19.5% of America is on Welfare?

[TruthNotBS]

Good luck on your term paper, kid.

How is a man in his 50s a "kid"? Like always, you're not making any sense.

 

[Unkotare]

How is a man in his 50s a "kid"? ...

Don't be ashamed of your IQ, kid. Not your fault.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

The fossil fuel industry loves public investment in highways and gas-guzzling cars consuming their product. A socialist America would now have interstate bullet trains, and extensive public transit, even in Wyoming. It's not about profits, but serving the American public. The question isn't "How much money are we going to make if we build this transit system in Cheyenne, Wyoming", but rather, "Will the residents of Cheyenne benefit from a public transit system?", that's how socialists think. Will this serve the American public, not "How much money can we get from this?". We could have bullet-trains running 24/7 throughout the country, transporting Americans everywhere, much cheaper than the private, for-profit sector. Especially today, we're going to have automated, self-driving vehicles and buses..etc.

Yeah, tell me about California's bullet train to nowhere. How many billions of taxpayer dollars did they waste on that? They wanted the train but had no idea how expensive it would be.

 

[otto105]

Yeah, tell me about California's bullet train to nowhere. How many billions of taxpayer dollars did they waste on that? They wanted the train but had no idea how expensive it would be.

yeah, it's just like fast trains are socialistic crap right rocky.

 

[TruthNotBS]

[IMG alt="Toddsterpatriot"]https://www.usmessageboard.com/data/avatars/m/29/29707.jpg?1664387759[/IMG]

Toddsterpatriot​

Diamond Member​

Enjoy your Trabant, if you live long enough to take delivery.


You’re clinging to an outdated caricature of socialism, stuck in the mid-20th century. Times have changed. We’re talking about a system shaped by the unprecedented advancements of the 21st century, i.e. AI, robotics, quantum computing, none of which even existed in the last century, which you apparently are completely obsessed with. Lumping modern socialism or communism in with the conditions of half a century ago or more is like comparing present-day smartphones to the clunky telephones from 1950; they share a name but function in a radically different environment.

Imagine 21st-century production powered by automated assembly lines, advanced materials, and AI-driven efficiency. That kind of technology, if democratically controlled and oriented toward public well-being rather than private profit, can produce goods that surpass anything we’ve ever seen. We’re not strapping ourselves to the past; we’re looking at modern capabilities and asking why a tiny class of greedy, capitalist owners should continue pocketing the lion’s share of wealth when technology is rendering the “boss” role increasingly obsolete.

So no, nobody’s reviving the Trabant. If anything, the 21st century gives us the chance to leave archaic Cold War-era limitations behind. Instead of forcing workers to toil in unfulfilling jobs just to scrape by, we could harness automation and AI to reduce labor time, and create much more abundance, dramatically raising everyone’s standard of living. That’s nothing like the 20th-century model your cheap jab implies and if you can’t see the difference, you’re ignoring the biggest technological revolution humanity’s ever seen.

Todd, why wouldn't I live to see it? I'm a healthy 51-year-old, with at least another 20+ years of life ahead of me. Most of the men in my family die in their late 70s and 80s (my father is 83, his brother is 80, and I have several other uncles in their 80s), so I will likely live long enough to see our nation adopt socialism. Looking at how quickly advanced automation and AI is taking over production and how the younger generation is more and more leaning towards socialist, progressive values, there's a great chance I will live to see the end of capitalism.

 

[TruthNotBS]

Don't be ashamed of your IQ, kid. Not your fault.

You're a silly, irrational old man hiding behind your computer in an undisclosed location, behaving like a punk asshole, calling men in their 50s "kids". That's all you have? Calling me "kid" and questioning my IQ? How pathetic.

 

[TruthNotBS]

Yeah, tell me about California's bullet train to nowhere. How many billions of taxpayer dollars did they waste on that? They wanted the train but had no idea how expensive it would be.

That's not socialism that's a poorly managed, capitalist-controlled government, under capitalism. The last thing the powerful fossil fuel industry wants is an extensive network of publicly owned and run bullet trains throughout the country. The more public transit there is, the fewer people will drive their gas-guzzling cars, no longer generating billions of dollars in profits for EXXON and other big oil companies. Our politicians are in their pockets, relying on them for campaign funding, via their super PACs.

 

[Unkotare]

....Calling me "kid" and questioning my IQ? ....

YES, you stupid little weakling.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

You’re deflecting again, cherry-picking one sentence about percentages instead of addressing the core problem: a system in which wages often hover at “barely livable” while profits for a tiny, greedy, capitalist owner class soar. If your primary argument is “learn better skills,” you’re ignoring the fact that someone still has to cook your food, mop floors, work retail, handle childcare, deliver packages, all those supposed “unskilled” and "worthless" jobs you depend on daily. Telling those workers “just upgrade or starve” ("F-U, GO F YOURSELF YOU PEASANT...) is not only heartless, it’s economically short-sighted: a society can’t function without those services, and if they’re all underpaid, you undermine the very consumer base you claim you don’t care about.

You’re not fooling me or anyone who knows their history by insisting Henry Ford “didn’t give a shit” about selling cars. Whether you want to label him altruistic or not, even he grasped that a higher wage cut turnover, built loyalty, and fed a market for his products, like it or not, that’s how industry-wide demand gets stimulated. If you only want to talk percentages, fine: in most industries, labor costs are a significant portion of expenses, but historically, paying more has not “destroyed” businesses across the board. Companies adapt, or they innovate; they don’t automatically collapse the moment wages rise above a meager baseline.

As for your “$10 value vs. $15 wage” talking point, it’s a fantasy number game that refuses to acknowledge that “value” is not a fixed, inherent measure: training, technology improvements, and basic human needs all shape what’s “worth” paying for. If your model can’t afford fair compensation for the workers who create the product or run the service, maybe the model is SHIT. Indeed that's what it is, GARBAGE.

Throw around insults like “moron” or “commie” all you want; it doesn’t change the fact that clinging to an economy driven by cheap, disposable labor is not only exploitative, it’s unsustainable and outdated in an era where automation and AI increasingly threaten the need for wage labor altogether. If you think paying people decently puts you out of business, just wait until people realize they can cut out parasitic capitalist assholes entirely. After all, as Lincoln said, labor comes first, hence if it can be automated, we sure don’t need a boss skimming the profits from the machine. We don't need you, Todd, you can go to hell.

You’re deflecting again, cherry-picking one sentence about percentages instead of addressing the core problem:

The core problem is that commies don't know math, let alone economics

You’re not fooling me or anyone who knows their history by insisting Henry Ford “didn’t give a shit” about selling cars.

He absolutely gave a shit about selling cars. He increased wages to reduce employee turnover so he could increase production and sell more cars for a lower price. It's basic economics, something silly commie twats such as yourself know precious little about. He didn't increase wages in the hopes his employees could suddenly afford a car.

As for your “$10 value vs. $15 wage” talking point, it’s a fantasy number game that refuses to acknowledge that “value” is not a fixed

If a twat such as yourself can take $5 worth of materials and machinery to produce $15 worth of goods, you've added $10 in value. If it takes you an hour to do it, you deserve some portion of that $10 as an hourly wage. Your employer, the guy who bought the materials and machinery, deserves a portion of that $10 as well.

After all, as Lincoln said, labor comes first,

If you can show where Lincoln disagreed with my math or my logic, I'll be glad to learn something new.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

yeah, it's just like fast trains are socialistic crap right rocky.

Trying to build them where they don't work definitely is.

 

[otto105]

Trying to build them where they don't work definitely is.

They can't work in California? Do tell

 

[TruthNotBS]

YES, you stupid little weakling.

Grow up.

 

[TruthNotBS]

You’re deflecting again, cherry-picking one sentence about percentages instead of addressing the core problem:

The core problem is that commies don't know math, let alone economics

You’re not fooling me or anyone who knows their history by insisting Henry Ford “didn’t give a shit” about selling cars.

He absolutely gave a shit about selling cars. He increased wages to reduce employee turnover so he could increase production and sell more cars for a lower price. It's basic economics, something silly commie twats such as yourself know precious little about. He didn't increase wages in the hopes his employees could suddenly afford a car.

As for your “$10 value vs. $15 wage” talking point, it’s a fantasy number game that refuses to acknowledge that “value” is not a fixed

If a twat such as yourself can take $5 worth of materials and machinery to produce $15 worth of goods, you've added $10 in value. If it takes you an hour to do it, you deserve some portion of that $10 as an hourly wage. Your employer, the guy who bought the materials and machinery, deserves a portion of that $10 as well.

After all, as Lincoln said, labor comes first,

If you can show where Lincoln disagreed with my math or my logic, I'll be glad to learn something new.

Under present, 21st-century conditions, we don’t even need capitalism or your beloved capitalist “boss class” to produce goods and services. You keep harping on “value-added,” as though it’s some natural law. It’s not. The rate at which labor creates “value” is shaped by technology, training, market whims, and, increasingly, automation. If we can automate production, guess what? Nobody’s stuck waiting for you to buy machinery or materials. We sure don’t need a boss class to dole out scraps, because the “employer/employee” dynamic stops making sense when AI and robotics handle the bulk of the work.

Your example about a worker taking “$5 worth of materials and machinery to produce $15 worth of goods” is comically simplistic. You’re ignoring all the ways a worker can become more productive, through better training, advanced tools, or simply a fairer economic structure that doesn’t force them to beg for table scraps while you hoard profits. Labor is what transforms raw materials into something useful. Without people’s labor (or increasingly, without automated labor directed by society as a whole), capital is dead weight. Even Abraham Lincoln grasped that labor precedes capital, so if machines replace much of that labor, it makes the capitalist class even more irrelevant.

Your “solution” boils down to telling low-wage workers “tough luck, starve if you can’t add enough ‘value’” while ignoring that society depends on these workers. And once the grunt work is automated, your entire “someone has to buy the machines” argument collapses. Why should we funnel our productivity back into some private corporation’s bank account, when we can democratize ownership and put technology to work for all of us, not just a handful of sociopathic, greedy, capitalist profiteers? That’s not “commie ignorance”; it’s recognizing that modern science and automation make the old exploitative model obsolete. You want to cling to a system that keeps people underpaid and overworked. Why should society allow that? We should cut out the parasitic, capitalist middlemen and run production ourselves, without your half-baked math lessons. Bye, Todd.

​

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Under present, 21st-century conditions, we don’t even need capitalism or your beloved capitalist “boss class” to produce goods and services. You keep harping on “value-added,” as though it’s some natural law. It’s not. The rate at which labor creates “value” is shaped by technology, training, market whims, and, increasingly, automation. If we can automate production, guess what? Nobody’s stuck waiting for you to buy machinery or materials. We sure don’t need a boss class to dole out scraps, because the “employer/employee” dynamic stops making sense when AI and robotics handle the bulk of the work.

Your example about a worker taking “$5 worth of materials and machinery to produce $15 worth of goods” is comically simplistic. You’re ignoring all the ways a worker can become more productive, through better training, advanced tools, or simply a fairer economic structure that doesn’t force them to beg for table scraps while you hoard profits. Labor is what transforms raw materials into something useful. Without people’s labor (or increasingly, without automated labor directed by society as a whole), capital is dead weight. Even Abraham Lincoln grasped that labor precedes capital, so if machines replace much of that labor, it makes the capitalist class even more irrelevant.

Your “solution” boils down to telling low-wage workers “tough luck, starve if you can’t add enough ‘value’” while ignoring that society depends on these workers. And once the grunt work is automated, your entire “someone has to buy the machines” argument collapses. Why should we funnel our productivity back into some private corporation’s bank account, when we can democratize ownership and put technology to work for all of us, not just a handful of sociopathic, greedy, capitalist profiteers? That’s not “commie ignorance”; it’s recognizing that modern science and automation make the old exploitative model obsolete. You want to cling to a system that keeps people underpaid and overworked. Why should society allow that? We should cut out the parasitic, capitalist middlemen and run production ourselves, without your half-baked math lessons. Bye, Todd.

View attachment 1066493​

Your example about a worker taking “$5 worth of materials and machinery to produce $15 worth of goods” is comically simplistic. You’re ignoring all the ways a worker can become more productive, through better training, advanced tools,

Comically simplistic, but still over your head.
Like I said, "Absolutely don't accept lousy pay. Learn a skill, improve your marketability, don't expect your employer to go out of business paying you more than you're worth"

Why should we funnel our productivity back into some private corporation’s bank account, when we can democratize ownership and put technology to work for all of us

You should do that, for sure. It still won't result in a whiny twat, like you, who adds $10 in value/hour getting paid $15/hour.

 

[TruthNotBS]

Your example about a worker taking “$5 worth of materials and machinery to produce $15 worth of goods” is comically simplistic. You’re ignoring all the ways a worker can become more productive, through better training, advanced tools,

Comically simplistic, but still over your head.
Like I said, "Absolutely don't accept lousy pay. Learn a skill, improve your marketability, don't expect your employer to go out of business paying you more than you're worth"

Why should we funnel our productivity back into some private corporation’s bank account, when we can democratize ownership and put technology to work for all of us

You should do that, for sure. It still won't result in a whiny twat, like you, who adds $10 in value/hour getting paid $15/hour.

You keep hammering home this cartoonish “$10 of value = $10 wage” formula as if all “value” were locked into a tidy equation that never shifts. That’s ignoring the entire historical reality of how new modes of production emerge and replace old ones. Capitalism replaced feudalism and chattel slavery not because some feudal lords had a sudden change of heart, but because changes in technology, social organization, and economic needs made feudal relations obsolete. Now advanced automation, AI, and AGI threaten to upend the entire wage-labor model itself, meaning we won’t need masses of human labor, nor will we need a handful of profiteering capitalists to “organize” it.

Clinging to the idea that workers must accept “whatever they’re worth” on some boss’s balance sheet ignores the fact that with ever-smarter robotics and AI, the entire premise of a boss paying wages starts to crumble. Why funnel wealth back to a tiny group of owners once machines do the bulk of the work? There’s no logical reason to keep private capital skimming off the top when we can simply democratize production, own the means collectively, and use that automated productivity to benefit everyone.

Your “learn a skill” advice is borderline meaningless when robots can already perform surgery or assemble complex electronics. Eventually, no amount of “improving marketability” can compete with advanced automation. When that reality sets in, we’ll have to face the fact that capitalism’s obsession with private profit no longer makes sense. But maybe you’re just too busy insulting people to notice the world changing around you.

 

[initforme]

Perhaps we have too big of labor force? A smaller workforce makes employers compete harder. That's not a bad thing.

 

[Unkotare]

Perhaps we have too big of labor force? A smaller workforce makes employers compete harder. That's not a bad thing.

Take the challenge, OCD Boy.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

You keep hammering home this cartoonish “$10 of value = $10 wage” formula as if all “value” were locked into a tidy equation that never shifts. That’s ignoring the entire historical reality of how new modes of production emerge and replace old ones. Capitalism replaced feudalism and chattel slavery not because some feudal lords had a sudden change of heart, but because changes in technology, social organization, and economic needs made feudal relations obsolete. Now advanced automation, AI, and AGI threaten to upend the entire wage-labor model itself, meaning we won’t need masses of human labor, nor will we need a handful of profiteering capitalists to “organize” it.

Clinging to the idea that workers must accept “whatever they’re worth” on some boss’s balance sheet ignores the fact that with ever-smarter robotics and AI, the entire premise of a boss paying wages starts to crumble. Why funnel wealth back to a tiny group of owners once machines do the bulk of the work? There’s no logical reason to keep private capital skimming off the top when we can simply democratize production, own the means collectively, and use that automated productivity to benefit everyone.

Your “learn a skill” advice is borderline meaningless when robots can already perform surgery or assemble complex electronics. Eventually, no amount of “improving marketability” can compete with advanced automation. When that reality sets in, we’ll have to face the fact that capitalism’s obsession with private profit no longer makes sense. But maybe you’re just too busy insulting people to notice the world changing around you.

You keep hammering home this cartoonish “$10 of value = $10 wage”

Wrong. Commie morons think that “$10 of value should = $10 wage”
Some commie morons think “$10 of value should = $15 wage”, because feelz.

Clinging to the idea that workers must accept “whatever they’re worth” on some boss’s balance sheet

Wrong. Workers should look for the boss who will give them the most, not just accept a number they feel is too low from one boss.

 

[TruthNotBS]

You keep hammering home this cartoonish “$10 of value = $10 wage”

Wrong. Commie morons think that “$10 of value should = $10 wage”
Some commie morons think “$10 of value should = $15 wage”, because feelz.

Clinging to the idea that workers must accept “whatever they’re worth” on some boss’s balance sheet

Wrong. Workers should look for the boss who will give them the most, not just accept a number they feel is too low from one boss.

You’re stripping the actual argument down to a caricature, shouting that socialist-minded folks want some magical “$10 wage for $10 value,” like we’re insisting on perfect 1:1 payback the moment a worker clocks out. It’s a lazy straw man. If you actually read Marx’s “Wage-Labor and Capital,” or even mainstream economic texts by Thomas Piketty, you’d know real critiques of capitalism center on the fact that employees create more value than they receive in wages. That’s the essence of surplus value. It’s not about equating every dollar produced with an immediate, identical wage; it’s about pointing out that the extra value workers create, beyond what they’re paid, is siphoned off as profit by capitalist owners.

So no, I’m not demanding a dollar-for-dollar match on every cent of value a worker generates. I’m saying workers deserve more control over the fruits of their labor than simply hoping a “nicer” boss will roll in and dispense better crumbs. That’s not “cartoonish.” It’s a critique of a system where employees have essentially no say in how businesses are run, and where most of the profit they create flows upward to a sliver of greedy capitalist owners who often contribute little more than capital investment. All of this is coming to an end soon, as people begin to wake up.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

You’re stripping the actual argument down to a caricature, shouting that socialist-minded folks want some magical “$10 wage for $10 value,” like we’re insisting on perfect 1:1 payback the moment a worker clocks out. It’s a lazy straw man. If you actually read Marx’s “Wage-Labor and Capital,” or even mainstream economic texts by Thomas Piketty, you’d know real critiques of capitalism center on the fact that employees create more value than they receive in wages. That’s the essence of surplus value. It’s not about equating every dollar produced with an immediate, identical wage; it’s about pointing out that the extra value workers create, beyond what they’re paid, is siphoned off as profit by capitalist owners.

So no, I’m not demanding a dollar-for-dollar match on every cent of value a worker generates. I’m saying workers deserve more control over the fruits of their labor than simply hoping a “nicer” boss will roll in and dispense better crumbs. That’s not “cartoonish.” It’s a critique of a system where employees have essentially no say in how businesses are run, and where most of the profit they create flows upward to a sliver of greedy capitalist owners who often contribute little more than capital investment. All of this is coming to an end soon, as people begin to wake up.

You’re stripping the actual argument down to a caricature, shouting that socialist-minded folks want some magical “$10 wage for $10 value,”

When I'm arguing against commie economic caricatures, commies will take it that way.

you’d know real critiques of capitalism center on the fact that employees create more value than they receive in wages.

Well, duh. If they don't, they get fired or drive their employer out of business.

the extra value workers create, beyond what they’re paid, is siphoned off as profit by capitalist owners.

It's awful! $10 in value deserves a $10 wage. DURR
Yeah, the guy who bought the materials and machinery gets paid too.

I’m saying workers deserve more control over the fruits of their labor than simply hoping a “nicer” boss will roll in and dispense better crumbs. That’s not “cartoonish.”

Cartoonish, childish, ignorant. Take your pick.

It’s a critique of a system where employees have essentially no say in how businesses are run,

But they do have a say on if they continue working there.

and where most of the profit they create flows upward to a sliver of greedy capitalist owners

Yes, the business owner gets the business profit.

who often contribute little more than capital investment.

And there is the cartoonish, childish, ignorant again.

All of this is coming to an end soon, as people begin to wake up.

Yeah, the USSR is gonna get us, any minute now.