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Bat Guano

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Everything posted by Bat Guano

  1. Why do you think we, as a society, determined that such transfer payments were necessary? Could it have had anything to do with the wage structures?
  2. Seriously, dude? You think the summer job your pampered suburban ass took as a freshman reflects the reality of life for millions of low-income workers? Jesus fucking christ on a pogo stick, grow the fuck up. Venture out of your entitled ideological bubble and take a look at how the world really works. I recommend this to start with: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Read it. You might learn something.
  3. Bolded contradicts your first sentence; they did play a part in creating that reality. A big part. Yes, that is capitalism. The question I was answering was how capitalism exploits workers. Thanks for your help. Why are factory conditions better now? Is it because of unrestrained capitalism?
  4. Any time a profitable company pays its full-time workers insufficient to afford the basic necessities of life - food, housing, clothing, health care - the workers are being exploited. Cue the McDonald's and Wal-Mart and other employees on food stamps, medicaid, and housing assistance. What is their other option? Well, I guess they could let their kids starve; that's an option. The term 'wage slave' exists because it is a real thing. Look at the factory conditions at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when capitalism existed in a more pure form and huge individual fortunes were created on the labor of thousands of underpaid, overworked people; if you don't consider that exploitation, I don't know what to tell you.
  5. It's not that the two ideas are in opposition; I just don't see the value of the ASF. As in my earlier comments, upwards of 80% of the stock market is owned by the investor class. Pumping more money into it will only increase their wealth and, by extension, their political power. I just don't see the redistributive aspect of it; it seems way more likely to increase inequality than decrease it. The labor movement is a much better place to put limited political capital, IMO.
  6. Points awarded for 2 kinds of hot sauce should offset any deduction in the beverage area. Then again, Coke zero... man, I just don't know....
  7. The goal of this idea, as I see it, is to make ordinary citizens more of a stakeholder in corporate America, which is currently turning in plenty of profit. Seems like a better way to do that is the old tried-and-true method of ensuring that employees of those companies are treated as stakeholders, along with the stockholders, rather than as disposable units of labor value. Again, there is a tried and true model for doing this: increasing union representation and collective bargaining rights. Enable the workers to organize so they're on an even footing with management, and they'll be able to get fair remuneration for their labor. There are many advantages to this over the OP proposal, not the least of which are the dignity of earning a fair wage for a fair day's work and the proven history of success in past decades of the union-inclusive economic model. When the Rs busted the unions it led to a steep decline in the middle class, and restoring union power is the best way to reverse that.
  8. Had a weird dream last night: I stole a boat from my neighbor, the smallest of 3 boats that he had. Neighbor turned out to be Mike Pence. He sent me a letter saying he had footage of me on several security cameras stealing the boat, and asked that I return it. So I did. I don't even want to know what it means.
  9. Well, at least you answered the first question. What I prefer is a capitalism that has appropriate controls so that the vast majority of people are not horribly exploited by the wealthy few. Some inequality is inevitable, but too much will lead to the system destroying itself, as history shows us.
  10. Is that your well-reasoned opinion, or the babbling of a cognitive cripple in an ideological straitjacket? That is, do you really think wealth inequality is 'not the issue?' You think ever-increasing wealth inequality won't lead to bad outcomes for society? You think giving crumbs to the poor while they watch the wealthy grow ever more wealthy will make them happy? More importantly, have you not seen the increasing domination of policy outcomes by the economic elite, to the extent that the United States is functionally the equivalent of an oligarchy? Have you seen the evidence that inequality increases the fragility of economic growth? That there are links between inequality and increasing political polarization? Put it this way: the logical extreme for wealth inequality would be for one individual to own everything and everybody else to own nothing. That individual would, in practice, have complete and total power over everybody else in the world, regardless of whatever ostensible political systems are in play at the time; they would be functionally meaningless. Obviously that's a reductio ad absurdam illustration, but it's where the system would go if it could go toward ever-increasing inequality for a long enough period of time. I'm assuming you wouldn't like this state of affairs; correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe you'd like it if you were the one person who owned everything, but let's stipulate that's not going to happen. I'm also assuming you don't find the present level of inequality objectionable. That means there must be some level in between the current state and the hypothetical future of one person owning everything that would be too much inequality, even for you. What would that level be? How much power should the wealthy class have over everybody else? How would you propose to forestall such a level?
  11. True. Decades ago, I thought legal weed in the US was something that was never going to happen. But the point I was making is that the fund and the inheritance tax are two separate issues. You could have an inheritance tax without the fund. The fund would vastly increase the wealth and power of the larval oligarchy, making the hill you have to climb to get the inheritance tax that much higher.
  12. Yes https://www.npr.org/2017/03/01/517975766/while-trump-touts-stock-market-many-americans-left-out-of-the-conversation Edit: More recent (2017):
  13. Sure, I'm all in on halting the creation of an American aristocracy through the passing on of enormous wealth and power, but that's a separate issue. You could get the first part, the fund which further comforts the comfortable by buoying their investment portfolios, but the part about taking away their kids' inheritances is where the political will would falter. And you wouldn't even need the fund to do that anyway; sure, it might be a good way to administer the funds, but there are other ways to do that, and if you wanted to just eliminate huge inheritances you could do that right now. Or not. I could see a process where you get the fund, make the ultra-rich into ultra-mega-super-rich, and then the inheritance confiscation goes nowhere and you've created exactly what you set out to oppose.
  14. This sounds like you're arguing that everyone wins with the plan while wondering why people like the plan. Not exactly. My gripe is that it would increase inequality, not decrease it.
  15. I'm not sure I'm understanding this. Rich folks currently own most of the wealth in the stock market. You propose to invest more money into the market on behalf of regular folks. Which will cause prices and valuations of the market to go up, which raises the value of the stocks currently owned by the rich folks. Regular folks might get a bit of benefit, but the rich would make out like bandits. Literal bandits with eyemasks and the whole works, taking chests full of gold bullion from the train. What am I missing?
  16. Pretty sure Surly polls are required to have a 'EABOD/DIAF' option. Why not done???
  17. Serious answer: Think back to whether you have ever, and I mean EVER, gone back and read a single one of the old issues. Er, that is, ask you friend if he's ever read a single one of the old issues. If the answer is no, then maybe your "friend" will start to think about why he's keeping them.
  18. That's rice? Looks like something my dog threw up.
  19. You talk like a fag and your shit's all retarded.
  20. Umbrellas: go to the coat check of a museum or restaurant that has one. Tell them you left an umbrella there a few months ago. They'll show you the ones people have left and forgot about. Pick one you like and take it. They'll be glad to get rid of it.
  21. Your faith in the idea that Republican voters actually care about any of those things is touching.
  22. "Jexodus" spokesmodel Elizabeth Pipko. She seems dumb, but you have to do what she says because she has big tits.
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