How much do extremely wealthy people owe to the society that gave them the chance to prosper so much?

[Leo123]

Oh there won't need to be a fight. Conservatism is dying.

Yeah, and the liberal-left just elected a half-dead POTUS. What's your point?

 

[Cecilie1200]

But "the society around them" has the same opportunity.

That doesn't convince me that the most successful shouldn't pay more.

Would anything?

 

[Cecilie1200]

ROFL! No it doesn't. If anything has been shown this year, it's that government represents itself.

You won't get much opposition from me from the position that the government isn't doing its job well enough.

And yet you seem like you think we should give it even more money.

 

[Canon Shooter]

ROFL! No it doesn't. If anything has been shown this year, it's that government represents itself.

You won't get much opposition from me from the position that the government isn't doing its job well enough.

You want successful people to shoulder an unfair amount of the burden, but you've completely failed at explaining why...

 

[Cecilie1200]

It can't do the job you claim it should do. Government is thoroughly corrupt, and it always will be.

I think we can make it better so it's capable of accomplishing more. We need more transparency and better safeguards against corruption.

Newsflash: So long as you give money and power to government, it's going to be corrupt and opaque. The best way to make government better so that it's more transparent and lacking in corruption is to make it smaller.

 

[Cecilie1200]

No, they arent supposed to. The federal govt is basically there for military, citizenship and making sure the states arent acting crazy.

Why do we call politicians representatives?

Wishful thinking.

 

[Cecilie1200]

But government is adverse to that. Governments and politicians are corrupt and always have been.

We vote for these people out of our own population. If they suck then let's figure out how to do better.

You could try voting for them for the correct things.

 

[Cecilie1200]

How about them? Do you really believe that's the only issue in every single school in the United States?

No, but I think it's one issue. The more you split up an educator's attention the less useful it will be to individual students.

Have you actually spent any time in public schools since you graduated high school yourself?

I was taught k-12 by private tutors. I didn't go to public school.

So what I hear you telling me is that this is yet another topic you have no firsthand knowledge of whatsoever, yet wish to pretend to lofty, superior insight on.

For the record, I did attend a public school. Small town in eastern New Mexico in the late 70s-80s. Handful of elementary schools, funneling to one junior high and one high school. Unless your parents wanted to ship you off to boarding school, it was the only option. Every class had 20-30 students in it, depending on the subject. For all that it was a rather isolated, provincial sort of area, they still managed to provide an excellent education.

I've also worked for public schools in Tucson, Arizona (where I also attended high school for my senior year). I was appalled at the night-and-day differences in the quality, but it wasn't a matter of money being spent or classroom size. On the surface, everything looked the same. Same sorts of buildings, same class sizes. I graduated from a high school in one of the wealthiest parts of Tucson, and subsequently worked for schools in every part of the city, and also for various departments at the school district administration. Would you like to know what the major difference was?

The school district I grew up in, EVERY kid in town went to it . . . including the children of the teachers and the principals and the superintendent. They didn't have the option of playing social justice warrior and conducting "woke" educational experiments while sending their own kids off somewhere else. Whatever experiments the district conducted, their own kids were going to be among the guinea pigs. It's amazing how much that focused their attention on no-nonsense, make-sure-these-kids-can-function academics.

The district I worked for, on the other hand, is one of the largest in the state, if not the largest. It was - and is - a bloated, ungainly mess which spent obscene amounts giving ridiculous salaries to the superintendent and other administrators who never even laid eyes on an actual student. There were whole departments in the administration that literally had nothing to do with the students. The district took in and still takes in plenty of money, but comparatively little of it trickles down to the actual schools. They'd have been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail for that crap where I grew up. And the teachers and principals could easily send their own kids to school somewhere else while engaging in whatever social justice garbage they wanted on other people's children.

In short, the glaringly obvious difference between the two was what they thought they existed to do.

 

[westwall]

they would need to violate their oath of office to do that,, along with taking fascist actions to force them,,,

Universal healthcare and universal government covered education opportunities are an inevitability. Prosperity will win. You're just in the way.

Yeah, that's called communism, and it has never worked anywhere for a reason. Now, can you tell us why it has never worked?

 

[westwall]

So even in the country you all love to point to there is no free college for all.

I prefer to point at Scandinavian countries. There's no doubt that they have a very different and very successful approach to education.

They are even stricter than Germany.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Wrong again. Communism is never right about anything!

So one couldn't agree with a single thing that came out of that man's mouth without being a communist?

Certainly not with any of the things that came out of his mouth supporting Communism, no.

 

[westwall]

Does anybody really believe that there is a correlation between people's wealth and the value of their contributions to society?

Seriously!?!?!

I think a heart surgeon is paid very well and he is far more of a benefit to society than an equally well paid toll booth worker.

 

[westwall]

Then you have no point here!

I have gotten to the point where I recognize that at an intellectual level right vs left is just a disagreement about values and morality. That's why none of us ever really change minds here. We're all just barking at the moon.

Oh? I think it is very clear. You either value the work ethic, and support those who are willing to work to get ahead. Or you don't. I have a kid i was tutoring in geology. He's smart, likes learning, but didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. We talked and I suggested he look into a trade school. He found one in Idaho for a electrical lineman. It cost 17,000 and he didn't have the cash for that, though he could have taken out a loan. I told him I would cover it, and he could pay me back at zero interest when he got a job.

We made a handshake agreement and off he went. He had a job before he graduated, and had me paid back before 6 months had passed. Now, he's moved up to a higher paying job and at the ripe old age of 24 he's pulling down 150,000 per year. When he gets his journeyman certificate, he will up that to over 200,000 per year. I have done that several times over the years, and not once has the agreement been not paid back.

There are nephews and nieces that I won't do that for because I know they are not interested in work. They just want to keep going to school so that they don't have to work. one of them is quite the educated little idiot. He has three bachelors degrees, and mountain of debt he will never pay off, and he works at as a bartender.

Bullshit. The average Journeyman makes $55k. Yes there is a bell curve around that but to sell it like $200k is his earnings is likely an exaggeration. At $25 an hour (the going rate) he’d have to work 152 hours a week to earn that. Shit, working 80 hours a week he’s have to be pulling down $48 an hour. Bull shit.

You might want to look up what California High voltage grid specialists make. He pulls in 3,000 a week after taxes. Before he got the california gig he was in pennsylvania and yes, he was making 28 ish an hour out there.

View attachment 434800

Like i said, look up california. he joined the union about 2 months ago. And that is a ground worker, not a tower builder, just so you know.

Bull shit. I showed you the salary. You show me.

He works for Barnard, out of local 47 in so cal. Look it up. You keep posting national averages for distribution center workers, not the linemen that build them. Hell, he tells me the Mexican crew's that come from over the border to build the actual towers are making 60 an hour. All they are is steel workers.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Why won't you answer the question?

I feel that I did answer the question in previous posts.

You feel wrong.

If you and I are given the same opportunity, and you squander yours, why should I have to pay more in taxes than you? Hell, if anything, you should pay a higher percentage just for being lazy.

But even that wouldn't truly be "fair".

Why shouldn't we pay the same percentage in taxes? You said earlier: "We all built this thing and keep it rolling together."

Why should I be forced to work harder to keep it rolling than you?

The only fair way is to pay the same percentage in taxes, but ONLY on profit.
Poor people essentially make almost no profit at all because all their income goes to the overheard of rent, food, utilities, transportation, etc.

You should be paying much more in taxes if you are making far more than just the cost of living (doing business),
And that is much easier if you have money to start with.
You can easily make money by just lending out money, then to physically work for it as the poor are forced to.

Poor people are poor mainly because of bad choices. Not all, but most. Those who are poor through no fault of their own generally make good choices and work themselves out of being poor within a few years.

Most of them are women who became pregnant as teenagers without getting married.

It is a fact that single motherhood is the number one determining factor in a whole host of negative life consequences, for both the mother and the child.

 

[westwall]

so you are not just a thief but a communist,,,

I and many other americans say,,
BRING IT ON MOTHER FUCKER!!!

Oh there won't need to be a real fight. Conservatism is dying.

That's where you're wrong.

 

[g5000]

Surely something, right? I see a lot of people talk like taxes are theft. Is it not just our obligation?

The problem with the Left is that what they take from the rich is never enough. Sooner or later, they rationalize that it is okay to take more from the rich because rich people are evil.

And then it becomes straight up theft.

 

[g5000]

so you are not just a thief but a communist,,,

I and many other americans say,,
BRING IT ON MOTHER FUCKER!!!

Oh there won't need to be a real fight. Conservatism is dying.

I'm not a conservative,,,

and if you think there wont be a fight you are also a fucking idiot,,,

The Right is losing the fight already, because they never offer up better ideas. All they do is oppose the other side's ideas.

So they will inevitably lose. Universal health care is coming sooner or later. And it will be the Right's fault for never offering an alternative.

 

[progressive hunter]

so you are not just a thief but a communist,,,

I and many other americans say,,
BRING IT ON MOTHER FUCKER!!!

Oh there won't need to be a real fight. Conservatism is dying.

I'm not a conservative,,,

and if you think there wont be a fight you are also a fucking idiot,,,

The Right is losing the fight already, because they never offer up better ideas. All they do is oppose the other side's ideas.

So they will inevitably lose. Universal health care is coming sooner or later. And it will be the Right's fault for never offering an alternative.

thats cute you think repubes are rightwing,,,

 

[g5000]

so you are not just a thief but a communist,,,

I and many other americans say,,
BRING IT ON MOTHER FUCKER!!!

Oh there won't need to be a real fight. Conservatism is dying.

I'm not a conservative,,,

and if you think there wont be a fight you are also a fucking idiot,,,

The Right is losing the fight already, because they never offer up better ideas. All they do is oppose the other side's ideas.

So they will inevitably lose. Universal health care is coming sooner or later. And it will be the Right's fault for never offering an alternative.

thats cute you think repubes are rightwing,,,

On this we agree. The Republican Party abandoned its principles long ago. I've said that many times over the years on this forum. Which is why I resigned from the party years ago.

So where it the Obamacare replacement?

Nowhere. It never existed, does not exist, and will never exist. It was a hoax. And the pseudocons never held anyone's feet to the fire to produce one.

Thus, UHC here we come!

 

[progressive hunter]

so you are not just a thief but a communist,,,

I and many other americans say,,
BRING IT ON MOTHER FUCKER!!!

Oh there won't need to be a real fight. Conservatism is dying.

I'm not a conservative,,,

and if you think there wont be a fight you are also a fucking idiot,,,

The Right is losing the fight already, because they never offer up better ideas. All they do is oppose the other side's ideas.

So they will inevitably lose. Universal health care is coming sooner or later. And it will be the Right's fault for never offering an alternative.

thats cute you think repubes are rightwing,,,

On this we agree. The Republican Party abandoned its principles long ago. I've said that many times over the years on this forum. Which is why I resigned from the party years ago.

So where it the Obamacare replacement?

Nowhere. It never existed, does not exist, and will never exist. It was a hoax. And the pseudocons never held anyone's feet to the fire to produce one.

Thus, UHC here we come!

repubes are all in favor of government control of healthcare,, not sure how people cant see that,,, as for universal HC they know its not affordable and will cut down on quality,,,

they are full on a leftwing party,,,