Gabe 2,587 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 They are ridiculous, every other Western society works in this way. It is not the apocalypse. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woolfsmck 2,763 Posted March 2, 2020 Author Share Posted March 2, 2020 9 hours ago, blankpaper said: Current taxes pay for the bloated military industrial complex and tax breaks for billionaires So , cut spending....adjust how the money is allocated to more efficiently solve the issues at hand … No middle class and the bottom half of the economy aren't any better off no matter how much you 'increase' Cutting taxes on corportations has helped .. and increased total revenue for the treasury … Pelosi even admitted as much when they passed the current budget … But it went too far and a lot of the tax breaks didn't go into growth , but oversea's or lined the pockets of politician … Republican AND DEMOCRATS … like a cat in a sil, I observe life, moving and still. My words give a clue,look inside to see whats true Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
blankpaper 21 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 1 minute ago, Woolfsmck said: So , cut spending....adjust how the money is allocated to more efficiently solve the issues at hand … No middle class and the bottom half of the economy aren't any better off no matter how much you 'increase' Cutting taxes on corportations has helped .. and increased total revenue for the treasury … Pelosi even admitted as much when they passed the current budget … But it went too far and a lot of the tax breaks didn't go into growth , but oversea's or lined the pockets of politician … Republican AND DEMOCRATS … Yeah cutting certain spending would be ideal but this is America where our politicians are bought and paid for reality’s tight if the music is right Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woolfsmck 2,763 Posted March 2, 2020 Author Share Posted March 2, 2020 Just now, blankpaper said: Yeah cutting certain spending would be ideal but this is America where our politicians are bought and paid for That's where I'm at … we're getting slogan's that people wanna hear.... the candidates who actually say something that makes sense and would actually make a difference seem to get ignored … Bernie's idea's are great on paper … but the current reality of Washington won't blend with it .. like a cat in a sil, I observe life, moving and still. My words give a clue,look inside to see whats true Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
blankpaper 21 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 2 minutes ago, Woolfsmck said: That's where I'm at … we're getting slogan's that people wanna hear.... the candidates who actually say something that makes sense and would actually make a difference seem to get ignored … Bernie's idea's are great on paper … but the current reality of Washington won't blend with it .. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying since the last election. His policies are great in a perfect world but none of that is ever going to get through Congress. So then when a candidate has plans that are realistic for the current political climate they get attacked for not being progressive enough when in reality making small incremental changes would be the best chance at eventually making big changes. I’ve stopped paying much attention to it since there’s so much infighting reality’s tight if the music is right Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissKombucha 308 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 2 hours ago, Andy McQueen said: Neoliberal: "Socialism never works" Me: "Scandinavian countries are socialist and they're doing great" Neoliberal: "They're not socialist. They're a capitalist country with strong welfare policies" Me: "Then let's adopt those policies" Neoliberal: "No, that's socialism" Those policies work better in smaller homogenous countries. We need to stop with this train of thought that what works in one place will work in a nation with high volumes of cultural diversity and a population of over 300 million. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissKombucha 308 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 20 minutes ago, Gabe said: They are ridiculous, every other Western society works in this way. It is not the apocalypse. Every other western country is smaller and much more culturally homogeneous though — were completely unique in that regard. We’re massive and even when dealing within the same race, the cultures of the eastern United States are not like the bread basket — so interests and work ethics are not in-line — if you want the socialist dream in the United States, break apart the nation into smaller culturally homogeneous territories and allow them to function as they please Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Economy 52,854 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 1 hour ago, ItsTommyBitch said: I agree that Rent Control is dicey. It needs several other provisions to be effective and should be as comprehensive as possible because it can skew badly. That's probably things like investments into social housing initiatives, subsidies and other incentives, etc. It's not an issue I spend the bulk of my time researching, but just looking for like an hour has told me that it more than most proposals has been more overtly negative than a mixed bag on the specific issue of decreased # of rental units - as you have shown with this graph. Just going on a limb though, socialists would probably tell you that focusing on the changes to overall rent increases than # of rents themselves is more accurate to judging the success rates of rent control initiatives. Bernie's policies are mostly social democracy, but he is still an *actual* socialist in terms of his values. I have no reason to believe he doesnt, like me, see the point of rent control in a different light than many capitalist economists, so a strategy to implement rent control may be drastically different under his administration than the attempts in your home or even in Europe. For one thing, I'd bet socialists would argue that the turnover rates of rentals, people getting priced out of where they live, etc. has a social impact as well as an economic one, and we should prioritize the protection of renters as well as the social cohesion of a community/neighborhood over the potential economic gains of the landlord. Landlords should still be able to increase rent etc., but it should probably be related to the cost of maintenance and production, and not arbitrarily so. If landlords are able to add "improvements" that are entirely unnecessary, but are a justification to increase rent, that's abusive. Similarly, increased value to rental units can sometimes be justified in a gentrification-esque "this place is popular because of who lives here now" for example is probably not a good model to look at for the best interests of an actual community, even if it is for the best interests of the finances of individual landlords. In that sense, I would argue that renters probably need more flat out rights in general in these situations (social housing investment >>) This is obviously an important issue, they all are. But I would say that taking the work being done in some cities around the country, reflecting, and working to a national level on this issue is certainly an area of compromise that I could see Bernie making. This isn't Day 101 propose it to Congress kind of stuff. I like the idea of national rent control, but it may simply be better to work this one more incrementally with this being the end goal. Idk, maybe other Bernie people disagree with me. Everything is connected, and even if Bernie's theory of change ends up super effective and we end up being able to leverage power over republicans in Congress, we still won't be able to pass massive reform on everything, so yeah. Also, we have an influx of millennials and soon to be Gen-Zers by the end of this decade who will be in this market of housing, all of whom are much much less equipped to deal with this issue financially than previous generations and other ageing populations were, so I would say for that reason alone, this approach deserves a second look. (Millennials rn have like 14% of the wealth Baby Boomers had at our age, and Gen X are lagging behind as well. Don't know how Gen-Z is expected to fare yet, but I doubt its good.) My somewhat informed take. The issue is lack of units did later lead to a surge in prices as well Rent control would protect tenents from big increases... But with lack of supply each new available place would become much higher Protecting tenants from big increases doesn't stop the market from surging due to lack of supply because each time people move or tenents are switched the rates just surge during change of hands I suppose u could u could put literal limits on rents so they don't surge when unite change occupants but that probably would only make the supply issue worse I do agree however that if it's done in combination with a strategy to get affordable housing supply in the market then the supply negative side effect of the policy would be mitigated But it needs to be an effective and thoughout policy that is going to bring supply adequately and within a reasonable cost If that can be done then I think rent controls can work But simply slapping rent controls on their own without any other policies to help alleviate its side effects I think does more harm than good in the long term Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Economy 52,854 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 1 hour ago, blankpaper said: That’s exactly what I’ve been saying since the last election. His policies are great in a perfect world but none of that is ever going to get through Congress. So then when a candidate has plans that are realistic for the current political climate they get attacked for not being progressive enough when in reality making small incremental changes would be the best chance at eventually making big changes. I’ve stopped paying much attention to it since there’s so much infighting That's what I hate about politics. Anything that doesn't sound good or requires some kind of pleasent sacraficed is hated on by the people People only want things that sound good and beautiful I do think theres plenty of room for certain things that would improve the average persons lives like better healthcare coverage, more accessible education that didn't cost so much and a more progressive tax system that doesn't tax such low rates on Capital Gains for example which basically let's billionaires compound wealth with little effort and few taxes payed and that money can be used to help people Some loopholes in Corporate world are also too generous and allow companies like Amazon to pay nothing But at the same time, reforms to help people and the economy long term isn't only nice free stuff... Sometimes it can also involve stuff people don't like such as reforms on retirement age for example. Life expectancy has gone up over 20 years since retirement was introduced and birth rates have collapsed and some Countries like Canada where I live have yet to make a single major reform on it because it's not a popular idea so the government doesn't do it despite the economic pressures It's also import to be realistic... Taxes on the wealthy proposals tend to overestimate revenue because the estimates often don't factor in important offsetting factors that neutralize some of the net increase in revenues That can be bad in the sense that u start to promise more than u can actually sustainably deliver long term Like the wealth tax for example. It may be a tool to rebalance hoarded wealth over the years and I've come around to the idea of a wealth tax if implemented efficiently but I agree with the experts that think Bernie is overestimating its revenue potential Since most billionaire wealth is in assets like stocks with value that is largely imaginary so to speak, that much wealth doesn't truly exist... For example a typical stock has a trading multiple of 15X to 17X earnings on average (individual stocks vary) meaning a stock is worth about $15 for every $1 of actual real positive cashflow That means if the stock market has $20 Trillion in the hands of billionaires for example, that much wealth does not actually exist in cash... They will have to sell and liquidate assets to pay for the wealth tax and the value of these assets will fall at a faster rate than the money that is actually taxed out of it (it's pure math and market technicalities you can't really argue against this) So I'm not saying I'm against a wealth tax of some degree to help rebalance extreme hoarded wealth but at the same time it's important to understand the nature of what this wealth actually is in order to understand its limits The wealth gap growth is partially the result of real gaps in pay and cash flow/profits in hands of the rich but some of the gap is also just assets that have inflated in price it's not hard wealth, a stock market crash can literally wipe out half that wealth in the blink of an eye So technicalities beneath the headline numbers are important to gage what's possible and what might be overly ambitious Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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