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Monty3038
Old 09-30-2009, 03:44 PM #34 (permalink)  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Taxes: The science behind economics has shown that progressive income taxes are best. You can't think of economies like they're just a bunch of isolated factors thrown into a giant pile; they're elaborate networks which can be manipulated in innumerable ways to achieve desired results. There is no 'redistribution', just distribution based in chosen economic paradigms. There is no 'deserved wealth', just what works and what doesn't

Generally speaking, the more the economy is structured in such a way that wealth gets distributed to the working class more than the rich/investment class, the stronger and more vibrant the economy. The US has seen both sides of the coin. We've been through progressive distribution policies, and the opposite trickle-down corporate policies. Watch the Elizabeth Warren video I posted, it's all about this specific issue.

In a nutshell, our corporate trickle-down economy of the last 40 years has absolutely devastated the middle class. The populous has been tricked into Reaganomic 'gubmint is bad, rich people create the jobs, wealthy people deserve everything they've made', etc. Except that reality is that government is not bad, the consumption of the working class is what actually creates jobs, and nobody actually deserves anything without some conditions.

A rule of thumb about taxes is that if they don't target the wealthy, they're made up for by targeting the poor and middle class. Even the most optimal tax system we've ever had was massively favorable to the wealthy and corporations. It is very likely that the correct economic paradigm is one that taxes the wealthy at several magnitudes higher than current, and puts it into assloads of social programs as well as a baseline tax credits for the entire population (effectively eliminating the poverty line)

Hyperinflation: Never happen. I'm not going to watch the entire video because I've seen it all before. Hyperinflation scaremongers are stupid fuckshits who wouldn't know a legitimate claim if they fell from the brilliance tree and hit every branch on the way down

The US is currently in deflation. This is the opposite of inflation. People crying about hyperinflation now is like walking into a restaurant and complaining that they serve food. It makes absolutely no sense. On top of that, the actual numbers on what it would take to hyperinflate the USD are astounding. Not only is this one of the last things any country wants due to connectedness on USD, but the fed would literally have to be printing assloads of money non-stop for a very long time.

The two most popular examples given by scaremongers are Zimbabwe and Weimar Republic, neither of which have anything to do with anything. Zimbabwe has literally zero economy, and the printing presses have been running off the hook for years, and Weimar was post-war Germany and in massive debt with toppling interest and restrictions. US could inflate itself out of this mess several times over and wouldn't even come close to these idiots' version of hyperinflation. Also, in order to hyperinflate a currency, you have to keep doing it over and over. The fed bends over backwards to keep inflation below 10%, hyperinflation is like 500% or something stupid, and Zimbabwe's is on the order of 100k% or something.

How we get out of the mess: The root of the problem is income distribution. I forget the exact numbers, but but in the last 40 years, the working class has received something on the order of 100x less percentage of the wealth than it did in previous decades. This is 100% caused by corporatism, deregulation, non-progressive taxes, and Reaganomics

We get out of this mess by stopping voting for non-liberals. Dead serious. Socialist liberal progressives are the only people in the country who do not get kickbacks from corporations, and they are the only people who fight them. Even libertarians are wet dreams for corporations because they are deregulating free marketeers.

I don't understand the specifics about how to keep the same crisis from happening, but it would be things like isolating specific banks and insurance companies and regulating things like derivatives and hedging. But none of this will matter because in a society that lets money rule, they will simply find a new way to fuck everybody. On top of that, things are looking worse now than they were before. The specific recession isn't, but the future is. Corporations are already trying to do the same thing that caused the Crisis of 08, but in different areas, the Supreme Court is still massively corporate favored and may rule on law that would effectively ruin the working class and turn the nation into a full-blown corporate dictatorship. If you think elections are a sham now, just wait until the Supreme Court removes the cap on campaign funding. We would then see millions of corporate dollars being given to both parties, and nothing short of the second Revolutionary War would stop them
Hmm... I didn't have a chance to watch the video you referenced (at work) but as towards taxes that are progressive, I am just not convinced. If I work and earn a certain amount of money, no matter what that amount of money is, I get the same services from the government. Why should a larger percentage of my income go to the government when I am receiving the same services as someone else? In actuality, as I earn more money I use less services from the government, so let me rephrase that... If I work hard and earn more money, using progressively less government services, why should I pay more for them as my income increases?

As towards voting in only non-liberals. I'm not sure that is a viable answer either. It sounds from your message that you support taking the money earned by the wealthy and distributing it down... which being in the middle class myself sounds good, I'd like to have more money, but it has a backwards effect as well. Just because I have more money that was taken from the wealthy, doesn't improve my standard of living in the long run. The wealthy will work to recoup those losses that are being forced upon them one of two ways, increase prices on the goods they manufacture or move to another country for their manufacturing. If they move, my middle class job goes away... and I become poor. If they increase prices, the additional money I have now is worth less, so I stay about the same.

So I'm not sure I understand how redistribution through taxation is going to benefit anyone... maybe you can break it down better for me...
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