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DixonHur

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Posts posted by DixonHur

  1. 19 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    Lol, that’s what you got from “we should tax people so we have good housing and schools and medicine for everyone..” 

     

    image.jpeg.a0d8ff9554c531122cf78041a5b0071e.jpeg

    Yes, because you're against them sharing in the success of the companies they work for, so to me that means fuck you I got mine...but we'll tax your boss a little more and give it to people even poorer than you.

    Our CEO makes 34x what I do, and I'm probably in the top 5% of earners at the company...do you really think taxing him an extra 5% is going to reduce inequality? 

  2. 13 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    I do not give a shit about “fair” when it comes to wealth, I give a shit about quality of life for citizens and outcomes.  If tomorrow I could wave a wand, and 320 million Americans had the lifestyle and opportunities of someone who makes 500k per year while 10 million Americans made 1,000 percent more and all had diamond crusted shitters, I’d call that a win. 
     

    I have a problem with rising CEO compensation only as it creates bad outcomes and not because of some idea of cosmic unfairness. I think we should try to calculate the cost of doing what we want to do to provide people with a dignified life and then go collect the taxes to pay for it because I don’t see how setting a “income limit” gets us there. 

    You're insufferable in that you have no ethos...

    "To the lucky go the spoils, but hey poor people, don't worry, we'll be sure to throw a couple crumbs your way, so you can live in a hut, and we don't have to step over you in the streets." 

  3. 9 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    So basically, it’s just “vibes are off.” 
     

    Here is the question and the responses (all adults vs. Millenials). As you can see it’s “not sure” that is the big problem. 
     

    image.thumb.jpeg.9ed9240185c328ab2e767cf708564617.jpeg

    I find it interesting that your go-to was “agenda and/or the poll must be bad” before bothering to dig into it more. 
     

    https://www.claimscon.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Holocaust-Knowledge-and-Awareness-Study-–-Topline-Results-1-1.pdf

    Here is the firm that did the research. 
     

    https://schoencooperman.com

    The headline in the original image you posted is so misleading that its essentially just sensationalist click bait. 

    Quote

    “According to survey of adults 18-30, 23% said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, had been exaggerated or they weren’t sure”

    Actually, by those criteria the number is 35%...but I love that "myth" is first in-line whereas in the actual poll that's 1%.  

    It's much more likely that people answering "not sure" are talking about whether the number of dead was 6m or some lower number.... say 5m... not that they think Jews weren't victims of the Holocaust.  

    At minimum it's a disingenuous post.

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  4. Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

    My solution is to increase taxes on the wealthy and use them to pay for things like house and food and education and medicine and pensions. Where did you get a different idea? 
      

    Ok, you're fine with taxes on the ultra-wealthy on the backend...which is easy to game, but not ok with limiting income on the front end.  Is that a fair assessment?

    Meaning you're fine with a non-founder CEO earning 344x the average FTE (note, not the lowest)...because you think he/she has somehow taken more risk than the average employee?  And he/she provides 344x the value as anyone else?  And further CEOs are 1,400% more valuable to a company today than they were 60 years ago?  

    If so, I respectfully disagree.  

  5. Lol, sorry, I didn't realize we had a Nobel prize winning economist on Surly.

    Please, Mr. Krugman, give us the high points of my "bait and switch" points of view, and what the ever-loving fuck they have to do with East Germany and Norway?  I don't see anything in my posts about State ownership of the means of production, but perhaps I missed typing it.

    And while you're at it, why don't you grace us with your solution to income equality and how you plan to pay for it without, you know, money.

  6. 22 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    Well, but you’ve just done a bait and switch from a deontological argument (it’s morally wrong to allow massive wealth accumulation) to a consequentialist one (it’s wrong to allow massive wealth accumulation because it leads to undesirable and unavoidable outcomes). I am not with you on the first but even said I am with you on the second in my post. 

    Lol, at bait and switch...if there was a shift in position it is so negligible as to be nearly imperceptible.

    I honestly don't see the pedantic distinction / point you're making.

  7. 12 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    I’m not really super interested in correcting ratios or conspicuous consumption; I’m concerned with raising the floors above the basement for everyone.  Getting upset about someone else having “obscene” wealth is meaningless in a vacuum, it’s just jealousy— reminded of experiments where monkeys are fine eve both monkeys get one treat each, but then they lose their shit if one monkey gets two treats and the other monkey gets four. Wealth only becomes obscene when there are people can’t afford the fundamentals while a few others have private jets. 
     

    If we could build a society where everyone had clean and safe housing, ample healthy food, access to medical care when sick that won’t bankrupt you, education for all and excellent education for any who can handle it, clean air and water, safe cities and neighborhoods—-then great, I’m fine with a tax rate of zero and accumulation of infinite billions for anyone who can do it.

    In practice, it’s not possible and I’m fine for a balance where taking risks and innovating is rewarded while at the same time ensuring that the risk of failure or simply choosing to pursue an ordinary life does not mean catastrophe. 

    Here are the issues I have with this view...mind you, I respect your right to have it, I just don't agree.

    You say you want to raise the floor, not correct ratios.  Ok, how?  You can't raise the floor without money and that money is tied up in the hands of the elite...and outside a relatively few generous billionaires planning to donate after death, they've shown zero signs of giving up that wealth to help raise the floor.

    The Top 1% hold 30% or America's wealth...the Top 10% gets you to nearly 70%....whereas the bottom 50% hold just 2.5% of the wealth.  That means the Top 10% hold $92 Trillion in assets, while the bottom 50% have about $3.4 Trillion.  And it's not getting better (see image below spoilered due to ssize)

    In other words, if you took just 10% of the assets of the Top 10%, leaving them with a paltry $83 Trillion, and redistributed it to the bottom 50% you would almost quadruple their wealth.  Isn't that you're stated goal?  To raise the basement?

    If you see another way to accomplish your goal, I'm all ears, please enlighten me.

    This is not "jealousy"...I, like most here, live a comfortable life.  It's an exercise of human value and the promotion of meritocracy.  

    Spoiler

    image.thumb.png.15618a42a3468e2b6e8a31b79726e74e.png

    Visualizing Wealth Distribution in America (1990-2023) (visualcapitalist.com)

  8. 1 hour ago, YGIFS said:

    I'm glad the dude's getting better.  This is just getting beyond the pale.  This non-stop narrative by the police/DAA/Chamber of "Well, this new Rainey Street bar area can sometimes to lead drunken visitors to wander down the street and fall in the water." is just insulting to the victims and their families.  

    Town Lake has been there for 130 years.  Rainey Street "Bar District" has existed for 20 years.  Hundreds of Thousands of drunken/high patrons have been near that intersection of bars and open water over the years and then just "poof", 2 years ago, over a dozen bodies all in a similar demography just happened to start turning up dead?  Because suddenly austin just in the last 24 months had this wild idea to have lakes and bars?  Yeah....uh.....no 

    Agree 100% with the point you're making regarding the opportunity for deaths by drowning in DT Austin, but one minor historical note...Town Lake wasn't created until 1960.  It was just the Colorado River until then.  IE it hadn't been dammed yet.

    But for the past 2-ish years it's been "damned".

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  9. 3 minutes ago, closetohumping said:

    There’s free speech and then there’s taking over buildings and disrupting others right to an education

    I agree, I'm against the encampments and breaking into/occupying buildings, but that's clearly not what's happening in the image.  He's yelling at the cop.  How is that a fire-able offense?  Destruction of property?  It was a fucking bicycle bell, for God sake.  Let's try to have some perspective.  

     

  10. 9 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    Whether he has gilded toilets and such doesn’t affect my life, community, or world.

    I agree with 99% of what you said, but do think the above matters.  I'm not jealous of his wealth...or anyone's really, but I think things like golden toilets, 50-carat diamond rings, a fleet of private jets, 400 ft yachts, a warehouse full of classic cars, etc. is a sign of something more sinister.  It's wasteful, and basically a fuck you to the rest of the world.  

    Yes, I know you're starving, but how am I supposed to poop without a golden toilet?!  

    I'm not suggesting everyone needs to be at the same level financially, or even that people shouldn't have nicer clothes, cars, houses, etc., if they have more money, but there's a point where it just becomes obscene.  That's what I'd like to correct...I'm also not suggesting that the only way to do that is capturing excess wealth after death.  That was my initial thought, because I didn't want to punish people for making money.  I just think when that money reaches a certain level, it shouldn't all be passed to the next generation because it creates an aristocracy and reinforces the false notion that people with money are better than those without it.

    For "in lifetime" correction, I'd suggest a maximum wage, among other things.  For example, there is no reason the CEO of a company should earn, on average, 344x the average employee...which it was in 2022...and it's only getting worse.

    For comparison, in 1965 it was 21x.  That's just shameless greed IMO.

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  11. 5 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Well, DixonHur is right that escheat of wealth to the state was a common practice for most of history.  But it wasn't intended as beneficial for anyone except the crown/ruler/monarch and whatever trickle down to the nobles and serfs he or she decided to provide.  It was an accouterment of the fact that the crown/state owned all property subject to revocable grants to citizens.  (I am excluding/ignoring here more primitive societies that may have more collectivist motives in taking property on death).

    As @956 Worldwide points out escheat was only when there were no heirs.

    Secondly, we don't live under a "crown/ruler/monarch".  If we don't trust our government, then perhaps it's time for a new form of government...but that's a topic for CR, not here.

    Here we're just dealing with hypothetical ideas...the implementation of which may or may not require changes to the government.

    Finally, I really take umbrage to the classification of "primitive societies".  This is an old trope that needs to die...that of the noble savage.  Speaking specifically about tribal cultures in the "new world", Jesuit priests wrote about their customs and even brought a few Native Americans to Europe for dialogs about their culture...this is exactly what sparked the "enlightenment" in Europe to take place.  But the Europeans didn't adopt all of the ideas because they thought the Indians were too naive to understand the complexities of society.  

    However, recent archeological and anthropological evidence suggests the opposite.  They were acutely aware of the dangers associated with central rule (before the Europeans arrived) and worked hard to avoid them.  In fact, the considered the Europeans to be slaves to their governments.  

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  12. 1 hour ago, bolverk said:

    Yes, yes, and yes.

    Why the fuck is Israel or Australia in a fucking European talent contest? Why is Russia, a European country, out, while Israel, a Levantine country, in? If a Levantine country is in, why isn't Palestine? If they're inviting Australia, then where the fuck is New Zealand or Papua New Guinea? And what's with the discrimination against Canada and the US?

    Look, man, I'm not the one who brought Greta Tunaburger's protest into this bigger debate. I'm also not the one who's accusing her of being anti-Israel over protests in a fucking song contest. There was a ridiculous turd that was dropped into this swirling toilet. and that turd was the implication that you can't protest the Israeli government's actions without also being anti-Israel (i.e., anti-semite).

    Since then, I've been holding onto the mast, standing my ground, and riding this turd surf like the Tidy Bowl Man on his raft.

    Listen, I think we agree on at least 95% of this.  I don't think protesting Israel's response to 10/7 is necessarily anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, but I don't like the idea of people protesting the participation of a person in a talent competition just because they are from Israel.  

    We can't choose the country were born into any more than we can choose our race.

    I don't think Greta Tunaburger (love the play on her name, FWIW) is anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, but I think she is misguided in this instance.

  13. 13 minutes ago, Howlin wolf said:

    Carrying on that legacy. It's not perfect. There are plenty of losers that inherit huge amounts but amount to nothing. But people that are smart enough and work hard enough to make something to pass on to their kids are more likely to have kids that have the same capabilities over time. Compounds 

     

    The alternative of giving it to the collective. “Burning it” figuratively is so backward and communist honestly. Ridiculous. And I'll take your brushing off my kid's question as an admission you have none. 

     

    Maybe pick up a book and learn what communism is before making such an uninformed comment.

    But perhaps reading isn't your strong suit since I literally said "I'm not suggesting burning assets"...but to casually toss aside an idea that worked for thousands of years in different parts of the world is astonishing.  You know what happens when we refuse to learn from history, right? 

    Anyway, I didn't comment on your kids for 3 reasons...one, I don't give a shit, and two, it has nothing to do with the conversation, and three I seriously doubt you have generational wealth.  I know I don't.

    These fine folks, many of whom have kids, have pledged to give most of their money away....how many of their children do you think will be "disadvantaged" because of it?  As opposed to the number of people who will benefit?  If that's "communism" then sign me up.

    The Giving Pledge - Wikipedia

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  14. 59 minutes ago, bolverk said:

    For fuck's sake, this is so stupid, and I question my sanity

    I question your sanity too.  

    I don't recall you asking my opinion as to whether Russians or Palestinians should be allowed to participate in Eurovision.  But the answer would have been Russia yes, Palestine no... because it's not in Europe.  Frankly, I don't think Israel should be in for the same reason, but my understanding is that Eurovision is a TV show not a government agency so it can choose whoever the fuck they want to be part of it.

    My point is that I don't think that decision should be based on how popular the contestant's home country is in a given year.  Pick the countries who can participate and stick with it.  A singing competition has fuck all to do with the politics of a person's home country.

    If you can't see that, then you've got other issues to deal with.

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