We could tax wealth. Like so many other forms of government revenue, the average Joe already pays a hefty wealth tax in the form of property tax. This is likely a sizeable if not most of the average Joe's assets.
Socialism
Not adding anything other than a lol.. maybe a lol.
protect tom mcdonald at all costs
What's the funny part? The naivete of the vandal? Using a meme format that's a decade old? Or perhaps the belief that the socialism could ever exist in today's America?
(4) In defense of the national economy. A national plan for economic and social development must be formulated, in which the necessary role of the state as regulator of and major actor in the economy is articulated and explained. The essential, defining characteristic of socialism is not state ownership of the means of production, even though nationalizations in strategic industries occurred in socialist revolutions. In fact, the nations constructing socialism all have evolved to sanction multiple forms of property, including cooperatives, joint ventures, and private property, both domestic and foreign. Observing this process of evolution, we are able to discern that the defining characteristic of socialist economies is that the state formulates a plan for the economic and social development of the nation, and the state itself is a key actor in the economy. Accordingly, a socialist platform must be presented to the people, explaining the logic of a state-directed plan for national economic and social development, standing in contrast to the capitalist logic of giving priority to the profits of corporations.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/29/the-principles-of-socialism/
Last edited by: tungsten on Nov. 29, 2018, 8:27 p.m., edited 1 time in total.
Posted by: gotham
Those who have more pay more
That depends on how wealthy people really are. The huge advantage for the ultra rich is the ability to tax advantage of the tax system. In order to determine whether the tax system is really fair, we have to consider net taxes, taxes paid across ALL channels. Middle and lower class consumers have far less opportunity to take advantage of the tax system due to their income streams and what they're spending their money on. For example, run a business? Great, now all your automotive expenses can be written off which could mean a significant chunk of cash that you're not paying any tax on at the end of the year. Joe avg doesn't have that opportunity. It works even better with your company jet. There is a serious inequity in our wealth system and it's getting worse all the time. The worst part of this is that as low and middle income earners lose ground it pulls money out of the economy. Low and middle income earners fuel the economy because as a group they buy way more consumer goods which equals more people working and making goods, but their ability to do that is shrinking. Whereas those who have more are not necessarily paying more as they are hoarding their cash and keeping it out of the economy - and this isn't recent, it's been going on for a while.
That said, I do believe that those who work hard should get to reap the benefits of that work, but the balance is out of wack. This is particularly evident when it comes to larger corporations who continue to get tax cuts and the increase in profits is not trickling down to the avg worker or being reinvested, it's going into the pockets of execs and into stock buybacks. I was reading today about executive remuneration and how corps are spending their money. A lot of those increases in company value are coming from stock buy backs which is driving stock prices up and executive bonuses. Instead of reinvesting in the company or workers they're playing a stock shell game to line their own pockets. I think it's getting missed as things are better than the 2009 downturn, but overall people are continuing to lose ground. This isn't the article I was reading but it's similar and there are plenty more like it.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/stock-buybacks-analysis-1.4771344
I've also read news touting that uneducated workers have made great gains, increasing the incomes by 15% over over 2013 to 2016 yet only 2% for those with college degrees. but a 15% increase for an uneducated worker making less than $20K/yr is still losing ground to an educated worker making over $100K and the higher the income the worse that discrepancy gets. Start throwing race into the mix and the numbers start to get fucking dismal.
This one is a good read too and delves into why we're losing ground, particularly so in the US.
https://eand.co/why-america-is-the-worlds-first-poor-rich-country-17f5a80e444a
Great post syncro,
Wish I could contribute in a more meaningful way but there's only so many ways this dumb mechanic can say we are all just a bunch of peeons fighting over crumbs of a pie that the rich fucks have taken from us. Like the recent tax cuts in the sates, a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich and then all they do is shut the factories down and move production to china (looking at you harley davidson) no one really bats an eye over it and the media is pretty much silent.. but look at what happens when the poor takes job action like the postal strike (or teachers or Medics etc..) The media definitely isn't silent on that front. I see so many comments about just shut up and go back to work why do they think they deserve more blah blah blah, like really dude? theres no way they'd be that pissed off at them if it wasnt for the media feeding the narrative.
Fuckin shit makes me angry and now I'm out of time cause I have to go to stupid work.. the fucking irony.
Automation is only going to make it worse too. Harley could keep their factories in North America and still screw over the job market with robot run factories. In fact, I see a wave a manufacturing returning to North America in our future, but it will be almost all automated. It makes sense to build products close to the market and a robot costs close to the same regardless of where they go to work.
I think the biggest challenge ahead is sorting out how to manage all of this on a global scale because it is so easy to dodge doing business where it is expensive. We have to figure out how to make the wealthiest among us pay to live here, and that can't be that hard. They keep their money offshore, but they want to spend their time and money here. Can we tax money that flows over borders? Can we tax stored wealth? Can we nationalize AI? We have to do something and fast. Add that to the existential crisis list.
Posted by: chupacabra
Automation is only going to make it worse too. Harley could keep their factories in North America and still screw over the job market with robot run factories. In fact, I see a wave a manufacturing returning to North America in our future, but it will be almost all automated. It makes sense to build products close to the market and a robot costs close to the same regardless of where they go to work.
I think the biggest challenge ahead is sorting out how to manage all of this on a global scale because it is so easy to dodge doing business where it is expensive. We have to figure out how to make the wealthiest among us pay to live here, and that can't be that hard. They keep their money offshore, but they want to spend their time and money here. Can we tax money that flows over borders? Can we tax stored wealth? Can we nationalize AI? We have to do something and fast. Add that to the existential crisis list.
Ha! I was going to add in a bit about automation, AI and the global marketplace but I thought that would make my post too tinfoil hatty. Thanks for picking up charge on that one.
The worst part about the global market place is the ability for a company to jump ship and move to another jurisdiction where taxes or ages are more favourable. The solution can't be a Canadian or Western World only one, for the most part all nations have to buy in otherwise it's like having to try a no peeing section in a hot tub.
I'm not convinced that automation will make the employment picture worse. Perhaps I have a biased point of view based on 30 years of designing, specifying and programming plant automation systems, but I see evidence that automation add jobs (but demands a significantly higher skill level). Automation takes away the drudge jobs - repetitive work that few people want to do anyway - and gets a controller to monitor things (more diligently and accurately than any human can, FWIW).
Case in point - the Tesla factory in Fremont, CA is the most highly automated auto manufacturing facility worldwide at present. Yet it employs more people full time than the same factory when it was the NUMMI plant (GM/Toyota joint venture), and at higher skill and education levels.
The bulk of my automation work is in drinking water treatment and wastewater treatment facilities. Much of the automation is in response to new treatment standards that no human could respond to. For example, automation maintains the chlorination of your drinking water to about 1.0 parts per million - and instantly responds to changes in water demand to maintain that level of disinfection. For a human to do this, it would require constant sampling, lab testing and response. By the time the results are in, out of spec drinking water could have been pushed into the system for hours.
However, syncro's points are mostly good ones. Corporations are forgetting the wisdom of Henry Ford. Pay the workers enough that they can afford the product they are building. Ford paid workers $5 per day (in 1913) when other factories were typically paying $2.25/day. It kept the workers loyal, well fed, and ensured retention.
Posted by: ReductiMat
What's the funny part? The naivete of the vandal? Using a meme format that's a decade old? Or perhaps the belief that the socialism could ever exist in today's America?
That was your Bernie sign wasnt it?
Posted by: KenN
I'm not convinced that automation will make the employment picture worse. Perhaps I have a biased point of view based on 30 years of designing, specifying and programming plant automation systems, but I see evidence that automation add jobs (but demands a significantly higher skill level). Automation takes away the drudge jobs - repetitive work that few people want to do anyway - and gets a controller to monitor things (more diligently and accurately than any human can, FWIW).
Case in point - the Tesla factory in Fremont, CA is the most highly automated auto manufacturing facility worldwide at present. Yet it employs more people full time than the same factory when it was the NUMMI plant (GM/Toyota joint venture), and at higher skill and education levels.
The bulk of my automation work is in drinking water treatment and wastewater treatment facilities. Much of the automation is in response to new treatment standards that no human could respond to. For example, automation maintains the chlorination of your drinking water to about 1.0 parts per million - and instantly responds to changes in water demand to maintain that level of disinfection. For a human to do this, it would require constant sampling, lab testing and response. By the time the results are in, out of spec drinking water could have been pushed into the system for hours.
However, syncro's points are mostly good ones. Corporations are forgetting the wisdom of Henry Ford. Pay the workers enough that they can afford the product they are building. Ford paid workers $5 per day (in 1913) when other factories were typically paying $2.25/day. It kept the workers loyal, well fed, and ensured retention.
I tend to agree that in some areas automation will be a bit of a boon, but can the argument really be made that across all sectors automation will result in a net increase of jobs and higher paying jobs at that? I think what compounds that problem is that a lot of the people who will be losing their jobs tend to lower income and less educated so their ability to re-tool or simply get the education required to get into this new job arena is not great. Re the NUMMI plant, in order to make a fair comparison one has to consider the complexity of the vehicles being produced as well as how the plant is run. Is it a fair comparison to compare a Tesla to a Corolla or Vibe when it comes to manufacturing? Also factor in the way the plant runs on vertical integration which is typically less efficient and could be adding to the workforce. And while automation is the future, we may simply not be at the point yet where it works well enough. For example with some of the problems at the NUMMI plant Musk has said that he's tried to push automation too far.
I think automation is the future though and it's pretty crazy how robotics are advancing. Have you seen some of the latest Boston Dynamics vids?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LikxFZZO2sk
Pretty soon your robot will take your ebike out for a ride and you'll get to participate via a set of VR goggles from the comfort of your own bed. Next stop, the Matrix.
Last edited by: syncro on Nov. 30, 2018, 11:35 a.m., edited 2 times in total.
Tobin tax. Guaranteed annual income. Utopia!
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