0.1% of all people control 99% of the resources, are you willing to live in a world like this?
" Nice try. But some regulations are useful, like mandatory seat belts or mandatory health insurance (I heard 95% of American children have one, here it´s 100% and that´s completely normal. Also when I used to study @ Göttingen University, it was for free, so you don´t need rich parents or be a wage slave instead of having the time to study.) "True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made." Franklin D. Roosevelt Last edited by Schmodderhengst on Jan 12, 2017, 9:42:43 AM
|
|
|
I have no idea why this topic turned to Communism against Capitalism. Its obvious many of you are washed in western propaganda.
I wanted to bring your attention not to politics but to the FACT of extreme inequality. Here some citation: Inheritance and estate taxes According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6% of Americans receive $100,000 or more in inheritance. Another 1.1% receive $50,000 to $100,000. On the other hand, 91.9% receive nothing (Kotlikoff & Gokhale, 2000). -- Home ownership & wealth In 2010, the average white household had almost 20 times as much total wealth as the average African-American household, and more than 70 times as much wealth as the average Latino household. If we exclude home equity from the calculations and consider only financial wealth, the ratios are more than 100:1. Extrapolating from these figures, we see that 71% of white families' wealth is in the form of their principal residence; for Blacks and Hispanics, the figures are close to 100%. And for all Americans, things have gotten worse: comparing the 2006/2007 numbers to the 2009/2010 numbers, we can see that the last few years ("The Great Recession") have seen a huge loss in wealth -- both housing and financial -- for most families, making the gap between the rich and the rest of America even greater, and increasing the number of households with no marketable assets from 18.6% to 22.5% (Wolff, 2012). Income Ratios and Power: Executives vs. Average Workers Another way that income can be used as a power indicator is by comparing average CEO annual pay to average factory worker pay, something that has been done for many years by Business Week and, later, the Associated Press. The ratio of CEO pay to factory worker pay rose from 42:1 in 1960 to as high as 531:1 in 2000, at the height of the stock market bubble, when CEOs were cashing in big stock options. It was at 411:1 in 2005 and 344:1 in 2007, according to research by United for a Fair Economy. By way of comparison, the same ratio is about 25:1 in Europe. You can blame Russia for this...or Canada. FACT is that historically the inequality is record high these days. Such great dis-balance cannot hold for much longer. We are heading to catastrophe and we are accelerating. Last edited by poor_hobbit on Jan 12, 2017, 9:45:21 AM
|
|
|
Inequality is a result of unregulated Capitalism(at least within industrialized modern societies, when it comes to global inequality it´s just one of the reasons). There´s no way to solve it without talking about politics. More regulation like in social market systems (e.g. in Europe) is far away from Communism.
If you ask me, 25:1 is still too much :-). Last edited by Schmodderhengst on Jan 12, 2017, 10:03:37 AM
|
|
" That is the joke though. If such a small number of people is able to pay the most share of the taxes, why shouldn't we tax them? It is nonsense to NOT tax them. They are holding to most of the wealth. Some rich people pay their fair share, some don't, it is tax evasion. |
|
" The government does a piss poor job at almost everything, tho. The bigger the government, the more bureaucracy, the more corruption, the more of that money for incentives is being wasted for stupid things. I have some friends in government jobs and the stories I hear are horrible. Agencies wasting money just because if they don't use up the current budget, the next year they will get less money from the government. Utter waste. I'm surprised that some of you guys don't trust private companies with your well-being (rightfully!), but would absolutely trust the government, which is just a highly corrupt monopoly, that doesn’t answer to anyone. " Merit based resource allocation would also mean that able-bodied adults should not be eligible for welfare, which I agree. No "leverage of ownership"? Does that mean you couldn't inherit stuff from your parents or leave wealth to your children? If so, its an extremely bad idea. When night falls
She cloaks the world In impenetrable darkness | |
" Rich people are smart. If you try to overtax them, they will just do tax evasion, move their business, not grow their business... Overtaxing == shooting yourself in the foot in the long run. And when you exhaust (or cant take enough from) the rich guys, who do you think the government will come after next? You, the middle class. When night falls
She cloaks the world In impenetrable darkness | |
" It´s not smart. It´s criminal, antisocial behavior and that´s not rare in big companies or banks. Last edited by Schmodderhengst on Jan 12, 2017, 10:11:20 AM
|
|
" And wanting to rob blind rich people is not "antisocial behaviour"? :) Tax evasion is a financial crime, that is all that is. Rich people have other, legal means to escape a too greedy (progressive) taxation, by moving their business or intentionally not expanding it (== laying off people or not employing more workers). When night falls
She cloaks the world In impenetrable darkness | |
" It would need better international agreements, at least this should be possible within the western world. Companies should not determine politics. That´s not democracy. Big companies only employ the lowest necessary number anyway to maximize their profit. Last edited by Schmodderhengst on Jan 12, 2017, 10:30:41 AM
|
|
" That I agree 100%. The governments should do a better job at taking taxes from the big companies (iirc, Apple & Google are massive tax evaders). Because when the gov fails at taking money from corporations, it goes after small business and middle class. Corporations should stay out of government and government should (mostly) stay out of business. These two things are both a big threat to economic & political stability in the West. When night falls
She cloaks the world In impenetrable darkness |
