Winner take all Capitalism is good for America

Originally posted by Grate the Vraya
Hang on, you said in response to Bill Gates is an example of someone who possesses a relatively high percentage of America's capital and reinvests it in to the economy and society at large. Whether he's a crook or not doesn't really have any relevance to the topic of this thread.

Actually a relatively high percentage of america's capital would be the nine trillion lost from the federal reserve. thirty thousand per person.
Mr. Gate's though has given a large proportion of his fortune to charity, however, Bill Gates makes so much money it pretty much offsets what he gives away for philanthropic reasons and he fluctuates around the 50-60 billion mark in terms of his personal fortune. Mr. Gates says he intends to give almost his entire fortune away on death.. We will see.

Originally posted by Michael Collins
Actually a relatively high percentage of america's capital would be the nine trillion lost from the federal reserve. thirty thousand per person.
Mr. Gate's though has given a large proportion of his fortune to charity, however, Bill Gates makes so much money it pretty much offsets what he gives away for philanthropic reasons and he fluctuates around the 50-60 billion mark in terms of his personal fortune. Mr. Gates says he intends to give almost his entire fortune away on death.. We will see.

Originally posted by Grate the Vraya
That's way more than we can say for other obscenely wealthy people.

Hmmm, actually Warren Buffet and many others give shitloads away because they have shitloads to give away and they simply can't spend all they have.

Great. What's your point?

Originally posted by Grate the Vraya
Great. What's your point?

I can't judge the moral relativism of the super rich.

That....doesn't make sense. Do you mean you can't judge the morals of the super rich?

Originally posted by Grate the Vraya
That....doesn't make sense. Do you mean you can't judge the morals of the super rich?

Sort of 😬 , I mean it in the meta-ethical sense.

Uh, yeah, we used to have a system to force the rich to reinvest and it worked great for 50 years. It was called reinvest or we take 70-90 cents of every dollar you earn past $250,0000.

I think it would be smarter to raise that cap to $1 million to account for inflation, to add to that an 18% annual luxury tax on net worth for all individuals earning over $3 million per year. As for all the money lost in the last ten years, I still think a retroactive declaration of war and anti-profiteering executive order would be a great way to get a couple trillion back in a matter of months. And if they can't pay i back, they can pay it in installments of a 300% tax on income and capital gains on all guilty individuals for ten years. War powers can be cited to get past Article 1, Sections 9 and 10.

Originally posted by Michael Collins
who should be allowed to develop education, food and disease eradication policies. 😬

why wouldn't he be allowed to do that?

Originally posted by Michael Collins
Sort of 😬 , I mean it in the meta-ethical sense.

Originally posted by inimalist
why wouldn't he be allowed to do that?

Why wouldn't he or why shouldn't he? It's all a question of moral relativism really.

if you say so 🙂

The problem is you need a lot of poor people at the bottom of the see saw to keep the fat cats up.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Well good news, if the Republicans get their austerity plus tax cuts proposals in, it'll be winner take all and never give back! They want to get rid of the already low taxes on capital gains meaning that the 23,000 richest people in America will no longer pay any taxes on income at all and with the repeal of the inheritance tax, all that money will stay in the family. Add to this the much abused tax exemption on wild life preserves that allows many rich people to not pay any property taxes because they have an indigenous animal or two grazing on the edge of their fence and you get something that the founders totally intended and would be great for america- a monied, politically powerful network of wealthy families that control everything.

I'm fine with the rich keeping more of their money, to be honest.

The fact is, taxes don't make the poor any less poor. That's why I can't understand the "Tax the rich more" calls.

Whether the rich keep it, or the Government takes it, the poor ain't getting it.

Originally posted by Mindship
No. IMO, this invites a 'survival of the greediest' mentality which divides rather than unites.

What alternative would you propose?

Greed/self interest is a pretty big part of human nature. It would be a boon to society if everyone worked for the betterment of everyone else, sure, but I can't think of a way to "force" people to think beyond themselves, their families, or their immediate communities... Or give up their unneeded luxuries, for that matter.

Originally posted by Michael Collins
Why wouldn't he or why shouldn't he? It's all a question of moral relativism really.

Oh dear.

Originally posted by cdtm
What alternative would you propose?

Greed/self interest is a pretty big part of human nature. It would be a boon to society if everyone worked for the betterment of everyone else, sure, but I can't think of a way to "force" people to think beyond themselves, their families, or their immediate communities... Or give up their unneeded luxuries, for that matter.

The problem is the world no longer has the resourses to support that type of mentality. We also as a country need to do what's best for the majority of our citizens. Only government policy can correct these problems.

Originally posted by cdtm
Whether the rich keep it, or the Government takes it, the poor ain't getting it.

srsly?

Originally posted by cdtm
I'm fine with the rich keeping more of their money, to be honest.

The fact is, taxes don't make the poor any less poor. That's why I can't understand the "Tax the rich more" calls.

Whether the rich keep it, or the Government takes it, the poor ain't getting it.

Originally posted by cdtm
What alternative would you propose?

Greed/self interest is a pretty big part of human nature. It would be a boon to society if everyone worked for the betterment of everyone else, sure, but I can't think of a way to "force" people to think beyond themselves, their families, or their immediate communities... Or give up their unneeded luxuries, for that matter.

But alas, I suspect this mental switching would take at least a generation or two to take hold. This, or global revolution. If not, the world will continue to "shrink" and we will go the way of the Easter Islanders.

Originally posted by Mindship
I forget what the product was, but there used to be this commercial where the male voice-over said (with little kid, sing-song cadence), "I'm better than you are..." This mindset has to go. I'd start with that. We need to start embracing internal values (eg, compassion, honesty -- not just give them lip service), rather than embracing material possessions, especially if the main purpose of having them is to be "better then the next guy" (as opposed to a real need).

But alas, I suspect this mental switching would take at least a generation or two to take hold. This, or global revolution. If not, the world will continue to "shrink" and we will go the way of the Easter Islanders.