US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5494

On February 09 2026 18:59 Gorsameth wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
Fixing wealth inequality would gona very long way to fixing most issues with modern capitalist society.

On February 09 2026 17:18 Acrofales wrote:


Nice entry and welcome to the thread. But if your suggestion is to end the dollar and capitalism as we know it, you're still a bit light on what you'd replace it with. How would you suggest reorganizing things so that the majority do see the increase in living standards (e.g. in a reduction of working hours)?

On February 09 2026 20:25 KT_Elwood wrote:
Basicly we are in a a stage when in a friendly family game, dad has "won" monopoly and owns 85% of all assets, all the paper money has been handed out.. but dad whipped out Excel and now in addition to all assets on the board owns multiple Excel-Tab companies that employ the other players and in return for "1 month of yard raking in october" will receive a minimum wage per Round that is to be spent.. on rent because buying out the hotel stacked streets is impossibru.. and also since the printed paper Mom-bank ran out of money.. Excel-Bank is the only source for loans.. and is controlled by dad.

Also dad is from a King novel and keeps a loaded shotgun in his lap and forces you to play on.

and the round after that.. failing to roll 3 or more, will result in a "p

On February 08 2026 04:08 Sermokala wrote:
Also the french revolution didn't abolish feudalism. It was one of histories biggest failures. got tens of millions killed over a decade of wars only to result in the status quo being defended and reinforced.

On February 09 2026 18:59 Gorsameth wrote:
You dont need to end the dollar or capitalism, the problem is wealth inequality. The higher % wealth you gather at the top the shittier life becomes for everyone below.

Close loopholes and increase taxes on high earners. Tax wealth, including stocks, to discourage hording. Cap salary, including bonuses and stocks to a multiplicative of minimal pay to avoid ceos making 10000x more the a floor worker.

Fixing wealth inequality would gona very long way to fixing most issues with modern capitalist society.

Bar for the shotgun

On February 09 2026 20:25 KT_Elwood wrote:
Basicly we are in a a stage when in a friendly family game, dad has "won" monopoly and owns 85% of all assets, all the paper money has been handed out.. but dad whipped out Excel and now in addition to all assets on the board owns multiple Excel-Tab companies that employ the other players and in return for "1 month of yard raking in october" will receive a minimum wage per Round that is to be spent.. on rent because buying out the hotel stacked streets is impossibru.. and also since the printed paper Mom-bank ran out of money.. Excel-Bank is the only source for loans.. and is controlled by dad.

Also dad is from a King novel and keeps a loaded shotgun in his lap and forces you to play on.





and the round after that.. failing to roll 3 or more, will result in a fine.

(Edit last sentence)

On February 10 2026 01:09 oBlade wrote:

"Tax stocks"

If you tax unrealized gains of publicly traded companies, you disincentivize companies to go public. You disincentivize investment and creation of such companies. You then keep the low and middle class out of the stock market which is one of the key ways to build wealth and build a retirement. Try to look past first order effects towards unintended consequences.

Meanwhile the lower/lower middle class are already out of those because they can't get past the accredited investor rule. If you want to eliminate that you could theoretically democratize access to hedge funds and venture capital, but you would also democratize people blowing up their net worths.

Now if you want to tax unrealized gains of privately traded companies (also), your issue is how to value the holdings to begin with before you can value the taxes.

So just try public first because at least there we have publicly available stock quotes. In 7 years of taxing a 1 billion stock holding at 10% annually, you have reduced it to under $500 million. But by forcing the person to sell in order to pay taxes on it, you also drive supply up and therefore price down, making it worth even less. Essentially if you taxed unrealized gains at all, let alone more than inflation, you blew up financial markets. If you tax the unrealized gains of investment, you broadly discourage certain kinds of investing, when investing is the only reason that kind of value exists in markets to begin with.

So make this tax per holding in each individual company, and not total overall wealth? Then Mr. Shiny Top Hat simply diversifies and stays wealthy, while not taking any of the risks that create new opportunities and huge new innovation, because it doesn't behoove him to. It doesn't pay.

But we taxed him right? Maybe the government can do something useful with the money. They're good stewards of tax dollars, right. Except the government doesn't have to actually get a return. The government can just lose money with no consequences to itself. They can spend money on things that don't work, and even things that will never work. They can overpay for everything. They can spend money to do nothing. Investors don't have the luxury of such irresponsibility.

When you have massive stock in a billions of dollars company you made, you are not "hoarding," you're keeping control of the thing you made yourself. Making them give up their stake would not make everyone else rich. It would turn capitalism into why-botherism, It would make every large company have no leadership, and have the same vague directionless goals that plague modern governments by making everyone an equal partner in the company. We already have the equal partner system, it's democracy. Government and economic systems should be parallel but not mirror each other. In democracy one human votes, in capitalism one dollar votes. We don't need capitalism to also be one person one vote because it and democracy are nested within each other. The key misunderstanding you have is thinking capitalism is a zero-sum competition. It's not. It's cooperation. That's why people at the bottom of Africa and India have shitty lives despite that their 1% isn't so strong or hasn't gathered as much wealth.

Like "hoarding" I just can't get over this. Control of companies is not mercantilism. There's no hoarding. You know what companies people didn't "hoard?" Enron. Sears. Radioshack.

You cannot hoard something which has theoretically unlimited supply, which is stock in publicly traded companies, which is at some base level ultimately connected with how productive markets are and how much capital is moving through them. Literally make your own company. It's like saying someone else is hoarding their house. It's their house. Speaking of which, unlike value in public companies, property (real estate, land) is actually fixed and limited. That would be the thing to tax to discourage the hoarding of.

On February 10 2026 02:35 dyhb wrote:
Before you even get to wealth taxes, stocks taxes, salary bonuses and stock caps, you have the initial start of "the problem is wealth inequality. The higher % wealth you gather at the top the shittier life becomes for everyone below." Like saying it makes it true.

As if I work harder or longer for an extra 200$ this month, and suddenly the life of the poor becomes shittier from the increased inequality (or I save up an extra 200$ in savings, and the life of the poor becomes shittier from the increased wealth inequality). It's just Orwell's observation that the socialists of this world display their hatred of the rich, while seldom showing evidence of their affection towards the poor.

This is in-group signaling of class prejudice. It resembles and mirrors the rhetoric they typically like to attack, such as "a rising tide lifts all boats" or "the rich don't stuff their money under mattresses." Politically, it breeds a reactionary force to the politics of envy.

On February 10 2026 01:09 oBlade wrote:

"Tax stocks"

If you tax unrealized gains of publicly traded companies, you disincentivize companies to go public. You disincentivize investment and creation of such companies. You then keep the low and middle class out of the stock market which is one of the key ways to build wealth and build a retirement. Try to look past first order effects towards unintended consequences.

That leaves private companies.

Meanwhile the lower/lower middle class are already out of those because they can't get past the accredited investor rule. If you want to eliminate that you could theoretically democratize access to hedge funds and venture capital, but you would also democratize people blowing up their net worths.

Now if you want to tax unrealized gains of privately traded companies (also), your issue is how to value the holdings to begin with before you can value the taxes.

So just try public first because at least there we have publicly available stock quotes. In 7 years of taxing a 1 billion stock holding at 10% annually, you have reduced it to under $500 million. But by forcing the person to sell in order to pay taxes on it, you also drive supply up and therefore price down, making it worth even less. Essentially if you taxed unrealized gains at all, let alone more than inflation, you blew up financial markets. If you tax the unrealized gains of investment, you broadly discourage certain kinds of investing, when investing is the only reason that kind of value exists in markets to begin with.

So make this tax per holding in each individual company, and not total overall wealth? Then Mr. Shiny Top Hat simply diversifies and stays wealthy, while not taking any of the risks that create new opportunities and huge new innovation, because it doesn't behoove him to. It doesn't pay.

But we taxed him right? Maybe the government can do something useful with the money. They're good stewards of tax dollars, right. Except the government doesn't have to actually get a return. The government can just lose money with no consequences to itself. They can spend money on things that don't work, and even things that will never work. They can overpay for everything. They can spend money to do nothing. Investors don't have the luxury of such irresponsibility.

When you have massive stock in a billions of dollars company you made, you are not "hoarding," you're keeping control of the thing you made yourself. Making them give up their stake would not make everyone else rich. It would turn capitalism into why-botherism, It would make every large company have no leadership, and have the same vague directionless goals that plague modern governments by making everyone an equal partner in the company. We already have the equal partner system, it's democracy. Government and economic systems should be parallel but not mirror each other. In democracy one human votes, in capitalism one dollar votes. We don't need capitalism to also be one person one vote because it and democracy are nested within each other. The key misunderstanding you have is thinking capitalism is a zero-sum competition. It's not. It's cooperation. That's why people at the bottom of Africa and India have shitty lives despite that their 1% isn't so strong or hasn't gathered as much wealth.

Like "hoarding" I just can't get over this. Control of companies is not mercantilism. There's no hoarding. You know what companies people didn't "hoard?" Enron. Sears. Radioshack.

You cannot hoard something which has theoretically unlimited supply, which is stock in publicly traded companies, which is at some base level ultimately connected with how productive markets are and how much capital is moving through them. Literally make your own company. It's like saying someone else is hoarding their house. It's their house. Speaking of which, unlike value in public companies, property (real estate, land) is actually fixed and limited. That would be the thing to tax to discourage the hoarding of.

On February 10 2026 01:18 KT_Elwood wrote:

+ Show Spoiler +

I also didn't want capitalism to become this consolidated so that market mechanisms are get to be ratchets that only ever make things more shitty and more expensive - because there is no more chance at competition.

On February 10 2026 02:35 dyhb wrote:
Before you even get to wealth taxes, stocks taxes, salary bonuses and stock caps, you have the initial start of "the problem is wealth inequality. The higher % wealth you gather at the top the shittier life becomes for everyone below." Like saying it makes it true.

As if I work harder or longer for an extra 200$ this month, and suddenly the life of the poor becomes shittier from the increased inequality (or I save up an extra 200$ in savings, and the life of the poor becomes shittier from the increased wealth inequality). It's just Orwell's observation that the socialists of this world display their hatred of the rich, while seldom showing evidence of their affection towards the poor.

This is in-group signaling of class prejudice. It resembles and mirrors the rhetoric they typically like to attack, such as "a rising tide lifts all boats" or "the rich don't stuff their money under mattresses." Politically, it breeds a reactionary force to the politics of envy.

On February 10 2026 04:03 LightSpectra wrote:


George Orwell was a democratic-socialist that supported the Labour Party of the UK nationalizing 20% of the economy, which resulted in an unprecedented skyrocketing of standards of living and innumerable working class people being able to visit a doctor for the first time in their life.

Call it "envy" or "prejudice" all you like, but if taking away a billionaire's fifth mega-yacht to pay for shelter for homeless children is that, then I'm with that.

On February 10 2026 04:03 LightSpectra wrote:


George Orwell was a democratic-socialist that supported the Labour Party of the UK nationalizing 20% of the economy, which resulted in an unprecedented skyrocketing of standards of living and innumerable working class people being able to visit a doctor for the first time in their life.

Call it "envy" or "prejudice" all you like, but if taking away a billionaire's fifth mega-yacht to pay for shelter for homeless children is that, then I'm with that.

On February 10 2026 04:59 LightSpectra wrote:
Like "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism"? Or perhaps "any rich man, unless he is a Jew, has less to fear from Fascism than from either Communism or democratic Socialism. One ought never to forget this, for nearly the whole of [Nazi] German and [Fascist] Italian propaganda is designed to cover it up"? Or perhaps "Socialism aims, ultimately, at a world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equality of human rights for granted. Nazism assumes just the opposite. The driving force behind the Nazi movement is the belief in human inequality"?

On February 10 2026 06:58 LightSpectra wrote:
Your paraphrase of an Orwell quote is an internal criticism he used among other people of the same ideology that he thought were going about achieving their ideology poorly. It's not a criticism of socialism itself, let alone an endorsement of inaction about wealth inequality.