gamingeek said:People are fed up with democracy, but that's the fault of politicians already in power.
Now we just all shout at each other like opposing football teams.
Globalisation "failed" and people are pissed. Let's face it, it's the economy and inflation.
The way I see it, people are fed up with oligarchy, not democracy. Many blame capitalism, but capitalism only becomes a problem when a handful of people own/control everything and use their power (money) to influence government policy in their favor at the detriment of the working class. I believe this more than anything else is why Donald Trump was elected twice, which, for better or worse, is democracy in action. In America, Democrats and Republicans are both mostly controlled by their donors, which are primarily the oligarchy. However, these politicians also know they need the working class to vote them in, so they, and the legacy media, focus on topics like climate change, abortion, hate, and identity politics instead of economic and security policies that can make everyone's life better. There's nothing wrong with addressing other important issues, but if the working class is struggling, they will vote against the party currently in power.
Unfortunately, many people see their neighbors. and even their own family members, as their enemy instead of the oligarchy and politicians. It's extremely distressing to see.
And the cycle continues...
gamingeek said:I really don't understand Musk, he's supposed to be a genius but whenever he opens his mouth, he sounds like a crazy person.
I believe he's both.
The USA is a plutocracy, not an olicracy. It is driven by the needs of big companies and their persuit of ever more money, not by the will to do good for its citizens. It charades as a meritocracy to keep people focused on those same goals, because if people would band together and would want to look out for eachother it will result in higher taxes and more restrictive legislation.
Globalism didn't fail. It brought great riches to those on the receiving end and greatly improved their lives. Globalism is also very important in keeping peace. You can't go starting wars among yourselves if you have common interests and rely on eachother for your needs. The issue is that with globalism, neoliberal capitalism travelled the world.
We can't buy $10 t-shirts when the people who make them half a world away want to better their lives themselves. We can't keep housing affordable when there is a limited supply of construction materials and all of a sudden people in India and China decide they want proper housing as well. The pie is only this big, but we've got more people who want a piece of it. For us, Europeans and Americans, sadly that means our way of life will become more expensive, too expensive perhaps for many.
Politics won't be able to solve this. It's the mindset that needs to change. Do we really need to be able to buy shitty $10 shirts and throw them out after one season? But people don't want to change, they want to cling onto what they have and feel they are entitled to.
The nationalists say we need to shield our markets, bring more production back to our own backyard. But that won't guarantee our wealth because it will result in prices rising. No more $10 dollar shirts, because no one here will want to make them. Just look at Brexit and how that turned out. All it will lead to is less understanding between nations, less collaboration, less reasons for us to not start another big war.
Ravenprose said:gamingeek said:I really don't understand Musk, he's supposed to be a genius but whenever he opens his mouth, he sounds like a crazy person.I believe he's both.
He's very smart, got very lucky with some of the things that made him so famously rich, but he's also used to have things his way and not putting up with people telling him he's wrong. That's a perfect cocktail for becoming deranged and isolated from the real world.
SupremeAC said:The USA is a plutocracy, not an olicracy. It is driven by the needs of big companies and their persuit of ever more money, not by the will to do good for its citizens. It charades as a meritocracy to keep people focused on those same goals, because if people would band together and would want to look out for eachother it will result in higher taxes and more restrictive legislation.
USA may have been a plutocracy decades ago but not now.
But also it's undeniable that taking Russian oil out the market has pushed up the prices of everything.
As well as Ukraines grain export market being ravaged.
Also the oil cartel, OPEC who refuse to produce more oil, or keep costs down.
And then our government's have a legal mechanism for dealing with this that they are unwilling to use. Price control.
You can say it won't work as the oil will be sold elsewhere, but if every government does it the industry won't have a choice.
Powdered baby milk is ripping parent off here, price control it.
Drug prices are crazy high in America, price control it.
Rents are abnormally high, rent control.
There is a much stronger correlation between tax law changes resulting in rich people getting a lot richer and our current political impasse than there is with the standard of living rising in China. It's kinda funny to me that there is a good argument to made, that all of this simply boils down to tax reform. It kinda makes sense, too, given tax has always been the basis on which agricultural socities are organised.
Foolz said:There is a much stronger correlation between tax law changes resulting in rich people getting a lot richer and our current political impasse than there is with the standard of living rising in China. It's kinda funny to me that there is a good argument to made, that all of this simply boils down to tax reform. It kinda makes sense, too, given tax has always been the basis on which agricultural socities are organised.
I think you're mixing 2 seperate topics. I stated that current politics in the USA's main goal is to create legislation that enables big companies to become even richer and to take away as much friction as possible. And with the blatant example that is Elon Musk I don't see how you can deny the USA to be a plutocracy
The argument about the rising standard of living in the rest of the world is a seperate thing. A lot of voters in the USA are unhappy with current government as they saw their relative income decrease, so they voted Republican since their lives were better back then. But no politicians can change that much as it is happening above the level of individual states.
Rising standards and international preferences have a daily impact on our lives. I work in construction. A year or 2 ago it was impossible to get specific types of wood, as China was buying it all for their own projects. You could order it at highly inflated prices and no one could tell you when it would be delivered. And while there was steel available on the market, prices of that nearly doubled as well. Prices have decreased again now, but only because the Chinese building sector isn't doing so well at the moment.
Another example is the price of piano's. There was a trend for a decade or so for chinese kids to learn to play piano. There's lots of competition in China, even for kids, to be the best they can be to secure a good upbringing and a good job afterwards. So if a few kids started playing piano, the rest had to follow. A year or 2 ago that fad blew over, and all of a sudden piano prices globally wer plummiting because there was a lot of surplus supply.
You can alter taxes as much as you want,to protect your internal market, but that too will only increase prices. Sure, it'll create jobs but people will moan that life became more expensive as a result. And what good are taxes when you can't buy what you want because prices have ballooned or the product is downright unavailable because someone else, somewhere else is buying it all?
SupremeAC said:I think you're mixing 2 seperate topics. I stated that current politics in the USA's main goal is to create legislation that enables big companies to become even richer and to take away as much friction as possible. And with the blatant example that is Elon Musk I don't see how you can deny the USA to be a plutocracy
You can alter taxes as much as you want,to protect your internal market, but that too will only increase prices. Sure, it'll create jobs but people will moan that life became more expensive as a result. And what good are taxes when you can't buy what you want because prices have ballooned or the product is downright unavailable because someone else, somewhere else is buying it all?
The purpose of taxes is the redistrubtion of wealth; the effect they have on inflation and deflation is hotly debated. Really, it's unclear how much of an effect they have, if any, on prices. The effect they have on wealth distribution is well documented, on the other hand. Inflation also doesn't matter so much, when real wages are able to grow; which modern tax policy helps to prevent. The rest of your post I don't disagree with.
I don't think any household earning under $100,000 colelctively shoudl be paying payroll tax.
Vote for me.
aspro said:I don't think any household earning under $100,000 colelctively shoudl be paying payroll tax.
Vote for me.
Assuming you're running for a local election in my electorate, you have my vote. Out of nepotism.
aspro said:I don't think any household earning under $100,000 colelctively shoudl be paying payroll tax.
Vote for me.
populist pig!
Foolz said:The purpose of taxes is the redistrubtion of wealth; the effect they have on inflation and deflation is hotly debated. Really, it's unclear how much of an effect they have, if any, on prices. The effect they have on wealth distribution is well documented, on the other hand. Inflation also doesn't matter so much, when real wages are able to grow; which modern tax policy helps to prevent. The rest of your post I don't disagree with.
I agree that taxes serve a clear purpose, of which redistribution of wealth is one. It's just that taxes themselves have a bad rep. Nobody likes paying them and people will always be swayed to vote on those who claim that they will reduce them.
As for taxes causing inflation, I was specifically talking about import taxes. Which will either directly influence the price of imported goods, or will prevent goods from being imported, as they can no longer compete with the domestic goods, which couldn't compete themselves before import taxes were put in place. Either way you slice it, the price for the consumer will rise. Yet the installation of import taxes will be applauded as 'it creates jobs'. The other option is to subsidize domestic goods, which is beneficial both to the job market and consumers, but costs tax money. Or the third option: to just embrace globalisation and keep prices down.
There's a big revolution on our hands with the rise of AI. It'll cost a lot of jobs, but it'll create many 'new' jobs as well. How absurd would it be if corporations that embraced the use of AI would be taxed to keep AI averse companies competitive so jobs could be 'saved'.
aspro said:I don't think any household earning under $100,000 colelctively shoudl be paying payroll tax.
Vote for me.
Ah the fatal flaw of thinking policy matters.
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobileaspro said:I don't think any household earning under $100,000 colelctively shoudl be paying payroll tax.
Vote for me.
Second plank in my platform: Jail time should only be for people who commit acts of violence. Everyone else should have to work to repay their victims.
SupremeAC said:I agree that taxes serve a clear purpose, of which redistribution of wealth is one. It's just that taxes themselves have a bad rep. Nobody likes paying them and people will always be swayed to vote on those who claim that they will reduce them.
As for taxes causing inflation, I was specifically talking about import taxes. Which will either directly influence the price of imported goods, or will prevent goods from being imported, as they can no longer compete with the domestic goods, which couldn't compete themselves before import taxes were put in place. Either way you slice it, the price for the consumer will rise. Yet the installation of import taxes will be applauded as 'it creates jobs'. The other option is to subsidize domestic goods, which is beneficial both to the job market and consumers, but costs tax money. Or the third option: to just embrace globalisation and keep prices down.There's a big revolution on our hands with the rise of AI. It'll cost a lot of jobs, but it'll create many 'new' jobs as well. How absurd would it be if corporations that embraced the use of AI would be taxed to keep AI averse companies competitive so jobs could be 'saved'.
Agreed that import taxes will cause the price of the imported goods that are targeted to rise, but it won't cause inflation.
Foolz said:Agreed that import taxes will cause the price of the imported goods that are targeted to rise, but it won't cause inflation.
I didn't mention inflation. 
But on the other hand, what is inflation other than an indicator of the average rising price of a number of monitored goods? If soy prices rise due to import taxes, that will influence the price of dairy products and meats. If the price of steel rises, that will influence things like the automobile industry to washing machines.
SupremeAC said:
As for taxes causing inflation, I was specifically talking about import taxes.
Which can be interpeted as you stating that import taxes would cause inflation. So I covered all bases.
SupremeAC said:I didn't mention inflation.
But on the other hand, what is inflation other than an indicator of the average rising price of a number of monitored goods? If soy prices rise due to import taxes, that will influence the price of dairy products and meats. If the price of steel rises, that will influence things like the automobile industry to washing machines.
All those examples are limited to specific industries, so without a further qualifier aren't inflation, even if they indicate inflation within that specific industry. Inflation versus inflation in tech, for example; and we were discussing the former.
Sure, I mentionned it 5 or so posts deep after you brought it up.
If inflation in a number of fields isn't inflation, than what is the definition of inflation according to you?
I gave a few examples of inflation we've seen that found their origin in either import taxes being enforced, or where high demand in certain regions forced worldwide price rizes. If the USA starts trade wars with everyone else, prices over a wide variety of sectors will increase. I don't see how that could be called anything else than inflation.
To be on the safe side I googled around a bit and the IMF seems to agree with me on the definition of inflation and what might cause it.
I really don't understand Musk, he's supposed to be a genius but whenever he opens his mouth, he sounds like a crazy person.