WE NEED YOUR HELP! Please donate to keep ReaderRant online to serve political discussion and its members. (Blue Ridge Photography pays the bills for RR).
Current Topics
Trump 2.0
by Irked - 03/14/25 10:00 AM
2024 Election Forum
by rporter314 - 03/11/25 11:16 PM
Who's Online Now
1 members (Irked), 11 guests, and 0 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newest Members
Agnostic Politico, Jems, robertjohn, BlackCat13th, ruggedman
6,305 Registered Users
Popular Topics(Views)
10,260,780 my own book page
5,051,273 We shall overcome
4,250,694 Campaign 2016
3,856,310 Trump's Trumpet
3,055,481 3 word story game
Top Posters
pdx rick 47,430
Scoutgal 27,583
Phil Hoskins 21,134
Greger 19,831
Towanda 19,391
Top Likes Received (30 Days)
Irked 1
Forum Statistics
Forums59
Topics17,128
Posts314,539
Members6,305
Most Online294
Dec 6th, 2017
Today's Birthdays
Buzzard's Roost, Troyota
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rate Thread
Page 9 of 50 1 2 7 8 9 10 11 49 50
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 3,210
Likes: 3
C
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
C
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 3,210
Likes: 3



...

Last edited by chunkstyle; 02/02/19 03:25 AM.
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 19,831
Likes: 180
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 19,831
Likes: 180
Y'know...? We wouldn't be looking at having to tax the sh*t out of them if they would willingly pay a living wage to workers. Philanthropy is bullsh*t. Just another way to avoid paying taxes.


Good coffee, good weed, and time on my hands...
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 12,129
Likes: 257
Pooh-Bah
Offline
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 12,129
Likes: 257
I suspect very few billionaires are involved with their lowest level workers pay rates. People working for minimum wage are mostly working in franchised fast food places and such. The people determining their pay rate are far from millionaires much less billionaires. Typically, they are manager/owners who may have one tier of assistant managers above the lowest paid workers. The amount they pay their lowest paid people comes right out of their bottom line and thus their income. Any of them could decide to pay their workers more, if they want less.

In a larger corporations, there are managers who have an incentive to show their labor costs as low as possible to please higher management. There is a whole game theory area about how much to pay people versus turnover costs. The CEO hardly ever gets involved, unless they want to push a particular agenda for political or PR reasons.

So I think a 72% top rate on incomes over $10 million may be something that is workable. Bring back the estate tax, too, on estates over $10 million. 72% would be fine for that too. Nobody's kids need more than $10 million to start something productive. Over that just enables stuff like Trump's daddy leaving him 100's of millions to squander on idiotic vanity projects.

Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 19,831
Likes: 180
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 19,831
Likes: 180
The massive wealth of the billionaire class and their multinational interests is a juggernaut out of control. Of course they don't control anything besides meetings with other billionaire's. They don't even buy their own private jets. But that money just keeps making more money and sucking the life out of the real world economy.

They have the power to take control. But as you can see from the Shultz fiasco, none of them really has clue how the real world works anymore.



Good coffee, good weed, and time on my hands...
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 3,210
Likes: 3
C
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
C
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 3,210
Likes: 3
Originally Posted by Greger
The massive wealth of the billionaire class and their multinational interests is a juggernaut out of control. Of course they don't control anything besides meetings with other billionaire's. They don't even buy their own private jets. But that money just keeps making more money and sucking the life out of the real world economy.

They have the power to take control. But as you can see from the Shultz fiasco, none of them really has clue how the real world works anymore.

I think market world controls a great deal now as state power and public spaces have been outsourced or sold off. Faster under Republican control, slow walked under democratic control.
I agree that it does suck the life out of the economy and cause impoverishment for many.

Last edited by chunkstyle; 02/07/19 12:25 PM.
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 8,082
Likes: 134
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 8,082
Likes: 134
I suspect all of this discussion will eventually be relegated to a discussion of whether the future of mankind can survive under current economic models. The fundamental tacit assumption of capitalism has been there are infinite resources. What was not foreseen is the rapid automation of the workforce without a commensurate increase in replacement jobs.

The reader can devise their own arguments on resources, but the reality is we live in a finite space. One could argue there are or will be replacement jobs displaced from automation, but I ask based on the surety AI will eventually automate the automation.

The question will become which economic system will guarantee the survival of mankind and the ancillary question is anyone interested in the survival of mankind?


ignorance is the enemy
without equality there is no liberty
America can survive bad policy, but not destruction of our Democratic institutions



Joined: May 2006
Posts: 5,026
Likes: 98
J
jgw Offline
old hand
Offline
old hand
J
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 5,026
Likes: 98
Automation is the real sleeper. I suspect the homeless problem is part of that one. I was watching channel 5, out of Seattle, the other night. They showed two automated cameras moving around. I expect this means that the tv stations no longer need people to control not only cameras but booms, etc. Just another class of jobs going away. Then mix in HUD by Jackass. Raising rents on the poor because "they should also have a job" - I think that includes folks like a 95 year old woman with nothing but minimum Social Security. I live in a place called Port Angeles. I have been told that the local high school has a large population of homeless kids as well (not on drugs, just have no place to sleep, along with mother and father.

Its going to continue and its going to be a LOT worse before somebody figures it out. I read an article about Finland being able to move all of their homeless into places and off the streets. In America, of course, we can't afford something like that with all the wars, tax giveaways, etc.

There is also the simple fact that we, and our gov, simply don't have the capacity for planning ahead. Before anybody starts to seriously work on this one there will be blood on the streets <sigh>

Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 17,177
Likes: 254
It's the Despair Quotient!
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
It's the Despair Quotient!
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 17,177
Likes: 254
Originally Posted by jgw
Automation is the real sleeper. I suspect the homeless problem is part of that one. I was watching channel 5, out of Seattle, the other night. They showed two automated cameras moving around. I expect this means that the tv stations no longer need people to control not only cameras but booms, etc.

Studio camera automation is almost twenty years old now.
It's basically the province of news programming at the local level because they need the humans for news coverage out there in the world.



"The Best of the Leon Russell Festivals" DVD
deepfreezefilms.com
Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 18,003
Likes: 191
Moderator
Carpal Tunnel
OP Offline
Moderator
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 18,003
Likes: 191
I read a story on a study (how's that for convenience) that predicts the loss of 50 million jobs to automation by 2030, assuming current trends hold. Between that and population trends the idea of "employment" will be vastly changed well within our lifetimes. The divergence between employment and compensation will continue to grow. One of the absolute requirements will be a "reconceptualization" of taxation (along the lines of Warren's AND Ocasio-Cortez's plans) to ensure government funding of essential functions - which will expand. The Green New Deal, or something like it, is our future, if we expect to survive. Some kind of universal income is also likely, rather than the expectation of a "guaranteed job".

That's neither a utopian nor dystopian prediction. It's just the rational extrapolation of current trends. We can either plan for it and provide some modicum of control, or be carried along by its currents. So, we have a choice. Hopefully, Trump and the current Congress will be the "old guard" in government thinking. The biggest impediment is likely to be the courts.

Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 12,129
Likes: 257
Pooh-Bah
Offline
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 12,129
Likes: 257
I think birthright ownership goes down a bit easier than UBI: Just like every citizen of Alaska "owns" some of the oil in the ground, and gets a royalty check every year, we could just say every American citizen "owns" a certain percentage of every corporation doing business in the US. Their monthly checks are not "free government money for being lazy" but rather dividend checks. (Republicans LOVE dividend checks but hate taxpayer money going to lazy bums.) That "ownership" could be held in trust (kind of like Social Security) so you can never sell it. It just supplies income every month for life. It stops when you die, so no fair leaving it to anybody.

Since it's based on GDP, it is also inflation-proof. For businesses, it's just part of the cost of doing business and affects all their competitors equally. We can add tariffs on items manufactured outside the US that go into the dividend fund.

Page 9 of 50 1 2 7 8 9 10 11 49 50

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5