But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now? I see pitchforks. At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent. But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution. And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last. If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when. Its a little alarmist, but it also points one of the main reasons why wealth distribution is important and something the goverment should be involved it. Because the "free market" solution to top heavy wealth distribution super violent. | ||
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KwarK
United States43971 Posts
On June 02 2016 05:50 xDaunt wrote: The "Make America Great Again" slogan is purposefully vague. It's to be interpreted by the listener however they want to. That said, I think it's fairly clear that, economically, many in the US have been left behind. The middle class isn't what it once was. There are certainly places that have suffered economic dislocation from the loss of manufacturing, just as the north of England did in the 80s. However honestly I think the number of people with middle class wealth has actually increased. Modern families have computers, as many bathrooms as bedrooms, substantially larger houses, bigger and better cars, better tech and so forth. What has happened, however, is that the purchasing power of the middle class has not kept up with their perception of a good standard of living. I think many would describe me as lower class based on my income, home, car and so forth and yet I feel decidedly middle class. There are lower class people, an awful lot of them, but I don't feel like they're Trump supporters. The Trump supporters are the middle classes who feel like being middle class ought to be better than it is. For lower class imo you get to the no job, no education, no prospects, six kids, three baby daddys in jail demographic and those are largely apolitical. | ||
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NukeD
Croatia1612 Posts
On June 02 2016 05:46 KwarK wrote: The world is still dominated economically, militarily and culturally by the United States. Americans are richer than ever and as powerful as ever. The only difference is that within America the privileged position of the white Christian male has been challenged. Correct. I predict in 30 year Spanish will be the predominant language of the USA. | ||
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SK.Testie
Canada11084 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On June 02 2016 06:17 SK.Testie wrote: How will that wealth redistribution work, commissars? Taxes and increased minimum wages are the best bet short term. Long term making spending money on the US development super desirable for the wealthiest Americans. Weirdly enough, they can spend a lot of their money and have zero impact on their standard of living. The other route is less fun and predictable. I don't think the guillotine will ever be in style again, but its bad for everyone. | ||
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KwarK
United States43971 Posts
On June 02 2016 06:17 SK.Testie wrote: How will that wealth redistribution work, commissars? Seizure the means of production obviously. And these days the means of production for the hereditary elite are not land, nor raw materials, nor factories but rather capital. | ||
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KwarK
United States43971 Posts
On June 02 2016 06:18 Plansix wrote: We thought it was going to be Japanese in the 80s, but I will accept a dual language Cyberpunk future. Our country would not be harmed by being bilingual. I'll have you know that America was founded by the English. And French. And I guess Spanish too. And the Dutch and Germans and Irish. Oh, and Italians, can't forget them. Then there are the Greeks and the various Eastern Europeans. Oh, and a shitton of East Asians. Like enough to build an entire railroad system. And I think there were some people already here when the English arrived. So just those languages, no others. | ||
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SK.Testie
Canada11084 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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KwarK
United States43971 Posts
On June 02 2016 06:23 SK.Testie wrote: I wonder at this, so do the billionaires get to keep all their money but get taxed on new money coming in? Or must they pay a portion of what they have and their assets be divided? Estate taxes and capital gains taxes ought to take care of it. I mean sure, you could just do seizures but for most people it's "you can take it from my cold dead hands". With that in mind, estate taxes are really what they'd want. Oddly enough estate taxes are what happened to most of the Downton Abbey style elites in the UK. There were families that were economically completely unproductive but had always been rich and simply lived off the revenue from their tenant farmers like a parasite. Once estate taxes were added in most of them disappeared within a generation and only the ones smart enough to actually increase their inherited fortunes beyond that which was needed to pay the estate taxes survived. On the one hand it absolutely devastated our cultural heritage, thousands of old manors, castles, stately homes and so forth were torn down and torched. On the other hand, America has no cultural heritage so it's not so much of an issue there. | ||
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SK.Testie
Canada11084 Posts
Ok, they've spent the money. A few others have gotten rich because of their acquisitions but not nearly rich enough to threaten their oligarchy. Now what? | ||
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KwarK
United States43971 Posts
On June 02 2016 06:31 SK.Testie wrote: Rich use it to expand their empire and buy out competitors and other businesses. Ok, they've spent the money. A few others have gotten rich because of their acquisitions but not nearly rich enough to threaten their oligarchy. Now what? Everybody dies. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11825 Posts
On June 02 2016 06:29 Plansix wrote: Seizing capital they already have is not the plan and never should be. But they have to spend that money to do something with it and they have incomes, all which can be taxed. Basically, the general idea is to stop the accumulation of wealth, so it accumulates slower than idiots are able to lose it again. Because a part of the rich class will always be idiots that are just born into wealth and who manage to waste it. If the wealth of a very small part of the population keeps on increasing, while the wealth of the rest of the population decreases, that is not a stable situation. The basic social contract only works as long as everyone loses when they break it down. If revolution and complete anarchy seem like a better situation for a large part of the population, there will be revolution and anarchy. Thus, it is necessary for the people who profit the most from the current situation to make the situation good enough for everyone else involved so they prefer it to revolution. That is the basis of human society. And if you keep accumulating wealth in few hands, while the masses get poorer, that is eventually going to trip a lot of them over to "maybe revolution is better than this". It has happened every time in the past. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Seem legit. We failed, the end times come and the feminist robot overlords take control. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11825 Posts
On June 02 2016 06:37 Plansix wrote: Seem legit. We failed, the end times come and the feminist robot overlords take control. I think the idea is more along the lines of "everyone dies, just have estate taxes high enough so the rich only stay rich for one generation, unless each generation actually does stuff to stay rich" | ||
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
"There is absolutely no showing of a federal violation. That more information might be available in one county over another does not rise to the level of equal protection," Alsup said. "Citizens of California are smart enough to know what their rights are. I'm giving my order now so you can get your writ to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and then the United States Supreme Court, then the International Court of the Hague. But you're done in federal court." Top kek | ||
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