Quote:
Originally Posted by Tully Mars
I always find it ironic when folks on the right rail against "redistribution of wealth" when in reality they've been working tirelessly at that since before Regean. Almost all of their policies are designed to move even more of the wealth to those already wealthy and push more and more of the middle class in poverty.
Maybe saying it's by design isn't completely supported by fact but the effects certainly are by all the data I've ever seen.
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It is not as complicated as some try to make it out to be.
The basis of my view is that people are selfish, in that they lookout for their interests ahead of the interests of others or the community. Not to suggest that people are not charitable and don't care about others, but in the final analysis - I think we are a "me" first species. There are some species where this is not true, but not man - and I agree there are exceptions.
Given the basis of my view of humans, if wealth is to be redistributed, people want it redistributed in their direction. All people, rich or poor. So it goes, deregulate me, regulate others. Reduce my taxes, tax others. Give me benefits at the expense of others. People who own capital, fight to protect it. Those who lack capital, but have political/police/military/etc. power fight to control capital. The struggle is ageless and will never end - unless the nature of man changes.
---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:29 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
Tully, I was referring mostly to the deregulation orgy sparked by Reagan. It basically gave more power to the wealthy to do what they do...which we know is based on maximizing profit.
Deregulation was the removal of rules...leaving the wealthy to make the rules instead, as you say.
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I challenge your premise. You are suggesting that a trend of increasing regulation imposed by government, say starting with the industrial revolution, actually reversed. I can not think of any major industry where the regulatory environment actually shrunk.
---------- Post added at 04:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:40 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by Willravel
It should have died out decades ago, though. Trickle-down should have died in the late 80s when it was demonstrated conclusively to be false. Exceptionalism should have died with the cold war and the advent of the true international community. They're still fricking here.
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Perhaps this is the third time I have asked this personal question. If you became a billionaire how many people would benefit on your rise to that level of wealth? I assume, you believe you would be the reasons X number of people would benefit from your efforts and if not for you their lives would be worse. If true, why do you think it would be different for everyone else who would become a billionaire? What is the ratio of a person legitimately becoming a billionaire and the lives of others improved? What should the ratio be? Isn't by definition this is "trickle down"?
Also, I am beginning to understand how this ties into the inception of "ideas". If I believed there were no original "ideas", that everything that can be thought of was a part of the public domain, so to speak, and stolen or borrowed, I would think anyone being personally enriched is doing so unjustly at the expense of others.
---------- Post added at 05:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:49 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by roachboy
the only thing funnier than that, tully, is the history of abstract "synergies" to the total exclusion of knowing what you're talking about factually or conceptually. but the funniest thing is watching a rickety chain of arbitrary statements about "history" get assembled that culminates in surreal claims about the objective validity of supply side economics.
this is "history" for conservatives.....?
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You are always good for a laugh lately.
A man + a tube + 2 mirrors is a man, a tube and 2 mirrors.
A man + a tube + 2 mirrors + an idea to use a concave primary mirror = a reflective telescope leading to an understanding of the heavens. Thanks Sir Isaac Newton, oops or was it Galileo, oh never mind he stole the idea from from some guys who certainly stole it from someone else. Either way it is awfully abstract, isn't it. Was Newton a greedy capitalist pig, with designs of exploiting poor people?