I linked a couple minutes of Harris expressing her Marxist beliefs. I commonly refer to the left as socialist/communist and just wanted to point out I was right again.
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Kamala Marx
- Thread starter snarlcakes
- Start date
I wouldn't necessarily equate egalitarianism to Marxism (or any strand of communism).
But what's missing is how exactly she plans to realize that vision. And that's where she'd run into a problem. It's where egalitarians always run into a problem. They ultimately have to heighten restrictions on the natural order -- where outcomes are always going to be disparate -- to try to bring about their utopian vision of less inequality. You can't pay Paul without first robbing Peter.
The central tenet of this is that "Peter will be fine. He has more money than he could ever need. But the Pauls of the world actually need it. And why should a small handful of people have all this excess wealth when so many other people live (at best) subsistence level lives?"
And that makes sense, as far as it goes. It's certainly alluring. And it also happens that even the freest of economies will have (and need) some wealth/income redistribution. It's so easy to get caught up in black/white, 1/0, either/or, all/nothing thinking on this. But only people on the fringes think we should either have little or no redistribution or little else but redistribution. What's actually being sought is either less or more.
And she's making the case here for more. People on the left will always clamor for more. I've never known any of them to say "OK, I'd say we've done enough." As such, they tend to get oblivious to tradeoffs on the other side -- because they're so fixated on the ideas that (a) "Peter will be fine", and (b) "We haven't yet gotten the results we wanted yet for Paul, so we must continue doing more."
They rarely give much consideration to the idea that Peter may not go along with their plans -- which is why I think they always eventually end up having to figure out ways to eliminate Peter's options to avoid it. That's what Lula is seeking with the global minimum wealth tax. It's also why the Berlin Wall was built -- fully 15 years after the city was partitioned into half capitalist/half communist. Too many East German Peters had voted with their feet by leaving.
I always thought that Thomas Sowell described this myopia brilliantly:
Sowell’s comment is perfect.I wouldn't necessarily equate egalitarianism to Marxism (or any strand of communism).
But what's missing is how exactly she plans to realize that vision. And that's where she'd run into a problem. It's where egalitarians always run into a problem. They ultimately have to heighten restrictions on the natural order -- where outcomes are always going to be disparate -- to try to bring about their utopian vision of less inequality. You can't pay Paul without first robbing Peter.
The central tenet of this is that "Peter will be fine. He has more money than he could ever need. But the Pauls of the world actually need it. And why should a small handful of people have all this excess wealth when so many other people live (at best) subsistence level lives?"
And that makes sense, as far as it goes. It's certainly alluring. And it also happens that even the freest of economies will have (and need) some wealth/income redistribution. It's so easy to get caught up in black/white, 1/0, either/or, all/nothing thinking on this. But only people on the fringes think we should either have little or no redistribution or little else but redistribution. What's actually being sought is either less or more.
And she's making the case here for more. People on the left will always clamor for more. I've never known any of them to say "OK, I'd say we've done enough." As such, they tend to get oblivious to tradeoffs on the other side -- because they're so fixated on the ideas that (a) "Peter will be fine", and (b) "We haven't yet gotten the results we wanted yet for Paul, so we must continue doing more."
They rarely give much consideration to the idea that Peter may not go along with their plans -- which is why I think they always eventually end up having to figure out ways to eliminate Peter's options to avoid it. That's what Lula is seeking with the global minimum wealth tax. It's also why the Berlin Wall was built -- fully 15 years after the city was partitioned into half capitalist/half communist. Too many East German Peters had voted with their feet by leaving.
I always thought that Thomas Sowell described this myopia brilliantly:
One of the wisest men on the planet.
Thank you...
Oh..., you meant Sowell...
And here I thought you were commenting on my Trump as Batman campaign poster idea... 😕
I just can’t believe there are republicans that are going to stand by and help put these two in power. Trump at his worst isn’t as bad as these two.
You’re definitely in the the top seven or eight.
The Bison Project can accelerate your ascension.
Well, there’s “weird” . . . . . And then there’s fvcking insane.
Why do you suppose that is? What is wrong with all the Alohas out there?
I agree.
And, honestly, I don't think we should have much fear of inequality. It's often pointed out that the USA's Gini coefficient (which measures distribution of income/wealth -- the higher the Gini, the more concentrated it is) is somewhere in the pack with impoverished nations in Africa and the Caribbean. We certainly shouldn't want that should we?
Well, all this really does is show us that Gini is a relative measure. It doesn't take into account at all how people in the critical middle are faring. And isn't that ultimately what matters? Would we rather have a poorer nation with a more equal distribution of income/wealth than a richer nation with a less equal one? I wouldn't think so. But I guess some people would say that would be preferable.
After all, my standard of living isn't affected at all by how much richer the billionaires are than I am. It's not like their gain is my loss -- or anybody's loss. But clearly some people view economic output, income distribution, etc. that way: that in order for Jeff Bezos' wealth to increase by X amount, then other peoples' wealth cumulatively had to decrease by X. That certainly can be the case -- if somebody is getting rich of of graft, fraud, embezzlement, theft, etc. But it's not the case when a capitalist thrives from success and profitability. He thrives from creating value for others, not by extracting it from them.
Inequality certainly can be a huge problem in a society. Most nations that have high Ginis are places that none of us would want to live. They didn't get there because they had too much economic liberty and too little redistribution.
But there are a handful of countries which simultaneously have high Ginis and good prosperity among the critical middle. We're one of them. And we shouldn't be afraid to be one of them.
In the end we're all equal. We might be dead but equal. Well, in the earthly realm anyway.
Depends on what you are measuring (not that either of the people on the other ticket are awesome people either.)
Nothing is wrong with him. We just don't agree on the best way forward currently. Trump is going to disappear soon and all the MAGA/Never Trump stuff that dominates the intra-party arguments will also fade because the opposing party is going through a transformation of its own. They will eventually get over the little differences between themselves and focus on the common political enemy.
There will be some arguments still, particularly if Harris happens to win, "You guys put these asswipes in charge again!" but is will fade by 2028.
In general most of them aren’t fiscal conservatives.
I certainly hope so. That would come after a Harris win, of course. But I'm not so sure they'll come to their senses even then. We thought that would be the case after Nov 2020. Then we saw what happened up to and after Jan 6. I'm still concerned about what could happen in the interim period between the election and Jan 2025. The state election apparatuses are in the process of being taken over by election deniers who are hell bent on certifying the election results only in Trump's favor, and doing their level best to either throw the results to the House or having the Supremes intervene.
But neither is Trump. Has Trump put forward any concrete proposals to rein in spending and/or increase revenues?
Thomas Sowell is such a great manI wouldn't necessarily equate egalitarianism to Marxism (or any strand of communism).
But what's missing is how exactly she plans to realize that vision. And that's where she'd run into a problem. It's where egalitarians always run into a problem. They ultimately have to heighten restrictions on the natural order -- where outcomes are always going to be disparate -- to try to bring about their utopian vision of less inequality. You can't pay Paul without first robbing Peter.
The central tenet of this is that "Peter will be fine. He has more money than he could ever need. But the Pauls of the world actually need it. And why should a small handful of people have all this excess wealth when so many other people live (at best) subsistence level lives?"
And that makes sense, as far as it goes. It's certainly alluring. And it also happens that even the freest of economies will have (and need) some wealth/income redistribution. It's so easy to get caught up in black/white, 1/0, either/or, all/nothing thinking on this. But only people on the fringes think we should either have little or no redistribution or little else but redistribution. What's actually being sought is either less or more.
And she's making the case here for more. People on the left will always clamor for more. I've never known any of them to say "OK, I'd say we've done enough." As such, they tend to get oblivious to tradeoffs on the other side -- because they're so fixated on the ideas that (a) "Peter will be fine", and (b) "We haven't yet gotten the results we wanted yet for Paul, so we must continue doing more."
They rarely give much consideration to the idea that Peter may not go along with their plans -- which is why I think they always eventually end up having to figure out ways to eliminate Peter's options to avoid it. That's what Lula is seeking with the global minimum wealth tax. It's also why the Berlin Wall was built -- fully 15 years after the city was partitioned into half capitalist/half communist. Too many East German Peters had voted with their feet by leaving.
I always thought that Thomas Sowell described this myopia brilliantly:
There are only two options and he’s better than the alternative. Also, if the government isn’t going to cut spending, I’d rather have lower taxes and fewer regulations.
He can't admit when he's wrong. He came out against Trump at the start and then doubled down when all the stories about Trump proved to be lies. He still thinks the FBI is a trustworthy organization and has never criticized the Secret Service for their complete failure at protecting Trump.
Aloha knows 'democracy' was never in peril, yet he played along with it just like you did.
You guys just keep coming up with crazy shit like tampons in boys bathrooms and thinking less police will lower crime. It's just insane and there's no end to it. But instead of just shutting up and not going along with it, somehow all the focus is on Trump and Vance and rally around a word like 'weird'.
A month ago, Kamala was kryptonite for Democrats and now she's the exciting new candidate'. Walz was proudly one of the most progressive governors in the country, and now he supposedly is just 'folksy'. One man's socialism is just another man's generosity, don'tcha know.
Go back and read 1984 and see how the Party controls every thought - that's what you guys have turned into.
Are you questioning the honesty of the elections now?
So he's already saying votes don't count if the election doesn't come out his way.
This stupid SOB needs to be censored, at the very least.
Yeah Vance is just awful. I mean why vote for him when we can have the guy who opened a hot line to snitch on your neighbors, let terrorists burn down a city, puts tampons in boys restrooms, supports the mutilation of children, and wants to remove the 1st Amendment.
I'm certainly with you on regulations. And I think Trump had a relatively good record on that. Certainly better than most presidents we've had.
But your statement above caught my attention. Ceteris paribus, the only true tax cut....is a spending cut.
Yes, I know the real world isn't quite that simple. We have Keynesian multipliers and the like. And all of that does matter. But we also cannot run away from the reality that our debt/GDP ratio is growing briskly and, unless we can reverse that, we're staring at a future that is similar to what Japan has experienced over the past 3 or 4 decades -- which is sheer stagnation. The median income in Japan today is roughly the same as it was in the early 1990s. And this is most certainly not the sort of thing where treading water is acceptable. A lot is riding on the assumption of some measure of growth.
The things that we call "tax cuts" are really not tax cuts at all. They're better described as tax burden redistributions. We're pushing the burden of taxation to some other taxpayer, either present or future. The costs of government have to be paid for one way or another, one day or another. And if we have tax policy that results in net less tax revenues today, then that just increases the need for debt financing.
Do I want taxes lower? Of course -- who doesn't? But the reality we're staring at right now is that we need some combination of lower expenditures and higher tax revenues if we have any hope of getting our fiscal house in order. Obviously, I'd prefer more of the former and less of the latter. But it's going to have to be some mix of the two.
Hmm.. hard to say what's worse for the country, this or the corporate socialism that is going on right now. .
“Corporate socialism is where we socialize losses and privatize gains. Companies that have failed in the marketplace stick the taxpayers with their losses, but when they make money they get to keep it, and secondly, huge amounts of capital are given to companies by taxpayers. Many of the retail stores you walk into, especially big box retailers and in some cases entire shopping centers, legally keep the sales taxes you pay at the cash register. That’s because government bought the land, often after condemning it through eminent domain and had the buildings erected to the specifications of the company, but the land and building are actually owned by a government entity, and the cost of buying the land and putting up the building are paid for with your taxpayer dollars. That’s not capitalism. That’s not market economics. It’s a system in which governments pick winners and create losers.”
Now we know why Musk is so high on Trump and the Republicans. He's been a recipient of corporate socialism for decades.
Elon Musk is speaking out against government subsidies. Here's a list of the billions of dollars his businesses have received.
Musk's companies benefited from subsidies as recently as April, when SpaceX won a $2.89 billion contract from NASA. Tesla got subsidies for years.
www.businessinsider.com
It comes whether Trump wins or loses. Your party has taken a pretty hard left turn, that doesn't look to be changing anytime soon. Trump's influence wanes exponentially the minute he cannot run for President any more. That happens whether he wins and is term limited out or he loses and is basically aged out.
The rest is going to have to get hashed out between all of us. The election denial stuff dries up when Democrats get serious about having the "this hurts election confidence" discussion around how a ballot can be cast. Remember, y'all were the OG election deniers going back to the beginning of this century. Both parties have an issue with election security (or supposed election security). Only one is loathe to do anything about it.
The government has already made the decision. They're just not saying it out loud. They are going to run endless debts and monetize the debt. The other choice is cut the government 30-40%. Not happening.
You’re working under the assumption that governments and private entities spend capital the same. That's not true. Tax receipts as a percentage of GDP have increased since the Trump cuts.
Check out the long term averages for tax receipts and spending. 1 of them is close to the long term average, the other one isn't. Neither party is going to raise taxes meaningfully to close the deficit. It would crash the economy and spur a severe recession or depression.
So how far are we in to the application of MMT? Seems like it's about half of FED activity.
You don't have to sell me on the idea that Governments are wasteful and should be as small as possible. I’m for deregulation and smaller government so they're not allowed to pick winners and losers(or at least fewer). I have a great idea. How about we lower all of our taxes so Governments don't have the capital to pick winners and losers? Also, we should pass an amendment eliminating deficit spending.Hmm.. hard to say what's worse for the country, this or the corporate socialism that is going on right now. .
“Corporate socialism is where we socialize losses and privatize gains. Companies that have failed in the marketplace stick the taxpayers with their losses, but when they make money they get to keep it, and secondly, huge amounts of capital are given to companies by taxpayers. Many of the retail stores you walk into, especially big box retailers and in some cases entire shopping centers, legally keep the sales taxes you pay at the cash register. That’s because government bought the land, often after condemning it through eminent domain and had the buildings erected to the specifications of the company, but the land and building are actually owned by a government entity, and the cost of buying the land and putting up the building are paid for with your taxpayer dollars. That’s not capitalism. That’s not market economics. It’s a system in which governments pick winners and create losers.”
Now we know why Musk is so high on Trump and the Republicans. He's been a recipient of corporate socialism for decades.
Elon Musk is speaking out against government subsidies. Here's a list of the billions of dollars his businesses have received.
Musk's companies benefited from subsidies as recently as April, when SpaceX won a $2.89 billion contract from NASA. Tesla got subsidies for years.
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No clue on timing. I just think we have passed the rubicon.
white privilege, white supremacist , you want life back to the Jim Crow days. YOU ARE WHO YOU ARE.
I think Republicans who supported Trump in the primaries need to step back and wonder why they did. Dumping Trump was the smart thing to do and we didn’t do it.
It certainly seems that way. It's the "solution" that is most politically expedient (which is why governments throughout history tend to choose it) -- but also most economically harmful.
I realize that more goes into tax revenues than just tax rates. Revenues are as much a function of growth as they are policy. However, I don't think we're on the side of the Laffer Curve where, long-term, lower tax rates are going to produce more tax revenues than higher ones would.
I realize this. Spending has been on a growth curve. Revenues just tend to bounce around a regression towards a mean. In fact here's a chart showing them side by side since 1950 (as % GDP).
Maybe not. But I doubt the TCJA rates set to sunset next year are going to be extended -- unless one party gets a trifecta. It'll be an automatic tax hike. And it's not as though I'm longing for a tax hike. What we most need to do is pare back spending (and especially the non-discretionary spending).
But, like you, I'm not expecting this to happen. I think they'll just continue monetizing it -- so they can at least blame it on Kroger, WalMart, and McDonalds.
I was referred to in the post you replied to. Keeping me out of that category would be correct. Putting me in that category would be incorrect. Fiscal responsibility has long been my top domestic issue. I’ve done battle on this for years here. Fact is fiscal responsibility isn’t part of Trump’s agenda and he proved it as President. He’s even stopped talking about it this time around.
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